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undercoveravenger · 4 years ago

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Judgement Day

Pairing: Cato x Male!Reader

Requested: Yes

Original Request: “Hi! Can you write a super angsty story for a Cato x male reader? One where they both like one another but neither of them is making the first move. Cato is distant because he doesn’t know how to deal with these feelings and male reader takes this as Cato not liking him. Something happens that makes Cato super jealous and finally confesses to male reader.”

A/N: Y’all don’t understand HOW LONG I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me to write for Cato. Like, this man could choke me out with his biceps and I would probably thank him. Please ask me for more Hunger Games things when my requests open back up!

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Cato had always known that he was going to end up a tribute. He’d been raised to be a survivor and trained to be a winner. He’d fought and clawed his way through District Two’s Tribute Academy to earn the right to Volunteer when he turned eighteen uncontested, and he’d never once doubted his choice.

Never once, until he was on the train to the Capitol watching the videos of the other Districts’ Reapings and saw you for the first time. You hadn’t been from one of the Career Districts like Cato, but instead of looking weak or scared as you took your place on the stage the way many of the past tributes from most of the outlying districts always did, you merely looked resolute- acknowledging that you may not be coming back, but determined to go down fighting.

The resilient spark that he had seen in your eyes haunted him throughout the rest of the ride into the Capitol.

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Cato’s thoughts had been torn away from you when he was handed over to his stylists, but his attention had snapped right back to you when he saw you before the tribute parade. He’d known that he looked brutal in his golden armor and shining headdress, but somehow your stylists had made you look striking in a way that was both strong and beautiful and altogether different from him.

They’d taken the color palette of autumn trees (Lumber was the specialty for District Seven, so that made sense) and cut miniscule leaves out of the fabric, sewing and weaving them together in a way that made the long cape that flowed from your shoulders look like they’d been caught a breeze right from the forest and bound it to you. In a strange way, Cato could almost relate to that thought. The rest of your outfit was a dusky brown with thick ridges and swirls marked into the fabric to make it look like the rough bark of a tree, leaving you and your District partner looking like the very embodiments of autumn as you stepped up into the carriage pulled by a pair of bay horses, their coats shining a brilliant crimson as the bright lights hit them.

Cato had had to drag his eyes away from you when his and Clove’s chariot lurched into motion.

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When training had started, Cato had already begun to suspect that he felt something for you, though he thought it was merely an attraction. He was proven wrong when his heart lurched in his chest when one of the trainers had you trapped in a wrestling hold, wrenching your feet up off the ground and slamming you backward onto the hard training mat.

He knew in the back of his mind that you weren’t in any real danger yet (the trainers were there to help you all stand a chance in the arena, not kill you before the Games even started after all), but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t positively fuming at the fact that someone had dared to put their hands on you. He shoved his way past the couple of other tributes that’d been lined up at the wrestling station, holding your gaze as you pushed yourself back to your feet. He looked back to the trainer in front of him when you shook out of your daze and made your way to the back of the line.

Cato grinned as the trainer lowered into a fighting stance in front of him, quickly launching himself into the match. He managed to duck out of the way of the trainer’s grappling pretty easily, having gone through much more intense training back in his District anyway. He kept his distance when he could, keen azure eyes waiting for any opening- there.

He moved immediately upon realizing that the trainer was favoring his left leg, moving quickly to knock him off balance and then throwing him hard to the mat, pinning him face-down against the stiff plastic. Cato let a self-satisfied grin slip onto his face as he moved to get off of the trainer, the corners of his lips twitching up ever higher as he met your awed (e/c) eyes and suddenly he found himself hoping that the line between the two of you and the mat never moved again.

“That was incredible,” you told Cato as he came to stand behind you in the line and the blond had to fight back a smile at the fact that you were speaking to him for the first time.

“If you thought that was impressive, you should see what I can do with a sword.” He winced internally, knowing that while that sort of thing mattered where he was from, you probably wouldn’t find it nearly as awe-inspiring. You’d probably just be afraid of him.

You just chuckled and Cato’s hope was restored. “Well, no offense, but I’d just as soon not be on the other end of a blade from you.”

Cato laughed, a little relieved that you hadn’t taken his thoughtless remark as a threat. “That’s probably a good idea,” he grinned. “Really though, I’m not too bad. It’s Clove you’ve gotta watch out for,” he nodded toward his District partner, wincing when one of the throwing knives she was using struck the target with deadly precision.

“Thanks for the advice,” you muttered, eyes wide as you watched her throw again from across the room.

Cato opened his mouth, struggling to come up with something to say. “Uh, what about you?”

“What about me?” You asked, raising an eyebrow as you looked up at the blond.

He shrugged, looking away sheepishly and hoping you couldn’t see the ghost of a blush forming on his cheeks, “What’re you good at? Clove’s got her knives and I’ve got swords and spears. What’s your thing?”

Your brows furrowed as you looked away, clearly deep in thought. You brightened, grinning at him as you cocked your head toward the throwing station. Cato watched curiously as you picked up a throwing axe, tossing it idly between your hands. “It’s a little different the way we do it back in District Seven, but it’s a good way to have some fun once the work day is over.” He watched as you pulled back, the axe turning head over handle as you released it, the sharp end of the head sinking deep into the target with a loud thud, nearly as precisely as his District partner.

“Holy shit, that was cool,” he murmured, smug satisfaction settling in his chest as you flushed at the praise. “What else do they teach you out there in the woods?” he prodded, hoping you’d open up about yourself now that he’d gotten you talking.

You opened your mouth to speak, but cut yourself off as the bell to signal the end of the training day chimed. “Ask me tomorrow and find out.”

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Just as you’d asked, Cato met up with you as soon as you made your way down into the training room the next morning and you showed him many of the other things that growing up in District Seven had taught you. In exchange, he helped train you in a few different methods of hand-to-hand combat.

With all the time the two of you were spending together, it was no wonder that he’d grown quite fond of you, something that he’d struggled to hide, even during his televised interview.

Caesar Flickerman, dressed this year in a gaudy shade of blue, had shaken his hand warmly and guided him to sit in one of the chairs situated before the massive audience. A few minutes of meaningless banter passed before Caesar finally asked a question that threw Cato for a loop. “So,” he had started, wide blue eyes fixed on the blond and hands clasped in front of him, “Is there anyone that’ll be in the Arena that makes you nervous?”

Retrospectively, he knew that Caesar had been asking whether there was anyone he was worried about facing, but in that moment the only face that came to mind was yours. “(M/N),” he’d answered reflexively, scrambling to backtrack as soon as your name had left his lips. “The boy from District Seven, I mean. We’ve spent some time together during training. He’s good; he’ll put up a good fight in the Arena, no matter who he’s up against.”

Caesar had caught on to his hesitation and, in true interviewer fashion, had to probe further. “You’ve spent time together?”

Cato schooled his expression back into the nonchalance that his mentors had wanted him to show, forcing himself back to the effortless confidence he was meant to exude. “We talked. Sparred some. He showed me some things he knew and I showed him some that I did.” He forced himself to laugh, “Of course, I still have plenty of tricks up my sleeve, so it’ll still be a hell of a show.”

Caesar had laughed, making a few more jokes to the audience and shaking his hand again for the innumerable cameras before dismissing him.

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Cato forced himself to sit through the next few Districts’ interviews with relative indifference, but then it was your turn and Cato had to force himself not to visibly perk up, though his eyes remained fixed on you.

Caesar greeted you the same way he had the rest of the tributes and guided you back to the interviewee’s chair, setting into his wheel of questions easily. Cato had nearly tuned out your interview entirely when one question in particular caught his attention. “Is there anyone special waiting for you back home?” Caesar had asked, leaning forward like he was expecting some juicy gossip. “A handsome boy like you must have a girlfriend waiting for you, right?”

You’d flushed, the brilliant red of your embarrassed blush bright enough to even be seen on the huge screens the interview was being projected up on. “No, uh, no girlfriend.”

“Seriously?” Caesar had asked disbelievingly. “Surely, there must be a girl-”

“No,” You’d protested, raising your hands defensively, “I’m actually, um,” you’d turned your gaze to your lap so you could avoid his eyes, “I’m attracted to boys.”

Caesar let out a noise of understanding, sitting back in his chair and shooting the audience a knowing look. “If that’s the case, allow me to revise my question, is there anyone back home that you’re interested in?’

“Back home? No,” you shook your head, offering Caesar a polite smile. Cato could tell that Caesar had been about to push you for more details when the buzzer went off, signaling that they had run out of time to question you. The interviewer looked slightly off-put, but he had to abide by the rules so he shook your hand for the cameras and sent you off.

Something about your interview had left a bad taste in Cato’s mouth, so as soon as you’d retaken your place in line and your District partner had made her way up onto the stage Cato found himself storming down the line of tributes until he reached you, grabbing the front of your shirt and dragging you close enough that, though it looked like he was snarling an insult at you to anyone else, only you could hear him asking you to meet him on the roof that night. When you gave him a barely perceptible nod, he released you, shoving hard on your shoulders for show before making his way back to his place, a frustrated grimace on his face.

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The interviews ended late, but the Capitol was still in an uproar even later into the night when you finally made your way up into the rooftop garden where Cato had been waiting for you. He turned to face you as soon as the elevators slid open, azure eyes reflecting the lights of the city as you came to stand beside him, looking out over the city.

He was quiet for a long moment as he stared out over the horizon, but eventually forced himself to speak. “I don’t want to be here,” he said finally, chancing a look over at you. “I thought I did. I mean, I Volunteered and everything, but it just didn’t feel real until now.”

“What changed?” you asked.

Cato wasn’t really sure that he knew the answer until he thought back to the way he felt after your interview. The burning ache that your words had left in his chest had been jealousy and the way he hadn’t been able to take his mind off of you since he’d first seen the recording of your Reaping had been far more than just an attraction. Finally, like the sun peeking out of the clouds after a heavy rain, the answer dawned on him. “I did.” He bit out a laugh, “I met someone, and it made me realize how much the Games were going to take from me before I even realized what I was going to lose.”

“Clove is a lucky girl,” you mused, taking a seat near the railing around the edge of the roof. “Or is it that girl from Twelve? You might have to compete with that bakery boy for her, but you seem like you’d be more her type than him anyway…”

Cato turned to look at you curiously, “It’s not a girl.”

You seemed surprised, but you were quick to shrug it off. “Then maybe you’re after the bakery boy yourself, then? Or what’s-his-name from One?”

“Nope,” Cato hummed, grinning a little as he dropped down to sit next to you. He remained quiet for a moment, clearly entertained by the way you were seemingly running through the list of other tributes in your head. “Y’know,” he started after a moment, “It would be a lot easier for me to tell you that I have feelings for you if you were to stop guessing every other tribute.”

His words seemed to stop you in your tracks and he couldn’t stop the grin that threatened to take over his features as you stared back at him in surprise, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, like you’d been about to suggest another name. “M-me?” you forced out eventually.

Cato laughed, nodding. “Sorry, I made it weird, didn’t I?” He huffed, turning his attention back to the galaxy of lights spread out below you, “I just-” he shrugged, “I didn’t want to go into the Arena tomorrow without telling you how I felt. You don’t have to worry about saying no; it’s not going to make me target you or anything. I’ve already asked the rest of my alliance to leave you alone, so you don’t really have us to worry about.”

“What if I wasn’t going to tell you no?” Your voice was steady, even and contemplative, even though what you were talking about could give the both of you a major Achilles heel in the Arena in just a few hours.

Cato jerked around to face you, visibly stunned by your words. “What?!”

“What if I liked you back?” you prompted, turning to meet his gaze. “Would it change anything anyway? We’re from two different Districts; we’ve got a worse chance than the wanna-be lovers from Twelve.”

Cato sighed; he knew that you had a point. No matter how much you liked one another, you were still going to be thrown into the Arena and be expected to kill each other. “I don’t care,” he said finally, determined blue eyes meeting yours, “I don’t care if I only get a few days or a few hours. I just want to be with you, even if I only get a little while.”

You looked torn and Cato couldn’t blame you. On the one hand, being able to be with someone who liked you a lot would be great, but it would hurt more when one of you was killed in the Arena, but forcing yourself to stay away from the person that held your heart? Cato was sure the not-knowing would kill him.

After a moment, you nodded and Cato felt the weight in his chest that’d been dragging at him lighten, if only a little. You scooted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around you and press a kiss to the top of your head before turning back to watch the lights of the city before you again.

Cato knew that there was no way he could promise you forever, not when you were about to get thrown headlong into a bloodbath, but he could promise you that he would be here to hold you in his arms until the sun began to rise and that, even as the canons sounded to start the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games, he would be praying for a miracle that would allow him to stay with you.

#male reader x cato #male!reader x cato #cato x male reader #cato x male!reader #cato x reader #reader x cato #reader x hunger games #male reader x hunger games #male!reader x hunger games #male reader x #male!reader x #male reader #male!reader #male reader insert #male!reader insert #hunger games reader insert

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roswellnmsource · 3 years ago

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Amber Midthunder Talks Rosa's Roswell, New Mexico's Season 3 Journey & Excitement Over New Powers

Roswell, New Mexico Season 3 has shown us a new side to Rosa Ortecho.

Between exploring her powers and continuing to find herself in this new world, Rosa has found her niche within the group and has been a valuable asset in the fight against the season's big bad.

Amber Midthunder took a few minutes to talk with us about Rosa's journey, her favorite dynamics, and what she's excited for the audience to see over the final episodes this year!

Rosa has had quite the journey this season. Can you speak to that journey and what you enjoyed most about it?

I mean, what a big question. So, many things. The whole thing I've enjoyed. I think this season has been my favorite, both shooting and my experience just personally of shooting it was, I think, the most fun that I've had any of the years. And also kind of what she's getting to explore in so many ways.

She's quite on her own this year. Like first year it was a lot of flashbacks. Second-year, it was a lot of struggling. And I think this year it's her kind of walking on her little deer legs, trying to figure out who she is in this new life and this new time period on her own. So, all of it. I've had a lot of fun scenes with a lot of new people.

She had her storyline in the beginning with Wyatt. That was a fun story to explore. I got to have some really cool scenes with Michael Vlamis. That was a lot of fun.

And then the whole experience of the storyline with Lily and Heather was very heavy at times, but also very fun and exciting and cool for us to get to explore. So, I think all of it, just seeing her develop and kind of like stand on her own, is exciting for me as somebody who cares about her as a character, as a person.

And also, as an actor, to get to explore so many fun, new things has been very cool.

Totally. You touched on this a little bit there, but the story with Wyatt earlier in the season that was an unexpected one for the audience. What did you think about that relationship, and what do you think Rosa took away from it?

A lot of people have had, I think, a lot of feelings and a lot of opinions about it, and I don't think any of them are wrong. I think that what's fun about our show is we get to explore very strange what-ifs like, what if this person loses their memory and becomes completely different?

And what if this person dies, but ten years later, they're not really dead? So already, that's just like, when would that ever happen?

But it's cool in the sense that I think the grounded truths are that it's two people who relate to each other in a way.

I think that there are a lot of cool elements to their relationship and the way that they see each other and understand each other and share a lot of the same feelings about their town and where they are and how they feel.

If they feel outside or misunderstood or misplaced. That was something that was really fun and also very surprising to me to get to explore. And it was cool, and also I had a great acting partner, so it was cool.

The last time we saw Rosa, she was instrumental in severing the connection between Maria and Jones. Can you preview what's next for her as the fight against Jones continues?

I think for her, she's finding for herself that she has a real place in the group and in this world. I think that even before she came back, she struggled a lot with feeling like she had purpose or significance or like she could help anybody.

All she wanted to do was protect her sister, and the stakes were lower, maybe in like a TV sense, but to her quite high that she wanted to protect her family and set a good example for her sister and all those things. And she's felt like she couldn't do that.

Initially, she felt like there's just no chance for her ever to do anything good. Which was, I think, much of her struggle, like with her sobriety, but I think for her to realize that she has not just a purpose or position, but a responsibility and that she's needed is very satisfying and is very cool to see.

And so, I think in the next couple episodes, you'll see her find more of her position. And she's also still just trying to figure out who she is and where she lands. It's a very weird position she was put in, coming back from the dead. She's just trying to still regain her balance. And also, I think you'll see her find that for herself as well.

Sure. And yeah, Rosa was a fish out of water in a lot of ways in season two. And I think in season three, she's made a lot of strides in getting to know herself more. How do you feel like she's embraced this new world she came back to?

It's all the same people. It's just like dynamics are deeper. So, I think it's just her finding her new place and kind of getting over her ideas about things and understanding the realities of other people as well. Like her relationship with Isobel is a good example for that.

They share an abuser, and so what can easily look like she should have a lot of tension with Isobel because of what happened really becomes a common bond. And then they end up obviously being very close. I think it's her just opening her perspective but also staying firm in herself and what she knows to be true.

Where would you love to see Rosa's storyline go? We've seen her in rehab. I really love that touch of her at art therapy. Where do you see her going forward, or where would you like to see Rosa's storyline go moving forward?

Honestly, in episode 11, there's some pretty fun decisions and resolutions, and I'm excited for that. I'm excited to see what that looks like in the next season.

You touched on this earlier, too, about some of the dynamics that Rosa's gotten to have. There's Rosa and Liz, obviously Rosa and Isobel, Rosa and Kyle, Rosa and Michael. Is there a particular dynamic that you enjoy most on-screen for Rosa?

No, honestly, they've all been really fun. I think that's what's most surprising to me as an actor is that even though I'm living as the same character, all of the scenes feel so different.

All of the dynamics are so unique because all the relationships are so rich, and the histories are so rich. And that's what's cool about this story and the small town and the whole like the ten years of it all is that there's so much to explore one on one with each person.

The group scenes are so much fun, and the group dynamic is cool because all those are at play. But also, when you get to do one-on-one, you get into kind of the nitty-gritty of what's between two people, and the scenes between Rosa and Michael are so different from the scenes between Rosa and Kyle or Rosa and Isobel.

And then they all have their own. Each one is very different and really fun.

Rosa and Liz have such a beautiful sister relationship, and I love that scene towards the end of episode eight at the Wild Pony between them. Can you speak to that relationship and its importance to Rosa?

Yeah, I mean, that's like everything to her, right? That's the world. Before all of this happened, that was what she lived for was to protect her younger sister and to want her to do better than she did. And now she's seeing that, and she's seeing her sister live those things.

And even though we're living inside this weird sci-fi fantasy world. I think our writers and especially anytime that I get to work with Jeanine. Jeanine like is my sister.

So, it's fun, and it's nice. We have a lot of conversations, and we have a lot of talks about our scenes and what's happening, and where they're at. Honestly, even this season, the sisters have been quite separate, but always at the end, whether you see it or not, it's the two of them versus everything.

She and I always have a dialogue about, "Okay, well you're here, and I'm there, but where are they at?" And like, "What is their dynamic right now? What's going on with them?" So, I mean, to me, that's like the heartbeat of everything that they do, and that Rosa does.

I love getting to see Rosa explore her powers this season. How was that for you in getting to tap more into that side of Rosa?

It's so much fun. Honestly, I love having power. I was excited when I read it and when it first started happening and her having abilities. And I hope they just keep coming.

Yeah, me too. Is there a storyline this season outside of Rosa's that you really enjoyed on the show?

Oh yeah. I think Liz's whole California life has been so fun, seeing her in her other world and her with Heath and her really exploring her science. Obviously, it's always been present, but I think this year, more than anything, it has been pretty clutch. So that's been a lot of fun. And also just anything that Isobel ever does I love.

There's so much beauty in New Mexico, and it serves as such a beautiful backdrop for Roswell. What do you love most about filming in New Mexico?

That's where I grew up, so I get to be home with my family and much of the crew I've known since I was young. And so it's all just people and places that I'm familiar with, and it's such a unique experience. And I feel so lucky that I think just being home for me is great.

I mean, it's beautiful. There's good food. My loved ones are there. It's a pretty good setup for me.

That's wonderful. And the last question for me. Season three has been an exciting ride, and it's been a lot of fun for the audience. What are you looking forward to the audience seeing most in the final episodes?

Honestly, our fans are so vocal that I look forward to seeing what they have to say. I'm always excited, and we talk about it like, "Oh, when people see this, and people see that."

I'm excited for them to see just what happens with Jones and the dynamics between Liz and Max and where all the gang ends at the end of the season, and how everybody feels about it. I don't think they'll be disappointed.

#roswell new mexico #amber midthunder #rosa ortecho #cast #press #3x11 #rnm spoilers

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martinvogt · 3 years ago

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Long-COVID and its impact on my daily life

With the end of the year approaching, I am reflecting back to a year which was not what I imagined.

I had none of the severe symptoms associated to COVIS-19 when I tested positive back in November 2020. I took a test after feeling a bit under the weather, headache and sudden loss of smell. After a few days of illness, after the isolation, I thought I was on the mend. I was wrong.

