#( thread ) constructing new asgard

[martianbugsbunny]

That's How He Knows He's Yours (A Lokius Fic)

Okayyyy I would have sworn up and down that I had already posted this fic ??? but I did a bunch of different search attempts and I couldn't find it so I guess I didn't

The premise is basically Loki and Mobius are going to a party and Mobius is helping him with his hair, but Mobius has been studying up on the meanings of different Jotun hairstyles and accidentally-on-purpose picks the one that means "I'm taken." Ofc there's a bit of cultural headcanon involved. It's super fluffy w a little bit of flirtatiousness, so read on and enjoy!

The TVA was having a party.

That wasn’t really the important thing, but it was interesting. Mobius couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a party—but they needed to keep their spirits up after finding out that their entire lives were, in fact, lies, so a party it was. Every sector was having its own, because the TVA was too immense for all of the employees to have fit in a single room if they’d been threatened with death to do it.

Well, anyway, the important thing was that Mobius wasn’t going alone. He’d convinced Loki that it would be more fun to go together than to go separately, or not to go at all.

The other important thing was that Mobius had offered to braid Loki’s hair, which had grown considerably longer than it had been the first time they’d met, and that Loki had taken him up on it.

He’d spent hours studying both Jotun and Aesir braiding styles—not just the actual construction, but also the meaning behind them. In the end he’d picked the Jotun style that signaled “I’m taken” because it was beautiful, and because he was pretty sure Loki didn’t know enough about his own culture to know what it meant himself, so Mobius could convince himself it wasn’t that much of a presumption.

“I’m not so sure about this suit,” Loki said, sitting patiently as Mobius brushed his hair before plaiting it. “The gold stripes are a bit much, don’t you think?”

“What happened to the guy who used to strut around wearing gold armor and a cape?” Mobius teased, beginning the first braid. Left under the middle, right under the middle, he muttered under his breath.

“I’ve been wearing your boring TVA clothes for months,” Loki said, holding out one arm to watch the threads glitter. “The drab must’ve rubbed off on me.”

Mobius rolled his eyes. The truth was, he was outside his own comfort zone in a fancy suit. His didn’t have metallic pin-striping on it like Loki’s did (because it was a bit much) but it was a much sharper cut and a much more dashing style than he was used to wearing. He’d been just an analyst in a plain brown suit for centuries, and now here he was all dressed up like he thought he was Prince Charming or something.

He tried to focus more on the different strands of dark hair in his hands than on the way his fingertips brushed against Loki’s temples as he gathered new locks to add to the braids.

He failed.

As he began to pin the braids up using glittering golden hair pins, he tried to focus more on not stabbing Loki’s  scalp than on the brush of his hands against the nape of Loki’s neck.

He failed.

Loki was built like a prince, Mobius sometimes caught himself thinking. It didn’t matter if it was princedom of Asgard or of Jotunheim. There was an elegance in the set of his shoulders, in the movements of his hands as he wielded his magic, and a determination in the curve of his back and the way he stepped, that was utterly regal. Gold, like the simple rings he was wearing that night and the hair pins Mobius had found for him and the single slim chain around his neck, seemed to have been built into the cosmos for no reason other than to decorate Loki's trim form.

That was waxing poetic. Mobius didn’t do that often—only for Loki and Jet Skis. What could he say, they were both remarkable singularities in the universe.

He finished setting the last braid into place, nestled among several others like a crown across the top of Loki’s head. “All done, puss,” he said, patting Loki on the shoulder.

Loki’s head turned slightly to the side at the use of the nickname, and Mobius could just see a smile tugging at the corner of his mauve-tinted lips. “Do I dare look?” he asked.

“I didn’t mess it up that bad,” Mobius said. Loki chuckled and got up from the floor in front of Mobius’s couch to go check his reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room.

Mobius could see the reflected green eyes widening as Loki caught sight of himself. For some reason Mobius’s heart was in his throat.

“I didn’t know you knew how to do this,” Loki said.

“What, braids?” Mobius managed to speak past his racing pulse. “It’s not that hard.” It was, actually, quite difficult to his untrained hands, but learning it for Loki had made it seem easier.

“No. The Jotun style.”

That quick pulse stopped altogether. Mobius sat there, stock still, feeling very much like he was going to throw up if Loki didn’t break the sudden silence.

He turned from the mirror to look Mobius in the eyes properly. He was smiling, his eyes glittering beneath the faint liner he’d applied earlier that evening and a light dusting of shimmery grey eyeshadow. “Seems the pussycat has caught himself a guilty little mouse,” he said, his voice sultry and honey-smooth, dripping into Mobius’s soul. “You didn’t realize I knew what these braids meant.” It was a statement, not a question. There wasn’t a hint of doubt on his face.

“You caught me,” Mobius said. He was impressed with himself for being able to get any words out at all with Loki’s gaze focused on him like that.

“I’m taken, am I?”

Now Mobius found himself entirely unable to speak. What could he say, after all, other than we’ve been spending a lot of time together and you don’t mind when I call you ‘puss’ and I catch you staring at me sometimes in a way nobody ever has? It seemed stupid even in his brain. None of it meant he and Loki were…whatever he’d been subconsciously thinking they could be when he’d picked the style.

Loki walked back across the room, a new sway in his hips that Mobius was positive hadn’t been there before, and sat down on the couch to lean directly into Mobius’s personal space. For a long moment, far too long, far too breathless, he simply studied Mobius’s face, as though he could see everything single thought that had ever crossed his mind.

“We’ll see about that when we get back from the party,” he said finally, gaze flicking briefly down to Mobius’s lips. “Maybe you’re the one who’s going to be…taken.”

He crossed into that last bit of personal space and pressed their lips together, his touch surprisingly light, stunningly tender, as one arm came up to drape across Mobius’s shoulders and draw him even closer.

“Don’t be so sure of yourself, puss.” Mobius finally found his tongue again and flirted back, laying a hand on Loki’s thigh. “You’re the one with the fancy hairstyle to prove it.”

As Loki laughed, Mobius captured his lips in another kiss, just as soft as before but oh-so-many leagues more passionate, and he thanked his lucky stars he’d been fool enough to pick a Jotun way to call Loki his.

[asgardianhammer]

჻ϟ჻ Verses ჻ϟ჻

❝ Those were the days my friend... ❞

v: before the fall ( main ) - memories & pre-Thor I

Before there was war, and suffering, and pain, there was a time when all was peaceful in Asgard. Boisterous and with little regard for rules Thor learns and grows, attempts to make sense out of life and expectations, is nourished and loved. One must learn plenty as the First Born, and finding what being an heir entails comes with many a challenge.

❝ I would rather be a good man than a great king❞

v: rather be a good man than a great king ( main ) - post AV: Endgame

Some things cannot be forgotten, or forgiven... They had landed on Midgard with so few of them, and even less of them remained after the Snap. Friends had vanished, died or left, and what once was a tight knit band of brothers no longer existed. Thor works for his people, and his people alone, and even though New Asgard is created, he knows they cannot stay. Earth has changed, the governments had changed, the people had changed. The agencies that once held his trust either no longer existed, or did not keep their word. He is determined to find a world for his people, wherever that may be. - PREMISE - ( contains all AV: AoU - AV: IW - AV: EG eras with some divergence)

( Default verse: all MCU and MCU related threads of all eras, and interactions/muses, will be placed in this verse )

❝ We were born of legend, our legacy is eternal.❞

v: might of the realms ( myth ) - based on Norse pantheon/myths/sagas

God of the weather, chariot of the storm, Master of rain and torrents, Son of the strength of Mother Earth, I ask you to grant me that strength for myself. You who are so great that you cannot walk Across the Rainbow Bridge without breaking it, You whose tree is the mighty oak, O Thunor, grant me that unending sturdiness. Let me not break beneath the blows of misfortune. Keep me from being crushed when the powerful Stomp their large feet on the smaller ones below. You who are the guardian of the common man, You who care for the farmers and workers, Look upon me here in this place where I am Only one of many, and protect my steps. Make me resilient and mighty as your own arm, Make me unbreakable, you who are Friend of Man.

( Default verse for interactions with other pantheons and deities ( unless plotted/discussed otherwise) )

❝ We never know what the future might hold. ❞

v: a new dawn brings new light ( epilogue ) - future/post main arc completion

Whatever comes next, it will be a grand adventure, with new challenges, new victories and new losses…

We have lost our world and many of our kin. Once the realm eternal had a bright future, now her people are suffering uncertainty and the weight of the past. There is hope and joy still, there are many roads that can be taken still. We will prosper once more, and a better tomorrow is always on the horizon. As Allfather he has become the beacon of hope for his people, revered as the builder of their new world, the bringer of a new era of prosperity.

Alternate Universes / AU ( on request )

v: our kingdom come ( vikings ) - premise

v: path of the berserker ( au ) - premise

v: red verse ( au ) - premise - dark!Thor - trigger heavy

v: only one law you gotta follow ( modern ) ( mafia ) - premise

v: even nothing cannot last forever ( american gods ) - premise

v: undying earth indestructible faith ( GoT )

v: gates of destiny ( au ) - premise - (( this is the verse i abuse to throw him into any and all au's or fandom that i like ))

you can check out my massive/extensive verses page here ( that is always/again under heavy construction )

[storiesofwildfire]

Constructing New Asgard

          { @chooserofslain -- plotted starter }

♔—- She wanted to say that everything had gone according to plan, that she’d stopped Thanos before he could do any further damage, but that hadn’t been the case. All of her efforts and all of the work everyone who interacted with and attempted to stop Thanos had been for nothing. Even surrendering the Tesseract to protect the rest of the surviving Aesir and faking her death to get away from Thanos and give herself more time to halt Thanos’ progress had been a waste.

Giving Thanos the Tesseract left a tremendous amount of guilt on her shoulders, but what else could she have done? Lied and said that she didn’t have it? That very well might have worked, until Thanos decided to slaughter everyone who survived Hela’s attack on Asgard and take Loki back into captivity as he’d done so many years ago after Loki’s fall from the Bifrost.

One way or another, the Mad Titan would have gotten his hands on the Tesseract. Unless, of course, Loki had simply run off with it. The thought crossed her mind. After all, it was the Space Gem. She could travel anywhere she wanted with it, far enough to keep it from Thanos, but if she had, what would have become of the rest of her people? 

