#but let's be fair Calculating Infinity is way better

[gentleoverdrive]

(32/?) Kurt Ballou skanking fistfight lessons.

Writing unhealthy characters can sometimes be extremely unfun. Not because I dislike writing them or because what constitutes the core in said characters; quite the opposite: There's always something I find deeply fascinating in watching a fictitious individual who's not necessarily well put-together try to fight back against the well-worn asphalt they have dug their heels in, that I can seldom get captivated like that anywhere else on any sort of entertainment. ---- No, writing unhealthy characters is not fun sometimes because I have to write them. You know how screwed up it is to craft, spell-check, proofread and edit a voice that, more often than not, goes places that you've learned to regularly avoid in your everyday life? Someone who reminds you of instances that you've come to regret? Of your past vices? And sometimes, it starts getting way uglier. ---- Thanks to my psychiatrist, I've learned to let go of a lot of unhealthy things and habits one by one, but sometimes, mining the "places" you've previously been to for creative endeavors can be weird. Like, you're not that person anymore, but whenever you look back, you think "fuck, this is hard!". ---- Does this make sense? Sorta? Heck, I've been rambling a bit too much, haven't I? Well, let's bring it home for the night, then. See ya' tomorrow, whoever's still reading these!

[vannybarber]

Rude Boy

Summary: You're practicing a dance routine at Chris' house and you can't get a move down, so he helps you out ;)

Chris Evans x Famous¡BlackReader

(Imagine you're on Beyonce's level of fame. You can sing, rap, dance, act. All that 🥰.)

Warnings: SMUT, cursing, spanking, tiny fluff.

Words: 2.8k

S/N = Stage Name

"Chris pleaseeee" you say, literally on your knees in front of him.

"I don't know if I'm qualified for that. I mean you're S/N." He rubs his face and sighs. You hate when he talks down on himself like that.

You were currently in his living room, begging for him to critic your choreography for your upcoming performance this Sunday night at the Teen Choice Awards. Its nothing different from what you've done before, but you like the feedback. Chris was nominated for 2 awards and also is attending with Scott.

"Stop acting like I'm better than you. Can you please do this for me? Please boo?" You beg him once more, using the nickname you developed for him over the time you worked together.

You met him in the beginning of both you guys' career when you both got casted for Not Another Teen Movie. Then worked together again in Infinity War after the Russo brothers discovered your years old string of tweets begging to be in a Marvel film. You both vowed to never lose touch again after that.

He smiled to himself at the nickname and finally agreed. You clasped your hands together, squealing like a 2 year old. You get off your knees, grimacing at the slight pain on the pads. Grabbing your phone and speaker out your bag, you run to one of his large spaced rooms in his house and hook up your Bluetooth.

You were ready, but hearing his feet shuffling behind you, it was evident he had no intention of speeding up. So you run to him and grab his thick arm and pull him the rest of the way.

"Alright alright I'm comin' " he chuckled at your excitement. He picks up his pace so you don't pull his shoulder out his socket. Finally making it back to the room, you grab a chair for him and make him sit in it.

He sits, getting comfortable and you quickly walk over to your phone and start the music.

Tonight I'ma give it to you harder

Tonight I'ma turn your body out

Relax lemme do it how I wanna

If you got it, I need it and I'ma put it down

You start the dance, lipsyncing the lyrics. You already have great breath control, so you don't have to worry about messing up your vocals.

Buckle up, I'ma give it to you stronger

Hands up we gon' go a lil longer

Tonight I'ma get a lil crazy, get a lil crazy baby

You swirl your ass up in the air, in doggy style position. You look up at Chris and see him looking at your butt. You just smirk and keep going.

Going into your last verse, the nastiest one, the one move you've been struggling with is coming up.

I like when you tell me kiss you there

I like when you tell me move it there

So get it up, time to get it up

You say you want rude, boy, show me whatchu got now

Come here right now

You catch his eyes and wink. He winks back playfully. You guys had flirty exchanges, but they were all joke based. One of the great parts of you guys' relationship.

You lie on your back and prepare to do the move.

Come here rude boy boy can you get it up?

Come here rude boy boy is you big enough?

You attempt the move and mess up for the 50thousandth time. Sitting up on your knees, you bring your hands to your face and groan. Frustrated, you rise and bring the music back to the last verse.

Chris gets up and walks to your side, wrapping his huge bicep around your shoulder. "Hey what's wrong, bean?" He dips his head down to look at your scrunched up face. Like he ain't just watch you fuck up the move.

"I can't get the move right. It's the one part I'm struggling with." You stomp your foot on the brown hardwood floor and fold your arms.

"Well how about you just change it to something you already know" he suggests, but you're not hearing it.

This move is perfect for the song. The move is like you're riding an invisible dick. You have to roll your hips twice and jump back up on your feet, ass in the air, right away. But your rolls are so mechanical and stiff. And you need to do it so you can go into the next move right after.

After you explain this to him, you sit down feeling defeated. He comes over and crouches infront of you, hands on your thighs. You stomach twirls a little. You haven't gotten any in like 2 years, so simple touches you riled up. It's honestly sad.

He scans you from your legs, stops at your lips and up to your eyes. You narrow them at him and wiggle your eyebrows smiling, lowkey wondering why he's checking you out. He smirks and speaks.

"How about I help you with the move?" So many thoughts and images of him riding an imaginary dick on the floor evade your mind and has you giggling like an idiot.

"You gonna get on the floor with me?" You question half jokingly and half serious.

"I have a better idea." Confused, you watch him rub his big hands up your slightly bigger thighs. He reaches your hips and squeezes them, making you squeal because you're ticklish. He stands up and bends down to your level and looks you in your eyes.

"I want you to ride me, Y/N." Your body moving faster than your brain, you get up and walk to the window and stare at it. Hands against the glass you just watch the trees blow in the wind, wide eyed. You hear him laugh behind you and you turn around.

"Chris what do you mean 'ride you'?" You asked the dumb question, knowing exactly what he meant, but you needed to hear it from him. You needed to know exactly what you just heard.

"Honey, you know exactly what I mean. Can we just be honest here? We both are sexually attracted to each other, but push it aside for our friendship" he counters, walking up to you, rubbing your sides again. "Might as well admit it."

You were definitely attracted to him, but him attracted to you? Like that? The flirty jokes you guys shared with each other and the playful touches didn't really mean anything though. Right?

You didn't have time to think about that as you come back to reality and hear him calling your name.

"Y/N? Y/N, you there? You alright?" He grabs your face and checks your eyes. You slap his hand away and look at him. He's so annoying, but so beautiful. Its not fair.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this. I don't want to pressure you into sleeping with me. You're my friend." He backs up and shakes his head. "I'm sorry bean."

You heart pangs a little at his words. You actually wanted to do this. I mean as long as it didn't ruin your friendship, you were cool with it. You grab him back to you and tell him.

"Chris, you're not pressuring me into anything. I want to do it. You're helping me out and plus I trust you with my body. I know you'll respect me." You smile at him and he does the exact same.

"Are you sure because-"

"You have to thumb promise me that this won't mess up our friendship" you cut him off. "I really value that with you." You hold out your thumb, waiting for him to touch it with his. He smiles widely at you, connecting his thumb to yours and kissing his thumb nail, you doing the same.

Everything happened so fast. One minute you're making out straddling his lap and next he's picking you up and heading towards his room. And now here you are, on top of his splayed body on his bed. His tongue is still dancing with yours and his hands grip the hell out of your ass.

You both pull away after sucking out 75% of each other's carbon dioxide.

" Y/N, is this your first time riding?" He looks at you for your answer and you sheepishly nod your head, covering your face out of embarrassment. In your only two relationships, you did the same old things. Missionary and all that. You never really had control or lead so you were nothing less of inexperienced.

He softy pulls your hands from your face and chuckles. "Don't be ashamed, baby. I'm gonna help you okay? It'll be good for the both of us." Giving his famous wink, he adjusts his body a little higher.

"First, let's get these clothes off of you. Is that okay?" You nod eagerly and your heart warms up with how respectful he's being. Consent is so sexy.

He pulls your black t-shirt above your head and tosses it behind you. Observing your beddable torso he slides his hands up your ribcage, around your back and to your bra clip.

"Let's get this off, yeah?" Another eager nod. The entire time, you're just smiling. Because for one, he's being so patient with you and two, you're excited as hell. It's been a long ass time.

After your bra comes off, his hands shoot straight up to massage your boobs. They actually fill his hands and he's most definitely enjoying it. You laugh outloud and lower yourself down so he can slip one on his mouth. He quickly latched on twirled his tongue around the nipple and switches over to the other, doing the same. You throw your head back and grind on his crotch area.

He sees this and teases you about it.

"Is someone ready for their lesson?"

You whine out your words.

"Yesss." He halts his grip on your boobs and looks at you. "Yes what?" You pause and register what he's asking you. He quirks an eyebrow, waiting for your answer. You bite your lip.

"Yes Daddy." He pulls your head down by your neck and kisses you sweetly. "Good girl", he smiles at you proudly. Him praising you only made your panties even more soaked. You shift your body around, removing your tights. Throwing them to the side, you lean down and kiss him again. Only this time, you were the one removing the clothes.

After getting his shirt off and reconnecting your lips, your hands run over his chest and he moans in your mouth. You grin against his lips and reach for his belt. Pulling away, you earn a whine from him too.

Someone's eager, you think smirking to yourself.

Undoing that red belt he literally was in love with and removing his pants, his boner was on full display and you were not disappointed. According to your calculations, based off your sight, he was at least 7 maybe 8 inches. His shaft was visibly thicc and wide. You were in for a treat.

He watches you gawk at his coCk and thrusts up into your hand, making you squeal. He could literally feel the excitement radiate from your body. But he was way more excited than you could imagine.

"You like what you see, pretty girl?" You look back up at him and stick your tongue out like a child. You truly could not stand this adorable puppy man child. His hand rests on the side of your face and his thumb grazes over your cheekbone.

"Take it out for me, baby girl." All these nicknames he was giving you did not help your horny predicament. You reach inside his Calvin Klein's and feel for him. Grabbing his humongous length, you pull it out and pull the boxers down and off his legs.

Absentmindedly, you stroke him, dragging your thumb over the head and collecting the bits of precum sitting. He groans lowly, bucking his hips up into your closed hand.

"Now you're just gonna get up and sink on it slowly, okay? Stop for a second if it hurts" he coaches you. Following his orders, you move up so your core is right on his tip. Slowly you sink on him.

The slight pain does not go unnoticed as he stretches you out. Ignoring it, you push down a little more.

"That's it, sweet girl. You're doing so good for me. So good." He rubs your hips encouragingly, relieving some of the pain. When you finally get him completely inside, you look at your bodies connected, shocked you even got him in so easily.

"When you're ready, just move back and forth. If it gets too much, let me know and I'll help you. Okay, pretty girl?" You let out a soft 'yes', clenching around him. After most of the pain subsides, you move on him. His heaving breathing doesn't slip past you and neither does your tiny whimpers.

"There you go baby. You're learning so fast. Just keep moving, just like that." He throws his head back gritting his teeth. The pleasure is coming in fast and you moan out his name. Hands on his chest, your hips roll against his, cock sliding in and out of you. His hands on under your butt help you move swiftly.

You speed up at his praises and a swat lands on your bottom, leaving a tingling feeling. As if you weren't already fired up, that did it for you. Your pace increases and your skin slaps against his, echoing in the bare room. A yell leaves your mouth as reoccurring ecstacy shoots through your body everytime you slide back down on him.

Chris tries to grip onto you but his hands keep slipping.

"Fuck, Y/N! You're doing so perfect. Ride me just like that. You're such a good girl"

He starts to meet your rhythm, rutting up into you. Now you're screaming and the slaps get louder, his hands coming in contact with your ass more frequent. You feel the coil in your abdomen and you aren't short of letting him know.

"Daddy I'm- Fuck I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum!" You balance yourself with your hands on the sides of his head and give it your all one last time.

"Let go baby. Cum for me. Cum all over my cock, sweet girl." You didn't need to be told twice. Your eyes twisted shut and your pussy gripping around him, you cum all over his length. He thrusts a couple more times and shoots his load inside you, filling you up. Both your bodies go limp against each other.

"That was so fucking amazing" you force out, in between breathes. You raise your head to look at his fucked out state. Pride rises in your chest, knowing you did this to him. He looks down at you, giving a dopey smile.

"You were amazing. I would've never guessed this was your first ride. Hopefully it won't be your last, with me of course." Hope is evident in his voice. You take a moment to contemplate, but you already knew your answer.

"I think we could make it happen" you say tapping your fingers on your chin and a huge grin on your face.

"Then it's settled. I think you have this move downpacked." He leans down giving you another kiss. You were in for the ride of your life.

Blinded by your excitement to perform, Sunday night came quick. You were backstage watching the program as you got ready. The movie nominations were up and Chris was nominated for Movie Actor: Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Movie Scene Stealer. Hearing his name called for both awards you freak out while your make up artists Stella tries to put on the finishing touches.

Chris honestly deserves every award he is nominated for and every one he isn't. He's so talented, but people never appreciate the actual talent around here. He doesn't win many awards so this was extremely big for him. You were so proud.

You hear Maya Rudolph present you and you get into position.

Throughout the performance you were grinning from ear to ear. Excited for the move Chris helped you perfect and reminiscing on how he helped you perfect it. The part comes up and you absolutely nail it. You look at him in the front row and see his mouth a 'good girl' at you.

When the performance is over, you take in your applause, wink at Chris and head into the back. Moments later, everyone is in the back congratulating you. Chris comes up beside you and smiles.

"You did such a good job, bean." He kisses the side of your forehead. Your bestfriend comes up and asks you how you got the move down. You look up at Chris.

"Well I had a very good teacher. He taught me very well."

Glances did not fail to be thrown across the room and your bestfriend did not fail to bombard you and Chris with questions on the ride home.

Hmmm I actually liked this one 😎

masterlist

[utilitycaster]

Wizard Breakdown Tracker #3, episode 133

Greetings and salutations to the exercise I have set upon myself, which is to say deciding the relative mental stability of Wizard NPCs who have been subjected to the Mighty Nein. My intent is to do this at least until Trent Ikithon has fucked off this mortal coil and/or been thoroughly deposed and humiliated.

As a reminder Caleb Widogast is a member of the Mighty Nein and a PC and therefore excluded from these calculations. Wizards who haven’t been seen or heard from lately and about whom I don’t have anything funny to say about will not get a full blurb, but as they re-enter the main narrative so will they re-enter the list. Currently, this is the Essek Thelyss Show ft. Trent and the Volstruckers with guest appearances by Yussa and Allura.

Currently sidelined: Oremid Hass, Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk (I am going to reuse this stupid joke name for him until it doesn’t make me laugh at my own joke anymore, which will probably be never), Pumat Sol (who I hope is having a great day), Ludinus Da’leth (who I hope is not but in true laissez-faire rat bastard form, probably is).

Vess D wasn’t there/morning time in Eiselcross or at her job or anywhere/they snuck in and took her life/and we noticed that her spellbook’s gone and that she’s covered in red eyes.

Trent Ikithon: Okay with the caveat that it’s been a very long time since I saw the entire movie and our only update is Artagan taking a moment from his busy schedule of traveling the globe in the direction of the sun such that he is always technically day-drinking to tell Jester that Trent’s biding his time, I’m getting real Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame Frollo vibes. Except instead of Catholicism and lust, it’s nationalism and an unquenchable thirst for power and control, and also he does not feel guilty in the slightest. He’s not at Hellfire levels yet but he will get there and I am slightly disappointed that due to the constraints of a D&D game we do not get an even more fucked up version of the song Hellfire.

Conclusion: 6/10. Slowly stepping it up. Also here’s the great thing: while we know Caleb is going to come after him next, he doesn’t, and the Nein didn’t tell any world governments about the threat of the city unless you count the Tal’Dorei Council via Allura, which means for all intents and purposes they just disappeared into Eiselcross...except Trent also knows Caleb disappeared for five or six years once before and reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. If Caleb weren’t dedicated to the noble goal of ending the Volstrucker program ASAP, he could just chill for a year or so and then pull a really stellar Surprise Bitch move and maybe just get Trent’s heart to explode.

Essek Thelyss: He got a good night’s trance and weird physical affection from a giant ape Caleb and he was healed by Caduceus and he had a serious conversation with the first true peer and one of the first friends he’s ever known about how high-level wizardry may not necessarily corrupt absolutely. And, of course, soup. I mean they are about to head into a terrible battle but he’s at full health and spells and he’s a valued member of the team and his friends love him SO MUCH.

Conclusion: 5/10. There is a distinction between a breakdown and being in a very high pressure situation, and he got some nice moments of respite this week. With that said do I think that post-battle, should he survive (HE BETTER) a whole lot of anxiety will come crashing back? Yeah.

Astrid Beck: With Trent in a holding pattern he’s got to be turning up the mind games on her; I have to imagine he suspects and then she suspects that he suspects and it’s a whole mess, but I’ve said that already. But also just like, in general, I think her speech to Caleb back when he first contacted her was genuine in many ways and specifically I think she was likely to have been Trent’s New Golden Child and then suddenly that got yanked out from under her for still more mind games; I think her difference in demeanor between that meeting and the dinner was partially Trent being present, but partially her having realized in the interim that she will likely never have anything to show for two decades of pain and doing terrible things and nonstop bullshit.

Conclusion: still keeping her at 8/10 until further notice but like. Astrid’s having a bad time.

Um actually Eadwulf is the monster? The hero’s name is Grendel: Okay meanwhile here’s my totally unsupported Eadwulf headcanon of this week which is that he meanwhile always knew he was not the favorite and probably never would be and while I doubt he ever had particularly noble goals I would not be surprised if he had an exit strategy. Personally I hope he tries card-counting in that casino in Ank’harel and gets kicked out posthaste and then tries being a wizard/some kind of divine caster multiclass in Vasselheim and also gets kicked out but finally becomes like an old-school hermit figure somewhere in the woods of Issylra and Campaign 3′s party runs into him.

Conclusion: also keeping him at 4/10 until further notice.

Allura Vyesoren: It’s time to acknowledge that this episode covered a span of like...8 hours? And presuming the Nein are sort of trying to keep a normal sleep schedule, maybe, and using a comparison of Eiselcross being at a comparable time zone to say, Nicodranas, and it’s 5 hours into the night for them, and we know that around mid-day for Nicodranas was early morning for Emon...honestly she’s probably relaxing with a glass of wine. Unless Wensforth contacted her.

Conclusion: I’m going to let Allura have a good day. She’s at 2/10 because the threat of Aeor will be in the back of her mind but also she’s seen a bunch of idiots kill dragons and Vecna and they didn’t even have a wizard.

Yussa Errenis: Experiencing a great disturbance in the Astral Sea, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and then just like, kept doing that.

Conclusion: I decided to really go all out last week on the infinity jokes and left myself nothing to go on, huh. Anyway this breakdown goes to 11 (out of 10).

[theodora3022]

Bloody Rose(Sebastian Michaelis x Vampire F!reader)

Request: Sabastian with a female vampire s/o? Can be yandere or not! You choose.

Notes: I made this in headcanons form and I’m typing on mobile during witching hours, so bear with me dear anon-

I decided to go with fluff since I am in a soft mood today~~

Warnings: Fluff, mentions of blood

To others, you were a tailor owning a small haute couture shop, a spinster who make her living by making outfits. But they won’t know you been doing this since the Georgian times.

You move from county to county, around England every decade or so, to avoid suspension. Luckily no vampire hunters has ever been on your tail: you consider yourself as a good subject to the crown despite being a blood drinker. You only consume animal blood, which made you a harmless vegetarian. Being a forever maiden is not unpleasant by any means, apart from being banished from sunlight. You miss being able to run around in the sun freely. When you do go out during a sunny day you cover yourself in fabric as much as possible, resulting you with overly pale skin.

Contrary to common belief, you slept until the afternoon, opening up the store even during the day. You had forced yourself to change your biological routine to fit in the human society. Although your bed resembles a traditional coffin in shape, it is never an actual one. The mirrors in your shop were not backed by silver, so you can still see your reflections.

You happened to be at late Victorian London when a mysterious murderer decides to drain the blood of thier victims like a vampire would, how unfortunate.

You were one of the suspects, so Sabastian and his lord were obligated to pay you a visit. Although they did not put you as priority to begin with: you never done things like this. 

You welcomed them to your store with a polite smile and warm greetings, as any good saleswoman would. 

Ever since transforming, you had not drank a drop of human blood. However, you can still smell the scent of their blood even through skin. It feels like...a natural perfume to you, to describe it at best. Some are sweeter then others, like tempting sweet delights, and you had to make sure you are well fed before going near them. 

That little lord’s blood is sweet and tempting. The butler, however, his blood just...is that even blood? You thought to yourself. It reminds you of the mighnight, danger lurking underneath the peaceful surface.This man is no ordinary human, you can sense that much. You had never delt with a demon before, therefor your knowledge is rather limited, only from books and theaters. 

Vampires are demons are cut from the same cloth, in a way right? Both can only venture in the shadows for eternity, trying to get by without being slain by those self righteous dastards. Sebastian had met some of your kind over the centuries, albiet none of them are as lovely as you are. You still act like a young human woman, if not for your overly pale skin you would be considered as normal. He wonders what made you this way, as all vampires, save a selected few, are humans before something happened. You seem like a kind lady, not one of those blood-hungry lowlifes he had seen before. 

