#you can’t often get that nuance in regular human faces

[stillbubbles]

“Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine.”

Jonathan Harker, May 7th

[tea-at-221]

The TJLC Debacle: 3 years out from S4 and counting; the copyright mini-theory; so much salt I’m bloated; but in the end, there is peace (I love you Johnlockers)

Ugh, don't even talk to me about Mary.

Don't even talk to me about the way Mofftiss have said they're sick of responding to fans on the subject of Johnlock. Of how they've said they're "not telling anyone else what to think or write about them" (as if they could stop us; as if they even own Sherlock themselves. Do keep reading, because this point becomes much more relevant and in-jokey later on). Don't even mention how they've bitched and whined incessantly because--god forbid--fans got *really really* into their show and emotionally invested.

They're so eager to discount all the beautiful little moments they wrote as accidents. And Arwel, who planted all those props, continually demonstrates that he's on their side (a not-very in-depth-analysis of his Instagram account and the way he interacted with fans towards the beginning of the pandemic showed as much, but I think maybe he’s grown a bit wiser and quieter since at least in terms of Johnlock and all things elephant-related. I don’t know for sure because I stopped looking.)

Anyway--they'd actually prefer for us to celebrate our own intelligence, is I suppose a charitable way of looking at it: our ability to make connections between things in the show; our metas on symbolism; our insightful fanfic; etc., and denounce them as the bad writers that they ultimately are.

More under the cut.

(This post may be of interest to you especially if you came to the fandom a bit later: multiple links to things of relevance/quotes/explanations appear both within and at the end of this entry.)

Because what makes a writer good?

Well, an ability to make people feel an emotional connection to their work, for one. I know this is just my own perspective, but if not for Johnlock, all my emotion about the show would evaporate. There wouldn't be much else there. Other people might get something, but I wouldn’t. Is some of the writing witty and entertaining regardless of any inferred/implied Johnlock? Yeah but, eh, a lot of shows have some good writing and I just don’t give a damn about them.

What makes a writer good?

Not making promises to the reader/viewer that they'll never keep. Plot holes, leading dialogue ("There’s stuff you wanted to say...but didn’t say it.” “Yeah”) never followed through on, puns that are apparently, I suppose, unintentional (e.g. "'Previous' commander?" "I meant 'ex'").

Uh, not writing continual gay jokes that aren't actually pointing toward the inference that people are making them because there's actually something going on there under the surface. (How about just don't make those jokes ever.)

Not being, apparently, oblivious (? questionable) to the queerbaiting they're engaging in *as they’re writing it.*

Acting like their LGBT audience is in the wrong/the bad guy, instead of choosing to remain respectful in the face of dissent. Instead it's just, "we never wrote it that way" / "We never played it that way."

A lot of those other mildly witty shows don’t actually blatantly drag their most passionate fans face-down through the mud the writers themselves created. Imagine that.

I'm not even a fan of Martin Freeman anymore, for the way he handled the whole thing (getting angry, the comments he made about how the fans made Sherlock “not fun anymore”...apparently Martin’s packing up his crayons and going home?)...no offense to anyone who is still a fan of his. I don’t make it a habit to drag him. I do to some degree understand his frustration with having the whole situation taken out on him--he’s just an actor in the show--but I simply wish he’d remained as cool and professional about it as Benedict Cumberbatch instead of pointing at the fans. You’re pointing in the wrong direction, mate.

What also irks me at the end of the day is this: the subsection of people who legitimately responded badly to the TJLC/S4 debacle and went above and beyond to harass the writers and actors/actresses on social media are *few and far between*, but we've been lumped in with them by what feels like...everyone, Martin included. TJLCers/Johnlockers (not the same group, but often treated as such) have been made to look like a bunch of rambunctious, immature, demanding children time and time and again in the wake of S4.

They'd rather, what, suggest John was so in love with Mary? THAT was the relationship they wanted to uphold in that show as so significant and...what, a demonstration of how honorable it is to respect your heterosexual relationship despite, you know...ANYTHING?

Yeah sorry, I don’t believe in that. John’s text-based affair, whether a disappointment for some as to his supposed character, was a very human reaction and I kinda sorta feel like I would have reacted MUCH more strongly than that had I been John. But nope. He stayed with Mary and was *ashamed* of his wandering eye. Ashamed that maybe he wanted to be admired by someone. I can’t think of a scene, off the top of my head, where Mary ever interacted with John without belittling him in some way--if not with words, then with consistently patronizing glances.

The message here is that heterosexuality is not just acceptable, but VALUABLE, however it manifests--but god forbid anyone see a queer subtext. (Why are lgbt+ writers some of the very WORST offenders where this is concerned? And they defend it! Is this childhood nostalgia/Stockholm Syndrome of the very fondest variety or what? Gay angst is all they got if they got anything at all, so it’s still good enough as far as “representation” goes?)

They really want to tell the story of John as so emotionally/mentally fucked up that he surrounds himself with unstable people time and again. They never give any reason *why* he might do that (which they could have done even soooo subtly), or delve into his past--just, apparently it's okay to assume that Sherlock's comment about "she's like that because you chose her" is exactly that.

No. Sherlock and Mary are NOT the same. Not...*remotely*!

Mary is underhanded and evil. She lies. She manipulates. She schemes. Her “love” is based on selfishness, and her assumption that John is a simpleton and hers to mold. She's in it for herself.

Sherlock hides. He prevaricates. He feels. He loves John. He does fucked up things in the name of love, but always for the benefit of those he loves. When he screws up, which he obviously does, it’s painful to us as the audience because we see that it is painful for him when he recognizes and regrets it.

I have never seen Mary regret anything. Those crocodile tears at Christmas? More manipulation. Inconsistent with anything else we were shown about her as a character.

To even think for a SECOND that people could ship Mary and John and mentally condemn John for cheating on Mary AFTER SHE SHOT HIS BEST FRIEND...as if marriage is the be-all-end-all free pass in which every sin must be forgiven until the end of time...as if John broke any covenant with his wife beyond those she broke from the very moment she walked into his life *with an entire fake past.* Is just. Well. It's asking us to accept gaslighting as healthy, loving, normal, *preferable* behavior, so...given the source that message is coming from, it's all a bit meta.

THAT. Is insanity. Maybe Mofftiss are the sociopaths.

How these men could write characters they themselves understand so little (or tell us they understand so little because their emotional maturity has yet to surpass that of the average three-year-old’s), I will never know. I can only imagine that they have absorbed, by osmosis over their lives, real and nuanced human behavior...then churned it back out again in their writing unaware, a bit like psychopaths who teach themselves what "normal" people do so that they can pass as psychologically sound in regular society.

Remember, we *are* talking about men who do these sorts of things:

Moffat says that Sherlock is celibate and that people who claim he's misogynistic when he does things like make Irene Adler imply she's attracted to the detective (even though she's a lesbian) are, ironically, "deeply offensive" (despite lines like "look at us both" in Battersea. We aren't your therapists, Moffat--we don't care what you meant, we care what you said, and what you *said* was clear. *Implying* it does not let you off the hook).

Gatiss has proclaimed that "I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting" than the idea of ever making a show addressing LGBT issues. (That link is to a reddit forum, and I can't find the original interview anymore, but I assure you I had seen the actual article myself ages back and can't find it online again now along with some of the Martin quotes I wanted to link to. And nevermind what Gatiss has done with LGBT shows/issues since--my focus here is on what he has said, versus what he and Moffat have since claimed regarding their queerbaiting.)

Here’s a transcript of this screenshot:

"...many people come up and say they didn't realise." Despite this lack of public awareness, being part of the gay community is clearly important to Gatiss: "The older I get the more I want to give something back. I mean, I keep meaning to do something." When asked if he'd be interested in making a series about gay issues his response was enlightening:

"No, I don't think I'd make a kind of gay programme. It's much more interesting when it's not about a single issue. And equally, I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting. Of course this reflects the grand picture of everyone's strange make-up; there are good gay people and bad gay people. I wouldn't like to make an issue film around the culture of being gay."

Instead Gatiss' interest seems to lie in making a drama where sexuality is, if not mundane, part of the wider framework: "I'd quite like to do something about a quite happy, ordinary gay person who's just incidentally gay. For example, a three-part thriller for ITV where the lead character just happens to be gay; when they finally go home, say 45 minutes in, and they had a same sex partner. That to me would be genuinely progressive. It wouldn't be a three-part gay thriller for ITV. It would be that this character just happened to be gay."

--End article quote.

And instead, who is canonically gay in the series? Well, Irene Adler. The innkeepers at the Cross Keys. And perhaps most notably, the *villains*, because that's a helpful trope: Moriarty and Eurus are, in S4, both implied to be at least bisexual.

Any character should be able to be any sexuality, this is true. But can we have some main characters, the good guys, give some good representation? Can't we start making that the standard, rather than the villains and the background characters? Because so far, that is the exception and not the rule.

Writers need to be aware of the damage they are perpetuating. We are not quite in a world yet where any character should be able to be any sexuality but isn't, yet we have no problem with saying the villain is LGBT+ or looks different/functions differently than much of the viewing audience.

"Male friendship is important and valid, not everything has to be gay"--this is a popular point with casual heterosexual viewers (and, to my chagrin, some of my LGBT+ friends) who don't fully grasp what "queerbaiting" is, often even when it's pointed out to them.

The lens of heterosexuality is real. My first time through watching BBC Sherlock, I didn't see the Johnlock at all. I had to look for it and read about it. When I saw it, the lens was lifted for me, and it changed my life and the way I view things forever (and for the best).

But back to my point about how little Mofftiss seem to understand their own story/most ardent fans, and then on to my other theory: in S4 it must be that they dropped their “psychopaths emulating empathy” act and indulged in their own "insane wish fulfillment" by doing away with all of the meaning, continuity, and sense. Right?

So, here’s the alternate theory. One which is not, please remember, in their defense.

Remember that S4 is what Mofftiss are *happy* to have us believe is what they'd do with these characters, given the chance to do whatever they wanted. I repeat, in Moffat’s own words: “Insane wish fulfillment.”

Okay I get it, this pasta has been over-salted.

Without further delay: MY COPYRIGHT RESEARCH THEORY THAT EVEN I DON'T PUT MUCH STOCK IN AND WHICH DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR THEIR CRUELTY EVEN IF TRUE

Part of me also raises an eyebrow at S4 as perhaps an example of the effect of the Conan Doyle estate on any modern production in the US. While it’s true that all of Sherlock is part of public domain in the UK and has been for quite a long time, Gatiss and Moffat still talk about it being partially under copyright. Specifically, the last 10 stories. I’m supposing that this means that because Sherlock airs internationally, or due to whatever contract the BBC has with the Doyle estate, they are still limited by the copyright as to what they can “publish”.

The Doyle estate is known for being a pain in the ass when it comes to abiding by copyright law as everyone else knows and practices it. They’ve tried to argue, for example (in 2013 and, much more recently, with the advent of Enola Holmes), that because Holmes and Watson were not fully developed as their final selves until the conclusion of all 10 stories still under copyright, then perhaps the characters themselves should still be protected, basically, in full.

It’s true that certain elements of the remaining stories are still under copyright here in the US (Watson had more than one wife--uh huh, we have that to look forward to, Johnlockers; the Garridebs moment is still under copyright--yeah, I’m getting to that too; and Sherlock didn’t care much for dogs til later so that’s not allowed either, fuck off Redbeard), but the estate’s problem in 2013 seemed to be based around a fear that *gasp* some day--if not right now!--anyone could write a Sherlock Holmes story in any way they pleased, changing the characters however they wished to and giving those characters “multiple personalities.”

See the following excerpt from the Estate’s case:

“...at any given point in their fictional lives, the two men's characters depend on the Ten Stories. It is impossible to split the characters into public domain versions and complete versions.”

(Click for full transcript.)

Obviously, by this point, that’s been done in multiple iterations. So I dunno. Their argument was *more* than muddy to begin with--they just grasp at straws to stay in control, it seems.

But okay. Backing up: wasn’t there sort-of a Garridebs moment in S4?!?? you cry. Yep. But imagine this: the Conan Doyle estate taking Mofftiss to court to argue that they depicted the Garridebs moment--a moment still under copyright--in The Final Problem.

Did they, though? Did they really?

The fandom cried out about the ridiculousness--the utter disappointment--of that moment when it was shown. It was not what we would have expected/wanted. We didn’t see John injured, Sherlock reacting with tender outrage to the good doctor’s attacker.

Instead we saw some ludicrous BS that was as bad as the clown with the sword-gun-umbrella. More of that.

I think Martin probably found that it was easy to produce real tears when he thought about how fucking terrible the S4 scripts were.

Ahem. Yet, this all seems very Mofftiss-flavored in terms of humor.

I can all-too-easily imagine them saying, “HA. We’re going to show some of these supposedly copyrighted things--and if they take us to court, they’ll be laughed out of the room.” Could that explain some of the overall S4 fuckery?

Sherlock wasn’t supposed to like dogs til later stories, as previously mentioned-- is that why Redbeard pulled a “Cinderella’s carriage” and transformed into a pumpkin (Victor Trevor)? Hmm. Sigh.

It...doesn’t actually appear that the estate has any qualms about taking laughable stuff to court, I mean...*shrug.* They have the money to do it, and money is the name of the game, because you’ve got to pay for rights (cha-ching sounds).

Yep, it does seem that the estate is open to the copyrighted materials being made reality, but who knows for what price or with what caveats. The BBC isn’t, so far as I’ve ever heard, known for throwing money around. Early Doctor Who would be so much less entertaining if they’d had any sort of budget. (And in fact, more of the older episodes would exist, but apparently the BBC--in part to cut costs--reused some of their tapes.)

My bottom-line bitter is this: Mofftiss do like to amuse themselves. To please themselves and no one else, as they’ve shown time and again. Sure, they could do whatever they wanted with S4...and they did...but they were also cruel about it, and that’s what I’ll never forgive them--OR the BBC--for.

A lot of fans gave up after series 4. I was very nearly one of them. I was angry, like just about every other Johnlocker and/or TJLCer, but I was really truly heartbroken. I couldn’t look at fanfiction. My days were full of bitterness and I keenly felt the lack of the fandom outlet that had become so essential to my mental well-being. I didn't know how to overcome the disparity between TJLC and what the show actually was. I didn't know how to separate the things I loved so much from the shitty writers and the way the BBC handled things with their whole response letter (that atrocious, childish blanket response they sent to everyone who complained about S4, not just the Johnlockers/TJLCers. Related to your complaint or not, if you filed one post-S4, this was the response you got). I still boycott BBC shows/merchandise, just by the way.

I tried to link to the blanket response letter but the link didn’t want to work (it’s an old reddit post; I had difficulty finding a copy of the letter elsewhere though at one point it wasn’t so hard...Google is weird these days y’all...tell me it’s not just me) so here’s a screenshot:

Transcript:

“Thank you for contacting us about “Sherlock”.

The BBC and Hartswood Films have received feedback from some viewers who were disappointed there was not a romantic resolution to the relationship between Sherlcok and John in the finale of the latest season of “Sherlock”.

We are aware that the majority of this feedback uses the same text posted on websites and circulated on social media.

Through four series and thirteen episodes, Sherlock and John have never shown any romantic or sexual interest in each other. Furthermore, whenever the creators of “Sherlock” have been asked by fans if the relationship might develop in that direction, they have always made it clear that it would not.

Sherlock’s writers, cast and producers have long been firm and vocal supporters of LGBT rights.

The BBC does not accept the allegations leveled at “Sherlock” or its writers, and we wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers to develop the story as they see fit.

We will of course register your disappointment.

Thank you for contacting us.

Kind Regards,

BBC Complaints Team

So how about that? *Did* they “register our disappointment”? We can actually check that. The BBC’s website has a monthly summary of complaints received. So what did they receive in January 2017, the month S4 aired?

Huh, what do you know. Sounds like that blanket response was exactly the “fuck you” it came across as.

But the show--the FANDOM--had filled a need in my life, and so I had to own that and make it mine, or just...let something in me die: something that felt like an actual vital organ. I had to decide that these characters mean something to me beyond what anyone else tells me they should. I had to accept my own perceptions as truth, as I do with everything else in my life. I had to overcome the idea of canon as law (BBC Sherlock isn't canon anyway; ACD is canon. BBC Sherlock is, in the end, badly written fanfiction--or--worse?--decent pre-slash fanfiction distorted by consistent lies and the hazing of the LGBT audience, topped with the dumpster fire of S4′s incoherent nonsense).

I had to take the good and throw away the bad, just like anyone else who chose to stay. The good bits of the show...dialogue, yes. Plot points, yes. These awful writers did write some good stuff sometimes.

They just broke all the unspoken rules of what not to do to your audience. And then did and said everything they could not to apologize, and to justify their own failings. Which, in the years since I began shipping queer ships beyond any others, I have unfortunately experienced more than once.

So, my vulnerability has been yeeted into the vacuum of broke-my-trustdom: no one can tell me what things should mean to me. I will decide.

I decide that all of the FUCKING AMAZING writing in the Sherlock fandom is a staple in my life that makes it worth living. And that that's okay. And takes precedence over anything the writers or anyone else associated with the show could ever say or do.

Johnlock can not be taken away. It doesn't belong to them. It never did, even if they brought us to it. It belongs to us. To the group of amazingly creative, brainy, empathetic, resourceful, vibrant, resilient people who make up this fandom.

So thank YOU, all of YOU, for giving me Sherlock, Johnlock, and TJLC.

I am SO SAD for those who never found a way to make peace with this fandom again. Let me just say that I understand that inability entirely.

I am fortunate that I found the ability in myself to cling to the joy (something it has taken my whole life to be able to do). I hope others will who haven’t yet but wish they could.

Let Mofftiss and whoever sides with them stay angry and bitter and vicious, always looking over their shoulders for anyone who dares to whisper about subtext.

I’m proud to be part of what they’re whispering so angrily about.

Thanks for sticking it out if you made it this far. I know this was very self-indulgent and rambly.

Articles of interest:

A Study in Queerbaiting (Or How Sherlock Got it All Wrong) by Marty Greyson

“We never played it like that.” - Martin on Johnlock

Henry Cavill on the Enola Holmes lawsuit

More on that--and by the way Sherlock isn’t allowed to like dogs

The way Sherlock creators told fans Sherlock & John aren’t gay is so rude

Especially for those new to the fandom who may not know the distinction between TJLC and Johnlockers and want to know more about TJLC's evolution/what it is/meta through the years

Moffat's view on asexuality, offensive to me in particular *as* an asexual person (same article where he claims he isn't misogynistic): "If he was asexual, there would be no tension in that, no fun in that – it's someone who abstains who's interesting."

Yet he says Sherlock isn't gay or straight and that he's trying to keep his brain pure which is a "very Victorian attitude"

(Nice historical research there, Moff--actually the Victorians were sex-positive).

Sherlock fans were robbed of the gay ending they deserved

Benedict Cumberbatch has lashed out at his Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman over his negative attitude towards fans

BBC complaints January 2017

Martin Freeman: 'Sherlock is gayest story ever'

From 2016: UNPOPULAR OPINION: "Sherlock" Isn't Sexist or Queerbaiting; It's Actually Trying to Stage a Revolution

Queer-baiting on the BBC's Sherlock: Addressing the Invalidation of Queer Identities through Online Fan Fiction Communities by Cassidy Sheehan

[tiwaripoojaaa]

WFH is great until your mom yells from behind “uth chai bana de”

If you’ve ever been stuck in torrential rain waiting for a delayed train after a long day at office, the chances are pretty decent that you’ve thought about working remotely at least once or twice.

There was a time when Work from home was a fantasy for everyone until we all got attacked by pandemic. Wherein we actually want the hectic schedule rather than working remotely. WFH is in favor for someone as an introvert like me and a disaster for an extrovert who loves roaming around in the office greeting everyone with a smile and gossiping with every second person in the office. Without having an office where you need to share pleasantries with your coworkers, boss, and clients, you need to find alternative methods of socializing with people on your own time.

  Challenges:

     Sounds appealing right? No more setting the alarm for 6 am. No more sitting in your cubicle all day, your only escape a measly hour for lunch. You can set your own hours and work when you feel it. Freedom is yours!

Expect it doesn’t work that way.

Juggling work, household chores, and parenting responsibilities along with fear of infection and job loss can put a dent in performance, motivation and productivity. On the other side of the coin, when you work from home, you no longer have a clear geographic division between workspace and your personal life. Ideally, your home is a place of relaxation, safety, and security. It’s a place where you subconsciously slip into a calm, easygoing state of mind , putting the stresses of the workday behind you and have a beautiful evening with your family.

Feeling of disconnection and social isolation:

   Even in normal situations, managing remote employees is more challenging than managing regular office workers because Emotional health is a priority now because living and working in confined conditions for a long time takes a mental toll. Moreover, people who have so far been accustomed to working in an office setting may find remote work very lonely. Only now have team members and managers begun to realize how much time and effort it takes to communicate properly across screens. They cannot reach out to each other as easily as they would in a physical office, and this makes people feel disconnected from the company. Direct reports may feel that their managers are out of touch with their reality and cannot help them solve their problems.

Screen Fatigue: You’re probably hearing people complain about ‘Zoom fatigue’ or ‘meeting fatigue’. Managing remote employees via video conferencing has given rise to a new challenge – that of screen fatigue due to back-to-back meetings. People are turning away from their screens in exhaustion, citing headaches and eye strain. It is more tiring to look at a screen for a prolonged time than it is to have face-to-face conversations. It is more tiring to look at a screen for a prolonged time than it is to have face-to-face conversations. In addition to the laptops, team members are also looking at conventional screens like phones, tablets, or television. It fatigues the eyes, causes loss of focus, and decreases attention span. Naturally, people cannot work efficiently because of these issues.

Breakdown of effective communication: Perhaps the biggest challenge of managing remote employees during the COVID-19 pandemic is effective communication.  As you and your team members must have discovered by now, it isn’t quite as simple as shooting off a few emails and calling a meeting. Your direct reports can’t casually walk up to your desk for a quick chat. You can’t see each other in the office and you have to make an effort to know who is working on what. This ‘blindness’ leads to an interesting situation–people tend to think the worst when they receive a negative message. For instance, if you get a brusque e-mail from a colleague who you know is having a bad day, you tend to brush it off. But when you’re working from home, you have no context on what is happening at the other person’s end. This causes more misunderstandings, negativity, and friction within the team.

Communication & Coordination Challenges

It’s hard enough to hold productive in-person meetings to coordinate different team members’ efforts to remain aligned. When everyone works from home, it becomes all the harder to stay on the same page.

Human beings rely on nonverbal communication when they speak. But emails, phone calls, and even video calls remove much of the nuance from how we communicate. Just think back to the last time someone misinterpreted an email or text message you sent for a quick example.

This problem is so inherent in virtual businesses that an entire industry has sprung up to solve it. Team collaboration and communication tools like Slack exist specifically to make it easier for companies to stay in touch and stay organized. GoToMeeting is another popular choice for companies to stay in touch using video conferencing.

  Since the majority of the global workforce is not used to working from home, this sudden change has led to many problems. They are just adjusting their seats to meet the organizational needs amidst everything that is happening around the world. Work from home is prominent but comes with a lot of challenges like communication and coordination with team, failing network is the biggest interruption “Uncle wifi nahi chal raha check karo” which impacts productivity, you may get distracted by your dog or just feel like going through some memes on Instagram (which unknowingly turns from seconds to minutes to even a hour sometimes) or just sibling’s silly fights or just in a mood to workout.

Productivity:

Sitting at home by yourself all day takes a toll. Humans are social animals. They need interaction with other people. Without a water cooler to swap jokes, stories, and shop talk around occasionally, telecommuters can get lonely. People working from home sometimes struggle with productivity. Working away from your co-workers, with only remote online meetings, risks emotional disconnection and apathy. It can also encourage procrastination .

You might find that it helps to have particular clothes for working at home. Dressing for work can set the right mental tone for the day – and avoid the awkwardness of being dialed in to a virtual meeting while you're still in your pajamas! Also, avoid going into certain areas of your home, or sitting in certain chairs, for example, so that you know when you're in "work mode," and when you're not.