Anyone could say what they wanted about Loki’s time as king, but she’d proved she cared about the people of Asgard, that she wanted to see them thrive and prosper without living under a ruler who believed in violence, bloodshed, and conquest above all else. She put in the effort to protect them and to improve their way of life. For all intended purposes, she’d been a good king and despite the centuries she felt as if Asgard turned its back on her, they were her people.

Sacrificing them to protect an Infinity Stone from Thanos would have been the logical option, but an option that Loki could not opt for, no matter how much she screamed at herself to run for the greater good.

She hadn’t.

And she survived where so many others had not. The snap came and went as quickly as one would expect from such a simple gesture and just like that, half the universe’s population disappeared. They didn’t die, they simply ceased existing altogether. In a few simple words, she failed, despite her many attempts to ensure Thanos never succeeded in his mad plans. The burden of guilt that rested upon her shoulders spanned to many others who stood up to Thanos and failed and she was not alone in her feelings, but where did she have to go now? What more could she even do?

If nothing else, she had her children to survive for. Jörmungandr, Sleipnir, and Fenrir took shelter in Helheim with Hel and their adopted sister, Saga, a place where Thanos’ influence would not touch. After all, he only impacted living people and Helheim was no realm for the living. At least she did not suffer the loss every mother feared more than anything again.

Her children were not the only people she had left, though. Despite how small their numbers were now, she still had Asgard, a people broken and lost but not yet extinct. They suffered more loss than most and they were struggling to find a place they belonged. 

Better judgment, after everything that transpired, told the Goddess not to return to them, that blame would likely be pinned on her as it so often was, and that they would not be accepting of Loki once they realized her current face belonged to the same person. She’d used her female visage for years to mingle with Aesir without them connecting her to the prince, but she was still very much herself. Would a change of face help her or hinder her, though, she wondered? If she were honest with the people of her identity, that was?

And as odd as it was, she didn’t want to lie to them anymore, she just wanted to help them get settled and transition to their less than ideal but workable conditions. They needed all the support they could get if they wanted to keep from losing their hope. 

If any lingered at all.

Returning to them hadn’t been difficult, a simple tracking spell to follow where the remaining Aesir finally touched down and mingled on Asgard, but coming to what truly looked like a miserable place punched a hole through her heart, one she couldn’t even pretend to be surprised about anymore. Asgard was part of her, no matter how much she didn’t want to admit it or accept it, and it would always impact her.

It wasn’t so much a settlement yet, though, as it was a group of people who had no home and weren’t entirely sure how to proceed. Was anyone even leading them or attempting to? She wasn’t sure on Thor’s status, wasn’t even sure of which Asgardians were still left, but she approached anyway.

One face stuck out to her almost immediately, that of a Valkyrie she’d met on Sakaar and bumped heads with more than once. Brunnhilde wasn’t much of a friend, really, at least, not yet, and not typically someone Loki would think to turn to, but they had faced Hela together, they both had the same goals in the end, and if Brunnhilde was helping the rest of their people, perhaps reacquainting with her was for the best.

“Brunnhilde?” Loki called, her tone significantly softer and more feminine than the deep voice Loki had a tendency to be known for. Though her tone was still deeper than average, it carried a nice melody to it, the type of voice someone could get lost listening to for hours. It helped with the lying and the storytelling she’d become renowned for.

A small smile tugged at the Goddess’ lips, though it was difficult to maintain given the bleak circumstances that lingered around their people. “I am so relieved to see you survived.” For the time being, it didn’t even occur to her that Brunnhilde may not recognize her. This form was as much Loki as the face most were used to and sometimes--especially when preoccupied--it was easy to forget it wasn’t normal for most to place her different forms. 

Perhaps that would work to her benefit in the long run? She really didn’t know what to expect at this point. This was completely uncharted territory. 

[bedlamsbard]

1900 words written today -- I’m within a couple hundred words of ending this story, but if I write them tonight I’ll have to rewrite them tomorrow anyway, so I might as well cut out the middleman and wait until tomorrow. also I finished rewatching AoU: what an absolute trainwreck of a movie.

Snippet from The Horizon Line chapter 17.

Dr. Selvig and Darcy came out next, carrying their bags.  Natasha and Loki both turned towards them; Loki hesitated for an instant, then passed Freki to Natasha.  He offered his hand to Selvig. “Erik.”

Selvig took it with only an instant of hesitation.  Darcy actually hugged Loki, then had to wait until Natasha had turned the cat back over to him so that she could hug Natasha too.

“You’re both of you welcome in New Asgard,” Loki said. “Just call ahead first, or you’ll get an unpleasant surprise from the wards.”

Darcy’s face lit up in surprised delight. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Loki said. “I might wait until there are more than two buildings constructed – three if you count the bathhouse – but yes.”

“Awesome.”

Loki grinned, bemused by her enthusiasm, then looked at Selvig, who said, “I’d like that.  In spring, maybe.”

“In spring,” Loki agreed.

“The new year,” Steve said. “May it be better than this one.”

“Well, it can’t get worse,” Darcy said, and they all winced. “Okay, maybe don’t tempt fate.”

“Maybe don’t,” Loki said brightly. “The Norns always keep aside a few stray threads that can be woven into the tapestry of our wyrd at need.”

“I’m going to assume that means what I said,” Darcy said, “except in more words.”

[trisshawkeye]

Mímisbrunnr

Mechanisms Tribute Week, Day 4 - The Bifrost Incident

(Odin’s side of an event mentioned in Fearsome Engines, though it’s not required reading to understand this fic.)

Odin is haunted by her dreams. She can’t quite remember where the original idea came from—some throwaway comment about a wormhole transportation system by someone, somewhere, maybe. Only that one night she dreamt about it, and from then on could not shake the desire to make it a reality. 

It wasn’t hard to justify the Bifrost project to herself or to the rest of the administration of Asgard. A dominion spanning a star system needed ever more sophisticated methods of transportation, after all, and its development would continue to cement Asgardian supremacy into the inhabitants of the Yggdrasil planets. But if she was honest with herself, she knew that it was something deeper and far more personal that drove her into this project, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

It worried at her, for a long while. While outwardly she presented the composed, determined and absolutely immoveable front she always did, both with the public and with Baldur and Loki assisting with the project, she found herself continually questioning and second-guessing herself. That wasn’t like her at all, but the truth was that while she had the strongest of conviction in every other part of her life, her dreams were just… dreams. No matter how compelling they seemed to her in the moments after waking, it just didn’t seem reasonable to stake so much on something so random and fallible as dreams. Even if all of her dreams were of the same thing.

All of that changed with Mimir.

Until then, while wormholes had been a mathematical reality for centuries, no one had yet invested sufficient funds and expertise into trying to construct one that was bigger than an atom and lasted for longer than a microsecond. Her uneasiness regarding her dreams aside, Odin could be confident in the leaps and bounds she was responsible for in the fields of mathematics, theoretical physics, and gravitational engineering. Through the resources at her disposal as head of Asgard and her sheer force of will, in a matter of years the cutting edge of the field moved from the transportation of a single atom through a short-lived tunnel a micron across, to the first ever stable wormhole to be created.

It was the Mimir experiment, and consisted of the creation of precise, identical gravitational warps within two large, heavily shielded containers in one of Odin’s more secure laboratories. The warps successfully connected and a test weight was experimentally transferred between them, disappearing from one chamber and reappearing in the other. It emerged twisted and warped into a strange, fractal-like shape with too many spikes and not enough edges, but the experiment was still a wild success. Academic journals exploded with articles, the press resounded with glowing praise, and the project felt real to Odin for the first time. 

Once she’d had a glimpse of the shifting light within the wormhole, her dreams took on a rainbow hue, and she was overcome with the urge to see more. Very little could be seen of the wormhole itself through the small viewing screens outside of the Mimir chambers, but when Odin closed her eyes at night, she found herself stood before the twisting maw of its opening, looking into its depths and seeing… what, she never could remember when she woke. And she knew it was folly, but the desperation wore her down until one night she entered her lab alone. 

She was under no illusions as she removed the safety shielding and disabled the barriers one by one—she knew that she would likely suffer great harm, if it did not kill her outright. But she also knew, with a strange certainty deeper than any she had felt before, that looking into Mimir would grant her a true understanding of it, all of the knowledge she needed to bring about the Bifrost itself. And if that knowledge demanded sacrifice to obtain, then she would sacrifice herself to herself for it. 

The last of the barriers trembled as she wrenched them open, space around the now-unshielded mouth of the wormhole warping unsteadily. And then she was before it, standing enraptured as she stared down the mouth of that swirling rainbow well. For a moment, she could see the lab and the back of her own head through the tiny observation window within the other chamber. Then a movement in front of her eyes caught her attention—a few tiny shards of metal from her hurried disassembly of the shielding were drifting in the vicinity of the wormhole opening, the twisting of gravity no longer pulling them towards the ground but rather into its mouth. Odin watched, enthralled, as they wobbled and oscillated in the ever-increasing chaotic field into which they fell, bending and stretching beyond their natural shape until some final instability turned three-dimensional shards into one-dimensional beams—and mangled reality shot to infinity and pierced her through her eye.

Odin heard herself scream, and the echo of it, and its echo, repeated through descending frequencies, stretched longer and longer and louder and louder and all overlaid in the creation of a single eternal red noise of suffering. The rainbow was all that she could see through the burning agony of her sight, and the rainbow was everything. The roiling folds of infinitely twisted space opened themselves to her in endless cosmic churning. Transfixed, she could do nothing but watch the coiling ribbons of all that she knew reality to be unfold before her vision. And then a second beam pierced her side.

Gravity broke down entirely in an instant—every part of her body reported a different direction as up and she felt her very being stretch impossibly through every dimension—she was an infinite plane, she was the angular vortex of a bismuth crystal, she was a tesseract in rotation, she was a kaleidoscope, she was a mandelbulb, she was everything and nothing, and through it all she was suspended by lancing pain over the inevitable finality of a twisting rainbow void beyond sanity, the constancy of the torment the only thing holding her sense of self together. She hung there, and saw the Yggdrasil system far below her—a faint smudge, mere wisps of matter held together by thread, shadow puppets against the prismatic radiance searing itself into her mind. 

Hours passed, then days passed—nine of them, if Odin’s own estimate through her turmoil had any meaning. The swirling rainbow was everything, all she knew and could ever know, the dread truth behind the veil of reality—and then it was gone. All was darkness and void and a dizzying sickness, like the blurring of vision before passing out, until Baldur’s worried face resolved itself above her and she found herself on the floor of her lab only hours after she had entered, the memory of her experience already slipping away from her frantic grasp, leaving strange new fragments of knowledge behind in its wake. It was all she needed. As medics and technicians swarmed in to retrieve her from the mangled ruins of the lab and ferry her to a hospital she began to laugh. 

