#America is once fuckin weird dude

[thanksjro]

All Hail Megatron #15: Dang Bro, That Sure is a Redeemable Dude Right There

So, before we get into Season 2 of MTMTE, I thought it would be prudent to take a gander at all the stuff Megatron’s gotten done in the IDW publications. Y’know, for plot reasons. And also because of this little nugget of info I found forever ago:

Of course, just jumping straight into the 15th issue of a run isn’t going to give me a proper understanding of what happens narratively, so here is a very brief rundown of the events of AHM #1-14.

First thing I see- cover with Megatron holding the American flag in one hand and Optimus Prime’s head on a fucking pike in the other.

Shane McCarthy wrote several issues of this run. So expect some Empire of Stone vibes.

2009 Josh Burcham appears to not know how to color black people’s skin. I have no idea if he’s improved on this deficiency in his skills, but a person can hope.

Megatron kills a literal skyscraper’s worth of people. (was that allowed in 2009? I thought we were still being weird about that sort of thing back then, with 9/11 and all.)

A fighter pilot looks at a photograph of his significant other. This is how you know he’s going to die.

Megatron slaps a plane so hard it explodes, and then laughs about it. While all this is happening, Optimus is fucking dying on Cybertron. This makes Jazz very upset.

What seems like the entire goddamn US military is called in to deal with this intergalactic terrorist attack.

The Decepticons destroy all the bridges and tunnels connected to NYC.

Los Angeles and San Diego are also under attack.

Estimated 200K people dead. This is issue #3.

Megatron holds all of NYC hostage.

The Decepticons annihilate a destroyer-class warship.

San Francisco and Washington D.C. are overtaken.

Air Force One has been destroyed.

Megatron acts like an asshole to Starscream.

The Decepticons attack all of the United States.

The President of the United States is dead.

Megatron ripped the Matrix out of Optimus’ chest.

The shit that’s happening to America is also happening at all the other Autobot outposts.

This is also about the time that Overlord starts his terrorizing of Garrus 9.

Megatron says that the destruction of those weaker than himself is a “reward”.

Megatron doesn’t believe in the sanctity of life.

Beijing and Israel are destroyed by the Decepticons.

Megatron commissioned the Insecticons as beings of pure torment, for reasons.

Megatron commissions Bombshell to do some really fucked up shit to Hunter O’Nion.

Megatron waits around for Starscream to Starscream it up, then beats the everloving shit out of his employees.

Megatron doesn’t believe in an academic approach to warfare, for some reason.

Megatron’s totally cool with NYC getting nuked.

Megatron was planning on reprogramming his troops into being nice fellas once he beat the Autobots.

Megatron believes in ownership in those beneath him. He’s completely convinced that anyone in the Decepticon forces is essentially his property.

Megatron knees Optimus below the belt. That’s just poor sportsmanship.

The only reason Megatron survives a gunshot to the face is that he messed with Starscream’s head earlier in the day.

Thundercracker caught a nuclear bomb, tossed it into the stratosphere, and shot it. I don’t think he realizes that the fallout is still going to spread across the globe.

The Matrix is still in Decepticon hands.

Starscream’s head is in a friggin’ dark-ass place.

Then there’s some stuff setting up Galvatron and Cyclonus’ whole deal, but who cares about that? On to issue #15!

Motherfucker, that’s a Radiohead song-

The proper story of AHM ended with issue #12, and the issues after were split into two separate stories, written by two separate teams, which detailed events taking place after the main story was resolved. A series of epilogue scenes, if you will. We’ll only be looking at the first story, because it’s the only one that’s relevant to what I’m doing here.

Our official writer for “Everything in it’s Right Place” is Nick Roche, who we’ve run into several times over our journey through IDW. A majority of the story beats will be attributed to him, of course, seeing as Roberts was, at the time, only mentioned as assisting, and also not employed by the publishing company.

Our story opens with Prowl getting socked in the face by Springer, because he’s upset that his grandpa has gone AWOL. Perceptor’s also missing, but this isn’t about him. Prowl, whose shins are looking especially shiny today, lets Springer know that they’ve “got Kup back.”

See, once upon a time, Kup was stuck on a little planet called Tsiehshi, where Shockwave was growing one of his ores. Kup became addicted to the… thrall, I guess, of the crystals, and it drove him mad, making him hallucinate that he was being attacked by ghosts. What was actually happening was he was violently murdering his rescuers with his bare hands. When the Autobots finally managed to get him off the planet, he got shipped to Kimia, where the smartest boy in all the galaxy, Brainstorm, could work his science on him.

Guess they don’t call him Brainstorm for noth-

I’m so sorry.

Springer very much dislikes the fact that some dweebs in a lab are poking around in his Pap-pap thinking meat. He’s even less thrilled when he finds out how exactly they fixed said thinking meat.

Kup’s now a Pretender. The Stormbringer miniseries covered this process, and let’s just say, Springer’s got every right to be concerned, considering that the last time someone tried something like this, Cybertron was made completely uninhabitable. They’ve made breakthroughs, however, as Prowl keeps saying. He says it a lot, actually.

This is because Prowl is a bastard, and is also using the Pretender tech to make Kup into something for his own agenda. Which, I hopefully shouldn’t have to tell you, is kind of a shitty thing to do.

Springer is shown footage of Kup kicking some ass, and notices that he’s got something in his mouth. This is his vape rig, full of medicinal marijuana.

Dammit, Prowl, let me make a weed joke! This is because you’re a cop, isn’t it?

Prowl continues to be a complete and utter fucker in his internal monologue until Springer asks to see Grandpa. They head to the lab to find Kup in pieces, though it’s completely medically sound in this case. Kup has a minor absolutely-horrific hallucination, but he’s okay once he gets his cy-gar back.

We get a flashback to Prowl making sure Perceptor put the nasty, nasty bad-time programming into Kup’s head, because he’s sick of losing the war, and a single old man will surely turn the tides. Or, at least, it will when he’s damn charismatic and folks listen to him way more than they do Prowl.

Back in the present, Springer asks that Kup not be told what happened on Tsiehshi, because it’s kind of a major bummer. Prowl reflects on how only the cool kids get paid attention to, and assumes that the Decepticons are a much more organized machine. Clearly he hasn’t heard about how Overlord lives his life.

Anyway, so Kup is now a mouthpiece for Prowl, and he doesn’t even know it. That’s pretty fucked.

So, what have we learned from this experience? Well, even though Roberts didn’t personally assist on the actual Megatron-related portions of AHM, we can see where the character was, and I think that’s far more important than deconstructing Prowl’s whole deal at the moment.

God, I don’t know that redeeming this bastard’s going to be possible, James, but somehow I think you already knew that, given how you’ve written the guy in the past.

Yeah, you fuckin’ thought I forgot about Literally Hitler Megatron, didn’t you?

Well I didn’t.

[sunshine-shitposts]

ALRIGHT. First selfship piece is going UP. I got some big inspiration from @amethystsoda and @dongiovannaswife so like... love you guys 💖💖 no stinky vampire man... yet. Hoping to get the next part up within the next week.

Dust in the Wind—Part 1

It had been a while since Jotaro had been to the Dallas Speedwagon Foundation Headquarters, and it had since moved locations to outside downtown… somewhere.

It was a damn pain if you asked him.

Dallas was a mess to move around in; you were better off on foot, since there were so many one-way streets. His grandfather had explained, the first time that he had brought his grandson to the Foundation in Dallas, that it was probably because car size in America outgrew the more narrow streets that Dallas began with. Jotaro himself didn't really understand it until he saw for himself: Texans loved big cars. There was an astonishing amount of pick up trucks here, compared to other places he'd been.

He wasn't very familiar with Texas, he had to admit. He'd visited Galveston and Corpus Christi more often for marine work, though he had to admit to himself that they weren't his favorite places in terms of the ocean; this side of the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico tended to have a lot of sediment in its water. When he stayed at a house in a place called Crystal Beach for a while, he remembered how searching for hermit crabs with a colleague was rather annoying due to the brown murkiness of the water.

The houses on stilts were quite novel, though.

...That was enough reminiscing.

Jotaro huffed, figuring he could just go to the old location to ask for assistance—it was still being used by the Foundation despite it not being the main building anymore—when a bright voice floated through the air.

"Hey, mom. Y'got everything?"

"Yes, but it's a lot, you know, they turned in projects… can you open the trunk?"

"'Course, no problem. Gimme a sec…"

Jotaro looked up from his map, seeing a young woman helping her mother begin to load several large rolled up cardboard tubes into the back seat of a small blue hatchback.

The woman was dressed comfortably, a boon in the blossoming Texas heat, with a black wide-brimmed hat and minty-colored sunglasses and a lazy smile on her face. She couldn't have been more than an inch over five feet, and her wavy purple hair fluttered in the wind. What didn't look conducive to staying cool were the dark, full-length leggings under her jean shorts or the knee-length, full sleeve knit cardigan, but he knew what it felt like to have a comfort jacket. Her mother, several inches taller than her, was well (albeit colorfully) dressed with a lanyard and ID swinging around her neck, and a mobile folding cart filled with books, folders, and cardboard tubes. The mother's hair, a light silvery-blonde that fell around her shoulders, made Jotaro wonder if they were actually related, but he admitted to himself that stranger things do happen, and hair dye did exist.

Jotaro hummed to himself and looked back at the map as a gust of wind between the tall buildings sent papers scattering, the mother crying out in dismay.

"Sunnie–!!"

"Don't worry mom, I got it."

Jotaro watched the paper of his map flutter suddenly and unexpectedly, swooping in the opposite direction that it had been previously. It was such a sudden change that Jotaro looked back up from the map, only to see all the papers floating through the air to finally gather into the young woman's outstretched hand.

"I'll never ever understand how you can do that," the mother said, her voice equal parts thankfulness and bafflement, "And I don't think I ever will."

"You keep saying that, y'know," her daughter laughed, easily hefting the heavy folding cart into the trunk of her car.

"I know!! But it's true, it's like magic! But real!!"

Jotaro focused his gaze on the young woman.

Stand users are drawn to each other.

When the two women were nearly finished loading all of the mother's things into the car, he approached them, trying to relax his intense demeanor as much as possible. The woman's mother reminded him a lot of his own, and he didn't want to frighten her.

"Excuse me," he asked, fishing around in a pocket inside his coat to pull out his notebook. The two women turned to look at him, the mother's eyebrows raising as she made an 'oooh' noise. Her daughter's expression, however, was completely unreadable behind her large sunglasses, but Jotaro felt her gaze. Her carefree attitude had suddenly disappeared, and he knew that she was likely sizing him up. He wondered if she, too, felt the same weird restlessness in her own chest. "I was wondering if you could tell me how to get here," he continued. Her mother leaned in to see the address written on the notebook's page, then lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Sunnie! He's asking about the Speedwagon Foundation!"

Immediately, the daughter seemed to relax, looking at the page as well. "Oh, no shit?" After another second, her eyebrows rose above her sunglasses. "Oh! No shit!!"

"You know of it?" Jotaro asked, putting the notebook back into the chest pocket.

"Know of it? I'm heading there, after I drop mom back off at the house," the younger woman laughed, extending her arm for a handshake. "I'm Sunnie Green, recently employed by the Foundation. Good to meet you, Mr…?"

"Jotaro Kujo," he replied, accepting the shake and subsequently drowning her small hand in his own. Her shake was strong and firm and confident in a pleasantly unexpected way.

The second he said his name, though, a wry grin broke out on her face.

"No fuckin' way," Sunnie said, surprised, "I have heard some stories. Good to meet you in the flesh. Foundation's been expecting you."

Jotaro grunted. He knew that after his 'trip' to Egypt all those years ago, people at the Foundation liked to gossip about him, and he had hoped that those tales and rumors had died down, but it seemed that they'd persisted. He wondered if they'd only gotten more wild with time. "Well. That aside, if you could point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated."

"Well, uh, it's not quite in Dallas anymore? It's a bit away from here, so uh…" Sunnie trailed off, her face scrunching up in thought.

"Sunnie," her mom stage-whispered, "Sunnie, you should drive him there."

"Huh-whaa?" Sunnie looked at her mom, eyes wide, then nodded like a lightbulb went off over her head, crossing her arms and grinning, "Yeah!! Yeah, that just makes sense. That makes so much sense!!"

"That won't be necessary–" Jotaro began, but Sunnie shot him a confident grin.

"Don't be silly! This is the perfect solution. It's late in the day, getting a taxi or rideshare there will cost you money you don't need to spend, I mean come on. I'm right here, dude. I gotcha." The smaller woman laughed and put the final bag of papers in the trunk of her car, shutting the door. "I'm not taking no for an answer. And mom?" she looked at her mom expectantly, who smiled widely.

"I'll sit in the back!" She beamed before looking back up at Jotaro, "That way you don't have to sit with all the projects."

Without giving him the chance to offer otherwise, Mrs. Green made her way to the back seat, opening the door and getting in. Jotaro breathed a quiet sigh, gathering himself before he walked to the front passenger's door and opened it. He did not miss Sunnie's triumphant smirk before he ducked inside. To his surprise, it was actually roomy inside the small car. At least, roomy enough to be comfortable for him. There was some music softly playing over the speakers and a water bottle in one of the cupholders, and dangling off of the rearview mirror were some small pom poms and repurposed cell phone charms, several of them Pokémon. In a little storage area under the main console, he saw a lanyard with an ID decorated with the Speedwagon Foundation logo on it.

Sunnie got in the car as well, buckling up and shifting out of park, turning smoothly into the street when it was safe. 

"I'm excited for you to go to the new Foundation Headquarters, Mr. Kujo," Mrs. Green chirped, hands patting her bright red jeans excitedly, "Some of my former students helped decorate the interior! I'm very proud of their work."

"Mom's an interior design professor," Sunnie laughed, "Used to get hired for private homes and hospitals and stuff. There was that one home on White Rock with the spiral staircase? Fucking dope."

"I still talk to them," her mom said airily, "Sometimes I stop by for cookies."

Jotaro didn't quite know how to respond. The two women were very open and friendly and it was making him feel… strange. Was it just a Texan thing in general? Joseph had once mentioned 'Southern Hospitality'. Then again, who could say? The old man liked to talk for the sake of talking sometimes.

He caught a minute glance from Sunnie, who then leaned her head back, a lazy grin on her face.

"So mom, what're all those projects in the back?" She asked, "No balsa wood models this time? That was a nightmare to transport."

"But those were group projects and they were light weight! These plans are deceptively heavy and there are so many–"

As Carol rambled on about the projects sitting around her, Jotaro found himself happy that Sunnie seemingly sensed his discomfort and acted on his behalf to divert her mother's attention. He zoned out, his mind stuck on the impending meeting—one that he had never imagined he would have to have, and one that was admittedly making him feel a little sick in his stomach.

The red brick house they arrived at was in a quiet little subdivision about 40 minutes in traffic away from Downtown Dallas, lined with large trees and with a nice pond. The houses were all two stories, most driveways accessible from the street, and the summer warmth and ample sunshine had the lawns dotted with flowers of many colors. Sunnie parked the car in front of the pebbled sidewalk to the house, and the large dark blue front door opened. A salt-and-pepper haired man with a moustache walked out, wearing an old shirt and jeans and carrying a duffle bag. Sunnie and Mrs. Green got out of the car, and Jotaro decided to get out as well.

The man, presumably Mr. Green, seemed surprised. "I doubt one of your students turned him in," he laughed nonetheless. Mrs. Green giggled.

"No, no! He's with the Foundation!" Mrs. Green explained, and her husband rolled his eyes.

"I was kidding, Carol," he said, voice deadpan. Sunnie snickered.

"We found him looking for the new campus downtown, so I offered to take him there. Speaking of, we gotta get this stuff outta the Spaceship so we can head out," Sunnie turned to Jotaro, "This won't take too long–"

"I'll help," he told her, "Least I can do."

Sunnie paused, pursed her lips, and nodded.

With four sets of hands, unloading took no time at all, but Jotaro once again noted that Sunnie seemed stronger than her smaller size let on. At the end of it, her dad handed her the duffle bag, which she tossed in the back seat.

"See you in a few days," she said, hugging her parents, "Don't get too wild without me around."

"Darn. We'll have to cancel that crazy party," her dad grinned, and she smacked him on the arm.

Jotaro got back into the car with Sunnie, and she drove them out of the subdivision.

"…Do you live with your parents?" Jotaro asked, a sudden burst of curiosity getting the better of him. Sunnie looked at him out of the corner of her eye for a brief second, then turned her gaze back to the road as she flipped on her turn signal.

"I left my husband recently," she said, smoothly turning onto the service road, and Jotaro suddenly felt incredibly awkward, "Got out of the apartment as fast as I could. Grabbed a few things, said goodbye to the dog, and fucking split. It was really sudden, and since I don't have that much money to my name and my husband currently is in control of my finances, living with my parents is easier. I'm actually in my childhood room right now, when I stay at the house." She laughed dryly, merging onto the turnpike.

"Mm," Jotaro simply responded, and Sunnie laughed.

"It's not weird, dude, come on. Chill," she said, passing a particularly large eighteen wheeler and switching two lanes to the left, "I mean, it's kinda weird. But it's fine. I don't mind. I've heard a lot about you from some of the other employees already, I think it's fair that you know about me, if just a little." She looked at him briefly, eyes twinkling. "You're kind of a hot topic at the Foundation, you know."

Jotaro shifted in his seat and looked out his window.

"Which brings me to an important point," she continued, "I know why you're here."

Immediately, he looked back at her, eyes narrowing. That was supposed to be need-to-know information.

"I'm a Liaison for the Speedwagon Foundation. That's my official title, but I have a very specific job, and he is why you're here."

"You mean you–"

"Yes, and I'm aware of your history with him. Well, with the one from here." Her finger tapped the steering wheel pointedly. "I know you don't like him, that you have reason to not like him, and I know you won't like this one. But I'm imploring you not to start shit with him when you see him, okay? I've told him not to start shit with you so, you know, if you would be so kind."

Jotaro audibly gritted his teeth. This was just his fucking luck, running into that bastard's babysitter. "What makes you think he'd listen to you?" He growled.

"I don't know? He's been cool with me so far." She snorted. "I mean, he's an absolute piece of work, but it's been alright. No worse than teaching a class full of preschoolers can get on a bad day, but I did have to… establish that I can take care of myself against him."

"And how did you do that?"

"I stole his air," she said simply, "Made it impossible for him to breathe."

"Have you ever done that before? To someone else."

Her mouth fidgeted, eyes unreadable. They passed under the tollway in silence, broken by soft, ghastly wind chimes as a shimmering turquoise hand with a swirling wing shape on the wrist partially manifested on her shoulder, squeezing lightly before vanishing.

"You'll have to buy me a few drinks before I talk about that." Her voice was short, clipped. "I'm sure you have similar unlockable content you don't talk about otherwise."

It was a weird way to put it, but she was right. He did.

So he dropped the subject, looking back out the window.

"By the way, Catherine—Mrs. Gupta, rather—is here today, too," she said, tone easily switching from icy and guarded to light and airy, "She's the Regional COO, though I'm sure you know that. I'm told that she's the one who contacted you, after all."

