#also umm mcu in general?

[tyrannuspitch]

oh also while we're comparing and contrasting. as i've said before. you could argue otherwise, but personally, i really don't think mcu thor hits loki.* whereas your generic comics thor. definitely does. in mcu canon, the circumstances surrounding the mistreatment are subtler, but the mistreatment itself is also subtler.

and again, things being (arguably) "less severe" doesn't necessarily make the writing better. but. it does make thor more sympathetic, and it does make everything feel more deliberate? like, someone has thought through what is and isn't going on, rather than just being like. toxic sibling relationship? okay let's have everything possible go wrong! and this also means that like... toxicity/abuse which a lot of people would see as "lesser" is treated with significantly more gravity. like, overall, i just get the impression that a lot more effort and care is being put into it.

(*i was going to say "i don't think mcu thor is physically violent to loki." but uhhh. yes he is. but i don't think he hits him, or does anything where the primary intent is to cause pain, so that's like... a line he doesn't cross. he has principles, even if they're not very good ones. also, further specifications: not "mcu thor", but "pre-reboot mcu thor, pre-nemesishood or outside of wartime". idk what reboot thor is up to these days, but he is a torturer, so i'm not defending that guy. :/)

[samasmith23]

Kamala Khan's death in Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 leaked NOT once... but TWICE in a row!!!

It looks like someone at Marvel RRREEEAAALLLYYY wants this whole publicity stunt of killing off Ms. Marvel (aka, Kamala Khan) to FAIL super hard considering that the pages for tomorrow’s Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 have been leaked not once, but twice now! And now we sadly know exactly just how Kamala dies…

Umm… last time I checked, Kamala has a healing factor. Sure it’s nowhere as powerful as Wolverine’s (and it does require Kamala to eat a lot in order to replenish her energy reserves), but unless that sword is powered by some kind of magic bullcrap which completely shuts off her healing factor, this makes zero sense! Kamala literally healed from a bullet wound to the stomach in her opening arc, and even survived having an entire building collapse right on top of her (just barely, but still)!

Also, it feels so random and arbitrary to have Kamala randomly use her shape-shifting powers to pose as a body-double Mary Jane, especially since she’s not utilized them a lot due her opening arc centering around Kamala becoming comfortable in her own skin after previously trying and failing to resemble her idol Carol Danvers (therefore overcoming her personal insecurities and internalized Islamophobia).

Plus, last time I checked Kamala's only since then shape-shifted into a couch, James Rhodes, and a scary cartoon face.

While it does feel somewhat in character for Kamala to risk her life to save someone she barely knows as part of her characterization as a superhero, the actual execution of it feels incredibly at odds with her past character development (whether it be struggling with her fears of death and mortality in Magnificent Ms. Marvel, or already receiving validation from her family, friends, and dozens of other superheroes, including Peter Parker, so why does she need it from him again when she dies?!).

Based on these leaked pages, I get the general impression that Zeb Wells originally fully intended to kill off Mary Jane here since all throughout his Spider-Man run he’s heavily hinted at it and foreshadowed it with that Paul guy (seriously... WHO THE HECK IS PAUL?!) and their two kids (who are apparently actual mystical constructs or something…), and that mystical supervillain wanting “the Scarlet Woman’s blood” (I know the phrase "Scarlet Woman" is specifically meant to refer to MJ’s red hair, but it is also unfortunately a derogatory slang term for a sex-worker). But maybe Marvel editorial told him to rewrite his planned death of Mary Jane at the last minute as a desperate effort to promote the upcoming The Marvels movie (which Wells shares a co-writing credit for the screenplay of), or Wells wanted to subvert reader expectations but did so in a distasteful manner?

I honestly don’t know... but if I had to guess I’d probably say it’s the former option since Marvel previously killed off Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch before resurrecting them a few months later to hype up their upcoming MCU films, plus the Spider-Man offices in particular are notorious for their editorial mandates and interfering with writer’s plans at the last minute (just look at how they recently forced Nick Spencer to settle on retconning Sins Past out of existence instead of One More Day like he was originally building-up towards). And do I think that Zeb Wells himself is an Islamophobic misogynist because of this? Probably not... especially considering I don’t know the guy’s personal politics (maybe he's a swell person IRL) and editorial mandates are likely at play here. I do think that killing off Kamala in such a random and distasteful manner is still a bad look and does give off those unfortunate implications. However, based on what I know I feel that this is more a case of judging the actions as bigoted (whether they were intentional or not) instead of labeling the person themselves as a bigot.

But regardless of whether or not the decision to fridge Kamala Khan is the fault of Zeb Wells, or Nick Lowe or someone else over at Marvel Editorial, I do want to make one thing perfectly clear... DO NOT... I repeat... DO NOT SEND ANY OF THEM DEATH THREATS! Like, I've already lost count of how many people I've encountered on both Twitter and Tumblr who are seriously outright calling for both Wells and Lowe's blood in response to these leaks.

And since the issue is being released tommorow, I feel the need to reiterate that harassing creators and sending them death threats is NEVER acceptable under any circumstances, and that doing so makes you no better than the kinds of supervillains that Kamala regularly fights against! We can criticize a bad story WITHOUT becoming supervillains ourselves! Follow the advice of @atopfourthwall here for heavens sake people:

Now this is hopefully going to be the last time I discuss Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 here on Tumblr as I have zero plans on giving any actual money to the issue myself. I may consider reading the Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel one-shot, if only because it's being written by several of Kamala's past creators G. Willow Wilson, Saladin Ahmed, and Mark Waid, so I trust them to be able to salvage something decent out of this whole fiasco. But that's it. I do plan on releasing a future post which provides an in-depth analysis about the ways in which Ms. Marvel comics have discussed themes of death in a much more nuanced and respectful manner, but I have no idea when it will be released.

Until then folks... vote with your wallets. Please do not cave into the outrage machine and feed into the publicity stunt that this whole mess so obviously is. Don’t give tomorrow's issue of Amazing Spider-Man any more attention than it's already received. Instead go support all of Kamala's past adventures to show your love and appreciation for the character if you do not own the graphic novel collections already. And most importantly... for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT attack the creators involved with this terrible decision and especially DO NOT send them death threats!

[generalluxun]

I think I remember having seen Batman-miraculous posts a little while ago. Now Ironman Chloe. Umm… what have I missed? 😅 Is the fandom playing some crossover game?

Well comics are rife with crossovers in general. People love the characters in ML above all else. The plot... Not so much. Shoving them into new situations to explore comes naturally, and the new universe provides a ready made cast. I don't crossover myself (though I will AU) but I know both of these you are talking about.

Ironman AU is by @andanoire and honestly, it really works. Tony is a jerkass who finds morality in extremis and spend most of the rest of his MCU arc trying clean up after himself or wrestle with his demons.