Odin’s dreams are louder now, clearer, more strange and more beautiful. She still does not know what they mean. But she knows now—she has everything she needs to see her mission through. And she no longer doubts a thing.

[starwritesfanfics]

Stars Across the Pantheons

So this title may change if I think of something better lol but here’s the beginning of a new series I am really excited about, it’s something new! Hopefully, you guys like it as well. Obvious at this point, but since you’re a Greek goddess, you might wanna do research into how fucked up the Greek pantheon family is. I forwarn this because I don’t know if I will mention it in this story, but it won’t be like...super focused on. This is also obviously a part 1 but you knew that.

The journey through the Bifrost was interesting for you. It was a way of travel you had never experienced before and found it rather enjoyable. It was much better than the way your father used to travel Greece. Human form and their transportation was never your favorite. You much preferred the Norse method now.

Why, you may ask, is a girl and her father, from Greece, traveling through the Norse gods’ Bifrost to Asgard? Well, your father was Zeus, king of the gods, making you a young goddess. Your mother, Hera, didn’t wish to leave Olympus and trusted you to keep your father “in line” while you were out. Now, you were wondering why your father had brought you here to begin with.

“Lord Zeus, Odin, Frigga, and his sons are on their way to meet you. Hello, Princess.”

You smiled politely, feeling the awkward nervousness creep up on you. “Hello, Heimdal. Thank you for allowing us to travel safely.”

He returned the smile, bowing slightly at the waist before your father ushered you on the path of the rainbow bridge. It wasn’t terribly long before you saw four figures nearing you and felt your father’s hand rest between your shoulder blades. A sense of unease settled over you as he guided you towards the imposing gods. You had never been to another realm of the gods before and the implications that your father had brought you and you alone here were not the best in your mind.

“Odin! It’s so good to see you again, old friend!”

The one-eyed man laughed loudly and you ducked your head, hands clasped in front of you. Your father’s hand dropped as he shook the other god’s hand and, using the slight chance that there was a distraction to the rest of the family, you glanced up at the other three.

There was a very beautiful woman, long blonde hair pulled back from her face, a ring of braids around the top of her head like a crown, a long dress in a far different style than you’ve ever seen, and a small, polite smile on her face. She must have been Frigga.

The next was a man with long blond hair, it was easy to see who he took after more. Even at a glance, Frigga and he looked far more approachable and nice than Odin. At his hop was a rather large hammer. He was Thor, obviously. You knew enough about the mortals’ myths of the Norse gods to know that.

The last man, he looked bored. His dark hair was slicked back and shorter than all of the rest of theirs. He wasn’t even looking at your father. Rather, he was staring at you, blue-grey eyes boring into you.

You dropped your head again. Out of all of them, he intimidated you the most. It wasn’t even that he was scary. Compared to the rest of them, he was the least threatening. The blond man was rather buff in appearance, his father was towering, and his mother was so regal in appearance that you felt much smaller than you normally did beside your father. No, this man was intimidating because you had no idea what he was capable of.

And that interested you.

When your father’s hand came back down on your shoulder, you jumped, literally. What you failed to notice was the slight wince that came from the black haired god. Your back straightened, head up proudly in a practiced way as you smiled at the other family. Zeus looked proud as well, though in the more egotistical way than your practiced way. Your eyes held a story of being nervous and slightly uncomfortable being presented the way you were.

It felt odd to be wearing the Greek toga that was draped over your form when it seemed to be very meager covering compared to the apparent normal dress that was here in Asgard. You didn’t feel as dressed up as you figured a god here should be. Granted, the typical white toga was adorned by a golden belt of laurels, your wrist cuffs were golden as well, and golden threading along the bottom hem of your cloth. The open, laced sandals on your feet even felt far too out of the ordinary for you to feel any sort of confidence in your appearance in front of what you knew to be some of the most powerful Scandinavian gods.

Despite the turbulent emotions swirling within you, you followed after your father and the other two adults, the two men that appeared as the same age as you did (though you all were gods so who truly knew the extent of your ages according to the mortals) fell into step beside you. Without your father there, your shoulders had dropped some of their tension, however, the new and seemingly terrifying forms now next to you, the tension had regathered and you were back into your performance attitude.

“Hello, my Princes. May I help you?”

Thor grinned at you and, from your now closer proximity, you noticed he was just beginning to grow hair on his face. He must’ve been a young god, still.

“Perhaps by relaxing a bit. We welcome you as friends, after all!”

You nearly felt the other man rolling his eyes as you finally cracked a smile. A real, genuine smile.

“I thank you, Prince Thor. I have never visited another pantheon before, it is a strange and new experience for me to be here.”

“Trust me,” the black haired one said to your side, “it is truly nothing to be impressed by.”

“I am afraid I must contradict you, the construction is a simple example of amazement in itself.”

He glanced at you from the corner of his eye, a wary, unsure look hovering just under the distrust he held of someone new. Almost as if he was sizing you up. You just smiled with a small glimmer of enjoyment.

“Thor! Loki! You will be in charge of showing her around during her stay,” their father called back to the three of you, the three older gods turning as they walked to look back.

Thor seemed ecstatic to be able to spend more time with you, maybe learn how the Greeks fought while you were there. Loki, however, seemed far more hesitant, though both brothers did agree to their father’s wishes in the end.

This trip would truly be a new experience in many different ways for you, wouldn’t it?

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Four (23.52% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Loads of fun, though tonally dissonant; works best on first viewing. Easily the superior film of the Thor franchise, though that’s not a huge achievement considering its predecessors.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Sigh.

Female characters:

Hela.

Scrapper 142 (I know, she is credited as Valkyrie, but since the name is never used to address her in the film it doesn’t count by the rules of this blog; if she didn’t happen to be referred to by her scrapper number a few times, she wouldn’t count as a named character at all).

Topaz.

Natasha Romanoff.

Male characters:

Thor.

Surtur.

Skurge.

Loki.

Stephen Strange.

Odin.

Volstagg.

Hogun.

The Grandmaster.

Carlo.

Korg.

Bruce Banner.

Heimdall.

OTHER NOTES:

The use of Immigrant Song is my favourite thing about this movie, to be honest. I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s just such a good choice.

The inclusion of Doctor Strange in this film feels like a pointless misstep, a distraction at what is really a vital early point in establishing tone, especially considering this useless scene is what leads us in to...

...the literal death of Odin and introduction of Big Bad Hela, all of which should be emotional and intense and is instead flat and dissonant in the extreme. Watching this for the first time, I was very concerned that the whole film was just gonna end up gimmicky and soulless. While it does pick up, I was also not wrong about that early assessment.

Not that I was attached to Thor’s friends from the previous films, but they sure do just kill them off without fanfare, except for Sif who just doesn’t appear at all (logically, we should assume she dies off-screen, otherwise there’s no reason for her not to be up-front with Thor at the end of the movie). Fandral doesn’t even get a line in before he croaks, that’s how irrelevant these franchise-veteran characters are. Emotional engagement in plot and character is for chumps, anyway.

*whispers* Jeff Goldblum is here.

“Piss off, ghost!”

Hulk reveal is pretty solid, if you manage not to have been spoiled (a tall order, since it was in the promos).

Heimdall is still the MVP of the Thor franchise.

Can’t believe it took this long for any movie to squeeze some real fun and heart out of the Hulk character. This is way better than embarrassingly forcing a love match on him.

The valkyrie-battle memory is soooo good-looking.

This movie is too recent to be using the word ‘gypsy’...

Thor’s story about Loki pretending to be a snake when they were kids is the good shit.

But, Immigrant Song is still the most inspired choice of the film. Not sorry.

So, this is one of those movies which I felt was pretty over-hyped, to be honest. It is great fun, don’t get me wrong, it’s fresh and hilarious and subversive and way the Hell better than the previous Thor films, plus it has a great cast and strong visuals and they used Immigrant Song really effectively...but the tone of the film is an absolute fucking mess, the plotting is a shambles, and there’s nowhere near as much heart and weight underpinning it all as what there should be for a movie involving the near-total destruction of an entire civilisation. The majority of the movie is handed over to a shenanigan-heavy side-plot of no consequence to the central conflict, while the central conflict - LITERAL RAGNAROK - is relegated to a handful of scenes sprinkled across the film, obliterating any chance of it seeming meaningful or even particularly serious. The strongest point of the story is the final act, once Thor and company finally get to Asgard to confront Hela, but the narrative doesn’t earn that strong finish; it just goes to show how much more engaging the rest of the film could have been if they had stayed on track.

This is a big part of why this movie - while a delightful surprise on first viewing - doesn’t age particularly well on repeat; this was my fourth time through, and by the third quarter, as Sakaar draaaagged through its roster of jokes and pratfalls, my attention span was waning fast. Even if the entire garbage-planet sidebar was not distracting from what should have been a very serious main plot, I’m not sure it would remain engaging long-term, since it is rather spare and low on emotional/character investment; it’s not a pitfall of comedy that has to exist (heavily-emotional and/or dark comedies are definitely a real thing), but unfortunately, this is not a movie that is very interested in what has come before it, and it expresses that disinterest by neglecting any element of the established Thor mythology which might have brought this plot a sense of meaning. As such, rather than feeling like ‘the Thor movie that finally got it right’, it’s more like a reboot, with old characters unceremoniously ditched and any sense of purpose or import in old story threads or histories gone right alongside Asgard itself.

I’ve seen people praise this film for its ‘anti-Imperialism, anti-colonialism’ message, but I feel it’s a point weakly made onscreen; any depth to that argument would require a more sincere effort from the script in addressing those scant Asgard scenes, and as such, I feel that this element - though it isn’t completely wishful thinking - is much more in the eye of the beholder than it is a function of the narrative itself. The attempt to engage with any thoughtful discussion on Asgard’s legacy is a swift casualty of the film’s overall superficiality, just the same as the devastation of Asgard and the decimation of its population is blithely underplayed because, hey, Thor vs Hulk is worth way more attention than genocide, right? It’s that tonal dissonance in the two pieces of the plot which keeps me from really relaxing and enjoying the lightness, because that lightness is both excessive and out-of-place; I feel uncomfortable being asked to just shrug and go with it, I want to be emotionally involved and moved by the plight of the Asgardians, and instead I’m stuck watching Thor get a haircut and an eyeful of Hulk dick. Under almost any other circumstances, I would be all about a hard-comedy version of Thor, especially after the generic drudgery of the earlier installments in the franchise, but at the same time as Ragnarok? Not so much.

