#then infinity's opposite oblivion's

[etrnty]

CW FOR THOR L&T SPOILERS.  i know they call it ‘the temple of eternity’, which is really fricken neat, but i’m renaming it to ‘the temple of abstracts’.  also sorry watcher but i’m replacing you with oblivion.  just like how eternity’s realm can be entered through their statue, the other abstract realms can also be entered through their respected statues.

[natasha-invokes-104]

The words erupted from my lips without command: “Grab your gun and go boy”

to be honest I wish I could of thought of something more clever, or anything at all

my mind was a screaming echo, forced into the foreign metropolis of someone else’s body. A single mother in Brooklyn, worried about leaving her son alone for the first time. A war criminal, lazily filing the names of the towns he has liquidated. A child, experiencing the liberating speed of a bicycle for the first time

Yet I forced myself to run, pulling the gun from the muck of the earth and trying to force each memory into some sort of deep traumatic oblivion. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t see. I moved like an animal, desperate for survival

Fire erupted out the beasts jaws as its spiraling smiles turned into ecstatic screams. I tried to ignore them, false words and surreal chants struck like spikes into the heart. Heaven and Earth stood between me and the church, and my sprinting footfalls would have cracked the skulls of gods if necessary to get me there.

My own thoughts twisted and choked me as I sprinted at a maddening pace, failing to see the beast move to strike me. Its barbed tail lashed quickly, and I tried to contort backwards, but I was too late. Crimson betrayal streaked across my gun and face, as the hooks lashed a deep line along my breast.

I stared at my wound in wild excitement, my eyes shaking quickly and violently. My binding had saved me, preventing the strike from being fatal. I felt nothing, other than some sort of deep comedy, as I made a final thrust toward the church door. Grabbing the sogging wooden frame, I bent the door off its iron hinges with a sickening groan, seemingly causing the entire structure to waver for a moment.

Entering, I found myself in the ribs of what was supposed to be a stone structure to the divine, but was now a twisted edifice. The pews were long mutilated, replaced with wasting bones of petrified drift. The arches seemed to rise and fall in a shuddered pneumonic breathing. All that remained of the Lord were his hands and feet, still nailed to the wood, as if He himself was desperate to leave this place.

At the opposite end were the cracked spiral stairs that lead to the tower. As I rushed forward, the many stain glass windows shattered in a decrepit cacophony. Tendrils and spiked arms began to break into the structure at all sides, and started pull at the flesh of this abandoned place. I stumbled, and as I tried to righten myself, I watched the cobble-work of the stone floor begin to pull apart and separate.

The tendons of this structure were laid bare, contorted to their maximum limit, as the whole earth pulled and pried. Massive gaps formed in the ground, revealing an endless space of mind-numbing infinity and color. They looked like pools of water, but instead of leaving a reflection, they left a visage of the vast unknown.

The spell over me finally broke, and fear and pain entered into my heart. What the fuck am I doing. In my moment of weakness the creature’s voice broke into me. It rang throughout my body, it’s shrapnel tone digging in with the finesse of a guiding hand.

“I am sorry little prince, if you were looking for God He is busy at the moment. During times of war He has other important things to attend to”

Growing shadows crawled down the walls as its black twisting body and eyes of fire slowly filled the room

“You and I both know we must do what we must, so I say, let it be done”

Indecisiveness filled me, as it’s claws reached at me from all directions. My heart wanted to rip from my body, my eyes darted looking for any escape. The doors were gone, nothing was as it was, and this space was no longer true. I looked down at the broken floor and stared at the pulsing holes of colorful infinity, as a wave of nausea boiled up in me

Then, it broke.

The orchestral symphony of my mind finally played its deafening crescendo, finishing its score by smashing all the instruments on the floor, and then abandoning the stage.

I took a breath, held my gun firmly to my bleeding chest, and fell backwards into one of those ponds of endless possibility. I opened my eyes as I plunged downwards, seeing the face of the creature looking back at me. The last thing I remember was not its usual look of grim delight, or vile mockery, but of pure fear.

[thehomothings]

Analysis of Kite's conflicting moralities, relationship with death, and the toll reincarnation may take on one's psyche

So, today I decided to compile all the thoughts I have had about Kite's interesting worldview since the first time I saw him into one post, mostly for my own sake, really. If you're familiar with the few posts I've made, you know it's gonna be a mess, but hopefully a comprehensible mess.

A heads up, this is going to be spoiler-heavy, and very much deal with subjects of death and dying as a whole. Also, some of these conclusions are drawn from my own experiences and close brushes with death, I'm not going to go into much detail but it might get personal and definitely dark. I'm not even sure if I can call this a meta-analysis, and I'm obviously no expert, so mayhaps take all of this with a grain of salt.

Been getting into drawing lately, and during the more simple and mindless part of the painstaking process of dotting every single star in this, I let my thoughts wander through the latest part of the fic I'm writing, and I got a better grasp on what exactly made Kite such an elusive character to me.

I'm not quite sure why I got so attached to Kite. Perhaps it was the air of tragedy surrounding him, how despite his sordid past he remained still open and gentle even if outlined by a healthy dose of cynicism.

But sometimes, I think it's the fact that he is so paradoxical. He's brave, yet fears death to such a degree that creates a whole Nen ability around it, is a pacifist yet will not hesitate to spill blood for his own sake or someone else's. Despite the many ultimatums and warnings of 'I will not protect you', he gave his arm and then his life to save Gon and Killua. He approaches each hunt and battle with a clear plan of action in mind, but his Hatsu takes the form of a roulette that gives him random weapons which are never what he wants, but what he seems to need for that exact situation, which he cannot dispel without using. When he draws a weapon, the decision is locked in and his or his opponent's fate is sealed. That's why each time he dubbs his weapon a bad roll. Every time he has to gamble, he sees himself as having run out of luck. When it comes to having to choose between himself and somebody else...well, there had never been a choice. In fact his aversion to using it may feed into its sheer power that we, unfortunately, saw too little of.

Let's go over his very first appearance when he saves Gon from the mother Foxbear.

It's not hard to see the strain searching for Ging has put on him; he's rash, prone to anger and punching a child for daring to get into trouble. In his mind, he's failing at his most important task, has not yet earned the right to call himself a hunter despite being in possession of his very own hunter license.

After killing the mother Foxbear and raging about having done so, he says this interesting line:

So yes, he finds killing for any reason rather irksome as most would do, yet I think something deeper caused him to absolutely lose it in this scene:

He had not been aware of Gon's identity, and despite being an animal lover and a naturalist, he made a choice to save the human instead of allowing nature to run its course. In fact, he says: 'No beast that harms a human must be allowed to live.'

How does one weight one life against another? How is the worth of it determined? The value of life... an impossible choice he's faced with and a choice which he seems to regret to some degree.

The Foxbear cub.

Here, he's speaking from experience, a tangible loss he has felt himself, and a hard and bitter life he does not want to impose on the cub.

His backstory is exclusive to the 2011 anime adaptation but there are hints alluding to it in the manga, for example, the fact that he does not seem to know his birthplace, or:

The choice of words is chilling.

Reading between the lines, one could draw the conclusion that he is an orphan. Something supporting this hypothesis is how he visibly deflates after Gon tells him his parents have (presumably) died.

So we see he is willing to go against his own moral code of not killing as to not doom another living being to the life he led, a lonely, hopeless existence that could barely be called one. He saw it best to put down the cub rather than leave it to die a painful, slow death.

The reason Kite himself isn't as cynical and cold-hearted as one would be after witnessing cruelty in its rawest form is those small crumbs of human kindness which he may have found in Ging.

It was not only a chance at an honorable life being Ging's apprentice gave him, but it also 'saved' him from being broken and twisted into what he hated and worst of all, death.

If we take that one minute of backstory as canon to his character-which I find myself inclined to do- these quirks of his make much more sense. He lived on the run. He lived on the knife's edge between giving up or pushing forwards. He lived as so a wrong move could be the difference between survival and the end.

Between rock and a hard place creates a mentality of black and white, absolute good or extreme evil, this or that. Except in reality, it's much harder than that. Deciding who to save and who to strike down is a heavy burden to bear.

It's almost easy to see how struggling to keep surviving could lend itself to a crippling fear of death and subsequently developing a Nen ability which once more goes against his own moral code in order to give himself a second chance...yet something about it strikes me as unlikely when I look at it this way.

Living life knowing it could end at any moment has the opposite effect, at least for me it did. One comes to accept that it is fleeting and while not eager to let it go, when death eventually and inevitably does come, there is no fighting it.

Especially when there is no hope that tomorrow will be a better day than this one.

Frequent near-death experiences numb one's fear in a way, even if it drives them to take precautions that render it unlikely to happen again and results in c-PTSD, but still, it does. It sparks a certain nihilistic view of 'if it all can end so easily, then what's the point of it all?'

Unless there are things to live for, a sure promise of a better future, and Ging gave Kite that. When he faced the threat of losing his second chance at life:

Really, what else could lead someone to develop the ability of 'the hell I'm going to die like this'?

I think a separate event, an even more brutal near-death experience that almost cost him his life as the hunter he so strived to be set him off to develop the secret roll of Crazy Slots, what I call Roll No.0, Ars moriendi. Unlike other weapons, it cannot come up in random and is directly summoned by him, or better said, summon by his overwhelming will to keep going and hopelessness of fighting a losing battle. I don't believe roll No.3 was the weapon that allowed him to reincarnate. I've named that one Wand of Fortune, a sort of armor instead of an offensive weapon since I find it hard to believe Kite, a Conjurer, would not focus on defences as well, and I will go into both mechanisms of these weapons hopefully in his backstory.

Despite knowing this battle to be a pointless one and being acutely aware of his soon to be demise, he did not immediately draw Ars moriendi, no, he stayed back and fought for the sake of the boys, kept Neferpitou occupied until they could reach safety. We can see evidence of this in the aftermath of the battle that seemed to have gone on until dawn, a torn apart landscape only signaling a fraction of the devastation that was Kite's power unleashed. It still wasn't enough.

