#Loki says he wants to take over earth and there is nothing other than inane circular speeches getting that across

[worstloki]

Absolutely obsessed with Thor naming things wrongly but saying them with his whole chest in such confidence that for a grace period no one doubts him

[dearlazerbunny]

Let it Go (Ch. 2 of ?)

Pairings: platonic avengers team x reader, potential background loki x reader

Words: 3000

Genre/Ratings: -WARNINGS- there will be an (unsuccessful) suicide attempt by reader- chapter will be explicitly marked in advance. Drug (pills) and alcohol abuse, lots of negativity and self loathing. There will be an arc, but said arc is going to start in the eleventh circle of hell and inch up from there.

Summary: *not far enough into this one to give an accurate summary, so this’ll have to be updated eventually. enjoy for now!*

He had just gotten used to the noise.

When he first woke up, it felt like he was suffocating him- always there, always cars honking and lights flashing and music playing and people going about their lives- the city that never sleeps. Someone told him that, he forgets who. He figured out what they meant the second he stepped outside for longer than a minute.

 Now there’s just the wind stirring up dust, and occasionally toppling over a loose pile of debris. City workers push brooms along the street, trying to clear a path. Machines groan and creak as they haul away pieces of the city- days ago, that window was hundreds of feet in the sky- like its nothing. Another day. Just a little quieter than usual.

 t’s hard to believe, even though he has the scars on his shield and healing bruises on his ribs to prove the aliens did, in fact, try to invade New York and take over the planet. Led by a god. And then he’d teamed up with another god- he still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d never been particularly religious, but Bucky was- the insufferable bastard Stark, two assassins and a green giant and became an Avenger of planet Earth.

 This wasn’t what he signed up for in 1941. Nazis or aliens, punching them in the face still uses the same muscles. Metal torsos don’t have quite as much give against the knuckles though.  

 He wanders the streets with no real purpose in mind, other than helping out with lifting here and there where needed. The war roars to life in the back of his mind, overlayed with the eerily calm day. His eyes mark the battle: here, where he launched Nat into the air, her dry words echoing in his ears; here, where Thor had very efficiently covered his back. Here, where for the second time in his life he watched a man who didn’t deserve to fall hurdle towards the ground.

 And here- something happened here. His feet remember even if his mind doesn’t- they’ve stopped in the middle of the road. He squints, resisting the urge to cough on a cloud of dust that gets kicked up in his face. Something… his shield, doing far greater damage than his fist ever could, and then someone… screamed?

Her. A girl, in the middle of the road, eyes sunken and skin so taught and paperwhite he’d wondered if the ghosts of this battle were already coming to haunt him before it was even done. She’s screamed at him to duck, and her voice was so raw it triggered something in the back of his brain from basic training and caused him to hit the ground before he fully knew what he was doing. Something had flown over his head- he could hear it cutting through the air- a thunk, a screech that would likely be added to his rotating litany of nightmares- then nothing, save the battle raging behind him. A Chitauri he assumed he’d missed lay twitching on the ground just inches from his neck, and sticking from its chest- ice. Solid ice. So cold that his gloved hand still recoiled when he reached out to touch it.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

The girl’s face had been a roulette of emotions- a hint of pride, a darkly sarcastic flicker of her lips, and then her eyes widened and- fear. He watched her watch him, clenching and unclenching her fists. By the time he had opened his mouth to call out to her, she was gone, leaving only a trail of what looked to be frost on the ground before she disappeared around a corner- and something that slipped out of her pocket, jostled from her sweatshirt as she made her getaway.

He didn’t have time to think about her after that. A second later, his comm had crackled to life in his ear, and Stark started barking instructions, and Captain America had straightened his spine and grabbed his shield, and got back to where he was needed.

Steve Rogers, though, still has her tucked in the back of his mind.

The frost is still on the ground. Not as white as it had been, but a few grains of ice still cling to the cracks in the pavement. Strange. Magic? After everything he’s seen the past few days he wouldn’t be surprised. He follows the trail, irrationally hoping she’ll still be tucked behind an overturned car or crumbling building corner.

She isn’t. But there is a neon orange bottle tucked amongst the wreckage, and as he reaches for it he has a flash of memory of it falling from your pocket as you run. The contents rattle. A prescription bottle- like the ones medical gives him never get touched and sit collecting dust in a corner of his closet. Neat rows of print declare it Klonopin, 0.5 mg. Take once a day at bedtime, take an additional half as needed. Ingest with food. In the upper left corner is a name and address and phone number- Christian Heysworth.

The girl in the sweatshirt doesn’t strike him as a Christian. He should probably drop the bottle- it’d never be noticed among the rest of the chaos- and walk away. Worry about his own life and his own mess.

He tucks the bottle into his pocket. It might be a place to start.

