#people will Think he's some dark sexy guy and characterize him like that until The Reveal properly happens.

[coentinim]

Can you please tell me what this new character you really like is about ? He's your next fictional crush...

Also...Do you have any Lestrange daughter headcanons where she befriends the trio. I think this idea is very Mary Sue, but...I think if one adjusts that let's say her conception is : "Rodolphus Lestrange willingly drank love potion per orders of Voldemort" What are your ideas to make it work ?

Ofc!

Okay, first, I apologize for the "no" response? I was just in the middle of an argument and it kinda happened. Tbh I didn't think it's weird/uncomfortable at all and you can ask me abt all subjects basically.

I don't think it's Mary Sue-ish at all to make the Lestranges have a kid. A lot of characters in hp who shouldn't/wouldn't have children do have them since JKR is a mother and it's a big part of her life and her books, so it wouldn't be a stretch to see Bellatrix give birth as well. I personally think they could have a child without love potions as loveless marriages often do, maybe Bella was infertile and didn't pursue treatment or just got an abortion in canon. If she had a daughter she'd be likely to just give her over to some nanny and barely care for her. I saw your post about Rudolph... why is it that at any time I think a man is even a little hot he gets accused of the most heinous shit ever. He might fancy the dead tho, I mean the purebloods are perverse enough for that and they prob think it's more fine than doing it with a muggle. It made me laugh.

The girl meeting the trio would be interesting, because Harry and Hermione wouldn't even know much about her parents until they're 15 and wouldn't judge her by her roots anyway, but my GOD Ron would fucking spit on her. I think it would be cool if she was in ravenclaw since it would highlight how much she isolates herself. She might go to some adoption system or maybe to the Tonks family?... so she'd be pretty normal. I think dumbledore would persuade someone into adopting her lol. She'd have an interesting relationship with Neville I think. About her personality, she'd be very hotheaded but analytical (a choleric and thinker temperament?), also very strong willed which can make her stubborn. She could be curious and feel a pull towards dark shit and have a whole luke skywalker arc of being afraid of being like her family. Which can be a realistic concern since mental illnesses are often genetic, so she would struggle with that. She would try to be a good person but wouldn't be a great friend and would self isolate a lot, very introverted. A bit machiavellian lmao. Definitely wouldn't share any secrets about herself. Hard time relaying on someone if anyone but the Tonks were the ones to raise her, so some trust issues. But she tries her best.

About that guy... he is James March from American horror story hotel and he's basically a ghost. He was a serial killer in the 20s, built a whole hotel to kill people in and torture them in their last moments n then easily dispose of all evidence. Isn't he just so dreamy? Also a design and engineering genius, a hunter, a gentleman (it's a facade he's a psychopath), has a sexy accent and drinks absinthe. His every MOVEMENT is hot and I'd literally get on my knees for him. Though he might have necro tendencies... that's why I giggled at the Rodolphus post. But James definitely prefers normal sex lmao he had a sex scene with Lady Gaga. He had a traumatic childhood (said his father was awful, has scars on his back...). It's a speculation, but since most of the more evil serial killers were victims of sexual abuse... yikes. But he's fictional so I can like him despite all of that. Or maybe for it? I often fall for fictional killers and/or torturers lol. He's also just charming, like so so charming it's unreal... I also really admire the actor's (Evan Peters) dedication to the character as he did most of the work in characterization.

#answer☆ #a long post so i left it under the cut

[monocytogenes]

Here’s the answers for Pravinquisition Pravin (referenced ask meme here)

10. Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

So, I’ve spent a weird amount of time looking at Orlesian fashion, and it’s kind of a late 16th/early 17th century mishmash--you’ve got ruffs going on (as well as Celene wearing something reminiscent of one of those standing collars), men running around in doublets and breeches, etc. (with a few later styles mixed in--the dresses with the long bodices peaked after 1650.) Style-wise, I tend to park Pravin around the 1630s, because you cannot tell me this man isn’t fucking his way through Orlesian society in fabulous hats. He’s an actor, damn it, of course he is.

Here’s what this means in terms of dress and undress--for men, undergarments consist of a long linen shirt and hose (maaaybe some kind of underbreeches, but a lot of guys just tucked their shirt around their legs.) Put on the doublet/breeches and--while you might also add a coat/jacket for cold or fashion reasons--you’re basically decent to go out in public. That’s the level of dress Pravin would be comfortable at in most situations, and he might even leave his collar a bit open for sexy reasons.

It’s also worth noting that taboos around nudity and privacy are probably a little different in the culture he’s living in when compared to modern western societies; this is still a setting where you don’t have indoor plumbing, so there’s probably bathhouses in urban areas, and you’re probably sharing a bed with (and changing clothes near) your family members on the regular. So I imagine that he wouldn’t be uncomfortable about showing off his body in those contexts, but wearing less clothes while out and about would be something he’d associate with being poor, dirty and disreputable, when his goal is generally to appear fashion-forward, handsome and materially successful.

12. In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been? 

From the ‘contented’ angle of the word, there’s this phenomenon in preindustrial societies where people would go to sleep when it got dark, wake up for a little while, then go back to sleep until the morning. So long as he isn’t brooding from nightmares, I imagine this is one of the times in which he tends to feel calmest. (This is also a time people used for sex a lot, so yeah, plenty of positive associations for him there.)

Also, if you’ve ever played/performed music, you’ve probably experienced that state where you’re like...in flow, I guess? Like, not scrutinizing what you’re doing/reflecting on it like an observer, but totally focused and absorbed in the act. He’s definitely experienced that while performing, which I suppose you can interpret as a kind of calm.

35. How does your character behave around people they like?

Well, Pravin tends to like people in general unless they’re straight up assholes. He has a strong capacity for empathy and enjoys hearing about people’s opinions, experiences and feelings, so he tends to come across as friendly and charming in a way that’s more open than arrogant.

As with his agent version, I think one of the differences between how he interacts with people he sort of likes and those who he’s actually kind of attached to is his willingness to offer help/take care of tasks for them. This is why much of his relationship with Thalia is characterized by him trying to give her advice and assist her with stuff; he’s been fielding parasocial relationships with his admirers for the past decade, and to him verbal praise and physical affection just don’t mean as much as thoughtful acts of support. I think he has a tendency to view himself as one of those ‘I get my hands dirty so other people don’t have to’ folks, so he has a habit of quietly solving problems behind the backs of the people he cares for too, which isn’t always the best course when his ethics are edgier than theirs.

(This is not to say that he wouldn’t feel something about Thalia, say, giving him a thankful hug, cause he’d know what she meant by it and she’s a little awkward as it is and...god, it would be cute. I love them.)

#ask meme #pravinquisition #dragon age: inquisition #dragon age

[spoipage]

when tog s2 starts getting animated people are going to simp so hard for viole and start making those"h-hello nice to meet you sir!"/"your daughter calls me daddy too" memes with him. not looking forward to the tog anime resurgence.

#please he's just a depressed guy trying to keep his friends alive </3 dont do this to him #people will Think he's some dark sexy guy and characterize him like that until The Reveal properly happens. #they'll be so desperate for the dark brooding strong sexy type that they'll ignore obvious hints. esp the end of s1. #i dont like fandom <3 its so bad at characterizing characters and pretty much bastardizes them

[alfredosauce50]

Just coming in here to say that I absolutely adore your characterization for 1p and 2p America, and for 2p Canada!!! 😸💖💖 and if you're taking requests, can we get some general headcanons for 2p America? 😳 thank you so much in advance!!

Thanks! They’re really something, aren’t they? And no, they technically aren’t open, but you know, I just have to make an exception for Allen 🤫 I tend to sprinkle a little bit of my personality into all my muses, but he has a decent handful of it...

2p! America headcanons

Appearances can be deceiving, and this guy is the textbook definition of it. With his striking red eyes, sharp grimace, and panther-like walk, he intimidates everyone who looks his way. Sure, he might be a troublemaker, but he means well!

Appearance

Just like Alfred, his “second-rate poser,” Allen has short hair parted in a cowlick. Only it’s dark maroon, not blonde. He has quite the boyish charm too. But being a little older, he has a mature appeal and sharper features. If you asked him to describe himself in one word, he’d say, “sexy, I guess.”

He has tawny skin, so he hardly ever burns. He just tans. He’s pretty tall, standing at around 6’2”. He’s also the biggest gym rat. He always keeps a few dumbbells laying around so he can work out between activities. Along with the healthy vegetarian diet he eats, Allen is in great shape—he’s totally ripped. He also has a lot of tattoos.

Allen doesn’t put a lot of thought into his wardrobe. So long as it’s comfortable, cheap, and shows off his arms, he’s good to go! Tank tops and muscle shirts are the absolute essentials. You can also see him in a lot of Metallica, Ramones, and Harley-Davidson. Oh, and can’t forget his dog tags.

Personality

Allen is mostly introverted. Don’t get him wrong, though. He’s a great talker when he wants to be, and won’t think twice before oversharing. It’s people he isn’t familiar with that throws him off. They tend to judge or fear him, which annoys him to no end. He ends up having ‘fuck off’ written all over his face, and it does the job.

On the other hand, if someone is kind to him, he will return the favor tenfold. He’s the type to stand up for the nice cashier when an entitled customer decides to throw their weight around. “Look, lady. I’m trying to eat here. And nobody gives a crap what you want, so why don’t you like, get out or something?”

He has a great sense of humor. When he’s in a good mood, he’ll make it known by being the life of the party. That doesn’t mean he’s good with crowds, though—he prefers it on the down-low with the people closest to him. “What do you say we get out of here, doll face? Just you and me. ‘Cause there’s another bar down the road, and it’s way better than this one...”

Allen is incredibly smiley when he’s having fun. Great company dampens his aggressive and broody emotions—he ends up grinning a lot. When he’s around someone special, he won’t stop looking at them with that goofy grin until they laugh at him. “Is there something wrong with my face? What’s so funny, huh?”

He can be hot-headed. What he can’t stand is people getting in his face and ruining his vibe. Allen gets road rage. When he drives by the person who cut him off, he makes sure to give them the finger without taking his eyes off the road. “Safety-first. Except for that guy. I hope he flies out of his fucking windshield.”

He’s pretty imposing. His sharp tongue doesn’t bode well for how confrontational he can be. Someone could be next to him and breathe too loud for his liking, and he’ll turn to them and say, “hey, pal. Did walking from your car to the store take that much out of you?” Allen isn’t afraid to speak his mind, regardless of the ‘should.’

Allen has a strong sense of justice. He doesn’t appreciate bullies of any kind, and isn’t above getting physical if the situation calls for it. If some asshole shoved someone else for no reason, he’ll scowl and shove them right back. “Quit pushing people around, asshole. You’re asking for it.” He warns them with his fist up.

He isn’t just fiercely loyal. He’s too loyal to the point of being problematic. He will go as far as being a home-wrecker just to have his baby back. He doesn’t care how inappropriate it is. Allen listens to his heart and nothing else—he will do what he thinks is right, or just what he wants, even if other people don’t agree.

Interests

Allen is good with cars. Anything that has a motor in it, he can fix. But he prefers using motorcycles the most because they’re cooler (and cheaper!). If you asked him if he was worried about crashing, he’ll just laugh and say, “with you sitting behind me? Not a chance.”

He’s not career-driven. He has the experience to be a mechanic, but he doesn’t wanna be stuck fixing other people’s stuff. Allen is too flighty to stay in one place, and in a job at that. He can find ways to chase paper without being tied down.

He enjoys drawing. He’s not great at it, but he really tries! Allen keeps a scrapbook and doodles in it from time to time. And he isn’t shy about it. If you asked to see his drawings, he’ll show them to you rather proudly. He’s also left-handed.

He makes a lot of Indian, Middle-Eastern, and Greek food. Those cuisines have a lot of tasty vegetarian options.

Allen works out a lot. He doesn’t like being inactive. If there isn’t any equipment lying around, he’ll get on the floor and figure out the rest from there. You’ll sometimes find him doing push-ups and sit-ups around the house.

He loves 80’s rock. Some of his rock essentials are Pour Some Sugar On Me, I Was Made For Lovin’ You, and Girls, Girls, Girls. The guitar riff in Beat It is his favorite part of the song. Allen also listens to genres like rap, heavy metal, and synthwave. But he isn’t picky—he will save any songs he likes and bump to them.

Allen owns a gun. If you ask him what he uses it for, he’ll scratch his head and say, “oh, you know. Just self-defense and stuff. There’s a lot of weirdos out there, you wouldn’t believe it.”

He’s kind to animals. Allen understands their capabilities and is very accommodating when he plays with them. Be it a turtle, bunny, cat, or dog, he always handles his furry (or slimy) friends with care. He seems to know how to train anything, and gets really invested in the process.

He’s the type to get down on the floor to keep his pets company. Otherwise, he’s doing something ridiculous for them to copy. Before he figures out how to potty train a puppy, for example, he will crouch on the newspaper and pretend to take a dump. Then, he will feed himself a treat (a fruit). “See? Isn’t that easy? Now, try and do it on the newspaper this time...”

Psychology + romance

Allen is a serial romancer. He’s a flirty person by nature, so he won’t have trouble chasing someone he likes. But after a few one-liners, dates, and maybe a fling, it never ends well. They don’t approve of his bum lifestyle, lose interest, or just can’t stand his attitude. If you accept him for who he is and return his energy, you’re already off to a good start.

He starts off the relationship by dating, not friendship. Allen is physical, and he loves to be, so he starts off with kissing and sex. What gets him to stay around you is respect, chemistry, and eventual friendship. Finding one-night stands is easy, but someone that can understand him? He’s not letting you go anytime soon.

Once you and him become an item, Allen will always take you out for long drives. It’s never about the destination, it’s the intimacy that comes from the closeness and conversation. He likes putting his hand on your thigh when he steers, or when he’s backing up. “This is why I had to get good at driving one-handed, doll.”

When the destination is important, he takes the motorcycle instead. Allen will never get enough of your arms hugging his torso. But what gets his blood pumping is seeing you close your eyes. It tells him that you feel safe riding behind him. “You know what, I’m gonna take a detour.”

Allen and you are a package deal. He has a lot of time on his hands, and he gets quite attached, so he’ll follow you around at every chance he gets. It doesn’t matter where—in the house, in public, or even around your friends. If you plan on going out, he’s always ready to pop the question.

“Can I come?” Allen lights up.

“You came last time, Al.” You reply as you get dressed. “Don’t you wanna stay home and do something else? You’ll get bored.”

“But I’ll get even more bored at home.”

“But it’s weird bringing your boyfriend everywhere.”

“It is?” He crinkles his nose.

He loves surprising you. He knows your size, and won’t hesitate to walk into a store you might like. People could stare or give him weird looks, but he’s too busy picking out something nice for you to care. If you don’t have any preferences, he will always go for the dress. And if he’s not getting clothes, he’ll get you teddies or home goods.

Allen will do anything to make your life easier. This extends from errands to emotional support. He might mess up with the chores, but you can’t even be mad because he tried so hard. Knowing how to do something is irrelevant to him, because it’s the thought that counts. “Babe? I think I cross-contaminated the cutting boards. And the cutlery. And the plates. And the—yeah. Why did you have to eat beef tonight?”

Communication is crucial. He can be down sometimes, but that can be solved by regular conversation. It doesn’t have to be something deep or meaningful. So long as you respond to his emotional bids, he’s a happy camper. Allen tends to make mindless comments, but in reality, he’s looking for your attention.

He can get anxious when you’re not around him. Allen is used to being around you 24/7, and he can’t have it any other way. If you’re away for days on end, he will sleep on your side of the bed to feel close to you. When you finally show up, he’ll be pretty clingy and expect a lot of affection. “Where the hell did you go anyways?”

Allen doesn’t work well with boundaries, physically or otherwise. He could try to adjust to them, but he usually ends up forgetting. If you get annoyed at him for constantly barging in on you, in the bedroom or bathroom, you might have to remind him to ask first.

“You want me to ask?”

“Yeah.”

Allen is already taking up most of the space in the bathtub, but he’s only getting closer and closer. He leans into your face and looks at you coyly.

“Okay. Can I wash up with you?”

He hates arguing with you. Allen would rather compromise and make things harder for himself than have conflict of any kind. When he does fight with you, it won’t be long before he apologizes. He can’t stand the distance, and will do anything to work something out. “Come on. I’m sorry. Don’t be like that. Hey—don’t close the door! Let me in. We’ll work something out.”

Allen gets jealous very easily. Seeing you with other people will ruin his mood, but he knows to not hold it against you. Instead, he’ll pick you up and drive home in silence to hide it. If you squeeze his arm, he’ll slowly warm up again. He knows it’s not good because you’re your own person, but he can’t help wanting you to himself.

He’s frisky. Allen lives for your touch, so he’s always putting his mouth and hands on you. When he’s not kissing you, he’s licking or biting you somewhere. If you two are out and about, he’ll wrap an arm around your waist and pull you close. “C’mere. Gimme some sugar.”

The bane of his existence is self-acceptance. Allen doesn’t care for big dreams, success, or money. But that’s the problem—his indifference to material wealth and class is unconventional, which fuels his cycle of self-doubt. He’s broke, ‘improper’, and the last guy you could ever want. If you stay with him regardless, he knows he’s found his ride or die.

#ask answered #thanks for the ask anon #2p america #2p! america #2p!america #2pamerica #2p america headcanons #headcanon #headcanons #hetalia headcanons #hetalia #hetalia fanfiction #axis powers hetalia #axis powers ヘタリア #hetalia x reader #alfredosauce50 #hetalia fanfic #2ptalia #allen d jekyll

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Sharp Edges

Sam Winchester x Spencer Reid

Word Count: ~4880

Warnings: BDSM. Pain play and impact play (hands only, no tools) and discussion of sadism/masochism. The working title for this was “Reluctant Sadist Sam.” Memories of a time Sam pushed the limits of a previously negotiated BDSM scene. Very brief non-explicit masturbation. No actual sex, but it’s very sexy... or at least I think it is? 

A/N: This pairing just, like, snuck up and made itself my OTP when I wasn’t looking, and I’m kinda obsessed with it. Big thanks to @mskathywriteswords for a super helpful edit, to @stunudo for an early read and characterization cheerleading (plus this whole Spencer Reid Thing, which is pretty much her fault), and to @fookinghelljensensthighs, for a brainstorming sesh about crucial jizz-related plot questions. 

Sam hesitates outside the door for longer than he wants to admit. He’s been thinking about this for years, now. It’s not like there’s any doubt left in his mind, but stepping through that door makes it real. Until he steps through that door, he can brush this off; he only acted on the impulses when he didn’t have a soul, right? They’re not his. Not really. 

They are. He knows it. 

Years of wondering, guilt, self-loathing. Months of research, asking around, making connections. Weeks since he got the invitation, weeks of nervous anticipation and doubt. Fuck if he’s backing out now, even if he does feel like he’s choking. 

He wipes sweaty palms on his jeans and goes inside. 

He’s not expecting Lindsey to remember him, but she does, and she greets him with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. She’s wearing knee-high boots and a corset that shoves her cleavage up toward her chin, and Sam feels underdressed in his plain black t-shirt, not to mention painfully inexperienced. 

“Want a soda or anything?” she asks brightly, like she’s the head of the PTA instead of the dungeon mistress. “Need me to show you around?” 

“No, thanks,” Sam says, tucking his hair behind his ears nervously. “I think… I think I might just want to hang back for a bit.” 

“Of course, sweetheart, whatever you need.” 

Sam’s good at hiding his fear; he’s practically made a career of it. He puts on his most confident mask and starts walking. 

He’s not really sure where to look, at first. His immediate instinct is to avert his eyes. There’s a startling amount of skin on display, but more importantly, there are scenes being played out all around him that are straight out of Sam’s fantasies - the dark, secret ones - the ones he couldn’t admit to, for most of his life. 

It took losing his soul to ask for what he really wanted. 

The memories from that time, back when something important was missing, are tinted red and foggy. He was selfish, when he didn’t have a soul. It’s the one thing he’s always vowed not to be. 

He met a girl in a bar, somewhere in Colorado, and he took her to whatever grimy motel he was calling home that night. When he asked, she giggled, giving him some stupid line about needing to be punished, but when she realized he didn’t just mean a couple light smacks on the ass, she asked him to stop. He shrugged, fucked her anyway, and told her to leave. 

The next night, he found a professional, and he made sure they negotiated the price before he took her back to the motel. Even then… Sam feels a twist of guilt when he remembers the moment her moans became whimpers of pain,  the look of apprehension in her eyes when she realized she might be in over her head. She never used her safeword, but he knew she wasn’t comfortable with it.

He’d made it up to her, of course, afterward, even before he paid her, but it wasn’t out of any selfless desire to see his partner enjoy herself. It was just ego, just another game. The predator in him just wanted to see if he could make her beg for more after she’d begged him to stop. 

When Sam got his soul back, there was a laundry list of foggy red memories that made him feel slimy and sick with shame, but that little vignette was one of the worst. 

Sam doesn’t want it to be like that. He doesn’t want to be that brutal, selfish person who got what he needed, no matter the cost. 

He wants romance: dinner and a movie, flowers, shy first kisses. He wants those things, but he’s starting to realize that he needs more. He needs that sharp edge of pain with his pleasure. He knows, logically, that there are people out there who need to feel it, in the same way he needs to cause it. It’s a matter of finding the right puzzle piece, is all. 

All around him, now, he hears people asking for more, yes, harder, and there’s a sweet, breathless relief coursing through him. He pauses in front of a couple, watching the dom unclip his partner’s leather cuffs from where she’s chained to a ring in the wall. She’s smiling as he murmurs something Sam can’t hear. 

“Please,” she says, beaming up at her partner with this incredible blissed-out expression on her face. 

Sam’s stomach swoops with such an intense longing that it’s almost painful. He looks away. 

He wants that. 

Sam glances around the room again, and his eyes catch on a man who looks like he should be in a college lecture hall, instead of a BDSM party. The guy sticks out like a sore thumb in this sea of black and red and leather; Sam can’t help but notice him, and once he notices, it’s hard to tear his gaze away. He’s wearing a sweater-vest and a tie, for fuck’s sake. He’s got a mop of long, messy hair that makes Sam want to tug.   

The longer Sam looks, the more he notices the sharp edges. The guy is tall and twig-thin, gangly, all elbows and angles. The line of his jaw looks like it was cut with a razor. 

It’s not just the shape of him, though, that’s making Sam think of glinting steel and the rasp of a whetstone. The guy is on his own, hanging back in the same way Sam is, observing… his eyes dart around the room, glancing back and forth, taking it all in with a bright, clear, whip-smart awareness. He’s not smiling, and there’s nothing about his body language that’s welcoming. If someone handled him the wrong way, he’d slice them open.

Sam’s hands twitch. He wants to fit his fingers to the angle of those bones, thumb along the underside of the jaw, index finger running up to the cheekbone. He imagines it would be a perfect fit. 

Sam shivers and looks away. 

He sneaks a glance again, a few seconds later. The guy’s looking right at him. Sam’s stomach flips. He smiles hesitantly, and gets a blatant assessment in return, an appraising up-and-down. Sam feels like he’s passed some sort of test when the guy starts walking toward him, weaving easily through the crowd. 

He stops abruptly when he’s in front of Sam, and Sam feels off-balance, somehow. 

“I’m Spencer,” he says, in a soft scratchy voice that makes Sam want to lean in to hear better. 

“Sam.” He sticks out his hand. 

Spencer doesn’t take it; he waves instead, an awkward little gesture that’s oddly goofy and endearing, even with the frown line creasing his forehead and the shrewd expression on his face. 

“You’re the new guy Lindsey was telling me about.” He tilts his head, almost birdlike as he blinks and waits. 

“I… guess so? Why would she…” 

“I assumed she meant new here, but you’re new to all of it, aren’t you?” It’s not a question. 

Sharp, Sam thinks again, flustered. He shrugs. 

Spencer’s eyes flick over his face like he’s reading lines of text. There’s something closed-off about the way he’s holding himself, tension in his features, mistrustful or maybe defensive. 

Spencer licks his lips as he thinks, and Sam stares at his mouth. His mouth isn’t all points and angles like the rest of him; it’s plush and pink, wide, expressive. 

“Hey, Professor,” says a woman, brushing a hand down Spencer’s arm as she passes, and Spencer gives her a quirk of his lips that’s not quite a smile. 

“Are you really a professor?” Sam asks. 

“No. It’s just because of the way I dress.” He says it matter-of-factly, but Sam notices the way his eyes drop for a second. He’s self-conscious. 

