coke-vapor

[coke-vapor]

[coke-vapor]

defending his captain's honour

mcdrai | EDM @ VAN | 01.18.2025

[coke-vapor]

defending his captain [alt. angle]

leon draisaitl | the drop | episode 45

[coke-vapor]

You know what isn't a crime, but definitely should be one? The casual mischaracterization of Sentry in fan content. I'm so done😭

1. I hate how he's often depicted as cruel, he's not, look at him, fucking look? And when Ava asks about the hair dye, what does he do? He looks to Val for an answer, he's constantly fidgeting, trying to find an out for the bunch of misfits who previously helped him in the vault.

2. I hate how people try to turn it into a Marc Spector, Steven Grant and Jake Lockley situation when it's. Like. Not?? This is such a disservice to both Moon Knight and The Sentry, and real people who relate to the two characters' (very distinct very different) mental health issues. Bob doesn't have DID, if anything, the movie leans towards him being bipolar. Sentry is Bob, the guy literally tells Yelena in the vault that he has high highs and low lows, the high is Sentry, the low is the Void, that's it. Bob is both Sentry and The Void. What's so hard to understand? It's the mania (Sentry), followed by depression (Void) then he forgets. That's how Bob describes it in the first act of the film, that's how it happens in the third act.

3. This is not a contradiction to point 1, but Sentry is unhinged. He is awkward and somehow soft spoken? But he is unhinged, and invincible, and fucking terrifying. I'm tired of the stoic depictions in fics like🙂‍↔️ idc if you wanna write fics for comic Sentry, just don't tag them as mcu stuff. (WHO AM I KIDDING COMIC SENTRY IS FUCKING SCARYYY STOP THE BABYFICATION)

4. He is not evil (the fact that we have to spell this out... media literacy is truly dead huh), no shit the Thunderbolts* will be scared of him, of course they will be– he kicked the ever-living shit out of them. But he's not malicious, he doesn't use unnecessary force. Call it condescending, but he's going easy on them, toying with them, and deals arguably softer blows to Yelena, John and Ava, the trio he already met at the vault (because he's the same person, yk? jesus)

5. Prespective is a thing, the team wasn't there to see Sentry tell Val he doesn't want to kill them (they're no threat to him), it's the root cause of their disagreement, it leads to the New York Blackout TM, but we, the audience, were. So tell me why the fuck do I see stuff with this guy terrorizing that team for no reason? 😭 bfr guys.

6. So what? So while I can buy you showing me Ava or John or Alexei or Bucky or Yelena being fearful of the Sentry, or Val (hahaha eat shit Val), I simply can't get behind him actually being a threat to them, on purpose and beyond swatting them like flies, because hi hello have you seen the movie? Yeah.

7. Have I mentioned Sentry is unhinged? Yeah. Yeah. We got glimpses of it with Val before Mel pressed the kill switch but!! Sentry!! Is!! Unhinged!!

8. Find a middle ground, he doesn't have to be uwu or straight up satan or stoic as a rock, he is Bob in mania, so that's inherently Bob with high levels of energy and a higher self esteem (more like a GODLY EGO) and impulsivness and dillusions of grandeur (except they're not dellusions anymore? So rip), so do with that what you will.

Fingers crossed for more in-character Sentry content, at least the Sentry depicted by Lewis Pullman, who put his all into this performance but whose character is still somehow misunderstood? Anyways.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[coke-vapor]

did a bit of a revamp to this account i am soooooo deep in the thunderbolts fixation right now i blame ava

[coke-vapor]

Top Gun: The Gay Agenda (A Goose’s Lament)🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

1986, Miramar, California.

Nick "Goose" Bradshaw was a patient man. A devoted husband. A loving father. A steady RIO. A rock. But as he sat in the locker room, towel around his neck, while Pete "Maverick" Mitchell ranted in full, barely-repressed-gay-glory about one Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Goose realized something truly chilling:

He was going to die surrounded by idiots.

"—and he's got these stupid, pretty blue eyes, Goose. Like—like oceans. Judgy, Arctic oceans. And his jaw? What the hell? It's like Michelangelo carved it himself. It's infuriating. He’s got these annoyingly capable hands and this silky, mocking voice like a villainous opera ghost, and he—he thinks he’s better than me just because he’s tall and broad and slim and hot! And don’t get me started on that beauty mark—I wanna punch his stupid angel face and kiss it at the same time and that’s messed up, right?!"