You showed Ciel your collection, took his measurements when he demanded, never flinching away from the young lord’s cold attitude. When you went into the inner chamber to retrive more material choice, Ciel decided you are most likely not the murderer they are looking for, and Sebastian agrees. There is not a single scent of human blood on you or anywhere in sight, as demons can smell such things even one uses the finest soap to cover the traces.  Even though you are a vampire, if you are harmless to others Ciel is not intersted in fighting you(he has a demon for butler, so?).

“But she is a fine tailor, right milord? Maybe you can just make this a normal shopping trip.” What an unsual person you are, thought Sebastian. He might just take a little more time to observe you. It has been forever since he met another immortal being that does not irritates him.

“Very well. This would not be a complete waste of time then. I need a new suit for the social season anyway.” The young man tsked.

When they asks you to deliver the order yourself, you were hesitant about going outside. Your ususal customers send their servents to collect their orders, as you insisted so. You know what sunburns can do to you, but they offered you a down payment you cannot refuse. It is a risk you are willing to take. Even vampires needs gold to survive, if you do not wish to massacre humans for food.

The moment you stepped onto the estate, covered in a long hooded cloak and gloves, you can sense great calamity has occured in this location rather recently. But that is none of your concerns, the customer’s private life is nothing to pry about.

The servents...they are an odd flock, to say the least. They might seem clumsy or even impotent, but you know that butler knows better then to hire three imbeciles.  

After you made your delivery, Sebastian insists on you staying for the afternoon tea. You wanted to decline, since normal food has been tasting like wet paper ever since that awful day, but you find it hard to say keep saying no to such a comely man. He is the most goregous male you ever seen, and you say that as an immortal. The term “devilishly handsome” is like a tailor made suit for him. 

To your surprise, you can faintly taste the refreshement’s fruity flavours. When you were human yourself you have always loved food, missing it much when all you can taste is blood. So you helped yourself to quite a few tarts and biscuits, not knowing the demon had added special ingredients just for your vampire taste buds. You were so focused on your plate that you missed Sebastian’s calculating smile. 

That esclated rather quickly, soon you found yourself promising to tailor more clothes for Earl Phantomhive, therefore being on their premise more. 

Sebastian would always treat you to a plate of mouth-watering refreshments before you depart. Soon you find yourself answering his somewhat intrusive questions, as it is only fair to give him some compensation for those delicious treats.

The questions are surfaces ones at first. What is your favorite color or your preferred weather. Then to more personal territory, such as the reason behind your spinsterhood or what in a man that attracts you the most. You would blush madly, a feeling you have not felt in years fills your empty soul, and tell him your little answers.

How endearing. Compare to werewolves who behaves like canines, vampire leans closer to the feline side. You reminds Sebastian greatly of the black cat he encountered last spring. Your nonchalant and cheerful attitude are identical to the lovely creature. Oh and how he loves petting her soft fur. He wonders how your hair would feel under his hands. He initially might just be curious of how an odd vampire you are, but now the demon had found you to be quite an entertaining presence.

It has been so long since you had any friends, so you opened up to him quickly, disregarding the risks. You even revealed your identity to the man in black after he swears on his heart to not tell a soul. 

“My entire family was slaughtered by venegeful vampires. My father used to work as a vampire hunter for the mad King, therefore he made enemies of many. Ironically I survived, only to found out I turned into this. A creature who can only hide in the shadows forever. I swore I would never be like those blood suckers, I would never kill someone just to saitate my blood lust. Thank you Sabastian, for all those delicious cakes. They made me feel human agian once more. Also thank you for listening to my rambles, it has been so many years I confided in someone.” So you where a noble lady once. That is where your fine but antiquated manners originates from.

What a calamity you had suffered, yet you remain strong and lighthearted nonetheless. Moving from place to place, afraid to be burnt for your youthful appearance.You deserve to be cherished as the treasure you cleary are. No more hiding and running, not if he can help it.

You gladly accepted Lord Phantomhive’s offer to serve as the household’s tailor, the pay is generous and working for one person greatly reduce the risk of being discovered. Plus you get to spend more time with your new friend Sebastian! It is an offer you cannot turn down.

Sebastain is in a contract right now, but Ciel could only live so long. Prior to meeting you, he never thought about the future after his contract is completed. He imagined the two of you traveling across the European contient as friends, or something more, for the rest of your infinate lives. He has always been alone whenever he was not in a contract with humans, but the idea of being with someone forever is rather appealling to the demon. 

Even though he does not let his emotions discract him from his duties, you can still feel how he smiles whenever you enter the room. You would curl up your lips jovially in return, sometimes even teases him for having a charming smile. 

For now, Sebastian would be your good friend, always lend an ear to you for anything, or offer his shoudler should you need it, as long it does not get in the way of his duties to his liege. But who knows what would happen after the contract is completed? The world is yours to explore, with infinate amount of time, with him by your side.

[sunflower-cathedral]

Credit to Shadeswift99 for the idea!

Rating hermits based on if I could win a fight against them:

Xisuma: 10/10 I will ruin X without hesitation. All I have to do is think of that video where he talked rlly shitty on a gender topic. The amount of unbridled rage-

Joehills: 3/10 he will fight dirty and you cant convince me otherwise. He was close with the convex last season, he has gotten his fair share of getting his hands dirty and I dont trust it.

Bdubs: -10000/10 this fucker will probably destroy me. Look, I could easily go off about how short he is and use his desperate anger as a way to make calculated hits but he is so unhinged. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is something so so so feral and unhinged in bdubs that's always 2 seconds away from exploding at any given moment. I am also shorter; and very competitive, which would feed into his competitiveness.

TFC: -1000000000/10 I wouldn't. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't even try to hurt him hes minecraft grandpa i love him :(

Cleo: 8.5/10 I feel like I would have a solid chance, but she plays dirty after the initial shock of being attacked. Tbf I usually try fighting her every time shes on the patron server when I'm also on. Also if the rewards of heads are involved she will win 1000% no doubt about it.

Stress: YOU WANT ME TO FIGHT HER?? AN ONLY PARENT WITH 3 CHILDREN?? WHO WORKS OUT?? NO. NO. SHE WILL BREAK MY SPINE LIKE A FUCKING TWIG IF I TRIED. FUCK-NO/10

False: 4/10 we would be an even match but me being a massive simp would bring my guard down. She could probably destroy my joints if she wanted

Scar: 11/10 I will snap his spine in half in seconds but I will feel guilt because I love him :(

Grian: 5/10 grians not the only person who can play dirty. It would be an even fight

Mumbo: 1000/10 hes a stick

Iskall: 0/10 no

Tango: I'm intimidated. 4/10. I dont trust him, I feel like he could break my neck from 4 feet away but also I feel like he doesn't have the skills against someone who plays pvp related minigames frequently

Impulse: I can and will beat the shit out of him without trying 10000/10

Zedaph: I dont trust a man who isn't afraid of the void and purposefully sits in said void -10/10

Cub: 3/10 he will snipe me to death NOT IF I SNIPE HIM FIRST- also I hate his skin so much its literal cultural appropriation (it's only cultural appropriation because it's similar to what leaders like Cleopatra etc wore: which is sacred to only the most powerful) so actually infinity/10 my pure blind anger and rage will kill him in a 200 block radius

Etho: ... meeehhh I dont wanna fight an OG today 0/10

Doc: look I get he fought God and lost only an arm and won, but listen. I'm A Uni Student. I fear nothing but due dates. I will destroy this man with every fiber of my being. It would be 11/10 but hes a new dad and frankly they're over protective. So he would easily break every bone in my body before I even manage to land a hit on him. 0/10

Wels: i would die for him. I would let him kill me and I would be happy 0/10

Xb & beef: I dont know them well enough but I feel like it would be a decent fight 4/10

Jevin: if he even looks at me he will implode bc of my hatred. I'm still so fucking infuriated by him invalidating and mocking Trigger Warnings infinity/10

Keralis: HE BETTER PULL THE FUCK UP I WILL DESTROY HIM 10/10

Ren: His muscles don't intimidate me, but his never ending support for the rainbow community would make me too weak to attack him. I would be bawling my eyes out and probably end up cuddled by ren. I could never. -1000000000/10

[sassy-pelican]

To Infinity: Part Two

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Language, fluff, angst, sadness, humor, time jumps, 18+, nsfw, canon typical warnings, a bit of everything. You may not read this story if you are under 18

Tagging: @holyhumorliteraturelight​ @crushedbyhyperbole​

A/N: Not gonna lie, I completely forgot to post this earlier (at like noon). I may have started my trial for Disney+ and got caught up watching movies. So this is a little late (after 10pm) but it’s here.

1943

           “The HYDRA camp is in Krausberg, tucked between these two mountain ranges. It’s a factory of some kind.”

           “We should be able to drop right on their doorstep.” Howard Stark, who you soon figured out after strapping yourself in, was the pilot, says.

           “Just get me,” you glare at Steve, “us, as close as you can.” He tells whoever listens. “You know, you two are gonna be in a lot of trouble back at the lab.”

           “And you two won’t?” Peggy counters.

           “Where I’m goin’,” you silently add yourself seeing as Steve won’t, “if anybody yells at me, I can just shoot ‘em.”

           “They will undoubtedly shoot back.” The gun at your back Peggy loaned you feels heavy on your back, the other, smaller ones, stashed across your person even more so. No doubt you would be doing some shooting of your own.

           “Well, let’s hope it’s good for somethin’.” Steve knocks on his shield. Not enough, Steve, not enough.

           “Agent Carter, if we’re not in too much of a hurry I thought we could stop off in Lucerne for a late-night fondue.” You look between Peggy and Steve, the awkward looks almost enough to make you laugh, but you don’t current Steve when you see where his mind goes.

           “So, are you two …? Do you …? Fondue?”

           “This is your transporter. Activate it when you’re ready and the signal will lean is straight to you.”

           “Are you sure this things works?” Steve asks.

           “It’s been tested more than you, pal.” Howard pauses. “And you too sweet-cheeks.”

           “Piss off Howard.” You quip, the man only chuckles. The shots ring in your ear as they hit the plane. Steve jumps up, racing to the open door. You follow him.

           “Get back here! We’re taking you all the way in!” Peggy yells, neither of you really listen.

           “As soon as I’m free, you turn this thing around and get the hell outta here!” Steve yells. You turn to Peggy and roll your eyes.

           “Do that after I’m clear.” She completely ignores you.

           “You can’t give me orders!”

           “The hell I can’t! I’m a Captain!” He yells before looking at her one last time and jumping. You cast a look at her as well.

           “Peggy.” She turns to you, tears in her eyes. “We’ll be okay. Steve will be okay.” You don’t say anything more before you jump after him. When you land, near enough to Steve than he glares at you laugh, despite the dire situation.

           “I was hopin’ you’d change your mind.” He mutters.

           “Not a chance in hell.”

~

           The two of you manage to get into the back of truck, taking the men out inside. You don’t help him much, he doesn’t need it, even when you get to the factory. However, after he takes one of the blue cartridges, you decided to do so as well. Two is better than one, right?

           You manage to take a guard or two as Steve takes out the rest guarding the prisoners. “Who are you supposed to be?” A man asks from below Steve. You huff and watch him.

           “I’m … Captain America.”

           “We’re,” you glare at Steve again, “the people saving your asses.”

           “I beg your pardon?” Another man asks.

           “You don’t wanna know.”

           After figuring out the way down to the gates, which took far longer than both or Steve care to admit, you let everyone out. You ignore the men as they banter, with ill humor or real malice you don’t care, all you notice is no Bucky. “Is there anybody else? I’m looking for a Sergeant James Barnes.” Steve asks.

           “There’s an isolation ward in the factory, but no one’s ever come back from it.”

           “All right. The tree line is northwest, eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast and give ‘em hell. I’ll meet,” you kick him in the back of his leg, a grunt leaving his lips, “we’ll, meet you guys in the clearing with anyone else we find.”

           “Wait! You know what you’re doin’?” Yet another man asks, looking from you to Steve.

           “Yeah. I’ve knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times.” Steve jokes, but you somehow think he is serious.

           “Steve!” You turn to the men still staring at the oddity of you and Steve. “We saved you guys from uncertain death, didn’t we? At least while caged.”

           “Fair point lady.”

           You and Steve follow the directions to the isolation ward, spotting someone with blueprints, but you hear the voice when he does and hesitate.

           “Sergeant. 32557 …”

           You both rush to the source of the sound. The sight of Bucky strapped down makes you freeze. Steve continues forward, snapping the straps. “Oh, my god.” Steve whispers. Bucky continues to mumble.

           “Is that …”

           “It’s me. It’s Steve.”

           “Steve?”

           “Come on.”

           “Steve.”

           “I thought you were dead.” Steve says he gets Bucky up.

           “I thought you were smaller.” Bucky says, looking at him.

           “Come one.” Steve says again.

           “What happened to you?” He asks.

           “I joined the army.” You scoff but move to help Bucky who shakes his head before looking at you again.

           “What the hell?”

           “I told you I wasn’t a nurse.”

           He looks back to Steve. “Did it hurt?”

           “A little.” You want to laugh, but don’t, the worry on Bucky’s face enough to quell the urge.

           “Is it permanent?” He asks.

           “So far.” Steve says. You glare at him from behind.

           “Yes, it’s permanent.”

~

The three of you run as the building starts to explode behind you. None of you know where to go or what to do, not exactly anyway. You just know that all of you need to get the hell off there as soon as possible.

           “Captain America! How exciting! I’m a great fan of your films.” A strange man says. You know of him, but in person he is much worse. He looks Steve up and down, assessing the threat. “So, Dr. Erskine managed it after all. Not exactly an improvement, but still impressive.” Steve rears back, fist flying, hitting Schmidt hard.

      ��    The other man, the smaller one that you and Steve had seen earlier stares the action. You notice Bucky staring at him, his face sickly now, more so than it was. So, this is the bastard that experimented on people. It hits you like a freight train then, the reality of Bucky’s fear. This man experimented on Bucky, and he is his first successful subject. You turn back to the other man, still exchanging harsh words and punches with Steve.

           You stare at the place on his neck that looks off, almost as if it isn’t fully attached to the muscle underneath it anymore. However, you still feel Bucky behind you, his fear pliable, not only for Steve and you, but for himself. His eyes never leave the man behind Schmidt, not once does he look away. You snap out of the daze you were in as when you hear the Doctor’s name.

           “No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see I was his greatest success!” His hand raises, moving to his neck. Without thinking you step in front of Steve.

           “Then why did you hide it?” You ask, only loud enough for the words to resonate. “Why are just now willing to take off your old face, the one you are reaching to peel off, if you were his greatest success?” The catwalk starts to move.

           “You are the first to notice.” He says, a little uncertain at your presence, one he obviously hadn’t thought to count as a threat. He stares at you a moment, as if trying to calculate if you’re worthy of a response. Apparently not. He smiles at you, continuing to his neck and peeling off his face.

           “You don’t have one of those do you?” Bucky asks, quietly. Even though you know the question was directed at Steve you silently tell him no, in your head, as well.

             “You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!”

           “Then how come you’re running?” Steve yells as the two men disappear into the elevator, which is somehow still operational. He turns to you and Bucky. “Come on, let’s go. Up.”

           The stairs are shaking, and even you and Steve are having trouble keeping your balance, Bucky is far worse off. Every time he falters, you manage to catch him, a few times in rather compromising ways. Although, now you can say, with one hundred percent certainty, that James Barnes has a wonderful ass.

           Finally, on solid, or relatively solid ground, you look at the other side, the one you three need be on. The large         beam the only way across. You don’t take an invitation, you just carefully, and as quickly as possible, race to the other side. Your feet merely tapping the metal as you block out your surroundings.

           Bucky on other hand, isn’t so graceful. His balance is off, arms slightly flailing with each step, but he makes it, barely before the thing collapses beneath him. The two of you stare at Steve as you realize he somehow has to cross that fiery pit with anything but force of will.

           “Gotta be a rope of something!” Bucky yells.

           “Just go! Get out of here!” Steve shouts back.

           “No! Not without you!” You stare at Steve hard as Bucky stares with you.

           “I am not going to be the one to explain to Peggy that you died just because your dumbass super-soldier brain decided your body couldn’t make that jump! You did better than that getting in this hell hole! So, did I!”

           Backing up, Steve runs. He runs hard until he runs out of something to run on and then he jumps. You and Bucky both jump back, giving him room to land. The explosion obstructs your view, and you can feel the panic rolling off Bucky, even as Steve falls onto the metal.

           “Alright Soldier, get up and run.” You growl at Steve.

~

           Over an hour into the long walk back to the SSR base, Bucky still refuses to acknowledge the fact that you accidentally spilled the secret that you have the serum running through veins too. The awkward silence between the two of you is deafening. “Why?”

           You turn to him, his hands still poised his gun, ready. “Why what?”

           “Why did you do it? Take the serum? Come get me? All of it.”

           “I took it because Erskine asked. I took it because I had to spend time with Steve as a fellow recruit and had to endure the bias of him being small while he endured the prejudice of me being a woman. I took it because the person that did, they were the last line of defense between Steve and whatever it brought to him.”

           “You did what I asked?” He looks at you, shocked.

           “Yes. I said I couldn’t take your place protecting him, and I meant it. But that sure as hell doesn’t mean I couldn’t try. As for getting you, I wanted to.”

           “What d’ya mean?”

           “I haven’t known you long, and certainly not well, but that didn’t mean I never wanted to.” You look up at him, and swear you see a little wet in his eyes. “You made an impression James, and I’d like for it to be a bit more than just an impression.”

           “I think I would too.”

~

           You are walking next to Bucky when everyone in the camp starts to recognize Steve. A few shouts here, a few there and everyone is clamoring to get a peek at the man that saved the men all coming up behind him. You stare at the Colonel as Steve salutes him. “Some of these men need medical attention.”

           You ignore the few other voices shouting orders, nurses racing out of tents, but you do notice the one that approaches Bucky. Maybe it’s a spark of jealousy, but you don’t like it. Steve, however, shocks you out of it. “I’d like to surrender myself for disciplinary action.”

           “That won’t be necessary.” He says, as he turns to you however, he sneers. You suppose he’s waiting for you to do the same, but you don’t. “You on the other hand …”

           “With all due respect, sir, I was following Captain’s orders.” You say it deadpan, even when you, Steve, and Peggy know it is an outright lie. Philips doesn’t seem to believe it but can’t find a trace of it on your face.

           “You expect me to believe that, Y/L/N?”

           “Yes, sir, I do.” He doesn’t say anything as he walks away, Peggy taking his place.

           Bucky turns to you, mouthing her name in question. You nod. “You’re late.” She says to Steve, her face unwavering.

           “Couldn’t call my ride.” Steve says, holding up the transporter.

           “Should’ve given it to you.” She says, turning to you. You smile.

           “Maybe.”

           “Hey! Let’s hear it for Captain America.” Bucky yells, the cheering that follows echoes in your ears that night.

~

           You watch the men, the ones that first greeted you at the HYDRA base chatting and drinking with Steve while sitting with Bucky, tidbits of their conversation filtering through the background noise of the bar. Steve saunters up, smiling.

           “See? I told you. They’re all idiots.” Bucky quips.

           “How about you? You ready to follow Captain American into the jaws of death?” Steve asks, even if both you and Bucky can see the sad smile behind his eyes as he does.

           “Hell no. That little guy form Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight; I’m following him.” Bucky tells him. “But you’re keeping the outfit, right?”

           “You know what? It’s kind of growing on me.”

           Everyone in the bar notices as Peggy walks in, red dress catching the eye of every lustful man and envious woman. You on the other hand, in your pants from the raid and jacket that you stole from Peggy herself, are only smiling. “Captain.”

           “Agent Carter.”

           “Ma’am.” Bucky pops up, as if realizing he is now in the presence of a woman worthy of his flirting. Damn you Barnes.

           “Howard has some equipment for you to try. Tomorrow morning?”

           “Sounds good.”

           “I see your top squad is prepping for duty.” She eyes the table of other men, almost piss drunk by now.

           “You don’t like music?” Bucky asks, trying to insert himself into the conversation. You know better, the two fools in front of you only have eyes for each other. Neither willing to act on it though.

           “I do, actually. I might even, when all this is over, go dancing.” You want to roll your eyes as you see hers never leave Steve’s.

           “Then what are we waiting for?” Bucky asks, still oblivious to the two budding love birds.

           “The right partner.” She says softly. You almost choke on your drink, the beer warm now. “O-eight-hundred, Captain.” She looks back at Steve one last time before walking back to the exit.

           “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there.”

           “I’m invisible. I’m … I’m turning into you. It’s like a horrible dream.” Bucky mutters, still reeling from the rejection.

           “Don’t take it too hard. Maybe she’s got a friend.”

           You can’t hold back your laugh this time. Bucky just stares at you, incredulous that you would take his demise so flippantly. “Hey, if the friend thing doesn’t work out you always have me.” You offer, only half kidding.

           He looks you up and down. “Oh really?”

           “Would that be so bad, James?” He doesn’t say anything, just continues to look at you.

           “Care to dance, doll?”

           “It’s Agent to you.” You quip, but you take his offered hand anyway. He pulls you onto the small dance floor, hand at your waist.

           “I like the pants by the way.” He says, breath fanning your face. You can’t say the smell is pleasant, it smells like stale beer, but then again, so does yours.