In the anime sub I watched, when Gon apologizes to Ging about Kite's death, Ging said a sentence that infuriated me, because it belittled the utter suffering of the NGL trio.

"He would not die in your place." (No screenshot, sorry)

And I remember practically shouting at the screen, screaming 'how could you possibly say that? Of course he did. He absolutely did die in their place. How could you not know your own apprentice? Why-'

It was only last night that it hit me why Ging would say that.

Once upon a time, maybe Kite would not have given his life for anybody under any circumstances, even if he had a way out of it all. He would still need to die to come back to life.

His Thanatophobia could be attributed to the (possibly untreated) PTSD of the near-death experience in his later life, being so certain of dying that finding himself alive afterwards drove him to never want to go through that again. He quieted his fear by creating a sort of a loophole, that even if he lost the battle he would remain. Ging remembered that, but as evidence shows, something changed. Maybe he healed a bit, perhaps growing up dulled his fear to a certain degree, but eventually when it came down to his life or another's, he didn't choose himself.

Now, I can hear you saying 'but he didn't die, so what are you going on about??' And so I reply: Yes, he is alive, but he did die. He experienced that painful, horrible moment of staring death in the eyes and thinking 'This is it, this is the end', went through the actual process of having his soul removed from his body. And that moment stretches into infinity, ten lifetimes condensed into the mere seconds before oblivion.

Dying isn't so hard if one stays dead.

It's not so easy to open one's eyes and find oneself alive again after that, no matter how much that is the heart's desire. It's difficult, nigh-impossible to reconcile with life and walk amongst the living when everything had been so final, when death had been accepted to its fullest.

So Kite awakens, the twin of Meruem and back from the dead, his mind and identity both intact and fractured. In that he is Kite is no mistaking, yet he is not the same gentle pacifist whose first reaction upon sensing a monster's aura was to shield two kids from it at the cost of his arm.

I don't think many of you are familiar with Zoroastrian ideology, but Togashi is known for loving his religious imagery, and it's not only Christianism he derives inspiration from (evidence of which can be seen all over Kite's character and resurrection).

In Zurvanism-a branch of Zoroastrianism- there is talk of the twin spirits: Ahura Mazda -epitome of all that is good- and Ahriman -epitome of all that is evil-, the parent god Zurvin decides that the firstborn may rule in order to bring "heaven, hell, and everything in between."

Upon becoming aware of this fact, Ahriman forcibly tears through the womb to emerge first. Sounding familiar yet?

Zurvan relents to this turn of events only on one condition: Ahriman is given kingship for 9000 years, and then Ahura Mazda may rule for eternity.

Meruem ruled for 40 days, his death leaving the throne vacant for ant Kite, wearing a dead girl's face and seeming to be brewing some nefarious plan. No more is there any sign of that unrelenting pacifism and the sanctity of life he held so high, losing his own may have only served to show him how meaningless the pain and suffering he went through had been, dying only to be reborn as a member of the species that killed him. It may be that he has no desire to rule over the remaining Chimera ants or create an army of his own-

Yet I dread to think what a broken mind possessing limitless power might do to the world.

And that's it. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you found it interesting, stay tuned, as I think a lot and I will make it your problem.

[irelise]

Fic “Behind the Scenes” - Alex Rider

Trying to dip my toes back into writing, so I thought I’d ramble about some fics I’ve already written! This started off as ranting about my title choice and how they’re usually Final Fantasy XIV songs I butcher in order to forcibly fit the fic, but it expanded into musings about things that didn’t make the cut into the final fic, and potential sequels/things that happen down the line.

Just doing Alex Rider fics for now since that’s my current active fandom, but drop me an ask if there are any fics you’re especially interested in from any fandom!

Starting off with: Time (2368 words, gen, Alex & Yassen focused) aka my untagged Inception-flavoured AU where the plot twist was that it was a dream all along That said, this title was probably one of the easiest to come up with and was obviously from the main theme of Inception, Time! Which is fantastic like the whole movie aaaa i love Inception AUs and this fic is probably the one I’m most likely to expand into longfic if I dredge up the motivation from somewhere. It would be a mission style fic, possibly a heist, where Alex and Yassen are seemingly working together in order to steal some valuable intel from another group. Of course, it’s all a dream! Through copious dream symbolism and mind fuckery the real mission was set up by MI6 for Alex to extract intel from Yassen, who by this point is steadily losing his grip on dreams and reality after months, possibly years, spent under sedation.

Yassen has a few tricks up his sleeve, though. He’s aware that he’s (probably) dreaming and he can see the fractures in Alex’s resolve after such a long time of being used and manipulated by MI6. It would only take a little nudge to get Alex to defect -- or, at the very least, to escape.

So while Alex is busy trying to extract information from Yassen, Yassen is trying to do the opposite: inception.

The rest below cut for length and also because they’re nsfw since most of my writing was for the kink meme! Warning for general fucked-upness and unhealthy relationships

at the end, on a dusty road  (8154 words, Yassen/Alex) aka the reputation sabotage fic, aka where’s part 3b?!

Title from Origa’s Polyushka Polye:

The wind scatters your brave songs Across the green field. Songs of the past, Leaving them alone with your glory, And right at the end, on a dusty road…

i just wanted something wistful and Russian about past soldiers and fading glory ok....... I came pretty close to titling the fic leaving them alone with your past glory but decided it didn’t make much sense out of context.

ANYWAY my first Yalex fic! Very much inspired by a hodgepodge of comments on Discord about how MI6 would react if they ever saw Yassen paying Alex visits in the middle of the night - “Could they be exchanging information?” “The whole night? Maybe the answer is something more obvious...”

ANYWAY the ending at the moment is pretty open - there’s two main ways I see it going:

1) Yassen comes back shortly afterwards, realises he had fucked up colossally, stays and helps Alex rebuild even though Alex (very justifiably) no longer trusts him. Very slow reconciliation and healing but ultimately happy ending.

2) aka the one where I broke Nanibun’s shipper heart over Discord: Alex and Yassen eventually reunite, but it isn’t until years later, when Alex is nearing middle age and Yassen has faded into obscurity. Alex managed to pick up the pieces of his life and even moved on properly from MI6, and now lives a fulfilling life. Married, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, the whole lot. So what if his marriage is more for partnership than for love? He’s content with the direction his life had taken and has strong ties to his community. He even managed to forgive Yassen, even though it took him a long time.

He and Yassen meet for the last time in a sunlit cafe in spring. Alex looks at Yassen and sees only a stranger with lines crinkling under his eyes.Yassen is getting old, he realizes. He thinks he should be happy that Yassen even had the chance to get old, but all he feels is relief that their paths had diverged. Alex is done with that life and he can never trust Yassen again. All that old passion had burned away to nothing, not even a flickering flame. Even though the initial parting had been painful, Alex had managed to find peace long ago, and he hopes Yassen will be able to do the same. But it's a distant, unemotional hope, the sort of hope you'd have for a distant acquaintance you haven't seen in years. The type of well wishes that are etiquette more than actual sentiment.

He's glad when their drinks are finished and Yassen melts away into the chattering springtime crowd, one final dangling chapter of his life closed at last.

.

...............or, 3) Alex throws himself into increasingly dangerous situations in an attempt to feel something and dies young.

(part 3b is coming someday i swear! it’s the alternate path where Yassen has second thoughts, tells Alex the truth, and doesn’t send the sex tape to MI6)

---

Lemniscate  (3562 words, Julia Rothman/Yassen) Not a whole lot to say about this one, except after I finished I realised it was really similar to another fic I previously wrote which also involved a young man desperate to reinvent himself completely being taken advantage of by his superior............ i have a Type

Title - I was jamming out to Locus while writing this which is a song all about an inability to escape from cycles - When fighting back right out of this system/Means falling back right into this space ; When falling back is better than simply/Falling back into pieces again  - but it was long and unwieldy so I thought about shortening it to Moebius but that was a bit overdone... In the end I settled with Lemniscate which is also an infinity symbol, Moebius-like shape. Mostly it’s a reference to how Yassen never quite breaks free of his “cycle” even though he’s with Scorpia now - he was Sharkovsky’s slave and bedwarmer and...now he plays basically the same role for Julia Rothman. (Just with a bit more murder and moral erosion!)

---

This probably needs a special content warning - major character death (gun suicide from the second Russian roulette scene), gore, necrophilia

closing the circle (3650 words, John Rider & Yassen) aka is it still a gen fic if there’s offscreen necrophilia?

This was originally written for a kink meme prompt for corpse mutilation + necrophilia but then the John and Yassen plot thread kind of took over and I never actually ended up writing the gory stuff oops since it was too out of place compared to the rest. So everything below can be considered not “canon” since the fic diverged so heavily from its original plan (which is why the section numbers skip around - I cut out Yassen’s bits). But if you’re curious, here’s the details for what I originally planned to happen to Yassen (well, his corpse) and the Sharkovsky family, copy-pasted straight from my notes and full of as much karma as I could stuff in:

Yassen’s death, Sharkovsky shoves his fingers in the bullet hole and spits on the body in disgust. Yassen regains consciousness halfway through this; he can feel what Sharkovsky is doing

Ivan comes running in, attracted by the sound of the gunshot. Sharkovsky tells him to do what he likes with the body as long as it’s disposed of in the end. Necrophilia scene? Afterwards Ivan disposes of the body by locking it in the cellar alone with the Dalmatian for a few days

Yassen starts getting his revenge. Ivan is the first to go when he comes to let the Dalmatian out – the Dalmatian savages him and tears out his throat before it’s finally shot. Yassen’s bones get buried along with the Dalmatian. Ivan’s body is kept in the cold storage room in the basement where they kept the old food taster’s body while they decide what to do with him.

Maya, Sharkovsky’s wife, is next. She passes away in the middle of the night. Sharkovsky wakes up next to a cooling corpse.

There are whispers that there is some sort of curse. One of the maids talk about finding blood on the carpet of Sharkovsky’s study. She’s the next to disappear. Some other workers stop turning up.

Finally it’s Sharkovsky’s turn. He dies of poison. The dacha burns down that same night.