Goose stared at his best friend for a long, harrowed moment. “Mav.”

“What?”

“Sweetheart. You're in love with Iceman.”

Maverick blinked at him.

Goose turned, stood, and walked directly out of the locker room to call his wife.

That night, at the Bradshaw’s house, Carole, radiant queen of his universe, cackled like a banshee as Goose paced.

“I’m telling you, babe,” Goose moaned, massaging his temples. “It’s mutual. I overheard Iceman call him a ‘stupid green-eyed cutie.’ That’s not combat language, Carole, that’s foreplay!”

Carole nearly dropped the baby.

“I have spent weeks, WEEKS, keeping those two from killing each other or accidentally making out on the flight deck! And now? Now I have to make sure I knock before entering the locker room or I’ll walk in on Maverick’s legs around Iceman’s waist again! There were noises, Carole. Noises. I need hazard pay.”

But for all his complaints and grumblings, Goose was happy for his friends. And for himself, because, at last, he could put an end to the saga of emotionally repressed gay pilots.

He must have suspected this wasn't the case.

Goose never thought he’d be grateful for witnessing one emotionally-repressed Navy homoerotic slow burn resolve into a marriage, but the peace that settled after Ice and Mav tied the knot was glorious. Until…

The Phone Call.

“Hey, Dad?” Bradley’s voice, now grown and inflected with slight frustration, echoed through the line.

Goose smiled warmly. “Hey, kiddo. How’s flight school?”

“Fine. Mostly. Except this one guy—Jake Seresin. Ugh. He’s got these stupid pretty green eyes and this smug beautiful smile and he talks in this Texas drawl like he’s hot or something—he’s got dimples, Dad. Dimples. I swear, I wanna punch his annoyingly handsome face right in the—"

Goose froze. The coffee cup slipped from his hand in slow motion.

“Carole,” he whispered, handing over the phone like it was a live grenade. “Talk to your son about his OBVIOUS crush for Seresin. I—I can’t go through this again.”

On the other end: “WHAT?! It’s not a crush! I don’t even like him! He thinks he’s so slick just because he—he flies like he was born in a cockpit and he’s always—NO, MOM, STOP LAUGHING—this is serious!”

Goose was already on the other line, calling Iceman and Maverick.

“You DID this to him!”

Goose’s furious screech could probably be heard from orbit.

Maverick’s laughter came in unholy wheezing bursts, while he tried to say: “Technically, Goose, we never corrupted him. He’s just… following in our flightpath.”

“YOU TAUGHT HIM TO CRASH INTO GAY FEELINGS AT MACH THREE!”

Maverick wheezed, “I’m so proud of the kid. He’s even ranting like me!”

Iceman took the phone. “Hi, Goose.”

“Don’t you ‘Hi Goose’ me, Ice Prince of Gay Pining! This is your fault too!”

Iceman reply, calm and dry. “We accept full responsibility for corrupting your son. We’ll send a fruit basket. And tissues.”

“You cursed my bloodline with emotionally constipated, pilot-loving disaster men! You infected my son with your drama! Now he's as emotionally constipated as you two assholes”

Maverick gasped. “Goose. Goose. Did you just say that out loud?! Honey!”

“DON’T 'HONEY' ME, DEAR. I HATE YOU BOTH. I WANT NEW FRIENDS.”

“You’ll never do better,” Ice said serenely.

Carole could be heard in the background, howling.

Goose thought it couldn't get worse.

Until it did. Until it happened.

The Closet Incident

A week later, Goose received a call from Admiral Ron "Slider" Kerner. Current CO of NAS Pensacola. Goose braced for a tragedy.

“Hey, Goose. Slider here.”

Goose immediately felt dread.

“You're not going to like this, but—well—I just found Bradley and….”

Silence.

And then…

Goose isn't sure he heard correctly, but he swears something sounded like a dog choking on a bone. Was Slider choking?

“Bradshaw!” Slider chortled. “You’re not gonna believe this—I just caught your Gosling and Seresin in a storage closet. Doing things. Noises, Nick. NOISES”

Goose blue screen. He must have misheard Slider. He prayed he did.

“Say again?”. Please, PLEASE, tell me I heard wrong. Goose was at his wits' end, and he was sure this was just his imagination playing tricks on him. Trauma response. A form of PTSD. That must be it.