That said? This film is definitely not without quality. Comedic quality, for sure (anything with Taika Waititi’s name attached is worth a look), and there really are some great casting flourishes (though I maintain disappointment that the Asgard plot is so undersold, because it means Karl Urban and especially Cate Blanchett are under-utilised); for the interests of this blog, it’s that Scrapper 142 aka Valkyrie who forms the highlight (and she’s a worthy highlight without the context of this blog, too). Valkyrie’s drunk, angry sauntering and her snappy disregard for Thor’s righteous pontificating positions her within an archetype normally restricted to male characters only, too loose and unseemly for a female character, who might be found dislikeable and (horror of horrors) too sloppy to be sexy, whereas a man in the same archetype is funny, a ‘lovable asshole’, and the perception of his appearance is not tied up in his behaviour the same way nor is he under the same pressure to prioritise his appeal for the audience in the first place. Angry male drunkards who begrudgingly tag along with the protagonist in the end because they’re surly but not bad, those are a dime a dozen, but a woman in the same position? A rare gem indeed. And Valkyrie is more than just a fresh twist on an old cliche; her personality is grounded, it has a relatable simplicity (disillusionment with a side-order of survivor’s guilt), and there’s a confidence about the way she and the unspoken parts of her life are presented, without need to force a connection with Thor and his personal plight in order to justify Valkyrie’s actions or relevance to the plot. She’s an entirely self-contained character who could just as easily have the story to herself with no further mention of Thor et al., and that’s the hallmark of any well-constructed character: the ability to stand alone.

As a whole, this movie is far from bad - when I call it overrated, I am very much talking about the fact that it’s mostly a string of shenanigans with minimal narrative underpinning, and while that’s not a terrible thing in itself, I do think the hype around this movie implied that it had something more to offer than just laughs and a retro look. For me personally, the lack of emotional engagement and character stakes is close to a fatal flaw, and so while I enjoy this movie on a superficial level, it gives me nothing I need in order to really dig it (for others, obviously, this is not a problem). It always rubs me the wrong way to see something completely disavow previous chapters in the same story - there’s a big difference between developing an idea in a new direction, and simply ditching whatever you didn’t like about what came before - and I would have preferred to see this film make its changes with at least a modicum of respect for the foundations it is building upon (basic as the previous Thor films were, they weren’t catastrophic embarrassments). And yes, ultimately, the burying of the Ragnarok plot under a pile of Planet Garbage (feat. Jeff Goldblum) is just a little unforgivable in my mind, and it’s the first thing I think of whenever this film pops up; I really, really wish that Ragnarok were not part of this plot at all, that the Sakaar part of the story (i.e. the part that The Powers That Be were actually invested in, clearly) formed the bulk of the second film in the Thor franchise instead, since that movie basically sucked and took itself too seriously, and then the Thor film which took itself seriously could have been actually about Ragnarok. Basically, I wish that Marvel had gotten their shit together sooner rather than later with this part of the franchise, because while this worked out fine for them monetarily, narratively it’s just not a step I can get behind.

[araedi]

Endgame and this blog

OK SO I’m not gonna give a massive rundown of my thoughts on the movie as a whole (feel free to IM/Discord and chat about it tho!) because honestly we could be here forever the movie’s like 3 hours long. Instead under the cut is a more specific discussion about Thor / my interpretation of him relating to Endgame, what I’ll be doing with him post-Endgame on here and some plot ideas/wishlist things if anyone wants to come do a thing!

Also Imma use bullet points bc they look better.

- Chonky Thor is loved in this household; making his clearly disastrous mental state a cheap joke is not.

- Honestly in terms of arc exploration I dig the concept of his decline because after everything he’s bound to hit breaking point. The way it was handled is what makes me prickly. Infinity War gave us a glimpse of something much more nuanced; Bruce started trying to be sensitive to the situation when they first meet but that’s about it and I wish they’d tried to maintain that sensitivity.

- Also sue me but I refuse to believe that Steven ‘good man with his own baggage’ Rogers; Bruce ‘I got low’ Banner or Tony ‘I completely sympathise with the PTSD’ Stark wouldn’t even have visited New Asgard over the 5-year span?? 

- My boy needs a shower, a shave and a snuggle. Pls supply.

- LIGHTING! UP! TONY’S! SUIT! YES! Superhero synergy makes me a happy man it was so long overdue.

- HE’S SO PROUD OF STEVE AND SO SOFT FOR HIM PLS LET MY THUNDER LAD LOVE ON ALL STEVES ASAP

- Actually Thor wants to love on all the Avengers stat.

- 2012 Thor jumpstarting Tony by whopping Mjolnir on his chest all the while being all I HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS IS GONNA WORK. Iconic. @Russos this is the sorta inter-team bs we all crave why couldn’t we have had more of this.

- P sure most stuff I’d fix would mean dialogue rewrites and extra screentime for Thor which isn’t all that feasible for the scope of the movie, but knowing the aether’s location in the timeline aside you can take Thor out of EG and he barely influences the narrative whatsoever which is Frustrating. 

How this all feeds into canon portrayal on the blog

- I’m gonna keep the framework of events for EG canon to this blog but take a less comedic approach to Thor’s portrayal. That’s really p much it; just running the scenes more sensitively and maybe working in some extra interactions where Thor became too closed off to accept offered help over the 5 years, which began to be worn away once Time Heist was put into action. 

- In terms of the ending..I love the GotG but can’t see Thor being content to stay for long without getting itchy. He’s either taking a few months out with them to ‘do something good’* out in the universe before returning to Midgard; looking for Loki or exploring the galaxy for new opportunities. 

- That being said give me more Thor development with Peter and less competition. I’d love to see them both talk affectionately about their mothers and really come to understand that they’re both similarly used to disguising insecurities with brashness.

- Thor stays in direct contact with Valkyrie and I will not accept any version of Thor where he would just abandon what remains of his people after all he’s been through. He uses the Bifrost via Stormbreaker to return to Midgard regularly and keep an eye on proceedings, as well as offer Valkyrie advice and support. He hopes war is over but even if he’s given the crown away he’s going to remain Asgard’s protector.

Wishlist-stuff wise this is just like a bunch of ideas/opportunities to kick off ideas for plots. HMU if any of these appeal and we’ll work something out! c: 

- The days between the Snap and confronting Thanos.

- Anything immediately post-beheading.

- The construction of New Asgard / inviting team members to the first few nights’ celebrations.

- The 5-year span has a t o n of potential for anything!

- Nightmare/dream scenarios during Thor’s 5 years?? Especially with characters dead/dusted/villains.

- Some wrangled time-travel nonsense

- The final battle! I’m a slut for battle threads so pls feel free

- All the Tony angst

- Post-EG can be anywhere in the galaxy, on Midgard, with the Guardians or other planets!

* Don’t talk to me about that scene it broke me

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 39

Spoilers, obv.

And we collapse forward on the keyboard and twitch a while. This has been nightmarishly hard. I suspect the last arc will be hard (as nothing in WicDiv is easy) but the things we were juggling here were something else.

Before we dive in, some top-level thinking. The advantage of the way WicDiv is constructed is that we know what we're doing. A friend was just rereading the first arc, and noted how certain elements and approaches simply changed as the tone of the book solidified – while also noting that every direction we did take was there from the off. We knew the What We Were Doing but not always the specific How.

(Not least, as I was a hot mess in 2014. I'm amazed the WicDiv scripts weren't just bahsjasjfaglagsfk.)

But the problem with knowing the direction of the book is you're tied to ideas you may wish you hadn't put in play. Because a five year book is enough time to change significantly in what you consider a good idea or not – and even if you still think it's a good idea in the abstract, it doesn't mean it's an idea you would necessarily want to do any more.

At this point, there's various things flying around. Firstly, Laura has rejected her godhood. That's great. That's clearly the arc of the book. Secondly, Ananke is running her own eternal scheme with its eternal rules. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Ananke (and I'm using “Ananke” for “Ananke and Minerva” here) is significantly deceiving people on some key matters, and using the holes in their knowledge to her advantage. At this point in the story the same thing happens to her. We see that her own perception is also incomplete.

So – what's the thing she's missing?

I fell upon Maiden/Mother/Crone as a structure to create a relationship between Ananke/Persephone/Minerva. What action would Ananke buy?

It has to be archetypal and mythic. Cheaty postmodernism doesn't work. Myth is brutal and basic and ugly and wrong.

So – if the Mother archetype has a child, Ananke's doomed forever. It breaks the little eternal circle and Ananke thinks herself trapped in that sensory void forever.

There's nothing in the above specifically and individually which worries me too much. It's how they intersect with the rest of the plot, and how we can chart a line between them all without saying anything we don't want to say, or without causing undue emotional distress in a way we're uncomfortable with.

We end up with our solution, which is merely our best solution, which means it's far from perfect. We do as much as we can, and try and touch on stuff as gently as we can to avoid any fair misreading of the story. Even so, there's resonances in there I dislike.

There's a sentence that is said all the time in writing room situations: “This is the bad version.” It's said when people are brainstorming, and asking the audience to know this isn't good, but they are good enough writers to make it better – it's just a structure of the sort of things that the narrative could delineate.

It's easy to imagine The Bad Version of this plot. Laura finding out she has to have a kid to save the world! Baal and Baphomet fighting over who's the father! An issue cliffhanger where you think Laura's own choice has doomed the world! I shudder. Like, someone with a different aesthetic to me would have done all of the above.

Instead, what we try to do is what we have to do to make the story work, and do it in the safest way possible. It's the guiding aesthetic of most of this issue, in terms of separating the two key threads – namely not confusing Laura's choice to have an abortion and Laura's choice to reject godhood.

But still – I spent four years trying to think of something that Ananke would buy, based on our implicit story, which wasn't this, and failed. I'd rather not have gone this way. I'm happy with the issue, but it was a heartbreaking amount of work as I take all of this intensely seriously.

So, to return to the opening, the problem with being as structured as WicDiv is means that you are tied to decisions you made years ago, without which the story simply breaks.

DIE (aka Project Spangly New Thing) rejects this kind of plotting. It's just as messy emotionally as WicDiv (hell, even more so) but leaves the characters a lot more narrative freedom. I'd have done it anyway (because I hate to repeat myself) but the experience on arcs like this certainly feeds into it.