A Scorpia agent was sent to tie up loose ends (Scorpia didn’t know Sharkovsky is already dead); Yassen kills him too. He has no loyalty to Scorpia and just wants to be left alone.

Hunter is sent to investigate. He and Yassen talk, in the end, Hunter invites Yassen to come with him, Yassen agrees. But when they leave the dacha and Hunter looks back, he finds that Yassen is gone.

And an excerpt:

Yassen is dead. He does not remember dying. There are some things the human mind tries to shield itself from, and the memory of a bullet traveling through bone and brain to erupt on the other side in a shower of gore is one of those things.

Yassen is dead. He had hoped death would mean oblivion. At his most naïve and optimistic, he had hoped death would mean reunion. Happiness. A return to simpler days.

He discovers, instead, that death is not so different from life, except he is even more powerless now than before.

There is a body on the floor of Sharkovsky’s study. Its hair had once been pale white-blond, but now it is matted with coagulating blood. That same blood spreads in a dark pool against the carpet, clotting the fibres together into ugly clumps, stiff and flaking. The fire in the hearth is still burning sullenly. Its light glistens against the grotesque strands of viscera splattered against the ground, the furniture, the wall. A round hole had been punched into the side of the corpse’s head, piercing bone and brain. That was how the man who had once been Yassen Gregorovich had killed himself. The fingers of the corpse remain loosely curled around the old-fashioned revolver that had been the instrument of death.

The only living person in the room rises slowly from his wheelchair. Sharkovsky’s skeletal face is twisted into an ugly grimace of anger. He totters over to the corpse, nudging it with the tip of one polished leather shoe. “Waste of time,” he says coldly. “Ruining a perfectly good carpet, and for what?”

In a sudden fit of temper, he lashes out with a kick. Once, it would have been strong enough to break several ribs (Yassen knows from intimate experience). Now, the corpse merely flops limply to one side. It incenses Sharkovsky further. He drops heavily to his knees, breathing harshly, and backhands the corpse across the face with one shaking hand.

[ogradyfilm]

The Poetry of Violence: Slaying the Dragon

[WARNING: The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS for 13 Assassins, Skyfall, Django Unchained, and Avengers: Endgame.]

What defines a great supervillain? His morally complex motivations? His convoluted schemes? His ruthless pragmatism? The answer, of course, depends entirely upon narrative context; there is no “one size fits all” method for crafting a compelling antagonist. That being said, I firmly believe that a villain is only fully realized at the instant of his own demise: does he accept death with quiet dignity (Blade Runner’s Roy Batty, Batman Begins’ Ra’s al Ghul)… or does he greet it with maniacal laughter (The Dark Knight’s Joker, A View to a Kill’s Max Zorin)?

Consider, for example, Lord Naritsugu, the corrupt daimyo at the center of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins. This sadistic tyrant spends the majority of his screen time torturing, dismembering, raping, and murdering his subjects. He doesn’t even attempt to justify his wanton cruelty, viewing it as his divine right as the shogun’s brother. When he is fatally wounded during his climactic showdown with protagonist Shinzaemon, however, his confidence and bravado immediately dissolve, reducing him to a whimpering, sniveling coward. Despite the voracity of his bloodlust, he is totally incapable of enduring the sort of pain and suffering he routinely inflicts.

Skyfall’s Raoul Silva experiences a similarly ironic/karmic reversal of characterization in his final scene. As the disgruntled MI6 operative prepares to take revenge on his estranged mentor/mother figure, he suddenly lurches forward, a knife buried in his back. The last thing he ever hears is one of James Bond’s insufferably smug quips: “Last rat standing.” Deprived of his moment of triumph, Silva can only howl in incoherent, ineffectual rage—a childish tantrum that epitomizes the previously unflappable mastermind’s utter loss of control.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the death of Django Unchained’s Calvin Candie reinforces his established character traits, rather than subverting them. As the revisionist Western nears the conclusion of its penultimate act, the depraved plantation owner has essentially achieved a decisive victory, exposing our heroes’ plan to liberate the eponymous gunslinger’s enslaved wife and forcing them to pay an extortionate fee in exchange for her freedom. Unfortunately (for him, anyway), the arrogant aristocrat simply cannot resist the urge to incessantly taunt his already thoroughly humiliated foes. Thus, Candie’s pride, ignorance, delusions of grandeur, and overestimation of his own intelligence earn him a bullet through the heart.

In my personal opinion, though, the most memorable villain death of the past decade occurs in Avengers: Endgame. After Iron Man utilizes the power of the Infinity Gauntlet to literally “snap” Thanos and his army out of existence, the would-be galactic conqueror can only watch helplessly as his minions, acolytes, and ambitions crumble to dust around him, burdened by the knowledge that he will soon join them in oblivion. Josh Brolin’s mo-cap enhanced performance elegantly conveys the subtlety and nuance of the Mad Titan’s every emotion, from numb denial to soul-crushing resignation. He doesn’t rant or soliloquize before he fades away; he makes no effort to curse his enemies or rationalize his barbaric actions. He merely sits in silence and patiently awaits the inevitable.

The aforementioned antagonists represent a wide variety of personalities, psychologies, and philosophies: some are sympathetic, while others are irredeemably monstrous; some pursue noble goals (from their distorted perspectives, at least), while others revel in petty, gratuitous wickedness; some are shrewdly manipulative, while others are dim-witted brutes. Despite their diversity and distinctiveness, however, they share one vital quality in common: they are all defined (and, in certain cases, redefined) by how they behave when confronting their own mortality.

[bravadoseries]

STARS & STRIPES CHRONOLOGY - UPDATED

0.5 Midsummer | Agent Carter | Audrey Carter grows up surrounded by misfits, from her secret agent mother to her Broadway star aunt to her genius (yet incredibly stupid) cousin. Snapshots of her childhood and some of her favorite memories.

1. Monachopsis | The Avengers | In which Steve Rogers emerges from the ice to find that he left more behind than he thought. Or, Peggy was pregnant when the Valkyrie crashed, leaving Captain America with a half-super-soldier daughter and a lot of catching up to do. Against a backdrop of alien invasions and near-world destruction, the two star-spangled heroes attempt to found a relationship.

2. Nodus Tollens | up to CA:TWS | After the Battle of New York, Audrey and Steve are adjusting to life in Avengers tower. While her dad fumbles his way to a date with Darcy Lewis, Audrey deals with the trials of her own love life (namely, DGSE agent Delphine Lamontagne), being Doctor Foster’s bodyguard during Another Alien Invasion, espionage, and a transfer to Washington DC. Bruce Banner/OC

3. Oblivion | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | A mission gone awry leads Audrey, Steve, and Natasha to discover that SHIELD is not what it seems. New enemies, new allies, and the ruination of her roots throw Audrey headfirst into a fight that blurs the lines between good and evil.

3.5. Symbiosis | from CA:TWS to A:AOU | It's that classic story. Olivia Perales is a baker in New York. Sam Wilson is the newest Avenger who saves her from an armed robbery. You know how these things go. Sam Wilson/OC

4. Aurora | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Almost a year after DC, Audrey, Sam, and Steve have been searching desperately for Bucky to no avail. A new threat arises, however, in the form of Ultron, Tony’s robot-gone-wrong, who believes inherently that the key to saving the world is ending the human race. The fight leads Audrey to the Maximoff twins - powerful, dangerous, and terrifying. Against impossible odds, the Avengers reunite once again to save earth from destruction. Bruce/OC, Helen Cho/OC, Steve Rogers/Darcy Lewis

4.5. Redamancy | Post AOU | Pietro and Wanda Maximoff were anti-America anarchists just months ago—now, they’re the world’s newest Avengers. The Maximoffs must navigate the road to heroism, their respective romances with medic Mattie Rowland and security guard Oliver Modi, their friendships with the other Avengers, their complicated relationships with working for the country they once hated, and the winding force that tethers the twins to each other. Wanda Maximoff/OC, Pietro Maximoff/OC

5. Elysian | Post AOU | In the wake of Bruce’s disappearance and the fight to stop Ultron, Audrey struggles to make sense of the silence between wars as everything slips through her fingers. Bruce Banner/OC

5.5 Dreamer | from CA:TWS to CA:CW | Juliette Fury, Nick Fury's daughter and favorite Rising Tide hacker, has always had a rule about not dating S.H.I.E.L.D. agents—but, uh, dating the guy who helped burn S.H.I.E.L.D. to the ground is the opposite of that, so…? Bucky Barnes/OC

6. Allegiance | Captain America: Civil War | When a disaster in Wakanda threatens to schism the team, Audrey is forced to choose between her father and one of her best friends, all the while grieving the loss of her mother. For once, the enemy isn’t really an enemy, and she’s faced with a conflict in morality over whether or not she’s the hero. Though desperately trying to reunite the team, it seems the only way out of the fight is through.

7. Eternity | Thor: Ragnarok & Avengers: Infinity War | After a year on the run, Audrey trips down the wrong rabbit hole and ends up in a faraway world of gods and monsters. Although reunited with Bruce, Audrey is soon caught up in wars between worlds and trapped with a role she never wanted to play: savior. Bruce Banner/OC, Valkyrie/OC, Loki/OC

8. Metanoia | Avengers: Endgame | Five years after Ultron's victory, Audrey wakes up on the wrong side of the universe with Carol Danvers. Knowing that the Avengers need to try again, she heads onto a ship and begins a journey across the universe to challenge the man who took everything from her. Multi-ship, but mostly Bruce/OC.

8.5 Meliorism | Post Avengers: Endgame through Thor: Love & Thunder | Loki, God of Mischief. Amanita, Head of Avengers Product Design. Put them in space with the second God of Thunder and the New King of Asgard and you get, well, this. Loki/OC

9. Ostranenie | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | Sam Wilson takes up the mantle of Captain America.  Olivia Perales won’t let the fact that she’s heavily pregnant stop her from fighting by her husband’s side.  Bucky Barnes gets back in the game.  Juliette Fury continues to disrupt the system.  Sharon Carter accepts the burden of Peggy’s legacy.  Beckett Hope is a mysterious stranger.    Welcome to the new Team Cap.  Sam/OC, Bucky/OC, Sharon/OC

10. Arcadian | Post-Infinity Saga | Margo Banner’s life is anything but usual. Her parents are superheroes, her grandpa is turning 150 soon, her grandma was a spy during World War II, and she’s got super strength. When she starts her first year at the Avengers Academy, she doesn’t think that life can get any stranger. She’s wrong. Multi-ship.