In mid January I developed new symptoms. From one day to the other, my energy and concentration levels were completely down. Walking outside for just 10 minutes was one of the hardest things to do, looking at a computer screen was (and still is) energy-draining. I became very unwell with even stronger headache, cognitive disorders, muscle pain, digestive problems to mention only a few of them. Optimistic as I was and with all the new years resolution set in stone, I figured this would only be temporary, next week, next month, in two/three months this would all be over and I would be my energetic self again.

Normally I am a very strategic and analytical thinker. But I was unable to manage complex information, to follow conversations and I was forgetting words. I had problems doing simple tasks and basic logic problems. I would normally do these easily. I was tired continuously. There were many days when I slept for 12 hours, yet when I woke up, I felt exhausted like I hadn’t slept at all. My body felt heavy. Every muscle ached. Alongside the fatigue, I developed other issues with sleep. Although I was sleeping for excessively long periods, I would have night terrors and wake up with my body paralysed. Sleeping remains an issue for me. My symptoms left me struggling and I could not return to work. It was really hard because I was in the first wave of sufferers and the impact was not understood.

For weeks, I went through cycles of feeling better, then getting worse again. As well as brain fog, memory loss, debilitating headaches and fatigue, I developed many other symptoms including heart palpitations: I could be sitting down watching television or going for a walk and suddenly I’d feel my heart racing.

A common frustration is that some medical doctors dismiss our complaints as psychological. My symptoms were initially put down to depression by my GP. Feeling like my health concerns were being dismissed, I insisted for a “Long-COVID consultation”, who’s clinic director diagnosed me with “Post- COVID-19 syndrome” and referred me to a long-COVID rehabilitation program.

Trying to stay positive

If 2021 was the number I was aiming for this year, my last few month in numbers reads a little differently. 382 (52 weeks) is the number of days I’ve had symptoms for; 22 is the number of Long-COVID symptoms I’ve had; 12 is the number of pills I’ve been taken; 8 is the number of doctors who gaslit me; 5 is the number of hospital/clinics I’ve visited.

If this seems like a story of loss, that’s certainly in there. What did I lose, alongside copious amounts of my hair? My identity as young, fit, and able. My coping mechanisms; achieving, exercising. The ability to stand up, talk or walk (especially up stairs). The ability to eat normally, drink coffee or alcohol, tolerate heat, cold, changes in temperature or any stress whatsoever. But this is also a story of gain, growth and gratitude. What did I gain, alongside multiple duzend and a strong prescription list of pills? An exciting array of letters to put to my name (not the acronyms your mother wants you to get): PEM, ME/CFS. Some less catchy words too – new daily persistent headache, Post-Exertional Malaise, chronic fatigue, syndrome, quips aside, I gained a profound sense of what I want my life to look like: what I value, what my red lines are. What I will give and what I won’t.

Debilitating illness can be the ultimate lesson in slowing down, in mindfulness – some times a slowly sipped cup of tea really is the highlight of your day. I have gained a deep understanding of the mind-body-spirit connection and a resonant understanding of trauma, what it is, what it does when it remains unprocessed. I am immensely grateful for so many things; for a family that has quite literally picked me up off the floor, for loving friends, family and supportive colleagues. For being able to advocate for myself, for being able to digest medical papers. For having the access to world leading medical specialists who have listened to me and supported me throughout this. I am particularly grateful for the ability to recognise the limits of conventional Western medicine which, whilst it excels at life saving surgery, at trauma resolution, at cutting edge scientific advances, falls so short with regards to many chronic conditions.

The Breakthrough

But my biggest breakthrough has been in marrying modern science with ancient wisdom, forming a personalised and holistic approach to health that encompasses mind, body, spirit and environment.

I had acupuncture, Physio & Ergo therapy weekly. I have taken the time to test and understand the effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine and psychotherapy weekly. I have taken the time to test and understand my unique combinations of environmental toxins, deficiencies and excesses and I try to practice breath-work and meditation daily.

There's a African proverb I carry with me: "Health is a crown worn by the well, seen only by the sick". When you lose your health, the thing that is most precious, you see what a gift it is to be able to eat the food you want, not having to hide how you feel at work, be present with your family and friends.

I've found a way to still have gratitude for my life, and use this experience as a vehicle to grow. To become the person I was always meant to be. When I experience a pain flare, I don't freak out. I re-regulate myself with the tools that I've learned throughout this journey and cultivate positive emotions that keep my morale up.

Fast-forward to August 2021 and I am working with very reduced pensum. On my days off I sleep for 9-10 hours just to catch up. I still have vivid, terrifying dreams. Before COVID-19, I’d only ever needed 7 hours sleep each night to feel refreshed.

Now, more than a year on from my initial infection, I am slowly recovering – although I am very far from being back to my ‘previous’ lifestyle. In the past few weeks, I feel fresh and sharp again, however my body rebels from time to time for no reason. I was finally able to return to run. I can only manage very short periods, but hey, here I go! I am learning to manage living with long-COVID. This means healthy eating, pacing myself, and incorporating lifestyle tips.

The hardest part of this journey is accepting that I now have an invisibly disability with up and downs.

Let’s try to stay positive and I hope that everyone stays healthy and safe during these sometimes, lonely and isolated days.

Please take care of yourselves and leave a comment if you life.

Martin Vogt

✭Explore. Dream. Discover.✭

www.martinvogt.ch

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meetmeatthecoda · 4 years ago

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I absolutely ♥️ADORE♥️ Scripted and would love to read your director’s commentary for it!

Oh, anon!! 😍 I'm SO THRILLED that you loved Scripted so much, that makes me so happy!! 🥰 Especially that you loved it enough to want to read my "director's commentary" (that phrase makes me laugh, you'd think I created a feature length film all by myself 🤣), so I think I'll skim through the fic - it's been a while since I re-read it - & make a bullet-point list of any special BTS info I can think of 😊 Anddd I'll also put it under a read more cause you know me, I never use one word when one hundred will do 😂

So, the fic itself was inspired by the ending of 5.08 where Liz wakes from her coma to Red reading to her in an armchair as he had been for the past 10 months, it's fine, I'm fine but she still has a ventilator in so she can't talk & instead has to write "how long?" on a piece of paper & her handwriting is super shake-y bc her muscles are so weak (I think Red even helps her hold the pen? It's clearly been a while since I re-watched the ep whoops but ugh, be still my heart.) For some reason, I just latched onto the idea of a mute Liz, really suffering with the implications of everything she went through (since her recovery was so glossed over in the show boo) & Red 1000% being there for her. Mostly, I just wanted to dive into the dynamic of Liz letting Red care for her the way he's always wanted to (without Tom & Agnes btw) to the point where their relationship is unhealthy in its reliance, but neither can see it bc Liz is blocking things out (& unknowingly falling in love with him) & Red is just so thrilled to be able to love & care for her (while already deeply in love with her obvi). So yeah, that was the kind of dynamic & closeness I wanted to explore between them & it was... really fun 😊

The idea of the coma providing the perspective Liz needed to see that Red has always had her best interests at heart & clearly loves her (in addition to the fact that he never left her side or gave up during those 10 months lol peak romance tbh) seemed very organic & logical to me.

I liked the idea of Red & Liz playing board games as a way to pass the time & get to know each other better. It's the kind of casual interaction we were never gifted with in the show & I think they're both competitive in the right circumstances, even if its playfully so.

I liked the idea of Liz being urged to learn ASL, as I'm deaf in one ear & would dearly love to learn it at some point.

The detail of Red sleeping on a cot close enough to Liz's hospital bed that they can hold hands in their sleep was a total guilty pleasure addition & I'm not sorry.

I loved the scene in the beginning where Red is talking to Dembe on the phone in the hallway & Liz is practicing her letters. She's purely doing it so Red doesn't worry & I loved the idea of her being apathetic to everything except Red's concerns, plus I added in the parenthetical of (Red sometimes squints at her k's.) bc I thought it represented that well, but also bc it was just cute af. I also added the little detail of him waving at her through the window at the last minute bc I thought the scene needed something else & once I pictured that, it was too adorable to leave out.

Red handling all the details of Liz's care & transportation without asking (bc he instinctively knew that's what Liz wanted) only to turn around & panic about excluding her seemed like a very RED thing to do & I like how it emphasizes his well-meaning intentions, respect for her preferences, & desire to see her happy, even if she did actually want to leave him lol as if.

I liked the visual of Liz stumbling into Red's arms as she stands from her hospital bed to leave with him (sets a precedent for later) & I also loved the visual of a pen in her ponytail & of course Red using it to flirt a little bc come on.

I remember struggling to write the car ride transition to the lake house. I usually get ideas & visions for specific scenes, moments, or bits of dialogue, so those kind of transition moments are hard for me sometimes. But I liked that I settled on Red helping to ground Liz through touch (again, sets a precedent for later).

Red & Liz playing hangman in the car with Red using the word "fedora" & drawing a suited hangman made me giggle.

I can see the lake house very clearly in my mind, complete with the willow tree, bench, & tiny house (included bc I desperately want a tiny house in real life) & I really enjoyed describing the interior & imagining the joy Red would get out of decorating it with Liz in mind.

Their first night in the house where Liz has her nightmare & Red comforts her - that was a scene I had in mind very early on & I love how it turned out, especially with Liz mouthing "stay with me" into Red's neck, that part gave me All The Feels™.

The "morning after" scene where Liz realizes on some level that she's too dependent on Red is an important moment in the fic & the off-hand detail that at least "she's not going around murdering people & calling it therapy" was a bit of shade to Ruin (which I don't think I ever saw bc I was kind of appalled with the idea lol) I think I posted Scripted after Ruin aired... if not, I guess I'm psychic?? LOL

The breakfast scene - & the fact that Red is preparing every breakfast food known to man bc he's nervous too - is near & dear to my heart. I think that's a pretty pivotal scene since they kind of reach an unspoken agreement & peace &... "things settle after that first breakfast."

I liked the teeny little parenthetical section that comes next as well, which acts as a sort of middle point for the fic.

The next large chunk of the fic was pure indulgence for me. I LOVED writing about all the different things they would do together when it was just the two of them, it was basically a collection of Lizzington headcanons & that's how I sketched them out LOL Here's some notes on them:

I came up with the jigsaw puzzle headcanon (that Liz is bored by them bc they're easy for her bc she's a trained psychologist & easily sees patterns in things) late in the editing process but loved it so much that I included it.

Liz's sandwich preference is actually mine LOL

The Monopoly banter was fun af to write bc I love that game.

The love notes Liz leaves around the house for Red is still an all-time favorite headcanon of mine.

I loved the idea of Red reading to Liz in a foreign language, holding the book only for looks, but not actually reading from it at all & instead professing his love for her. I think I've even used that headcanon in another fic LOL

Their movie nights were also something I was dying to include, especially since they include snacks & cuddles.

Their co-sleeping habits were also something I wanted to include & Liz's newly tactile nature is both a symptom of her dependence on Red & also a guilty pleasure thing for me bc we all wanted more of Red & Liz touching on screen, plus I felt obligated to explain through Red that it wasn't sexual in nature (though if I ever get around to writing part 2, that will change 😉)

Dembe being the one to observe & interfere in their situation was an early scene I imagined as well, that was always going to be the climax of the fic (or at least part 1). I so enjoyed writing about Red & Liz's relationship through his eyes bc he just loves them both & only wants to help them.

Another pivotal scene I imagined early on was Liz having a panic attack with Dembe when she discovers Red has left & that was super engaging to write, as well as the reunion between them which... I pretty much wrote the whole fic with the goal of getting to that lovely angst LOL

Red's resolve to finally urge Liz to speak was heart-breaking to write (so naturally I loved it lol what's wrong with me) & in particular the detail of them eating fruit for lunch before he broaches the topic with her & the parenthetical about it being "a sign from the cosmos that they are meant to be together just because they don't eat each other's favorite fruit" made my heart happy even tho it's stupid LOL & when Red asks her if she would ever try to speak again & she responds with a simple written "Why?" that was a huge moment that I loved the angst of, of course. As well as the absolutely gutting: "Lizzie, I miss your voice."

I liked that Liz needs some time to think & accept everything Red forces her to realize at the end, that was super important to me in the resolution of the fic/part 1 & I tried really hard to include both their mentalities there at the end.

The fact that Red hasn't had a drink since he started caring for Liz also made my shipping heart happy.

And - lastly - the fact that the only thing Liz actually says in the whole fic is Red's name? Yeah 🥲🥲🥲

Welp, there you go, anon, I'm not sure if that was interesting to you at all, but I certainly hope so!! I know that was a lot but... it's a long fic, my longest ever, so I figure it's warranted, right?? 😂 Anyway, thank you so much, both for the compliment of loving Scripted AND for wanting to read more about it, anon, you are so sweet!! 🥰 I hope you enjoyed this & much, much love to you, my friend!! ❤️

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

#The Blacklist #Lizzington #fanfic #Scripted #ask game #fanfic writers: director's cut #mine #ask #anon #thank you so much for this my friend!!#:D #i hope you enjoyed this #:)#much much love to you!!#<3

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dana-chan-the-control-brain · 4 years ago

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Happy new year everyone 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I know 2020 has been hard for everyone.

And I want everyone to know, suffering isn't a contest and we all suffer in different ways. But I feel I should give my year in Review. Just some things that happened to me personally.

This was an intense, and long and spiritual and emotional journey for me...

I really discovered what it meant to have community, family and what my life means to me.

But I feel I need to get this in writing cause I can remember the year with vivid detail and I will probably forget if I don't get it down.

Do I have to share this publically online to my tumblr account for a bunch of strangers to see? not really.

Do I want to?

Yes. I think so. Just from how so many people on tumblr and real life have touched me.

This is kinda long and no one needs to read this.

(idk how to do a readmore on mobile. But this is where I would add it later. No one needs to read if they don't want to.)

January/February: (and some background on the last five years of my life cause.....well. it's important.)

As people knew, I got way into Invader Zim last summer. I spent most of my waking life working a dead end job at a grocery store. I lived a sad lonely life, going straight home to a single dark studio apartment. With not many material possessions outside of games, my laptop and my tablet to my name. Half of my material loves, such as home furnishings and books were still in boxes from when I moved in. In case I ever had to move again, or get some "big screenshot or copywriter" job in the city.

....

I lived in that city in the same dead end job and apartment for five years.

No friends. No social life. I often refused to make doctor appointments or attempt to establish myself in that city. I didn't even talk to anyone in my workplace.

Work. Go online. Go to sleep.

I lived like that for five years.

I thought it was good.

Even my therapist thought I was doing well.

When I really wasn't. My main character flaw I struggle with is motivation.

I can talk to someone about very detailed plans I have to fix a problem... But I tend to never follow through.

Just because I can describe in detail how to fix my personal problems, it doesn't mean I will do it.

(I have gotten better at this but it's a major struggle)

I might have been a Zombie during the day...

But by night I was pouring my soul into my AU and my analysis.

After being so thoughly ignored or overlooked by the Naruto fandom and the Undertale fandom, I felt like I had finally found my home and was settling into a community there.

I just loved that people loved what I had to say.

Especially my AU.

It's no secret that a lot of themes in my au revolve around found family, grief, and loss.......

Fatherhood, in particular.

What it means to be a father, how much do you need to try when you mess up, how willing should a child forgive their parent, especially those that have wronged you and how much of it is factually accurate and simply a self projection of what children want their parents to be and visa versa... What amount of forgiveness and change is nessasary...is it needed?

....

It's no secret that a lot of my AU is a giant coping mechanism for my Dad's death. Espessially the falling out and growing closer with a lot of my family members throughout the years following his death. (Most of the time I keep it ambiguous to how it relates to my personal life unless I include a readmore that states so outright. I feel my au can be enjoyed by a variety of people in the fandom who don't need to know me as a person or my life story.)

My Dad passed away in 2016 in February and my family still feels the aftershocks to this day.

It's part of the reason I moved to the city, alienated myself from my family and people that loved me and refused to experience life for five years.

My entire world was Zim, and I was okay.

March: When America finally realized and started to feel the effects of the pandemic....

A lot of people got scared.

Me included.

I didn't have any streaming services or access to the news. So I only heard accounts from my mom.

I didn't understand why the store was so dead quiet and empty for a few days, then it went into mass chaos and panic in the span of two days.

It felt like Retail black friday in the worst way. Everyone was packed like sardines. Everyone was yelling. The lines at the registers bled into the clothing department.

I was witness to customers shoving others for toilet paper, being rude to cashier's and just overall unpleasantness.

At the time, I didn't even fully grasp what the pandemic was, and I feel a lot of people at the time didn't either.

I ended up absentmindedly scratching my eyebrow in front of a customer and she screamed and villanised me for it. That they didn't want groceries touched by my "unclean hands"

I ended up breaking down into tears.

The customer behind me gave me a hug and told me I was doing a great job.

But the damage was done. It was the final straw, I couldn't stop crying and I was breaking apart.

Thankfully my Boss (the one who likes me) pulled me aside and asked what's wrong.

It was then that I quit. No notice. Same day. I had to get out of there.

I was planning to move to an apartment with my sister in the summer, but my Mom offered for me to move back in with her temperarily just so I can get out of the city and away from the pandemic.

So I did.

I got scared, broke my lease a month early and quit my job of five years that gave me nothing back.

He told me, "take care of yourself and your family, I won't keep you here, do what you need to do."

So I did.

April-June:

A very eventful few months.

My mom offered for me to live at her place, but for some reason she was acting like I would live there forever. That this wasn't a temporary arrangement, and that I didn't have an apartment set up already.

This was in large part to my sister, who had lived with my mom taking advantage of her for years.

Even though my sister and I were going to move in together, I was just never sure about it cause of how she never packed her stuff or made any effort to find a job.

My mom often acted like I was lazy and not searching and was treating me like... Well, an unruly teenager instead of a woman of 29 years. She acted like I was a failure for returning home when it was her idea in the first place.

I would have just been petrified in the city.

Like usual, I retreated to my au again.... And in the spring, something eventful happened.

In may, 8th 2020:

I was invited by @rissynicole to join an invader zim discord.

Now, I've never really used discord before. I always thought it's interface is too confusing.. and I'm a member of a few other iz discords and I usually don't follow them that closely.

Rissy assured me it was different cause some friends of thiers made it and it was smaller.

Before I knew it, I was sharing memes and getting to know everyone there.

It wasn't long after I invited my partner in IZ crimes, @paketdimensioncomic who was genuinely wary of iz servers due to a bad experience with the last one they were a part of.

But soon they were sharing memes and laughing with everyone else.

My eyes were starting to open and I was able to connect to fans of my work in an interpersonal way. And I was able to discover new artists and aus I never knew about.

I was also able to meet so many others of the community and invite them to the server myself.

The moo-ping 10 server kept me sane while I was living with my judgmental mother.

Not only that, the summer was very productive for my au.

Drawing was all I did, and it was a huge break from the job as a cashier I had.

Not only that, June came, and with it, me and Ceph's first collab fic:

A result of us just going back and forth in our DMs constantly about Professor Membrane and how he changed in ETF for the better and how much we adamantly stan "trying-to-be-a-good-dad-brane" and how much of his ETF development has to be implied off screen in order for the emotional resolution in the movie to matter.

The only reason I never professed my love for Membrane as a character in the fandom before the fic dropped was.... Well....

Membrane can be a decisive character in the fandom and I was so worried people would hate me if I did an analysis on him, simply because he's not the best parent in the world. (As an understatement)

Ceph and I really encouraged each other to scream our love for the science himbo loud and proud more frequently and so often.... I actually start to see less Membrane hate posts and breakdowns then their used to be.... I like to think it's a combination of Me and Ceph's influence, along with ETF and the Quarterly's painting Membrane in a slightly more nuanced light then he was previously.

I never wrote a collab fic before and it's such a rewarding and fun and unique experience that I don't think I'll ever have again. And I love working with Ceph on our fics so much.

So much so we did it again...

July-August:

I never thought I would be one of those people who writes NSFW IZ fic... But here I am.

The Brainbrane au started.... An au of my au where Membrane and the Computer fall in love and Membrane makes him a body.

This ship was based around the idea where we joked that Membrane and Zim's Computer would have funny interactions if they ever met, under the pretense Membrane thinks Computer is Zim's parent.

Our headcanons morphed and shifted until we just full blown started shipping them.

Just because Membrane and Zim's Computer have overall REALLY entertaining chemistry.

It's a character dynamic never seen in the show or comics (yet) and I imagine thier interactions to be nothing but entertaining banter.

The fic was also born from spite... Making fun of the troupes and cliches that we found personally destestible in some questionable zadr fics.

So an angry ace and a demi-bisexual collab on a porn and end up blessing the fandom with

Compapa headcanons,

Computer being recognized as a more common used fanon character,

The ship of Brainbrane.

The fandom having a crisis of "oh God, not only are we xenophiles we're technophiles too!!!" Or "why you gotta give Zim's Computer an ass"

More android Computer designs

It was an eventful summer.

In the midst of all this, I moved into my new place, got a new job, and I was able to see my friend (who is def my platonic straight soul mate) who lives in Indiana.

She came to visit, showed me how to decorate and how to take care of my body better! Things were looking up! It was great.

September-November:

My job was at a boat store. If was approaching the fall and my hours were being severely cut.