Instead: “Bradley and Jake. Storage closet. Caught them mid-thrust. Jake saluted me while still having your son inside him. Just thought you’d want the full picture, Admiral Dad.”

Goose screamed into a pillow for eleven minutes and then started therapy.

He was absolutely billing Iceman and Maverick.

After Slider's call (which the entire Top Gun '86 class knew about, thanks to Slider and Maverick), Goose was confident nothing worse could happen. Sure, the call he had with Bradley where they discussed guidelines for proper conduct regarding storage closets use in the Navy was awkward, but now everything was back to normal...sort of.

And then it happened again. On an ordinary day, a bomb landed on Admiral Nick "Goose" Bradshaw's desk.

In the form of a letter.

Dear Admiral Bradshaw,

Please accept my formal apology for the incident in the supply closet. While our timing was… unprofessional, my feelings for Bradley are entirely sincere.

I'd like to take this opportunity to officially ask for your blessing to have a relationship with your son (even though we've already had sex—again, sorry for the inconvenience—and we've done other things).

I really care about Bradley; he's perfect. I want you to know that I will always treat Bradley like the prince he is, because I'm sure your son is becoming my world.

I promise to always be the best version of myself for your son, because that's what he deserves. He makes me want to be better. To fly better. He's my wingman. And I will always take care of his wing.

Also, Bradley told me that you're close to Admiral Kerner (and I must confess that you and your friends intimidate me), so could you ask him to stop making faces and sounds every time he sees me? I'm worried he'll die of suffocation from laughing so much.

Respectfully,

Jake “Hangman” Seresin.

Goose practically ran the entire way home. Read the letter to Carole. Then together, they called Maverick and Iceman and read it again.

As Carole read the letter (and cried with laughter) Goose stared off into space like a man haunted by the ghosts of his past and Maverick could practically be heard on the floor laughing (gasping for air) Iceman, always composed and serene, said: “I like him. He asked permission. Good manners.”

Goose, finally out of his trance, said, "Iceman, you're paying for my therapy forever, man. This is worse than when I had to listen to you read poetry to Maverick while we were on the USS Enterprise.”

Iceman: “Fair.”

And so Admiral Goose Bradshaw carried on, wiser, wearier, and only mildly traumatized. He had survived the IceMav saga, and now the BradleyJake operation was well underway.

Sometimes, he looked up at the stars, wondering if future Bradshaws would continue this glittering, chaotic legacy of falling for their cocky flyboy nemesis.

He prayed not.

But just in case?

He increased the Navy’s mental health budget.

And added “Emotional Disaster Preparedness” to flight school training.

[coke-vapor]

i love his little smile i need to shake him

[coke-vapor]

Ava: Pass me a napkin.

John: Is milady’s arm broken?

Ava: Yours is about to be.

[coke-vapor]

Walker stared as the bubbles on his lemon soda popped, rippling the top. His leg bounced, his hands twisted together.

“I’m sorry I called you Bobby,” he blurts out.

Bob looks up from his magazine, eyebrow raised in question. Walker sighs, rubbing his hands across his thighs to try and dry them off.

“I just- I just mean that in the room… I heard your father and I shouldn’t have-“

“Walker,” Bob interrupted. He looked at John like he could see straight through him. Walker wondered if he should have brought up his father at all or if it was still too sensitive. Stupid, he was always messing it up- “it’s okay,” Bob finished, a small smile on his lips.

“No, I shouldn’t have-“

“Seriously, Walker. It-“ he looked away, as if checking himself. Cleared his throat. “It’s nice to hear someone say it affectionately,” he admits. He seems to cringe at his choice of words but otherwise simply looks back down at his magazine.

Walker picks up his glass, taking a tentative sip. It’s flat and cheap tasting and he swallows to try and get the taste off his tongue.

“You can drink around me, you know?” Bob smiles. Walker looks at him, confused and Bob gestures to the glass in his hand. “I was addicted to substances but alcohol wasn’t really on the list. I was a bit of an overachiever,” he laughed.

“I- I just thought that with your dad-“

“Trust me,” Bob started, closing the magazine now. “If I thought you reminded me of my dad, we wouldn’t be friends.” Walker let the words wash over him, as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He placed the drink down. “Besides,” Bob said, opening the magazine back up and leaning back casually. “It’s nice to see people who can drink without getting angry.”