…

The knock on her door is crisp and succinct, with no room for error. A soldier’s knock. She knows who it is before she turns the lock, because Clint doesn’t bother knocking anymore. When the door opens, she tries not to look as tired as she feels. “Captain.” It’s an easy acknowledgment, and it gives him time to categorize the healing gash on her cheekbone, covered with a butterfly bandage; the bruise blossoming on her collarbone that peeks just far enough above the neckline of her shirt to be seen. She doesn’t need the attention, but he needs a reminder that not everything is different since the forties. Same soldiers, different decade. Despite herself, the corner of her lip flicks up in the tiniest hint of appreciation. It has been a while since someone’s cared. “What can I do for you?”

“I need a favor.”

Interesting. “With?”

“Something stupid, most likely,” His voice is just sheepish enough to believe him. From his pocket, he pulls an orange bottle identical to the ones SHIELD’s psych department keeps prescribing her and the ones she keeps using for target practice.

Oh. Something deep in her chest softens and clenches all at once. She knows these questions all too well. “Cap. If you need help with- well. I can try my best, but I doubt I’m the best person to-”

Steve’s eyes widen. “Oh, no, these- they aren’t mine.” He hands the medicine over and she appraises it with a practiced eye. Klonopin, schedule IV drug in the United States, dose as low as one milligram to sedate an average adult male within forty-five minutes, effects greatly compounded by alcohol- “I, um. I’d like to track down the owner.”

Her brain is humming. “Any particular reason?”

“It’s a long story.”

Wordlessly, she steps aside, letting him in. “I didn’t have much to do tonight.”

Eventually, there are cups of tea in front of both of them, though she’s only taken a sip and Steve hasn’t touched his at all. He tells her about the girl who leaves frost on the ground in the middle of Manhattan and saves him with a spear made of ice. From the way he speaks, its almost like he isn’t quite sure if she was real or not- just a ghost or a very strange guardian angel. It’s bizarre, but not even on her top ten list of bizarre things in this week alone.

“So. I want to… thank her, I suppose?” He laughs without mirth. “I’m not really sure.”

“Think she’s enhanced?”

“Hopefully not by force.”

It doesn’t even bother her, anymore, the implication. Her breathing becomes more controlled on instinct. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Don’t think about it. “Let’s hope. Is she on anyone’s radar? SHIELD?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to check. And if I did, I don’t have anything to go on.”

Natasha glances down at the bottle of pills. But there is Christian Heysworth. She reaches under the couch cushion she sits on to produce a laptop from the gap. It’s wafer-thin and high tech enough that pulling up something as inane as Facebook looks categorically ridiculous. There’s a few Christian Heysworths, but they’re quickly narrowed down by what little information she has. “Christian Heysworth: junior at NYU, frat boy, wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got a couple of DUIs under his belt paid off by someone in his family-” she glances up, sharp cheekbones illuminated in blue light. “What?”

“I just… what are the odds he’d be in SHIELD’s databases…?”

“Hardly, Cap. Behold the wonders of the internet. So, are we wringing his neck, or were you thinking something more subtle?”

She says it to get a rise out of him and is rewarded by an aghast expression. “I just need to ask him some questions, Natasha, not-” he stops when her quiet smirk lifts a little of the weight from her eyes and laughs with her. “Fine. But I’m doing the talking.”

...

Natasha Romanov has infiltrated thirty-seven countries in as many or more disguises and has never been caught. She is failing miserably at attempting to camouflage Captain America into a generic civilian. There aren’t enough sunglasses and baseball caps in the world to make him a more manageable height and physique, and his t-shirt- at least two sizes too small for him- attracts the eyes of every wannabe pro sports player and every girl and guy hanging off of their arm. Honestly, they expect her to work in these kinds of conditions? Thankfully pulling her top a little lower and batting her eyelashes nets her enough information to direct her to her “absolutely earth-shattering one-night stand.” They climb stairs in a dorm hall that could be nicer than some of the floors in Stark Tower. She has the urge to crack the tile with something sharp.

Heysworth opens his door in boxers and smoke still on his breath. Heavy-lidded eyes barely focus on her face. “Uh, hey. Can I help you?”

Steve comes up behind her. “Christian Heysworth? I’d like to have a word with you, son.”

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

“I didn’t say you did.” Steve’s blue eyes are cool when he takes off his aviators; primly folds them and hangs them on the collar of his shirt. “Recognize this?” He holds out the prescription.

“Uh, I didn’t really-” Heysworth stops. Belches. Squints up at Steve. “I- wait. Wait, holy shit, you’re fucking Captain America! Holy shit man, I can’t even-”

As he rambles, Steve looks over to Natasha, who shrugs. “You must have one of those faces.”

Captain America holds up a hand to the kid’s face. “Just answer the question, son.”

“I, yeah, okay, um-” he turns the bottle over in his hands. “Shit, is this what that bitch stole from me?”

“Language. Who stole from you?”

“I met up with some chick downtown who wanted to buy them, but then those freaking aliens started coming and I- you didn’t hear it from me though, ‘kay?”

Steve sighs. “Do you know her name?”

“Nah, chat rooms and shi- stuff. Sorry. I have her screen name?”

He agrees to trade for a selfie with the Captain, which Natasha promptly deletes as soon as he hands over his phone, transferring data to her own. “She’s communicating from this address,” she murmurs, showing Steve the area it triangulated before wiping that information too. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Uh-huh. Hey, are you-”

Steve neatly closes the door in his face. “I don’t think he looked at your face once.