Productivity at office was optimal as there were no distractions, you had a great working environment and also who doesn’t like working with their colleagues and friends like family rather than completing the given tasks alone. The lack of interaction that often comes with remote work can also be a detriment to team building – something that is built during meetings, lunches, chai/ coffee/ cigarette breaks or even water cooler conversations.

Challenges faced by HR:

HR managers have been at the center of these pandemic-generated changes from the beginning. They had to navigate new health and safety requirements, support managers in the new normal, reduce headcount in some cases, and keep up with required administrative processes. Organizations now have to rely more than ever on their HR departments to ensure their workforce feel as safe as possible during this unprecedented and unpredictable times.

Some of the challenges are-

Performance Appraisal like you actually are not aware if the employee has given its best due to working remotely as compared to work from office.

 Team collaboration like if you have to give any cross training or learn a new process.

 Employee engagement is also affected due to pandemic as there is no connect with the management and just virtual meets or seminar or activities conducted by HR but all of this has been now fixed into a rectangular display which is not giving desired results.

 Health and safety is the utmost priority of the workers and as employee is an asset of the organization especially after pandemic HR also needs to look into health and safety measures.

Promotion cycle is been simulated as company actually doesn’t have the same promotion cycle period which eventually demotivates the employee.

  Challenges in Business continuity

If you’re working for yourself and think you can disregard administrative work, think again. You’ll probably end up doing more mundane administrative work than you ever did at your old day job. Ignoring business basics, like paying your bills, preparing your taxes, and invoicing clients, is a sure fire way to not only ruin your business but possibly trigger an audit with the IRS in the process.

Traditional jobs tend to come with paperwork, such as work reports, time sheets, travel expense reports, and accounts payable requests for freelancers and vendors. Still, each individual worker’s administrative work pales in comparison to the total amount needed to run a business. Beyond administrative work, businesses need systems in place to streamline all repetitive tasks. Otherwise, entrepreneurs spend all their working time on mundane work that doesn’t actually generate revenue and quickly go out of business. 

Organizations are facing unprecedented times as the measures being deployed to slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) are impacting capital markets, supply chain, and business operations. The uncertainties of the current environment serve as a powerful reminder to senior decision-makers of the need for risk management and crisis planning.

Business continuity will be on a toss due to few obstacles like technical problems such as data loss, data protection, technology failure, incident management software and so on, Workforce will need to be retrained to be update as per the new changes, taking utmost care of cash flow management like does the organization have sufficient funds to continue operations or have a plan of how to address unanticipated expenses.

This pandemic poses significant challenges and unlike many crises has unfolded much advance warning or scope for preparation. Nevertheless, there is a wealth of information and resources that organizations can use to weather the pandemic and its aftermath and can be accessed here. CEOs and small business owners may find it helpful to bring this information to their boards or other advisors to stimulate discussion on the issue.

 Its just not the cons, here are some pros:

Remotely working comes with a slew of benefits from no setting up alarm, no daily commute in the morning, No strict dress code (unless you have online meeting!), get a more flexible work schedule to being work anywhere in the world, and every benefit comes with a challenge like managing your own schedule and time like we suddenly look at the clock and realize their kids want food, you need to have a proper division between workspace and personal space. Humans are social animals they need interaction with people, occasionally talk or no face-to-face interaction can get people lonely.

  New Learnings from the #NewNormal

As days progress, we see a positive adoption of the isolation, which was initially difficult to adjust to. So be it working from home, connecting with colleagues and teammates at a slightly more personal level, managing chores, and working more efficiently. People are now working around to make way for a new style of living.

Tools such as Zoom, Skype, and facilities such as conference calls earlier used exclusively for official meetings are increasingly used by people to connect with family, friends, and relatives. Every small act of kindness and courtesy, which was earlier absent, is now making a huge difference. People are now more appreciative of life, of things that were taken for granted before.

Let us know what you think of our blog and also how you manage to WFH (might help us :-p).

Blog by-

2020175-Dhwani Thakkar.

2020176- Gaurav Thigale.

2020177- Bhagyashree Tikar.

2020178- Pooja Tiwari.

2020179- Muskaan Verma.

2020180- Sakshi Vijan.

LALA LAJPATRAI INSTITIUTE OF MANAGEMENT.

[aion-rsa]

What Superman & Lois Gets So Right About Clark Kent

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This article contains some spoilers for recent Superman & Lois episodes.

In recent years, there’s been a lot of discussion within the world of geek pop culture about Superman – if modern audiences still respond to such a traditional do-gooder hero, whether the character should become a little rougher around the edges to remain relevant, or if we even still need stories about the Man of Steel when there are so many other iconic DC characters that have yet to make it to our screens in any form.

CW drama Superman & Lois does its best to stand as an answer to those sorts of questions, offering up a version of Superman that seems determined to remind us all why this character has long been DC Comics’ most iconic hero. Deliberately eschewing the frequently dour and violent aesthetic that has become a calling card of the DCEU’s take on the Man of Steel, this show is a deliberate return to the first principles of Superman’s story.

Earnest, heartfelt, and inherently optimistic, even as it tells complex stories about mental health and the struggles of small towns in an increasingly corporate America that steals their best and brightest, Superman & Lois never lets us forget that what makes its story so compelling is the humanity at its heart. It’s often said that every version of Superman is only as successful as its version of Clark Kent, and this show is one of the best examples of that axiom. 

Ever since Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman arrived in the Arrowverse, the character has exuded a delightfully dated farm boy charm, a kind of completely unselfish all-American goodness that makes it seem possible that this Clark would be a hero in Smallville even if he didn’t have superpowers. He’s the guy you call when your cat’s stuck up a tree, or ask to join the local PTA when it needs to figure out how to raise more money, a man whose servant-hearted attitude shines through as something regular people just might be able to replicate in real life.

That’s always been the thing with Superman, though, hasn’t it? (Or at least, it ought to be.) We don’t care about Clark Kent because he can fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes – it’s always been his most everyday, human characteristics that make this character so appealing. Superman & Lois rightly remembers that and focuses its storytelling on the man at the center of it all, rather than the being from another planet.

And Clark has rarely been a more relatable figure than he is here. It’s Clark, not Superman, that we see Lois fall in love with via flashbacks. It’s Clark’s all too human love for his wife and sons that keeps him tethered to himself when Edge tries to corrupt and erase the foundations of who he is. And it’s the complex dynamics of his relationships with that very same family that set this show apart from every other Superman property that’s come before it. 

In a less nuanced series, one might assume Superman would be an immediate Father of the Year candidate, what with his demonstrated history of inspirational speeches and can-do attitude. And yet, this version of Clark is often as stumped by his kids as any parent of teenage boys, often struggling to connect with his troubled son Jordan and fearing he’s neglecting the more traditionally normal Jonathan in the process. 

Jordan shares many of his father’s Kryptonian abilities but often vacillates between resenting the restrictions and responsibilities his new powers place on his life and using them for what can seem like selfish reasons. (See also: Revenge on the boys who once mocked him, the opportunity to chase the high school popularity and acceptance he has up until this point been denied.) He’s a teenager, so it’s not like any of this is abnormal, but what a contrast with his father’s youth – an emotional conflict that this show smartly and frequently exploits.

Given the care (and special effects budget) that Superman & Lois lavishes on its cinematic fight and action sequences, this is a show that also understands getting the chance to see the Man of Steel in action this way is still an important part of the story it’s telling. (And let’s be honest, Hoechlin looks great in that suit.) But that action firmly takes a back seat to the larger family dynamics at work within the show, and the series is ultimately stronger for it. Because it’s through that bond that we learn that Clark Kent – that Superman – isn’t some cliché spewing automaton, but a man who still faces problems like any other, particularly when it comes balancing the needs of a world that depends upon him with his role in the family he loves.

Perhaps the idea that even Superman struggles with work-life balance ought to feel cliche or lame, but the fact that Superman & Lois acknowledges the trade-offs Clark must make to be a hero seems almost revolutionary. (And not just because this is an issue that is almost always framed as a specifically female problem.) Even though he has literal superpowers, Clark can’t be everywhere or save everyone all around the world at once, and the good he does do can often carry a steep personal cost in terms of missing important moments with his family. It’s one of the many small narrative ways that Superman & Lois reminds us that, despite the fact that he can fly, Clark faces many of the same problems and challenges we do.

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Superman & Lois is remarkable in the ways that it uses parenthood and marriage to explore a new facet of Superman’s story onscreen. Clark may be one of the most powerful beings in the universe, but at the end of the day, he’s a husband and a father before he is ever a superhero. He believes in doing what’s right, and he lives those values – not just when he’s stopping trains from derailing, but when he’s trying to teach his boys how to be good men.  And he treats his abilities as the gift they are, rather than an unasked-for burden he can never lay down. The end result is something that feels entirely new – and, for once, seems as though it could go anywhere. And given that this character has been around for nearly a century at this point, that feels like a fairly incredible feat.

The post What Superman & Lois Gets So Right About Clark Kent appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3BX5JxZ

[justlookatthosesausages]

“Emergence” - an interactive fanfic

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CHAPTER 1

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Elsa chew on her oatbran grain bread with a daydreaming gaze at the mountains, watching the clouds gently getting blown by the breeze, and sighing in content.

As if on cue, the wind in front of her started to form into a twirling shape and rush to her, and she recognized it as Gale. It started to do circles around her, ruffling her hair to get her attention. She chuckled as she put it away from her face.

"Not now. I told you, no playing with my hair when I eat."

She smirked as she saw how expressive the wind spirit was, turning around, and took her mug to drink some hot tea. 

“What is it?” Elsa frowned after a while. 

She quickly put her mug down next to the rock she was sitting on when she noticed how hurried the spirit was. Elsa never had felt it so agitated. However, it was a mess going and floating around, and Elsa couldn't follow what they meant.

"Gale, you're even worse than me for mimes. Be more clear."

The wind spirit tried their best to indicate her that it was an urgency, but a few floating leaves couldn't help.

"Okay, okay. Use my hands." Suggested Elsa, rising both palms. "Left one is an urgency about the Forest, the right an urgency about Arendelle."

Gale urged to float around her right hand. Elsa's eyes widened.

"Oh gods. Is it something bad or are you excited?? Left for bad and..."

The spirit immediately rushed to her left hand. Elsa's spine shivered, and it surely wasn't because of the cold nor the wind. She stood up and bumped into her mug, her tea spilling on the grass.

"Nokk!! NOKK!!"

She had turned to the river as she called, and some circles appeared at the surface, then suddenly the magical horse arrived. It gave her a questioning tilt of the head, but could already feel her panic in her magic.

"Hurry, Arendelle, now!" Was all that Elsa could blabber before running to them, slamming her hand on their neck to freeze them as she jumped and twirled around to sit on their back, and right away started to position herself for high speed riding. 

Gale followed her, a bit unsure.

"Tell me more details on the way", ordered Elsa, sensing their hesitation to accompany her or stay in the forest to protect it. 

She pressed her ankles against Nokk’s body, gently but firmly, and the horse dashed forward, exiting the woods. 

As Elsa passed in front of two Giants playing with an enormous rock as a ball, she waved at them and screamed to take care of the forest in her absence. The two Giants instantly stopped their game and turned to the land, following her ask.

Nokk galloped at high speed through the land, and Elsa turned to Gale, which was lucky to be the wind spirit to be able to follow her at that rate.

“Is there a danger threatening the kingdom?” Asked Elsa, panic deforming her voice. 

Gale shook some of its leaves in its current, which the Fifth Spirit knew as meaning ‘no’. She let out a relieved gasp. 

“Is it about Anna? Kristoff? Olaf? Sven?” Even dared to ask Elsa. 

Now the wind spirit stared at her like she was just dumb. 

“Okay, is it about Anna and Kristoff?” 

Gale made the familiar movement that Elsa knew was an affirmative nod. 

“Oh no. Is it about her or--” She interrupted herself, and lifted her hands from Nokk’s neck to show them to Gale. It was a good thing she was used to ride them while using her powers, because it needed a lot of balance to not hold herself with the current speed of the magical horse. “Float around my hands. Left if it’s about Anna, and right if it’s about Kristoff.”

She prayed for Gale to not float to her left hand. But sadly, it did. 

Nokk felt the way Elsa's muscles suddenly tensed around their body and neighed as they turned their head. 

“Keep calm?? HOW CAN I KEEP CALM??” Jolted Elsa, feeling their emotion. “Anna is in DANGER!”

Gale quickly floated next to her eyes to make her lift her head again and correct her. It seemed to want to nuance things a bit. 

“What?”

The wind spirit twirled around.

“Anna is the danger? Something bad happened because of Anna?” Frowned Elsa. “No, it can’t be. She can’t do anything bad, what are you talking about?”

Gale wanted to precise the nuance once again, twirling around. Elsa offered both of her hands to have indications. 

“I can’t believe I’m asking that, but... Is that ‘bad thing’ positive or negative? Left for positive, and right for negative.” 

The wind gathered around her left hand. 

“Something bad happened... Thanks to Anna??” Understood Elsa, with a confused tone. 

The wind spirit finally expressed pure joy since they had started talking, and floated around in happiness. She finally got it!

“What- It’s... Wh-what??” Blabbered Elsa, utterly lost. “What do you mean, thanks to Anna?!” 

But precisions would be for later, because she saw that they had just arrived to the shore. 

"Okay. Gale, go forward. I’ll see you there." Said Elsa. She put her hands back on the horse's neck. "Nokk, underwater!!"

The spirit nodded, and jumped in the air to dive into the water with great force. Instantly, they created a bubble of oxygen for Elsa, and she gasped in it. Emotion peppered with a thousand questions made her breathing speed up. What was going on in Arendelle? Anna’s last letter was from earlier in the week, which was the regular frequency. And she said everything was alright, and she wouldn’t lie to her. What can she possibly have done that was bad and good at the same time? 

Elsa got thankfully distracted from her panicking thoughts by the vision of underwater rocks and seaweeds passing at very high speed around her. When she rode Nokk underwater, it felt like becoming an arrow piercing through any matter without restriction. She was laid horizontally to allow them both to get even faster. Nokk’s speed in their element was so incredible that, when it took humans two days to join the Forest and Arendelle, it only took them a few minutes. 

Moments later, she recognized the specific color of the fjord’s water, and Nokk made a nod to indicate that she was right; they had arrived, and she had to prepare for emergence. Elsa passed a hand along their neck, took one last gasp of air, and the Nokk raced upward, vertically now, to pierce the water surface like paper ripping apart, but without making any other water drop than the ones dripping from Elsa. She panted for oxygen, shaking her hair at the sudden return of fresh air, and mentally thanked Nokk for creating the bubble large enough to leave her hair dry. Though she wouldn’t care about her appearance given the situation. 

She saw the Arendelle ramparts, but most importantly, the guards standing on it and already staring at her. 

“STATE YOUR IDENTITY!” Yelled one of them, using a bullhorn. 

Elsa rolled her eyes, and couldn’t help herself but be sarcastic in that moment. “How many people come to Arendelle by the fjord after appearing form underwater?” She groaned out loud.

Nokk laughed, neighing in approbation. Elsa smiled and waved her arms as the horse arrived near the wall. 

“I’m Elsa! I come for an emergency.”

From where she was now, she could see that the closest guard to the one who spoke gave him a nudge. “You idiot, you can’t recognize her? It’s your first day and you already are off the mark.”

Elsa bit her lip to not smile, and could see the first guard blushing. 

“I was only doing my duty. Uhm... DO YOU NEED HELP TO CLIMB UP?” He yelled down to Elsa. 

However, if was useless; for she had already made Nokk form a wave and jump above the rampart. In the curve of the jump, Elsa felt like floating above them in slow motion as she passed, and she could see all the guards drop their jaw and following her with their eyes. 

“Oh, you apparently don’t.” Concluded the guard. 

Elsa turned to wink to him as she went down on the other side, and Nokk used the water of one of the fountains of the castle’s courtyard to land softly and not break Elsa’s knees appart by simply splashing on the cobblestones after so many meters of fall. 

They barely trotted in the courtyard that Elsa already dismounted, thanking them with a stroke, and ran to the castle’s doors. She forgot for a moment that she was drenched from shoulders to toes, and muttered a curse as she shook her feet at the entrance and used her magic to surround herself with a drying icy wind. 

“Elsa!?” Exclaimed a voice in front her. 

She lifted her head, even if she recognized his voice; Kai. She had missed him just as much as her family, and she almost wanted to greeted him with a hug. But she had to hurry. 

“Kai! Where’s Anna?” 

The butler bowed and smiled. “At this time, she surely is still sleeping, as you know.”

Elsa turned to the clock in the great hall, and saw that it only was 8am. She often lost track of time when she was in the forest, and had completely forgot to check before entering. Indeed, at that time, Anna certainly was still snoring under her sheets. Or above her sheets. Maybe both.

“Thank you!” She exclaimed, and ran up the stairs to Anna’s bedroom. 

On the way, she passed by some servants, who were surprised by her presence and rush. When she finally arrived in front of the door, she caught her breath and knocked her specific rhythm on the wood. 

She heard a ruffle inside, and a bump, like if someone suddenly had no idea what to do after hearing a knock. 

“Hum, yeah?” Answered a familiar voice.

“Kristoff?” Frowned Elsa. 

The blonde was then struck by the fact she probably had interrupted them in their intimacy. She clenched her fingers nervously.

“So sorry to ask, but...”

“We don’t need breakfast this morning, Gerda, thank you.” Hurried to say Kristoff, fear in his voice.

“It’s Elsa.” She said, and now she understood why her specific knocking rhythm hadn’t been recognized. 

Why was he sounding so nervous?

Kristoff yelped of surprise and rushed to open the door, drag Elsa in, and close the door behind. “ELSA!” He wheezed. “What the heck?? You gave me such a fright.”

The blonde looked at him in confusion. “What is going on? You’re so tensed. Where is Anna? Oh, and, good morning.”

Her brother-in-law didn’t know what to answer first, and bit her lip as he saw her looking around in the bedroom, looking for Anna. 

“Oh, uhm... It’s a bit complicated...” Whispered Kristoff. 

Elsa was taken aback on his choice of tone. “Why are you whispering? It’s 8am, the staff is awake.” 

Now he seemed embarrassed. But didn’t change his whispering tone anyway. 

“Maybe you should sit down.” He suggested. 

“I’m very well standing up, thank you.” Grunted Elsa. What was wrong with him? 

“I’m saying that because you’re exhaling a lot of cold right now. Calm down.” 

“Will you all stop telling me to calm down??” Frowned the Fifth Spirit in anger. “Nokk and now you... Kristoff, what. Is. Going. On.” 

“Everything’s fine”, he tried to lie. 

“No, I’ve been informed of the opposite by Gale. Also...” 

Elsa started to point at different things in the room. 

“The bed is made, which, don’t take it personally, is something neither Anna and you do, which means none of you have slept here last night, and you’re currently wearing outdoors clothes, which means you have just arrived from Ahtohallan knows where, and you are whispering, which means that you don’t want the staff to know what’s happening and you’re pretending that Anna is in the bedroom right now so that they don’t worry.” 

Kristoff widened his eyes at her rambling and clever observations, and gulped when the Spirit suddenly stepped forward, snowflakes twirling around her head. 

“Alright, alright. Something happened. Anna and I had a little... Fight yesterday.”

“You had an argument?” Asked Elsa, her heart breaking. 

“No, not the two of us”, chuckled the blond nervously. “With... Other... People.”

“How many other people?”

He winced. “A dozen?”

“A DOZEN??”

“I didn’t count. She’ll be able to tell you, though. She counted.”

Elsa’s widened eyes were so big that Kristoff could have drown in it. He coughed and kept talking. 

“We went to a pub last night. She needed a break from the duties - please don’t interrupt me as I’m explaining, I can see your finger rising - Okay so, we went to that pub... We wore the cloaks you offered us on last holidays to be incognito - those are so comfy, by the way, thank you agai-- yeah I keep going - and we drank a few pints, and...”

“Don’t tell me that she drank too much...” Muttered Elsa, closing her eyes and pinching the top of her nose. 

“No, she was fine. The guys however...” 

“The guys? Kristoff, are the people you told me about all men?”

“Yes?” He squeaked. 

She was about to gasp, but he held her arms. “Please let me finish”, he whispered quickly. “So, they were drunk, okay, and they started to say things about... You.”

Elsa stared at him, her mouth dropping.

“Don’t tell me that she PUNCHED them for overhearing that?"

“Yeah, that’s the part I knew you were going to not like.”

“She’s the Queen!!” Elsa exclaimed, looking around. “Where is she now??”

The blond clenched his eyes shut. “See, that’s the part you’re going to like even less.” 

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Dun dun dun :D 

What happens next? This is an interactive fanfic! You get to choose what happened (flashbacks) and what will happen (plot of the next chapter). To your reblogs, fellas!

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy: Season 1

I’m finally getting around to that Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch. And I considered posting about it, but then I decided a seasonal summary would be more fun, especially since the seasons - the individual episodes - tend to blend together because I always watch all of it. So, I’ve decided to make round-up posts after every season!

1. Favorite character of this season?

Buffy. The first season so perfectly sets her up as a complex character – so often, female leads get shoehorned into one box, one archetype. They also either get to be a Tough Girl, or a Girly Girl. But Buffy is so... perfectly both. She is a total badass but she is also a giggly girl talking about boys and hoping about school dances and cheerleading. Yet at the same time, she also has these... very, very human vulnerabilities. Her fear of abandonment when it comes to her father, her fear in the finale about her death. Yet she remains standing strong and true to her ideals and her duties.

She is an amazing character all on her own, but especially groundbreaking as a female lead character – and she will always be that, because even right now, twenty something years later, Hollywood is still struggling with writing fully fleshed out female leads without just shoehorning them into The Lover, The Badass or The Mother role like they can't have more complexity.

2. Outstanding minor character (positive or negative)?

Jesse. Look, yes, he is only in the first two episodes but I am still not over this. Him, Willow and Xan were friends, were a trio, prior to Buffy coming to this school. They must have been friends for years and just... for these normal 16 year olds who never really encountered Hellmouth-ish things before to lose one of their best and longest friends? There is an impact there that sadly doesn't stick. Like, he's just dead, no one talks about him or mourns him again even though this would have been a cutting event for Xander and Willow. And then there is the potential of an alternate reality where he would have absolutely become a Scooby had he survived. I don't know, I think about this a lot.

3. Favorite character dynamic?

Willow and Buffy. I love the way their friendship stands out, even among the Scoobies – though naturally I love the whole Scooby dynamic. But just, from the first episode on when Buffy had the chance to join the Popular Mean Girls and saw the way Cordelia treated Willow, she chose to instead spend time with Willow and from thereon out, their dynamic just grew closer and cooler.

The shy nerd and the cool cheerleader (well, only for one episode but you know what I mean – the pretty blonde who had the potential to be a Cool Girl). It's especially outstanding because in her interactions with Willow, Buffy truly gets to be the teenage girl. The girly kind of teenage girl who giggles and talks about boys and gets to be carefree, even just for a few moments.

4. Favorite canon romantic ship?

Angel and Buffy. David and Sarah have such great chemistry, the way they play off each other, how they put the longing into their performance, just how tragic this set-up is for them, the weird mystery to it all. Best Romeo and Juliet, really.

5. Least favorite canon romantic ship?

Angel and Buffy.

Look, I know that tumblr only deals in black and white, in “pure, healthy ship that can be loved” and “unhealthy, problematic ship that needs to be condemned”, but personally I like nuances and I like applying some critical thinking even to the things I love.

So I can absolutely love the way this is played out, the actors' chemistry, the tragic of it all and still also acknowledge just how creepy and frankly uncomfortable it is that this 240 year old dude has the hots for a sixteen year old kid.

6. Favorite episode?

The finale, “Prophecy Girl”. It is such a good pay-off of the season and it is also so... painful. When Buffy realizes she's going to die, when she decides to go despite knowing her fate. Giles' act of defiance, his first time clearly stepping out of his role as the Watcher as he decides to go and face the Master himself to avoid Buffy's death. How Angel and Xander, of all people, team up to go and help Buffy out. It also marks Cordelia's first proper participation with the Scoobies, as unwilling as it may be (I can't quite count the whole 'invisible girl trying to kill Cordy' as Cordelia actually joining them). A lot of good stuff and good pain.