I was getting into a rut of depression again.

I thought things were changing but the same routine I was trying to escape from was the same thing coming back.

But instead of letting it take hold, I decided I was going to do something about it... I was gonna visit a museum and go with my sister. Just... variety stimulation.

Well that didn't happen.

I talked about this shortly in my au itself...but..

My sister had a complete mental breakdown.

She stopped taking her meds, went off the deep end and was in the hospital a total of five times throughout November.

A lot of it was acting out and the perfect storm of environmental factors that made her scream and act out so she would keep going back to the hospital.

It was traumatizing for me.

I just can't explain what it's like. For her and for me to be in that position.

I'm not telling the full story and a lot of bullshit things happened I won't share here.

She got diagnosed with bipolar one and my mom expected me to be a caretaker for her.

I threatened to disown my family and move away out of state.

It was just too much for me to handle.

So much I was a nervous wreck.

I tried to pick up a second job... Cause my sister was in the mental ward so frequently and couldn't pay the bills.

But I was fired within a week cause I was so stressed I couldn't retain the basic information they were training me for.

It was an office job.

My dream.

It could have been.

I was fired from something I really wanted.

I was only there for three days.

I could not retain any information.

I was a mess.

My sister was a trigger, my mom wanted me to live with her. I couldn't live like this.... I had to get out.

I had to get out.

December:

Remember my Indiana friend?

Well the first week of December is my birthday.

My 30th to be exact.

While I did pick up a seasonal position at Target (not my first pick)

I took the first week of December off so I could spend time with her. Cause she agreed, I needed a break from this crap.

Surviving 30 years is cause to celebrate and if I had to celebrate with my sister I would have cried.

I know there was a risk traveling out of state during a pandemic...

But I needed out, I needed a friend..

And I kinda wanted to look at the place since I was considering moving there.

My friend's mom was sick so she avoided me and her daughter and got us a hotel room.

It was fun! I got to swim in a salt water pool, we talked about Naruto, I showed her the iz and su art books I brought, also Computer and Membrane tea.

I also got to meet her other friends and get crunk. And her bf who is super nice and funny!

I had a super fun birthday....

Until her mom told my friend that her grandparents had covid and that was what she had. And my friend got sick within that same day.... As did I.

I owe so much to her family.

I was an entire state away...about a ten hour drive from home.... She let me stay at her house. "The covid house" we called it.

Cause everyone (except the father. He avoided everyone and booked a hotel immediately cus he was an ER doctor) had covid within a day.

I called in, the test results were positive and I had to stay with her family for ten days quarantine before I could work again.

Which would have been fine....

If my tumblr didn't log me out perminately of my old account. @dana-chan325 .... Which really sucked cause I had a constant headache and was too sick to engage with tumblr or much of the fandom. I didn't want to make a new account when my head was in a bad fog and I could barely breathe or smell.

It's not like I saw much of my friend either.... We all slept at different hours and she had more symptoms then I did.

It was just netflix, danganronpa v3 and cry.

I was miserable, but at the same time.... Not?

I really feel like God himself was the one who pulled me off from tumblr, and my living situation.

Maybe a whole extra week feeling like a bobblehead was what I needed.

It gave me some much needed clarity on my relationships with my mom and sis and friend.

Running away to Indiana was not the solution here.

Once I was better within ten days and no longer had a leave of absence, I drove home.

I am glad I fully recovered (but from how I understand it, my dear friend is still ill. I'm praying for her)

I might have gone to work a bit too soon, cause I had an asthma attack after trying to unload a single cart in the span of six hours.

My boss lectured that my speed was unacceptable, and even though I explained the covid situation and breathing problems many times, she threatened that I'd be fired if I'm that slow again.

Que the next few days of work where they put me on register.

Instantly I was sent into a panic remembering the last time I was on the register and how that panic attack caused me to quit.

I even asked if I could go back to stocking, since my breathing had improved. My boss assured me that I was put on the register cause they needed help and nothing to do with my covid thing.

Then as December concluded and the new year began, my boss said that this was the last shift for me cause my position was seasonal and they were letting a lot of people go.

I then asked why I was on the schedule for Sunday, and he told me to ignore it and I'm free to reapply for full-time.

I mean.... They can act smart about it...

But putting your general merchandise stocker onto register after she had an asthma attack and missed working the first two weeks of December due to covid.....

Not a good look.

So once again, I'm jobless once more.

Will probably continue to live with my sister for awhile.

But I do not feel as if it's a bad thing....

I met so many good people this year....

My friend's family even gave me 500 usd to cover my rent since I couldn't work for a majority of December.

I've seen evil and good from humanity this year. I've seen acts of god, good friends and what my real family means to me as well as friends I consider family.

This year really made me look back at the person in the mirror and say,

"I deserve better."

And actually worked for it this time.

Oh and after Christmas I got a horrible yeast infection that burns over most of my body currently.

Very accurate doodle to the pain I'm in right now.

(seriously my body is a fungus.)

But hey, good news, I respected myself enough to go to the doctor about it!!

So that's progress.

I really hope 2021 holds good things for me.

Thank you to the mooping 10 server for always being there and keeping me sane,

Thank you tumblr for liking my au and everything.

AND A SUPER SPECIAL THANK YOU TO @evartandadam and her family for housing me and my dumb diseased ass. Everyone, she is an angel and I can't express how much she means to me. Please check out her art and buy her stuff on redbubble.

Anyways... Byebye 2020.

I look forward to what I can accomplish for myself this year.

#danachan's posts #personal stuff #new year post #tw: covid #tw: yeast infection

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god-fucking-dammit-mizutani · 4 years ago

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it must be exhausting running all these circles around your mind

Word count: ~7500 | Rating: G | Chapter: 1/2 (part 3 of the overall series) Tags: Miraculous Ladybug AU, Superheroes AU, vague references to violence and trauma Summary: Taichi struggles with the right thing to do. Ladybug fights an akuma who has the upper hand. Or, well, eight of them.

Read on Ao3 or Below

Taichi wonders if his mother had ever gotten sick of reminding him all the time when he was younger, "If you've done something wrong, you need to apologize."

Back in elementary school, Taichi spent most of his afternoons with Sora, following her home directly after soccer let out. She had been napping on the couch one of those early evenings, exhausted from their last practice match, and Taichi could only be entertained by glue and construction paper for so long.

Her bangs had been overgrown back then. He had remembered her brushing them out of the way during practice, clipping them to the side to keep from bothering her when she'd lean over worksheets in class. Taichi didn't know she'd been working on growing them out. Honestly, he didn't even know what that meant.

He was pretty sure he was natural with the safety scissors Sora's mother had left him with. The jagged lines, he had concluded, were an artistic choice. Really, he didn't think he'd done too shabby of a job. Not at the time.

Sora hadn't appreciated his thoughtfulness, nor his artistry, and so Taichi had apologized. Several times and over days. Sora had been resolute in giving him the cold shoulder, but the reality of his grievance hadn't really set in until their next practice, when she wouldn't even so much as kick him the ball even if he was the only person open.

Sora had never missed kicking to him before.

"I know," his mother had cooed, kneeling on the linoleum floor in front of him where she had found Taichi in the team's locker room, nearly inconsolable. "I know you mean it," she had said, pulling a crumpled tissue from somewhere inside her purse and wiping the tears right off his face. It had been in vain as more swiftly took their place. "It's okay, Taichi," she had told him softly until he had finally settled long enough to look his mother in the eyes. For the first time she had taught him, "But just because you mean it a whole, whole lot, that doesn't always mean you'll be forgiven."

Across from him, under the shade of the tall oak tree, Sora pushes her bangs out from in front of her eyes, tucking them just behind the shell of her left ear. She had seen it in her heart to forgive him, eventually, when she no longer had to wear hats to hide his magnum opus. Taichi taps his notebook with the capped end of his pen, feeling the well of guilt pooling in his chest again. He wonders if she still thinks of it, if she regrets ever letting him back into her life.

Sora peers up from where she's been highlighting notes. Her eyes hesitate where the tempo of his tapping has become its own drum set before looking him fully in the eyes. Her smile looks sincere when she graces him with it and Taichi thinks, maybe, she doesn't.

A part of him is too afraid to ask.

"Bored?" She asks him, capping the highlighter in her hand and dropping it in the open space between them. It rolls down the table, the only indication of the slight incline the bench had been situated upon, and stops against his notebook. There's a rainbow of them gathering all over the table and Sora plucks another color from the pouch beside her— lime green this time—before returning to her work.

"No," Taichi says. "Just thinking."

A breeze passes by overhead, warm and comfortable, shifting the leaves until they chatter with the promise of spring. The sun feels nice where it leans against his right side.

An absolutely lovely day.

He should be enjoying it, in the company of one of his closest friends. Sora hums as another breeze passes by them, sounding content. It had been her idea to stow away for their shared free period at the end of the day, to get their homework done outside where the sun was inviting. "It'll make the work feel more pleasant," she had reasoned. Maybe it should, but when Taichi breathes in he wishes all that would greet him is the smell of fresh cut grass, the feeling of new life and rebirth and everything he associates with spring and soccer. But all he finds is what feels like a stone, lodged in the pit of his stomach and unmoving.

The bell chimes to mark the end of classes. Taichi can hear it just barely where they're sitting right outside the school building.

A flood of students runs down the main staircase. He's got a great vantage of it just over Sora's head. Several loiter under the roof, taking up residence on the benches as they wait for their rides. A few cross the road to catch the city bus, hesitating to wait for the students as they cross by in front of it. Others start heading in the opposite direction from him and Sora, towards the school fields.

"We should probably start heading to our clubs," Sora suggests, but she makes no immediate move to pack her things, still invested in highlighting her notes. She reaches for a bright pink marker next and Taichi collects the lime green one, tilting his notebook vaguely to catch it before it can roll past him.

"Did you hear about the other day?" Someone asks on their way past their bench. "We got ourselves a local superhero."

"You mean that insect man?"

"Ladybug," someone else corrects them. Taichi whips his head in the direction of the conversation. He watches the small group of students, intent, but their conversation is swallowed by the distance as they continue on their way into town.

Sora's pink highlighter thumps heavily against the bench seat beside him before plopping onto the grass. Taichi stares at it where it lays still.

"He's the buzz of the town," he hears Sora saying.

"Yeah, Hikari's a fan." Taichi leans down and grabs for the marker, dropping it on the table between them with his growing collection.

She's got a blue one now, tapping it against her cheek pensively. "I'm surprised the media hasn't been swarming this place since that attack last week."

"There wasn't anything to report since all the damage got cleared away," Taichi mentions.

"It did seem," Sora pauses, pressing her lips together. "Far-fetched to someone who wasn't there. I saw the first explosion knock out half the roof from the tennis court and it still feels hard to believe."

"I rode a magic bull," Taichi says with a long grin. "And I still find it hard to believe."

Sora doesn't seem to find the reminder to be as entertaining as he does and so Taichi let's his grin drop.

He turns back around for a moment, but the group he had been eavesdropping on has since vanished from earshot.

"There's been two more attacks since then. That's three in seven days, isn't it?" When he turns back, Sora's eyes are on her notebooks again, but she doesn't seem as invested in their contents. "How long do you think this is going to keep up for?"

He isn't sure if she wants an answer. Taichi knows he doesn't really have one that she'll want to hear. Instead he offers, "We just have to believe in Ladybug."

Maybe it's the right thing to say after all. Sora's smile returns in full bloom, relief spreading through her bright brown eyes. "He does seem to have it handled," she agrees.

Taichi smiles back, but his answer doesn't sit quite as comfortably with him. He's caught Ladybug's last two skirmishes on the news, watching with bated breath every time the situation turned sour just before the hero found a way to change the tides. Ladybug has gotten better, more practiced. At least from the outside, at the distance between the reporter and the screen and Taichi's couch. But he remembers what Ladybug had looked like up close, the set of his jaw contradicted by the shake in his hands, the fear in his eyes when he wasn't trying to pretend to be in control of their situation. Taichi’s chest feels heavy at the memories.

They're not friends. Taichi doesn't even know if they count as acquaintances, but every time he sees the superhero on his screen, he can't help but wonder, who will be there to save him ?

Only someone with a certain gift, Taichi remembers. His teeth clench at the thought. He'd done well enough without one, hadn't he? Maybe he could—

He meets Sora's gaze. This time concern creases her brow, worry evident in her eyes. He hopes it's not becoming a permanent fixture now. "Taichi?"

"Sorry," he answers sheepishly. "Just had... things on my mind."

"What things?" She asks gently, but there's a pressure to her voice that Taichi finds familiar.

He's not sure she wants to hear it, though. Guilt tugs at the back of his mind because he had, not that long ago, promised he wouldn't do anything stupid. It isn't fair that he should be here with her now, practically wishing for it.

But like a miracle of its own, another source of his anxieties comes careening down the staircase behind Sora's back, almost nothing more than a blur of red. "Koushirou."

"Koushirou?" Sora repeats, sitting up straighter in her shock. "I thought you two made up?"

"So did I," Taichi mutters. His eyes follow the path of the other boy as he crosses the campus. He hadn't really suspected Koushirou as someone who could hold a run quite that long, but Sora had implied he was once on the soccer team. Even if it was just mostly as a bench warmer. He disappears down the farther street. Taichi frowns. He wonders where Koushirou is heading. It's not the way he had seen him going home last week. He's pretty sure his home is on the other side of the city, just behind where he and Sora are sitting. Which reminds him, "Remember I asked you about the bakery?"

"Uh-huh," she hums. "The one Koushirou's family runs."

Taichi narrows his eyes, leaning forward across the table with his elbow. "A detail you forgot to mention."

"A detail I didn't think was important to mention," she corrects him.

"Yeah, well," he grumbles, "I went there on Saturday." Sora's eyes stay trained on him. "He barely said anything to me, then just ran off."

"Ran off?"

"And he's barely talked to me the whole week. We actually got assigned partners on a project and he emailed me to say he'd just do it on his own."

Sora's eyebrows shoot up.

"Here," he says, pulling his phone out of the side pouch of his backpack. He thumbs through several windows before pulling up the email in question and handing his cell phone over to her awaiting hands.

There's a short while of silence as Sora reads over it's contents, her eyes scanning back and forth and mouth forming some of the words unconsciously. Taichi waits, oddly nervous. Laughter cuts through the crisp air somewhere from the other end of the campus. Sora gives the phone a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes as she hands it back to Taichi. "It's written very politely."

"Yeah," Taichi says. He looks back over the message again with fresh eyes, hoping it will change his opinion. All the words read the same to him and he drops his phone into the abyss of his backpack. "It's the nicest get lost I've ever gotten."

Sora says nothing. Taichi stares at the latest ruined page in his notebook. There's nothing of substance there. Just doodles of lines converging along the margins, hapless patterns that seem to go nowhere. There's something like the sun at the top of the page, opposite a giant tear where he’d attempted to erase some lines. Taichi bites his lip at the image. He'd forgotten about it this last week, but the little box has been sitting in his backpack, waiting for the chance to be reunited with its owner.

Ladybug.

Taichi groans, thumping his head against his notebook. His thoughts keep leading back there no matter how much he tries to chase them away, to those dark eyes, to that stubborn determination and—

"Is it really bothering you?" Sora asks tentatively. He can feel her fingers gently tap over his fist on the table. When he looks up she's sending him her most sympathetic smile. "I can try talking to him like I promised?" She offers.

Right. The Koushirou Problem Redux.

He almost says yes again, wants to just let Sora work the magic that comes to her so easily and patch the whole thing up but, "Nah." She sends him an imploring look, one that asks if he's sure and Taichi tells her, "I should do it myself."

This time when Sora smiles, her lips turn up to the left in the way they often do, tinged now with a hint of pride and Taichi feels his heart swell to know he's the source of it.

Somewhere nearby the first notes to a shrill melody filters in, oddly muffled.

"Shoot," he says, jumping to his feet. Sora pulls back immediately, her eyes widened with concern once more. Taichi gathers everything he's certain is his own from off the bench and haphazardly drops them back into his bag, textbooks and looseleaf paper sticking up at different heights. "I have to pick up Hikari," he explains.

Taichi decides there's little risk of getting caught in a downpour on his way home without a cloud in the sky and doesn't bother struggling with the zipper after it only pulls up part of the way.

"Again?" Sora asks, her eyes following him as he squeezes out from under the table. She's capping her newest highlighter. "What about soccer?"

"I'll talk to you later," he says quickly, pulling his bag over one shoulder. Taichi makes sure it isn't the exposed side, not wanting to lose anything on his way. He gives Sora a hearty wave before jogging off in the direction of the local elementary school.

"That wasn't an answer!" She calls back to him.

Taichi sends her another wave over his shoulder without turning back. The notes of his alarm are singing again and he darts past the two sections of the pick up driveway without barely sparring a glance one way or the other as he crosses over to the main road towards the city.

Taichi feels out of breath by the time the first tower of the elementary school comes into view over the shop buildings. Running isn't normally an issue for him, but after a week of easing up on his usual conditioning, well, it’s to be expected.

He recognizes the teacher on duty today, sitting on the stone wall bordering the school, closest to his side of the street. She looks up from her lap full of papers, dark red ink visibly scattered throughout each page. Taichi assumes she must be taking advantage of her stolen time by grading test papers or homework.

He gives her a winded, "Sorry," but doesn't quite know why. She nods him in the right direction towards his sister before burying herself back into work.

Hikari is easy to find, being one of the last kids still lingering outside of the school. Only earlier this week she used to wait for him somewhere by the teacher, staring at the brick walkway as if it were the most interesting piece of architecture in the whole city.

Today, however, is different.

She's sitting on the wall adjacent, just on the other side of where it opens up to the main entrance. Taichi hears her talking long before he actually sees her, hair and legs bobbing in and out of view behind the large pillar she's tucked behind. He stops for a minute, flabbergasted as her laughter breaks over the sound of the other children in the park nearby, whose guardians had long come by to pick them up.

"They've been talking about Ladybug all day," the teacher tells him, with an amused smile.

Taichi looks back at her, offering a short, nervous laugh. "Talk of the town, huh?" A short hum is the only sign she even heard him. So much for small talk.

"Taichi?" His sister's soft voice calls for him. It's the only warning he gets before a heavy force knocks the wind right out of him. He pats a hand instinctively atop the head of the person hugging him and is bewildered when he spots Hikari still standing over by the wall several feet away, head tilted in a silent question.

He stares down into a pair of bright blue eyes. "Takeru?"

At the sound of his name, Takeru beams. His chin pokes into Taichi's stomach uncomfortably. "Boy am I glad to see you're all right!"

"Uh," Taichi starts. Distantly he thinks that should be his line. He had been looking down at Takeru the last time he had seen him, too. Back then he had looked scared, eyes wet with ready to shed tears. A reasonable response given that an entire building had just collapsed over them. Taichi swallows. Phantom debris fills up his lungs, a great pressure settling over his back, choking—

"How do you know my brother?"

Takeru pulls away. "I was just telling you about the guy who helped Ladybug!" He presents Taichi to his own sister with a sweep of his hand and a smile that could rival the warmest sun. The difference between then and now is startling to Taichi. "This is him! Taichi!"

Hikari stares up at him with her bright brown eyes, suddenly transfixed. It's as if she's looking at a completely new person and not the brother who's been late picking her up for the last week.

Taichi feels the weight settle heavier over his shoulders. "I wouldn't really say I helped—" he tries. Laughter bubbles up from his chest. It's anything but humorous. "It was more like —"

"A hindrance?" Someone suggests. Even though spring has already begun to settle, Taichi feels a sudden nip in the air. He catches Hikari's worried eyes.

"Yamato," Takeru says. In contrast he sounds so bright, leaning around the bend of Taichi's waist to greet the person behind them. Taichi follows his lead, turning on his heels to meet the new stranger.

Yamato looks to be Taichi's age, and even with the space between them he estimates they're probably about the same height, as well. His eyes are about as bright as Takeru's, but not nearly as warm. In fact as he looks between them, Taichi can't help but think the resemblance is striking. Given the circumstances, he probably isn't off in assuming they're related.

"You're late," Takeru chirps.

"Sorry." Yamato offers the younger boy a strained smile. "Go get your bag and wait for me."

"Okay!" Takeru dashes off back behind him, calling out to Hikari.

Without any warning, Yamato swiftly closes the distance, back straight and eyes narrowed directly onto Taichi. Instinctively, he takes a step back, his bag almost slipping all the way down his shoulder.

"You!" Yamato addresses him accusingly, jutting his pointer finger right into Taichi’s chest, voice dangerously low. His eyes remind Taichi of ice, finely pointed at him like daggers. He can hear Takeru and Hikari talking animatedly not too far behind them. "My brother could have died because you wanted to play superhero."

"I—" Taichi can't seem to get his volume down as low as Yamato's, but the timbre of his voice is almost as heated. "I wasn't—"

But it's not meant to be a conversation. Yamato doesn't wait for him to finish, mouth pulled back in a thinly veiled sneer. His finger digs in deeper, but it's not nearly as intrusive as his words. "You can't just be careless with other people's lives!"

Silence.

