#alien queen is literally me guys

[prettypinkeel]

pat pat from momma xeno because people are too rude to Dek he is literally just a baby stop being rude to him ❗❗❗❗

[cybervigilante]

i'm actually still so frustrated with beast world's retcon of kom orchestrating the citadelian invasion of tamaran and turning her into a bg character at best like komand'r being the great evil of koriand'r and tamaran's narrative is more compelling and enjoyable than some guy trying to bring his ancient star god back.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Ways I can think of that “DanDaDan” differs from other shonen series:

* Female MC is as important as male MC

* Canon romance gets consistent development through the series. I think that’s part of the reason why the MC ships with the rivals (Aira, Jiji) aren’t as popular with the fandom for once. The main ship is actually getting good development, so the fanbase doesn’t have to make up headcanons to fill in the space.

* Flips the found family trope on its head by having the main group despise new people whenever they show up and they even actively try to kick them out. The new people only end up staying because they keep lingering around to the point that the main group just gives up and lets them stay.

* The rivals aren’t emo or angst-ridden. Aira is a delusional tryhard popular girl while Jiji is a himbo drama queen. I’d even go as far to say that the MCs are the ones who are emo and angst-ridden.

* Supporting cast is more than just important, they become integral to the story. I’d say that the further you read into DanDaDan, the more it becomes an ensemble cast where everyone is a protagonist in their own right.

* World-building is all over the place, but in a good way. Most other shonen are pretty consistent with what kind of world their characters live in. MHA is superhero-based, Naruto is ninjas and magic, Bleach is spirits, and so on. DanDaDan feels like the author just throws whatever cool shit they can think of into the story. That’s actually the reason why I wrote in a different post that DanDaDan reminds me more of Marvel/DC than any other shonen series, it manages to capture the catch-all insanity of those comics.

* Doesn’t rely on hidden power-ups. The main characters either have to outsmart the villains or they have to train to get better with the powers they already have.

* The pervert comic relief guy is actually endearing for once. Not because of his pervert tendencies, but because he’s so oblivious to how socially inept he is that it’s kind of funny. This is gonna sound strange, but he sorta reminds me of Thor in Thor Ragnarok. Full of himself and oblivious to how dumb he can be. He’s Thor without the good looks lol.

* Flips the “nerdy outcast loser somehow gets a harem” trope. Instead of making Okarun cooler than how he actually is, the story emphasizes that the women who fall for Okarun are as weird as him. Momo is a weird outcast, Aira has main character syndrome, Vamola doesn’t understand how to human because she’s literally not one, Rin thought Okarun was a vampire (and wanted him to be).

* Flips the “elderly figure in charge of the teenagers” trope. I don’t really get motherly figure vibes from Seiko Ayase, I get more “cool wine aunt who is stuck with her niece” vibes. In fact, there was the arc where Okarun showed up to her in spirit mode to get her help with fighting off the alien invasion and Seiko’s response was, “Well, I’m not in the area and I have other shit to do, so you kids figure it out.”

* The series takes the piss out of the trope of mystical/magical items that the group acquired to get their powers. I mean…the main mystical MacGuffin in the series are Okarun’s balls.

* Okarun was about to go into an “I’m weak / I wish I was stronger / I want to get stronger for my friends” breakdown, but Turbo Granny told him to shut up and keep fighting.

* Not afraid to put the “cool girl” in as many funny situations as possible. Off the top of my head, the series built up Momo as this cool, tough girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone…then several chapters later, Okarun found out she got a job at a maid cafe.

(Feel free to add to the list!)

[archerdork]

it's been a decade but i'm still not over the insanity that is the movie Jupiter Ascending

spoilers ahead, but this movie was slammed when it was released. sitting pretty at a 27%/38% on rotten tomatoes, it was critiqued on essentially every single aspect by a large majority of viewers. almost everyone hated it. almost.

i can't speak for what the the wachowskis actually intended, but this movie is a homage to every 12 year old dreamer writing acidentally self insert stories with unrestrained enthusiasm.

the main character played by Mila Kunis is named Jupiter. no literally. Jupiter Jones.

movie opens with Jupiter living an uneventful, monotonous life. there's a montage of her waking up early, going to work as a house cleaner, waking up early, going to work as a house cleaner, repeat.

within 20 minutes of runtime she is about to be murdered by aliens but is saved bridal carry style by channing tatum rolling in on hover skates. yes exactly what you're picturing. he also has a laser gun that barks when he shoots it. no im not kidding.

channing tatum is a wolf man hybrid. his name is Caine Wise. yes, "dog man", exactly, his name is literally Dog Man. he has pointy ears. "bred for the military but that didn't work out for me". after he saves Jupiter, she is unconscious and wakes up with a gun next to her bc Caine "thought it would make her feel better". he is Guarded and Rough yet Kind and Gentle.

it is later in the movie revealed he used to have wings, pretty feather angel-wings looking wings, but they were ripped off because he broke the rules. he has scars on his back. it's all very man pain. the movie makes a poorly masked point of talking about how he's a wolf man without a pack while the camera is pointed at Jupiter.

Jupiter spends most of the movie alternating between fainting, being kidnapped and holding her own against people wanting to kill her. you know, she's Powerful and Cool and Kickass but also has hunky yet sensitive men saving her. at one point a man who planned to murder Jupiter insults her and Caine, pointing a gun at the guy, asks Jupiter "may i kill him" through his teeth but she says no so he doesn't. (she has a guard dog she literally has a guard dog im-).

she has several wardrob changes and she's either dressed in flannels, snassy space movie outfits or the most beautiful dresses you could imagine.

another character is Stinger Apini played by Sean Bean. he's a human honey bee hybrid. im still not joking. he gets little gold hexagon in his eyes sometimes. he uses "beeswax" as a swear.

while Caine and Stinger have a little "you betrayed me last time we saw each other" fight, a bunch of Stinger's bees start swarming Jupiter, following her movements like some kind of avatar water bending powers. this means she's royalty. because "bee's are genetically designed to recognize royalty" (sean bean says this with a completely straight face for which he deserves an award). Jupiter is space royalty. queen, to be exact. she's queen of a bunch of planets, including earth.

Jupiter Jones, normal human girl from a boring, monotonous life, is Queen of Earth.

she's one of the most important people in the universe and has a hot wolf man saving her at every turn. this movie was written for every little sensitive, creative child inside the heart of a adult clinging to their imagination and dreams.

the movie has about eight bad guys but oscar-winner and acclaimed actor eddie redmayne plays the top bad guy. eddie did this movie coming off the backs of Les Misérables and The Theory of Everything. i can only assume the casting director knew about a murder he’s committed and blackmailed him into doing this movie.

eddie's character name is Balem Abrasax (a fine, 'character name generator'-name) and he either whispers or blows out the speakers.

one hour into the movie it takes a break and does a 'space bureaucracy is like the DMV'-bit as Jupiter, with the help of a robot named Intergalactic Advocate Bob, tries to claim her title as queen. there's a montage where they are sent around to get documents so they can get other documents so they can get other documents only they can't get those documents before submitting the first document and-

jupiter gets a cool glowing tattoo on her wrist and then the movie jumps back into space opera and she's kidnapped and saved a few more times.

jupiter tries so hard to seduce Caine but he resist bc He's Broken and Dangerous and Does Not Deserve Her. the third act kicks off with Jupiter (the person) inside Jupiter (the planet) with Balem who will most certinly hurt her, so Stinger give Caine a pep talk about how much he loves Jupiter and he has to go save her.

mind, they've known each other for about two days and Jupiter has been kidnapped three times so they've only spent about half of that time together. but it's TRUE LOVE goddamnit. Caine looks like he's about to cry when Stinger tells him to go after the girl. then he sets his jaw very masculinely and proceed to fly a little spacecraft though the storm clouds dodging lightning

they kiss during the last fight, defeat the last bad guy and then movie cut to later. now Jupiter is waking up early and happily go about cleaning houses, only she pauses to look at the glowing tattoo on her wrist proving she owns Earth and after work she goes on a date with her wolf man boyfriend who got his wings back so now she uses the hover boots and they go flying together. the end.

movie has so many stupid little quips and bits and funny quotes. the amount of fanfic tropes used would kill you if you did a take a shot-game. it's so silly. so so silly. it's stupid and the pacing is atrocious and the dialouge is so campy it hurts sometimes and the action scenes are a mess of visual effects than nearly give you motion sickness and they are about ten minutes each which is nine minutes to long and i love this movie with all my heart.

it's the most comfort movie to ever comfort. it's little younger me sitting up at night dreaming up insane stories. it's younger me pretending to hoverboard alongside the car on long drives. it's wanting to feel special and loved and go on cool adventures. it's endless imagination wrapped up in a stupid little story with stupid little characters with stupid little names written with pure love for the child inside every creative person.

i will die defending this movie. go watch it

[bedheaded-league]

Every time I read the Sherlock Holmes canon I’m actually stunned that people read this man as straight. It’s just so glaringly obvious to me that he’s SOME flavor of queer - how on earth could you read this man as cishet? And when my non Holmesian friend asked me to explain what textual evidence showed that he was queer, it occurred to me that besides all of the times he or Watson remarks on how he’s not into women, marriage doesn’t appeal to him, he’s never been in love, etc. (which honestly is pretty solid evidence on its own) most of the reasons I feel sure he’s gay is just his fuckin vibes.

He’s an absolute bitch, but in like a sassy gay cunt-serving way that I just can’t imagine a cishet man embodying. He’s a drama queen and knows it. He shows such disrespect towards the establishment and “polite society,” particularly the law, but shows endless kindness and respect towards all of the outcasts of society. To me, all of this paints a very clear picture of a queer person living in a deeply homophobic society.

But I can see how all of this might go completely over a cishet person’s head. They just see a quirky guy who’s sarcastic and rude and likes to befriend outcasts because they’re frequently useful to him, and because he never makes the mistake of underestimating someone just because of their position in society. But him being queer not only explains so much about him, it literally completes the picture of his character. It makes everything about him slot into place.

I think that when it comes down to it, it’s really just that seeing everyone as straight being like, the default is the only reason people see him as straight. Even though he repeatedly says that he’s not interested in women, straight people’s instinct is to interpret that as “he’s never met the right woman” instead of “he’s not interested in women and never will be.” Because there’s no absolutely undeniable textual evidence that he’s queer, that means he’s not. Which is just such an alien way to look at the world to me, you know?

[frownyalfred]

Sending res an ask is like guiltily adding a dirty dish to the sink while someone else is doing the washing up. I adore your work, and hope you are having a wonderful day.

However, this idea has been torturing me and even the slightest chance of queen res reading my ask makes it worth sending. So I present to you, without further ado, my dirty dish.

It's angsty cloisbat sex pollen fuck-or-die.