She also has a straight up re-write like canon but mire coherent for Chloé&Zoé @officialprimadonna worth looking at

The other one is 'To Bee a Bat' by @princess-of-the-corner which us more about canon Chloé ending up getting adopted by the Batfam somewhere in the middle of canon. Batfam is a great crack trope, the ultimate found family. Corner's freeform worldbuilding is always fun to watch/partake in.

[takiki16]

FIC 20 QUESTIONS

@gallifreyburning tagged me in this!

1. how many works do you have on Ao3?

Ten! I am a prolific reader, but not so much a writer.

2. what's your total Ao3 word count?

253,223. Holy moly. I remember when cranking out 1500 words was a lot for me. I never expected to break that Big Phat 100k, which is yet another reason gallifreyburning is the wind beneath my wings. Half of those words are hers.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

The Old Guard and Jupiter Ascending are my two most dominant fandoms per stats. I've also written for Mad Max, the MCU, Leverage, and The Man from Uncle (the 2015 movie), but I wouldn't call these my most active reading fandoms.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

If Never Again, If Every Day (cowritten with gallifreyburning, TOG)

Kiss With a Fist (cowritten with gallifreyburning, TOG)

A Fine Chain (JA)

and sat him doon at her bed feet (Leverage)

breathes there the man (TMFU)

lolllll no surprises here.

5. do you respond to comments?

Unfortunately not. When all of my fics were relatively short and I only got a handful of comments on each one, I replied individually to each comment. However, we have THOUSANDS of comments on INAIED, and although I've replied to some of the particularly consistent and wonderful commenters, there is no way for me to get all of them. However, please know that they are all loved.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

and reason quite decay, for Mad Max. It's a pre-canon snippet to the 2015 movie, about how Max lost the little girl he keeps hallucinating. I was very, very much into the "all lower caps, title is a line from a poem" aesthetic. Still am, to be honest, but A Fine Chain is just CONSUMING me atm.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

and sat him doon at her bed feet is a triptych of each of the Leverage OT3 being a selkie and getting together with the OT3, so that's technically three happy endings in one, but our INAIED boys worked so hard for their payoff that I have to put them first.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have been lucky enough to avoid this so far!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've written a grand total of like...two smut scenes, both of them m/m, but DEPENDING on how much longer I can tolerate the slow burn of A Fine Chain, I may be writing something f/m in the near-ish future!

now private chats between mutuals about IMAGINED character smut, on the other hand...

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't write crossovers - they generally don't appeal to me as a reader so I avoid them as a writer.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know, and I hope and pray it never happens to me. INAIED got a few weird pings last year, but so far I've been very very lucky.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have gotten a request or two, but I don't remember if a translation was ever posted?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

LOLLLLLLL. If it weren't for @gallifreyburning i would still be languishing at 5-something chapters of AFC and a handful of fics, and I would never have written for TOG at all.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Harsh, bro. I don't think I have a very favorite ship, but I definitely have favorite dynamics. See my "you are responsible forever for what you have tamed" tag

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Much Nothing About an Ado. My post-canon Mad Max fic where Max comes back to the Citadel and Furiosa decides to Hit That, but in the sexy way this time. But hey! I thought that It would take another decade to finish A Fine Chain, and I am ROLLING!

16. What are your writing strengths?

Mmmmfdfnggg. Umm...I'm very good at long, flowery descriptions, and at grounding clips of dialogue to specific physicality and setting, I think? When I want to write something, I usually see a movie of what I want to write playing out in my head, and then I have to figure out how to translate those actions to the page in a way that accurately conveys the action and tone. I block out the scene in bullet points first, then bang out a loose first draft, then go back over everything and rewrite it from the top, trying to make sure that someone reading it would see and feel the same things I did when watching the movie in my head.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

TOO MUCH FLOWERY DESCRIPTION. Sometimes I get lost in the movie in my head. Also, my crippling fear of intimacy sometimes translates to being hesitant to get to the actual climax of the story. I have to have acres and acres of slow burn, or I'm writing a single poetic one-shot with artsy film blur. This is where a good co-author is worth their weight in gold - you can't get away with kicking the can forever.

Also - I need to see if this still happens in AFC, but I feel like I rush through smut, and sometimes that pr0n deserves to be LINGERED UPON.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's nice, if it's used correctly! It's off-putting, if not.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OOF. I saw the first Tobey Maguire Spiderman as a wee babe, and wrote an absolutely passionate proto-whump fic about it in my spiral notebook along with some very bad illustrations.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

INAIED is a Lifetime Achievement (TM) for me, the thing that makes me genuinely frustrated I can't brag to my coworkers about the massive novel I co-authored. I will be proud of it forever and ever and ever. I own a physical bound copy of it, and take it out every now and again to look at it fondly. I Helped Write That Thing. It is dear to my heart.

[adrift-in-thyme]

Tag Game to Better Know You!

Send this to people you’d like to know better!

Tagged by @anakincito Tysm!!

What book are you currently reading? Umm not reading a book atm. Just various fanfics

What’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? Multiverse of Madness

What do you usually wear? T-shirt and sweatpants

How tall are you? That’s classified 😉

What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? Aquarius! And I have no idea lol

Do you go by your name or a nick-name? Nick-name with family and friends. Name with everyone else

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? Nope! I wanted to be so many things when I was a kid and I’m none of them. (That’s for the better I assure you. I wasn’t made to be a pilot or a race car driver XD)

Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one? Nope! And do fictional characters count? XD

What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at? Good at listening. Bad at detail.

Dogs or cats? CATS

If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year? Oh that’s hard. Umm fave line(s) have to be these from Memories, my OoT Zelink fic

Let Hyrule forget him. Let his legacy drown beneath the prosperity of the kingdom he saved. There is only one person who he needs to remember him.

There is only one person with whom he is home.

What’s something you would like to create content for? LINKED UNIVERSE. And I’m fully planning to in the new year 😉

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? ZELINK MY BELOVED. Also, LoZ in general and Linked Universe. Basically just obsessed with the funky lil elf people

What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? Most of the MCU stuff that was released 😆

What’s a hidden talent of yours? Idk maybe drawing? I’m not like totally awesome at it or anything but I do pretty ok

Are you religious? Yup! I’m a Christian!

What’s something you wish to have at this moment? MOTIVATION. I need to finish two fics before Christmas and my brain is NOT COOPERATING.

Tagging @starport-seven-five @louwhose @zeldaelmo @tired-twili @thortiddy @woulduknowmore and anyone else who wants to do this!

[nostalgia-tblr]

I mean, yes it was Sylki to Thorki for me because once upon a time I was gobbling down sylki content and came across a Sylkior fic and had some feelings about it and... Yup

OMG SYLKIOR. SO PROBLEMATIC. SO WRONG. SO GREAT.

As usual I seem to be One True Character in this fandom rather than One True Pairing, except that One True Character comes in many varieties and so you can make them kiss themselves and also I seem to be on the wrong wavelength to interact with many of them's other fans. OH NO!