Oh, Steve. What a pure soul. “To be fair, I don’t think anyone has been looking at yours either.”

Their trail leads them to the backstreets, to an alley so covered in grime it looks like the whole place should be condemned. And many of the buildings are- covered in caution tape, stairwells crumbling, and fire escapes rusted over. Wind whistles through shattered windows. Foundations are rotting. And yet there are a few minuscule signs of life- a door that’s scraped the ground so many times there’s wear on the concrete, a few piles of garbage here and there. “She’s off the grid.”

“Can’t be right. She was a kid, couldn’t have been more than twenty-”

“You do what you have to.” She gives him a look. “You know that.”

His face goes stony. “Let’s just find her.”

Natasha sets off in one direction, Steve in the other. They both know how this works. It’s a practiced dance. Search the bottom floors first, find faults in the buildings and stairwells so you can avoid them the next floor up. She picks a lock that has managed to stay fast despite rusting over, he leverages himself through a windowsill strong enough to hold his weight. Eerily silent save for scraps of trash and the skittering of mice. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the construction in midtown, slowly shoveling away.

Steve’s mark is almost laughably easy to find. There’s a door tucked in a second-level corner whose seams are iced over three inches thick.

Her boots crunch in frost spilling out from under a crack in the door. She punctures the air with a bird call, and seconds later Steve rounds the corner. He reaches down to run a finger through the snow. “it looks the same.”

“Do you want to do the honors then?” He tests the knob once, twice- the metal doesn’t even rattle, it’s too frozen solid. He opts to kick it in with a well-placed boot, wincing at the sound of ice cracking and then shattering into shards.

The apartment is empty. There’s a table along the far wall stacked with a few cardboard boxes to use as makeshift shelves. Packets of potato chips are shoved in one alcove, a few granola bars in the other. Empty soda bottles litter the floor. The table itself is mostly covered with alcohol: a whole skyline of glass bottles glinting in the light from the newly busted door. Some are empty, some are half full, a few have broken necks. An inspection of the crooked drawers attached underneath reveals nothing but a junkyard of pills, none of which are prescribed to the same person more than twice.

Natasha opens a few of the safety caps, rattling them like a scientist with an interest. “There’s enough in here to put even you to sleep.”

“Is she here? She would’ve heard the door.”

“Maybe.” A door leads off to a molding bathroom and a small hall closet. The next, a makeshift bedroom. A grimy mattress sits in the corner, covered in blankets so dirty there’s no telling what the print of them might’ve once been. There’s also a girl. She’s curled up in the center, drowning in layers of hoodies and sweatshirts. The second Natasha steps in the room she can see her breath. Another step in and the air feels like home. Whatever water was in the air has crystallized and fallen to the ground in a tiny hailstorm, surrounding her like a halo.

She also doesn’t move.

The spy moves with ruthless efficiency, ignoring the cold as she kneels by the mattress. Too many layers. Can’t even see if she’s breathing. She tugs her sleeve up over her fingertips before beginning to shove aside tangled hoods and t-shirts, digging for the collarbone.

“Natasha?”

“Here. She’s almost-” she cuts off with a hiss of pain, wrenching her fingers back like she was bit.

“What-?” the girl is still sleeping. Steve only spares her a glance before taking Natasha’s hand in his, checking for damage. There’s no blood, no broken skin. But the tips of her fingers are white and hard, paler than normal and cold to the touch. He recoils on instinct. “Frostbite.”

Natasha is muttering low in Russian, tapping her fingers together to move the blood, and Steve is momentarily taken back to a plane going down in the middle of an endless ocean surrounded by walls of blue. No going back, only going under, and nothing waiting for him but frost and ice and cold-

“Steve!” He blinks. Natasha’s face swims back into focus. “Get out. Contact the tower. We can’t move her like this and she needed medical yesterday.”

“I’m fi-”

“No, you’re not. I can handle this. Russian, remember?” She tries to give him a small smile. He doesn’t return it. “Get out and coordinate removal. That’s an order.”

Orders, some primeval part of Steve’s brain can understand. He turns and hopes he doesn’t run from the apartment, not even bothering to navigate the stairs- just jumps over the balcony to land in the courtyard below, chest heaving. Unconsciously, he glances in a nearby piece of glass, ensuring his breath isn’t fog. He isn’t cold. He isn’t. He’s fine.

He isn’t thinking when he puts a beacon out for JARVIS to trace. He isn’t flexing his fingers to make sure they can move. He isn’t drowning. He isn’t on ice. He isn’t, he isn’t, he isn’t-

In the apartment, Natasha swears and wrings her hand as pins and needles race down her arm. She’s handled plenty of frostbite, but it never gets easier. The girl is still unconscious, heartbeat dangerously slow. Whatever she put in her system, she meant to knock herself out for a long time. Or worse.

And Steve is on the verge of a panic attack and if your heart stops she can’t perform CPR, so she sits on the edge of your mattress blowing on her fingers as you keep causing the air around you to quietly freeze and fall, a tiny secret twinkle of ice in the middle of New York.