           “Thank you. I like yours as well.”

           “Really? You like the uniform, do ya?”

           “Don’t kid James.” You glare at him. “Let’s not pretend I already felt what was under those pants when you fell how many times back at the base.”

           “Oh no, can’t forget that.” He looks at you, really looks at you as he spins the two of you around. “You’re different.”

           “Well, I’ve spent a bit of time around men a lot like the idiots Steve picked for the team. It starts to rub off. Peggy also doesn’t help.”

           He groans. “Do you have to bring her up?”

           “Always,” you tease. “But really, was she the first woman to ever reject the self-proclaimed ladies-man James Barnes?”

           “Yes, she was. Not counting you of course.” He mumbles, tightening his hold on me slightly.

           “That is too good.”

           “Hey now, don’t forget, you felt me up. You should know why I never get turned down.”

           “Do you want me to hit you with my shoe?”

           “Only if you kiss it better.” He says, voice dropping a little.

           “Deal.”

~

           It was decided that everyone would go to France first. The largest base was the target, and you knew as well as Steve that you couldn’t just fly in and bomb the place. It had to be on foot, or at least with land vehicles. The tank that Dugan, Monty, and Jones commandeered came in handy.  

           Ever since the Commandos were formed in that bar, Bucky and you have grown closer. The shameless flirting, on both your parts, hasn’t and likely won’t stop. Niether of you nor Bucky seem to care. Sure, you grew close with the other guys too, Dugan more so than the others simply because he can throw insults just as bad as yours.

           “Come on Lady Legs! You’re stragglin’!” Dugan yells from the front by Steve.

           “Oh, come off it, Dum Dum!” You shout, a few expletives slipping out after another step into yet another small hole.

           “Would you like me to carry you?” Bucky teases.

           “Not you too!”

           “Alright there, Lady Legs, I will just continue to let ya fall.” You can hear the smile in his voice despite not turning to him. “You could at least let me catch you.”

           “Oh no, I know what your kind of catching would entail and today is not the day you will be touching my ass.” You glare at him, still smiling, but putting every ounce of venom you can into your gaze.

           “So, you plan on me touching your ass now do you?”

           You grumble but refuse to beat the living hell out of him; you promised you’d kiss it better. Yet, as you fall again, he catches you, hands never once traveling where you know he wants them to.

           Setting up camp isn’t much better. Your camping skills aren’t exactly up to par, and this is the first time you have faced this type of enemy. But under the tired, watchful, and no doubt judgmental gazes of the men, and Peggy, you refuse to give up.

           “Just share mine.” She pipes up after your fruitless attempts to put it up.

           “Fine.”

           However, five hours later and not one-hour of sleep between them, you can’t do it anymore. The small space far too little for two people and you are much too nervous to sleep. You didn’t feel this anxious before raiding the base, but you also had a reason besides ‘the greater good’ and doing what’s right. Both good reasons, but that instinct you have that usually tells you to keep fighting, is not coming to life.

           “Can’t sleep?” Bucky says from his perch on a low branch.

           “What the hell are you doing up there Bucky?”

           “Couldn’t sleep.” He pauses, sucking in a breath. “Never can before a battle.”

           “I’m sorry.” You mean it too.

           “So, how’s roomin’ with Peggy?”

           “Far too cramped for my taste, but it beats sleeping out here in the cold.”

           “Want me to show you how to pitch a tent?” He asks, and you can’t help it, you laugh.

           “Only if it doesn’t involve your pants.”

           “You little devil!” He jumps from his resting place and after a few steps, despite your enhancement, manages to tackle you to the ground.

           “You left that wide open, and you know it!”

           “I won’t say it.” He mutters, warm breath fanning your face, this time smelling marginally better.  

           “Won’t say what?” You ask, almost teasing, but also genuinely curious.

           “Just like how you are right now.” He says, looking right into your eyes.

           Despite the steeling resolve you usually have you realize just what he means. He’s hovering over you, your arms pinned beside your head, and his knees resting in between your legs. Even with all your bravado, you blush.

           “Is that a blush?” He asks, teasing but still not mocking.

           “Maybe.”

           “It looks good on you.”

           “James?” You ask, his entire body lowering ever so slightly.

           “Yeah?”

           “Are you going to kiss me, or do I have to beat you with my shoe?”

           “Well, you did promise to kiss it better.” He laughs, lips less than an inch from yours.

           “Just kiss me.”

1944

           The trek to Belgium wasn’t long but it was far colder than the one to France. Your late-night talks with Bucky have moved from outside by the fire to the warmth of one of your tents – with his help you figured out how to put it up. It wasn’t much warmer really, but the mentality of it helped a little. Oftentimes, you would find yourself waking up with him since it was much warmer. The man was like a walking furnace, and you yourself weren’t naturally cold, not like before the serum.

           No one has said anything about the two of you sleeping curled up next to one another yet. No one has said anything like it in regard to Steve and Peggy doing the same either. You choose to think it’s because they don’t mind, not that they don’t care at all. Although, Dum Dum has never one to keep his mouth shut for long, thankfully, he hasn’t been the one to wake you and Bucky up yet.

           This morning though, as you are practically laying atop Bucky, blankets covering most of you, but not enough to hide the fact that you are in your pajamas, do you realize just how all this looks. Legs tangled, hair mussed, arms thrown over each other in a haphazard way, and face far too close to be friendly.

           “Rise and shine Buckaroo!” You shoot up as you hear the familiar yell and footsteps coming to the tent. Bucky does too. Wide eyed in panic, the two of you look around for anything to hide you in and find nothing.

           “Oh shit.” You mutter, still mostly sitting in his lap.

           Before you can even maneuver yourself into a far less sexual position the tent is open and Dugan is peering in, smile on his face and eyes holding far too much mischief. “You too Lady Legs.”

           “I guess he knew.” Buck says, still holding your waist lightly.

           “I guess so.”

           “Come on you two! Steve and I have been up for an hour!” Peggy yells.

           The two of you look at each other before laughing. The absurdity of the situation sinking in; only out here would this kind of shit would be acceptable. Anywhere else, and you would be labeled a harlot for life. “We’re coming!” You yell back.

           “I’m sure you have.” The comment from Dugan sets your face aflame. It isn’t like you haven’t thought about having sex with Bucky, hell you’re sure he has thought about it too. You just weren’t quite sure how to broach the subject that behind all your bravado and suggestive talk, you were still a virgin.

           “Timothy!” Peggy scolds as you and Bucky sheepishly exit the tent, a blanket around your shoulders.

           “It’s okay Peg.” You mumble as you plop yourself down on the cold ground. “When do we set out?”

           “In about an hour.” Steve informs everyone. You nod.

           “Better get dressed then.” You don’t notice the glare Bucky sends Dugan as you walk away. Nor do you hear the hushed scolding he gives him. All you can focus on now is the fact that you are flushed, and not from embarrassment.

~

           Your hot. Far too hot for being relatively exposed to the icy and snow-covered landscape to the next HYDRA base. Bucky hands are scalding as he holds your waist while you try hard not to squirm in his lap. His lips however feel like fire against yours. The mostly innocent kiss from only a few minutes before is long gone, replaced by a sloppy wet and all-consuming kiss that you swear you will feel for weeks.

           Every swipe of his tongue against yours sends you further into your haze. He hasn’t kissed you like this in over a week. Not since Dugan’s comment that one morning. The long make-out sessions that were once stolen in the night have stopped. You still slept next to him, although he is far less cuddly and far more reserved. Tonight though, it seems as if his resolve to feign propriety has shattered.

           His hands are almost cupping your ass as he starts to leave a trail of open-mouthed kisses down your neck. It is taking all your willpower not to start grinding down into him. But you don’t want to scare him, not when he has seemed so skittish lately. Still you can’t stop the quiet moan that escapes when he sucks that particular spot underneath your ear that always sends makes you lose your mind.

           You can’t process what happened before you’re on your back, his arms next to your head and hips lightly pressed to your own. He doesn’t move for a moment, still trying to process the sudden urgency himself you guess. But as he starts to kiss back down your neck, onto your collarbone, leaving light love-bites along the way, you can no longer hold your hips in place. One swirl, one grind, one movement and he stops; he doesn’t move, but doesn’t continue anything either.  

           “James?” He doesn’t say anything. “Bucky.”

           “I’m sorry.” He makes to move off you, but you lock your legs around his hips.

           “Why?”

           “I shouldn’t – we shouldn’t – this isn’t.” He can’t seem to get the words out, but you know. You know what he means.

           “Is this still about what Dugan said?” You ask, he practically growls after hearing his name. It takes you a moment, but you realize why. “Bucky, I don’t care.”

           “I care though. I don’t want you to be treated like that. Like you’re a piece of meat.” He argues. You don’t budge.

           “Is that why you wouldn’t touch me at all this week.”

           “Don’t say it like that.” He whispers.

           “Why? Because you don’t like it? Or is it because you do?” He sucks in a breath, trying desperately to move his hips away from yours, and his head falling into the hollow of your neck.

           “Doll …”

           “Bucky.” He shakes his head. “James, look at me.” Reluctantly he does. “I didn’t leave red faced because I was embarrassed because of what Dugan implied. I left red faced because I realized that I really wanted it to be true.”

           “Y/N …” He tries. You shake your head this time.

           “No. Bucky I don’t care about that. I don’t care what other people will say. I care about you James.”

           “I don’t, truly. I don’t care about the general public either. I care about our friends, and what they will think.”

           “This group, out here. They are it for me. They are my people Bucky. Everyone already thinks we are fucking,” his eyes go wide, “I’ve spent far too much time around you lot not to pick up a few things. No one cares. This is normal for them. Peggy and Steve were my biggest worry and they are in about the same boat as us. Although, from what she tells me, they’ve gotten a bit farther.”

           “Stevie? Steve has gotten father sexually with his girl that I have with mine?” He pauses, disbelief written clearly on his face. “Wait, what the hell do you two girls talk about?”

           You laugh at the horrified look on his face now. “A little bit of everything. Besides, we have to compare. Not that I need her for that.” You mumble the last part, but he catches it. Sitting the two of you up, he looks at you, waiting.

           “What does that mean?” He asks, slowly grinding you down onto him. I guess his hesitancy is gone now. You huff.

           “I may have seen him naked?” You mutter. “Not after the serum, but before.”

           “Explain.” He growls, pressing you closer. And shit, you can feel him under you.

           “Neither one of realized that the person showering in the barracks was each other. Peggy told me she was set to shower any time, so I thought it was her. Steve thought it was just another man. No big deal. At least until we both got out, towels loosely tied and screamed. We didn’t have a very good grip. Both of us might have seen everything.”

           “So little Stevie got to see you naked before me?”

           “If it makes you feel any better, he didn’t look quite as big as what I’m feeling between my legs right now.”

           “It doesn’t.” He groans as you push down with your hips.

~

           The following few nights were about the same. Heavy petting, a few stray hands and fingers, wet lips, battling tongues, and the ever-present grinding of hips. Still, he wouldn’t really touch you; not without something in between the two of you. You wanted him to, fuck did you want him to. He wouldn’t though.

           Tonight though, you had different plans. Instead of the now almost ratty tent you and he usually used, you got to spend the night in a motel in the middle of nowhere. There was no way in hell you weren’t taking advantage of that. You gave Peggy the side eye, both of you confirming your plan to surprise and scare the boys. You just hoped that Peggy’s plan wouldn’t backfire for her, even here Steve was bound to be recognized.

           Thankfully, the receptionist spoke English well enough for you to communicate. “How many rooms.” You don’t let Bucky speak, not before you at least.

           “One.” You give the older woman a happy smile, even if she can’t see the mischief behind it. “Seems silly going on a honeymoon now doesn’t it? But we didn’t know if we’d get the chance again.” Bucky, thankfully, is too dumbstruck to say anything on the contrary.

           “I understand.” You can tell she wants to say more but doesn’t quite know how to properly convey it in English. She eyes your hand, your left hand, noticing the lack of ring. You had that figured too. The ring your mother gave you before she died is around your neck, pretty enough to be considered a wedding ring too.

           “It’s a little big, kept falling off. It was my mother’s; I didn’t want to lose it.” She nods, a sheen of tears over her eyes.

           The walk to the room, one of her nicer one’s she said, is quiet. “Y/N,” Bucky starts as you slip the key into the lock, “I wasn’t aware we were married.”

           “We aren’t.” You say simply, turning to face him as you back into the room. “But I sure as hell am not going to be sleeping alone after sleeping with you for so long.”

           “But Steve and Peggy –”

           “She is doing the same thing.”

           “Oh god!” He looks at his face a paling a little. “Steve is gonna lose it.”

           “Nah, he got pretty fresh with a few of his USO girls, this isn’t going to shock him too bad.” You reply.

           “Alright, Steve and I need to talk about some things. Because apparently, there is a lot I don’t know about him.”

           “Sorry,” You lean in close, already feeling the plan for tonight fall into place, “James.”

           He sucks in a breath; his given name always did something to him. You figured that out from the nights spent in his lap, the sizeable package always growing a bit harder every time you said it. “Doll.” He warns.

           “Not tonight.” You look at him, eyes heavy and voice lower than usual. “Tonight, is not for hesitation James. I want this.”

           “But Y/N …”

           “No. I want this, James. I want you.”

           You don’t dare add anything else; not the lingering thoughts of demise. You don’t tell him that the missions are truly starting to scare you, that you think every time it will be the last. It isn’t the bombing of the facilities that does it, no, it’s everything else. It’s the raiding of it beforehand to make sure all the hostiles are dead. It’s the clearing of the surrounding area to make sure there are no unnecessary casualties; something the higher-ups have chastised the Commandos for numerous times. You don’t dare tell Bucky that you fear dying a virgin because it would mean you never got to experience him fully.

           He doesn’t reply, the storm in his eyes enough to tell you that something is wrong. “Why are you so against this Bucky? I know you’ve had sex before.”

           “I have.” He mumbles, still not looking you in the eye.

           “Then why?”

           “Because this,” he gestures to you, “is new. Everything between us is new.”

           “I don’t understand.”

           “I’ve never …” He can’t, won’t, finish.

           “You’ve never been with a virgin before, have you?”

           “No, I haven’t.” He flops himself on the bed, looks up at the ceiling with a forlorn look. “I’ve always asked, made sure I wasn’t stepping over that line. I would do some, not enough though. More than I’ve done with you so far really. But anyone I’ve ever had sex with, they’ve never been virgins.”

           “Why?” You ask, laying beside him. The question seemed innocent enough, it wasn’t though. Not really.

           “I never wanted to take that from a woman. I always felt like they expected me to, like it wasn’t really what they wanted. I would do other things, but never that.” You don’t interrupt him, too scared to actually. You want to hear it, all of it. “I would give a girl her first real orgasm, I would teach her other things, how to … um …”

           “Use her mouth?” You offer, knowing from various overheard conversations just what it meant and entailed. His face though is crimson.

           “Yeah. I would use mine. I would use fingers.” He turns his head to look at you, almost seemingly expecting to see a look of disgust. He doesn’t. “The others, they were mostly widows. Women that wanted only one thing. Hell, they taught me a thing or two about pleasing a woman. The others, they were harder. They would always approach me, at least after the first.”

           He stays quiet for a while, almost as if stuck in his head. “Bucky?”

           “Sorry.” His hand latches onto yours. “The others were women who weren’t given a choice. Not ever, ‘specially their first time. I didn’t know about the first one until after. She said she wanted to see if it could be good. After that a number of girls, women, approached me. They all wanted the same thing: they wanted to have a good experience with a man. I don’t think I ever had any feeling for them other an admiration and a bit of pity.”

           “James.” You squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry I pushed.”

           “Don’t be. I needed to say it. I haven’t even told Steve, not when he was still small and now just doesn’t seem right. Hell, the little punk would have gone after the men and tried to beat them to hell. Wouldn’t have worked. That’s not to say I didn’t do a little ruffing up myself.”

           “We don’t have –”

           “I just, I don’t want you to regret it.” He takes your face in his hands, pressing a kiss to your lips. “I don’t want it to feel forced.”

           “It won’t. I’m giving this to you, you aren’t taking it from me.”

           He kisses you with fervor now. You swear his face is slightly wet, but neither of you comment on it. It’s as if a weight has been lifted from him. Pulling away for a breath you stare him in the eye. A warm feeling bubbling up in your belly.

           “I think I love you.” He mumbles into your hair as he holds you. You smile.

           “I think I love you too.” It’s his turn to smile.

[positively--speculative]

The MCU’s Strength is Also it’s Worst Enemy (and so is the fandom)

For years, there have been things bothering me about the MCU, and now that I’ve been taking a Fantasy Writing class, things are becoming a bit clearer to me.

Let me give you all a snippet of my notes from the chapter about revising and editing:

Are my characters acting in ways that are reasonable for them?

Your protagonist, especially, will need to follow a logical progression of character development based on what he or she experiences. If your protagonist is a king who learns he can’t indulge in selfish behavior, his development needs to fit with his character arc. He can’t indulge in selfish behavior throughout the entire novel, suffer no consequences, and then have a sudden discovery about how wrong he was.

And I think this is part of what I find wrong with the MCU. In the beginning, I think it was a strength to see different directors handle these characters, but over time, with the number of movies that got added to the roster, it likely became hard for directors to keep up with what has gone on with these characters since as far back as 2008 (twelve years ago now). To add to that, between 2016 and 2019, there were eleven movies released for the MCU by Disney. I don’t want to make this a DC vs Marvel thing, but I think it’s appropriate to compare the two within that amount of time, because in that same three years, DC gave us BvS, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Aquaman, and Shazam. On average, Warner Bros gave us two movies per year from this franchise while Disney gave us almost four (the calculated number is 3.6), and I think it stands to reason that releasing just a little less per year gives your writers and directors more time to examine what the franchise has already created and work to remain consistent while still putting their own creative touches on the products they’re assigned.

Of course, the DCEU is not perfect. I think it’s very difficult to find someone in the fandom that will defend Justice League. I mean, many of us did in the beginning, but I think that was a result of being in a fandom that is constantly crapped on than anything else. As time progressed, many of us began to agree it was not a good movie, and a lot of us agree that it was due to WB trying to cater to the wrong crowd of people who insisted the DCEU would be better if its tone matched that of the MCU and had Joss Whedon’s touch--which is i n c o n s i s t e n t with what the franchise had already set up.

And let’s look at the spacing for each DCEU release starting from 2016:

BvS--March 2016

Suicide Squad--August 2016 (five months later)

Wonder Woman--June 2017 (nine months later)

Justice League--November 2017 (five months later)

Aquaman--December 2018 (thirteen months later)

Shazam--March 2019 (three months later)

On average, WB allows for a seven month space between movies.

Now, let’s look at the spacing between each MCU release starting from 2016:

Captain America: Civil War--April 2016

Doctor Strange--November 2016 (seven months later)

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2--May 2017 (six months later)

Spider-Man: Homecoming--July 2017 (two months later)

Thor: Ragnarok--November 2017 (four months later)

Black Panther--February 2018 (three months later)

Avengers: Infinity War--April 2018 (two months later)

Ant-Man and the Wasp--July 2018 (three months later)

Captain Marvel--March 2019 (eight months later)

Endgame--April 2019 (one month later)

Spider-Man: Far From Home--July 2019 (three months later)

On average, Disney allows almost four months (3.9 to be exact) of space between its movies.

Now, anyone who has followed me for a while understands that I don’t just blindly hate the MCU. I actually enjoy a lot of the MCU, but that does not make it immune from my criticism, and I always try to make my criticism as fair as possible. And as much as I hate a lot of the creative choices directors like the Russos made for these characters, I can kind of understand why Endgame--to me--ended up being a complete mess of a movie. Here you have several directors working on several different movies with such tight deadlines. How can it be expected that all of these directors watch every single movie released up until the one they’re assigned and on top of that communicate with the director whose movie follows theirs about what they’re doing so they can stay consistent with theirs while watching all the same movies they are?

And right here is why so many of us are just getting tired of Disney, because it’s clear that Disney doesn’t care about quality, they care about quantity and making as much money as possible by giving themselves the most visibility in the box office, and it’s why others and myself have grown so exhausted with the most passionate of MCU fanatics. It’s just really clear that many are just loyal to the MCU and Disney brand and will refuse to give or take any criticism of the brand. And as long as these people continually consume this product, take any and all constructive criticism personally, and refuse to demand anything better, nothing is going to change and Disney is going to continue to grow into the monster its become.

[steelfeather]

Unlikely Confidantes (A Post-Infinity War Tony Stark Ficlet)

Word Count: 664

Summary: Tony confides in Nebula, but she’s not really much of a therapist.

Ships: No ships, but there’s strictly platonic Iron Dad stuff and Nebula x Gamora sibling dynamic.

Warnings: Angst. 

*A/N: Inspired by the 0.5 seconds of Tony and Nebula in the Superbowl TV spot.

They don’t speak for the first few days.

Nebula circles around the ship constantly, her face tight with pain and her eyes following him as he silently works on a plan, any plan, that will get them to Earth.

On the fourth day, while taking a break from Plan #167, Tony finally asks her a question.

“What was she like?”

For a moment, he thinks she might kill him, or ignore him. She’s silent for a long time. Then:

“She was… compassionate. Fierce, too.” She closes her eyes, leans her head back against the wall. “We weren’t sisters by blood, you know. Just victims of the same evil.”