But also shout-out to episode 9 “The Puppet Show” - I like the creep-factor of this episode, the set up for the twist, the certain low-key pain linked with Syd. Also I am very afraid of creepy dolls so the whole thing is even more of a creepy episode for me.

7. Least favorite episode?

I don't like episode 4 “Teacher's Pet” because it's really gross overall – I mean, it's a giant insect posing as a teacher to perv on students so they'll fertilize her eggs. So many levels of eeew.

But episode 5 “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date” is incredibly bland and forgettable, like... really forgettable, as much as I appreciate the 'Buffy attempts to Regular Date' angle. So kind of a tie.

8. Favorite Monster Of The Week?

Fear, from episode 10 “Nightmares”, if that counts. Because it's not a demon, or vampire, or monster. It's... well, fear itself. It also presented such a fascinating insight into Buffy as a character, to show her fears, but to also show Giles' fear of failing her, of having her die on him. I love how with all the monsters and things she has to face, her biggest fear is that her dad doesn't love her. It's so surprisingly deep – surprising in the sense that we get to see that Buffy is a complex character, not just the girly cheerleader-type girl, not just The Chosen One, but rather that she is very much also just... a girl, with family issues, with very real and human fears.

9. Least favorite Monster Of The Week?

Mh, it depends, because for the most part I don't find the Monsters of the Week overly memorable this season. “The Puppet Show” has a very weak and forgettable actual villain, however he only takes a backseat because the other plot stands more in the forefront and the focus is deliberately elsewhere and that is what makes me like the episode so much.

10. Rate the overarching villain!

The Master always seemed to me like a... not very fleshed out villain. Vaguely archetypical ancient evil demonic overlord. But that's kind of just... it. Why is he so important? What really makes him so special? And he very much is the Thanos of the Buffyverse – just sitting on his throne, waiting, occasionally standing up. He's a good enough opening act for the show, I'll give you that – because he checks the boxes. And, admittedly, the main focus is on establishing the Scoobies and their dynamics and their individual personalities, so it checks out.

Bonus: Other thoughts?

As above mentioned, I find the whole centuries old being lusting after a sixteen year old really questionable and this season went hard for it – because it's not just the main romantic plotline of the season, it's episode 4 “Teacher's Pet” with the praying mantis who poses as a teacher and seduces her students, it's episode 8 “I Robot, You Jane” with the ancient demon catfishing Willow, it's episode 9 “The Puppet Show” with the adult-turned-puppet who is perving on Buffy and any other girl he can lay his eyes on.

Having it only be the main romantic plotline would be one thing, but if you have that and additionally three out of thirteen episodes that have a focus on the theme, then it becomes... questionable, in my opinion.

In other news, I absolutely love Cordelia and I love that even season one already gave a tiny bit of insight into her being more than just the shallow bully she pretended to be.

I also love the unorthodox/modern interpretations of things – the demon who got scanned into the internet, the prophecy about Buffy's death that was then just kind of canceled out by the existence of CPR to revive her, the 'techno paganism', the white bus as stand-in for Death's pale horse.

It also establishes the Scoobies really well already, both as individual characters and in their dynamics among themselves. I will always love the Found Family trope of this show. Always.

So, yeah, overall slightly weak individually speaking, but a rather good overall start for the show!

[missmentelle]

How to Support a Partner with Autism

After nearly two years of being single following a very difficult breakup, I got into a new relationship last year. Although we had a bit of a rocky start - as regular readers of this blog already know - we have managed to overcome our issues and build a happy, affectionate, stable relationship with each other. My new guy has all of the traits I was looking for in a partner - he’s kind, thoughtful, and considerate. He's dependable, and even though I’m not a morning person, I gladly wake up early to exchange “good morning” texts with him, filled with flirty compliments and encouragement for the day ahead. We share the same interests and values, and there’s nothing I look forward to more than curling up in his arms at the end of a long day. After years of living with a partner who seemed determined to grind me down, my new guy is the first person I’ve ever dated who puts an effort into building me up instead. 

He also happens to be on the Autism spectrum. 

My partner is from a European country with some of the worst protections for autistic human rights in the developed world, and his diagnosis has been a source of deep shame for him. He has lived his whole life under serious stigma, and he had hoped that moving to America would make things a little better for him. My friends and family’s reactions to finding out my partner is autistic, however, have been disappointing, even in an age and country where autism acceptance is on the rise. Many of them don’t understand why I would want to have an autistic partner, or they are surprised to learn that autistic people date at all. It’s not entirely surprising that they think this way - although there is more information out there about autism than ever, and depictions of autism in popular media are on the rise, it is still rare to see autistic people presented as sexually desirable, or to see serious conversations about dating and sex with people on the spectrum. When we are shown autistic people in dating situations, either their social awkwardness is played for laughs, or they are portrayed as only being capable of dating other autistic people. The idea that autistic people can have happy, mutually fulfilling romantic relationships with non-autistic people is not often explored in media or in resources about autism, and I have to look pretty hard to find advice or examples of relationships that look like mine. 

So if you’re a non-autistic person who is in love with an autistic person, and you’re worried about how best to support your partner’s needs, here are my personal recommendations:

Ask your partner what they need. Your partner has been living with their quirks for a lot longer than you have, and by this point, they probably have a good idea of what works for them and what doesn’t. Don’t guess, and don’t make assumptions - ask your partner what they need from you, in plain and direct language. The things that worked in your previous relationships might not work for this partner, and it’s better to discuss your partner’s needs ahead of time rather than learning that they don’t like something after they’ve already gotten stressed out or upset. 

Beware of stereotypes. Don’t assume that you know what an autistic person needs just because you sat through three episodes of Atypical and half a season of The Big Bang Theory. Autistic people have as much variety as non-autistic people, and your partner is probably very different from every other autistic person you know. My boyfriend is the guitarist in a heavy metal band and routinely performs in noisy bars - he doesn’t experience sensory processing issues to the same degree that other people with autism do. He does have a hard time with written communication, while some autistic people literally write novels. Everyone is different, and relying on stereotypes is unfair to your partner. 

Be prepared to face communication difficulties. One of the hallmarks of autism is that it makes communication difficult. That’s kind of what autism is. While previous partners might have been able to effortlessly read your meaning from a single glance or a gentle nudge, your autistic partner may have difficulties doing the same, and getting angry at them for not picking up on subtle nuances is just going to make you both upset. Finding a way to communicate is essential for all couples, but it may require more dedicated effort when one or both of you has communication issues. Get used to saying exactly what you mean - many people with autism struggle to parse sarcasm or passive aggression, and you can’t have a productive relationship when one of you has to work a lot harder to understand what the other is getting at. If you are the sort who loves to tease, check in with your partner and make sure they know when you are kidding and when you aren’t. Debrief after difficult interactions to see where you both could have done things differently. Your partner is worth the effort.

Learn to not take things personally. People with autism can be very blunt, and sometimes struggle to know when they have crossed the line from “telling it like it is” to “hurting others’ feelings”. They may also have moments where they want to socially withdraw, or moments when they do not want to be physically touched. It’s important not to take any of it personally, and to remember that your partner’s moods and needs are not always about you. Your partner isn’t trying to hurt you - they are just trying to exist in a world that isn’t always comfortable for them. My partner and I have a double barrier to communication that can sometimes lead to unintended offense; there is a language gap between us, as his English is not perfect, and I am barely conversational in his native tongue. There are plenty of times he has accidentally said something harsh, or chosen unnecessarily harsh wording. He struggles to find the right words to comfort someone, especially over text message, and when I’m worried about something he will often say “I don’t care about this” - not because he’s telling me to shut up, but because he can’t find the words to say “I am confident that everything is going to work out okay, and so I am not concerned about this issue and you shouldn’t be either”. Having a partner with autism often means extending the benefit of the doubt, letting things go, and asking your partner for clarification before responding to what they say.

Don’t drop hints or expect mind-reading. You shouldn’t do this in any relationship, but it’s especially important that you not do this with an autistic partner. Autistic partners cannot play the “what’s wrong - I’m fine - no you’re not - I said I’m fine” game with you; you have to tell them outright if something is bothering you, instead of hoping they will notice you are obviously in a pissy mood. Use your words. Social connections do not always come naturally to your partner, and asking them to make the connection between an offhand comment you made a week ago and your mood today is just going to make everyone needlessly frustrated. If you didn’t say it in plain language, don’t expect them to know what you want.

Remember that honesty is a double-edged sword. People with autism often do not see the point in lying. If I ask my boyfriend if I look fat in my new dress, he will absolutely give me an honest answer, and then make several suggestions for changes that I might make to my diet and exercise regime. He is not trying to be rude, and he doesn’t actually want me to lose weight - he is giving me the answer that he thought I wanted. Don’t ask your autistic partner questions that you don’t want honest answers to. The little voice in your head that tells you “the truth is going to hurt this person’s feelings too much, time for a white lie” doesn’t work for everyone, and your partner may have a hard time understanding when you are actually hoping to be lied to. 

Understand that you may need to initiate things. People with autism tend to face a lot of social rejection in their lives, and by the time they reach dating age, it can really begin to take a toll on them. They are used to seeing themselves portrayed as sexually and socially undesirable, and they may have come to believe that dating is off the table for them. Most have been burned before for coming on too strong, or for making their feelings known when their interest wasn’t returned, and they may be hesitant to make the first move. My partner has actually been in a lot more relationships than I have, but almost never of his own volition - he is objectively extremely physically attractive, especially to women who like men from alternative subcultures, and he has been fortunate enough to have other people constantly make the first move. Even at this stage in the relationship, I often have to be the one to initiate affection - he is wary of coming on too strong, and prefers to wait for me to make a move.

Be prepared to offer a lot of reassurance. My partner struggles to identify other people’s moods or read facial expressions. He cannot tell a “I’m genuinely happy to be interacting with you” smile from a “I’m trying to be polite but I want you to go away” smile, and he knows it. It’s very stressful to not be able to tell what kind of impact you’re having with another person, and sometimes people with autism need extra reassurance that their partners are enjoying whatever it is they are doing and want it to continue. A quick “hey, I really like that you hugged me just now, it made me really happy” goes a long way.

Don’t infantalize your partner. Your partner is an adult with autism. They are not a child, and they don’t need to be treated like one. The fact that they might sometimes need extra patience with communication does not mean that they need to be coddled, talked down to, or pitied. People with autism deserve to be respected like any other adult - you should not be trying to shelter them or undermining their ability to make decisions for themselves. Let them take risks if they want to take risks, and don’t act like their substitute parent. 

Plan dates and activities with their needs in mind. Even if your partner can handle going to a noisy bar, that’s probably not the place to meet up with them if you need to have an emotionally tough conversation with them. Some autistic people struggle with food - a trip to a restaurant with completely unfamiliar cuisine may be more stressful than exciting for them. Likewise, while popular media pushes the idea that being “spontaneous” is important for a love connection, many people with autism are much happier having a set routine and knowing about any plans well in advance. If my partner and I have a date set for next week, he will text me every day until then to confirm our plans. Don’t worry about what the world finds “romantic” - do what works best for the two of you.

Remember that they still feel emotions, even if they can’t always show it. People often make the mistake of assuming that people with autism are “emotionless” or “robotic”. But an inability to express emotions outwardly does not mean they aren’t being experienced on the inside. People with autism can experience very intense emotions, but not show outward signs of this. Don’t assume that your partner is feeling nothing just because they seem placid and calm - check in with them, even if they appear to be okay. 

Enjoy them for who they are. The whole point of getting into a relationship with someone was, presumably, because you enjoy spending time with them. So keep spending time with them. It’s important to be mindful of barriers that your partner faces, but it’s also important not to get too wrapped up in it and reduce your partner to a label. My partner is autistic, but he’s also my cooking partner, my travel buddy and the person whose ass I am going to kick just as soon as I get good at shooter games. There’s no point trying to divide him up into “autistic traits” and “non-autistic traits”. He’s a whole wonderful person, and someone I feel very lucky to even know. 

[izupie]

1, 5, 13, 23, 33, 39 with Tokoyami x Tsuyu!! Don't have to do all of them, because frankly I'd be happy with any of them! One of my favorite authors writing stuff about one of my favorite (and disappointingly underrated) ships?? Yes please!!

Oh booyy, wow! No, I love the excuse to talk about some good bird frog content~

And aaa thank you! /// Admittedly, these two have very little canon content to use so this will be a Very Deep Dive into the headcanon void, hope you don’t mind~

you: You don’t have to do all of them

me: no I’m gonna

woah this needs a read more I wrote wayyy more than I intended //wheeze//

1. - How do they fall asleep? Wake up? Any daily rituals?

Tsuyu doesn’t like the cold when she sleeps, so she always slept under a thick duvet and even piled blankets on top of that too. Tokoyami has never been a very good sleeper and he suffers from insomnia from time to time. Even though they started with very different sleeping habits, both of them are so adaptable that they made it work when they moved it together: Tsuyu got rid of the extra blankets on top of the duvet, and instead got thicker pyjamas, while Tokoyami began to find that Tsuyu’s slow, regular, sleepy breathing lulled him to sleep. They still like their own space in bed, so they sleep on their own sides of it, but Tsuyu sometimes strokes Tokoyami’s feathers before she falls asleep and he holds her hand gently until he falls asleep too. They wake up most mornings still holding hands.

She says good night and good morning to Dark Shadow every day too.

Tokoyami actually brushes Tsuyu’s long hair while they’re getting ready for the day. It’s a very intimate act, and she wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it, but Tokoyami’s hands are gentle and patient and he would never hurt her. She makes him a coffee every morning, with lots of milk. (She would never ruin his image and tell everyone just how milky he has his coffee).

5. - Nicknames? Pet names? Any in-jokes?

Tsuyu tells everyone to call her Tsu, including Tokoyami. She never quite manages to get him to do it for a long while, but he slips up one day and does and it makes her day. He gets embarrassed about it but it makes her so happy that he bashfully calls her Tsu from then on.

She affectionately calls Tokoyami ‘Fumi’ (a shortening of his first name) or whispers a pet name of ‘Tori’ to him when they’re alone (the Japanese word for Bird).

She can keep such a straight face that an in-joke between them is that she’ll sometimes come out with something Dark Shadow has told her about Tokoyami with her best poker face, even if it’s something totally bizarre. ‘But Dark Shadow told me you can only eat spinach on a Tuesday, if you’re wearing something pink, and you’ve sang to it first.’

Dark Shadow always goes along with whatever Tsuyu says. ‘IT’S TRUE’ it’ll add no matter what outlandish thing she’s proclaimed it told her.

It’s like, the weirdest humour and their friends Do Not Get It, but they both think it’s hilarious. Tokoyami laughs so hard and blushes when it’s something embarrassing, even if it’s made up, and squishes her squishy cheeks. She grins like a champion every time. She’ll just come out with it totally randomly, so he never knows when or what the next crazy statement she’ll come out with is - delivered with a totally straight face before she cracks up at his reaction.

He still does his over-the-top darkness related descriptions for things, but Tsuyu also joins in. They both chuckle at that too.

13. - What do they do for fun? Do they have a favorite activity or do they like to switch things up?

The two of them go sightseeing often - they’re both actually very trendy, even though they don’t try, they just have really good fashion sense - so they look like a really cool couple when they’re out at tourist spots having ice cream and soaking in the atmosphere and the history.

Tsuyu also loves watching movies, wrapped in a duvet, in Tokoyami’s arms. They discuss the film in depth afterwards. Tokoyami cries at really emotional films, though Tsuyu is sworn to secrecy about it, and she’ll chuckle and wipe away his tears afterwards.

23. - How do they hug? Kiss? Tease? Flirt? Comfort?

Tokoyami hugs like he’s never going to let go, sometimes Dark Shadow joins into the hug too, while Tsuyu hugs like it’s a gentle precious thing and he can’t stand how much he loves her when she gives him a soft little squeeze. They’re not into PDA so they don’t hug while they’re out and about - it’s very much a private thing. Unless you knew them and their little nuances towards each other you probably wouldn’t know that they were a couple at all.

Kissing is hard with a beak and sometimes Tokoyami can feel bad that he can’t kiss his partner like everyone else - especially when they see other ‘normal’ couples. Tsuyu absolutely hates that he ever feels that way and can’t stress to him enough that she loves him just as he is, exactly how he is, and wouldn’t change him for anything in the whole world. She kisses the side of his beak, though he can’t really feel it, but prefers kissing the soft downy feathers just next to his beak. Which he loves.

Or she’ll kiss the human soft skin of his chest, which is much more sensitive due to the lack of feathers. He loves that even more.

Tsuyu likes to be held and feel the warmth of his body, since hers doesn’t regulate temperature very well because of her froggyness. 

He gets embarrassed at first that he nibbles at her shoulder or hand or just inside the curve of her neck with his beak when they’re being close - because it’s a birdy impulse he just can’t shake. (have you ever owned birds? that nibbly thing they do is so freaking cute I swear) 

Tokoyami is so bad at handling flirting, which is hilarious because he’s usually so collected and doesn’t say much, but Tsuyu flirts with him and he just melts, while she is cooler than cool and never looks phased. She usually just says what’s on her mind and it comes out like flirting. (Tsu: moonlight sets off your eyes you know, kero. Like stars in the night, shining out of your dark feathers. Tokoyami, voice cracking: thAnKS YOu toO)

In terms of comfort, Tsuyu is so grounded and sensible that she often internalises any worry or guilt and it ends up playing on her mind until she can’t contain it anymore and she’ll just break down into tears. Tokoyami gets particularly good at spotting when she’s holding something back or keeping bad emotions inside - just knowing when her look is more distracted than usual, or her smile is a fraction ‘off’ - and he gently asks her to share it with him. She’s so used to shouldering her burdens alone that it takes her a long time to be able to come to him for reassurance, though she’s always glad when she does because he’s also so level-headed and practical that she always feels much better afterwards.

Tokoyami is always, always harbouring secret fears of what he could do to her if he let his quirk get out of control. Tsuyu loves Dark Shadow, because it’s a part of him, but he can never forget the nightmare of what happened at the training camp. Tsuyu bought a night light for their room that comes on automatically at night, but never made a fuss about it, just bought it and installed it and neither of them have ever brought it up. For someone who’s essence is to be more powerful in the dark it makes him uneasy that he’s so unwilling to be immersed in it when he’s around her - so worried for her safety and the thought that he’d be unable to live with himself if he ever did anything to her. She trusts him beyond a shadow of a doubt (puns?) and knows he doesn’t need the night light, but if it makes him feel better she’ll go with it. 

33. - What kind of presents do they get each other? Do they only do it on special occasions?

Tsuyu is all about handmade presents. She’s actually quite crafty, so she’s usually sticking things together or whipping out the glitter glue. Presents from her are unique and all about the person she’s making it for - you didn’t know you needed a new pen pot? Here’s a glittery one. Or a peg basket with tissue paper flames around it for those times you need to put the washing out and don’t have anywhere to store your pegs. A feathery dream-catcher weighed down by a ton of beads? She’s gotcha covered. Her hands are large due to her quirk, but she can be super delicate with them. Their house ends up full of craft items, and Tokoyami treasures each one.

He gets her all sorts of ‘thought of you’ gifts while he’s out. But it’s usually stuff like a notebook with a frog on it, or a frog pen, or a pebble that kind of looked like a frog’s face. They end up with all sorts of frog themed bits and pieces around the house. It’s a real eclectic kind of mixture. Tsuyu smiles like he’s brought her the world every time he gets her one of these little froggy gifts.

39. - Who initiated the relationship? Who kissed who first?  When did they realize they were in love?

Tsuyu was the one who initiated the relationship. They’d been put together for a few group assignments throughout their time at school and really loved working as a team, so by their third year they just started hanging out together outside of class. Their personalities complimented each other so well. Tsuyu got teased by Mina one day for the amount of time she was spending with Tokoyami outside of school and she just totally without even missing a beat replies that it’s because she’s in love with him and her friends are just like Oh Wow, No Hesitation. When they suggest she should do something about it it’s the first time they ever see her truly bashful and a little unsure. 

Tokoyami remains blissfully unaware that he has Feelings for Tsuyu, despite Dark Shadow teasing him about it relentlessly. 

One evening she’s adding more feathers into her scrapbook than is really necessary and she just gets up from her desk, goes to his room, knocks on the door and just straight up tells him that she really likes him and would he like to go out with her? He is emotionally floored by this completely out of nowhere reveal and manages to choke out that he really likes her too and yes of course.

It was a realisation of ‘I really enjoy spending time with this person, I actively seek them out and I have this warm feeling when I’m around them, I’m obviously in love’ for Tsuyu while for Tokoyami it was her knocking on his door and him going ‘THAT’S what this feeling is’ while Dark Shadow internally is like Of Course You Dumbass.

Their first kiss is after a particularly tough team exam. They actually fail the exam and they’re both exhausted and Tokoyami is about to apologise and she just puts a hand to his beak and kisses his cheek. A really innocent first kiss, but full of emotion.

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - ‘Little Green Men’ Review

Quark: "All I ask is a tall ship and a load of contraband to fill her with."

By nature I love brevity: Fun and entertaining. There are a few little bits of character beyond that, but yeah, that about sums it up.

I'm really not a big fan of Ferengi episodes. Sure, there are a few I like, but mostly they tend to be pretty terrible. I think I've finally pinpointed it, though - what distinguishes the Ferengi episodes I like from the ones I despise. It depends almost entirely on how much it relies on the regulars and how much it relies on guest characters.

The Ferengi episodes I like, other than this one, are 'The Nagus,' 'Profit and Loss,' and 'The House of Quark.' In 'The Nagus,' the focus is wholly on Quark and how this situation revolves around him. Though the other Ferengi are around, it's really just his story. 'Profit and Loss' and 'The House of Quark,' too, are stories about Quark; Rom is the only other Ferengi around in both. And here, the typical Ferengi guests don't show up; only regular characters Rom and Nog are along for the ride. In other Ferengi shows, I'll enjoy the occasional gag and little nuances about the actors' performances. But that's it. And in all of those episodes, every single one, the non-regular Ferengi characters have prominent and even central roles.

So that's what I think makes a Ferengi episode I like and what makes one I dislike. Quark, Rom, and Nog are such well-developed, interesting characters, that an episode revolving around them is most often going to be a good one. The non-regular Ferengi, even Zek and Ishka, are just not compelling enough to make me like their stories, I don't quite know why. Maybe it's the infrequency of their appearances; it's possible that if they appeared regularly I would come to care about them. But I just don't as is.

'Little Green Men' also benefits from a few important boosts. The first is the increasingly compelling arc of Nog, as he heads for Starfleet Academy. Nog was little more than a whiny brat who ran around getting into light trouble and antics with Jake, until 'Heart of Stone' last season gave him motivation and some goals. Now he's headed off, and there's some really good material at the beginning of this episode during his farewells. I like Worf's discovery of the tooth sharpener, and I love his goodbye with Jake to their favorite spot. But the best thing about this, at least for me, is the way that he shows he's still a Ferengi, even though he's decided to join Starfleet. He's been raised to value profit over all else, and that isn't just going to go away because he wants to avoid turning out like his father. The other important element that improves 'Little Green Men' is Odo. His relationship with Quark is great and one of the foundations of DS9, and any chance the writers get to showcase it is always appreciated.

I do, of course, have to talk about the gimmick of Ferengi as the Roswell aliens. It's really nothing more than an amusing situation to throw the group into so they can be amusing and have some danger to escape. But it's remarkably clever, and it leads to some funny reflections on society in the 40s. The idea that an America desperately clambering to take precedence over the Soviet Union would take advantage of the opportunities presented by technologically advanced aliens makes a lot of sense, as does the Ferengi's naiveté. The humanity that Quark, Rom, and Nog know are very different from the humanity of the 40s. Even though Nog has some idea of their 'primitive aggressive' tendencies from his guidebook, the group is not at all prepared to face a desperate and divided human government.

Strange New Worlds:

This time around we visited the not-so-alien world of 1940s Earth.