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

Alright, I’ve gotten back into writing Spider-Man.

I’m scrapping the Wonder Woman x Spider-Man open relationship with Mary Jane X Felicia Open relationship that ultimately culminates into a 4 people polycule where Peter gets pegged, and go for something a bit more simple. So, I’m sorry for the, like, 20 kudos I received on Ao3 over that, and 31 favorites on HF, but that’s abandoned at the moment.

So, new idea...

Amazing Spinnerete, an AU where MJ gets bitten by the spider instead.

(Spider-Woman and Jackpot were already taken and Spider-Girl didn’t sound right to her, as if it was too early for that).

1) Peter, who doesn’t get any powers ever for the entirety of my story (unlike I was planning to do for Mary Jane in the previous one as I piled power after power on her among star sapphire rings, spirits of vengeance, symbiontes, Gamma Radiations and Thor’s hammer), turns into a Sidekick/IT Guy role to her.

2) He’s there to fulfill a purely supporting role to MJ Heroics, craft the webs, be a support to her, all that shebang you’d expect, while getting worried sick over her going out in New York and risking her life daily among villains and criminals and whatnot. He’s the “Nerd behind the computer,” a concept that got admittedly popularized by Oracle, as well as her “field medic” when she gets back home and needs stitching on both the costume and her scars. 

3) Also uncle Ben is alive and on a ongoing trip with Aunt Anna and Aunt May around the world. They solve crimes, off screen, like 3 Jessica Fletchers, so Peter isn’t as fucked up emotionally as in canon.

4) I’m gona take from the MC2 and say that, unlike Peter, MJ is actually trying to profit off her image from the start. This might cause some conflicts with Peter over him not wanting them to lucrate on some of their crime fighting (Such as not wanting to patent the web fluid in fear of criminals getting a hold of it), and mixes up with their already canon conflict over her being the main breadwinner in the couple AND the possibility of her doing progressively more risque work.

5) Specifically, I’m gona say it: Spinnerete and Mary Jane have two separate OnlyFans. It’s a modernized story and they are in their mid twenties and need a stable source of income and what better than a horde of people out there paying the same woman TWICE for pics of her buying wonderbread? “Pictures of Spinneret” therefore become a way different phrase, and there is a debate in universe over a superheroine essentially being a sex worker, and all that that entails. I don’t know how well I’m going to explore it tho so this might get dropped after a while and just make her a ASMRtist or a Twitch Streamer, basically the same thing at this point.

6) Since this is a AU I can do like Spider-Gwen did and not just fuck up one piece of the main universe but make every aspect of the universe different, so, bullet list of things I’ve been coming up with that are different from main continuity:

6A) The Hero to Heroine ratio (as well as Villain to Villainess) is 1 hero every 10 heroines. Major (Male, Homo Sapiens) heroes in the setting are: Johnny Storm (Johnny Storm), Thor (Thor Odinson), Power Man (Luke Cage), Iron Man (Rhodey Rhodes), Original Captain America (Steve Rogers).

6B) The mutant community is a massive polycule of free love and shit. The biggest mutant community in the world is stationed in the Free Republic of Genosha, currently part of a worldwide international federation of small nations around the globe born to contrast Soviet and American influences during the cold war called IFMP (International Federation of Micro-Powers). Latveria and Wakanda are part of it, and are the leaders of the two major factions among the delegates in the form of the isolationists (Wakanda) and the Expansionists (Latveria). The second biggest mutant community in the world is in San Diego. most male superheroes and some of their villains happen to be mutants.

6C) Susan Storm lead a year long deep space expedition team financed by the united states government, and managed to contact several alien races in her travels, returning to earth with diplomatic ties and Power Cosmic given to her by Infinity herself as a sign of good will after she and the united armies of space finally managed to slay and destroy “The eldritch abomination at the edge of reality that makes people racist by existing,” as it was called. This starts a age of cooperation between the various alien races and empires out there in the cosmos and Earth, their embassies being built in most of the major nations of the world, trade and science deals cropping up as a result.

6D) Susan Storm later formed the (apolitical, above nations and planets) superhero team the Fantastic Five, which changed members over the years based on relationship with other alien planets and tensions between the members of the team. Current line up consists in Susan Storm (Susan Storm, former Ms. Fantastic), super partes leader due to the Power Cosmic, alongside Lyja the Lazerfist (Second Ms. Fantastic and Former Skrull chaos agent on earth during the Skrull-Kree Cold War), Crystalia Amaquelin (Crystal, Inhuman Ambassador), She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters, earth representative and legal expert), Thundra (Thundra, Femizonian Ambassador). The Kree empire was disbanded after the end of the Kree-Skrull cold war.

6E) Johnny Storm never became the second human torch but ends up becoming Evil Jesus. During his trip to the stars with his sister he accidentally ends up in the Negative Zone, the void between dimensions, and befriends the locals, becoming a jesus like figure and ending up ruling the place. It’s not as banged up as it sounds but with prolonged commuting with the Negative Zone he has achieved a state of resonance with Oblivion, one of the other 4 great entities of the universe, and has become his champion. (in direct contrast with his sister’s coming from Infinity). He still uses his powers for good, if in a chaotic good way compared to his sister lawful good one.

6F) Peggy Carter was subjected to the Super Soldier program during WWII, thus becoming Agent England, de facto leader of the Invaders (Mostly same team, Sub-Mariner, First Human Torch, etc.), and guiding the assault against nazi germany and hydra. She and her sidekick end up frozen on the same plane

6G) Steve Rogers was still picked under her wing, if not able to receive super soldier treatment, and still became the (original) Captain America, a purely propagandist figure of a scrawny, physically weak son of immigrants Brooklyn dude, the complete opposite of the German Ubermech ideal for the white man, but with enough anger and outrage over an unjust world to pick fights with people 5 times his size, shown in many a propaganda video punching Hitler square in the jaw and knocking him out cold. They both ended up on that plane crashing in the arctic and were defrosted several years later.

6H) With the disappearance of Agent England, the Invaders disbanding, and the cold war underway, with no superhero team really cropping up, Doctor Deidre Wentworth managed to develop a modified version of the Super Soldier Serum, testing it on herself, and becoming the Superior Captain America. She forms the (US Exclusive, extremely political) “Americommandos” superteam, with selected superheroines and “reformed” supervillaines of the time. The team was responsible for many controversial superhero activities during the cold war, in and out of the united states, and is still going to this day, even if some members have retires or have outright died. Not Superior Cap tho, no, her aging has been slowed down due to the serum, so here she is still guiding black ops teams to capture and imprison some worker rights activists that happen to be mutants.

6I) The Sorcerer Supreme of this dimension happens to be Doctor Doom, Ruler of Latveria.

6L) Norman Osborn never became the Green Goblin. He was still a scummy CEO and millionaire, and still had a affair with one of his son’s best friends. Gwen was dating Peter at the time and ended up getting pregnant with Norman, he finds out, pressures her to get an abortion, almost terrorizes her, she doesn’t cave, Peter is understandably confused and shocked but still wants to support her (as does Mary Jane), but on the day of Gwen’s son’s and daughter’s birth Norman pulls the same shit he pulled in canon with Mary Jane and Mayday, hires an assassin to force a miscarriage, Gwen finds out a couple months later, stages her death, and becomes the Ghost-Goblin, ending up throwing Norman off the New York bridge and killing him in the process for good. His estate and company was inherited by his son, Henry, who devolved most of it to charity, destroying the Osborn business empire.

7) That’s the gist of it really, gona elaborate on more tomorrow.

EDIT: 8) Nightcrawler is the Pope.

[winterstorm032802]

i was gonna say rokushi but i know you're just gonna give that infinity/10 and call it a day so... Rikunami

I'm still gonna do it!

Ahem

Roxas x Xion also known as Rokushi or any other way you take it

This is hands down my favorite ship in all of Kingdom Hearts. The way it went from meeting each other to even their first words being the others name

When Axel said (manga and yes I'm counting it) "You're acting like a human scared that you'll get hurt" "Then I'm the opposite I'm scared of hurting Xion"

Axel is suprised at this as he soon smiles (if I remember correctly)

Riku and Naminé say that Xion is a special person to Roxas as is Kairi to Sora

The girl he treasures is Xion. OathKeeper: A symbol of the promise they gave to each other

And Oblivion is the symbol of her. The promise he made to Xion will forever be with him.

Xion knew what she was doing

The last thing she's done was being with Roxas. Roxas was the only person who refused to forget Xion.

So

Romantic

OR

Platonic

~

Rating:

+99999999/10

~

My opinion: It's gorgeous and is true to me, from the interactions to the last words. It's truly my favorite and I will never let this ship sink

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Stakeout

Loki x Reader

Prompt: @marvelrose had this awesome idea of taking Brooklyn Nine Nine’s episode Stakeout and turning it into an angsty fic. Will it end in smut or will it end in more angst?

Warnings: a tiny bit of violence, anger, love blossoming??

Word Count: It feels weird not to cry. The meds seem to be doing a pretty decent job I must say. So guess who’s going to watch Infinity War this weekend.

MASTERLIST in bio, my wonderful beans

“This is all your fault, you stupid minx.”

“Say that again and I'll cut your pretty locks, goth Rapunzel.”

“Enough!” Tony's voice boomed through the comms, almost piercing through the eardrums, making you and Loki wince. Yet neither of you let the pain reflect on your faces- despite being in complete darkness- to not show the other person the level of discomfort both of you were feeling right now.

“Both of you are at fault!” Tony announced, “I don't expect much from our goth princess here but I thought you'd be better, Y/N.”

Your mentor's words pierced through your heart making you straighten up a bit.