Clark gets whammied with sex pollen and it takes him OUT, like OUT OUT. He can't fly. He can't talk. He's barely even lucid. It's killing him, literally, and the only way to stop him from dying is to make him come over and over. However, Lois, his wife, isn't here. She's a five hour plane flight away. Three if she takes the private jet Bruce immediately sent for, but it's not enough. She won't get there in time. So, the league choose the next best option to keep Clark alive until Lois arrives. Bruce.

After a half hour scramble to get on the plane, a nerve wracking three hour flight, and a fifteen minute mad dash to make it to where Clark was being housed; Lois walks into the room just as Bruce walks out. Naked as the day he was fucking born, covered in bruises and bite marks and bullet scars and practically dripping with come. Her husband's come.

He doesn't even acknowledge her as he walks with a heavy limp over to a cooler and takes out a bottle of water, chugging it in one go. She can hear Clark whimpering in pain through the soundproofed walls and smell blood, sweat and tears.

She feels lost. And hurt. And angry, irrationally angry. At Bruce. At Clark. Betrayed. Exhausted. Anxious. Worried for herself and everyone involved- and...

Sickeningly, nauseatingly curious.

The same kind of curious that made her fall for an alien from another planet. The same kind of curious that got her stuck in active warzones.

The same kind of curious that was now yelling at her to drag Bruce back into that room and watch her dear sweet harmless Clark fucking ruin him until there was nothing left.

Ooooof. Yeah, I can see this happening, but I would also propose: Bruce stumbling out into the hallway bruised, bleeding, and exhausted and telling her he can't in good conscience ask anyone, much less an untrained civilian, to go in there and endure Clark while he's like this. Bruce is a big guy, he's strong and if Clark isn't using his powers maybe they're on less even footing, but it's still rough.

Bruce isn't jealous, he isn't possessive, he's just thinking of 5'6 Lois who's like 130 lbs soaking wet and can't ask her to do this. Not even ask -- he can't let her do this. She'd be injured and traumatized at best. Bruce can handle this, because he's done it before. Injuries and pain are his job, and he's endured trauma from a loved one before. He can't ask Lois to let her own husband traumatize her.

And then, they negotiate Lois watching while Bruce takes the metaphorical punches for her. If he's going to do this, she's going to watch the whole time. At times, imaginging it was her -- at others, grateful it isn't.

[evenyvn]

REPLAY — 09. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE?!

— Seonghwa's pet cat had gone missing while he's out of town, unknowingly the fur baby has found its way to a sleep deprived art major student who goes into the same college.

Park Seonghwa x Gender Neutral! Reader SMAU Ft. P1Harmony & ATEEZ.

chapter cw : a written chapter!! brief mention of ginger slanders /lh since jiung have his iconic ginger hair in here, friendly banter, slight oyaho, mention of reader's past relationship, hwa is only mentioned, just a soft and (alot) of teasing moments with the boys.

prev — masterlist — next

You were lying comfortably on your bed, half-asleep, when a loud knock on your dorm's door shattered the peace. A familiar voice followed, shouting your name with zero consideration for your neighbors. Groaning, you forced yourself up and trudged toward the door.

"Okay, okay! Stop yelling! I don't want another noise complaint because of your loud asses," you muttered as you swung the door open.

There stood Jiung, beaming at you with that signature gummy smile. On his left—Keeho stood with his arms crossed, exuding sass without even saying a word, and intak beaming a small smirk before holding a peace sign on jiung's right.

Behind them, Soul waved enthusiastically with both hands in the air while Jongseob stood next to him, eyes glued to his phone—no doubt bullying some poor kid on Roblox.

"Didn’t I tell you guys I only invited Soul?" you asked, though your smirk gave away your amusement.

Keeho rolled his eyes dramatically and brushed past you like he owned the place. "We don’t need your invitation."

"Oh, rude," you said in mock offense, stepping aside to let the rest in. "Shoes off—or Theo’s gonna kick your asses."

Before anyone could respond, Jiung lets out a squeal, eyes locked onto Hwaseong who was perched on the couch grooming herself like a queen. She paused for a brief second as the boys approached, then went back to licking her paws, unbothered.

"Seonghwa said she’s not that fond of strangers," you commented, watching the scene unfold, "but she’s been super clingy to me… and Theo, especially," you added, the last part laced with playful bitterness.

As if to prove your point, Hwaseong hissed and swatted her claws at Jiung and Intak as they neared her, making both boys yelp and step back, visibly disappointed.

Keeho just sighed and made a beeline for your kitchen with Jongseob in tow, opening your fridge like he lived there.

You chuckled mischievously as you watch Jiung and Intak pout while trying and failing to coax the cat, who remained steadfast in her distaste.

"She probably doesn’t like Intak because he’s a puppy," you teased as Intak flopped dramatically onto the couch like a kicked dog, further proving your point. You turned to Jiung with a smirk.

"And she probably hates you because you’re ginger."

Jiung frowned. "That’s racism."

"You know I meant that affectionately."

"Affectionate my ass!"

Laughter erupted from the kitchen, and you turned to see Keeho and Jongseob emerging with arms full of snacks.

"So, Theo’s not home?" Jongseob asked, already crunching on your hot Cheetos.

You glanced at Keeho knowingly.

"He’s out doing some group project," Keeho answered for you.

"Of course you’d know," you teased, squinting at him.

"We’re literally in the same class, you punk," he muttered, though his voice held no real edge as he popped a chip into his mouth.

"Yeah, sure."

The room slowly filled with casual chatter, light teasing, and bursts of laughter. It felt warm and familiar, the kind of comfort you didn’t always get to appreciate, but always held close.

Your gaze shifted when you saw Soul walking out of the kitchen, and your eyes widened. In his arms, Hwaseong was curled up, looking entirely content. She blinked lazily, even nuzzling closer to Soul’s chest.

"Well, would you look at that," you murmured.

Jiung gasped. "How the hell can he touch her??"

You snorted. "Of course she’d love Shota."

"You have to speak in alien language," Soul said rather seriously, still rocking the cat like a baby. Jiung tried—poorly—making high-pitched noises, but only earned another hiss and a half-hearted swipe.

"Okay, I think she just hates you, Jiung" you said with a grin.

"She's just like you, Yn. And i thought she was Seonghwa's?"

You perked up slightly at the mention of Seonghwa’s name. The boys noticed immediately and collectively groaned, except for Soul, who remained happily distracted by Hwaseong.

"I regret ever mentioning his name," Jiung muttered.

"Hey! You take that back. No one talks shit about my future wife in front of me!" you protested, pointing at him with a piece of chip between your fingers.

Keeho rolled his eyes for the nth time that evening. "And here you said I’m the one who’s down bad for Theo. You literally collapse whenever Seonghwa is mentioned."

"Not my fault he’s so damn fine."

"Can’t blame Y/N, honestly," Intak chimed in, eyes still on the TV. "He’s pretty and handsome at the same time. That’s why he’s so popular on campus. I’m pretty sure he’s been modeling since middle school."

You raised a brow. "How do you know that?"

"Saw him in a fashion catalogue. Plus, everybody knows him at this point." He shrugged as he reach to steal a chip from (your) Jongseob's bag.

"Everybody except Y/N," Keeho snorted. "Even Jongseob knows his name atleast, and the kid's only know skibidi toilet" a single cheeto flew at Keeho's direction as the young man who threw it glares at him. "You act like i was just born yesterday"

You ignore Jongseob as you shot a glare at Keeho. "Okay, well… maybe I regret not noticing him sooner, but like—he’s totally into me."

You said it jokingly, but there was a subtle twitch in your smile, like you were trying too hard to keep it light. The boys caught it. They exchanged a look, then Keeho sighed and set his snack down.

"Hey," he said, a little more serious now. "Whatever happens—whether this Seonghwa thing works out or not—we’ve got your back, alright?"

You blinked, a little caught off guard.

"You’ve been through enough. That last relationship really took a toll on you. We all know it. So if Seonghwa makes you smile again, we’ll support it. If he breaks your heart… well it's not that hard to hide a body right?," he finished with a smirk. The others laughs but still nod and murmuring in agreement.

"Yeah, I’ll fight him," Jiung said, flexing his biceps dramatically.

"You’ll lose," Intak pointed out with a smirk.

"I didn’t say I’d win."

You let out a laugh, genuine and warm, and looked around at your chaotic, loving circle of friends. "Thanks, guys," you said softly, smiling fondly.

The moment lasted a beat longer before Jongseob ruined it.

"So… can I still eat your ice cream or is that crossing the line?"

You groaned, chucking a pillow at him. "You already crossed the line the moment you opened my Cheetos!"

Laughter erupted again, and just like that, everything felt right.

taglist - @winnydwinter @shanabtsarmy @lemonkait00 @mysticalmf @darlingz99 @latisthegenderfluidwannabealone @daniela-f-uwu @ravensfeatheruniverse @satans-arse-crack @halloweenbyphoebebridgers @mygsis @welcometothemaraudersspam @lover-ofallthingspretty @ffenjoyerdazme  @queenofdumbfuckery @juicyjaxxy @ume356 @lys-ada @wonderz-real @s4nniebe4r @sunnysidesins @cherryangle-coke @addi-3 @beljakovina @spenceatiny18 @mysteriouslynervouscrusade @xi0riae @the0p @starl0stt @qupxxt @dawn-iscozy @tkooooop @jonghosbrainrot 

if i haven't tagged you even though you already filled the form please let me know!

join our taglist here!

divider by @.adornedwithlight

[quirekey]

Haii><

Can you make a fic or head canon of Sentinel prime from tfo and a shy human femme into an arranged marriage? Maybe it’s like a peace treaty type? I think it would be an interesting dynamic!

I do have something similar already! But I’ll make an introduction for you too since I’m late :)

[ SENTINEL PRIME ] x [ FEMME!READER ]

[ sentinel prime x human!femme!shy!reader ]

INTRODUCTION

You, a human, was an astronaut who accidentally signed up for a pretty intense experiment. You signed up to be launched to Cybertron since the scientists found many sentient beings on it. It took way too long for you to arrive but you got there in time. You set onto the ground then your ship was immediately pummeled into a… Floating train thing? You and your ship were dragged down into Cybertron then arrived at the mining station…

Sentinel Prime would look down at you when one of the higher guards turned you in as a sentient being from a planet not so far. Sentinel did admire your slim and seemingly perfect body. You were flesh, not metal like everybody else on Cybertron.

When you were placed into his hands, you were so tiny in his hands. Sentinel saw you shift away but not in a panicked way, but in a timid way. He adored your fragile body and how he could just crush you in his hands at this moment, it caused something to bloom in his spark. As much as he wanted to get a scientist to experiment on you, you were just too cute and beautiful.

