#i refuse to believe they are not endgame

[endiness]

"two things of beauty, made to be together"

i am still not over the audition dialogue

[rodentjazz]

Hear me out

[skibasyndrome]

I refuse to believe that clip means negativity between them until I'm proven otherwise. Maybe they're just mad and/or sad ✨together✨ at something else that happened

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[nikkiruncks]

Gwikki + Gwen challenging Nikki to grow and get out of her comfort zone

[cartoonchaos]

“gee i wonder why there’s still so much more fanfiction about male characters” “we need more morally complex female characters” “i love relationships that are doomed by the narrative” “more stories need to treat mentally ill characters with compassion and respect” “all his problems could’ve been fixed if he only went to therapy” you fuckers can’t even handle the ending of fionna and cake

[opalsiren]

consider: aquamarine (2006) but zikki. that's it that's the post

[bedlamsbard]

Some concept writing!  One thing I’ve been doing since before On Yonder Hill wrapped has been running through different possibilities for hypothetical sequels (I cut some sequel setup from the last couple chapters in order to keep the story focused).  This is a first chapter for a sequel concept that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go for, now that I’ve written it -- I’m less interested now in the setup than I was previously, I don’t think I’m actually that interested in the post-Yonder timeline (since the attraction of the Yonderverse for me is working in the post-Snap period), I don’t want to deal with a cast this large, I don’t really feel like doing another story with multiple versions of the same character (especially because they’re not as distinct from each other as in some other stories I’ve written; just on a technical level it’s harder to write), and in all honesty, and the overarching plot setup is actually the same post-Endgame problem that Morning has, so I’m not too interested in doing it twice.  This isn’t what a final version of the chapter would like; it would probably grow another 3K in edits, because my chapters are usually 10K.  I also don’t think my characterization and voices are on; that’s something that would have been fixed in edits.  But it’s concept writing, it gets the scene out of my head, and it tells me I don’t want to write this story.

Disclaimer aside, I wanted to post it anyway because I wrote it and I think people would like to read it; just bear the disclaimer in mind.

7K below the break.  Please note that I don’t warn, though I don’t think there’s anything in this concept that would get warned for anyway.

***

Clint’s scream echoed in her ears all the way down, drowning out the sound of the wind whistling around her.

The fall was long enough that Natasha had time to think, each second seeming to stretch out into eternity as she counted them off with names and faces: Laura.  Wanda. Sam.  Bucky.  Yelena –

She hit the ground and everything went black.

*

It felt like a long time before Natasha could bring herself to open her eyes again, though in reality couldn’t have been more than a minute at most.  She expected to see Vormir’s unearthly purple sky again and the cliff face looming up over her – Clint will be so relieved – but instead there was nothing but blackness.

She pushed herself upright, wincing; she couldn’t be dead, because she doubted she would hurt this much if she was dead.  She felt like she had fallen off a building, something she had done a few times, but not like she had fallen off a cliff; she could tell she had developing bruises, but nothing felt like it was broken.

“Clint?” she said softly, and could tell immediately that she was in an enclosed space, not out in the open.  As she blinked into the darkness, pinpricks of colored light began to appear, glowing softly around her as Natasha twisted to see them.  She counted six in all: blue, green, purple, red, orange, yellow, raised up off the floor as if on pedestals.

Natasha got warily to her feet, pulling a chem light out of one of her belt pouches and cracking it to activate it.  When she held it up to illuminate the space, she saw that she was in a smallish round room that seemed to be hewn out of rock, with no obvious door and a little decorative knotwork running along the upper edge of the walls next to the ceiling and considerably more of it on the floor.  Natasha crouched down to get a better look at the pattern beneath her feet and felt her frown deepen.  She wasn’t an expert by any means, but it looked Asgardian.

She straightened up again and went over to investigate to the nearest of the glowing lights, which as she had thought proved to be on stone pedestals, decorated with the same kind of knotwork as the floor.  They were topped with what looked like balls made out of some kind of glass or clear crystal, just barely tinted amber, and inside –

Natasha might have been mistaken, since the only time she had seen it outside of the Tesseract had been in Thanos’s gauntlet, but she was fairly certain it was the Space Stone.

Trying to keep the sudden harshness of her breathing under control, she went to the next pedestal, whose globe contained the distinctive yellow Mind Stone, the only one she had had a good look at before.  She paced around the room, inspecting the seven pedestals; six held Infinity Stones, including the orange Soul Stone she and Clint had gone to Vormir for, and the seventh held what was clearly a Stark-made gauntlet, all the way down to the hotrod red and gold paint, a little battered by wear.  The hollows across the knuckles and back would have fit the six Infinity Stones perfectly.

“What the hell?” Natasha said out loud.  She stared at the Infinity Stones for a few moments longer, then shrugged and moved past the pedestals to take a closer look at the wall, because there had to be an exit somewhere.  The light wasn’t good; there had to be a seam in the wall, some kind of door –

The moment she put her hand on the cool stone of the wall, an alarm went off.

It was a held-out bell-like tone, not a klaxon, but in the confined space it was deafening.  Natasha reflexively clamped her hands to her ears, which didn’t have any real effect at dampening the sound.  She took her hands away from her head and charged her bites, hoping that the alarm going off meant that someone was going to come in to see what had triggered it.  It wasn’t her preferred method of finding a way out, but at this point she would take it.

She had been expecting a door.  Instead what she got was a flesh of green-gold and three figures appearing in the center of the room.  The one in the lead looked human but wasn’t, a tall pale-skinned man in his shirtsleeves with his long black hair plaited back from his face, revealing stark, familiar features; Natasha couldn’t see the other two new arrivals behind him.

Loki’s eyes went wide. He said, “Natasha?”

She shot him point blank with her bites at full charge, then had to throw herself sideways as something came flying at the wall precisely where her head had been, dropping the chem light as she did so.  She heard the crunch of whatever it was hitting stone and then clattering to the floor, but she was already rolling to her feet. The fallen chem light was mostly behind one of the pediments, giving off a ghostly green glow that didn’t do more than illuminate the shapes of the other two people in the room.  Loki was down for the moment, at least, blue energy crackling across his body as he convulsed.

It was a man and a woman, the man big and broad-shouldered and the woman compact.  Natasha recognized the man’s silhouette in the dim light and thought, Wait –

Then she fired her bites again.  He caught the electrostatic blasts squarely in the chest but shook them off; Natasha dodged around the nearest pediment, reaching reflexively for her batons and finding empty space instead.  She’d lost them on Vormir, fighting with Clint.  Instead she lashed out, low, her foot connecting with his kneecap as he grabbed for her, and when that knocked him down grabbed the globe holding the purple Power Stone and hit him in the head with it.  The glassy globe didn’t break, at least, but Natasha dropped it a moment later as the other woman hit her from the side, knocking them both down.

The globe went rolling away, the faint glow of the Infinity Stone briefly illuminating the decorated floor. Natasha twisted, slamming a punch into the other woman’s kidneys, but she dodged and Natasha’s fist only grazed her. She hooked her foot around Natasha’s leg as Natasha tried to get to her feet, grabbing her braid and slamming her head into stone floor; Natasha jabbed an elbow backwards into her gut and felt her flinch, but her grip on Natasha didn’t loosen.  Instead she planted a knee firmly into the small of Natasha’s back and pressed her face down against the floor with a hand on the back of her head, saying, “Stay down – stay down, damn it!”

There was a sudden burst of light that made Natasha’s eyes water as part of the wall peeled aside, letting in a big newcomer whose face was shadowed by the light behind him. “What –” he began, and then, horrified, “Where are your clothes?”

“It’s the middle of the night!” Loki snapped. “And I really don’t think that’s the pertinent point here!”

Natasha turned her head as much as she could with the other woman’s grip holding her in place and saw him pushing himself up onto an elbow, looking a little shaky from her electrostatic blasts.  He made a practiced gesture with one hand and light bloomed around them, illuminating the room and its occupants.

The newcomer was Thor, only it wasn’t Thor as Natasha had seen him in the compound a few hours ago, long-haired and grief-worn, but with his hair cropped short and a black patch over his right eye.  He was shirtless, a few faint lines of old scarring visible on his chest and arms.