[lushscreamqueen]

TEENAGERS FROM SPACE on The Schlocky Horror Picture Show

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Hello, good evening, and welcome to the Schlocky Horror Picture Show. I'm your host, Nigel Honeybone. Possibly the most terrible and mystifying place anything could come from is Outer Space. The second most terrible and mystifying place is, of course...Puberty. So tonight we add terror to terror in the utterly mystifying Teenagers From Outer Space. No, not one of those lame 1980s college sex romps as you might have guessed from the title, but a rather entertaining black and white effort from 1959 starring, well, ME! I was only paid once, but as you're about to see, I play just about every disintegrated character in the film! I swear, I've never had so much screen-time in a single feature! Look out for my tattoo. The film is actually about aliens who land on Earth to use it as a farm for its food supply, and the crew of the ship includes several teenagers who look much older than the title suggests...sort of like 90210 in jumpsuits. So without further ado, please allow me to semi-ambiguously present the 1959 semi-classic...Teenagers From Outer Space! BREAK: Next we invade your personal space with clawing, slimy crustaceans, and then after the ads we'll get back to Teenagers From Outer Space on the Schlocky Horror Picture Show! MIDDLE: ...and welcome back to the Schlocky Horror Picture Show. I think there are far too many nice people in Teenagers From Outer Space! Well, at first, anyway. The town is filled with nothing but nice people who want to help out, just begging for disintegration. You see, we've been invaded by Bryl-creemed aliens in jump suits who want to use Earth as a breeding ground for Gargons, which are like yabbies that grow to ginogorous proportions! Teenagers From Outer Space was filmed on location in and around Hollywood with a number of tell-tale landmarks like Bronson Canyon and Hollywood High School giving away the film's hazy locale. One notable aspect of the film is that it was largely the work of a single person, Tom Graeff, who plays Joe the reporter. He also wrote, directed, edited, and produced the film, as well as providing cinematography, so-called special effects, and music coordination. Production associates Bryan and Ursula Pearson and Gene Sterling provided the film's $14,000 budget, which was less than half a shoe-string by the standards of the time. All three played major roles as a result...not because they put money in, but because it wasn't enough money to hire more real actors. They employed a lot of guerrilla tactics in order to cut costs. Director Tom Graeff secured the location for Betty Morgan's house for free by posing as a UCLA student, which would have been true five years earlier. The old lady who owned the house even supplied the electricity for free, so she deserves disintegration. Other cost-cutting ideas didn't pay off so well. The space costumes are simple flight suits clearly decorated with masking tape, dress shoes covered in socks, and surplus Air Force helmets. The disintegrator ray was a five-cent "Hubley's Atomic Disintegrator" cap-gun, for those who can't make out what's written on the side, with a small light bulb and a mirror glued to the end reflecting an offstage light providing the awesome special effects that make this weapon look almost laughable. And apart from a shadowy giant lobster that would have needed an expensive over-sized claw prop if it ever got close enough to actually attack someone, all the other events are either stock footage or take place off screen under the horrified gaze of our actors. The best effect is those ray guns leaving mere skeletons behind. It's something Tim Burton would use later on in Mars Attacks, but he chose not to ask me to reprise my role. Disintegrate him too, bastard! Strangely enough, Graeff also pre-recorded some of the film's dialogue for several scenes, and had the actors learn to synchronise their actions with the sound. The musical score of the film came from stock, the same stock score has been recycled in countless B-movies such as The Killer Shrews and the original Night Of The Living Dead, so don't