When Sentinel started to tell you praises on how cute and fragile you were, you did notice his manipulative behaviour quite quickly. Sure, he’s manipulative but he’s charming in a way. Though you were charmed, you had to get away somehow… You were thinking to yourself as he spoke to thin-air then he told you something that no human would ever believe happened.

“Squishy, you will be mine. I shall arrange a marriage and we will get our.. hearts, together. However you humans show your love, you will tell me sweetheart. You are too stunning for a king like me to ignore. Wouldn’t you like to marry a perfect king like me, queen?”

HEADCANONS

( let's fast-forward to when you have warmed up to your new environment and you have accepted your fate to be married to Sentinel )

- When you and Sentinel have a small chat after a long day of Sentinel doing nothing but laughing down at Iacon, all he’s doing is talking about himself. You don’t do much since you're too scared to speak up so you have to tolerate his egotistical nonsense. He’s constantly talking about himself and how perfect and amazing he is for both you and Iacon.

- Sentinel is pretty pushy when it comes to showing you off, especially since you're extremely hesitant when it comes to fame and attention. You hated when other eyes were on you, but Sentinel did not give a damn. He would literally force you to sit on his shoulder while he makes an announcement, making everybot question who you are.

- About questions, controversies, rumours and theories were made about you. Considering you are a sentient alien to these guys, it was definitely a surprise to see somebody like you sitting on Sentinel Prime’s shoulder. You were pretty famous for your sudden and mysterious appearance in Iacon, especially when Sentinel announced that you are married to him.

- When it comes to giving love, he prefers you to give him affection. He wants you to praise and worship him, but you were too embarrassed to. You thought it was humiliating because it is. You do give him small compliments and hugs but that's kind of it, Sentinel takes it as a ‘hard to get’ type of situation, so he teases you a lot.

- Sentinel keeps his metal soft and clean, so when you give him small kisses, you enjoy feeling his face. Your smaller form makes it easy for you to hug his face and feel the interesting and new texture his face is applied with. Sentinel thinks it’s strange but you are an alien, he can’t judge too much.

- Sometimes there are spots where it’s extremely hard to get for bigger bots like him, even though these little spots are unnoticeable. You recognised his frustration so you decided to clean those tiny spots for him and oh how happy Sentinel is. He will praise and shower you in affection everytime after you clean him. It’s one tedious process so he kinda understands.

- When Sentinel is gone to ‘find the matrix’, you are protected in an unlimited amount of security, both systems and bots. It’s an unnecessary amount, you’re literally being watched 24/7, taken care of and isolated until Sentinel comes back.

Extra! Angst headcanon!

- Sentinel is a very manipulative bot, so with your timid manners, he will take advantage of it. When you do something that isn’t in his favour, he will absolutely bombard you with guilt-tripping statements and comments. He usually says how much of a better queen you could be and that you're lucky you're even alive. He enjoys saying that you owe him your life and soul since he ‘saved you’, you feel extremely bad because of his comments and give in to whatever he desires.

[thewertsearch]

TG: the barnoness wants us to […] TG: i dont know why TG: everything i know about it says it should be a good game and real important and itll let us all get togehter and do somethin great and be besf friends for maybe eternity? TG: but she took all that and twisted it somehow TG: all i know is shes banking on us doing this and if she needs us to do this than its got to be to make somethin fucking hoorible happen

Well, she's working for English, who presumably wants to turn this universe into his latest dinner. So far, that's his only stated motivation, although I have reason to suspect that there's more to it than that.

If the Condesce has her own agenda, then it's probably something akin to the oft-discussed Second Alternian Empire. The woman clearly thinks very highly of herself - her name is literally the condescension - and somehow, I doubt she's content to fade into obscurity as the one-time ruler of a fallen civilization.

No, this is a woman who wants to rule. We've seen the influence she's already exerting over the Earth, and I don't think she'll be satisfied until her control is absolute.

Come to think of it, founding a new empire on Earth wouldn't even have to conflict with English's world-eating. After all, Alternia's universe was marked for destruction at his hands, and she still ruled it for millennia before the other shoe dropped. From the Earth's perspective, it could be thousands or even millions of years until the universe is destroyed - and even that doesn't need to be the end for her. English made her immortal, so there's literally nothing stopping her from starting over again, in the next universe he targets.

She could do this forever, until there are no more worlds left to subjugate. It'll just be Alternian Empires, all the way down.

TG: maybay im just like this nutty ass bitsh twirling yarn from a shitwizards nappy brown beard but i cant bring myself to trust a cake sellin genocidal alien overlard sea queen

Huh. Funnily enough, I think this is the first time it's been all-but officially stated that Betty Crocker is the Empress. I'd ask how Roxy is aware of this, but she's the daughter of a Seer, and a l33t haxxor to boot. She's probably more clued-in than even Jade was.

TG: so what is the itinerary again GT: Intinerwhosit? TG: regarding the game TG: whosplaying in what order etc

Well, if we follow where the narrative parallels lead us, the chain should be Jane -> Roxy -> Bro -> Jake. The expectation, then, is that Jane will Enter in relative safety, and the kids' meteors will slowly grow larger, culminating in a moon-sized meteor for poor Jake.

TG: i start with jane and bring her in the session TG: then ds brings me in and you bring him in and them jane does you and closes the loop

This does indeed seem to be the order they're planning. Only time will tell if it actually holds, though, as things have gone fruity-rumpus-shaped before. The trolls thought they were two different chains.

GT: Where are you getting this intel? Did you guys make a plan or something? TG: nah dont wory about it

Like I said, Roxy's got plenty of potential sources of intel. Aside from her mother, her hacking abilities, and potential Dream Self shenanigans, the 'darkness' Umbra's seeing over her location implies she might also be in contact with the Horrorterrors.

This girl's got a lot of irons in a lot of fires. Hopefully she knows what she's doing.

[tobiasdrake]

Also spoilers but I wanted to talk about the ending to Snow White (2025) bluntly.

One of the biggest differences between the 2025 film and the original is that it culminates in an actual confrontation between Snow White and the Evil Queen. In the original, the dwarves go kill the Evil Queen in retribution after Snow goes into her coma, and then some guy shows up like "Wow, hot corpse! Mind if I make out with it?"

Like. No shade to original Snow White. This was literally the first cel animated movie ever made. The writing took a backseat to the sheer sorcery of being able to put hand-drawn moving pictures on a screen like this.

The Prince was supposed to have a larger role in the film but wound up being mostly cut because he was too hard to animate. This is actually something the live-action film rectified, by bringing the sequences he was supposed to have back into the movie.

Snow White walked so that the entire history of traditional 2-D animation could run.

But something I really like in the 2025 film is that final confrontation with the Evil Queen. It's so perfectly crafted as a contest of ideologies in a film that seems tailor-made for this moment in history.

Like. Okay. Lemme walk you through this, play by play.

Standing in front of a mob of people Snow's gathered to resist her, the Evil Queen conjures a rose and waxes poetic about the ephemeral beauty of flowers, then magically disintegrates it into dust to reiterate how fragile it is. This is a metaphor for Snow White and her appeal to the people currently supporting her.

The Evil Queen, by contrast, claims to offer security and prosperity. She conjures a flawless glass dagger to represent herself. Perfectly crafted and honed. A beautiful and lethal weapon.

And then she presses the dagger into Snow's hand and dares Snow White to kill her with it. This is the classic villainous "Embrace the Dark Side and strike me down" card, played here as an ideological contest. The Queen represents a philosophy of Might Makes Right and Fuck You Got Mine.

The metaphor of going "This rose is you, this knife is me, now take this knife and stab me if you dare," is pretty on-the-nose. She is challenging Snow White to take back her kingdom... by embracing the Queen's belief system and becoming the kind of ruler that she is. To cast away the rose and take up the glass knife.

When Snow won't do it, the Queen orders her executed and that's when Snow plays her hand. She brought the "Talking the monster into submission by sheer strength of personality" card to the table.

But what makes it stand out for me is that she doesn't talk the Evil Queen down. The Queen is too cruel and full of herself to care what Snow thinks or has to say.

Instead, she appeals to the Queen's radicalized followers. She reminds them of what their country was like before this regime took power, and what it can be again... but only if they put down their weapons, let go of the Queen's militant belief systems, and come home to the people they've been alienated from by following after her.

Because Snow White is not a person of power. She is no Chosen Hero. She has no sorcerous powers or deadly fighting skills. Her only power is that she's beloved by a community who are willing to prop her up with their collective power.

And when the Queen's followers turn and become Snow's followers, then all the sorcery and Strongwoman Leadership in the world doesn't matter anymore. The collective are stronger.

Symbolized ultimately by the Queen taking her dagger, taking the thing she crafted to represent her, and trying to plunge it into Snow herself... only for one of Snow's followers to shoot it from her hand with a crossbow. And then for that last artistic touch, the dagger, the thing whose beauty and power was supposed to be eternal, wilts and disintegrates into dust just like the rose.

The Queen's ideology crushed into sand by Snow's faith in people to want better lives than what the Queen's regime could provide for them.

This. I cannot reiterate it enough. This is the movie for this moment in history.

[bisclavret]

incomplete list of things about gwaine that drive me crazy in no particular order:

he was the son of a knight but earned his knighthood by different means, so his origins are never mentioned again. except when merlin (in old bitch mode) threatens to ~out~ him with "i know what you are". assuming what he means is that gwaine is a [secret noble] and not a [homophobic slur]

does this mean his heritage is something gwaine does not want to broadcast? why? he's a noble now anyway. is it because the other new knights aren't of noble birth and he doesn't want to stand out? is he that insecure?

hold on i just got a note about this from the writers room. it says "who gives a shit" ???? what do they mean by this?

king caerleon and queen annis become important characters down the line and gwaine somehow does not get involved with their plot at all. he's from caerleon so that's literally the king that tore apart his family and left them to die. s3 gwaine seemed pretty severely traumatized by all this but i guess he got over it

it's like they put him in a suit of armor and he immediately got brain damage. what do you mean "how do we know which way is north"??? gwaine. gwaine how many fingers am i holding up

"why am i always the butt [of the joke]?" he asks his fellow knights. they clown on him even harder.

but tbh it's a fair question — why is he always the butt of the joke? it's always either him or merlin. y'know, merlin the walking talking gay metaphor... and sir gawain from the famous bisexual christmas story (that never happened). why are the two of them always the butt of the joke? i wonder if—no.... it cannot be.....