New Life and New Civilizations:

We learned that the Ferengi afterlives are called the Divine Treasury and the Vault of Eternal Destitution. The Divine Treasury is made of Latinum, and Ferengi must bid for their eternal lives from the Celestial Auctioneers.

Pensees:

-Quark has an untrustworthy cousin named Gaila, who owns a successful munitions consortium.

-Nog remarks that historical figure Gabriel Bell looks a lot like Captain Sisko. This is because he is Sisko, as a result of the events of the episode 'Past Tense.'

-All the Ferengi have their universal translators embedded in their ears.

-Quark's knowledge of human society consists of baseball, darts, root beer, and nuclear weapons.

-Nog's fictional 'Marauder-class' vessels are derived from the Ferengi Marauder, the unofficial name for the D'Kora class.

-Charles Napier, who played the General here, also played Adam in the TOS episode 'The Way to Eden.'

Quotes:

Odo: "Very generous of you, taking Nog to Earth." Quark: "I'm a generous person." Odo: "So I've noticed." Quark: "Try not to miss me too much while I'm gone." Odo: "I'll be counting the days until you get back."

Jake: "You know, aside from playing dom-jot and watching the Bajoran transports dock, it seems like we spent most of our time doing nothing." Nog: "Maybe so, but I can't think of anyone I'd rather do nothing with than you."

Kira: "Quark, Rom, and Nog, together on that ship, all the way to Earth. Glad I'm not going with them." Sisko: "Only thing that worries me - no one warned Earth that they're coming."

Quark: "They irradiated their own planet?"

Quark: "If they'll buy poison, they'll buy anything. I think I'm gonna like it here."

Wainwright: "You mean your people are going to invade... Cleveland?"

Carlson: "A vast alliance of planets. You get the craziest ideas."

4 out of 6 loads of contraband.

-- CoramDeo is not Herbert.

[thomas-is-my-name]

My Pitch For A Better Emoji Movie

This is a joke, right?

Afraid not.

Okay then. Fix the Emoji Movie.

So. I'm not sure I can immediately repair the horrible writing and humour, the unlikeable characters, and the unoriginal concept and plot. But what I do want to do is present a much more coherent and logical set of rules for the Emoji world, which would improve the film's shoddy worldbuilding and provide groundwork for a much more insightful story and more complex characters.

The way the world is set up feels very path-of-least-resistance to me. The writers' thought process, as far as I can tell, goes like this:

Existing movies that anthropomorphise human constructs tend to give them secret worlds. Like Inside Out and Wreck-It Ralph! Those made lots of money! We like money!

Okay, so let's make a city full of Emoji inside a phone. They're all hanging out in there. And they exist to serve the humans. Like Toy Story! That film made money too!

I'm looking at my phone's keyboard, and there's a bunch of Emoji here. So how about we make each one an individual character in our movie. That sounds about right.

Each character always presents their one emotion. So let's do a "misfit" plot. Like every Disney Pixar Dreamworks movie!

Okay, so our protagonist is a character who doesn't like the emotion they have to display! And he's special and unique because of it!

Wait, so what about the non-human emojis? Why do they get to display the full range of emotions freely? If there's loads of duplicate Emoji in this huge city, what do most of them do all day? The phone only needs one of each. The main character has parents, implying the Emoji reproduce. But do they ever die? Does the city go on forever? And what's the deal with the "career" and "couple" Emoji? Are they just regular people?

Oh wow, is it lunch time already?

I'll give the film some credit for portraying a dump where underused Emoji get sent. They're at least gesturing towards some complex ideas about how Emoji society might function. But overall it feels like they stopped caring about fleshing out the world as soon as they had enough scaffolding to build their hackneyed misfit story on. Which is a shame, because there's real potential for something unique in the concept of an Emoji world. That's not a joke, by the way. Emoji are basically a subset of written language, and while movies have personified animals, toys, cars, video game characters, emotions, I can't think of one that's personified a language before.

Just pitch your fucking movie already.

Okay, I have two possible takes I'm considering.

Take 1: the condensed cast

In this version, the "emotion" Emoji aren't all separate individuals. Instead, there's a relatively small group of Emoji (maybe half a dozen) who are responsible for covering all the emotions between them. Maybe each one has specialisms, like being better at anger and sadness, or laughing on demand. But each one isn't limited to one extremely specific expression and feeling.

The original movie kind of hamstrings itself out of the gate by having a one-to-one relationship between the characters and the Emoji as they appear on the keyboard. Since failing to perform your emotion is an unacceptable deviation from the norm, all characters are either one-note by definition, or have to be outlaws to fit the rules of the story. This is even weirder when you consider that the "inanimate object" Emoji are not bound by the same rules. Sir Patrick "Poop" Stewart is allowed to express a variety of emotions without being ostracised. This change immediately makes the social rules more consistent.

So, what else changes in this version? Well, our protagonist can still be a misfit, but now there's more ways for that to manifest. Maybe he's exhausted by having to constantly perform insincere feelings based on the whim of the phone's user. Maybe he's not good at adapting quickly when a certain Emoji is typed, and the others are resentful at having to pick up his slack. Or maybe he happens to specialise in expressions the user doesn't choose very often, so he gets far less exposure than the rest of his team. Suddenly we have allegories for depression, repressed emotions, and labour exploitation popping up. Furthermore, if we incorporate the unpopular, underused Emoji into the social hierarchy, there's the potential for some serious examinations of privilege. Our MC may feel dissatisfied with his role, but what about the class of Emoji that don't get used at all? Do they envy the MC for the attention and work he and his team get, simply for being faces rather than obscure objects?

This concept opens up the door for a much more nuanced story than simply "guy who's different proves that being different is okay." It also means we can ditch all the cringeworthy dialogue scenes between characters who physically can't emote more than one way.

Take 2: full dystopia

But we can go darker. Most movies of this type are predicated on the idea that the personified characters have no higher goal than to satisfy the needs of their humans, provided those humans are using them the "right" way. As it stands, the Emoji Movie never really asks if it's right for its cast to be at the beck and call of an omnipotent (to them) overlord. (Sausage Party is the most notable exception here). But if we do want to question that, we could get a really dark story. Possibly too dark for a kid's movie, but whatever.

Let's say that each Emoji, when it's sent, gets physically transported from Textopolis to the inbox/messaging app of the recipient. Once they've been received and read, they're left in the chat history, either alone or in the company of the other Emoji they were sent with, forever. Like the Little Green Men in Toy Story, the ones left behind have no knowledge of what happens when you're "chosen." They simply provide a steady stream of new Emoji to the user, and have a faith system built around the idea that being chosen takes you to a better place.

In this version, our protagonist is an Emoji who learns the truth about their world, and has to deal with its implications. The problem here is that we run into a dead end for upbeat kids' entertainment. There's not really a "win condition" for the Emoji which doesn't involve putting an end to their use by humans. And how would you even write that? A movie about a war between humans and their phones? That generation of kids would have some truly wacky trauma.

The main advantage of this approach is that it deals with the implied Textopolis population growth, and the multiples of the same Emoji, by providing a clear life cycle Emoji go through. Plus it makes it clearer how the "sending" process is experienced by an Emoji, something the original isn't too bothered about. Though to be honest, those were kind of bad faith criticisms to begin with, so maybe they don't need fixing.

Basically, version 1 is what I'd make if I was handed the Emoji Movie project and wanted to make the best of it. Version 2 is what I'd make if nobody could say no to me. It would be a Fuck You to the producers for even entertaining the notion of an Emoji Movie.

Okay I've given this dumbass concept way more time than it deserves already. If anyone wants to draft a script for me, be my guest.

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 33

Table of Contents. Go to previous. Go to next. The end of Arc I: First Instar.

To guarantee he was travel ready, ‘Choly laid over in Sanctuary for another day. If he hadn’t been hard-committed to traveling to Lowell before, the loathing hovering over him that the Quincy survivors might learn what he’d done at the Red Rocket provided a really convincing motivation to leave Sanctuary for a while. Noxious rumor potential aside, he felt like an endangerment to them with his impulsive terrible decisions, and he needed to clear his head more than anything.

The chemist had not enumerated exact inventory numbers in his notes to the survivors, as to what he had left for them where, and he was grateful he wouldn’t need to revise his terminal entries when he changed his mind as to what he would stock them up with while he was gone.

One, he hadn’t yet found any legume, pea, or nut to use for the base of his updated Melancholia recipe. Until he found a suitable substitute for soy protein, he’d have to rely on rations and just suck up the indigestion pretty much any food would inevitably cause. He’d take an armful of deviled eggs and sweet rolls, and scavenge along the way. He hoped that even if he hadn’t thought to include bismuth in what he took from the pharmacy, he might locate some readily once he got to the Billerica suburbs, or even in Lowell proper.

And two, he had initially planned to take all chems with him which were not medically relevant regardless of whether he intended to use them, if not just to keep them out of Mama Murphy’s hands. But the more he thought on it, the more hypocritical it was of him to make a judgment that he knew what’s best for these folks than they did. His juxtaposition hinged on the fact he considered Mentats medically relevant to himself, when they weren’t so for others. So, in addition to staples like Rad-Away and Stimpaks, he left one container of each chem. He couldn’t in good conscience insist that they stay chem-free if he couldn’t reliably insist that of himself. After all, he’d never been in a position to quartermaster, and he certainly didn’t think he was in the right to make that call.

He spoke with Angel very briefly the morning after that, and explained that they would be fine without them for a while. Seclusion and decent rations would do wonders for them, and they seemed industrious and progress-driven--especially Sturges. But he insisted with the robot that they leave without making a fuss. He didn’t know what he’d tell people, couldn’t speculate what kinds of questions or doubting they’d pose. He’d left a note explaining everything. They’d understand.

As he and Angel headed out, he readied himself atop the robot with his syringer rifle and his last case of Pax Syringes. Ideally, he could nullify the hostility without having to kill anything or anyone, and just make a quick clip up Route 62 to follow North on Route 3. He worried that the interstate might have collapsed in places, and already knew to travel low to the ground and follow Route 3 instead of traveling on it directly.

“Hey! You’re up and walkin’ again.” Sturges jogged up to ‘Choly and Angel as they crossed onto the pavement at the end of the wooden bridge out of Sanctuary. “You leave somethin’ behind at the Red Rocket? I’ll accompany you.”

Angel slowed but did not stop. ‘Choly hemmed a bit at having been caught, but if it had been anyone, he was grateful it was the handyman.

“--Good morning to you, too.” His dread melted into resignation and slowly pooled into endearment. “I... I’d appreciate that, if you could.”

The three of them made a visit to the Red Rocket, under the motivation of making it look like that’s what the chemist had intended in the first place.

“If you’re worried about the body, I already buried it.” Once he spoke, Sturges rounded out of the front end of the building and into the mechanic’s area to tinker restlessly. “Preston was right. There’s a lot to salvage here. It’s almost untouched, from what I can tell.”

‘Choly dismounted from Angel and slung the rifle around to his back in favor of his cane. With a hand to the pale blue Handy’s chassis, it knew to leave the two of them to have a conversation in private while it busied itself out front.

“You burying one body doesn’t explain what became of the other... eight? Ten?” When Sturges remained silent at the remark, ‘Choly sat on the bench press table with a sigh. “I’m worried they aren’t actually dead.”

“Oh, they’re dead, all right. You don’t have to worry about that.” He didn’t pick his head up, scrutinizing the various tools in the complete roll cabinet. Occasionally, he’d select one to add to an overall pocket. “He’s buried with the others. I wondered what the loose dirt was about. Thought it might have had somethin’ to do with the dog that ran off, to be honest. Forgive the bluntness, but if you were worried about ‘the others,’ I take it you just couldn’t bring yourself to kill the last one.”

‘Choly’s hands shook in his lap, and he leaned against a smooth patch of the pegboard behind him to steady himself. His stomach hurt again.

“I didn’t understand who they were until it was too late.”

Sturges glanced over his shoulder, wearing the slightest nuance of the heaviness in his heart on his face. He bit at the insides of his lips.

“It’s not my place to ask, but that... He was that roommate you mentioned, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. And the others, I figure they were my neighbors. If there’s enough loose dirt here that you think there’s more graves than the one you dug, maybe... Maybe he wasn’t feral. Maybe he was still rational enough to do what I couldn’t bring myself to even register as the right thing to do, the day it happened. I... I just left them on the street in pieces, Sturges. I’d never encountered a ghoul before at that point, and I hadn’t encountered a single human yet either. Are you certain you didn’t bury the original Sanctuary inhabitants?”

“I found a few bones out by the milk bottle drop, but I haven’t found a single body. Melancholy, no regular ghoul I’ve ever met was as far gone as that one was. What Angel decapitated was a feral.” He, too, sat, taking to the red aluminum tool bench on the opposite side of the garage. “Ferals don’t always attack. It’s what makes ‘em scariest of all to me, to be honest. You don’t know whether they’re just going to stand there motionless and stare at you for a year, or lunge across the room at you at the drop of a pin. I don’t know what makes ‘em not decide to attack. Doesn’t make ‘em less dangerous.”

“He still remembered me,” ‘Choly justified, trying not to cry. “He’d stayed put in the Red Rocket until he knew I’d come back. What happened the other day, he’d wandered into the backyard. I didn’t want him to scare any of you. I didn’t know if I was the only person he wouldn’t attack, either. I brought him back here, and...” his lungs heaved, “when Angel found me, it thought my life was in danger, and acted accordingly...” He put a hand to his mouth, trying to still himself. “He kept repeating his nickname for me. And kept begging me to kill him. I guess it’s for the best that he’s in the ground now, for a lot of reasons. I couldn’t guarantee that he would stay put here.”

Sturges fished a pack of cigarettes from his rolled shirt sleeve and tamped it in his palm before lighting one up. He made an offering gesture, but ‘Choly declined.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like, to have someone you’re close to become a feral ghoul. It’s understood that most ferals are people from before the war, so it’s safe to assume only prewar ghouls would ever have known who they were before they became feral. ...Well, and you, of course. It’s not your fault, what happened to him.”

“--But it is!” ‘Choly rapped the back of his head against the wall just once. “I swore to him, that they’d let him in the vault. But the Vault-Tec representative lied to me! Lied to both of us! Just to get me to sign! I believed the salesman. I didn’t demand fine print. I was just grateful to believe we were on residency list. But... we were listed that whichever of us arrived first, got admission. He told me to keep running. I... I think he knew. I think he knew, and never told me.”

“There weren’t ghouls before the war,” Sturges objected. “No one could have predicted that kind of fate was possible. You’re focusing so hard on the past, that you’re getting caught up in hypothet--”

“--The past is the only thing I’ve ever known,” the chemist blurted out, nearly throwing up.

“All right. How about some more present day what if’s? You left that note for us. I was readin’ it, when Angel came to ask me if I’d seen ya. You didn’t think you’d come back, did you?”

“No. Oh God, no.” ‘Choly stiffened to sit up straight, horror and alarm washing his face into slack pallor, as he realized the letter had read like a suicide note. He looked to Sturges. “That wasn’t my intention at all. God. I was making preparations to leave town when he wandered into the yard. I talked with Missus Murphy, I have to go check on something. I left that letter, because I felt like it was the best tour of the neighborhood I could give you all. And I left all the supplies I did, because I want to do the best by you all that I can. You deserve far better than I can give you.”

“We’re already fast on the path to paradise. You’re sweatin’ too much. Go take care of your errand. Do what you need to do. We’ll be fine here. Just... make sure Angel isn’t the only one takin’ care of ya, capiche? You’ve gotta put a little more effort in on that front. It works too hard.”

When Sturges winked at him, deadpan, ‘Choly’s demeanor melted, and he got a sheepish smile.

“I’ll take better care of myself. I know after what I did, that doesn’t sound genuine, but even just shouldering the responsibility of this errand is a form of self-care. I know I stress Angel too much and too often. I’m trying to do better by it. It might not be human, but it’s the best friend I’ve got.”

“You’ve got friends back here at home when you’re ready. You sure you don’t want me to take a look at Angel before you head out? See if I can’t repair that laser--?” Sturges glanced over to the open garage door to see the German shepherd standing several yards away, and he slowly reached for a pipe wrench behind him. “--Hey there, ya Dogmeat. Careful now.”

It drooped an ear and whimpered at the two of them. Sturges stood at a caution, and slowly approached it with an outstretched hand.

“That dog was glued to Jacob,” ‘Choly remarked, shot through the heart that he’d separated the dog from its owner. His voice broke as he quipped through a snivel, “Speaking of best friends...”

“Come on, now, pup. The dog seems nice enough. It’s just confused and lonely.” It sniffed at the mechanic’s hand, and leaned into it to have its head rubbed. He scratched behind its ear and grinned. “I guess Sanctuary’s got seven inhabitants now. Everybody’s gonna love having this guy around. He’s a beaut. Best genes of any dog I’ve ever seen, to still have his full coat.”

“You hear that, dog? Sturges thinks you’re top pedigree.” ‘Choly smiled through a frown. “He’s not wrong.”

“We’ll take good care of him. It’s only right.”

“If the dog goes back with you, I suppose the Red Rocket is completely unoccupied and unowned now. You have claim to the Red Rocket like you wanted. It’s all yours now.”

“I take back what I said before. How this neck of the woods was a mess.” Sturges patted the dog on the head, and he barked before panting contentedly. “It’s going to be perfect.”

“I can’t... stay here right now.” ‘Choly’s smile faded as fast as he’d gained it, and he stood. “I wanted to leave two days ago. My head’s just not right, being here. Even one more afternoon is too much. I appreciate the offer to help me with Angel, but it’s my turn to take care of it for a change. There’s a robot disposal yard about half an hour from here. I got Angel serviced there a few times.”

“Half an hour from here being your first stop, sounds like your errand’s a long trip. Hopefully it hasn’t been looted for the good stuff, or overrun with mole rats. Or both. Maybe next time you’re in the neighborhood, you’ll take me up there and show me around? Sounds like there’s a chance for all kinds of amazing salvage up there.”

“It’s a promise.” ‘Choly leaned down to let the dog smell his hand as well, and he let the chemist pet him. “After everything that’s happened, and you don’t hate me after all. Dogmeat.” The shepherd glanced up to him, as though it were his name. “Buddy, can you promise that you’ll look after these people like you looked after Jacob? You’re a good dog. They’ll take great care of you, too.”

Dogmeat barked and wagged its tail, accepting his name proper.

“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Sturges insisted, shooing ‘Choly. “You get going, and don’t be a stranger. By the time you get back, I just might have repaired the whole street.”

“Hopefully, I won’t be gone that long. But considering it’s you we’re talking about, I could be gone a week and expect the electricity back on and the works. Angel,” ‘Choly called out to the side of the building. It rounded from where it had idled under the sloped canopy out front. “Angel, let’s get going.”

“Do take care, Mister Sturges,” it appreciated as its owner re-mounted its canvas harness.

“Don’t worry about us. Just worry about you two coming back in one piece.” Sturges shot the two of them a finger gun with the filter of his smoke between grinning teeth. “Thanks. For everything, Melancholy. I don’t think I’d actually said it yet. And even if anyone else hasn’t said it yet, it’s safe to bet they’re all thinking it.”

‘Choly hesitated with sentimentality tugging at the corners of his trembling mouth. When he couldn’t form a reply, he ultimately readied his rifle again atop Angel and gave Sturges a firm wave and firmer smile before urging the Handy to speed them onto their next stop.

Go to Next »»»

[eisforeidolon]

Unhuman Nature

Honestly, if I actively wanted to watch a terribly written fantasy soap opera, I'll bet there are more entertaining ones out there I could find.  I felt like this episode desperately wanted me to be emotionally invested in a lot of really ridiculous and completely over-the-top soapy bullshit that neither the episodes preceding it nor this one actually did the work to earn – at least not from me.

It's Bucklemming so this is yet another episode filled to the brim with Nick bullshit.  I'm seriously supposed to care about Nick's wailing angst over a murder that happened to characters we didn't even meet alive nine seasons ago? LOL.  I'm supposed to be, what, scared by him becoming a bog-standard human serial killer when even Pellegrino’s Lucifer hasn't been scary in several seasons?  Yawn. I should be in any way drawn in by this story about the influence of possession on a human vessel when exploring that would be a million times more interesting with the actual main characters and it's written with all the subtlety and nuance of a brick to the face?  Oh, please. Not to mention that it would actually be more interesting if demons hadn't killed Nick's family, that's how predictable and unnecessary this plotline is.  The only thing that separates Nick and his family from every other group of randos harmed by monsters along the way is Ross-Lemming's Pellegrino thirst.  The amount I absolutely do not care cannot be understated.

I think we're supposed to be sympathetic to the Winchesters being flummoxed by being questioned trying to admit Jack to the hospital?  Like, normal people would be flustered by their worry in that situation, so we should feel it more?  Except I wasn't sympathetic, because the Winchesters aren’t normal people - I thought it just made them look like idiots.  Castiel, okay, him not knowing how anything works in that situation makes sense.  Sam and Dean though?  Within the show itself they've had to check themselves, each other, and other people they care about into the hospital.  So they should damn well know how hospitals are about insisting on getting information upfront, and yet they don't discuss what to say for Jack in advance when they're thinking about taking him in?  Let alone when they're in the car driving him there?  No, of course they don't, because these writers are perfectly happy to make the characters idiots or OOC to do a “dramatic” scene they've decided they want.

Speaking of which, I already reposted some people pointing it out at the time, but the scene with Rowena not knowing who Jack is another example of that.  She literally said his name when she was taunting Lucifer last season, but Bucklemming don't give a shit about continuity and desperately wanted a scene of pathetic woobie Jack convincing Rowena to stay after she was upset about his existence/possible evil.  Pay attention to something in someone else's episodes?  Ha, like they even pay attention to what's in their own!  The thing is, Rowena being reluctant to help Jack and Jack playing on Rowena's desire to be appreciated by thanking her (without any awareness how persuasive that particular tack is) could actually work just fine if it wasn't proceeded by Rowena's sudden inexplicable bout of amnesia.  Hell, the whole thing where she comes rushing in thinking Sam has called her to help save Dean would actually work better if they had remembered she already knew who Jack was!

Then there's the part where archangels can juice themselves up on regular ol’ angel grace, but Jack, of course, has a whole new set of special rules where that can't work because reasons.  That's pretty much how all powers in this show work now, so I'm not surprised, just disappointed.  I could maybe even forgive that for Jack because we haven't had a nephilim character before and they are meant to be a fairly rare and unique hybrid creature, but when the rules for bog standard witches and angels seem to change every single time they show up on screen, I am over it.  

So the episode opens and Sam, Dean, and Cas are all SO CONCERNED about Jack.  Yet for some reason, Dean is the only one that goes with him on his “live life for a day” trip, because …  Okay, Castiel goes off to meet with Ketch's contact, Accent Guy.  So at least there was an excuse there and he was trying to do something theoretically productive.  But Sam just stays in the bunker … because ... it's not like he and Dean would have gone through every bit of information on nephilim that's in there already when they thought he was a threat.  Or again when he lost his grace to begin with so they’d know what to expect.  Going back through the material they have absolutely no reason not to have read already certainly couldn't be pawned off on the suddenly  AWOL AU!hunters who literally, personally owe Jack their lives.  Nope, that would make them actually useful for once, so Sam had to stay behind for reasons.

Look, I'm not saying I didn't like the scenes with Jack and Dean, because I did.  Nor that I didn’t appreciate the brief bit of Impala porn in the teaching-Jack-to-drive segment.  Nor that if I was going to pick only one of those three for a fun last-day-alive romp, it wouldn't be Dean.  With that said, there was literally no reason for Sam to stay back when he's had the closest relationship to Jack overall – it was one of the most transparently ridiculous times the Winchesters have been split up recently for reasons and that is seriously saying something.   It’s not like Dean would be magically unable to develop more of a connection with Jack, if that was the whole intent, if Sam was also there.  Even from the angle of Sam sometimes coming off like a killjoy, I don't believe he wouldn't be willing to indulge a dying Jack in the same way he's sometimes been willing to indulge Dean when he was in peril or down (early season 3, Plucky, Advanced Thanatology, etc.)if he’d gotten the same speech from Jack about wanting to live a little more in what time he had - and they all but asked for Sam’s permission to go before leaving anyway. 