be surprised if you find yourself humming along. As you know, I don't usually harp on too much about bad acting, but I must admit that the acting in Teenagers from Outer Space is particularly bad, and the source of most of the movie's unintended hilarity. This shouldn't be too surprising, as Derek, the alien who wants out of the seafood business and runs away, is played by one David Love, one being the number of films he acted in. Production associate Bryan G. Pearson, whose real name was Bryan Grant but used a pseudonym to avoid union troubles, is Thor. I'm not doing that joke. He had one off roles in TV shows Border Patrol, Perry Mason and Daniel Boone, but in this he's the alien sent to track down renegade nephropidaphobe Derek, along the way asking a lot of questions, being rudely insistent and rather inconsiderately disintegrating people. And the occasional dog. We meet Betty Morgan, played by Dawn Bender (which I'm sure we've all had), as the owner of the dog vaporized by Thor. Vaporized, by Thor! And swept up, by Loki's beard! Bender had acted sporadically since the age of two, and bizarrely chose as her swan song a story about aliens on a sightseeing tour of middle America. Admittedly Thor is a little more murderous in his sightseeing, but not much worse than drunken backpackers. Now they need a good, firm disintegrating. Ursula Pearson, here playing Hilda was Bryan G. Pearson's wife. Of course, Bryan Pearson's real name was Bryan Grant, which means Ursula Pearson's real name was Ursula Hansen. However they were married, which I think they did just to confuse me. I could go on talking about the intersection of Inane and Insipid, but perhaps I should mention the best known actor, if not the best actor, or indeed the known actor...anyway, the one face you probably will recognize if you don't blink is the Spacecraft Captain, who is none other than Starker from Get Smart himself, King Moody. Yes, that's as grand as it gets. Much to the astonishment of nobody sane the film failed to perform at the box office, placing further stress on an already-burdened Graeff. He suffered a breakdown and proclaimed himself the second coming of Christ, which was quite deluded as Roger Corman was clearly the second coming of Christ. After a number of public appearances followed by a subsequent arrest for disrupting a church service, Graeff disappeared from Hollywood for many years. Perhaps that tinge of insanity adds to the low budget charm of Teenagers From Outer Space. One irresistible scene occurs when the love interest is in her room and she manages to change into the very same dress! It's something that couldn't be duplicated with all the money in the world, and probably shouldn't be. And won't be, if I have anything to do with it. Now lets get back to to the disintegrating conclusion of Teenagers From Outer Space! CLOSING: How do we know they're a superior alien race? Because they keep saying it all the time, that's why! It must be true, they have spaceships, big foreheads and those nifty ray guns that instantly turn their targets into skeletons. I sometimes wish I had something like that when dealing with my producers, but it's probably better that I don't. How many aliens did they manage to squeeze into that flying saucer, anyway? It turns out their flying saucer is bigger on the inside than the outside, a bit like the TARDIS. That's pretty advanced, but it still looked like a tight fit in there. They may be a superior race that's invented space travel, but they haven't invented soft furnishings yet. And how were they going to cart back a fully grown Gargon back to their home planet in such a tiny ship? Oh, and did you spot my tattoo? I was really, really drunk... Anyway, please join me next week to have your innocence violated beyond description while I force you to submit to the Horrors of the Public Domain, on The Schlocky Horror Picture Show. Toodles!

[thesffcorner]

Avengers: Infinity War Review

Avengers: Infinity War is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest venture, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. It takes place 2 years after the events of Avengers Civil War and follows Thanos on his quest to gather all the infinity stones and destroy half of the universe.

As this is a film that has been 10 years in the making, with elements and threads from nearly every MCU film, there is a lot to talk about and most of it consist some kind of spoiler. I will go over general impressions in the first half and get into most substantial, plot related spoilers in the latter, but if you don’t want to know anything about this movie before seeing it, I suggest you come back to this article after you’ve already done so. 

This is a difficult movie to talk about; it will definitely draw out a reaction but how positive or negative will hinge on how much you love event comics and Thanos as a character. I can’t say I liked it, but there wasn’t much that I thought was objectively wrong with it, in the way of say the Last Jedi. So let’s start first with the things I liked. 

Nearly every character that’s in this movie gets a moment to shine, be it an action beat, a scene, or just a good one liner. At no point in the film did it feel like a character was underutilized or unnecessary and the Russos do a great job at juggling all the different personalities and plot-lines. Despite the sheer amount of people the action is clear, the film rarely feels like it drags and more or less uses all its players to their fullest potential, with several having a lot more room to breathe and play.

The plot as I said is pretty pedestrian; it’s just “Thanos wants the stones so he can destroy the world and the heroes want to stop him” which works for this type of story. It’s nothing to write home about and the twists come from the individual character plot-lines and while I didn’t love it, it was pretty unobtrusive and allowed for more character interaction which is always a positive in my opinion.

The action is also for the most part excellent, with the Russos making sure everyone gets at least one scene where the kick ass, including the villains. They also get pretty creative with the different powers in the film, especially the infinity stones. There are several downright amazing scenes that showcase the time, reality and soul gems, and the two characters who get to show off the most in terms of power are definitely Thor and Strange.

Speaking of, another thing I liked was that the characters that carried the plot and got the most screen time weren’t the ones I expected would. Tony is the only one who I knew would get a lot of screen time and does, but I actually really liked his story-line; it was probably one of the best the MCU has done so far. The Russos really like and understand Tony’s character, and his emotional conflict having to do with the fear of losing Earth and all his friends, his guilt over the Avengers dissolving, him returning back to paranoia after the dissolution and creating the nano-tech suit were all excellent. The ending was also incredibly powerful for Tony specifically and there is one scene that was so emotionally visceral, it actually unsettled me.

Thor was another character that got a lot of screen time and I’m still somewhat conflicted over his character. I loved Ragnarok and I think Waititi’s Thor was the best and most accurate one we’ve gotten so far. So I was really worried when I read an interview with Hemsworth which talked about how he at first didn’t like the direction his character was going in.

And at first I agreed with him; the beginning of the film especially felt like Marvel just hates Thor and all of his supporting characters and in a way completely negates the ending and the message of Ragnarok, because it makes everything that happens in that movie irrelevant so we could get this one. What I did like was that at least (unlike Taika) the Russos gave Thor a moment to grieve and come to terms with the all the horror that happened to him in these two films and and just be human. There is a pretty touching scene between him and Rocket which I really appreciated and their pairing was very entertaining.

Strange was another character that got to shine and I liked his dynamic with Tony, especially Strange giving up the stone to save Tony’s life (even if he had ulterior motives), after plainly saying he would save the stone over everyone.