"got bored of playing soldiers" gwaine tells his closest friend before helping him rescue a "traitor". but we don't have time to unpack all that. in fact, forget he said anything. forget it just like he's about to forget seeing merlin do magic right in front of his face in a few minutes.

sir gwaine loves playing soldiers! he loves saying things like "enough! you speak to the king!" because evoking royal status to force people into submission is gwaine's favorite thing to do. as we all know.

a sorcerer looks him right in the eye and tells him "i am not evil. i am just someone who values his freedom" the "...are you?", like anything that could be remotely interesting in this show, is left unspoken. and is he??? idk guys

the diamair - that alien-looking creature that contains all the wisdom in the world - healed gwaine from the brink of death and seemed to single him out as important. but important how? he unceremoniously dies later that season having achieved zero notable quests as a knight; in fact he probably had more epic adventures as a rogue traveler!

or was the most important moment in gwaine's life — his purpose — to chaperone merlin to a cave without even knowing why?

i mean why not i suppose. kilgharrah was plotting his merthur doomed yaoi the entire time so it's plausible the diamair was on the merwaine doomed yaoi train.

speaking of doomed yaoi. (you knew we'd get there)

pov: you're a charming rogue adventurer with no friends. one day you meet a cute weirdo who begs you to get knighted and stay in town so you can keep bonding over your daddy issues or whatever it is guys do. you keep refusing but after the third time he asks you're like sure why not i've lowkey always wanted to try this. and then as soon as you're knighted he promptly loses all interest in you unless he needs something.

so what do you do?

a) keep challenging him the way you used to because it always works on him and he always comes out of his shell and it's always a rewarding experience for both of you

b) have a bittersweet arc where you grapple with the fact that knighthood and life at camelot aren't what you hoped they'd be after all — in part due to your people-pleasing tendencies

c) let the cute weirdo keep calling the shots even when he closes off even more and seems increasingly miserable and antisocial

d) passive-aggressively hint that you would do more for him than for any girl but never tell him how you feel or what you know and never directly ask him to trust you because misery and apathy are infectious and brother you've caught the bug

e) march off to face the local evil witch basically unarmed (you gave away your own sword in lieu of a love confession) and let her put you out of your misery once and for all <3

[shutupcrime]

Hear me out-

A Muppet’s Midsummer Night’s Dream

Theseus, Hippolyta, Lysander, Hermia, Helena and Demetrius are all esteemed Shakespearean actors who keep to the original script, whilst all the fairies and some of the mechanicals are muppets muppeting about with the occasional soliloquy.

I present to you my vision:

Gonzo as Oberon

Believe me when I tell you Gonzo has RANGE. I think his background as an alien will help him embody the more mystical elements of Oberon and we know from his performance as the narrator in a Muppets Christmas Carol he’s a natural leading man.

Rizzo as Puck

Name a more iconic duo than Gonzo and Rizzo the rat? You can’t- of course you fucking can’t. Their chemistry is off the charts, celestial dare I say, platonic soulmates the like of which us mere mortals cannot comprehend. On top of the incredible back and forth they’ll bring to Oberon and Puck, Rizzo has a sense of mischief and is just the right amount of a whimsy can’t do nothing right boy to bring a really endearing vision of Puck to the stage.

Miss Piggy as Titania

Is it controversial to pair up Miss Piggy with someone who’s not her usual leading man? Sure, but bear with me I have a vision. Oberon and Titania are at odds for most of the play and I can definitely see a world in which Miss Piggy beats his ass in front of all the other fairies. Also the role of a glamorous ethereal queen? Are you kidding? Miss Piggy is going to body this role heart and soul.

Kermit as Bottom

Remember when I told you to bear with me? I would never break up a duo like Kermit and his beloved Miss Piggy, are you mad? Bottom and Titania spend the whole play smooching and mucking about with the fairies, not only do these two have the chemistry but it also gives Miss Piggy a chance to serenade her beloved Kermie. The casting also works on a meta level with Kermit playing an over ambitious actor somewhat hemmed in by an eccentric troupe. The only question is with the iconic transformation scene, do we cast a human actor who turns into Kermit, or do we just have regular ole Kermit with some donkey ears? I need the thoughts of the public desperately.

The Mechanicals:

Fozzie Bear as Snug

Waka, waka

Beaker as Francis Flute

Literally his worst nightmare is playing Thisbe.

Pepe the Prawn as Robin Starveling

Just a weird lil guy pretending to be moonlight

Bunsen as Tom Snout

Tom Snouts a tinker- plus he can do Pyramus and Thisbe’s special effects

Scooter as Peter Quince

Typical theatre manager energy.

The Fairies:

The Chickens as Titania’s Attendants

To be honest I can see the Henson company making a lot of cool original puppets for the fairies but you can’t have the muppets without some dancing chickens.

Janice and Animal should also get special cameos as Peaseblossom and Mustardseed respectively and naturally Waldorf and Statler show up to heckle Pyramus and Thisbe at the end.

Disney- make it happen

[bibibbon]

TBHX, trust, fear, and theories pt3

Part 1 Part 2

⚠️to be hero x spoilers for episode 14⚠️

With the reveal that ailens do exist in the world of to be hero x and that cliffhanger, we got there are many things that we should talk about.

I have seen that many are upset with the introduction of aliens to the world of to be hero x. However, I think it all depends on how tbhx handles the ailen plotline. Making X an alien is interesting and definitely borrows a lot from Superman's story, but I think the story will feel too congested if the aliens have a whole arc of wanting to take over earth and you know the classic ideas that are associated with this trope. I think that this would be a bad turn simply because it will very much put the current conflict and political subtext on the back burner which isn't something that I would enjoy especially because what drew me into the show was the political subtext itself.

Moving on, the introductions of aliens have made me wonder even more about X and O and their origins. The way these two are depicted as two sides of the same coin, the way they seem to be anomalies within the world of to be hero x could they be associated with aliens, could they be ailens? Plus, X, being an alien or associated with aliens makes sense since Smile did report that X literally took him to the moon in their fight. Also, X's reality manipulation abilities could have originated from something ailen related. Also, it would make sense for X to be an alien since he is literally stated by micky that the guy just doesn't exist within any database and it's recorded that he basically popped up out of nowhere.

Furthermore, this also rings some interesting bells to the mysterious figure introduced in episode 12, which very much looks like an alien and has superhuman abilities.

The show also reveals that the alien spacecraft has properties that aren't applicable to this universe, meaning that things gathered from said crash can break down the power system, which not only allows scientists to study fear and trust in much more detail and with much more accuracy but also allows the manufacturing of trust and fear based products.

Now, this revelation is important because it gives us more information on the spotlight organisation and how, by year 41, they have their own fear technology, which lin ling's boss and God Eye use during that arc. Furthermore, this also tells us that the commission is now catching on to the potential threats this can cause and regulating it with it being revealed that human experimentation labs have existed since approximately year 23 with the flyer guy mentioning the labs and with Micky and Mr.Shang both looking into fear during and even before year 36.

Professor luo mentions that the alien materials can be used as 'medications', and this makes me wonder if there is a possibility that by separating trust and fear the show could introduce things such as trust boosters or fear boosters aka stuff like steroids can be introduced and I do see the ceo's of hero agencies using it to get their heroes up on that leaderboard. However, the technology can also be used to further monitor and regulate trust values and their affects on people's day to day life, effectively reducing the risk of another dawnfall incident.

The spotlight organisation seems to also be brought back up this episode with the mysterious figure having an obvious base at what seems to be a crash site, presumably the crash site of that ailen spaceship. However, the masked figure seems to be human and many have theorised that the figure might be Queen's dad due to the similarity in their voices and due to us already being told that DOS had been looking into fear with Queen's father doing so in year 23.

However, I personally theorise that the true leader of the spotlight organisation is 0 the mysterious lady that acts as a contrast to X in the first episodes billboards with quite a feminine hand being shown in the opening resembling this maksed figures face

Could the whole reason why X is here in the first place be to get back the alien material? And could the masked figure possibly be someone heavily involved in the commission? It would be neat to show how the spotlight organisation and commission are two sides of the same coin and how trust and fear are also the same.

[maukree]

Masterpost with all parts Welcome back to this increasingly unhinged 616 winteriron timeline that was supposed to be a quick primer for my fic and has somehow turned into a full-blown, too-many-bad-jokes-per-paragraph alternative wiki. If you’re still reading this, you’ve either developed an unhealthy attachment to my mediocre sense of humor, or you’re just curious to see how many things I’ll get wrong, which is fine by me either way.

When we last left off in Part 4:

Tony deleted his entire brain like it was a corrupted zip file because Norman Osborn stole his job as Director of the no longer existing S.H.I.E.L.D. by shooting a dying alien queen on national television.

Bucky, now wearing the stars and stripes (and somehow making it hot—sorry, Steve), is moonlighting as “guy Tony secretly trusts with literally his entire mind.”

Steve is still dead. (But also: comic books. So, not for long.)

Peter is emotionally ping-ponging between every dad figure he’s ever had, while Nat, Sharon, and every other female is there to remind everyone that sometimes our boys do have girlfriends, which is canonically inconvenient, but somewhat relevant.

Everyone is mad at Tony, who is in a coma and technically brain-dead.

Jarvis was a Skrull. Still not over that. 

A quick note from your exhausted, ship-crazed tour guide:

This recap series has become so much larger than intended, and I am, frankly, sick of narrating Marvel events designed specifically to injure our already injured blorbos while trying to get to the fucking point. So going forward, we are skipping content unless it is:

Directly relevant to potential winteriron tension/interaction

Supremely shippy for other ships

Too sexy, sad, or stupid not to mention

So. Let’s see how far we can get in this part—from Tony's brain-melted coma to his eventual reboot, to Tony and Bucky finally working together, Steve doing his signature “surprise bitch, I’m back,” and all roads leading to Fear Itself, because Marvel can never just let anyone heal in peace, and at least I’m here for it. 

New Avengers (2004–2010) #48–#60 (ish)

While Tony is getting ready for his Sleeping Beauty arc, Bucky gathers the New Avengers crew in Steve’s old place and tries very hard to turn it into his own MCU-style Avengers compound where they all live, train, and pine for each other.

Now, since we’re aggressively cutting content unless it’s relevant to ships or breakdowns, the important thing that happens here is this: Bucky and Peter are finally in the same room. That’s it. That’s the post.

Okay, fine, a little more: those five seconds of on-screen interaction that birthed an entire winterspider ship get canon support here. Peter’s there. Bucky’s there. They talk. There are panels. They breathe the same air. I blacked out slightly from excitement, but trust—it happened.

Plot-wise, Luke and Jessica are off having the worst parenting arc imaginable, because Skrulls kidnapped their baby and everyone (and I do mean everyone) is running around 616 trying to beat intel out of any remaining lizard still in hiding. The power of friendship prevails, the baby is found (yay), and in the process we learn Bucky has allegedly never been close to a baby before (?), and Peter announces—with a lot of surprise—that babies don’t actually smell bad, which honestly makes it sound like he’s never met one either. Boys, please.