Jotaro did not feel like answering. He didn't know what to say.

Sunnie merely glanced at him again, grinned to herself, and kept driving.

After Sunnie showed her credentials and pulled through the gated entrance of the new Dallas Speedwagon Foundation HQ, Jotaro let his eyebrows raise in surprise.

The previous location, having been built when Robert E. O. Speedwagon himself had struck black gold in Texas, was (while large) old, and it showed in its architecture and the relative closeness of the buildings. This, however, was a sprawling, modern campus with green spaces and fountains galore.

"We've got seven buildings here, but we'll be heading to the main one. Explore later if you'd like," Sunnie explained easily, searching for a parking spot. "I may be a… honestly kind of critical Subject Liaison, but I still don't have a dedicated parking space. That's fine, however," She lifted her finger and grinned, the sound of windchimes clinking in the air as her Stand fully manifested: lithe, vaguely robotic, feminine, and lined with light turquoise and shimmery silver. The face was mostly featureless and smooth like a plain mask, save for two large and sleek wing-like shapes on the sides, and two calculating but blank amber eyes. "We'll have her take care of this for us."

The Stand wiggled its fingers excitedly, then zoomed out of the roof of the car, unimpeded by the physical barrier. Jotaro watched, blank faced, then asked what could have been considered a very personal question.

"What's it's range?"

"Dust in the Wind's most powerful up to about six to nine feet from me, but she can and will travel quite far." That's… two to three meters, Jotaro translated in his head. "The further she gets, the less effective she is, but she's curious. She likes looking for things."

Jotaro huffed out the barest hint of a chuckle, remembering his time in jail before his trip to Egypt—how Star Platinum had brought him toys, beer, and reading materials in an attempt to placate him.

"I thought up this little tactic in college, since parking was shit there. It was cut-throat, honestly, so Windy helped scope out all the good spots." The Stand swooped down in front of the car and began nodding and pointing, motioning for them to follow. "Oh fuck yeah, it's a good one," Sunnie said happily before following as her Stand danced through the air in front of them, gracefully carving through the air. "She's playful. That's how I, uh, originally met… you know."

Jotaro looked at her, slightly confused. "Your Stand found him?"

She nodded, rounding a row of cars. "You know that weird feeling we got when we saw each other? How Stand users just kind of… know when other Stand users are around? I felt that when I first came here. She immediately jumped out and disappeared to find the source and found, well, him. Then he demanded to see the user, and bam," She shrugged, keeping one hand on the steering wheel, "We met."

Jotaro found himself grimacing at the mention of that man demanding anything and getting it. That piece of shit didn't deserve fuck all, in his opinion.

"Ah! There," Sunnie mumbled, pulling into a spot a row away from the front sidewalk. "She was right, it is good."

As she turned off the car and they both stepped out, Windy flew back to her user, nuzzling her face and disappearing. Sunnie grabbed her backpack and duffle bag from the backseat and they headed down the large sidewalk, lined with magnolias and sparkling water features.

"The old Speedwagon Foundation buildings are actually currently used for housing… supernatural objects. Like Stands tethered to items, fragments of pillars… there's this weird broken sword there that apparently possesses people, but when it does it just begs to be fixed," Sunnie rambled, shoving a hand in her long cardigan's pocket. Jotaro had to catch a breath, recalling that fight where Polnareff had indeed been possessed. That thing was here now? "This facility does a lot of R&D, field agent training, the like. Dallas has a lot of big companies around so they have some good deals, like with TI and stuff."

"You know a lot for someone who hasn't even been here for four months," Jotaro mumbled, glaring at the small woman. She glanced at him with a lazy smirk, the frog bell on her decorated backpack jingling softly as she walked next to him.

"I actually used to be in politics. Handled VAN data in my last campaign, but my strong suit was research. Following the money, making connections, y'know, all that mess," she said, tone light, "I know my way around things. Donor lists, requesting things under the FOIA, the like. I wanted to get a good picture of the Foundation before I thought about working here. And the rumors about their involvement in… supernatural matters interested me."

They walked through the large sliding glass doors into a cooled, busy lobby, shiny and sleek and new. Reflective surfaces, swooping centerpieces, statement greenery… it was impressive. What Jotaro did not appreciate was the eyes he felt on him the second he had walked in and the whispers that he knew were dancing around.

"Oh, Miss Green?" a receptionist pipped up upon seeing her, "And Dr. Kujo, oh!" The young man quickly patted down his curly chestnut hair, "I wasn't expecting you to–a-arrive together, huh. Well, Mrs. Gupta is waiting for you."

"Thanks, Mikel," Sunnie smiled, waltzing past the desk and towards a central elevator. Jotaro nodded his head slightly to the nervous young man as he continued to follow the smaller woman, stepping into the elevator. Sunnie leaned down (she didn't have to go too far) for a retina and thumb print scan, and the doors closed, the elevator smoothly starting up. They rode in silence, until the doors opened to a series of sterile white hallways.

"We're well underground, so you know," Sunnie mentioned as they began walking again. "It's easier to keep him down here with no threat of sunlight. The trick is that these lights outside his suite have a bit of UV in them. Sort of like how they keep the Pillar Man in D.C.," she informed him as they took a left, walking towards a large white double door. "Remember," she said pointedly, "No fights."

She leaned in for another eye and hand scan, and they passed through a short hall and through another sliding double door.

The first thing Jotaro saw in this more lavishly designed room was a tall, lithe, dark skinned woman with close-shaven hair wearing a golden pencil skirt and a deep forest green satin blouse, and stilettos that easily brought her close to his own height. Her expensive-looking gold jewelry and hoop earrings seemed to glitter as she turned her head towards the door, and her glossy dark red lips split into a dazzling grin.

"Sunnie! I see you've brought our guest," she said in a low voice like honey, lightly accented and melodic.

"Yep! I'm surprised he fit in my car," the smaller woman chirped as she walked into the room, "You didn't mention how tall he is."

The woman held out a well manicured hand, which Jotaro shook. "My name is Catherine Gupta. I became the regional COO of the Dallas branch of the Speedwagon Foundation a few months ago. It's good to meet you, Dr. Kujo."

"Call me Jotaro," he said, glowering at the door beyond them, "I'm assuming that's where he is?"

Mrs. Gupta nodded. "These newer facilities have several suites, some aboveground, some underground, for various purposes, if needed," she said, "When he came to us, it just made sense to stick him down here, where he is both protected and contained."

"Throwing him in a blender would be preferable," Jotaro grumbled, and Mrs. Gupta laughed lightly.

"Yes, yes, I'm aware of the Joestars' history with him," she said, shaking her head a bit, "The Foundation has extensive files on what happened in Britain all those years ago, as well as what you and your group went through. I've reviewed all of these multiple times to understand the situation fully."

"Well if that's the case, why the hell was I only recently informed of… this??" He gestured to the door beyond them, far past trying to hide the venomous rumble in his voice.

She pursed her full lips, "I wanted to tell you sooner, and believe me, I did everything in my power to convince my then-higher ups to let you know, but they were determined to keep it a secret from you and any other members of the Joestar bloodline. I felt that keeping it from you, however, was a moral failing. So I simply took the power I needed to make this happen."

He had to admit, he was impressed. She had said it so matter-of-factly that one might mistake it for an easy task, but he was aware that it almost definitely wasn't. The roiling rage he felt building inside his chest simply from being in proximity to that piece of shit subsided somewhat. "You have my thanks, then," he said quietly, "Does the Don know?"

Having been quiet up until that point, Sunnie shifted and the little frog shaped bell charm jingled, her head cocking to the side curiously. Jotaro took this to mean that she was unaware of his family tree.

"I'm still working on clearing that. I'm sure you're aware that there are a few more hoops to jump through when it comes to navigating our relationship with Passione," Mrs. Gupta chuckled. Hearing the name of the infamous Italian mafia, Sunnie's eyes blew wide and she covered her mouth slightly to whisper, 'yooooooo, what the shit, my dude', before Mrs. Gupta shot her a knowing smirk. "You would have found out soon enough, Sunnie. Just keep it secret for now, especially from him," she looked in the door's direction, and the shorter woman nodded enthusiastically.

"You got it, boss," she said, grinning widely, "Is… is the Don of Passione is a Joestar?"

"Indeed he is," Mrs. Gupta nodded, and Sunnie nearly flailed, whisper-shouting 'yo what the SHIT' again, causing the taller woman to laugh, "Though, I'll let you in on that later."

"Dope," Sunnie giggled, before noticing a tupperware box on one of the tables. "Oh～? And this is?"

"Murgh makhani from Janpreet. He made extra," Mrs. Gupta said warmly, before shooting Jotaro a glance. "My husband," she explained as an afterthought.

"FUCK yeah, tell him I say thanks," Sunnie giggled.

"Will do."

Jotaro had mostly tuned the two women out, however; he was staring at the door, glowering. Mrs. Gupta and Sunnie shared a glance.

"Welllll, I know you don't like him, but here we go. Time to face the music, I guess?" Sunnie said as she turned, her long cardigan following behind her as she nodded her head towards the door. 

Mrs. Gupta raised an eyebrow at Jotaro, gesturing for him to go before her. He took a breath and turned to the door, steeling his soul and narrowing his eyes.

It was time to face Dio.

ゴゴゴゴゴ...

(Part 2)

[kinnoth]

AVENGERS INFINITY WAR MEGATHREAD

-really doubt i'm gonna be able to finish this movie so we'll just see where i get to

- we already know how i feel about loki and thor, we don't need to revisit this

- ok but if i were going to revisit this, i mean come on, who wants to talk about "hela draws her power from asgard, same as you" cos i wanna talk about that

like what if that's the reason thor, god of thunder, king to a civilisation of warriors, was unable to fend off like, 4 dudes and a big purple dinosaur? the royal family of asgard draws its power from asgard, and without it, they are weak, they are mortal. maybe that's why heimdall is unable to just, you know, bifrost everybody off the fucking ship the minute it comes under attack. maybe that's why loki can't fucking conjure up a swarm of fucking microscopic knives to fillet the invaders from the inside out. MAYBE THAT'S WHY LOKI TRIES TO KILL THANOS WITH A FUCKING DAGGER. BECAUSE TAKE AWAY HIS POWER, TAKE AWAY HIS GODHOOD, WHAT DOES HE HAVE LEFT OTHER THAN HIS WILE, HIS TRICKS AND HIS BROTHER

WHAT IF IN SAVING THE UNIVERSE AND DESTROYING ASGARD, THEY'VE LOST EVERYTHING INCLUDING WHAT MAKES THEM GODS

somebody talk about this

- etc etc what if the reason loki is unable to attack the purple dinosaur with magic is because when he tackled thor earlier, he used whatever magic he had left to spare in order to heal him

checks out cos thor goes from flat on his face to swinging his fists in the space of like 30 seconds and the only thing to happen to him in between is said bit about loki tackling him

- why does heimdall save hulk? i mean, i could understand it if he were trying to aim the bifrost at thor and somebody somehow knocked off his aim and he accidentally saves hulk, but like, we've established that heimdall's loyalty is to the royal seat of asgard upon whom sits thor's mighty ass. thor who, in this scene, has just been incapacitated by a metal eggshell(?) and is at the mercy of their assailants. given heimdall's priorities, it is baffling to the point of inconceivability that he would preferentially save fucking HULK over his own king.

- if this next scene isn't the guardians of the galaxy coming across thor clutching loki's dead fucking body floating through space then i don't know why any of us are even here

- "he sent loki! the attack on new york was thanos!" makes no sense? like, if loki's scepter had the mind stone in it, which we established it did in the last movie when we broke it open to retrieve vision, then.....why didn't thanos just....take the mind stone in the first place? cos rock collecting is and has always been his goal?

what, do you think that just because you assert a thing makes us forget all the shit that happened before?

- i.....am actually with tony stark. why don't they just destroy the stones they have so that thanos can't get to them? oh, you made a promise? well promises change and circumstances change! you tell him tony! you tell that stupid fucker --

oh my god i'm gonna be ill

- i think the only person whose ego can match tony stark's is probably a neurosurgeon so 👍 i guess

-i love how we immediately went back to the "so dark can't see shit" aesthetic after ragnorak because ensuring that one's audience can SEE what is HAPPENING IN YOUR MOVIE is apparently for radical directors like taika waititi

- cannot believe that tony stark staring at captain america's phone number is being played with the same emotional intensity as thor losing his soulmate entire people

- honestly how many times is the mcu gonna invoke 9/11 imagery til someone calls them out for being terrorists

- lmao i know i said this before but peter's spidey senses tingling AFTER the giant alien anus has already started sucking up new york and it is right outside his window is fucking hilarious. that's just called using your eyeballs peter

- "friday notify first responders about the giant alien anus sucking up new york" lol like the first thing somebody did when the alien anus showed up wasn't to fucking call 911 GREAT IDEA TONY

- still can't believe that they let failed neurosurgeon dr strange do more magic than god of tricks and sorcery loki lol

- i know i rag on dr strange a lot about the fact that he's a neurosurgeon it's just that he sucks.

as a neurosurgeon eyy.

- i hate that peter parker has to be here!!!!! leave him alone!!!!!

- tony stark should not be allowed within 100 feet of children or minorities

- it is very weird to me that steve "brooklyn" rogers has an area code from georgia

- since when was hela a half-sister? ODIN'S DAUGHTER AND THOR'S BLOODED SIBLINGS OR BUST YOU FUCKING COWARDS

- i am very disappointed that thor is going to go get another weapon after we spent the whole last movie talking about how he is not the god of hammers

- i just need thor to have much more PTSD than he has right now. fucking hulk has ptsd. maybe they're saving the ptsd for later. one can only hope.

- i am glad that they are letting him be cleverer though

- THEY ARE LETTING VISION DATE A TEENAGER WHY

GOD. FUCKING GROSS.

- wait when did vision turn into a white man again? did i miss that movie?

- i am disappointed that vision the computer techno robot apparently has a penis. like what a stupid limitation to give your computer techno robot, gender. 🙄

- i think that the mass destruction of infrastructure and architecture in the MCU is because of the pg13 no blood limitation that disney has set? like there's no way to show destruction to the body, so one may only show the exponential destruction to one's surroundings. like imagine how much more dramatic intensity you could wring out of a regular fight scene would be if people were allowed to bleed?

- cannot believe that a computer techno robot and a witch are having a punch up with the bad guys. of all people to fight with something not their fists, it's these two

- wanda has no enhanced strength or durability? she's a regular teenager who's a bit witchy. the first time she got thrown through a glass door should have shattered her vertebrae. again i don't understand why we insist that everybody must have the same powers and capabilities when it's clear they don't. think about how much more interesting it would be if some avengers were more fragile than others and had to be given accommodations as such

- IT IS INCONCEIVABLE TO ME THAT FUCKING BLACK WIDOW (regular human), CAPTAIN AMERICA (enhanced human), AND FALCON (regular human with wings) CAN DEFEAT THE CHILDREN OF THANOS WHEN THOR COULDN'T UNLESS THOR (god of fucking thunder carved of steel and stone) WAS NERFED

- still don't understand how we'll lend aliens afro features but not afro hair, like, seriously? you're gonna dream up green aliens with gills who look like black people but imagining them with black hair is a step too far?

- the gap of commentary in this liveblog is simply because i do not care at all for the galaxy defenders

- "earth just lost her best defender" who? who does captain america consider earth's best defender? it's not thor; he doesn't know thor's presumed dead. it's not tony; he doesn't know tony's on an alien anus. who else has died so far?

- love how exhausted bucky looks. have always loved how exhausted bucky looks. love bucky.

- i forgot that tony was with peter parker. god i hate that.

- "i'm peter btw"

"dr strange"

"oh you're using the made up names then. i'm spider man"

ok that was cute, but peter's cute, we knew that already

- i want to fling both strange and stark into space and i'm having a hard time deciding which one to push first

- "you went to bed hungry, scraping for scraps" oohhhh thanos is just anti-poor people, he would literally rather poor people be dead than struggle, i get it nowww

this is on brand for mcu

- oh my god thanos gets 2/6 stones by torturing siblings in front of other siblings, seriously? you couldn't come up with 6 different ways to find his stupid rocks you had to reuse one twice?

- which one of thor's friends was stabbed through the heart....? fandral??

- "if i don't get my vengeance what more could i lose" more like what else is there eh? what else is there for a king of no people but their vengeance?

- CANNOT BELIEVE THEY GAVE HIM BACK AN EYEBALL JESUS CHRIST IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THOR RAGNORAK JUST SAY SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO FUCKING

VEHICLE FOR AUTHORITARIANISM, NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO CHANGE, FUCK YOUR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I GOT MINE

FUCK

- i do enjoy that thor is now science fiction rather than fantasy, i don't think anybody knew what to do with fantasy cos fantasy is again, ultimately about conservatism and the status quo. so i do like that we're embracing the new and boundless for whatever that's worth.

- marvel is a cesspool of toxic masculinity. at no point are characters allowed to actually feel anything because weakness is uncool i guess and therefore unmanful. like thor lost ALL OF HIS PEOPLE. fucking ALL of them. he watched his brother die in order to save him. he is not allowed a single fucking response of mourning. i don't care if he's pushing it back because revenge or whatever, this is the sort of grief that rules you, which will bring all your load bearing structures down to heel, and they let him do nothing; he does not even rage. perfect control. smooth witticisms. why. why aren't we allowed to see his sadness?

- yo i can't believe red skull is a scifi villain now lol space nazis for real

- OH MY GOD THEY WASHED BUCKY'S WIG AND IT LOOKS SO BAD

- michael b jordan was right btw wakanda is complicit in africa's exploitation

- i do LIKE black panther i guess in the way you technically like that cousin you met once when you were like 9 and never saw again?

i like how we have here in wakanda the sears tower (chicago), the batman building (nashville), and the gherkin (london)

- ok but like, presumably not a death cult super technologically advanced wakandans who are deffo made of human flesh and human blood still arm their people with spears

i mean unless wakanda is also a death cult

why is this chicks entire fucking face cgi'd she looks like a fucking cut scene video game character

- oh ok they have LASER spears, ok

so then why did they give bucky a fucking gun

- what is bucky supposed to be able to contribute here exactly, like fucking, again, he's spycraft isn't he? he's a one man, dead of night, operation go loud and then immediately silent kinda operation. why do they have him on the front lines of a fucking lock-step formation battle??

- "it will be the noblest ending in history" WHAT, FIRST COUNTRY TO EVER BE OVERUN BY ALIEN JACKALS??