Anyway – I'll be talking some specifics in this as we go through, as I suspect it may be useful for people thinking about the impact of choices.

Jamie's Cover: Ananke in her cavewoman chic. That means 2 “persephone”, 2 “minerva” and 2 “Ananke” covers for this arc. The symmetry seems fun.

Phil Jimenez's Cover: I first saw Phil's work in his pop-thrill issues of The Invisibles, an obviously influential work on yours truly. We worked together on Angela: Asgard's Assassin together, which was a thrill, and this glam-metal take on her. He's also very lovely. As such, Minerva in full-on catwalk mode is a great take. I love these kind of maximalist high-thrill ones. And LIZ's ‘When I rule the world’ has just come on my WicDiv shuffle at this point, which seems appropriate for Minerva stomping down a lightning-catwalk. Also, Dee Cunniffe (who has flatted nearly all of WicDiv) provides colours. Nice work, Dee.

Page 1-2

Black spaces. Like the opening of the arc – C's idea, I believe. Also, ensuring we get our page turns right. We dropped the recap for once. Normally we'd drop it in the mid-point of the issue instead of the first interstitial, but it would have broken the space.

Obviously mirroring the start of this arc.

The first obvious bit of delineation: this is ten days after the end of last issue. Laura stopped being Persephone 10 days ago. As such, anything that happens now is not connected to that.

The biggest reading we wanted to avoid: “Laura's abortion is the ritual by which she rejects and escapes the Persephone-Mother archetype”. Especially if people, either pro or anti choice, could make an argument we're saying we're saying the act is human sacrifice – a reading which seems especially possible in a story that already has human sacrifice in it.

Page 3-4-5-6

Reestablishing what folks have been up to in the gap – in short, bits and pieces, bits of information the characters should exchange, etc.

The Cass/Woden dialogue is stuff I'd have liked to get into issue 33, but was cut due to space and focus. It was Mimir's scene, and as he's been silent for the whole book, he gets to speak. The “He stole my life/I stole his” was all that was required. This is detail. Interesting detail, but detail. And, yes, loaded.

There's a lot of “starting other stuff” in this sequence – clearly the “ritual” is going to be important next arc.

I love what Jamie is doing quietly with Mimir and the boxes at the back of the room on page 4. Like, I wonder what's in each of those boxes, right? There's some horrible pure objectification here. Like, Pokémon. Got to catch them all.

You can tell that Woden is more chill with Minerva, right?

It was originally written with Minerva noting that mind-controlled-sex-is-rape at the end of page 4. That felt frankly aggressive, as if we were using it as a punchline. Instead, we soften it, and move it mid-panel, which changes the feeling around it, hopefully.

On page 6, I really like the “Hmm. You're learning.” It still makes me laugh.

Making the gun's controls REALLY VISUALLY OBVIOUS is not exactly subtle, but 100% needed to make sure the scene make sense.

Page 7-8-9

With a month gap between issues, it's possible that the reader may not have noticed that we've changed the issue structure from the rest of this arc. It's not “past stuff then present stuff” like the others. It's at least one reason why we didn't give a preview – that and that the first pages of the issue are entirely non-characteristic in terms of where the issue goes.

Anyway – first page is a pure repeat from issue 34, so a free page. This issue is a little longer than normal, due to normal cheats. It's actually 20 new pages long... plus one new panel.

Page 8 is very peak Jamie, plus Matt, for a certain mode. I never get bored of seeing what they do with blood together. Ananke's expression in panel 4 is just particularly well chosen. This isn't how Minerva feels last issue – that's after thousands of years of dwelling on it. This is first exposure. You don't go straight to AGRGRHRHRHRHH.

And back to the still angle on the third panel. Like, the static nature of these seems important in terms of mood.

I really hope Ananke isn't licking that knife.

Page 10

I spent the best part of a day trying to work out what to name this interstitial, after naming it a few things previously. That we end up with a very limited Bowie nod says everything. Anything else seemed to create resonances we were trying to avoid. Once more, the aim is to separate the two decisions from Laura as much as possible.

Page 11

I know drawing London kills Jamie, but I'll miss seeing stuff like this monthly when it's gone.

We don't know Laura's walked out of a clinic for a few pages, but it was important to just give her space here.

Researching locations in London, in terms of placing the events, the timing, what would be available, and Laura's condition after an abortion and trying to find a way to be sensitive to all of that as a writer. Ideally, I was looking for an option around Highbury & Islington, as I always prefer to reuse settings. In practise, this was best.

Page 12

I basically described Beth's crew as Valkyrie-plusses. As in, the mini-bosses in a videogame. Elite models for a basic troop type.

Toni pushes to the front, as he's always been the most talkative of the Other Two. Writing this I realised who he is here – he's basically “Imagine Marvel Boy, if Marvel Boy was a total idiotic dipshit.”

(Instead of the “mostly idiotic dipshit” he was in YA. Love you, Noh-Varr! KISSY FACE.)

I believe Jamie laughed at this a fair bit.

Page 13-14

I considered various captions for Laura here, but no matter what they did, they blurred the line between her abortion and her abandoned godhood. As such, the relative silence was considered more effective.

13-14-15-16

A lot is packed into this space. In an ideal world, I'd like another page for it, to extend Beth's choice to shoot or not, but it's all there.

Key delineations here: obvious restatement of the 10 days since she's been a god, to ensure it's clear. “Panel 3”; Beth never knowing (nor caring) where Laura has just been; Robin actually being human; Laura's privacy being respected; the “I've got more imminent problems” to separate her being shot from this; most importantly, Laura never knowing that this decision was important to Minerva, and never letting Minerva's mistaken beliefs impact her decision. Laura' abortion is her choice and doesn't need a bunch of mythic stuff attached to it for her.

The “shame” line resonates with another, more optimistic, line on the first page of Young Avengers. This speaks to the books, and the choices and the attached psychology.

Page 17

Oddly, the “no cameras in the bathroom” information we've set up allows this scene. Minerva isn't someone who would vocalise much if someone could have hear. You can imagine her looking in each booth to see if someone's around. I did consider moving to captions for a page, but Minerva getting captions for this one event seemed aesthetically off.

Page 18

Self-evident interstitial, and so long a bit of text I can hear designers wincing.

Page 19-20

Earliest scene so far in WicDiv. I did consider having it set after the murder, with the grandson coming back to hear her last words, but the “alive-dead-alive-dead-alive-dead” was getting a bit silly. A quietly magical breakfast conversation seemed the way to go.

I think the bleakest and darkly funniest thing in the issue is the “Eventually, we'll learn. It may take a thousand years, but someone will figure it out.” Oh, you total optimist, you.

I do like the mood of the colouring for this.

Okay – the key structural bit for safety-proofing this plot? The absolute minimisation of the gap between discovering the fourth rule, discovering Laura has had an abortion and then discovering that the fourth rule is just a lie. The longer it hangs, the more it is letting people live with an idea we find reprehensible. The thing I knew when starting this arc is all of this had to happen inside the same issue – the problem there being, that it also had to be foreshadowed enough to not come out of nowhere. And if you foreshadow too heavily, it's as same as saying “this is where it's going”.

Anyway – that wrapped up, we move towards the end...

Page 21-22-23-24-25

The continuation of last issue's end. Laura and her captions.

Some perfect McKelvie expressions, and some key beats. Like, this also adds shade to last issue – I forget if I mentioned that one of the key beats of the series (Laura rejecting her godhood) being dramatised by her swapping a SIM card seems absolutely key to where we are.

Two key expressions – the glance to camera with “I'm not a god” and “So what? So do you.” I could marry Jamie for these.

Matt working the blacks and the ochres here is fascinating.

Thought experiment: originally the layout on page 21 had two captions in panel 3 and two in panel 4. I moved the first from panel 4 to panel 3. Why? A single caption always has more weight in a given space. Having two in each was effectively giving no extra weight to any individual caption. Instead, three in one makes that the conversational beat and the one over the spiral-staircase means the latter just hangs there.

(In short: less dialogue/caption in any space makes the line more important. SPACE=MEANING is what I've been saying all along, usually with panel size. As in, “bigger panels read as more important.” But the same sort of thinking applies to lettering in terms of the space it is allowed to “control.”)

End of page 21 – a final restating of the two events being separate. Laura choosing to have an abortion is something she decided when starting to put her life back together. It's not a cause of her stopping being a god – if anything, it's something that's resulted from her new state of mind.

Lots in terms of mode in 22, but I love how Jamie has handled the nudity in the second panel. As in, she's a girl changing for bed, but she's never presented as something to be objectified, to looked at. Laura is always someone we're meant to be. We are meant to inhabit her, and her us.

The panel at the start of 23 is the extra panel we squeezed in. One panel for this amount of extra material, leading to the better reveal seemed a good choice.

Did I mention I lost a line I really liked last issue? The “At long last, I know what I'm not” was originally “I know what I am/and I know what I'm not.” Which is pretty and elegant, but also confusing with this ending – the “what I am” is “not a god” and what I'm not” is “a god”. Prettiness only goes so far, especially as it's not as if Laura's going to stop and explain that.

Lots of key bits of dialogue in these pages, obviously. “I distrust anyone who tells me who I am. Especially if I agree” and all that.

Obviously in storytelling choices, this is reprising, in an inverted way, the end of The Faust Act. Instead of a flash of light, fading into darkness, darkness emerging from light. Also, really strong choice of expression in that final panel.

26

Referencing ‘Dancing In the Dark’. Springsteen's is obviously great, but I'm thinking of the Downtown Boys' cover which is much closer to where WicDiv is coming from.

I choke up at all this scene. Been a long way to get here, Laura. Onwards.

The trade collection for Mothering Invention is out in October. We have two Specials before next arc, WicDiv: 1373 (out at the end of September) and WicDiv: The Funnies (out in November.)

We're then back in December, where we begin our final arc.

It's called – “Okay”. Including the quotation marks. Yes, we're going out on another Bowie reference.

Thanks for reading.

[gigglyzero]

2b2t history, by its wiki

2010

Player Count: 50-70 (Accounts vary)

Nothing is much known about the early days of 2b2t, except that the server began in December of 2010. Some that do claim to have joined during this time say that there was nothing spectacular on the server, and that by then, spawn was already a mess.

