Growing up I was always expected to be the good disabled person and say things like “I wouldn’t wish my disability on my worst enemy”

Now I’m a grown up cripple there’s a long list of people I’d give a taste of my life to, including:

But also I’d like to gift the fullness of my life to:

the most insane thing about infantino street is it JUST existed to be a len episode. because len was the only one who could talk barry down from becoming savitar. they had to bring len back from the dead and make up a dumb little heist for him and barry to go on that ended up having zero effect on the plot because the thing they stole didn’t even work, all because what they ACTUALLY needed was for len to pull barry aside and shake him by the shoulders and say hey dumbass i didn’t let you talk me out of the cycle of fear and violence that was controlling my life just to watch you jump in yourself as soon as i died. don’t you dare. and it WORKED

i think i speak for most of us when i say i've accepted i'm just going to be using tumblr until it either shuts down or i die

🏃❄️⚡💎Coldflash Fic Recs 💎⚡❄️🏃

Just thinking about the differences in the worldviews of Barry Allen and Leonard Snart and the ways in which they value (or don’t) life.

I think Leonard has internalized the idea that life has no intrinsic value. He’s a pragmatist: we’re born, we struggle, we die. There is no greater purpose or grand scheme or deeper meaning. 

I also sincerely doubt he believes in the inherent goodness of people, either. People can choose to do good things, but Len would look at every ‘good deed’ through a lens of asking what they got out of it. There’s no altruism; everyone has an ulterior motive even if they can’t or won’t admit it to themselves. Even someone who is simply kind to others reaps the benefit of feeling good about themselves, not to mention some degree of social capital. There’s always something.

I think he also doesn’t believe in an inherent right to life. Not in a capitalist/ableist ‘your life only holds the value of your ability to produce’ way. Just in a ‘you were born, congratulations, now survive’ way. If you can’t then it’s no loss, you’re just meat for the grinder and you were always going to be. How you survive he doesn’t care about. You fight for it if you want it, you take what you need and, when you can, what you want.

He protects the handful of people he cares about because he considers them his, and that gives their individual lives meaning to him. Also the people he cares about? Absolutely do fight to survive and will do what it takes, and he respects that.

Barry, on the other hand, absolutely believes that life has intrinsic value. At the beginning I can’t see him really genuinely believing in a greater plan or destiny or anything like that. Maybe a little, he’s not closed to the idea, but not in any serious way. Learning what he does about Eobard, the changed timeline, the speedforce and his own relationship to it would definitely have an impact on that though.

Barry also believes everyone has inherent goodness. A person can make a lot of bad choices, and do a lot of bad things, but none of that negates that goodness exists in them. Everyone has the potential to change, to tap into that goodness and make better choices. Joe and Iris and Henry would have had a big influence on his ability to be so open to forgiveness as well. To understand that people make bad choices with good intentions, that when they make bad choices on purpose there’s always a reason behind it. He has this unshakable faith in humanity as a whole.

And so everyone has an inherent right to life (although not necessarily to freedom). A person’s value comes from the fact that they exist at all and so each life he fails to save isn’t just a personal loss, it’s a loss to the world as a whole.

I think Barry would swing between the extremes not seeing not seeing the trees for the forest and not seeing the forest, or any other trees, for this one specific tree. He has to be good on both a grand scale (save everyone, impossible), and on a deeply personal scale (save this specific person I love from this situation, blind to the consequences).

Len’s worldview is very granular, it’s focus on the details he doesn’t care about the things outside of his particular area of concern, except for how they can impact him and his. Barry can get so caught up in the big picture that he loses focus on the granular, but when he does focus on the granular it’s to the exclusion of everything else.

Imagine the fit Oliver is going to have when he finds out actual puppies Barry Allen and Ray Palmer are dating Leonard Snart and Mick Rory.

having a character playlist is like this song is them. this song is who they think they are. this song is their brand of insanity. and this song is about a specific ass situation they were in. this song is about their relationship with another character. that song is about the relationship they would have with another character. this song is them but slightly to the left. this song is totally misinterpreted just to fit them. this song is just their vibesTM. this song is if everything had gone different. this song only has one line that applies to them. and this one has nothing to do with them but i was vibing with it real hard at the same time i fixated on them and now i'm unable to think of it without thinking of them

Quick! Funniest reason for someone to become a villain

Has a crush on the hero and can't be normal about it

It takes while it gives

Magic is rare, and those who wield it are even rarer. No one knows how Hunter Zolomon became so rich and how he became so powerful, though rumors say that the source of his power was locked in the tallest tower of his castle. 

Leonard Snart is a thief hired by the kingdom of Starling’s king, Oliver, to find the rumored ‘power source’ and bring it back to Starling. 

He infiltrates the castle as a servant and hears whispers that Zolomon is the only one who is allowed in the tower. In the dead of night, he sneaks up the stairs, picks the lock on the door, and goes inside…only to find a bedroom. A young man sits in the middle of the bed, his ankle shackled to a long chain on the floor, and symbols are scribbled along the walls. 

Immediately, Len knows that this job won’t be as easy as he thought. 

The man–Barry–tells him how Zolomon stole him away from his home while one of his generals slaughtered his family, and he locked him away to use Barry’s magic for his own wealth and power, forcing him to cast spells of strength and luck on him and making him spin straw into gold to fund his crusade. 

Len knows the plan will take longer than expected, but he doesn’t know how much time he has before someone gets suspicious of him…

Masks, Identity and Honesty - Commentary Post

So I was inspired by this post, and also this one, to write about about Barry and Len and the concepts of honesty and identity in their characterization. So, here goes.