- stormbreaker is just leviathan axe, somebody's said this already right

- omfg i'm so glad they're finally acknowledging that thor is OP as fuck and does not belong amongst the fucking squabbles of earth

-"titan was like most planets, too many mouths to feed not enough to go around, so i proposed a plan, dispassionate to rich and poor alike" JUST SAY YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE MCU. YOU CANNOT HAVE RICH AND POOR, YOU CANNOT HAVE DISPARITY, YOU CANNOT HAVE SOME WITH TOO MUCH AND OTHERS WITH NOT ENOUGH AND CALL IT EXTINCTION. THAT IS NOT A QUESTION OF OVERTAXED RESOURCES THAT IS A QUESTION OF RESOURCE FUCKING MANAGEMENT. IT IS AN ARTIFICIAL CRISIS IF THERE EXISTS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST HOARDING IT THAT'S WHEN YOU KILL THOSE PEOPLE AND TAKE THEIR SHARE. KILLING HALF THE PEOPLE IS THE KIND OF FUCKING SOLUTION TO INEQUALITY THAT RICH PEOPLE COME UP WITH

GOD. ITS LIKE NONE OF YOU EVER READ

-you've got the big fucking boss in an ambush AND YOU ATTACK HIM WITH A MAGIC SWORD STEVEN STRANGE?????

THIS FRANCHISE HAS NO IDEA HOW TO UTILISE MAGIC USERS FUCKING HELL

- when will somebody please utilise ironman like the one man artillery he fucking is WHY IS HE FIGHTING WITH HIS STUPID FISTS HE IS LITERALLY ONE CONTINUOUS CARPET BOMB JUST USE HIM THAT WAY

cut of his arm CUT OFF HIS ARM YOU BLOODLESS SPINELESS USELESS FUCKING CUNTS . this is a manufactured crisis, KIND OF LIKE THE ONES THANOS LIKES I GUESS LOL

- dr strange could have very easily prevented or stopped quill from punching thanos but he didn't cos i guess even the movie forgets steven strange exists sometimes

- i like that the shield around wakanda has the same weakness as a poorly constructed chicken coop -- you always build into the ground a couple feet to stop the diggers man, come on, what is this, your first energy shield?

- oh disgusting, a girl boss moment. whatever you're all fascists.

- nobody adores martial might like fascists do fucking change my mind

- " avengers: not one person in this fucking cast is able to stomach ANY AMOUNT of personal sacrifice" more like

- "why did you give away the time stone?" "we are in the endgame" THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER THAT'S A FUCKING MOVIE TEASER FUCK YOU

- why didn't strange just trap thanos in a timeloop again? we've already established that is a perfectly acceptable way to deal with planetary annihilation. IS IT POSSIBLY BECAUSE NOBODY ON THIS WRITING STAFF KNOWS HOW TO DEAL WITH MAGIC

- THOR OP BLIZZARD PLS NERF

-CAPTAIN MARVEL SERIOUSLY THAT'S WHO YOU'RE GONNA SEND YOUR LAST PAGE TO JESUS FUCKING DISGUSTING

[xparecivm]

The Official Lifetime Bucket List of Fabian Jasper Prewett 

Become an Auror. Ideally also be the top of the class in Auror training, but we’ll be with Kingsley, so that plan’s probably fucked from the beginning. 

*^^ The real dream? Imagine this: it’s thirty years from now. I’m head of the Auror department at the Ministry. Kingsley’s Minister of Magic. We own the place. We’re rich, we’re famous, but most importantly? The Ministry’s actually fuckin’ good.

Win at least one Quidditch cup Nailed it last year, cross that bad boy off the bucket list. 

Have twins. I know this shit isn’t something you can plan but man do I want my kids to be twins because how cool would that shit be?

Fight with the Order and finally win this fuckin’ war. Maybe be the one to blast Voldy’s head clear off, that’d be sick.

Get at least one potion put in an official potions book

Visit America, specifically New York City

Be the Best Man at both Gid and Molly’s weddings, we’ll find a way to make it happen. Co-Best Man with Gideon is perfectly acceptable if not preferred for Molly’s wedding. Just a groomsman is unacceptable. It’s on the bucket list they can’t deny me this

Write “Fabian Was Here” with irremovable ink in as many weird hidden spots around the castle as possible before graduation, including but not limited to: The top drawer in Filch’s desk, above the entrance of each house’s common room (Ravenclaw & Gryffindor already done), multiple beds in the hospital wing (two already done), the bottom of the tub in the prefect’s bathroom, the elbows of minimum three first years.

Officially officially ask Mary out, you gotta stop this will-we-won’t-we shit, dude, I’m you and it’s driving me nuts.

Be at the match when the Chudley Cannons finally win another league cup. 

Get a chocolate frog card made after myself

Have a portrait of myself in Hogwarts, but this has to be done before I’m at most thirty, ‘cause once I get old and wrinkly I don’t want that shit immortalized. Have you seen Dumbledore?

Never officially retire - When I’m old as shit and can’t do Auror work anymore, I’m gonna come back to Hogwarts to be a professor. Maybe Potions, maybe DADA, I’ll keep my options open! Who knows, maybe I can be like Dumbledore and be the fuckin’ headmaster when I’m like a hundred and ninety thousand.

Grow a beard

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

[heli0s-writes]

II. Of cinnamon rolls and Soldats

Summary: A couple of months pass-- making friends as an adult is weird. But, everyone loves your dog, so it's fine! Really, it's fine! Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes A/N: Steve Rogers is a scheming lil punk

Foot in Mouth Syndrome Masterpost

“You’re serious?” Bucky grumbles as Steve happily struts towards the door of their apartment—elbows bent, arms swinging, giddy whistling and all. “A dog?”

Steve shrugs as he leans against the door, picking his key ring from the hooks on the wall and twirling it annoyingly around his pointer finger. Bucky pours himself a glass of orange juice and eyes the bottle of vodka on their alcohol rack. He curses the serum because a screwdriver would definitely lift his mood. Steve insists on keeping liquor on hand at all times just in case they host any get togethers… which, for the last six months of living together, they’ve had only one. Sometimes Bucky drinks it straight from the bottle when Steve’s not looking just because he really misses it.

“Come on, Buck. World’s not ending any time soon. We’re on the most prolonged break yet. I wanna hang out with a dog!”

As if to add insult to injury— because Steve sort of just said that he prioritizes a dog over Bucky, he mumbles, “It’s not like you’re gonna let me get one.”

Bucky rolls his eyes for the millionth time since this request has come up. “You’re the dog. I don’t want another.” He crosses his arms, “Go, then. Get bitten for all I care.”

Steve swings his key ring around his finger and winks at Buck from the door. “I’ll be sure to let her know you say hi! And that you’re wondering how she’s doin’”

Bucky stiffens as the door slips shut— Steve’s laughter echoing down the hallway all the while.

-

He meets you outside of the campus Starbucks and catches the key ring you fling at him. Your hair is neatly braided, save for a few strands dangling over your face. You’re wearing fitted pinstripe trousers and a loose pale blue button up, tucked in haphazardly.

“Thanks! Just put it under the mat when you’re done! You got Venmo? I’ll Venmo you!” You screech before ducking into a crowd of confused undergraduate students and disappearing out of his view. Steve whistles lowly because your disappearing act could give Natasha a run for her money.

Happy, regardless, Steve spins the ring around his pointer finger and heads back to his motorcycle.

-

It’s almost three by the time you get back to your apartment, slick with sweat. The walk from the bus stop isn’t long, by any means, but you might be the sweatiest person you know, so the beads that drip into your eyes aren’t necessarily unexpected.

What is unexpected is that your keys are not under the mat, like you had instructed Captain America—who has now bewilderingly become your dogsitter, you suppose. Staring at the glossy turquoise paint of your apartment door, you stick your hand in your purse to rummage around for your phone. Suddenly, a bark from the other side startles you and you drop the device back into the gaping mouth of your bag.

A voice follows, shooting off a foreign command before a few more voices cheer as the barking subsides.

The door swings open and you anxiously step into your own damn apartment to three pairs of varying shades of blue eyes, all set in their own expressions. Your own eyes are wide-open, unblinking, possibly twitching – damn that giveaway left eyelid.

“Hello.” Blue eyes number one meets you at the front walkway.

You know her, and although you’re more familiar with her in red, the new blonde ‘do doesn’t take away from the terrifyingly calm energy she exudes. The smile on her lips says “Welcome” but the stare says, “Give me your social security number”

Part of you wants to squeal because you are a massive Black Widow fangirl because you don’t know if you want her or if you want to be her (Hello! She kicks ass and looks hot in leather?). But seeing her now, manifested at your door, staring at you like you’re chopped liver makes you refrain from professing your undying love. You gulp uneasily.

“Sorry about all the extra company!” Steve yelps from the floor when Buckeye gives his cheek an extra sloppy lick, “Time slipped from me. Natasha was in the neighborhood and I suggested she swing by to meet this good boy.”

Your dog crawls into his lap as if he’s not—Oh! Well, he sort of fits perfectly in those enormous legs. Even folded, Captain America’s lap is the size of a small table and Buckeye peers at you from beneath the white cone, chin perched on the corner of Steve’s knee.

“Uh, yeah that’s cool.” You mutter, shutting the door behind you, advancing carefully under Natasha’s gaze as she walks backwards into the living room. Finally, she plops down on the couch next to Bucky, who doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything any time soon. You’re surprised he’s back because he was two seconds away from crazy-murdering you last night and spitting on your grave.

“Still mad I licked your hand?” You call to him airily. Almost immediately, you can see all the hairs on his neck raise like an untamed cat caught unawares and Natasha whips around to give him a look of surprise.

“I swear to God…” he mutters, pressing his hand against his forehead because he already regrets that last minute blurt of accompanying Steve, and you are not helping. “Just one more. One more fuckin’ comment from you…”

You have about enough self-preservation as a lemming, so naturally you don’t even hear his threat.

“I thought I was doin’ you a favor, y’know, getting the wank-palm ready. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Steve whistles like a tea kettle as he tries to stifle his laughter and has to literally hold onto your dog to keep himself from pitching over. Buckeye loves it, because he pants along to each quiver of the Captain’s chest as he gasps for breath. Natasha pats the metal of Bucky’s arm.

“He’s right-handed.” She says nonchalantly.

“Oh.” You reply, “Well, cup the balls with it for all I care.”

Steve shoots up the same time Bucky does, and he steadies your dog with both his hands. “Hey!” He laughs nervously, “Come take Buckeye out with me for a minute! We’ll be back! Enough time for everyone to calm down.”  

He hooks Buckeye’s leash on and pushes his own Bucky out the door as quickly as they both can go. As he passes you, Bucky snarls, showing you all four of his canines— and you smile sweetly at him to veil the incoming sensation of nervous sweating. Steve shoves him roughly forward while leaning over against your cheek. That makes you sweat immediately.

“What did I say about that smart mouth!?” Steve whispers harshly before stepping out. Your dog trots out behind them, happy as can be.

Natasha pats the warm seat beside her where Bucky used to be and smiles at you until you slide in next to her.

“I’ll make it quick,” She begins, “I don’t know what funny little goose chase Rogers is on this time, but he’s taken a liking to you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Uh…”

She continues, despite your very graceful response and the flare that heats your face a thousand degrees hotter.

“He’s got some idea to take a superhero sabbatical. You planning any summer vacations? Maybe to 7344 Sunnywaters Drive? Cincinnati?”

You gulp. “Y-yeah, actually.” The sweat Steve’s proximity drew from you is nothing compared to Natasha clocking your parents’ address as an offhanded threat in your own damn home. You’re too scared to even wipe the moisture from your brow.

“Cool. Keep in touch.” Then, as if she’s handing you the remote, Natasha flings your phone into your lap and you fumble with it like a live grenade before clasping both palms over the thing. She’s already at the door, one hand on her hip before sending a wink back at you. “That’s between us girls. I’m your one-stop shop for boy trouble, understand?”

You nod your head vigorously and Natasha smiles at you again, a sweet peel of her peach lips back to reveal her teeth, just the same as Bucky. Then, like a dream, she’s disappeared out the door. A whine escapes your lips as you stare at the newly added contact: Nat.

You don’t even want to think about how she pulled the thing out of your purse and put herself in it without you noticing and frankly, the thought of her physically that close to you makes your legs weak.

Apparently, Captain America wants to retire with his trusty murderous sidekick and he’s looking at you to show him a good time. You pull your backpack into your lap and wrap your arms around the four books you’ve checked out of the library. You still owe your professor a paper, and your cohort-mates a drink some time this week. When, oh when, are you going to have time to have a mental breakdown?

Certainly not now, as two Super Soldiers stomp their way back into your apartment.

“Dude, I got downstairs neighbors.” You mutter dejectedly, sliding the bag onto the floor.

Steve apologizes and starts to tiptoe like a ballerina. Bucky, the saint, firmly slams one foot down and the entire building seems to shake. Buckeye hops up onto the couch at the noise, and the length of his leash twists around Steve’s ankles and trips him.

Right across the couch. His head falls into the cushion of your lap before he bounces himself off with a gasp.

“You gotta be kidding me.” You say as Steve pitches backward onto the floor and the apartment shakes once again with the strength of a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. All emotion has drained from you as you hold onto the couch like a lifesaver. These stupid superheroes are going to get you kicked out of your apartment and you can’t afford rent anywhere else, god damn it. Steve lies plank-like on the carpet, wincing at the commotion.

Bucky, on the other hand, cackles gleefully— the happiest you’ve ever seen him, ever. It makes you freeze as you stare at the oddity of the smile on his face. He’s never smiled on any television broadcast you’ve witnessed and even against the loop in the Smithsonian, this one knocks it out of the park. At the end of his maniacal tittering is a strangely mystifying chuckle, topped off by a lingering lopsided little smirk as he wipes the corner of his eye. His cheeks are flushed pink and the threads of hair that dangle over his features make him look all the more… handsome? No…!

“What?” Bucky snaps as he catches you looking.

“Nothing!” You shriek back, pretending to busy yourself with pulling your hair from its braided confines. The waves slip out of your elastic chaotically and you brush through them with your fingers, letting your face be obscured by your tresses. “I uh… I gotta do some.. writing.” You admit quietly.

It’s nearly four, and the books in your bag are not reading themselves.

“Oops, sorry, we’ll get out of your hair.” Steve grins at the waves over your face, “Get it?” and you roll your eyes dramatically at him.

“Please fucking leave.” You grunt. And they do, heading to the exit after Steve gives your pup a good double-eared rub. Suddenly, you remember, “Wait! Shit! Hey what do I owe you for today?”

You fumble around in your purse but Rogers crosses his arms and leans against the door frame, nearly as wide as the damn thing itself. Bucky raises an eyebrow next to him, “Why’re you diggin’ round in there like you got any money?” He asks.

“I fucking hate you.” You whisper dejectedly.

His leering smirk is back full force as he returns one of your own to you, “Feeling’s mutual, princess.”

You take it way back, like back to prehistoric times—no, back to The Goddamn Mesozoic Era-- and bury it there. Bucky Barnes, handsome? You’d rather eat shit.

“Don’t worry bout it.” Steve smiles, “As long as I can spend time with this good boy, we can call it even.”

You frown. “You… like, wanna dogsit for free?”

“Mhm.”

If this was a nightmare or some sick simulation that a sadistic deity was placing you in, fuck it, what can you do? It feels like a bad way to make a new friend but at the very least you have new friend? You’re trying to peer towards the brighter sides of this whole thing.  

An Avenger wants to hang out in your apartment and take care of your sick dog? There goes the possibility of potential muggings! Maybe you’d get held hostage again briefly, but Bucky will just shoot them in the face like last night. Imagine how much free time that’d give you to finish your paper!

You dig back around in your purse, finding the tiny little zip pocket and fling a loose key towards the door. Bucky snatches it before Steve can, in an almost protective gesture.

“That’s my spare. Knock yourself out, my man.” You say cheerily. Steve takes it from Bucky and grins at you before they both leave.

  They’re back in a couple of days, Steve politely texting you ahead of time as you’re perched on the kitchen counter waiting for your leftovers from…who knows when to warm up. You unlock the door and return to your post.

Steve immediately fawns over Buckeye, who naturally returns the affection. They roll around on the floor together and you frankly start feeling like you have two dogs. And then the image of Captain America as a stupid Golden Retriever sears itself into your brain. You shake it from your head, bewildered, but you can’t help glancing back over at the way he spools over the floor with his knees bent and mouth open.

Opening your mouth, you begin to comment but it shuts itself when Bucky saunters into your kitchen and sticks his head in your refrigerator. He drinks the last soda you were saving before stepping across from you and leaning back on the counter with an antagonistic smirk.

Yep. You still hate him. You wonder why he’s even here since the feeling is so, so mutual.

“Sooooo….” You sing quietly as a different thought flits across your mind, taking one hand and gesturing from Bucky to Steve, who is now playing tug-o-war with Buckeye. Your wrist flicks a few times back and forth. “You guys like, fuckin’? Or what?”

The hand that’s holding onto your marble counter slips slightly and Bucky stumbles before catching himself. It wouldn’t take very much for that same hand to shatter your jaw, he thinks, because what kind of person just says that!?

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Do you have any sense at all?” Bucky grumbles under his breath, “Or do you just love flirting with death this much?”

You blow a raspberry at him, “Pfft. Presumptuous of you to one: call yourself death, and two: suggest I’m flirting.” Bucky snarls in reply, and you think you could get used to this kind of banter.

From the living room, you hear Steve pat his knees, “Hey!” he calls, not missing a beat, “You guys flirting in there!?”

-

“Soooo….” You intone again a week later, when Steve volunteers to take Buckeye out for a break and you’re stuck watching T.V. with Bucky, book and post-it notes in your lap.

“I swear, if you ask me one more time if Stevie and I are fucking, I will kick your ass so hard your damn vertebrae will pop out of your mouth like a Pez dispenser.”

“Stevie? Oh…” You mutter, “So, y’all in love, love.”

His metal fingers flex against his thigh and you whistle innocently when Stevie returns.

You smile. The blonde smiles back. Bucky’s hand whirrs menacingly on the other side of the couch.

--

Almost two months pass of these habits—Steve coming over, usually with Bucky in tow and they lounge around your apartment like they live here while you sit with your tablet and crank out as many e-mails as you can in their presence.

At this point in time, you practically think of them as your extremely annoying roommates because that’s what they act like. Sometimes you eat sad dinners together, consisting of Frankenstein’s-Monster-level sandwiches of things you find in your fridge—but after the second instance of that happening, Steve began to bring over groceries every time he came by. You had thanked him. Then you proceeded to create other abominations with his produce.

In the beginning, it was tough; there were constant distractions as they navigated how to behave around you and vice-versa. Endless quips and insults and threats, primarily between you and Bucky while Steve watched helplessly. Eventually, it died down somewhat, and although you thoroughly enjoyed making fun of him, Bucky was just as much an appreciated fixture as Steve was.

Besides, you had other things to do than make his life miserable—more miserable, you hope, because you hope his life is already miserable, that smug, trash-panda-looking bastard.

Once, Bucky thought it was curious when he hurled an insult at you but there was only silence. Even Steve looked over, but you were buried with work, balancing a book on each knee as you sat cross-legged, typing furiously, head turning from one side to the other as you read at the same time.

It reminded Steve of Tony. Bucky stilled and quirked his head to the side, almost impressed—not that he would ever admit that anything you did was impressive to him.

Fifteen minutes later, you finally replied—a half-hearted rudeness that had nothing to do with what he said in the first place.

He laughed then, boisterous, almost hysterically when you glued your eyes back to the screen and smiled absently.