“Tony, I swear I had mapped the route. The point of contact was secure and all the kids were supposed to be taken out safely from there but Addams here just had to throw someone through the freaking wall and compromise my location!”

You tried to wiggle a little but the space was packed; not to mention dark. The bumps on the road made your entire body jump, reminding you of the pain in your shoulder from the recent injury on your last mission.

This is so not good for my back, you growled to yourself internally.

“They already knew your location, which was not very discreet you, darling. I was just taking the hurdles out before they could cause any trouble.”

You could feel Loki's hot breaths over your hair while he lay beside you. The heat radiating from his body was suffocating you and considering he could easily fluctuate his body temperature, you knew he was doing this on purpose.

“You let the three most wanted traffickers get away,” you responded through your teeth slowly for the God to catch every word, “what, did your hair get in the way of seeing where to land your punches, or better, your enemies?”

“Watch your mouth you wh-”

“Okay! What matters is-” Tony cut through Loki's words, knowing full well the van you and the God were being transported in would turn into a crime scene within seconds, “you rerouted the kids on time. Every one of them was safe. But your identity has been compromised, Y/N. The sons of bitches know about you. This is our last chance to know their location. Both of you have already been debriefed. I want updates every six hours, you are not to engage with the enemy and for the love of all the Avengers ice cream flavours do not kill each other in the next one week.”

“Yeah, I can't promise that,” you shot back in a whisper.

“Me neither.” Loki was quick to follow.

A tired sigh left the other side of the comms.

“Murder each other and I'll personally come and smack both of you in your thick skulls, you hear me?”

The van screeched to a halt, making you raise your arm over your head to avoid hitting the metal partition, forcing an immense jolt of pain rush through the injured limb.s

Loki had the same idea and so began the muffled shifting and smacking of arms away before you both felt the dark space slide and be picked up with a huff and grunt.

“Odin’s beard, you guys are heavy,” came a heavy voice from outside as it transported you up a flight of staircase before putting the dark space down and unzipping it to finally let some light and fresh air come in.

“Now go have fun.”

“I hate this. I shouldn’t be doing this,” you muttered under your breath.

“Right, you would rather be doing that agent from Coulson’s personal wing.”

Loki’s flat toned comment made you stop tipping your chair over its feet. The cool breeze entering through the window from the wall behind you didn’t do much to ease your throbbing head but rolling your eyes and sighing into the oblivion gave you a partial satisfaction of its own.

Both you and Loki sat cross-armed with boots over the desk where all your equipment lay. The camera set towards the dilapidated house standing opposite to the building you were cooped up in showed no movements whatsoever. Neither did the infrared screens. The only life to pass through this waste of a locality was the anti-rodent van you and Loki had arrived in and a garbage truck.

“I’m flattered you think sex is on my mind right now, Rapunz, but no, that’s not the reason-”

“And I care as much as that tree breathing out gases for people living here,” the God quipped, making you twitch with a flash of frustration at his shallow words.

“That tree could make a better company right now, I’m sure,” you commented as your right hand went to your left shoulder subconsciously, pressing it gently at different places.

Loki did not miss the scrunching of your nose and recalling of your fingers as you felt terrible pain ripple through you at every wrong- or right- touch.

“Oh, for sure. I’m thinking of joining it for some prep siesta soon,” Loki sang before retrieving his gaze from your form.

You mocked his words in the most childish way making him roll his eyes before getting up.

“You could literally disappear from here with your awesome powers any time you want. I’ll be the one doing all the work. Isn’t that right, my lord? Isn’t that why you so gladly let Thor and Clint drive you here? Hah?”

Loki turned towards you, his hands going towards his back while his lips slowly stretched in the most devious smirk you had ever seen.

Son of deception!

Your feet shifted from the table to the ground, watching him cautiously as he waved his hand at you.

“So long, darling. Hope you can survive the morning heat and cold nights without the luxury of your favourite comforter,” Loki stated before twisting his hands.

A moment passed before your hand went down into your duffel bag to get out a bag of chips. Tearing it open without ever taking your eyes off the confused trickster, you began munching as loudly as you could.

“This usually works,” Loki said more for you than for himself as he tried to portal out of the place.

Crunch!

He tried again with both his hands this time, moving them as if trying to impersonate Goku’s Kamehameha.

Crrunch!

The irritation on his face was visible now. Between your loud mouthful bites and his sudden loss of power, the trickster was apparently losing his signature cool.

Crr~unncch!

“Stop it!” Loki snapped, making you pause with your mouth wide open, waiting for the handful of chips to land inside and start the serenade from the top.

You closed your jaws over the physical notes slowly, almost feeling Loki’s Jotun blood boil before he turned towards the apartment door to smash it open, instead, being repelled and smacked away into the opposite wall like a fly.

The crunch continued with a happy and contented sigh.

“Everyday, some new kind of magic makes my life more entertaining somehow.”

The clock read seven thirty when your first yawn came without any warning. Dialing Stark, you got up and tried to move your injured arm a bit to remove the stiffness.

“Still alive?”

“Barely,” Loki announced in a dead tone.

“We’ve got nothing, Tony. Not even a dog has looked at that house yet,” you added, unzipping your jacket and pausing mid-way to allow your brain a way to figure out how to get out of it without hurting yourself more.

“Cool. Take shifts for a shut-eye and keep me posted. One day’s almost over. Almost.”

The call was disconnected, leaving you and Loki to groan in each other’s unavoidable presence.

“I’m going to take a shower,” you announced while trying to get your better hand out of the jacket.

Pushing it, flailing it and eventually jumping to force your jacket away from your skin, you managed to step over your own foot and fall down in a way that was anything but graceful.

Loki didn’t even turn at the sound of the loud thud to scrutinize what was going on.

“How you ever become an Avenger with your ever graceful movements is beyond my comprehension,” Loki articulated into the air surrounding him as his fingers played with a coin between them.

Getting up on your knees with your jacket half stuck on your elbow on either side, you huffed your hair away from your face. “Not many can master the grace that I have, my prince.” And with that, you laid down and struggled the fabric away from you eventually, out of breath, and moved to the bathroom- deciding it was better to struggle and cry in the closed space than in front of one sarcastic royalty.

“Hey, Loki, I was going through the whole extraction fiasco again and- you’ve got to be kidding me.”

You were barely out of the bathroom when your eyes registered Loki's form spread so sophisticatedly across the lone bed in the apartment. His arms were crossed over his forehead, trying to block all flashes of annoyance you were sending his way, while his legs were crossed across the length of the mattress Clint had plopped down on the bed structure this morning.

Peeping through one eye, he stared down at your wet hair sticking to your neck and your tee looking like it had been stretched beyond what was its comprehensive standards.

“Care to join me?” He purred and smirked.

“I don’t think the mattress is built to withstand all the rage and angst piled over it,” you debated, gesturing at Loki’s existence with your hands before walking towards the little makeshift station.

You could see him sit up on his elbows from the corner of your eyes; a little spark going down your spine.

“Are you implying that this bed cannot withstand the rage I can pour over it,” Loki’s hot voice melted through the air as he tilted his head with a streak of sublime darkness in his eyes, “or that I can pour out enough to make the things underneath me crack and cry?”

You did not notice that window had been closed and hence blamed the sudden chill your body felt over the outside air. But just as all the hairs on your body stood up to gasp at the audacity of this pile of pure mischief, you knew deep inside that the mere dull air could not do such damage to you.

“What? N-no, I meant y-” your flustered self tried to gather your pieces before turning to look at him with pure anger- “get your mind out of the gutter, dude!”

His chuckle made illicit vibrations run on the back of your neck. You considered it better to sit down and wrap yourself up in the warmth of your jacket to not allow him to see what things he was doing to you.

“You are so easy to rile up, darling.”

TAGLIST

Permanent

@magiclolipopqueen @choke-me-sweet-pea @smexylemony @hazzastyles2471 @lokis-lady-death @lokixme @l0kisbitch @tarithenurse @joyofbebbanburg @itheoneofmanyfandomsi @nalokoniloki @fuckidontknow @qualitynerdwasteland @cryinglots @unipanda1006 @literalangels @meganlikesfandoms @kcd15

Loki

@avenging-blackwidow @yzssie

@wishrains @ultraslytherwin @loki-the-fox @awkward-dr-strang3rman @royaldork @arianna-17-11 @uranusismyfavoriteplanette @marvelrose @gotta-get-back-to-johnlock @moonlightprime @keepingupwiththelaufeysons @writingpromptsstuff @auroraborialis15 @marvel-cinematic-universe0123 @henloamkitty @alexakeyloveloki

[leepace71]

The Political Avenger: Chris Evans Takes on Trump, Tom Brady, Anxiety and Those Retirement Rumors

Ahead of 'Avengers: Endgame,' the progressive Captain America actor and Twitter firebrand says he's ready to retire his Marvel hero for directing gigs, a new Apple show and the fight against the "dumb s—" president: “I’d be disappointed in myself if I didn’t speak up.”

It's a Friday afternoon in February, and the view from Chris Evans' house in the Hollywood Hills consists mostly of fog. He bought this place for $3.2 million in 2013, back when he was two hit movies into his seven-film stint as Marvel Studios' Captain America; there's a Zen-ish garden inside the front gate, and a stone Buddha sits by the door. Evans banishes his dog, Dodger, to the guest room, shuts off the TV in the family room (CNN on mute), cracks a can of Modelo, and takes a seat on the couch. His arms are insane, as thick as thighs.

Evans has a movie coming out in a few months — an intimate little passion project called Avengers: Endgame (April 26). It's the sequel to last year's Avengers: Infinity War, which raked in $2 billion worldwide and ended with Thanos (Josh Brolin) disintegrating half of Earth's population, including the still-bankable likes of Black Panther and Spider-Man. The moody trailers for Endgame are designed to reveal even less than usual, but it's safe to assume that Captain America rallies Earth's mightiest surviving heroes for a rematch with the mad god who finger-snapped their friends and loved ones into oblivion, which means this will be the first of the four Avengers movies to depict actual avenging.