“I can’t picture you in leather pants,” Sam says wryly. 

“But you’re trying, aren’t you?” Spencer asks, with a flicker of an amused, mischievous smile. It’s gone just as quick as it came, but it leaves Sam feeling warm and pleased. He already wants to see that smile again. 

“I think I missed the memo about the uniform,” he admits. 

Spencer glances around and says, “I can see how adhering to a certain set of aesthetic cues would help members of a subculture identify each other in everyday life, but it does seem unnecessary here. Something about dressing up just to meet expectations seems disingenuous.” 

“You’re really not a professor?” Sam asks, almost unbearably curious. 

“No.” Spencer hesitates. “To answer your earlier question, Lindsey told me to keep an eye out for you because she seemed to think we were here for… similar reasons.” 

“Oh,” Sam manages. He feels hot and cold and panicky, and he wishes he’d gotten a drink, if only to have something to do with his hands. “You, um. You like…” 

“Pain,” Spencer says crisply, with an almost clinical detachment. “I enjoy experiencing pain. And you enjoy inflicting it.” 

“Yeah,” Sam says, mouth dry. 

Spencer’s watching him closely, frowning again. “There’s nothing wrong with it, you know.” 

“I… yeah,” Sam says. “I guess I know that? Just, um, I always thought of myself as pretty traditional. Not big on one night stands, I like… relationships.”

“And you don’t think people who are into BDSM can have traditional relationships?” Spencer asks, smirking slightly. 

Foot, meet mouth. 

“No, not like that, I just - if I’m into someone, I want to treat them right. I’m a romantic.” 

“A beating can be very romantic,” Spencer deadpans. 

Sam sputters out a laugh. “I - I guess. Sure.” 

“So, what, you’ve always been about the Al Green and missionary, and you figured you’d try something new?” His voice is dry and amused, and he’s watching Sam, just waiting for a reaction to the needling. 

“Not exactly,” Sam says, grimacing. 

“What, exactly, then?” 

Sam can’t remember the last time anyone made him feel like this, like the conversation is a fencing match that he’s losing spectacularly; Spencer disarmed him already and is still toying with him, landing one glancing blow after another, just to see if he can. 

Sam stammers for a second before saying, “I’ve always been interested in this, I just - never had an opportunity, really.” 

“Don’t lie. You don’t have any reason to be embarrassed,” Spencer says, frowning. 

Sam sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. He forces himself to spit out the truth: “I always wanted to think of myself as a nice guy. The things I want… there’s nothing nice about what I want, when it comes to sex. I couldn’t admit that until recently.”

Spencer smiles, and his whole face is incandescent with it. He tamps down the wattage of the smile with a twitch of his lips, eyes darting around as he thinks. Sam gets the feeling he already knew the answer, and was just waiting to see whether Sam would admit it. 

“It’s not always about sex,” Spencer offers. “Sometimes you just… want to get out of your head, you know?” 

Sam considers that for a moment, and he looks at Spencer, watching his fingers as they tap a silent rhythm against the side of his leg. 

“Is that what you want?” he asks, and he’s proud of himself for how steady his voice sounds. 

“Maybe.” Spencer meets his gaze evenly. “But you’re very strong, very inexperienced, and very anxious, and that’s not usually a good combination in someone who gets off on being in charge.” 

Sam bristles instinctively before he hears the question in it. 

“That’s not - it’s not like that,” he says with a sigh. “It’s not a power trip thing. It’s not about overpowering someone, I don’t want to tie you up, I don’t - it’s not like that. And I’m not inexperienced.” 

Spencer’s eyes narrow. “You said -” 

“I’m new to this,” Sam interrupts, and gestures around them at the party. “I’m not new to… pain.” 

For the first time, there’s a hint of curiosity in Spencer’s eyes, an inkling that he doesn’t have Sam quite as figured out as he’d thought. 

“Why are you here, then? What do you want to get out of this?” Spencer asks. 

Sam thinks about that, trying not to fidget as he figures out how to say it. 

“I don’t want it to be just about… what I get out of it,” Sam says slowly. “I want someone who - who needs it the same way I do, so that it’s not… I don’t want it to be something I do to someone, I want to do this with someone.”  He hesitates and adds, “With you. If you want.” 

He can see Spencer analyzing him, analyzing his words, weighing the odds, calculating the risks. 

“I’m not going to have sex with you. Not tonight,” Spencer says coolly. “You can touch yourself, but I’m not going to touch you.” 

Sam shrugs. “Okay.” 

“No tools, no toys, no restraints, not the first time.” His voice is dispassionate, matter-of-fact, like he’s reading out a grocery list. “Just your hands. You can scratch, but don’t draw blood.” 

“Okay,” Sam says. He’s glad Spencer said it before he had to admit he wasn’t confident enough, yet, to use a flogger on a stranger. His voice cracks. “Safeword?” 

“Lateral orbitofrontal cortex.” 

“Seriously?” 

“Yes, I’m aware that it’s three words.” 

It startles a laugh out of Sam. “That’s not what I meant.” 

Spencer’s mouth twitches as he suppresses a smile. “Seriously. But I only say ‘stop’ if I really mean it.” 

“I understand. If I didn’t get the joke, would you have called this whole thing off?”

Spencer’s lips twitch again. He just shrugs. “Anything else we need to talk about?” 

“After?” Sam asks. “What can I - how do I help, afterward?” 

Spencer pauses, a strange expression flickering over his face for a moment before he says, “Don’t leave?” 

It sounds like a question. Sam doesn’t think it was supposed to sound like a question. 

“Of course. Is that all?” 

Spencer shrugs. “That’s all. Just. Stay, for a minute. I’ll tell you, if there’s anything else I need. That’s the only thing I… can’t always bring myself to ask for, in the moment.” 

He gives Sam a very practiced, casual sort of smile, nonchalant, blinking up at him innocently as if to say I’m fine! See? 

The protector in Sam is snarling. He just nods calmly. 

“What about you?” Spencer asks. 

Sam frowns, taken aback by that. It didn’t occur to him that he might need to be taken care of. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Is that okay?”  

“Yes. That’s okay,” Spencer says. This time his little half-smile is sweet and genuine. 

Sam looks around nervously. “Is there anywhere more private? This isn’t really...” 

“Agreed,” Spencer says. “There’s an open door policy, I’m sure Lindsey explained, but there are other rooms where there won’t be a crowd.” 

He leads Sam through the living room, heading up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. Sam catches glimpses of scenes through three open doors before they reach the last room. It’s small, some sort of office, he thinks, lit dimly enough to feel comfortable. There’s no bed, just a loveseat, an end table, and a desk with an office chair, but the desk holds an assortment of toys, chains, and condoms instead of a computer. 

It’s quieter, here. It feels warmer, too, but that might just be Sam’s nerves kicking in. He glances at the open door instinctively as Spencer starts to loosen his tie. 

Spencer notices, of course. “There’s an understanding, with the regulars, that this is where you go if you don’t really want an audience.” 

Sam nods and turns to get a better look at some of the implements on the desk, skin prickling with adrenaline. He runs his fingers over the sleek handle of a riding crop, imagining the sound it would make on skin. 

He’s all too aware of his own inexperience, and he’s all too aware of how badly he could hurt someone with a misplaced blow from the gorgeous leather whip that’s lying next to the crop. He’d want to practice, first, and he’d want to be with someone he trusts, but there’s no denying that he wants. 

Someday, he thinks, and shivers. 

When he turns around again, Spencer’s putting a neatly folded pile of clothes on the loveseat. He brushes his hair out of his eyes as he straightens up, tilting his chin almost defiantly to meet Sam’s gaze. He still looks sharp around the edges, from the angular shape of his Adam’s apple, bobbing as he swallows, to the jut of his hipbones. There’s something brittle about the way he holds himself. 

“Where do you want me?” he asks quietly, with a crack in his voice that belies the careful blankness on his face. “Um, bearing in mind that most of this room is probably highly unsanitary and I’m something of a germaphobe. Minimal contact with furniture would be… ideal.” He wrinkles his nose and Sam huffs out a laugh. 

“Over here. Brace yourself against the wall.” 

Spencer walks over silently and settles with his forearms on the wall, his head bowed, and goes completely still. 

Sam lets himself stare for one long moment, taking it all in: the delicate curve of his bent neck, the prominent ridge of his spine, the lean muscles that shift under pale skin, shoulder blades that Sam wants to run his thumb across to test whether they’d cut him as easily as he imagines. 

There’s tension in the way he’s holding himself, though. Sam frowns to himself and steps closer. 

Sam’s been hiding this, his whole life; he’s been burying this sharp, nasty piece of himself, ignoring need in favor of romance, affection, emotion. He didn’t think they could coexist. 

He has a feeling that Spencer’s been doing the opposite: slipping into this formal, scripted exchange of limits and safewords and scientific explanations, being perfectly clear about what he needs but never admitting what he wants. 

The party is still going on outside, but the silence between them is heavy enough to drown out the noise of it. Sam takes one deep breath, then another, syncing his inhales to the steady rise of Spencer’s shoulders, and sidles closer, standing at Spencer’s side where he’s visible.

He hesitates for a moment, wondering if he’s crossing a line, before following his instinct and resting a gentle hand on Spencer’s back, right between his shoulderblades. Spencer doesn’t flinch at the touch, but Sam can tell he’s surprised.  

“You good?” Sam asks quietly. 

Spencer turns his head slightly, looking sideways at Sam through long lashes. 

“I’m good,” he whispers, in that soft, smoky voice.

“Okay.” 

“Sam?”

“Hmm?”

The corner of Spencer’s mouth crooks up in a shy half-smile. “I’m not gonna break. I’m stronger than I look.” 

“I’d fuckin’ hope so, cause you look like I could snap you with my pinky finger,” Sam says bluntly. Spencer ducks his head and laughs, bright and surprised, and Sam can feel the vibrations of it under his palm. 

“Fair enough,” Spencer says, grinning as he goes still again. He’s not tense any more, though. He’s calm, breathing evenly under Sam’s hand. 

Sam rests his fingertips on the nape of Spencer’s neck for a moment, making his intentions clear. The first drag of his nails is gentle, nowhere near enough pressure to sting. He twists his wrist to drag them back up along the same path, still gentle, and then moves to repeat the process on a new strip of skin, once and then again. He can see the goosebumps running down Spencer’s arms, the way his neck arches, silently asking for more. 

“Are you sure?” Sam asks. 

His voice is quiet, but there’s no hesitation when he whispers, “Yes.” 

Sam curls his fingers in and drags one knuckle down the knobby bumps of his vertebrae. 

“Okay,” he repeats. 

Every lingering bit of doubt and hesitation and anxiety disappear with the first sharp crack of his palm coming down. Spencer hisses in a breath, shivers, and Sam exhales with him. 

His body goes fizzy and focused, suddenly. It’s like in the last moments of a fight, when Sam knows he’ll win, he knows exactly what to do, he sees what needs to happen with absolute clarity, and all that’s left is to trust his muscles to get the job done. It feels good. It feels like this is exactly where Sam’s meant to be. 

Two more blows, in quick succession, and the next exhale is more like a gasp. The sound sends heat lancing through Sam’s gut. 

He’s careful about it, precise, still holding back, as he moves lower. He knows how to use his hands, how to hit with just the right amount of force, which spots will hurt, which spots he should avoid unless he wants to cause real damage. Sam’s been practicing for this his whole life, in a way. 

He lands a light smack on one thigh, then the other, then harder, on the same spots. Sam’s vision tunnels down to the red flush that’s already blossoming on Spencer’s pale skin. Something dark and possessive curls in his stomach. 

The next impact pulls a rough, gorgeous sound from Spencer’s throat. Sam gives him a second to recover before doing it again, and then again, until his palm is smarting with the force of it. 

He pauses abruptly. He can see the way Spencer tenses, waiting for a blow that doesn’t come. Instead Sam brushes the tips of his fingers over red, heated skin, feather-light, making Spencer shudder, before dragging three fingernails delicately up his spine again. 

“I like the way my handprints look on you,” Sam says quietly. Spencer sucks in a shaky breath. Sam rakes his fingernails down again, digging in this time, and Spencer’s exhale breaks on a low, gravelly groan. 

The raised red lines trail down his back, a perfect set of three all the way down the right side of his spine. Sam takes a moment to admire them before giving him a matching set on the left.  He traces those lines again, smoothing them with his fingertips, fascinated by the feel of raised flesh. 

Spencer is trembling, but he’s still, waiting, ready, and there’s a dizzying level of trust implicit in that stillness. 

Sam’s blindsided by the gut-punch of arousal he feels at that realization. He takes a deep breath, putting it to the side. He’s determined to prove to himself that this doesn’t have to be selfish. 

He brings his hand down again with a powerful snap of his wrist that makes Spencer whimper. His skin must be sensitive now, blood rushing to every spot Sam’s marked, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. 

Sam puts some muscle into the next one, and that’s saying something. He’s strong, he knows he is, and he pauses to gauge the reaction. Spencer lets out another of those breathy, beautiful whimpers, and Sam can see the shudder that goes through him. Sam rakes his fingernails up the tender, overheated skin he just hit, nothing gentle about it, and Spencer arches his back, squirming slightly. 

He’s panting; they both are. Sam realizes that they’re breathing in sync, and he takes another deep heaving breath that matches the rise and fall of Spencer’s shoulders. 

Sam gives in to the urge, finally, and tangles his fingers in Spencer’s hair, tugging his head back so Sam can see his face clearly: eyes closed, lashes fluttering, a sheen of sweat on those lethal cheekbones, his mouth slack. There’s a flush decorating the pale skin, patchy, spilling all the way from his cheeks to the hollow of his neck and down his chest. He looks totally relaxed, peaceful, like he could melt under Sam’s hands. 

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” Sam bites out, before he can help himself, and then asks, “You good?” 

“Yes.” It’s a gasp more than a word. Spencer’s eyes are still closed. 

“More?”

Spencer licks his lips and swallows hard, and Sam watches the way his throat moves with it. He whispers, “Please.” 

Heat thuds through Sam’s belly, urgent and overwhelming. He ignores it, ignores how hard he is, ignores everything but the way Spencer’s head lolls forward when Sam releases his hair and the way he moans at the next hit. 

Sam’s not holding back any more. 

There’s a rhythm to it: the sound of his palm, crack, and the choked, rasping sound that it pulls from Spencer’s lips, nnngh, and the steady thump-thump of Sam’s heartbeat pounding in his ears, and it crescendos quickly, until the ragged cries turn desperate and wrecked.  

“Last one,” he warns. 

Crack.

“I need -” 

Sam thinks of Spencer’s “no touching” rule, but he can’t bring himself to move away entirely. He tangles his fingers in Spencer’s hair again, tugging gently and then combing through the messy curls, and Spencer leans into it, catlike. He lets out a deep, ragged groan as he touches himself, movements fast and urgent.

“Did so good,” Sam says fiercely. His fingers twist and tug, sharp enough to sting, and he curls the other hand around Spencer’s side, digging his thumbnail into the ridge of his hipbone. That’s all it takes; he can feel the head-to-toe shudder, the last surge of tension before Spencer shakes almost violently under his hands.

Spencer crumples like a puppet with his strings cut. 

“C’mere, I’ve got you,” Sam says hoarsely, getting an arm around him and maneuvering so that they both have their backs to the wall as they slide to the floor. 

Spencer ends up tucked against Sam’s side, folded under his arm like he belongs there. He’s breathing harsh and heavy, and Sam cups the round of his shoulder with one hand, running his thumb in mindlessly soothing circles, waiting for him to come back to himself. 

As for Sam… he’s hard, still, more turned on than he can remember being in a long time, but there’s the strangest sense of calm settling into his body, a bone-deep satisfaction that has nothing to do with sex. 

This isn’t the same vicious, feral sort of satisfaction that he remembers. It’s nothing like crimson-tinted memories of lashing out rough and wild, like some sort of savage animal he’d unleashed. There’s nothing selfish about this.

He closes his eyes for a moment, breathless at the wave of blissed-out relief that’s crashing down around him. 

“You good?” he asks, falling back on what seems to be his mantra for the evening. 

“I’m… no, not really, hang on,” Spencer mumbles, and Sam flinches, moving away instinctively. 

“Shit, sorry, what -” 

“No, wait, that’s not - just… can you reach the tissues, or do I actually have to stand up right now?” Spencer asks, with a disgruntled sort of glare at the box of Kleenex on the end table. 

Sam laughs, awkward and self-conscious. Spencer blinks owlishly up at him, shaking his hair out of his eyes. Then a smile spreads over his face slowly and he’s laughing too as Sam leans and stretches over to grab the box. 

“The male orgasm is really inconvenient sometimes,” Spencer mutters. 

Sam lets out another snort of laughter, looking away to give him some privacy as he cleans up. He’s not sure what the etiquette of this whole situation is; it’s such a strange thing, oddly intimate, and even though Sam’s still fully-dressed, he feels exposed in a way he’s not used to. 

“Now I’m good,” Spencer says quietly. He’s got his knees tucked up to his chest, arms wrapped loosely around them, but he tilts his head back against the wall and aims a hazy, heavy-lidded stare at Sam. His lips part and curl up in a barely-there smile, and his tongue flicks out over the pink curve of his lower lip. 

Those edges that Sam first noticed are harder to see, now; he’s all soft eyes and softer mouth, flushed skin, messy hair… all except the line of his jaw. That’s still wickedly, unmistakably sharp. 

Spencer should come with a warning sign: handle with care. Sam’s not sure who that sign would be protecting. It could be handle with care: fragile, or, just as easily, handle with care: sharp edges. 

Either way, there’s a good chance of someone getting hurt here. 

“Can I kiss you?” Sam asks. 

Spencer’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly with surprise, and his pupils are huge and dark, liquid-looking, hypnotic. He blinks, slowly, and suddenly looks about ten years younger. He’d been so self-assured ordering Sam not to draw blood; that confidence is gone, now, like he’s had less experience with kissing than with telling people how to hit him. 

Oh, Sam thinks, and tries not to let his own surprise show on his face. 

“Yes,” Spencer whispers. He licks his lower lip again before adding, thready and shy, “Please.” 

Sam reaches out slowly. His pinky, ring, and middle fingers curl around the side of Spencer’s neck, sliding through thin, sweat-damp strands of hair. The L-shape of his thumb and index finger slots to the angle of Spencer’s jaw. He can feel the bone under thin skin, the way the pad of his thumb nestles so neatly between the hard edge of jawbone and the soft give of vulnerable throat. 

It’s a perfect fit.

.

.

.

#spencer reid #sam winchester #spn #criminal minds #sam winchester x spencer reid

[arsenicpanda]

Bughead Appreciation Day 1 Except It’s Day 2

So I spent yesterday nice and cozy in bed and put this off (good choice, tbh, I was very snug as a bug), but now, now comes the time for me to gush about some people in the fandom!  This is definitely not a comprehensive list, I have absolutely left some people out because I am very forgetful, but, in no particular order and under a cut because I’m a wordy bitch:

@tory-b: A delight and a dear, leading writer of monsterfucker!Betty, co-runner of @riverdaleprideandjoyzine, a legend and a friend, we have no choice but to stan.  Her stuff is so good and varied and just *chef’s kiss* a delight, two favorites of mine are Fangs/com/Match (Betty/dragon!Jughead meet via monsterfucker Tinder, has some great friendship moments with Kevin and Veronica and is v sexy and funny, features the horniest Betty) and Sticky Sweet Serenade ((past)-friends-to-enemies-to-lovers bughead, mixes up some statuses in Riverdale, excellent mystery, I remember reading it and going, “holy shit, a believable take on Northside!Jughead”).  I’ve also gotta mention Whats in a Name? (Betty and Jughead meet on tumblr, Betty writes poetry and Jughead is a shitposter, they slowly connect, it’s great) and To Balance the Scales (scientist!Betty/mermaid!Jughead, currently a slow build, I cannot wait for you guys to see the excellent worldbuilding she’s done).  I could keep going, or you could binge all her fics today, an excellent use of your Saturday, I assure you, because I’ve left a lot out.

@stillhidden: Always good for some great thoughts on the show, one of the best reasons for my your thoughts on Riverdale please show them to me tag, I get psyched every time I see a Riverdale text post or ask answer because I know I’m in for a good time.  Thoughtful and funny and nice, what a combo!

@satelliteinasupernova: So talented!  Author, artist, co-runner of @riverdaleprideandjoyzine, funny, haver of good thoughts on Riverdale is there anything she can’t do?  No, there is not.  Every time I see her art I’m like !!!, the colors! how well-drawn the hands are! the accuracy of their hair! the backgrounds! the way I can see the love in their eyes! I cannot even, there are no words.  Also!  Her fics!  So original!  One of my earliest memories in the fandom is reading The town called Riverdale (a sort of mystery about the meta fuckery going down in Riverdale, explores time loops, stories that control lives, the roles the Archie characters are “supposed” to have, a mash-up with concepts in Princess Tutu that requires zero knowledge of Princess Tutu) and going !!! is this a Princess Tutu mash-up?  Have I been #blessed enough to see a mash up between Riverdale, a story that fucks with archetypes, and Princess Tutu, one of the shows about fucking with archetypes and the way stories ontrol lives?  I was and I am and I raved to my non-fandom but Princess Tutu liker friend about it.  Has also wonderfully tackled eldritch horror in return to Eldervair and gothic horror/romance in The Lady of the Manor, does fluff, does angst, does it all, so go check her out!

@go-ldy: An angst and time skip queen, tbh, and always has some great thoughts on Riverdale, another reason I’m glad I have that tag.  Every time she answers an ask, I’m like, “Yesss, incoming Good Thoughts, I am HERE for this”.  But do not sleep on her as an author!  Into the Deep is some delightful dark!bughead, and I’ll walk with you in the shadows is such good time skip angst and a mystery and there’s a certain surprise I love but is a spoiler but you simply must read this, you must.  The Time after Time series is giving us that good angst bughead content that season 5 is not going to, and I’m so glad it exists and just thrilled that she trusted me to beta it.  I’m leaving a lot of stuff out though, so you should go check her out!

@milajovovich: One of the best gif makers in the fandom, I will fight you on this.  Makes absolute miracles with footage, the way she makes season 4 webrips look like they’re actual blurayrips is godly, they’re so crisp and so smooth and the coloring is always great.  And like, jesus, the way the bluray footage looks?  Fucking outstanding, the talent is off the charts.  Go marvel at their gifs, go, go.

@imreallyloveleee: A prolific, talented author and funny to boot!  loveleee is one of the people who has been here since the beginning, a mainstay in the fandom, and we are so, so lucky she hasn’t left.  How do I even begin to rec you some of her stuff?  She can write smut with fics like burn, baby (a 3x16 missing moment of bughead fucking in the car as the trailer burns, what a gift to the fandom, I can’t even), is queen of pining with fics like boy problems (season 1 post 1x05 canon divergence, a bughead get together but with that quality pining) and her i’m just a shot away series (two fics, one from Jughead’s POV and one from Betty’s, that are fully of pining and sexual tension and miscommunication and major teenage vibes, you gotta read them), and writer of one of the funniest fics in the fandom and one of my favorite, like spirits in the night (the core four + Kevin perform a seance to contact Jason Blossom and yes, it is just as funny as it sounds, perhaps even funnier).  And there are countless others, so settle in and go check her out because she does it all, fluff and angst too, I just don’t have time to rec them all.

@meditationonbaaal: Absolutely one of my all-time favorite fic authors, like across fandoms, the talent, I cannot even properly describe it, like the quality of the prose, amazing, iconic.  the devil’s daughter (a season 2 rewrite with some differences in season 1, jumps back and forth through time in the best way, has the best and creepiest dark!Jughead, has some great smut that includes dom!Betty and dom!Jughead can you believe we are so blessed, such a good rewrite of season 2, and you know how I love season 2, so that is some high praise, let me tell you) is easily in my top 10 all-time favorite fics across the many, many fandoms I’ve read many, many fics of, and you simply must check it out, you will not be disappointed.  develop, stop, fix just blew me away as a kink week fic of bughead playing with bdsm in a dark room, the layers, the smut, the trust, the feelings, I cannot even.  And doll parts!  doll parts is so good, just such an amazing take on drop dead gorgeous, a fabulous Jughead and Betty as per usual, dare I say even better than an already fantastic movie.  I am behind on loose lips sink ships, but I can already tell it’s going to be a great exploration of the Stonies and a great take on season 4.  Keep an eye on her stuff here and here, do not miss out!