Loki looked at him and said, “Where are your clothes?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Thor parroted back at him. “At least I’m wearing pants!”

“At least I’m wearing a shirt!” Loki looked over Natasha’s shoulder and said, “Steve?”

“I’m okay.”  That was definitely Steve’s voice, though Natasha couldn’t see him from this angle. “Don’t ask me where my clothes are.  Nat?”

“Steve?” she said, at the same time as the woman on top of her said, “I’m a little confused.”

“And naked,” Thor said faintly, his gaze fixed at the wall opposite them.

“I’m wearing underwear,” the other woman said.  Her voice was an exact echo of Natasha’s own.

“What the hell is going on here?” Natasha demanded, trying to get up and getting her head shoved back down into the floor for her trouble.

“Perhaps we could continue this conversation somewhere outside of my secret vault,” Loki said pointedly. “Let her up.”

There was a moment of hesitation, then the pressure on Natasha’s head and back vanished as the other woman got off her.  She transferred her grip to Natasha’s arms as she pulled her to her feet, keeping her pinned but letting Natasha turn to finally get a decent look at the other people in the room.

Steve was picking his shield up off the floor, sliding it onto his right arm.  Like Thor, he was bare-chested and bare-footed, wearing only boxers and a confused expression.  He was bearded, too, blonde hair a little shaggy the way it got when he stopped cutting it.  He studied her thoughtfully, his confusion turning to wary, familiar calculation before he stepped over to help Loki to his feet.

Natasha frowned at him, trying to decide if his eyes were bluer than usual; Loki obviously had the Mind Stone here and she couldn’t think of any other reason Steve would be with him. Thor, maybe; it had never been any secret that Thor loved his brother deeply.  But –

The woman holding her stripped her quantum bracelet off her wrist, said, “Steve,” and tossed it to him when he looked over.

There was a brief glimmer of gold on Steve’s left hand as he caught the bracelet out of the air, frowned at it, and showed it to Loki, who from his expression clearly recognized what it was, before he came over to Natasha and said, “Where and when were you trying to get?”

She didn’t respond, staring at him and trying to pick out the flaws in the illusion as her mind belatedly caught up with the fact that none of this made any sense; he couldn’t be Steve.  Steve had gone to New York in 2012 with Tony, Bruce, and Scott to get the Time, Mind, and Space Stones.  Thor was in Asgard in 2013 retrieving the Reality Stone.  Loki was dead, killed by Thanos on the Asgardian refugee ship after a failed assassination attempt.

“You’re not Steve Rogers,” she said.

His eyebrows went up. “Believe me, I have days where I wish that,” he said, in the exact tones of weary bemusement Natasha had heard a thousand times before. “You were trying for New York?” he went on. “2012?  Was I with you, and Loki?”

“Or my brother?” Loki suggested.

Steve glanced over his shoulder at him.  Loki was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze calculating.  Despite the fact that he was only wearing a cream-colored shirt with a little gold and green embroidery at the collar and cuffs, he managed to look both more dignified and saner than he had eleven years ago on the helicarrier.  The shirt hit at mid-thigh, which Natasha was profoundly grateful for, revealing intricate gold and black tattoos all the way down his right leg and on his left ankle and calf.

“What is this?” Natasha said again, her voice tight.

“At the moment it’s still my secret vault,” Loki said pointedly. “As such, could we please move this conversation elsewhere?  I need to reset the wards.  And I assume your presence here means Sif and the Valkyrie are checking over the rest of the hall,” he added to Thor.

“No, brother, we’re utterly incompetent without you and they never even woke up when the alert spells tripped,” Thor said dryly. “Is that what you think of us?”

“Of course not.  I know the Valkyrie’s competent.  I’ve had my doubts about you and Sif for the past thousand years, though.”

Thor’s eyebrows went up, the right pulling at the familiar scar that cut across his face. “Bold of you to say.”

Loki just shook his head, looking frustrated. “Get her out of here, if you would be so kind,” he said to Steve and the woman holding Natasha. “The great hall should do, since the others should hear this.  And I want coffee and breakfast.”

“And clothes,” Thor said.

“Brother, please.”

“You know you still can’t give us orders, right?” the woman said.

“That was why I asked nicely,” Loki said.  He made a little shooing gesture at them. “This is going to be somewhat complicated, if you don’t mind.”

“Come on,” said the woman, shoving Natasha to make her move.

Natasha set her feet and demanded, “Where are we?  What’s going on?”

“We’ll figure that second part out soon enough,” Loki said. “As for where we are – we’re in Iðavoll, home of the kings of New Asgard.  And the current headquarters of the Avengers.”

*

Natasha had been to New Asgard before, though not recently and not often.  She tried to check on Thor at least once a year, though it was usually a heartbreaking and unproductive experience since Thor wasn’t much interested in seeing anyone and the other Asgardians didn’t know her.  New Asgard had previously been a minor tourist center north of Tønsberg, along the Oslofjord.   After the tourist industry had collapsed in the wake of the Snap, the Norwegian government had offered subsidies to the remaining residents of the town to relocate – like many small villages it had been hit particularly hard by the Snap – then moved the Asgardians in.  There had been some renovation of the old houses and public buildings, not to mention the village’s four hotels, but as far as Natasha knew they hadn’t actually built anything new.  She was almost positive that there wasn’t anything like this there, unless Thor and the Valkyrie had been holding out on her.

Thor, Steve, and the strange woman led her out of the vault and up through a short passageway that led to a narrow set of stairs.  With the rush of adrenaline from the two fights on Vormir and in the vault fading, her mind was beginning to catch up with her situation in more than fragments of thought and sensation.

Back when they had first been exploring the possibility of using the quantum realm to retrieve the Infinity Stones from the past, Scott, Bruce, Rhodey, and Rocket had gone down a tipsy rabbit hole of “unlikely ways this could backfire and kill us all.”   The most likely of those had been the possibility that changing the past, no matter how minutely, would have cascading effects on the future.  “I mean, forget killing the wrong person,” Rocket had said, getting into the swing of it and correspondingly splashing beer into a bored-looking Nebula’s face.  “We’re talking about the movement of individual air molecules here.  You guys ever read Fordox’s Theorem?  Of course you haven’t.  Space-time is a chaotic system.  That means any action, no matter how small, is going to have a reaction. We just don’t know what the hell it’s going to be.”

“Yeah, the butterfly effect,” Rhodey had said. “We’ve got that.  A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, there’s a tornado in Texas two weeks later.  It’s a nonlinear system; microscopic actions can have macroscopic effects.”

“I don’t know what a butterfly is,” Rocket said, “but yeah, that’s pretty much it.  And that’s just, you know, now, today, about things that could happen anytime in the future.  You go back to yesterday, or last week, last year, hell, ten years ago – then things start getting crazy.  Maybe. That’s the theory.  On the other hand, maybe nothing happens.  Only one way to find out, hmm?”

Now Natasha stared at Thor’s bare back, which under other circumstances she might have appreciated a little more, and thought, oh shit. The butterfly effect theory had come up a few more times as they had worked on the quantum tunnel, as had some of the other unpleasant options.  They had eventually decided that the reward was worth the risks, since their resident geniuses had all said that the possible downfalls were pretty unlikely.

Only here she was, right now.

“What year is it?” she asked suddenly.

“2023,” Steve said from behind her; he was bringing up the rear of their little procession, since the stairwell was too narrow for them to walk abreast. “It’s October 17th.”

“18th; it’s after midnight,” the other woman corrected.

That was three months from now, or three months from when they had left, anyway.  Not being Bruce Banner or Tony Stark, Natasha had absolutely no idea what that meant for Rocket’s theory.

Loki had seemed to know what was going on.  That probably wasn’t a good sign.

“What year do you think it should be?” Steve said, his voice friendly – sounding like Steve, and that just felt wrong, because Natasha knew Steve Rogers as well as she knew anyone on Earth.  She knew him better than she knew Clint these days; she would have known him deaf and blind and with both hands cut off and all of that was telling her, unmistakably, that this was Steve Rogers and not someone, something, else.