“Alright, kid. We’ll leave you to your work.” He said, “Let’s get outta here, Stevie.”

“Ooooh, Stevie,” You squealed mockingly, “Hey---“ a grin had passed over your face and before you could ask exactly what they both knew you were going to ask, Bucky leapt over the couch and put you in a headlock.

“I’m gonna kill you!” He snarled.

Buckeye barked, alert and worried as you yelped, head stuck in his arm. Captain America leapt gallantly to his feet, hands out ready to diffuse the tension, but when you started giggling and tapped playfully on Bucky—who laughed, goddamn it—laughed, Rogers sat back down with a knowing grin.

 Although the topic of their bond was a running gag at this point, it was still on your mind from time to time as you carried on with your daily life. Classes were coming to an end, and this would be the first summer in a while when you wouldn’t be taking a course—instead only TA-ing for an online class. You suppose it would only take you a couple of hours a day if you timed your schedule correctly. Balancing your schoolwork, other friendships, and the Super Soldier Chaos Idiot Duo had been surprisingly easy, considering that they were relatively low-maintenance and didn’t want anything other than to be in your company.

They help you out quite a lot, especially Steve, who you swear to God, just fucking loves dogs. At least twice a week he comes and either takes Buckeye on an extended walk (an hour minimum), or takes him to the dog park and they both come home completely exhausted and sprawl out on the floor while you fan them with a spare newspaper, trying not to stare at the way his chest rises and falls, nearly bursting out of his drenched t-shirt.

Not that you were crushing on Captain America, your sort-of dogsitter-slash-friend, but that you were a human being with two working eyes. Because, good googly-moogly, that ass is juicy.

Naturally, that train of thought brought you back to Steve and Bucky’s possible relationship. So, for the first time since you’d been blessed with the Deus ex Machina itself, you had texted Natasha.

You: Hey… uh, weird question but… these boys fuckin’ or nah?

The grey ellipses appeared immediately.

Nat: Interesting question coming from you. Not my business. Ask them.  

You: “One-stop shop”, my ass.

 She didn’t dignify your grouching with a reply. But you took her advice anyway, and asked Steve, who proceeded to clap his hands together loudly.

“We’re partners!”

He beamed then, like that shed any light at all on what you were pondering. Partners also meant like, the team-up-together-and-kick-ass kind of thing. Part of you had thought that he did that on purpose, but…whatever.

 You wanted to remain on the safe side of Bucky’s possible wrath, so you keep the staring at Steve thing to a minimum and then eventually, you stopped altogether.

 Tonight, however, something new is happening—new in your life, and new for Steve and Bucky too, as they step into your apartment and freeze when you emerge from the hallway. You had called and asked for a dogsitting session for a couple of hours, which happens from time to time when you’d go out with friends, but this was different.

“Hey.” You greet as you scurry around, looking for something. Steve busies himself stroking Buckeye’s back but watches as you nervously scramble around like a gerbil, flinging the couch cushions and throw pillows onto the floor.

“Lookin’ for these?” Bucky asks, gingerly placing his hand forward with your keychain dangling from his fingertips.

“Oh shit, where’d you find ‘em? I’ve been looking everywhere.”

“They were on the hook, like always.” He responds slowly, eyeing you up and down like you were sprouting another head.

It’s almost as jarring, actually. You greet them every single time in swaggy Ohio gear, shorts and a tee, or your semi-formal work clothes, but today, two months into their weird little friendship with you, you’re wearing a dress. Bucky squints as they both take a seat because he thinks it looks like you’ve put on lipstick.

“The fuck’re you lookin at? Wait--is it on my teeth? Son of a bitch, I always get it on my teeth.”

“Yes.” Bucky deadpans.

“No!” Steve corrects and slaps him on the chest. “You… uh, look nice.” He says as you pick up your purse and dig around in it before realizing your phone is already in your hand.

“Huh?” You ask, genuinely not hearing his compliment from all the blood pounding in your ears. They watch you slip on combat boots and pick at your eyelashes for a second before you anxiously walk over to where they lounge on the couch. “S-so… I’m… going on a date.” You admit quietly.

Steve quirks an eyebrow. Bucky folds his arms.

“Okay. Normally I would never ask you guys—especially not you,” You sneer at Bucky who rolls his eyes, “But… I have not been on a date in quite a long time—hooo boy, I don’t even know what a man is like anymore, honestly.” You blather as Steve looks incredulously to Bucky and them at himself as he gestures obviously to their very masculine physique. “Okay, but like—not you guys.” You add quickly.

“What the hell does that mean?” Bucky doesn’t know why he’s offended, but he is.

“You’re men, fine! Yes. Technically!” He scrunches his face even more as you continue to ramble, “But like, this is a man! Like, a human? Y’know? A person who could like me! Ah shit, I’m just anxious, you dick!” You screech, “All I wanted to ask was like—you know!” You sway from side to side mechanically, waving your hand in front of your face as you squeeze your eyes shut, “Do I look okay!?”

Maybe instead of going on the date, you could just drop dead right here, you think. A literal minute of silence passes and you stop feeling embarrassed and start getting angry, foot tapping against the carpet. “Am I invisible?” You throw your hands up.

No, Steve thinks as he digs around for the right thing to say. You are unquestionably not invisible, because he’s been looking at you for the better part of two months now and he definitely has some words for this instance. His eyes move over your exposed shoulders and down the soft material of the dress that seems to be contouring your body before they stop at the dress’ hem—at the middle of your thighs.

“Kinda short.” Bucky blurts.

“Kinda the point.” You mutter, “I want this guy to like me, remember?”

“Good luck.” Bucky snorts, “Not with that mouth.”

A sly smile spreads over your face because the comeback you have is rated NC-17 and you’re ready to spew it all over him but Steve shakes his head sharply and you shut up with a sigh. Mood killer. You pat your thigh and briefly bend over to snuggle with Buckeye while Steve surveys your streaming subscriptions. He’s started on a new sci-fi show at Natasha’s suggestion and he and Bucky have recently left off on a cliffhanger. It seems to be a good place to distract himself from the peculiar direction this night is heading down.

“Love you sooooo much!” You squeal, rubbing your forehead against your dog’s velvety grey skin, lowering your voice into a silly warbly pitch “Yeah, that’s my Big Bucko! Uh-huh, good boy. Who’s the best boy? You’re the best boy!”

From beside him, Bucky lets out what sounds like a puff of annoyed air.

You fix yourself and stand up, parting with a final kiss on his head, “Wish me luck, Buckaroo.” Then you imitate guns with your fingers and point at Steve and Bucky a few times, as if firing, “Alright, suckers. I’m out. I’ll let you know all about it in a couple of hours.”

And just like that, you’re gone, keys jangling all the way.

Steve clicks play on the next episode of the show and Buckeye settles by his feet, nestled comfortably between his and Bucky’s legs. The opening theme starts as they sit in silence, thinking over the last ten minutes.

Bucky speaks first.

“I’m gonna kill her.” He mutters plainly. At this point, it’s a reflexive statement to show his disapproval of whatever it is that you’ve done. Steve seems to agree as he nods slowly before taking a deep breath.

“I think I’m gonna kill the guy.”

 Bucky lets out a string of laughs as he grabs his sides and leans back on the couch because he knows it’s a joke, but Steve is never this protective, nor does he threaten civilians lightly. When Bucky turns his head to regard his partner, the look on Steve’s face is a wry one—half tilted smile, furrowed brows.

“C’mon Stevie. Girl’s just trying to live.”

“Wow, you’re defending her? Oh, Buck, you’re in deep, aren’t you?” Steve teases as he reaches over to ruffle Bucky’s hair. He knows, just by being with Bucky all these years that their feelings for you are mutual. He had called it day one as he followed you through the wet grass of the complex—Steve knows what Bucky likes, and he knows full well that Bucky likes you.

“Shaddup, Rogers.” Bucky grunts. But now that it’s just the two of them in the apartment, the crotchety ill-tempered façade slips off and a smile glides over his lips. “She’s a brat.” He mutters, but stretches his arm across to rest it on Steve anyway.

Their personas are defined: Steve is good cop, Bucky is bad cop. Steve is a Golden, Bucky is a wolf. They fit their roles well because it does fit who they are, but when it comes to private matters, Bucky understands that Steve runs the show. And Bucky always lets Steve do what he wants. It’s annoying sometimes, when he gets himself a stupid new hobby and falls down a rabbit hole of some obscure ancient coin-collecting or whatever else he gets into.

His latest endeavor for the last two months since his so-called retirement, had been meeting every fucking dog in Manhattan until he met you. And then it was a two-for-one-combo, Bucky thinks. But Bucky loves happy Steve, so he let him become your friend.

 From next to him, Steve pretends to pay attention to the show—not that it isn’t enthralling, but he has other things on his mind. Bucky’s quieted, far-away look in his eyes and Steve knows it’s because he’s lost in thought, trying to analyze this situation—trying to analyze Steve.

But Steve Rogers’ intentions are simple, as they’ve always been: make Bucky happy. And in the last two months since that fateful night, scraped knees, Ohio Fight song and all—Bucky has been.

Steve’s a shit, and Bucky loves Steve. You’re also a shit. And he knows, oh he knows, Bucky also loves you.

 The episode drones on in the background, already close to finished. An hour has passed and they hadn’t even noticed.

They sit there, eyes glazed over, occasionally flicking each other and grabbing one another’s hand, deep in thought of affections for each other until quite suddenly, the door flies open and you stomp in, hair in disarray.

Two heads jerk over to the doorway where you kick off your boots with a snarl, steadying yourself with your palm against the wall before slumping to the ground and greeting Buckeye with outstretched arms.

Bucky is about to comment on the briefness of the date, but you’re curled up into a ball over your dog’s back as his tail whips happily against your side. You’re whispering and kissing him rapidly over and over like machinegun fire. “Buckeye!” You cry, “What kind of stupid motherfucker! I can’t believe that piece of shit. How dare he!” You rub your face against your dog, glaring at the ground.

Steve and Bucky exchange looks.

“Are you drunk?” Bucky asks.

“Yes!” You yell, moving so that you’re slightly squatting. The two men tilt their head at your stance before they watch you slowly lift Buckyeye in your arms. You shake slightly and take a step forward, the hem of your dress peeling up against his bottom as he slides to one side.

He doesn’t notice at all, and continues flapping his tail as you teeter around the front entrance.

“Look at this fuckin’ cinnamon roll!” You cry, smashing your face against his neck, the rest of your words coming out muffled into his fur, “Does he look fuckin’ dangerous?!”

“No!” You answer your own question, taking another step forward, “He’s not! He is! A! Good! Boy!” Another step is taken. Steve and Bucky press themselves against the couch as you tread towards them menacingly.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Bucky demands when you begin to sniffle because it is freaking him out that you even have a sad setting on your range of emotions. More than anything, it’s freaking him out that you’re showing it to him.

“Would you call—“ You ask, standing him front of him, hips leaned forward to help distribute the now 55 pounds of muscle that is your dog over your body so that your arms don’t suffer too much tomorrow, “Would you call this precious, lovable— a little traumatized, sure—baby—“ You sniff again, “Would you call him vicious?” You hiss. Bucky opens his mouth but you disrupt him again.

“Would you call this good boy, a killer?!”

Bucky grunts when you throw your dog onto his lap. “Look at him!” Long, wet licks are applied everywhere to Bucky’s grimace as your dog’s tongue finds this an opportune moment to clobber Bucky with kisses. In the two months that he’s hung around, Buckeye has rarely had this close of encounters with Bucky. Usually it’s Steve who gets his attention, and the silver-armed man is just someone who sort-of looks at him. As a dog, he’d rather play with the person who lies down on the floor and rolls.

“What the—god damn it!” Bucky dodges left and right, but the tongue even goes right into his eyeball. Finally gets to rest as Steve motions your dog over to lie down in the middle, resting his bum on Bucky’s lap and his face on Steve’s knee.

You crumble onto the floor on your knees, throwing your arms over Buckeye’s back and pressing your cheek against him, looking up at Steve.

“Can you believe it? This guy… this guy called Pit Bulls killers. He called me a dumb bitch for getting a Pit because they’re all vicious and should be put down and eradicated. I got so fucking mad at him, I threw both our drinks in his face. I hate this fucking city—everybody’s a goddamn asshole.” You quiet considerably as Steve puts his hand on your shoulder. He knows how touchy you are when it comes to misconceptions about your pet, because he knows you’ve worked hard to rehabilitate him since his adoption. And Steve has witnessed first-hand just how mild Buckeye actually is.

He might look big and intimidating, now at 10 months and massive, but he plays peacefully with other dogs every time they go to the park, and he lets strangers pet him no sweat. Every time.

Steve steals a look across the couch where Soldat stares ahead calmly.

As if understanding the situation, Buckeye whines pitifully and rubs his wet nose against your cheek. A quiet moment passes before the other side of the couch shifts and Bucky sits up.

“What’s the motherfucker’s name?” He asks cooly.

“Buck…” Steve warns.

“No, no. I’m not gonna do anythin’ to him. His tires, though, different story.”

You laugh and sit up finally, make up a little smudged from your tears. “Nah. He’s not worth it. A lot of people in Manhattan aren’t very dog-friendly anyway. I bet he doesn’t even fuck with Labs, y’know?” You scratch the bridge of your nose before looking up at the two sitting above you.

Steve to your left, head tilted slightly with a sympathetic smile. Bucky to your right, mouth set in that characteristic scowl of his as he waits for you to say something stupid—as always. And you sort of do.

“I’m going to visit my parent’s for a week. We have an extra room and lots of space—wanna come along to Ohio?” Your drunk brain interrupts yet again as you pull yourself up and push Buckeye until he’s on the other side of Steve and you flop down on the couch in-between them, kicking your feet on top of the coffee table. “Anyway, what are you guys watching? Ew—is that thing giving birth? Fuckin’ gross.”

 And then you’re asleep, the smell of vodka lingering over your head as it tilts backwards and the couch cushion sinks to cradle your skull. Steve sighs and puts Buckeye on the leash, taking him out for one last potty break before they leave to go home now that you’re wandering dreamland and gestating a hangover.

He returns to Bucky standing over your sleeping body on the couch, carefully tucked in from the blanket on your bed—pillow under your head and all. Steve says nothing as Bucky crosses his arms and looks at you with an odd grimace, like he’s trying to figure something out. Quietly, Bucky heads to the door and pats your dog gently.

Steve Rogers takes out your spare key and turns off the light with a smile.

Next Chapter

[angrylizardjacket]

Yaaasss!!! Jelous Ben was si cuteee and we love a supportive mother, her mom is fantastic and a savage. I hace a question, how did you come up with reader's character in x-men?? I legit googled it as I thought it was a real character, so welk done.

i love her mum so fuckin much, dude, she’s supportive but can still be embarrassing at times. i wrote her, not like my actual mum, but like my dad now that i think about it. dude literally told me over the phone that he’d physically fight people for shittalking me (not just in general, there’s more context, but the point still stands). idk i think it’s disingenuous to not let parental characters have certain flaws, like they’re allowed to be overprotective and spiteful, as well as caring and supportive. i love her too.

oH SHIT DUDE LEMME TALK ABT MY GIRL CASSIDY TEMPLE I LOVE HER SO FUCKING MUCH AND I”VE PUT SO MUCH THOUGHT INTO HER THAT THIS WILL HAVE A READ MORE

so cassidy’s powers are actually based off of an xmen oc i’ve already written 70k about, Aoibheal Cassidy, younger sister of Banshee, Sean Cassidy, and Cassidy Temple’s name is a reference to her, since originally I was going to essentially have Y/N playing Aoibheal (because it’s my fic and i can include an homage to my xmen oc as a treat). the powers themselves are based loosely on Multiple Man from X-Men: The Last Stand, except Cassidy’s clones can’t live a life of their own like his can. In the xmen fic, aoibheal starts off with having unlimited clones, and they can explode because i thought it was neat tbh.

From the original fic, Molotov Heart, chapter 3, rubatosis:

[Context; humans experimenting on mutants between X-Men First Class and X-Men Days Of Future Past have caught Sean and Aoibheal and they experiment on them even though Aoibheal’s powers have not manifested (she is approximately 13) and they kill her brother in front of her]:

Stunned into silence, she can feel something white-hot building inside of her, all the rage and fear and pain becoming almost tangible.

She mutates.

Copies of Aoibheal, clones, appear around them, filling up the space between the now screaming and bewildered 'doctors'. Aoibheal herself doesn't seem to notice the clones, bawling her eyes out, an action the clones themselves are mirroring, and she thinks of nothing but freedom and escape, focusing on the white-hot feeling inside of her until it overwhelmed her. With the force of a bunker-buster bomb, the clones began to combust, began to explode, first a few, and then all at once. Killing the human personel who had kept her hostage, the blast reduced the warehouse to mere cinders, freed Aoibheal and left her clothing in tatters, but she was alive damn it.

The reason Cassidy has a limited number is because i needed a way to have her powered up as a horseman, like a distinct power up, rather than just something unseen like heightened reflexes and strength. 

I would like to point out also, that it’s not stated, but Cassidy’s explosions (NOT AOIBHEAL’s) are never to do with heat, they’re always about force. the explosions themselves are never hot, never have anything to do with fire or anything like that, she builds up force inside of the clones, and lets it tear her apart from the inside out as a wave that destroys the things it comes into contact with.

The scream was originally hereditary, like Banshee, it developed as her secondary mutation.

From the Marvel Wiki:

The Secondary Mutation (or "Second Mutation") is a phenomenon in which an existing mutant undergoes another mutation, gaining additional powers, such as healing, or a change in appearance.

Secondary mutation is noted as the appearance of new powers, or an increase in existing powers.

It was stated by Beast that the secondary mutations usually occurred in the twenties of the subjects, and generally appeared in time of great stress.

From the original fic, chapter 8, nodus tollens:

The appearance of the secondary mutation:

The world falls apart in a blur of movement. The gun goes off just after Raven jumps and makes a break for the window, the bullet curves as she crashes through the glass, following her on the way down. Tackling Erik earns Hank a mean right hook to the jaw, but Aoibheal’s there, looking at Trask like a dear in the headlights, memories whipping through her head like a hurricane - the sick fuck looks pleased to see her – her mouth falls open and she screams. She and the clone scream in tandem, their voices supersonic as the surrounding people clutched their ears for dear life; struggling to keep a hold of the feeling in her chest that caused her to explode, the clone detonates like a firework, scorching the wallpaper while Trask is stumbling to the door. There’s blood leaking from his ears but Aoibheal can’t move, can only scream and relive the memory of her brother’s murder over and over again.

Hank discussing it:

"I've never seen a secondary mutation so vastly different!" No longer blue or furry, [Hank’s] smile is excited as he looks over at her. Sharing the cockpit feels almost familiar by now, with Aoibheal curled up in the passenger seat nursing a glass of water. "It makes sense though, your original mutation – the explosions – would be an extension of your temperature immunity, but your secondary mutation is hereditary."

Cassidy’s scream, however, unlike Banshee’s, only effects things with ears, not inanimate objects like glass. Of course she could learn the right pitch to get glass to shatter like an opera singer, but generally speaking, her scream only effects things that can hear. 