“Does that make a difference?” he asks, a faint I’m sorry echoing in his head, clenching around his abused heart.

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

“What about the boy?” she asks, hours later. “What was he like?”

Tony breathes in, unsteadily, as he remembers.

“Sorry!” Peter laughed, trying to scrape congealed web fluid off one of his work benches. “I was trying to fine-tune the, uh, stickiness duration. Huh. I need a better term for that.”

Tony smirked at him, only half-listening as he manipulated a two-dimensional rendering on a tablet, calculating weight versus protection, which materials would be needed to suit an agile, flexible style of motion, if he needed to add the capacity for powered flight…

“Whatcha working on, Mr. Stark?”

He turned the tablet over, hiding it from the curious eyes peering over his shoulder. “I’ll show you if you ever join the boy band, kid.”

Peter grinned. “I will. One day.”

“I’m expecting big things, Spiderling.” He ruffled his hair.

“I’m gonna make you proud, Mr. Stark,” Peter told him, looking very serious. “Just you wait.”

“He was better than me,” he tells his unlikely confidante, remembering a rooftop and a teenager and harsh words.

If you died, I feel like that’s on me.

I’m sorry.

She watches him, waiting.

“At first, I didn’t want to let him get too close,” he continues. “I didn’t exactly have good male role models, so I probably would have just screwed him up. And it wouldn’t have been fair for me to try to fit in his life, not after he already lost two fathers.”

“What changed?” she asks.

“I guess I just realized he was never going to stop being a hero,” Tony tells her, closing his eyes against another onslaught of memories. “God, I’ve never met a more selfless kid. He would have kept going until it killed him, so I had to help. And before I knew it, he got under my skin.”

She hums tunelessly.

“Before all this…” He swallows. “I was talking to Pepper. My fiancée. And I asked her about having kids. I’ve never wanted them before, but Peter…he made me rethink a lot of things. I think I did start thinking of him as a son. I was proud of him like he was my own.” His eyes burn.

“I wish I had told him.”

They work in silence for an hour or so.

“Gamora and I fought a lot,” Nebula finally offers. “Thanos pitted us against each other growing up, and I resented her, because she was his favorite, and I was second best.”

Tony can’t bring himself to utter the Dad of the Year comment on his tongue, given the subject matter.

“We worked it out, eventually. I think she knew that I couldn’t hate her, but I’m glad I said it.”

Tony nods, unable to speak.

“I told him this was a one-way ticket,” he says, numbly, as his hands work on Plan #328. “But I don’t think the kid believed me. He trusted me.”

I’m sorry, he said, and Tony still doesn’t know what he was sorry for. Not beating Thanos? Dying?

“There probably wasn’t anything different you could have done,” Nebula tells him, her expression as comforting as he’s ever seen it.

“Yeah,” Tony agrees out loud, “probably not.”

I’m sorry.

Taglist: @akajamesbarnes, @bluelalal, @brujaescarlota, @cherrysoul, @curly-haired-holland, @dangerousluv1, @divosterfields, @endlesslysassy, @enjoybeingcait, @fairydustparker,  @fistigones, @im-finallly-clean, @lemirabitur, @mc-universe, @officialtessaholland, @quacksonss, @quicksoldier, @sarsmusings, @spiderlingss, @spideychelle-romanogers, @spideythewebsitter, @stanbroughing, @stephie-senpai, @twiceinabluemoon, and @until2am

[ryanmeft]

What Not To Do in Avengers: Endgame

There’s a lot of theories floating around about what might happen in Avengers: Endgame, the just trailer-ized sequel/part II thingy to Avengers: Infinity War, and the end of the line one way or another for a lot of MCU characters. Some of these theories are wishful thinking and some are a little out there, but few are talking about the biggest issue concerning this movie: it would be very, very easy to ruin it. The hype is huge at this point, and Marvel and the Russo brothers need to deliver a movie that feels like it has impact, even if it IS all grown adults in tights punching other grown adults in tights.

To wit, here’s what needs to NOT happen in Avengers: Endgame. Don’t... Return the “really” dead characters to life

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos managed to accomplish his most cherished goal: figuring out which insurance provider really does offer the best choices for himself and his family. He was so happy about this that he was all eureka and snapped his fingers, and half the population of the universe died. This included most of the heroes in the MCU. A few people, however, died without being subjected to The Decimation (that’s what Marvel’s calling it, a fact we know because apparently two or three people actually read tie-in novels). Of those, Idris Elba’s Heimdall will certainly not be back; he’s become a big star since he took the role, and a scepter through the chest was his ticket out of a bit part he’s outgrown. Vision will probably return in some capacity; the planned Scarlet Witch mini-series would be kind of bland without him as her partner, and his death came near the end of the movie, anyway.

Loki and Gamora had a bit more dramatic exit. Loki was choked to death slowly in front of his brother Thor in a surprisingly gruesome scene, having just made a brave-but-poorly-thought-out attempt to assassinate Thanos. He’s got a mini-series coming, too, but it really needs to be set in the past: his death was the perfect ending for his popular character, who always made the cold and calculating decision but ultimately died due to an act of emotional anger for his people and brother. Tom Hiddleston’s been seen on set, either because Marvel is faking us out or because a younger version of him is seen via time travel, but to undo his perfect demise would irreversibly cheapen his character arc. A lot of people expected Loki to eat dirt in Infinity War, as he’d been taken about as far in his story as he could be. Gamora was another matter; pretty much nobody expected the death of the second-in-command of the Guardians of the Galaxy (she’s really the boss, of course, but it’s better to let a guy who calls himself Star-Lord have his fantasy). Even as she fell, we were all expecting a last-minute rescue. That it didn’t come shocked audiences, and should be left that way, especially considering her presence factored into the surprisingly emotional finale of IW.

Get too lazy with the time travel stuff…

Sure, the idea that the remaining Avengers will pull a McFly and go back in time to reverse the Decisnappation COULD just be what Marvel and the Russo bros want you to think is happening…but it seems likely it’s a factor. There’s no realistic way to fix what Thanos did, and time travel is the least bonkers unrealistic way, at least by movie logic. Now, pretty much everyone wants a cameo from Doc Brown. Right? No? That’s just me? But you could make a joke with Thor and the clock tower and the lightn…ok, moving on.

Maybe Chris Lloyd popping in is unlikely, but what is indisputable is time travel could really wreck the already sort-of-thin idea that we should care what becomes of these characters on a long-term basis. If Marvel isn’t kind of careful with the rules they set up, what’s to stop the characters from just bobbing around in time and undoing any serious failures? The extent to which the Avengers can toss time’s salad should be controlled within the narrative, so that they can’t just freely re-write the script.

…but don’t spend a ton of time on it, either

The time travel aspects should be both limited so as not to royally screw with the sense any of this matters, and not overly complicated. This will be the last appearance for Iron Man, Cap and probably Thor, Hulk and Robin Hood. While we don’t want their last bows to take a wheat thresher to the continuity, we also don’t want to get mired down in psuedo-science.

Give us a lame explanation for why Hulk is absent

I think it’s fair to say that Marvel has played incredibly loose in the way Bruce Banner’s relationship with his big green inner metaphor works. In Avengers he switched from the equivalent of a premature orgasm to total control when it was convenient to the plot, and “because the script says so” has pretty much dictated when Banner is and isn’t at the wheel ever since. I actually see this as one of the few really lazy weak spots in their characters: Hulk at his best has always been a metaphor for the monster inside, but the MCU has dropped the ball on that one in favor of more rah-rah moments.

In IW, you may recall the Hulk was turned into the equivalent of a stubborn turd, refusing to come out no matter how much Banner pushed. I speculated that it may be due to Hulk’s animal instincts telling him something about the situation Banner’s more controlled mind doesn’t know…but either way, there needs to be an explanation in Endgame, and it needs to be better than “because we said so”. There’s no indication of any more solo Hulk films or series, so this might be the last we see of the Jolly Green Giant. If Marvel were ever going to make his character halfway consistent, now’s the time.

Spend too much effort on the romances

By far, the most consistent example of “We don’t know where the hell we’re going with this” in the MCU has involved characters gettin’ it on. Thor’s Jane Foster got unceremoniously dropped because she was a very meh character and the person playing her realized she was Natalie Portman and had better things to do, while Valkyrie showed promise as a tougher lover for the Thunder God only to be written out of the movies off-screen. Hulk and Black Widow made enough sense but was poorly set up, came out of nowhere, and nothing was made of it in IW. Cap’s thing with Peggy Carter’s niece was forced and a little weird. And if you can tell me the name of Black Panther’s woman, you officially know more about this stuff than a guy who writes about it on the regular; she was so barely there they didn’t even bother to mention her in Avengers, and no one cared. Only Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have had anything like a relationship that makes sense, and they nearly dismissed that with an off-screen explanation, as well.

The next iteration of the MCU, with younger, fresher characters, should put more effort into developing lasting character relationships that aren’t bromances, and in fact could stand to give the female supporting characters a lot more development, in general. For now, though, they should write off the romantic histories of most of the old guard as a loss. I doubt anyone will notice.

Overemphasize Ant-Man and Captain Marvel

It’s always been clear, and the post-credits scene made it more so, that Captain Marvel, who will make her debut in her own movie in March, will be important in whatever plan is in place to stop Thanos. And the trailer for Endgame lets us know Ant-Man, or at least his access to the Deus Ex Machina that is the Quantum Realm, will also be vital. And both should be vital---to get the other heroes where they need to be. Although I like Anty Boy, he’s not the biggest name in Marvel, and Captain Brie Marvel Larsen is likely just starting her arc in the universe; there will be plenty of time for her later. This movie needs to focus on the last stands and swan songs of characters who have been with us almost since the beginning.

De-emphasize Hawkeye

If you’ve watched the trailer, by now you know Jeremy Renner’s Robin Hood (I think I made that joke already), who was totally absent from Infinity War, is back with a new, darker costume and what looks like a serious hate boner. In fact, he seems to have straight-up murdered the holy crap what is this out of a whole bunch of Yakuza goons in the middle of the street, which judging by Black Widow’s expression is either terrifying or shockingly arousing. For many, including myself, it was the most interesting reveal in the trailer, and the conclusion was immediately reached that his wife and children must have been Thanos-snapped. What else could cause the normally unflappable special forces dude to go goth and start shooting down people like dogs? He’s always been the most under-appreciated Avenger (check him in the first movie; he’s way more bad-ass than the others despite having no super-powers). This one needs to give him a proper send-off.

Avoid the consequences

Throughout this column, I’ve been emphasizing that the classic Avengers need to have a proper exit from the franchise. The most important aspect of that is to make sure that exit involves a heavy toll. They aren’t fighting for this city or even that planet, but for the whole of existence. Although most-if-not-all of their snapped friends will be returning, they need to pay the price to get that done; otherwise, this whole Thanos thing is basically a cartoon with no permanent consequences. This is completely essential to doing this movie right. Don’t chicken out, guys.

[brooklynislandgirl]

💋 romantic

Tabhair póg dom, is Éireannach mé || Accepting

They have been dancing around each other for years, both figuratively and literally. The Luna family had always considered it likely that Jessica and Andy would be the ones to become inseparable, but then Jess went off to college and Andy enlisted, into a program that would not let him be seen again for the better part of three years. What had been a quick and sweet friendship between Chris and Beth turned inward on itself. They have always been the hand in each other's pocket, the one place the other could run to when things got bad. More years than she cares to consider later, and they still orbit one another. Chris brought over dinner and she'd made the drinks. Music on the stereo on shuffle and at first it was fast and hot, a thin sheen of sweat glistening at the small of her back. In opposition to his jeans and tee shirt, she's wearing a broom skirt low on her hips and a bikini top because she still hates clothes and the desert makes it easy to not have to wear them. Eventually the music slows down and they sidle closer with unspoken agreement. Until she winds an arm around his neck and they are hip-to-hip one of her thighs sliding between his, until they're hardly moving at all. And maybe it's the way he's looking down at her, one arm slipping around her waist, his other hand coming up to brush the backs of his knuckles across her cheek so slowly, so carefully that she doesn't even blink. His eyes hold an infinity of words that she'd never really hear if he spoke them aloud because words are not her friend, they never have been. But she can hear the way his breath is caught in his chest. She can hear the blood in his veins rushing into his face like the ocean's roare to flood the broad arches of his cheeks with particular colour. Something she's come to notice more and more of late. Maybe she's reading things wrong; no one is actually perfect despite what she might say otherwise. People are only human ~mostly~ and they sometimes make mistakes. She drags her lower lip between her teeth as she calculates the odds of what she's about to do and determines that Chris loves her and they have always been good friends, they have a bond that can stand a little bruising if she's wrong about the feeling lodged in her chest. Her lip returns to the living world outside her and she stops swaying to the music. She cradles each side of his face between her palms and takes a breath before pulling Chris down closer to her level while simultaneously rising up on her tip toes. After all, things should be as fair as they can be. Her eyes all but stroke his face for a moment, memorizing each detail from his lovely ~if maybe confused~ eyes, down his nows, to the full softness of his mouth. Then very slowly, deliberately she tilts her head to one side and presses her lips to his, a gentle kiss that holds the promise of Arizona heat behind it, waiting politely to be invited inside.

[tankermottind]

Obsidian, Pillars of Eternity II, and the Impossible Kickstarter Dream

UPDATE: According to a $1000 investor who calculated using his dividends, the total costs came out to around $29 million, not $15 million. So the Fig campaign covered only 15% of what they actually spent. Good lord!

I got back into Pillars of Eternity II and checked the forums to discover that Obsidian Entertainment has been acquired by Microsoft. And Pillars of Eternity II sold only 150,000 copies and cost about three times the $4.4 million raised to “fund” it (which means Obsidian, after support, overhead, DLC development, etc. could be a good $20 million in the hole). It is likely Pillars of Eternity III, or any other serious CRPG project, will never happen, and Obsidian will forever be one bad chart performance away from ending up making tire textures for a Forza Motorsport game. Everyone is pointing fingers and arguing and blaming the media or the casuals or figures within Obsidian or the SJW hordes, but really? They brought it on themselves--excuse me, as a Pillars of Eternity II backer, we brought it on ourselves. This was our chance to have the game of our dreams made, and our outsized demands coupled to Obsidian’s outsized ambition blew the series’ future. Here is the post I made on Obsidian’s forums in case it proves too controversial and disappears:

Is anyone really surprised? The first thing I thought when it finally dawned on me how huge Pillars of Eternity II was, was "There is no way they could have possibly made money on this." The fans wanted bigger, the fans wanted better, and Obsidian gave the fans, including myself, exactly what we wanted. The biggest, baddest, most complicatedest Infinity-style RPG ever. A game nobody but us wanted.

PoE2 is huge, huge, huge. I'm 30 hours in and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of it. I ignored all the backer updates I received after pledging because I didn't want to know anything going in, and the sheer enormity of it blew me away. This feels almost Skyrimian in its breadth and content-richness, and that costs a huge amount of money, while drawing the potential length well past 150 hours and exacerbating the reputation that large CRPGs have of being scary and overbearing, which is further exacerbated by the fact that Obsidian have to tolerate RPGCodex and their legions of trolls, Trump cultists, and white supremacists because they donate and nobody outside the CRPG community was ever going to give a shit about this game. This is a game that was made for us, and only us. Made according to the specifications of a crowdfunding campaign that sold us our every desire, with little backer content bits to reflect our own vanity back at us. It turns out Infinity Engine/PoE nerds are (a) not even close to numerous enough to fund the promised game, and (b) unwilling to compromise for the sake of "casuals". I mean, that was the whole point of this whole crowdfunding thing, right? To make games that the fans want and make a profit? Funny, it looks we forgot that whole "making a profit" bit somewhere.

And for a focused, linear, and above all modest game like the first Pillars of Eternity, the money from the fans was enough to cover the budget and keep the lights on. But now we've "made it", we showed those AAAs and we're going to make a game that will blow everyone away. But we instead we got a baroque game, a niche product with a big-boy budget. It doesn't matter whose fault it is or which games journalism conspiracy is true or salacious rumors that would fail a difficulty 2 Bluff check. Pillars of Eternity II is a game too expensive to fund on the backs of CRPG nerds but seldom considers the needs and wishes of people who aren't CRPG nerds, except when it does the job so poorly it actually makes the problem worse. Let's talk about the mechanics.

For all its attempts to be fair and balanced and not screw you over for bad build decisions, the sheer number of mechanics and status effects and stats and systems makes the Infinity Engine look sleek and streamlined, if not exactly elegant. Not to mention that a lot of the people who played Baldur's Gate also played Dungeons and Dragons (which was huge at the time), while the people going into PoE2 have no such luxury. The micro-balancing with all the soft counters and clever trickery makes it more difficult to play on a truly expert level than an Infinity Engine game, so Easy and Classic are mushy and dumbed-down and basically let you coast, while the harder difficulties require you to learn far more obscure rules, some of which are virtually undocumented, than someone throwing themselves upon the rocks of Baldur's Gate 1 for the first time. However, the system is also less exploitable than the Infinity Engine, so there is also less reward for putting in above the minimum effort. So PoE2's game system is exceedingly complex, strongly favors PoE1 veterans over everyone else, hides information from the player, has too many rules, is easy to coast on by with, hard to play well, and won't ever give you the satisfaction you get from the sort of gambits even a mediocre Infinity Engine player can pull off.

Backstab instakills out of the shadows? Can't do that. Pre-buffing? Too OP. Contingencies? We'll have an ordinary spell that namedrops Contingency and pretend it's the same thing. Summoning? Nope. Incredibly powerful sword wrested from a lich's cold dead fingers? It's sure as hell not going to be as good as Daystar was in BG2. Even the simplest crafting (aside from food) requires money, just to make it less attractive. Fortunately there is a lot less of it now, and a lot more of the talking and plotting and loredumping, which is generally good if playing it a bit safe. But Eora is also a much more "out there" world than Forgotten Realms, and the comfy old Arthurian, chivalric, etc. tropes and themes no longer apply. Nor, unlike the similarly complex world of The Elder Scrolls, is it based (however loosely and occasionally disrespectfully) on archetypes from other cultures and mythologies--in fact it seems to strive towards the total obliteration of everything ready-made. Bhaal and Elf Jesus the Nerevarine are immediately relatable to the casuals in a way that Eothas and friends are not.

Why did this happen? Because we wanted it. We wanted more. More. More. More. Pillars of Eternity was good, so Bigger Pillars of More Eternity will be more good. The incentive structures of the crowdfunding model (stretch goals, etc.) encourage and exacerbate this mentality. A pirate ship! Many pirate ships! Pirate ship battles! New Vegas style politics with intersecting schemes by several power players! A reputation system underneath that makes New Vegas' implementation look primitive! Webs of intrigue! Webs of treachery! Webs of adultery and relationship drama! Voice acting for almost everybody with lines! Half-hearted commentary on colonization that pulls all its punches to avoid making white people feel bad and angering the RPGCodex crowd who gave us a big chunk of our budget! It had everything except a workable business model.

Hardcore CRPGs are not competitive on a big budget, and they never will be. There's a reason this game put Obsidian's future in jeopardy and the guy behind the Avernum series has been able to crank game after game through thick and thin, for over 20 years. If the Infinity-style RPG has a future it will involve smaller, simpler games with less elaborate graphics, less voice acting, and a much lower budget. A game with production values more similar to PoE1, Wasteland 2, or even Siege of Dragonspear. But that's what we wanted. We wanted big. We got big.

And perhaps, in the long run, lost big. Nerds never have been good at business.

[cptncassianjandor]

Infinity War/Avengers 4 ending fic?

Ok Infinity Spoilers below so~ ya been warned. I’m tagging it as infinity war stuff as well, double warns my boos. 

This is what I think/want to happen at the end of Avengers 4. How they can respectfully move on to phase 4. Word count: 1.9k

“It’s fair, there was no discrimination” Thanos states, he is old and tired. He has fulfilled his own prophecy, there is nothing left for him to do. 

“It isn’t fair to take people who have hardly lived their lives” Steve argues, he is hurting, mad over the loss of his friends

“There are those who are no longer suffering” Thanos replied, flashing up an image of Gamora’s planet in fast forward, starting from when he slaughtered half the population to now, the planet is flourishing “They are living the life they deserve. It is fair.” 

“So why not target the murderers, the awful people in this world instead of those who are good.” Tony fires up his barely repaired suit, aiming the hand cannons at Thanos, knowing it would only take a flick of his hand to disintegrate Tony to nothing 

“Everyone is corrupt, children bully, steal and lie, adults are no better.” Thanos takes a sip of a purple drink, flexing the gauntlet as a reminder or possibly to admire it.

“Only a God has that right, and you are no God” Thor wants nothing more than to slam his axe into Thanos’ ugly face but he knows he can’t yet. 

“I’m surprised you’re able to restrain yourself Nebula, and that you’re helping such a rag-tag bunch of people.” He ignores Thor’s outburst and faces his last daughter, knowing she calculates every move he makes. 

He casts an eye over the group pointing an array of weapons at him. Steve holding a shield, Tony with his various cannons, Thor’s axe sparks in his hand, Rocket holding Bucky’s gun and his own. Bruce has finally managed to convince Hulk to come out and he stands there in the Hulkbuster armor, Natasha stands with Okoye, M’Baku, and Rhodey. Behind them is Carol, they try to hide her as a surprise, 

Thanos knows the odds, has watched this scenario a hundred thousand times and knows how it ends. 