@dieqohargreeves:  An icon and legend in gif making, just makes the most beautiful and intricate and creative gifs.  The coloring is amazing, the techniques are amazing, that shit is Art, I will fight you on this.  You gotta check ‘em out, you just gotta, I can’t do their work justice.

@sullypants:  The wit!  The humor!  The observational skills!  The talent, my god!  Sully is the genius behind @bettycooperoutfitwatch and @riverdalearthistory as well as a fabulous writer of both meta and fic, yet another excellent reason for me to keep up with others’ thoughts on Riverdale.  Her a comic miniverse series is so funny and sweet and such a great take on the Archie Comics version of bughead, and the after-party series (Betty and Jughead attend a, well, prom after party, and the events that happen, and I am not doing it justice, but it is v good, I promise) has such a great vibe and such great characterization.  And young adult friction (librarian!Jughead is in a kind of competition with librarian!Betty, it’s so funny and so great) is such a delight, and we do not have time to get into everything great she’s written, but go check it out here.

@lilibug--xx: The queen of bughead smut, can you believe she has graced us with her stuff?  It is steamy and it is in character and it is amazing.  Dark Cherry Chutney is still a fandom favorite of mine, just some great dark!bughead who are unaware of each other’s darkness (but oh, they find out!) as well as some excellent smut.  And Pressed for Time (Betty teasing Jughead with her skirts in an effort to get him to fuck her and he is barely holding on until he isn’t, alternating POVs in the best way) is sexy af but makes you work for it, it’s a delight.  And give you mine (Betty and Jughead fuck at work and it is so hot, I can’t even) is so goddamn good, just some of the best dom!Jughead out there.  Has also written monsterfucker!Betty, which you know I’m a fan of, in once upon a midnight (werewolf-hunter!Betty/werewolf!Jughead with sex pollen where she does not shy away from some wolfy-ness and it is hot af) and has written monsterfucker!Jughead, a rarity but always a delight, with reap what you sow (witch!Jughead/undine!Betty and Betty is so delightfully otherworldly and it is so sexy but also sweet), and there are countless other smut fics, we would be here all day if I went through them all, so you gotta check her out here.  One more thing though: she can also write fluff with Lemon Drops and Chocolate Chips, a sweet fic of Betty and Jughead as neighbors that you should definitely check out.

@thatiranianphantom:  Funny and thoughtful and talented and has correct opinions on musicals!  Writes such good explorations of post-4x17 (and post-4x17 adjacent) scenarios.  Like, the we are a masterpiece series is v good and so interesting, and no one else is singing my song is such great angst as a post-4x17 fic and a great use of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend songs.  I am forgetting a lot of stuff, I know I am, and I think I might be behind like a fool, so let’s go check out all her stuff together here, yes?  Yes.  Also?  Great for Riverdale speculation, especially about the season 5 musical episode.

@heartunsettledsoul:  So talented, queen of canon missing moments, and funny to boot!  I love reading her liveblogging of the episodes, and I cannot recommend her stuff enough.  Her Forgotten Moments series of canon missing moments is iconic, you must go read all of it, especially there’s witchcraft in your hips, a post-2x13 fic of Betty and Jughead being such teenagers and Jughead being a dweeb about his cheerleader girlfriend and I am not doing it justice but you gotta go read it, man, you gotta.  But the series is full of gems from the beginning with Midnight Silence (Betty and Jughead talk post-1x04 about the Grundy debacle and it’s such a delight) and going all the way through to the most recent it might’ve been a nightmare (a 4x12 through 4x16 fic that gives me a wide range of emotions and is fantastic) and your eyes look like coming home (Betty’s diary entries throughout season 1, simply inspired).  But she’s also so good at AUs!  a dark world aches (for a splash of the sun) is already looking so good as a bughead mystery with some varchie fun on the side, just some quality core four content, and won’t be the same (if you’re not here with me) is a favorite of fake dating, Christmas, and there was only one bed, just the best tropefest.  And there are so, so many more, so you must check her out here.

@lovedinapastlife: She writes such a variety of AUs, I am just in awe of them all!  The talent, I am amazed.  The dark!bughead in The Society is peak dark!bughead with a simply iconic yandere!Betty, and you are seriously missing out if you have not read it yet.  Oh, and there’s some more dark!Jughead with a side of dark!Betty in the key to harm(ony) that you must check out because it’s such a great ride and is sexy, what more could you want?  Every movie AU she does really takes the source material and makes it her own from works You Drive Me Crazy (but I'm gonna keep on loving you), based on Drive Me Crazy and definitely better than the movie, to the most recent to all the boys (but especially you), based on To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and just so sweet.  But also can write otherworldly fics like Heart’s Desire with genie!Betty and The Second Coming with fae!Jughead, as well as regular aus like Detention (Betty and Jughead in detention and it gets a little sexy but also quite cute), and pure porn like Eye of the Beholder (Betty and Jughead as sorcerers who hook up over sorcerer Tinder and it is sexy but also sweet), as well as some of the best ABO in fandom with her A/B/O Mine series (alpha!Jughead/omega!Betty in high school and holy shit is it hot as hell).  I am only just skimming the surface here, so definitely go check her out!

@kyloren aka @jughead-jones:  Mila is so talented at making gifs, like goddamn, and also so funny, but I bet you didn’t know that she also has written some damn good fic!  She hides it, but it is out there and it is very good, my favorite being let me hang my hook on your splendor, a fandom fave of a Scooby-Doo au that is so much more thoughtful and clever with its casting, and also very amusing, you must check out the rest of her stuff here.

@elizabethbettscooper: A delightful person and a delightful writer who is largely retired from the bughead fandom but still such a talent, like seriously.  Her Twin Peaks Riverdale AU The Past Dictates the Future is so good, you simply must check it out, like you must.  And yours was the first face i saw is such a fun AU of “what if Betty’s crush on Archie was a front for her crush on Jughead”, you must go read it.  And holy shit, her i may be bad (but i’m perfectly good at it) series is peak dom!Jughead/sub!Betty taking place when they’re in college and fucking in so many varied ways, like if you are into that, you must go read these fics, you must, you will have a great and sexy, sexy time.  And there’s so much more good stuff, you gotta go read it all here.

@bettycreeper: She does so much for the fandom and she makes such gorgeous gifs!  Like, the coordination she does on the @bugheadfamily server and @bugheadfanfictionawards and @riverdale-events and probably elsewhere cannot be understated, she is such a valuable presence in the fandom.  And have you seen her gifs?  Gorgeous quality, just gorgeous, and her movie poster gifs for fics are simply inspired.  Also?  She’s an amazing beta, just outstanding.

@stillscape: A very thoughtful person and excellent writer who I can’t seem to tag.  Dianthus Caryophyllus is still one of my favorite fics in the fandom, a high school bughead fic with some amazing pining from Jughead with an oblivious Betty, I can feel it, it’s so good.  And of course there’s Ninia, an amazing take on the soulmates trope, just so good, I cannot do it justice, you must check it out.  The for the life of me series is also such a good AU for Betty and Jughead getting together pre-Riverdale at a summer internship, I have such fond memories of it.  And la peste (the plague)!  So good, I cannot even.  We don’t have time for everything, except you should make time and go check all of it out here.

@theheavycrown:  God, where would we be without Sarah?  She does so much work for the @bugheadfamily and @bugheadfanfictionawards and @riverdale-events and @riverdalecentral and I’m probably forgetting some, tbh.  And so sweet and talented!  Her gifs are fantastic and so are her fics.  Like, Rain Comes Down (Betty and Jughead fucking in the car on the side of the road while cars drive by)?  Iconic, some amazing exhibitionism.  you had me howling(Betty in heat in the woods and then Jughead finds her and fucking ensues)? Fantastic ABO, so horny, so desperate.  Beneath the Silver Moon Rising?  Excellent dom!Jughead, excellent sexy times.  You must go check out all of her stuff here, you must.

@50shades-of-bughead:  Just some of the absolute cutest art that you must check out, especially their series of dark!bughead that is just fantastic.

@thepointoftheneedle: The variety of work here is phenomenal, the talent, I cannot.  Took my ridiculous double fake marriage/draft-dodging concept and turned it into an excellent, thoughtful period piece with phenomenal characterization and a great mystery with Never No Locomotive, I cannot recommend it enough.  And Ghosts and Clouds and Nameless Things (ghost!Jughead/grieving-dead-Jughead!Betty with a side of mystery) gave me so many emotions, I think I almost cried, and I am not a crier, I assure you.  Hey Pixie Dream Girl, I’m Coming for Your Man! (Betty in her bookstore saves Jughead from his date with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl) is so delightfully funny, and Sunflowers (Betty and Jughead share a working space and fall in love) is so goddamn cute.  I have actually found myself behind on her work, which is a crime, it all looks so amazing and I know it will be, and you must check all of it out with me here.

@hellodinoflower:  Such an amazing presence in the fandom, such a delight, so clever and funny.  She ran @bugheaddrabblechallenge this past summer and gave us all so much joy in the process, and, while her fics are deleted now (as is her right), I promise you that they were amazing, you all missed out if you slept on her.  She’s such a great follow, you gotta follow her.

@bluevelvetvideo:  A delighful soul, great character insight, great writing.  Like, her smut is fantastic, have you read Arsenal (a double feature of Betty and Jughead fooling around in public and then having some sexytimes back in private with some quality dom!Jughead, let me tell you, v steamy)?  Because you should.  Christmas Lights (Jughead ties Betty up with their Christmas lights, it’s fantastically sexy) is a delight, and you can’t blame gravity (for falling in love) is a very fun take on soulmates and soulmarks, and you simply must go read it.  She is a master of smut, let me tell you, and you must check out all her stuff here.  Also?  An excellent beta, 10/10, I’m so lucky to have her.

@a-true-janian-reply:  Very funny, has excellent thoughts on Riverdale!  Like, truly, every time I see an original text post or a reblog from her, I am PSYCHED because it’s always going to be SO GOOD.

@writeradamanteve:  Such great talent across genres, really impressive.  Drive (illegal drag racing Betty and college student but former-ish Serpent Jughead, just fantastic) is one of my earliest fandom favorites, I remember excitedly telling my non-fandom friend about it because I thought it was so clever, and we all know how good Daemon Bound is, yes?  Yes, I’m sure we do.  Let’s go make sure we’ve read all her stuff here.

@thugheadjones:  Has some great insights, some great responses to dumb anons, and some fantastic art, like holy shit, I cannot even.

@bugggghead:  A delightful soul, so nice, so talented.  Writes some amazing smut, like, have you read intimately acquainted (alpha!Jughead/omega!Betty, meeting up on an app to help Betty with her heat in a heat retreat, four chapters of excellent smut)?  Because you should if you’re even kind of interested in ABO.  And en pointe is the bughead knifeplay fic of dreams, you gotta check it out.  And there are so many other ones, we do not have time to cover them all.  She also does cute fics, btw, and Message Me (fanfic-author-who-is-actually-the -real-author!Jughead/gif-maker-and-fangirl!Betty meet on tumblr and fall in love and it’s great) is such a delight, definitely go check it out.  In fact, go check out all her stuff here.  Also a fantastic beta, I really owe her for that.

@heavy-lies-the-crown:  A talented soul who has written so much high quality fic, from the hilarious red ribbon winner (a Christmas fic comedy that I cannot describe well but I assure you is both hilarious and sweet) to the emotional and moving road to me (Betty and Jughead break up, find themselves, and come back together and it’s perfection) to the heart-ripping angst of apizza (a semi post-4x17-speculation fic of bughead together but apart at Yale and the way they will come back together and it is so good and so angsty) to many, many more.  You gotta go check it all out here.

@lurker-no-more:  Yet another funny person, we as a fandom are so blessed, you must check them out, you just must.

@iconic-ponytail:  Another excellent writer!  a revelation in the light of day is SUCH a great slowburn and  SUCH a great take on both FBI!Betty and Sheriff!Jughead and the two of them falling in love as adults.  Also, the side varchie is fantastic, and the mystery is amazing.  I have not yet checked out the nighthawks, but I already know it’s going to be good, I can tell, you can trust this author to be quality, so go check all of her stuff out here.

@soyforramen:  Funny!  Very funny!  Also?  Writes some great ficlets that are, I think, exclusive to tumblr, which is a tragedy, tbh, but as is their right.�� But I do have the link to this genius fic about bughead and a platypus in honor of the platypus anon that was going around this summer.  Definitely go check them out!

And now I am very tired, I have used up my energy, and I am so sorry if I forgot anyone!

#Riverdale #fandom #fic recs #I mean they're buried in there but they're THERE #can you tell I ran out of steam at the end?

[fictionalrambles]

Shadowhunters Fandom Story - Part Fifteen

Submitted by jwrites_

Five Favourite Fics:

1. What's It Gonna Be by @lemonoclefox

Why I love this fic: I'm a sucker for Pride & Prejudice. San was able to take that dynamic and put it all in a modern day telling of it. I can't count how many times I've read this. Sometimes I read it all the way through, other times I go and find my favorite parts just to get that rush of emotions it never fails to give. The enemies to lovers is done perfectly, the dialogue is great and flows seamlessly, the way she tied in the storyline between Simon, Isabelle, Valentine, and Alec together was genius. I truly love every word of this story.

Favorite scene: Awkward - love - confession - in -  the -  rain

Favorite quote(s):

(Yes. Love confessions are great but have you ever overheard someone say something rude about you and then have the opportunity later that same night to be able to casually call that person out for their comment?)

"Her friend is..." He trails off, as though searching for the word, and Magnus can imagine him gesturing in the meantime. "Interesting," Jace eventually settles on, pointedly.

"Who, that Bane guy?" Alec says, and as he does, Magnus is hit with a wave of intrigued surprise. Does Alec like men? Interesting. The assumption could be wrong, of course, but Jace's tone implies that that's why he's mentioning it. "He's a bit over the top, don't you think?"

He sounds almost disdainful as he says it, as though Jace's mere suggestion is laughable, and Magnus's intrigue immediately shifts to offended annoyance. He straightens a little where he stands, reluctantly affected by it.

--

"I mean, love songs are great," Magnus admits lightly. "But stringing a few pretty words together does seem a bit unoriginal when everyone does it."

Simon shoves him lightly in offense, and Magnus can't help but laugh.

"Then what do you suggest?" Magnus is taken completely by surprise when he realizes that it's Alec who's speaking, and he turns to him. The guy's expression is neutral, but seems genuinely curious.

"Oh, I don't know," Magnus says, swirling his drink around in his glass. He shrugs. "I suppose I'm more a fan of showing and not telling. I'd much prefer someone showing interest in what I like and who I am, than comparing my eyes to the night sky, and whatnot." He gestures airily, then hesitates. He suddenly can't seem to stop himself, the memory of the Lightwoods' overheard conversation bubbling to the surface. "I think most people can appreciate that. Even if some of us are a bit over the top."

--Okay...I'm gonna go ahead and throw in a love confession~

"Look, I don't expect anything from you," he says, as though the words are hard to say. "You've made your feelings pretty clear, and I respect that. But I heard you talked to my mom, and with the stuff you said to her... I guess it just kind of made me a bit hopeful, or something. A bit." He clears his throat, while Magnus just listens. He turns to watch Alec's profile as the young man struggles to find the words, eyes on the view in front of him. "Either way, I'll admit that how I feel hasn't really changed. Maybe it should have, but..."

Alec shakes his head, and Magnus feels his throat go dry. He wants to interrupt Alec, wants to say and show everything that's bursting out of his chest, but he waits. Alec takes a deep breath then, turns to him. He looks determined.

"If you want me to," he says steadily, "I'll go. I'll leave you alone, I promise. You won't hear from me again." He pauses, licks his lips. "But if you don't want me to, if something has changed since last time, somehow... I'd really like to know. Because that would be pretty great."

2. 42 North 71 West by @lecrit​

Why I love this fic: I was blessed with the opportunity to witness Lu working on this fic from its conception to its end. I was there and still I am blown away at the way she was able to work the time jumps. I remember thinking with every chapter I read, 'Wow. The way she is telling this story is amazing. She is amazing.' Lu has a way of presenting so much honesty in her characters. She writes them in a way that feels so real, that you can't help but understand their fears and hesitations even though it hurts. The story is a back and forth told through scenes set in the past and present. You get to see what they were and where they are. The story is beautifully heartbreaking. And she was able to make me enjoy a story that dealt with politics? What? Sorcery, I tell you. -- also, the bench.

Favorite scene: This was almost impossible to choose and I took way too long trying to pinpoint just one. But I'm going to go with one that I hold very dear. When Magnus goes to visit Alec on his birthday and he finds Alec playing the song he only plays when he's sad. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to spoil~

Favorite quote(s):

“Magnus,” Alec breathes out.

The name feels almost foreign, as if he hadn’t uttered it in too long and now his mind is troubling to catch up with his mouth. Still, it manages to make Alec’s heart stutter.

--

“We should’ve stayed on that bench in Boston,” he murmurs.

--

The good thing is, he knows where to go to find his way back. It is inked on his body, engraved into his soul, sealed into his heart.

3. Lead The Way by Clockworkswan

Why I love this fic: Because it takes the wonderful adventure of Doctor Who and packs it in with Malec. This is the ultimate fun and feel good but you will also cry at one point fic. I always go back to it if I want a wonderfully written Doctor Magnus and his adorable companion Alec. Seriously, even if you're not into Doctor Who, give this fic a shot. It's written in a way that you will get so caught up in the adventure that you won't even realize it's based on something else. And if you're a Doctor Who fan, you're in luck with all the little Easter Eggs Heather left throughout.

Favorite scene: I really don't want to spoil anything. The planet of Ablorix. This will mean nothing if you don't read the fic (so you should ;])

Favorite quote(s):

Magnus extends a hand. It’s just like before, when they were in the hallway a couple of weeks ago. It’s just as inviting as it was the first time.

“How about it, pretty boy? Name a star. Any one will do. Or a date,” Magnus says. The double meaning is evident when he winks. He pauses then, and his expression shifts, growing solemn.

A clear shift in his demeanour happens. Magnus turns from playful to sincere in the blink of an eye. Although, there was also a serious tone to it. Magnus looks at him, and understanding eyes meet Alec’s hesitant ones. “Alexander, you seem like a man in need of a break, and I am very much a man in need of a friend. Adventures are always a quick way in figuring out what you want. What do you say?”

What does he say?

He says yes.

Of course Alec does.

--

Before Magnus can think of a good retort, he tries to ignore the clenching ache his stomach gives at the sight of a confident, smirking Alec Lightwood watching him so openly. He settles for pointing in a random direction. “I have to go and see a dog about a man. Meet back here in five?”

“Uh, isn’t the expression, ‘see a man about a dog’?”

“Not when the dog ran off with the man’s wife. A rather big scandal, it seems. The president wants me to try and step in. Smooth things over, so to speak.”

At that, Alec just stares blankly.

Magnus holds up a finger. “Yes, this is normal for me. No, you may not come along. Go.”

4. Love & Other Drugs prequel of Our Love Is A Harsh Chord in the Semi-charmed Kind Life series by @la-muerta​

Why I love this fic: I'm kind of cheating here by listing two fics but they're a package deal. Love & Other Drugs was a smutty one-shot that left me wanting

more...

backstory. Let me tell you the pining and 'unrequited' love between those two demanded a story to be written. Which is why when la_muerta ran a poll on whether or not she should start it or another series first, I campaigned for this one like it was my job (I lost but I still got the series eventually so did I really lose?) The writing in this and with all of la_muerta's fics will hook you. The sadness over the back and forth between them is done so well. It's angst that will grip you and hold onto you until you eventually finish. Just go on the twitter hashtag of #OLIAHCfic and see my screaming.

Favorite scene: Probably the LSD scene.

Favorite quote(s):

Alec was still here, in bed with him.

How many times had Magnus wished that he could wake up with Alec in his arms? He didn't dare to move, wanting the dream to last a little longer, but Alec was already stirring.

--

he'll wonder if life would be a little easier if he wasn't hopelessly in love with Magnus, but it is a fact of who he is now: Alec Lightwood is 6'3, has dark hair, is gay, and is in love with Magnus Bane.

--

They are lying next to each other now, turned on their sides and face to face. The world is no longer warped and weird, but glowing and perfect. Magnus is tracing a path of lightning down Alec's body with his fingertips, and in a moment of clarity Alec understands that in Magnus' eyes he is as beautiful as he thinks Magnus is (it is the first thing Alec forgets when he wakes up sober later).

--

Words aren't enough to express how he feels, but they've always understood each other better when clumsy words don't get in the way.

5. The Lonely Hearts Hotline by @unrestrainedlyexcessive​

Why I love this fic: It's funny, it's endearing, it's heart wrenching, it's sexy, etc. The way Alec is written in this fic is one of my favorite characterizations. The way his situation can resonate with so many young adults today. That feeling when you're an adult and you feel like you should know what to do with your life and who you should be but the truth is, you're still just as lost as always. Being an adult sucks tbh and even when you're an adult, sometimes life doesn't quite feel like it. Alec's character and growth in this fic is beautiful. (I also really loved Jace in this fic)

Favorite scene: A tough choice. Probably the office party and follow up scene in Magnus' office.

Favorite quote(s):

The problem with being a new grad, in general, is that the world and job force demands you have experience, but you have to live a certain number of productive years on the planet to gain that experience.

Early adulthood is no man's land. You don’t have the experience to matter and no one wants to pay you to gain it, hence how he ended up in the precarious situation he’s in: dodgy sex work by night, an even dodgier roommate, and desperately hoping an internship eventually turns into an actual paying job.

--

Magnus runs his tongue down the knobs of Alec's spine. "You're so beautiful," he says, pausing.

"I'm really not," Alec insists, eyes fluttering closed.

"Why are you so kind to everyone except yourself?"

"I'm a work in progress."

"Aren't we all?"

#shadowhunters #shadowhunters fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfiction blog

[rosethornewrites]

Fic: The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste, ch. 8

Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Luka Couffaine, Lila Rossi/karma, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/aneurism, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi, Plagg & Tikki

Characters: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Lila Rossi, Jagged Stone, Plagg, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine, Penny Rolling, Anarka Couffaine, Rose Lavillant, Juleka Couffaine, Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire, Chloé Bourgeois, Wayhem, Nadja Chamack, Nathalie Sancoeur, Sabine Cheng, Tom Dupain, Tikki, Fang, Principal Damocles, Caline Bustier, Ms. Mendeleiev, original minor character, Alec Cataldi, Lila Rossi’s Mother, Sabrina Raincomprix, Roger Raincomprix, Mylène Haprèle, Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste’s Bodyguard, Nino Lahiffe, Nooroo

Tags: Lila Rossi salt, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Teenage Rebellion, Swearing, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Crack Treated Seriously, Lila Rossi’s Lies Are Exposed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Luka Couffaine Needs a Hug, Paparazzi, Parentification, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Gabriel Agreste Needs an Aneurism, Uncle Jagged Stone, we’re all queer here, the spirit of punk is sometimes just being allowed to be yourself, Kagami Finds Her Groove, punk rock fashion, Savage Kagami, Marinette protection squad, Good Parent Sabine Cheng, Good Parent Tom Dupain, Protective Kagami Tsurugi, Protective Luka Couffaine, Bisexual Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Pansexual Luka Couffaine, Sharing a Bed, Pet Names, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Instagram, Bullying, Social Media, Anxiety, Makeover, Hugs, will cure your acne, Face Punching, Bad Ass Juleka Couffaine, Rumors, Protective Juleka Couffaine, Protective Adrien Agreste, Lawyers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, accountability, mental health, Jagged Stone’s well-paid pet shark, How to Make the Evening News, Sexy eyeliner for days, one fish two fish Lila is a screwed fish, How to have fun and piss Gabriel off, Fuckery, sweet litigious karma, Alya sugar, lawyer shark doo doo doo doo doo doo, Schadenfreude, Bad Ass Alya Césaire, Gaslighting, abuse denormalization, Jagged likes his lawyers like he likes his pets: toothy af, Blood in the Water, Everything you didn’t know you wanted and some things you did, Gabriel Agreste is shark bait, Denial, Consequences, Principal Damocles salt, caline bustier salt, the impotence of Gabriel Agreste, snarky Nooroo, lies and the lying liars who tell them, Lila’s brain is a narcissistic hellscape, Lila’s mind is built like an Escher piece, Alec Cataldi salt, Adrien Sugar, wholesome salt, Fu Salt, Kwami Shenanigans, Nooroo is a little shit

Summary: The Parentification Computation

Notes:  Luka’s characterization is somewhat based on a conversation with some folks  about the possibility of Luka having Atlas personality due to parentification, which is basically the impact when a child has to act as a parent, sometimes to their own parent but also to their siblings.