Bucky’s base officially gets named Avengers Hideout, Bronx, plot is plotting toward Siege (ugh, another Event), but the key takeaways are:

Peter keeps calling him “Bucky Cap” like it’s a cute nickname. Bucky hates it and keeps asking him to quit it.

Peter unmasks in record time—doesn’t learn from his mistakes, obviously—because he wants Bucky to see how pretty he is.

Jessica straight-up admits (in front of her husband, no less) that she was totally in love with Peter in high school on the account of him being so pretty just to point it out to Bucky, and I just… yeah.

Everyone keeps sitting down for family dinners while still wearing their uniforms, and this has so many found-family vibes it needs shit written about this group specifically yesterday. I would, but… nobody would read it.

Oh—and Issue #55 puts Peter on top of Bucky on the cover. Physically. As in: on him. And that’s the moment I briefly forgot this was a winteriron timeline and started vibrating at frequencies only my dog could hear.

But circling back: two seconds after unmasking, Peter has a small meltdown about it (relatable), doesn’t trust anyone, and wants to crawl back into the safety of full-body spandex. That said, he’s still on the team (Bucky’s real pretty too), they act as illegal Avengers, do some adventuring with Dr. Strange, fight Osborn’s evil version of Avengers, nearly die a bunch of times during cathartic superhero shit, Bucky gets to yell “Avengers Assemble,” and Peter pouts because he never gets to say it. 

The whole stretch of this is basically winterspider fanservice in disguise, and I, for one, am not complaining. But I should probably stop thinking or talking about it before I completely defect from winteriron and write 80k of Peter stammering while Bucky Cap cleans his gun.

Captain America: Reborn (2009) #1–6

Essentially the mini-run where Steve returns to Sharon through the power of eye contact with Bucky.

After all this build-up and me repeating “Steve is dead” about a hundred times, he was not so much dead as he was... time-stuck? Yeah. Marvel got tired of resurrection by cloning, so we get a super special time gun that launched Steve into his own greatest hits playlist. As the run goes on and other things are happening, Steve is bouncing around his own past like a patriotic screensaver, reliving key moments of his life on an endless loop. (It’s philosophical for like five pages and then becomes deeply boring, very fast.)

In the actual present-day plot everyone suddenly remembers that Steve was hot, important, symbolically useful, and very marketable. So, naturally, Osborn wants him, would love to slap a fresh coat of fascism on the shield, and trot him out like a rebranded action figure next to his other evil Avengers. To make this happen, Osborn teams up with Crossbones and Sin, and they start executing their weekend-at-Bernie’s plan to put Red Skull into Steve’s body.

Bucky, meanwhile, just wants his other man back. For normal, definitely not gay reasons.

What Tony is doing exactly during this specific run is a bit… unclear? Captain America: Reborn #1 dropped in July 2009, which lines up with Tony’s World’s Most Wanted, so he’s either just starting his “on the run with a dying processor” arc or already napping through it all, too medically unconscious to be helpful. If you know what happens first, congrats. I don’t care. Steve’s back by the time Tony wakes up, so let’s not split hairs.

Anyway, the bad guys get to Steve first and yank him out of the time vortex. They plug Red Skull into him like a USB drive of evil, Steve wakes up a bit wrong, throws Bucky around a little, but fear not: Stucky prevails. 

That thing happens. You know the thing. The thing where Steve sees Bucky’s pretty face and immediately has an emotional aneurysm. The Red Skull is yeeted out, Sin takes a near-fatal injury to her face (which we’re calling a literal and metaphorical facelift), and is carted off to be annoying—but now also creepy-looking and a lot less hot—in some later arc.

I am sure it will not surprise anyone to find out that Steve spends the final pages of this run brooding on the roof instead of celebrating because he’s allergic to joy and addicted to foreshadowing.

Invincible Iron Man (2008–2012) Stark: Disassembled #20–24

(Tony commits medical fraud on himself while his boyfriends squabble over his coma body)

So, post-World’s Most Wanted—triggered by Secret Invasion, public disgrace, and Bucky deciding “hey, maybe I’ll just walk away from you with everyone else for dramatic effect”—we kick things off with Tony being officially, clinically, but not quite spiritually bricked. The issue opens with him lying in a bed like a hot paperweight while Bucky, Nat, Maria, Pepper, and Thor stand around—Bucky specifically looking way too emotionally engaged for someone who hasn’t been banging Tony in secret all along.

“We bring him back. We have to.”

And may I gently remind the class that, even if we set aside my unrelenting ship brain for five whole seconds, so far in the canon continuity we have:

Tony giving Bucky the shield and making him Captain America within an hour after Bucky tries to murder-kill him

Tony designing him a suit (collab-style, no less) and protecting him from the government

No joint panels for X amount of time until battle with Skrull

Tony sending the digital ghost of himself to Bucky, labeled “do not open unless you miss me”

And yet Marvel’s official stance is: nah they barely interacted, so you don't get those panels.

Excuse me?

Then why the everloving fuck is Bucky, presumably a nearly-stranger, in this arc at all and acting like he shares Tony’s pillow every night? It’s like they want you to fill in the blanks here with shippy shit just so you keep paying for their comic books in the hopes of seeing some established heroes finally come out.

Anyway. While Tony did nuke his entire brain to protect Peter (and, like, some other heroes, presumably—but mostly Peter, even though he has no clue how pretty he is at this point), Tony, being Tony, obviously left behind a reboot plan. And that plan includes a totally chill, completely medically sound procedure that requires:

Extracting Pepper’s arc reactor, which she has for reasons

Putting it in Tony’s chest (for the first time ever in 616, so this is his MCU origin finally catching up)

Zapping him with Thor’s lightning, because we’re just skipping every actual defibrillator in the hospital

Using Steve’s shield because of symbolism

Totally normal ER behavior. Ten out of ten doctors recommend rooftop resurrection. But we won’t question comic book logic, because if we did that, well, why the fuck are we here? 

The plan is solid, let’s go with that, but there is a minor hiccup with Pepper. She’s understandably cranky—her husband Happy is very dead, and Tony had to pull the plug on him during Civil War, which sucks. Still, the moment she hits us with “why does he get to be saved?” I have to step in and say: girl. He gave you this arc reactor to save your life, your own flying suit, and your CEO badge, not to mention an orgasm the last time you’ve interacted, unless you faked it, but that's on you. At least let the man be electrocuted into consciousness without sounding a bit ungrateful.

Which Pepper does, of course, but only after Steve comes back from being freshly de-time-looped and convinces her to help. One guy already sporting a suit of Captain America by Tony’s deathbed wasn’t enough, clearly, but Tony was always an overachiever.

They take Tony to the roof of the hospital (because that’s where all high-stakes neurological procedures happen), and Thor tries to zap him back to life, but this unfortunately doesn’t work immediately. Bucky is there, by the way, hovering next to his head like a sad war widow after helping carry Tony out, and is essentially drawn just about not looking down at his face like he’s memorizing it. Again I ask: why can’t winteriron be canon? Like… gimme a What If, Marvel. What If for popular fanfiction ships would slap.

So they try, but Tony, in true diva form, is like, no thanks, not waking up today, which is valid, because emotional hurt/comfort was not invented by fanfiction. 

It takes a lot of fuckery and a few comic book issues to eventually get him to wake up, and Bucky is, sadly, not there when it finally happens, but neither is Steve (suspiciously). I am going to have to assume here that they both stepped away to get a quick break before returning to his side, and possibly shared a shower to conserve some water. 

The day is saved by Dr. Strange, who rolls into town with “Trust me, I am a doctor” dialogue, which never gets old.

Boom, Tony wakes up, the arc is over, but what follows is just… devastating. The arc ends with us realizing that he doesn’t remember Civil War, doesn’t remember fighting Steve or losing him, doesn’t remember being Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Secret Invasion. And, obviously, after all of that… doesn’t remember Bucky anymore. 

Bucky, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. But listen: I believe in you. If there’s one constant in the fandom, it’s that Tony Stark will fall in love, given literally any opportunity and no matter the roadblocks. And, yay, you didn’t actually snap his mom’s neck in this one, so you’ve totally got this. Go, ruin him a second time. For love. Come on, honey, time to move in together. 

Which they do. They do move in together. I mean, okay, technically they are both using Avengers Tower as Avengers after this (or about to), and I’m not actually clear on if they both live in it, but we’re gonna assume they do. Yes? I honestly haven’t checked, as it’s been a while, but this is your golden era of heroes (fact), we have an Avengers team in the Tower again, so let’s not dig too much into whether Bucky is ‘crashing’ with Steve for old time’s sake or not. Cool? Cool. So, it’s been established—possibly in canon, and definitely in this house—that Bucky moved in, either into his own suite in the Tower or into Tony’s.

BUT before we get to the domestic vibes and unresolved sexual tension, we have to speedrun through one more crossover Event (I know, I’m exhausted too). Don’t worry, I promised lore restraint, and for once, I’m keeping that promise. Because Siege (2009) #1–4 is blessedly short and dumb in a fun way.

So here’s what happens just after Tony wakes up without Extremis, with an arc reactor and no memories of Bucky:

Asgard is hovering over some random Oklahoma field.

Loki and Osborn go full bitch collab and convince the government that Asgard is a threat.

Steve, Bucky, Peter, and some other warm bodies show up to unfuck the situation before it becomes World War Norse.

Ares and Sentry have a deeply unchill throwdown, and Sentry tears him into ribbons. It’s gross. Ares is super dead.

Tony gets invited to the fight while still running on maybe 3% battery and a single juice box. They hand him a wrench and his old suit and say, “get in, loser, we’re going to war.”

Asgard is blown to smithereens because Tony is taking his time, but we’re not going to blame it on him, for once.

Peter gets to punch Osborn for harassing him across the last six events and ignoring the restraining order.

When Tony does show up, he turns a helicarrier into a bullet to take down Sentry, who gets a bit upset that he went all murdery again (Yes, there is a panel. Yes, it’s as stupid-cool as it sounds. Shut up and let it happen.)

Sentry, over his own edgy nonsense, begs to die, and Thor respectfully flies him into the sun for a nap before he gets resurrected in some other event.

And then—most importantly—Steve gives up the shield. The basic tone of this is: “Nah, Bucky, honey, you’ve got this. I’m busy being promoted by the U.S. government to superhero dad-in-chief now that both S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.A.M.M.E.R. are gone, so keep the shield and, while you’re at it, keep Tony. I’m over brunettes and going to shack up with Sharon for a bit.” (Which we are totally cool with, since—I cannot state this enough—we love Sharon, and this is a winteriron timeline.)

So, the end of this event kicks off: Steve being in charge of them all, metaphorically blessing their union, which leads to Tony and Bucky being officially on the same team. Working together. In close proximity. In the Tower. With shared living spaces, presumably. 