Part of what makes it so ridiculous is how hard other parts of the episode were selling the contrived, fanfiction-borrowed Jack-is-their-smol-son thing.  Again, this is something I know a lot of other people are actually into, but it really isn't working for me to the extent they're selling it.  I’m not saying they don’t care about him, but he's not literally their kid.  For one, he's not actually a child.  For two, most of the time where he and the Winchesters were actually together, it was because they were afraid he'd go darkside.  For three, a great chunk of the limited time he's been alive, he was in Apocaworld, not even with them.  It's bad enough that literally everybody is totally family now after, like, an episode.  It's bad enough Jack's personality is more often than not written as a beige blob of cutesy inoffensiveness.  Compounding it with this whole oh noes, our actual child has mystical consumption?  God, it's so contrived for the dramaz and so far as I'm concerned, tissue-paper thin if you take out all the fanfic and imagines posts written about it.  

Then there's the part at the end where Dean apologizes for taking Jack out for the day because … fuck if I know?  The reason Jack's worse at the end is because he was already dying and they tried some unknown spell thing from some sketchy contact Ketch knows, so if there's any guilt to be had there, which is dubious, it should be on trying some spell they know basically nothing about without trying to research it first.  Like, it felt like Bucklemming suddenly decided they couldn't end the episode without Dean gratuitously feeling guilty for something because his only real emotions are guilt and anger, so here you go!

Finally, gosh, if death ever really meant anything on this show anymore, this ending would totally be sad and shit.  As it is?  Even if I wasn't spoiled for future events, the only thing I feel is: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Great job, guys.  Keep up the good work!

[howtophil]

I don't understand.

And it's not a lack of effort. It's not that I don't devote time and energy to understanding people on a regular basis. I just simply don't understand the way other people, normal people, know what to and what not to say. After I say the wrong thing and someone tells me I've said the wrong thing, I file it away and try to relate it to other things I might say, creating a database of known hurtful things and things which are probably related and therefore also hurtful.

I still don't really understand, I just collate data and try and make an effort to function like a real, normal, human. I do my best to create a "social cognition" out of whole cloth and it has holes in it! It will always have holes in it, because I don't understand.

I don't have that gut "instinct" other people have. I can see it. They look at other people and social situations and they just have a general feel for how everything is supposed to go. No one gave me the fucking script. No one told me what the little faces people make mean. I have to work it out, all of it, and I am always missing something.

I don't understand.

And it's not that I don't want to understand.

Asking me to "just be more aware of how people want me to talk and act" is like asking a one-handed man to play a ten-note chord on a piano. Impossible? No. However, that man is going to need meticulous planning and notice ahead of time to make that chord happen. It's not going to be the same as a person with two hands playing that chord. It never will be. I will never be the same as people who just simply understand how to be socially acceptable.

I'm forty-three and I still don't understand.

None of you makes sense to me, to be frank. I'm sure I'm just as confusing to all of you. You only have a few aliens like me to deal with, I have a world full of mind-reading aliens that I can only try to generally get along with. I think you got the better deal but maybe I'm more infuriating because you're not used to dealing with someone like me. I don't know.

I'm too old to be seriously diagnosed as "on the spectrum" but I am clearly not normal. Things that bother other people often don't even make it into my sphere of notice. Things that drive me mad, are often completely ignored by everyone else.

I'm average height. I'm average weight. I'm average looks.

I still can't be normal.

I'm wired up in ways that no one can diagram and I can't figure out the diagrams of the normal mind either.

"Why can't you just be normal?"

That's a question people have asked me quietly and shouted at me. It's a question that skirts across the edge of my waking mind and wakes me from nightmares at night.

I can't be normal because I am not normal. I can't fit in because I am not part of this puzzle. Somebody put me in the wrong box.

I am socially unacceptable by default. My brain is not a human brain. I speak the language but the words have divergent nuance.

People think my lack of sensitivity is a choice because they assume I do "just get" what's going on in other people. I don't. That's all a cloudy mystery I've spent a long time staring into.

I won't understand any of it in the same way other people do. I'll just have to keep working on understanding it all in the way I do. I will make my notes, I will do my best to chain things to related themes and ideas, and I will work on cultivating my "social self" which may never be full or right or normal in any way.

I'll just have to continue to be here without belonging.

I should be used to it by now.

I get to feeling that I have it down, that I know, that I've figured out the code, and then two minutes happen and I am reminded that none of this will ever be an instinctual part of myself.

I'm going to hurt feelings and people are going to keep assuming my apologies aren't real because they can only conceptualize that someone would knowingly say "something like that." And no amount of me trying to explain the situation will reach them because they have already decided I should "just know" what I don't know.

"Are you on the spectrum?" At least two of my psychologist friends have asked me that seemingly out of nowhere. I assume it's something I say or do that I'm unaware is even odd. Probably a few things.

Today, I'm just tired of trying to get into the heads of people around me. They are very convoluted and inefficient and their ways are tangled. They seem to choose esoteric and confusing methods for just about every interaction. It's very tiring. Being social is an active, strategic event for me. It's exhausting.

I might be able to get diagnosed but the reality is that's not what I want.

I don't want to be diagnosed. I want to mask better. I want to mask so damn well that no one knows I don't know.

Paraphrasing some people: "You should just be better at this."

Yeah... thanks for the tip. I'll get right on just being better at a thing I've been working at for decades. Clearly, I have just failed to grasp the power of just being better at it. Thanks for clearing up my whole issue here. Awesome.

This rant has been all over the place because it's basically random thoughts I've been having pouring out while I sit in a cafe-bookstore. These are thoughts I've had before and that I'll have again. These are the regular paths of my sparking brain.

I'm a good person. I'm just bad at being a human.

[s-cornelius]

Congratulations, You Played Yourself

OR Why we shouldn’t be having this conversation about Adam

I’ve seen a lot written in the past few days about Voltron not deserving the hype it got for revealing that Shiro is queer, both on this platform and Twitter, and on geek news/opinion sites. Most arguments revolve around Shiro’s ex-boyfriend, Adam--both Adam’s brief screentime and his death--or the conversation between Shiro and Adam in the flashback in 7x01, and it not being explicit enough.

I am of the opinion that the conversation between Shiro and Adam was explicit confirmation of Shiro’s sexuality, and I treat it as such in this meta. I also won’t deal with the widely circulating idea that because Adam and Shiro don’t reconcile, the representation is bad. This just reinforces the idea that queer people are defined by their relationships (and sexual activity), rather than all of the other parts of their personality. As a queer person, seeing these criticisms is very frustrating.

So, I’m not going to focus on those things, because I think that they are more subjective. Instead, I am going to talk about the major complaints I’ve seen regarding Adam’s brief appearances in the show, as well as Adam’s role in the wider story Voltron is telling. 

The major complaints I’ve seen are that Adam is an example of queerbaiting, and/or the Bury Your Gays trope (see #VoltronLegendaryQueerbait on Twitter, for example). These complaints seem to stem from an expectation that after 7x01, Adam would play a larger role in the story, and even might be the endgame romantic partner for Shiro. Then, when that expectation was not met (because Adam barely appears in the season), the complaints of bad representation began.

In this meta, I discuss queerbaiting and the Bury Your Gays trope, and show that Adam is not a good example of either of these issues, through examining his character and his role in the story. Also, this is my take (after long conversations with @messier51) as a bisexual woman and as someone who thinks a lot about how stories are structured/executed.

What is ‘queerbaiting’?

Queerbaiting, as I’ve always understood it, is the practice of ‘promising’ LGBT+ content, but not following through on that promise. The ‘promising’ part is usually nods and winks from the show, but then the characters end up in relationships with members of the opposite gender, etc. The important assumption behind the idea of queerbaiting is that showrunners and production companies want to cash in on LGBT viewership, but don’t want to alienate the majority straight audience. Therefore, the showrunners get as close as possible to a same gender relationship, but never intend to follow through.

I’ve always been skeptical of the whole notion of queerbaiting, to be honest. I think in order to make an argument about queerbaiting, you have to know the motivations and intentions by the showrunners/writers/directors/cast. You also have to assume bad faith; the showrunners are thinking more about ‘tricking’ their fanbase, than trying to tell a coherent story. (sidenote: I think the bigger issue at hand is that queerness is still not normalized in fiction, and consequently, characters are straight until proven otherwise. Therefore, close same gender relationships that never become romantic are more of an issue of lack of imagination, than an willing attempt to hurt people.)

So, let’s think logically for a moment: If queerbaiting is hinting at a relationship between same gender characters, but never intending to follow through, Voltron does not qualify as queerbaiting. If the showrunners of Voltron intended to queerbait, they would not have fought for the dialogue between Shiro and Adam that makes their romantic relationship explicit. Similarly, Bex Taylor-Klaus, a queer person themself, championed explicit, in-text confirmation that Shiro was in said relationship, and then was proud of the fact that that confirmation was included.  Are those things not the opposite of queerbaiting?

Voltron promised, metatexually (i.e. showrunners in interviews, at conventions, etc.), to include LGBT+ representation. In 7x01, Shiro was revealed to be mlm, and had a mlm boyfriend. Therefore, Voltron is not an example of queerbaiting.

What about ‘Bury Your Gays’?

Bury Your Gays is a trope in fiction where queer characters are not allowed to have happy endings. Historically, this trope has referred to the practice of killing of wlw (which is why it was called Dean Lesbian Syndrome before Bury Your Gays gained prominence) going back to pulp wlw novels in the mid-twentieth century. Bury Your Gays was a staple of stories about queer people because homosexuality was (and still is by some) considered to be immoral; characters cannot be rewarded with a happy ending, because in doing so, queerness is being rewarded.

This trope has been in the zeitgeist in recent years, following the death of the wlw character Lexa on the show The 100. The anger and frustration in 2016 stemmed from the deaths of queer female characters. GLAAD notes in its annual Where We Are on TV Report:

“Since the beginning of 2016, more than 25 queer female characters have died on scripted television and streaming series. Most of these deaths served no other purpose than to further the narrative of a more central (and often straight, cisgender) character.”

This is not to say that the death of queer male character can’t be an example of Bury Your Gays, but that this trope historically refers to dead wlw in books and film, and in recent years, outrage with the this trope has concerned dead wlw on television. 

So, where does Adam from Voltron fit in? Well, he is a dead queer character, but whether or not he qualifies as an example of Bury Your Gays is questionable. He didn’t die to further the narrative of a more central cis, straight character. He also wasn’t a well-established character, and he died in a scene where many other characters also died. For these reasons, I’m hesitant to claim that Adam is an instance of Bury Your Gays.

Just because a queer character dies does not mean that it is an example of Bury Your Gays. In an article from SYFYwire, the author argues that: “as the criticism moves forward, consistently reducing our stories into binary tallies of whether we live or die does a complete disservice to the potential for three-dimensional, nuanced characters within genre storytelling that we yearn to see more of ourselves in. “

I understand that the death of any queer character on TV is upsetting to some fans, because there are so few queer characters overall. However, as we get more queer characters (and GLAAD has shown increasing numbers of queer characters in the past few years--up to 6.4% of regular characters in 2017), it’s important to question whether good representation is just a matter of a living or dead character, and if the death of an LGBT+ character is just that character’s demise, or part of a bigger trend (see 2016 and wlw deaths). 

Therefore, I think we have to evaluate whether or not the trope is in effect depends on the context of the death. I think to really decide whether or not a death of a queer character is Bury Your Gays or not, it’s important to answer the following questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

In the next section, I will discuss Adam’s role in the story, and try to answer these questions.

Adam, the character?

Before addressing these questions, I think it’s important to discuss who Adam is as a character, and his role in the overall story.

All told, Adam appears in two short scenes, totaling no more than a few minutes of screentime. While on screen, we learn that a) he was Shiro’s boyfriend, b) he broke up with Shiro due to a culmination of issues in their relationship, c) he was a pilot, and d) he died in a Galra attack. As far as characterizations go, it’s pretty skimpy, but ultimately who he was as a character is unimportant. Adam does not exist on the show to explore any big ideas about gender and sexuality; Adam is a plot device, and he serves two purposes:

Adam confirms that Shiro is mlm. By showing Adam and Shiro’s breakup in a flashback, the show is telling us that Shiro is mlm, without having Shiro say “I am gay.” (sidenote: This is called good storytelling, by the way. Shiro’s story is not a coming out story, so if everyone in canon knows that he’s gay, why would Shiro tell anyone his orientation? Since we have no reason to think that other characters don’t know he’s gay, introducing Adam does the work of confirming Shiro’s sexuality to the audience in lieu of Shiro stating his orientation in dialogue.)

Adam puts a face on the casualties of war during the first attack by the Galra. By killing off Adam in this scene, the stakes have been raised. Volton (both the show and the robot) kills faceless, nameless characters in space battles. I know that the paladins mow down robots all the time, but when Voltron destroys a Galra cruiser or the like, I find it hard to believe that there are only robots on board. But since we, the audience, and they, the paladins of Voltron, don’t know who those people are on board those ships, it’s hard to get emotionally attached to their deaths. The same is true when we see the Galra attack Earth: there is no emotional attachment when the Galra raze major cities, but there is narrative weight to Adam’s death. Now, it’s not just the case that the Galra have killed humans, but that they have specifically killed a human that was important to one of the main characters. The same effect is achieved with Hunk’s family in the work camp.

Ok, so back to those questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

To answer the first question: Adam’s death is representative of the end of an era. Adam represents the past: both Shiro’s past with the end of a relationship, and the Garrison’s past with his death as the result of old Garrison defense tactics. His death marks the end of that time in Shiro’s life, and for Earth pre-Galra attack. As mentioned above, Adam’s death also raises the stakes of the Galra attack. Once a character the audience knows dies, that signals that other characters could die too. After Veronica doesn’t get back on the train, the audience genuinely thinks she died. This doesn’t work if the only characters who have died so far are faces on a screen or in background explosions.

To address the second question: Voltron’s genre is part action-adventure comedy, and part war story. The second half of this season feels more like a war story than any part of the previous seasons, despite the fact that Voltron (and the Coalition) has been at war against the Galra since the first episode. In a war story, anyone can die, so it’s not terribly surprising that characters we know end up dying. For example, the Blades of Marmora have had four named characters die (before the timeskip): Ulaz, Thace, Antok, and Regris.

As for the third question: Adam was not the only queer character on Voltron. In explicit text, we have Shiro, one of the main characters, is an Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities. In less explicit text, we have Pidge, who at the very least could be considered gender non-conforming, and Zethrid and Ezor, who’s relationship appeared to lean romantic.

And the fourth question: LGBT+ representation is really making strides in shows aimed at children and teens. However, there is definitely still a place for questioning whether TV more broadly has a Bury Your Gays problem. In this respect alone--that deaths of queer characters is a trend--could Adam’s death be considered problematic. It’s unfortunate that a queer character was killed in a general media landscape full of dead queer characters, but in the next section, I discuss why I am not so upset by his death.

So what?

What conclusions can be drawn from the context of Adam’s role and his death? Adam is a emotional connection to the toll of the war, both for the audience, and for our mlm main character, Shiro. I do not consider Adam’s death an example of Bury Your Gays, and I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if a heterosexual character had filled Adam’s role in the story. Ultimately, Adam is not the LGBT+ representation fans have been clamoring for, and the showrunners promised to provide--Shiro is.

So, why doesn’t Adam get a happy ending? Because it does not matter if he gets a happy ending or not; it has no impact on main characters or overall storyline. The showrunners could have introduced a different character from the Garrison that we (the audience) cared about, and then kill them in that first battle, but using Adam streamlines this process.

I know a lot of people wanted Adam and Shiro to reunite, and they’d be each other’s happy ending, but this would be Bad Storytelling. Shiro and Adam’s break up is at least 2 years in the past for Shiro. During those years, he has not pined for Adam, regretted his decision, etc. that would indicate that their relationship is not 100% over. In the lead up to season 7, Lauren Montgomery said: “until Shiro made the unfortunate decision [to leave], and they drifted apart and that was the end … for their relationship.”

As I mentioned before, Adam represents the past for Shiro. Shiro has been through so much since their break up, and we have no idea how Adam would have even reacted to the Shiro that makes it back to Earth. If Shiro does get a happy ending in the form of a romantic relationship, it does not make any narrative sense that he would go back to his old boyfriend. Shiro has grown and changed and matured, so a satisfying end to that arc is not going back to where he came from, but forging ahead with a partner who has witnessed that growth and change (if Shiro does get a love interest).

At the end of the show, it will matter if Shiro lives or dies, and whether his ending is happy or not, because he is our explicit LGBT+ representation, the one that was promised to us. But I honestly have complete faith in Voltron. Time and time again, the showrunners, writers, directors, VAs, etc. have shown their commitment to a diverse cast of characters, and representing diverse experiences. There has never been any indication of bad faith on the part of TPTB; they want to make the best possible show for us, and give us representation not found in other television shows.

So, Who Should We be Talking About?

Shiro.

I do think it is important to discuss how harmful tropes manifest in media and why queer characters keep ending up dead. However, I don’t think the solution to this problem is immortal, flawless gay characters who get happy endings just because they’re gay. The best thing we can do is normalize queer characters, and normalizing means creating characters who show the full gamut human experiences. Queer characters can be good and bad people, and have good and bad relationships, so (as long as we don’t get one version of queer people), I think there’s room for a wide variety of queer characters, who have a wide variety of ends to their stories.

So, then there’s Shiro, a heroic leading character the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Shiro is a main character on a non-queer-focused show Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities, and his presence is normalizing queer characters for a whole new generation of fans.

Shiro is groundbreaking representation, and not just on a show aimed at younger audiences. As GLAAD notes in their report:

“The LGBTQ characters who make it to TV screens tend to be white gay men, who outnumber all other parts of our community in representation on screen ... It’s long past time for television to introduce more diverse LGBTQ characters on multiple levels: more queer people of color (who have long been and remain underrepresented), characters living with disabilities, stories of lesbians and bisexual women, trans characters, characters of various religious backgrounds, and characters who are shaped by existing at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.”

Shiro is that intersection of multiple marginalized identities, and a main character. By showing experiences of queerness and disability and the intersection of the two, and not relegating him to a supporting role, Voltron is telling Shiro’s story, not someone else’s story with Shiro along for the ride. 

We should be asking of our media “whose stories get to be told?” On most shows, the answer is white cis-men and women, and maybe a token minority, if you’re lucky. Voltron is telling the stories of people who usually don’t get their stories told--women of all kinds, people of different ethnic backgrounds, queer characters, and intersections of these categories. Voltron has not settled for tokenization, but rather given us multi-faceted representation, crossing these intersecting issues.

[anywhereconsulting]

Distributed Series - How to master remote team communication

This article is part of the Distributed series.

Work is a form of project management where we manage a project through communication and collaboration and track the results of our work. 

It is the very same in the case of distributed teams and businesses but with some special situations where you need to manage, track and collaborate through time zones with multiple locations. Thanks to the modern internet, we have all the tools we need to pull this off.

Communication as a top priority

People stick to their communication habits. There are two dimensions to this: asynchronous and synchronous communication.

Asynchronous communication is the relay of information with a time lag. Email, chat, or shared docs are good examples of how asynchronous communication is employed in a remote setting. Synchronous means:  working together at the same time. Phone calls, video conferences, or meetings can be listed here. The rule of thumb that we follow is that the more emotional the topic is, the more synchronous the channel should be.

Specific channels make sense, no matter if you like them or not. It helps everyone on the team to spread the work more efficiently throughout the different channels. So, how do you know whether or not a video meeting is necessary? The answer is simple: if you can’t say it in a few sentences, then it’s probably time to hop on a video call. 

So, you have a big virtual team where the members are spread in different locations all around the world. So you somehow have to find a way of working together harmoniously and productively. Now, this can be very difficult especially when you’re working in a team where most members don’t meet very often. As a leader, you have to find a way of making the team here, making sure that when you have your meetings, everybody speaks, everybody gets involved, and that you build the sense of team identity. Of course, it’s not easy even when you are face-to-face with people.

What you’ve got to do in these situations is make communication your top priority. So if we’re thinking about communication, it’s how you structure your messages, it’s how you stick to the main point, it’s how you speak concisely, clearly, energetically, it’s how to keep the team engaged, and it’s thinking about your different audience members as well. Finally, throw the vast subject of cultural difference into the mix.

One of the challenges of working with a virtual global team is that you might have people coming from completely different directions but working on the same thing. So sometimes those differences are harder to spot and harder to appreciate. However, during a video call, it is easier to see the differences. They are visible.

One thing to keep in mind is that written text lacks the subtle cues of in-person conversation. With chat, you do need to be careful about how your words might be interpreted and possibly misunderstood. That’s why there’s an abundance of emoticons and gifs in our everyday chats — they’re useful in conveying the right nuances.

  How to have efficient video calls

 You want to have everyone being productive from any location they want. That’s the idea. It’s all about focusing on the collaborative infrastructure of the company, like how people work together, or how they collaborate.

If you want to ensure maximum impact and efficiency during your video calls, I reckon these few tips will get you to a good start:

A rock-solid internet connection. The faster, the better. However, the connections speed is only a part of the whole picture. Connection stability can be even more critical. However, keep in mind that many remote employees like to travel to places where fast internet isn’t always guaranteed, and Wi-Fi might be spotty and unpredictable.

Mind your background. Remember that the camera is not just focused on your face but shows parts of the room you’re in. Pre-check the frame before starting the video call and if your kids are at home, make sure they know when they can’t disturb you.

The perfect angle. Another piece of the puzzle would be to adjust the positioning of your webcam. Weird camera angles can be very distracting. Keep it along the same line of sight as your eye level. It is generally the best possible angle that feels the most natural––and looks the best.

Look into the lens. It is also essential to make sure that you are looking into the camera lens directly and not on your computer screen. When your eyes are off access with the webcam, it is much less compelling.

Out of the dark. When using a webcam, remember that the human eye sees a lot more than a video camera. Just because you can see everything clearly with a little bit of natural light, doesn’t mean that on video it will look good. It is why you should always try to add additional light when using a webcam. You’ll be surprised at how much eliminating shadows can add to your video’s overall look and feel.

Make yourself heard. If you are using a webcam, you need to pay attention to how you capture audio. The first step is to avoid having your speakers on when talking or your audio will come through with an echo and a harsh reverb tone to your voice that makes you hard to understand. I recommend you to use some external microphone connected to your computer or laptop, and be sure to place that microphone as close to your mouth as possible. By moving the mic close, you lose much environmental noise and get a crisp, clear audio track that helps to keep people listening.

As you can see, virtual meetings don’t have to be labeled as a waste of time. They can be more valuable than traditional face-to-face meetings. These video calls are the best way to create concrete weekly goals for workers and set your business up for success. However, avoid constant emergency or ad-hoc meetings, as these can break flow during an employee’s regular day.

When setting up your meeting, you need to keep in mind that not everyone can make the time that suits you. No one likes having a meeting at 6 am or 10 pm when they have commitments to family or other interests outside of work – like sleeping.

Also, after your meeting, you’ll want to follow-up to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Considering that it is more difficult to communicate as a remote team in comparison with in-person groups, your follow-up note should be as clear and actionable as possible to avoid time-consuming email threads that are inevitable if there’s a misunderstanding.

As I’ve already mentioned, communication is the backbone of a well-functioning distributed business model. Remote teams must have excellent communication strategies to survive and thrive. Just as there are different types of groups, there are several different reasons for groups to engage in video calls. Let me show you the most popular formats for meetings.

  How to master distributed meetings

There are several types of meetings you can have with your distributed team. Here is a handful of these and how to master them.

The daily stand-up. Running virtual daily stand-up meetings is a great way to make sure your entire team is communicating and on the same page. Each person spends a very brief amount of time (5-10 minutes max) saying what they did yesterday, what they’re doing today and what’s in their way. These meetings can help you identify roadblocks or obstacles that are preventing a team member from doing their optimal work.