“Compared to you they are pleasant company.” Nebula replies, her black eyes boring into his. Her hand disassembles into a cannon and aims at him.

It begins with Thanos disintegrating reality around them all and constructing Titan around them. Why not entertain their delusions until they tire and then wipe them out in one fell swoop. 

They go all out, Steve shouting orders and tactics, Tony and Rhodes firing off explosions, Okoye and M’Baku unleash their fury on the thing that destroyed their King. Hulk and Natasha run at him with their might. 

Thanos dodges it all, he phases from side to side, reflecting explosives and bullets back at them but they don’t stumble or let him knock them back. Each use of the infinity stones tires him now, each phase is slower, the reality flickering around them as they continue their assault. 

“You cannot beat me.” He grunts as he throws Rocket off him for the third time, tiny claw marks covering his arms, tiny bits of shrapnel catch him and cause him to bleed. 

“This is not how it goes” He roars, clenching his fist and slamming it into the ground causing a shockwave that knocks them all back. 

The assault stops briefly as they stagger back to their feet, and out of all of them, Tony laughs. 

“How many outcomes did you watch” Tony wipes a smear of blood from his cheek, annoying grin in place 

“A hundred thousand and they were all the same, all of you died at my hands.” He growls back, Thanos is long past letting them tire. 

“Out of all 41 million outcomes” Tony begins, he steps forward toward Thanos and Steve falls into place next to Tony. “You only watched a few thousand.”

“Why would I waste my time watching you pathetic mortals fail again and again.” Thanos rolls his shoulders,

“You missed an important one buddy, out of all the 41 million, there was one outcome where we won.” Tony now has the heroes following him toward Thanos.

It is hard for the Mad Titan to not step back as they converge on him. 

They stop a short distance away from him. Thanos was wrong. They will not tire with that hope behind them and he cannot bring up the power to obliterate them all at once. 

“You are foolish to believe you can win against six infinity stones.” Thanos tries to force the stones to his will, versions of reality fade in and out, he phases through rocks and walls. 

They all lash out again, hitting Thanos with everything they have and slowly he is the one who tires, he finds himself making small errors and getting hit, more of his blood is spilt. 

He drops to a knee when Hulk hits him in the back and pins his legs down. Stark grapples onto the gauntlet, knowing it can come off with the right amount of force. Natasha, Okoye and M’Baku spear weapons through his other hand pining to the ground. 

“You cannot handle them” Thanos gasps as Thor’s axe presses against his chest, splitting the old wound he had. “They are beyond mortal men” 

Hulk smashes a fist over Thanos’ head and he goes limp momentarily, just enough for the gauntlet to behind to budge. Steve grabs the rim and yanks hard and it flies off, landing on the ground and twitching violently. 

“Without someone to harness the powers, it will destroy us all” Thanos sounds panicked, Nebula is at his throat with a sharp blade that cuts into his neck. 

Steve and Tony rush toward the gauntlet, which flies up and hovers between them, Steve’s arm stretches out to grab it but the gauntlet has its own mind and attaches itself to Steve’s hand, the powerful metal molding to his arm. 

Thanos slumps to the floor as everyone surrounds Steve, who has dropped to the ground with the gauntlet flashing, his body convulses as he see’s a thousand different things, voices floating through his mind. 

“Rogers?” Tony tries to pin Steve down with his anchors, but the gauntlet disintegrates them. The damage that had been evident before was now healing before their eyes.

The crumpled metal smooths into burnished gold, even Steve’s own wounds heal.

In his head the Time stone shows him what he wants to see and things he doesn't. Steve watches an outcome where he lived to dance with Peggy, how he could will that into his life. His heart aches when he sees her, even more when the stone throws more outcomes, they get married, they have children.

We can make it real, for a price.

The stones hum to him, replaying outcome after outcome, one where he brings them all back including Peggy, Bucky's arm is flesh and not metal, Vision is a person. Everyone lives.

But someone has to die.

“Steve?” Natasha says softly, and his head snaps to her “You ok?”

He sits up without saying a word and looks at his hands.

Steve knows what he has to do. Everything will be fixed.

He snaps his fingers, and the world shifts around them.

They are back on Earth, in Wakanda, and those who had disintegrated are there waiting. Tony pulls Peter into a hug, Okoye shouts for T'Challa and Shuri, Gamora is awkwardly pulled into a hug by Nebula and Quill, all of them trying not to cry. Groot is talking with Rocket, who is most definitely crying.

"You big lug nut" Rocket sobs as Groot pats him on the head

"I am Groot." Groot replies and Rocket sobs harder.

"Don't do that to me kid" He is crushing Peter, tears running down his face.

"I'm sorry Mr Stark" Peter is just as distraught, his face wet with tears

Steve turns to Thanos, who has come with them.

"I'm surprised you didn't have me erased. Everything comes at a price." He muses, watching as Thor embraces Loki. "So who didn't you save."

Steve stares at Thanos, who laughs. It is punctured with heavy breaths, Thor's axe cut deeper than expected and now the Titan is drowning in his own blood. Fitting perhaps.

"You could have changed the galaxy a different way. Changed the wills of those who are greedy, power hungry. Instead, you chose mass genocide." Steve ignored Bucky and Sam who are next to him.

He can't face them right now, when this is over, there will be time to talk.

"Genocide is not always bad. It has its uses." Thanos replies

A price the stones remind him, they want blood for their power. He knows, but for now, he ignores them and focuses on Thanos.

"You snapped your fingers and caused a lifetime of suffering to those had done nothing wrong. The rich still feed off the poor. Children go to sleep without food in their bellies." Thanos' voice is weaker, blood flooding the grass beneath him

"Let me kill him."

Steve turns to a person he has never met but knows instantly she is Gamora.

"Sister.." Nebula's voice is strained "Killing him now would be a mercy. He deserves to suffer."

"I thank you for bringing my precious Gamora back Steven. I will gladly die knowing she is safe."

Steve is unused to his full name, especially from an enemy.

"You threw me off a cliff" Gamora screams at him

"For the sake of the galaxy. Everything I did, I did for the sake of the less fortunate." Thanos slumps further into the grass, everyone who Steve brought back is watching from various positions, some grip their weapons in case this is a ploy.

Steve sits down himself, suddenly weary and knows what is happening. He has made up his mind.

"Steve?" Natasha's voice is quiet and he knows he can't avoid telling them anymore

"The stones demand a price" he says quietly, hearing a small bubbling laugh from Thanos as he dies slowly in the grass

"A price Steve? You offered yourself up?" Bucky snaps at his best friend

"I've lived my life Tony. The world doesn't need Captain America anymore, it needs you guys." Steve is aware that he is fading, slowly.

The stones are being patient as he says his goodbyes.

"Buck, we're well over 100 years old. Maybe it's time we retire" Steve jokes, painfully aware of how much he's hurting his friends, how much he's hurting doing this.

It would've been selfish to take someone else, to shorten someone else's life so he could live longer.

"I can't do this without you Steve." Bucky drops next to his friend, gripping Steve's faded shoulder.

"You did pretty well here in Wakanda. Shuri fixed your arm. You're free of any control now Buck."

"This isn't cool Steve. You can't save the world and then.. go." Sam can't bring himself to say the word die "What are we gonna tell them? People look up to you man"

"They look up to Captain America, not Steve Rogers." He closes his eyes, listening as those who know him beg him not to do this, to take them instead.

The ones he doesn't know thank him, for bringing back their loved ones, their family, and friends. He is sad he will never know them beyond the stones knowledge.  Steve can't stop the tears as they fall.

There is silence suddenly.

He knows it will end soon.

"You promised me a dance." Peggy's voice makes him open his eyes.

Around them, couples sway to slow-moving jazz music. He doesn't look anywhere but Peggy, stood in a black dress, her hand stretched toward him.

"We don't have long. The song will be over soon" She urges and Steve pulls her toward him.

She laughs against his chest as he holds her tight, swaying in time to the music.

Steve has one last thought before it ends.

The stones were kind.

[castlehead]

Hartford Pomes: or, “FINDINGS,” circa 2010. (PART ONE: Pomes of Observations upon the String.)

WASSERFALL AND FROSTED GRASS, AND SUN UPON BOTH, BOTH OF THEM, DIMINISHING ONE, FOREVER DIMINISHING ONE.

And suddenly I was seized- -With I know not what but something premature, Premature yet clear: clearness transposed to roughness.

I then elaborated on my findings, As light elaborates in blond-

-Upon the wasserfall: before the fall Of noon into the evening: the Light ebbs on the tumbling Waters, down Into the gorge.

It came upon me slowly, Pictured as like the falls in assiduous motion, Over the course of the night that knew It would be day before I started to describe it, It came upon me slowly. Thru the night it came,

Like frost on grass when I awaken, Like a blondness of the falls somewhat.

. .  .   .    .     .

These images of nature, What marasmus of a sort is this?

. .  .   .    .     .

I awaken, viewing the same- -Inspiration I had had while I had slept, Except: for now, at least: it’s an intimation, diminishing Like frost, dried up by the noonday sun.

I realized just as suddenly its disappearance, as though- -All inspiration were somewhat simultaneous,

In how it arrives, in how it goes away, In how it does these both at once, a friction,

A friction that continues to be friction, A concealing of the spareness of thought-

-Behind the energies of this vocal consciousness, Energies that do not ebb like day.

. .  .   .    .     .

This losing simultaneity, This rapid flickering-out that causes what Returns to so return with energy that flickers out

That flickers out, and dies, Like the hinge of noonday into evening;

Like something private, and alienated The useless falls reflect the sun.

....

CRITICAL ERROR.

(Lazy days, lazy men, Lazy communication throughout, and soon Cornered into an idea- -Seen image, finely done. And lazy automobiles.)

When strong, Unevil days pass,

They are They are likened but somewhat- -Off a faltering, somewhat Off a certainty: both to be bettered,

With time and knowledge. The Figments of anticipation. See:

The fair enuff relation: Callow men: that is, those who- -Do not cross the park at night,

And walk across Traffic, to waiting cabs;

The unplaceable, tho sure symbolism Uttered in passing after lunch; the asthmatic

Puff of loveless, Brittle cars, passing thru clever Causeways. All this brings- -Us back to MARS, one day. One day, The sudden day will suddenly decide to Be every single strong, unevil,

Humane day of many days, that all- -Will forget, of all of them, what regarding What was in them, Was in these queer fealties of nature—

And how she, in her wandering, Sensed places about them.

IDEA: Having no clear speaker. Why do we need a speaker- -At all???????????? Upon Ridding myself of these Constraints, the constraints Of an involved poetic identity, I am able to go more Places with thoughts. And, yet, there is a pattern here,

I am conveying myself, by elaborating on the search. My ambivalence regarding this subject is proof enough.

....

SYNECDOCHE.

So, here I am: I have decided: I am going to teach us myself

With the light on this time around: I no longer- -Have places in the darkness left to nestle this new glowing of light encountered just now, midway up the arc of my personal tempers: this arc: this arc, developing infinitely away from me and into more of an arc than before, trapping me in a void of endless weakening: since it is that such a climax is no such inevitability as I thought but rather a dream to dream up. Yes,

Yes . . . a dream, yes, a dream to dream upwards into a wakening that seems more and more inexplicable, and so then less and less a wakening. I am coming to realize that my standing as a poet, at present,

Occurs more like a posture: rarely footed but rather swaggering from this, to that; moreover, it is conscious of this. This consciousness is the main detraction.

It is also the main strength. My climax will wilt more the more it must go through to be reached.

As my experience as a poet and what I write are bound and the same, this reaching, then, is a reaching that I myself must go through to reach it; 'it' of course being

This funny little climax . . . yes . . . because, you see: I see this whole shebang, this whole ‘reaching’ thing as a thing that is not a zenith, but, rather, a climax,

As though afterwards things might quell down into the denouement. However, I do not know the end of this journey any more than I would know the date of the end of my life.

. .  .   .    .     .

My personality is tempered by my own personal tempers . . . yes. As a writer of emotional emotions I had had once I had once used an oblique darkness as counter-point to the dull-dreaming facility of these my long—dull—uneven scribbles . . .

I saw this as an obstruction, and so then struggled to properly suffocate much of the ambient things—and, much as I could—with obliqueness: ambient things, always new, always the best so far.

These first brightnesses of a mind delayed so long of what it believes, mordantly—these brightnesses, once placed there in the darkness. And, too often, with results not as I supposed would come: that is as

An entrance through that dark. A Lighting-up of it; don't have such places, not anymores I don’t: places,

For example, places on the wall—to hang a picture. I used

Up all of the dark space with that; that is, with a quietly weird complicatedness. I did this before I had the chance to experience more things; before I had the chance to grow, humanly, and so then understand and understand further where, in my sleepy logic—where, besides in bed, could I conduct

My sermons-on-the-bed; where in ghosts could There be an understanding-                         -Of hunger, enough, for them to sustain their ghostly selves And eat this food I offer them . . . ? If I found THAT I would know

My ghastly ghosts. I would know my wishful eidolons to thrive                         Out of their present contagion, nicely squared In the nonetheless corrupted, imperfect niche of my reality-

-And eat the giving of this muse: A sultry Madonna: my sleepy logic woken up to do me out on paper.

. .  .   .    .     .

I led myself always to a greater complication, attempting to trump the machinery of my own brain . . . spare, yes, spare the amount of times these fascinations were resolved, but, only, I felt, if a part of me let the amount be spare . . .

For so long I had been holed up behind the fascinations: wall: wall of the spatial darkness/darknesses, yes. Wall,

Dark wall of a room with no windows and the lights off. A place therefore on which to hang my wishes of the light—like a picture of the sun in a frame. A picture, shining, proudly, against the bleakness, fabricated.

. .  .   .    .     .

Either way most likely you have not yet gone towards my darkness; you will. Preferring light, you have somewhat misunderstood what I say; you won't.

Even though from the beginning, what you searched for was a head filled with improper shadows, explanations known thus improperly as illuminations of a thing in reality wilting into twilight, in reality. Transience. You struggled despite your best efforts to be exposed by me, the person whom you sought—and hated—for what he said the nature of your search amounted to.

. .  .   .    .     .

I am now wary of wanton contradiction. I am in search of an utterance like one that could make light out of light; rather, am in search of a plain rabbit out the hat. A magic realness. Grace, grace, devised at the beginning of my life as a sort of moving-on of frustrations to somewheres away from my considerable head, nonetheless—still—possessed the words, but at times, rather than always; such was the insanity of my ambitions. It was

A seeming infinity of an arc: this evil grace, charting my own limited biography: my finite life: I had to possess it, somehow, so as to not let this grace eke out of me and die, having no way to survive. SOUL.

. .  .   .    .     .

Grace died, still, stillborn, almost, in that it considered its potential to need more making, more building.

It needed more of a constructing of itself, into more than that—to be any good, I thought—and, I failed in this enterprise, poetential being too heavy a boulder for me to lift—at least—without seeming to challenge GOD in the lifting.

I would know myself to lose such a battle; lose, that is, if the the the deity were to take some time just to craft more carefully the mightiest-

-Of its powers, that is, humility. This stillborn thing became stillborn Because of me, you see: because of my need to report to you the reposed, strange darkness like an idle fuck, gracefully, inevitably. The need, moreover, to light myself up all fake on the real wall: but, no:

I wish now instead to vision an imperative as though it were not so much dogma. An imperative, yes—and yet not needed to be repeated as a way to become familiar,

Because at the start it was familiar, unlike prayers, unlike the prayers of humans.

. .  .   .    .     .

I repeat some things because they would be my GOD . . . I know this. I lie about what meaning I give to the tone of the light so as to break from a differenter greater and unseen place the light that comes truthfully, honestly. Break the light. This is how I see it. I once could adduce a point out of this, a reason for doing this—nonetheless—because, I was used to my own abstract devices as a comfort. It

Was graceful and was not plain . . . to begin with . . . it was not a guide for you; was not a simple guide for you, rather: however: know and know well that you-

-Do not yet understand what it is like                                       To hold the key to your own house When you have not for so long. I will tell you nothing about it.

. .  .   .    .     .

In your own way I guess you will amble towards me, towards my processes, my calculations, my diction . . . and I receive you to purge my ramble. I urge you to weave like a river, like the river that is an idea not yet possessed, yet to be possessed—I urge you to clean up my meanings as you would the house. I urge you, reader, to sail, gracefully, up your own meaningful delta, and arrive at an ocean of what I say. The thing is,

          Without you beside me my otherness feasts on me, Eats me alive, feasts. . . so, then: the teaching of whatever                                   It is is what I myself must teach, I must inflict whatever this is upon myself, first, In order to be able to live alone.

Having realized that I have a lot of places to go with that particular sturm-and-drang, this teaching of myself, that is . . . well, in carrying out such an ambition to the end I would find I finally perceive to know others better, better than I know myself; so then it would be a challenge to teach myself things, being that I do not know myself. Myself: talkative, in search of a friend in his opinions . . .

And yet this weave is threadbare methinks, except in the attempt of a sojourn towards that Mecca of understood life. To reach that stone, on which to scribe my influence, permanently.

I explain others to myself and am met with an amalgam: a mixture, delved into solution: a voice speaking to me as though floating on airs of impermanence, fleetingness,

As it is I am viewing the sun from the EARTH, really; saying the experience of what I see, as opposed to fully experiencing that sun and knowing it differenter than what I put forth as a truth, a truth I make seeming due to merely an ambivalence regarding the expression of words . . . not, necessarily, because I know what I communicate to myself as an approximate width of that experience I might have, of walking on the sun.

So, then, all this is just a picture in a frame; the picture is set. I Can only change the shade of the walls from something less a darkness, as a way to beat the air to fly, wingless.

So, then, I am now done with my willingness to make a fickle art out of consciousness by saying there is no science in it, and then putting forth hypotheses that fail, because I did not start the piece out as a precision; merely hearkened that precision as a sort of tone, as a way to figure the words, so as to create an air of truth/deliberateness.

. .  .   .    .     .

I wish to be done with that. I wish for something to pray to. Not myself; something free of myself and his wicked otherness. Perhaps things will become recognizable again. If so, Then, I will see things, others, as I see myself—though they are not me—

. .  .   .    .     .

Though others trouble me with what they wish to pursue and vindicate,                                               What they wish to alleviate and accrue.

And if I may chance to guess: you know enough about me to know yourself as not me, but rather a person whom you may change into—given the time—given

Time and given the teaching of our species to create ourselves.

Ourselves—yes—together, known finally as all that would be in ourselves to create,

Without thinking otherwise. Without loping off, kicking the ground, dejected, yes,

Dejected, by the very vague and discontinuous image that it itself is: used only as a way to perpetuate this frustrated, driven emotion of frustration, Carried, like the same tune . . . oh ah oh ugg loo loo loo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!                                The arbitrariness of the molding of being

Yes, from a vacuous nothing. A rupture, a tangent of the dignity in the self, made exuberant and clumsy in me, suddenly: expressed faultily but going on with the expression: the words are the metaphor in this: the tone changes with my feelings for the tone: this

Expression, previously magnified and argued for and against by the priggish scholars in my head. And yet that is me indeed, indeed me: how hotly they analyze, is me: they weave the truth together, yes,

Rather than letting it be what it is—that is—an obloquy for feeling around for the pursuit of it in the dark; struggling, as I said, for light;

A thing that wants requital, but cannot have it. a calm amongst the chatter, a feeling of the mind that is grandiose and calm. This is

An immaturity, yes . . . a flaw in me, and my processes; we do not know truth nor what the good might be in coming to it.

There's no subject for pomes, no derring-do besides in what we are able to handle. . .

. .  .   .    .     .

And so I teach you myself through myself's digression, depicted in words. Not anyone else, not GOD nor SOUL. In other words, this: my consciously-enacted

Vagueness of the motion of my thoughts and the processes of my thoughts and all that lies between the processes.What is there left to teach? The GOOD GRAY POET, yes. He

He he knows he knows and does not say but in vagueness, In the wholeness of his parts; in the equivocal provocation

Of his whole pome. Teacher, teach.

....

BLESSINGS.

Draft One:

So it is our contentedness withers, Withers and falls off of us—as would

The leaf, as would the leaf of life                      And sensitive pain— Never known. What???????????

What? Shall I benumb myself? All Is now what I strain to feel. The leaf

Is gone. If it was pain, then I should Rather have been sensitive to it, know it,

Yes, and feel content in knowing At least one thing in my inverted

Chest with accuracy, but, nah . . . this is A lopping-off, and I can only sense

The disappearance: it is a disappearance —Of one season into another: a wresting,

Almost, of a single leaf from the tree of myself: One less blessing of pain that though it were pain

Had once sharpened, yes, sharpened out of nothing An intensity and a pathos to describe: now, I can only

Elucidate the void that now is in the place of such Sharpness, without an experience of what was- -Once there: an ode to some lost feeling.

. .  .   .    .     .