2011

Player Count: 50-70

During 2011, a lot of things happened. The largest one being the formation of the Facepunch Republic. 2011 is also when many now famous oldfags joined, like Offtopia, xcc2 and popbob.

Early 2011 - Hausemaster teleports to random players to see the progress of his server. Sometimes he would give random items.

April 2011 - Facepunch Republic begins, 4channers take notice of this and tries to stop them.

May 2011 - Player data corruption and change of world generation, causes spawn to look weird.

July 2011 - First post of the 2b2t Comic by Judge Holden

December 2011 - January 2012 - 2b2t gets backdoored by popbob and co.

2011 - The first dupe on 2b2t, the Piston Dupe, was discovered by someone in Facepunch. This involved pushing the piston real fast to duplicate items.

2012

Player Count: 20-50

This year marked one of the most barren times on the server. The server faced drastic player loss during this time due to several facepunchers leaving, the IP changing, and the server being down for three months, causing players to believe that the server shut down for good.

February 2012 - Facepunch Republic ends

February 2012 - Judge's group base at -1 million -1 million is griefed by x0XP.

April 2012 - ImperatorTerrae finds Viking base and 'reforms' it.

June 2012 - 2k2k is founded by the Zion project

2b2t is shut down for three months and changes the IP address from 2b2t.net to 2b2t.org

2013

Player Count: 10-30

2013 is mostly painted by Valkyria, as most other groups of this time period are all but forgotten

February 2013 - Hitlerwood is founded by Coldwave, Zach3397 and Hinderjd

March 2013 - Anatolia is founded by Sato86, Drewbookman and PyroByte

April 2013 - Valkyria is founded by the members of Hitlerwood and Anatolia (Black Flag Group)

May 2013 - 1.4.7 Dupe, The End Dragon is slain

(Unknown month) 2013, Construction of HardHat's Pyramid has started.

June 2013 - 1st Incursion, IGN video (does not generate hype)

August - October 2013 - 2nd Incursion

October/November 2013 - Shenandoah is founded by jesse_number6

December 2013 - 2b2t gets backdoored, Pyrobyte and iTristan have reached the World Border

2014

Player Count: 30-20

During 2014, Valkyria had broken up into a few smaller groups. These include Gape group and the Legion of Shenandoah

January 2014 - Asgard is abandoned after being griefed by popbob during construction

May 2014 - 2k2k is buried in lavacasts and many ancient bases are annihilated by Withers (Including the NFE and Plugin Town)

June 2014 - Legion of Shenandoah begins and Gape 1 is founded

July 2014 - Infamous message shows up on the server website stating that Hausemaster has left the server forever, leaving it in the care of "an anonymous friend." The owner's personality changes immediately after this post.

September 2014 - Fenrir Project begins

October 2014 - Nova is founded in 3b3t

December 2014 - Southern Canal Project is started by ThebesAndSound

2015

Player Count: 20-40

A large population boost happened during this year, mostly from the numerous articles and a massive Reddit post.

January 2015 - 2b2t is updated to 1.8

February 2015 - Fenrir Project ends

March 2015 - Asgard II is founded

April 2015 - Asgard II is destroyed, the 3rd Incursion begins

May 2015

June 2015

August 2015

October 2015

December 2015

Aureus is founded

3rd Incursion ends

Wrath constructed

Kings Landing is founded

The last Facepunch thread closes

Vortex Coalition founded

Project Vault, (now known is the 2b2t museum), is a project determined to keep every single monument in 2b2t untouched and left as a museum to other players, begins.

Motherboard Article is released

VICE mini incursion begins and ends

Imperator's Base is destroyed by Jared2013. Around this time, the server website shuts down.

2016

Player Count: 10-250

This is when 2b2t was most densely populated. This was caused when TheCampingRusher made a video and posted it onto Youtube

February 2016

March 2016

April 2016

RPS Article released

BedTP Exploit surfaces

Space Valkyria destroyed by the Tyranny

KGB destroyed by the Tyranny

Land of Norphs destroyed by the Tyranny

May 2016

June 2016

July 2016

August 2016

September 2016

October 2016

The player count has plummeted, sometimes as low as 1-5 players online.

June 1st - Rusher begins his series on 2b2t. In the coming days, 2b2t becomes flooded with his fans.

June 4th - Rusher declares war on "OGs," a reference to players who have been on the server longer than him.

June 13th - Fit becomes "leader" of Team Veteran, which is supposedly meant to contain the rusher onslaught and preserve the server's pre-rusher culture. This, of course, is debunked later.

June - A lava wall is made around the 500x500 area of spawn, in hopes of keeping Rushers trapped in spawn; this project fails. A very similar project occurs during the 6th Incursion, but fails aswell.

June 17th - Omega City Founded

July 24th - The Fourth Incursion begins with the Veterans raiding Napkin0fTruth's base.

July 28th - 2nd largest battle in 2b2t history (19 players)

July 31st - Aureus is destroyed by the base members themselves.

July - Hardware upgrade, temporary map

The Queue is set up around this time.

August 5th - Fit versus Rusher duel, Fit wins by having more golden apples.

August 19th - Torogadude gets stripped of his priority queue.

September 16th - Largest Battle in 2b2t History: Team Veteran allies with CorruptedUnicorn to take down Rusher. The battle ends in a draw, and Rusher is able to escape.

September 19th - Rusher leaves 2b2t for the first time for about a month.

September 22th - Valley of Wheat destroyed

September - 4th Incursion ends, Newsweek Article released

October 9th - The Rusher War ends. The Veterans say that about 10,400 Rushers had been killed, but this number is frequently questioned.

October 15th -TheCampingRusher returns and makes 3 more videos on 2b2t before he leaves.

October 22nd - Rusher leaves and The Rusher War officially ends. A small presence of rushers/newfags remain, and the server has been radically changed.

October - Offtopia's Drain is destroyed after FitMC made a tour of his base.

November 2016

December 2016

November 11th - 11/11 Dupe leaked to public

November 22nd - Jonathan5454 starts 6Garden. Major construction started sometime in January 2017.

November 25th - AgentGB makes a video on 2b2t. However, he does not make a video afterwards, and states that 2b2t won't be a series.

November 28th - The Fifth Incursion is organized by jared2013, however this fails, and barely makes any attention, and now recognized as a meme.

New coord exploit. Fitlantis is found.

Large battle in Fitlantis

2b2t is updated to 1.11, ending the 11/11 Dupe

AntVenom considers making a video on the history of 2b2t. He asks for the consent of the playerbase and the "admins".

Byrnsy begins his journey to the 2b2t World Border, with hopes of completing the +x Nether Highway. The Nether Highway Expedition group is formed.

The Emperium is founded by TheDark_Emperor.

Player count drops to the low 50s before Fit starts making his videos.

2017

Player Count: 80-200 (50-100 during Temp Maps)

This year saw massive decay of the rusher population and numerous other things

January 2017

February 2017

March 2017

April 2017

May 2017

June 2017

July 2017

August 2017

September 2017

January 1st - Fit returns to 2b2t, with new jewtuber, kid friendly content (starting with minecraft world records by boat). The impact from this has kept the 2b2t playerbase in its 200s, as many players join from Fit each day.

Construction of Block Game Mecca starts

Mid January - Spawn Masons are founded

Late January - The Vortex Coalition gets "disbanded".

HermeticLock's Spawn Base is constructed and The Third Largest Battle of 2b2t History occurs there. The base was constantly rebuilt and lavacasted over and over

15 milliontown is built by the nether highway group

Highland is founded by The_Grand_Lotus

Toro's Theater begins construction

2b2t logo rebranded

Kinorana hacks all maps in 2b2t. Protests against Kinorana begin.

SpawnMasons founded by Hermeticlock.

Early March - The 4th Reich is disbanded

March 3th - Maps are reset and old maps are deleted off 2b2t. The deathspam protest takes a short ceasefire.

March 15th - The Donkey Dupe is leaked to public.

March 18th - The Donkey Dupe has been patched.

March 21st - Wintermelon is griefed

March 22nd - fr1kin discovers an exploit that can bring the server below 1tps. This had normal attention until Fit claims that the lag could crash the server.

March 26th - World Border reached legitimately through the +X Highway. The +X Highway has been completed. Point Nemo is founded.

March 29th - Point Nemo is griefed

March - A player by the name of PriorityQueue is seen at spawn floating and not taking any damage, it was initially thought that he backdoored the server, however this was later proved to be incorrect (possibly the usage of MineChat).

April 1st - 2017 April fools map. This lasted a few days. The queue was also disabled during the uptime of the map

April 9th - Apocalypse Exploit patched, /kill temporarily disabled

April 13th - 24th - Fit's journey to the World Border

May 18th - Fit visits Point Dory without the permission of its builders.

May 20th - Point Dory is griefed

May 25th - Torogadude leaks the coordinates of his own theater by accident. It got destroyed almost instantly.

June 1st - 1st Anniversary of Rusher's Invasion in 2b2t. 2b2t is flooded with lag machines and various shitposts to celebrate the anniversary.

June 4th - Battle between Spawn Masons and Peacekeepers starts.

June 9th - The +Z Highway is completed to the world border.

June 18th - Omega City is destroyed.

June 23rd - The first server crash

June 29th - HermeticLock announced the "second season" of hanging around at his spawnbase

July 6th - The second server crash

July 6th - 7th - Server shut down, as a preparation for the 1.12 update and the addition of new plugins

July 8th- 22th - 1.12 tempmap

July 23th - The original map returns. The owner announces the deletion of all non-vanilla items. However, he accidentally deleted Axe enchantments, player heads, efficiency on shears, and all dungeon spawners. The 1.12 dupe (also known as the 7/21 dupe), was also discovered, which involved spamming in the crafting book

July 24th - Dupe patched sometime around 10:00 AM (EST).

July 28th - Summermelon griefed by Fit and his crew.

July 29th - Fit is exposed by Offtopia in the 2b2t Subreddit for making stuff up just to get a reason to grief Summermelon. The real reason might have involved his youtube career to get money. Fit does this again in 2018 at offtopia's base, Viper.

August 1st - Server restarted by the owner twice at 12:00 AM August 1st (EST)

August 2nd - The 3rd Major crash causes 2b2t down for a while. (Most likely low tps)

August 4th - Jared2013 obtains bureaucrat permissions through Niftyrobo on the 2b2t wiki, and destroys the wiki.

August 5th - Armorsmith lags the server down to 1tps. Causing the playercount to drop to 50-80 players. Queue virtualy dosen't exist.