OKAY LETS TALK ABT THE STUFF I FABRICATED FOR THE FIC

oh GOD I WANT TO TALK ABOUT HER RELATIONSHIP WITH MAGNETO

not as in romantic, as in he is literally her character’s main inspiration in the films. i’m literally making a fake trailer right now that’s intercut with moments from his DOFP speech that was broadcast to the whole of america.

i love dofp (possibly to my detriment) but i always thought it was weird that no-one was ever like.... magneto has a point. BECAUSE HE HAS A POINT. he’s speaking directly to disenfranchised and SCARED mutants across the nation, and yet everyone’s heralding Mystique as the new face of mutant kind. YES she made a point, but like.... did no-one vibe with magneto when he promised the destruction of mankind? i would. anyways.

so i thought it would be interesting for this character, Cassidy, to have this hero-worship of Magneto, taking his words to heart like scripture, ultimately making her a foil for Phoenix, Xavier’s protege. 

it’s why i specifically included this:

“You should be,” you hissed, putting your all into the words as you spoke them, and you hear Ben inhale sharply beside you, “we shall inherit the Earth.”

“What follows is a struggle as Cassidy and the figure – revealed to be her clone – proceed to kill the man. When they’re finished, and the man’s dead on the ground, Cassidy straightens her outfit, and we hear –“ as the director reads, Michael begins to slowly clap, “a slow clap, and it’s revealed that Apocalypse, as well as Storm, Angel, and Magneto, had all witnessed the event.”

“We are the future, we are the ones who shall inherit the Earth,” Michael reads as he stops clapping.

“Magneto,” you breathe reverentially, and when you look to him, you and Michael share a sharp smile.

which is a direct quote from magneto’s speech in Days of Future Past:

You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different. Well, I'm here to tell you, to tell the world, you're right to fear us. We are the future. We are the ones who will inherit this earth, and anyone who stands in our way will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you. Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead I give you a glimpse of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours. Let this be a warning to the world. And to my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this; no more hiding, no more suffering. You have lived in the shadows in shame and fear for too long. Come out, join me. Fight together in the brotherhood of our kind. A new tomorrow, that starts today.

which ALSO is what turns her into the next big villain for the franchise, because she sees Magneto, the man she kind of thinks of like a god, turn on and help kill Apocalypse, the man who claimed to be an actual god, and side with the people who, ultimately, don’t want to destroy the human race like she does, and also killed the man she loved. she takes Magneto’s ideologies and turns them up to 11. he fucks off to create a mutant paradise away from prying eyes and is happy, she won’t be happy until all humans are punished.

it’s why, in the beginning, she and raven can’t still work together, because raven wants to rescue mutants, but not at the expense of unnecessary human lives, and cassidy sees all humans as complicit in the torture, and therefore deserving of punishment. 

she has deemed herself judge, jury, and executioner of human kind, and they have all been found guilty.

i’m so excited to see if i get around to writing some of the next film because i really want to explore the dichotomy of Xavier’s ‘no-one is ever really gone/there’s always hope’ and magneto’s ‘you were right to be afraid of us, we are the ones who shall inherit the earth’. Everyone has given up on Cassidy in one way or another, whether it be by betrayal or death, and so when she finds this symbiote who literally becomes a part of her, makes her stronger, and is happy to kill people with little regard for who they are, she’ll take it. 

EDIT: here’s the first 26 seconds of the fake trailer (Y/N here is played by Jurnee Smollett, aka Black Canary from Birds of Prey)

ANGEL & RIOT

i wanted y/n to kiss ben hardy that’s literally it. 

actually no that’s not it 100%, i think it’s super amusing in a kind of bleak way that he got fridged for her, like his death, both in the “””comics””” (as in the comic universe for the fics) and in the film, causes her to seek out a force that would help bring him back to life. in the “””comics””” she originally seeks out a mutant, but when the mutant who can bring people back refuses to help her, she’s told of experiments at The Life Foundation, who are working on engineering the next step in human evolution, and she’s thinking that they’re experimenting on mutants again, like trask, and goes in guns blazing, but instead finds symbiotes. she bonds with a symbiote, thus becoming Riot Control, and the symbiote initially promises her all these things, including being able to find a way to ressurect angel, but eventually (in the “””comics”””) the power he gives her overtakes her need to ressurect her love, and riot ends up using her to try and build a ship to bring more symbiotes to take over earth.

IN THE FILM

okay OKAY okay OKAY so she’s looking for a way to ressurect angel at first, but riot’s in her ear while he’s seeing all her memories, and is convincing her to get revenge on the people who are responsible for his death (nightcrawler, jean, and Magneto specifically) so its not that the xmen are just in the plot by happenstance there’s like actual beef, love it. 

I also love that Cassidy’s powers are handicapped when she’s got Riot, since her scream would injure or even possibly kill him. Yes i specifically paired her with a symbiote for that reason, which is also the reason why her clone explosions aren’t heat based. 

but anyway, can i spoil the ending? i wanna spoil the ending;

so there’s this big showdown between riot control and the xmen, and jean confronts cassidy, trying to talk her down like ‘what would angel think if he saw you? What you’ve become?’ and Cassidy’s furious, thinking that jean’s trying to guilt her, like, angel would be so ashamed

“Keep his name out of your fucking mouth, you have no idea what he’d think-”

“He’d be terrified of you.” And it’s so fucking like, cruel and cold coming from Jean.

“Shut up.”

“You have become a monster; you have maimed your idol-” [we cut to a shot of magneto looking all fucked up and bloody, watching with anger in his eyes] “and you have left Angel for dead. If you’d really cared about him, you would have already gotten him back. Instead, you come for revenge against the people who could have helped you -”

or something like that, and riot control has a whole breakdown, lashing out, snarling that no-one could help her, and when they tried, they ended up dead (angel, apocalypse) and she starts losing control, and her voice starts to distort in and out of riot’s, making it clear he’s taking control of her completely. 

there’s this big, final fight, which culminates with jean grabbing cassidy’s face and trying to burn riot out of her.

“No-one is beyond help.” And Jean’s like, got tears in her eyes, desperate to save this girl who’s caused so much pain, but who sees herself as so wretched and beyond help, and we see the symbiote burning away and screaming, but also the physical signs of cassidy’s mutation as like, peeling away in embers, like the black scales around her eyes, and the way her whole eyes are seen as black is now clearing away, and she takes both of Jean’s hands and forces her to keep holding on, to keep looking in her natural fucking eyes for the first and last time as she burns out too.

“You can’t save everyone.” and then Cassidy’s just ash in the wind.

also this ending, in a meta-sense, makes sense, because after this Disney buys Fox and there’s no more this-universe X-Men films, so they had to do a self-contained story, there couldn’t be things left super unresolved.

OR maybe she’s fine, maybe she gets saved and riot burns out of her (spoilers, he fucks off and doesn’t die, hence, Venom (2018); it takes him about 20 years to recuperate) i haven’t decided.

[cultofthepigeon]

like things that could be done with the new warriors rn instead of....whatever is happening

Robbie fucking Baldwin get’s some closure with Namorita, Rich, and Dwayne since they all up and fuckign died in the most traumatic time in his life like????? Those reunions????? The emotions and their ramifications alone would fill ten issues

RICH getting closure with Namorita, Dwayne, and Robbie!!! HE left earth to defend it and came back to find out two people he loved, one of whom he was still in an on again/off again relationship with, fuckin DIED and everyone hated them??? HE saw wtf Robbie was going through??? And you’re telling me his return to Earth and reuinion with those three wouldn’t fucking???? kill me instantly??

Speaking of how the fuck is Elvin feeling about his adoptive dad being alive again????? Or his friends being alive again?????

How tf is DWAYNE feeling about seeing Elvin again, after coming back from the dead??

the fuckin PRIDE he woulda felt seeing this kid he raised going up against the fuckin Americops, butting heads with Captain America, and then making that brash  fuckin statement about the justice system? FUCK ME

WHAT ABOUT WHEN ELVIN WAS BEAT INTO A COMA IN PRISON

HOW THE FUCK DID HE FEEL ABOUT THAT?

ACTUALLY HOW THE FUCK IS ELVIN STILL NOT A VEGETABLE I MEAN IM SUPER HAPPY ABOUT IT BUT LIKE HOW THO

and listen I know that microbe was like that New Volume New Character guy from vols 3 and 4 but like Dwayne still adopted him and tried to do right by him and take care of him and he fucking DIED in front of him while every other nw member got to come back is there gonna be NO discussion of that???

Where tf is Donyell at??? Cord?? Sprocket??? The rest of the Taylor Foundation crew/family?

What about all those temp New Warriors they’ve collected over 5 volumes??? you can’t check in on any of those before making new ones???

fuck hindsight lad tho he can rot

Justice and Firestar just.....in general

Like I would cry if they got back together but also just itd be nice to see them interact again

But also defo like real quick as mutants how do they feel about Charles Xaviers Luxury Fuck Island and Ritual Death Battle Resort?

Firestar hasn’t gotten any up front actual page time in years like how IS she? 

How do Firestar and Rich feel about things like the Me Too movement which hits way closer to home for them

Same with Justice fuck man nazi’s are half way to running America how’s he doing?

actually given the fact that a group of fascist proto-military capitalist  super villains once refereed to them as “irresponsible brats, with their socialist/liberal agenda” and the fact that the most recent nw comic (written by god king Nicieza himself) showed them fighting ICE/predator Drones/Fox News and defending protesters I’d really like to just see them tackle literally ANY modern social issue

like quick think of a Hot Button Issue right now and the New Warriors probably dealt with it in the fucking 90s

date rape? check. rape cover ups on college campus? yep. police brutality? yep. prisoners rights? yep. american intervention in foreign war? several issues

racism in america?

....ok yes but admittedly it was really weird like the writer was clearly against racism but he wasn’t super well informed and also it was just really really weird

but that means they could have a do over!

is it a Representation Thing(tm)? is that what it is??? is that why you fuck them over so much Marvel??????? I thought yall were clamoring to board the Woke train without pissing off your neck beard dude bro fans and right wing investors???

well the New Warriors are RIGHT FUCKING THERE they tick like almost every box in the representation bingo card and you wont have to get your balls in a twist worrying about investing in new IP

if you’re worried about getting that sweet sweet LGBT dollar in then sure add a new character or two or idk make one of them lgbt

Speedball has literally hit on every member of the original team Marvel stop being pussies and make ball boy bi

what the fuck was i saying

anyways New Warriors are Good and would sooner shake hands with Tony “Inter-dimensional Concentration Camp Patent” Stark then start dragging teen heroes out of their homes at the order of the state

[fromdirectorlanawachowski]

honest and unmerciful endgame thoughts

a sequel to this post

this is deadass one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen.

a few brief thoughts before i get into the more or less play by play.

- making jokes about how time travel in movies isn’t really how time travel works doesn’t work if you’re a fucking movie dude

- fat thor was a fucking disgrace

- professor hulk has to have been 80% ad-libbed because there’s no way someone actually wrote that garbage dialogue

- using a past thanos was a mistake because we don’t actually give a shit about him

OKAY LETS GO

actually fuck it i was gonna do plot point by plot point but i’m just so exhausted i don’t have the strength to do it. i’m gonna go in broad strokes and if you want me to elaborate on WHY something was bad feel free to yell at me in the DMs

okay lets go

right away the whole thing with clint fucking turning on the spot as his family disappears was goofy as all hell. i know exactly what they were going for but having him literally turn on the spot instead of go into the house or go into the shed just draws attention to the absolute hilarity of how fast they vanished compared to others.

why the fuck was tony skin and bones when he got back to earth. i know he was in space for three weeks but they clearly show him eating during the montage of him and nebula doing.... things?

also everyone just kind of trusts nebula? okay? i’d be wary of purple aliens in light of what just happens but inclusivity i guess

also you mean to tell me that in three weeks they scanned the entire universe for gamma radiation? also enough gamma radiation that would show up on a scan from light years away but not fry everyone nearby when thanos snapped?

as soon as they killed thanos i knew the climax of this movie was gonna suck ass.

the writers have no idea how fast human hair grows if five years later natasha still has that godawful blonde dye on her tips

a fucking rat got scott lang out of the quantum realm. i don’t have any commentary for this because this scene speaks for itself. a rat.

moreover how did they even get the van down from the rooftop it was on at the end of ant man 2

fat thor. i don’t have any commentary about this either. the whole thing reeks of the russos looking at taika and going “you wanna be a funny man? you want thor to be fucking funny? you think he’s hilarious? fuck you”

oh i guess i did have commentary on that after all

i’m glossing right over the gay scene because again, taika fought tooth and nail to get bisexual valkyrie and now the russo shitters get to say they had the first canon lgbt character and it’s a couple of throwaway lines that can be redubbed for china. seriously. i don’t think there’s ever a scene where he says “he” or “him” while his lips are on screen.

apparently i am doing this relatively plot point by plot point but i digress

if i was keeping points like cinemasins (ew) i’d take a few off for morgan stark. i’m an bitch but not that much of one.

oh yeah pepper potts’ first of, i believe, four lines in this movie is “yeah i’m reading about compost”. i have no commentary for this either. it speaks for itself.

tony hits upon time travel in a day

i’m so glad we couldn’t get any real character development for anyone but we had time for the four minute “ant man becomes various aged forms of himself and then makes a peeing your pants joke in 2019″ scene.

“that’s how time travel works in movies this is real life” that’s great except that joke falls flat cause you’re a fuckin movie bro

i’m skipping over the entirety of the battle of new york thing because that was just fucking.... *benny hill music*

oh no i’m addressing the ancient one thing. love to have characters retconned into previous movies so they can try and explain the time travel in a way that actually makes it more confusing and also isn’t the way the movie follows

steve leering at peggy through the blinds was creepy, i’m sorry. actually the way he was suddenly obsessed with her this whole movie was really creepy.

howard potts

tony meeting his dad was so awkward and uncomfortable and they really meant for it to be heartwarming but i’m sorry it was fucking hilarious and i was howling with laughter in the theater

likewise thor with frigga. a really nice, emotional moment where thor gets closure with his mom and she overtly says she knows she’s going to die soon but she loves him and she’s so proud of him....

..... and then tops it off with a fat joke. the russos can’t let any kind of emotion hang without making a joke.

when they killed natasha a guy three rows down said “if they were killing her here why the fuck did they greenlight her movie then”

why did thanos get a scene confronting the cost of the stone but clint just wakes up in a puddle? are you gonna tell me thanos cared more about gamora than clint did about natasha? ok.

okay i’ll admit seeing quill dancing on morag without the background music was funny as fuck. rhodey explaining the punchline was not funny as fuck though

three cheers for nebula inexplicably having new abilities

as soon as they brought in past thanos i knew the climax of this movie was gonna suck a big ass

hulk snaps the iron infinity gauntlet because he’s the only one that can withstand the gamma radiation that it allegedly emits and has been mentioned only once before in this movie

the fact that it works is demonstrated by not anyone coming back, but ant man looking out the window at some birds. yeah. gee.

okay i have a question here that may take a little bit to explain.

earlier in the movie it’s explicitly stated they only have enough pym particles for one round trip each. that’s why steve and tony had to go back to 197X to get the tesseract and more particles. 

so.

past-nebula takes current-nebula’s place and uses her particles to travel back to the present, leaving current-nebula with no particles

so how did past-thanos bring his ship to the present with no pym particles

anyway past-gamora and current-nebula kill past-nebula to get the iron infinity gauntlet back

the final battle was whatever. i couldn’t for the life of me tell you what happened or where anyone was in relation to anyone else because it was cut so poorly

everyone comes back. remember at the end of my infinity war thoughts when i said the end had no stakes because obviously everyone snapped came back and you all got mad at me? everyone comes back.

the ladies all running the gauntlet would be cool if it wasn’t encompassed by shots of all the men running the gauntlet, drawing attention to the fact there’s literally only like seven ladies and one of them isn’t even a hero

joss whedon was the cinematographer the day they shot wanda fighting thanos, judging from all the gratuitous shots down her shirt. i know elizabeth olsen has nice boobs. believe me, i do. i’m envious. but for the love of christ stop being creepy voyeurs about it

also “you took everything from me” “i don’t even know who you are???” that was a great setup for her to use her mind powers and make thanos experience some suffering but they just didn’t do that so those lines are hilarious

tony gets the stones and snaps, killing thanos and all his army. thanos fades away into dust while a woman vocalizes in the background in a manner that’s less satisfying than when voldemort did the exact same thing in deathly hallows part 2

tony dies because i guess?

at the funeral everyone is there and there’s shots lingering on everyone including this weird kid who looks like he’d microwave a gerbil? i had to google him and it’s supposed to be the kid from iron man 3. i feel like seven years later you should probably put in a line like “thanks for coming <whatever that kid’s name was>

okay we’ve reached the part i have the absolute most beef with.

steve’s ending

from the start of this movie he’s been inexplicably obsessed with peggy. the ending is telegraphed from a mile away and i was still shocked and stunned that they actually did this.

so steve just gives up everything, all his friends and family, to go back in time to be with a woman he knew for max a year, in the heat of war, where emotions run high and they may very well have latched onto each other in case they died.

steve rogers, the man who wielded mjolnir, the man who broke his friend’s mental conditioning just be refusing to fight him, just sits back through the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s. the cuban missile crisis, the LA riots, the assassination of JFK, the death of howard and maria stark, the infiltration of shield, the berlin wall, 9/11, the war on terror, and he just.... did nothing?

what the fuck was that

sam is captain america now though so i’m down with that

but i’m still so angry

this is beyond character assassination for steve. it’s... outright brutal murder and mutilation. anywhere i can, i give endgame a half star review FOR THIS ALONE. setting aside fat thor and how they treat Ragnarok, the fact they think steve rogers would, after everything he’s done and learned, go back into the past where there was still a chance he could help his friends in his own way, and do NOTHING, is the most infuriating thing about this barely-polished turd of a movie.

IN CONCLUSION i said infinity war was the worst movie marvel had ever put out and marvel went “haha we can do you one better”

endgame is just three hours of setpiece, gag, setpiece, gag, setpiece, gag, occasionally punctuated with emotional moments that aren’t allowed to hang long enough for the emotion to sink in before a joke is made, usually at thor’s expense.

[like-twilight]

I’m jus’ gon do this cause why not I stole it from Here.

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

According to my last.fm in the last seven days: 1: ATEEZ: Wave 2: ATEEZ: Illusion 3: ATEEZ: Win 4: TxT: Run Away 5: ATEEZ: Precious 6: ATEEZ: Say My Name

Guys. I like Ateez.

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

My sister.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

Well I ain’t standin’ up so here’s line 17 from page 23 of Vale which is on my computer.

““Well then, Your Highness,” I say and crouch down, trying to get a look of her face”

4: What do you think about most?

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad things.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

From a real person that’s not an automated message from a bank or a website it’s from my co-worker from October 26th that says “Ok I’ll do it, print it then I’ll replace it”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Well. PJ’s are clothes so.

7: What's your strangest talent?

I don’t think I have any.