One thing, maybe, is that the Loki show is between season at the mo (obviously) and the general trend in fandoms in, erm, general seems to be that during any lengthy hiatus even quite popular pairings go into a holding pattern where it's largely the most dedicated OTP shippers producing content (plus the occasional weird latecomer noob - such as for instance my good self) and while that is fine and valid and etc I am not actually that good at OTP shipping and so I end up wandering into the paths of other pairings to see who else my One True Character is banging in fanfic. And the thorki stuff has been around for a decade now so there's A LOT of it and if i navigate by the AO3 bookmarks of author's whose works I liked I can skip most of the, umm, less standout works and hoover up the good stuff until I wander off to somewhere else.

(This morning I HIT THE FUCKING JACKPOT by finding someone who had written multiple stories where Thor-era Loki is a sneaky little shit who can't be trusted and is often up to no good! Those of you on the very edges of MCU fandom might now be thinking "but nos, isn't that just the default and thus most common characterisation of that Loki?" but NO. NO, IT IS NOT. Hence my shock, joy, and perhaps even arousal at unearthing such a hoarde.)

Anyway, sylkior. That's a good one because they're all related to each other while also in other ways not really related to each other, in different degrees and forms. They all love each other, it combines selfcest and incest and I am problematic enough to go along with that. OMG WAIT CAN WE ADD HELA IN THERE AS WELL??? Sylkiora? Hang on, I seem to recall there was a really good shipname that involved Hela in an incesty pairing with Sylvie and... someone else? Erm... Nah, it's gone :( Sorry :(

BUT I DIGRESS. You and me and the sylki-to-thorki pipeline. ❤❤❤

(Where do you stand on the Sylvie-as-a-Thor-variant concept, btw? I'd probably read that, if it existed. But it might ENRAGE people so I feel like nobody will ever actually write it anyway.)

[numetaljackdog]

okay the imagine dragons post. so the first point is that imagine dragons had some good songs! i stand by radioactive and demons as pretty solid pop rock that deserved to get big. more generally though... it’s pretty rough folks. they’ve gotten progressively worse, and their most recent hits are literally unlistenable. now to clarify, i literally do not care if you like imagine dragons. do what you please, i hope you find joy. but something about “umm some people like to listen to brainless noise” is. well it’s true. but it also kind of feels like something a mcu fan would say, y’know? just like. a little embarrassing imo

[vveakfish]

re: tags on lrb

thinking abt the journey and a half my DC hyperfixation has been.

I was a DCAU only girlie for so long. (BTAS, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans, YJtv, GLtv). I enjoyed the DCEU too, but i was WAY too wrapped up in MCU brain-rot to dive too deeply into those. But that was it. Zero interest in comics themselves as a lil squirt.

Eventually I stopped caring abt the DCEU entirely. (around WW’84, tho it had nothing to do with that movie, i just never saw it — and didnt see any of the movies that came after). And got WAY into Marvel™. And i kinda just rode that wave.

When Marvel started branching out into shows i was HYPED — esp since they started that shit off with WandVision. I’d always loved Wanda, and the fact that they brought Billy and Tommy in was all i needed to push me into reading comics

i tore through the young avengers (UGH i miss them <;/3), and other titles associated with them, and was having a blast. At some point around the season finale of Loki (good show, this was just also how the cookie crumbled) I just fell off Marvel in general. A lot of this probably had to do with school ramping up around this time — but i stopped reading comics & watching their shows and movies almost entirely.

Around this time tho, bc i Missed reading comics — i started reading webcomics. And as much as i enjoyed reading Marvel comics for that short period of time, webcomics were what made me fall in love with Comics™ as a medium.

6th semester ended, i was elbows deep in world building for my own webcomic project, and started watching anime while working on it. Again, anime was always one of those things i enjoyed (Digimon, Sailor Moon, and Pokémon were some of the most influential pieces of media in my entire childhood), but my love for it as an art form was really solidified during this time

[side note: can you Tell i was dealing with art school shit during all of this? couldn’t turn the critique brain off literally Ever, so anything i enjoyed got put under the art student lens]

But my interest in anime stayed entirely on the animated side of things for a Long Ass Time. It wasn’t until Jujutsu Kaisen that i got shoved headlong into manga. God that stupid fucking anime changed my life, ANYWAY.

I finished the anime (umm maybe like. 5 times), and then HAD to know what happened next. So i devoured the manga. Every spare moment i had was spent reading it, until i was Done. then i was like orz. what do u do now ??

The answer was do the exact same thing with Demon Slayer. which was ALSO a life changing experience. read 鬼滅の刃 pls pls pls

Now. When i finished KNY, i was also like *head in hands* how do i even keep on living?? But this was also while working on my thesis project, and still doing a lot of work on the side as far as my own comic was concerned. (like… 60k words worth of world building & drafting scripts + designing characters), so its not like i had all that much free time.

anyway — i finished up my 8th semester, and barely gave myself a chance to breathe before i threw myself into working on my comic practically full time.

I was working on a one shot to submit to a contest for Webtoon, and they were asking for a pretty substantial amount of content (60+ panel Action comic one shot. and I, as always, love to make things harder on myself, so i think in one of the later drafts it ended up having over 100 panels).

needless to say, i Did Not finish the oneshot in time (its still not done to this day T~T i’ll come back for you forge, dont worry). But, toward the end of that… 3 month span of feverishly working on this project, i found myself falling in love with DC all over again.

I mentioned YJtv before, but that show was Also something that changed my life as a 10 year old.

(its really funny to think about that show now & how it’s release date lines up with the beginning of the N52 continuity, and how both the show & that particular reboot are so strongly disliked by a vast majority of DC’s fanbase — but thats a post for another day)

I’ve rewatched the show at least once a year since my roommate let me start using their HBOMax login. I know seasons 1 and 2 like the back of my hand bc of how much i watched them growing up, and i like season three well enough. But the thing was that on this unsuspecting summer night, i was about to discover that there were New Episodes.

Dude i was hyped, i was losing my shit. I had resigned myself to the knowledge that this show was never coming back. I was okay with it too. But here it was, alive and kicking after what felt like forever.

Heres the thing tho. They killed off Kon.

okay not really, but at the Time boy boy was Dead, and i was devastated. Thats My Boy. He had been my favorite character from the jump, and i did not know how to process him being gone. So i took a break from the show, and turned to ao3 instead.

At this point i was Not an avid fic reader. I wasn’t an avid reader period – outside of manga – but i had read a few really good fics recommended to my by some of my JJK pals. So i looked at the Kon-El | Conner Kent character tag on ao3 and just scrolled until i found something interesting.

In this case: a Timkon fic (this one in particular).

I knew who Tim was before this (He shows up in YJtv. He's there in BTAS), but I had never thought about him and Kon as... anything really. In the versions of them i was familiar with, they don't interact all that much. They're from different generations of heroes, but i was like, hey, what the hell this sounds cute. And man oh man, it was all down hill from there.

I read more TimKon fic, and just fell in love with them. But i was also... confused. Like... why do these two guys have such a robust fanbase... wheres the link.