August 6th - Riot on the wiki and subreddit to demote jared2013 and niftyrobo for the removal of pages with newfag history and several newfag bases such as 6Garden.

August 7th - Wiki is restored and Jared2013 and Niftyrobo has been banned globally from entering FANDOM Wikia itself. The subreddit explodes with wiki rants due to the new admin team consisting of newfags. The new founder, DarkAnhilator, has gathered a source team, and the subreddit calms down.

September 15th - A Spanish YouTuber, ElRichMC makes a video on the server, causing his fans to join and spam the chat in Spanish. Despite the video being quite popular, ElRichMC decides not to make another video and the server returns to normal in a matter of a few weeks.

Mid September - Project Obsidian Sky is completed. The 500x500 region of spawn now has an obsidian roof at Y256. (Today in Mid 2018, most of the obsidian has been destroyed by withers).

Late September - Elytras are disabled due to large amounts of chunks being loaded in a short amount of time, causing both lag and the server file size to grow much too quickly. Elytras have been disabled for almost an entire year. The SOON™ meme appears all over the subreddit because of this.

October 2017

November 2017

December 2017

October 13th - The owner announces removal of pre - June 1st queue.

October 13th - 20th - Bots fill the server in a vain attempt to kill it off, Drachenstein buys oldfags 2 months of priority

November 19th - 20th A redditor named PM_ME_YOUR_TITS_GIRL posted a render of 2b2t on r/gaming and r/minecraft

December 19th - Construction on the Cerulean Islands begins

December 20th - Astral Order is founded after the Purge of Eden

December 21st - VoCo declares the "Vo-Perium" war

December 23rd - X- Digger Team reaches the world border.

December 25th - Armorsmith and Co. planned to lag the server to 0 tps, and succeded to get it down to 0.5 before the owner personally destroyed the machine.

2018

Player Count: 100-250

This year is most known for two incursions (6th and 7th) and the grief of the BGM

January 2018

February 2018

March 2018

April 2018

May 2018

January 1st - Team Inferno reforms into Infrared after all the insiding and griefing

January 10th - United Group Embassy is formed, an initial 15 groups joining.

January 11th - "Vo-Perium" concludes after very little ground is gained. Emperium and VoCo work on building positive relations.

February 4th - Offtopia's Viper Base griefed, led by Fit. Several more subreddit rants occur from this.

February 7th - The 2b2t Media Archive is founded by xyzvp

February 9th - Up to 17 U.G.E. representatives arrive at spawn and begin renovating.

February 13th - 16 U.G.E. representatives fight 4 members of Infrared and Highland at spawn. Renovations continue.

March 20th - Temp map begins while the main map is being transferred from a 4 Terabyte HDD to a 6 TB SSD[1], as it was rapidly approaching the upper size limit of its current hardware. Server traffic is lower than usual but still high. TPS range is around 10 to 13.

March 27th - Main map back up

March 28th - Severe rubberband and lag occours at high TPS as well as several plugins being removed temporarily which allowed for people to use "illegal items" for a short amount of time, as well as being able to use the nether roof while taking heavy amounts of damage.

March 31th - April 2nd - An unnamed April Fools' tempmap starts on March 31st, 2018, and ends April 2nd, 2018. During this period, AntVenom confirms he will be releasing his video on April 3rd. The Sixth Incursion is declared by Sato and the ender dragon on the temp map is killed by the new incursion.

April 2nd - 6th - 2nd tempmap after failure of reverting back the world.

April 3rd - The highly anticipated "Face of Minecraft Anarchy" video is released by AntVenom. New players flood the server. Total player counts reach about 350 at the most.

April 6th - The main map, with very bad timing, comes back online[1] and the owner adds AAC to the server, which causes frequent disconnects and problems in general.

April 12th - 14 million subscriber YouTuber PopularMMOs is seen logging onto the server and is geared by an unknown player. He is later seen at nether spawn and killed with an end crystal. He claims he is not making a video on the server, however not everyone is convinced.

April 16th - 24th - The Obsidian Wall, a wall surrounding 1000 cubic meters of spawn is constructed and finished by Sixth Incursion members. It is named the largest community project ever completed in server history. To get the obsidian necessary , "gulag" slave camps were set up around spawn and new players were captured and forced to mine enderchests to obtain obsidian. This is the first confirmed time slave labor is used in the server's history to complete a community project.

April 26th - The obsidian wall ends up being a failure due to the fact that players are dedicated enough to spend 7 minutes breaking 2 obsidian blocks. Spawn patrolling became a meme after the incursion members became so self-absorbed after the wall was built. Much of the wall got destroyed however it is still very recognizable in most places.

April 29th - The 2b2t Archaeological Society is founded by /r/ryanfortner3333

May 1st - Jared2013 starts "31Days31Greifs" which causes widespread damage across the server

May 3rd - Sixth Incursion ends and is deemed a success.

May 5th - Construction of Mokuzai Island starts.

May 10th - FitMC reveals secrets about the Age of Tyrrany to the general public.

May 18th - Empire's Edge, Emperium's main base, is leaked to the subreddit by an unknown user and the Emperium quickly removes their belongings and destroys the base before anyone else could.

May 25th - The Builders Haven project is founded by Beardler and managed by Jonathan5454

May 28th - All maps on the server are cleared in an attempt to stop more bases from being griefed in any way they might be. The Map Artists of 2b2t claim responsibility for it and most are understanding.

May 30th - The Boedecken, a large base kept secret for nearly two years, is greifed. FitMC makes base tour shortly after. jared2013 did not claim responsibility for the base's greif.

May 31st -

June 2018

July 2018

August 2018

September 2018

October 2018

November 2018

December 2018

June 1st - One of the largest temp-bases on 2b2t, Purgatory was griefed.

June 1st - 700k Spanish-speaking YouTuber TheDaarickPartner starts a series on 2b2t.

June 1st - Second anniversary of Rusher War.

June 1st - The largest base ever built in the server's history and possibly in SMP Minecraft, Block Game Mecca, is greifed. The base members put the blame on Beardler, one of the members of the base. (The basemates later took this back, claiming that Beardler's account was hacked due to negligence, and Beardler had no intent to leak)

June 4th - 65k YouTuber BenMascott makes a video on the server, goes mostly unnoticed

June 7th - Server reaches 50,000 in-game days

June 10th - Large lag spike that lasts for 3 hours, TPS remains 0.6 for the whole time.

June 16th - Purgatory 2, the largest temp-base on 2b2t, was griefed as a revenge act against Beardlers actions.

June 16th - Beardler quits 2b2t, and Block Game Mecca/Boedecken drama ends.

Mid July - Third Donkey Dupe is discovered

July 24th, 2018 - 2b2t wikia hosted on FANDOM was deleted and moved to Miraheze

Mid August - The servers economy is at a point that anything is worthless, including Hacked Items

August 21st - Infrared disbands for the first time

August 22nd - Builders Haven is greifed and disbanded

September 20th - FuzeIII joins 2b2t and begins a series

September 21st - The Seventh Incursion begins

September 21st - Third Donkey Dupe is patched

Sepetember 27th - FuzeIII declares the foundation of Team Baguette and "War on Team Veteran and the Americans"

October 8th - jared2013 is demoted from head of the incursion due to internal drama.

October 13th - The Seventh Incursion is called off by Henry due to lack of leadership initiative. Drama posts on reddit follow soon after.

October 13th - jared2013 makes a new discord and an Incursion revival initiative to complete original goals of the Incursion.

October 30th - jared2013's Incursion Reloaded revival officially ends a day earlier than initial deadline of the 31st due to an inside attempt on the Emperium. This caused jared's discord to be deleted.

October 31st - A 2b2t halloween party was hosted, only lasting for 4 hours

October - Fit's relevancy is questioned after being kicked out of the Seventh Incursion (see Spawn Incursions)

October - New "banning" method involving max filled books with unicode is discovered. Players are "permanently" banned from the server if they are given a certain amount of these books, which will kick them out of the server due to an overflow in packets registered by the server, unless they e-mail Hausemaster to clear their inventories. The phenomena is known as "book banning".

November 7th - 9th - Beardler returns to 2b2t for 2 days and claims he will return in Mid/Late 2019

November 11th - New book related dupe discovered. Dupe causes lag spikes when performed due to constant chunk reloading.

November 17th - BGM (Block Game Mecca) was found to consist of mostly schematic builds, which put an impact on the bases outlook and originality.

November 23rd - 1.13 is announced for 2b2t coming “soon”

November - The 2b2t Wiki is 2 years old

November - Disbanded Infrared is reformed into Iridium

November 29th - The FuzeIII vs Fit duel occurs, Fit "wins".

November 30th - The 2b2t wiki gains public attention due to FuzeIII mentioning the wiki and the general miraheze discord noticing 2b2t. This wiki achieved a record high on Thursday of 900+ views

December 19th - Queue is glitched and drops to 0, resulting in the server being unable to join

December 23rd - Coordinates for planned Christmas party is leaked, chaos ensues.

December 27th - Iridium is disbanded

December - General lack of major activity due to Queue bugs, connection errors, and lag

December - U.G.E is dissolved after long period of inactivity

2019

Player Count: 100-250

"It's the Current Year!"

January 2019

February 2019

January - Lag and queue issues are getting worse.

January 12th - Infrared is revived.

January 19th - Around 18 Vo-Perium members fight 6 Highland members at spawn, making this the largest battle to unfold since the 6th Incursion

January 26th - Infrared disbands once again

January 30th - The owner changes the server message on the player board, saying "1.13 and temporary map expected in February, 2019, with new server hardware. Elytras planned to be re-added. Death messages and end portals re-added."

January 30th - End portals re-disabled

February 20th - Indonesian YouTuber with 187k subscribers, Kurus, makes a video about 2b2t.

February 23rd - The owner changes server message on the player board, it now says "1.13 expected in late March, Book Duplication now Patched due to update of Waterfall."

February 27th - player bflyza constructs thousands of signs above the nether bedrock ceiling at (0, 0) in the nether. Any player who loads this chunk is immediately disconnected from the server, and instantly disconnects upon rejoining in a way that is functionally similar to being book-banned. Dozens of players are chunk-banned due to the exploit.

[imjustthemechanic]

Our Own Demons

Part 1/? - A Bolt from the Blue Part 2/? - A Different World Part 3/? - Stark At Home Part 4/? - Pot Roast Night Part 5/? - Space-Pie Continuum

What if Tony Stark really were the villain of the Marvel universe?  How would that work?  Tony himself is about to find out, as he battles his inner demons (and some outer ones, too) across a multiverse of infinite possibilities.