Evans — who made $15 million for the past two Avengers films, up from $300,000 for his first stint as Captain America — has said he's done playing the character after this. It's been reported that he intends to retire from acting entirely. And yet the announcements of new work keep coming. He's in Rian Johnson's crowded-house murder mystery Knives Out, due in November. He's playing the father of a teenager accused of murder in Apple's forthcoming limited series Defending Jacob. He's in talks to star in Antoine Fuqua's Infinite as a presumably Chris Evans-ish guy who can recall his past lives. It's a crowded dance card for a newly retired 37-year-old actor, and when I bring this up, Evans gets as annoyed as he'll get all afternoon.

"I never said the word 'retire,'" he says. "It's a really obnoxious notion for an actor to say they're going to retire — it's not something you retire from."

All he said — back in 2014, as the end of his obligation to Marvel loomed on the horizon — was that he was hoping to get behind the camera more, and that he'd told one of his CAA agents, "We are turning a corner." Cut to 5,080,000 Google hits for "Chris Evans retiring."

So, for the record: He's not retiring. He'd love to direct more, but the way he talks about it makes it sound more like a five-year plan. He's been looking for a good script, except the problem with good scripts is that they tend to go to great directors, which is not a weight class Evans would put himself in, not yet. He's directed one film, the slight-but-not-embarrassing indie romance Before We Go, which grossed $37,151 in theaters in 2014, or roughly 0.01 percent of what Infinity War made on its opening weekend. When that project is faintly praised in his presence — he also starred in it, opposite Alice Eve — he waves this off, saying it mainly taught him how much he didn't know. "I'm OK with making mistakes," he says, "and I learned a lot from that one."

Once he's done helping Marvel hype Endgame, he's going to take advantage of the security provided by nearly 10 years of huge superhero movies by letting the next phase of his career unfold at a more leisurely pace. "Momentum is a real fallacy, in my opinion," he says. "But it has a really strong hold on a lot of actors' mentalities. You really believe that while the ball's rolling, you gotta keep it rolling. I could be wrong, but to me — I just don't believe in that. I don't think that's real."

I guess we'll find out.

Evans laughs. "My last cover interview."

Here are some things we learned about Chris Evans, from what may or may not be his last cover interview:

He uses the word "pretentious" a lot, usually because he's worried something he's just said sounds pretentious, which it rarely does.

He will talk at length and in detail about himself, and his neuroses, and the conversations he has with himself about his neuroses.

He keeps it closer to the vest about other people. He mentions in passing that Justin Timberlake lives around here — "I think" — without mentioning that Timberlake lives around here with his wife, Jessica Biel, who was once Evans' girlfriend. Nor does he mention his former girlfriend Jenny Slate by name, although he occasionally says things about what it's like to hang out with a bunch of comedians, something he clearly knows because he dated Slate, on and off, for a while. They are off again, per the gossip pages; on Valentine's Day, a few weeks after we meet, Evans will tweet a picture of himself nuzzling Dodger and wish the best to his 10.6 million followers "from this pair of dysfunctional codependents."

When asked how he functions in relationships, he says: "I'm the one who fears being enveloped. I was always a really autonomous guy my whole life. Camping by myself is one of my favorite things. I really like to be with someone who also has their own thing to do as well, you know? If I'm with someone who just kind of adopts my life, that can feel a bit suffocating."

Evans and actress-comedian Jenny Slate, in 2016. At her urging, he read a collection of feminist essays, The Mother of All Questions. "You have to understand that you don’t understand," he says.

When he's not working or camping by himself, you can find Evans camped out on Twitter. He is extremely online in a way that actors who headline ultra-mainstream movie franchises tend not to be; on any given day, you can find @ChrisEvans quoting Idiocracy to mock President Trump's McDonald's buffet for the Clemson Tigers, signal-boosting tweets about gay purges in Chechnya, or addressing Sen. Lindsey Graham as "Smithers."

He worries about doing too much of this sort of thing, about it seeming performative or becoming white noise — Chris Evans, back on his bullshit. He does not worry about saying something online that might inspire MAGA-minded fans to microwave their Captain America action figures. And for what it's worth, he says, "Marvel has never said anything. On the contrary — when I bump into Kevin Feige the first thing out of his mouth is 'Man, I love what you're doing [on Twitter].'"

"I don't see it as trash-talking," says Feige, Marvel's president. "I see it as very astute, very honorable, very noble, very Cap-like. Commentary and questioning. I've said to him, 'You're merging! You and the character are merging!'"

"I’d be disappointed in myself if I didn’t speak up. Especially for fear of some monetary repercussion or career damage — that just feels really gross to me."

Evans campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016; and while he has not decided on his 2020 candidate, his crusading use of his platform has made him a real-life superhero to a certain segment of the online #Resistance. Days after we talk, he pops up on Capitol Hill to do some bipartisan grip-and-grins with Senate Democrats Brian Schatz, Chris Coons and Jeff Merkley and Republican Lisa Murkowski. In March, he does the same at the House of Representatives. It turns out he's conducting interviews for A Starting Point, a politics website whose mission is "to create informed, responsible and empathetic citizens." He's a co-founder, along with the actor Mark Kassen and entrepreneur Joe Kiani; the launch date has yet to be announced.

While he's only visiting Congress for now, everyone jokes about him getting a job there someday. There's familial precedent; his uncle is former Massachusetts Representative Mike Capuano (who lost a hard-fought race to Ayanna Pressley, a progressive city councilwoman, in September). For now, Evans feels obligated to do what he can, even if it turns his social media mentions into a garbage fire.

"You don't want to alienate half your audience," says Evans. "But I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't speak up. Especially for fear of some monetary repercussion or career damage — that just feels really gross to me."

His willingness to call bullshit on anyone abetting the disintegration of our republic extends to his home state's favorite sons. When we talk, Tom Brady is two days away from leading the New England Patriots to a sixth Super Bowl win; when I ask if the chance to play Brady in a biopic would bring him out of non-retirement retirement, he looks grim.

"I don't know," he says. "I really hope he's not a Trump supporter. I'm just hoping he's one of those guys that maybe supported him and now regrets it. Maybe he thought it was going to be different — and even that bothers me — but maybe there's a chance now he just thinks Trump's an absolute dumb shit, which he is. If he doesn't, if he's still on that Trump train, I might have to cut ties. It's really tough."

"I think maybe a couple of years ago," he continues, "I might have tried to pull some, like, mental gymnastics to compartmentalize, but I don't know if I can anymore. So I'm just hoping he's woken up."

Evans has a platform and he's using it. But like a lot of straight white men seeking to consciously and conscientiously navigate a tumultuous moment in the history of straight white male-dom, he's learned that shutting up is important, too. At Slate's urging, he read Rebecca Solnit's The Mother of All Questions, a collection of essays about the insidious side effects of patriarchy, and took away a great deal. "You have to understand that you don't understand," he says. It's not the most action-heroish way to look at things — but that may be the secret of his appeal as a movie star.

"At the root of it, he has true humility," says Robert Downey Jr., who's played Tony Stark against Evans five times. "I think it's the reason he was able to kind of come to the front and be our team leader in the Avengers. I think a lot of his theater experience helped, too. Because it was like, 'OK, I'm going to dress up, I'm going to go out, and I'm going to tell the truth.' It's very kind of old-school Spencer Tracy. Although I guarantee you Spencer Tracy never would've put on that getup."

Unsurprisingly, Evans blows off discussion of his own goodness. "The characters I play do a lot of that heavy lifting. If people knew me — I'm just an asshole."

He seems a little uncomfortable. I change the subject by asking him to tell me what happens at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Evans laughs. "Yeah," he says. "I wish I could. Uh, it's — I mean — it's a good one. It's a real good one. I saw, like, the first hour of it."

So you watched it up to the point where Cap dies?

"Right, exactly," Evans says. "After I die by Tony's hand, I just said, You know what? I can't watch this."

I should make it clear that this is a joke, even if it feels like the kind of joke that could turn out to be true. "I can't believe they even cut together a trailer," he says, "because so much of it is a visual spoiler. You'll see. A lot of the characters have"—

He stops, covering his mouth.

"Probably shouldn't have even said that," he says.

READ REST HERE...

[dmsden]

What’s My Motivation? – Finding realistic motives for your villain NPCs

Hullo, my dear readers. Today’s Question from a Denizen comes from Anonymous. Man, they ask a LOT OF QUESTIONS! Anonymous asks, “What could a necromancer cult leader... aspire for? What goals could they have to achieve? Something that isn't generic or expected, like becoming a lich or something. I'm writing that character now, but I'm at a loss for what they could want to achieve.”

I gave a short answer to Anonymous, which essentially translated to, “Their goals should depend on their motives, and their motives could be anything. If they’re people, they should be able to have the same motives as anyone else in the world.” I want to expand on that idea here, because I think it’s really worth looking at.

The easy fall-back, especially when dealing with villainous characters, is to give them stereotypical goals. They want world domination. They want to become a lich. They want to raise an army of undead and crush their enemies as a sacrifice to their dark gods. These are perfectly good goals, but I think they’ll make for fairly forgettable villains. If you want a memorable villain, the first thing to do is to consider why they do what they do.

Unless you’re dealing with someone like The Joker, who just wants to watch the world burn, your villain has a motive for doing what they do. More important, they consider themselves the hero. That’s worth examining, because that’s the key to making a really great villain. Your villain believes that they are absolutely right in what they do, and they can justify everything they do in the name of their (in their minds) noble motivations.

Let’s take Lex Luthor. In the comics, Lex is a vain man, who craves the adoration of the people of Metropolis. He built himself up from nothing. In some versions of the story, he was abused when he was young. Along comes Superman, who diverts all that adoration by virtue of doing amazing things to help people. Lex is consumed with envy and greed for what Superman has – admiration and power. In Lex’s mind, it’s made even worse by virtue of the fact that Superman is actually an alien being that dares to hide among us. He doesn’t trust Superman’s seemingly altruistic motives, because, being largely incapable of being that selfless himself, he finds it impossible to believe that Superman is really not after anything other than helping people. What makes Lex a great villain is that, not only are his motives very human, but he truly believes that his goal to destroy Superman is a noble one. He alone is wise enough to understand that the alien is dangerous, and he alone will save us from this threat.