And now for some stuff I didn’t like. I’ll start with the more minor things and build up to the two major problems that I had with this movie. ACTUAL SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT FOLKS.

Firstly, this is an event comic in movie form with all the good and bad that comes with it. It’s all action and spectacle and contains surprisingly little humanity, other than in the form of jokey jokes and one liners. The tone is grim and though the film doesn’t take itself too seriously it still pauses for grandiose speeches which absolutely kill the momentum dead. Combined with the amount of characters this means that every character that isn’t plot relevant would get one line, or one scene or mostly one joke and then they are out of the movie.

People like Nat and Cap, who have been veterans of the MCU get completely lost in the shuffle. Sure they get fight scenes, but they don’t get any kind of emotional backstory. Bucky, Sam and Rhodey might as well not be here for all they do, even if they do get some funny lines here and there. Bruce fares a bit better, at least being present in most of the film, the entirety of the Black Panther cast gets like, a scene and a half and let’s not even get into people like Pepper, Loki and Wong who literally get ejected out of the film after one scene.

Gamora, Thor and Tony, are the only characters who get any emotional substance to them; the rest aren’t even deigned a subplot beyond the minimum necessary requirement to tie them into the main plot. An especially egregious example of this are both Wanda and Vision and Peter and Gamora’s romances.

Both of these romances were set up in previous films, but while they had time to slowly develop, here they need to be at Earth-shattering, I-need-you-to-kill-me-or-the-world-ends levels. This is less bad with Peter and Gamora because we’ve had more time with both characters and two whole movies to develop them, but Vision and Wanda only started really interacting in Civil War, and now they are at the stage where they are promised to each other? I also didn’t like that both romances had the same resolution; in case things go wrong Gamora and Vision ask to be killed, the only person who can do it is Peter or Wanda and we get a dramatic scene where exactly that happens only for Thanos to swoop in with one of the stones and change the outcome. Diminishing returns, is all I’m saying.

Wanda’s character had nothing to it beyond being worried and in love with Vision, but Peter… oh poor Peter.

First he gets into a stupid pissing contest with Thor about who is manlier which was just the most inane, stupid thing, then he does the exact same with Tony, and then (because the film needs him too) completely loses his mind about Gamora, and attacks Thanos, allowing him to steal the time gem and escape. Look, Peter was never the smartest person, and he does have an insecure, competitive, peacocking streak, but he was never an idiot like this film makes him out to be! Honestly all the Guardians are shafted; Mantis and Drax are barely in the film, Groot gets a single scene of cool, Rocket, while funny is relegated to being Thor’s sidekick/psychiatrist and Peter is turned into an idiot!

And now we get to Gamora. Poor Gamora, this movie did her dirty. Just a reminder, Gamora is one of the most skilled and bad-ass assassins in the galaxy, she is notorious and infamous in the Guardians films. Her entire plot in vol 2 was coming to terms not just with the abuse that Thanos inflicted on her as a child, but also the abuse she was complicit in with the other children, specifically Nebula who she was actually close to. The film ends with them starting to come to terms with this, and forgiving each other, but not Thanos who doesn’t deserve their forgiveness.

But then in this movie, she gets fooled into thinking she killed Thanos, gets kidnapped by Thanos, leads him to the soul stone and gets unceremoniously killed as Thanos’ sacrifice to get the stone. And all the time, she gets emotionally blackmailed and gas-lit by Thanos who keeps calling her his daughter, saying he wants to see her on Titan’s throne, how he sacrificed his crazy ass mission to save her once on her home-planet and choses her as the one thing in the universe he loves but has to trade to get the soul gem. WHAT?

Are we supposed to feel bad about Thanos? Thanos, the sociopathic, sadistic, torturous, unambiguous villain, who by that point in the film has killed the entirety of Asgard, including Loki and Heimdal, and the Grandmaster and the entirety of Knowhere? I absolutely hated the implication that I should feel sad because Gamora was wrong and he did love her. Not only does it badly undercut the message of vol 2 which is abuse is real and has lasting effects, but the movie wants us to on some level side with Thanos and think that Gamora really was ungrateful, since he obviously loved her and she betrayed him. They even give her this stupid speech about how the universe is punishing him by demanding he sacrificed something he loved since he doesn’t love anything, which was so over the top and drawn out and made Gamora sound like an idiot! It made me want to throw things at the screen.

I don’t need or want complexity and sympathetic traits given to a villain that has been nothing but a sheer force of evil and destruction thus far. It would have been so much better to just go the Galactus route with Thanos and make him just an unstoppable chaotic neutral force, rather than some deluded mad genius. I’m sorry, but am I supposed to sympathize with a villain literary referred to as the Mad Titan, whose grand master plan hinges on him believing the overpopulation and over-consumption myth so hard that he wants to destroy half the universe to remedy it? This is the better story than him trying to impress Death that Marvel came up with?