Several reactions vy for Taichi's attention at once: hurt, anger, defensiveness, guilt. He meets the teacher's imploring gaze over Yamato's shoulder where she's still stationed further down the wall and holds up his hand to tell her it's alright. She doesn't push the subject, returning to her work without a second glance. Taichi looks back to the other boy.

Yamato has since averted his own gaze, fists balled at either of his sides. Taichi drops his own gaze to the concrete, frustrated.

"Yamato!" Takeru calls out tentatively. "Are we going?"

"Just a minute, Takeru!" He raises his voice to call out to him. To Taichi he murmurs a quick, "Stay away from my brother," as he pushes past him. The satchel bag at his side thumps into Taichi's hip, but he somehow manages to swallow an affronted hey .

Taichi turns again, planting his feet heavy on the asphalt. His mouth opens, but Taichi doesn't really know what to say. It just simmers in the back of his throat, burning. Yamato never even looks back. Taichi can practically still feel the anger radiating off of him, shoulders taut and head resolutely high. Takeru tilts his head back to meet Taichi's stare, his bright blue eyes apologetic. He sends a short wave before picking up his pace to keep up with Yamato’s longer strides.

Hikari tugs on his shirt, startling Taichi back to attention.

"Who was that guy?" He asks, shaking his head.

He doesn't really expect an answer, but Hikari offers him one anyway. "I think it's his brother."

It wasn't exactly what he'd been asking.

"So I gathered."

First Koushirou, now this Yamato guy. Taichi seems to be building a rather terrible rapport. He flinches, wondering if Ladybug would count himself amongst them and they'll all start a club with matching jackets.

"We should go home,” Hikari suggests.

On the further wall the teacher is already packing her papers away in a hurry, relieved now of her extracurricular obligations.

Taichi lets out a long winded breath. "You're right."

"Already making friends, huh?" Taichi prompts his sister as they turn onto the main road. It's more crowded here. He holds out his hand and squeezes when Hikari takes hold of it easily.

She keeps her eyes glued to the pavement, her face pensive when Taichi peers down at her. "Maybe," she decides, carefully stepping over the next crack in the concrete. "He kept telling everyone about how he already met Ladybug, but there's nothing like it on the news. Everyone thinks he's making it up for attention."

"I see." Even kids have it rough. "And you believe him?"

Hikari shrugs her shoulders with great exaggeration. She hops over the next line and lands in the center of where the concrete has fractured into the shape of a small triangle, balancing herself on one foot, then hopping over it with the other like a personal game of hopscotch. Taichi's mezmorized.

"He didn't seem like he was lying." She stops for a moment, her large eyes staring up at him. "Was he?"

Taichi feels his cheeks heat in shame, breaking eye contact to watch where they're still walking. Narrowly, he misses trampling a dandelion that's made it's home between two slabs of concrete in the middle of the sidewalk. "Depends on what he said."

"So you really did meet ladybug?" Her voice is filled with awe, her hand squeezing his more tightly.

"Yeah," Taichi admits. "I met Ladybug."

Hikari looks away then herself, eyes focused ahead of them. She's no longer playing her little leaping game, but Taichi catches a glimpse of a long smile curling up her lips. He can't help but feel his own following.

"Hey, uhm, maybe don't tell dad," he thinks to ask her after they’ve walked several more blocks in silence. "About the whole, you know . Actually," he thinks better on it, "don't even mention it around mom, either."

"Okay," Hikari sings, swinging Taichi's arm with the force of her own. "It'll be our secret, then."

"Yeah. Our secret."

When he turns to smile down at her his eyes catch the storefront just over Hikari’s head. Plastered on the window in large, vinyl letters is the name Bakeology , almost perfectly transposed except for the crooked tilt of the ‘e’. Taichi doesn't notice he's stopped walking until Hikari tugs on his arm, having gone forward several paces without him.

"What's wrong?"

Taichi frowns. Baked goods sit visibly on little racks in the front displays, the easiest thing to see without pressing his forehead to the glass. Taichi isn't hungry for once, but he considers going inside anyway with the excuse of buying Hikari an after school snack. Just to test the waters. See if Koushirou's mom throws him out on sight or if she'll be as warm as she was the last time. And then, maybe, Taichi can rustle up the courage to ask her as casually as possible, "Has your son mentioned that he still hates me?"

Instead he says, "Nothing."

Several beeps set off in their general vicinity. Beside him Hikari reaches into her pocket and pulls out her own cell phone.

"It's an emergency," she relays, looking up at him with her honey-bright eyes. "There's another akuma attack."

Around them other people have already started scurrying about, ducking into stores, sprinting on their way to—Taichi assumes—their homes.

"Stay away from the harbor," Hikari reads further.

Taichi swallows. His backpack feels heavier, a reminder of the trinket still sitting inside. He has little doubt Ladybug will be there. It would be the best opportunity to meet him again. Taichi wonders if Ladybug would even recognize him, or if his face would blend in among the thousand others living in the city, just a blurry memory of the guy who almost got them all killed.

"Taichi?" Hikari asks, her hand tugging gently on his own.

He looks down at her, eyes large and worried. Taichi swallows again.

Yamato's voice comes back to him, the anger now sounding scared, shaky. "You can't just be careless with other people's lives!"

Hikari still watches him, and in the back of his mind he can see Takeru's bright eyes, dewey with tears, darkened with fear.

"Let's go home, Hikari," he tells her. The noise of the city seems to filter back in, a hum of panic still running through the streets. It startles Taichi's heart, but he does all he can to keep the fear out of his voice, the shake out of his hands as he squeezes hers tightly. "We'll be safe together, okay?"

She nods, looking as if she actually believes him.

Taichi keeps his eyes forward on his every step, letting new laid memories lead him on the route back home. He can feel his pulse quickening, a smarting of frustrated tears building behind his eyes, but he keeps them back, presses his lips together and just thinks about getting his sister home.

Hikari wastes little time shucking her shoes off in the foyer when they make it back inside. Taichi toes them towards the shoe rack at the door before stepping out of his own.

"I'm home, mom," she calls out. Taichi strains his ears to listen, but the only sound that greets him back is the creaking of a door and Hikari adding a quick, "I'm going to do my homework!"

She spares a quick glance back down the hallway at Taichi, smiling lightly. Hikari doesn't bother shutting the door as she heads into the living room with her backpack still over her shoulders.

"I'm home," Taichi says as he passes the bedroom door. He stands there for a moment, his hand hesitating over the knob, waiting.

"Can I put on the news?" He hears Hikari calling back from around the corner. Taichi feels his heart rabbit for a moment, wondering if someone else will answer.

No one else does.

Taichi closes the door gently as he joins his little sister in the living room, draping himself over the back of the couch. He tosses his backpack onto one of the empty cushions, just missing their cat, Miko, curled up by the arm. Hikari looks back at him inquisitively where she's set herself up on the floor in front of the coffee table, school worksheets neatly stacked on the table beside her. In front of her is a small notebook opened to a clean page.

"If you can still get your work done."

In answer she reaches for the remote. Taichi can see the barely contained excitement in her movements as the television clicks on. It's still set to the local news station where their dad had left it on last night before he'd fallen asleep in the reclining chair.

"—has been fighting off an akuma—"

Hikari grabs out a pencil case from her backpack and chooses one without ever taking her eyes off the screen. He doesn't think it's school work when she starts filling up some of the lines in her notebook, exchanging her time between it and the screen. Taichi opens his mouth to say something when the anchorwoman on the live feed lets out a sharp yell.

"We're alright!" The anchorwoman assures them. Takaishi Natsuko flashes in the lower corner of the feed as she offers up a long smile to the camera. "As you can see, Ladybug has pushed the akuma further into the harbor behind me here."

Taichi releases a long breath. The camera isn't close enough to see anything too well, but he can make out eight, long, spindly tentacles reaching out from beneath the waves. It must be some sort of sea creature—like a squid. He's not sure what the criteria is. Koushirou would probably know. But whatever it is looks huge. Comparatively, Ladybug looks like nothing more than a dot. Taichi squints. He might not actually be looking at Ladybug at all. It could be lint glued to the screen by static.

"What was it like?" Hikari wonders. Her voice is hushed, likely to keep it between the two of them. “Fighting with Ladybug, I mean.”

Exhilarating , comes to mind first and Taichi swallows it down. Unbelievable follows. He can still hear the crackling of lightning from The Minotaurus' horns, her yowls as Taichi held onto her nosering for dear life. "Terrifying," is too far down on the list to be comfortable.

On the screen the little dot, which is decidedly not lint, falls back. Natsuko reports, "He's still had no luck breaking through the akuma's defences."

Taichi has to hand it to her. He'd probably have gone stock still at this point, but if she's feeling any sort of fear, it doesn't come through.

"Unfair. It's like eight against one," Hikari comments as if she were talking about a schoolyard fight and not the forces of good versus... well, whatever they are. She scribbles something into her notebook.

"Someone should tell the monster to play nice," Taichi jokes. No one laughs. Taichi stares back at the scene, his heart pounding in his ears. He worries this time might be it. This time, maybe, Ladybug has met his match. Like, the worst sort of match. His hands feel clammy where Taichi balls them into fists, frustrated and helpless. He wishes —

"It would be nice if he didn't have to always be alone," Hikari says. She turns to look back up at him. As the afternoon sun dims outside, the light from the television looks brighter where it reflects in her eyes. "I'm sure even superheroes need support. That's why they're usually in teams, right?"

Taichi leans back until he's standing again, never breaking eye contact. It feels almost like, for a moment, she'd read his mind. "I guess," he manages to say.

Hikari hums, satisfied with his answer. Somewhere in his bag Taichi hears his phone chime again. He'll get it out, eventually.

The akuma on screen smashes through a row of boats lined up along a stretch of docks, sending splinters of wood and brightly colored flags rushing through the air on nothing but inertia from the one swing. Taichi swallows thickly as both Natsuko and the camera person shout once more.

"Takeru said Ladybug put everything back the way it was after he defeated the akuma." She adds, "Like magic."

"Just like magic," he agrees. Hikari writes that down, too.

Sensing she won't get much work done with him around, Taichi excuses himself to his room, swinging his backpack over the couch again to take with him. Miko makes a soft sound of startlement, blinking up at him before settling back into her ten hour nap. Lucky, Taichi thinks.

"Would you do it again?" Hikari asks him, her stare heavy on the back of his head.

Taichi hesitates near the door of his room. When he says, "No," he wishes he wasn't lying. "Finish your homework."

"I will!"

Taichi hangs his bag on the back of his chair, unzipping it in full this time to pull some of his notes and planner and textbooks out. He hopes they're the right ones. He finds his cellphone lodged in the center of one of his notebooks, dog earring the still clean pages in half. When he clicks it on there's about a half a dozen texts from Sora and a single one from his dad asking if they made it home safe. Taichi answers that one first before thumbing through all of Sora's.

Did you make it home? Is Hikari with you?

It's dangerous out there. I just want to know you made it somewhere safe.

Taichi please let me know you made it home alright.

I still haven't heard anything back.

You didn't go to the harbor did you? Taichi please tell me you didn't go.

Should I come over?

He sends her a quick, We just got home. Stay safe, Sora.

Instantly a little relieved smiley face answers him. Taichi smiles down at it. At least someone in town probably won't be investing in a club jacket any time soon.

He docks his phone on the charger stand at the back of his desk. It blinks onto the image of his now clear lockscreen and Taichi stares at it for as long as the image stays. His old soccer team grins at him, standing in two imperfect lines with their arms thrown over each other's backs in camaraderie. It's blurry, off-center, and clipping some of his former teammates half out of the photo. Hikari had taken it, shortly after a stint in the hospital, declaring she wanted to be a photographer that winter. Everyone had made sure to come out for the impromptu team photoshoot.

Taichi buries his face in his crossed arms. His family had moved away not too long after that, leaving his teammates behind.

After a moment Taichi sits himself back up, gently smacking both of his cheeks. "Moping is best paired with chores," his mother always said before handing him off something like a load of laundry or some latex gloves. Really, she had just wanted some help around the house, but it did usually take his mind off whatever was bothering him, so Taichi grabs for his school planner and gets to work on the first subject for tomorrow.

He's bored of it halfway through.

Bored, maybe, isn't the right word. Taichi taps his pen on the page of his notebook, then against his desk, his bare foot thumping along to the beat. It almost matches the tempo of his heart right now.

Just outside his room the muffled news report is streaming in, but he has no idea what's being said. A part of him thinks about holding his ear up to the door, or pulling up his own stream to watch on his phone. Indecision weighs him to the spot. Listening won't help him get any work done. Not listening also isn't helping any. For all he knows the akuma could have been neutralized by now, but he'll only be more restless if he finds out Ladybug is still in trouble.

Restless. That's it. Taichi is feeling restless. It's odd to consider that not too far from here a monster is ripping up part of their home, harming people. And here Taichi is, doing his homework like it's any other school night.

But what else can he do?

Believe in Ladybug , Taichi reminds himself. He taps the pen harder, frowning. He does believe in Ladybug. Really, he does. It's just—

He remembers what Ladybug looked like that first time; terror barely concealed on his face, his voice trembling around the edges. Mere stubbornness had probably been all that was keeping him together. Taichi's sure that's at least true of himself.

Taichi groans in the back of his throat, frustrated. He leans back in his chair, resting his knees up on the desk until the front legs tilt off the floor, letting it rock ever so slightly.

If he really wanted to help, Taichi needed one of those doo-hickeys . What had the old man called them? A—

His chair suddenly loses out to gravity, and Taichi tumbles down with it, heels over head.

"Ow," he complains to no one, rubbing at the sore spot on the back of his head. He's absolutely determined to give himself a lasting concussion, Taichi thinks grimly.

Half the contents of his backpack have slipped out across his already cluttered floor. Taichi swears, pushing breakfast bars and folders with all their unfiled papers back inside. He frowns at his soccer Jersey crumpled up on the floor where it, too, has tumbled out. Taichi debates whether or not he should shove it back in with everything else or toss it in the garbage.

Hamper , he decides, is the middle ground. Taichi grabs it as he stands up and is surprised to hear another thunk as something heavier rolls out from the bundle of fabric.

A small, cherry-wood box.

Oh. Taichi reaches for it. His fingers run through the intricate grooves, tracing over the abstract sun pattern he had noticed when he first found the box in the grass beside him, right after Ladybug had departed. He remembers the last time he had seen the other boy's eyes, dark and on the verge of tears. For him . The memory makes his heart simultaneously swell and ache.

In his hands, the wood feels warm suddenly, electric— awake— and it burns—

"Gah!"

Taichi drops it to the floor again. It clatters and tumbles along the hardwood, falling several steps away. When it settles, Taichi notices the sliding lid is now askew, a dark colored band leaning over the exposed lip.

He kneels down to inspect the contents closely, carefully. A voice in the back of his head tells him to leave it, maybe grab a fire extinguisher in case it starts to burn a hole in his floor, which he knows his dad will hate because they won't get the security deposit back again. But even knowing it might be dangerous, Taichi finds himself reaching out to touch it. Under the pads of his fingertips the wood feels cool again. He slides the lid the rest of the way down revealing a set of, "Goggles?"

Taichi used to own a pair a couple of years back, but he'd passed it down to a fellow teammate. These look more expensive, the strap a fine, navy blue and as his fingers pass over the glass eyewear they leave no smudges. The connecting end of each strap bears the same sun-like pattern engraved on the box. Taichi runs his fingers over this as well, feeling the small grooves so finely cut into the metal. Sun from outside bounces off the bright surface and for a moment Taichi is certain the little sun pattern is actually—

His eyes widen. It is glowing.

Like a fireball the light bursts out from the goggles and rockets across the room. He shields his face for a moment, ready to see his curtains go up in flames and have to evacuate the whole apartment, with an akuma attack in progress no less. But what he finds is much, much worse.

Taichi screams.

A small, orange creature stands atop his math textbook. "Taichi!" It greets him in a deep, scratchy voice with a long, sharp-toothed smile.

Great, Taichi thinks. It knows his name. It—

"Taichi?" A softer voice calls his attention to the door, complimented by a light thrumming that can barely be called knocking against the wood. "Is everything okay?"

Hikari . Taichi slowly turns his gaze back to the creature on his desk. It's bright, curious green eyes have also latched onto the door, head tilted to listen. Fear grips his heart like ice. The creature knows about Hikari now.

Taichi fumbles blindly for something around him to use as a weapon, but all that meets his grip are dirty socks and the goggles he's still got tightly clutched in his other hand. Nothing. Absolutely nothing useful. Taichi swallows. If he survives this, he's investing in a baseball bat. Or twelve, just to have on hand.

Taichi looks around the room, eyes darting from one more useless thing to the next until— aha !

Taichi slides himself along the floor, a little closer to the creature, leaning his way over to grab for the little box the goggles had been in. Those bright green eyes are back on him. Taichi refuses to break eye contact.

"She shouldn't know I'm here," the creature tells him. Taichi stares, bewildered. "No one can know I'm here."

"Taichi?" Hikari calls again, her voice soaked in concern.

Something makes him call back, "I'm fine!"

Hikari doesn't sound convinced. Taichi can't blame her. He doesn't sound convincing. "Why did you scream?"

"Just—" he notices the still fallen over chair and says, "fell off my chair!"

"Again?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine. Go back to the living room, okay?"

"Oh," she says back, still unsure. "Okay."

He listens for her footsteps creaking along the floorboards. Once he's satisfied she's far enough away he addresses the little creature, gripping the box tighter in his hand where he's hidden it behind his back. "Are you an, uhm," the word escapes him briefly. The creature still watches him indulgently as Taichi moves as slowly as he can forward. To him, they look just like a miniscule dinosaur. He'd heard once that they can't see someone if they're not moving, but Taichi doesn't remember from where. He knows even less if it's true. "An, uh..."

Lightening crackles in the back of his mind, dark red eyes staring down at him filled with rage and, maybe, the smallest glimpses of anguish.

"Akuma," he finishes. He rises to his knees not too far from the desk. Taichi hesitates, waiting for the perfect time to strike, like calculating when and where to kick the ball to get past the opposing team’s goalie in soccer.

The creature seems undeterred by his proximity, completely unaware of Taichi's intentions. He holds a long, clawed finger up to, what Taichi suspects is, his chin. "I'm Agumon. I'm a kwami."

Taichi stares. His grip almost loosens before he tightens it once more. He's so close now— "And that's different?"

"That's right!" The self-proclaimed kwami nods his head, sharp teeth poking out again from beneath his grin. Taichi jeers back as the same clawed finger points down at him this time, bracing for an attack that never comes. "A kwami gives the power to fight akumas to whoever holds a miraculous."

"Miraculous," Taichi parrots. The box clatters to the ground behind him as the familiar word eases something inside him. He follows the line of Agumon's finger down to his other hand where the goggles lay loosely in his grasp, against his thigh. "This is that thing? A miraculous gift?"

Agumon nods again. "You were chosen."

"Chosen." Taichi stares at the innocuous item in his hand. Sunlight glints off the glassware. A miraculous . His whole body shudders. With fear, relief, awe, gratefulness. But—

Maybe it wasn't really meant for him. He hadn't really done anything to deserve it.

" Don't ever do that again ," runs through his head. Taichi knows that he shouldn't. Last time he had tried to help he’d been much more of a, well, " A hindrance ."

Perhaps Ladybug had simply misplaced it.

"Can," Taichi stares at the goggles, his fingers slowly loosening from around it. "Can you give it to someone else?"

Agumon makes a short, deep noise above him while shaking his head. Even for such a small creature, the shadow he leaves towers over Taichi as he taps along the edge of his desk. "You were the one who was chosen. It has to be you."

“Oh…” Taichi looks back down at the miraculous. It feels like, no matter what action he takes, he's going to let someone down.

Muffled through the door, Taichi hears another shriek followed by Hikari's own stuttering gasp of, "Ladybug!"

No. No, no, no.

"Even superheroes need support."

Taichi looks back to the little kwami. Those bright green eyes are trained on him still, head tilted to the side imploringly. Taichi’s resolve thickens.

"What do I have to do?"