AO3 link

Chapters 1-2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

-----------

Adrien had felt a bit guilty when he took advantage of the rush to return to the suite to disappear to transform—he knew they’d worry, since the Akuma was likely going to look for him, but he had to help Ladybug defeat it.

The Akuma sucked the color and joy out of whatever it touched, the power turning into clothing and accessories that resembled Luka’s. It made an odd amount of sense, if the Akuma was a fan upset by Adrien’s fake relationship. So far it had leather pants, ornate boots, a leather jacket, kohl around its eyes, black fingernails, and hair that was black with… rainbow tips?

As Chat Noir got closer, he realized he recognized the person under all that.

“Wayhem?”

The Akuma turned toward him, face contorted in a sneer. “That’s Fade-Out to you! No one else can be happy until I am! Give me your Miraculous!”

He’d figured it was a fan, but had never imagined Wayhem would be the one, that he’d harbored feelings like that for Adrien. He’d been completely blind to it. What else had he been blind to?

Chat barely dodged when Fade-Out tried to grab him, then was pulled out of danger by Ladybug’s yoyo.

“I think the Akuma is in his glove,” she said as Fade-Out tried to find a way up to them.

When Chat peered, he could see on his right hand was a black fingerless motorcycle glove; embossed on the back was Adrien’s face. It was probably the face from his life-size cardboard cut-out he’d signed for Wayhem after he’d acted as Adrien’s body-double when Gorilla was Akumatized.

“So I need to let him get close enough to touch me, make sure I hit the glove.”

Ladybug frowned. “It’s too risky. Let’s see what we get with Lucky Charm!”

A red-and-black postless pillory fell into her arms, and she grimaced at it.

“I guess we need to immobilize him?” Chat asked.

Ladybug sighed. “You know my Lucky Charms aren’t that simple, chaton.”

She glanced around, seemingly looking for an answer, then pointed at a road sign, the one to rue du Chat-qui-Pêche, the smallest street in Paris—or, rather, the narrowest.

“The pillory will just barely fit in there, and with the drainpipes…”

Chat grinned. “Shall we pillory an Akuma, m’Lady?”

It took less than a minute of cat puns to get Fade-Out chasing him, and the moment the Akuma was in the alley, Ladybug snapped the pillory around his neck. His forward motion was halted so abruptly when it caught on a drainpipe that he lost his feet and wound up with his hands splayed on the pavement. Chat was able to Cataclysm the glove quickly and with no danger.

Then it was just a matter of Ladybug purifying the Akuma, unlatching the pillory, and tossing it in the air to release the Miraculous Cure, and Wayhem was on his hands and knees in the tiny street.

Once they’d fist-bumped, Chat turned her way. “I’ll handle the young man—I’ve more time before I detransform.”

Ladybug smiled and nodded, then yoyoed away.

Wayhem was staring up at him in dawning horror. “Oh, no. I was Akumatized?”

Chat offered him a hand. “Yeah. You okay?”

Once on his feet, Wayhem leaned against the wall with a sigh. “It’s so dumb. I was just a little jealous. I didn’t— Well, there’s this guy who’s a model, Adrien Agreste?”

He nodded, figuring he was expected to.

“Well, I was a ridiculous fanboy for a while, and kinda obsessive, and then he asked for my help when he was targeted by an Akuma. We became friends. And he… well, he just announced he has a boyfriend.”

Wayhem winced, rubbing his neck, his expression embarrassed.

“I didn’t even know… that was an option.”

Chat patted his shoulder; he felt badly that Wayhem had gotten caught up in this, but it was over and done with—and Adrien wouldn’t go back and fake-date Lila even knowing this.

“Honestly, maybe it wasn’t, though. You don’t know how he met his boyfriend or the circumstances,” he finally offered.

“I know.” Wayhem sighed. “It was just a moment of disappointment, you know?”

“And Hawkass took advantage.” Chat offered him a smile. “Just try to be happy for your friend, then. There’s someone out there for you.”

That got a little smile, just as the Miraculous beeped at him.

“That’s my cue to skiddoo!”

He gave the boy a little salute and was gratified when he got the same back, then he vaulted away, back toward the hotel.

Once he found a place to detransform and give Plagg some cheese, he snuck in and back to the suite, only to find Luka in the midst of pacing, Marinette and Penny looking concerned, and Jagged looking a bit irate.

When Luka saw him, he immediately stopped, and something in the older boy’s body language eased. It struck Adrien suddenly that Luka had been worried, something he hadn’t figured would happen.

“Sorry, wound up getting stuck downstairs. Figured I’d stay put until the Ladyblog put out the all clear.”

“Same thing happened to me,” Marinette offered.

Luka dragged his fingers through his hair. “It’s fine. These things happen.”

Jagged snorted. “You’re not fine, kid. You’re a bloody mess. Practically chewed all the polish off his nails. It was like when Penny misplaces me, only worse.”

“I don’t misplace you,” she muttered. “You wander off and terrorize people with Fang.”

A glance at Luka’s nails confirmed Jagged’s words, though. Most of his black nailpolish was gone.

“Oh. Well, we can get the spa folks up again. I kind of want mine done, too,” Adrien commented.

Luka frowned, then nodded. “Sorry… I just… I’m responsible for Juleka, and you both went missing, and the Akuma attack, and…”

Marinette stood, putting a hand on his arm. “Hey. You’re not responsible for me, or for Adrien.”

“But I’m his boyfriend now.”

Adrien blinked. “Is that how it works?”

Maybe it was—sometimes in movies and TV shows that was how it worked.

“No.” Penny’s voice was almost deadly. “That’s not how it works. You’re not his caregiver.”

Luka looked uncertain, like he was ready to argue.

Jagged scowled at him. “Nope, kid. I know Anarka’s a free spirit, but you’re not responsible for the world.”

Marinette offered Luka a hesitant smile. “You’ve got an independent boyfriend, Luka.”

The smile Luka attempted back looked very feeble.

“I’m sorry I worried you, Luka,” Adrien said, scratching the back of his head anxiously. “Most of the time my father keeps me shut in my room and forgets about me. So I didn’t think to let you guys know… but I didn’t have my phone on me, either. Whoops.”

Jagged turned the scowl on Adrien. “Okay, that’s gotta be addressed, too. So not okay. Social media blitz.”

Penny gestured to the computer. “You have a picture to post, anyway. Might as well fire some shots while you’re at it.”

Marinette and Luka exchanged a dark look, and then Luka drew himself up. “Okay. Your dad’s an asshole. Let’s air some dirty laundry?”

Adrien grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfiction #my fanfiction #The Rebellion of Adrien Agreste #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #wayhem #luka couffaine #penny rolling #jagged stone #uncle jagged #ml fang #juleka couffaine #ml salt #miraculous salt #gabriel agreste #gabriel agreste’s a+ parenting #lila salt

[wizardysseus]

@veliseraptor replied to your post “if you think i’m an insufferable odysseus liker now, imagine if homer…”

tell me how people talk about book 5 wrongly please

there two things in particular i want to hit on.

(1) calypso’s speech to hermes

when hermes comes to tell calypso to let odysseus sail back to ithaca, she rails at the double standard of male gods separating goddesses from their human lovers. and readers love it. twitter loves it, emily wilson seems to love it, freshman english majors in my classic lit class loved it.

“You cruel, jealous gods! You bear a grudge whenever any goddess takes a man to sleep with as a lover in her bed... So now, you male gods are upset with me for living with a man. A man I saved! ... I cared for him and loved him, and I vowed to set him free from time and death forever.” (5.118-20,129-130,135-7, tr. wilson)

i’m going to bounce translations a bit, because i have, uh (checks notes) three on hand; wilson emphasizes the gendered double standard most. and... yeah, i get why everybody wants to talk about it. the odyssey is chock full not only of those double standards, but of female characters speaking for themselves (especially relative to, say, the iliad). but it drives me up the wall when people talk about how persuasive or sympathetic calypso’s speech is and refuse to acknowledge one sort of incredibly crucial detail --- that the thing calypso is arguing for is her right to own a human man.

by the time we meet odysseus, he’s been on ogygia for seven years and wants very much to go home. here’s wilson again:

She found him on the shore. His eyes were always tearful; he wept sweet life away, in longing to go back home, since she no longer pleased him. He had no choice. He spent nights with her inside her hollow cave, not wanting her though she still wanted him. By day he sat out on the rocky beach, in tears and grief, staring in heartbreak at the fruitless sea. (149-158)

and my other translations, just for fun!

fitzgerald:

[She] went to find Odysseus in his stone seat to seaward---tear on tear brimming his eyes. The sweet days of his life time were running out in anguish over his exile, for long ago the nymph had ceased to please. Though he fought shy of her and her desire, he lay with her each night, for she compelled him. But when day came he sat on the rocky shore and broke his own heart groaning, with eyes wet scanning the bare horizon of the sea. (158-66)

fagles:

[She] found him there on the headland, sitting, still, weeping, his eyes never dry, his sweet life flowing away with the tears he wept for his foiled journey home, since the nymph no longer pleased. In the nights, true, he’d sleep with her in the arching cave---he had no choice--- unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing... But all his days he’d sit on the rocks and beaches, wrenching his heart with sobs and groans of anguish, gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears. (165-175)

this isn’t odysseus retelling his story --- it’s the narrator, who is at least arguably more reliable. (spark notes, which i occasionally consult because i forget what chapters things happen in, says that odysseus is “sulking,” which, wow.) 

when calypso says he can leave, his response is wary at best. in each of these translations, he meets her news with a shudder, accuses her of plotting against him, and exacts an oath from her not to harm him. “Goddess, you have some other scheme in mind, / not my safe passage” in wilson (172-3), “Surely you’re plotting / something else, goddess” in fagles (192-3), and in fitzgerald:

“After these years, a helping hand? O goddess, what guile is hidden here? … I take no raft you grudge me out to sea. Or yield me first a great oath, if I do, to work no more enchantment to my harm.” (183-4,188-90)

it massively weirds me out that i regularly find people online who characterize odysseus as swanning around the mediterranean having sexy fun times. (there’s also circe, and it’s interesting that odysseus refuses to sleep with her until she swears a similar oath not to harm him. but i’m talking about book 5, when odysseus is several years older and much more desperate.) this is not a happy guy!

your mileage may vary as to how sympathetic you find odysseus in all of this. i like odysseus because i like Terrible Con Men Who Are Very Sad And Cry A Lot. but of course, we meet a lot of other characters in the poem who are in just as bad a way, if not worse. most of them get neither the freedom odysseus does, nor the same compassion from the narrator, the gods, and odysseus himself --- most notably, the twelve slave women he and telemachus hang at the end of book 22. if we’re going to talk about double standards, surely that deserves attention.

and yet! and yet. none of that changes the fact that odysseus wants to go home (his most, if not only, sympathetic trait), and calypso won’t let him. 

calypso is interesting! her speech has ramifications for the rest of the epic, for sure! i just wish more people could talk about it without sounding like calypso effectively utilized girl power by keeping odysseus as a sex slave for seven years.

(2) odysseus’ response when calypso offers him immortality

calypso gives odysseus permission to build a raft. but before he begins work on it, she tries to change his mind, even offering him immortality... and odysseus wants nothing to do with it. 

So Odysseus, with tact, said, “Do not be enraged at me, great goddess. You are quite right. I know my modest wife Penelope could never match your beauty. She is a human; you are deathless, ageless. But even so, I want to go back home, and every day I hope that day will come. If some god strikes me on the wine-dark sea, I will endure it. By now I am used to suffering---I have gone through so much, at sea and in the war. Let this come too.” (215-24, wilson)

wilson calls him tactful, fagles “worldly,” and fitzgerald “the strategist”; in each of these translations, he couches the rejection with a plea not to be angry with him. and yet... people want to pretend like what he says is how he actually feels about penelope? give me a break.

(granted, i see this take less often than the one above. but it still irks me! i’m irked!)

he finally has the chance to go home, and a goddess who has held him captive makes a last-ditch effort to insult his wife to convince him to stay, and you think that’s the moment odysseus is going to choose to be sincere?

like, this is what wilson has to say about it in her introduction: 

Why exactly does Odysseus make this surprising choice? The poem never gives us an explicit answer---an omission that makes the hero’s yearning for home all the more resonant and moving.

YEAH, WHAT A MYSTERY.

odysseus’ entire Thing is that he isn’t straightforward. you don’t have to like him and you certainly don’t have to feel sorry for him. but --- of all the flaws and questionable-at-best decisions you could choose to pick apart! --- i strongly object to this idea that odysseus’ motives and actions in book 5 don’t make sense. just because, what, you think he should have stayed with calypso? you don’t buy that he loves penelope? come the fuck on. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: if you don’t read odysseus’ identity as absolutely rooted with his home and wife and son, no wonder the poem falls apart.

#veliseraptor #replies #homer is where the heart is #thoughts #long post #rape tw #... my other rants are not this involved

[andcurioser]

Avengers: Endgame - Here, Have Some Thoughts

At last, it is time to discuss Endgame. I’m still not totally sure how I feel about the movie. It’s the sort of thing I think will take time and rewatches to be totally certain of. But I want to get some stuff down here as a starting point, and then see how my opinions develop as time goes on. So, let’s ramble. 

General Thoughts:

I’ve been trying to figure out my overall sense of it, and I can’t really decide if it was a letdown or not. I don’t think it was explicitly disappointing, but the fact of the matter is, it was never going to be everything we wanted. It never could be. The best way I can put it is this: throughout the past year, I’ve had a lot of fun theorizing about what could happen in Endgame. Infinity War set up enough exciting possibilities, and as a fandom person, I specialize in coming up with things the narrative could do/could have done but didn’t. So the second that one potential plot was locked in as the one they were going with, there was a certain amount of wistfulness at the paths we weren’t going to take. That’s no one’s fault. They had to decide on something, and this was essentially what I’d expected for a long time. Still. When trying to figure out today if I feel like the movie delivered on a general level, I can’t really say it didn’t, but I can’t say I feel wholly satisfied either. Alas. That’s what fanfic is for.

So to that end: the movie was fun. It was a lot of fun to watch. After all that buildup, I was just tremendously excited to see what was actually going to happen. It was an enjoyable watch, and parts of it were quite good. Other parts, less so. I think they did some things very right and had a few very big misses. But I appreciate what they were trying to do, and I appreciate that I saw the care in at least most of it. They dropped the ball hard on a few things, but at least on first watch, I could feel the import of it all. If nothing else, it had the tricky task of placing a capstone (lol, Cap stone) on the extraordinarily ambitious experiment of the MCU, so if I feel a little residual malaise afterwards, well. At least I know they tried. 

When I think back on the movie, it seems like it naturally breaks into three parts, roughly corresponding to each hour of the movie. I think these three parts are uneven in quality, but they all had their strengths and weaknesses. To break them down: 

Part One, which I basically categorize as everything up to the Time Heist

Part Two: the Time Heist itself

Part Three: everything post-Snap Deux

And just as a last note, I’m sort of grouping the Russos and Markus and McFeely into one big team, so when I say the Russos, I’m usually crediting (or blaming) everyone in said team. Just a shorthand. 

For your mercy, since this became genuinely embarrassingly long, the rest is under the cut. I wish I could have collapsed each part into sections, but tumblr is so very limited and I couldn’t figure out if there was a way to do it. So this is what we’ve got. I split it up into sections under headers so you can scroll through to whatever part might interest you, so hopefully that helps its readability at least a bit. Beware: there is a veritable essay under the cut. But let’s bravely forge forward, friends. Onward! 

Part One

The movie was a little slow to start. On the one hand, I truly do appreciate that they tried to give the characters introspective moments instead of having it all be flash bang battle boom. That’s what we’re always asking for, and it’s what these movies need a lot more of. Unfortunately, I’m not 100% convinced they nailed most of said character scenes. I can’t remember everything - after all, I’ve only seen it the once, but I hope to shore up my evidence upon rematch - but while some of it worked for me, some of it didn’t. To make it even more complex, sometimes that happened within the same scene. Prime example:

The Steve and Nat scene. I loved it for Nat. I didn’t like it for Steve. In a very confusing way, this movie both did good and did very dirty by both Nat and Steve. I thought Nat’s characterization was very good. At last, her arc was focused on who I really think she is as a person: someone who cares very deeply about the people she’s let into her life, and someone who puts tremendous pressure on herself to fix everything. Her pain at her failure worked for me. Her inability to let go of what happened tracked. She was vulnerable and emotional but not in a way that betrayed the steel of her character. More than anything, she was allowed to be a person and not just the Sexy Femme Fatale with a snarky line, oh boys, eye-roll hair-flip hip-sway. I’ve said it before and this movie just further proved it: I only trust the Russos with Natasha. They’re the only ones who get her, who let her be multifaceted, who let her be whole. I love them for that, and this movie delivered me Nat in the way I was hoping it would. That’s a definitive Good in its favor. 

Alas. The Steve of it all. I have a lot of things to say about Steve in this movie, and I’m still trying to work it all out. His was the journey I was most focused on, understandably, and the one I was both most anticipating and certainly most dreading. Steve was barely in Infinity War, so I was very curious to see what they’d do with him when he took up a proper leading role again. And...I’m just. I don’t know. It wasn’t bad, mostly (aside from one very large asterisk, but we’re gonna talk about that a lot more later). But it wasn’t great either. It was. Fine. He wasn’t explicitly out of character, but he didn’t feel so essentially Steve like he did in the first two Cap movies. He had great moments, and he had meh ones. I think the scene with Natasha highlights a lot of what felt a little off about Steve for me. In theory, a scene in which Steve and Natasha commiserate would be my absolute bread and butter. But while Natasha worked so well for me, Steve seemed, if not wrong, still a little off. He seemed distant, a bit cold. I guess I just didn’t buy that Steve wouldn’t have been right there with Natasha during those five years. The implication that he’s been largely absent struck an off chord for me. If Nat’s the one in the chair managing the team, Steve’s the first person she’s sending out. Even more, Steve’s the guy in the kitchen, making her a cup of tea to make sure she’s hydrating. Their friendship was there, but it didn’t feel as vital as it did in Civil War. And it was essentially dropped after this scene, which is no good at all. So I don’t know. I think I need to see this scene again - it’s possible I’m not remembering it entirely well. But the fact that it wasn’t a scene I remembered as a standout means there was something missing. 

As for the rest of Part One, I thought it was a bit slow at first. I liked that they didn’t waste much time in going to get Thanos, because that tracked for me, but after the 5 Years Later title card, it started to drag a little. I did like the sense of atmosphere it established, though. Even if the dark, looming haze was a little pathetic fallacy - I suppose Thanos theoretically could control the weather, but I doubt he was bothering - it made for an appropriately effective setting. But Part One felt a little like it was spinning its wheels til Scott showed up. Speaking of which: 

I loved the Scott stuff! Paul Rudd is just so intensely likable, and I think they did a surprisingly good job of incorporating the more lighthearted caper-y feel of the Ant-Man movies into what is usually a more serious Almighty Doom Avengers vibe. But even more, I thought that Paul Rudd did a really good job with the emotional stuff. He’s a good actor! He excels at comedy, but he’s also so good at that stuff because he gets at the emotional cores too. He wasn’t overdoing anything, but when he reunited with Cassie, when he referenced Hope, I felt it. He did great. Scott’s stuff was pretty universally good. 

The Hulk stuff...not so much. On the one hand, it was refreshing to have Bruce/Hulk to be more comedic than ‘woe, for I am a Monster,” but this was...um. Not my favourite. It was just silly. Like, not bad bad. But I definitely didn’t need it. The whole lunch scene was as close to cringe as this movie came, and it was pretty close. I guess I like what it says thematically that Bruce was able to meld the parts of him that had always been in conflict, but I suppose I was hoping for more after the Infinity War storyline. I wanted to know why Hulk refused to come out in IW. I was intrigued by that in a way I hadn’t been intrigued by pretty much any of Bruce’s story lines until then, and the fact that that all disappeared and we got this instead was, well. Let’s use the intellectual term and call it a bummer. 

That being said, Brulk (what I suppose I’ll be calling him from now on) immediately worked better when he went into Thor’s storyline. I maintain that Thor makes everyone better, but I never actually enjoyed any of Bruce’s arcs until Ragnarok, and this movie proved that, unsurprisingly, Thor elevates Brulk like he elevates Rocket and almost every other previously lackluster character he touches. it’s a talent. 

I...did not expect Thor’s strolling to be. That. I really, really didn’t. That was the one true surprise of the movie, frankly. It’s not what I would have picked for him. But I guess I’m not exactly mad about it? For me, Thor is at the point where any storyline, no matter how ridiculous, works for him. Thor’s so good at this point, and Hemsworth is so charming, that I really buy whatever they want to sell me with him (not all they’s. Not Josh Wheat-thin. But we were nowhere near that level of awful). And to be fair, though this was all mostly played for comic relief, I can’t say it’s not also warranted. Thor clearly went overboard with the self-isolation and coping mechanisms, which isn’t strictly in character. But he went through so much, such an outlandishly awful string of events, that I can see how it would break him. It’s a weird way to process all that trauma, but they did the work to get him to a place where I could see him reacting like this. Again, not something I ever expected, and certainly not something I would have written for him. But after all that? I mean, I get it. And the most Thor thing about it was that his version of a breakdown was still sweet and kind to others. He wasn’t great for his people, but he’d given them a home and set them up with leaders who could take care of them, so if he retreated, it wasn’t really abandonment at that point. And when people came to see him, he wasn’t dark and dramatic and all ‘no one can understand my pain.’ He’s not that guy. He’s just too innately good. So even though it was certainly odd, and definitely not my favourite storyline, at least they kept the core of him intact? I’m bright siding here, but still. It’s fair. 

Though truly, I have to say: there’s something about this that I find mildly annoying. Thor and Chris Hemsworth are extremely objectified, and I’m certain that this was intended as a dismantling of the expectations we have for Thor to be the sex god that he is. But also...I don’t know, man. After so many years of us having to endure oversexualized female characters, you couldn’t let us ladies have just this one thing? The one time a male character is openly subjected to the female gaze in any long-term way, and it becomes a joke to remove that? I don’t actually think there was any ill will there. But I do think it speaks to the continuing inability of male writers and directors to really get it. To be absolutely fair, the Russos objectify women way less than the other films do, but still. They might think it’s funny to make fun of a character’s broad sexual appeal appreciated by a female audience by undermining it, but really, it’s just more of the same. 

Yay Korg! Yay Valkyrie being the real leader! Boo Valkyrie still not having a name (seriously, it’s her JOB TITLE. She was one of many Valkyries. Give her a name, for fuck’s sake.)! 

Tony being such a dick at the compound was a surprising move. It was a bad look, but I was intrigued that they’d let their golden boy act that badly. Tony’s always had such deep flaws, but they’ve always been simultaneously excused within the text, so to have him be so rough without excuse was interesting. Of course it was setting up for his ultimate redemption arc, but still. And then cut to 5 Years Later, and finally. This is the TonyI was promised in Iron Man 3, the Tony I still cared about. I liked him again in Infinity War, but I needed to see how they’d follow up to cement it. I’ll never love him like I do some of the others, but the only Tony I ever wanted to invest in is the Tony we finally got, the one who was fully and properly committed to Pepper, and the one who did the work not for his ego or his lack of impulse control, but who did it after a mature and honest discussion with his partner about the pros and cons, about what he was risking and what sort of person it would make him. This movie was primarily a sendoff of characters, and I’m not sure how many were supposed to be fully sent off. Btu there were two characters as the main objective, and the movie at least nailed one of them. 

I was so overwhelmingly ready for Tony Stark, billionaire playboy philanthropist, to go to bed, and for Tony Stark, devoted husband and father who uses his intellect responsibly and thoughtfully, to come forth. He got to keep an edge, but it tempered the parts of him that made him so easy to dislike. It’s too late for me to be a full Tony convert at this point, but I enjoyed him in this movie, and thought he was served better than most, which was 100% to be expected. But frankly, what some people think is a good sendoff is not always what I think is, so I was worried. And I was right to be worried, but surprisingly, not about Tony. More on that later. 

The time travel tests were fun, but I still found everything involving Brulk to be kind of painful to watch, so. Not saying I didn’t laugh here or there, though. 

Was Endgame sponsored by Audi?? Seriously, why was there so much Audi product placement. 