THAT is what pushed me to start reading Detective Comics Comics for the first time. I wanted to get to know these guys For Real, and the only way to do that was by digging into the source material.

This post is So long oh shit. I have thoughts about How I got to know the kiddos & how the comics i read (as well as the order i read them in) have influenced my understandings of these little guys. But i think thats a post for another day. I have other things to do than write out a post about my media consumption habits

o7 signing off.

[i-dont-know-how-this-site-works]

"WhO hAs tiMe to MakE an eNtirE goOgle dOc-" bish go tell that to the Tonky fans who 1. made an essay on why he represents Jesus Christ, and 2. the Tonky fan who made an essay on how Tonky is the most female coded character in the MCU and the Siberia fight scene was actually a metaphor for gang-r#pe. How about you go tell them to tone it down first? There are even more of these shitty Tonky essays out there about comparing things to r#pe and assault, but these two are generally the most known

Don't listen to Tonky fans, they like to tell you you're "obsessed" but here they are saying Tonky is more female than Natasha and Steve has r#ped him (by defending himself??)

Also let's not forget the multiple 100k fics on AO3 of Tony & Co. abusing Team Cap

Umm...do you have the link to the Jesus Christ essay? I need it for research and comedic purposes lol 

You know, to be completely honest, it’s not that I absolutely hate the character of T0ny Stork. Yeah, he is coarse and rough and irritating and he gets everywhere and I am not a fan of him like I used to be in my early teens. But! Not every character is supposed to be without flaws and T0ny has a buttload of those. 

I am anti T0ny however because it seems like the entire fandom and even the creators themselves are up in his ass all the time. It’s the stans that completely ruined the character for me because of the stuff you mentioned- AO3 is filled to the brim with “not team cap friendly” works where they twist the characters so much you can’t even recognize them- even T0ny! They make him more likable than he is in canon. They, as you said, code him as female or POC or autistic or LGBT+ for woke/pity points (making him to be anything than a white male rich hetero American is such bullshit, I can’t with the stans).

If they can spend so much time on kissing T0ny’s ass to fill entire 45 pages on ao3 with “not team Cap friendly” (the tag itself has 55 variations), then I can spend some time writing my essay. No one can stop me. aside from my urge to procrastinate, but shush

In fact, thank you for your message. You encouraged me to write the thing and I am going to start it today. Thanks <3

[musette22]

To offer another perspective on Peggy, and why they're pushing Captain Carter so hard: One of the things Endgame did was to make people not only back and watch The First Avenger and The Winter Solider and come away finding the romance wanting, but it also made us look at what Peggy would have done in her career role as a co founder of and ( according to the mcu wiki) First Director of an intelligence agency. (Something which fandom refused to do in 2014) Any intelligence agency during the 1/?

Cold War, Any Director would have that includes the Director of SHIELD at the time. Coupled with the fact that Zola tells us that SHIELD "recruited" him, people are starting go "umm wait Peggy was pretty dark actually, why didn't Steve call her out" and this discourse has only been increasing on twitter ( especially given Sharon's arc in TFaTWS,) it feel like they introduced this new version of Peggy ( who didn't hire/stand by as they hired Nazis) as a distraction. Problem is I don't think 2/?

They've thought about the optics of the Union Flag during that time period. I maybe overtly cynical, but given the way they seemingly backtracked on Sharon being the next big bad ( I think there was an article saying she would be a villain in the next Cap film and then they switched her out for Red Skulls daughter) and given the way the discourse around Peggy's during her career ( especially given the Isaiah Bradley storyline) I think this might be it 3/3

Okay so I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable enough on canon and meta to really comment on the specifics here, and I haven't watched TFATWS so I don't really know what happened with Sharon, but this does sound very interesting, and plausible on paper, definitely. I just wonder if they really care about "fandom" opinions when developing their new content. Are those voices questioning Peggy's morality really loud/noticeable enough in the grand scheme of things to influence their programming? I kind of doubt it, to be honest.

As far as I'm aware, they've never really cared much about what fans were saying, apart from when said fans got so loud that even general audiences and mainstream media picked up on it, as was the case for Stucky. Overall, I feel like they have very little regard for their fans and fan theories/discourse, and they prefer to focus on general audiences which, in the end, is the group that is going to make them the most money. I don't know - what you're saying is definitely a possibility, but I can't help but think they're pushing Peggy because she's a nice, strong female character (Captain America's wife, no less! - barf) who general audiences are overall neutral towards or fond of, so they can use her to fulfill their obligation of including strong female, fleshed-out characters in their upcoming projects. I could be wrong, though! Your theory certainly has its merit.

[the-pope-is-in]

upcoming works

if anyone here has read/enjoyed my fics , I just wanted to post my ENTIRE drafts to let you know what’s coming next (I can’t promise I’ll get around to all of these, but if there’s any you want me to prioritize , just let me know) 

in no specific order

Legolas Greenleaf (LOTR) - based more off of the movies than the books. oc is half elf half sorceress and she goes on Bilbo’s adventure .. eventually meeting Legolas in mirkwood and then fighting with him in the battle of five armies. after the battle, she finds him again and begs him to take her with him because she doesn’t want to go back to her old life again. they go on a bunch of adventures. oc is besties w aragorn. 

Lemony Snicket (ASOUE) - as in his entity as a character in the series, not the author himself (more the tv show than the books even though the books were my ENTIRE childhood) ((the author’s actual name is daniel handler and he’s a lovely person)) anyways, 

my advice for you first and foremost is to never fall in love with a writer

especially if that writer is a prominent member of a secret organization

especially especially if said writer is committed to uncovering and documenting the sad lives of three orphans, the children of a past lover who has died tragically

my name is odessa denouement and I am begging you to put this book down and go read something more pleasant, such as the littlest elf or a story that doesn't involve pain, suffering, and a general lack of morals

odessa and lemony meet when their VFD missions overlap and they’re forced into a number of highly dangerous situations together. features a tragic ending. 

Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood (HP) - because we all know they were in love. probably their last years of hogwarts into the second war. focuses a lot on percy going to the dark side. probably pretty angsty.

Will Turner (POTC)- oc is Jack Sparrow’s daughter. she’s super cool. raised by pirates. best parental relationship I’ve ever written (I usually go for the really shitty parent trope, but this time their relationship is rlly soft and makes me happy) anyways, she falls in love with will turner and it’s hot. 

Beatrice and Phillipa (HP) - cute lesbians in gryffindor (golden trio era). should probably read my bill weasley series first because it’s a spinoff. would probably be their fifth year to sometime around the end of the war. main focus would be bea’s shift to the dark side. 

FP Jones (Riverdale) - gotta preface this one with the fact that I hate riverdale as much as the next guy (sorry riverdale fans) I mean . the show’s insane. BUT FP is what got me through it. so this is the story of him and jughead’s mom in the 80s , then there’s a time jump to the first or second season. going to be short but cute. 