Natasha didn’t answer, too unnerved and unwilling to commit to something she might regret later.

Someone in 2012 changed the past.  Or Thor did something in Asgard, back in 2013 –

With Loki here, either one sounded reasonable, though Natasha would have put her money on someone in the 2012 team.  Thor and Rocket knew the stakes too well.

Steve tried to talk to her a few more times as they left the stairwell and came out into a wide, airy hallway, but Natasha didn’t respond.  She looked around instead, taking in the carved wooden panels on the walls and the big window at the other end of the corridor, though since it was pitch-dark outside she couldn’t tell what it looked out on.  Lights burned in sconces at regular intervals along the top of the walls – some kind of softly glowing glass or crystal, neither electric lighting nor firelight.  She had seen enough of New Asgard to recognize the aesthetic as Asgardian, though she couldn’t remember anything in New Asgard that was as elaborate as this, and the houses there were all on the electric grid anyway.

The great hall, when they reached it, lived up to its name.  Natasha wasn’t easily impressed, but she still had to pause and look around, feeling her eyes widen.  It was a single big room, easily large enough to hold several hundred people, with long tables spaced at even intervals between columns along the sides of the room, leaving a wide central aisle.  There was a raised firepit partway down it, with glowing coals which sent up heat.  A raised dais sported another table.  The columns and walls were all elaborately carved, as were the vaulted rafters; the light from the firepit and the glowing crystalline lights struck sparks from the gilding on the carving.  Weapons – swords, axes, spears, bows, and shields – were racked along the walls and a few wolf-like dogs and large cats were sprawled asleep on the floor by the firepit.

Two women were just coming in through one of the side doors, both with sword belts hastily belted on over nightshirts and leggings.  Natasha knew Bruce’s friend the Valkyrie, the de facto ruler of New Asgard these days; it took her a moment to recognize the other woman from SHIELD’s old files on the Puente Antiguo incident, an Asgardian called Lady Sif.

“Where’s the king?” the Valkyrie demanded, narrow-eyed.

“Resetting the wards in the vault,” Thor told her.

The Valkyrie’s gaze flicked warily to Natasha, then widened a fraction.  “I knew fucking around with Mimameid was going to get you all in trouble,” she said. “Go put some clothes on, we’ll watch her.  I assume Loki magicked you two down there,” she added to Steve and the woman holding Natasha, then turned to Thor, “but what’s your excuse?”

“It’s the middle of the night!” Thor protested. “I was sleeping!”

“We were all sleeping,” Sif said, her mouth twitching a little.

“I was sleeping alone.”

“Well, that seems like a you problem,” the Valkyrie said briskly. “Not that most of the rest of us are getting laid, either.”  She flicked a bemused glance over Natasha’s shoulder.  “Present company excluded, obviously.”

“Ha ha,” said the woman holding Natasha.  She stripped Natasha’s bites off her wrists and dropped them on the nearest table, then added Natasha’s wrist knives and her other holdout weapons, finding them without having to search for them.  She released Natasha and Natasha turned swiftly to find herself looking into her own face.

They weren’t quite identical.  The other Natasha had a small crescent-shaped scar on her right cheek and her hair was an inch or two longer than Natasha’s, the red with another few months’ growth. It was loose around her shoulders now, some of it caught in the neck of her tank top and the thin silver chain of her necklace.

Natasha said, “Shit.”

The other woman just gave her a wry look.  “Don’t go anywhere,” she said.

Natasha sat down heavily on the nearest bench as she and Steve left, with Thor lingering to say something to Sif before he followed them out of the hall.  She ran her hands over her face, suddenly exhausted; this wasn’t supposed to be the kind of problem that she was going to run into during the operation.

She looked up at the Valkyrie, who was frowning down at her, and said, “Did you find anyone else here?”

The Asgardian shook her head. “Should we be looking for someone else?”

“Clint Barton, maybe,” Natasha said after an instant of hesitation.

The Valkyrie’s frown deepened, but all she said was, “If he’s here, we didn’t spot him, and after he started to go on his little murder spree a few years ago we had to key the land wards specifically to him in case he decided to try and assassinate the king.”

“The king,” Natasha said.

Sif frowned at the Valkyrie, as if this was a point of some contention, but the Valkyrie ignored her and just said, “Loki.”

Natasha blinked, and then blinked again. “Who died and made Loki king?”

“Thor.”

Natasha looked in the direction Thor had just gone. “What?”

“Well, he got better, obviously,” the Valkyrie said.  She perched on top of the table and picked up one of Natasha’s holdout knives from the pile, balancing it on the tip of one finger. “It did take five years, which is a little long even for one of us.”

Natasha frowned at her, slowly putting that together with the other bits and pieces she had heard,   If she had been standing, the realization would have staggered her; as it was, she caught her breath, briefly light-headed before she brought herself to say, “He was snapped.  It – it worked.  The Time Heist worked here.”

“Stupid name,” the Valkyrie said scornfully.

Sif, who was still standing, peered down at Natasha and said, “It wasn’t Thor in your – your branch? Both of them survived the attack on the ship?”

Natasha shook her head, still trying to put all the rest of the pieces together, but she knew she didn’t have enough for a complete picture. “No – Loki died.  That’s what Thor told us after Wakanda – after the Snap.” She tipped her head back to look around the great hall. “I’ve never seen this before.  There’s nothing like it in New Asgard.”

Sif and the Valkyrie exchanged a look.  After a moment, the Valkyrie said, “Iðavoll – back when this room was all there was of it – was the first thing we built here after Loki finished negotiating with the United Nations for the land.”

“The…land?” Natasha said. “What land?”

“This land,” the Valkyrie said. “New Asgard.  Part of the reason the negotiations took so long was because Loki wanted so much of it for our people.”

Natasha shook her head. “There’s not that much,” she said. “Just the village and some of the surrounding area –”

“What village?” Sif said. She looked at the Valkyrie and asked, “There was nothing here before, was there?”

The Valkyrie shook her head. “Not for about seven hundred years.  There are two or three abandoned thorps and old farmsteads within our borders, but those are old.  By human standards, anyway.”

“It was a tourist town,” Natasha said. “It got hit hard by the Snap; the Norwegian government moved the survivors out and moved the Asgardians in.”  She racked her brain for what the town’s original name had been, came up blank except that it had been something vaguely related, and said, “I haven’t been lately, but it’s mostly a fishing village now, I think, along the Oslofjord.”

The Valkyrie’s mouth twisted a little. “We’re not on the Oslofjord.  We’re further down the Skagerrak, closer to the North Sea.”

Natasha stared at her. “New Asgard’s not even in the same place here?”

The other woman lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Well,” she said, “not that he ever listened to me about it, but Loki isn’t Thor.”

“He really isn’t,” Sif muttered, and the Valkyrie flicked a glance at her.

There was something there that Natasha was missing from lack of context, though she didn’t know enough about the Asgardians to even guess what it was.  She hadn’t met Sif before; she had assumed the woman had been killed along with the other ninety-five percent of the Asgardian people during the triple disasters of Ragnarok, Thanos’s attack on the refugee ship, and the Snap, but didn’t know for certain.

Natasha looked down at her hands, rubbing a thumb over the top-stitching on the back of her left glove. “You don’t seem very surprised by this,” she said to the Valkyrie.

She shrugged again. “We knew something had gone wrong when they couldn’t take the Stones back. We’ve just been waiting to see what it was going to be.”

“It was always going to be something.”  Bootsteps sounded on the hardwood floor as Loki emerged from the door behind the dais. Natasha was relieved to see that he had taken the time to get dressed, wearing a thigh-length vest open over his shirt and pants.  He nodded to them and crossed the room to another side door, which he opened to say, “Coffee and sweet rolls, if you please,” to whoever was on the other side.

He scooped up the cat that came trotting out from behind the door and carried it over to the table, where he let it settle onto his lap as he sat down.  Natasha stared at him for a few moments, trying to decide if she was losing her mind or if this was really happening, then glanced away when he looked at her.  She was relieved when Thor arrived and sat down on the bench next to his brother, despite how disconcerting it was to see them friendly with each other.

“You’re dead in her branch,” the Valkyrie told Loki bluntly.