I’m not sure I even want to touch whatever was going on with Clint. I don’t think it was handled particularly well. In theory, the idea that one of them snapped (lol, sorry) at the unfairness of the random dissolving and decided to take out the bad people who should have been snapped away is interesting. But it was so barely glanced at, so underdeveloped, and then proceeded to go nowhere. We were clearly supposed to be concerned at what Clint was doing, but then he suffered no consequences for it? No reckoning, no moment of remorse, no acknowledgement that he’d let himself go too far? What was it all for? I buy that Nat would sacrifice herself to save hi, but it was an extra bitter pill to swallow given that I’m not entirely sure this version of Clint was worth saving. Certainly giving up Nat for him was a price too high. 

The Biggest Flaw

One of the things that disappointed me the most was the lack of presence for the characters who were lost in Infinity War. For a movie that was supposedly about loss and a drive to regain, there was absolutely nothing specific about it? So the whole mission read as generic hero-type “we need to save everyone because it’s the Right Thing to Do,” rather than a need to get their friends and teammates back. Of course the team wants to bring all the millions of people back, and of course they feel a responsibility to them because they had failed to protect them. But where was the sense of loss about their personal friends? Where was the feeling of lacking, that they had to adjust because the people they’d been fighting alongside for years were now gone? Where was their guilt that they’d not only let down the world at large, but the people whose backs they’d promised to always have? I think that’s part of why the first hour felt a little lacking to me. They were all so ad, but about what? The personal stakes were completely removed. The only one who had any degree of it was Clint with his family, but we don’t care about Clint’s family beyond an abstract familiarity. I suppose Tony had his moment with Peter’s picture, which served as an effective motivation. But what about the others? Why were Wanda, Sam, T’Challa, hell, even Vision, never even mentioned? The people they’d lost, the soldiers who’d fallen. That’s what should have made this movie different from the other Avengers ones: not that the team lost a big battle, but that they lost so many of their own because of it. That’s what hit so hard in Infinity War, and why it felt unique. And they didn’t pick that line up again. Such a missed opportunity. 

It’s taken me too long to write all this and I’m starting to forget everything, so fuck it, let’s move on to Part Two. 

Part Two

This was unquestionably the most fun hour of the movie. It's also probably the hour that's going to hold up the best in retrospect, simply because it was a lot of fun and had a good amount of drive without feeling overwrought. A lot of it was gimmicky, but it was the kind of gimmicky that I'm fine with in this type of movie. It was an unrepentant trip down memory lane, complete with all the cameos that get people so excited, and it was a little silly, but it was also a good time. If it was a bit scattered, it was also nostalgic and served as a neat little retrospective of where we've been. So, while it was definitely a little trite in its execution, it was also a lot of fun, so I'm cool with it.

I was highly suspicious of who was assigned to which stone because I knew it was setting up for more meta things rather than practicality. Steve and Tony had to go together to have one last bonding trip, and to be somewhere where they could meet their respective Important People from the past. Nat and Clint had to go together because they were the only team who would be resonant enough for a sacrifice (it couldn't be Steve and Tony that early in the movie, and they would never let Steve and Nat be a team even though by rights they would be). There were definitely more logical times to get some of the stones (seriously, why wouldn't they grab the Tesseract when it was just hanging out in that wall in Norway? Or when it was safely on Asgard in the vaults before Loki took it? Or or or, etc. etc. They chose a window that gave them about 30 seconds to enact the plan. I know, I know the first Avengers movie is a soft spot for most people. But logically, that was very nah.). But whatever. 

The cameos! There were so many, and they were surprisingly high-profile. I had always expected to see Loki again in pretty much this exact scenario, but I did not expect for Robert fucking Redford to make a two-minute cameo. Damn, son. Once I realized we were in the big leagues of cameo season, it was fun to guess who might make an appearance, and even more fun to see people I never would have expected. 

You know who I was surprisingly happy to see? The Ancient One. We rewatched Dr. Strange as part of my Marvel marathon a few weeks ago, and as thoroughly mediocre as that movie is, I forgot how much fun she is in that movie. Tilda Swinton is just really good. So she was kind of a delight. I still don't get her absolute faith in Stephen Strange, of all people, but I liked her scene even if I still don't really understand what the weird wizards do. It was also really nice to get to see Mark Ruffalo instead of Brulk for a bit. 

Seriously, Robert Redford! And holy shit, Rumlow! Super didn't expect that. And that elevator scene! I totally expected a repeat of the Winter Soldier elevator fight, though I'm not actually mad we didn't get one (it would never live up to the original, the Best).

Loved seeing Frigga again! I don't know that I buy Thor being that unable to rise to the occasion, and his therapy interlude with his mom was kind of a weird left turn. That being said, I liked it, and I'm happy they got to have that time, and I love Frigga and want to bask in her wiseness and perennial chillness always. It was sweet. 

I was also totally shocked to see Natalie Portman again (though I think I saw a headline that it was actually just old footage? I haven't confirmed that, but it would make more sense than Natalie Portman coming back for all of four seconds of filming), and I 1000% appreciated her (mostly off-screen) request for pants as her Asgardian wardrobe (which was subsequently denied). I love Jane. I miss Jane. 

So this now paves the way for random Loki appearances in the future, yes? Ngl, I grinned when Loki just noped out of space, and I'm all for vague possibilities of further Loki. Even if it raises a ton of questions about the space-time continuum (seriously, we're gonna talk about that), it was still fun.

I actually liked the Howard/Tony stuff. It was definitely a little saccharine and on the nose, but not too much. It worked, and it was sweet, and it gave Tony a nice moment that I think only really worked because he'd finally become the more mature version of himself. I buy that the Tony of 5 Years Later had a better understanding of Howard, and tried to give comfort instead of taking his own absolution. The Tony of all the other movies would have made this interlude about how he could assure himself of his father's love. This Tony just tried to connect in a way that seemed unselfish. While I was still lowkey stressed because, seriously, you guys are gonna get caught if you're just strolling out in the open like that, we know they're looking for you, I still liked this part well enough. 

Steve and Peggy, though...look. I don't know. We're gonna go much more into detail about this later, and some of this is clearly my own bias. But a) I do not care for the weird clearly film screenshot photo on Peggy's desk, which is a 100% no, and b) something about the chance of it all irked me. I'd buy Steve seeing Peggy's office and going in, but that he happened to hide in there? Nah. Not my fave. And him gazing wistfully at her...like, in theory, romantic? But I was already certain about where we were going with this, so all I could see were the problems in store, and I couldn't really enjoy it. Much more on that later. 

For the Agent Carter fans, I certainly appreciated the Jarvis cameo. I still haven't watched the show, but nonetheless. Cute. 

Steve vs. Steve

Look, I should have known better than to think that an Avengers movie could go without a big set piece internal conflict fight. This one was slightly less egregious because at least it made sense, but man. Every Avengers movie (Civil War included) features some big fight scene between friends and colleagues, and I’ve never known why Marvel is so into that when there are so many actual bad guys to fight. This scene at least led to some funny moments, but for real, why can’t these movies resist having the Avengers fight themselves, and in this case, literally themselves? I’ve always found it baffling. 

Meanwhile, more of me close-reading things that probably aren’t there: I like to think that the absolute bland stodginess of 2012 Steve is a veiled reference to Josh Wheat-thin’s paper-thin one-dimensional understanding of Steve Rogers. Maybe I’m giving the Russos far too much credit for this (I probably am), but Russos-brand Steve knocking down Wheat-thin’s Not!Steve was a physical manifestation of something I’ve long intellectually felt, so. It’s only that reading that kept me from sighing at how boring 2012 Steve was for a thousand years. So I’m sticking to it. 

That is America’s ass. 

Much like with RDJ and Tony, Steve has always been at his finest when they let Chris Evans and his charm bleed through. So the “I could do this all day,” *sigh( “yeah, I know,” was a clear comic highlight of the movie for me. That sounded like something Chris would say in an interview. Chris Evans is a funny guy! His actual personality (at least his public personality) is what won me over to him long before I started to like Steve. So whenever these movies let him be Captain America as played by Chris Evans rather than dull manifestation of watered down American values whatever that means Captain America, played by Man Who Is Not Robert Downey Jr., I consider it a win. That’s one of the Russos’ great strengths: that they let Steve be fun and quippy too. Not as much as RDJ gets to be, naturally, but still, their Steve gets to have a personality intend of being just a haphazard pile of tropes. The Russos nail him in varying and inconsistent degrees, less well in the bigger movies and never so well as in Winter Soldier, but at least they understand that you can have more than one character with a personality, unlike certain unnamed hack writer/directors whom I shall never stop excoriating. 

You know what I didn't love, tbh? Steve using "Bucky is alive" as a cheat phrase to shock 2012 Steve into letting him go. In theory, I can appreciate it. Steve knows that the only thing that can make him freeze is a reference to Bucky. It's a callback to what he talks about in Civil War - one mention of Bucky and he becomes 16 again, etc. etc. I get it. I understand that the Russos are sort of trying to throw a bone to the Steve/Bucky fans out there. However. Given Bucky's complete lack of presence in the rest of the film, it felt cheap? I never fooled myself so thoroughly into thinking the Steve/Bucky crew would ever get anything but crumbs, and that's exactly what they're giving us. But it's about what I discussed before: there was no feeling of loss throughout the entire movie, no lingering presence of the friends who'd been snapped away. I never thought they were going to have scenes of Steve caressing a picture of Bucky and weeping. But Steve didn't seem to care at all about who specifically was gone beyond a vague "we let down the world," so when he said this, it felt like a trick. It felt like manipulation, which it was, but it made Steve seem cold and dispassionate. Like he was playing his past, more emotional self. Idk, Steve was just so weird to me in this movie. He had awesome moments and then 30 seconds later, would have moments like this, which don't feel like Steve at all. Because he uses this cheap shot, gets 2012 Steve knocked out, and then doesn't follow it up with anything relevant. Just makes a quip and bounces. And don't get me wrong, I laughed at the quip! I did! But it further diminished the moment before, how he'd so casually thrown out this bit of information that had been so important to him in previous movies. It was his entire character arc in Winter Soldier and Civil War. And here, it felt meaningless to him, and the rest of the movie sort of supported that reading, and man. It just made me sad. 

And now we come to Natasha and Clint and the damn Soul Stone. 

First of all, a lot of this scene was repetitive. I get that they have to understand how it works, but man, we just did this. 

Next, did Nebula seriously not prepare any of them for this possibility? I suppose she couldn’t have known for sure how it worked, but afterwards, she sure seemed to connect the dots pretty quickly. Sure would have been logical for her to at least mention that there might be something shady going on over there. 

Ok, so. The sacrifice. I don't mind how they played it. One of the most in-character things in the whole damn movie was Nat and Clint physically fighting to sacrifice themselves to save the other. It works. HOWEVER. I really just...can't with the Soul Stone. I think it's so flawed. I understand the notion of a soul for a soul, but sacrificing someone else's soul? That's not yours to give. I don't understand why the Soul Stone would decide that you understand its power because you're willing to kill. And even if you have to specifically kill someone you love, that doesn't make you responsible, it makes you a zealot, which is exactly what Thanos is. I know this is how it went in Infinity War. But in the ensuing year, I've thought about it a lot, and I became convinced that there must be another way, because the logic is so bad. So I came up with the idea that the Soul Stone will also reward people who understand that the initial deal is bullshit and won't give someone else for their own agenda. And during this scene in Endgame, I basically started to write my own version, in which whoever won the fight to sacrifice themselves, not for their own designs, but to achieve the true greater good that they wouldn't even be alive to see, would be rewarded with the Soul Stone. So if Nat jumps off, sacrificing herself for her friend, to save him and save the universe, she would become the master of the Soul Stone. This makes sense to me. This is a cool twist. And once I thought of this, I became so sure that this made so much more sense than the Soul Stone rewarding murderers that I wasn't even able to fully feel the emotion of it all. I was just surprised that I'd been wrong, even though of course I'd been wrong. They weren't going to do something clever like that if they had a chance for an emotional sacrifice. I got too in my own head about it all. So I had to react very quickly to a scene that was already ending because I just wouldn't take the signs for what they were. 

Nat was always at risk, and I can't be mad about how she went. Of course she'd sacrifice herself for Clint, and for everyone else. But as I mentioned above, is this really the version of Clint that Natasha should give herself up to save? It's not out of character for her, and hell, at least Clint brought up what he'd done for the only time in the movie, but still. This wasn't a good trade to me. To quote another super lady I love, I suppose it's not about what they deserve, but still. 

But most of all, the problem was that once again, we had to sacrifice a female character for the good of the men. Individually, neither of the Soul Stone sacrifices were bad choices. In Infinity War, it could only be Gamora for Thanos, and in Endgame, Nat's arc had been building up to this. It wasn't a bad sendoff for a character like Nat. But on the macro level, just. I'm tired. And all it does for me is pinpoint the problems with having such a lack of female representation in the movies. They're doing better now than they were. Truly, they are. But after Nat dies, we have this scene of five men being sad and angry and throwing things, and it just drives home again and again that Nat was the token girl in the Avengers. There couldn't be another woman in that reaction scene, because in 2012, Marvel wouldn't invest enough in female characters beyond the Only Girl, so that's what we're left with now. If we want to foreground the original six Avengers, and we want to give Nat a dramatic death to finalize her journey, all we can do is filter that through manpain because those are the only characters we have left. And I know this is an old wound. It's futile to rail against it, and at least Marvel's kind of trying a little now with their newer movies. But the rot is still there, deep in the foundations, and it makes this stuff hard. Nat has as much right as anyone else to get a dramatic sacrificial death. But I didn't need both the Soul Stone sacrifices to be both the token girls in two sausage fest teams. I'm simply tired. 

Beyond that, when Clint comes back and the team reacts to Nat's death, Brulk didn't deserve the first reaction. He just didn't. At that moment, I was literally sitting there thinking, if they don't cut to Steve, I swear to god...and they did eventually. But Steve and Nat's relationship was so much more developed and meaningful than Bruce/Nat, so it frustrated me that Brulk got to have the big reaction. And frankly, it frustrated me that once Clint showed up, Steve and Nat's friendship was essentially dropped. I like Nat/Clint. I do. Their friendship worked for me in Avengers 1 in a way that pretty much none of the other relationships in that movie did. But Clint isn't Nat's best friend anymore. I don't begrudge them getting their moments, but I do begrudge the movie for sidelining Steve/Nat after that one scene, which already sidelined Steve/Nat in its implications. Frustrating, and out of character for the Russos. 

Not to mention the scene of them being sad together was very meh. I don't go for manly displays of sad aggression, even if you are part-Hulk. And their whole handwaving of 'she just can't be brought back, just deal with it!' Weak. I don't care for being told to just accept something you haven't explained. I think we all hoped there would be a more nuanced portrayal of whatever the Soul Stone is, shadowy and mysterious as it seems, and there just wasn't. We had to take it all at face value. I'm not one for willfully undoing deaths, because of course that lowers the stakes, but still. If you have an all-powerful gauntlet that can make and unmake a universe, you're gonna have to explain to me why you can't bring someone back, even if the circumstances were particular. Clint is not some expert on the Soul Stone. He just decided this was how it had to be just...cause. Nope. 

The Snap

This was, if nothing else, interesting. It was perhaps closest to the detail that we fic writers crave, because they actually discussed who would wield the gauntlet and why. It was akin to something I'd write for this scene, though it went differently than my own would (will...you'll see.). And I'm glad that at least the arguments were logical. I always assumed it should be Thor but wouldn't be Thor, though I don't know that I buy them sidelining him like that. I think he could have handled it. But whatever. I had assumed that for thematic reasons, they'd make it be Steve or Tony, so I guess I appreciated that Brulk did it, because frankly, the gamma radiation explanation made sense. I didn't think he was a frontrunner going into this movie, but the reasoning was logical and sound, something I wish there'd been more of in some of the big events of the movie. 

What I don't understand? The gauntlet itself. I don't really see how a random Iron Man suit glove would be enough to channel the Infinity Stones? They never fully explained how Thanos's gauntlet worked, but presumably metal forged from a collapsing neutron star would be formidable and unusually strong. I get that the Iron Man suits are fancy, but they're still just Earth metals. This has always been an inconsistency in the MCU that's bothered me - Tony's suits have intermittently been able to stand extreme displays of force only to become vulnerable to the elements a few scenes later - but this still seemed a bit handwave-y. It certainly won't make or break the movie for me, but hell, if I'm airing every single thought I had during this movie, which judging by the length of this thing I sure seem to be, well. Might as well mention it. 

I've forgotten to discuss all the Thanos/Gamora/Nebula 2014 stuff. Frankly, that's because it was the least interesting part of this segment. It was fine, but when I figured that Nebula would have a big role to play in Endgame based on what I'd heard about the comics, I didn't think it would be to our heroes' detriment. I grant that it wasn't her fault, but man. Everything that went wrong did so because of Nebula, and that's a rough thing to put on one character. 

This part also falters because in retrospect, that was another aspect of the time travel set up that failed. We're gonna go into the time travel problems in a devoted section, but if anything didn't make sense even at the time of watching, it was this stuff, which made it hard to love. Also, I've had more than enough scenes of Nebula either being annoying or tortured, and I just. Don't care. I've warmed to her more lately, but I'm still not invested in any of that stuff. I stand by my statement that Gamora is the only one worth anything in the entire Guardians franchise, and while it was nice to see her again, I don't love all this stuff going wrong because of an inconveniently timed technical glitch. 

The abrupt and brutal transition from Part Two to Part Three was intense, and I was into it. Part Three had some problems, but a lack of excitement certainly wasn’t one of them. So let’s get to it. 

Part Three

The momentum of the big battle was pretty excellent. Once it got going, it didn't stop, and if this is what these movies were building towards, well, it certainly did the job. As epic battles go? This one was really good. I think it got that edge because for once, we genuinely didn't know who would make it out. Shows and movies always tease that this one could be the one, no really, we mean it, so much stakes, such high stakes! And they never follow through. But we knew someone wasn't getting out of this one. It was even money at this point whether it was Steve or Tony or Thor (yeah, I said it. I wasn't sure about him), but I think we all knew that all of them surviving after all of this would be a cheat, so. Someone was going. And yeah, we all fretted about it in Infinity War, but we always knew there was another movie to go. This one is the confirmed end for some of them. So it wasn't a matter of if anymore, but when and how. And that, finally, made this battle feel breathless in a way that none of the others could. It's not that I'm bloodthirsty. I am absolutely not someone who thinks you need to kill off major characters in order for it to mean something. But to genuinely not know what was going to happen for once? That's an experience that a jaded over-analytical girl like me doesn't get a lot, and it's pretty unbeatable in terms of anticipation.

Having them split up like that from the get-go was fun. Clint clutching the gauntlet and running through the hallways away from those awful unexplained monsters was exciting as hell. Scott running to save the ones trapped in the flooding basement was great. I don't really understand why Thanos was just sitting there, but having Steve, Thor, and Tony as the ones face to face with him was smart, because those were the main guys, so you never had that sense that nothing important could happen yet. The big characters were present at the epicenter from the get-go. 

The billowing dark smoke and crumbling rubble were an excellent atmosphere. If nothing else, this movie did scenery very right. It felt apocalyptic without being unexplained. 

The Fight

The thing about me and fight scenes: I get super tired of formulaic, generic fighting. Big car chases, too much CGI, muddled directing, it bores me. The first couple of Avengers movies were like that, which made the fight scenes eminently skippable to me. But a good fight scene? I love it. I absolutely love good choreography, sharp directing, the way it can feel like a dance. This is why I can't say enough about the Winter Soldier fight scenes. They're exquisitely put together, and I find them utterly invigorating every time, no matter how many times I've seen them. This fight scene? It was somewhere in the middle, but it edged more towards the good end of the spectrum than the bad. The Russos are very good at directing fight scenes. They're not always awesome at articulating the reasons for said fight scenes (looking at you, Civil War), but they are adept at making fight scenes feel coherent and exciting. This is often because they understand that you need a focus. The focus can shift, but in every aspect, you need to have someone you're following, and you need to be able to understand what's going on. And more than anything, I think the Russos are good at centering on the physical toll that a fight takes out of the characters. Sure, there's a ton of CGI. You can't get away from that with a Marvel movie. But they're great at filtering it all through the perspective of a character, and they're best at it with Steve. They get right to the core of the grittiness of Steve in a battle. You feel his struggle, you feel how much it hurts when he gets knocked down but still gets up, again and again. This was not my favourite battle scene in the MCU, but I liked it a lot, because you feel like it means something. It isn't just an excuse to have cool explosions and CGI weapons going wild. This battle said something about who the people fighting it are, and that's the best case scenario for what this scene was going to be. 

I can't remember everything about the battle. I'll have to fill in some of the blanks upon rewatch. But hey, it was fun. I don't really understand why Thanos's weird blade thing was so powerful. I really don't know why it was able to slice through Steve's shield like that. But if I try to close read a battle too deeply, well, there lies madness, so. There was enough going on in distinct sections of the field that it kept things interesting. I knew everyone was going to show up at some point (thanks, Sebastian Stan, for spoiling that, like, a full year ago), but I didn't feel like we were spinning our wheels til then. And let's be real, most of it was Steve vs. Thanos, which was a good time for all sorts of reasons. Especially this one: 

STEVE AND MJOLNIR!!!!! Listen. Listen. I know I'm being played to. I know this is just one of those overly manufactured moments specifically designed to make you go "fuck yeah!" I knowwwwww. But goddamnit, it worked. Boy, did it work on me. The way they directed it, the way they hadn't tipped us off too much (like they did with some other things), all of it...I did go fuck yeah. Fuck yeah, man. That's my guy with Thor's spare hammer, because he's worthy and he's wonderful and he's gonna fuck Thanos up with it. And I remember when this stuff was first teased way back in Ultron, it annoyed me, because a) I didn't care about Steve at the time, and b) it didn't make any sense. Mjolnir is supposed to choose the person who is worthy to rule Asgard, and that was already Thor. Why would the hammer switch allegiances, and what, would Steve then rule Asgard? But at this point, Thor's got a new weapon, and more than anything, Asgard is gone. The hammer's choice no longer has real world consequences. It's merely an indicator of personal value. And that's Steve. So, fuck yeah. 

Again, it only really worked because the hammer wasn't choosing Steve instead of Thor. It was in addition, and Thor had Stormbreaker anyway, so I didn't have to feel threatened on Thor's behalf. But also, it allowed for little moments like, 'no, you get that one, I get the big one,' from Thor, which was delightful, simply because Steve and Thor's mid-battle engagements are always delightful. That's a tradition I'm pleased got to be continued in this movie. 

I know what they were doing, I see what they were doing, but hell, I'm gonna treasure the image of my man wielding the shield in one hand and Mjolnir in the other. I never knew I wanted it until I got it, but I will take it and cherish it always.

I'd been waiting for everyone to show up. I didn't know how they were going to do it, but I knew they were, because, well, Sebastian Stan had told me so, but also because I knew Marvel could never resist having everyone fighting all at once. That's what this movie was made for, let's be honest. So it was only a matter of time. However, I didn't know how they were going to do it, and frankly? On your left. ON YOUR LEFT. Reader, I loved it. 

Sure, all the portals were a little silly. How did they coordinate so quickly, and why did they all show up at once instead of each of them just coming in when they were ready so they could help as quickly as possible (I mean, we know why. But diegetically, etc. etc.)? And this was another one of those tailor-made 'fuck yeah' moments that more often than not make me roll my eyes instead because of the desperate transparency. But you know what? It was fun. I know what this movie was, and this was what it came to do, and I am capable of just enjoying it. So I did. Everybody shows up and the wizards are finally being useful and you know it's time to just abandon yourself to the crazy and let it all happen. It's grand. 

But truly, on your left was a perfect way to do it. Maybe I should have called it, except that I never would have assumed that something so precious to fandom would actually be what the film itself chose to do. There were certainly a disproportionate number of references to Winter Soldier in this movie overall, which I appreciated, but this was a dream. I got chills. Elegant, lovely, character-appropriate. A++. 

Once the madness got going, I was just along for the ride. I don't have a lot to critique about the battle royale. It was a lot of fun. There were little things peppered in that elevated it - particularly whatever character reunions we could get quickly. I was particularly partial to Scott and Hope and their smiles at each other (plus Hope calling Steve Cap. We'd just watched Ant-Man and the Wasp the night before, so I freshly remembered Hope mocking Scott for calling him Cap, and then here this was as a cute little reference to reward the loyal. Not too heavy-handed, but little sprinkles for the devoted fans, and that's the kind of care for the seriality of the MCU effort that I appreciate from the Russos). It was impossible to give every character fair play, but I enjoyed the characters who did get moments. I liked the team work of passing the gauntlet between people. I did wonder if anyone would put it on, but no one did, and I see why. Still, it was a fun sub-mission within the larger battle. 