Steven Hyde (that 70s show) - NOT played by d*nny m*sterson. anyways, oc moves to point place from nyc with her mom (who kinda sucks -yes, we’re back to the shitty parent trope-) falls for hyde and it’s rly angsty. at some point she lives in hyde’s old house but i’m not sure exactly when bc idk what season I want to start the season on. she’s also best friends with jackie because I’m in love with jackie. 

Regulus and Marlene (HP) - umm so to be completely honest I don’t know what the plan was for this one. the only thing it says in the draft is “marlene is a slytherin”. I think I was high when I made it. but I feel like there’s some sort of potential there so we’ll see what happens. 

Remus Lupin (HP) - either wolfstar or a slytherin oc or maybe regulus I don’t know. I have some ideas for scenes, but no specific people or genders or really any details at all. I just know I’m in love with remus and want to write about him and his sweaters. 

Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad) - oc and jesse keep meeting by chance. first it’s because she’s staying at his parent’s house out of necessity (ep 2), then it’s because she’s Jane’s roommate, then it’s at Jane’s funeral. they keep saying they’re parting ways. that they’ll never see each other again, but it doesn’t work. one way or another, they’ll end up together. 

Minerva McGonagall and Pomona Sprout (HP) - one of my fav ships ever. would start in their sixth year and there would be a few major time jumps over the course of the story. very soft relationship. 

Peter Parker (MCU) - oc has powers over the elements. recruited to the avengers by tony stark. in the process of said transition, hydra attacks her family and oc is filled with rage. throughout the story, she lives with different members of the avengers (she moves around a lot) and she and peter have a friends to lovers sort of thing.

Daniel Desario (Freaks and Geeks) - charlotte’s been friends with the freaks since she was a kid. she’s been on-again-off-again dating nick since middle school, she has mixed feelings about kim, ken is her favorite person ever, and she is hopelessly in love with Daniel. when lindsay comes into the picture and things shift dramatically, charlotte finally has the chance to shoot her shot. 

Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) - word for word what I have in my drafts:

ummmmm so we've got a main character named ummmmmm sophie or phoebe or something and shes like blonde and short and only three months older than reid and sup super smart like with math and science and stuff and she graduated early and has a doctorate and is smart and stuff but doesnt really tell anyone and looks kinda sloppy and has a really relaxed attitude and we love her - she almost dropped out of high school because she was bored but then agent gideon was like dude come on ill give u a job (or something?)

oh and her parents and little brother died in a fire when she was eight only her older brother survived and they are super close she loves him so much but she has some trauma from constantly being sent to foster homes where nodbody wanted to keep her bc shes difficult and also like watching her parents die so she has a HUGE fear of fire and an irrational fear of big dogs

ANYWAYS starts off with her at her house and she's just hangin she has a cat and she's making herself dinner and she's one of those super cute single bi girls who likes her plants and her music and her science bookstore

friends in college story (an original work) - okay so I wanna go to film school (I want to be a screenwriter) and this is an original script I’ve been working on but I might adapt parts of it to a story. basically it’s like a dark academia sitcom where a bunch of liberal, progressive kids go to this rural, ultra-christian college for different reasons and find each other and become the ELITE friend group. obviously it would have a better name than the “friends in college story” although now it’s sort of growing on me

the new tragedy (an original work) - “sometimes i need to remind myself that you existed. You were real, you were so real. your hair was real, your crooked smile was real. the way you couldnt talk in the morning before you’d had your coffee, or how you could never get to sleep at night without an episode of whatever show you were obsessing over in the moment. oh my god. you were real. 

she looked like death. the guy, not the concept. sallow skin and dark, sunken eyes that absorbed all of the light and trapped it, holding it hostage and never letting it out. when she smiled, the light poured all over her, like she was taking a shower in it. when she frowned, she looked like a storm cloud. I loved her. I loved her so much. 

[redwolfqueen19]

Day 18:

Umm again I’m pretty new on here so don’t have many ppl to tag but here we go.

Here’s some mentions of cool ppl who’s work or posts have made me happy in my short time on tumblr:

- @lena-luthor your series of supergirl season 6 gifs was the first thing I reblogged and it made me smile 😁 (can’t wait for it to come out in the uk I’m desperately trying to avoid spoilers 😅)

- @eimaginesworld wrote an awesome swanqueen one shot and ppl should definetly check them out

- @buckyshairography for blessing my page with funny af MCU memes that made me giggle

- @massivedrickhead for the amazing “home is a person” bechloe fanfic (please go read it it’s so good!) and is just a nice person too

- @commanderlexagriffin has a cool Spider-Man bechloe au fic that I can’t wait for the next chapter like I’m srsly hooked, and was so lovely to message 😁

- @pocketdragon “make some room” bechloe fanfic is great 😊

- @astraldemise for that cool sea slug video that made me smile and I alway watch when I’m having a bad day 😁 showed it to my family and they thought it was cool

- @blue-dragon-has-a-pen for kickass dragon designs like that shit is cool

- @writing-prompt-s for giving me countless prompt ideas that ill save and keep pretending to myself that ill actually get off my ass and write something for the prompts XD (also the prompts are super fun to read i always imagine scenes to them and then like never end up writing them)

And just generally all the other awesome ppl on this all that I just haven’t had the chance to discover yet 😊 yall are great

Happy pride ppl, Be Gay and all that lovely stuff and remember your loved ❤️

[iamanartichoke]

thor, guardians of the galaxy, avengers: age of ultron, avengers: endgame,

thor - do you ever write by hand? when and why?

Not generally, no. My brain moves faster than my hand can write, and also after an embarrassingly short time my hand will start to hurt, so it’s just a frustrating process all around. 

That said, I’ll write by hand if I have no other choice - like if I need to scrawl an idea down on a napkin or scrap paper or whatever. I will also occasionally write a scene out by hand if I am having trouble with it; something about handwriting it seems to give my brain a little jolt and then I can usually fix whatever it was I was having trouble with. 

guardians of the galaxy - be honest. would you want someone from marvel to read your fics?

My initial reaction was no but, actually, I suppose it would depend on who from Marvel it was. If it’s someone who wants to offer me a job? By all means, have at it. If it’s someone like Tom? Absolutely not. 

avengers: age of ultron - what do you do when you get negative feedback?

I honestly rarely - if ever - get negative feedback. I mean, occasionally I’ll get a “hmm I think I would have preferred if Loki did xyz” which doesn’t really bother me (I tend to think okay, cool, that’s you; thanks for the comment tho) but that’s about all I can remember. I did get a kinda rude “umm we’re waiting for an update” on StFB awhile ago, lmao, which is just - girl, same. 

If I were to ever get some seriously negative feedback - either a hate comment, or a bunch of concrit, or whatever - I want to say I wouldn’t let it get to me. I went to grad school for writing, which I only mention bc it means I’ve sat through more workshops consisting of my classmates tearing my shit apart than I can count. (I say “tearing apart” but it was always respectful constructive criticism, not hate or anything.) I learned years ago not to take concrit personally, and also to take it with a grain of salt - like, if I get some concrit that’s way off the mark or whatnot, I’m pretty good at ignoring it. 