Before they fully move in together to set the scene for perfect pining, we also get a pit stop in Invincible Iron Man (2008–2012) #25, where we find out for sure that the backup Tony left was pre-Extremis. So, factory reset, for which the man is pretty much called lazy, because if there’s one thing you’d think you’d keep backups of, it’s your brain, but alas.

It takes only two of Marvel’s allegedly smartest men—Reed “I ditch my family for Tony during Civil War” Richards and Tony “I fucked up my brain for love” Stark—to build the Bleeding Edge suit, which now lives inside Tony, and honestly, I can’t believe Reed/Tony isn’t more of a thing as far as shippy shit goes, because they’ve got that bisexual genius mutual-respect-disaster dynamic, and it is right there. But I digress.

The rest of Invincible Iron Man (2008–2012) is... not really my fave. Tony tries to fix his reputation, build Stark Resilient from the rubble of his company (idk, maybe Pepper not wanting him to wake up was because she drove SI into the ground, down to one helicopter and the logo), and revolutionize clean energy. But unless it’s relevant to Fear Itself or involves Bucky being lovingly exasperated while Tony does something reckless, I’m not covering the rest of this run. We’ve got enough emotional ruin on the itinerary already. Onward.

We make another quick stop at Captain America (2004–2011) #600–605—but first, a PSA: after issue #50, Marvel smashed the legacy renumber button. Who the fuck knows why, honestly. Timeline-wise: this specific arc happens before Bucky joins the Avengers. So, while Tony is doing his thing, re-downloading trauma into his shiny new Bleeding Edge brain, Bucky yeets himself back into solo plotlines for just a second. The plotlines happening in #600 and #601–605 are those that are too stupid not to mention.

Captain America (2004–2011) #600 is essentially Vampire Bullshit (yes, really).

This issue is a flashback inside a flashback and is set during the time when Bucky was secretly working with Fury during Civil War. Bucky sees surveillance footage of Tony and Steve’s friendship break-up, immediately decides Tony is too sexy to be such a fucking idiot, and has a sadboi spiral about a vampire mission from the good ol’ days with Steve for no reason. Because, oh yeah, in 616 we have full-ass Dracula lore, and nobody warned me about it before I got invested. I am only mentioning this because people are into vampires, and the art is fire.

Captain America (2004–2011) #601–605 is more of a filler too, but it has a ton of SamBucky vibes, and there’s some wild shit buried in the nonsense.

The plot of the arc is that Steve’s wackass clone—the one who’s been running around pretending to be the original—is back and has decided he is absolutely the real Captain America. And, logically, if you’re the Real Cap, you need two things:

Your own Bucky

Some sort of epic standoff at a historical place (in this case, Hoover Dam, which Evil Clone wants to blow up)

I’ve seen fanfic with less cracky premises, but let’s not get into that. When actual Bucky and Sam show up to put an end to the clone, they immediately get kidnapped, because of course. Clone Steve forces Bucky to dress up in his old Bucky suit (not the sexy kind of forced dress-up, tragically), and there’s a moment of “haha, look at the symbolism” before Bucky’s like “absolutely fucking not,” and some fighting happens. Sam gets his hero moment, Bucky ends things messily, and the clone gets his brains ventilated.

SamBucky shippers, you’ve got a lot of material here, so go read this. Do I personally care? Not unless they’re both thinking about Tony while it’s happening.

Now, important footnote that has absolutely no business making me feel things but does anyway: Nick Fury tinkers with Bucky’s metal arm and changes it to look and feel human. Because Natasha complained it was too cold. That’s right—this man is getting tune-ups because his girlfriend wants him to be warmer during post-mission snuggles. To which I say: boo.

I mean, sure, thoughtful gestures are fine, but the arm is iconic, and Tony would never complain about it. Tony would absolutely be into the cold-metal aesthetic. He’d imply or straight-up admit that he wants to do indecent things to it. He’d design a docking port, if needed. He’d name it. The whole “warm and flesh-colored” moment doesn’t even last too many issues, because readers (and the artists, probably) were like, “bring back the chrome daddy murder limb, thanks.”

In all seriousness, Bucky doesn’t actually spend a lot of time as an Avenger, because, let’s face it, he’s infinitely sexier as the Winter Soldier, but he does officially join the team alongside Tony, Peter, Thor, Clint, Wolverine and Spider-Woman, and dutifully, suspiciously consistently hovers around Tony in Avengers (2010–2012) #1–6. Does he do much during these issues? Debatable. Is he 100% looming like a broody protector from a soulmate AU? Absolutely.

But as it stands now, Tony and Bucky officially kick off Avengers Vol. 4 together, which means all those “Bucky is an Avenger” fanfics are comic book canon, babes. Whether those fanfic authors knew it or just manifested it through pure gay desperation, they were right. And while winteriron overlap here only lasts one arc, and it’s very sad that it is only one arc, that just means there’s more unsupervised shippy headcanon space between the panels for us to thrive in. Bless.

Plot-wise the arch is a bit… meh. Let’s speedrun it too.

Steve, now promoted to Grand Poobah of All Capes, pulls a bunch of new teams together and sticks my favorite disaster OT3—Tony, Bucky, and Peter (plus Clint, but we’re not calling it an OT4 yet, calm down)—onto one team. Then he has the nerve to tell Tony he believes in him, totally trusts him, but, like, also he’s not leading the team. That honor goes to... Maria Hill. Which. Okay. Sure. Let’s put the only non-super hero in charge here just so Tony doesn’t feel forgiven yet. 

Before Tony can spiral about it, Kang busts in from the future like a knockoff Doctor Who villain he is and starts ranting about how the team's future kids are ruining everything. Whose kids, do you ask? Great question. Tony and Bucky’s? Peter’s and literally anyone’s? No idea. But the plot is essentially a “spin the bottle of disaster lineage” situation, and Kang’s solution is to blackmail them into saving the timeline or something by using a doomsday device Tony once thought of but never built. So, pretty standard.

The arc itself includes time-travel shenanigans that I won’t pretend to understand. Something something paradox. The team splits, paradoxes paradox, battles happen, and eventually they punch the right number of problems to save the future. Yay, teamwork. Whatever.

But the shippy content is shippy as shit, for real. There is touching. There is Tony telling Peter he could kiss him while simultaneously Tony doing his “I’m the smartest bitch alive” routine while clearly trying to impress someone while showing off too much skin. 

I’m going to call out specific panels next because they’re so choice, but just know this: Avengers (2010–2012) #1–6 is short but shippy.

Okay, okay, the ones above are related to what I’ve described already in regards to Steve. A tasteful sampler for Stony shippers and to confirm the plot. And I’m not gonna post every single panel of Bucky lurking in Tony’s personal space (mostly because there’s an image limit and I do respect the platform… a little). BUT. I am gonna drop the best bits below. The hovering. The loitering. The tragic staring. 

Fine, it’s not that direct, as if, but yes, the following selection should be considered evidence_for_court_dot_png. Screenshots for the soul. Brought to you by someone who has stared at these pages long enough to astral project into the Tower HVAC system where Bucky is 1000% hiding between missions, watching Tony solder wires and trying not to feel things.

Exhibit A: They finish each other’s sentences. Yeah. I know. It’s crumbs. It’s microscopic. It’s blink-and-miss-it-tier. But when Marvel gives you nothing to work with but mutual trauma of losing Steve and two panels of syncopated dialogue, it’s not nothing. That’s foreplay. We are starving in this house, okay? Let me romanticize it in peace.

Or like—okay, maybe we’re not totally starving on the Starker front here (don’t yell at me, I contain multitudes), because at one point Tony’s suit just gives up on life, he starts free-falling like a hot brick, and someone—either Bucky or Clint, the art’s unclear but my delulu ass knows it’s Bucky—screams “TONY!” out of a hole in the wall instead of, y’know, fighting the actual villains. Priorities.

Peter, a hero that he is, immediately goes full-action scramble to save Tony mid-air while Tony, mid-plummet, casually calls him “kid” (identity porn alert), and then says, “I could kiss you.”

Sir.

Peter, to his credit, declines on the grounds of delicate skin, which: fair, but also, babe… Tony would definitely shave for you. Probably exfoliate too. I promise he could make it work.

I mean, maybe Peter refuses because deep down he knows he can’t come between one true love. He sees Bucky, sticking out from a wall hole in all that glorious anxiety, and he understands the assignment. Either that or he’s just playing hard to get. I respect the drama either way, can’t help it. I am so close to shipping all four of my boys, Clint included, in any combinations. Think about it. Winteriron (duh), Starker (must), Winterhawk (practically canon), Ironhawk (I am so tempted) and, of course, Winterspider (love). I digress again, sorry. 

This one’s more of a filler panel compilation, yeah, but it still delivers. Our boys are in sync, working together like they’ve definitely coordinated some covert tactical positions before (interpret that however you want). Bucky, once again, is framed so delicately on purpose, making sure Tony tells them what he needs from him and Peter. It’s the casual “I’ve got your back” energy from a semi-stranger, y’know. As soon as this mission’s done, they should all just—you know. Fuck.

Wait—no, sorry, wrong tab. I meant: Bucky and Tony should fuck. Peter can watch. Or, like, sit in another room and wait to be invited. Whatever works for the perverts reading this, I’m not judging and only reporting the vibes.

Obviously, I’m closing out the Avengers Vol. 4 evidence folder with this gem, because yes—it has touching. As in, Tony just got a little shaken and fucked-up (as one does), and who’s right there leaning in all concerned? That’s right: Bucky “I’ll die for him” Barnes, hand on Tony’s bicep like it’s muscle memory. He’s saying “Here,” which—okay, on paper? Innocent. But in context? It’s soft. It’s intimate. It’s “Sweetheart, you okay?” levels of tender.

Let’s assume for a minute that I’m not a full-blown ship obsessed crazy person here foaming at the mouth and reading into every panel like it’s a biblical text, but even then—what the actual fuck goes through a writer or artist’s mind when they’re like, “yeah let’s frame this with Bucky gently bicep-gripping Tony like he’s checking if the love of his life is still breathing”? Huh?

Tell me with your chest that isn’t deliberate. I dare you. I’m not going to insist it’s a declaration of love disguised as casual concern, but I am saying this is basically the comics equivalent of Bucky whispering “I’ve got you” in a fanfic and then carrying Tony bridal-style out of frame. So jot that down.

Vibration intensifies.

Alright, now that we’ve lovingly and obsessively established that Tony and Bucky were officially on the same Avengers team (canonically sharing air, a fridge full of Red Bull, and Peter), and that this blessed overlap gave us just enough panel crumbs to construct an entire alternate reality fueled by ship vibes and bicep touches, let’s look at what happens after.