Walker looked between the lemonade and Bob, thinking back to his last few times drinking. He smiled, leaned back, let the taste of lemon soda sit on his tongue.

It got better after a while.

[coke-vapor]

Walker stared as the bubbles on his lemon soda popped, rippling the top. His leg bounced, his hands twisted together.

“I’m sorry I called you Bobby,” he blurts out.

Bob looks up from his magazine, eyebrow raised in question. Walker sighs, rubbing his hands across his thighs to try and dry them off.

“I just- I just mean that in the room… I heard your father and I shouldn’t have-“

“Walker,” Bob interrupted. He looked at John like he could see straight through him. Walker wondered if he should have brought up his father at all or if it was still too sensitive. Stupid, he was always messing it up- “it’s okay,” Bob finished, a small smile on his lips.

“No, I shouldn’t have-“

“Seriously, Walker. It-“ he looked away, as if checking himself. Cleared his throat. “It’s nice to hear someone say it affectionately,” he admits. He seems to cringe at his choice of words but otherwise simply looks back down at his magazine.

Walker picks up his glass, taking a tentative sip. It’s flat and cheap tasting and he swallows to try and get the taste off his tongue.

“You can drink around me, you know?” Bob smiles. Walker looks at him, confused and Bob gestures to the glass in his hand. “I was addicted to substances but alcohol wasn’t really on the list. I was a bit of an overachiever,” he laughed.

“I- I just thought that with your dad-“

“Trust me,” Bob started, closing the magazine now. “If I thought you reminded me of my dad, we wouldn’t be friends.” Walker let the words wash over him, as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He placed the drink down. “Besides,” Bob said, opening the magazine back up and leaning back casually. “It’s nice to see people who can drink without getting angry.”

Walker looked between the lemonade and Bob, thinking back to his last few times drinking. He smiled, leaned back, let the taste of lemon soda sit on his tongue.

It got better after a while.

[coke-vapor]

Mav and Ice don’t truly start becoming friends until Ice somehow gets de-aged. Sure, Slider stands guard over the kid like it’s his damn job and Mav can barely say hi to him, but he can watch.

And he notices.

How little Tommy Kazansky flinches at loud noises, and that he gets the slightest hint of an accent when he gets agitated, how he goes real quiet when he gets distressed, and several times, Mav overhears Slider telling him that it’s okay to ask if he needs something.

And Tommy Kazansky loves planes but he won’t say it, he'll just stare at them with wide eyed fascination, and he gets real shy when someone actually calls him Tommy, and he'll snap his mouth shut in the middle of a word if Viper comes into the room.

And Mav thinks, Oh.

I understand you now.

Ice comes out of it not remembering anything and Slider glares at anyone who tries to bring it up, but Mav just keeps watching and keeps noticing. And keeps understanding.

[coke-vapor]

Bilingual Ice, my beloved. Translating Polish idioms word for word, randomly switching languages when he's tired around people he feels comfortable with, calling things Polish terms because they fit better, and getting frustrated when no one understands and there's not a good enough English equivalent.

Slider has known him long enough that he understands what he's trying to say and just nods along, he basically has A1 level Polish at this point, and he's helping Mav learn all the Ice-isms.

Ice who swears in Polish when the situation really calls for it. One time, a lieutenant walked to his office and overheard him muttering God knows what - didn't understand a word, only that it sounded so fucking angry that he figured his request can wait.

Ice who, as is the age old curse, forgets words sometimes, and Mav would never dare make fun of him for it, unless he's really desperate for something to deflect with.

Like when Ice is yet again lecturing him on how he should drive his own damn bike, except this time it's kind of different, because Ice sounds genuinely worried, more than before, and it's a hell of lot harder to just dismiss him.

But then Ice shuts up in the middle of a sentence. He's taken a quick breath to continue angrily, says, "You need-!" and then nothing. He opens his mouth on a word that isn't coming and Mav really needs a way out of here, so he dares to smile.

"I need to what?"

"Odpierdol się," Ice mutters, which is a phrase Mav is more than familiar with. Fuck off.

A saving grace, for both of them, probably, comes in the form of Slider casually strolling through the door. He lifts an eyebrow at the two of them standing in the middle of the room, and Ice huffs as he gives up on trying to remember the word he wants on his own.