Draft Two:

Contentedness withers, falls off

Of me, as would- -The leaf, As would the leaf of life: my life, To be particular: a life made of leaves           That fall, each one a sensitive pain, Forgotten. What?????????????????????????   What? Tell me, shall I benumb myself? All-          -Is what I strain to feel, now: I       Am left, at least, to cherish that                               In its entirety. The leaf Is gone: if it was pain that was here: once- -Here, in that place of my clear thoughts, Then, I should- -Have rather been Sensitive to it, was not; would Rather have known it while it was around,

Would rather have felt content in knowing

At least one thing in my chest With accuracy, at least: but, no: this is A lopping-off . . . yes: I can only sense The disappearance: it is a disappearance —Of one season into another. It is a wresting —Of a single leaf from the tree of myself: it is one Less blessing of pain that though it were pain Had still once sharpened—yes—sharpened out Of nothing- -An intensity and a pathos To describe. At this point, I can only-

-Elucidate that void now in the place of such Sharpness, without an experience of what was Once there. An ode to some lost feeling, here:

(end.)

....

CANCER.

In her mind, she is exquisitely Persuasive. To others, she dialogues the Fantasy of a past lit by the vague light Of happenstance, news for the quarterlies, Furious libel. Fake attention. Lacking proper Placement—in the trackless mode Of life—she plays instead the Part in her own existing.

To herself she is concave: a spinning Head on weak shoulders: a severe flap Of skin over bones, and—perhaps—a heart, Thudding, quietly, to itself: she Will not last long, and the diagnosis Will be grim, and nothing Will get in the way of her simultaneous Fear and accomplishment—one secretive,       And painful—the other outlandish, and  Yet somehow seen a positive result by her:          That is, DEATH, indeed, something That suddenly is, before one had begun To know it as something there: she is Scared, yes—and still—her penchant for Ruining, ruining what is already a ruined, stray Self shines thru, and we are left wondering why.

. .  .   .    .     .

Why?

....

TALKING ABOUT A FLOCK OF BIRDS RESUTSL.

We hear what we hear, Which is everything, And we think of what we think of, Which is everything, And when we hear what we think, That is one encompassing, a kernel of a thought, A kernel out of the bag of uncooked opcornp.

(We, that is, the varieties of me, misspell The WORLD. We spell out things, Things without a name. And The name—like me, Like the varieties of me, the me's unheard, Unheard, because each one is infinite—

That good name: it is infinite, so as to beckon a perimeter, Only beckon. A perimeter that misspells. The name- -I do not give to what I see in the experience, Well, harumph, it spells out, Corretcly. It's the same thing, Rearranged, until new meaning's there, A new meaning for the same old thing.

An old thing beckoning the perimeter, Wishing, yes, to acknowledge both ends Or both beginnings . . . either way, It ends in the middle, so that what

. .  .   .    .     .

So that, what comes out afterwards Is a fizzle: a present- -Uselessness expanding, Until it misspells, and then the meaning's there . . .)

A larger circumference is, and does The same thing, and has a perimeter that is, Because if it is it usually has a perimeter,

And this encompasses the impasse. What we see as a pause, an impasse, Is a plausible end that has not come yet, So, we make up our own ends; we misspell, Yeah. The end that ends up coming will be-

-Something that I, nonetheless, will not know, Nor kowtow to, in not being what I expected,                      But in being better/more useful, rather, More license to expand is given it, it pours out unexpectedly

....

ALCOHOLISM.

Wake up. Drink. Think. Rub yur eyes. Return To sleep, sleep in a chair, Yu slept in a chair, In the kitchen, awkward position, headache- -The next day, stiffness. Wake up, again, on the floor,   Yu and the chair, too. Again, drink, go to work, come-                                 -Home, drink. Think. Feel; Too markedly change things: emotions slur: find yurself- -Hiding, hiding so as to think, in a hole,                          Drink. Drink, again. Lose friends. Become a story. Story of yur life, sob story. Drink. Find yurself saying, "it's that way-           -All the time" but Immediately afterwards do not know what yu refer to. Drink. Press on, with thoughts, towards the first one, Don't find one, don't think, drink, again, as a result, This sucks, think this. Repeat, drink, until it is a warp, a vortex- -That yu are dragged into the middle of and wrung out from, Drink. Think, upon living out the aftermath. Turmoil, The strong feelings, they stimulate yur brain, after drinking drains yu, So that yu can press on and on, and drink. So- -It is, my turmoil is the drug that helps me think,                Because I drink, and live thru personal folly, Which inevitably occurs with abuse, to instigate, to help occur- -A vital flickering in the mouth of the dulling flame, Those very strong, Strange feelings of remorse that help us change.

....

COLLEGE: A SENTENCE.

Cuz it doesnt fit, we fit to it, and end up all the same, processed, organized- -into deferential life,

a consuming listlessness- -for being not how we are, and telling only of ourselves, to speak our being plain- -does nothing

but drive us crazy, utterly,

and then we go to college

and learn about others, others, who made their- -importance apparent, public,

perhaps, in thinking of this public disposition of- -ourselves as beings of no sort of reality, but rather HELL, simply because it is not us, but who we thought we were—disproved, possessed by college—

left us by the hinges, and, then, everything’s an idiotic confusion, a confusion that we make deferential, public, anonymous, we- -go to college to be,

to be anonymous. A sentence; here’s another one. And another one.

....

THE QUIETING DOOR.

The road we follow, What of the road We follow, Mr. Eliot? What Have you else to say????????????????????????? What of the figure beside you, walking beside you; You think him Jesus Christ? Ah, nuts. It’s As much JC as you are TIRESIAS, you Anti-prophet. Crane’s more an oracle Than you, what with- -His vision of NEW YORK as a hell      To be celebrated: shaped into white                     Buildings: curving words into    The curves of his BROOKLYN BRIDGE;      To him, both harp and alter, and a place From which he would have leapt, almost, Had this beautiful oracle, this difficult                       Crane, not leapt Into the sea and drowned, Quite literally, his Fury finally fused; but, It isn’t him either that’s beside you,                             On this road. It’s Whitman, I believe— It is Whitman-GOD: and he holds his own tally, his own Sweetness: lilacs of which you are one, Budding. You budding- -From the dooryard sprang; then, fully grown, Lamented your wife instead of Lincoln.

I’m guessing it was your wife,            Since you locked her Away in a loony- -Bin, and, ironically, had a mental breakdown Afterwards, and from this sprang your haunting- -Poem: that lamentation, for her? I think You saw her pill-popping self as a representation, You made every human thing a representation; Her, yes, placed all fragmented among Your other fragmented Images of people on sleds and slick rats Slinking down aqueducts near the THAMES —And men, looking always at their feet.

This comes together Through the fragmentation As awesomely resonant, a painting of the plague of being On a canvas of nothing: the best result of your writing, Mr. Eliot, and no doubt proof in the pudding of— Your own poetic schedule, your pattern.

This came all this together to depict Yourself and, as well, the ethos of those other Selves who had lost hope; you showed them More hopelessness, and became The hopelessness more to teach what Could happen, if a people wrecked by WAR Were to be consumed by their own pessimism, Uttered at them at night in bed by them.

Fragmented. You drawl beautifully, Mr. Eliot, And your rhyme scheme is simultaneously Humorous and lyrical, Mr. Eliot, purveyor Of human chaos, the very human open ends . . .

So do you end your bleak and formal poem

—With an omen: a triple-prayer of SHANTIH, To communicate, oddly enough, a very Christian regret                          You must have felt, upon Reviewing the spiritual paucity of your age. And so, the words you Chose were dour and unyielding- -As a wasteland, and yet powerfully eloquent. It was probably what the thunder would have said, Except that, thunder as I know it generally is provoked To sound with the passing of a bolt of lightning hitting The ground as a finish, a unity, relinquished, Finally. What might the thunder have said About Whitman, yes??????????????????

Whitman, well, he doesn’t really need these flowers That you offer him, unknowingly, Hyacinth-girl, girl of innocence remembered With ill-ease by you, Mr. Eliot, who see- -Innocence as platitude, yes, but perhaps a key to wisdom . . . if used wisely.                                             No, he just wants them. He allows you to give What he has given you back to him, Because he loves you, Mr. Eliot; As he loves the prostitutes The syphilitics, Hanging in the dooryards

This is somewhat struggling to be a pastiche. Weird.             After reading The Wasteland again I found, suddenly, that I understood, To put it bluntly, barely—as in, To put my thoughts in a bare way For now, until my name is called to- -Be a name, so that I may further towards me that which                      Had so long been distant from my craving, My calling craving. But, so, I understood there to be a want in this, yes,

This craving for want: crabbed and angered, Yes, from a throat of phlegm, passed,                     Calling. It is the want to make it new, New, like a WORLD of things unearthed just now, Previously thought of by everybody As not worth it and impossible to picture, an                      Intellectual dearth, a humming of a disappearance. The disappearance of clouds after a hard rain in NEW HAVEN,

Hard rain, washing away the detritus of dreams of some reality, And then the coming rainbow like a stretching band- -Of colored light, towards oblivion. The thing is,

To whatever name is called, I will respond, Though it may not be mine. It may be that I have no figure beside me, But I do: it sometimes thinks itself not there- -When I think it is, and is when I think it is not, And when we both realize ourselves, we

Celebrate the clarity of seeing the same, frail-seeming self. Whether left in my care/hands or not, it is a clarity, still —That I can rejoice in knowing that I know. So then There is no ambivalence. Put your cards on the table, genie, and see My fortune in your own handfuls of dust. I mix your meanings with the ones of others, Never say whom I am speaking of, or to whom I speak. I take the dust you give me, turn it gold:

His beard is white: this man, this man of gold, who- -Walks beside me without speaking, Speaking the most through the scream of his drear eyes:

Looking out upon a society: a brave wound Bleeding out all of him into him. Terrible vision,  Yes, Walt, and so then did you make Your explanation devoid of tragedy So that you could pursue that that that ‘craving’ so-called

. .. . ....... . . ...        ..... . . . . .. . ... . . . ... ..

‘Craving’: yes: to want to need

What he cannot have, Because Whitman-GOD broke the new wood. We need him

As a reference-point to figure out How our nation's poetry should- -Be dealt with, now and then, anew. We should then Research what it was that this man Needed to escape from; or else, why would he be poet?

He wanted a place without frustrations, I think: Frustrations of the inhumane, observed.                  Tap your drums. Let what I say be true. Unless That is, this fellow, Whitman, poor, poor GOD, was merely Filled with feelings; needed to let his blood. Filled, yes, with a sense of- -Truest, slovenly injustice,,,

This then is why this Whitman-GOD is a celebrant, really, Ultimately: a rouser for the wasted energies of man alive.

...  . .. .  . . ... . . . . . ....... . . . . . . .     .

It is a WORLD he made, really, and for himself:  The open wound of a door, entering into the privacy Of a universe of Walt, and just for you: a man estranged from What he must have felt- -To be his inspiration, his honorific. Gone, or Never there? Upon discovering That the thing he had devoted so much time to believing                  And writing down as a whole, as something Or someone not a whole, it became- -Not as who he was, at all:

... . .. . . . . .. . .       .......   . . ... . . ..  .. .

 Having accepted his role already of the brunt-bearer Of the WORLD's otherworldliness, of our need to escape the WORLD by making it realer, by making it a huge realness,,, He then did not know himself—if he was not his book—                             And unconsciously broke his book: Changing things around, changing punctuation, changing words, And making his old purity into brokenness, a shroud,                   An unnatural shroud that left him on his death-bed With more that he wanted to say, which he could not, the more he said. No poet speaks in poetry the way they speak themselves. Mr. Wallace Stevens, fatly soft, a ten-foot inchling, Breaks purposefully, saying it important. He says That he, this Whitman-GOD, carries A gnarled staff of leaping flame . . . you see, Mr. Stevens, I have questions to ask, one of which Involves yourself: ahem: these metaphysical Abstractions: this glass of water or a jar-               -In Tennessee: are these a proper gradient or Wave on which to catch whatever particles of that feral Attention: that blurry feeling that Your mind explores to points, I suppose: these Catacombs you comb through, unexpectedly . . .             You spent your time on darkness, Mr. Stevens, Observing the Aurora Borealis with disdain, recollecting- -As like a strange old Wordsworth-GOD upon The memory of youth, which itself withers, And proves his slipping mind. Meanwhile,

All the bright things remain too dear to you To be possessed, and then must you so darken- -Through proliferate abstractions, As though to rather be nestled in this mode of carrion

Things; this isolated, bare thing on the side of a house. Your NEW HAVEN is not so much extraordinary As it is a hero without you speaking it as such, And so is not extraordinary. And in this you are flawed, But correct. Correct by being flawed, as though, Like wordy Mr. Ammons, you accomplish rawness;                            Work, yes, to make it that way, as though You would not bother to correct the flaws in your own work:

Nor does it seem you edited the content of What you had expressed, at all: as though

The founded assumptions made, perhaps incorrect, Were—nonetheless—the result of a beautiful consciousness: A consciousness of youth, hurt at what he sees, Enamored with what he sees, gone over the deep end:

A road mechanically riven rather  Than passed through: as though In accordance with something else, some Sort of blooming anxiety to swerve. And this made all of what you both had scribbled,

That is, what you, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Ammons, Had scribbled, seem a paraphrase or- -Rather a denoting of your flaws, so as to Make one who reads you unsure of what they were,,,                  Almost, as a way to make them Not there; if brightly obvious, Such flaws would                             Imply a nakedness of form, and do. Less obvious were the actual shortcomings, as they usually are:

Jumping unawares from the corporeal: Stevens-GOD: your Sense of what is real in vision-sense, envisioned As sense, that is: and this, incorporated Instead into what you stated, while dismissing- -Something more important about that statement,

Not to be returned to. These things were for a time

Relevant, at least, before you- -Moved on from them: Jumping then into obfuscations, Those unsaid things became a dynamic,                                      Concentrated prayer, a lamentation, an elegy In speechless-making dithyrambs, for what was not there: as opposed To the innocence of what that poet, Whitman, private, really, Consistently alluded to, and struggled to include,                             And did not. Them being his own crises, they Were not the crises of the U.S., simply put. Usurper: DAN. This Whitman-GOD was kind of Elitist, led on by a fiction that was, after all, a love —Of himself that he was able to neutralize,                       Because the love of himself was terrifying; he Needed to make other people feel it for him as well because He felt this terror in all people, much as in him, And so then attempted to pander To the egotism at the heart of each individual, At the heart of greed, a giant commerce of the U.S.,

And so then he could simulate a feeling of universality Through implying all, as objectively as possible.                        And yet his subjectivity is a high art Because it is highly attached to people, not him. So, He contradicts himself, let him do so, He contains multitudes, I guess. The problem With Whitman-GOD is that one cannot include nothing            Or the idea of it, at least, when using his device,

Because, one does this mechanically, already, by default, In needing to adhere to everything and so then contradict.

On the other hand, to me, Contradictions are the basis of that nothing. Rather than- -Through implication this is done. Again, problematic: To imply nothing

Would be a stronger statement than to work it to the bone, Make it happen—in other words—swallow it up

Into an ineradicable inclusion: to prove diversity in things, A blazon of the nation. This Whitman-GOD, I will concede Implies a great deal in those lines, those facts, relayed And conversing, jabbering like a room of old fathers With each other, a melting pot of subjects, an—

Excited pump of monosyllabic words after one another. However . . . yeah, he does not imply nothing                   But rather speaks it plain, as an attempt To analyze it, which seems rash, to me . . . but, yeah, Since, well, the meaning for monosyllabic- -Words is usually recognized immediately, the reader Obtains information at a quicker pace, so that The power comes faster, quicker, depending on the Sentence at hand. Such is his quick power: idiomatic, A uniform hieroglyphic, markings somewheres- -In the corners of grass, so that we may remark And say: whose?

. . ... . . .....   .. . .. . . .. . . . . . . ...  .....

And strange language, at times, at times brute reality Are both juxtaposed, at times:

Just as the fellow-GODs Wordsworth and Coleridge juxtaposed                      Fantastic and the human, real things. Since then, in The twentieth century, poets like Ammons, to bring It back—poets like Stevens—utilize the strangeness most, Out of all things,

And though it is the best it is the worst strategy, Because it makes one wrapped up in the strangeness And this can be ruinous. There are, yes, the obvious

Openings you open without doors. Stevens-GOD, Why do you open them, these doo,rs if the only purpose For such a quest would be to quiet them, afterwards? You both—unlike Mr. Eliot, a miserable miser, hating misers—          Possess more functioning ideas, and a greater Comprehension of the shooting of abstractions Towards a virility of phrase, a— More functioning ambivalence, indeed. Yet This man, this Mr. Eliot possesses, at the least, A clear hold on his daemon: a clear reconcilement Between the sphinx, being sexual desire, cloude,d

And the everlovering cherub, being Creative desire, of course!, and harder to pursue. He had his objectives down to a science, This Eliot fellow, see, and this gave the man confidence- -In what he was trying to express, that is, The absurdity of that crisis altogether. If bad things were to happen, as they did to him, They would not unhappen if he were to write a poem, Which made the man listless: he broke down, spoke of ideas                                as puppets, terror as a puppet-thing, Because he could not bring abstractions together to imply! He solidified, too exactly himself, and started forth- -With his his his ‘new criticism’ and ‘objective correlative’; being Romantic, rejected Romanticism.

And yet you both: you Ammons, you spangled Stevens, You fictive men that eat ugliness like pineapples, And, view a harder travel of the road—through

This hardness do your struggles inflict upon The reader a handsomer pathos of acceptance,

An acceptance of the poem you are writing

Beyond the highest Pavement of Eliot and his reductive stairs.

. .. . . . …..   ..   … .  .     …    ... . .. .. . . .

For example, where Down the road will I find that house, wherefrom I have strayed, Have strayed for so long? I reveal myself- -In a revelry of nonsense, at times, so time To change that before it leads, surreptitiously

              To ruin, without climax. Endless Responses to the agon. I must find a ghost to fight, Buried in the hole. In the way it fights—this                       Unified melody, heard out to you from across A generic distance—this shouted, loud descant is such a hole,

A pothole in the road. As feeble as lost metaphor. I must find where I have lost it, this metaphor. No longer should I find another road

That speaks to others. Others have their prudent- -Paths. Others’ will will will their own vices to be used

As a form of seductive narrative. Eroticism Can be made plain however, and, yet, The road, what path? Is it a road of paths? Is it a location of empathy in me??????????? Is this tendency, yes, to find myself in fighting- -Merely fighting with myself, without finding? Yes, For, very much beyond- -How far you’re feet are willing to take you Is a place, a house of the will,

A tapping of a preconcert, an Indifferent nerve, a type

                Of verve, as like a Shelleyan summoning. I Haven’t gotten there yet: haven't gotten, yes, to a lofty

Telling of how things are, without- -A need for astringent things, eroticism, Dirtiness, degradation, even of style. Rilke handled erotic longing better, anyway. Rimbaud handled dirtiness as if it was his dirty life.

… . . .. . … ..   . . . . .     . .. . .     .... . . . .

Is this a plan of GOD, or for GOD; Or, perhaps of me myself, the Whitman-GOD, Reworked by me, for the sake of summoning A new GOD out of Whitman, rather than- -Harping laden terms: Greek mythology,

Ovid, Homer, whatever—things I would not assume To know enough about to make my metaphor, yeah, Whatever. This

Whitman-GOD, delved in his own solution- -Of innocence and excited, good gray surprise, Who is he? Know that he is summoned. Will I have the will to transcend my will, though, And not utterly castrate my poor book??????????????? Bullshit. Whitman-GOD has his place; they all have their- -Ordained path, or road or whatever. Wordsworth ends, And Pound begins, but wrongly, in that, Yes, indeed, we should echo our lineage, yes, And we should make the old ways abstract, yes, And yet we should then need to pray the maker of this fusion Does not consult another tarot-lady before meeting us, Meeting us, with what it knows will happen in mind. What you carry on your back, I am forbidden to see.                         So then should the expression be forbidden To be made aware of what is wrong with it, and yet, and yet, This, and all the that in this is all, Very much, of what I do.

.. .  .. .     ..  . .  ……   . ….  .  . .. . ....

Awareness could amble down this road And calm the abstract, maintain the dark passage-                         -Into the aether, yes, and yet, Light up. It should light up like some new Renaissance, And then the farther I get on on this road, this pathless- -Road; the farther, the longer I go, the more I will be illumined in the words, I will define the WORLD. I will define the Me Myself, yes, The WORLD of Whitman-GODs and Stevens-GODs, who will Be infinitely greater, yes, by the good work of greater flaws that We may find in newer tendencies, newer foils of the silly old Palaver, yet to- -Be recognized, until they are and soiled. Perhaps,                   This strutting corpse slips because     The tarot card says he should, that is, I should. Though,                  It would not be my job to feel, through inference,                 Had not all these feelings had by me been inferred,                  Already, as though I were observing the clue of it-                           -That I, myself, told myself as keepsake.                Merely, I feel through feeling, wish to, yes,            I wish to find the end of this dark road,                  This large dark road ahead, Red with human clay, not dead.

....

MOUTH, MUTTERING.

. . . The welter wakens wanting Without wings. The wanting is

A need to have, slowly displaced To stillness—after a sound. And,

There is no Need for wings. It is something Upended, waiting to crash;

Rather than an animal thrusting Itself from the ground. It is the

Scream of the night that Lives on in the welter, And, two things, two— Forms exist, by this: the Scream, and the welter Of the scream, into the night:

In careless suspension, the Tossing of the scream, into The bare night air, is a-           -Volley of strings, shed From where the source divined A grace, enough, to cut into the silence

Everywhere: light of the aural stain Everywhere: in a golden spooling of Directions go each ringlet, collected Into the same surge: passed, like a— Whip against bare skin, made to bleed Out something that is heard in the— Night, as something seen: energies

Working to make it all shine out A motion, and, a cradle for— That motion. Yes, that, yes,

That is it: that is what I mean . . . What I meant to say, or, rather, Write down, just for you, Indeed, however, this particular sort of motion-                              -Is bad, because of how it Is done: whereby the scream Is an opponent gearing back And-hellishly-towards the maker

Of its exile, while What would suffice           To continue manifesting As that original motion forth, is- -Already broken, by The time you have Mended your wounds- -From the whip of a Sound-the whip

Of sounds, together In a single sound, A freshness, of- -Articulation, yes, and

A speaking in- -The night, of motion, Motion: a welter happily Thru thrifty silence followed By a stillness more profound By association: juxtaposition: Fantasy. The sides of the divine.