That said, fanfic isn’t a writing workshop and I’m not submitting my work for concrit purposes, so any I got would be unsolicited and that would annoy me a lot. Depending on what the criticism was, it might sting; I’m more fragile now than I was in grad school (it’s just been a long time since I’ve been workshopped). If it were outright hate, then it would definitely hurt my feelings - less bc they didn’t like the fic and more bc they went out of their way to make me feel bad bc they didn’t like it. If that makes sense. 

avengers: endgame - here is your opportunity to rant about how AWFUL endgame’s ending was. (or, if you liked it, explain why!)

I mean ... 

#charlotte bitches about endgame 

My Endgame hate has its own tag, lmfao. Not just the ending, either; the entire movie was a giant fucking mess. I don’t even know how to summarize how bad it was - all I can think of is that gif where it’s like “amazing, every single thing you said was wrong” except it’s “every single thing you came up with was shit.” 

The time travel didn’t make sense. The directors and writers couldn’t even agree on how it worked. Steve’s ending was a travesty. The treatment of Thor’s depression/mental health was wrong on so many levels. How exactly did Steve get the infinity stones back to their original places (especially the Aether)? Nonsensical. I don’t know wtf was going on with Clint’s murder plot or why everyone was cool with it. Natasha. The end battle literally only happening bc an alternate universe Thanos showed up - like, it wasn’t even the original Thanos who did the Snap in the first place! Etc, etc. 

 ... Yeah. That movie sucked, lmao. 

Thank you for the ask! 

mcu fanfiction ask game.

[redmoonrises]

sweetie, do you know any good movies or series to watch? i need to be distracted, and you seem like a fitting one to ask

hmmm, well if you like star wars i’ve been watching clone wars recently and really like it! there’s also wandavision that just finished the first season if you like mcu stuff. uhhhh. tangled the series (set after the disney movie tangled) is good for a more lighthearted show with some sinister undertones but mostly just fluffy fun. if you have disney+ (or can pirate it) all these are on there. umm my sister’s watching boruto (naruto next generation) rn. lemme know if you need more suggestions, i’m sure there’s something in the ol’ brain archives!

[lovinlikeloki]

The Lone Wolf (Intermission)

Masterlist // Act I Interview

Word Count: 1.9k

ROSE HARRIS, A COMIC FAN’S DREAM COME TRUE

- “I never thought I would go from Story of Miss Oxygen to this!”

BY FAITH PRICE

Going from small independent films to one of the biggest movie franchises is a dream come true, right? Well Rose Harris could certainly tell you. She went from being someone nearly nobody knew to one of the biggest names on our screens practically overnight. Joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the one and only Fianna MacBhfloscaidh, Harris has become an idol for many people very quickly.

While most people know her for her part in Captain America: Civil War which hit the silver screen only a few months ago on 26 April, Harris has been in a couple of short films like Story of Miss Oxygen and even portrayed the lead character in Daughter. She also has a main character role in a new Netflix series currently being filmed named 13 Reasons Why. Needless to say, Rose Harris is a very busy girl and I was very lucky to get the chance to interview her.

FAITH: WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO JOIN SUCH A FAMOUS FRANCHISE? HOW WAS THE RESPONSE TO YOUR FIRST BIG MOVIE BEING ONE IN THE MCU?

Rose Harris: It was amazing. Joining such a big franchise with a huge cast was very daunting at first, I mean these guys are practically a family so it felt weird and almost intruding at first. But then Lizzie came over and started talking to me, uh she reminded me she was in this place only a year ago and kinda eased me into meeting everyone. As for the response, it was huge, I mean my follower count skyrocketed within like a day. I never thought I would go from Story of Miss Oxygen to this! It was really exciting.

SO I HAVE TO ASK, WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON FIANNA’S, AND YOUR, ENTRANCE AND FIRST APPEARANCE IN THE MCU? WHAT ABOUT FAN OPINIONS?

Well, personally I loved it, I mean it was- I think it was pretty cool that, um, they made sure that she knew Wanda and like the Maximoff twins beforehand, that was always going to be a big thing. I really liked it, it was fun and very Fianna, I think. As for the fans? It’s almost a 50/50 split when it comes to their opinions, especially the fans of the original comics.

As you’ve probably seen, Fianna’s entrance has a lot of parallels to Peter Parker’s who is also introduced in this movie, which is what divided fans. For, ah, Spideywolf fans, I believe that’s what they’re called, people who pair Fianna and Peter Parker together, they were ecstatic and love to point out the similarities. But then on the other hand, Silverwolf fans, people who pair Fianna and Pietro Maximoff together, they weren’t as big of fans of this. I think it’s because in the comics they were the endgame pairing.

YOU THINK THEY DON’T LIKE THAT THEY’RE NOT ADHEREING TO THE COMICS?

Oh for sure. I mean as I said, Fianna and Pietro, they... they- in almost every comic series you read with the two, they end up together and Pietro seems to be pretty dead right now in the MCU. He- with all of those bullet holes he looks very not alive [she laughs], at the moment. And so in their eyes this is Marvel and the writers straying from the comics, as you said.

I guess they’re now left wondering how far from the comics we’re gonna go, because I mean she’s already a mercenary. Before the names Fenrir or Lupine is even uttered, she’s a mercenary, with zero Wolves Den, uh, context. So many comics are being ignored at this point, and that’s even disregarding her mutant and X-Men origins.

YOU MENTIONED THE WOLVES DEN COMIC SERIES, WHAT IS YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT STORYLINE? IS IT SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE TO SEE IN THE FUTURE OF THE MCU?

I think that Wolves Den is probably one of my favorites, if not my favorite Fianna comic series. It’s very, I don’t know how to put this, it’s very chaotic. I mean there’s three different storylines to follow, the romantic one, the team one and then the villain one.

You’ve got the romantic one, Fianna and Peter’s storyline, I mean Fianna... she really messes Peter up in this series, emotionally. She does cheat on him, they break up and then she gets together with Harry Osborn, I mean it’s so very messy. Then there’s the subplot where she leaves the Avengers, she breaks off not only from Peter but also from Natasha Romanoff who she is extremely close to in this universe, I mean they’ve got a mother-daughter bond. Instead she becomes a mercenary where she goes by the monikers of Fenrir and Lupine, going between the two to keep the team of heroes off her back.

And while she’s doing this she’s also fighting off a villain by the name of Discord, someone from Fianna’s past, who is trying to take over and attack the minds of people in New York. She does all this at the same time, and it’s just a very chaotic, discordant series.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING FOR HER IN THIS SERIES?

Definitely the way she has to balance all of this, I mean she has so many different masks and personas and she has got everyone fooled. With Peter she’s the remorseless cheating ex-girlfriend, for Harry Osborn she’s the new rebellious girlfriend, for the Avengers and especially, as I said, Natasha she’s a traitor who abandoned them.