8: Girls... (finish the sentence); Boys... (finish the sentence)

Girls not allowed. Boys also not allowed. Leave me alone. (My nb friends can come tho.)

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

If I did then the creator didn’t tell me :”D

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

I... can’t recall.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

Frogs.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Maybe as a baby?

13: What's your religion?

I don’t belieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

I’m not outside. But I’d probably be going to work or the store or the post office.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Ateez!

17: What was the last lie you told?

“I’m okay!” #deep

18: Do you believe in karma?

god no!

19: What does your URL mean?

It’s a quote from Ateez’s Twilight.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

I’m very depressed. Strength is probably that I’m still alive? Idk

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

Idk. Find a lot of famous people attractive I-? I Don’t have just like The Celebrity Crush. Jeong Yunho’s cute tho.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

No.

23: How do you vent your anger?

I throw a temper tantrum.

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

Just a mason jar of my tears. Also every Ateez album released so far.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

Neither! Fucking email me, bro.

26: Are you happy with the person you've become?

God no :D

27: What's a sound you hate; sound you love?

Ambulance sirens hate. Fuckin... panflute I love.

28: What's your biggest "what if"?

What if I was a... giraffe.? Or a tardigrade. 

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

I believe in things we can’t perceive scientifically or whatever. Not ghosts per se, like souls of dead people or whatever. Also yes to aliens.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

Nothin I’m jus sittin on my bed. If I move my arms up and down a bit then my blanket and a bottle of water.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

Nothin. Is just my room.

32: What's the worst place you have ever been to?

Uuuh a cemetery?

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

In America? Idk which is less racist in general?

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

What’s an “opposite” gender? I know you mean male but I refuse to give into the cISSEXIST SCUm. 

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

I have no idea what that means.

36: Define Art.

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

37: Do you believe in luck?

Yes. But I’ve never been the lucky one unfortunately.

38: What's the weather like right now?

Uuuh I have to google it. Clear. 8°

39: What time is it?

21:30

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

No. But I probably would.

41: What was the last book you read?

Pfssssshhhh, one that wasn’t written by me? Fucks me, dude. Fault In Our Stars? The Death Cure? I can’t remember, it’s been years.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yeah!

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Tia.

44: What was the last film you saw?

Uuuuuuuuhhh... UUUUHHHHHHHHH How to Train Your Dragon 3, it was nice.

45: What's the worst injury you've ever had?

Had a bleeding spine! Kinda miss it tbh.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

I probably haven’t tried, I’ve just tried to get them to land on me.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

Uuuh I’m into Ateez these days.

48: What's your sexual orientation?

I’m byesexual.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Yes.

50: Do you believe in magic?

Again, I do believe things could exist we can’t scientifically explain but idk. Not in the Harry Potter magic way.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

No, cause I believe everything is my fault.

52: What is your astrological sign?

Aries.

53: Do you save money or spend it?

I save money TO spend. I think I found a healthy balance.

54: What's the last thing you purchased?

A fukin... bike. That’s like in your room. Not by accident but because it’s meant to be there.

55: Love or lust?

Like.. in what context? Love? Idk.

56: In a relationship?

Love.

57: How many relationships have you had?

None relationships.

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

I can’t.

59: Where were you yesterday?

Like on average? Or 24 hours ago exactly. Cause I was at work for eight hours and then I was just on my bed.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Yeah, my phone case.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

Ye.

62: What's your favourite animal?

Cat? Idk.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

:DDDD If I had any then people would like me.

64: Where is your best friend?

???? 

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

I... I dunno? The ones I follow?

66: What is your heritage?

I don’t know what that means. Like what I’m gonna be remembered by? I whined a lot!

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Cried.

68: What do you think is Satan's last name?

Choi.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

Why would I lie about masturbation. Yeah I did.

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Fuck no.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog, fuck off.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) I am telling everyone. b) Be paralysed by fear and waste all of it. c) Yes, very much.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

I feel like that’s stupid. 

74: What's a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

Illusion by Ateez these days. 

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

4153

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

I wouldn’t know, buddy.

77: How can I win your heart?

Just be nice to me and I’ll probably be emotionally attached to you for life, sorry.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

I don’t think insanity is the cause for any creativity. If an insane person is creative then they would be creative with a sound mind too.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Got into kpop, that was nice.

80: What size shoes do you wear?

42

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

“Balled 2 hard lol”

82: What is your favourite word?

There are too many words.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Kokoro.

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

I don’t think there is one.

85: What's the last song you listened to?

Treasure by Ateez.

86: Basic question; what's your favourite colour/colours?

Pink and yellow.

87: What is your current desktop picture?

A picture of.. Ateez... sorry.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald Trump.

89: What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?

Uh, I think I’m p truthful, yeah. Ask me anything.

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Scream. Maybe scramble on the floor and push past them if I can.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Immortality!

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Oh geez. I was on a carousel in Italy once, that was awesome.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

The one that gave me depression idk which one it was but can it go away?

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Ehh, I don’t want that. Like... I don’t know those people, they could be Awful in bed or just in general too. Like I need an emotional bond first and they don’t even know me and I only know the persona they show to the public. Plus it could potentially ruin the music for me later on, it’d be weird, no thank you.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

UUUUUHHHHH I DUNNO Lyon cause Grenoble doesn’t have an airport. Well, actually my sister isn’t in Grenoble right now. Hm well if I grab my card before I go then I can just find a hotel there until she comes home.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

I don’t think so? 

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

I had to throw up in a car and then asked the driver to stop the car so I can throw up outside the car.

98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes. Seven times. SEVEN TIMES? Yeah, holy shit.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Someone help me, I am so so so incredibly in need of help, please. Please. Thank you.

[timetrickster]

Living W/ Immortality: Episode 3: Altair & Vega

EXT. FINN’S HOME

It’s been 3 weeks since what happened that night. Ever since LUCIAN had attacked WAN SHI TONG’S Library. FINN sits down at the table for breakfast with his MOM and ERIN’S had gone silent ever since that night. MOM looks at him knowing something’s wrong.

MOM

You’re silent. That’s never a good sign. What happened?

FINN

I’m fine mom.

She sits down next to him and looks him in the eyes.

MOM

No, you’re not.

FINN is silent after the truth in that simple statement cut deeper inside both hearts.

MOM

You boys have been silent for weeks and if there’s anything that I know about my own boys. Your silence means you’re facing something, but you don’t want me to worry.

FINN is silent and looks at his hands. He puts his headphones on then looks through his phone to play the next song. He presses on a song and plays “King Of The Clouds by Panic! At The Disco. FINN decides to leave and MOM doesn’t do anything to stop him. FINN slowly walks far from view from his house.

He murmurs the words to the song.

FINN

Some days I lie wide awake ‘til the sun hits my face. And I fade, elevate from the Earth. Far away to a place…   

He stops in his tracks, as he looks around him for a bit in silence. Suddenly LUCIAN appears in front of him.

LUCIAN

Boo.

He starts to freak out falling backward. Holding his head with both hands and guarding his face.

FINN

It’s not real. It’s not real.

He repeats to himself. Suddenly flash images of LUCIAN appear in his mind. He breathes heavily and tears fall down his face. His head shakes and heats up from the pressure of all the things overwhelming him. He clenches his teeth showing this face of mixed emotion, fear, and anger.

FINN screams in a rage then punches a hole in a random wall. He breathes heavy breaths before realizing what he’s done.

FINN

Crap…

He tries to budge his arm out but it’s stuck. The song stops at “

FINN

Really?! I have super strength and I can get my arm out of a stupid stone wall?!

SERENA shows up all of a sudden and notices FINN.

SERENA

Hey, Finn… uh…  you okay? Did you punch my wall?

FINN still awkwardly having half of his arm through the wall.

FINN

No… I touched a piece of the wall and it made a hole and my arm fell in.

SERENA

Uh… ok…  I’ll believe you for now, but you need help?

FINN

Yes, please.

SERENA laughs and pulls on FINN’S other arm and gets out of the wall. His right arm now covered in stone dust.

FINN

Thank you…

(looks at his right arm covered in dust)

Crap.

SERENA

You’re welcome and are you okay?

FINN

I guess I’m fine. Also, Hey.

SERENA

What do you mean by that? And Hi!

FINN

Just something happened last night that set me off and… I don’t know how to deal with it.

SERENA

Do you want to talk about it?

FINN shows reluctance, fearing that she wouldn’t understand the world of magic and the fact he’s an immortal with a 2nd personality in his head.

SERENA (cont’d)

It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. Maybe when you’re ready?

FINN nods ‘yes’.

SERENA

Okay then. Wanna walk to school?

FINN

I’d love that.

FINN smiles and they start walking together.

SERENA

Got any new oldies songs for me to listen too?

FINN

Uh… Yeah, let me… you know what, I’ll let you choose it.

She looks through the playlist labeled “Time”

SERENA

Time?

FINN

It’s a collection of songs that resonate with my vibes. Songs from now to the 50s.

SERENA laughs at him.

SERENA

You’re adorable.

FINN

Ok, no more songs for you.

FINN tries to grab his phone back and struggles with SERENA

SERENA

Please… I’m sorry.

FINN

Fine.

He lets go of the phone.

SERENA

Yay!

She scrolls through his playlist and presses on one song. The song, “Say Say Say” by Paul McCartney plays. The song plays as the two walks together to school and spends the entire day together. The song plays through a slow montage of scenes with them all together. In classes, at lunch, hanging around the campus.

CUT TO:

END OF THE SCHOOL DAY.

The song ends at Hook 2. It’s now the end of school and the two are walking together again.

SERENA

I’m fucking tired dude.

FINN

Same…

SERENA laughs at something.

SERENA

I did love Mr. Braistch’s class today. Best teacher ever.

FINN

Did he make another racist joke? Or did he throw another insult at Waipahu again? Wait… don’t tell me, Chinese or Filipino? Either one it’s fuckin hilarious.

SERENA

He picked on Steven and said “When China takes over America, I’d be the one white guy to help with capturing Americans.” then said, “Steven when you become the general of Ewa Beach, don’t forget about me. I helped.”

FINN laughs at the story.

FINN

Oh god. You know one time, he told the Filipinos in the room that he loves their president.

SERENA

What’s wrong with that?

FINN

The current president of the Philippines started a war on drugs and said anyone would be killed on sight even holding drugs.

SERENA

Wow… yeah, that’s dark.

FINN

I know… I’m probably going to hell for laughing.

SERENA laughs at what he said then touches FINN’S shoulder.

SERENA

Aw. You’re already going to hell.

She breaks into laughter again as well as FINN.

SERENA (cont’d)

I’m kidding, you know I love you girl.

FINN

Fuck you, dude.

He jokingly says. SERENA is still laughing. FINN gets a little bitter and had this angry face. Then keeps walking.

SERENA Aw. I’m sorry. Come here.

She stops him and holds out her arms and FINN was still bitter and shakes his head. He keeps walking. She laughs at him being bitter and still bothers him for a hug.

SERENA (cont’d)

Please…

FINN

No.

SERENA

Please. PLEASE please please please please, please! If you don't give me a hug I'm gonna DIEEEEE. If you don't hug me I'm gonna start crying. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. (making a song out of it) oh-baby please please PLEASE! Oh-baby, please. That was 'Please' by Serena with Finn on bass.

FINN finally stops being bitter as he finally gives in. Still holding a bitter face but smiles a little after accepting the hug.

SERENA

Yay! Thank you. I’m sorry.

FINN

(He laughs for a bit)

You’re welcome. I forgive you but bass? Really? Bass?

SERENA does an evil laugh. It makes FINN smile.

FINN

You’re weird. I like you, dude. Wanna hang out tonight?

SERENA

I’d love to. What are we doing? Arcade again?

FINN

I was thinking of heading to the park and doing some star gazing… I don’t know why but I’ve wanted to try it out and it doesn’t hurt to try something new.

SERENA

I like that idea. Are we gonna go by the benches?

FINN

Sure… better than laying in the grass. See ya soon.

He waves bye to her as she leaves.

ERIN (V.O)

I’m impressed. You actually didn’t freak out and over think.

FINN

Thanks, Erin. Erin? Hey! Where’d you go? You’ve been silent for weeks.

ERIN (V.O)

Just needed some time to think. After the whole Lucian thing, I just needed some peace. You know?

FINN

Yeah. Good to have you back bud.

ERIN (V.O)

Good to be back. Again, you actually asked Serena out, once again I’m impressed.

FINN

That’s a first.

FINN enters his house and rushes to his room to get ready for his stargazing date with SERENA. Reprise “Just The Two Of Us” by Grover Washington Jr. plays. Picks up 3rd Verse. Shows a montage of both FINN & SERENA getting ready for the stargazing date.

FINN & SERENA

I got to get ready!

CUT TO.

NIGHT. EWA BEACH

The song keeps playing in the background. FINN leaves the house and walks to the park with a bag of food in hand.

ERIN (V.O)

Food? Drinks? Clever.

FINN

Thanks, dude.

ERIN (V.O)

What are you planning Evers?

FINN smiles.

FINN

Nothing, why?

ERIN (V.O)

You have that specific smile on your face. The smile that tells me you have a plan or created something amazing. Come on Evers! TELL ME!

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

How adorable… the immortal two faced dumbass finally found love. Well… hopefully, if the author figures out how to do that in the next few scenes when I try to take him and his romance. Along with the other two background immortals. The author’s a bit unpredictable… which I admire.

The song keeps playing. FINN is slowly walking to the park. Other people are out playing by the playground and other sports-related activities. Meanwhile, these two laid out a blanket over a park table and both sit down on the table top. Song finishes.

FINN

I brought us dinner from Chum Wah Kum.

He holds a plastic bag with two plate lunches inside, along with utensils and napkins.

SERENA

Aw, thanks!

She grabs her plate lunch out of the bag and begins to eat and look at stars.

SERENA (cont’d)

They’re really pretty tonight.

FINN

I used to do this from time to time. I’d sit on my roof and use a telescope. Watching the stars glow in the ocean of space. It was beautiful in the silence of the night.

SERENA

Holy shit, that last sentence was poetic as fuck.

He laughs a little.

FINN

I’m not a poetic dude.

SERENA

Stop lying, I know you are! Mr. Artsy!

FINN

Nah…

SERENA

Oh come on, you’ve done so many artsy stuff. I’ve seen you draw, paint, make short films for media club, write stories, take photos and edit them. I heard you wrote a poem for that one girl.

FINN

Uh, she rejected me by the way. But yeah, kinda left that guy behind.

SERENA

Oh damn, my bad. Well, she doesn’t deserve you, if you took the time and patience to write that girl a poem.

FINN

I know… I know.

SERENA

And what made you leave being Mr. Artsy behind?

FINN

Self-Judgement, being hypercritical, literally everything where I worry about myself and what people see come from me.

SERENA

But why?

FINN

Lost myself for a while… fell away from who I used to be.

SERENA Well, whenever you feel ready to come back to Mr. Creative, I’ll be waiting for you.

FINN

Thank you. Can we look at stars now?

SERENA

Yes, please!

They both lie down on the tabletop and look at the stars. The song “Lights Down Low” by MAX plays in the background as the gaze at random stars.

SERENA

What now?

FINN

Just look at the stars. Sorry, haven’t done this in a while. Forgot all the star systems and all that.

SERENA

It’s fine. You can point out whatever and make it up along as we go.

She points to one constellation.

SERENA (cont’d)

What’s that one?

FINN

That’s the constellation of Sagittarius.

SERENA

See you do remember something!

FINN

Yeah but that one’s my zodiac so I remember that one.

SERENA

What’s are those two?

She points to two different constellations. FINN looks at them and instantly recognizes them.

FINN

Altair and Vega…  There’s actually a love story between the two. I don’t know if you want to hear it.

SERENA

Tell me!

FINN

Uh okay.

(He laughs a little then gets into this narration style voice)

I’m trying to remember but Altair and Vega were deeply in love. But we're separated by the celestial river of the Milky Way. But on one special day a year, Vega’s tears would call upon all the magpies in the world and the would form a bridge so they could spend one night of happiness together.

SERENA was astonished by the story. FINN smiles a bit awkwardly.

SERENA

That’s beautiful.

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

Uh! Boring!

Both FINN & SERENA hear LUCIAN’S voice. Record scratch sound effect plays and the song stops at 1st Chorus.

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)(Cont’d)

I will admit, it was a nice romantic story that you gave. But the author really likes to elongate the scenes.

Several shadowy figures appear before them. Only showing red glowing eyes. They grab FINN and attempt to grab SERENA but he manages to free her from their grip before they disappear in a flash.

CUT TO:

INT - ANCIENT TEMPLE

FINN wakes up in some sort of an ancient temple. He looks around, find two monsters guarding a doorway. ATHENA & TAVEN bound and stuck to the walls of this circular dome room. LUCIAN was on the other end doing some weird shit.

FINN

(Intensely worried)

Erin?

ERIN (V.O)

(Intensely worried)

Yeah?

FINN

(Intensely worried)

What do we do?

ERIN (V.O)

(Intensely worried)

I have no fuckin clue.

Tags: @cometworks, @cookiecuttercritter, @coloursintheblur 

[bugsrepellsgant]

OKIE ive been kicking this au around my brain for months so here’s an outline or whatever

WORKING TITLE: toki and pickles travel cross country to california like kermit and fozzie in the muppet movie OR toki and pickles do america

TL;DR toki and pickles are both 17-ish, the year is 199X, theyre hauling ass to socal to audition for SnB, but instead they accidentally get dethklok together and fall in love :-)

pickles has freshly stepped out and couch surfed his way to greenbay, and just managed to scrape together enough cash for a bus ride to minneapolis (going east to go west is counterintuitive and dumb but so is american public transport) BUT THEN

toki’s one-ish year out of home, has scraped together enough money working for runke to apply for a passport but once he gets to the offices oh no!!! he doesn’t have any proof of citizenship! and he’s a minor! aw fuck now he’s gotta stow away on an oil tanker cus staying isnt an option (yes this is paddington now)

he lands in boston harbor, gets far enough inland on foot and by ferry until he reaches GREEN BAY, WI and he’s a day or two of panhandling away from meeting the ticket fee BUT THEN

its friday night which means its fucking college football night which means SHITTY COLLEGE BROS HAVE DESCENDED UPON THE CITY!

pickles gets briefly needled for being short and ginger but u know he Lives hes been getting this kind of shit forever. HOWEVER toki is immediately singled out as a funny lookin, high voiced, gnome hat weirdo with an accent and he’s trying to laugh along ??? ha ha?? but its so Bad and pickles feels Bad but he’s gotta get outta here-

Oh God one of the bros tried to to take toki’s guitar away and toki flipped shit and its a fight now!! he’s outnumbered but our boy pickles intervenes!!! they’re winning? OH GOD SOMEONE CALLED THE FUCKING COPS

escape! safe; breathless in an alley; “hey whats yooooour name???” “toki!” “heheheheh toke-ki >B-)” “?????” “im pickles” “you namesed pickle???? ‘,:-/“ bla bla bla oh u play guitar? i play drums but i like guitar too there’s a band in LA i wanna play for ya wanna come with???

a car is obtained at... some point

and OH BOY DOES HE!

a long series of shenanigans occur! our boys get stopped, turned around, detoured, misdirected, all kinds of classic farce bullshit, later on we make and pick up friends at pitstops! a fellow highschool dropout with a killer voice in kissimmee, the best guitarist youve heard in your life dodging swedish mandatory service in chicago, a dude with the stankiest bassline (and feet) that side of the mississippi in the texas panhandle, a TOTAL buzzkill geek of a harvard freshman on summering at his family villa near denver, a cool headed, smart as hell, fuckin julliard composer in training who produces music FOR FUN visiting her family in downtown phoenix.

oh my GOD what is seth fucking DOING HERE is that lady his GIRLFRIEND is she PREGNANT what the HELL GO HOME IF YOU TELL MOM WHERE WE ARE ILL KILL YOU DEAD

seth’s also hanging out with this other guy who seems...... cool? you think? fun, talented, good at guitar like both our boys, pickles’ kinda guy to be honest? there’s something about him thats hard to trust though.

sharing hotel rooms, sleeping in truck beds, they get curious about each others lives? pickles clocked toki as a weird hick at first blush, and tbh he was right but? he went to highschool with farm kids and knows farm kid-weird from weird-weird and toki’s WEIRD-weird. and sweet. and funny. the polaroid in toki keeps of a man and a woman, the man in a reverend’s hat, makes pickles scared to ask. especially since toki’s been cool enough to mind his own business.

toki’s fascinated by pickles’ bouts of righteous anger. unlike runke, his rage has energy and intent, and the stunt he pulled in green bay was so nice and so COOL! he’s one such real cool guy with a cool leather jacket and cool hair... but Why is he so mad all the time? why does he drink so much, it doesnt even taste good? why does he STEAL drinks when they have no money? what happened to toki’s nice, cool, brand new friend pickle? something like what happened to toki? but? pickles is so Cool and Nice and NORMAL and toki is so Weird and Stupid and Wrong in ways toki’s horrified to let him discover. its better not to ask him, he guesses.

feelings get stronger as all the bad things come to light. crying hugs are had. pickles drops what was going to be bus money on a replacement V for toki and toki drops his panhandling dough on a goldtop for pickles.