The regularly scheduled one-to-one meeting is one of the most powerful tools that any manager can use to improve team productivity. A one-to-one session is a regular meeting that occurs at the same time each week (or less frequently, depending on your preference). It’s the place where you and one of your employees meet and no one else. It’s the place where you can communicate with each other and follow-up with each other on the things unique to your working relationship. The one-to-one meeting is a place where both parties should feel respected and valued, and it’s the place where you can ask each other questions openly. I don't say you won't have occasional emergencies or problems that need to be dealt with outside of this meeting. However, when you have a recurring schedule, you’ll find that you can wait to ask those questions until the recurring meeting – freeing both of your time, increasing your productivity, and reducing the stress of workdays.

Pairing is the practice of giving two teammates the opportunity to work together on solving a problem. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that when employees work in pairs, they work much faster and make fewer mistakes. Additionally, when people are paired up, they learn to communicate more efficiently and often, and to share (rather than hide) problems and solutions — all of which increases overall information flow and team alignment. As a leader, one of your tasks is to help your team create a shared vision, build team identity, and bring your employees closer together. Virtual teams with a strong character are more capable of coordinating, performing and overcoming conflicts, irrespective of locational, cultural, or individual challenges.

Weekly sessions are the form of a meeting where you generate ideas and solve problems. However, sometimes the extroverts dominate, and shier team members can have trouble being heard. Some people also have difficulty staying focused, maintaining their enthusiasm or confused why they’re in the session. To overcome these barriers and run an excellent brainstorming meeting, always make sure to send out the brief 24 hours beforehand so that everyone can prepare. The brief should outline what the challenge is, why it is crucial, and why each person has been asked to take part in the brainstorming. Ask everyone to come along with three ideas: one general idea, one idea that is different, and a radical one. If your distributed team is diverse enough, you can count on a range of perspectives and experiences. Encourage your employees to be bold and imaginative.

You can hold a weekly group chat session with your distributed team to reflect on the progress, issues, and actions. These meetings should have an agenda communicated in advance. A standard agenda for regular team meetings also helps set consistent expectations for types of information the session will cover. The goal should be a meeting of no longer than one hour to quickly review where the project is, highlight issues, look ahead to looming milestones, and make sure everyone has what they need. Meeting frequency depends on several factors: the size of the team, the priority of the project in question, an.

You are free to use many tools or platforms, but I suggest you give each communication channel a specific purpose. For example, use Zoom for live calls or crucial conversations, and Slack for messages that aren’t pressing, with a designated water cooler channel for fun or informal conversations. When your employees have a plan for how to best get in touch with teammates for each situation, everyone can avoid wasted time, frustration, and missed connections.

This article is part of the Distributed series.

My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. We solve problems for growing businesses with specialized marketing solutions. To read our case studies & learn more about our work, click here. Connect with me on LinkedIn or book an appointment here.

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[klove0511]

Angels and Answers

Title: Angels and Answers

Pairings: Sam/Cas

Rating: E

Wordcount: 15,208

Warnings and Tags: Non-con for Gadreel shenanigans, Possessed Sam Winchester, Memory Alteration, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, First Time Blow Jobs, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Sam Winchester Has Self-Esteem Issues, Castiel Has Self-Esteem Issues, Alternate Season/Series 09, Winchester communication skills

Summary:  Cas has discovered his sexuality as a human when the Winchesters bring him to the bunker, and he and Sam fall into bed together. When Gadreel forces Dean to drive Cas away, the two must find their way back to each other, freeing Sam from Gadreel in the process.

Link to fic on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26733868

Link to art: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/84693260

Author’s Note: Written for the Sastiel Big Bang 2020! I had a lot of fun working on this, and I am SO HAPPY to share this with you guys. Art credit goes to:

Blusxa (https://pixiv.me/blubunnart)

[Shading by SolusCheese (https://soluscheese.tumblr.com/commissions)] 

  Go check out their stuff! Also, go here for the art masterpost, and tell them what an awesome job they did. :)

Also a shout out to my betas Dragonwithatale and @theladyofsupernatural. You both helped make this story better than it was, thank you.

Castiel stared out the window of the Impala, wondering how in Heaven he’d gotten to this point. Yesterday he had been homeless and living on the streets, hunted by angels. Earlier today, he had been dead. Now, he was warm, and safe, and on his way to a place his best friends called home. Too much had happened in such a short period of time, and he had no reason to assume that things were about to slow down. The Winchesters didn’t live like that.

Finding his place with them would be difficult. He was human now, and powerless, a fact they had all been reminded of that morning. Castiel frowned. Most likely, he was going to end up being even more of a burden on the brothers. It wasn’t something that sat easily with him. He remembered how difficult it had been before Sam stopped the Apocalypse, when Castiel’s powers were waning to almost nothing. Even then he had been a long way from human.

As if he could sense the dark turn of Castiel’s thoughts, Sam turned and asked, “Hey, man, you ok?”

It was just a few words, but knowing Sam cared enough to ask made some of the fear and anxiety fall away for the ex-angel. He nodded, and his reward was a blinding smile from Sam.

“Good.” Sam’s smile softened, and he ducked his head. “I’m really glad we didn’t lose you today, Cas.”

Dean gagged. “Oh, God, I’m going to vomit.”

Sam glared at his brother before shooting another brilliant smile Cas’s way. It made something flutter to life in Castiel’s chest, and thanks to his enlightening experience last night, he had an idea of what it was.

The rest of the trip was difficult for an entirely different reason than Castiel had originally expected. Any time he met Sam’s eyes, the hunter would light up, and it made Castiel re-examine every interaction he’d ever had with Sam Winchester. By the time they arrived at the bunker, Castiel was sure of nothing, but he suspected his feelings for Sam had run deeper than friendship for a long time.

It had him distracted and aching for a release he hadn’t known to want until yesterday.

Luckily, Dean left again almost immediately after they arrived when he realized they were completely out of food and, more importantly, beer, leaving Sam to help Castiel get settled.

“You’re probably exhausted. You remember where your room is?” Sam said as they walked down the hall toward the bedrooms.

Thoughts of everything besides sleep that could be done on a bed came unbidden to Castiel's mind, and he felt his arousal return full force. He stifled a groan and hoped Sam hadn't noticed.

"Cas?" Sam asked, obviously concerned.

"I'm fine," Castiel said. "I am simply having trouble adjusting to certain elements of my humanity."

Sam paused, then turned to more fully face Cas. "Anything in particular? Anything I could help with?"

Castiel shook his head. As much as his heart ached for it, he held no illusions that Sam returned his affections. "No, Sam. I'm sure I can discover the mechanics of sexual release on my own."

Sam's face flushed, though his expression was nearly unreadable. Castiel narrowed his eyes slightly, studied Sam's body language. His chin had dipped down, and he was avoiding eye contact while he pressed his lips into a hard line. Was Sam...disappointed?

Taking a gamble, he said, "Unless, of course, you would like to help. You are, after all, the source of my arousal."

Time seemed to stop for a moment, then Castiel found himself surrounded by Sam. His large calloused hands threaded through Cas's hair while Sam devoured his mouth. He pressed Cas into the wall, groaning as he felt Cas's erection pressing into his hip. Cas pressed forward, moaning in turn. Cas let himself drift, focusing on the sensations and not the surreal feeling of having Sam in his arms. They pushed and pulled each other to a bedroom, shedding shirts in the process. Sam kissed along Cas's jaw until Cas tugged on his long hair, pulling him back up for another proper kiss.

They crashed onto the bed, and Castiel was left breathless. A small part of him wanted to slow down to savor the perfection that was Sam Winchester, but a much greater part of him craved the quick release Sam's frantic pace promised.

Once they were both naked, Sam blanketed Cas's body. They mouthed at each other, often doing little more than breathing each other's air while they rutted against each other.

Slowly, Sam stilled his hips and began trailing kisses down Castiel's body. Cas whimpered, but it just made Sam smile as he worked himself lower. He nibbled at Castiel's hipbone, and Cas shuddered, overwhelmed. His skin felt ultra-sensitive, even the lightest touch rippled through his body. Eventually, even those touches stopped, and Castiel forced his eyes open. Sam was nestled between his legs, mouth hovering over Cas's cock.

He took a deep breath and said, "Cas, if you—"

"Sam," Cas groaned, "please."

Sam paused a moment more, then he smiled wickedly and dipped down until his mouth met the wet, leaking tip of Castiel's dick. Cas watched himself disappear between Sam's perfect lips, but soon his eyes dropped shut against the sensation. Everything was wet and warm and delicious pressure. As Sam bobbed his head, he flicked his tongue against the underside of Castiel's cock, and it was too much. The pleasure ratcheted higher until Cas thought he would explode, and then he saw stars.

He was breathing hard when he came back to himself. Orgasms certainly seemed to be the most unambiguously pleasing part of the human experience, and he hoped he would get to continue to experience them with some regularity in the future. Gradually, he became aware of  warmth pressing against his side. A glance revealed Sam looking down at him with the brightest, happiest smile Cas could remember ever seeing on him. It made his heart flutter.

Distantly, they could hear the bunker door slam shut. Sam winced and said, "Come on. Better clean up and get out there or Dean will come looking for us."

Cas smiled softly and replied, "I'll be out in a few moments. I believe I am going to shower first; Dean did say the water pressure here is excellent."

Sam stood up, pausing like he wanted to say something but decided against it and hastily dressed. Cas noted with a twinge of regret that Sam was still hard. No matter. He would make it up to him later, given the opportunity. He hoped dearly that there would be more opportunities. Being human was miserable, but this—being with Sam—this made the whole experience bearable.

Cas gathered the supplies they'd purchased for him—he hadn't kept his toothbrush and he'd only had the one set of clothes—and made his way to the showers. The water pressure was as excellent as Dean had said, and the joy of a hot shower was not something he took lightly. It was almost as good as his first shower at April’s place, after days spent living on the street. He let the warmth soak through him and the pounding water ease some of the tension he still carried.

It was difficult to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Sam and he had.... He had a flash of anxiety, wondering if Sam had been offended that Castiel had not reciprocated Sam's actions and left him wanting. Despite how enthusiastic Sam had seemed, Castiel worried he'd been too forward, that his earlier assessment of the situation had been correct and Sam did not actually harbor any deeper feelings for him. He huffed, frustrated with the circles his mind seemed trapped in. Sam had made the first move; Sam had waited for Cas's permission. Those were not the actions of someone who was second guessing what he wanted. Whether or not they translated to a continued sexual relationship, that remained to be seen. Sighing, he did his best to let go of his insecurities. He focused on the sound of the water, let that fill his mind instead of the wandering thoughts.

Warm, clean, and relaxed, Cas made himself comfortable at one of the library tables, leftover burrito in hand. It was still amazing that things such as a takeout burrito could taste so good. He wondered, idly, what it would have tasted like if he still had the full power of his senses. How much more nuance could he have found in the humble burrito if he had even a hint of grace? It may have been an interesting thought experiment, but he tried to push it from his mind. One thing he'd learned over the last few days was that dwelling on his lost grace was an infinitely depressing well of self-loathing and grief, and if he had any desire to function, he needed to focus his attention elsewhere. For now, that meant focusing on his food, on the sheer pleasure of eating.

He spotted Dean approaching and said, “Epic food. I can’t get enough.”

“Cas, uh, can we talk?”

Dean was studying the table, and Cas tried to put him at ease. “Of course. Dean you know I always appreciate our talks, our time together.” He pulled out the chair next to him in invitation.

Instead, Dean sat on the table, his expression alarmingly serious. "Listen, buddy, um, you can't stay."

The words didn't make any sense at first. What did Dean mean, he couldn't stay? They had traveled to Detroit expressly to pick him up, then traveled all the way back to Kansas, and now he couldn't stay? What had changed? Dean was still talking, but Castiel was no longer paying attention. His mind had come to a standstill focused on exactly one thought. The only thing that had changed was the nature of his relationship with Sam.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and he thought the burrito he'd been eating might make a reappearance. Did Dean know and that was why? Or had Sam reconsidered? Perhaps Castiel had read the situation wrong in the first place and pushed Sam into a situation he wasn't comfortable with. Sam had probably gone along with it to avoid hurting Cas's feelings. That would, after all, be a very Sam move. The thoughts continued to spiral, utterly paralyzing him and preventing him from doing anything beyond nodding numbly when Dean offered to drive him to the bus stop.  

Sam woke up in his own bed, confused about how he'd gotten there. The last thing he remembered he'd been laughing with Dean about Castiel's version of "protection." They must have gotten wasted last night for him to blackout and lose that much of the evening, though he didn't feel hungover. Maybe a little more tired than usual, but he'd been that way for days. He probably just wasn't sleeping well. It was still miles better than he'd felt a month ago, deep in the middle of the Trials. And none of that was relevant to his current bout of memory loss.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Sam grappled with the reality that he was having more of these episodes than he wanted to admit. Like a few days ago, when he would have sworn he had been thrown into the closet, but he woke up on the floor of the living room in that reaper's apartment. Mostly, they were small things, like Dean's increasingly stilted conversations or complete non sequiturs, or how every so often the world would shift half an inch to the left, as though Sam had shifted his weight without being there to remember it. It was disturbing, and this was the biggest blank yet. If he was honest, he should tell Dean. But he was so quick to blame everything on the Trials that Sam wasn't sure there was much point. After all, maybe Dean was right.

After a few minutes, Sam finally gathered the energy to get off the bed and head to the kitchen. He wondered if Cas would be there, if he liked coffee. The thought made his step just a little lighter, and he entered the kitchen with something resembling a smile on his face. The smell of coffee and bacon greeted him, and he knew Dean was already up and cooking before he ever saw him. The kitchen was otherwise empty, though. No Cas.

Sam fought back a wave of disappointment. Cas was probably just sleeping in. It was perfectly reasonable after all, since it had been a long few days for everyone. As much as Sam wanted to know what they'd done last night that might have sparked his blackout, he didn't want to ask. Dean was so on edge lately about Sam's health, and if Sam hadn't gotten drunk then the memory loss was going to turn into a whole thing. Sam just did not feel like he had the energy for that yet today. Not without Cas present as backup. Dean was less likely to blow up in general around Cas, and he was infinitely less likely to drag Sam's issues out in the open in front of other people. Cas didn't always count, but that's because usually he was able to help. Now that Cas was human, Dean would probably keep Sam's problems to between the two of them.

Sam surveyed the breakfast offerings and decided to grab some fruit instead. Dean might be an excellent cook, but that was 100% due to the fact that everything he made was dripping with saturated fat. Without Cas's grace available to continually heal the damage, Sam needed to take better care in what he ate. That was not going to stop him from downing half of that pot of coffee though. Anything to help shake the pervasive fatigue that clung to his mind like cobwebs.

"You sleep okay?" Dean asked, eyeing Sam's extra-large mug critically.

Sam raised one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "Good enough. Just can't seem to wake up today. Cas up already?"

Dean froze a moment before answering. It was barely perceptible, but it set off alarm bells like crazy for Sam. "Cas took off. Said he appreciated the offer to stay here, but he didn't want to risk bringing angels down on us."

That made no sense. He was warded. This whole place was warded. It was easily the safest place for the three of them in the entire country. Cas had to be crazy to leave. Unfortunately, the only thing Sam could think of to say in response was, "What?"

"Yeah, he left last night after we went to bed. Found his note this morning."

What? He'd left without even saying goodbye to either of them? "Can I see it?"

Dean looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I, uh, I threw it out. After I read it."

Weird. "Ok, um. Well, did he say where he was going? Or how to contact him?"

Dean shook his head, his "I am absolutely hiding something but please don't ask" face firmly plastered on.

Weirder. So, Dean was definitely lying about something. The man was a trained and skilled con artist, but his ability to lie to Sam with a straight face had always been garbage. Dean had been doing a lot of lying to Sam lately, but this morning it seemed particularly bad.  Given the context, Sam wasn't optimistic about what his brother was lying about. Cas had obviously sworn him to secrecy about something, and Sam suspected it was the real reason Cas had left the bunker. Thinking back to yesterday, Sam couldn't help but feel like he was the reason Cas had left. He'd been surprised to hear Cas had a sexual encounter with April, but it hadn't bothered him, much. The encounter they'd had had been enough for Sam, if that was all he was going to get. They hadn't exactly had a chance to talk about it, to figure out if it meant something more than what it was or if it had just been letting off some steam. Sam would have liked for it to be the start of something, but his life didn't work like that. Whether he liked it or not, he'd been prepared for it to be a one-off. Literally. He hated the thought that Cas had felt pressured by it, especially to the point where he felt he had to leave. But Sam could fix this, if he could just talk to Cas. Hopefully the angel wouldn't think to change his phone number.

Looking up, he found Dean watching him suspiciously, and he put on his best "I believe all the bullshit coming out of your mouth right now" face. He'd practically perfected it at this point.

Dean didn't leave Sam alone again for hours. First, he wanted to "help" while Sam organized the artifact inventory. Then he wanted Sam to keep him company and "learn to take care of the car" while Dean did something under the hood. Sam hadn't really been paying attention. They both knew the only time Sam was going to be doing maintenance on this car was if Dean died again, and Sam had no plans on being around alone long enough for the Impala to need maintenance. Dean permanently dying just wasn't an option. (It was, and he knew it, but his ability to be in denial about this particular issue was legendary.) After the Impala, Dean tried to talk Sam into making a run into town for supplies, which was the last straw.

"Seriously, Dean? You bought groceries yesterday. There's no way we're out already." Sam didn't bother trying to hide his frustration. He had no idea what his brother was trying to do, but he wanted to talk to Cas before the guy got too far away. Or before he got himself killed again.

Dean had the decency to look sheepish, at least, though he didn't offer any explanation.

Sam could wait him out though. If it was something to embarrass or annoy his older brother, then he had more patience than a saint.

It only took a minute for Dean to break. "Ok, fine. I was trying to distract you."

Sam waited for the punchline.

"I thought you might be upset about Cas leaving. And, I— I don't know, I guess I didn't want him to have to explain himself when he's just trying to protect us."

Sam made a disgruntled noise. "You do realize that without his grace we're much more capable of protecting ourselves than he is, right? Leaving him out there is like asking another angel to murder him."

"I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn't listen. You know how he is. Stubborn as a mule."

Sam didn't wait for Dean to realize his slip. "When exactly did you tell him that?"

Dean looked appropriately caught out, at least. "Uh.... This morning. After I found the note. Which I threw out."

"That the same note that didn't say anything about how to contact him?"

Dean shrugged helplessly.

"Right. Well, maybe let me try. Ok? Unless you know something about why he wouldn't want to talk to me?"

Sam watched Dean try to come up with a lie and fail. He maybe expected him to spill with the truth, but of course this was the moment his brain decided to slip, and the next thing he knew the argument was apparently over because Sam was in the library alone.

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. How much time had he lost? He'd probably never know, considering he wasn't even sure what time it had been. He could call Cas. His goal had been to get some alone time, after all. But there was always the chance that Dean had said something important that Sam just didn't remember now. Sighing, he rubbed his face. He'd grab some food, and then maybe crash for the night. If he was lucky, a good night's sleep would help clear his head.

Castiel's bus jerked to a stop, waking him from an anxious nap. His neck ached from the position it had fallen into, and his back and legs hurt from being confined in the bus seat for hours. Any tension he'd lost while at the bunker was back with interest, and he felt it throughout his body, making everything stiff and uncomfortable. The bus smelled stale, though it was at least clean. The last bus he'd been on had smelled strongly of human vomit, and he was grateful that this one did not. Glancing out the window, Cas saw they had stopped at a rest stop, and he could see passengers streaming toward the building. Groaning, he pulled himself to his feet and shuffled off the bus with everyone else. Inside the rest stop there was a large map showing where they were. Still in Wyoming. According to the clock, it was just past 8 PM, which meant they would be arriving soon. He wasn't sure where he was going, but his plan was to ride the bus until he found a place that looked welcoming. Maybe somewhere in Idaho. The sparse population would make it a less attractive place for angels hunt for vessels, which should afford him some measure of protection.

The evening was cooling rapidly, though it was still light enough to see. He missed his grace fiercely, hated that he was dependent on things like clothing and light to see or stay warm. Wallowing in his sorrow would only lead him down a dark path, but at the moment he welcomed it. If he was still an angel then Dean would not have abandoned him. He would not be relying on a bus for transportation because his wings would not be— He shook his head. The loss of his wings hurt more than the loss of grace. His grace was his utility to the Winchesters, but his wings were his freedom. With them he could blink and be anywhere. Their loss was tangible.

Besides, if he was wallowing in the loss of his angelic abilities, then he was spending less time thinking about Sam. He couldn't be sure why exactly Dean had asked Cas to leave, but the change in his relationship with Sam still seemed the most likely reason, now that he'd had some time to analyze the issue from every possible angle. If he had grace, then perhaps his usefulness would have outweighed Dean's reasons, or perhaps Sam would have wanted him to stay. More likely, things would never have progressed between himself and Sam, which was probably for the best. He clenched his jaw; he refused to be bitter about his situation. What had happened between him and Sam was done, and it had been the best ten minutes of his life. The orgasm had been good too. He would just take a lesson from this and move forward. After all, time travel was no longer an option for him.

He relieved himself, then stretched one last time before reclaiming his seat on the bus. Idaho would be a fresh start, and things would be better from now on.

Unfortunately for Sam, nothing was clearer in the morning. The fatigue was a little better today, and he had taken advantage of it by going for a run first thing. It had exhausted him, but in a normal way that he hadn't felt in far too long. Pushing his body to its limit was a comfort, and the shower after had been nearly heavenly, even as he tried to stop thinking of things in those terms. Dean had left him blessedly alone today, probably as tired of Sam's constant presence as he'd been of Dean insisting on spending time together. It was one thing when they were on the road. There was no helping it then, and the time spent together was comfortable. But here in the bunker, they'd both found solo routines that gave them space they'd never had growing up. Forcing them to be joined at the hip like yesterday was just another tally in the "Dean is acting weird" column. There were an awful lot of tallies there lately.

Still, Dean was back to normal, more or less, today, and Sam had, very maturely, taken advantage of the alone time by holing up in his room. He was definitely not trying to impersonate a teenage girl angsting over whether or not she should call the boy she liked. No. He was being a grown man, concerned over his friend's sudden departure. The fact that he'd been a little bit in love with that friend for years and that said friend had split almost immediately after they shared a sexual encounter didn't factor into it. Sam was pretty sure he was lying to himself.

After an embarrassing amount of time spent staring at his phone and working up his courage, Sam hit send, dialing Castiel's number. He desperately hoped that Cas hadn't ditched his phone when he left. Listening to the phone ring and waiting for Cas or his voicemail to pick up was a small eternity of torture, but the line finally clicked on. Sam almost began speaking before he realized he'd just gotten Cas's voicemail. Of course. That really wasn't surprising. With the way he'd taken off, it was no surprise Cas didn't want to talk to him. He should have made Dean call. Cas always answered for Dean. No, that wasn't fair, and oh, time to leave a message.

"Hey, Cas. Look, it's Sam. I just wanted to apologize if, um, if there was anything I, uh, said or did, or uh... just, you didn't have to leave. Whatever it is, we can figure it out, ok? Hope you're ok." He punched the end button and buried his face in his hands. That message had been terrible, and he was tempted to call back to see if he could delete it, but of course that was an awful idea. Cas would then see that he had two calls from Sam but no messages, and Sam didn't want to think about the kinds of assumptions he'd make in that case.

He groaned. "I'm an idiot."

Standing, he abandoned his room and sought out Dean, hoping his brother had found them a case. If not, then he could research one himself. Actually, that. He would do that. And he'd make sure it was something not even Dean could resist, like zombies. Or something involving strippers. Either way, Sam would get to focus on something that wasn't obsessing over Cas for a few days, and if Cas called him back, then he could continue obsessing from there.

Three hours later, he didn't have a case, but he had managed to check his phone for missed calls approximately 500 times. Frustrated with himself, he tossed his phone onto the table and pulled up another browser window. There had to be something supernatural for him to kill somewhere.

"What'd the phone do to you?" Dean asked, standing in the archway, holding two beers.

"Nothing." Sam didn't comment on the beers. Dean's rule was always that it was 5 o'clock somewhere, and honestly, the drinking had subsided a lot since they'd moved in.

Apparently, one was for him, though, because Dean set it down next to the laptop before grabbing himself a seat. "You were moping in your room so long, I thought you might need one of these."