Then she’s also got this act of being a good guy even with the mercenaries. She really walks that tightrope between good and bad in these comics and is really morally grey and quite neutral. And she does all of this because she’s trying to protect everyone, or at least that’s her mindset. She’s leaving the Avengers, leaving Peter because she thinks it would save the heartache if something were to happen to her.

I think this is where we see how different Fianna is from the Avengers, because we see that she has the most self-preservation instincts out of all of the Avengers. She is always about protecting herself, she knows that to take care of others she needs to take care of herself first but it’s getting a little warped in her mind when it comes to how to do that.Most of the Avengers work themselves to the bone, lookat Tony Stark and Peter Parker, their mental health isn’t great at the best of times whereas Fianna doesn’t do what they do. She knows she needs to take a step back sometimes to take care of her before she can do her job.

[Rose then seemed to realise how long she spoke]

Sorry, I sort of went on a tangent, I’m sorry. I just love the storyline. Though some of it is a little too dark for the way the MCU currently is.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT, I’M SURE THE FANS WILL LOVE YOUR TAKE ON THE WOLVES DEN STORYLINE.

I’m sorry [she smiles bashfully]

NOW I HAVE TO ASK, WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF PLAYING FIANNA?

The most difficult part? I wanna say the stunts but actually I think it was more the dialogue, more specifically the accent and the language because it is definitely not all in English, you know, some of it was in Irish. Yeah, like learning- well no, I didn’t learn Irish for the movie because it’s... learning a language is difficult and... there’s actually a lot of grammar rules and stuff, to Irish.

I mean it’s crazy, if you’ve ever seen Irish written down and then heard it spoken you will know that it does not sound the way it look like at all. And the same combination of letters can make different sounds based on like- I think it’s the vowel changes the sound, it’s crazy. But it’s really cool, it’s such a cool language.

YOU DID AMAZING AT SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE, MANY FANS WERE IMPRESSED.

I was so lucky to have Ciarraí Quinn, she was, uh, she helped me with the accent, the dialect and the language. She was such a help with the accent because Fianna doesn’t have the accent you think of when talking of an Irish accent she has the Northern Irish accent. It’s kind of like a mix of Irish accent and maybe, some English too? I’m not sure how to describe it. It was very difficult to get down but thanks to Ciarraí I did manage to get it.

Also on the side of the language, it was really hard to not butcher it, like I said pronounciation in Irish is a little strange and I did struggle with it quite a bit. Not only did I have to learn the pronounciation but I had to make sure I had the perfect Native speaker accent from Fianna’s region.

I remember there was a line that Fianna said to Tony Stark while she was in the raft and to get not only the line, but to get the accent and the anger and pain and emotion into it, it took a long time to properly say it and to be satisfied with it. The very specific Native accent was so important because Fianna comes from an Irish speaking home, it’s her first language, and she even goes to one of the few all-Irish speaking schools. I really loved this aspect of Fianna and I really do love playing and portraying such a unique character.

THERE WAS A SCENE AT THE END OF CIVIL WAR THAT YOU HAD WITH CHRIS WHERE YOU BOTH SPOKE IN IRISH. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FILMING THAT?

Oh, yeah, a lot of fans seemed to love that scene and I did too, as did chris. It was really fun to film that scene so it was, we must have run over the lines a hundred times to make sure we’d get it right. This was something Chris and I wanted to make sure stayed in the movie, um... because it was almost cut from the script since the runtime was getting a little long but we fought to keep it in, we felt it was important.

Something a lot of people don’t know is that Captain America, Steve Rogers, he... his mother was an Irish immigrant. Based on the time she would’ve immigrated she most likely spoke the language fluently and would’ve spoke it at home with little baby Steve.

So that short scene, that little bit of dialogue meant a lot to Native speakers, Irish learners and even just second generation immigrants from anywhere. That’s why Chris and I fought so hard to keep it in the movie, the representation.

JUST BEFORE WE GO CAN YOU TELL US ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR FUTURE IN THE MCU?

Anything about my and Fianna’s future in the MCU? Let’s see, I’ve got a contract for quite a few things. Umm... there’s a couple of movies starring Fianna coming soon. She brings with her her own posse of characters and maybe a couple of others as well. Annddd I think that’s all I can say.

THAT’S ALL YOU CAN SAY?

I think that’s all I can say before someone comes in and like forcefully removes me from the room [she smiles widely, holding back a laugh] either that or you’ll end up with recording footage missing or a trained sniper will shoot me through that window [she points, laughing again] Feige will do anything to keep as much quiet as he can for as long as he can.

[gingyboo]

Mirror Mirror

A/N: Again many thanks to @booglebug

Description- Soulmates existed. People knew that much. Soulmates were rare, a handful in each generation, an unexplainable phenomenon that formed a bond closer than blood and more sacred than marriage.

Bucky finds his soulmate when he needs her most. Little does he know how much she needs him too.

(Soulmate au that slots pretty much in to the MCU but with soulmates. Set after TFATWS.)

Pairing- Bucky Barnes x OFC

Warnings- Mentions of violence and guns, but its mostly fluff, drama and angst.

This is a multi chaptered fic.

Please like, comment, reblog!

prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 9

--------------------------------------------------

Chapter 10

It was surprisingly simple tracking down the dark-haired man. Redwing managed to find CCTV footage showing the man entering and exiting the same river side apartment. Bucky and Sam had been hauled up monitoring the surveillance from a cheap B&B on the out skirts of the city for the past two days. Bucky lay reclined on his twin bed, gently tossing his knife in the air and catching it. He flipped the compact mirror open and shut. He’d spoken to Nancy earlier, she’d explained a theory Shuri had over the depth of their soulmate bond and how she’d managed to both summon and call off the Winter Solider. It made him feel uneasy, that without meaning to Nancy had managed to bring him out, if she did it once she might do it again.

Sam entered the room and sitting on the edge of the adjacent bed. He pulled the suitcase out from under it.

“It’s go time co-worker, he just left.” Sam looked over at him, he pulled out the Captain America suit. He’d been tailing the man himself, found he visited a local restaurant in the evenings. More CCTV footage found this to be a nightly occurrence. Therefore, they’d hatched a plan. “you good for this?” Sam called over to Bucky. He forced himself out of his reclined position, rubbing a hand over his face and through his hair.

“Yeah, let’s do this.” His attempt at enthusiasm was poor, he was tired, he hadn’t slept well since that night and he could feel the tiredness in his bones.

“Focus Buck, remember who we’re doing this for.” Bucky shot him an exasperated smile. “There he is, come on.”

They made their way through Amsterdam silently, hugging the shadows, as swamis of cyclists made their way through the early evening traffic. The apartment was in an old building with an ornate terrace. On the front there was a concierge, so Sam and Bucky made their way up to the balcony, Bucky slipped the lock on the door with his knife and they made their way inside. It was a modest size apartment, with modern furnishings and a plethora of screens and files adorning a large desk in the corner. Bucky made his way through the rooms, gun drawn, there was a small hallway off which the living room they’d entered through branched. There was also a small bathroom, a kitchenette and a bedroom with only a covered mattress on the floor. Bucky stared at the mattress for a moment, it reminded him of Bucharest. Deciding they were alone he circled back to the living room. Sam was running his hands across the files on the desk.