CAROL. I haven't talked nearly enough about Carol in this movie. She was sadly not in it that much, which I suppose makes sense (apparently she filmed this before Captain Marvel? So she really wasn't fully Carol yet when they were doing this movie). But I appreciated that her clear power superiority was suitably respected. And before she turned up, that moment when the guns turn around and everyone's like, 'what are they firing at?' And I knew, I knew. And my mind screamed CAROLLLLL and there she was and it was glorious. 

The charge of all the women. Look, I know 100% that I was being played. This is the kind of soulless pandering to your female audience to make them think they're getting a lot more than they are. We've already talked about the iffiness of the female presence in this movie, and how they're continually sidelined for plot reasons. That being said. I can see what they're doing, I can roll my eyes at the manipulation within it, and still fucking love it. I can. I contain multitudes like that. And when all the women marched boldly across the screen to protect each other and break through the fight, I absolutely fucking loved it. I teared up, honest to god. I LOVE THEM. I love these women and I love their power and I will cheer with abandon at their strength and solidarity. I absolutely understand that this was yet another manufactured moment designed to hit at people exactly like me. And yes, I can be critical of the fact that they're not giving us more than token moments. But I will still love this moment, because look at all those women. I meant what I said when I admitted that Marvel's at least been doing better in recent years, because the fact that we even have women in the double digits to fill this scene is the result of maybe just the last three years or so. It's not enough, but it's better than it was, and I hope it leads to a better future. So my heart swelled and I smiled like crazy while my ladies got their moment. May it be merely one of many more. 

Also, Pepper got to fight! Loved that. I have long felt cheated out of the Pepper Extremis storyline, so while this doesn’t make up for it, hey, it was something. 

I don't know why it is that Tony and Dr. Strange as a pairing work for me. They're two characters I've had tremendous problems with who are somehow very interesting together. But when Strange looked at Tony and held up the one, and it was a quiet, intimate little thing amidst all this chaos - it got me. I don't know. Something about it was very affecting. The moment of understanding between them, and what Tony rose up to do. It really worked. 

So, Tony. Frankly, this was precisely the kind of moment I anticipated Steve going out in, but they gave it to Tony instead. I'm both surprised and not. They were always going to prioritize Tony and his journey. That being said, while I intellectually understood that Tony was at risk in this movie, I never really thought Marvel would have the stones to actually kill him and thus make it impossible for him to return. I was too spooked from the last round of wrapping up Tony's character arc only to strike a deal with RDJ and thus rework the entire MCU specifically for his benefit. So yeah, I could never fully wrap my mind around Marvel really letting him go. So in that, I was genuinely surprised. But on a narrative level? It worked. Yeah, this is something I'd have expected Steve to do instead, but honestly, Steve didn't need to do this to prove what kind of person he is. Steve was always the person who would sacrifice himself to save everyone. He's done that already, and he'd do it as many times as he needed to (the ending of this movie notwithstanding, I guess...). There would be nothing added by Steve sacrificing his life by using the gauntlet except an extra sharing of tears. Tony, though? Tony needed something like this to fully complete his journey as a character. Let's be clear: he didn't need to die. I'll never say that someone needs to die to achieve full redemption or growth. There are other ways they could have come to this point with Tony. But this is one way to do it, and it's not wrong. Really, it should have been someone else. There was probably time, and other people on the field had a better chance of surviving the Snap. But if you're in that situation, and you're maybe not thinking totally clearly and things are looking rough and you see an opportunity like that? Yeah, I get it. Tony's always been impulsive, and his growth in this movie tempered his impulsiveness. But if he's going to have impulsive moments, it's progress that they're for the genuine good. 

In a lot of ways, this climax was formulaic. While it's a stretch to call Tony a father figure, he's still a sort of father figure of the MCU, and they're usually the first on the chopping block when it comes to epic fantasy conclusions. But I didn't really have a problem with it, because it was clearly meant to be a tearjerker, but it wasn't just that. More than any other character, Tony needed something that would really indicate that he'd changed as a person, become better. Of course Tony has put himself at risk to help others throughout these movies. But it's never been entirely selfless in the way this is, somehow. I don't know that I can articulate why it's different. But it felt different, and it felt like something that worked for his character more than it would for others. I don't doubt for a second that Steve or Thor would use the gauntlet without hesitation, and Nat already proved that she'd do the same. When Tony used the gauntlet, he suddenly held more control than he's ever had in his life, and yet he gave up control in the most powerful way he could have. Tony has always been obsessed with directing the narrative, creating monsters in his attempts to control the future. But by using the gauntlet, knowing what would happen, even as an extraordinary display of power, he's relinquishing his stranglehold on control and fully giving himself over. In order to win, we have to lose. In order for the Avengers to win, Tony has to lose. At the end, he understands that, and he accepts it, and Iron Man can really, finally die. 

His death scene was effective. I felt things, and I could definitely hear a lot of the theatre sniffling around me. They also did the right thing in terms of the relationships they foregrounded. I was genuinely worried that they'd have Pepper move away for Steve to be the final moment with Tony, and I was ready to riot, but that's not what happened. I'll give them credit for that. Rhodey, Peter, and then Pepper, and it absolutely should have ended with Pepper. I have always said that Tony only works with Pepper, and this movie did a good job of establishing his devotion to her and the way it's inspired him to finally be better. And I really liked how quiet this moment was, and how calm and strong Pepper was. It felt like a natural continuation of that scene they'd had earlier in the movie when they'd discussed what to do. They have matured together as a couple, they went into this understanding the stakes, and they are genuinely prepared to face the consequences. It was really nice, and it gave me emotions in a way that a more desperate show of misery wouldn't have done. 

I saw it coming, but I still appreciated the parallel of “but would you be able to rest?” to “you can rest now.” It was lovely. 

If Tony's death scene was handled well, his funeral was a bit more meh. I get what they were going for, and it was fine, but it didn't get me the way the previous scene had. It was a little too grandiose. I enjoyed seeing some of the groupings - special mention to the Pym/Lang clan, which I'm surprisingly invested in - but the slow pan to every single group was a bit overdone. At a certain point, we were reaching clusters of people who had no real connection to Tony, and a general pan up to include the crowd as a group would have sufficed. It definitely started to feel a little overindulgent. But what else did I expect. 

That video, though - that was the kind of stuff that does get to me more, even if it’s an easy get. I don’t have much to say about it. It was nice. 

And now we must discuss the thing I’ve least been looking forward to going through...

That Ending

I've been having trouble figuring out how exactly to tackle this. I'm honestly really curious about how other people viewed the ending, particularly people who actively ship Steve/Peggy. Because truthfully, this whole ending felt incredibly off to me. I'm trying to parse out how much of it is that it's an extremely fanservice ending for a ship I don't fully ship, but I don't think that's all of it. Regardless, I'd love to hear what people who do ship them thought, and if the pros outweigh the cons if you ship them enough. I've been trying to sort out if I'd feel the same way if it had been, say, Bucky that Steve went back to live with (in a 10000% hypothetical world in which a Disney-owned franchise would ever dare). It's hard to discount the effect of shipper goggles, and maybe I'd be more forgiving if I were more attached to the pairing in question. But I've been thinking about it a lot, and I just can't get past a few major things.

For one, let's get it out in the open: I didn't like the ending, at all. That being said, I was absolutely certain they were going to go this way. Not the whole time - for most of last year, I was still putting even money between Steve dying heroically and Steve getting stuck back in time. But once the trailers started coming out, I became increasingly sure. First, the Peggy compass makes an appearance despite the fact that I didn't even know Steve still had it (seriously, did it show up in any of the previous movies? Maybe it did, but it was unremarkable enough that I didn't remember). Alarm bells started to ring. Then they had that trailer with Peggy's voiceover, and I was certain. Listen. I know when I'm being primed. I see when they're trying to 'subtly' remind me of characters, themes, relationships. They were laying groundwork to make people think they'd earned this ending. And I tried so hard to make myself ok with it. I really, really tried. I prepped myself, I talked it through with myself, I warned myself again and again to make peace with it, because this is where they were going. But still, but still...man, I hoped it would be better than this. Even when Steve mentioned Peggy as the love of his life during that therapy group, which was more than a little heavy-handed and definitely not his style, and I became 100% sure that we were locked into this path, I gave myself another shot of 'prepare for this! It's happening!' and just hoped for the best. And instead. Well. 

The most essential problem of this whole, messy thing, is that time travel just doesn't work. It just doesn't. We'll hit on that again later, but if you're trying to come up with an elegant solution to a problem involving time travel, it can't be done. This movie came closer than some, but it's an impossible problem, and it always will be. Separate from the logical pitfalls, though, there are myriad character problems that this movie just didn't deal with, which kept me from being able to find any satisfaction in the ending. First and foremost, they never committed to whether Steve was going back in this original timeline or branching off into an alternate timeline. The only logical thing would be the latter, because otherwise things would start to become undone before our very eyes, but the fact that he's sitting by that lake in our original timeline at the end ruins that option. In the days it's taken me to write all this, it's since come out that the Russos claim that it was in fact the former - that he was in an alternate timeline and it's a mystery how he ended up back in this one - but the problem is, that is not at all supported in the text. I 100% believed he had stayed in this timeline based on him appearing in our timeline at the end, and there's literally nothing in that scene that would indicate otherwise. So, frankly, no matter what the Russos are saying in interviews, the film itself does not make that clear, and there's no guarantee that any subsequent films will reference what the Russos are hinting at in the future. So for the moment, we can only assume what we've seen, and that's that Steve went back in this initial timeline and lived out his life from 1970 to now with Peggy. And the problem with all this, the risk you take in taking on time travel, is that if Steve goes back to 1970 to marry Peggy and live out his life, there are two and only two options. 1. He goes back in time and alters things, because how could he not? All the things he knows, the people he can help, hell, the very fact that he's there at all - they all change what the reality of this timeline is, and the repercussions echo through to the present and the whole world suddenly shifts. But clearly, that's not what happened, because Sam and Bucky and Brulk are still there, they don't feel a thing, nothing's changed. Which brings us to 2. Steve goes back in time, understands he can't change anything because of the risk involved, somehow manages not to change anything unintentionally despite his presence there (in itself, a complete impossibility - time travel doesn't work), and chooses to live his life quietly, without affecting anything, and that's his happy ending. And that? Is awful. 

So let's say I buy it. Let's say I believe that Steve can go back like that and not significantly unmake the world. To me, understanding Steve's character the way I do? That isn't a happy ending. That's a tragedy. That means that Steve will have to watch everything that he knows is going to happen, every injustice, every crime against humanity, and just let it happen. He takes a back seat throughout all the wars and the misery and the atrocities. He sees someone walk into the road in front of a bus and doesn't try to help, because that would alter the timeline. There's letting Steve retire, and then there's letting Steve become an apathetic drone out of necessity. 

But even worse is the personal scale. When I complained about this to my sister, she said that a person wouldn't necessarily feel the need to avert, say, the Vietnam war, just because they knew it was going to happen. Sure, fine. I'd argue that if any person would, it'd be Steve, but ok, let's say for the sake of argument that I agree. But what about the stuff that hits closer to home? Even if we can accept that Steve wouldn't care that Bucky was still in Hydra's clutches for roughly 40 more years (and hey, this movie made an honest effort of trying to say that Steve only tangentially cares about Bucky, so maybe we are supposed to believe that), could he really be happy knowing that Hydra is growing and taking over the very organization that his wife founded, and is currently working at?? We know from Ant-Man that Peggy remains involved at S.H.I.E.L.D. until at least the 90s, if not longer. How could he watch her go to work every day not knowing what she was helping to create? What about the Starks? Seeing little Tony born, knowing he could help, maybe ease the tensions between Tony and Howard, help them come together? Only you can't, because if Tony doesn't have the childhood he has, then maybe he never becomes Iron Man, and what would happen then. So watching all that happen, and then knowing the exact day his friends Howard and Maria get violently murdered, and sitting back and letting it happen. Knowing that somewhere out there, Natasha is a child being trained to be a killer, being gaslit, being owned, and just leaving it alone. This doesn't sound like a happy ending. This sounds like a genuine nightmare - paralyzed, watching a slow-motion car crash that you know you could stop if only you could just stand up. It's horrifying. And that's what I'm expected to rejoice in? Because him getting to date Peggy again makes that all worth it somehow?

But fine, let's be absolutely, totally fair. Let's say it's ok for the Russos to just tell us what happened vs. everything they showed us in the movie itself. So, cool, Steve went back in time and sprouted off an alternate timeline. Fine. It's better than the alternative, that's for sure. But it still feels wrong for him, and here's why. The tragedy of Steve's story has always been in the longing to go back while facing the impossibility of it. He lost his friends, his girlfriend (I guess...more on that later), everything he knew. It's heartbreaking. It's a lot of why Steve and Bucky are so popular in this fandom - they represent that feeling of nostalgia that we all feel about our lives, brought to an extreme and fantastical degree, and it's fascinating material. You can't go back, but oh, wouldn't it be lovely if you could? Except what makes Steve so incredible, so resilient, is that he adapts. He wakes up 70 years later and everything is different and he finds a way to move forward. It's sad! It's so sad to think of him like this, this man out of time. That's why we have so many fics about some magic trick that lets him go back in time like he's always wished to. But I ask you - how many of those fics end with him staying in the past? Genuinely, I'm asking. I've never read one that ends like that. Because that's not how these stories need to go. Returning to the past is so alluring. It is. I'm an exceptionally nostalgic person, and I absolutely romanticize my happy childhood, or my teens, or my college years, when things were good, when things were easy. Everyone does. But you can't go back. Even if you somehow could, it's not the same, because you're not the same. That's always the moral of these stories, because it has to be. Because humanity is about adapting, about moving forward because there's just no other choice. And of course escapist fantasies of going back and fixing everything are fun. But I've watched and read a lot of sci-fi, and the message is always that that isn't really what it's cracked up to be. And there's a reason for that. 

But sure, let's move forward. Let's say he creates a branched-off timeline and is thus able to affect change in a truly Steve Rogers way. Cool! So I'm gonna assume he roots out Hydra from S.H.I.E.LD., he goes and saves Bucky, he improves the lives of his friends once they're born. Awesome! What a cool AU! Except. It's still kind of a miserable fate to wish on Steve. He can't save everyone, and he knows that. He can do some good, but rewriting half a century of history is too much for any one man, even Steve. But god, imagine the pressure. Imagine the guilt. He does what he can, but he can't fix everything, and he's Steve Rogers, so of course it weighs on him. And yes, you can say, that's what people live with every day! We know there's suffering out there, but we find a way to live through it! Yeah, of course. But you know why? Because we have the blissful luxury of not knowing for sure. We know there are terrible things out there, but a) we're not super soldiers, and b), we don't have advanced knowledge. We can know things are going on out there, but we also can't know that it isn't going to get better, that there isn't someone out there about to fix it. If you go back in time? You know for sure. You know how many people die in useless wars. You know about the epidemics, the awful chapters of human history. And you know it doesn't get better. What do you do?? You can't save everyone. But then your wife comes home from work and turns on the news, and you see the latest death count from something happening out there, and you sit there and think "maybe I could have stopped that." It's ghastly. Time travel is great for fantasies and quiz questions, but it's a gift that it isn't possible, because it would drive you to ruin. It would break your heart every day. So when people say it's wonderful that Steve got to be selfish and live out his life in the past? I can only see the things that are going to make his life miserable. I'd love to be happy for him, but instead, it's this. 

But even beyond all that, what about what it says not only about his character, but about everything that's happened in the MCU so far? Listen, I'm the first to say that his friendships with most of the Avengers were tenuous at best. When the Team Tony contingent of the internet railed against Civil War Steve for picking Bucky over his 'new family,' well, I didn't have a problem with that. It made sense to me. But he also wasn't abandoning everyone. He wasn't completely giving up the life he'd built. But by doing what he does in Endgame, Steve's basically saying he doesn't care about any of the people he's formed relationships with over the past 13 years as much as he cares about dating Peggy. And I...look. Some people will find that super romantic. Maybe I would have when I was, like, 19. But at this point in my life? Romance is great, but so are friendships. So are the bonds with people you've formed over years of trust and companionship. And giving up all of them for a chance at a girl you were into for a couple of years a decade and a half ago? That's not romantic to me anymore. That doesn't do it for me. Steve deserves his chance with Peggy if that's what he wants. But not at the expense of everything else. And I'm supposed to rejoice in that? That after 5 years of missing his friends, he spends, what, a week with them, and then leaves them forever? I'm very carefully trying to remove my feelings about the Steve/Bucky of it all for fairness, but what about Sam? What about Wanda? Remember that relationship that I was so attached to? Even removing the Avengers, there are people Steve loves who I can't wrap my head around him willfully leaving forever (especially since, god, doesn't Wanda need support more than ever right now? He doesn't even stick around for that?). I'll admit, I buy it slightly more now that Natasha's gone (sighhhhh), but even if she'd lived, I don't think the writers would have changed their minds about this ending, and then you'd better believe I'd be screaming bloody murder about this. I don't know, man. Maybe it's me! I have definitely turned on a lot of mainstream romance plots over the years! But god, isn't that what these movies were supposed to be about? The bonds of friendship, the bonds of brotherhood and comradeship, soldiers banding together against an insurmountable army? Am I still, after all of this, supposed to be happy that Steve drops all of his relationships so he can have another shot at an almost girlfriend? 

So let's talk about the Peggy factor. I love Peggy. She's wonderful. But you know what's a real sticking point to me in all this? We know for a fact that she had a life that she loved, lived fully and without regret. In her own words, her only regret was that Steve didn't get to live his. But I never took that to mean she wished it for him at the expense of hers. And yes, I'm sure she would have been happy with Steve too! Well, at least we can hope. But one of the greatest gifts Winter Soldier gave us was allowing Peggy to be a character separate from Steve. As much as I love her in The First Avenger, she still mostly served as a support in Steve's journey. But in Winter Soldier, they made it very clear that Peggy was her own person. That she was there for Steve, that she loved him and cared for him, but that her life was not dependent on him. She found her own adventures, her own happiness. Everything she built, she did on her own, separate from her connection to Steve. I loved that. It was so refreshing to have a character who had been conceived as a love interest get to boldly make clear that she was her own entity. That she was a whole person. And then...this. 

I'm sure that lots of people don't think Steve going back in time and marrying Peggy alters this. None of my irl friends seem to mind this ending like I do. But for me? It feels like a life stolen. Peggy got married! I'm not sure if she had kids, but she might have, and she had a brilliant career and made a name for herself. And Steve knew this. And he decided to make it all never happen. He inserted himself into a place he no longer belonged and took it all for himself again. I know that some people are celebrating this choice as Steve being finally, rightfully selfish, after a lifetime of sacrificing his own happiness for others. But this? It feels wrong. It feels willful. And sure, if it's in a branched timeline, maybe you can look at it sideways enough that it doesn't feel like the theft of a happy life to you. But it still says something about Steve that doesn't sit right with me. I'm all for Steve being less self-sacrificing. When I headcanon my ideal ending for Steve, it always involves him getting to take a slice of happiness for himself. But not like this. Not by undoing someone else's life, not by taking something directly from others. That's not Steve Rogers. 

Meanwhile, let's settle an area of confusion. When I watched the movie - hell, when I first started writing this - I thought he went back to live in 1970 after he dropped off the Tesseract. Frankly, that was the only good thing I had to say about this ending (and I did say it when I was discussing the movie with my friends directly after) - that by going back to 1970, at least Peggy had some time to live a life without him, and he just joined her partway through. But given how long it's taken me to write this, other things have filtered in, and I guess the prevailing wisdom is that he actually went back to the 1940's? I know the cars looked old, so maybe that was the clue, but I wasn't certain, and maybe I just hoped it wasn't the case. Because while this maybe makes it better on the Steve front, it makes it worse for Peggy. She doesn't get to live a life without him at all. And listen, I don't doubt Peggy Carter! I think she can do anything, and she certainly doesn't have to be alone in order to establish herself. But do we really think that in 1945, hell, 1950, 1965, anyone would think Peggy did it all on her own when she had Steve Rogers on her arm? That was part of what I loved about how Steve/Peggy went down. While it was sad for them on a personal level, it meant that after the war, during a notoriously sexist backlash era, Peggy's success was never attributed to her connection with Steve. But with this? It's absolutely unfair, but it would absolutely tarnish her own agency. And I think she would suffer with it. I have long thought that Steve and Peggy, if given the chance to be together in the 40s like they planned, would have actually run into some problems once the war settled down. I have a whole treatise to write on this that perhaps I will someday. It's not that I think they wouldn't have worked. But I'm not certain they would have, because I think the things that make them wonderful as people would have made it difficult for them to be a couple. And this kind of timeline fuckery is exactly the kind of stuff that I think would have tested them, and not necessarily in a strengthening way. Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. I absolutely don't think they're doomed to fail. But by forcing them into this kind of trite 'happy ending,' this movie is asking me to ignore what I know about these characters, who they are and how they live and what they've done. That doesn't feel like a satisfying end to me. 

Beyond that, it's impossible at this point to separate the way I feel about Marvel's treatment of its women from what happens in the narrative. In the same way that I don't dislike Nat's storyline for her character individually, but I'm fully raising my eyebrows at them killing off the token girl in the team, it's hard for me to separate all that stuff regarding Peggy. Diegetically, Peggy deserves her chance with Steve. But on an outside level, it doesn't feel great that she exists solely as Steve's Reward in this movie. She doesn't even have any lines. She exists to be gazed at, and then to be danced with. I know we know Peggy's powerful and amazing. But the fact of the matter is, if you only watch the MCU, Peggy's only been in two movies, and one of them for only a few minutes. They killed her off-screen in Civil War. And then she's this in Endgame. Howard Stark gets a long, extended walk and talk with Tony, and Peggy gets this. It doesn't feel great! The exhausted feminist in me is always struggling with this stuff. Peggy doesn't have to be alone in order to be her own person! But I don't trust the MCU to put any of their women in relationships with men (even friendships, frankly), and have them still be the main characters. God, no one even says her name in the whole damn film. I'm probably nitpicking! Welcome to the hell that is living in my own head 24/7! Pity me.

God, I don't know. It's all so complicated. I might be entirely wrong in this. I really would love to talk to others about this and see if I'm just looking at this all wrong. But even though I've long known they were going this way, it's still precisely why I was hoping this movie wouldn't go the time travel route. That way lies madness. It just creates so many more problems than it solves. Problem is, when I planned for this eventuality, I always thought it would be an accident or some sort of necessity and that Steve would get stuck in the past. He'd get cut off back in time and adapt like Steve Rogers does, find the happiness in his new circumstances like he always has. But somehow, it never occurred to me that he would choose to go. That he would willfully decide, all on his own, without consultation or discussion, that he was doing this. And something about that particular change has just been rankling me. For all the reasons outlined above, it lessens Steve's character to me in a way that I never anticipated. I always wanted Steve to retire. My happy ending for him is having him find other, non-fighting ways to help people while also getting to live his own life. But I always wanted it to be his own life, not someone else's. I'm certain people will argue that Steve was never supposed to be in 2012 in the first place, that he was meant to live out his life in his own timeline. But that's not what happened, and the MCU asked me to invest in the last 8 years of Steve learning how to adjust to the extraordinary things that happened to him. If I wasn't interested in seeing that, I would have stopped after The First Avenger. While I understand that Steve getting stuck back in time would have done iffy things for his agency, I think I could have made this work if that was how it all played out. But by him choosing this fate instead, I'm having trouble embracing it as a triumphant end. I wish I could explain it better. I've been soul-searching all week trying to figure it all out. But it just makes me sad at the end of the day. 