Sam rolled his eyes but accepted the peace offering. "I wasn't moping."

Dean nodded sagely. "Uh huh. And has Cas called you yet?"

Sam subtly narrowed his eyes at his brother. That was Dean's casual interrogation voice. "No. Why would he?"

Dean shrugged and frowned at his beer, carefully not meeting Sam's eyes. "Just seemed like you were expecting something. I told you, man, he didn't leave because of you. He left because he didn't want—"

"To bring trouble down on us. Yeah, I remember the spiel," Sam said, picking at the label on his bottle. Privately, he wondered how many times Dean had said this to him, because he had no memory of being told Cas hadn't left because of him, just the part about not bringing angels to them. How much did Dean know?

"Right, well, he didn't, ok?"

Sam nodded his agreement, but even he knew his body language was giving away how little faith he had in that statement.

Dean didn't elaborate, which Sam was grateful for. He didn't want to try to navigate the Swiss cheese that was his memory of the past few days while talking to Dean about his secret crush on their ex-angel friend. Or maybe not so secret. His eyes landed on his phone, and his fingers itched to grab it, to check if maybe Cas had texted him in the last five minutes.

He caught Dean watching him with a frown, and he glared back, slamming his laptop closed before retreating back to his room. It was only after he arrived that he realized he'd left the phone on the table.

"I'm coming with you."

Dean paused at the top of the stairs, and Sam thought he was going to throw another excuse their way. Kevin was plenty capable of researching Elamite on his own, though, and Sam needed to talk to Cas. The ex-angel still wasn't returning Sam's calls or texts, and while this case was at least proof of life, Sam needed to see for himself that their friend was all right. With clear reluctance, Dean acquiesced, and Sam followed him out to the car, grabbing his go bag on the way.

Sam was impressed that Dean managed to refrain from asking until they had crossed state lines, but eventually he did say, "Why is this case so important to you? We're probably not even going to see Cas while we're out there."

Sam frowned, choosing his words carefully. Talking to Dean these days could be a bit of a minefield, though he couldn't quite figure out why. "I need to talk to him. And he hasn't—" Sam cut himself off, not sure how Dean would react to knowing Sam had tried to call Cas several times now and never gotten a response. Or maybe Dean was the reason the calls kept disappearing from his call log.

"He hasn't what?" Dean asked, glancing at Sam. "What, Sam?"

Sam felt his jaw muscle jump and consciously tried to unclench it. "It's not important."

He knew Dean wasn't going to let it go, and sure enough after a few minutes Dean said, "This isn't about you, all right? I mean, I'm feeling like a broken record here, but he left to protect us. Not because of anything anyone said or did, and definitely not because of you." Dean stared at Sam long enough before continuing that Sam was glad they were on a straight, empty road. "Besides, what could you have possibly done to drive him away in the amount of time it took me to go on a beer run?"

Sam's jaw ached, and he stared stoically out the window. If Dean still had no idea, then Sam wasn't going to enlighten him. That part didn't matter; Sam hadn't been lying. He just needed to make sure that he and Cas were on the same page.

"Seriously? You aren't even—" Dean heaved a belabored sigh, and Sam rolled his eyes at his over-dramatic brother. "I'm sure whatever it was, it wasn't that bad."

"And you know that how?"

Dean mumbled something unintelligible, and Sam briefly considered filling him in, just to end the painfully awkward conversation.

Of course, saying "I sucked off your best friend, then he bolted and isn't returning my calls" was a pretty awkward statement in and of itself. Better to play the annoyed brother. "I'm sorry, what was that?" He made sure to add a little more bite to his tone than he really felt.

"I said that Cas thinks too much of you to be that easily offended," Dean said, loud enough for Sam to hear this time.

That made no sense. Cas was ignoring him. And he was Dean's friend, not Sam's. They had a whole fight about that a few years ago. Just because Sam thought of him as a friend, hell, as more than a friend, didn't mean anything. Sam felt Dean's eyes on him as his brain tried to make sense of Dean's words.

"Ok, Sam, it's not that hard. Don't break your brain there. He—"

Sam blinked, and the world subtly changed. The rolling hills they'd been driving through had vanished, replaced by farms. Cow farms, judging by the smell pervading the Impala right now. He frowned. "He what?"

"Hmm?"

"Cas. He what, Dean?"

"Oh, right. He, uh, you know. He thinks of you as a friend." Dean's voice was falsely cheery, and Sam wanted to cringe at how obvious the lie was.

"Right. Friends. That's why he doesn't ever pick up the phone or text me back." Sam hoped he didn't sound too bitter, but he was sure he hadn't managed to hide that from his voice completely. The pause in the conversation lasted a little too long, and Sam glanced at his brother. Dean was focused so intently on the road that Sam knew something was up. "What?"

Dean didn't answer, just worked his jaw and gripped the wheel a little tighter.

Sam thought about pushing it, but he'd been wanting the conversation to end anyway. So instead, he just turned back to the window and let his eyes fall closed, hoping he'd be able to nap for a few hours before they switched.

When they finally arrived in Idaho the next day, Sam was still feeling exhausted. Maybe he was getting too old to nap in the car, but the sleep he'd gotten yesterday and today just hadn't recharged him the way he expected. It wasn't the first time he'd felt that way, but it seemed like the most random. He thought back to the other days he'd felt more worn out than usual, and they all made sense to some degree. They'd been running around the bunker after the Wicked Witch or he'd been flung across the room by a psychotic reaper. Or he'd been knocked unconscious by a serial killing witch chef. Who asked what Sam was. That was a can of worms he still couldn't completely unpack. He had no idea what had caused the guy to say that.

No.

He did.

Here, with the roar of the Impala in his ears and the smell of his childhood home surrounding him, he could at least be honest with himself. As a child he'd done some of his best thinking in this car, and somewhere along the line he'd promised to never lie to himself in here. He knew, at least in part, what had made the witch say what he did. That neck wound had been deep; the amount of blood he'd lost within the first thirty seconds had been proof enough of that, and he didn't have a scratch on him by the end of the evening. He should be dead, again, and somehow, he'd been miraculously healed. It wasn't right, and it didn't make any sense, but Sam didn't know what to make of it. It was just another piece of a very fucked up puzzle, and he didn't like the picture that was emerging. What the hell had the Trials done to him?

Dean pulled into a gas station, and Sam pulled himself out of the car. Maybe a cup of coffee would perk him up. He hated Gas 'n' Sip coffee, but any caffeine was welcome at this point. It would take a while for Dean to fill up the Impala, so Sam took his time browsing the aisles, grabbing some jerky for his brother but passing on road food for himself. Dean had said they were close, and Sam wasn't that hungry. He'd just wait until they found a diner later. Putting his items on the counter, he looked up to greet the cashier and froze.

Cas.

The ex-angel was staring back, just as surprised as Sam. After a moment, though, he shook himself and rang up Sam's coffee and the jerky, asking, "Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

"Cas?"

"It's Steve, now," Cas said. Sam winced. Cas's voice was clipped, and he wouldn't meet Sam's eyes anymore.

Sam fiddled with the lid on his coffee cup. "Look, Cas, about what—"

They were interrupted by the door opening and Dean's voice calling out, "Sam? What the hell is taking you so long?"

Mentally cursing his brother's impeccably bad timing, Sam dug out his wallet and paid, trying to plead with Cas using only his eyes.

Spotting Sam at the counter, Dean came over, stopping short when he saw Cas. Sam frowned at his brother, unsure why he suddenly looked simultaneously nervous and annoyed. "Hey, Cas," Dean said.

"It's Steve," Sam said, helpfully, pointing to Cas's name tag bearing his new name.

"Right. What are you doing here?"

Cas bristled. "I work here. It's not much, but it's better than a lot of people have."

Sam tried to find the words to ask why Cas had left, why he hadn't answered the phone, why he was working in a gas station of all things, but of course, what came out of his mouth was, “So, are you coming with us?"

“Sammy, come on. The man is busy. Of course he doesn’t want to come with us,” Dean said, voice full of false confidence that meant Sam was on the right track.

Unfortunately, Cas didn’t get that memo. “Dean is right, Sam. Besides, without my powers—”

“No, Cas. Look. You said you were a hunter-in-training, right? And Dean and I don’t have any powers. We’re just people. Who better to help you learn to hunt like a human?” Sam plastered a smile on his face, praying Cas would relent and come with them.

He could see the moment Cas changed his mind in the way his shoulders relaxed very slightly. Nodding, Cas said, “All right. My shift ends in ten minutes.

Having Cas along had ended up being invaluable, since he’d been able to identify the monster for them. There wasn’t more they could do that night, though, so they were grabbing dinner at a bar near the motel (Dean’s choice). They settled themselves at a high top, and Dean vanished for a minute to grab the first round of beer. Sam cleared his throat, wishing he knew how to get rid of Dean reliably for more than a minute or two, but his brother had been a damn barnacle all day. Any time Sam had tried to find a moment alone with Cas to try and talk about what had happened between them Dean had inserted himself into their conversation. It had happened enough times now that he suspected it was intentional. But the bar was crowded enough that even Dean's charisma wasn't going to be able to get him a round of drinks in less than ten minutes, so Sam seized his opportunity.

"So, Cas. Um." He ducked his head, embarrassed and unsure how to begin this conversation. He supposed the only way was to just...begin. "Look, I don't know why you left so suddenly, but I can guess. And I want to apologize. I thought we were on the same page when— when I— when we— Anyway. When you didn't return any of my messages, I figured I was wrong, and I didn't want you thinking that I was expecting anything beyond the one time. I know I'm not— not good enough. But that doesn't mean you had to leave. Especially not with angels on your ass. I know Dean said you left because you didn't want to bring trouble to us, but that's crazy. You're warded, we're warded, and the whole bunker is warded so heavily I still haven't figured out what half of it even does! It's obviously the safest place for you to be, so the only reason I can think of that you left is because of me. And I just— It wasn't necessary. And you should come back." He heaved a breath, aware of how much word vomit he'd just spewed all over his friend and afraid of what Cas's stunned silence might mean.

Then he blinked, and Cas was gone.

Castiel felt his confusion growing deeper the longer Sam talked. What messages? What could he mean about not being good enough? Sam was one of the best humans he knew. It was he who was not good enough. Sam had made his share of mistakes in the past, of course, but Castiel knew the mistakes he'd made himself were so much worse. Never mind the mistakes he'd made in the past in regards to Sam specifically. But none of that changed the fact that he'd been checking his phone hourly for days in the hope that one of the Winchesters would contact him, and it had remained painfully silent. He had never received a single message from Sam.

A moment after Sam paused for breath, Cas learned why.

Sam's eyes flashed blue, and Castiel felt terror. Not even his experience with April had garnered this much fear in him. Sam would never agree to let an angel possess him, not again, which meant this angel, whoever it was, was one more unscrupulous than even Lucifer.

"You should leave, Castiel, if you truly care about this one."

"Who are you?" he replied, his voice hard.

The angel didn't even acknowledge the question. "You are a danger to these humans, which means you are a danger to me. Am I wrong when I say you care for Sam?"

"What are you doing in him? He would never—"

"And yet he said yes. But he is still very weak. If I left him now—"

"Whoa, whoa, Zeke. No one is leaving anyone, ok?" Dean said, appearing at Cas's elbow with three beers in hand. "Cas, let's take a walk."

"Dean—"

"I'm not asking."

Cas looked up, horrified, but saw only determination in Dean's eyes. With a glare at the angel possessing his friend, he stood from the table and walked off. He heard Dean say something softly enough that he couldn't be talking to Cas, then they were walking together out into the parking lot.

"Cas—"

"What have you done?" Cas asked, whirling on Dean.

Dean growled. "I did what I had to. You weren't there. Sammy was—" He breathed deep, closing his eyes and collecting himself. "Sam was dying, Cas. If I didn't do something, then I was going to lose him. For good. Zeke offered to help, but he couldn't heal him. They were both too weak."

Castiel frowned. "You said the angel Ezekiel helped him. Who is Zeke—" His eyes widened in understanding. "Dean, that is not Ezekiel. He would never possess a vessel without that person's knowledge or threaten his vessel's life in the interest of his own safety. I don't know who that is in Sam, but he is not the angel I vouched for."

"What?"

Cas fought the urge to roll his eyes. "He feels threatened by my presence, so I assume this is the reason you asked me to leave? And also why Sam seems to believe that I left by choice?"

Dean had the decency to look sheepish. "I don't know what he's so afraid of, Cas, but he's definitely afraid of the other angels."

He considered his next words carefully. "I can't recognize him without my grace. But, Dean, why haven't you told Sam? How did this happen?"

"He was in a coma. I had to make a call, so I made it."

"And now?" Cas pressed.

Dean shrugged. "I didn't tell him at first because I was afraid he'd reject Zeke and die. And now... Well, he might be strong enough, I don't know. It's kind of tough to gauge."

"But this angel keeps telling you Sam is not strong enough? And, what? He threatens to abandon Sam if he knows?"

"Something like that." Dean's voice was grim, understandably so. "Cas?" He was hesitant, like he wasn't sure he wanted an answer to whatever question he was about to ask. "When Sam started the Trials, you told us you couldn't heal him." He stopped, unable to voice the question that had obviously been haunting him for weeks.

"I don't know. It's possible that the Trials themselves were somehow blocking my ability to heal the damage. Stopping them prematurely may have allowed for it. Regardless, Dean, you have to tell him. Sam deserves to know."

Dean shook his head, already denying Cas's words. "He could die."

The thought was painful in a way that Castiel was only starting to understand, but he spoke with conviction. "He should make that choice for himself. It isn't our place to make it for him."

Cas saw a single tear escape Dean's closed eyes before he said, "You don't understand."

"No? I'm the one who attempted to pull him from the Cage because—" Cas looked away. "I didn't do it for your sake or the world's, no matter what I've told myself."

Dean was adamant, though. "I can't risk it. Just a little longer, and Zeke will have him healed."

"And then?"

"And then he leaves."

Squinting at Dean, Cas wondered how his deeply paranoid friend could be so naive and trusting about something like this. "He has already lied to you about his identity, Dean, and I suspect he is altering Sam's memories, preventing him from contacting me. What makes you believe that he is not lying about this too? At any moment he could kill Sam, and I don't mean by leaving his body. I know it's easy to forget, but angels, even weakened ones, are powerful."

He watched Dean struggle with the implications of what he'd done to his brother—at least some of the implications. Finally, he nodded and said, "What do we do?"

Sam searched the bar frantically, looking for any sign of Cas or Dean. The only trace of them were the beers on the table that hadn't been there before, but they looked untouched. His brother and ex-angel had vanished into thin air, and that was the moment he knew he was really losing it. Though he briefly considered the idea that Cas had flown Dean somewhere he dismissed the idea quickly. Cas didn't have wings, and that didn't explain the beers or how Sam could blink and lose two people. Between that and all the other little instances of...blankness over the last several weeks he wasn't sure what he could even trust anymore. Something was wrong with him, seriously wrong, and he needed to figure out what.

It was like there were moments when he just wasn't present, though clearly the world and his body continued on without his mind being open for business. Oh, god. What if Cas hadn't been able to heal the damage from the Trials because it had been soul-deep? He felt ok now, but he also wasn't glowing anymore. Maybe the moments where he blanked out were really his soul flickering in and out of existence. The thought of being that person again, that monster, was terrifying, and he felt his gut clench in fear. He was just starting to really panic when he spotted Dean reentering the bar looking haggard. No sign of Cas, though, and a spike of fear he couldn't identify flashed through him.

Making his way over to his brother, he let all of his concern show on his face. "Dean?"

Startled, Dean looked up at him before running a hand down his face and answering. "Cas had to take off. Wanted me to apologize to you for bolting like that."

Sam clenched his jaw, holding in the things he really wanted to say. This wasn't the place. "Right. You ready to head out?" If things were ok, then Dean would deny it, citing concerns over wasting the untouched alcohol back at their table.

"Yeah, sounds great."

Crap.

Through the rest of the case, Sam tried to figure out how to ask Dean what the hell he'd said to Cas to run him off or to bring up his theory about the soul damage, but both of those conversations meant coming clean to Dean about how much time he was missing. It wasn't a fun prospect, and Sam was avoiding it. He could already hear Dean's accusations of hiding things from him, and he wasn't sure he could stand another reminder of some of his bigger failings in the past. It didn't matter what Dean had said in that church, Sam knew Dean hadn't magically forgotten about Purgatory or the demon blood. Never mind the Apocalypse. Failing to close the gates of Hell would probably be gracing the list at some point, and he just wasn't ready to have that thrown in his face too. And if not that, then it would take the form of doing the Trials in Dean's place, and he wouldn't apologize for that. It had been a miserable few months in a lot of ways, and he wouldn't have wished it on Dean. That was a different fight brewing, and he'd avoid it as long as he could. He'd avoid all the fights with Dean if he could manage it.

It was easy enough to push his concerns away in the wake of vaporizing people, at least until they managed to confront the angel responsible. Sam had zero memory of the fight. One moment they'd been flanking the guy, and the next he was waking up in the car, engine thrumming as it ate up the miles. It didn't feel like he was hurt, which meant this was a longer than usual blackout. It was dark, so he'd been out at least eight hours. A glance at Dean revealed a haunted look, which turned Sam's stomach. There had probably been casualties, then. Or Sam had said something that revealed his soulless nature and Dean was quietly freaking out. At this point either scenario was equally likely.

He quietly cleared his throat, bracing himself for the inevitable fight. "What happened?"

Dean frowned, taking his eyes off the road as he looked over at Sam. "Sam?" he asked.

"Last thing I remember we were flanking what's-his-name." He stole a glance at his brother, not entirely sure what reaction that revelation was going to provoke.

Whatever he might have been expecting, it wasn't for Dean's face to go carefully blank as he lied. "You got knocked out. I took care of the guy."

Sam nodded, though he was not at all mollified. "And you've just been driving around with me in the passenger seat, unconscious. Again." He sighed. "Dean, what really happened?"

"What are you talking about?" His voice was high, false. It grated on Sam.

"Look, if I'd been knocked out, I'd at least have a headache. You know, like every other time I've been knocked out in my life. And I'd be waking up in the car, so I'd be slouched down, probably with a crick in my neck and a sore back. I don't have any of those things, just a black hole in my memory. I was coming around the guy's left; I blinked, and now I'm here." He watched Dean expectantly.

Dean shifted, obviously uncomfortable. "You don't remember any of it?"

Sam shook his head. "And it's not the first time something like this has happened. It's like sometimes I'm just not here, you know? Like my body is out doing things without me." He paused, wondering if he should add his suspicions and deciding that if he was going to confess to Dean, then now was as good a time as any. "Like when I was soulless."

That definitely got a reaction from Dean. "What?! What the hell are you talking about, Sam?" he spluttered, staring at Sam with an expression of... something. Something between fury and fear.

"Do you have a better explanation? Because I don't. I mean, you're right. The Trials messed me up. Maybe we're just now finding out how bad." He was trying to pitch his voice to be calm, but he wasn't sure if it was working, given the pained expression on Dean's face.

It took a minute of Dean working his mouth before any words actually came out. When they did, it sounded a little like Dean was being tortured. "You aren't soulless, Sam."

He waited for Dean to elaborate.

"We'll figure this out, ok? Maybe take you to a hospital, get your head checked out since you're just now telling me you're having trouble remembering things. How long has that been happening, by the way?"

Sam thought about telling him about the neck wound that should have killed him, but decided against it. No need to piss Dean off more. And hey, maybe a hospital was the right call here. "Practically since I woke up in the Impala after the angels fell," he whispered, not wanting to admit to his brother how long he'd been avoiding the topic.

Dean clenched his jaw but didn't say anything.

"Sorry," Sam said, wishing he'd managed to avoid disappointing Dean one more time.

Castiel sat at the library table across from Kevin and poured over yet another book about angels. Most of it was wrong, as they all were, and he scrawled some notes to go back and annotate it later, when Sam wasn't in mortal danger. There were a few salient points that were correct, but he wasn't sure any of them were relevant. Kevin was attempting to translate the angel tablet, with similar amounts of success. Frustrated and knowing that the Winchesters were likely to be home in a day or two, Cas abandoned the Men of Letters books and turned to his firsthand knowledge of angels. Cradling his head in his hands, he closed his eyes and thought. There was the banishing sigil, which took the vessel along for the ride. There was a sigil that would theoretically allow them to talk to Sam without the angel listening, but he wasn't confident in his ability to accurately reproduce it. He wracked his brain. In his long life, he'd never so badly needed to know how to banish an angel from its vessel like a common demon.

He lifted his head. An exorcism. An angelic exorcism. It had been years ago, and he couldn't remember the words—had never even heard all the words— but Alistair had attempted to exorcise him shortly before Sam had killed the demon. "Kevin," he said, urgency making him sharper than he would normally be. "Look for an exorcism. Anything like an exorcism."

"Those exist for angels?" Kevin asked, sounding perhaps more surprised than he should be.

Cas nodded, though, excited to finally have a possible lead. "I'll try to remember the words that I heard, though I admit I was rather distracted at the time." When Kevin raised his eyebrows in question, he added, "I was being exorcised."

They returned to their respective books, though this time Castiel began looking for anything with a reference to Alistair. If the demon knew how to exorcise an angel, then perhaps it had come up in a human's dealings with him at some point. A moment later, he paused. If one demon knew how to exorcise an angel, perhaps more did as well. Crowley was abhorrent, but in this he might actually be helpful. Not that Castiel trusted him, and he'd be even harder pressed to know when the demon was lying now that Castiel was human.

He debated a while before checking on Kevin. The teen was hunched over the angel tablet and his notes, obviously struggling to parse Metatron's notes. Castiel considered going to Crowley again. It was possible that the demon could help, in a number of ways. He could translate the Elamite that Kevin had translated the tablet into, for starters, eliminating the need for Kevin to continue to slave over his translation. But, if the demon ever got free, then giving him that kind of knowledge was dangerous and irresponsible. If they could trap the angel possessing Sam, Crowley could "hack" him using the technique he'd used on Gadreel. That was almost worse. The thought of allowing Crowley to damage Sam in that way when Cas couldn't heal him afterward turned his stomach. Definitely not, unless they were completely out of options. And last, of course, was simply asking. It had the downside of letting Crowley know there even was an angelic exorcism, assuming he didn't know. No. Things weren't that desperate yet, and Castiel resolved that they weren't going to get there. The risks were too high, when they had not exhausted all of their other options.

Closing his eyes, he tried to recall that fight.

He heard fighting in the next room and ran in, seeing Alistair choking Dean. Grabbing the demon knife off the table, Castiel flew at the demon. His attack would have landed true, killing Alistair, if the demon hadn’t turned at the last moment. Even using his grace to manipulate the knife did little more than make the demon angry, though.

They traded blows until Alistair managed to get the upper hand. Impaled on a hook bolted to the pillar, Castiel was forced to listen to Hell’s head torturer taunt him, then threaten to send him back to Heaven. Then he began the exorcism.

“Omnipotentis Dei potestatem invoco. Omnipotentis Dei potestatem invoco. Ab orbe terra—”

After that, the words had sounded like ringing in Castiel’s ears, and nothing had made sense until Sam appeared, stopping Alistair in his tracks.

He managed to write down a few words that could narrow the search for Kevin. Unfortunately, Cas's Elamite was extremely rusty as a human, and studying the language had only made it worse. So, he stayed away from the translation efforts himself. Sighing, he tore out the page and added it to Kevin's notes, then pulled a book about demons closer.

Dean wasn't leaving him alone, and it was starting to freak Sam out. They'd gotten back from Idaho two days ago, and while he hadn't seen Kevin or heard from Cas, Dean had become his damn shadow. Everything Sam did was apparently fascinating, and it was all he could do to use the bathroom in peace. At first, he'd thought he'd just freaked Dean out with his admission in the car, but as one day had stretched into two and seemed to be stretching into a third, he began to fear he'd really freaked Dean out.  His brother always had an explanation, but Sam was noticing other things that were odd too.