At the other’s command, the windows rearranged themselves on the phone screen, bringing to the fore one that was showing black and white video with the date in the upper left corner and the words Special Projects Workshop in the lower.  Tony found himself wanting to reach out and increase the image size the way he could with one of his holographic displays, but of course that wouldn’t work, so all he could do was drag his chair around the little table so he could see right-side up, and squint.

The view showed a suit of armor assembled in the middle of the workshop, while Tony’s counterpart worked on something in the left room.  The frame rate was low and the resolution was not great, but Tony still noticed that this suit had definitely been built for a woman.  It was smaller and slimmer than any of his, and the shapes on the front were clearly meant to suggest a sweetheart neckline, though the armor didn’t actually mold to the breasts.  If Tony had been going to build armor for Pepper, he thought, that was exactly what he would have made it look like.

The other Tony turned away from the suit to look at something on a nearby bench, and then the screen went white.  For half a second there was no picture at all, then a buzz of static, and finally the image returned, slowly, block by block, to reveal the suit in bits on the floor and Tony struggling to his feet while his counterpart grabbed the pipe wrench.

“That’s pretty much what I saw,” said Tony.  “Everything went white, and the audio squealed… that’s an EMP,” he realized – a sudden burst of electromagnetic radiation.  It must have been incredibly intense to knock out an Iron Man suit.  He’d specifically designed them to be resistant to pulse weapons. “Something on the order of the magnetic field of Jupiter.”

“Exactly what I was going to say,” the other agreed, flipping through windows.  “The video overloaded, but we monitor other frequencies, too.  JANIS, can you give us a plot of the radio and the infra-red, please?”

Tony observed that this guy was awfully polite to his computer, but before he could decide how best to tease him about it, the graph appeared.  At first it looked like random bursts, but of course, those were just the frequencies JANIS was programmed to monitor.  If Tony were to join them up… he reached over and ran a finger across the screen, connecting the dots.

“Extrapolate a blackbody spectrum,” he ordered.

What’s the magic word? asked JANIS, but she did it anyway: a curve appeared, showing a peak much further up the spectrum.  There’s a margin for error, of course, the computer noted apologetically.

“That’s okay.”  Tony scratched his beard as he studied the result.  “Turn around,” he told his counterpart.  “I need to see the back of your neck.”

His double obeyed, and Tony touched the skin with the back of his hand.  It was about as pale as a man with Mediterranean ancestors could get, and warm to the touch but not overly so.

“That can’t be right,” Tony said.  “That peak is in the ultraviolet.  You should have a sunburn.”

“A sunburn, hell.”  The other frowned at the display on his phone.  “That spectrum would require a temperature of about ten thousand Kelvin.  The surface of the sun isn’t that hot.  It should have burned the building down.”

“Not to mention vaporized me,” Tony agreed.  “Or at least turned me into the Hulk or something.  So we’ve got… some kind of phantom radiation?”

The other chewed on his lower lip.  “It’s got to be a side effect of something else,” he decided. “If you’re from another universe, the only way to get to this one would be by tearing a hole in space, and as far as we know no amount of radiation can do that.  The only force that can is gravity.  If you want to rip open the space-time continuum, you need one of two things: a black hole, or…” he paused, frowning.

“Pie?” asked a voice.

Tony and his counterpart both yelped in surprise. They’d been so focused on their conversation that they hadn’t realized Audrey the waitress was back.  She held up her hands, apologetic.

“Didn’t mean to scare you!” she said.  “I just wanted to say, our dessert today is homestyle apple pie.”

Tony breathed a sigh of relief, trying to make his heart start pounding.  “How about this,” he said.  “We’ll take the whole pie, a pot of coffee, and the cheque, okay?”  Hopefully that would head off any future interruptions.

“All right,” said Audrey.  “I’ll… uh… I’ll be right back.”

The two men kept quiet until she returned with the pie and coffee, and a tub of vanilla ice cream for them.  Tony tossed some money on the table, to pay for their meal and to make up for the tips Audrey would not be getting while they continued to occupy the table.  The alternative was heading back to his double’s apartment and he didn’t want to do that.  They helped themselves to dessert, and tried to pick up the thread of their conversation again.

“Where were we?” asked Tony.

For a moment the other couldn’t remember, then he glanced down at his pie.  “Pie,” he said.  “Pie doesn’t break space, but black holes do.”

“Or other things,” said Tony, picking up his train of thought.  “I’m thinking specifically of a blue, cubey thing that’s good for blowing shit up. Contains an enormous amount of energy, and yet energy that doesn’t seem to hurt people unless they come into direct contact with it.  Hence no sunburn.”

“Please tell me your reality doesn’t actually call it the Blue Cubey Thing,” said the other.

Nobody was listening to them and the waitress was at another table, but Tony still lowered his voice to reply.  “Tesseract,” he said.

“Thank you.”  The other pulled out his phone again and opened another window.  “JANIS, please get me the stuff we pulled out of SHIELD’s database on the tesseract.”

“What happened to it in your reality?” Tony asked, while the data loaded.  “We sent it back to Asgard, where the aging republicans who run the world can’t get their mitts on it.”

“Yeah, the Odinson took it back with him when he took Loki home,” the other said.  “I definitely didn’t have it in my workshop.”

“It wasn’t in my back pocket on the way to California, either,” said Tony.  “So if I came here through a tesseract wormhole, it didn’t start out in my reality or in yours…”

“Which means there’s a third universe involved here, where it was accessible to a third one of us,” the other agreed.  He looked at the tablet, which was showing a rotating image of the tesseract with text scrolling beside it, then sighed and took another bite of pie and ice cream.  “Man, when I got up this morning I thought the biggest challenge I was going to face today was phoning the damn credit card company.”

“What’s so hard about that?” asked Tony, who had never done it.

“They’ve got one of those voice-activated menus that doesn’t work, so you’ve got to talk your way through half an hour of bullshit before you can even be put on hold,” the other said.  “Honestly, this makes sorting out my overcharges look like a fun afternoon.”

“We have to take a proper look at that suit,” Tony decided. “If that was the tesseract, it’ll leave an ionic residue.  Banner did some work on that… can you find his paper?”

“Who?” the other asked.

“Bruce,” Tony clarified, but that didn’t seem to improve matters.  “Dr. Robert Bruce Banner.  You’ve never heard of him?”  This was a world where Tony was broke, Pepper was a superhero, and there was no Hulk… what other surprises might it have for him?

“Can’t say that I have.  Dr. Ross might have something for us,” the other mused, “but she’s not easy to get in touch with.”

“Never mind.  We’ll figure it out,” said Tony.  “Two heads are better than one, and here we’ve got two of the best.”

“Are you sure this counts as two heads?” the other asked suspiciously.

“Close enough,” Tony decided, his mouth full of pie.

The two of them had not actually talked about it, but somehow Tony had his counterpart had come to the agreement that they should not let Miss Potts find out about this.  When they returned to the building in the morning, they did so not through the lobby but via an old emergency exit from the train station, where they were less likely to be observed.

“How did you find this?” asked Tony, as the descended a very narrow flight of metal stairs.  He was trying to remember if there were anything similar in his Tower – he didn’t think there was.  If there ever had been, it must have been pulled out during construction of the new building.

Thinking about that was far preferable to the other thing that was on his mind, which was that he was wearing clothes that belonged to his counterpart.  The jeans, striped t-shirt, and green jacket weren’t the problem – it was the underwear that was bothering him.  Sure, it was clean, and yes, Tony had shared pretty much his entire wardrobe with Rhodey when they’d been room-mates at MIT… but this was still weird.

“We explored down here pretty thoroughly while we were looking for somewhere I could work on the suits,” the other explained.  “There’s a service elevator that goes all the way up to the penthouse, which is handy, and this entrance means I can get in and out when the building’s closed at night.”  He reached the top of the steps, where there was an old metal door with the paint peeling from it.  A keypad opened the lock.  Tony expected the hinges to squeal, but they were apparently the one part that was in good repair.  The door swung silently.

Unfortunately, there was a flaw in their plan.  When Pepper had told her employee to take the rest of the week off, she must have meant it.  Tony’s double tried to use his key card to open the workshop, but the only result was a buzz and a red light.  JANIS wouldn’t let them in.

Miss Potts wanted you to stay home and rest, she reminded him.  She’s told me to keep you out until Monday at least.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” the other asked, exasperated.

You didn’t ask, said JANIS, as if that were entirely reasonable.

“You let your machines talk to you like that?” Tony wanted to know.  JARVIS’ wit was as dry as a good martini, but he was never passive-aggressive.

“Technically, she’s Miss Potts’ machine,” said the other. “And she’s very polite to her.  All right, JANIS.  You know what this means.”

If you can reset it without security noticing, I’m all yours, said JANIS sweetly.

The security office was on the ground floor.  Tony and his counterpart walked with a purpose as they headed up – apparently the other knew, as Tony did, that if you looked like you knew what you were doing people were unlikely to question you.  They marched into the office, and there found an obstacle in their path.  A short, muscular, red-headed obstacle, who was very much startled to see them.

“Oh,” said Tony’s double, in a voice that sounded less like he was greeting his girlfriend and more like he was at his high school reunion saying hello to the guy who used to stuff him in lockers.  “Good morning, Beth.”

It took Beth a moment to recover from her surprise, but then she widened her stance and folded her arms across her chest.  “I thought you were supposed to be at home, recovering from a sudden case of crazy.  And maybe amnesia,” she added, with narrowed eyes.

“I’m sorry, Beth,” said the other.  “I swear I remembered, but my cousin got into town, and…”

Beth interrupted him.  “Seriously?” she asked.

“Seriously,” Tony spoke up, stepping out from behind his double.

It was actually very gratifying the way Beth’s jaw dropped.  “I… oh,” she said, her arms moving from guardedly in front of her to awkwardly behind her back. “Who are you?”

“I told you,” said Tony.  “I’m his cousin.  From Italy,” he added, figuring that was safely far away enough that she would buy never having heard of this guy before.

The other put his arm around Tony’s shoulders.  “We’re like Patty Duke, except there really are two of us,” he said.

Tony nodded.  “Have we got a Betsy?  I forget.”

“I hope not.  We don’t look good in a pretty floral bonnet!”

“Speak for yourself,” Tony snorted.  “Anyway, Ms. Cabe – we need a small favour.”