WE FINALLY GET TO LA AND......? what the fuck

the glam/hair scene is dead in the water. Snakes n Barrels supernova’ed. no more audition. no more career. shit shit shit.

but all the friends weve made along the way are here for our boys! they’ll just start their OWN BAND!!!! TAMPA! MORDHAUS! DETHKLOK’S A-GO!! everythings comin up milhouse!

our boys are Officially *an item* and they ride into the sunset together, stirrup to stirrup, side by side. big gay kiss. the end :-)

OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPEN:

amber goes into labor during one of seth’s drop in visits and everyone gets emo about family as a concept, pickles and seth gave a heart to heart, no one is too metal for feelings when the baby comes bc life is beautiful

magnus pulls some scary/mean bs but its nothing too awful and theres forgiveness and lessons learnt and stuff.

the duel! but theres THREE GUITARISTS?????!!!!!!!!!! MAYBE FOUR?

toki and pickles will both have religious drama but pickles’ drama is more of a sidenote in his list of Issues (pickles’ family is probably catholic and i was raised catholic and i GOTTA project. i GOTTA)

lgbt themes because IM GAY and THEYRE GAY PRRRRBBBBT

murderface? finds love?? GAY LOVE???

this post is too long g-g-g’byeeeee!

[justtwilightshitposts-blog]

So I got high as fuck and watched Twilight for the first time in 6 years and made a list of the thoughts running through my head. Anyways it’s under the cut, enjoy lol

Dramatic entry....

I don’t understand what she’s saying

Oh my god look at her stupid fucking cactus it’s so small and dumb

Why does she sound so miserable

Charlie her hair?? Really??

How is their house so big with one fucking bathroom

Charlie really had someone else decorate her room omg

Why is he such a good fucking dad. I want to cry

“Still dancin”..... aight, billy 

Jacob looks so fucking angsty

She’s so excited about this huge ugly piece of shit truck how is she straight

Did it ever get explained in the series where the fuck Jacob goes to school

“Nice ride” ahah SOOOO FUNNY

I don’t remember his name but why is he such a try hard

*Ball comes at Bella* bella: fUCK

Jessica: stay the FUCK away from my man

Jessica you weird

Mike stop

Who tf is that dude omg he just took his fucking chair

“FEATURES DEAD, ANGELA”

Oh my god Jess when she says eating disorders aakkskakdn

This background music does not fit the characters

Yeah they live together omg

How convenient. A family full of people who fuck each other except ONE

HIS FUCKING STARE

Why they got a fan in the classroom

No introduction to the new kid? Unrealistic. Blocked.

Stop staring at each other what the shit bruh

Just jump tf out the classroom damn

Edward trying to slam the door omggg

How she gonna know you Santa when you dressed normal, tf

Just grab the ketchup

Jesus Christ just talk to each other

Goodbye cell phone then

Day one and you’re doing homework ok

Why is Edward so fucking cringey

He couldn’t handle it so he just stayed home fucking pussy

They just straight up threw a fucking rock at her

Things were getting strange AFTER he stops going to school hmmmmm?

Seriously their house is good sized

This bitch just fucking ate shit what a clumsy gay

“You’re not in Phoenix anymore”

“I need your playlist”

Why is EVERYONE hitting on Bella. She doesn’t even look straight

“Hello” bruuhhhh

His voice, TF

What is the golden onion

Why does he talk like... that

Bonding over science. Haha. Get it. Bonding

“How’s the weather”

Cold n wet. Cool

He laughin. Lmao

Aw his smile

I feel so awkward watching this conversation

Why doesn’t this bitch just sit tf still Jesus Christ

“Wait hOLD UP why didn’t you go with your mom and Phil just curious haha I’m just trying to analyze you no biggie”

The fluorescents. Walks away. ????

How tf did this mf even manage to almost crash like what. How did it even happen

He out this mf

Everyone just like. Sat there for so long not doing anything??? Then BAM OMG BELLA ALSKAJNCKDO”

Carlisle is so fucking white Jesus

Did she never notice his eyes are the same color as Edwards

Fuckin snitch omg Carlisle is not happy

“Hey ex wife our daughter almost died lol call me back”

They are really just arguing in the middle of the hospital tf?

I was standing right next to you....

why does he look like that

Rude ass tf?

Edgy moon

Tf she dreaming about

Wait so like he didn’t even start out with anything low key he just straight up fucking watched her sleep after knowing her a week

God why does he look like that. All the time

Poor mike oh my god

She’s lived here a week how does she already have plans conveniently the night of prom. Get a better excuse Bella

Recycled tea

Why is he so fucking creepy “what’s in Jacksonville” mf HOW you know

Rude ass again what the shit

Why would Bella care if you go to prom with mike, Jessica

“We shouldn’t be friends” no one said you were???

“Our bus is full” 💀

Call your fucking mother you asshole

Charlie don’t talk about Phil

She just walks tf out lmaoooo

How did anyone NEVER say anything about them NEVER eating lunch

La PUSH

He just bounced a fuckin apple

Stop being so cryptic what the fuck

“Let’s say for arguments sake that I’m not smart” bitch me too the fuck

“What if I’m... the villain” shut up you fucking emo oh my god

Come to the beach lol

This is all so awkward

Why did they like hardly ever show Angela

“You’re a strong independent woman” how do people think she’s straight

“The Cullen’s don’t come here” so fucking dramatic

“Yeah yeah whatever enough of you, what about the CULLENS”

Wait. How long have the Cullen’s been around? How long ago was the treaty made???

This music is so fucking dramatic

Oh no it’s Santa....

These bitches gay as fuck too James looks so fucking gay

How is it the entire time she’s trying to figure out the Cullen’s not ONCE does she question the quilietes being descended from FUCKING WOLVES

All these prom dresses boring as fuck

Like what the fuck even is that material

Jess is fucking... phat

“Sorry I don’t do prom dresses I just like really wanna go to this bookstore”

I don’t even want to know what would have happened if Edward didn’t come get her from these creeps...

She legit is about to get gang raped and like. No one ever said anything about this guys what the fuck

Why does Edward look like a fucking crack addict

“Sorry I just REALLY wanna murder these guys”

You should put YOUR seat belt on

“Yeah were gonna do everything that consists of a date but it’s not a date ok?”

No way that tiny bitch is gonna eat that whole ass plate

I’m gonna make sure YOU eat but I won’t alright?

Fucking math nerd

How DID he know she was there???

“I feel very protective of you even though I’ve known you for like less than a month”

He can read minds it’s no biggie

“Cat” bitch me too!!!

I can’t read YOUR mind tho sorry

Wait so why are certain vampires given gifts?

I don’t wanna stay away from you anymore lol

Ooooo our dads are here

“Animal attack” *GLARE*

“Idk what to say I’m so sorry”

Charlie STOP MY HEART IS FUCKING BREAKING

Animals are attacking and you give her pepper spray?

Why tf did they roll his whole ass body out in plain view why the hell was he not in a body bag!!!!

“Oh OKAY everything is starting to come together”

What is this dramatic dream where he’s all emo drinking her blood what the fuck is happening

“Follow me into the woods just trust me”

I don’t find it believable that he speaks like he’s from a different time. His dialect would change with time. Imagine him in 2018 fuckin yeet this and dab that lmaoooo

Why when he runs his legs move and nothing else

How fast are they even going

Diamonds are a girls best friend. And vampires.

“I’m a killer” on cool aha I’m just chillin alone in the woods with u haha no biggie

Why are you being so dramatic Edward

He just yeeted that fucking rock lol

“I’ve never wanted to kill anyone until you”

You’re my drug....

his voice is cracking me tf up

“I’m not afraid of you I’m afraid of losing you” you fucking emo

I want to die

I zoned out an all I heard was “sick masochistic lion” .... alright

Let’s just lay in the grass in the middle of the fucking woods it’ll be cute!!!

Do they just. Stare at each other and not talk...

Why do they use sound effects for his skin lmao

“My crush is a vampire lol ❤️”

What’s Monte Carlo

Everyone is staring lmaoooo

The siblings are not happy lmao

Why would you turn someone into a vampire like there is no logical reason to be like “you’re dying so I’m gonna make you live FOREVER”

They’re just chillin in the rain lmao

Literally tho like being a vampire would be pointless and fucking torture Jesus Christ why would you force that on a dying person

“Wanna meet the fam lol jk u have no choice”

The fucking stare down between Edward and Jacobs dad I’m fucking deceased

“Just keepin it real, son” broooo

Does anyone remember at one point in this series Edward and Jacob just fucking switched Bella off like what the shit was that was I just hallucinating

They cooked for her :(

How long has it been since they cooked

Esme is my soul mate

We NEVER use the kitchen

Jesus CHRIST Rosalie chill the FUCK out

Calm down you FUCKING drama queen

Please don’t kill me lol

Alice you Sapphic ass coming in on a fuckin tree branch

“Bella and I are gonna become great friends” does... does she KNOW. You know bc she can see the future

Alice is so cheery oh god

I too would be dramatic enough to frame all of my several graduation caps

I don’t... sleep

Like he doesn’t even need a chair like their legs never get tired. If they wanted to they could just stand every second of every day

Edward it is the 21st century catch up on the tunes, man

The face she made when he twirled her lmaooo

“I’ll MAKE you dance” .... alright

Why did they like. Move midair

This tree jumping shit just does not look scientifically accurate

“This kind of stuff just doesn’t exist” ... the woods?

Let’s sit in a fucking tree and just talk forever

I wonder who wrote the song Edward wrote. It’s actually... good???

Why is the footprint on top of this fucking mound of dirt lol

Hey hey you You I don’t like your boyfriend

I would kill for Charlie

No one like ACTUALLY questions why a HUMAN foot print is found in the murder scene

“Go SOCIALIZE”

He just fucking comes out of nowhere fuck

How much time does this movie take the course over “only the last couple months” ????

“There’s always something I wanted to try” *kisses bella* you gonna tell me you’re 100+ years old and a virgin???????

This kissing scene must have been so awkward

He just fucking. Zooms back into the wall

Does Charlie not hear any of this???

Edward. She needs to sleep bro

I’m sorry but if my partner never slept I would never sleep with them like don’t fucking watch me sleep the shit???

He just fucking loves his gun

What is he doing over his head ??

We’re just gonna play a family game of baseball lol

Charlie cares so much :(

Charlie doesn’t even question that they’re going to play baseball in a thunderstorm

The baseball scene is in my top iconic scenes in cinematic history

Why do they keep the field so small if they hit the ball so far ???

Emmet my fuckboy baby

When emmet and Edward collide. Iconic.

These gay ass Mfers and their dramatic entrances

Why is putting her hair up going to help. It’s not her hair they smell it’s her blood? Right??

Vampires just go around claiming territory??

All around America??

James knows

Why do they hiss....

The fucking Cullen clan all just bend their knees and hiss like what the shit

“I can buckle MYSELF Edward”

This all went 0-100 real quick

Edward step up your acting game. Monotone ass mf

Charlie is so fucking confused

What even is she grabbing

Ok but Charlie’s so supportive of her and like all he cares about is her being safe oh my god

And he never knows that she didn’t mean any of what she said :((((((

That would fucking kill me oh my god poor Charlie

When they land on her truck... where are they coming FROM...

“Her kind” ... gingers?

Rosalie has a point...

Laurent was just a third wheel

Why do they drive so fast

How the hell was Bella even going to explain this to her mom??? What was her plan.

James.... Jesus your fucking face...

How did he get into the high school

You fucking dumbass you just gonna. Fight a fucking vampire? What is her plan? Fight him? Show up and take her mom and get out???

Also how did she even sneak past Alice and jasper

Wait how did he get this video

You dumb as shit bitch!!!

You can’t fight a vampire the fuck!!!

Why is the part where James shoved Edward against the mirror so sexually tense

This whole fucking ballet studio scene is just too dramatic

Why is she convulsing tho. Is that how it is when you turn into a vampire??? You fucking have a seizure???

Alice fucking SNAPPED

This whole series could have ended right here if they just let her fucking change into a vampire right then and there

Shut the fuck up and suck, Edward

Why her face look like.... that

Carlisle just PUSH HIM

Why are the tubes like ON her eyeballs

Edward sleeping... ha

The whole falling down the stairs bullshit story is so fucking ridiculous lmaoooo

“You’re texting” this movie is so old

Which leg is broken???

I almost killed you lol sorry. Also get the fuck out of Forks

Bella: *insert lady from lipstick in valentino bag vine*

Ok so her right leg is in the cast but in the hospital she was chillin in the bed with her right leg bent?

Jacob where did you come from lmao

“My dad paid me to come talk to you”

“Also you need to break up with your boyfriend”

The instant tension between Edward and Jacob and Bella is so fucking oblivious

“The wolves descend” REALLY EDWARD

Was their senior prom ever mentioned in the series???

She’s so fucking short omg

This music: A++

No seriously what is with everyone’s dresses being so ugly

“I want you always” bitch you just met like 2 months ago???

Bella is so desperate for the dick that she wants to become a fucking vampire

She actually thought he was gonna bite her at prom lmao????

They kiss so awkwardly

Victoria looks so jealous

And hot

Where is she going

Oh it’s over ok cool gn

[transcriptroopers]

Regarding Veteran’s Day

So it’s Veteran’s Day! 11/11 huh? Sometimes that brings back memories. I was in JROTC in high school and they organized the schools at these events every year. It was optional, but I attended every single Veteran’s Day memorial service, whether it was being on color guard or just showing up to stand with my fellow cadets in uniform. Some would leave as soon as the ceremony was done, but I loved to make the rounds and talk to the aging vets who came to speak at the ceremonies. I actually made my mom take me to it every year, and that is impressive for me because my mother was pretty abusive and I hated asking her for anything :’)

I hope all of my vet followers are gonna have a rad day. It’s Saturday! The world is at your finger tips. Spend time with friends and family; reflect on the good in your life.

and most importantly

As soon as the clock turned midnight, I knew it was Veteran’s Day. That’s because my passengers (I’m a Lyft driver) started giving me the ol’ “thank you for your service” (to which I always respond: “and thank you for yours!” because I choose to hear it as “thank you, a Lyft driver, for performing this service) razzle-dazzle but pumped up to eleven. And yeah, I bring it upon myself by even saying it. Somehow the passengers who want to converse with me always wind up asking me how I moved to the area or what kind of work I did, and having lived a pretty uneventful life I always wind up mentioning the army. But it’s not just Lyft, right? It’s like I can’t escape it. Every year I’m getting bombarded with e-mails, news articles, tumblr posts, webcomics, “thanking me for my service” and talking about how golly-gosh-darn much they respect the military and those noble folks who serve. I have some words that are part advice and part cry for help. I hope I’m understood, but this is personal for me, so it’s inevitably biased. Whether you read or skip, thank you for your continued support and appreciation, and I hope you appreciate my new URL based on the anti-fascist cult classic Starship Troopers. 

— “Thank you for your service” isn’t common courtesy whenever you see a soldier. It’s just something civilians say because they’ve been taught all their lives to hero worship the military no matter what. The only ones who like you doing it are the ones who especially don’t need it – those who have some sort of superiority/martyr complex about being in military. Please don’t enforce this kind of culture. And I’m not saying “be disrespectful.” Just talk to veterans like normal people, yeah?

Other things NOT to say: • What did you do over there? • Did you kill/shoot anyone? • Did you like it? • So you’re probably in favor of -most recent military newspiece- • My so-and-so is in the military, so a) I’m going to talk about that for twenty minutes because I’m sure you appreciate hearing about other people in the military/ b) I 100% understand what you all go through. • That’s so brave/selfless/patriotic/courageous of you (to join) • So how much did they fuck you up/so did it leave it in one piece/other euphemisms for “are you disabled now and how?” • Me: “Oh, I was in the army.” You: *loud screeching, cheering, clapping, and wooing* (This is embarrassingly common in Lyfts). Please also don’t…run up to us suddenly and ask to shake our hands? Or just thrust your hand out and hope we reciprocate without even getting our attention? What are you doing??