Even if overpopulation wasn’t a myth (which it is) what happens when living beings once again reach the status that they have now? He would have to snap his fingers every 10 000 years or so just to keep the status quo. It’s ridiculously stupid and infuriating and the film treats his plan like it actually has some merit and he’s somehow a mad genius who just goes about it the wrong way. I really didn’t need a 10 min scene of him mourning how he had to kill Gamora to get the stone that lets him DESTROY HALF THE UNIVERSE, complete with sad music and a flashback to baby Gamora asking him what kind of price he paid for his own insane plans. We could have spent that time giving Cap something to do, like maybe acknowledging that Tony, his best friend is lost in space and the world is ending.

The Russos love Thanos, he’s clearly their baby but I hated him. He took time away from the heroes that I wanted to watch and didn’t bring anything to the table but melodrama that was completely unfounded. It was also additionally frustrating because he a) is so much more powerful than any of the heroes combined and b) we know he gets all the infinity stones by the end of the film. So the question isn’t how the heroes will win, but how long will they last against him. The ending also undercuts itself, because the heroes don’t win; the glove self-destructs after Thanos uses it, meaning it would have done that regardless of if Thanos met any resistance while acquiring the stones, meaning this whole 2 and a half hour film was pointless!

The other part of the ending was shocking, but it’s not meaningful, because we know all those characters aren’t dead. We know we will get a Dr Strange 2, Black Panther 2 and Guardians 3, and we know Avengers Infinity part 2 comes out next summer so we know they are still somehow alive. My guess is they are all trapped inside the soul stone, since only the glove got destroyed at the end. Sidenote, aren’t Tony and Nebula still on Titan? So can’t they just like… sneak behind Thanos and stab him now that he’s wounded and can’t use the stones anymore?

This was a frustrating movie to watch and even more frustrating to talk about. There were things I liked, like some of the characters and humor, but for the most part I thought it was overblown, melodramatic and focused too much on the one character I cared least about. I am curious about part 2, but honestly? I feel the same about this movie as I do about event comics; who TF is Thanos and can he get out of my Guardians ongoing so I can return to reading about the characters I actually like and care about.

[dearlazerbunny]

Lie to Me (Ch. 5 of ?)

Pairings: Loki x Reader

Genre/Ratings: M eventually (aiming for a slow burn here); warnings for kidnapping and subsequent anxiety/PTSD (will be marked before every chapter)

Words: 1500

Summary: If you had to guess what the captured, traitor, trickster god Loki Laufeyson wanted or needed at this moment, a babysitter would be far, far down on the list. (Set after the events of Avengers 1.)

SHOUTOUT TO @molmcb and @jessiejunebug and their continued quest to inflate my ego as I beg them to tell me my writing is halfway decent  

Requested Tags: @deraniel @iamverity @yasnooshka24@themusingsofmany@dark-night-sky-99 @wegingerangelica

“You said you have questions.”

Your pencil scratches to a halt on your notebook. “What?”

The man in his cell heaves a long suffering sigh. “Must you make me repeat myself constantly? You said you have questions. Ask them.”

Um… what? You raise an eyebrow at him and peer closely, trying to distinguish and sort of schmoozing like the last time he spoke to you. “Are you… are we, like, talking now? Is this a thing?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well you seemed pretty insistent on keeping up the whole silent treatment, sooooo… why talk now? Did my ever-present charm finally seduce the Trickster?”

He gives you a look that could feasibly translate to ‘you’d be more attractive dipped in a swamp and covered in grass clippings’. “I am bored. You are here and seem somewhat capable of producing coherent thoughts. Therefore, you happen to be my only option for entertainment.”

“Hoo boy, lucky me.” You snort. “Don’t lie to me, you probably just want to figure out how to sway me into unlocking your handcuffs again.”

He seems amused by this. “I am the god of lies, Witling. I very much doubt you could tell when I lie to you.”

“Bet.” You pause. “I- sorry. What did you call me?”

The Trickster has an incredibly self-satisfied smirk on his lips, one that instantly makes you want to slap it off of him. “You seem to think yourself incredibly pithy for a mortal. Not many would speak so smartly to the God with a sliver tongue. And, you apparently refuse to call me by name, thus I shall not call you by yours, Witling.”

Considering everything he just said to you were well-places insults, they’re incredibly pretty insults. You suppose it’s that whole silver tongue thing. The man could read a phone book and it’d be X-rated. “I’m assuming you’re not actually calling me witty, Trickster?”

“Ah, the little one understands sarcasm. Quite a boon.”

At this point the jabs just fly right over your head. You put your chin in your hand and rest it on the table, musing. “Hm. The Witling and the Trickster. Sounds like a bad buddy-cop movie. I’m sure Neil Gaiman would make a killing off of it though.”

“You are very quickly trying my patience.”

“Well hey, you said you wanted entertainment, right?” The ferocity of his glare doesn’t scare you this time, surprisingly- you just scrunch your nose up at him, your equivalent of a toddler sticking out her tongue in a na-na-you-can’t-get-me kind of way. “So, can I really ask anything?”

“Provided it is not something so asinine as ‘do apples taste as they do on Earth’.”