A look at human emotions in general will give us plenty of motivations. Love, for example, can easily become jealousy, causing figures like the paladin Lord Soth or the noble Strahd von Zarovich  to commit terrible deeds, inviting curses upon themselves. Fear is a great motivation; liches are often motivated by a fear of death, and a rogue might be motivated to steal by a fear of poverty rather than by greed. Anger is responsible for all kinds of terrible deeds, but they can be very human deeds, such as a druid’s rage at a forest being razed leading to her decision to consume a town with storms or a flood. Disgust can cause someone to do horrible things in order to remove the object of their disgust. Perhaps a hobgoblin general finds the habits of halflings disgusting and decides that the little valley they live in needs to be cleansed for the betterment of all.

Even entirely noble motivations can be twisted. Thanos, the villain of this summer’s blockbuster Infinity War, wants to end hunger and suffering. He comes to the conclusion that the universe is over-populated and needs to be culled, which puts him in opposition to the heroes who want to prevent him from committing universal genocide.

Even a character who is insane can be given understandable motives, even if they come from a place of insanity. Way back when I was involved with the LARP called NERO, I played a villain called Tarlov the Ghost Hand. Tarlov’s family was destroyed by elementals during a war, and this plunged him into grief. He blamed his allies for not protecting them better, causing him to turn his back on them. Further, he came to the conclusion that all the suffering in the world was engendered by elemental interference in mortal affairs. Given that elemental matter is the building blocks of the world, he came to the conclusion that this could only be ended by reducing everything to oblivion. This would free the world from elemental tyranny and reduce everything into a unified nothingness in which he would be reunited with his loved ones.

At first the players thought Tarlov was just another villain, but, as they learned of his back story through various means, they began to pity him. While I don’t think anyone ever thought for a moment that he was right, they eventually found his motives understandable. Given that people still remember those performances today and talk to me about them, I think we made a memorable villain out of old Ghost Hand.

I hope this has given you some ideas about how to make a great, memorable villain for your game. I’d love to hear about villains you’ve had in your games in the past that you’re particularly fond or proud of.

[etrnty-a]

hello wonderful people, i hope you’re all having a lovely day! i’m about 90% done with updating my blog, however now that i’m back i would like to bring something up i noticed while reading some comics. something important i’m not sure how to go about or feel. because this may be triggering & uncomfortable for some; it will be put under a read more for possible mention of incest.

i’v always known the cosmic abstracts, namely; eternity, infinity, death, oblivion, & galactus were inexplicably connected due to their vast importance in the grand scheme of all things, that if one suddenly vanished there’d be cosmic unbalance or an end to all, & that they all came into being at the same time (debatable with oblivion but that’s a post for another time). 

eternity & infinity have been refereed to on numerous occasions to be opposite sides of the same coin, one & the same being.  the same can be said for death & oblivion. they have sometimes refereed to each other as ‘brother’, ‘sister’, or ‘sibling’ - & other times as ‘mates’.  in a silver surfer comic, mistress death & galactus have a rather deep conversation. during this she refers to him as ‘brother’, ‘my child’ & ‘husband’, & to quote her: ‘your newfound conscience clouds your reason. you are no slave, galactus, least of all to me. you are my husband & father, my brother & son. were we not born at the same moment, are we not two corners of that great triangle which is the universe?’  in a old marvel handbook it states eternity & infinity are mates.  something important to mention with galactus is that he is older than all the present abstracts. he was born as a mortal man named galan in the six multiverse. when that multiverse came to its end, galan’s soul merged with the eternity of said multiverse & then was reborn into the next iteration of everything as galactus. so, galactus is simultaneously a parent, sibling, & child. because everything is born/created inside eternity, everything & everyone could be considered a child of eternity. infinity likes to call others, especially a particular quasar, ‘my child’. 

my understanding of this relationship they have with one another is that it’s more than any word we have, above our ability to comprehend, deeper than anything we could possibly experience because they are above us & beyond our understanding. they are all quite literally everything to each other & that is why they refer to each other as everything. 

i really shouldn’t have to say this in this day & age, but this lovely site loves to cause a storm;  i absolutely do not support incest. it’s disgusting. just thinking about this has me highly uncomfortable because i don’t know what to think. which is why i’m asking for other opinions & views. cosmic marvel is a giant cluster fuck lbr & explaining it is difficult af

[priyastandon]

Time to stand and stare, surf the inner-net

THE HUMAN INPUT

The other day my children were discussing 'the drone'. It seems that drones are going to be the new thing for transportation and delivering stuff to people's homes. Another thing they talked about was self-driven (driver less) cars. 

Robots it seems are taking the place of cleaners, maids, cooks etc. The machine revolution perhaps started, with the invention of the wheel in its humblest form. We have been witness to the evolution of cars, trains, planes etc. 

In our childhood, our grandmothers would grind wheat in a wheat-mill (chakki) by hand. They would make mint chutney in a dauri or kundi that was made out of a single stone. Today everything is automated. Now we have mixers and grinders. 

Pullovers were hand-knitted. Babies wore cloth nappies. Presently, computers do calculations, keep records, make projections etc. All this has been aimed at making our lives more comfortable. So the indisputable purpose of invention is to make man comfortable, right? Or is it to make man redundant? If machines take over everything, what will man do? 

Man’s quest for the unknown is insatiable. Someone said, "Man will just think and invent." Well, to think and invent also, is it possible for man to sit behind closed doors and just switch on the think-tank? Thoughts and ideas too, formulate as you muse over things, ruminate over situations, solve problems, enjoy happy times, tide over sad times, fight through trying times etc. If you keep sitting for a year in a room, you would surely have grown one year older, but would you have grown up? Or learnt or matured or become wiser or gained anything? Or would you have lost? Our physical and mental faculties have to be in constant use to remain in running condition. 

One needs to walk, breathe, work, move around, laugh and cry, love and express happiness and sorrow, because all this and more, is important for the holistic development of man. ‘Man is a social animal’, said Aristotle. Why and how has that changed? Man needs human interaction. It is situations and human interactions that provide stimulus for expansion and growth. 

Interestingly, it is in vogue to be going back to the basics. Like never before, are people talking about Yoga, Pranayaam, simple and healthy foods like sprouts and fruits, salads and greens, de-tox by means of Yogic Kriyas, living close to nature etc. People are standing up against pollution to stop trees from felling, saying no to crackers; not using disposable plates, straws and cutlery, saying no to print outs, resorting to reading online; saying no to plastics and so on … 

People talk about the goodness of walking, cycling and climbing stairs as opposed to driving or taking elevators. 

This makes me think that the world is moving in two opposite directions. Perhaps this has been so since long. The sages and spiritualists preferred the concept of withdrawal into oblivion; hence the concept of zero was discovered. The masses preferred the concept of embracing everything; they wanted expansion and growth; hence the concept of infinity evolved.

We are living in an era where scientists are evolving new things every day. But will man become redundant? No! ‘Man’ can never be dispensed with. Man is the jewel in the crown of God’s creation. Nothing is even remotely comparable with the human brain! Nothing! Without the human input, nothing works. And all the answers to the questions that plague the human mind are available within man himself! Surfing the inner-net, can be more gratifying and incredible than surfing the internet! The quest for the unknown begins as well as ends with peering into the inner-net!

  This article was published in The Tribune on 19.9.2019

[babyleclerc]

Favorites

Pairings: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Style: One-Shot

Warnings: Language and implications of sex. Otherwise it’s just pure, fun fluff.

Word Count: 1,364

Summary: Tom asks you a few Marvel questions, which leads to an interesting revelation about his coworkers.

A/N: Soft!Tom destroys me in this piece. I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. ;) Also please don’t come @ me for the thoughts on Hulk/Banner. It’s all in good fun. As usual, gif isn’t mine!

Though it had been a few hours, the smell of sex still lingered in the warm air of your bedroom. Tom lay shirtless on his back, book in hand, while you sat next to him - one leg bent underneath you, the other sprawled across his stomach, hunched over your phone. Tom’s free hand rested on your thigh, absentmindedly rubbing your soft skin in circles. You were lounging in panties and one of Tom’s old shirts, just the way he liked you to be. Spotify’s Relax playlist played softly on your Amazon Echo, filling the comfortable silence.

“Babe?” You ask, as your thumb swipes up your Instagram feed lazily. 

“Hmm?” He replied, eyes never leaving his book as he turned the page. 

“If you couldn’t play Loki, who would you want to be?” You double tapped a picture of Seb in sunglasses. 

“Thor.” He responded quickly, eyes still locked on his book.

“And if you couldn’t play Thor?”

“Loki.” 

You grinned, hitting his chest lightly. “Cheater.” You say, still Insta swiping, while Tom cracked a smile.

“I am the god of mischief.” He retorted, winking at you. After a few minutes of silence, he reached towards his nightstand, grabbing his bookmark and placing it inside his book, snapping it shut. 

“Now you’ve intrigued me.” He says, letting his right hand fall to your hip, tugging at you gently. 

“About what?” You glance up from your phone. 

“First - mercy. Please.”

You sighed dramatically. ‘Mercy’ had become a very popular word in your relationship over the past few years. It was to be used when the other person wanted something - such as putting a phone away for undivided attention, calling a truce in a tickle war, pressing pause on a fight, etc. In this instance, he was asking you to put down your beloved iPhone. 

You tossed your phone to the side of the bed in compliance, physically turning your body to face him but keeping one leg tucked under you and the other across his torso.

“Alright, phone has been mercy’d to oblivion. How can I help you, sir?”  

Tom chuckled at your pet name that was usually reserved for the bedroom. “I have questions for you.” He began, his left hand wandering down your thigh slowly. 

“Hit me.” You say, grinning. Time with Thomas alone was a rarity these days. Between filming Infinity War, rehearsing for theatre productions, and your career - you hardly at time together anymore. It was a constant mix of varying levels of effort, exhaustion, and commitment to keep your relationship thriving and happy. So intimate, uninterrupted conversations like these were the most precious to you. You had once equated them to having the significance of an infinity stone, which had made Tom laugh and tease you unceasingly. 