His eyebrows went up. “The culling?” he asked Natasha.

“On the ship – the Statesman,” she added, after a moment spent trying to remember its name, and was interested to see Thor and Loki both look sharply at each other.  Loki’s jaw worked once, but all he did was nod in response.

“Branch?” Natasha said.

“I’d rather only give this explanation once tonight,” Loki said, “so if you’ll wait a few minutes –”

Natasha shrugged, since she didn’t see that she had much choice, then looked down as she felt a warm nose nudge her palm.  One of the room’s dogs had come over to inspect the new arrivals.  Up close, it looked more wolf-like than dog-like, something about it indefinably alien.  Natasha let it sniff her hand, then touched its soft ears gently.

“That’s Geri,” Loki said, watching her. “This is Freki,” he added, stroking the cat on his lap.

“Didn’t take you for an animal person,” Natasha said.

He shrugged a little, as if her opinion didn’t matter to him. “Because you knew me so well before.”

There wasn’t much Natasha could say to that, so she didn’t bother, just scratched at the base of the dog’s ears as the hound sighed in blissful delight, resting its chin on her knee. One of the other dogs wandered up to do the same to Thor.

As disconcerting as it was, she was relieved when Steve and the other Natasha arrived, both dressed now. She caught her breath as Bucky and Wanda followed them in, both sleepy-eyed and clearly having just woken up – Bucky wary, Wanda still looking like she was trying to wake up.  From her red-rimmed eyes Natasha thought she must have cried herself to sleep.  She blinked once when she saw Natasha, then looked around the great hall as if hoping someone else was there.  Natasha bit her lip, guessing who she was looking for.

She breathed in deeply, trying to get herself under control, then asked, “Sam?”

“He’s visiting his sister in Louisiana,” Steve said. “Rhodey’s in the States right now too, Scott, Clint, and Tony are with their families, and Bruce is on his honeymoon.”

“His honeymoon?”

“At least he actually took a honeymoon,” Bucky said pointedly to Steve.

“What, you wanted to deal with all of this on your own?”

“I would be dealing with all of this on my own,” Loki said meaningfully.

Thor glared at him. “Since when?”

Loki rolled his eyes.

Natasha cautiously set their bickering aside and stared at Steve, trying to put two and two together and get four instead of five.  “You’re married?”

He blinked, looking a little bemused by her shock, then looked down at the gold band on his left hand like he had to be reminded he was wearing it.  Bucky snorted, amused, and Steve glared at him before he said, “Yes.”

“To who?”

Her first thought was Bucky or Sam, since she knew that Steve slept with men as well as women when he slept with anyone at all, but the confused look Steve gave her suggested that that wasn’t the answer.  Then she thought, Loki, a little panicked.

“Me,” said the other Natasha, her voice very dry, and when Natasha looked at her she hooked a finger under the collar of her shirt and tugged the thin silver chain of her necklace out, revealing the gold ring hanging from it.

“What?” Natasha said, staring, then felt her cheeks heat.  She looked hastily down at the dog, who licked her fingers.

“Interesting,” Loki observed. “Minor as well as major divergences in the branches.”

“Which of those are we considering minor?” Bucky said, amused. “Steve getting laid or you getting killed?”

Natasha looked up in time to see Steve go bright red.  He looked at her, somehow blushed even harder, then looked at the other Natasha, who was tucking her wedding ring back inside her shirt.  She raised an eyebrow at him and Natasha turned her attention away, biting her lip.  Steve, she thought – her Steve, not this Steve.

“What does that mean?” Wanda said. “Divergences in the branches?”  She sat down on top of the table next to the Valkyrie and held her hand out to a white cat that hopped up between them.

Loki waited until a couple of Asgardians had brought in trays with coffeepots, cups, and two plates of pastries before he said anything.  The other dogs in the room wandered over, looking hopeful, and Bucky broke a pastry into pieces to feed them.

That done, Loki stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankle, letting the cat settle itself more comfortably in his lap. “Mimameid is what we call the Cosmos Tree, which passes over all the realms, with a world tree as every branch. Humans think of it as the quantum realm, though they may not be quite the same thing.  Janet van Dyne and I discussed it, but we never came to a satisfactory conclusion.”

Natasha tried to imagine Loki having a civil discussion with anyone about anything, but especially quantum physics with Janet van Dyne – whom she had never met – and briefly blacked out.

Loki quirked an eyebrow at her, as if he had sensed the thought, and went on, “The best that we both agreed on was that humans and Asgardians perceive such things differently, so whether Mimameid and the quantum realm are the same thing may be a moot question.  The branches of the Cosmos Tree – some of the branches of the Cosmos Tree – are different timelines, different world trees, where events transpired differently.”

Wanda nodded slowly. “The multiverse – the many worlds theory.  Vis and I used to talk about it.”

“Yes, more or less. Asgardians conceptualize it differently, but it’s essentially the same thing.  We think that the Infinity Stones serve to stabilize the World Trees – the planes of existence, as well as the different timelines – and the Cosmos Tree.  There’s a theory that all the Infinity Stones in all the branches are actually the same six Stones, that they exist simultaneously in all the branches at once.  When the Titan destroyed our Stones five years ago, it –”  He hesitated for an instant, his brows pursed in thought, “Think of it as a kind of rot, a weakness in the wood, that spread from Yggdrasil – from our World Tree – to Mimameid.  If the same thing happened in other branches as well, then the rot would be increased.”

Loki paused to take a sip of his coffee, then cupped the glass in its silver holder between his palms and frowned at nothing. “When we went back in time to retrieve the Infinity Stones, it may have had the effect of further increasing the rot in Mimameid. We should have been able to return them immediately, but the quantum tunnel never opened.  Which is why they’re still in my vault three months later. We think – I think – that the timelines where we removed the Stones would have continued onwards, real time, when the Stones weren’t returned.  Not to mention whatever would have happened in the 2014 timeline after Thanos –”

“What happened?” Natasha demanded.

Loki blinked and looked over at her. “The Titan was able to switch his Nebula with ours, replicate the quantum bracelets, and travel to our time in an attempt to gain all the Infinity Stones.  Then he blew up the compound and landed his entire army.  Did that not –”

“I was in 2014,” Natasha said. “I was on that operation.”

“You were with the team that went to Knowhere for the Reality Stone?” the other Natasha said. “Or you went to Morag with Nebula instead of Rhodey?”

“No,” Natasha said. “We didn’t send anyone to Knowhere.  Thor and Rocket went to Asgard in 2013 to get the Reality Stone.  Clint and I went to Vormir.”

“Oh, shit,” Steve whispered, as the other Natasha and Loki both went white.

The other Natasha got up abruptly and walked away, walking in circles as Steve put his head into his hands.  Loki put his coffee cup down and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, whispering something in Nordic-sounding Asgardian syllables.

“What does that mean?” Wanda asked.

“Vormir was the hiding place of the Soul Stone,” Loki said, looking up at her. “It had a – a keeper, I suppose; that’s how Clint and Bruce described it.  You couldn’t retrieve the Soul Stone without sacrificing something of equal value – a soul for a soul.”  He looked at Natasha, swallowing, and said, “It was – it was you then?  Not Clint?  I thought you’d been in the quantum realm when you came here.”

Natasha shook her head. “No,” she said. “I was – falling.”

“That’s what happened to the big guy, isn’t it?” the Valkyrie said to Loki, who nodded; her jaw worked in response.

“I don’t understand,” Natasha said. “What happened here?”

Steve looked up, a hand pressed to his mouth – his left hand, the one with the ring on it.  After a moment he took it away and said, “The Hulk went.  Bruce said that – that they got separated up there, him and the Hulk, and the Hulk made the decision to jump.  It was Bruce and Clint who went to Vormir, um, Rhodey and Nebula went to Morag, Rocket and Scott and Tony all went to Knowhere to steal the Reality Stone.  Nat and Loki and I went to New York in 2012.”

“And broke the timeline,” Loki said bitterly.