Things that are okay to say: • Can I ask about your time in service? <— for real though like…stop assuming every vet wants to talk to you about everything they ever did in the military. • Were you stationed anywhere cool? <— gives vet option to omit assignments they don’t want to talk about/allows vet to decline to answer. people usually just straight up hit me with “where were you stationed?” like it’s an interrogation and like… no offense but ?? • Did you hear about -insert military news here-? <— vets aren’t a hive mind. We don’t always know what every other branch of the military is up to. People hit me with “What did you think about that x that happened in y because of z?” Also I once casually mentioned I spent a year in South Korea and got back “Oh man so you probably have the inside scoop on North Korea and everything huh?” and like…bro vets usually aren’t much more informed than civilians about military maneuvers tbh like sometimes they’re less informed because they think they don’t HAVE to be. And like…just in case I haven’t made it clear in the past, the vast majority of soldiers will never be in combat and they will never so much as aim their weapon at another person, let alone fire it. Somehow so many civilians seem to think soldiers shooting people is inevitable; i wonder why…

If you are with or know a veteran and you’re going to a restaurant courtesy of the now popular ploy of offering freebies on the 11th, be sure to

A. Tip on the original amount. Servers get fucking screwed on V-Day because veterans get their whole meal for free and tip on the cost of the drinks. Don’t be that asshole. B. Don’t engage the server with military stories or solicit perks because they’re “serving a hero.” They’re busy. They have four hundred other heroes to serve today who aren’t going to be tipping them and who expect way more respect given than they give in return so eat your free frozen spaghetti with microwaved meatballs and leave. C. On that last note consider just…NOT going to these restaurants?? Come on; they’re all overpriced and shitty chains and franchises with frozen food, they usually only offer you some partial free item or something from a list of like three super-limited entrees, and they want you to come and get a free meal so your friends and family feel obligated to come along and they have to purchase their meals and it’s really not about helping or appreciating veterans it’s about drawing business. Excluding poor veterans because free food is free food I get it. D. Consider giving your leftovers or perhaps your full free meal to a homeless person. Personally this is how I’m going to be spending V-Day; I’ll be going restaurant to restaurant for anyone who’ll give me that free food to go, and then I’ll just pass it out to the innumerable homeless lined up in my area. And no, not specifically homeless veterans. All homeless deserve to eat. I mention this specifically because I had a conversation recently with a Lyft passenger about how I thought it would be better to give all of this free food to homeless instead of soldiers, (because hint hint - active duty soldiers are veterans, and they’re getting this free food despite already having their every need provided for) and I was told that many homeless people are veterans, so it works out in the wash. • It can be hard to keep track of the dates when you’re homeless. You’re assuming they’ll know it’s the 11th to begin with, or that they’ll have access to the knowledge of which restaurants are offering deals. • Homeless people usually have to walk to get around, and the U.S. is not very accessible on foot. So you’re assuming that homeless person even has access to a restaurant offering this deal. • These deals usually require that you purchase a drink or something, and drinks can be upwards of $3. It’s like the only stipulation for it being “free” and it specifically inhibits homeless accessibility. • Homeless are not welcome in society. A homeless person, even a vet, walking into a restaurant for a free meal is facing a lot of risk; at the very least the staff will probably treat them poorly, at the worst they’ll be kicked out, especially if they try to use the bathroom because everyone assumes they’re doing drugs in there and not, you know, the thing we all have to do five times a day. • Trust me, I’ve gone to a lot of these free meal things. There ain’t no mass movement of homeless vets lining up to get that free food. Besides, if society wanted homeless vets to get the food, they would target homeless vets and low-income vets; not try to bribe people to bring their family to Applebee’s. And finally if you weren’t convinced • You need to have proof that you’re prior military to get that food. And not just like your old dog tags or being able to recall your time in service. You need a military I.D or a DD 214, the paper that officially releases you from service. How many homeless vets do you think are carrying around their discharge paperwork from decades ago? Does everyone on the streets have a valid ID? Dude some homeless don’t remember their goddamn names. Get a fuckin’ clue. In short

Happy Veterans Day. I hope all other veterans have a nice day. Please don’t hero worship soldiers. Please treat us like people.  Please also look back on the lives lost in unethical political wars, illegal invasions, hostile takeovers, foreign overthrow of governments, and the ever-present “collateral” damage that is still murdering innocent civilians in the form of hushed up drone strikes. Please consider how the United States has been at war for 222 years out of its current 239 years of existence. Doesn’t that seem weird? Almost unreal? Like something out of a dystopian novel?  Ask yourself why this holiday began as a remembrance of the dead and the celebration of the end of the Great War, a global day to celebrate world peace, and ask why it is that other parts of the world still know it as such while America’s 222 years of war has caused it to instead hail the tools of those wars. A final statement: there is currently nothing to thank your military for.

-Kingsley

[bookworm555]

I honestly have no idea why I wrote this

**BEWARE, CONTAINS MAJOR INFINITY WAR SPOILERS**

But the plot bunny wouldn’t leave my head. It’s basically the aftermath of the end of Infinity War, except from the perspective of Hildegarde Salz, the Grim Reaper/goddess of death in ‘Ghost Story’. Yeeeah. Co-starring her bff Ljotur, and featuring a certain Marvel character. (Hopefully said character isn’t horribly OOC, I’ve never written him before. But considering the events of the film and what happened to him, he’s bound to be a little jumbled up.)

I doubt I will continue this; it was just a fun little oneshot, but the ending is left open, XD.

...Ljotur is like the Agent Coulson of this fic (like when he fanboy’d over Captain America). It’s actually kind of surreal to see her geeking out over this, but she totally would if she was in this situation, XD.

-

Hildegarde stared perplexedly at the man who suddenly appeared in her office. Nothing about him looked any different than the newly deceased she had seen in Morte—the finger-shaped marks around his neck making it very obvious what happened—save the fact that he didn’t have a skin tone somewhere on the grayscale; his original coloring was still intact. But Hildegarde could look past that, since pigment anomalies were possible here, but rare. No. What puzzled her was that his soul…just didn’t seem to fit. It felt wrong, like it didn’t belong in Morte. He was definitely dead (Hildegarde winced at the severeness of the bruising; deeefinitely not a pleasant way to go), but he was in the wrong place.

Before their little staredown could get even more awkward than it already was, Hildegarde spoke first, thought later (as usual), by cracking her neck and stating, “You’re in the wrong fuckin’ afterlife.”

The man’s face remained impassive, though the raised eyebrow and short exhale gave away his annoyance.

Not sure if he wasn’t able to speak due to his cause of death, or just because he didn’t want to, Hildegarde continued. “Seriously. Usually when people die, they end up on the Afterlife Bridge to be processed, not just showin’ up in my office. You know how weird that is? Not to mention your soul feels really wonky to me, like it shouldn’t be here.”

“Are you saying I should be alive?” The man’s voice sounded strained, but Hildegarde could hear the accent in it: British, from Earth.

Whoo boy, Zen would be all over this one. Definitely her type.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re as dead as a doornail; have you seen your neck? No one could survive that.” Realizing how blunt she sounded, she tried to soften the blow. “What I meant by ‘you shouldn’t be here’ is that your soul doesn’t feel like it’s from Earth or Scaladigrigi, though you look human to me.”

“How can you possibly feel my soul?” Tall, brooding, and strangled tensed his muscles, obviously on the defensive. “Who the hell are you?”

“Ahh, I was hoping you’d ask. Hildegarde Salz, at your service. The one and only Grim Reaper, Goddess of Death to Scaladigrigi. Though my services are also provided to the good people of Earth, too, though they’re a buncha squares who don’t believe in my existence. And who might you be?”

Before he could speak, Hildegarde held up a hand. “No wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess. I’m good at this shit.” Resisting the urge to facepalm over the fact that she didn’t use her abilities to glean the man’s name and origin sooner, she closed her eyes and focused.

Oh. Hildegarde’s eyes snapped open, taking a step closer to her conversation partner.

“It’s nice to meet a fellow god, Loki Laufeyson of Asgard; too bad it’s under these circumstances.” Hildegarde dropped her casual drawl for a more serious tone. “I had my suspicions that there are more worlds than just the three that I know—especially given Earth’s penchant for mythology; the stories had to come from somewhere, right, though of course they’d be altered over the years.” She took a breath, realizing now was not the time for academic discussion. “But never mind that; of course you’re in the wrong afterlife.  You should have appeared in your world’s, not mine. I wonder why…”

Before either of them could continue speaking, the door slammed open, and in strode Hildegarde’s temporary assistant Ljótur, her best friend and colleague during her days in the Defenders.

“Really, Deindóttir? Don’t be a dumbass and knock first! Seriously, what if I was havin’ sex in here?”

Both Ljótur and Loki looked positively disgusted, though the former rolled her eyes. Before she could come up with a snarky response, she strode over to their mysterious guest.

“Hey, wait a second, I know you. Holy shit, you fought the Avengers in New York back in 2012! I was supposed to have a show in Chicago that weekend, but it was cancelled because they were worried you’d hit there next. Asshole.” However, Ljótur smiled, the tone in her voice all jest. “Actually, I got, like, one weekend to relax in years because of that, so thanks. And now that I’m dead, er, and I guess you too, I can finally say it: I’m a fan. Back when I was alive, it was only your fashion—you’re a freaking icon, man—wasn’t into the deaths then. But ever since I died and was pulled into an insurgent organization—it’s a long story—I’ve killed people too. I mean, they deserved it, but yeah. Anyway, I think I totally made a fool of myself so I’m just gonna shut up now.”

Hildegarde turned to Loki, who looked equal parts amused and annoyed. She had the perfect quip for him, but before she could open her mouth, she was hit with a splitting headache.

“Fuck!” She stumbled to the floor, holding her head. Suddenly flashes of light filled her head, each one of them she understood was a soul. “Shit shit shit! This can’t be happening. How is it even possible?”

Her eyes watered and spilled over, tears slipping down her face.

“What’s going on?” Ljótur was at her side in an instant, helping her up.

“They’re gone. So, so many are gone. I don’t understand… When a soul leaves Earth or Scaladigrigi, they’re given incarnations of their living selves here in Morte. But none are making it. And too many are disappearing too fast.”

She gasped as another wave of pain hit her. “FUCK, these people are already dead; how are they disintegrating here in Morte as well?”

Hildegarde waited til the pain became manageable before she spoke again. “Oh…oh man.  Ljótur…oh shit. We’re the last Defenders left. The others are…” The look on her best friend’s face made her end the sentence there. “I don’t understand what’s causing this; no disaster would ever be big enough. And to hit all three worlds at once?”

Hildegarde stumbled to her feet, and her eyes met Loki’s.

“He’s actually done it.” For once, the man sounded afraid.

“Who? Who’s done what?” Hildegarde demanded, slamming her fist on her desk.

“Thanos. His plan once he got all the Stones was to wipe out half the universe. I thought…” Loki drummed his fingers on the desk, muscles tenser than before.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, though it was more to himself than the others. He turned to Hildegarde, a look of intensity in his eyes. “Can you see if someone is alive?”

“If they’re on Earth or Scaladigrigi, yeah.” The pain from before faded, and Hildegarde assumed that half the universe’s populations were almost finished being decimated. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, channeling her power. “Who do you want me to find, and where.”

Loki looked away. “Thor,” he finally said. “Thor Odinson, of Asgard. Check Earth. Have a feeling he’d be there.”

Hildegarde said the name in her mind, hoping she’d find some energy signature related to his soul; she could tell that this person was important to her companion.

After some searching around, she found him. Not bad looking, if I do say so myself.

“Found him,” she stated, rubbing her sore head. “He’s somewhere called ‘Wakanda’.”

“At least there’s that.” Hildegarde could sense that Loki wasn’t talking to her and Ljótur. “So this wasn’t for nothing.” He rested his hand against his throat.

Hildegarde sank into her chair, exhausted by everything that had just occurred.

Ljótur, whose eyes were red, stood next to her. “So what do we do now?” Her voice held none of the warmth it had before.

“You said this was all caused by some dude named Thanos?” Hildegarde’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you two can do, but I can jump between here and Earth.” She turned to Loki. “I assume this Thor you wanted me to find is on our side?”

Loki nodded.

“Good. I think I’m gonna go pay him a visit. Because I need to know what the hell just happened.”

[xxmadsxoxo]

How to get on Santa’s Nice List.

{Part one}

Pairing: Buck Barnes x Reader

Pre warning: Fluff, Fluff, and some more fluff

Warnings: Swearing, and probably bad punctuation because I’m using my phone.

Summary: you moved in with your best friends apartment around 3 years ago, and found out she has one hot neighbor. Only problem is he is a huge smart mouth, and he always has jokes. Worst thing of all is he is a huge flirt, the boy could make your face warm up with a look. One day he gave you a snarky comment (to no surprise.) but you decided in spirit of the holiday to challenge him. No, smart mouth, or dirty jokes for the rest of November lets see if he can get on Santa’s nice list.

This is for (@lovelynemesis) Sam’s rockin’ around the Christmas tree writing challenge!

29. ”Ho! Ho! Ho!” “Honey don’t insult yourself that way.”

/3 Years ago/

As much as I love the cold, it’s not fun to be in it for hours when you have nowhere to go. It had been 5 hours of me walking around calling every person I could think up to help me out, but since the holidays were coming up nobody wanted some old high school buddy to come stay over for a few nights.

I almost lost hope before scrolling down my contacts and finding Natasha’s name. I though about it for a few minutes, she didn’t know me too well and she is probably very skeptical of her friends. I prayed she’d help me out and pressed the call button.

Shivering from the hours of being in friking icy air, waiting for her to pick up as people pass me staring. They are probably thinking the worst of me. To be fair I did get kicked out in my pjs, and a heavy jacket. All my clothes in one bag, and utilitys, I learned to pack small with how much I moved around. People grow tired of me quick, and I have this sarcasm that people don’t understand and take personally. It has always gotten me into big trouble.

“Hello?”

“Nat! Oh thank god you picked up.”

“Yeah uh, who is this?”

“It’s Y/n, from stark industries? Granted it was some time ago.”

“Oh. OHH, Oh my god hey.”

“I was wondering if you could help me out girl.”

“What kind of help do you need?”

“I just need a place to stay for a few nights, just till’ I find another place. I will be out before Thanksgiving!”

“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

“I’m where the rockafeller tree is gonna be put up.”

“Alright stay there I’m on my way.”

“Thank you so much!”

___________________

\1 year ago\

It’s been 1 year of living with Nat, she has been the kindest to me since she picked me up that night I almost turned into a popsicle. She’s been like a sister to me, and she said that she loves to have a girl to gossip to when she comes home. Although It’s been hard getting used to her coming back from a mission and, being totally locked away from the world. Sometimes she comes back from a mission with a new bottle of champagne, and other times she just walks straight to her room and doesn’t come out for hours. I understand for the most part, if I fought aliens and psychotic Germans I’d lock myself away too. She said that some of her friends from the agency stay in this appartment building as well, but I’ve never been good at first impressions. Nat, is the only person who actually talked to me when I worked at Stark industries. Other than Stark of course, but Nat just clicked with me that’s why we are still good friends today.

I never planned on meeting any of the other agents, that is until Christmas Eve.. Somehow Nat got me to dress up, and got me to go to Starks annual Christmas party. Now I’m sitting at the bar, in a dress that I hate myself in, downing vodka like it’s water. Nat is having a great time on the dance floor with a bunch of superheroes, and god I wish that I had the confidence to talk to one of them. Even if I could talk to one of them, I’m just a normal person they have fought alien wars. Let’s be honest here the closest thing to a war that I have been in, was when I got into a bar fight with a hooker and I smashed her head into the wall. I was drunk as piss, but damn I put up a good fight. My thoughts were interrupted when a husky voice asked the bartender for another bottle whiskey, I slowly look over not to draw attention to myself.

“Why you sitting alone over here?”

“I’m sorry?”

I look up getting full view of this guy, and damn was he hot. He had chestnut brown hair that was pulled back in a bun, and he was wearing a navy blue tux. He had gorgeous eyes, ocean blue, and plump lips that you wanna bite. I realized I was staring and quickly looked at my empty shot glass.

“Well, I mean Nat is over there and you’re over here. Why?”

“Oh, uh I’ve never really been a social person.”

I look at all the different types of alcohol as a small distraction to keep me from being weird, as he continues the conversation.

“Huh, me either I couldn’t even tell you how Steve dragged me here.”

“Steve? As in-“

“Steve Rogers? Also known as Captain America? Yeah.”

You look up at him in amazement, you knew that Nat worked with them butwho is this guy and why is Steve dragging a normal hottie to a party like this.

“Wow, so you’re a super soilder too or something?”

“You could say that.”

The waiter brings the bottle, and sets on the bar, the man looks over and winks at you. Quickly grabbing the whiskey he starts Walking away.

“Hey you, wait!”

He stops and turns around in confusion.

“Yeah?” He chuckles

“Can I join you?”

“Sure doll.”

The nickname makes you smile, and makes your heart flutter.

“Names Bucky by the way.”

You reach your hand out, and give a welcoming smile.

“I’m Y/n, it’s nice to meet you.”

He shakes your hand, and you can feel your face warm up from the way he looks at you.

_____________

-Today-

“NAT! Did you steal my favorite leggings again?? You know the ones that make my ass look great?”

“No! I think they’re in the dryer!”

I run to the laundry room and whip the dryer open, searching through all my black clothes for leggings. Ripping them from the dryer.

“YES!”

I put them on and walk into the living room.

“Damn, what’s the looking cute for?”

“Going to the bar tonight, figured since I hate the holidays I might as well get plastered and forget them.”

“Oh no! You aren’t to go to the bar without me or our friendly neighbor Bucky.“

“I don’t need a chaperone.”

“YES YOU DO.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Do you really want a List?”

“Okay no, but it can’t be Bucky.”

“What why not?”

“Because Bucky always has somethin’ to say about my ass, or something snarky to say about my drinking.”

“I mean, you do have a nice ass and you also do drink a lot.”

“Thank you, and no I don’t.”

You flip your hair and walk down the hall to your room.

“GET DRESSED!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

__________

I take one last look in the mirror, and love it for once. I touch up my lip gloss, and give my hair one last fluff before walking to the front door. Realizing Nat isn’t ready yet, I think of making an escape. I grab the apartment keys as quietly as possible, and open the door slowly. I make it into the hallway succeeding in closing the door silently, just as I turn to walk down the stairs. Well that is until I hit a brick wall or atleast that’s what it felt like, nearly falling back he catches me.

“Sorry doll, you okay?”

He helps me stand straight, and I push him off of me straightening out my shirt.

“I’m fine thanks. You frikin’ brick wall.”

He chuckles lightly

“Thanks?”

“It wasn’t a compliment Barnes.”

Yes, Barnes as in Bucky Barnes, also known as the super hot dude from the Christmas party that seemed 100% normal. Yeah, he’s our neighbor and it seems he’s always with us, even when you don’t want him to be. It’s not that I don’t like him, or that I don’t want him around! He’s a great guy, but he has this thing about himself he’s always go something to say about what I wear, and he’s more sarcastic than I am.

“Right, well why are you all dressed up love?”

Oh, and he does this thing where he calls me a ton of cute little nicknames, and I wanna melt everytime. I look up at him and give him a cold fake smile.

“I’m going out.”

I try to push past him and walk away, but he grabs my forearm.

“Alone? In that? Are you trying to pick up every asshole in the club?”

Just as I was about to slap him Natasha walks out looking as pissed as ever. I look at Bucky and put on the fakest laugh to make it seem like I came out to talk to him.

She pushes Barnes out the way and gives you a death stare.

“WHAT. THE. HELL.”

“What?”

You give her an innocent look, but Nat can’t be fooled.

“You tried making a fuckin’ run for it didn’t you?”

“No, I came out to talk to Buck.”

Bucky steps forward with a finger up ready to say something, but Natasha puts her hand in front of his face without even looking at him.

“Save it Barnes. Y/n What the hell.”

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Part 2

This is going to be a couple of parts, but I hope you guys like it so far! I’ll try to get the next part up as soon as possible. Tags: @ailynalonso15 @starkxpotts @libbymouse