#taishirou #taishiro #otp: the only exception #sparkle garbage #ML!Koushirou #taichi yagami #koushirou izumi #Yamato makes an appearance but it's like. pre-adventure Yamato #long post #anyway hope you're all having a lovely day #Ml!taishirou

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gayathreya · 4 years ago

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an ode to maara/bommi

[soorarai pottru spoilers]

so i’ve watched it and i LOOOVE it, easily in my top elite list of fav suriya films. there’re many things i love about it; maara’s persona and characterisation, his relationships with the people around him, the suffocating elitist atmosphere of the film, the music, visuals,

but my mind keeps coming back to this specific relationship and it’s my fav aspect of the movie. one that i’m not alone in echoing cos i’ve seen maaany people say likewise. i’d like to gush about them.

maara and bommi were just.. SOOO GOOD together???? i have a very small list of suriya romances i actually care about onscreen and this easily skyrocketed up. cos most of the time, it’s either i really like the heroine but the romance in the film isn’t that great/gets little scope (e.g. ngk, where i like sai pallavi but come on their marriage was trash cos ngk is a trash cheating and manipulative fuckboi, or anushka in singam, which is fine i guess but the third film soured me on all the characters), or it’s a case of me really loving the romance itself but i’m not having loads of feelings about whoever is paired up with him (e.g. ayutha ezhuthu, which is an all time favourite suriya romance highlight on screen and it was fantastic, but esha deol’s character was not at all a standout character on her own even if i enjoyed watching them together).

so there’re many a times the problem for me where either the romance doesn’t work, or the woman opposite him is not fleshed out enough. in comes soorarai pottru and i was DELIGHTED with their individual characterisations and their relationship dynamic cos finally here u have a romance depicted on screen where they’re both essentially treated as equals by the narrative even if the story is naturally centred on maara completely because the film is about him.

bommi is her own person and it’s established immediately the moment they meet, which is the exact reason why maara falls for her in the first place despite her roasting him all the time and after that too. she stands on her own, doesn’t need ~a man~ to help elevate her or achieve what she sets out to do. and she does all this without the help of the protagonist. her character is not dependent on maara in the slightest. she’s easily more successful than maara for the entire film until the end, and her personality isn’t overshadowed by her husband cos she pretty much has her own shit to run and holds her own opposite him. even when maara initially gets his dream off the ground, bommi isn’t relegated to a lower bar within the context of the film where her only role is to support him, but she works at expanding her own business/franchise and meets maara as a respectable equal in his venture as a food vendor, which even maara is surprised by but pleased about. she outright meets him in their shared field of interests and expertise, and maara never once treats her any less or jokes about her proposal.

and of course whenever they came together..... i gotta say, it was pretty hot lol. their emotional scenes had A LOT of weight. their physical scenes were certainly sexy and hot i could def watch them kick it up a notch. i don’t really find suriya has much chemistry with many of the heroines he’s paired up with but somehow he seemed comfortable with aparna enough to do loads of sexy staring, gazing, looking sexual, etc, and actually looked good playing a character who was not just in love with his wife, but who also was physically attracted to her, which is what completely sells the relationship and makes it look organic on screen. it helped that the visuals/lyrics depict him as more submissive in their love too (i thought both veyyon silli and kaattu payale had pretty obvious more sub vibes on behalf of the man, or the more serious bit where he comes back home exhausted and seeks comfort), it really works very well. i adored their scenes and it always works for me when suriya plays more subby characters in his romance because....... because. interests. *coughs* he is Good Boi (tm). he is Sub (tm). plus the physicality of maara/bommi shown is not only sexual, but they had softer moments too which made it all the more endearing. more than once, maara hugs her for solace or when he’s distressed and it’s very sweet and gentle, or the little quick scenes where he puts his hand on bommi’s head. those were all very cute moments and stays with u even though it’s short. it was a lovely sight to see in films where your usual hero/heroine barely even touch each other, or when they do, have no vibes or connect at all, while the physicality here is both sexual and also paired with emotional influence.

the only thing i really had an issue with is the lack of a proper resolution or dialogue after their big fight. i know some people have pointed out the fight itself was not something they liked because he hit her, but i didn’t have an problem with that tbh. it was a natural progression of maara’s character as he was steadily failing repeatedly, getting steadily angrier as he struggled to control it, and thinking she called him a loser was the snap. it worked quite well imo because the narrative also establishes pretty fast he regrets what he did and he immediately goes to look for her, finds her gone, and spends the next how many hours searching everywhere while looking very upset. so i don’t view it as a glorification or justification of his action since we are shown he knows he fucked up. but that being said, it was never mouthed explicitly. i felt their reunion was too quick and too easy and i would’ve liked an explicit line from bommi calling him out on that, and maara explicitly apologising for it and saying openly he messed up big time with her. that was the only part about the relationship i was disappointed by and i wish it was worked in better cos i don’t require a whole conversation or exposition dump, but even a few extra lines would have been nice in the scene he finds her again and runs to once again seek wordless comfort and apology.

>>> ETA: HE DOES NOT HIT HER. i’m adding this lil para here cos i’m uncomf with how many notes this post got spreading this misinfo i wrote myself which i’m wrong about. my first watch i did not catch it and thought nothing of it, but then i saw people saying he did and was talking about it and when i rewatched it, i agreed. but now, after multiple watches, i want to note i’m back to my initial instinct, which is that he doesn’t. maara pushes her by her chin/throat, and he then smacks the plate of food bommi has hard. it’s obvious when u pay attention to the speed and angle the plate flies off to the left, as well as the sound of the metal clang. the only explanation is maara slapping that away and not bommi flinging it. i do urge people to not continue spreading it without fact checking at least, considering sudha in an interview herself had a convo with someone and she agreed with the use of the word ‘’restrained’’ in how maara reacted during the fight, which wouldn’t make sense if he outright slapped her. this also makes it in character for bommi, who doesn’t seem to be the type of person in the narrative who would have just taken that with no fall out after.

SO YEAH despite this one thing, i really, reeeeally loved this relationship and romance and individual characterisations that had their own journey and arc but also were tied down to the same path that they don’t drift away within the frame of their movie and their own goals. this was a married couple shown right with individual personalities and ambitions, and not a woman who was fused to the hero of the movie and only there to meet the commercial requirement of a love track in a film. plus of course uhhh they were really hot together. i’ve mentioned that, right.

cos they were hot

and they should have made out for me

and i would have liked to witness more of them being any kind of physical since suriya and aparna were really nice to look at. O_O

#soorarai pottru #suriya #aparna balamurali #kollywood #tamil cinema #mine*#commentary #my kindgom for suriya to do more romances like in films where he's comfortable and having a good time #and not some awkward bullshit i'm forced to sit through of heterosexuals who have no chemistry or nothing in common

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fulokis · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on Wandavision

Spoilers duh.

I started this out as a boredom watch as in eh why not. I was not really invested until Evan Peters showed up. Evan Peters aka the guy who played quicksilver in the X-men fox universe. With DoFP being my favorite partially because of quicksilver. So naturally I became way more invested in the show, not only that but I became hyper-fixated on X-men as a result.

So marvel brings in this actor and all the fans of the X-men are like yeah duh that makes sense, especially considering Wanda is heavily involved with MoM, the movie about the freakin multiverse. So fans of X-men and doctor strange (of which I am both) become exited for the possibilities that this opens up. Excitement builds and as a result people end up watching more content on Disney+ whether it be the movies shows ect.

And then they go and say nope it’s not. And even if they do retcon it it’s still a really crappy thing to have done. And what do I mean, this is part of marvel trying to surprise fans through subverting expectations. And yes sometimes it’s nice, but other times you end up with a mess that leaves more questions than answers.

Take Endgame and Infinity war. Now I knew that Thanos was going to win in infinity war. It was a matter of how he would win. But part of my issue with infinity war is that it felt like it barely spent time exploring how the different characters would interact with each other because there were too many and it would have blocked the narrative from moving forward. Endgame had a similar issue but on top of that they were so focused on keeping everything locked up that it didn’t exactly feel like a cohesive movie. And as a result the character interactions and relationships fell quite short. Not only that but some of them made no sense, but taking a look at endgames flaws has happened enough.

So taking a look at wandavision I’m not upset that my therory is incorrect. I’m upset that one they literally did this to subvert expectations because they hate when their shows are predictable, and two people are rubbing it in our faces that we were wrong and we shouldn’t be upset because it was a theory. And what’s more is that they had an example of fans being correct and it was still surprising.

My mouth still dropped at the reveal that it was Agatha. I still was surprised even though I knew it was coming. I know a lot of people were. And I can say it was because of the fact that we got it right that we knew where it was going and it was executed in a way that still made it feel like a big reveal. So why then are they trying to surprise the fans with well it was Ralph duh haha got you.

Because for some reason marvel hates when people can predict something. Which makes me wonder why they went with the infinity war storyline and are seemingly going with the Skrull storyline if they don’t want fans to predict what’s happening? Why are they going with well known storylines from the comics if they don’t want anyone to guess what is happening? Especially if the fans know the storylines and end up becoming disappointed if you don’t include this one specific moment.

And this is an issue because it sets up fans to know how something will play out, then turning around to subvert expectations ending up with something that doesn’t quite make sense with the narrative they had set up and teased and the characters. It doesn’t work to take pre established stories and adapt them to the screen while trying to subvert expectations. You need to pick one or the other, you simply can not do both.

There’s a reason that people are so finicky when adaptations of books are brought to the screen. It’s because they enjoy those stories and they want to see it as close up on the screen as possible. They want to see how they imagine it. And yes it’s tricky because people imagine it many different ways, but with comics honestly you have a story board right there. And yes you will need to change certain things especially to fit in the budget and physics of real life. Not to mention erase some of the problematic social injustices found in the earlier comics.

And yes wandavision isn’t based on one comic story line. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be predictable. Take a look at some other examples that I can think of that either were predictable and good or subverted expectations in a positive way that didn’t confuse people.

Mandalorian: Luke Skywalker being brought in was a surprise. We knew that a Jedi might come, in fact it seemed quite likely that a Jedi would come to train Grogu. But the thing was we didn’t know who, we didn’t know if it would be Luke or another Jedi. Potentially it could have been one we hadn’t met, but we knew that one was coming and that still didn’t stop us from being surprised. And if it wasn’t Luke people wouldn’t have been mad because they left it ambiguous who the Jedi was until he was onscreen (unlike deliberately casting an actor that is known for a role then saying nope not him).

Mandalorian: This one is short but it’s a way to do both predictability and subverting expectations. The first episode of the second season was legitimately the plot from the 2003 game Knights of the Old Republic or Kotor for short. Fans of the game knew exactly how it would turn out, or at least how they would attempt to kill the dragon. They did do that, but unlike expected it didn’t work. So they tried a different tactic that paid off. As a kotor fan I expected this, I also expected the pearl at the end of the episode, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it, and honestly I rather enjoyed it and it was fun. And I think most kotor fans would agree.

A series of Unfortunate Events: The Netflix show not the movie. In the books Olaf’s bench people get killed off, in the show they made it so that these people survive. I didn’t expect that, and it was good. The writers were still able to make something that fans of the book knew exactly what was going to happen and the general way that things were going to happen. But they adjusted things so that there were some surprises to viewers who read the books. And none of the changes were done specifically to subvert expectations they were done to enhance the story in certain ways. And they do even if they weren’t completely expected. And it still allows me to enjoy the show.

Kotor: yes I’m talking about the game and yes I’m still obsessed with it despite it being so old but also spoilers for it follow so skip if you don’t wish to know.

Kotor follows the story of a human being, they discover slowly that they were once feared across the galaxy known as the Sith Lord Darth Revan. Now can you figure out the twist through context clues absolutely. But it was not only revolutionary for the time but also knowing it still doesn’t take away the surprise feeling for a lot of players (I’m still surprised pikachu face no matter how many times I play or rewatch the cut scene).

There are many more examples but these are the ones off the top of my head.

I’m not angry at the fact that they were trying to make it surprising. I’m angry at the fact that marvel knowingly did this, and there’s no resolution at all. It’s a throwaway scene for a throwaway character played by a known actor who is known for his role as quicksilver. If it was someone else and they did this it would not be as upsetting. But the fact that marvel did this and knew exactly who they were casting to just mislead the fans is inexcusable. And maybe this isn’t the end of the storyline, but right now it is. 12 hours after the finale it absolutely seems like the end of the storyline. And that’s why people are upset because it was such a clear this is what is happening, then they develop it into just this dude. They led on it was quicksilver and we don’t even get to see the rest of the conversation that Monica has with him. We get no resolution whatsoever. And that’s what hurts the most, if they had explained hey Agatha did this and managed to somehow do X Y or Z to have this random person have powers and these memories. Now it would be cheep and people would still be upset but not as much with the incomplete explanation and the throwing it in there because they had to.

If they really wanted to subvert expectations they one shouldn’t have brought Evan Peters in to play a quicksilver (I hate saying this because I was so exited). Two shouldn’t have gone with anything to do with Agatha or even Mephisto. And a lot of people would probably wonder who they could have gone with and Tbh I don’t remember who I saw said it but Mojo would make sense. Or hell they could have brought in Evan Peters and an alternate version of Wanda who is causing this to happen and stir the pot. Either way the way they executed it was extremely poorly done and that’s why people are upset.

So please consider that for people this would have made a huge statement for. X-men fans are drawn to the X-men for many reasons. And I would say that some of those reasons are that they belong to a minority group and feel represented in the X-men. Me I’m LGBT+ and despite having grown up in a very progressive area, there are people I interact with where I don’t feel like I can be myself or even feel comfortable coming out to. And that’s why I personally am attached to the X-men. And I’ve seen other people say similar things.

For people the X-men and mutants aren’t just characters. They’re characters that marginalized groups can relate to. They’re characters that they can see themselves in. This goes much more deep than my fan theory wasn’t correct. It’s a combination of crappy writing and Marvel attempting to be surprising and the fact that they had the perfect opportunity to introduce a cast of characters that represent struggles of marginalized communities and recognize that yes the world isn’t just filled with hero’s that are cis straight abled men and women. And even if it was people from another universe it still was a step in the right direction.

So please if you’re fine with this and took the time to read this don’t make fun of the people who are quite upset with the developments of the episode. A lot of us are upset for a deeper reason and seeing people go “haha you’re wrong you idiots.” Makes this feel that much more upsetting.

#wandavision spoilers #wandavision #peter maximoff #peitro maximoff #X-men #multiverse #Kotor #Mandalorian #asoue #a series of unfortunate events #wanda maximoff #marvel

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years ago

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fixing The Menagerie

The circumstances behind The Menagerie pose an interesting writing problem: how do you take an already shot, totally completed episode for an earlier version of a TV show that differs considerably from the version that actually made it to air, and turn it into an episode that you can use now, as part of that later version, in a way that actually makes sense for your audience? That would be challenging enough without the additional problems that 1.) you can't reshoot any of the original episode because you no longer have access to the sets, costumes, most of the cast, etc., and 2.) the whole reason you're doing this in the first place is because you can't get a completely new episode out in time to meet your air date, so whatever your framing device is it has to be something that can be shot and finished very quickly--and cheaply, because at absolutely no point in the making of this show has there been spare money to throw around.

When I recapped The Menagerie (eons ago, it now seems) I said in the conclusion to the second part that I thought the framing device used wasn't as effective as it could have been. So, I figured I’d put my money where my mouth was and see if I could come up with another one. Before I start I want to put out the same disclaimer I used for the Return of the Archons post: I am not a professional TV writer (or a professional anything) and I intend this only as a fun exercise and not an angry and serious screed about the writing quality of TOS, which I do very much love for being what it is. I can only offer what, in my opinion, would make a more enjoyable episode, which may not necessarily be what you would find to be a more enjoyable episode. And if you already greatly enjoy The Menagerie as it is, you probably won’t want to read this.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to take The Cage itself as written. It has its own problems, and that might be worth its own post at some point, but I’m not going to take it on here. We’ll assume The Cage exists exactly as it was produced, and the problem now is entirely focused on how to turn it into an episode—or two—of TOS.

(And, just to get it out of the way: I’m not going to talk about how either The Cage or The Menagerie play into Discovery, AOS, or the rest of Star Trek in general. It’s obviously a very important episode backstory-wise, but for this, right now, I’m just going talk about it purely as a TOS episode.)

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about The Menagerie for a moment. What’s wrong with it?

Well, the framing device could certainly have been worse. It’s not terrible. Hell, Part I even won a Hugo, so, guess I’m up against the Hugo committee on this one. But, there are a number of things that I find awkward about it.

In a general sense, there’s the way that, once the flashbacks start, the story is attempting to maintain two separate threads of tension: the flashback story, with the tension being on what’s going to happen to Pike, and the present-day story, with the tension being on what Spock is doing, why he’s doing it, and whether he’s going to wind up getting the death penalty for it. This second thread starts out well—by this point in TOS, we’ve gotten to know Spock well enough to know how out of character all this is for him, which makes the mystery quite gripping. However, once the flashback starts, the story struggles to maintain the tension of this second thread. The attempt to keep the present-day story as tense as the past story only results in breaks away from the action for scenes in the courtroom where something or someone stops Spock from showing the footage, which never results in anything because by the next commercial break they’re back at it. Most of these interruptions are either arbitrary (the screen goes off for no reason and then comes on again for no reason; fake!Mendez randomly decides he’s had enough and tries to stop things) or just not that interesting (Pike fell asleep), and with each one it only becomes more obvious that the only real purpose they’re serving is to pad out the framing story.

The resolution of the present-day story is also rather unsatisfying for a lot of reasons. After so much tension built up about what’s going on and why Spock is acting this way and is his life on the line and is Kirk’s career on the line and how’s he going to get out of this...it turns out that Mendez has been fake this whole time, so nothing he said or did since Kirk left the Starbase matters at all; Starfleet casually waves the whole thing aside with no repercussions, making all the build-up about Spock risking the only death penalty remaining in the Federation mean nothing whatsoever in the end; and we never really get a satisfactory answer as to why Spock insisted on carrying out his court martial the way he did. Sure, eventually the Keeper says the whole court martial was basically staged to stall Kirk so he wouldn’t focus on getting control of his ship back, but not only does that raise further questions—if Mendez was only ever an illusion sent by the Talosians, why did he try to stop the court martial several times? Why did the Talosians turn off the footage at a crucial point, and why did it come on again?--there’s also no reason given why Spock couldn’t just recount what happened himself, which could have taken up enough time if he was careful enough about it, instead of needing the Talosians to broadcast a video version of the events.

There’s also the simple fact that Pike’s ending is itself rather dubious. I suppose this one comes down to a difference of opinion between me and Gene Roddenberry (one of many) since both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character going to permanently stay with the Talosians, with no concern at all expressed about the fact that the Talosians are cruel, torture-happy, and frankly insufferable wannabe-slavemasters who see humans as nothing more than brute animals to be caged, bred and make to work. I said I wasn’t going to tackle The Cage here so I won’t go off about its ending, no matter how much it pisses me off. But The Menagerie is also at fault here, because it needlessly repeats the exact same problem (with a bit less sexism, but still). The ending of The Menagerie gives us no sign that the Talosians have reformed in any way, and no explanation as to why they suddenly care so much about Pike to go to all this trouble for him. We’re just expected to believe that Pike’s gonna go have a nice happy illusion-life with them even though the last time we saw them they were trying to breed a race of human slaves. Really, Gene? Really?

On that note, the treatment of disability in both The Cage and The Menagerie bothers me a great deal. The effect of Pike becoming disabled is to essentially strip him of all his autonomy. I mean no disrespect to Sean Kenney here, but if they’d replaced him with a mannequin it wouldn’t have made any difference at all to the episode, because in The Menagerie Pike is not a character, he’s a prop. We’re assured repeatedly that Pike thinks and feels as much as he ever did, but we have to be told that by other characters because the episode certainly never takes any opportunity to let us in on any of it. Here’s the sum total of what we know Pike thinks about the events of The Menagerie:

1. He doesn’t want to visit with Kirk and McCoy at the beginning of the episode but allows Spock to stay.

2. He tells Spock “no” when Spock tells him his plan.

3. He keeps repeating “no” the rest of that day, which everyone is confused by but no one makes any effort to understand.

4. He falls asleep at one point.

5. He votes for a guilty verdict for Spock during the court martial, when asked.

6. He says “yes” when asked if he wants to go live with the Talosians.

Pike is treated with sympathy and the respect due to his rank and history, but mostly he’s an object of pity. We’re told he can move his chair himself, but he appears to be confined to one small hospital room that’s not even set up for his needs, and he spends the entire episode being moved around by other people. Everyone talks about how bad his situation is, but only Spock attempts to do anything to improve it—and he does so knowing that Pike doesn’t want him to do it. When Pike tells him “No,” Spock doesn’t ask any questions, he doesn’t try to find out what part of this whole thing Pike is objecting to, he just overrides Pike’s objection on the assumption that Pike is only concerned about Spock doing something so very illegal, a concern he pretty much disregards. He turns out to be right—as far as we can tell—but for all the information Spock has at the time, Pike might have been saying, “No, I don’t want to live with the Talosians.”

It doesn’t need to be that way. Pike’s condition is certainly very severe, but as I mentioned in the recap, there are plenty of other things that could have been done for him, or at least attempted. And even if none of those were done, there are other ways that the episode could have developed his character, or at least treated him like a character. Spock’s discussion at the beginning of the episode could have been a mind meld that allowed us to hear Pike’s thoughts on the matter. Spock could have heard his objections and addressed them, and he and Pike could have come to come to an agreement and actually become co-conspirators instead of Pike spending the entire episode as a helpless hostage to Spock’s plan. We could have gotten a scene of Pike and McCoy interacting after Spock tells McCoy to look after Pike—McCoy’s not only highly suspicious at that point and unlikely to be greatly put off by Spock's order to not ask Pike any questions, he’s also the one who gives a whole speech about how cruel it is that Pike “can’t reach out, and no one can reach in”--so give us a scene where he does reach out! We could have had a scene of Kirk talking with Pike—he’s certainly got plenty to ask the man about, both in general and in regard to the current situation. All he has to do is put a little extra work into how to frame his questions. The Talosians could have delivered a message from Pike at the end, or one of them could have astral-projected in earlier to have a telepathic exchange with him. We could have seen Pike express himself by moving his chair, turning towards or away people when they talk to him, interjecting a “yes” or “no” into a conversation instead of only replying when asked something, or repeating a response incessantly to show that he’s emphatic about something. (Yeah, we kinda get the latter when he’s saying “no” over and over early in the episode, but that’s only treated as a “what could he possibly be trying to communicate??? oh, if only we knew!” moment.) There were so many ways Pike could have been treated as a character, as a person, instead of a plot element who exists to be pushed around in his chair and have speeches made about how tragic his situation is.