“Hey, it’s a good question! Seven year old me was a smart cookie.” Externally, you’re trying to keep calm, but your heart is thumping so wildly in your chest you’re surprised the god doesn’t comment on it. You can ask him anything. Possibilities are whirling around in your head so quickly you can barely think of one to snatch up and voice. So you blurt the first thing you can think of- “did you really give birth to a horse?”

There’s a moment of silence, and you almost think he hasn’t heard you, but then his face twists into the most haughty, appalled, scandalized look that’s ever come out of god or mortal in any of the nine realms; you’re willing to bet your entire life’s savings on it. “Did I what.”

You try to subtly clamp a hand over your mouth in effort to keep from bursting out laughing right to his face. “I’m assuming that’s a no, then?”

“Mortals are the most inane, idiotic, moronic creatures-” He steadies himself, seemingly controlling his outburst with a well-controlled breath. “No. I absolutely did not. Where in Hel did you manage to come up with such a ludicrous statement?”

“So once upon a time, you turned into a mare to seduce a horse called Svadilfari and the resulting, um, incident, created an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir. I mean, if the story is true, you were kind of in a bad spot and had to think on the fly, but uh… yeah. Kind of a creative way of doing things.” The Trickster looks even paler than usual. “You sure that didn’t happen? ‘Cause uh, its kind of a well documented story-”

“I can assure you in my one thousand and fifty odd years of life I have not ever seduced a horse.” You have to give a little giggle at that, because such an odd statement coming out of someone so furious is absolutely hilarious.

“Well, damn. Mythomaniacs everywhere just had a sharp pain in their chests and don’t know why.”

The Trickster leans his head back against his cell wall with a solid thunk and lets his eyes close. “And Thor wonders why I loathe Midgard so much.”

“I guess centuries of rumors working their way down the grapevine could mess up your reputation a bit, huh?” You’re half teasing, and half trying to cheer him up, but he doesn’t seem all that convinced. You’re also terrified you’ve just insulted the crap out of him and he’s going to go back to the silent treatment, and you really do not want that to happen- this is the most fun you’ve had in ages. “So you’re a thousand and fifty? Roughly?”

“Yes.”

“How long is that in, like, regular years?” He cracks open one eyelid to give you the stink eye, and you roll your eyes back at him. “You know what I mean. Midgardian years, whatever.”

“How should I know that?”

“Well, how long do Asgardians live?”

He seems to think for a moment. “Five thousand or so, give or take.”

“Okay, sooooo…” you scratch some quick math onto the paper in front of you. Five thousand years divided by one thousand and fifty, Loki’s age- 4.76ish. If the normal human lifespan is ninety years, being generous, then ninety divided by 4.76 is… “Huh.”

“Have you made a revolutionary discovery? Shall I call your pathetic press?”

“Just out of curiosity, how do you think the prefrontal cortex matures in Asgardians as compared to humans?”

“Considering Asgardians are vastly superior to mortals, I should say at a greater capacity.”

“I sure hope so,” you murmur to yourself. Because this is… wow. Kind of terrifying, and kind of hilarious.

“What has your tongue in knots?”

“Do you really want to know?”

He cocks and eyebrow and glances around at his cell. “I’m not sure how the information could make my situation any worse.”

“Fair. Well, by human standards, you’re just shy of nineteen years old.”

“I have no context for your lifespans.”

“Um, eighteen is when you’re legally considered an adult in most countries. Here in the States you can’t legally consume alcohol until you’re twenty one. And I’m twenty four, so technically, by Earth’s standards, I’m older than you.”

Oh, the look on his face is just priceless. You wish you had a camera. “That is preposterous.”

“Math doesn’t lie, man. Oh my god, if you were normal, you’d be some rich frat boy right now…!”

“I have no comprehension for this term… frat boy… but from your tone of voice I can sure you I most decidedly would not be one.”

You shake your head, a huge grin on your face. “This is hilarious. I’m older than you. I feel like I should give you a lecture on safe driving skills or why you should stay in school.”

Trickster is practically nose to nose with the glass wall of his cell, looking ridiculously frustrated. “I have harnessed the power of an infinity stone to my own whims and you dare insinuate that you outrank me!”

A what now? “What’s an infinity stone? I haven’t heard of that term.”

It’s almost like a light switch flipping off- everything in him visibly shuts down and withdrawals into himself, swallowing everything up as a snake might a rat. “It is nothing. Unimportant.”

The way he stops on a dime is almost scary. Someone who can control their emotions at the drop of a hat like that… well. They usually don’t learn that skill by pleasant means. So you drop it for now, but you do write yourself a little note with a question mark, right next to his ‘human age’ that’s circled in big black marks. “Hey, I was just kidding Trickster. I doubt I outrank you in anything other than, like, random Midgardian trivia. Trust me, even with the handcuffs, you’re still the heavyweight here.”

To your relief, something like life filters back into his face, just a bit. “It would be best you do not forget that, Witling. There will come a day where I could make your life a living nightmare.”

But his voice is so light you just crinkle your nose at him. “Nah, I bet you’d be harmless. I’m the one who kept you entertained all these dark lonely nights after all.”

“I believe I would rather have Mjolnir set on my head.”