....

MASOCHISM.

Briefly: the words feel it so I don’t have to . . . which is why I’m ok. I’m just thinking about the next piece at this point in time. I’m literally building me . . . I don’t really care about me, to be honest; this isn’t sad because, number one, I’m not sad about it, he’s barely even there to begin with, anyways, I wouldn’t notice if he left . . . so why should I care about what I build from this projection? Ironically, it’s this very lack of a true sense of selfrespect that will end up being an important tool. It has taken years for me to turn this skewed perception of myself into something that can actually assist me, but I think I’m getting it. I couldn’t change it, so I worked around it. Adaptation, yo. This seemingly destructive aspect of myself, u c, is what gives me a sense of otherness, and thru the lens of this otherness I observe my own emotions, objectively. I feel something strong when I write it down; not sure what. Afterwards, if I want to feel a certain emotion I’ll read the piece and feel it. Eventually, I hope every emotion I have is manifested, satisfactorily, in words. Cuz then, I won’t need to feel anything; it’s already being felt somewhere in English. Myself is my science project, basically, and I’m going to the fucking core . . . even if it costs me what little equilibrium I have left. In other words, the writer of these things, whoever it is, is a chameleon of the psyche: he can conjure any shade of feeling at any time, because he has no ego whatsoever and so then can see the legitimacy in any concept or passion, because he has no self to reinforce with beliefs. This is the closest I can get to the achievement of a positive life: endless circumnavigation, which is why a lot of my pomes are an endless loop of evasions.

I share my writing the same way a person might share the events of the day: these words possess the same level of importance to me. How I visualized and felt them as I wrote them—is a different story—and, discovering what this feeling is, or was, or will be, is the next step in my therapy . . . and, well, believe me, there are many, many feelings I have yet to shed from my shitty consciousness . . . the only reason I can write about this with honesty is that so much time has passed that living has become less painful enuff to write about, as it is. There’s no need to convince myself that I’m writing about something else, anymores; denial is unnecessary in my work because there is a clear distance, now, between how I felt then—which I had previously denied, and now accept and face—and, how I feel now, which I am denying at present, as tho by rote. These two things, when in the process of writing, mesh together in a highly complex fiction: in that, though I would like to think that I am, in writing, expressing my present emotional reality, most likely, I am explaining a previous one. All that changes without my control is the style in which I say things. The pains in the past that came after I came to terms with a past before are more intense, and so then I cannot bear them for long enuff to directly address. Beyond that? I know what is beyond that: it is anguish never to see the light of day, because, simply put, I’m not a good enuff writer; moreover, I am obliged to carry this anguish within me till the end of time, as it just might be the instigator of this denial I must feel, unnecessarily, regarding my present reality—so that I may possess the reality of a previous one—and so then live eternally in the past, in order to continue on with my craft. Masochism . . .

....

DELIVERANCE.

I am surrounded by truths- -As a man surrounded

By books he does not read. I carry the weight of the way ahead. I speak unknowingly, forgetting Things, often and oftener;

Letting things disintegrate. However, There are places that remain truths,

Even if yu forget the place. There Is much in the dearth that is not dearth;

Merely, perceivably, it is an end. It is- -Fractional, the way knowledge

Comes to be known is a way- -Of fractions, commensurately

Striving towards a truth too late, yes, Yes, a truth by now not truth for how-

-It is come upon, Not, as people think, for what it is.

What it is is what we are able- -To glean from what it is,

And harbor as a grotesque.

A retained delirium- -Seen as truth,

Because it is perpetually existing. So, then, perpetuity perpetuates

Truth. So, then, proof- -Is lauded:

When, that is, there is a substantial-              -Amount of it, an amount

To be hoarded, harbored like A depthy malice, recorded-

-And left there in that      One place. A place to stay, Lifted by a prayer, a perpetual

Prayer that we make, for the sake

Of knowing this the right way . . . A way, a path, without continuance,

Hoping thru this hope To find deliverance to see, To know it there, To know it there unmoving.

....

IN WHAT I COULDN’T SAY.

what speaker shunned as now from my lost brain has depth to prove my sanity as yet legitimate as

what forest of an otherness to see? what rarity of less surprise is

spoken after written words construe, And then is factual, after

the experience? these whispers,

what are these?

where, exactly, could my ideas turn; where far aways from here could they take form?

could i sum up what i say? could i be less formal and more vocal

could i retain? could i memorize- -volumes, and follow thru

with knowing more; and, if- -thru all of this i have not come

to a conclusion, think again? think more fully, rather,

and resonance improves.

improves, thru proving significance- -in what resonated afterwards:

negatives and confusion- -follow, just were:

a knave: a trunk of things a knave has: like knives: like a nonsense of knives,

speak, now, of the knives

of the knaves,

speak like nonsense inspired and rolling-

-like hate, like aspiring love too far. and, like he says to u, u say

too much . . . he says u care, absolutely, without conditions

without true positions, opinions.

feeding this core of indifference, u defend, u post up ur men-

-around it. it is a fort of spite, rather than the periphery

of an orbital, orbiting things, orbiting around indifference,

focusing on that to quell it, while not touching it,

instead of touching it- -and leaving circumference

to the dogs. feeling the spite- -cuz indifference doesn't go down,

the indifference of it to be known afterwards

within some frigid callus of my heart, consider this space this destined faculty, this lost brain, flexing out in neutral tones.

this flexing faculty to be- -of rocky perceptions, differing perceptions,

i am trying not to go in circles. i have emotion within the focus-

-that smashed the core the core apart when stated

....

ONE SAID MORE.

Note to self: sprig of lilac, blooming perennial: I am entombed                Within the center of the lilac: I crouch there Forever, waiting, in my natural solitude: I— Wait until the petals fall off of ludicrous eternity, and, the Next stage of oblivion stops to push forward, finally, I find myself Without all pretenses I had cared for, very much, and I'm very Much like a brainless, obscure attachment: something that Needs to be extricated from something else, as—                     Would corn from the husk. This analogy is lacking because It accomplishes no task, but, instead, by the stoking of my own muttering Fire, endlessly furtive in the living room hearth, unused till now, spills —Crude insatiability from out my stomach, and I am left   Crudely satiated, and, I am, thru sublimation, made Into a person who merely sums himself up into a irremediable Hungering for corn; and, when I think about the— Analogy, I get hungry, and, yet, scared to be filled Up. I know, I know, horribly, that I will be spared, whether —I like it or not, until, suddenly, I find myself full to the proverbial                         Brim, as like an hourglass filled to the top With sand would defeat its purpose, this Fullness is timeless, in such a way. This

                  Makes me scared. Also, I cannot Explain, definitively, if at all, all the ways that are in the The the feeling of the lilac, the youth blooming perennial,           A depressing corn husk. Come here, said the—    Delicate bird: first, tho, yu must vouchsafe yur own      Fertility, and apprehend every guise that I might Shake into expression, as tho to be off with them, each One of them, tho, It seems, I convey the feeling, after gestures and Intonations quell sincerity; and, the feeling, it leaves my face, leaving              Me with a blank, black stare that nonetheless feels Contrived to me because I figure that other people Look at me, and see a— Person who is uneasy about his own goddamned facial expressions . . . This gives to the idea of a deep dishonesty in me of course that blows           Up, when realized for what it is, by whatever creature That happens to be the victim of this joke that my mind plays On itself, at one time or another. This corroborates in an opposite      Fashion to how the other perceives what the creature Had communicated, that is, in this case, what I had           Communicated, and, yet, I do it just to put my own Spin on each being inside of each contention that my being Births: but, look: the lilacs, a— Smattering of them around the purple oak tree: they Are located in the purple fields, and, the fields are turning          Vermilion. Away, quick bird, quick bird of my old Subsequent design, manifested after I came                         Up with something Better before. Hi! Undisguised, the sun is there—like a spook,          Up high in the blue fields of the air, and you are Farther off, and, I search for the center of yurself, And fail, and know yu as a pattern that fluctuates Based on failures: I cannot find yu one place, and so Then uncover yur psyche for my own devices, which I later learn were yurs anyway. I look for you in your Eyes. I give up one place to search for another, Only to find that you had been there, at the place I—           Had just given up searching, and, by the time I get There you have gone off somewhere under my boot soles.

You say:

“Fail to find me at first keep encouraged: if —I am in one place, you’ll search another. You will stop somewhere waiting for me. And, I will go out searching for you, And we never will find each other But only understand fully The opposite of who the other is And so then know the other as ourselves, And so then find one another perfectly, and in vain.”

....

SALVAGES FROM THE APOCALYPSE II.  

Consider the idea of layers- -Of the same thing, leading Up to something different.

Consider How many times this must occur, Throughout our lives of points!!!

Points reached, points to be —Reached and points to be,                    Points yet to be, yet to be Dismissed, and offered up to the occult.

Consider, lastly, how Such an embellishment could Lead up to a chance, more refined- -And yet an extra piece is there, is there.

....

GOIN FER A WALK.

“You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands...”

-TS ELIOT

Or would such understanding catch the grace of this old wind, One last time swinging in and out the fields of NEW YORK, Catching the breath of SATAN, in the Cold calm of a saturated 1: 00 A.M. bite of a trail, This street that seemed to mutter down the street— Apportioned gusting, making vision white?

. .  .   .    .     .

Though my vision, white enuff already, was- -White enuff already, Afterwards, as I had blown down, as I had Nothing better to do, at the time; moreover, As the wind blew down, as well, upon my Face, the shock of the pressure of that wind Had blinded me to whiteness: a zephyr, wreaked- -By crisp SATAN, solitary, fallowing his words In condensing, properly, into the retreated, Quieting tongue of a street, going out of vision

. .  .   .    .     .  

Space, brick-by-brick removed to legions —Of squared rectangles upwards, Making up a conurbation of channels of streets, And sidewalks where the people walk and plan Based on possibilities given to them by the rectangles,

By rectangles that rise to their dimensions-                                       -In the same way that that DONALD TRUMP fellow gets short and fires, real-estate values based on Architectural impressiveness, also whether- -Someone had died in the house all night, once, Or if it has cockroaches, or risk of fires, ruddy corpse,           Possible infestation, ruddy entablatures, The medieval downtown frieze, sitting gargoyles, Open windows, without blinds, sometimes,

You can see a beautiful nakedness In the gargoyles behind their windows without blinds.

Cheap churches with neon signs, waking up To telemarketers, foreign, flickering strangers with scarves,                     Trying not to look at you. Shift in tone, Ominous reluctance/fragmentariness. Rectangles rise up, yes,

Into muddy CITIES: Rat cages: piled high: some with spiffy-looking interiors, Where people purchase and desire and beget- -Incompetent children who purchase And desire more; go to mediocre,         But very expensive schools, and flunk out Because of their COCAINE addiction or whatever it is;

Some with not-so-spiffy interiors, Places where people have to use the INTERNET Because they can’t afford CINEMAX;

Some, actual rat cages, where the rent goes up, Constantly, because it isn’t paid at all, yur dealing with Subhuman crackheads, after all, “Because you can??? What an asshole, you cocksucking motherfucker, Get the fuck over here . . . !” fights the guy, bashes- -His brains in over cash, goes to some BAR, Somewhere down MALCOLM X, remembers Himself as he is walking there, he told him That he’d get it, pleading for respect, right after shooting dope- -Between cracked, whitish toes, the dude just came in,

I obviously forgot to lock the door, what if- -My motherfuckin PAROLE OFFICER Had decided to swing by????????? Shit,

Took him by surprise, he was nervous enuff already, Having used up the last of the eighties, and this was his Last bag of heroin, too, damn, had knocked over a- -Lamp, the landlord lies there, bleeding; Goes outside for a smoke after the drink, gets mugged,,,

And people get murdered and raped in the playground And people sell drugs in the playground Some fucking playground!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

. .  .   .    .     .

There must be a degree to which We could consider more tuneful pleasures, More inner pleasures of the body and the mind, A peace of mind that does not need- -To trip out, while straggling down the street. Straggling thoughts . . .

Straggling, like myself, down the windy street . . . Now, what value, what degree should we Attach to this, In relation to the young kid's purloins From the bodega? Dashed off, after an expletive Shouted by the PAKISTANI, or something, it Loaded out, then squandered Down the dark street, the shout,

Ubiquitous, And yet sharp, despite the large blur- -Of the presence of it, down the dingy street. This                               Degree to which we hold up ourselves                 In the sinking light of a streetlamp, waiting for the BUS,                                                Hold up ourselves and steal ourselves,                      Is similar in kind to the young kid who steals down like a-                                         -Ghost, along the windy, SATANIC street,              Alone, with a forty of OE in his hands, hoping to get drunk; Breathless, from running too far, slows down, and starts to walk.

....

HAHA, WAIT!!! WAS WHAT SHE SAID.

The natural flow of poetry, I believe, Is constructed upon simultaneous periods that change Simultaneously. What happens merely- -Comes after what happens, Without an interlude. Because nothing is easily identifiable, Abrupt changes in the pome appear- -Seamless, the figure in the pome can see a paper boat float by, And find, they now ride across the waves of an ocean, The ocean and its broad continuum,

Dipping upwards places, dipping down, green, mainly, An amalgamation of reflections, An etch that bobs. We are a scribbling, moving, Moving down across the waves of the EARTH.

....

FOLLY.

What we first think of as- -trivial might well become more difficult to consider as trivial,

With time, with time and less important occurrences

That prove things can be weaker, weaker than before.

....

[themachofan]

The Degrade and Decline of Death Battle: An in-depth analysis of Thor vs Wonder Woman

Over the past year and a half or so I’ve had something of an odd relationship with the Web series Death Battle. Some of their fights I agree with (Black Panther vs Batman), some I don’t agree with but understand their reason for (Voltron vs Megazord), and some I personally feel the got wrong right out (The META vs Carolina). While in the past I would disagree with some of their outcomes I could almost always see the reasoning for it and I could make peace with that. They have also consistently said they are not gods and a make that they do make mistakes and so I could easily forgive the odd error.

But as of late the mistake, errors, and misinformation have become much more frequent and it makes it harder and harder to give them the benefit of the doubt any longer. This became extremely apparent in their Thor vs Wonder Woman battle. While there have been outcomes I don’t always agree with in the past, this is the first battle I can say they got categorically wrong. This is not an opinion, this is not my take on things, this is a fact. Now that is not to say the outcome they came to is inherently incorrect but more that the battle they presented was so riddled with errors and problems that it simply cannot be said to be a true and real analysis.

This particular battle has proved them lacking in logos (their evidence and facts) and this, in turn, damaged their ethos (their credibility and my trust in them).

Before I get into my explanation and analysis I will give this warning. This will obviously contain spoilers for the mentioned battle, this part of the reason why I waited so long to post this. But it has been a number of months and most of those who are interested already know the outcome of this Death Battle and this warning is merely proper form and I am giving those who have not a fair chance.

Now we get into the meat of this analysis. In the actual battle itself, they declare Wonder Woman the victor sighting several reasons that I can discredit using both math and proper research in both characters mythos. Again this is not my opinion, these are facts.

STRENGTH

To start things off I would like to address one of the more glaring conclusions they came to, and that is their strength analysis for both Thor and Wonder Woman. They state Wonder Woman is stronger than Thor and cite her feat in helping to pull the earth as evidence of this. Now there are a lot of problems in this one analysis alone.

First and foremost is the easiest problem to address and the is Wonder Woman’s participation in this feat has one very big problem and his name is Superman. Superman is strong enough to move the planet on his own so, much like when the pair slowed the descent of eternity, Wonder Woman’s contribution is negligible because she shared the feat with a hero who is so much stronger than herself. But even if she did pull the weight they calculated it would still be less than the actual weight of the World Serpent.

Now they calculation for the weight of the World Serpent as about 17 Trillion tons. Now, this sounds like a lot of weight but when you consider that the amount of water in the Great Lakes equates to about 24 trillion tons it is clear to see that this clearly cannot be correct.

While I cannot say for certain how they came to this conclusion I can disprove it fairly easily. There is a law called “The square–cube law” which is a mathematical principle which describes the relationship between the volume and the surface area as a shape’s size increases or decreases. It states when an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier. Now, what does this mean? It means that, in layman’s terms, that if something increases its size by a factor of two it’s weight would actually increase by a factor of eight.

With this mind let’s take as Burmese python with a measured length of 23 feet weighing in at 200 lbs (there has never been a confirmed recording of an anaconda as large 550lbs as the one they used in Death Battle) and scale it up. In their video, they state The World Serpent is 50,000 miles (that’s 264,000,000 feet) long. This means Jormungundr is 11,478,260 times larger than a python so he would weigh roughly 1.51x 1021 times as much. That is 151 Quintillion tons, already much higher than the 2.2 quintillion tons calculated fro Wonder Woman even without accounting for constricting strength, the fact Jormungundr is likely denser than a snake of the size would be as all beings from Asgard and Jotunheim (of which he is a descendant) are on average 3x denser than similarly sized beings from Midgard, or the fact his constriction strength is likely much higher the 16x body weight calculation for snakes much in the way an average Asgardian or Jotun is many times stronger than a similar proportion human on Midgard.   

All this is actually unnecessary to prove Thor is stronger than Wonder Woman as he has single-handedly lifted a score of planets, pushed and reversed the world engine, and overpowered a power infinity stone-wielding Drax. The above calculation was done more to show the lack of research that Death Battle did in this instance. Thor is clearly much stronger than what they determined and is in fact much stronger than Wonder Woman.

SPEED/REACTION TIME

This analysis is a little harder to nail down than strength or durability as neither character puts any great emphasis on their movement speed. Wonder Woman has a fairly large has a decent amount of time put into showing her reaction time as she can be harmed by comparatively rather mundane attacks. But even here we can see some rather blatant failures on the research team of Death Battle.

First and foremost is Wonder Woman’s Shattered God feat. This feat is largely an unprovable one, as much is clear when they use the wording “probably faster” when comparing the Shattered God particles to Mjolnir’s speed. We are given no time. distant, or speed to try and even start to determine the speed at which these particles travel. But we do know that they are not traveling at the speed that was assumed in the battle.

They claim that these particles are traveling from the edge of the universe when Wonder Woman started to deflect them. This is evidence that the research team either did not actually read the comic (as I have) or chose to ignore certain elements. But in the actual comic it states that the Shattered God was broken at the big bang and his particles road that to the edge of the universe, and then after countless millennia he started to come back together. While no real timeframe is actually given we are lead to believe that the particles have been traveling for quite some time. After reading this series a few things are pretty clear. First is that the particles are not at the edge of the universe as they have started to come back together before that point in the comic where this feat occurs. Many of his particles are have already started to reform as he is already partially reformed at this point, so we know for a fact at the particles that begin the barrage cannot be at the edge of the universe.

But there is a more telling point in the comic and that is when Wonder Woman picks up Trevor Barnes and flees from the particles when she starts to become overwhelmed and actually able to outpace them at least for a short time. While we have no actual maximum speed we can calculate we do have a feat that can give us a rough idea. Wonder Woman can keep pace with Jesse Quick, by using the break in the air she creates much like how racecar drivers do. Jesse can move at roughly half the speed of light. This means the particles are moving slower than that. While this is impressive due to the sheer number of particles it does not display the reaction speed they assumed she had.

There is also the feat they used with Zoom where she was able to tag him while he was leaving time displaced copies of himself (a feat Quicksilver has also done) but she does so while not being able to see. While this may seem more impressive it is actually quite to opposite. Studies show reaction time is actually quicker when people use their sense of hearing rather than their eyes. This may not seem like it makes sense as light travels faster than sound, but this has been shown many times in real life and this is displayed when people catch arrows blindfolded. While they can see arrows long before they hear them they actually can react much faster to sound stimuli. While it’s hard to say if this would translate to such higher speeds it is also not entirely unreasonable to think this would scale to the superhuman levels.

Yet another glaring issue with this comparison in the video is they do not even use Thor’s greatest reaction time feat. Thor’s claims to have fought beings much faster than quicksilver even going as far to call him slow. We know this is not just him boasting. In the same run where Thor defeated and  Power Infinity Stone-wielding Drax and was also able to track and hit a Space Infinity Stone- wielding Pip the Troll. The space gem allows its user to manipulate space anyway one sees fit. Its most basic powers allow one to teleport themselves and others any place they can picture in their mind regardless of distance or preventive measures such as walls or spells. It can increase the speed of the user. Its more powerful abilities allow one to appear in multiple places at once or altering the distance between objects contrary to the laws of physics. This means Pip while using the stone, had access to virtually infinite speed much like how Drax would have had Infinite strength and durability.

While this does not mean her reaction time is slower than Thor’s, she may, in fact, have better reaction time than Thor due to the fact she has to be able to protect herself much more frequently than he does. It does mean her movement speed is in fact much lower than Thor’s. What does this mean?