Both The Cage and The Menagerie end with a character who is disabled choosing to spend the rest of their lives isolated from the entire rest of humanity on a barren planet inhabited by jackass aliens because, as everyone around them nods and solemnly agrees, that’s a better fate for them than living among human society. To be clear, it’s not Pike and Vina seeking solutions to their problems that I object to. If Vina wants to be represented by what is essentially an avatar of her own choosing, or if Pike feels that an illusory world offers better quality of life for him, that’s entirely their right. But when life with the Talosians is set up as a situation so horrible that we see four characters literally willing to die rather than remain on Talos 4, and then have two disabled characters say “actually it’s better this way if I stay here,” you kind of wind up with a message that looks a lot like “being disabled is a fate worse than death.” I doubt that was intentional, at least not entirely, since we see other disabled characters in TOS who are treated considerably better—but there it is, all the same.

This is not to say that there’s nothing of value in The Menagerie’s framing story. The tension between Kirk wanting to trust his friend but being forced to act in authority over him because he’s undeniably done something very seriously against the rules, and he won’t tell Kirk why, is great while it lasts. Spock’s character is expanded considerably by showing us that there are some things he places above his honor and obligations as a Starfleet officer—and indeed above his own life. We see a bit of his history, a glimpse of a relationship with a former captain that he respects so much that Spock will put everything on the line to secure a better future for him; and we see how much he respects and values Kirk, that he foregoes the chance to explain himself—and thus gain an ally and aid in his cause—because to do so would put Kirk in danger as well. And we get that great little moment where Spock tells McCoy to call security on him and McCoy has absolutely no idea how to react. And we get backstory! And kind-of-continuity! Okay, it’s not much backstory, but by TOS standards it’s practically a goldmine.

I don’t want to throw all that away. But I think there must be some way to address the problems without totally losing the good parts.

It’s only fair, though, that any attempt to improve the episode should keep in mind the circumstances it was made under. I don’t know enough about budgeting and producing TV in the 1960s either generally in or in this specific case to know exactly what was available to them when it came to producing The Menagerie, so I’m just going to try to deduce roughly what we might have to work with based on what what was in the finished episodes:

Much of Part I and all of Part II take place in preexisting sets, either the Enterprise ones or the shuttlecraft interior set. The new sets include the Starbase 11 exterior—which is mostly a matte painting—Mendez’s office, Pike’s hospital room, and the Starbase computer room. The computer room is a redressed Engineering set; I suspect the hospital room is also a redressed existing set, but I don’t know for sure. It’s quite simple regardless, and is clearly mostly using existing pieces (the bed and the chair). Mendez’s office is likewise set up with pretty standard preexisting TOS set dressing pieces, with the exception of some cut-outs outside the window standing in for the Starbase exterior.

Discounting any background extras we have five new characters: Commodore Mendez, Piper, Chief Humbolt (the computer room guy), Lt. Hansen, and Pike himself. Of these, only Mendez and Pike have much significant screen time. So, we can assume that hiring an extensive guest cast is probably not on the table here.

Most of the original cast from The Cage are probably not available. Pike we know is definitely out—Jeffrey Hunter wasn’t willing to come back after The Cage failed, and probably would have been too expensive to hire for two episodes anyway. Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett were, obviously, still working on TOS, so presumably we could incorporate past-Spock and Number One if we really needed to. Since Malachi Throne was also on hand for The Menagerie, we could record new dialogue for the Keeper (as The Menagerie did indeed do), but presumably no new footage (Throne voiced the Keeper, but they and all the other Talosians were portrayed onscreen by female actors). I don’t know if any of the other original cast could have been gotten back, but since they weren’t, let’s assume we can’t use them.

Let’s also assume that all of the sets, costumes, makeup, etc., from The Cage are inaccessible. In reality I’m sure at least something was still kicking around in storage somewhere, or was reused for TOS, but there’s no point in trying to figure out exactly what, so for simplicity’s sake we’ll say anything we might want to use from The Cage has to be recreated from scratch, and if it can’t be then we can’t use it.

Because the entire reason this is going on in the first place is because the effects work was making TOS run behind schedule, we can’t have much in the way of effects for The Menagerie, especially post-production effects. There’s a shot of the planet Starbase 11 is on, a matte painting for the Starbase 11 exterior, a couple uses of the transporter, Pike’s chair and makeup, some shots of the Enterprise and the shuttle flying around in space, and some things being shown on screens—and I think that’s more or less about it.

So. If I was told that I had to take The Cage and wrap it up as a TOS episode with the above restrictions in mind, here’s some things I would keep in mind:

If we look at this from a starting-from-scratch perspective, it seems to me that if you have an episode that you need to incorporate into your main show that has an almost entirely different cast, and one of the characters from your original episode, who has never once been seen or even referenced in your main show, is played by an actor that you can’t get back, the simplest thing to do is to not show that character. We don’t actually need Pike himself to be onscreen for The Menagerie. That he would be at least mentioned in some capacity, sure, but we do in fact have the opportunity to avoid putting some poor dude through five hours of makeup by simply having Pike remain offscreen. We'll probably wind up putting someone else through five hours of makeup, but we'll get to that in a bit.

For me at least, if the Talosians are going to re-appear, they either need to still be villains in some sense or we need to know that they have begun to change their behavior in some way. To have them simply show up again and be treated as friendly after everything that happened in The Cage, with absolutely no acknowledgment of the fact that they did do everything they did in The Cage...it just doesn’t make sense, and it’s much too distracting for me to get past.

Although I’ve set the rule that I’m not going to change The Cage itself, The Menagerie being a sequel to those events opens up the opportunity to follow up on the ending of The Cage in a different direction. In other words, I’m going to rescue Vina, because her fate in The Cage really, really bothers me.

Insisting on the preexisting footage being literally shown as a video in-universe has always felt pointlessly awkward to me. It’s so weird that the characters have to stop and go, “Hang on, what? Where’d this come from? This can’t possibly be security footage. Why does it have different camera angles?” to forestall the exact same questions the audience were probably having at that point. And, as I said above, there’s really not a good explanation as to why the footage did have to be shown in that manner. It seems to me that it would be much simpler to have the flashback footage be just that: a flashback. A story which is being recounted, but not literally shown, in-universe. By doing so you avoid having to open up a bunch of dead-end plot threads about why the footage looks the way it does and is being shown the way it does. I think we can give the audience at least enough credit to assume they’ll understand that if a character starts recounting an event, and the scene cuts to footage of that event, that footage is a representation of what the character is saying, not literally something being shown in-universe.

I’m not going to bother with the whole “going to Talos 4 warrants the death penalty!!” thing. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to begin with, and it never actually pays off in The Menagerie. We can manage a better source of tension than that, I think.

All of this would ultimately take my version of The Menagerie in a pretty different direction than the actual episode, I admit. It's a rather drastic change, but, if I was tasked with writing a framing story for using The Cage in TOS, here's how I'd do it:

The Enterprise is out tooling around doing their usual business when Uhura picks up a distress call from a ship stranded in space. It’s very faint, distant, and there’s something odd about it, but of course they’re gonna follow up on it because that’s how they roll. So they head off in the direction of the call, but the funny thing is that as they get closer, Uhura says that the source of the distress call appears to be moving around. They follow it, send some hails, and finally get back a scratchy, staticky response: it’s coming from a ship that’s been heavily damaged, and the crew is no longer able to steer it, so it’s drifting erratically through space. Kirk has Uhura send a hail: “We’ve received your signal. Keep broadcasting it and we’ll find you.”

They keep following the ship. It’s difficult—the call is weak, and the Enterprise has to go carefully or risk overshooting it. After they’ve been chasing it for a while, Spock points out that they should be wary of entering a nearby star system, because it contains a planet all Federation ships are warned to avoid. Kirk, of course, doesn’t want to give up on the damaged ship, but Spock steps over to his chair and quietly says, “Captain...I should warn you that it may be the lesser of two evils to abandon this ship, rather than risk going too close to Talos 4.”

Kirk, of course, is stunned to hear Spock say this, and asks what makes Talos 4 so dangerous. Spock says it would take rather a long time to explain. Kirk says that Spock almost sounds like he’s familiar with the place, and Spock replies, “More than familiar, captain. I’ve been there before.”

[dramatic sting, cut to commercial]

Since it looks like the damaged ship will take a while to track down, Kirk has McCoy, Scotty and Spock convene in a briefing room to hear Spock’s story. Spock gives a short introduction: “What I am about to tell you, gentlemen, occurred as I said thirteen years ago, when the Enterprise was under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. I’ve pulled up the log entries of Captain Pike pertaining to this time to provide his own perspective on the matter, as it was he that had the closest encounter with the Talosians. At the time, the Enterprise had only recently escaped a disastrous encounter on Rigel 7 which had resulted in the deaths of three crewmen and injuries to several more, including myself. Some of the injuries were beyond the capacity of the ship’s doctors to treat, so we were en route to the Vega colony for treatment when we began receiving a distress signal...”

Spock’s voice-over fades out over a transition to the Cage footage. We watch that--perhaps interspersed with the occasional bit of narration from Spock, or a question from Kirk or McCoy or Scotty--until about the point where the landing party encounters the fake survivors' camp and Pike is captured by the Talosians. Then Spock is suddenly interrupted by Sulu calling Kirk to the bridge. Everyone hurries up to the bridge, where Uhura reports that the distress call has suddenly disappeared. Sulu says it's not just that: somehow, he doesn't understand how or why, his sensors are suddenly showing that they're not on the same course or even in the same place that they were only moments ago. Somehow, they've wound up in the Talos star system--and they're heading directly for Talos 4.

"It is just as I feared," Spock says gravely. "This has all been a trap."

Kirk orders Sulu to change course, and he tries—but somehow the ship doesn’t divert even a little. It’s like the helm just isn’t responding. Kirk does all the usual things, telling Scotty to do something, etc, nothing’s working, and then Uhura reports that they’re receiving a hail. And it appears to be coming from Talos IV.

Naturally Kirk tells her to put it on. The voice on the other end is staticky and faint. "Greetings. Is this...the Enterprise?"

"This is the Enterprise. I'm Captain James Kirk."

Silence for a moment. Then the voice on the other end, obviously surprised, says, "Captain Kirk? Not Captain Pike?"

"Captain Pike no longer commands this vessel."

There's a long pause. "I see. We were...in error. We apologize for the deception, Captain Kirk. It was important that we bring Captain Pike to this planet, but we feared that his...past experiences here...would leave him unwilling to come close enough to hear our message.”

“That would be a most logical decision for Captain Pike, were he here,” Spock says coldly. “Considering the nature of those experiences.”

“You speak as though you are familiar with what transpired here before, then.”

“I am First Officer Spock. I was present aboard the Enterprise as Science Officer during the events thirteen years ago.”

There’s an even longer pause. When the voice returns, the signal is even more crackly than ever. “Our apologies, this communication is...difficult to maintain. We must wait to deliver the message in full until you are...closer to our planet. However...until then...you may be assured, Spock...that this time...” [pause for more crackling] “This time...the intent of the Talosians...is peaceful.”

The signal cuts out, and Uhura can’t get it back. The ship appears to still be locked on course for Talos 4. With seemingly nothing else to do for the moment but wait, everyone goes back to the briefing room, where Spock continues recounting Pike’s story.

At some point, Spock has to pause so everyone can go take a break, and everyone else files out of the room while he remains behind for a moment, staring at the computer contemplatively. Then suddenly, we hear a voice saying, “Spock--” and Spock turns around in surprise. We can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, only a soft glow at the edge of the camera, and then the scene cuts away.

Kirk’s grabbing a nap in his quarters when he’s woken by an urgent message: they’re still some way from Talos 4, but the ship appears to have stopped moving all on its own. He hurries up to the bridge, where Sulu tells him that it seems like they’re having some kind of computer error with the helm, but they can’t track it down yet. In the middle of all this, Uhura whirls around and exclaims, “Sir! Shuttle bay reports Mr. Spock has knocked out the tech on duty and is boarding one of the shuttles!” Kirk yells for security to get down there, but they are, of course, too late: Spock rigged the shuttle bay doors to open automatically and flies out before they can stop him.

Stunned and confused, Kirk orders Uhura to raise the shuttle, which she does.

“Spock, are you out of your mind?!”

“Negative, captain. My reasoning is quite sound, though I regret I cannot explain it to you just yet.”

Kirk yells for the tractor beam to grab the shuttle, but Sulu can’t get the tractor beam to respond either.

“You need not be concerned, captain. I believe it is well within Mr. Scott’s abilities to repair the computer in due time.”

“You did this to the computer?”

“It was necessary. You will find the transporter similarly incapacitated. I could not risk you coming after me, or stopping me. Not yet.”

“Spock—do you know what you’re risking by doing this? You were the one who warned me not to go near Talos 4!”

“Yes, captain. And it is because I know what the Talosians are capable of that I am doing this. Either they are telling the truth, in which case there is no danger...or they are not, in which case it is better that I alone risk doing this.” A pause. “Jim...wait 24 hours for me. If I do not contact you by then...you must leave in all haste.”

“I’m not leaving you behind!”

“You must. 24 hours.” And with that, Spock ends the call. As Uhura’s trying fruitlessly to reestablish contact with him, she suddenly looks up and says, “Captain...we’re receiving a message from...Fleet Captain Pike?”

“What?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well...put him on.”

So Uhura puts Pike on speaker, and Kirk says, “We’re, er, in the middle of a bit of a situation, sir...what can I do for you?”

“I might ask what I can do for you, captain. Mr. Spock left a message requesting that I contact you.”

Stunned pause for a moment. “He did what?” Kirk finally says.

“About an hour ago. I regret I wasn’t able to return his call earlier, but it’s the middle of the night here...Kirk, what’s this all about?”

Kirk sighs. “It’s a long story, captain, and I don’t entirely understand it myself. Uhura, patch this into the briefing room...it’ll take a while to tell.”

A little later, we see Kirk and McCoy sitting in the briefing room as Kirk finishes up explaining everything to Pike. “What do you make of that, captain?”

“I’m not sure what to make of it, Kirk. I can’t imagine why Spock would want to go to Talos 4. All Federation starships have been warned away from there ever since our encounter with them, and Spock’s well aware of that.”

“Yes...Captain, I confess I’m not familiar with the entire story of that encounter myself...Spock was telling us about it before he, er, left, but he hadn’t finished. Could you enlighten us about the rest of it? We do have your logs, of course, but you might have more information--”

“Yes, I see what you mean. I’m not sure I’ll be able to help, but I can at least tell you what I know...”

Pike continues telling the story where Spock left off. Around about the point where Pike and the others escape from the cell, there’s a call from the bridge reporting that their sensors show that the shuttle has landed on Talos 4. Frustrated, Kirk wonders once again just what Spock thinks he’s doing down there.

We then cut to a shot of what looks kind of like the barren landscape of Talos 4, only this time there seems to be a small surface settlement among the cliffs. Then we see Spock entering a small, plainly decorated room with windows looking out to the rest of the settlement. “I am here, as agreed,” he says, and then the camera turns to show us a figure wearing a robe and a hood sitting at a table in the middle of the room.

“Welcome, Mr. Spock," the figure says. "Won’t you sit down?”

Back aboard the ship, Pike finishes telling Kirk and McCoy the story.

“So...that’s all of it?” Kirk says.

“Yes. We left Talos 4 and never looked back. Never heard anything from the Talosians, either, but Starfleet marked the place as too dangerous to visit just in case.”

“Poor Vina,” McCoy murmurs.

Pike sighs. “Leaving her there is one my greatest regrets. She seemed determined to stay, but...Even put in a request to go back, once, but Starfleet wouldn’t allow it. Too risky. I often wonder what happened to her. If she was really happy with them after all. But, as you may have gathered, Kirk, none of this explains just what the devil Spock thinks he’s doing--”

He’s interrupted by a call from Uhura: “Captain—message coming from Mr. Spock!”

“Put him on! Spock, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Quite well, captain. Has Captain Pike contacted the ship yet?”

“I’m on the line right now,” Pike says. “Spock, what do you think you’re playing at?”

“Ah, captain. I have someone here who wishes to speak to you.”

We then cut back to Spock sitting at the table with the figure, who takes his communicator and says, “Hello...captain.”

Pike is too stunned to speak for a moment. “Vina...? Is that you?”

“The very same. I’ve missed you.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

Between them, Spock and Vina explain just what is going on. There's been a change in Talosian society since the Enterprise left. Not all of the Talosians agreed with the plan to breed a slave race to begin with—others felt that they could, and should, attempt to reclaim the surface themselves. The incident with Captain Pike brought matters to a head, and a rebellion erupted shortly afterward. Once in power, the new leaders dedicated their efforts to repairing their ancestors’ machines and establishing a colony on the surface.

The reason the Enterprise was lured back to Talos 4 was Vina: she's had medical problems as a result of the crash and the botched surgery, and it's been getting worse for years, to the point that she likely won't live much longer if she doesn't get proper treatment. The new Talosian leaders wanted to make up for what their predecessors had done and gave her the best care they could, but simply didn't have the human medical knowledge to fix the problem. So Vina asked if they could help her get home, instead. The Talosians were concerned, however, that the Federation wouldn't believe a genuine call for help, given their history, so they hatched the plan to lure the Enterprise, and Pike with it, back to Talos 4. They've been waiting for quite a while, listening to subspace chatter, hoping the Enterprise would come near. Once it did, they put out the illusion of the damaged ship to bring the Enterprise close enough that they could maintain an illusion over the helm controls, making sure the helmsmen were not altering their course as they thought they were.

When they discovered that Pike was no longer aboard the Enterprise, they instead sent a telepathic message to Spock, hoping that his own experience with the Talosians would make him see the difference between their current society and the old one, and thus be more likely to believe them. They had to wait until the ship got close to Talos 4, because the new society of Talosians have been deliberately letting their psychic powers weaken, attempting to break the addiction to illusion that was holding them back from reclaiming the surface. They were able to keep up the illusion of the damaged ship for a while, but couldn't manage that and the illusion on the helm and extended contact with the Enterprise at the same time, making the whole thing very nearly fall apart at one point.

Kirk demands to know why Spock ran off on his own, and Spock explains that while he found the Talosians' message plausible, a risk remained that this was all an elaborate set-up. They might have been attempting another pass at the plan that failed thirteen years ago. If that was the case, Spock would be the least risky member of the crew to make contact with them, since as a non-human he wouldn't be suitable for their plans. Since he knew Kirk would never agree to that, he took the shuttle and hacked the ship's computers to ensure that they wouldn't be able to follow him, at least for a while. He now feels confident that this is not a trap, though, as the Talosians' powers have weakened enough that his own mental defenses are strong enough to mostly see through them.

So Vina accompanies Spock back to the shuttlecraft, and they fly back to the ship. Vina's taken to Sickbay while Kirk confronts Spock about stealing the shuttlecraft. Spock says he'll accept all punishment, but felt he had to do it--he saw what almost happened to Pike on Talos 4, and couldn't risk the same fate happening to Kirk. But he also felt he owed it to Pike to investigate Vina's story, and help her return if that was truly what she wanted. Kirk lets the whole matter go, because of course he does, telling Spock not to try that shit again because he can't lose his best officer and all that.

Kirk and Spock go to visit Sickbay, where McCoy reports that with proper Federation medical care Vina's prognosis is good. Kirk wants to talk to her, but McCoy tells him to wait because she's got another visitor. Kirk glances around the doorway and sees Vina sitting up in bed looking at a video monitor, from which Pike's voice is coming. Kirk smiles and says he'll come back later.

Everyone goes back to the bridge, and with the computer damage now fixed, they're preparing to leave, when Uhura reports that there's a call coming from Talos 4. Kirk has a short conversation with the Talosian on the other end, who is glad to hear that Vina will be alright. They also ask that Kirk relay a message to Pike, extending their apologies for what he went through, which Kirk assures them he will. He then adds that the Federation would likely be willing to open trade negotiations with the new Talosian government, and the Talosian says they may take them up on that. And with that, the ship flies off.