“Who is your least favorite superhero?” He finally asked.

You crinkled your nose, “In the Marvel universe?”

“Hmm.” Tom affirmed, still letting his hand wander.

“Ugh, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. Superman is the fucking worst.” Tom laughed in response, “Uhmmmmm, I guess Hulk?”

“What?! Why?” He asks you, bewildered. 

“Ugh, I don’t know. There’s just something about Bruce Banner that gets under my skin. Like he was basically trying to become Cap but obviously turned out to be a way suckier version ‘cause he fucked with the gamma rays and now he’s screwed as Hulk. And he’s always whining about not being able to control it but like, dude, you literally did this to yourself, so, why don’t you try taking Tony’s advice and learn how to actually manage your green situation?!”

Tom’s bewildered laugh echoed across the room. Eyes closed, mouth half open, his hand gripping your leg as he struggled to control his breathing. 

“Darling, you are not allowed on set. Ever.”

“What!” You shout, outraged, but laughing. “I cannot be the only person with this opinion.”

“I’m fairly certain that almost no one else agrees with you on this one. No sane person anyway.”

You scowled at him, folding your arms across your chest. “I guess that’s why they call it an opinion.” 

“Yes, right,” Tom chuckles, tucking your hair behind your ear, “Let’s hear more of these wild so-called opinions. Favorite superhero in Marvel?”

“That’s such an unfair question,” you groan, falling over onto your left side, opposite Tom.

“It’s not a test, darling.”

You glared at him, “I can’t pick. I love them all for separate reasons.”

“Just pick one.”

“Nooooo.” You whine, taking your right hand and intertwining your fingers with his. 

“Alright then, narrow it down for me. Who are your top three?”

“Cap, Thor, Bucky.” You respond immediately. 

“Ahh. This makes sense now.” Tom murmured in response, fiddling with your hand in his. “Arguably the three most attractive men in the MCU, eh?”

You blushed, and instantly began to protest. “That’s not why!”

“But you don’t deny it!” He laughs, “After all these years, the truth finally comes out: my seemingly devoted wife has the hots for my coworkers.”

“That’s not true and you know it.” You huff, though your scarlet cheeks give you away. He pokes your side in teasing adoration. It’s not that you found them sexually attractive (you were hopelessly devoted to your lover with unwavering certainty) but they weren’t exactly ugly, either... 

“So all those months of me begging, pleading with you to go out with me, really I was just vying for your attention over Chris and Sebastian?” Tom teased, pinching your waist lightly. “I would hate to have seen the outcome if Hemsworth hadn’t been married.”

“I’m starting to think I picked unwisely.” You say dryly, glaring at him and swatting his hand away. 

“Oh come now, darling. It’s only a bit of fun.” He catches your hand and placed a gentle kiss on your wrist. “Besides, what fun would life be if I didn’t tease you a little?”

“A more pleasant one.” You mumble, while Tom laughs against your wrist, lips still hovering over your veins. 

“Come here.” He commands, sitting up so that he can pull you onto his lap. You obliged, scooting over his stomach, straddling him, allowing your hands to rest on his chest. Your hair sloppily falls to the sides of your face as you peer down at him, still frowning from the topic of conversation. He smiles up at you, causing your insides to turn in all different directions. All it took was that look to make you forget how insufferable he could be at times. 

“You know, you didn’t ask me the most important question of all.” You say softly, tracing your fingers on his chest. Tom’s right hand rested on your waist, while his left gently curled a lock of hair between his long fingers. 

“And what question is that, my love?” He asked huskily, eyes lost in drinking you in.

“Who my favorite Marvel actor is.” 

Tom smiled, slipping his right hand underneath your shirt and gently rubbing along your low back. “And who might that be?” He played along, meeting your gaze. 

You raise both hands to cup his face, lightly tracing a finger over his stubble. You whisper softly, “Thomas William Hiddleston.” Before pulling him into a slow, meaningful kiss. You sigh happily into his mouth as he reciprocates, allowing all of your muscles to relax into him. 

His arms wrap around your frame, squeezing you gently as he breaks the kiss to nuzzle his face into the crook of your neck.

“Have I told you recently that I love you?” He asked, kissing you softly. 

You smile, shaking your head. “Not enough.”

“Hmmm, we should fix that.” He murmured against your skin, placing another kiss just below your collarbone. “I love you.” A kiss on your shoulder. “Je t’aime.” A kiss on your arm. “Te amo.” His nose nuzzled your soft skin, before raising his head to look into your beautiful eyes once more. The woman he could not live without; the woman who gave his life meaning and purpose. Who made the sun rise and the stars shine across the sky. “Se agapó.” He whispers finally in Greek, before he pulls you in for another night of slow, passionate, lovemaking. 

Fin.

Tag List: @markusstraya, @punkin-pie-mofo, @hazohazahazbro, @irishprincess9, @jedionironthrone.

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!

[littlemissrainhoe]

Fic Recs (Various Fandoms)

|| No. 6 || Love All, Trust A Few, Do Wrong To None by logarhythm (Complete)

[Teen] "Straight"-A student Shion meets the mysterious transfer student, Nezumi. It's the No. 6 high school AU: it's like canon, but instead of death and conspiracies and wasps, you get teen angst. \\ NezuShi.

"Hey, Shion," Nezumi says out of the blue, not lifting his gaze from the battered pages.

Shion raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"Shouldn't you be working on our project?"

Lavender eyes narrow. "Shouldn't you?"

Nezumi glances up at that. "I'm the transfer student, you're my guide. You're supposed to lead me through the task, remember?"

"Nezumi! That's so..." Shion fumbles for the right word. After a moment of fruitless searching, he scowls. "You're so stupid."

The taller man's smirk seems to be growing. "Ah, so not only clumsy on your feet, but also with your tongue?"

"Shut up!" Shion swats at the man with annoyance, but the only response he receives is laughter.

|| Marvel Cinematic Universe & Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) || Exploding Head Syndrome by foolscapper (Complete)

[Teen] Avengers: Infinity War Fix-It. In which the people who vanished from the Snap somehow comes back, including Peter. Except, he's not really all there. \\ Peter-centric with a focus on Tony & Peter's relationship. Talks of ptsd and comatose. Protective Avengers. Canon pairings.

Peter Parker's eyes are open, half-lidded, without any sign of life behind them. But Quill feels like every word Mantis sobs is a memory he can't quite bring into focus... like — like a dream he'd forgotten in the time he'd been nothing but ash. Like a beacon, scrambling all of his senses and blinding him just before he had burst back to life from under the current of death. He remembers a snippet of what it was like on the other side, rolling over and over like he's stuck in a sea — a sea of souls. He remembers it was the kid's voice, calling out from oblivion as they were hoisted back into their bodies.

He remembers hearing his own voice... remembers saying, thinking, screaming: Hang on, kid, I got you!

— it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—

He puts his hand gently on Peter Parker's cheek.

It's warm. His body breathes in steady rhythm.

So why isn't there any life behind those eyes?

|| Yowamushi Pedal || Something pure behind the hills by AmberSpirit (WIP)

[Teen] Onoda gets to know the hidden depths of his best friend. Wherein Creepy!Manami is real, but Knight-in-Shining-Bicycle!Manami is, too. \\ SanSaka. Psychological drama.

Did Manami kill those animals with his own two hands before lowering them into the make-shift grave? At this thought Onoda buried his face in the pillow and grimaced, feeling awful. Why was he thinking about these things? Manami was kind. There was nothing about his character which suggested he was cruel or dangerous.

And yet there was that split second when Onoda scraped the boy's wound by accident when Manami seemed to transform before his eyes. His eyes looked scary, empty...no, not empty but in fact the very opposite- gaze filled to the brim with hunger and passion, overflowing with life, the way a pool might overflow during a storm. There was a pureness to this too but instead of inspiring a feeling of joy all Onoda felt was fear.

That night the boy's dreams were filled with dead foxes and Manami's dark silhouette looking down on him from the top of a lone hill. His hand was lifted in an unspoken invitation.

|| Prince of Tennis || The 3AM Blues by Thai_Tea_Addict (Complete)

[Teen] Ryoma's stuck in a sticky situation, so he asks his team for help. Nobody is prepared or even remotely helpful. \\ OT6. Mostly in text format.

Wake up. -Ryoma messaged.

Why are you awake! -Katsuo.

It's 3am.... wtf. -Kachirou.

Hypothetically speaking

If you woke up naked and can't find your clothes

What would you do -Ryoma.

omg -Kachirou.

wtf wtf -Katsuo.

|| DRAMAtical Murder || Role Reversal by Harukami (Complete + Fan game)

[Explicit] Trapped within the clutches of Virus and Trip, a desperate Aoba attempts to look for a way out one last time. \\ Virus-Trip route Fix-It. Seragaki Aoba/Trip/Virus. Usual DMMd warnings apply.

"Please just kill me," I beg. "Please make it end before I go back there. Please save me, please--"

"...is this what it feels like, to hear that," Death says softly. He reaches up, unpins something from his hat. Death really is trendy, I think again, vaguely. He stands, and with a weak throw -- why is Death so weak? -- flings the thing into the ocean. I hear it drop into the water and get drowned.

Why isn't he ending things? I'm shaking now, and crying, can't seem to stop my shivering. Is my body having a seizure? I wonder. "Please--" I reach out a hand to him. Let him kiss it or whatever, if it ends things. I won't be afraid.

He catches it, folds it between his gloved hands, smiles at me. "Aoba," he says. "It's not your time yet."

[iconuk01]

I mean, Marvel's cosmic entities tend to come in pairs: Eternity/Death, Infinity/Oblivion, Lord Chaos/Master Order etc...

So the Living Tribunal as the embodiment of justice, fair decision-making and multiversal cosmic-ness probably NEEDS an equal but opposite number

Maybe this was intended to be Clumsy Foulup's big promotion!

Not sure how I feel about Clumsy Foulup getting as large a billing as the Living Tribunal…