"Slider," he says, still somehow keeping up the exasperated tone he was using on Mav. "Kask."

Slider grins wide. "He's yelling at you to wear a helmet again, huh?"

Ice throws his hands up. "He might not be so lucky the next time he crashes!"

"You crashed?"

Oh no, this is not working out the way Mav wanted it to, at all. "I didn't!" he tries to defend himself. "I just got scraped!"

"You fell off the bike!" Ice reminds him rudely. "You need to wear- the goddamn thing!"

Mav grabs onto the slightest hesitation in his voice like a drowning man scrambling for the last inch of the rope. "You mean the helmet?"

"Yes! The fucking helmet!"

Mav looks to Slider for help, truly a last ditch attempt, but he just shakes his head. "You really should, you know."

[coke-vapor]

[coke-vapor]

Can you imagine Jake - prim, freshly shaved, fatigues pressed just so - getting off a plane after a six month deployment and seeing newly retired Bradley Bradshaw standing there waiting for him looking like this:

Could you imagine how Jake’s brain would completely short circuit to the point he accidentally fumbles his duffel and then trips over it, because his braincells are melting at the sight. How Bradley just smirks, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to Jake. Jake’s never seen him with any facial hair but the mustache. He’s a little more filled out now that he’s not training and dieting so rigorously. He knows exactly how he looks, and he knows it’ll make Jake - “lots of people have a thing for the Brawny paper towel guy, it’s not weird” - Seresin go completely feral.

“Well. Hello there handsome. Wanna join me in the restroom? Gotta be quick, though, my husband will be here soon.”

“You’re so dumb-“

“I know I said I’d never call you daddy but I think we might have to circle back with that”

“Stop-“

“Can’t. You fucking evolved and didn’t tell me, give me a minute for my brain to reboot. Holy shit, your biceps-“

“You’re impossible,” he smirks, shakes his head, “I missed you, gorgeous. Welcome home.”

“Yeah thanks now hug me with your massive arms Bradshaw”

“I’ll never let you go again, honey. Promise.”

[coke-vapor]

One thing I like about Top Gun (1986) is how believable the development with Ice and Mav's dynamic is.

I've seen a lot of the "Rivals suddenly become buddies after traumatic event together" in media, but I don't think I've seen it done better than in Top Gun. Mostly, I attribute it to how much build up it has.

Most of the time, the 'Rivals' hate each others guts throughout the entire movie/series and then they go through an extremely traumatic event that binds them for life and shifts their entire concept of each other. Ice and Mav never once changed how they saw each other, it just changed their understanding of it.

Ice saw Maverick as dangerous and Mav saw Iceman as stuck-up and commanding. And they weren't wrong, by any means.

From the beginning, they have tension between them because of how different they are. And it ends up in the audience seeing Ice as the 'Antagonist' because that's how Mav sees it, and we're seeing it from his perspective as the protagonist. But Ice was never inherently wrong, in fact he was right.

Other than his first scene, Iceman always has a point in what he's saying. He's criticizing Mav, not insulting him. Sure, he does it in a brash way because masculinity, but he's not trying to insult him, he's trying to knock him down a peg and wake him up to reality. All Ice wants is that he starts to act as a team player, start caring about everybody's safety AND his own, rather than being reckless for the sake of being reckless. But Mav sees it as an insult because he can't process criticism in a healthy way (due to how he grew up). The same thing happened with Charlie, for the record.

And so the strife between the two begins. What I like about it is how it bleeds out of them over time, becoming more settled as the movie goes on. In the locker room "You're dangerous" scene, the tension is palpable. It's obvious they're agitated by each other, and feel the need to prove they're the correct one.

If you pay attention, this whole... demand for superiority goes away as time progresses. They're fine with each other's presence, it's not like they're constantly at each others throat all the time. In the shower scene, Ice dropped all of the aggression and competitiveness from his tone and is instead just laying out what he thinks. He's not undermining Maverick, he's not lecturing him like a child. Iceman is just telling Maverick exactly how he sees the situation in hopes that it would make him realize what the fuck he's doing, but with little hope that it'll actually work.

That doesn't mean Ice is always correct either, he doesn't understand why Mav acts the way he does, thus fails to take into consideration the emotional trauma behind it. Which only causes even more strife.