“I think Thanos did a little worse than you did,” Thor told him.  He looked at Natasha and said, “Who else – what –”

“Um.”  She had to take a moment to think about it, even though she already knew the answer. “Clint and I went to Vormir, Nebula and Rhodey went to Morag – both in 2014 – you – I mean, my Thor – and Rocket went to Asgard in 2013, and Steve, Tony, Bruce, and Scott went to New York in 2012 during the invasion.”

Loki looked startled. “Why would you go during the invasion?  Didn’t you have enough of the Chitauri the first time?”

“Because the Space Stone, the Mind Stone, and Time Stone were all in New York then,” Natasha said, a little relieved by the practical nature of the question. “Why, when did you go?”

“Before the invasion,” Loki said pointedly. “To retrieve the scepter and the Tesseract while they were both in the same place.”

“Technically in New Jersey, not New York,” Steve said, pedantic. “The Sanctum’s in the city, though; we went there first.”  He got up and went over to the other Natasha, putting his arms around her as she turned and hid her face in his shoulder.

Natasha stared at them for a long moment, then turned away as something lurched in her throat.  Do I want that? she wondered, a little shaken.  Do I want him?  And then, in almost the same instant, Does he want me?

She had wondered, sometimes, from the way he occasionally looked at her, but that was all it had ever been.  As far as she knew he was still hung up on Peggy Carter.

She had looked too, sometimes, but women like her didn’t get to have men like Steve Rogers.

She forced herself to look back at Loki, who still seemed fairly shaken. “What does that mean?” she asked him. “What’s going on?”

“Ah –”  He shook his head as if to clear it.  “The Pyms and Bruce and the sorcerers and I all discussed this after they couldn’t get the quantum tunnel open again.  There’s a theory that similar events will always happen all across Mimameid, which means that all the Stones in all the World Trees were destroyed, but because of the Time Heist it would create a paradigm – cascading paradigms, rather – that would cause the branches of the Cosmos Tree to become entangled with each other.  There are created branches now, not natural ones, where not all of the Stones exist at once.  Until now it’s only been theory, because until now all six Stones have always existed simultaneously.  But now…” He leaned back, resting an elbow on the table as he rubbed his hand over his jaw.  “Janet ran some tests on the Stones.  The Soul Stone…distorts, I suppose is the best word – the quantum realm, like wind through leaves or ripples in a pond.  There’s no way to test what the transition on Vormir truly entails, but we traveled there in our present day and there are soft spots there between Yggdrasil and Mimameid – between our realm and the quantum realm, as mortals think of it.  It’s possible that you – you fell through one of those soft spots.”

“So what happened there?” Natasha said. “How did I end up here?”

“Well, you ended up in my vault full of Infinity Stones,” Loki said dryly. “I wouldn’t go so far as to assume it’s unrelated.  As for how to get you back, I – I have no idea.”

“But Clint won’t get the Stone,” Natasha said. “And if he doesn’t get the Stone, then it’s all for nothing.”  Clint would have to go back to the compound and tell them that Natasha had died – or disappeared – or whatever had happened there – for nothing.  He would have to go back and tell Steve that Natasha had died for nothing.  If they had gotten the Stone it would be one thing, but if he went back with nothing – “You have to send me back.”

“I’m a god, not a miracle-worker; I’ve no idea how,” Loki said. “I –”

He stopped as someone’s cell phone buzzed.  It was apparently his, since he made a distracted gesture with one hand and a smartphone appeared with a flicker of green-gold.  He glanced at the screen, then frowned and put the phone to his ear. “We’re having something of a situation, so – what?”

Everyone looked at him, including Steve and the other Natasha.

Loki swore in Asgardian. “I’m sorry, I get someone in my secret vault and you – yes, obviously, bring him here, and the tunnel.  Do you need me to send someone to get you?”  He listened to whoever was on the other end of the call, then said, “She’ll be there in the morning – our morning, at least, it’s the middle of the night here and I’m not in the mood to do the math.”  He set the phone down on the table and said, viciously, “Garmr’s teeth.  We need Bruce back here now; I don’t care if he’s on his honeymoon.  Assuming we still have a universe in a few weeks, Betty can yell at me about it then.”

“The hell was that?” Steve demanded.

Loki turned to look at him, his jaw working. “That was Scott.  The quantum tunnel activated – nobody was working on it, but they were in the room.  You came out.”

“Me?” Steve said, startled.

“Or a Steve Rogers, at least,” Loki said tightly. “With six Infinity Stones.  Are we having fun yet?”

[torgawl]

gojo's death has been way too controversial for something that has been premeditated for such a long time

[junonreactor]

hm

[considermeadream12]

Wait... This might be a stretch but... This dialogue is meant to be about Vecna. But why do I feel like there is an implication that this is ALSO about Milkvans relationship? El never lost like that because she realizes that Mike doesn't love her romantically. She has never lost a love / boyfriend before.

And while Mike is aware of it, Will still waits for them to have a comeback as lovers. But... if there is this implication of talking about the current status of their relationship... then why is Mike being like "Let's hope that we're not gonna get another chance..."?

Because he knows that him and El are over! He never wanted a romantic comeback. He never wanted to give there relationship another chance. He is ready for Byler-era!

[tofixtheshadows]

Id love to hear ur interpretation and analysis on falin! She’s one of my favorite characters and and I was wondering what ur thoughts on her are

Man, I struggle to think of anything I could say about Falin that others have not already said. But she's one of my favorite things about Dungeon Meshi too.

So much of the story revolves around Falin, and she's not even there. Tumblr loves to talk about haunting the narrative, but Falin might be one of the best examples of it ever put to page. She's dead. She's alive. She's dead. She's alive. She's alive but she's missing, she's alive but she isn't herself. She's dead but she might wake. She's dead but she's frozen in ice. She's alive but she's sleepwalking. They chase her ghost and they chase her body all through the story.

I think what Kui does with her is fascinating. Not just as character with a personality we can analyze, but as an object in a narrative- that's why I say she's one of my favorite things about the story, because I also mean it in a mechanical sense. As a writer, Kui's really good at misdirection- that is, setting you up to believe or expect something about a character or a plot, and then turning that on its head. It's most apparent with Kabru, but it works really well with Falin too.

Because the precious little sister is a very well known character archetype, right? So is the gentle healer. The heart of the party. The white mage girl. The damsel in distress. The martyr.

And this isn't a Laura Palmer situation, where we find out that beneath her wholesome surface there's something dark and troubled. No, Falin truly is a kind and gentle person. That isn't where the misdirection leads (and that, too, I think, is another misdirection- it's not "Plot twist, she isn't as nice as you thought!", which would almost be too easy).

The misdirection here is more about structure than about character (but also, yeah- a little about character).

What I mean is, with these archetypes firmly in mind, along with a whole other host of fantasy genre expectations, I think anyone who goes into Dungeon Meshi un-spoiled probably expects Falin's rescue to be an endgame event; at least on a subconscious level, where you're not really thinking about it but in the back of your head you're already stretching out the story to place Falin firmly in the distance. Fire breathing dragon at the bottom of the dungeon is perfect final boss material, right? Slay the dragon. Rescue the princess.

And Falin is the perfect prize in the traditional old school fantasy that the concept of the titular dungeon is a send-up to. Blonde (white), soft-spoken, sweet-natured, beloved by everyone. An angelic figure.

Maybe that's why Ryoko Kui gave her white wings.

It is sort of jarring when chapter 23 rolls around and it's already time to fight the red dragon. And it takes a few chapters, but they succeed. And then Falin's impossible resurrection succeeds. But by then you guess that this is not going to be the story you expected it to be.

I want to point out that Falin spends a lot of time getting, well, babied, post-resurrection. Marcille washes her in the bath, despite Falin stating that she's capable of washing herself. Marcille schools her about her mana use despite Falin demonstrating that she is not hurting for mana, and brushes aside Falin's explanations. Both Marcille and Laios refuse to actually tell her what happened. Laios scruffs up her hair like she's a little kid and scolds her for something she can't remember doing. Marcille explicitly calls her a little kid when Falin tries to talk about how much she's grown.

Of course I'm not saying that Laios was wrong to act like a big brother, or that Marcille shouldn't be worried about taking care of her shell-shocked friend in the bath. But the framing of it clearly shows a Falin who is struggling to be heard.