While Tony remains on the team after that sweet little team-up moment in Avengers (2010–2012) #1–6, Bucky straight-up ghosts. Poof. No warning. One minute he’s leaning into Tony like a man who wants to be electrocuted back to life with him, and the next, he’s vanished.

Now, I don’t know exactly why his run as Bucky Cap-slash-Avenger was cut shorter than my will to live during Civil War and Secret Invasion re-reads. Maybe it’s because Steve not being Cap wasn't working out for the marketing team. Maybe it’s—yes—because the Winter Soldier aesthetic is just too hot to retire permanently (fair). Or maybe Marvel realized Bucky can only pretend to be emotionally stable for like six issues before the PTSD starts leaking out of the boots, and if he keeps sharing a frame with Tony, the bicep touches will get out of hand.

Whatever the reason, we pivot into something incredibly juicy.

Bucky’s got some personal shit to handle. And by “personal shit” I don’t mean repressing the urge to steal Sharon’s man in Captain America (2004–2011), but being put on trial for war crimes he committed as the Winter Soldier while brainwashed by evil communists. Not gonna lie, it’s one of my favorite arcs. Fuck, the angst is unbearable and hurts so good. 

Okay, so Captain America (2004–2011) #606–610 is not a filler arc, and I know I’ve cried wolf on that like ten times already, but for real—this one actually slaps. It’s got plot, it’s got emotional devastation, and it’s got Zemo crawling out of whatever ratty purple monologue hole he’s been lurking in just to make Bucky’s life worse.

Now, Zemo’s beef with Bucky is big. Like, giant man-child grudge levels. And this beef ends with Zemo outing Bucky as the Winter Soldier. Globally. Just absolutely fucking blows his cover sky-high. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows. And it quickly becomes a problem for many people—Tony included—who now has to defend the decision he doesn’t remember making to offer Bucky the shield. 

Captain America (2004–2011) #611–615, or The Trial of Captain America should’ve been called ‘Let’s Emotionally Eviscerate Bucky Barnes for Five Issues Straight While Tony Has a Slow-Burn Breakdown in the Background’.

I’m gonna be real with you, this arc is fucking devastating. Like, genuinely painful. Not "oh no the plot is bad", but the "I'm gonna lie face down on the floor for 20 minutes after reading this and think about metal arms and unspoken love". Bucky gets thrown in prison, Tony nerfs his arm down to “just a guy” strength levels so they don’t take it from him entirely, and everything spirals from there like we knew it would.

This arc is so good, Marvel actually dropped a whole omnibus just for it. Character deep dives. Legal drama. Violence and introspection in tasteful grayscale. The court of public opinion don’t give a single flying fuck, and as far as the media is concerned, Bucky’s guilty before he even sets foot in the courtroom, because who cares about being a weaponized trauma victim when there’s a sexy scandal headline to run.

Tony is out here defending Bucky at Avengers meetings, going toe-to-toe with Clint like “Hey maybe don’t be a bitch about my sad ex-Winter Soldier boyfriend, thanks.” And you know Clint’s only mad because he sees it too. He’s like “wow, Tony’s very emotionally involved in this, should I be jealous?” (Answer: yes, always.)

Jokes aside, while Bucky is trying very hard to rot in a jail cell with dignity, Sin is out here popping up out of the woodwork again. She picks up a new himbo sidekick, goes full daddy-issues-core and decides she’s going to be the next Red Skull. She now also looks the part and there are too many panels of her making out with no face on. Ugh. She kidnaps Nat and Sam since they are Bucky’s support humans, and lures him into escaping custody for a rescue mission.

Bucky, of course, breaks out, saves the people he loves, and then walks his pretty ass right back to jail. Voluntarily. Because he wants to face the consequences. Because he wants to take responsibility. Because he’s like “yeah I was brainwashed and had zero free will but I still feel like I deserve to be punished for it” and if you’re not sobbing yet, you’re stronger than me.

Oh, and just when the trial actually goes his way—somehow—after he literally pleads guilty, and they sentence him to 20 years with time served (read: “you can go now, sweetie”), he gets deported to Russia. Because they already ran their own shady little trial in secret and decided they want their war weapon back. So the arc ends with our boy being sent to a fucking gulag just as he finds the will to want to be free, like he hasn’t suffered enough. 

Captain America (2004–2011) #616–619 is where Bucky goes to an awful-awful Russian place, mentally dies a bit, and Tony is mentioned twice so I had to read it twice.

So, America yeets Bucky back to Russia like he’s a slightly defective product, and now he’s stuck in a gulag, getting punched for sport while slowly dissociating into the cold steel of his trauma. Fun? Hell no. It is bleak. Bucky’s not doing great. There’s blood. There’s pain. There’s soul-crushing monotony and flashbacks to violence, in addition to real-time violence. And just to twist the knife, there are not one but two separate mentions that “Iron Man” might visit—as in, “Hey, maybe your hot billionaire will come get you out?” (almost). And then... crickets. Tony, come pick up your future husband from the Russian fight club before I scream.

Tony, for reasons unknown, doesn’t visit. But Sharon and Nat, being badass motherfuckers, hop on a plane to go figure out what the fuck is happening in Russia, because someone has to. Steve, for his part, is doing his own thing in the U.S., but I’m going to go ahead and headcanon that he’s spending this time babysitting Tony, making him tea, and deleting Russian headlines from the Stark servers.

Anyway, our boy Bucky is spending most of his days getting his ass handed to him in pit fights while wearing the same sad grey hoodie of despair. He’s isolated, miserable, and yet still hot enough to make the snow in that Siberian awfulness melt. He’s also being reminded that oh yeah—he trained a handful of elite sleeper agents to infiltrate the U.S., and they’re still out there, frozen like evil murder popsicles. And if he doesn’t help stop them, someone else is gonna wake them up and let the body count begin, which he eventually will do in his Winter Soldier comic book run (which I am also not covering here, but I might do a from Winter Soldier to Revolution timeline, just for fun, because you all need to know how he gets Alpine, at some point in the future.) 

In present, however, Nat’s like “fuck this, I’m done waiting for my bestie” (and I’m using his words here, because Bucky keeps calling her his best friend every ten minutes), so she punches some bad guys, wrecks some shit, and assists Bucky in breaking himself out. The whole arc is God-tier content, cross my heart. I am here for the quiet devastation in Bucky’s eyes, the offhand Tony mentions, and the subtle, soul-shattering reminder that no matter how far he runs, the Winter Soldier still owns his nightmares.

Anyway, this arc ends with the jailbreak, and, just for drama, let's say that the real prison is the guilt Bucky carries. And the other real prison is me, in hell, because Marvel refuses to just let him be held by a certain genius. But we’ll get there. If not in comic books, then in fanfiction.

So… Fear Itself. The end of the road for this entire recap. The tragic gay crescendo. The dramatic mic drop that Marvel fucked at our collective heads just when things were getting soft.

If you’ve been here since the beginning (blink twice if you need help), you now know this whole cursed journey from Extremis/The Man Out of Time to this point is essentially two parallel, occasionally intersecting trauma arcs.

Fear Itself is the moment everything unravels again, beautifully and horrifically. It’s not just about Bucky dying (kinda) or about the ship angst that comes with that (although, hi, yes, that’s here and I’m sobbing into my keyboard). It’s about him stepping out from under Steve’s red-white-and-blue shadow, finally—not to replace him, not to cosplay patriotism—but to carry his own name and start working on his own legacy to eventually ditch being Winter Soldier and become Revolution waaaay later. It’s also about Tony breaking his sobriety for… reasons. 

To me this Marvel event doesn’t just close out a plotline, but very much closes a loop. Fear Itself is where my fic (last plug) taps out, too—because yes, obviously, I take some creative liberties and give these blorbos a happy ending. 

Gather ‘round, kids. It’s lore time. Once upon a clusterfuck, Odin locked away a spooky little number under the ocean. And then, slightly less once upon a time, Red Skull decided to help Hitler win the war the old-fashioned way, flexed a casual genocide of a thousand of Namor’s people to summon some eldritch hammer of power, which immediately crashed down to Earth in a very normal "Hi, I’m here to ruin everything" fashion.

Unfortunately for Red Skull at the time, he couldn’t lift it, so this evil hammer just sat there in Antarctica until Red Skull’s deeply unwell daughter Sin shows up, picks it up, gets a makeover that does nothing to fix her very unsettling face, becomes Skadi, the herald and unlocks the real boss of the game: The Serpent. Also known as Odin’s creepy brother, also known as the OG All-Father, also known as Evil Sea Dad. And in Fear Itself #1 Odin takes one look at this cosmic horror comeback, goes “SHIT,” slaps Thor so hard he needs therapy, packs his sparkly god bags, and hauls Asgard’s ass off the planet, leaving the rubble behind like, “Good luck, Midgard, I’m out, don’t @ me,” dipping the second things got spicy just as Tony was going to use Stark Resilient to build them a new home instead of the one destroyed in the Siege and create some jobs for hard-working Americans in the process. 

In Fear Itself #2, the Serpent chucks a bunch more evil hammers at Earth, and these babies are pure apocalyptic energy designed to possess anyone who can pick them up with unresolved rage issues. Juggernaut is like “yoink, this is mine now,” Hulk gets one too and turns into the green embodiment of a nuclear anxiety attack. Titania, bless her scary wife soul, grabs one and says “I’m built for this,” and points her hubby in the direction of his. Others follow, but you get the idea. Serpent goes full Oprah, giving out divine rage steroids: You get a hammer! You get a hammer! Fuck you, everything’s on fire! Earth is then immediately on fire, and humanity’s general response is: “Uhhh hey Avengers? Y’all up?”

Fear Itself #3 is the issue that neither I nor Tony are ready to fucking process. Like, if you’ve got coping mechanisms, good for you, but I personally had to go and hug my doggo after reading it for the recap, and I will be purging my phone of those screenshots as soon as I post this.

Here’s the quick and dirty: Odin, in peak absentee space-dad form, locks Thor off-world because he disagrees with his grand plan—to burn Earth to stop the Serpent—and I’m not even going to get into that because my blood pressure is already high. On Earth, the Thing picks up one of those evil rage-hammers, but this issue is really all about Bucky.

Bucky, fresh off his Siberian trauma vacation, is back in the field, back in the stars and stripes, trying his best to pretend he's fine and definitely not still bleeding guilt from every pore or missing Tony. He rolls up as Captain America to fight Sin, who, and I say this with my whole chest, is the worst. She goes on a rant about how it's her destiny to kill him (whatever you say, twat), and then that rotting cheeto of a fascist feral child rips off Bucky’s metal arm, guts him, and beats him to death with her hammer.

I can’t even be funny about it. I mean, I will, but just know I am heartbroken, even though the dying doesn’t stick, obviously. Tony’s not on the page when it happens, but he feels it in his soul, okay? Somewhere, wherever he is at that moment, something slips from his hand and he looks off into the middle distance, because he just knows he’s lost the one person who never asked him to be anyone but himself.