 In Death Battle, they calculate Thor’s speed with Mjolnir as 500,000 times faster than light. This is again another glaring issue as the Comic says Mjolnir can fly to the edge of the galaxy, not the universe, and back in 60 seconds. The speed they give isn’t even fast enough to reach Alpha Centauri in 60 seconds let alone the edge of the galaxy but that’s not the point I’m really trying to make here. But even at 500,000 times faster than light that puts Thor’s travel/movement speed much higher than Wonder Woman’s and this means his reaction time is more than fast enough to block and intercept her attacks.

This is where many people start to become confused and make mistakes when it comes to speed. People may think “Batman says her reaction time is faster than Superman’s, doesn't that mean she faster than him?” while I can see where this thinking comes from it is false. Wonder Woman has train her already superman sense to the point where she can perceive can react to objects moving faster then she can move out of necessity. Much like fighter pilots train to increase their reaction time. This is done because she can be harmed relatively easily whereas beings like Thor and Superman simply shrug off or simply aren't even bother by things that can harm Wonder Woman such as bullets. This means that in a drawn-out battle between the two it is entirely possible that one would be able to score a decisive blow against the other until their means of defense are bypassed.

DURABILITY

This category is one where I believe they came to a somewhat proper conclusion stating Thor is much tougher than Wonder Woman. But even here they fall short in many ways.

They stated that Thor has no defense against Wonder Woman sword. This is an outright incorrect statement. Thor has been cut and stabbed before so claiming he has no defense is rather odd. He has been stabbed by a sword forged from the truth, as nothing cuts like the truth. The all-black Necrosword, a blade made and used to butcher gods. It doesn't matter how sharp Wonder Woman sword is, Thor has been run through by blades before so even if Wonder Woman Sword is a million times sharper than the Necrosowrd it functionally doesn't matter. He has been cut before and knows how to defend against blades.

As far as Wonder Woman’s durability goes there is a big problem and its linchpin argument at that. Because Wonder Woman is more resistant to blunt force trauma the cast of Death Battle claims Mjolnir would not be that effective against her and even stating in an interview afterwards that the fight was so close that if Thor had been wielding Ultimate Thor’s hammer ( which has an axe head) the fight could have gone very differently. Let’s ignore the fact that they list Jarnbjorn in Thor’s equipment and don’t factor it in even though he does use it in conjunction with Mjolnir when he had both. But instead, let us talk about the nature of Wonder Woman’s durability.

Blunt force trauma seems to has less effect on Wonder Woman whereas bullets and arrows can pierce her skin. This means one of two things, either the force applied by the bullets over the area of the bullet’s tip if enough to punch through her skin’s ultimate tensile strength, or she is magically resistant to bludgeoning damage. In either case, the conclusion they came to about Mjolnir not being that effective against wonder Woman is false.The force Thor can apply over the face of Mjolnir's hammer face would be astronomically greater than the force applied to the area of a bullets tip.

In order to explain this, I’ll get into the physics of cutting. In order to cut or pierce something, you need to overcome the object’s ultimate tensile strength. This is done by increasing the pressure applied. Pressure is equal to the force applied to an area. In order to increase something cutting ability you can either decrease the area, such as with an extremely sharp blade or by increasing the force. For the purpose of this Death Battle we know Wonder Woman can be harmed by bullets fired from relatively mundane firearms. A strike Frome Thor’s hammer would apply more pressure than any bullet ever fired despite the fact it has such a broad face because he can generate more force than an exploding sun. So Thor’s hammer would be able to bypass Wonder Woman’s skin’s ultimate tensile strength.

Ther another possible option is that due to her godly heritage that she has some form a magical resistance to blunt force trauma. This seems more likely because she is able to take hits from characters like Zod who punches, much like Thor’s strike, would generate much more force than any bullets. But even this resistance wouldn’t do her much good against Thor as Mjolnir can negate magical defenses and has done so against beings such as Silver Surfer and The Juggernaut. So the claim they make about Thor’s hammer not being able to much to her false on every level.

MJOLNIR 

Mjolnir deserves its own category because they chose to omit so many of which would have been huge game changers and also made many mistakes yet again.

I’m not going to take the time to list every single attribute of the Hammer as there is already a very extensive list here. But will point out some of the more glaring issues.

They don’t even mention the Godblast, which can kill immortals. But beyond that Mjonlir can also harness alpha particles to atomize any weapon, create barriers that can withstand a blast that can withstand a blast strong enough to destroy 1/5 of the universe and can even literally draw the lifeforce out of someone.

They also misattribute some of Thor’s powers solely to Mjolnir. Thor has stated he can rely on Mjolnir too much. He can perform the total weather control, flight, and even his most potent attack the Godblast without the aide of his hammer.

CONCLUSION

Taking all this into account it is clear that this battle was done rather poorly. Now I’m not going to say that they are intentionally misleading people, I really don't think that is what happened here. I think that their research team did not do their due diligence and there is a distinct lack of communication between the parties involved. This is not to say Wonder Woman couldn’t beat Thor, although my own research seems to disprove this possibility, this Death Battle is most certainly not the answer. 

[allyinthekeyofx]

Fading Light 12/24

Fading Light

AllyinthekeyofX

Chapter 11 and links to chapters 1-10 can be found here

Please note -  chapter contains possible triggers pertaining to suicide.

PART TWO

CHAPTER SIX

There have been no more nosebleeds. Not since that frightening day in the park has Scully lost so much as a spot of blood. But this time, what she is actually losing is so much worse, because this time, as the tumour pushes an unrelenting path in to her brain, what she is steadily losing is herself.

The first time I really noticed was about a week after I had brought her home from the hospital, a week after we had sat cross legged on the couch, facing each other as we fed each other forkfuls of coconut Birthday cake and vanilla ice cream. And for a few hours I had been happy. The pain in my injured hand not even really registering as I watched my partner laugh as I dabbed a blob of butter cream on to the end of her small, sculptured nose, leaning forwards in response to the playful challenge she threw down to me from those sparkling blue eyes. And just for a few hours we forgot everything as we lost ourselves in each other.

Should we have made love that night?

Probably not; Scully was still weak from the blood loss and by rights shouldn’t even have been released from the hospital, but there was an unspoken need between us that we couldn’t ignore so we just took it steady, tempering the passion through necessity and truthfully, something happened to me that night as I gazed down at her enlarged pupils and lips that were swollen from a hundred teasing kisses and my whole perception of life seemed to shift slightly on its axis, rendering me almost unconscious with love for this woman. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before – a joining of two souls that nothing would ever tear apart and I swear I could almost see the shadows melding in to light around us, chasing away the darkness, leaving only this love, a love so blinding in its intensity that it would survive somehow inside me even as the physical structure was taken from it.

Maybe it’s true that love is eternal. I don’t know. But that night, just for a few moments, I felt sure that it could be.

And as Scully gently cupped one of her small hands around my face, her eyes told me that she felt it too.

I held on to that feeling in the days that followed as Scully’s headaches intensified; rendering her unable to function on any level at all for more than a few minutes. I lost count of the hours I spent holding her against me, spooning myself around her as I gently tried to stroke her pain away. Sometimes I succeeded. Most times I didn’t. And it became very obvious very quickly that it was time to up the pain meds.

She cried then. Huge wracking sobs that almost tore me apart, knowing as she did that stronger medication was the first small downward spiral towards the abyss and she had fought so hard, so fucking hard to deny the need to herself and to me. Until one day when I came home from work to find her curled in a ball in the bathroom, surrounded by the sickly sour-sweet scent of her own pain induced vomit clutching her head as tears and snot marred her beautiful face; screaming at me to make it stop. To please just make it stop. We already had the morphine; prescribed by Dr Zuckerman, to be used when things got bad. He had shown me how to inject her, an action necessitated by her refusal to be admitted to the hospital where her pain could be better managed and if I had initially baulked at the idea when she first suggested it as a compromise, when it came right down to it, plunging the needle in to her that first time to stop her hurting was singularly the easiest fucking thing I had ever had to do in my entire Godforsaken life.

I had held her then, right there on the bathroom floor, I rocked her gently until her anguished cries gradually tapered off in to occasional hitching sobs and she turned and buried herself in the folds of the jacket I hadn’t even had time to remove, knowing then that, even if she couldn’t voice it, she needed me there; that I could deny it no longer.

That night, after I had cleaned her up and carried her to the bedroom, laying her gently down as she succumbed to the medication now numbing her senses I picked up the phone and called Skinner to let him know I required an indefinite leave. That for as long as it took, I wouldn’t be returning to work.

It put him in a difficult position. I know that now. Because Scully and I, on paper at least, were nothing more to each other than partners. Work Colleagues. Bureau policy on the fraternisation between male and female agents was very clear and while relationships surely occurred on a regular basis, it was never acknowledged. And yet here I was, expecting to be granted a leave of absence on full pay without a single question being raised; but he managed it. God knows how he managed it but I received the paperwork just 48 hours later, the box labelled ‘expected return date’ marked ‘unknown’.

And to my surprise, I effectively walked away from my life’s work without even a murmur of dissent.

Because the X-Files suddenly didn’t matter anymore.

Nothing mattered any more except Scully.

Don’t get me wrong, we still had a measure of normality. The morphine, whilst sometimes leaving her fuzzy and disorientated, did its job admirably and without the constant pain, Scully was able to carry on. Her appetite was poor though and she began to lose weight, beginning to look as sick on the outside as she was on the inside. But despite this, she was still my Scully. She still laughed, still poked me in the ribs playfully when I overstepped the mark, and still admonished me when I casually dropped my discarded clothes on the bedroom floor instead of crossing the few feet to the laundry hamper. She could still beat me hands down at Yatzee and Clue , grinning at me with satisfaction at my frustration when I lost over and over again despite my best efforts.

Oh yeah, she was still my Scully.

We spent hours walking. Usually around Rivergate, as slowly winter turned in to spring and new life began to bloom around us. The irony of that wasn’t lost on either of us I don’t think.

Occasionally we got in the car and just drove. Aimlessly driving, needing in some unspoken way to keep moving forwards. We just let the road take us, stopping if something or somewhere caught our interest. Often she would fall asleep with her head resting against my shoulder, and I would find somewhere to park just so I could look at her. Sometimes being with her was so excruciatingly painful that something hard and cold took up residence in my chest cavity, stealing my breath from me and rendering me incapable of speech. And she knew; she always knew when I was falling and she would find a way to emotionally catch me before I hit the ground.

Only very rarely did we talk about her cancer.

We both refused I think, to allow ourselves to be defined by it or more crucially, for our relationship to be defined by it.

Until one day, one frightening day, when Scully began to drop random words in to her sentences, substituting in a way that clearly made sense to her but only to her. And even more frightening was that she was totally unaware that she was even doing it. The first time it happened I thought she was kidding.

*Had you big time Mulder*

But it was all too clear that she wasn’t.

She had refused all offers of a further MRI scan, arguing that since she was on no actual treatment protocol, tracking the progress of the disease was pointless. But really, I think she was simply afraid. I didn’t blame her since I seemed to spend every waking hour suspended in a state of perpetual terror that gnawed at me with an uninterrupted tenacity that would have, if I’d allowed it to, swiftly rendered me unable to function on even the most basic level. I wasn’t sure I was ready to physically have to face the demon that was slowly and relentlessly taking her away from me, not ready to have to weigh the time we had left in weeks or months. It was just too damn painful.

So instead, we made memories. As best we could at least.

A trip to the fair where we rode the ferris wheel again and again, laughing as the wind whipped around us, her slapping me at the centre of the chest in mock admonishment as I made the car rock when we were right at the top of the arc. And I kissed her, slow and deep as coloured lights twinkled beneath us and the starlit sky stretched to infinity above. I kissed her with my eyes wide open, to preserve this moment in time for ever. The sight of her face, flushed as it was with almost childlike happiness as I prayed to whatever God controlled the universe to please let me keep her for one more week, one more month, one more year; knowing the futility even as I wished that it could be so.

Because day by day, it was becoming clear that there was no stopping the progression of the disease, that the Scully I had fallen in love with so many years ago was slowly being taken. Not just from me, but from herself.

Her short term memory was becoming poor. For the most part she managed to hide it from me although I know she was in the habit of checking to see if her toothbrush was wet; to check that she had remembered to clean her teeth in the morning. And that she had begun to carry a small note book and pen with her in to which she jotted small snippets of daily life, to refer back to should she forget. She never asked me for help in that regard, fiercely trying to hang on to her independence, refusing to be cowed by the relentless damage being wrought upon her by this cruel disease.

I had reconciled myself to the fact a long time ago that this time there would be no miracle cure. That any intervention I had thought might come had been nothing but a scant hope from a desperate man. I had been stupid to even think that there might be. Because finally I knew, that everything leading up to this point had been carefully orchestrated and calculated. To give her back to me the last time. To allow me to fall in love with her, only to take her now was almost too heinous an act for me to comprehend.

On one night, not so very long ago, Scully had made me promise that I would continue to fight for justice. For her, for me, for everything and everyone who had been taken from us both. And I promised. Of course I promised. I would promise her the sun moon and stars if I thought it might bring her peace.

And when she was gone, when I had finally let her go, I would beg for her forgiveness before putting my gun against my temple and pulling the trigger.

Because without her, there could never be justice.

Because no amount of legal or moral recompense could ever be equal to what they have taken from her.

And now, as I sit on the sofa, listening to the sound of Scully’s desperate sobs from within the bedroom where she has locked herself, I no longer have any fight left to give. I feel hollow inside. As though my heart has been ripped out of my chest.

Because this evening, as we curled up together on the sofa to watch TV, my beautiful, brilliant partner with her incredible mind, the woman who re-wrote Einstein when she was 23 years old, discovered that she could no longer read; that the words on the screen meant absolutely nothing to her.

And as I watched her literally fall apart before me, months of futile denial finally becoming undeniable, something cracked and broke free from her and she fought me with everything she had as I tried to take her in my arms, to soothe her even as I knew that there was nothing I could hope to do to make this right. Watching helplessly as she sought escape from me.

I didn’t follow her.

I couldn’t follow her.

Because I am alive and she is dying. For perhaps the first time she has to acknowledge that she is dying.

And she needs this time. I will give her the time she needs to at least begin to make sense of all this and then I will take her in to my protective embrace and find a way to help her to keep going, to keep fighting.

Because I can’t lose her yet.

I just can’t.

XXXX

I think I fell asleep for a few minutes. I have no recollection of even closing my eyes, but the shadows in the room have deepened slightly. My watch tells me that barely half an hour has passed, but the apartment is quiet. The sounds of Scully’s distress have silenced and I decide to risk going to her.

But when I enter the bedroom, I am suddenly frozen with an inexplicable fear that paralyzes me. I am unable to move as I realise she isn’t there. And like a magnet, my eyes are drawn to the centre of the bed, to the leather holster that usually holds Scully’s service revolver in place.

It is empty.

And she is gone.

My eyes narrow as I see a single page torn from a book has been left alongside the holster and with shaking hands I pick it up. My throat is burning with a combination of raw fear and an all encompassing guilt that I fell asleep. She was hurting and I fell asleep.

I recognise the page as being the preface to one of Scully’s favourite books, a collection of poems and anecdotes that speak of love, of remembrance. Of loss.

She knows that book by heart.

‘ Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away in to the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly the way it was. I am I and you are you, and The old life we lived so fondly together remains unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in to your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well’

And even as I am scanning the words, I hear a noise, a strange animalistic keening sound that builds in volume and intensity until I realise that the sound is coming from me as realisation slams in to my consciousness.

No Scully. Please No. Not this. Never this.

And I literally throw myself out of the apartment, screaming her name.

But there is only silence.

Continued chapter 13

Notes:

Credit for the beautiful piece of writing at the end goes to Henry Scott Holland (27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918) who was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.

[waves--6821]

Love and War ~ Avengers: Infinity War ~ Chapter 3

- Full title: Love and War, based on a song by Fleurie

- Mostly edited, and hopefully better than original series.

- Warnings: violence, in the past

- WC: 1000 or so

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*I do not own any gifs or pictures*

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3rd Pov.

*STILL IN THE PAST IN CIVIL WAR*

(Not doing italics as it may take the whole chapter) “He should be good.” Clint finishes as the man stumbles out.

“What time zone is this?” The man asks, glancing at Rose who he scrunched his eyebrows at.

“Who's the kid?” He asks, and Rose rolls her eyes.

“I’m Rosabelle, Rose.” She says, and the man looks away to see Steve.

-

“Rose, your mission is to get the jet working. No doubt, Tony has some kind of mechanism to keep it from being taken.” Rose nods as they were all in their suits, ready to fight.

“I need you away from the main action, I’m not letting you fight.” Steve adds, and Rose steps forward to face him.

“Honestly, Captain, you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” She adds, and Steve smirks impressed for a moment as he got back to the task at hand.

-

Rose pulls on the white helmet, the black tinted cover hiding her face as she separated from the group, Steve heading out alone as a countermeasure through the parking zones of the airline.

Rose rushes through the parking garage of the abandoned airport, sprinting through the first floor of the airport. She pauses before a locked door of the jet, she flung her hand, the door flying completely off. It lands next to the jet softly, as she used her powers to make it hover to the ground quietly.

She rushes through the jet, attaching a metal device to a back hanger. A projected screen appears before it, numbers calculating to open the door. The numbers rearrange for a few seconds longer as it combines a five digit number and unlocks the door lowering to the ground.

“Rose.” Sam whispers as they still watch Steve talking to Tony’s group: James Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha, Spider-Man, and the Black Panther (aka T’Challa). 

Rose steps in, jogging to the pilot seat and setting the metal device on the command switches, the program beginning to hack in as it showed a loading sign as it decoded the protection unit.

“Sam, it’s gonna take some time, it’s fighting many firewalls and unscrambling codes.” Rose replies, scanning over the numbers and codex.

“Stay with it, keep it free. We’re heading towards you.” Sam orders, and Rose nods to herself, a feeling of slight helplessness hitting her.

“You are helping by accessing the jet.” She says to herself, as she checks the projecting blue screen.

“You could go out and help Cap distract them as the code works.” She persuades herself quietly, as her feet quickly moved on their own to exit the jet.

“Hey, the code for the jet door is 69251. I’ve reseted it, it’s the only way to get in.” Rose yells, sprinting back through the airport to meet up with Wanda and Clint.

“No, stay back.”

“Sorry, I can’t. I left the device, it won’t leave a trace. Tony won’t know it’s there until it’s accessed at 75%. Which’ll be in 4 minutes.”

Rose rushes to a stop next to Wanda, she gives her a look, which Rose counters.

“I can’t just be the IT girl, I have to do something.”

“You don’t even know what we are doing this for.” Wanda replies, and Rose nods in agreement.

“I know, I can guess pretty easily though. The government made you guys sign those accords, Prince T’Challa’s father was killed along with many others. Bucky looks like the supposed assailant, and Cap chose his side along with the rest of you. I can trust Steve’s decision, if I know you all have my back.” Rose finishes as Clint was also listening to her.

“You’re a pretty good kid, aren’t you?” He questions for a minute before looking back out to Steve.

“I’ve known my fair share of pain, heroism, and justice. I also have a cell phone and a TV.” She adds, and they chuckle as they all look to see Steve as Sam spoke through the comms.

“We got eyes on the jet in Hanger 5, Rose set up the device.” Sam says as Clint raises his bow back with an arrow ready. Steve shoots attached hands up. Clint fires his arrow, slicing through the white substance around his hands.

Scott, the Ant-Man, grows to his normal height, kicking Spider Man in the face as he hands Steve his shield back. Iron Man flies in the air, heading towards Rose, Wanda and Clint. Steve chases after the Black Panther, who was after Bucky and Sam.

Clint keeps Rose close as they sprint onto the runway, dodging Iron Man’s rockets as they blew up around them. Rose turns and flings a wave of force towards Tony, distracting for a second as Clint and Wanda continue sprinting and she rushes towards Steve.

Rose slides across the concrete, kicking out T’Challa’s legs as Cap dodges his claw strikes with his shield. She stands quickly as War Machine slams a large glowing bat against Steve’s shield. A loud crashing sound vibrated through the air, hitting those few close. Rose moves help Cap stand.

Steve gives her a warning look, as she shrugs and stands ready to fight. Rose jogs at T’Challa, using her power to dodge his claws. She uses her power force in the punches as he flips back from a power kick.

Steve flips to dodge Rhodes, Rhodey or War Machine, and kicks him down. Scott appears as Rose kicks T’Challa back again and lands back next to them.

“Cap, heads up!” Scott tosses a small gasoline truck into Steve’s hand, holding up a blue disk.

“Throw it at this. Now!” Scott yells as he throws the disk and Steve tosses the truck. The truck now growing to full 3 ton size in the air after hitting the disk.

It explodes on impact on top of Rhodes, flames flying everywhere as Rose ducks slightly to avoid shrapnel. Steve pulls her to sprint towards the jet, everyone meeting a couple hundred feet away as Steve led the way.

A yellow laser beam burns a line in front of them, Vision speaking as he lowered down to the ground and they stopped moving.

“You must surrender now.” Vision finishes as he touches the ground and everyone on Tony Stark’s side lands on the opposite side of the line, the same of Steve’s ready for a fight.

“What do we do, Cap?” Sam asks, and Steve takes a step forward.

“We fight.”

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