Most of this story would only require the existing Enterprise sets, and potentially some brief shots of the shuttle interior. The only new locations needed would be the Talosian settlement exterior, which could be a matte painting, and the inside of the building where Spock meets Vina, which wouldn't require much dressing. The only non-main-cast characters would be Pike, Vina, and the Talosian that contacts the Enterprise. The Talosian is a voice-only role. Pike is also a voice-only role, and would require someone who can approximate Jeffrey Hunter's voice, but it's a lot easier to find a sound-alike than someone who's a sound-alike and a look-alike--plus Pike would be thirteen years older than in The Cage, which allows some leeway. I don't know if Susan Oliver would have been willing/able to come back to play Vina, but if she wasn't, a hood, wig, careful camera shots and some old-age makeup would probably serve well enough to disguise another actress. The only special effect needed is a bit of glowiness for the Talosian that appears to Spock just out of frame.

As for the fate of Pike himself, I don't want to erase a disabled character, but I also don't really feel that Pike's appearance in The Menagerie does any justice to him as a disabled character. Did Gene always envision that kind of fate for him or did he simply seize upon it as a plot device in a desperate moment? I don't know, so in the end I decided to leave it more or less open. There would be considerable leeway for multiple options that would still allow him to serve the same role in this episode: he could be commanding another ship, he could retired and settled down somewhere, he could have suffered an accident as he did in canon and spend this entire episode talking through a voice synthesizer. Imagine whatever one feels most suitable to you.

This is only my own take on the story. I know it would have considerable repercussions to later Star Trek canon and I'm not going to make the claim that those repercussions themselves would be better than what actually happened. It's certainly a more hopeful ending than The Menagerie, on the whole, which may not be everyone's cup of tea. But it was an interesting exercise.

#trek talk #1.11 The Menagerie Part One #1.12 The Menagerie Part 2 #fix-it post #fixing The Menagerie

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exxar1 · 4 years ago

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Episode 11: New Believer, New Faith, and a New Vow

2/7/2021

- 1 -

Good morning! It’s a beautiful Sunday here in Las Vegas. I have much to talk about so I’m just going to get right into it.

It’s hard to believe we’re already a full month into the new year. This year for me has been very rewarding thus far. For starters, I have had no trouble keeping up with resolutions 1 and 4. (For a refresher, you can scroll back through my previous posts to the one from New Year’s Eve.) I have found time each day to read my Bible and pray, and I have had little difficulty in maintaining a pleasant attitude and a smile in my daily encounters with my co-workers and customers. As expected, though, that latter one has been tested a few times by the occasional sour apples that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. But I’ve surprised myself every time by my patience and my ability to keep a calm and pleasant demeanor. (Those of you who have known me for a long time will understand how truly remarkable that is for me.) It’s simply another testament to the power of God to change our basic attitudes when we are willing to let Him.

I’ve also made great strides in resolution #3, and that’s where I’m going to spend the bulk of my time on this post.

Have you ever sought something – therapy, a particular medication, advice from a friend or colleague – thinking that it might help with one problem, only to be pleasantly surprised that one, the result helped in many other ways you hadn’t anticipated; and two, that the change/outcome/counseling exceeded your initial expectations by such a great magnitude that you couldn’t believe you hadn’t sought this help long ago? That feeling has been with me for over three weeks now, and it’s only getting better with each session.

One of my first tasks in tackling resolution #3 was to consult a pastor on this issue of homosexuality and the Bible. I needed to know what God really said in His Word on this controversial topic, and since I have yet to find a home church here in Las Vegas the only pastor that I am casually acquainted with is Mark Sjostrom of the church in which I was born and raised back in Twin Falls, Idaho.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twin Falls or this particular church, allow me to forge a brief rabbit trail here to give you a short history. Grace Baptist Church was founded in 1975, and, back then, it was just a one-story, oblong, red-bricked building, its main auditorium forming a bubble at one end, at the intersection of Eastland Drive and Falls Avenue on the eastern edge of town. It’s still that same building today, only now there’s a massive, two-story gymnasium/classroom on the other side of the back parking lot, and a third, smaller, two-room annex that sits behind the gym. The first of those latter two structures was needed in the early eighties when the church launched its own private school, Twin Falls Christian Academy. I was in kindergarten when the gymnasium was under construction. I have many memories of watching my dad and some of the other men in church up on the scaffolds, putting together the walls, while I waited for my mom to pick me up after school, which was held in the various Sunday school rooms in the church. A few years later, I would be attending high school in the classrooms above that gym.

In the years since I have grown and left Twin Falls, I have come back to that church on the occasional Sunday morning worship service when I’m home for a vacation visit. I’ve always had mixed feelings every time I set foot beyond the threshold of its main doors (see my previous posts about my struggles during my teen years.) It’s the same feeling you get when you come back to something that is at once familiar and strangely comforting, but also brings with it unpleasant memories and the pain of old wounds that have never quite healed.

Grace’s pastor since 2005 has been Mark Sjostrom (pronounced ‘shos-trum’), and I didn’t know him that well when I decided to consult him on this issue. Our only interaction thus far had been a brief handshake and a greeting after those sporadic Sunday morning worship services, and I wasn’t sure he would even remember me when I nervously texted him a brief ‘Hello’ a month ago. He responded within a few minutes, and I re-introduced myself and then gave a short explanation of what I needed. We agreed on a time and date for a phone call, and I emailed him the next day with a longer explanation of what I needed to talk about with him.

That letter was a somewhat detailed account of what most of you are already familiar with: my struggle in high school with keeping my secret of being gay while trying to fit in socially and eventually declaring myself an Atheist after being expelled from school my senior year a month before graduation. It was probably about 2 pages, and I was now very nervous after clicking the ‘Send’ button. I suppose now is a good time to tell you something else about me.

I have been one of ‘those people’ for all of my adult life. You know who I’m talking about: the people who silently judge the other customers in the book store who pause to browse the Self Help section; or the people who quietly scoff when anyone talks about their latest therapy session with their friends or coworkers at lunch in the break room. I’m glad I don’t need self-help or therapy, I’ve always thought. But, then again, good for them, I guess. I’m glad I have all my issues worked out, and I’m a stable, normal adult. I’ve never had any issues that were so bad I needed to get help from an armchair counselor’s latest best seller or a psychiatrist’s couch.

Hhmmm. My life, lately, has been chock full of irony.

When the time came to dial Pastor Sjostrom’s number my level of nervousness was up to a ten out of ten on the anxiety scale. I hadn’t felt like this since high school when it was opening night of our Agatha Christie play, and I was one of the main cast. I had prepared a detailed outline of what I wanted to discuss, and, after a few initial pleasantries, Mark quickly put me at ease. I was pleasantly caught off guard by his relaxed, casual personality. I found immediately that he was very easy to talk to, and my anxiety level dropped to a ‘three’ in the first five minutes. Pastor Sjostrom is definitely one of those people who has found the right calling. His warm, personable demeanor made me feel like I was talking to an old friend over coffee at Starbucks, and after about ten minutes of getting to know one another, he brought the conversation back around to my letter.

Here’s where my second surprise occurred. Mark was bluntly honest. I had told him that I believed I was saved in 1985, when I was seven, after the evening service of one of our church’s mid-summer week long revival meetings. “Neal,” Mark said rather pointedly, “after reading your description of your life after high school, I gotta say that it doesn’t sound like you were saved. Your behavior and your atheism doesn’t reflect the change that is described in the Bible.” He went on to explain that salvation is a change brought about the presence of the Holy Spirit in the new believer. There is a desire to learn more about God and His Word. There is a desire to serve him and to live one’s life in surrender to Him.

I had to pause and think about that. And, doggone it, you know what? He was right. And the reason I knew that was because I had only to look at the last four months of my life, even more so since I had returned from Christmas vacation. That desire – that hunger – to know God had never been present in my life until September 17, 2020. That was the night I surrendered to Christ in an awkward, fumbling prayer on the way home from work. Ever since, I have had nothing but a desire to read my Bible and change my life. I told pastor this, and he agreed. It was evident now that I was truly saved. That evidence was lacking in my youth and my adult life up to this point.

My third major surprise of that initial counseling session – yes, that was what is was – was when pastor told me he was assigning me homework for our next weekly conversation. He wanted me to read the book of 1 John. He explained that we would eventually get to the issue of homosexuality, but that we needed to cover this ground first. I agreed to the assignment, and we hung up. I glanced at the clock in the upper corner of my computer screen. We had talked for almost an hour. I immediately reached for my Bible and opened it to 1 John. I read the whole book in about ten minutes.

1 John is a primer for the new believer. John states clearly and succinctly what makes a Christian a Christian. Chapter 1:9 was immediately familiar to me from my Sunday School days: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So was chapter 2:9: “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now.” John goes to say in chapter 5:2: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments.” And, finally, verse 20 of that same chapter: “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”

Yep. All of that book made perfect sense. Part of that was because I had absorbed so much of God’s Word in my youth that it had sat in the deep recesses of my brain for all of my life, and much of it had begun floating to the surface in the last several months – like debris from an ancient wartime submarine that has been recently dislodged from its ocean grave. Except that these artifacts – Bible verses, fragments of sermons, some of Mr. Walker’s proverbs from Bible class – were not dirty, soggy, disgusting relics. They were bits of priceless treasure, and I’ve been rediscovering them in dribs and drabs ever since.

I have had three sessions with Pastor Sjostrom, and they are each the highlight of my week. I very nearly broke down after hanging up from our first talk. I felt a combination of immense relief, peace and calm. Not to be overly melodramatic, but it was if something had dislodged in my very soul, like a sliver of wood just beneath the skin that has never quite come all the way out. I realized with immediate clarity that I was getting far more than just a pastor’s opinion on a particular issue for my book. I had stumbled on to something else, something I needed far more: spiritual counseling and guidance for my new life as a child of God.

I am a new believer.

That seems so strange to say out loud. I was raised in the church. I had at least a third of the Bible memorized by the time I was twelve. I knew all the major stories from the Old Testament – the creation of the world; God’s covenant with Abraham; Jacob, Esau and Isaac; Joseph sold into slavery into Egypt and God’s eventual deliverance of the Israelites from their captivity there; the introduction of the ten commandments and the Mosaic Law; Esther, Ruth, King Saul, David, the Book of Psalms, the prophet Isaiah – I knew all of it by heart by the end of my days in elementary school. Same for the New Testament – the birth of Christ; all of His teachings and parables; His death on the cross; His resurrection after three days; the founding of His church after His ascension back to Heaven – it was all as familiar to me by the time I walked away from high school as the mathematical precepts of basic addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

I had assumed all this time that I was still saved. I thought I had really, genuinely believed in Jesus as my savior that long ago night in 1985 when I was seven years old. And maybe I did. But, for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit had not come into me back then. I was not truly saved. (This is perhaps worthy of a more detailed discussion and analysis later on down the road.) Whatever the case, I am most definitely a new believer now. The Holy Spirit is alive and well within me, and I have only a single desire and purpose: to know the God that created me, and to serve him with all my heart, soul and mind.

Pastor and I did discuss my homosexuality issue in our second talk, and that, along with the extracurricular reading I’ve been doing on this topic, has enabled me to finally reconcile what I couldn’t in my teen years when I first fought with this problem.

- 2 -

If I am gay, and God – through His written word – has condemned what I am as a sin, how can I be His child and serve Him as he commanded me to do? That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with anew for the last few months. I began this new journey in last September with the premise that I was born gay. I’ve believed that my whole adult life. I proceeded from that assumption through all of my reading and research these last few weeks. But if God made me this way, why would He then condemn as an abomination the very thing that I am? Is He not contradicting Himself? How can this be?

Pastor Sjostrom asked that very question in our second talk. He then went on to answer it by explaining that my unnatural desire for the same sex was a cause of the Fall, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is what led their descendants to the sins of idolatry, fornication, sexual perversion, and many, many others. Yes, I was born gay. But that’s not how God made me. There’s a very distinct difference.

His explanation corroborated what I have come to discover in the last couple weeks as I’ve read Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church from the Counterpoints series. Author and editor Preston Sprinkle gathered four prominent Christian authors, scholars, and theologians to discuss this issue – two for and two against. I will not go into great detail of what these authors debate and discuss, mainly for the sake of page and time, but also because this issue is not anywhere near as complicated as it seems.

All four of the contributing authors to the Two Views book have used the following Bible verses/passages as the foundation of their arguments:

1.) The creation story in Genesis 1 and 2.

2.) Genesis 19:4-11 (Sodom & Gomorrah)

3.) Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13

4.) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

5.) 2 Corinthians 5:17

6.) Romans 1:18-32, emphasis on verses 26-28

7.) 1 Timothy 1:9-10

Those authors have also drawn from extra-Biblical material such as the writings of Philo, a Jewish historian who was a contemporary of the apostle Paul; the Apocrypha; the writings of Saint Augustine; and various other books – most written in the last 50 years – on sociology, sexuality and anthropology in the ancient world.

Here’s an example of one of one of the arguments for the church’s endorsement of homosexuality. One of Two Views’ contributors, Megan Defranza argues that there were many people in Biblical times that were born with no distinct male or female genitalia or other defining sexual characteristics. These “intersex individuals” were often referred to as eunuchs by the people of that time, and many of them were used as sex slaves. Megan claims that Genesis 1 is “…a theological account describing creation in broad categories, not an exact scientific inventory of all of God’s good creatures.” She goes on to say that Adam and Eve were not the exclusive, ideal models for all of man and womankind. They were, rather, just the broad categories; that the birth of eunuchs and other such of types of intersex people prove that God would welcome the church’s acceptance of gays, lesbians and transgenders since they have been born that way, and their sexual desires are natural to them. She claims that God was not condemning the eunuchs and other similar people in those verses/passages I listed above. Those condemnations were for the ones who had turned deliberately turned away from God to worship idols and indulge their sinful lusts.

There’s a lot more detail to Megan’s argument, especially regarding the eunuchs and their forced sexual slavery to their male masters, but it’s not worth going into here. The other three contributing authors give similar arguments, citing external sources in addition to scripture, to support their particular view. Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes, the two that are opposed to the church’s condoning of homosexuality and gay marriage, give the stronger of the four arguments. Two Views opens with Megan’s and William Loader’s essays (the other author who falls on the affirming and open acceptance side of this debate), but by the time I reached the end of their arguments, I already knew which side of this issue I was going to fall on.

Wesley Hill and Stephen Holmes – as well as Pastor Sjostrom – present a much stronger, sounder case for why the Christian church, no matter the denomination, should be condemning ALL forms of homosexuality as clearly as God does. My own Bible reading and prayer showed me this after only a few weeks. I don’t really need to read all the other books on this topic to know the truth. To be completely honest, I had a pretty good idea of what the end of this journey would look like before I even started it. All the verses from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and 1st Timothy that deal with this specific issue are quite clear. It is stated over and over: homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God. Paul stated it best in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

That word “effeminate” in the KJV is translated from the original Greek word that Paul used: arsenokoitai. This is a compound word: arsen – male; koite – bed. “Male bedders”, in other words; those men who sleep with other men. In the NIV translation, the word “effeminate” is replaced with the phrase “men who sleep with other men”. The only other passage that Paul uses that word is in 1 Timothy 1:8-10 (NKJV):

“But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine…”

The meaning of these two passages is quite clear: those that practice any or all of those sins listed will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are not true believers and followers of Christ. And thus, any church that not only allows its homosexual members to remain in their sin, but also performs gay marriage, is not a true church of God.

And such were some of you.

God has commanded those that follow Him and declare His name to turn from their wickedness and be transformed. Those that believe on His name and repent of their sins will no longer practice those sins listed in the passages I quoted above. That’s the meaning of the phrase, “…and such were some of you.” Well, I have definitely been transformed. I can feel the Holy Spirit working in me. And, because of that, I have no other choice. If I am to be faithful to my Lord and Creator, if I surrender myself completely to His will, I must take a vow to turn away from my sin nature. I cannot indulge in the “lusts of the flesh”, as Paul says in Romans, if I am to call myself a true Christian. I am now a child of God, and His will alone must govern all I say and do.

But, even more important than those passages I listed and quoted above, is the book of Genesis, chapter two. God created Adam first and then He decided it wasn’t good for man to be alone. So God made the woman out of Adam’s rib, and he called her ‘Eve”. Then, in verse twenty-four, God said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This chapter, more than any other passage in the Bible, clearly and explicitly demonstrates what God had intended from the very beginning. The only natural desire of the flesh was for the opposite sex: man for woman and woman for man. That was God’s original plan.

Unfortunately for us, Adam and Eve did not resist the serpent’s temptation to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After the Fall, their perfect, pure natures were corrupted by sin, and that corruption was passed unto their children, and their children’s children. Part of that corruption was the perversion of the natural, normal sexual desire. Men lusted after men and women for women. Even though the subsequent passages in Genesis which describe mankind’s deplorable state before the Great Flood never state it specifically, it is not unreasonable to assume that more than just homosexuality was a problem. Bestiality, pedophilia, rape and incest were very likely abundant among the first few generations of man, as well as the worship of false idols and complete rejection of God. Why else would God have felt the need to punish his creation by wiping them from the face of the Earth, save for Noah and his family?

As the old saying goes, ‘God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’. I’ve always hated that pithy, snarky retort whenever I had to defend my sexuality to anyone who tried to tell me I was living in sin. But it’s true. God created only Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve; not Melissa and Eve; not Adam, Eve, and some other non-gender, non-binary person.

Just Adam and Eve.

Man and woman were joined in holy matrimony and, until the Fall, they lived in perfect peace and union with their Lord and Creator. Anything that deviates from that original, holy standard that God still demands of His children today, is a sin. That includes homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, incest, idolatry and devil worship, to name a few. Anyone that willfully practices or engages in any of those things and does not repent cannot call himself a true believer in Christ. Nor can any church that not only openly endorses homosexuality but also performs gay marriage can call themselves a true church of Christ.

So then, what now? If I accept that my sexuality is a byproduct of my sin nature, and that God, in fact, did not make me this way, how can I best serve Him? I’m still gay. That hasn’t changed. (And, yes, I’m sure. I’m watching last week’s episode of The Resident as I write this. Matt Czuchry and Manish Dayal are among the best male eye candy on TV right now.) I still desire a physical relationship with another man. (Either of the aforementioned actors would be especially nice.) But that desire – as well as the act – is a sin. God has made that clear in his Word. After some more talk with Pastor Sjostrom, I finally came to an answer – or, at least, part of one.

- 3 -

I mistakenly assumed that after I asked Christ into my heart, after I surrendered myself to God, that my sin nature would be transformed. I thought what many torn, conflicted gay Christians and their family have thought: with enough prayer, genuine repentance, and strong faith I would no longer be a homosexual. God would change my unnatural desire, and I would be sexually attracted to women instead of men. I would throw out all the symbols of my gay pride that I had collected over the years – t-shirts, bracelets, baseball caps, the rainbow colored Apple watch bands – and I would begin my new life as a heterosexual man. 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Yes, it would be hard at first, but God and I would make this work, glory hallelujah amen!

But that’s not how salvation works. Yes, there was a transformation, but not quite the kind that I was expecting. It’s hard to put into words exactly what I felt in the weeks and months following that quiet prayer on that car ride home from work late the night of September 17, 2020. I knew for sure that something was different. To begin with, there was an almost instant peace and calm that settled over my entire being. All the anxiety, the fear, and the worry about the state of the world around me that had been plaguing me for many weeks melted away. In its place was a quiet, firm assurance that, no matter what happened from then on, I was in the hands of God. He would take care of me.

And then, in the days and weeks that followed that moment of salvation, I began to feel more than just spiritual peace and tranquility. The first was a hunger – an insatiable, ravenous desire to read my Bible. I had only the app on my iPad, and I started with Genesis 1. Every night, before bed, I would read two or three chapters. And then I would pray. It was awkward and nothing like the prayers that I heard time and again from my dad or my teachers in high school or my pastor back then. I stumbled over my words, I repeated myself, I kept forgetting what I wanted to say. And I still felt weird doing it. It was like I was talking to myself. But I kept praying nonetheless.

Gradually, as Christmas loomed closer and closer, and the more I read my Bible and talked to God, I felt something stronger inside of me. But it wasn’t anything physical, like an emotion. It was…something else, something in my soul. I imagined this new feeling as a few drops of red ink falling into a bowl of clear water. At first, the drops fall straight down, coloring only a little bit of the water. But then the ink begins to slowly spread, crimson tendrils that stretch outwards, eventually turning the whole water into the color of blood. That’s what it felt like was happening inside of me. My soul – the very thing that made me me was being changed from the inside out. And it felt damn good!

It was after my Christmas vacation, after ten days of rest and relaxation with my family in Idaho, that I noticed an even bigger change. When I returned to the daily grind of my two jobs, I realized that my whole attitude – and, by extension, my whole outlook on life – had been transformed. I was no longer the angry, anxious, frustrated, fearful man that was always pissed about something – usually the people who were my customers. Before, I was short tempered, impatient, always inwardly complaining whenever those around me were being difficult or annoying me in some way. Now, however, I was at peace. The difference in my new attitude from the old was as glaring as night from day. I greeted my customers with a smile. It was no longer an effort for me to be patient with the difficult ones. Nor did I feel the need to rant and rage on social media about the problems of the world, as I had been doing practically non-stop before I became saved.