The day after they'd returned, Sam had noticed that there were a number of books incorrectly shelved in the library, and after he'd bullied Dean into fixing the problem (since he was hanging around anyway) Sam discovered that half a dozen books were missing. Once they'd finished the library organization, Dean had propped open the laptop to watch something that Sam prayed wasn't porn but distracted him enough that Sam could investigate which books were missing. He didn't exactly have the library memorized, but it was a near thing. But the card catalog that the Men of Letters had created and Sam had maintained let him generate a list of missing titles without too much trouble. Once he had that, things were easier. Two he recognized as books Kevin had been using to help translate the angel tablet. Easy enough explanation for where those had gone, then. The rest were books on demons and exorcism rituals, which made no sense at all. Unless Kevin was trying to exorcise Crowley? Or wanted one that was likely to work on the King of Hell just in case? Frustrated and confused, he put the puzzle away for now. It was something that wasn't urgent, and he could turn it over in his mind later when he was trying and failing to sleep.

Also, Dean was weirdly distant, even while he was being extremely clingy. Like watching porn in the library while Sam fiddled with the card catalog, or constantly messing around on his phone while Sam made himself a smoothie or read a book or got ready for a run. And then going on that run with Sam, but like, just in his regular jeans and flannel. He'd insisted that it made more sense because no monster was going to wait for him to change clothes or warm up first, and while yes, they had trained like that on occasion as kids, that wasn't why Sam was running now. That run, in particular, had been to do the one activity he'd been sure Dean wouldn't tag along on, but no luck. Dean had actually tried to make Sam turn around early, claiming he was too hot and running was for losers, but finished the three miles when Sam refused. And instead of bitching about how tired he was for the rest of the day, he'd just shut up about it and stared at his phone some more.

He still hadn't figured out the book mystery by day three, when Dean finally stopped distracting him from going down to the archives. One of the books was there, discarded on a table as though it had been used recently, though he had no memory of doing so or seeing Dean with it. Shrugging, he put it away and set about finding them a new case. Maybe there would be something with cheerleaders. Or zombies. Something that could cheer Dean up and help him be a little less freaked out by his mess of a brother.

Only, when he went to retrieve his laptop from the kitchen, he didn't get very far. Dean had followed him into the archive room, holding a runed pair of handcuffs. Sam frowned, backing away out of instinct. Dean just looked so sad, but determined, and the combination was enough to send a thrill of fear running through Sam. "Dean?" he asked as he backed up enough that he bumped into the wall behind him.

"Sorry, Sammy, but I don't have a choice. I thought I might, that we were out of the woods, but I was wrong. There's something wrong with you, and I need to take care of it."

Sam's stomach churned. On the one hand, Dean was hunting him for reasons he didn't entirely understand. On the other, something clicked into place for Sam that felt undeniably right about this whole scenario. Because, really, he'd been waiting for this moment for years.

He swallowed, closed his eyes. "What are you going to do?"

"What I should have done ages ago. What you begged me to do, once upon a time," Dean said, voice hard but not malicious. He sounded resigned, liked he genuinely regretted having to do this.

Sam breathed out a shaky laugh. "So much for figuring this out together, huh?"

"If it makes you feel any better, Sam, I don't want to do this."

Sam nodded, studying the floor near his feet. It was a smooth cement, but somehow the archives had never felt cold; he wondered how the Men of Letters had managed that. Maybe they'd used magic. No, he needed to think. Maybe he could get past Dean and make a run for the door. Only he was never going to do that. Even if he had no idea why Dean thought his missing memories warranted his death now, of all times, he accepted it. It was inevitable. Things were always going to end this way between them and oh god. Dean must think there was a fucking demon in him. That explained the books about exorcisms and demons, the memory loss, everything. Even the way Dean wouldn't let him out of his sight. He didn't think he had a demon inside, but he couldn't be sure, could he. He had the tattoo, but had they ever actually put that to the test before? He had no idea. Things before Hell got kind of fuzzy. Maybe they worked like devil traps, letting demons in but not out. It would make a terrible anti-possession charm if it worked that way, but hunters, even Bobby, had been wrong about plenty of things over the years.

He squeezed his eyes shut, found his center before opening them and meeting Dean's eyes. "It's ok, Dean. I understand." Except his body didn't get the memo. As it turned out, being resigned to his fate did very little to subdue Sam's survival instincts. When Dean got within arm's reach, Sam lashed out, using his long legs to sweep his brother's legs out from under him. It was a move that caught them both by surprise, and Sam found himself staring down at Dean, laid out on the floor.

Moves like that never worked when they sparred, but Sam didn't have time to question his luck. He delivered one hard punch to Dean's head, knocking his brother out cold. Sam stumbled his way through an apology to Dean as he made his escape from the bunker.

Sam looked around his little apartment. It was a studio, and he didn't have any money to furnish it yet, so all he had for decorations were his sleeping bag and his duffel of clothes that he'd grabbed on his way out. He lived in a plain white box with beige carpet. It was hideous, and he hated it. But it was all he could afford for the moment, and he didn't dare use one of the credit cards he had. Dean could track those and find him. Sam shook his head. He should let Dean find him. Even if his brother had gone off the deep end and wanted to murder Sam, Sam knew it was for the best. Something really was wrong with him, and Dean had known about it. Dean had been trying to fix it. Except you haven't lost time once since you left, have you? Isn't that interesting? Sam shut his eyes against the voice in his head. He needed to get to work.

Construction wasn't glamorous, but it was something he was good at. Sam may have preferred books to manual labor, but there was a satisfaction in making something with his hands, having a physical object that existed because of the work he'd done. It also helped that he liked the crew he was working with. He'd only been there a week, but he already felt like he was making friends.

"Sam! A couple of the guys are going out for beers tonight. You in?"

Sam turned from the plank he'd been measuring to see who was talking to him. It took a moment to place the blonde's name, but he was pretty sure it was Zeke. The guy was friendly, and he'd made a point of introducing himself to Sam on his first day. This was already the second time he'd invited Sam out for drinks with the guys. The first time Sam had declined, not sure how long he was going to be in the area and not wanting to make ties to people that Dean could interview later. Three days later, well, Sam was just too tired to keep moving. He was planning to stay here until Dean caught his trail, so making friends had a lot more merit. Friends might lie to his brother for him. And the thought of going back to his barren apartment was too depressing to think about. So he nodded, grinning when Zeke slapped him on the back.

Sam leaned on the bar, wiping condensation from the bottle of beer he was nursing. The night had started out easy enough. This wasn't the first time he'd made friends among civilians, and the routine of telling just enough truth to them came back easily enough. The truth was easier to remember than a lie, after all, and a partial truth aroused less curiosity and suspicion than not talking about himself at all. He said as little as he could get away with, of course, and years of living with Dean had given him plenty of practice in deflecting. So it came as a surprise when he was faced with a question he wasn't sure how to not answer. He'd been asking polite questions of the guys, getting a feel for them and their lives. Where he might fit in the group. Then someone, possibly George, had asked if he had a girlfriend.

His mind stuttered over the memory of Jess before he managed to answer, smoothly as he could, "No, no girlfriend."

Something in his answer had alerted the others to his discomfort though, because Mike had almost immediately followed up with, "How about a boyfriend?" and Sam watched a dozen eyes swing his way, waiting expectantly for his answer.

He didn't sense judgement from them, at least, which surprised him a little. A group of construction workers didn't seem like the easiest group to come out to. But these guys seemed like they'd be cool with it, and he found himself saying, "He's not a boyfriend." Immediately, Sam felt the tips of his ears heat as his eyes widened in panic.

The guys just laughed, and Mike had prodded, "So, tell us about this 'not a boyfriend.'"

Zeke and Mike helped him maneuver the couch into his tiny studio apartment. It was Sam's first big purchase for his place, though he probably should have invested in a bed. Or at least a pullout couch. The one he'd purchased had been second hand, but it was long enough that he was pretty sure he would still fit, so hopefully it wouldn't hurt his back when he tried sleeping on it tonight. Two weeks on the floor hadn't done him any favors.

Once the couch was in place, all three guys collapsed on it. Zeke piped up, "Planning to invite your 'not boyfriend' over?"

Mike said, "Yeah, why isn't he here helping you move your Sasquatch furniture into this place?"

Sam didn't answer right away, just tried to shove down the emotion the teasing had stirred up. It had been a long time since someone had called him Sasquatch. And the guys already knew a version of why Cas wasn't here helping. As far as they knew, Sam had had a falling out with his brother, and the "not a boyfriend" had been his brother's best friend. All true, though Sam knew Cas would have spoken to him if he tried calling. That, of course, was too dangerous. Still, Sam wondered if Cas worried about him, or if Dean had convinced him, too, that Sam had to die. He missed his angel.

One week ago:

Castiel watched Dean approach Sam in the archive room. The plan was for Dean to distract Sam long enough for Cas to say the exorcism. If Dean could get the angel cuffs on Sam, so much the better. There was also a ring of holy oil in the room, but Sam hadn't stepped into it yet. They needed to keep the angel inside Sam from flying away before the exorcism could work.

"Sam, look, we need to talk," Dean said, hand reaching into his pocket with the angel cuffs.

From his hiding place, Cas could see Sam's eyes flash blue, and he knew they were out of time. He burst into the room, already chanting.

Dean, cuffs in hand, lunged for his brother's wrist. He tried to use his weight to push Sam into the ring of oil, but Sam didn't budge. Not surprising, really. Sam reared back, landing a solid punch on Dean before he noticed Castiel. Cas continued chanting, trying to remember the words and not worry that it didn't seem to be affecting Sam at all yet. Rage darkened Sam's face, and Cas briefly wondered if the angel would kill him now. He didn't, instead throwing another punch that caught Cas across the temple, knocking him out cold.

Castiel accepted the bag of frozen peas from Dean and gingerly placed them against his swollen eye. He missed his ability to heal such mundane wounds instantly.

"Any more bright ideas?" Dean asked.

Cas flinched away from the scathing tone in his friend's voice. Cas's exorcism hadn't worked, and now Sam was gone. The angel had stolen him. "Now we focus on finding him."

Dean slumped in his seat, all energy gone. "I have no idea how to do that."

Cas shrugged, wincing. "I would say that my lack of powers makes it more difficult, but the sigils on Sam's ribs would protect him from finding him anyway."

Dean frowned. "He still has those? I figured they were healed when he got back from Hell, like the rest of his scars."

"He asked me to replace them some time ago. I believe he was afraid of hostile angels being able to find him."

Dean ran a hand down his face, weariness evident in his eyes. Cas could relate. He was exhausted, and he was struggling to maintain hope. With Sam in the wind, the chances of finding him were slim at best. If the angel chose to live a quiet life, then they may never find him.

Cas reread the news article. This was it, the break they'd been looking for. A man fitting Sam's description had saved three children from a burning building. There was no picture as the man had asked to remain anonymous, but Cas was sure. Perhaps this angel wasn't entirely a bad seed after all. Or perhaps he'd returned control to Sam. Then again, if that were true, surely Sam would have made contact. Right? Of course he would. In any case, he knew how his brother would worry otherwise.

"Dean!" Cas called. "We have a case!"

The drive only took an hour. The angel, if it was the angel, had stayed close to the bunker for reasons neither Dean nor Cas could fathom. They were just grateful.

The Impala rolled up to the newspaper offices, and Dean said, "Moment of truth."

"Let me." Cas met Dean's eyes, pleading silently to be the one to find Sam. Dean rolled his eyes and gestured to the door, and Cas got out of the car.

Cas showed Sam's picture to the journalist who had written the article and held his breath while she studied it.

"Yeah, this is the guy. Why are you guys looking for him anyway?"

While Cas still did not excel at lying, this was a question he'd been prepared for. "He's a friend, but we've been out of touch for a long time. When I saw the story—"

She smiled, and Cas was forcibly reminded of Sam. She even shared his deep dimples. His heart ached at his loss. Digging through her desk drawer, she produced a business card and handed it over. "Here. He left his number in case I had follow-up questions." Her smile softened, and Cas tilted his head in combined confusion and gratitude. When she sighed and lamented, "All the good ones, I swear," Cas knew he was never going to figure out humans. There were too many cultural references for him to ever get a handle on them.

So he pretended he hadn't heard that part, simply saying, "Thank you."

"Dean, we can't call him."

"Why not?"

Cas rolled his eyes at his friend. "You know why. The angel possessing Sam would immediately flee, and we would be back at square one."

Dean shrugged. "I'm not sure we have a better idea. Unless you think that reporter lady would help us out."

"I'm not sure. She seemed eager for me to reconnect with Sam at first, but she became rather wistful by the end of our exchange. I believe there was some amount of subtext I did not understand."

Dean made Cas go through the conversation again, verbatim, until Dean burst out laughing. "Oh my God, Cas, she thinks you and Sammy are an item!"

Cas frowned. "An item of what?"

Dean clutched his stomach as tears rolled down his face. "Like a couple. Sleeping together or something."

"Dean, when would I have had the opportunity to sleep with Sam? I did not stay in the bunker even one night."

Castiel watched the angel handcuffed to the chair in the library warily. It hadn't revealed anything yet, not even its name. It had made a number of threats to Sam's general well-being but, as far as Cas could tell, hadn't acted on them yet. He tried once more to convince the angel to talk. "Why did you pretend to be Ezekiel?"

Nothing.

"Why did you agree to heal me, if you are so threatened by my existence?"

A pained look crossed Sam's face, but the angel still didn't respond.

Castiel wasn't sure what more they could do that didn't threaten Sam's welfare. They may have to accept that they would never have the answers they sought.

Dean obviously wasn't so ready to give in. "I trusted you, Zeke. And you lied to me."

"Only about my name," he said, finally breaking his silence.

Dean and Cas shared a look. Dean said, "Ok then, what's your name? And try not to lie to me this time."

The angel laughed condescendingly. "What difference does it make? You have decided I'm not trustworthy, and I have all of Sam's memories of what that means. Regardless of my answer, I know you will not believe me."

"What about me, brother? Do Sam's memories of me tell you that I will not believe you as well?"

The look that crossed Sam's face was conflicted, but he said, "You have hurt him in unspeakable ways. And then used your power to kill hundreds of angels. Despite all that, he trusts you. Why? I have been trying to understand that for some time now."

Castiel made a pained noise before answering. "I have wondered that many times myself. It is certainly true that I do not deserve his trust and forgiveness."

"And yet you have it and more." The angel shook Sam's head in disbelief as Cas felt a thrill at the words. "I had hoped that I could learn from him, from you. Learn to have what you have."

Cas narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Brother—"

"Gadreel."

Cas froze, and he heard Dean asking, "What? Cas, what did he just say?"

"His name. This is Gadreel, the angel who let Lucifer into the Garden, who has been imprisoned in Heaven's jail ever since." Castiel faltered. Gadreel had been hated by angels for millenia, blamed for God's departure and Lucifer's downfall. But was he so different? Castiel was surely one of the most hated angels now, so much so that even Gadreel was afraid to be associated with him. He'd been tricked, as Gadreel had once. However he felt, Gadreel deserved to be forgiven his original fault. But his possession of Sam could not continue as it was. He turned to his brother. "You and I were both tricked by unscrupulous angels. We know how it feels to trust, and to have that trust used against us. Sam Winchester deserved better than that, but it's not too late to fix your mistake. Tell him the truth, or allow us to tell him. He should be given the same choice all humans have before they become vessels."

Gadreel pursed his lips. "He will reject me, and then he will die. Slowly. I have healed much of the damage done to him, but there is much left. There have been...setbacks."

Everyone present knew exactly why Sam would never again agree to be possessed. It didn't matter that he was dying, or that this had been the only way to save his life. It didn't matter now that he would likely die a slow, painful death. He deserved the choice. The least they could do was trust him to choose to live.

Gadreel glanced at Dean, as though asking him permission. Cas didn't look back, but Dean must have nodded, because Gadreel said, "I will tell him. Perhaps he will surprise us."

"Sam."

Sam looked up from his book. "Zeke. Hey, what...are you doing here?"

His new friend shifted uncomfortably. "I have a confession to make." He paused for barely a moment before barreling forward, words spilling from his mouth like hail, breaking and wounding everything in their path. "I am an angel, Sam Winchester, and I have been possessing you for the last six weeks. You were dying, and your brother asked for my help. This was the only way for me to do that. I am sorry for the deception, but you are still seriously injured, and I was afraid you would reject my presence if you knew the truth."

No. No nononono. "If you're possessing me, then how are we talking?" Sam asked, tamping down his growing panic as best he could.

Zeke looked upset, which did nothing to ease his fear. "We are inside your head."

Sam fought to control his breathing, on the edge of hyperventilating. "What did you do?"

"You are unwell. I was attempting to protect you, to give myself a chance to finish healing you."

Shaking with combined fury and dread, Sam said, "What did you do to me? Where am—where is my body?"

"You are in the bunker, with Castiel and your brother."

Sam breathed a small laugh that sounded more bitter than anything else. "Of course I am. How long? How much of my memory is fake?"

"Sam—"

"No. You've been rooting around in here for who knows how long now. You should know why I'm mad." He shook his head in painful disbelief. "Get out."

Zeke looked taken aback at Sam's tone, though he seemed unsurprised at his words. When he answered, his tone was even, maybe a little sad. "You will die."

Sam snarled. "Get out!"

And he went, in a blinding flash of light.

When Cas could see again, Sam was slumped in the chair, unconscious. Dean was already checking for a pulse, and Cas felt his heart jackrabbit in fear. Sam couldn't be dead. They had known the risk of telling Sam the truth was that he would expel Gadreel, but Cas wasn't prepared for the worst-case outcome.  

Dean muttered, "Come on, Sammy. Wake up, little brother," as he patted Sam's cheek. "Come on, man, don't do this to me."

Cas's heart was in his throat until he heard Sam groan, "Dean?"

Dean and Cas both slumped in relief that was too short-lived. Sam tried to stand, only to realize he was cuffed to his chair. He immediately began to struggle, blind panic written across his face.

"Whoa, Sam! Calm down! Cas, give me a hand here!" Dean barked.

Cas snatched up the handcuff key from the library table and hurried to Sam's side. "Please relax, Sam. You are going to injure yourself if you continue to struggle," he murmured, hoping that his low rumble might have a chance at calming Sam where his brother's shouting was failing.

"Cas?" Sam asked, pausing briefly in his flailing.

"Yeah, Sammy. Cas is undoing the handcuffs, ok? You're ok. You're safe now."

Cas cursed himself as he fumbled the key, taking far longer than should be necessary to unlock Sam's wrists.

"What happened?" Sam asked.

Before Dean even answered, Cas could hear him preparing to lie about the whole thing, so he spoke up first. "You were dying, and an angel agreed to help you. The angel lied to Dean, and you were tricked into saying yes. You've been secretly possessed for the last few months, and the angel completely took over one week ago. Dean and I tracked him down and captured him. You've just expelled him. Am I missing anything, Dean?"

"Sugar coat it, why don't you," Dean grumbled.

"Dean?" Sam said.

Dean sighed. "Yeah, that about sums it up. How much do you remember?"

"From when? How long was—?"

A pained look crossed Dean's face. "Since the end of the Trials. You were dying, and I couldn't exactly ask you for your opinion."

Sam's eyes widened in shock. "That whole time I thought I was going crazy. You were being weird, but I thought it was my imagination. But you knew. How—?" He heaved a shaky breath. "How could you?"

"Sam, I am not going to apologize for saving you. I can't. You know that."

Sam shook his head in denial. "Get out."

For a moment, everything was silent as all three held their breath after Sam's quiet order. Finally, Dean said, "What?"

"You tricked me because you knew what I would say. And then you didn't have the decency to even tell me once I was up and walking around. When I thought I was losing my mind, or— Jesus, Dean. After everything, you— I can't. I need some time. So please. Get. Out."

Dean rocked back on his heels as if Sam's words had struck a physical blow. His mouth opened, as if to say something in reply, but then it clicked shut, and Dean silently stalked out of the room.

Sam slumped in the chair, head hanging low. "God, Cas, did you know too?"

"I learned of your possession two weeks ago." Cas backed away from his friend, wishing he could help, could make this right.

"Two weeks. Why didn't you say anything?" Sam's bitter tone stung. He was looking to do damage with his words, and he was succeeding.

Cas swallowed, looking away. "Gadreel threatened you if I did not leave immediately. As soon as I could, I contacted Dean, and Kevin and I have been working to rectify the situation. But I understand if you would like me to leave as well." Without waiting for Sam's reply, Cas turned away, planning to go to his room and pack a bag. He was shocked when a large, calloused hand gripped his wrist, halting him.

"Stay." Their eyes met, and Sam's were brimming with unshed tears. "Please."

Castiel wrapped his hand around his mug of coffee, relishing the gentle warmth seeping through the ceramic. He took a deep breath, letting the rich smell wash over him and remind him of happier days. Sam would be awake soon, and he would want to finish the conversation they had started weeks ago, when Gadreel had made himself known. For a moment, though, Cas was going to enjoy the calm of the quiet kitchen and try not to worry about the possible directions that conversation could go.

His peace was interrupted by Sam shuffling into the kitchen. Sam looked exhausted, as though the last ten hours of sleep hadn't left him with any more energy than he'd started with. His hair, usually soft and styled no matter what time of day Castiel encountered the brothers, was a frizzy mess. While Cas silently observed his friend, Sam made himself a cup of coffee, slow movements revealing stiffness that Sam was trying to hide. Cas clenched a fist and looked away. He couldn't watch Sam in pain when he couldn't do anything about it. A rough cough drew his eyes back to Sam just in time to see him catch himself on the counter, spilling coffee over his hand.

"Son of a bitch!" Sam hissed, nearly dropping the carafe as the burn registered. He slammed the cold water tap on and jammed his hand under the stream, pinching his eyes closed.

Cas quietly took the carafe from Sam's good hand and finished making the cup of coffee. He knew little enough of human first aid that it would be better for Sam to treat the burn himself, but this he could do.

After several long minutes had passed where the only sound in the kitchen was the running water, Sam pulled his hand out and evidently decided it needed no further care. He joined Cas at the table, gratefully taking his mug back. At least now the coffee had cooled to a level that wasn't scalding. Steeling himself, Castiel said, "Sam. We should talk." Sam winced, but Cas continued. They would never get anywhere if he let the Winchesters dictate the conversations. "Before Gadreel revealed himself to me, you were attempting to ask me to come home with you, and you said a number of things that have been troubling me."

Sam gulped, then asked, "Like what?"

"Among other things, you suggested that you were not worthy of my affection."

"Heh. Um—" Sam chuckled nervously, and Cas was sure he was thinking about bolting. "Look, I'm— I'm kind of a mess right now—"

"Sam. I don't know if you would like to pursue... whatever this is between us. I understand if you don't. I am, as you say, 'kind of a mess' myself. But I would very much like to clear up a few assumptions that you seem to have made. I did not leave this place because of the intimacy which we shared. I did, in fact, quite enjoy myself and wish that Dean had not interrupted before I had a chance to reciprocate. If it is agreeable to you, this is something I would like to remedy. As for the question of your worthiness, Sam, you are the most extraordinary human I have ever met. After the things that Heaven and angels have put you through— After what I have put you through, I am continuously surprised that you wish to have anything to do with me."

Sam was shaking his head long before Cas stopped talking, though he let Cas finish before speaking. "No, Cas. You're an angel, and I'm just—"

"Not anymore."

Sam's eyes shone brightly with emotion. "We'll find a way to restore your grace. I promise."

Cas smiled. "And when we do, the first thing I will do is finish healing you." I will not let you die a slow, painful death, Sam Winchester.

"I'm fine," Sam said automatically. They both knew better, so Cas didn't bother correcting the obvious lie.

They were quiet a moment, then Sam haltingly said, "I don't know. About pursuing this thing. I— God, Cas, I want to. But things don't tend to end well for people that care about me, you know?"

Cas considered this. "Does it make a difference if you consider the fact that I have already come back to life twice?"

Sam burst out laughing, and Cas delighted in watching him. When he got control of himself, Sam said, "You really want to try this, don't you?"

"Only if you do."                                                  

"Yeah, Cas. I think I'd like that."

"May I kiss you now?" Cas asked.

Instead of answering, Sam leaned across the table and captured Cas's lips with his own.