Last of all, but it must be said: Sharon Carter deserved better than this. Listen, I remain the first to eviscerate that weird romantic curveball in Civil War. It was a hot mess. But the same damn writers who wrote Endgame wrote that romance too, and they don't get to nope out of their own mistakes. Listen, I'm a fan of acknowledging when something didn't work! I am very pro how the Russos handled the failure of Bruce/Nat! But the thing I liked so much is that they breezed past it, but still allowed it to have been a thing that happened. That significant look in Infinity War was literally all I needed. That was a 'we know this was a misstep and we're calling the loss, but it still did happen and we can't ignore that completely, so we're allowing a diegetic reference to it and then closing the book on that.' Perfect! All I ever needed! Steve/Sharon as it was handled was thoroughly a mistake and absolutely should have been backtracked. But it definitely feels a little gross for Steve and Sharon to kiss and then for Sharon to never be seen or mentioned again. Not even once. All it needed was some side-reference in Infinity War about how Steve's life on the run had been too much to manage between them. That's it! Call it a loss and be done with it! But to completely cut Sharon out of everything just to gloss over the narrative stumble and smooth the way for Steve to get back with her aunt? Yikes. And I say this as someone who has absolutely zero attachment to Steve/Sharon. I appreciate that they didn't double down on that. But snapping Sharon out of existence from the entire MCU was a cowardly way to do it, and I judge them for it. 

Two final petty things: 

I am a little salty about them using "It's Been A Long Time" as the final song, which I understand is a bit irrational. The only reason I know that song is because of Winter Soldier, but man, it's always been a Steve/Bucky song. And I guess the Russos didn't see it that way, and hey, Winter Soldier is their movie, but it only makes sense if it's about Bucky, because in Winter Soldier, Steve has been hanging out with Peggy for a couple of years now, and the song takes place just before Bucky shows up. I know, I know. Shipper goggles are powerful. But I also know how to close-read a film, so. My perspective is probably skewed, but it's also not wrong. 

During that ending, I so, so hoped the Russos would just leave it up to interpretation. When Sam asks about the ring and Steve elects not to tell him about it, I sent a prayer up hoping that the movie would cut off at that. Of course it didn't, for fan service and heterosexual romance reasons, but I really wish it did, because of this: 95% of people would have understood that the ending was exactly what it turned out to be. But for the other 5% of us? For god's sake, dudes, give us that sliver of wiggle room. Let us headcanon what we wanna headcanon. I've always wished this, even for fandoms that I'm not in - fans are great at running with things if you just give them the slightest bit of room. Just let them have it. I've always thought that J.K. Rowling put "19 Years Later" into Harry Potter precisely so that people couldn't do this and they'd have to accept her version of the future, and frankly, I think it's why people have always hated that epilogue, even casual fans. Let us imagine the future. Give us hints, do whatever, but throw a bone to the fandoms out there and let us have some fun. I mean, yeah, we can still headcanon elements of that ending (and we certainly will), but it's still disappointing. Unsurprising, but disappointing. 

Time Travel Doesn’t Work

It just doesn’t, guys. Every movie that takes it on thinks it’s different. They’re all convinced that they have the solution. And they never do. It always, always breaks down. And yeah, that sucks! Time travel is super fun! But it just doesn’t hold up, and I’m tired of movies telling me they’ve cracked the code when they just haven’t. 

I really don't understand why they thought one throwaway line from Brulk was going to satisfy all the issues with time travel. I appreciated that Rhodey and Scott brought up all the other time travel movies that thought they had it down, but Brulk's brush-off was nonsensical. Yeah, if you go into the past, that becomes your future. Everyone gets that. But that doesn't protect the rest of it. Steve can go back in time and live out his future in another period. I 100% get that. But everyone he talks to - their paths will all change because they met him. Events will alter, timelines will branch off. It's a mess. Don't talk down to us like we just don't understand how it works. We understand that it doesn't work. Fuck off, Brulk.

I briefly thought they had a pretty good thing going, though, when they came up with the plan of returning the stones to the exact moments they took them. Honestly? That would have worked. That time travel storyline would have been clean and logical. They were almost there! But then they had to go and have Thanos and crew come to the present from 2014. And then it all breaks down. I don't get it! Are we just branching off another timeline, but in the original timeline, the world is still terrible? I like the twist that we get Gamora back through 2014 version showing up just cause I love Gamora, but it simply doesn't make sense. Ugh, the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. I similarly love Loki grabbing the Tesseract and bouncing because a) it's a very Loki thing to do and b) it gives us a vague but real chance of seeing him again. But it also doesn't work! If Thor doesn't bring Loki back to Asgard, all of Thor: The Dark World doesn't happen, which means present day Thor can't get the Aether, etc. etc., and fuck, is anyone else's mind spinning? Say it with me: TIME TRAVEL DOESN'T WORK. It's just exhausting. But they were there! They were almost there, to a place where it could have worked! We were so close! Oy. 

A Confession

Alright, I have to admit it. I was wrong about how much this movie would center on Steve and Tony’s relationship. I’m very glad I was wrong. I am pleased that the writers understood that there were more important relationships to focus on. There was still a healthy dose of Steve/Tony thrown at us, but it didn't supplant too much. So, I’ll allow that I was more worried than I needed to be (about that, at least). I’ll give you guys that, Russos and co. 

Final Thoughts

This has taken me so long and gotten so thoroughly out of control that I'm certain there were big things I was planning on talking about that I'm just totally forgetting now. But I just need to be done with this thing. I'm sure I'll write a lot more about this movie over the coming months, but for now, here are just a few more things.

SAM!CAP!!!!!!!!! It could only be this way. But I'm so, so happy that the MCU acknowledged it. I have always, always said that it needed to be Sam. That Sam was the only one who made sense, the only one who was really capable of taking up that mantle. But I still thought Bucky was the frontrunner because he's a fan-favourite pretty white boy, and you can never discount the odds in favor of that. But they did the right thing! I'm so glad. All hail Sam!Cap. 

Thor becoming one of the Guardians of the Galaxy was legit the only thing they could have done to make me interested in seeing another Guardians movie if Gamora isn't in it, so damn them. Damn them for hooking me when I thought I could get free. Fucking genius move, that. Presuming, of course, that Thor is actually going to be in the next one. If he isn't, I riot. MORE THOR ALL THE TIME. 

So where do we go from here? I assume there are going to be more Avengers movies, but how and when? Are we going to establish a new core team? Do we really need a team when Carol's around? It'll certainly be interesting. I don't know how long the MCU is going to be able to sustain all this, but man, as someone who takes an interest this kind of stuff, it sure is fascinating. 

Ok, so this whole post got super embarrassing. I set out to write a series of bullet points and instead ended up with a 10-page essay. It's truly unreadable, and I know that. I tried super hard to make the format bearable on tumblr, but such a thing is obviously impossible, so instead it's this. I genuinely expect no one to have gotten through all of this, but hopefully some of you have found bits and pieces that interested you, because I'd absolutely love to talk more about this movie. I've been stewing in my own thoughts all week, and I want to bring in other perspectives. So come join me in over-analytical hell! 

#avengers: endgame #avengers: endgame spoilers #marvel #this is very‚ humiliatingly long #feel free to skim #but here‚ have a stream of consciousness rant about all my thoughts on endgame #and come talk to me about this movie #i'm still trying to work out all my feelings and opinions #this is just the start #yikes @ me

[twitchesandstitches]

I have an idea for two new factions to play parts as antagonists, but I need suggestions since I’m sort of operating a bit outside my usual series and I don’t want them to become like super over-saturated with just a few specific series.

Opening up suggestions for characters for two other factions, and I really would appreciate it if you send in suggestions ASAP!

First group is the Ringers, a warlike faction that’s intended to be a lot more morally darker than the Cobalts and serve as ideological opponents to the fleet, though they have some ulterior motives that make what they do reasonable, if not sympathetic at all. Their goal is to plunge the multiverse into endless war and conflict, in a fashion similar to Talon from Overwatch; they believe that warfare and conflict force people to evolve and become better people, and also seem to know something about an upcoming disaster or terrible shift in the multiverse that will make it necessary for people to be hardened in order to survive it.

Their overall themes include: Conflict Is Good, War as desirable or natural (with possible social darwinism), the craving of bloodshed and warfare in general, frowning upon idealism and notions of honor, building character through strife, and in terms of moral alignment, being a lighter shade of black; they’re not pure evil (for the most part, and those that are may be tolerated) and they’re better than the uncertain forces they have foreseen, but to those affected by their rampages and plots, but not by much.

Generally they go about stirring up conflict or engaging others in massive battles, attempting to attack people and force them to build alliances or exaggerate rivalries, and are usually plotting to find some relic or secret to do the one thing to make everyone start fighting.

Alternatively, they may be out to conquer the multiverse, or much of it as they can, in order to safeguard it from this unknown threat, and have a mentality that only they have the authority to do so and the will to do it. They may also have different sub-factions with different views, but in the end it comes down to the same methods.

I have some characters in mind, and may switch around others from various factions if they might fit better here, but i mainly need more Big Lady characters. Generally I would appreciate suggestions from some of the following fandoms: Marvel, Disney, DC, RPG-style games I can update for the setting, but I’m good for stuff I’m not familiar with. Just suggest whoever and I’ll see if they fit!

Some possible characters for this group of endless battle: Javik from Mass Effect, with elements of Doomfist from Overwatch (giant gauntlet that amplifies powers, the same motive, and goals). Azula from the Avatarverse, in full Evil Overlord lady mode, and perhaps Kuvira from Legend of Korra as a more straightforward warlord queen?

Airachnid from Transformers Prime, with characteristics of her IDW incarnation; less sadistic and more experiment-minded, and interested in psychological experiments on a vast scale. Also the Combaticons, all female here, as rough and tough soldiers that are like anti-Dinobots.

Maleficent from Disney, playing up her fae aspects to the full; she may have little interest in the actual purpose behind a multiverse of endless war, but is going with it for her own plans or amusement. Depends on how the Disney stuff interacts with this? She might be a dark goddess of magic backing them, too

The Condesce/Meenah Peixes, from Homestuck. In this continuity she was originally doing her endless war against all the multiverse in an attempt to build a homeland for the trolls, after their lost their homeworld of Beforus. After eons of endless war, she’s become incredibly bloodthirsty and perhaps a little addicted to slaughter, and may be losing track of her original goal in favor of slaking her bloodlust. (Alternatively, I may choose to put her into a criminal organization as part of the Midnight Crew and other groups that are criminals but not, y’know, total bastards. Depends on whether I want to play up her canon traits, or soften them.)

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka from Warhammer 40k: he’s the embodiment of ‘orcs as warlike brutes’, how could i not?? Maybe a girl version for Ork Amazon fun?

Yellow Diamond: I previously implied that she, White and Blue were captives of Megatron and mere jewelery for him, but I might have it that she has become freed and joined up with these guys, embittered and coming to believe in their cause, desperate as she is to save her people.

Hel from Marvel, but with more traits of her mythical inspiration (perhaps she shifts between two extremes, one cold but fair, the other rather playfully malicious and hungry for death), acting as a divine backer for them?

General demony characters associated with battle and warfare: no specifics here at the moment, but characters that fit this motif would be good

In general, blood knight-types, femme fatales that can be read as warriors, and anyone that has a big character emphasis on strength would fit well here!

The second faction is a variant on the Suicide Squad/TAsk Force X from DC; an elite group of agents working on behalf of mysterious benefactors. Their true numbers are in the millions, but this refers specifically to a squad that is a recurring set of characters. They are not normally antagonistic, though their goals may bring them into conflict with the Fleet, and certainly they don't like the militant guys up there and the Cobalts fight with them….. A Lot.

This task force consists exclusively of anti-heroes, reformed villains, and characters who were once straight up pure bad but have since reformed. They are people looking for a chance to find a new life, atone for their misdeeds, or simply are looking for a better cause and were never bad to begin with.

They are run by Amanda Waller of DC, who may either be part of, or answer to, a governing assembly of big multiversal figures trying to bring some stability to the cosmos. They might also have divine backing; some of their agents are people who are definitely dead, but are still looking for a second chance.

Some possible members:

Reaper/Gabriel Reyes from Overwatch, playing up both his ghostly qualities and the idea that he is a double agent. Most likely the leader and role model for them, and is a straight up ‘anti hero that kills bad guys who deserve it’ character here, rather than the vengeful wraith he is in canon at present.

Blue Diamond: Assuming that its the same case with Yellow, she’s come to regret what she has enabled over the eons and come to conclude that Pink/Rose Quartz had been right all along. Note that her true form is likely planet-sized here. A good chunk of her loyal gems may attend as the squad’s brute muscle.

Shockwave: From Cybertron, mostly using his IDW characterization. Specifically, this is Senator Shockwave. Once this famously cold, heartless and logical ‘Con was a hopeful idealist until the corrupt leaders of his homeworld took his face, his hands, and his ability to feel anything but cold logic. Following recent events, though, his mind has been freed, and he is in shock at millions of years of horrifying cruelty, and he would like nothing better than tho put his scientific acumen to work helping the multiverse.

Bucky Barnes/The White Wolf: He’s Wallers’ attendant, representative in the squad, and something of a political officer, muddled by his tendency to be everyone’s obnoxious brother.

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy: A two-for-one deal, both of them usually giant ladies or even a full on fusion, and their canon tendency to become better people by being around each other has blossomed into full on attempts to go Good. Harley’s actual job is to be an on-team psychiatrist, while Ivy has transformed into a full on plant monster lady who sees it as her job to restore devastated worlds to full health again.

Lust, from Fullmetal Alchemist. Honestly undecided if she belongs here or with the warmonger faction; either way, she is mostly akin to the canon Lust from the manga and Brotherhood, but with the motivations of her first anime counterpart. Big, busty and largely embodying bloodlust, she has somehow incorporated most of her fellow homunculi and gained their powers, most obviously Pride and Gluttony, becoming absolutely ravenous and death to all that face her, and she is called in to devour entire planets and absorb their souls if there is no other way to save them from otherwise certain doom. They can then be extracted from her and given new bodies at some later date.

Giganta, from DC. Drawing on the more benign or ‘hey, being a baddie is just a job, y’know?’ takes of her. With a bit of the friendly valley girl vibes she had in the DCU!

Slade Wilson/Deathstroke and DEadpool: Considered as one unit here because this version of Deadpool is a flawed clone of Slade, who was a highly skilled super soldier for hire. The squad dealt with Deadpool’s frustrated actions his makers forced him to do, and subsequently recruited both Slade and Deadpool into their ranks, with the latter being treated as an obnoxious little brother to Slade. This Slade is heavily based on his Arrowverse actor, and Deadpool looks like a melted version thereof.

Any additional characters are, again, highly encouraged! Generally I’m looking for characters who were anti-heroes or reluctant villains at best (think Mr. Freeze types; ones that felt they had no choice and they made you REAl SAD) or you could see them regretting what they did and wanting to atone for it.

Generally speaking, these guys aren’t antagonists except in the most genuine sense; they might have opposing goals to the fleet, but they are more likely allies than not. Occasionally their purposes might run counter and a fight starts, and they should ideally be so skilled as to pose a serious threat to even the most extreme numbers.

I’m rather lacking in Sexy Lady-Types for this faction, so I especially welcome suggestions on that score. Send ‘em in, please!

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #crossthicc AU #this was originally drafted before i fully realized the first of these factions #so some of this is a bit outdated

[wengoku]

Why do you hate Reaper76? From what I can tell from others, the main issue is that it's abusive (even though most fan art is either set when they were best friends, or at a time when they've already made up), it has a lot of stereotypical kinky yaoi fan art (guess what, that happens with literally EVERY gay ship. You're precious Doomfist/Reaper pairing will get the same treatment) and that its a white guy with a Hispanic guy, because apparently mixing races is bad.

 anon, lemme tell you, that i used to be the BIGGEST r76 shipper. like if you look through my blog, the VERY first post on my blog is r76. ive even written some fics for them, though i dont share my ao3 atm. i starting shipping it around the same time i got the game, aka, july of last year. i was attracted to the ship mostly because of gabriel, i’ll admit-- i interpret him as afrolatinx and as a black person, i latched onto him the same way i’ve latched onto lucio and black widow.

i hate the ship because it took until about halloween for the racists in the fandom to drive me out. 

i loved the ship SO much that i’d check the ao3 for it every single night, and that was the literal downfall. i checked it every night and so i PERSONALLY watched as more and more racist, stereotyping fics appeared, over and over-- fics that fetishized gabrel and his race, fics that made gabriel larger and meaner and scarier than jack, fics that made gabriel out to BE an abuser towards jack, or fics where gabriel was a dog that existed just to make jack happy. fics where gabriel had no characterization other than being jacks happiness or misery-- fics that portrayed jack as immediately likeable (because hes white) and fics that portrayed gabriel as immediately intimidating (because hes brown). fics that waxed poetry about jacks pale skin and cornflower blue eyes, but only mentioned gabriels looks to point out his thick thighs or massive cock. fics where gabriel straight up kidnapped jack and raped him. im not making any of these up. these are all fics i saw in the tag that distressed me, over and over again, because i was just a black kid that wanted nice content of a ship with a character i could personally relate to. 

i looked on tumblr, and lo and behold, i saw the same thing! gabriel towering over jack (when theyre the same height), gabriel being scary, gabriel being accused and abused and demonized, “sexy thighs” gabriel and nothing else, meta (i used to love reading meta-- now i cant stand overwatch meta regarding the old soldiers at all) that sympathized with jack and portrayed gabriel as a jealous demon who deserved to die and is obsessed with jack. i followed blogs, and was immediately bombarded with white washed art, and then excusing of the whitewashing. 

i was fresh out of anime fandom-- overwatch is the first gaming fandom ive ever been in and also my first fandom where there’s so many poc. i think r76 was one of my (if not the first) interracial ships where one of the characters was darker skinned. i became more and more jaded, every single time i opened ao3 or went into the tag. i know it sound silly, because its not real, but there was a time when i genuinely broke down into tears because i couldnt stand how gabriel was treated. id seen the “kinky yaoi” dynamic with mlm ships before, and this was WHOLLY magnified. 

its not just because its “a white guy with a hispanic guy”. thats not my issue at all? i used to really love jack, too? i wrote aus and rped r76 with my friends? and its not just that mixing races is bad, because a black man and an afrolatinx man is an interracial ship too? completely ignoring all of my other interracial ships?

i hate r76 because very few people could bother to treat gabriel with even ONE shred of the respect they afforded to jack. i hate it because i was literally driven away by the blatant, overreaching racism. i hate it because of all the times gabriel was “the dark man” or “the latino” in fics because you’d NEVER call jack “the pale man” or “the caucasian”. i hate it because yall motherfuckers dont know how to act.   

can i say that every r76 shipper is bad? no, of course not. but until the r76 community puts itself together and addresses the racists and harmful stereotypes that it harbors, then yeah, i fucking hate it. and no, im not gonna say, “not all r76 shippers”. this is the last time im answering an ask like this and if you wanna try to change my mind or genuinely talk to me about it, then you better PM me or message me off anon. 

and btw? i know that doomfist/reaper might end up with some bad apples, but i have more faith in a ship that was born by a majority BLACK (because yes, the first shippers i saw including myself, are black, or mostly poc) fandom because i know that we’re less likely to apply harmful disgusting stereotypes to ourselves. so if youre feeling butthurt about “doomper” and people having fun, then maybe consider doing what ive had to do for months-- suck it up. 

#oli.msg #taggng this for the next time i get an ask like this #i didnt come out the fucking womb hating r76 #i hate it because people dont know how to NOT mistreat poc #and if anybody comments on this post with some dumbass shit then youre getting blocked #Anonymous

[holy-shit-dangan-ronpa]

Boys Squad!

Okay, so I got a really cute idea for the Boys Squad fic. It’s cute, so I’m writing it, damnit.

As always, characterization is probably off because today is 1/9/17, and NDRV3 releases in Japan on 1/12/17. Nonetheless, please enjoy!

“U-Um… It’s because…” Iruma sputtered, her weaker persona fronting. She twitched slightly, until a reasuring hand from Akamatsu grasped her shoulder.

“I don’t quite know what you need me for, but if you wanted to ‘borrow’ me or whatever, that’s fine.”

It seemed that was all it took for Iruma to revert to normal.

“HYAHYAHYAHYA! Then come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do, Bakamatsu!” The inventor yelled, hands now on her hips. With a forceful arm, she grabbed the pianist by the ahoge, dragging her off.

“That looks kinda gay, y’know,” Momota mutters as the two walk off. There were now just four students remaining in the dining hall - Momota, Saihara, Ki-bo, and Ouma.

“You say that a lot, Momota-kun, what does that mean?” The robot asks. He’s sitting behind him next to the wall, since his charging plug is incredibly short.

“Huh? Ki-bo doesn’t know what gay means?” Ouma snickers.

“No, I do not, and I’d like an explanation,” the robot says politely, looking up at the ruler, who had now turned around to face him.

“Here, let me show you!” the ruler giggles, standing up suddenly.

Saihara stands up after him, walking towards him. “Please don’t do what I think you’re doing…“ he mutters, running to the other side of the table to stop him.

It’s too late, he thinks, as Ouma kneels down besides Kiibo and puts his hand in-

Oh. He’s just holding Ki-bo’s hand.

“Now squeeze my hand back.”

“Okay.”

“N-Not that tight!”

“I apologize.”

Saihara looks away, fixing his hat.

“See, Kiibored, that’s gay!” Ouma chirps, giving an innocent smile.

“When two people hold hands, it’s gay?” Ki-bo asks, perplexed. “But Iruma-san and Akamatsu-san weren’t holding hands.”

“You’re bad at explaining things,” Momota comments, leaning back on his chair and putting his feet on the table.

“Then what is ‘gay’, Momota-kun?” Ki-bo asks. Everyone just kind of giggles at how stupid the question sounds, and the robot pouts.

“Gay’s when like… Two people of the same gender get close ‘n stuff. Do all the normal romance-y shit. Maybe the sexy shit if they want.”

“So gay is another term for a homosexual relationship?”

“Yeah…” Saihara mutters.

“Nee, Saihara-chan, why’d you try to stop me earlier?” the ruler asks, turning around. He doesn’t let go of Ki-bo’s hand, so the robot sputters again.

“Well, I thought-”

“Saihara-chan has a dirty mind!” Ouma snickers, standing up and letting go of Ki-bo’s hand as he does.

“N-No, I’m not-”

“Say, Saihara-chan, do you have a dick? You’re a guy, you-”

Momota slaps him on the back, and he almost falls over.

“Come on, give it a break,” the astronaut mumbles. Ouma coughs for a minute, before asking the group another question.

“Kiibored’s hand is realy cold… say, what do you guys do when you get cold?”

“I exercise. Always works,” Momota says, flexing his arm. Absolutely no one is impressed.

“While I can sense changes in the air, they don’t prohibit me from functioning, so I tend to ignore them,” the robot answers indifferently.

“I usually get in bed with a good book or movie, with a few blankets…”

“Saihara-chan, that’s a great idea!”

“…Huh?”

Ouma stands on the table, spreading his arms wide. “We’re going to go snuggle together!”

“None of us agreed to that, Ouma-kun,” Ki-bo retorts, crossing his arms.

“Well, who would disagree to a proposition proposed by the Ultimate Supreme Ruler?”

“Me.”

“Me too.”

“I as well.”

Ouma sticks his tongue out angrily. “You guys are no fun at all! I say we snuggle, or I’m getting my followers to kill you the minute we get out of here!”

“P-Please don’t kill me! I will do as you ask, My Lord!” Ki-bo yelps, bending in a right angle as he bows.

Saihara and Momota exchange a glance.

“Guess we’ve got no choice, huh?” the taller mumbless, and the detective nods his head.

“…Let’s get this over with.”

“Okay!” Ouma screeches jubilantly, subcontiously grabbing the detective’s arm as he drags him through the corridor.

“… Holy shit, dude…” are the first words to come out of Momota’s mouth as he enters the room. The bed is huge, definitely enough to fit all four of them.

Ki-bo sticks his plug in the corner, and turns on the television with the remote. “…Be warned, Ouma-kun doesn’t have the best selection of programs.”

Saihara finds himself standing to the side. Ouma and Momota allow themselves to go down to t-shirts, while Ki-bo aimlessly flicks through the mediocre TV channels Ouma has available. As Ouma and Momota start talking about jackets, (he can’t bother to listen to them, he’s never had much of a fashion sense,) he can’t help but smile just a little. Ouma’s room is kinda dark with the exception of the television and Ki-bo’s collar, but when he sees his classmates able to interact with each other, it makes him a little bit happier.

“Saihara-chan! Get in bed with me!” the ruler asks him. He knows it’s just for a sleepover sort of thing, but the way he phrased it makes his face light up instantaneously.

The way Ouma pouts and looks at him with those sparkling eyes almost gets him. He slides back on his feet, careful not to bump into a dresser as the ruler blinks at him cutely. Momota is already comfortable underneath the covers, as Ki-bo shrugs, unable to find a good T.V. station. Ouma grunts, hastily stomping away and picking a movie out of a neatly aranged pile, (he vows to kill Toujou and her stupid daily cleaning) and pops it in the DVD player. He jumps on the bed, but not before daintily placing his scarf before Saihara’s feet. Ki-bo finds himself to Momota’s left, on the edge of the bed near where Saihara is standing.