It was like being wrapped inside joy, as if joy was something tangible – like a big, soft, warm blanket fresh from the dryer. I had to constantly check my reflection because I was sure I had a giant, stupid grin on my face all day long. And that feeling only got stronger the more I continued to read my Bible – now an actual book that I had bought from Amazon – and pray. That, too, was getting better. I no longer stumbled over my words or forgot what I wanted to say. The hunger to know God, to build a new relationship with my Creator, overshadowed everything else in my life. I lost interest in many of the things that had once taken up all my time, like watching TV or playing video games. All I wanted to do every night when I got home from a busy day was to open God’s Word and keep reading.

But there was one thing that didn’t change during all of that wonderful transformation. I’m still gay. The desire for that sin is still there, as strong and lustful as ever. Everything else about me seems different. I am, indeed, a new creature in Christ. So why am I still gay? Why is this particular thorn still lodged firmly deep in my flesh?

I still don’t have an answer. But I do have a theory. The transformation of the new believer in Christ is not like wiping the old operating system of your ten year old iMac. With a computer you can install a whole new operating system that’s free of the bugs, viruses and malware that plagued the old system. The hardware is still the same old hardware, but the software is brand new. Your computer has been transformed. It performs and operates like a new machine.

But we humans are not machines. We are creatures born of the Fall. Being saved in Christ has made us like new, but the old self – the old, corrupt nature – is still there. The old operating system hasn’t been wiped away. Rather, the new OS is now installed, and the two systems are at war with one another. Why is that, I wonder? Why doesn’t God simply transform our sin nature by wiping it way when He fills us with the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t that be easier – and more complete – than forcing us to constantly battle our old selves in order to remain faithful and obedient to Him?

The honest answer is, I don’t know.

What I do know is that God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen not to remove this particular thorn in my flesh. I am still gay.

The thorn in my flesh. Yeah, that phrase sounds familiar. In fact, it’s been rolling around in the back of my brain for several weeks now.

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul writes of the “thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan sent to buffet me.” Those four verses, more than any other Bible passages that I’ve read and also read about, have continued to echo within me ever since the beginning of this journey. Many pastors and scholars agree that that the thorn Paul speaks of was of a spiritual nature, not a physical. Paul says that he “…besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.”

The thorn in my flesh.

What if I am in the same seat as Paul? What if my sexuality is the ‘thorn’ in my own flesh?

I think that part of the reason that God doesn’t just snap his fingers and wipe away our old self is because, without those old, sinful desires and temptations, we wouldn’t continually come back to Him for mercy, grace and forgiveness. It might have taken a little longer for me to surrender if the outside world hadn’t melted down last year, but I have no doubt now that God has always been working in my life, and He wants my love, worship and obedience. My homosexuality is a reminder from Him that I have a choice: I can give in to my sin nature and indulge my own desires, or I can turn from the flesh, take up my cross daily, and follow Him.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our sin nature, and He knows that when times are good, when everything is going our way, we often forget Him – just as the Israelites did over and over in the Old Testament. We get wrapped up in our daily lives, turn away from Him, and give our worship to false idols instead; or we just pay Him our weekly rituals and sacrifice on Sunday, and then put aside our Bibles until the following week. But it’s during the times of adversity, when God allows the trials and tribulations of life to afflict us, that we come to Him. We seek Him because He is our only source of comfort and peace. The storms in our lives remind us that God alone can save us, can heal us. Our afflictions draw us closer to Him. And, if we remain faithful to Him, there is much reward for our devotion and service. When the storm has passed, we often find a rainbow.

The rainbow was God’s covenant with Noah and his descendants that God would never again destroy the world with a flood. In our modern world the homosexual revolution of fifty years ago took the rainbow as a symbol of pride and diversity. When I entered my adult life as an out and proud gay man, I, too, adopted the rainbow as a symbol of pride in myself. I vowed to live my life on my terms, and I wouldn’t be cowered or ashamed into silence about who I was, of what I had been born as. But, of course, I have renounced all of that since becoming a new child of God. It is NOT my life, but His as a gift to me. I live now in complete service to Him, and Him alone.

But I’m not quite ready to throw away my rainbow bracelet that I wear on my right wrist every day. It is still a symbol to me – and to everyone I meet in daily life – but not the one that it used to be. I have found a new place beneath the rainbow created by God in the aftermath of that flood in Genesis. The peace and reconciliation I have long sought has been found at last, and the rainbow is a symbol of both my old life and my new one in God’s service. I don’t find that conflicting at all, just as I have no problem calling myself a gay Christian. Until such time as God, in his perfect timing and wisdom, decides to change my unnatural desire completely, I will always be a gay Christian, and the rainbow will be a sign of my personal covenant with Him.

The process of reconciling this issue, the spiritual traveling and soul searching that I have done over the last few months, has shown me clearly that God is my Lord and Savior. He has allowed this affliction so that I would do the work that I needed to reconcile what appeared to be a crisis of faith. I wouldn’t have experienced personal growth in my life – and my faith – without this conflict and pain. Yes, it has been painful. Peeling back the faded scars of old wounds wasn’t not all pleasant. I had to go back to that fifteen-year-old kid and have a long talk with him. (See section 5 of this post.) I wrote letters to my parents and my three brothers, apologizing for the way I treated them all those years ago. I have recognized how selfishly I have been living my adult life, and the pride of my old nature has screamed fiercely whenever I bow my knee and my heart every morning in prayer. There is now a fight within me – the old nature vs. the new self – that will never let up until I die. And, sometimes, that fight will be painful. And yes, I already know that there are times when I will fail, when I will give in to the temptation to break my new vow with God. But that failure is not as important to God as whether or not I stay in the fight. And I will stay. I’m in this for the long haul, and I know without a shred of doubt that God is on my side. He wants me to succeed.

Hallelujah, amen!

- 4 -

Most of you have seen my post on Facebook from three days ago. My only answer from God to this twenty-four-year-old conflict has been a call to celibacy. Until such time as he chooses to change my sin nature, to change my unnatural desire into a natural one, I have made the following vow to Him:

I take a vow of celibacy before God; that I have surrendered my life and my will unto Him; that I will not give in to the temptations of my sinful flesh; that I recognize my homosexual desire as a sin in His eyes, an abomination caused by the Fall; that He has saved my soul from eternal damnation, and I owe him nothing less than my whole heart, soul and mind.

I take this vow on the 3rd of February, 2021.

Amen.

- 5 -

I read a long time ago – probably in a textbook somewhere in college – that one of the tools therapists and psychiatrists use in their counseling of patients is to have their patients write a letter to their past selves. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I wrote letters to my family to apologize for how I had wronged them in the past. After some more thought and deliberation I decided to write one more letter, this time to that fifteen year old kid that used to be me.

At first, I thought this a stupid idea. I mean, how much more clichéd can one get? Plus, I’ve already treaded into dangerously melodramatic waters in this post. Is yet one more emotional, sappy passage needed?

Ehhhh…yes and no. Turns out, I had a lot more to say to myself than I thought at first, and, son-of-a-gun, I did feel remarkably better afterwards. Guess there was some genuine, therapeutic value to this little exercise after all.

So…here it is.

Hello.

It's been a long time.

Yes, I see you. You've been there all along, but only recently have I begun to really see you. You've been with me my whole adult life, affecting me, shaping me in ways I never realized until now. I thought I left you behind when I left high school. At various times in my life since, I've judged you, shunned you, tried to erase you, or just simply ignored you. I could never understand why you never had the courage to speak up, to ask for help. There were a few adults – or even your friends – who would have very likely sympathized and tried to help you. All you had to do was say something! But you didn't. You kept your secret, protecting it, guarding it like Gollum with his precious ring. I was the one who eventually had to reveal the secret to those around me when I was old enough and no longer ashamed of what I was.

But now I realize that instead of judging you and blaming you, there's one thing that I should have done long ago. I never said, “Thank you.” Thank you for giving me the strength and courage to step into the world as a confident, independent adult. It was because of you, what you went through silently as a teenager, that I developed the strength and resolve to live my truth as an adult. It was because of you that I knew what I wanted in life. It was never my desire to just go with the flow, to blend into the crowd and do whatever everyone else was doing. I did my own thing. And yes, it would have been better if I had been living that truth within God's will, but God, in His infinite wisdom, decided not to work His will just yet. He chose to wait while I forged my own path.

Part of me wishes that I could go back in time and be the adult that you needed. I would have embraced you, told you that you weren't a mistake; that God loves you just the way you are, including being gay. And, deep down inside, you knew that you were loved. Your parents told you that every day. But you always had that sliver of doubt in the back of your mind.

“Would you still love me if you knew my secret? Would you still accept me if I was gay?”

I, the adult looking back at you across the gulf of years between us, know the answer to that is a resounding “Yes! They have always loved you, no matter what!”

Part of me also wonders how our life would have been different if you had reached out to the one person that understood what you were going through; the one that knew your pain – and your secret. It was He that made you, after all. What I can see so clearly now is that it never occurred to you to reach out to God. You only knew Him through the church, through your teachers, through your parents, through all the endless rules, and restrictions, and demands that they all placed on you. That's what you rebelled against. God, to you, was just a system, an institution that governed every corner of your life. That institution would never understand your secret, would never accept you for the real you.

But He was there all along. He was there on those nights when you cried yourself to sleep. You were struggling to understand your pain, to understand the turmoil inside you, but you didn't have the words or the wisdom or the experience to fully realize it all. All that you knew was anger, frustration and fear. But God understood you, and He was there in the darkness, crying with you.

I want so badly to be there now, to wrap you in my arms and wipe away your tears and tell you that everything will be okay. Because it will be. You can’t see it now, but things will get better. You will find a way through this, and you will emerge on the other side with a strength and resolve that you never knew you had within you. The rest of your life is an as-yet-unwritten map of joys and blessings, failures and setbacks, triumphs and successes that will make all of this suffering worthwhile. You will know happiness that you couldn’t dream of – most of it found within the family that you don’t understand or get along with now. (There are 10 nieces and nephews that think you’re the greatest uncle ever, for example.) God has a plan for you, and, like the father of the prodigal son, He will be there with open arms when you finally come back home. He will accept you, just as you are.

But all of that is for later. For now, just know this: the storm will pass, and there will be peace.

You will find your rainbow.

#christianity #life #personal growth #homosexuality #gay

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fictionadventurer · 5 years ago

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Here, have a bunch of scattered thoughts, observations, and opinions about Greta Gerwig’s Little Women:

(Spoilers below, which wouldn’t usually be a big deal for something based on a classic novel, but I will be discussing the ending).

General Thoughts

The colors in this movie are lovely. The cinematography is lovely. This is a movie with so many wonderful things to look at. (Though the lighting was too dark in some scenes).

I loved how tactile this movie was. The things on-screen just feel so real and textured. I don’t know, like, there’s a fence Jo climbs over, and we see the splinters in the fence and it just feels weighty and textured. It made me appreciate the things in this movie’s world and in ours.

The music was great. I want the soundtrack.

I loved, loved, loved all the dancing scenes. Not sedate, not romantic, just so much vibrant joy and life. Jo’s dance in the pub was one of the highlights of her story. Almost as good were her and Laurie’s ridiculous dances at their first meeting–you see how well they get along as friends. The focus on dancing is definitely one of my favorite parts of the movie (and another reason I want the soundtrack).

A lot of the acting had weird rhythms to it. Especially in group scenes where there was a lot of talking, it felt like people were just rapid-fire reciting lines from the book, rather than saying real things that real people would say.

The beginning confused me. I couldn’t figure out whether the woman was supposed to be Jo March or Louisa May Alcott (part of the problem is that I wasn’t expecting a blonde Jo). I kind of wish Gerwig had just made a Louisa May Alcott biopic if she wanted to explore Little Women’s publication process, because it just makes this story more confusing.

The flashbacks were less confusing than I was expecting. There were a few times where it took a few seconds to figure out which part of the timeline we were in, but for the most part, I could follow it because I was familiar with the book. I’m not sure I could have followed it if I hadn’t been familiar with the book.

Some of the flashbacks layered together really well. Other times, it just felt like we were jumping randomly through time. At some points, it didn’t feel like a story. It was just stuff happening, and even if it looked nice, I couldn’t connect to it emotionally.

I kind of like the way they layered Beth’s original bout of illness with her death, but then the story moves on to other storylines and other flashbacks and the death doesn’t really have an impact. Her death is just another thing that happens, rather than an emotional turning point.

The ending is very frustrating. So many of my thoughts about the movie in general are shaped by that ending, so it’s going to get it’s own section (and probably at least two other posts about it).

Character-Focused Thoughts

Laura Dern was a good Marmee. A bit livelier than might be expected, while still being warm and motherly. I can believe this Marmee would struggle with her temper.

(For some reason, I just really like Laura Dern. I don’t know why. Thus, I can’t give a real assessment of her Marmee because I just like that she was in the role).

That conversation between Marmee and Jo about her temper made no sense. Marmee starts out saying that she’s learned to control her temper, and when Jo says she wants to be like that, Marmee responds, “I hope you’ll do better. There are some natures too noble to curb, too lofty to bend.” What? It sounds like she’s saying that Jo doesn’t need to change, which is the exact opposite point this scene should be making. Unless she’s trying to say that she wants Jo to do more than curb her temper, but become someone so strong in her morals that she can stand strong against the temptations in life. But that’s not clear from the scene, and it’s easy to read it as a vague “empowerment” message. It’s another point where conflating Jo with Louisa May Alcott (by giving Marmee a line from one of Alcott’s mother’s letters) made the story more confusing.

To my surprise, I really liked Emma Watson as Meg. Or at least, I liked Meg and was able to forget that she was played by Emma Watson. She was a bit distant, a bit bland, but there was also something compelling about her sedate sweetness. (I loved her purple dress).

Her little subplot with John and the silk was my favorite part of the plot. Just when I was thinking, “This is just like other Little Women adaptations where I can’t connect to the characters”, we get that stunning scene of them discussing the price of the silk and I get teary-eyed over John’s regret that he’s too poor to give his wife what she wants. His compassion warring with his frustration, his love warring with practicality. Exquisite. And the resolution was perfect, with both of them willing to sacrifice for the other’s happiness.

As you can probably guess, I loved James Norton as John Brooke and wish he’d had more to do in the story.

While I kind of wish that we’d seen more of John’s love story with Meg, I also kind of like that we kept the focus on their married life. This movie’s so obsessed with marriage, but this is the only part of the movie where we get to explore what marriage actually looks like, rather than just listening to characters talk about their opinions of it.

Jo was lively and vibrant and I loved how they kept her relationship with Laurie so thoroughly brotherly (until the ending, which I’ll get to later). And I loved the “I’m so lonely” line, but the movie didn’t really do anything with it. There was so much potential for character development, but then she just didn’t develop. It’s the exact opposite of everything that I talked about in my essay about the ‘18 Little Women. The earlier adaptation got a lot wrong, but Jo’s arc was strong and compelling. This movie just assumed that Jo’s already great and didn’t give her an arc at all.

Beth was sweet and adorable and I wish we’d gotten more of her. The scene where she thanks Mr. Laurence for the piano was one of my favorite character moments of the movie. Her barely audible, stammering ‘thank you’ is such Shy Kid Culture.

Florence Pugh played older Amy very well, and highlighting her practicality was an interesting choice. But why didn’t they hire a kid to play younger Amy? She was ridiculous in the role of a twelve-year-old girl. I spent half the movie trying to figure out what young Amy’s voice reminded me of, until I finally realized: It sounds exactly like Mallory from Studio C whenever she plays a little kid in a sketch. I doubt that sketch comedy was what these people were going for in their Oscar-nominated movie.

Amy and Laurie’s romance had very interesting moments to it, and I love how they pushed each other to change. I liked the idea of it (and loved the scenery it took place in). But as two characters who fall in love, I’m not sure that what we saw on-screen was enough to make me really believe in it.

Mr. March was almost a non-character. I really wish that he’d been more present, and I wish they’d highlighted his letter and his role in his daughters’ character development more. (But this movie wasn’t really interested in the virtue-development part of the plot). He was bashed a lot by Aunt March and we didn’t get a chance to see if she was right about him or not.

Aunt March is a delightful old-lady character. I loved a lot about her. I didn’t love how she was a mouthpiece for their most ham-handed ideas about marriage.

Hannah was excellent. Added a nice dose of practical common sense. One of my favorite characters.

Making Mr. Laurence into a Southern gentleman was an interesting choice, especially given how this episode highlighted the Civil War part of the setting. I liked him, especially his relationship with Beth.

I laughed during Laurie’s first appearance, when the camera slowed down and made it into the most cliche romantic-comedy moment possible. Then when he spoke, I understood for the first time in my life why people like Timothee Chalamet. The goodwill toward his character was not to last.

Brotherly Laurie was adorable and likable. One of my favorite scenes was when he first meets the March family, and just stands there silently appreciating their lively, loving, comfortable family atmosphere.

Romantic interest Laurie was a jerk and a creep. The way he kept touching people who didn’t want to be touched, forcing affections on people who didn’t want them. Not cool. And “She calls me ‘my lord’?” Creeeeeepy.

After all the hype over the smock scene, I was expecting a lot more. I was like, “That’s it?” Not that I’m complaining–I was expecting something a lot more overtly sexual and I like that it was restrained.

(The cloak that Amy puts on after the smock scene? Gorgeous. I want it.)

I hate that Jo decides she wants to marry Laurie. After a whole movie spent showing how she’s right that their relationship was brotherly and that Amy’s a better fit for him, suddenly out of nowhere she just wants to attach herself to him because she’s lonely. And then it fails not because Jo has any revelations about herself or life, but because he’s already taken. It was just so bizarre. Especially in light of the ending, but again, I’ll get to it later. (Probably in another post).

Bhaer was a lovely character. I don’t understand why they made him French, but he’s such a steady, sensible, caring presence for Jo, so sweet and intelligent, and the movie completely failed to make use of his character and the arc he could have provided for Jo.

The Ending

It’s my biggest source of frustration. I’d been fully spoiled for it, knew that it was “ambiguous”, and came fully prepared to do as many mental gymnastics as necessary to allow for the interpretation that Jo and Bhaer’s love story is the “real” ending. I couldn’t do it. There is no way that I can see that chase in the rain as anything other than a “forced” ending to the fictional story in Jo’s book.

When Bhaer visits the March’s, Jo’s not warm. She’s not happy. She’s just stunned and awkward. Frederick saying that he’s taking the job in California is nothing more than the most blatant set-up for a romantic-comedy ending. Even when he leaves, Jo doesn’t seem regretful, he’s just like, “Come and visit me sometime,” and Jo’s only response is, “Yeah, I probably won’t.”

Then, when she turns around, everyone has the most forced, zombie-like smiles on their faces. “You love him,” they all insist, and Jo is just baffled, like she’s in a Twilight Zone episode and struggling to assert her reality against a world that’s warped around her. Then they railroad Jo into a romance plot, setting up everything for the romantic-comedy chase in the rain against all of Jo’s protests that it’s unnecessary. And then the actual declaration of love is so entwined with Jo’s talk to her publisher that I can’t see it as anything other than fiction. The lines are such vague romance stuff that seems unconnected to anything that we’ve seen in Jo and Bhaer’s relationship through the rest of the movie. “I have nothing to give you,” he says, even though there’s never been a mention of him as poor before, no indication that this would have been a problem for their romance.

And then we see the lovely sunlit ending where everyone is happy and living active, fulfilled, love-and-service-filled lives, contrasted with the cold sterility of Jo watching her words get bound into a book. Don’t get me wrong, the binding process was beautiful to watch, but putting it forth as a “better” ending than Jo and Bhaer running a school together was absolutely ridiculous.

At best, I could try to say that the sunlit ending is a happy future brought about by the publication of the book–the royalties fund the school, everyone can be together, and Bhaer works at the school and he and Jo are friends and colleagues even if they don’t get married. But it’s given such an unrealistic gloss, and when the scene fades out and turns into the cover of the book, it seems like the final stamp saying that this is all fiction, and the only real thing about this ending is the book that Jo holds in her hands.

Instead of being surrounded by loving family and friends, she’s alone, holding a book. A book that isn’t even the book she wanted to write, a book that forced her to abandon her artistic principles for the sake of money. And to me, she looks like she’s about to cry (not happy tears), and it’s just such a bleak, sterile ending to a movie with the potential for such vigorous life.

(I do kind of wish I’d seen it without being spoiled for the ending and not knowing Gerwig’s thoughts about the “best” ending for Jo, because I’ll never know if I would have come to the same interpretation of the ending if I’d been coming in completely blind. I kind of feel like I’d have had similar thoughts, but I’ll never know.)

There’s so much more I could say about this ending, but all my thoughts are connected to how it affects the arcs and messages of the rest of the movie, and this post is far too long already. I’ll need at least one significant essay and at least 1-2 other posts to untangle exactly how this ending affects my feelings about this movie.

#little women #little women 2019 #if anyone actually reads all of this they deserve a prize #i'm shocked by how long this got #i spent like two mornings and a good chunk of this evening writing this #does anyone care about my minute opinions of a movie that's been out for a month?#unlikely #but what else am i to do with these opinions i ask you?

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