If you'd like to address the big gay elephant in the room while we're here, I want to state for the record that- whether you read her as gay or not -I think Marcille is completely oblivious during this. Because Falin is her little friend from school. Her best friend, yes, but also the young tallman student she, in her infinite elven wisdom, had to mentor and look after. Marcille has not yet accepted that Falin is an adult now, nor has she accepted that she, herself, is only barely past teenagerhood developmentally and is not nearly as mature as she believes. Of course she'd scrub Falin in the bath and fuss over her.

Falin, meanwhile, seems more than aware of her own adult body and the inappropriate way Marcille is treating it.

The mana-sharing scene is, I think, Falin trying to get a little of her own back. How do you like it, Marcille?

And she tries again in bed.

Maybe she's wondering if their relationship will change now that they're grown ups. If Marcille prefers her as a little girl, or at least as a woman who lets herself be guided like one; if Marcille will react badly if Falin keeps trying to assert herself. She also might be subtly trying to signal to Marcille that bed sharing, like bathing, carries a different weight to it when you do it as adults rather than as children.

With all this in mind, the decision to turn Falin from the precious prize they rescued into to the vicious dragon they have to slay, hits a lot harder.

Falin with a powerful, monstrous, destructive body. Falin, who couldn't even stand to cause people pain from using healing spells, slaughtering half a dozen people in brutal ways. And that's not her, she's being mind-controlled, but as an object in the story she has completely flipped. From damsel to threat.

And I love that she carries a little bit of that with her when she's resurrected again.

Because she's no longer the girl who's going to let herself be stifled by her brother's and her best friend's co-dependency, no matter how much she loves them. She's different now: stronger, eyes open, forging her own path instead of following in their wake. Falin is still going to come back to them again, but this time it won't be because they chased her. It'll be because they let her go.

[nobodyfamousposts]

Do you think people cling on too much to Adrien's high road advice as a reason to salt on him?

Yes, especially when there are plenty of other reasons to salt him that have previously been ignored. But to that end, it DOES serve as the final straw for people after a SERIES of problems that had previously gone unaddressed.

Much like many aspects of the show, Adrien has displayed problematic behaviors that have been overlooked and waved off in the earlier seasons. This is likely or especially due to the way how in each and every incident, Adrien was narratively shown to be correct. In his stance. In his choices. In his behaviors. He was always right. It doesn't matter if he shouldn't be, because he is.

Now unless you're a hater or anti or salter or whatever negative name people tend to get for not liking a story as it's presented, readers and watchers tend to follow along with the narrative as it presents things and how it presents things. It's a common setup in any story. Protagonist Centered Morality, I feel framed best by Susan in the Discord series:

Susan: ...and then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.

Pretty much this. Most people will follow what the narrative says because it's the narrative. If the narrative wants you to focus on Marinette being embarrassed, you're going to focus on how much she's cringe. And if the narrative wants you to view Adrien as a perfect sunshine boy who never does anything wrong, anything he does is going to be framed through that lens and it's difficult to break from that view and call out the times when he is wrong. Not unless he does something particularly severe.

It should be noted that outside of Chameleon, Adrien had, among other things: lied to his partner, caused someone to get akumatized and had his partner take the blame, was messing around during life-threatening and city-threatening situations, did nothing as Chloe tormented people right in front of him, DEFENDED Chloe after she tormented people right in front of him, bailed on an event with friends to set up a date with someone who said she had other plans and then got mad at HER for it, tried to flirt or confess in the middle of an active crisis which took necessary attention away from said crisis, caused himself AND his partner to get hit by akuma powers and needlessly be taken out of commission.

And yet people could mostly overlook these instances. They weren't his fault. Chloe is his friend. Marinette is worse. He's just a kid. He has a tragic backstory. So on and so forth. Easy to overlook. Easy to ignore in favor of the Sunshine Boy setup people were given and want to believe in.

But there were three major instances that really grabbed people's attention and stayed:

His attitude in Frozer. It probably wouldn't have been so bad except this rejection already happened in Glaciator, where he was supposed to have learned a lesson and accepted just being Ladybug's friend and now apparently didn't, despite it happening earlier that very season. Then in response, he decides to date Kagami as a rebound, drags Marinette with him on his date (without realizing how he's asking his friend to be a third wheel on a DATE) and focuses on her when he's supposed to be with Kagami, throws another tantrum in the middle of an akuma fight and refuses to work with his partner when the city is literally frozen, and requires Ladybug to apologize to him for hurting his feelings before he finally working with her. Again. But okay, he's a teenage boy in love. Not used to rejection and got his feelings hurt. Lovesquare is endgame so of course it'll work out anyway, so it's not like this bump in the road is really going to matter long term so we shouldn't hold it against him. Fine. Dumb, but fine. We've forgiven it in other shows and other poorly done teen romances, we can forgive it here.

His behavior in Syren in which he demanded to know secrets from people when the secrets were not theirs to tell him, and went so far as to attempt to blackmail his kwami (which was funny) and threaten to quit and abandon the Ring that the big bad is after while the city is flooded and people were trying to not drown (which was decidedly less humorous). But it was played for wholesome when Plagg reassured him and he got what he wanted by Fu revealed himself even if Adrien did nothing to actually show he earned it, so all's well that ends well, I guess? And people could justify it because "they're partners" and "part of a team" and "she should trust him" and "it's not fair he's the only one left out of the loop" and "he has a right to know" and just general "Fu is an idiot" (which is admittedly hard to argue). So people were disgruntled, but most were willing to overlook it.

His holier than thou lecture to Marinette in Maledictator over everyone being happy Chloe was leaving. When all Marinette was doing at the time was watching everyone else have fun. When Adrien specifically guilted Marinette and not any of the other actual partiers involved who were literally throwing a party over his friend leaving and probably should have warranted a lecture more than the girl just standing there. When the girl in question was also Chloe's main target and out of everyone had valid reasons to be happy that her bully won't be around to bully her anymore. When Adrien himself has historically been present to witness Marinette being targeted including twice he witnessed Chloe attempt to steal from Marinette, once he witnessed her try to blackmail Marinette, and numerous other times when she actively caused harm to Marinette and others. When Adrien then proceeded to sit in a corner and pout rather than do anything else or just leave if the party really bothered him. When Adrien, if he really cared so damn much, could have gone after Chloe himself! Or y'know...have stood up for Chloe earlier when she got upset in the first place. But fine, okay, Chloe is his childhood friend. So maybe he's just being biased and oblivious to the fact that his "friend" is a horrible person. But people can excuse and justify it in that they are friends and friends support each other, and the longer someone is friends with someone else, the harder it is to break from them. And that Marinette was probably just the target of his lecture because she was the one there in the moment (and the only one who would listen without arguing). And her calling Chloe useless was "mean" despite it being quite frankly the least of what she could have said about her in the moment (coughcough theft cough blackmail cough punished the entire school cough TRIED TO CRASH A TRAIN AND NEARLY KILLED HER AND HER PARENTS COUGH-FREAKINGCOUGH). Fine. Childhood friend means Adrien supports her in all her horrible and even deadly actions. Frustrating, but again, able to be explained and you can see where he's coming from.

These are all things that definitely got Adrien some side eye at best and some detractors at worst.

BUT if you really think about it, all of these examples are objectively worse than his lecture to Marinette in Chameleon. Not accepting being told "no" and continuing to chase a girl who isn't that in to him (while leading on another). Putting lives at risk over personal wants that could quite honestly wait until AFTER the crisis is over. Defending someone who is harmful and guilt tripping the victims. Compared to those, telling someone to leave a liar to their lying seems relatively minor.

So why this? Why here? Why is it Chameleon that has people saying enough is enough? Why is it this episode that is causing the sunshine boy to be so tarnished and the subject of salt in fan fiction?

Because this is the time when it couldn't be rationalized. There wasn't even a valid sensible canon-based reason for his stance. The arguments that Adrien "knew confronting her wouldn't work" or that he "handled her like paparazzi" or that he "knew Marinette previously failed when she tried" (even though he wasn't there and didn't know) or that he "didn't think anyone would believe him" don't come from canon. Those were fan arguments made after the fact to justify him after the base was broken and the outcry became too much to ignore.