“What’s he got there?” Bucky asked over his shoulder.

“If you let me finish reading, I’ll let you know.” Sam held up a hand concentrating. Bucky clenched his jaw impatiently. A minute later he spoke again, “it’s all in here,” he held up one of the files. “Transcripts of some sort, ‘Cartwright will join us if we take the girl.’ This must have been the communication Katima and her team intercepted.” Bucky looked in the file he showed him, his stomach twisted, there was a picture of Nancy, she looked younger, slightly softer round the edges, her hair shorter but her smile just a stunning. She stood by her father’s side, her brother, in full uniform, stood tall next to her mother. Larissa Cartwright was tall like her children, with darker hair and long manicured fingernails. “There’s more, conversations describing her movements and activities. Timings for Swan Lake at the royal opera house.” Bucky felt rage burning inside him, anger boiling in his head. He breathed deeply, Sam noticed his shaking breath. “It’s alright, we’ll bring him in, he won’t get to her.”

“I swear to god, any of them lay a finger on her, I don’t think I’ll be responsible for my actions.” A voice inside him roared in agreement, sending a shiver down his spine.

“I swear to god, any of them lay a finger on her, I don’t think I’ll be responsible for my actions.” A voice inside him roared in agreement, sending a shiver down his spine.

Shortly after their search of the files the front door clicked. Bucky spun round instantly, finger pressed to his lips and gun drawn again. Sam raised his eyebrows at him, exasperated. The light came on before the man entered the room, as he did Bucky pinned him straight against the wall.

“Hello again.” Bucky said increasing his pressure on the man’s neck with his vibranium arm. Up close the man looked younger and smaller. He was wearing a long black trench coat, his skin once again seemed too high a contrast against his almost black hair. His jaw was clenched tight and he looked defiantly up at Bucky.

“Back off you bastard!” He spat back in Bucky’s face, pushing against him to no avail. Bucky kicked out the back of his knees and the man fell at his feet.

“Who are you?” Bucky demanded. He grabbed the file from Sam shoving it under the man’s nose. “What do you want with Martin Cartwright?”

———————————————————————————————

“Your brother was a very private person.” Shuri noted, scrolling through the feed on her screen, “No social media what so ever, no pictures of him on any of his friend’s pages no dating apps either.” Shuri looked quite disappointed.

“That kind of stuff just wasn’t important to him, and Kit didn’t really have any friends towards the end.” Nancy admitted. “He was quite obsessed with becoming the perfect solider, he cut everyone out, including me.” Nancy remembered the change well, his every breath was for queen and country, he came back only for fleeting visits, Nancy never saw him out of his naval uniform. Her and Shuri had been looking for days for any record of his final mission, though they had found nothing yet, in fact they had found no records for him after he moved units. They found no record of any unit like that which Kit had described. Shuri had moved onto scanning the wider web. They were yet to find anything there either.

“Did he ever mention anyone he worked with at this training unit?” The princess asked. Nancy wracked her brains, Kit had barely spoken to her in those last few months. One of her biggest regrets was not pushing him harder, not having something to remember as the last thing they’d spoken of.

“No, sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

“It’s alright, it’s just very suspicious. There’s nothing here, it’s like he stopped existing the moment he joined this unit.” Shuri suggested.

“What if we looked for others, umm, similarly qualified individuals, who might have been recruited to this unit, if Kit’s record at that point is missing maybe his isn’t the only one. If there were others maybe they weren’t so secretive.”

“Good thinking, I’m on it.” She started typing frantically, records appearing and disappearing on the screen. “This program should find records with those similarities.” They both watched the screen with bated breath.

The search took a couple of hours, Shuri suggested Nancy train some more whilst they waited. She tended to like Nancy to train multiple times a day, always being monitored. Sometimes Nancy would catch her frowning at the statistics on her tablet.

“I’ve had a new theory.” She said this time after a few minutes watching Nancy running on the treadmill.

“Yeah, tell me it doesn’t involve more running.” Nancy said, catching her breath as she walked over to Shuri. In her hand she held out a set of wireless headphones.

“I thought we’d explore the subconscious theory, I think your capabilities might lie there.”

“Why are you so sure I have these capabilities?”

“You might not see it but there are things I’ve seen that would suggest you’re not so ordinary.” She waved away any further comment from Nancy and lead her towards the targets. “I want you to relax, listen to the music, and then, when you get the signal, throw the knife.” Nancy looked at her like she was crazy but Shuri only grinned, nodding enthusiastically. The music started in her ear and Nancy instinctively tensed up, Tchaikovsky, the same music from that night at the ballet. Nancy tried to relax, she breathed deeply closing her eyes. She stood there for many minutes, her breathing settled, and she twirled the blade lightly across her knuckles. She stretched her neck out from side to side. As the music built to its climax a loud klaxon sounded. Nancy’s hand shot out on instinct. The knife spun through the air and landed on the target, imbedded to the hilt, dead centre. Nancy’s head snapped round to Shuri who was clapping her hands.

“That was a fluke.” Nancy insisted.

“No, no it wasn’t, look.” She turned her tablet around, “See the rise in the subconscious, then when the klaxon sounded how it fell after. The subconscious is most active in dreaming or when relaxed. When you felt threatened, you threw the knife, no active thought.” They tested it again, first throwing knives, 5/5 hit the exact same spot. They also tested her running, much to her displeasure. With the music playing she reached higher speeds then ever before, Shuri mapped the progress on her tablet.

“But that doesn’t explain what happened with Bucky.” Nancy said after removing the headphones. Experiments over for the day, her and Shuri made their way back to the lab.

“You were asleep weren’t you, possibly dreaming, if you felt threatened perhaps your mind reached for the only weapon at your disposal.”

“And that was Bucky” Nancy froze for a minute, “I was dreaming, I was dreaming of Kit, I kept losing him.”

“You were distressed, the Winter Solider sensed that and reached through Bucky to stop the threat.” Shuri kept explaining, light building in her eyes from realisation as she pieced together the new information.

“Oh Bucky,” she croaked out. He thought he’d tried to kill her, he’d really been trying to save her, and worse because her head had asked him two. He would always try to protect her but if she had abilities like his, if she could control them, utilise them, then maybe she could defend herself. Maybe she could be more than just a socialite. Images formed in her head, her and Bucky fighting side by side. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought. A chance, a gift of sorts from destiny. She could defend the world, just like Bucky and Sam.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a notification on Shuri’s tablet. Match found. They looked between each other before approaching the large monitor.

The record was displayed on the screen.

Duncan Everett

Nancy didn’t recognise the name, but she knew the face. It was the dark-haired man.