The entire time, Iceman isn't being a dick for the sake of it, he just wants Mav to stop being stupid (by his standards). And Maverick doesn't understand it because all he gets from what Ice says is insults.

Maverick isn't good at understanding what people mean to say if it's implied, you need to say it to his face. This is the reason he stayed quiet in the shower scene, because Ice finally laid everything out in simple words that he can understand without making it sound like a dick-measuring contest.

Thing is, the tension mellows out. At the beginning, you could see the tension and cut it with a knife. By the middle you can see them getting used to each other without jumping to constantly trade jabs (namely: the volleyball scene, it's just a bunch of guys being dudes, and the scene where Charlie says that Mav flew recklessly in front of the whole class, Ice doesn't comment on it in any way). Over time, they've settled down into their tension without needing to address it all the time.

Then Goose dies.

And the tension between them is still there.

Just because Goose isn't there anymore, doesn't mean their whole dynamic vanishes all of a sudden. You can see their hesitation towards each other (especially Ice), and that's great! It demonstrates that Goose dying doesn't magically resolve their problems with each other in solidarity.

Ice tried to give his consolations to Mav, and is awfully awkward about it. You can see on his face that he wants to say more, but doesn't because he knows it's not his place given their history. And not much is said, but a lot it communicated. (Val Kilmer is a killer actor for this, OH MY FUCKING GOD BLESS THAT MAN)

Even in the graduation scene you can see how out of their depts they really are with each other. A stilted congratulations, that was it. But they're trying, and that's what matters.

A scene I think gets overlooked a lot is the scene right before the Layton, where Ice expressed his worries about Mav to Stinger, and Mav heard him. Because I feel like that was a shift that was more drastic than the Layton itself for them.

What Ice was doing in that scene wasn't doubting Maverick's flying abilities, it was his mental health. Sure, he passed the psych eval, but that means next to jack shit when in a real combat situation so close after his backseater dying. And Ice might be worried that he's gonna be left hanging, but with the way he was speaking I'm more inclined to believe he was more worried about Maverick's wellbeing than himself. Ice almost looked resigned. He knew it was gonna get dismissed because that's the military for you, but he still wanted to try to vouch for Mav to stay groundside, if only to keep his mind at bay.

But Maverick heard him, and as usual, he read it as an insult. He wasn't wrong to assume Ice didn't believe him capable of flying the mission, which wouldn't be a lie, but failed to realize that he had more than one reason to want Maverick on the ground rather than in the air. And for the first time, Maverick believes him.

Up until this point, Mav dismissed all of Ice's so called 'insults' because he was certain in and of himself. But now he isn't anymore.

And it affects his performance in the air. I'm not saying he was as shitty as he was at the start of that combat because of what he overheard, but I am saying that it certainly didn't help matters in the slightest.

So their weird 'stepping-on-eggshells' situation is all over the place by that point. Because they started to care about each other despite not being what one would call proper friends yet. It's establishing a potential friendship by implying that 1. Ice cares about Mav's wellbeing and 2. Mav cares about what Ice thinks.

On the ground, they have the wingman exchange, and their suddenly buddy buddy. Thing is, it wasn't sudden at all.

They've been setting this up the entire fucking movie.

Going back to what I said at the beginning: Ice thinks Mav is dangerous and Mav thinks Ice is stuck-up and controlling. After the Layton, they still think those things because they weren't wrong to begin with. What changed was that instead of seeing it as something that pitted them against each other, it was seen as something that simply was about the other, and that there was no changing it. It could be good.

Mav being dangerous could be good and Ice being stuck-up and controlling could be good, because those were just traits of who they were. By the end of the movie they didn't change how they saw each other, just how they interpreted each other.

And it was built up during the entire fucking movie.

There was a reason to why they acted the way they did with each other because of the stilted interpretation they had of each other. From rivalry to friendship (and perhaps more later down the line), it's glaringly obvious throughout that it wasn't a sudden shift, it was exponential.

That's why I think it was so well developed, because you could see it coming.

[coke-vapor]

one of the things i love about thunderbolts* is how ava makes it clear that she’s not suddenly been cured, but it’s her suit that keeps her from phasing uncontrollably. she can manage it now, but there’s still some drawbacks to that (albeit, wearing a mildly heavy/uncomfortable suit is probably a lot better than being in pain all the time, but she’s still not able to be fully normal, which is often the reality for people trying to manage their chronic pain)