This case didn't have any of the ties or rationales of the previous incidents. Adrien wasn't defending himself or his place in a partnership. He wasn't fighting for his love or his dream or an outcome he wanted and that we all knew was coming—if anything, he was fighting against her. He wasn't defending a friend like he did with Chloe—I mean, it's pretty evident he doesn't even really know or like Lila at this point, and for all intents and purposes, this is apparently only the second day he actually had any interaction with her. There was no notable reason Adrien really had for why he essentially chose to protect Lila over literally anyone else as she wasn't a friend and it wasn't in his interests to protect her from a consequence that wouldn't hurt her short term as much as it would likely harm everyone else long term.

And yet, he still defended her and her freedom to lie. Over Marinette. Over Ladybug. Over his friends. Over any sense of right and wrong he seems to have no problem throwing around when it comes to Marinette/Ladybug. Which seems like he targets her 9 times out of 10 compared to pretty much anyone else by this point. So it's little wonder then that people who didn't already hate the lovesquare because of the cringe factor from Marinette started to hate it for being incredibly unhealthy given that their relatively limited interactions tend to involve him lecturing her for failing to live up to his double standards that only seem to apply to her in any given situation.

This incident by itself doesn't seem like much, but when looked at as part of the series as a whole, it's when people couldn't keep overlooking this trend. Where he seems to admonish the wrong person. Where he acts like a mouthpiece rather than a person. Talks like he’s wise in a situation he seems to have a childish and one-sided view of. Acts like a brat but is treated as though he has no accountability in the situation he causes. Where he is wrong but no one and certainly not the narrative acknowledges it (not until season five and two seasons too late when it doesn't matter and he's still not the one facing consequences for it).

And it's not like he actually follows the stances he himself promotes. In Chameleon, canon presents him with this idealistic stance that Lila could change if given a chance, except he doesn't give her a chance. He doesn't push her to be a better person. He doesn't support or in any way help her to be the better person he insisted to Marinette she could be. He also doesn't do anything or warn anyone when she keeps lying and actively harms the people he says he cares about. He doesn't do anything one way or the other other than some lackluster encouragement to stop lying and a warning that goes nowhere. It just further gives credit to the argument that Adrien either simply doesn't care about other people, or that he doesn't care for Marinette specifically. Neither is conducive to the lovesquare or the increasingly tarnished view of the "sunshine boy".

And it could have worked. Canonically and intrinsically to his character. His idealism and trust in the wrong person comes back to bite him. He learns and grows from it. Except that, much like with nearly everything he does in canon, Chameleon set it up that Adrien was the writers' mouthpiece and thus was not "wrong". I'll grant that they did have him admit it and apologize to Marinette for it two seasons later, but it is pretty evident that during Chameleon, they intended his lecture to be right, with no foreshadowing and no implication otherwise. And I'm fairly certain they only backtracked and had him do that much because of the amount of fan outrage over the episode.

So yes, I think his lecture in Chameleon was really a final straw since unlike Chloe, Adrien has NO relationship with Lila to justify his defense of her. Especially when the argument is in favor of letting her lie to the people he's supposed to care about. That combined with how jarring it was how most of the class just sided with Lila over the seat issue in the first place, and I think people were less inclined to just ignore the problems in the episode specifically and with the series as a whole as they were compared to the first and second seasons. Not just with Adrien, as we see that Alya also started getting more callout and salt since then as well as more retrospective scrutiny over her behavior in earlier seasons.

But yeah...Chameleon was where things seemed to take a 180, so it's bound to be the deciding episode and deciding incident that sticks out in people's minds with these characters. That's probably why it ends up the go-to for salt and complaints on the characters involved instead of any of the other incidents that would arguably warrant it more.

[luvclerc]

new man — cl

summary: when she moves onto a new man that so happens to be in the same industry as her ex

pairing: charles x yn / ex-max x yn

faceclaim: sana

liked by charles_leclerc, carlossainz55, and 3,384,928 others

youruser thank you paris 🤍

view all 45,827 comments

ynstagram face card never declines

yn4ever the post breakup glow is real

carlossainz55 thanks for the invite! ps somebody stole mine and charles lightstick

↳ charles_leclerc snatched right out of our hands smh

↳ fvrrari WHAT ARE THE FERRARI BOYS DOING HERE

ferraripitstop deuxmoi anon onto something

↳ sananna not you thinking deuxmoi is a credible source

lestappen not trying to start something but max never went to any of her concerts 👩🏻‍🦯

liked by carlossainz55, youruser, pierregasly and 3,294,082 others

charles_leclerc 24h in france 🇫🇷

tagged: youruser

view all 43,847 comments

sharleclerc THE LAST SLIDE

charles_leclerc last slide had to be posted quality 10/10

↳ youruser how is the quality so good???

verstappens why is max girl here

↳ redbvll wouldn’t be surprised if she cheated on max with charles

↳ charlos1655 you’re weird asf for this

↳ ynupdates they both already said their break up was mutual and nobody cheated so idk why you’re trying to start something

↳ ynupdates plus yn has said she’s single multiple times

liked by f1gossip and 12,827 others

f1gossip y/n l/n spotted with ex max verstappen at the redbull paddock amidst rumors of new romance with charles leclerc

tagged: youruser and maxverstappen1

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ynleclerc idk how i’m suppose to feel about this

luvstappen my parents 😭

redarri no longer a child of divorce 💃🏻

luvclerv literally pissed off with this whole situation.. for the past few months she was leading charles on just for her to get back with max

↳ forzacharles no forreal if she wasn’t ready to move on she should’ve never led another guy on

dailyyn now post the pictures where yn was with charles and max instead of trying to start drama

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f1gossip charles leclerc spotted spending his winter break with rumored gf y/n l/n

tagged: youruser, charles_leclerc

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dailyleclerc this is a soo.. but if he’s happy then good for him

lestappen155 when a red flag meets another red flag

yndailyupdates wasn’t going to ship but nvm they look good together

maxnyn max and yn both moving on 😭 my parents are never getting back together

haasferrari after everything please let them be endgame

ynlnfan to everyone talking bad about this relationship, if max has no problem with them dating then you shouldnt either

lightingsharl refuse to believe anything is official until they post something

liked by maxverstappen1, lewishamilton, carlossainz55, youruser and 4,837,928 others

charles_leclerc endlessly in love with you

tagged: youruser

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ynncharles MOM AND DAD

yoursyn officially my favorite couple

maxverstappen1 im the one who set them up

↳ youruser greatly appreciate it maxie

youruser love you 🤍

estebanocon number 1 fan

carlossainz55 it’s me the designated third wheel

scuderiabull brb taking a shower with my toaster

liked by charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1,landonorris, and 3,293,997 others

youruser i have an unhealthy obsession with his dimples

tagged: charles_leclerc

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charles_leclerc and im obsessed with you 😍

↳ maxverstappen1 brb throwing up

maxverstappen1 give me pic creds for the last photo thxs!