For starters, to build off what Wentworth Miller said, it is interesting that Barry wears a mask and hides his identity while Leonard (though using an alias) does not wear a mask and the CCPD and many others know his identity. He does not hide who and what he is. 

But let’s unpack that a bit more: Captain Cold does wear a costume, one with goggles that hide his eyes, and most importantly, he wields a persona like a mask. He is “Captain Cold” when he puts on the parka, and though he doesn’t hide his identity from Barry or the police, he doesn’t announce himself as Leonard Snart, he announces his presence as Cold. I would say what is interesting here is that the persona is a blatant lie. Leonard is never confused between himself and Cold; Cold is a tool, one that allows him to have fun. He knows who and what he is, and the persona is, in some ways, a blatant lie, but he knows it, and so does everyone else. He isn’t pretending to be anything but what he is, ever. It also doesn’t interfere with his identity and there is no residual tension of inconsistently between the actions of Cold and the actions of Leonard. He’s not about to start referring to himself in the third person.

Then there is Barry. Who, for the record…

…does.

So Barry, masks, and honesty? We get so many jokes over the season about how Barry Allen is bad at lying, right? Except… Barry Allen spends the entire season lying. Even before the pilot, pretty much his first scene in Arrow he’s lying to Felicity and Oliver about his reasons for being in Starling. He’s not a great liar, but he’s doing it constantly. Lying about his motives, about the Flash, about the truth about Harrison, about time travel (how many episodes before he tells anyone he can do that?), lying at work, lying to Iris, just… lying. 

Now I want to clarify, I don’t think being a liar means he’s morally corrupt. Honestly does not equate morality. But it’s an interesting point to make, because we often think that “good guys” are honest, and that’s not only often incorrect, but we more generally equate honesty with being genuine and kind. Barry is genuine, caring, loving, and can be kind, so we act like he’s this honest guy and he’s just… not. And when it comes to wearing a mask, he doesn’t think twice. Hiding his identity is natural to him. 

It was suggested (by coldflashcw) that maybe Barry learned to dissociate honesty, and justice/fairness/etc when he told the truth (and his father told the truth), but his father still went to prison. And after that, I think lying was a modelled behavior in his home. Joe West expects honesty from others but he’s the one encouraging Barry to lie all through season 1: lie to Iris, lie about Harrison Wells (and to him) until they have a plan, lie and lie and lie as needed. So Barry has grown up watching Joe lie, and learned the tricks of the trade.

Except that Barry isn’t a great liar. When you ask him something point-blank, he stumbles, even if he has a lie in mind. But he lies through omission and he’s a pro at it. He simply… doesn’t say anything to others about being the Flash, and gaslights and obfuscates the truth when they get close (i.e., to Iris). He doesn’t say anything to Cisco or Caitlin about Wells being the Reverse-Flash, he just keeps acting as normal as he can. And this tendency is what allows him to wear the mask–no one is asking point blank “are you Barry Allen” and he’s allowed to simply hide behind the costume. And this, in turn, means it’s hard to see where Barry Allen begins and the Flash ends. This is also why he refers to the Flash in third person that one time, because it’s an identity that exists as part but not part of who he is–not just a persona but a whole aspect of himself as a person. 

(Sidenote: anyone else catch the difference with how Oliver Queen in Arrow refers to “Oliver Queen” in third person, where Barry refers to “the streak/flash” in third person? Oliver see himself as the Arrow first, Oliver Queen second, and Barry sees himself as Barry first, the Flash second. It’s not a wonder they’re so different about their secret identity revealing).

On that note, I don’t want to paint Barry as this malicious liar. We know he’s awful at hiding his identity because he trusts people, doesn’t think twice about Digg and Lyla knowing. He’s good at hiding the truth to protect the feelings of others, or simply to protect them, or to make life easier, like not having people ask questions about why he’s in Starling or about his interest in ‘the impossible’ growing up. He doesn’t lie for selfish gain really, and I think sometimes he’s just forgetful, forgets to tell people “oh yeah I can travel through time” or even “oh yeah I can run crazy fast”–which he could have immediately gone and told Iris and Joe and anyone else in the pilot if he’d had half a mind to do so. No, I think Barry is someone who just doesn’t think about these things all that much. He hides the truth as is convenient to him and it only bothers him when he’s been pushed into an actual lie to someone he cares about. Like hiding the truth about the Flash was one thing, but ‘lying’ to Iris was another, because then it was different. It wasn’t “I forgot to tell you I can run super fast” but “you asked me and I told you a lie,” and there were emotional stakes on the line.

So it’s interesting that Barry’s costume hides his identity but shows his eyes. It masks everything, but your eyes will give you away in a lie–Barry’s certainly do. So the costume lets him obfuscate but is still true to him, to how he both does and does not lie. With Leonard, that’s different. Like I said, his costume hides nothing but his eyes–his identity is out there but we know he can deceive others, that he’s a self-admitted liar (and criminal).

So in sum, Barry hides the truth and does it a lot, has a disconnect between himself as Barry Allen and himself as the Flash, whereas Len embraces the truth and yet openly lies, and although Captain Cold is a persona, there is no identity-level disconnect between Len and that persona.

I’d love to hear your thoughts??

reasons people might be looking at you in public (that aren’t negative)

@dearsnart @dearsnart @dearsnart

Words of Wisdom with Alexis Rose

@pscentral event 02: comedy

TBT to our beloved trailer. :’)

people

Immortals are getting bolder

Immortals or time travellers? 100% Rip Hunter in that 6th frame