That’s where we’re at. Bucky gets murdered by a Nazi in a shitty bondage outfit. Fuck you, Sin, and fuck you, Marvel, for making me go through this.

As a side note, the evil hammer powers amplify the supers who picked them up, so there’s death, carnage and all-in-all shit all over the world, with people going crazy, dying by buckets, riots, looters, etc, the Serpent feeding on fear. But who cares, Bucky’s dead.

Okay so, Fear Itself #4 is where I throw my hands in the air, say “fuck it,” and recap it alongside Invincible Iron Man (2008–2012) #503–509—because even though Bucky is dead for now, the ship goggles are still on and I refuse to take them off. Half the ship might be six feet under as far as the reader is concerned at this point, but sorry MCU, your impact was weak, and that never stopped us before.

Now, in the main event issue, we find Tony standing over Bucky’s very dead, very ruined body, and he’s got the helmet on. Which is… interesting. Because in basically every other important conversation Tony has, that helmet is off. The consensus here should be that if he takes it off, we’ll all see the tears and collapse. So yeah. He’s got it on. He’s grieving. And yes, we noticed.

Nat is openly crying over Bucky’s body too, our girl has range, Steve picks up the shield, and Thor, fresh off being grounded by his shitty space dad, shows up to help punch things. But the real butterfly effect of Bucky getting bludgeoned to death is this: Tony relapses straight after. Total coincidence. He sacrifices his sobriety as soon as he leaves the room Bucky’s in, pours a drink in the middle of a ruined world, and prays to Odin since, according to him, he’s giving him the only valuable thing he’s got left.

Eventually, Odin (who is, in fact, also the worst) transports Tony off-world to a magical forge because sure, let the sad tin man cry into the bottle surrounded by dwarves while he tries to make some weapons to help the Avengers beat the Serpent, and maybe he’ll feel better. He doesn’t. He angsts the whole time, but he does build new weapons for the Avengers, and at the end of this arc he shows up back on Earth in a new, shiny, spiky Iron Man suit, still under the impression Bucky is dead.

Next slide, please. Let’s, for the moment, stop being heartbroken because of Bucky and get heartbroken for other reasons.

Fear Itself #5–7 is three issues of watching the Avengers get their collective asses handed to them while everything explodes and hope gets dropkicked into the sun. Like, things are bad. So bad that even Peter—sweet sunshine boy, human serotonin dispenser, the kid who once tried to high-five a symbiote—starts having a crisis because he thinks they’re actually gonna lose. And when Peter loses hope, that’s when you know we’re absolutely fucked.

For a bit, Steve and Thor are out here trying to hold the line, but Steve’s shield gets smashed, and Thor takes on like five rage-hammered kaiju at once and barely crawls away with internal organs still attached. There’s a whole lotta death in these issues, and when Tony shows up, decked out in a magic-ass suit made of grief, dragging along weapons for the rest of the team, and Odin gives Thor his Ragnarok sword and armor before the final fight, Thor uses it to end the Serpent—only to go down himself like the noble himbo he is.

Technically a victory, though Sin is alive to cause trouble in some other arcs, but it’s giving zero joy. No joy to be had at the end of this event. Unless, y’know, you count Fear Itself #7.1 that—phew—confirms that Bucky is alive.

No way a babe as hot as this gets to die. Not on Nat and Fury’s watch. In a flashback, we learn that just before Tony walks into the room with his “My God… it’s true” entrance, Nat and Fury injected Bucky with a serum. In fairness, it wasn’t guaranteed to work, and they needed Steve back in the game and figured traumatizing him into reclaiming the shield was a solid strategy. Normal friend stuff.

So yeah. Bucky technically flatlined, but got better. Was it sketchy? Extremely. Did they tell Steve right away? Absolutely not. When Fury eventually spills, Steve punches him. Repeatedly. They say their goodbyes, Bucky gives Steve the spotlight back, and slinks off to his own solo title, while Tony doesn’t find out Bucky’s alive for so long. Unfair, if you ask me. Perfect shippy blind spot for fanfics, if you also ask me.

I’m not here for canon. You’re not here for canon. We’re here for the sweet, unhinged dopamine injection of winteriron endgame fix-it fanfic based on MCU anyway, okay? That’s the content we deserve. That’s the timeline we manifest. Or something. Idk, I’ve been losing the plot for the past 20k of this recap, and can’t think of anything else to say that doesn’t end up being a massive rant about how Tony and Bucky are soulmates, damn everything.

And that, folks, brings us to the end, since we are skipping that rant. I wish I could give you a chirpy little bowtie ending, but this is comics. It always gets worse before it gets rebooted. No final thoughts. Get out of here knowing that winteriron prevails either way, and in any canon/headcanon. Unless it’s some other ship, since every ship is valid.

Masterpost with all parts

[wonderwoona]

2 hilarious dc moments that need to be discussed more

2. dc being relentlessly attacked by fox news because they changed superman’s ‘fight for the american way’ motto

• in a historical context, like, i can definitely see that he was made to embody that whole american dream thing. but NOW? idk it’s kind of tired

• what makes me laugh is that these people would probably hate superman in real life

• people like to say that clark kent and by extension his family, are republicans. how guys. HOW. BRO IS AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT.

• ma and pa kent literally were out here committing some kind of fucking immigration fraud, buying a birth certificate off the black market type of deal to explain the existence of their alien son. clearly willing to ride or die

• along with this, they managed to raise an angel of a human being, and never treated him as weird or ‘other’ despite the fact that he’s literally an alien who can fucking fly

• clark himself? well, clearly has extremely left wing views because a) is an immigrant b) grew up working class c) lives in an extremely urban area and d) is an english major. i truly doubt bro would be into fox news

1. dc confirming that canonically, batman does not perform oral sex

• now this… this is a case that doesn’t sit right with me.

• bruce wayne has a reputation for being a flirtatious womanising playboy. so what this means is that a) he’s been pretty bad at sex this whole time (hilarious) or b) he’s a pillow princess. dc both options seemingly cramp the image you’re trying to craft for him my guys

• yknow what’s even fucking funnier. oliver queen canonically does in the comics. take that bruce wayne

• “Kunnulingus and killing, the two things he won’t do.”

[ilikekidsshows]

Marinette stans: oh my GOD, shut up about the child abuse apologia and sexist and harmful double standards in Marinette's favor, fiction literally CANT affect real life. It's just fiction. Not real. You guys are pathetically for not understanding that lol

Also Marinette stans: No, SHUT UP, it's unspeakably important that Marinette and every female character is always better and a superior Slay Queen on the expense of all male characters (but most importantly on Adrien) because that's the only way little girls will learn about female empowerment and that they can be strong, smart, and important too! If that and "bullying is bad" is not what every second of this show is about then that's harmful patriarchal and societal oppression I will never EVER recover from! Don't you ever think of female representation and how important and life-changing this is???

I normally would acknowledge that there is a very real and valid grey area here, in which, yeah, a piece of media absolutely gets to decide what representation and empowerment it mostly dedicates itself too, even if that will always result in alienating and punching down on other types of rep and empowerment. Its simply a normal consequence for prioritizing something no matter the context.

But imo Miraculous has long lost that privilege because they expect to get their cake and eat it too.

Make everything about one specific type of empowerment and rep bc it's "life-changingly important for girls and bully victims to see" but everyone who relates and finds empowerment in ADRIEN'S (female-coded) character of abuse has to put up with him being treated worse than any female character I've ever seen "for empowerment because only girls and bullying matter" and we don't get to point the hypocrisy and harmful double standards and messages out because "fiction isn't real"

Like, pick a fucking lane. Which one is it.

Is fiction incapable of affecting reality or is it so capable of doing so that everything has to be broken and sacrificed for hypocritical slay queen "feminism" and "oh my fucking GOD, bullying is the worst thing that ever happened to any person in human history! Nothing else could possibly compare!"

You can't have both.

---

Look, I’m not some type of modern puritan. Despite me ragging on Miraculous for its rancid morals, I don’t think all media has to be morally sound and teach good lessons. I understand that the audience is largely responsible for what their own takeaway from a piece of media is and the author should not be held accountable for every interpretation of their work. However, I do think people who don’t have high critical thinking skills are influenced by the media they’re subjected to. This can be used for good by teaching people empathy towards people unlike them or it can be used for ill by normalizing harmful practices.

Children do not, on the regular, have high critical thinking skills, because they often lack the life experiences to develop such skills. These things have to actively be taught to children, which is why scaremongering about what children learn from their media is so effective; it's based on a real concern of them emulating what they see. It does play a part, though the biggest part is the discussion surrounding the media. Interaction is the most powerful tool for learning, so the fandom spaces around pieces of media do influence their members even more than the source material does.

The problem with Miraculous isn’t just the protagonist being an abuse apologist. The problem is that Plagiarism Man just spent a long stint on social media very publicly spouting a crapton of more abuse apologia. The problem is that the discussion around this show more invested in being “positive” and “sugar” towards the main lead is also minimizing abuse apologia, excusing abuse apologia, or saying the abuse being excused didn’t even happen so there is no abuse apologia. Being a Miraculous fan and a Marinette stan specifically, requires you to excuse abuse apologia or to spout abuse apologia yourself. That is the problem. This children’s show is actively fostering a community where abuse apologia is the rewarded behavior.

I do also have some more fun petty grievances with the types of complaints Anon listed here, so I’ll include them to lighten the post somewhat.

If Miraculous really is all about queens slaying, why are Marinette's primary motivations always “boysboysboys” or making herself look good? Boy crazy and self-obsessed with very rarely having a motivation outside of those two, what an empowering depiction of a teenage girl. Go watch Kim Possible, it did this literal same “girl leads the heroes and is super cool” better twenty years ago. Kim actually is all that they claim for one thing.

Also, the show’s writers are the ones who made half the parents in this show abusive. They made it a prominent part of the story. There’s no way to claim Miraculous isn’t about child abuse as much as it’s about girl power (where the girl loses) and bullying.

In addition, Sébastien Thibaudeau marketed this show to networks as being like Dora the Explorer; even the show bible insists Marinette has to always learn a lesson like a good educational kid show protagonist. Miraculous is supposed to be, by the word of the people who made it, a show with good morals. There’s no excusing abuse apologia with “that’s not what the show is about”! Miraculous is not a purposeful toxic romance for preteens, it's supposed to be teaching moral lessons by its design.

Also, Maripologists have no leg to stand on telling people to shut up about anything, when they still haven't let go of ‘Chameleon’. I think a kids’ show normalizing abuse apologia is a bit more justified as a pet peeve than raging on characters who literally did nothing wrong except maybe being a bit too gullible.