↳ redscurderia healthy breakups >>>

yndaily WE LOST HER

landonorris what about my dimples

↳ carlossainz55 i love them

[drawlody]

My list of Adam ships♡ n my opinion bout them (also fics rec :D)

Adam x Luicfer (Adamsapple/Duitarduck) 10/10

Need i say more:)))??!?! started out as a "haha funny slip-up ship" to "hey they got really good angst potential". The friends/lovers to enemies to lovers is STRONG with this one n i am eating up everything i could found on ao3. Smth bout this macho-ass man finally getting to stay back n not take charge for once feel nice, also princess Adam supermacy wooooo. Whoever came up with the ship name i applaud u cause that's like a 3 layers name(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

It's not an Adamsapple fic without Adam having at least 1 mental breakdown n Lucifer have his guilt eating him alive:)))

Very fucked up torture but i swear it worth the pain:D The dove is so dead it start to rot so plz read the tags properly (plz check out the AngeliaDark other works too they got good shit)

This one have a splits so check out both the fics (beware the author have a skrewed sense of what is considered wholesome:))))

I didnt think a smut scene could be this sad

Adam x Lute (Guitarspear/Guardrock) 10/10

Litteraly my first Hazbin ship, assholes in love is an underrated dynamic we desperately need more off:))) That with a dash of evil dude x loyal subordinate (which i havent seen since the Deathglare days) n opposite attract (look they have one main thing in common is that their extreme bloodthirst, other than that she's stricter than ur mom n he's lazier than the Sloth ring itself but that the beauty of it no? He convince her to chill tf out n not to burst a blood vessel, she keep him on track n make sure Sera dont come on their asses)

They're just being silly enabling each other terrible behaviour n i love that for them (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) Litteral besties i tell ya

Heavy non-con shit involving Val but Lute will revenge our boi i promised u that

Cool idea n they r just made for each other damn

First hazbin fic i read which is a really cool smut:D

Adam x Micheal (we need a ship name people ) (update: it's Songbird/Guitarhero) 10/10

I like how we dont even got a proper comfirmation of Micheal design/personality yet the ship is here already ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ( im using the Nakariiale's design as a base here love their design)

Hit me with that rebound love x "u look like my ex so im using u as a replacement but ill fall for the real u eventually" x co-workers in heaven. I'm thinking smth along the line of "after Lucifer fucked off with Lilith, Micheal became Adam guardian angel n they just hang out" ya feel me here? (✿◕‿◕✿)

Shout out to Bloog_b for dragging me into this ship:DDD also im on the Adam x the archangels ship as a "gotcha" to Lucifer of sort. Like bitch u stole my wives imma steal your brotherS

Look it's Adamsapple endgame but trust me u will be feed well on this ( u know how good u gotta be for people to ditch the main ship?)

I'm giving yall 4 fics here cause i can only found 4 rn(._. )

this one is uhh non-con so beware

Micheal is indeed Adam guardian angel in this one:D

Adam x Eve (Flowertunes) 8/10

I dont care what yall said they love each other throughout Eden n Earth , might have a falling out in heaven but that doesnt change the fact that they were once IN LOVE. Honestly why cant we just have a couple that have the same bright-eyed innocence like one another.I refuse to believe Eve like willingly cheat on Adam with malicious intent n all, simply she was indeed ''tricked'' or just not fully understand the sistuation, n Adam love her way too much to think that she would do that to him like Lilith. Hell the dude was heartbroken after L left , starting the abandonment issues, so he would have cling to Eve, doing everything so that he aint alone again, even if that mean leaving Eden

Honestly it pisses me off that the Adam/Eve tag on ao3 most of the time is just 1 dialouge between them back when Eve bit the apple n thats it no elaboration on the couple whatsoever >:(((

Lots of switcharoos

sinner eve woooo

look its hard trynna find a fic focusing on them ok?

Adam x St. Peter (Guitargreeter (bet ya didnt see that coming:))) 7/10

Base on this fanfic alone Joe my dude u r on the path of becoming THE Adam crack-ship writer n i am here for this:)))) just so u wait this dude gonna whip out a AdamxNifty , AdamxHusk fic later on ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

From within the fic itself the ship its 2 bros in love with homophobia standing in the way >:( also when did we have a name?!?!?!?

I just like Adam x anyone in heaven alright:D like bro famous n he got that ancient rizz, u telling mr he cant bag a hottie or 2-100+ hmm?

Adam x Alastor (Angelicradio) 8/10

I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT ABOUT THEM THAT I SHIP I JUST DO φ(゜▽゜*)♪ i blame YOU honestly rn this ship is either Adam found Al after the fight n they make a deal or they're in heaven n they chillin this ship is confusing:D

They're angels on heaven

Adam gone back into eden n do shit differently

This is both Adam/Eve n Adam/Alastor kinda

Adam x Alastor x Lucifer (Angelicradioapple/ Charlie's dads (only me call them that lol)) 9/10

''Hey Charlie u know how u r sad that your mother left? Wellllllll i got you 2 new dads suprise:DDDD''

Look 3 miserable men who hate each other + hell's greatest dad + my love for Dadam = Messy ass old men yaoi :DDDD n it work perfectly with Alastor Asexuality too!!! Like Adam n Lucifer could fuck each other brains out before Al joining in for the cuddles lol

Chaos ensue

Not exactly a love triangle but a love corner but hey we barely got food here :D

I cant believe how hot this shit is lol

Adam x Eve x Lilith x Lucifer (Eden poly/ applecore?) 8/10

They could have been all married to each other(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ But as much as i go "OooOooo Poly yay'' i just cant vibe with EvexLucifer, like the cheating vibes is wayyyyyyyyy too much i just cant man . I mean with the interpetation that Lucifer came to Eden to hang out with the humans they all know eachother, they're a throuple yes but BUT when Eve came into the picture it was only with Adam n him only so the other 2 is ehhhh. Im fine with EvexLilith cause im seeing it happening later, not hidden from Adam while LuciferxEve got that deception going on .So uhhh in this ship they're more like bestie than lovers to me¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also AdamxLilith is an underrated pairing like everytime i saw this applecore thing going on these 2 r at most tolerate each other like cmonnnnn we already twist this to hell n back, why cant we make it so their arguement was a petty non-malicious one n they still cares for each other hmm???

They're one happy family

IDK what to tell u bittersweet reunion n loving family is the only typa fic u get with this ship

Not that im complaining i need this wholesomeness

Adam x Mammon (Adammon/Madam/Greedyguitar/ 1st chirstmas.... hasnt had an offical name yet) 10/10

They r litteraly same person different font idk what to tell u. More insults thrown around than Guitarspear but they're pretty similar. Adam is just " sinners suck ass but this dude is the worst in the best way". Also they're both big bois (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ , they love towering over others

I'm sorry but there r barely BARELY

any fics of them :(

The art side is more plentiful tho :D

Adam x Angel Dust (Holydust/guitardust) 5/10

THEY ARE BESTIES YOUR HONOUR n that the exact reason why i cant see them be together as a couple 100%, like the shit-talking bff vibes r wayyyy too strong XD Angel finally got someone who have the same vulgar humour as him n if Adam got married in hell Angel would 100% be his best bitch of honour (≧∀≦)ゞq(≧▽≦q)

They're best friends who have casual no-string attached sex that is ACTUALLY no-string attached:)))

I came to ship them due to those "What if they're co-workers under Val' scenarios ive been seeing on Tumblr

I got like 1 fic on ao3 i mean if u r looking for just platonic friendship between them then rest asure most Adam's redemption fics have that

I got 1 fic on tumblr

Adam x Charlie (Charadam/Guitarprincess) 5/10

U know this ship give me a pretty bad first impression since a good chunk of the fics r either heavy non-con shit or lean wayyyyy to much into the daddy kink, ya know how Charlie got suppose daddy issues n all that jazz?:))) yeah that... that

But after seeing the art side of this ship im chillin with them now, since the art r pretty wholesome, usually having them decked out in punk-rock clothings hanging out. It's a big "Fuck you" to Lucifer n i live for these mf argueing ╰(*°▽°*)╯

So uhhh stay away from the fics if ya want an actual functional couple instead of wtv messed up shit we got there:))) But here's a fic anyway, the only one where it feel bearable n actual trynna go into said messed up relationship i already warn you

We got cracks like Guitarmaid (AdamxNifty), Valadam (AdamxVal) which i dont have enough materials to decied, Classicalrock (AdamxSera) sound interesting but also havent found anything , Guitarhalo (AdamxEmily) is an unexpected find, find i deem them to be more familial than romantic so we'll see if there's a fic good enough to convince me

Edit:i forgot to add Blitzo like Mammon already there why did i forgot

Adam x Blitzo (i dont think anyone even ship this but me:)) 7/10

I cant find a single fic where they has anything more than a 1 nightstand n 1 interaction where they hit it off , i live off imagination alone (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) but like fr fr they would match so well, like their bloodlust n general jerkiness would make them the 3rd asshole x asshole ship on this list :DDDD

Tho as much as i wanna see them go further i feel like an on-n-off relationship/friends with benefits fit em more ya know ( *^-^)ρ(*╯^╰) If ya have any fic but the 2 here that have them interact lemme know cause a bitch need food :)

This is a lot of tag(._. )