“I-I’ll be going, I’m really not set to be here,” the detective mutters, taking a step forward.

Just as planned, he slips, face landing on the bed. The robot drags him onto the bed, which causes the blanket to scrunch, but it doesn’t seem like anyone cares.

“Let’s just relax, Saihara-kun,” the robot suggests, as Saihara sighs. Ki-bo scoots to the left, so that the detective can get in between him and Momota. Saihara awkwardly shimmies between the two. Momota throws the detective’s hat across the room, ruffling a hand in his hair as the movie starts. The robot gives Saihara’s left hand a squeeze.

It’s comfortable.

The movie is some kid’s movie. It’s boring him to tears. He yawns every few minutes, only to be sometimes shaken up by Momota’s laughter. He doesn’t understand the jokes, but he appreciates that Momota can.

As the colorful quest continues onscreen, Saihara can barely keep his eyes open. He snuggles deeper into the pillow. Ki-bo doesn’t let go of his hand.

“Saihara-chan, you can sleep here if you want,” Ouma whispers. His face shines of yellow, then green, as the movie continues along without him. Ouma really is pale, he thinks.

“Thank you…” Saihara mutters, closing his eyes. A few minutes later, and he’s out like a light.

The movie nears its conclusion as Momota turns to him.

“That was a pretty shitty movie. Why’d ya play it?” he asks, stretching his arms.

“I wanted to see if I could make any of you guys fall asleep. Two outta three, not bad~” Ouma giggles. Momota rolls his eyes.

Ouma climbs over top of him, and pets Saihara’s head. He dances his fingers across the detective’s forehead, having them walk a path down his nose.

“Saihara-chan’s a heavy sleeper~”

Momota doesn’t bother answering, lifting the blankets as he adjusts himself. Ouma sees something out of the corner of his eye.

“Wait.”

The ruler lifts the blanket up.

“Hey! No fair! How come Saihara-chan gets to hold Ki-bo’s hand and I don’t!”

Momota lifts his head.

“Just move him over and take his other hand.“

“Nishishi… Great idea!” Ouma declares, crawling over his friends. Ouma sets himself down on Ki-bo’s left side, and hold’s the robot’s arm tight in his grasp. He falls asleep even faster than Saihara, snoring loudly.

Momota smiles. He could use some sleep too. He places his head on the pillow, fluttering his eyes shut.

As arms circle him, he opens them up. Saihara’s turned away from Ki-bo, and he’s now getting spooned.

But Saihara was cute. So in the end, he didn’t really mind.

“Good night, Saishuu.”

#ndrv3 #fanmade #ndrv3 fanmade #ndrv3 boys squad #fanfic #meghan's fanfics #kaito momota #shuuichi saihara #kiibo #kokichi ouma #meghan's fics

[sasusakuotpuniverse]

Why I think Sakura is a Feminist Character

The thing about Sakura is that the style Kishimoto wrote her character in subverted the heroine trope, which is especially prevalent in action genre media. We all know that superhero/secret agent/sci-fi/fantasy action movie, book, or comic. It’s the typical overcoming the monster, quest, or voyage and return story plots. The male protagonist is your average guy, nothing special - until he meets super hot, sexy mysterious woman who saves his ass from this newly discovered evil the protagonist encounters. She is so strong, smart, witty, etc. She is a combat master in judo, has great aim with her weapons, and/or supernatural powers that dazzles our hero. He eventually enlists in the Forces of Good to battle the evil because the World as We Know It will be destroyed. He trains under the heroine. He slowly becomes stronger than our heroine after only a faction of the time the heroine has trained for. She falls in love with our hero and suddenly is now a damsel in distress. 

THEME: Love is our heroine’s downfall. She becomes weaker because of it.

Then there’s the other kind of heroine - the teen girl in the young adult sci-fi/fantasy genre. She, like our male hero, discovers an evil foe beyond the likes of anything she could ever have imagined. The Forces of Good realize that she has innate abilities that could help defeat their enemy and save the world. She meets Tall, Dark, Hot, Mysterious, and Brooding - her love interest. Her abilities wax and wane in relation to his. Either she is weaker than him or equally strong. He loves her more than the sun, moon, and stars, though at first he resists for some idiotic reason. She is constantly thinking about him. Her reason for fighting is because of the Big Picture or for some touching, profound notion or memory - or because, well, she just has to. A/N: This is a relatively common trope for YA fiction, particularly apocalyptic and/or oppressive government in theme.

THEME: Love ties into our heroine’s development maturity-wise, but it doesn’t give her her power. She does not fight for the sake of love, but it overshadows her potential.

What Kishimoto does is characterize Sakura in such a way that her love for her companions is her source of strength, much like Naruto. Her love for Sasuke is a catalyst for her development. It’s her constant reminder of WHY she needs to be stronger - so she and Naruto can bring him back. Together. She actively works on becoming level with her comrades. She despises the thought of losing easily. She curses at her shortcomings. And unlike the action movie heroine, she isn’t objectified or there for sexual appeal. 

In contrast to many young adult novel heroines, she embraces her femininity. She likes the color pink, happily takes care of her body and grooms it within reason, enjoys flowers, and celebrates her body with flattering clothes. Her profession is in the medical field, yet this isn’t necessarily feminine. Her proficiency/genius in the field doesn’t designate her solely as caretaker, though this is still an aspect of her character that is just as important. Her monstrous brute strength, which is stereotypically a masculine trait prided by male heroes, balances and even adds an element of diversity to her. (She’s got brains and brawn). Her quick temper, also a cliche masculine trait, is a contrast to her compassionate nature. Her combat clothes are practical and well-suited to her fighting style and medical profession. Her hair is kept short for easy maintenance, as well as mobility and evasion. She is quick, nimble, physically strong, intelligent, temperamental, caring, logical, impulsive, and most of all, human. 

Kishimoto has described Sakura as probably the most human character in the series for a reason. Her actions and thoughts are sometimes irrational, but have good intent. Her personality traits described above are on opposite sides of the spectrum - because her character is exceptionally dynamic. Her love for Sasuke may be well a large motivational factor in her training and growth, but this is eclipsed by her own reasons - since from the beginning of the academy days, she’s wanted to be her own person. In other words, Sasuke doesn’t make Sakura stronger. He rather inspires her. Perhaps her love for him is irrational, but since when is this a factor in love? Kakashi states that we don’t need a reason to love. She explicitly thinks solely about Sasuke himself and her love for him maybe somewhere above 10 times total in a 700 chapter manga, and even that might be pushing it. Most of these moments largely consist of her missing him as a person and worrying for his well-being and especially his happiness. This is almost exactly Naruto’s concerns in regards to Sasuke, but unlike Sakura, these thoughts are a prominent theme of the manga - they are constantly mentioned with flashbacks to boot. Both Sakura and Naruto wanted to save Sasuke by killing and dying with him.

Sakura knows that the likelihood of Sasuke reciprocating romantic feelings is dismal at best or so she believes. She’s constantly reminding herself of this, especially in part 2, i.e. her confrontation with Sasuke with the intent to kill him, and her second confession to him in an attempt to stop him from fighting Naruto. During the battle against Madara, Sakura charges forward as a decoy and is stopped by Madara’s invisible clone and effectively skewered by the real Madara’s sword. Afterwards, as she is held by Naruto, she glances at Sasuke, who looks unaffected as usual. She believes he doesn’t care about her at all, which would be painful considering just how much she cares for him, and this speaking not strictly romantically, but as a person, an old comrade, or equal. In effect, Sakura believes Sasuke looks down on her, is uninterested in her well-being, and holds no respect for her. She is convincing herself of this because there are no obvious signs that he even feels a fraction of what she feels. 

I won’t go in depth here about this, but there are many very good comprehensive analyses of Sasuke’s body language, words, and actions that actually make sense and ultimately confirm that he cared deeply for Sakura. Sasuke was never a man of many words or a man of outspoken physical affection either. It would only make sense that his reactions were just as subtle as the rest of him is. It would also actually discredit Sakura as a character in such analysis in regards to romantic dynamics. If Sasuke were the doting boyfriend seen in most of today’s YA books, not only would it be out of character, but Sasuke would be much more heavily involved in her life - readers would see Sasuke and Sakura, not just Sakura, or just Sasuke even, for that matter. Their relationship would not be as complex as we’ve seen in Gaiden. Because of the lack of understanding and miscommunication seen in part 1 and 2, they must learn to navigate and grow in the relationship not just as partners, but also as people. In essence, perhaps a more realistic and healthier reflection on relationships.

Lastly, but most definitely not least, Sakura raises her daughter alone without resentment for Sasuke, but rather thinks only of his love for his family, Sakura and Sarada, and Sakura and Sarada’s love for him. She misses him and regrets his absence with a quiet longing and that he’s the only one who could do the mission. There is no bitterness, but a love waiting to welcome him home. First, the rarity of a powerful, main couple having a girl for their first and only child is a large contrast to the vast majority of classic literature/stereotypes. In these cases, an infamous man almost always breeds an even stronger son, i.e. Dragon Ball Z, Zeus and Heracles, Prison Break, Odin and Thor (from ancient Norse paganism), etc. Female protagonists tend to have sons, most likely because the family name will continue to the next generation or the bias for men as heroes, i.e. Jane Eyre, Bleach, Naruto (Hinata gives birth to Boruto as the oldest child and only son), Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. Additionally, children of whichever gender will tend to carry on their father’s legacy, such as Hunger Games, Lion King, Superman, Raven (from Teen Titans), etc. However, Sarada is born of Sakura and Sasuke as their first and only daughter. While she inherits her father’s Sharingan, her true display of strength in the end against the army of Shins in Gaiden is the inheritance of her mother - precise chakra control in the manifestation of brute strength, Sakura’s signature style. The story itself left no doubt that she was an Uchiha and would activate the Sharingan. The true question was of Sarada learning the love/power of her mother and using it in a bout of desperation - another typical theme for heroes unlocking their powers/legacies inherited from their fathers.

To conclude -

THEME: Love is the heroine’s strength and weakness. It enables and discourages her in her actions and motivation. Her determination and loyalty stems from it. She becomes more three-dimensional because of it and more relatable as a character. 

#pro Sakura #Naruto #sasusaku #ss #long text post #feminism #feminist analysis #Naruto Manga

[touchmyspinebookreviews]

I would like to thank NetGalley and the authors for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I appreciate this opportunity and all views are my own.

You can buy any of these novels through Amazon! *I have to disclose that I am an Amazon Affiliate so any purchase bought through the following Amazon link will give me a small percentage of you chose to purchase via Amazon!😀*

Click here for the Amazon website!

Click here for Amazon UK website!💖

To check out via Barnes & Noble

 A continuation of USA TODAY bestselling author Leonard Goldberg’s The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Treason is a new intriguing locked room mystery for Joanna and the Watsons to solve.

The following case has not previously been disclosed to the public due to the sensitive information on foreign affairs. All those involved were previously bound by the Official Secrets Act. With the passage of time and the onset of the Great War, these impediments have been removed and the story can now be safely told.

When an executed original of a secret treaty between England and France, known as the French Treaty, is stolen from the country estate of Lord Halifax, Scotland Yard asks Joanna, Dr. John Watson, Jr., and Dr. John Watson, Sr. to use their keen detective skills to participate in the hunt for the missing treaty. As the government becomes more restless to find the missing document and traditional investigative means fail to turn up the culprit, Joanna is forced to devise a clever plan to trap the thief and recover the missing treaty.

Told from the point of view of Dr. John Watson, Jr. in a style similar to the original Sherlock Holmes stories, A Study in Treason is based partly on facts in our world and partly on the facts left to us by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Full of excitement and intrigue, this mystery is sure to be enjoyed by fans of Sherlock Holmes as well as the works of Laurie R. King and Charles Finch.

Wow, I absolutely just love this series now!😍 Well I just read this book which is the second one but I fell in love and it has all the awesome Sherlock Holmes Feels! I was so excited when I received an email alerting me that I was granted a wish from the publishers! St. Martin’s Press, you guys rock!😉💜📚 This story captivated my heart because Joanna is just like her father, Sherlock. I also loved the aspect of having Dr. Watson and his son part of the team as well. They make a great team and had me guessing from the very beginning how things would conclude. The characters were fantastic in my opinion and I can’t wait to read the first in the series now! The mystery was solid and I thought I could use my skills for this book after figuring out Ruth Ware’s latest novel from the beginning chapters but I have to admit that the ending surprised me and there was quite the twists that I won’t soon forget. I read this novel within a day and was scrolling through pages as fast as I possibly could. I definitely recommend this book to Sherlock fans and mystery lovers alike!

They call her Crazy Anna.

Anna Flint won’t shake your hand. She collects tin cans. She cleans her cubicle at work with Lysol several times a day. But Anna doesn’t care that they call her crazy. She’s absolutely satisfied with her life of perfect organization, cleanliness, and most of all, solitude.

Matt Harper likes Anna Flint. He likes that she’s the smartest person he knows and he likes her big blue eyes. He doesn’t even mind her can collection. In fact, he pretty much likes everything about Anna. As his body and his world are falling apart, she still manages to make him happy.

Matt is the only person Anna has ever wanted to be close to. But how can she go on a date with him if the thought of dinner at a restaurant fills her with terror? How can she ever kiss the man she loves if she can’t even touch him?

Maybe it’s time to stop being Crazy Anna. If only she could.

I was CRAZY about this book! At first I was unsure how I felt about the characterization, especially with Matt. I’m going to be honest, I thought he was a PIG! I mean he rated girls by numbers but this was just at first sight and there was so much more depth to this story and his character than I could ever expect. The author delivers a twist with the characters that was completely unexpected but made this love story more unique and beautiful that warmed my heart and wrenched it at the same time. Anna’s character was so easy to relate to;. Everyone just disregarded her as “Crazy Anna”, but there was so much more to her story that will captivate you and keep the readers’ glued to the screen or pages or whatever have you, I have battled a severe mental illness my whole life and I could completely relate to Anna’s emotions and her characterization. The author describes the symptoms and effects of her mental illness perfectly. I actually have been disappointed by a lot of romances that I have read lately but this one went above and beyond. The story gave me a whirlwind of emotions plus delivered a twist that made the story hold more depth than the average love story. I wish that the author went a little bit more into Anna’s past to explain what set her off but I know there is a sequel and I just can’t wait I had happy tears at the end of this story and was completely attached to both of the main characters. Matt and Anna are fantastic characters and their story shows how hard life can be but how we can find beauty in the dark places.

Old West ghost towns are as American as apple pie. So what better place to sponsor a pie-eating contest than the Bar X, a fake ghost town available for exclusive private events on the edge of Silicon Valley. Valentine Harris is providing the pies, hoping to boost business for her struggling Pie Town shop and become a regular supplier for the Bar X. 

But no sooner does she arrive in town than a stray bullet explodes the cherry pie in her hands. And the delicious dessert is not the only victim. Val finds the Bar X bartender shot dead in an alley. Egged on by her flaky friend and pie crust specialist, Charlene, Val aims to draw out the shooter. But solving a real murder in a fake ghost town won’t be easy as pie. And if Val doesn’t watch her back, her pies won’t be the only thing filled full of lead . . .

I absolutely loved this book just like the first in the series!!!😍 I totally #fangirl over this series! Not only do I just love Charlene’s never-ending humorous behavior! I am totally jealous that a woman in her 70-80s can have that much fun sleuthing around and I can’t! Man, responsibilities!😤 This was a great mystery, had a good plot and I wasn’t expecting the ending! I love this series because there is no insta-love or anything like that just fun and sleuthing. I highly recommend this series!

Newly single mother Stevie Lewis divides her time between raising Charlie, running a store with her best friend, and avoiding the meetings of her mother’s Beaufort Historic Society. Although her life has its challenges, it’s altogether average. Just the way she likes it.

When Vanessa, a ruthless dark witch, launches an attack against young Charlie, Stevie’s simple life derails, and her long-dormant powers awaken. A 300-year-old secret is exposed, revealing her destiny to one day rule the clandestine community of witches who hide in plain sight.  

Now she must master her own magical powers before it’s too late. Because Vanessa’s on the warpath, and only Stevie can stop her.

Wow, what a fun start to a series! I thought this book was great and loved the characters it was definitely something different to enjoy on a relaxing day! I recommend checking this one out.😀🧚‍♀️❤📚

Food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell will be cooking alongside top chefs at a cookbook author’s party. But a killer plans to ruin her appetite . . . 

When Hayley’s idol, cookbook author and TV personality Penelope Janice, invites her to participate in a Fourth of July celebrity cook-off at her seaside estate in Seal Harbor, Maine, Hayley couldn’t be more flattered. She just hopes she can measure up. With a who’s who of famous chefs whipping up their signature dishes, this holiday weekend has all the ingredients for a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience.

Instead, Hayley gets food poisoning her first night and thinks she overhears two people cooking up a murder plot. The next morning, a body is found at the bottom of a cliff. Tragic accident or foul play? To solve a real cliffhanger, Hayley will need to uncover some simmering secrets–before a killer boils over again . . .

This was a fun cozy novel and was a sure Sunday afternoon delight! I love reading books that involve books in some way or fashion. I loved the characters and the plot. I love pretty much all the Cozies Kensington Books publishes and they picked another fantastic one with this one! Highly recommended novel. I can’t wait to see what the author comes out with next!

Rissa

Five years ago, I did something impulsive. I turned myself into a cliche when I decided to be spontaneous and hopped in my car and took off to Vegas. I had no idea that decision would come back to haunt me. Now, I am a super star, engaged to a rock star, and have everything I could ever want. Until my world implodes around me and I find myself running back to where it all began. 

Cole 

Five years ago, the woman of my dreams walked into my club. And as quickly as she entered, she fled. All I was left with were memories and a piece of paper. I searched everywhere for the girl who starred in all of my wildest fantasies, but it wasn’t until her life got turned upside down that she came barreling back into mine with more complications then I could have dreamed. I fell for her, hard. What she doesn’t know is I have a secret that could very well tear us apart.

This novel was fun, sexy, filled with laughs and made my day! I really loved this book, the characters were fun and it was just the read I was looking for! Highly recommend!😁

  Hey lovelies! I am working on catching up on my reviews and am waiting to hear back from tech support about how slow my site has been and my image issues I have been having! I hope everyone is doing fantastic! Tomorrow is my 30th birthday…  Oh no! I am trying to hide from it and the impending doom that is doomed to happen on it such as the first of month bills and the fact that I have gray hair! Ughhhh!!! Fudge the gray hair and hope you guys have a great day because you guys rock!

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An Array Of Book Reviews For Your Pleasure!💖 I would like to thank NetGalley and the authors for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

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[tangledupincolor]

Only You

There are a few songs that my father always used to play in the car. He didn’t drive my sister and me much—that was my mother’s job, along with basically everything else. But when we were in the car with him, he would always play the same CD, and those tunes in that particular order grew very familiar. I continued to hear some of these songs after I left home (among them are ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac and ‘Sexy Boy’ by Air). But there’s one that I’m fairly certain I didn’t hear for at least 12 years. That song is ‘Only You’ by Yazoo.

When I finally did hear it, my arms froze and I felt adrenaline prickle on my face and neck. I was sitting on the bus, absentmindedly listening to an episode of This American Life, and some producer for some reason decided to play a fifteen second clip of this song between acts. Then it happened: without my permission, I was caught in memories of my past like a fly stuck in terrible, delicious honey. I missed my stop on the bus and proceeded to listen to the song, in its entirety, fifteen times back to back.

Now, I think it’s important that I mention something: this is not an excellent song. It’s not even a great song. The three-minute long ‘Only You’ features a repetition of staggered synth pop scales and lines like “Looking from the window above, it’s like a story of love” and “Wonder if you understand, it’s just the touch of your hand.”

But even to someone (me) who sort of considers herself a music snob, none of this mattered. The minute I got to work, I turned on my computer and learned everything I could about the song and the band that made it.

The creators of ‘Only You’ aren’t a band so much as they are duo. Vincent Clarke wrote the song and Alison Moyet sang it. They formed their duo, Yazoo, after Moyet placed an ad in a music magazine in 1981 looking for a musician to work with. The crazy thing is that Moyet and Clarke actually grew up in the same small town in Basildon, England. They even attended the same music school when they were eleven. But they didn’t meet until Clarke answered the ad, and he was the only one who did.

I spent a while looking a photos of Clarke and Moyet. They were a bit of a mismatched pair. Clarke was blonde and thin with cheekbones up to his eyes and delicate hoop earrings in his earlobes. Moyet was short and stockier than her partner. She had a punky, asymmetrical haircut and wore thick dark eyeliner. Her whole appearance mirrored perfectly the person I imagined singing the song before I knew what she looked like.

Then I read that Yazoo didn’t last. The band actually had a bad split, I learned, and though they formed in the early eighties, they didn’t reconcile until 2008. They only made two albums.

Reading about all of this—the song, the band that made the song, how the band that made the song was formed—made me feel unreasonably emotional. When I read that that in 2008 Clarke and Moyet had a Yazoo Reunion Tour throughout Great Britain, I clutched the air above my heart.

At home that night, I looked up the chords and learned how to play ‘Only You’ on the guitar. Later, I sent the song to all of my friends. None of them liked it. But when I sent it to my sister and asked if she remembered the song, she had a reaction similar to mine. Like me, she also listened to it obsessively, and later admitted that hearing it that first time made her eyes well up a bit.

I can’t speak for my sister, but it seized me, I think, because listening to it made me feel like I was fourteen again.

When I listened to the song, my parents were no longer divorced, my sister was not thousands of miles away in Russia, and I didn’t have the enormous student loan debt that I do now. Instead, I was a teenager—awkward in appearance and demeanor, but blissfully unaware of it. At fourteen, I hadn’t yet endured the depression that characterized my sophomore year of college. I was confident, and didn’t know how much I was incapable of. I was preoccupied with boys, but in the most innocent and superficial way. Listening to ‘Only You’ somehow brought me back to that blank slate, and it made my heart ache.

We’ve all felt it—that chest-wrenching flashback that comes from hearing a song or smelling a smell that we used to all the time. The thing that got me this time, though, was the twelve year gap. There’s nothing like a taste of the past to make you realize how much you’ve changed.

Here’s the problem: I loved reliving these memories and listened to the song so much that now, I can no longer access them. Addicted to those teenage feelings, I overdosed and sapped the song of all its meaning.

Now, ‘Only You’ is just a song with a catchy melody. The lyrics, which once put me right there in my dad’s car, currently stand alone as a sort of puzzling, inarticulate plea for love. ‘Only You’, let’s face it, is really just a bad 80’s pop song.

I should probably turn it off for good, or maybe for about twelve years. When I listen to it twelve years from now, it will let me relive my past again, except this time, instead of bringing me back to my adolescence, it will bring me back to 26, as I am now. I have, after all, listened to it three times as much as I did when I was a teenager. At least.  

Oh, 26. What a year. I’ll bring ‘Only You’ out of the vault only to remember the self-doubt, sadness, and poor choices that have characterized my mid-twenties. Perhaps I’ll be transported back to the night I drunkenly took an Uber to the apartment of a man I had never met. Or maybe I’ll feel the way I did after flirting with a guy that one of my friends just told me she really liked. The song will play, and I’ll smell beer and feel my old comforter cover me as it does when I waste the day by sleeping in too late on Saturday morning. It will taste like confusion and guilt and headaches and burritos. I’ve eaten so many burritos this year.

If I’m lucky, it won’t all be bad. My twenties have been my best years in terms of reading and writing. I’ve met lots of kind, interesting people, many of whom I now consider my best friends. This year, I flew to Europe and saw my grandfather for the first time in eleven years. He played the piano beautifully and made me the strongest gin and tonic I have ever had. And despite my unending fear of hurting people’s feelings, I do think I’ve made some progress in better standing up for myself.

If my adolescence was characterized by confidence and my twenties by anxiety, I can only hope that my thirties will bring stability. Assuming that I stop listening to this song (I won’t) I hope that when I do play it, I’ll shake my head and laugh about how stupid I was. How stupid I am.

For now, though, I’ll keep my ears open. I’ve drained this 80s synth pop song of all its memories, but there have to be others. With the internet, almost everything is accessible, which makes it harder. But I will keep trying. And with any luck, the next time I find one, I won’t bleed it dry.

#pop #memories #onlyyou #nostalgia #music