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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years ago

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Bent, not broken 2

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape; violence; injury; blood; drugging, tags to be added throughout series.

This is a dark!fic and features the winter soldier and Captain Hydra x reader and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: An attack leads to the uncovering of decades old secrets when you are taken by the deadliest assassin in the world

Note: Thank you all for your patience with this :) So happy to get part 2 out!

Thanks to everyone for reading and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 As usual, I’d appreciate if you let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

The man with the metal arm brought you a set of plain grey clothes. It was the type of shapeless linen given to patients in a long-term facility or inmates at a prison. When you struggled to lift your right shoulder over your head and winced as your ribs throbbed, he helped you get into the long-sleeved shirt, pulling the fabric down gruffly and backing away.

You shoved your feet into the rubber shoes, and held your arm across your middle, as you stood with shoulders curled forward pathetically. You hobbled to the door as he beckoned to you. You were reluctant to leave the room, fearful of a worse prison ahead. You didn’t have much choice in the matter; resistance was a ridiculous idea given your injuries.

As it was, you were still too hazy with shock and pain to even think of doing anything other than what you were told. You only hoped that you would have a moment to lay down again. Standing up was torture, even just breathing, and those fleeting moments of sleep were your only relief.

The halls stretched on and on. The twists and turns seemed counterintuitive as he led you along and when you didn’t walk fast enough, he grabbed your arm and dragged you along. You limped and tripped several times but he hardly noticed as he kept his eyes forward.

He brought you out into the sombre grey evening and the gulp of cold air was like a slap in the face. You didn’t know how long it was since you last felt the outside, but it made you tear up. The subtle chill tickled your nose and sent a shiver up your neck. It didn’t feel real, not after the stifling stillness of that white room.

He ushered you over to the boxy black vehicle and opened the backdoor. He nudged you and pointed inside. You looked at him and then around at the barren dirt. You braced the side of the doorframe and grunted as you tried to climb up into the backseat. You gasped and dropped back onto the ground and touched your ribs.

He sniffed and you flinched as his hand came up under your ass and he pushed you up and into the car. You groaned and landed heavily across the seat and kept yourself from sliding onto the floor. You turned back just as he slammed the door.

You coughed and reclined against the seat. You watched him climb in the front, a clear barrier between the front and back of the vehicle. The engine turned and hummed as he played with the controls. A screen above the dash lit up and showed coordinates on a map as several switches lit up below.

The jeep began to move as he steered mechanically away from the building. You peeked back at the grey brick and stretched your legs out as you leaned on the door. You rocked with the motion of the wheels but each jolt made you whimper. You closed your eyes and quelled the panic bubbling in your stomach.

You knew it couldn’t be good. None of it was. Waking up in that closet, being locked up in that white room, and now, your unknown destination hardly meant a mysterious fate. The Captain’s leer returned to you and his ominous words. The way he ordered the masked man around like a dog worried you more.

When you next opened your eyes, just about to doze off, you heard a subtle buzz through the barrier. Next to the screen, a phone was propped up and the timer counted up the minutes in the call. You couldn’t read what you assumed was Russian Cyrillic and you couldn’t quite hear the words coming from the speaker.

You sighed and it caused a stab in your ribs. You closed your eyes again and opted to try to cling onto your fatigue. It wouldn’t matter if you could hear the conversation, likely one-sided as it was, or if you could figure out where that little blinking tag on the map was. None of it made a difference. You could be certain you would not escape those men.

★

Mountains rose with sun through the slits of your eyelids. You batted away the sleepiness and shifted as you looked around at the rocky landscape, the road ahead steep and winding as the tires gripped the dirt. The angle of your ascent made your stomach flip and you leaned into the corner more heavily.

When the terrain plateaued, the mist thick around you, you dared to move and craned to peer around at the obscured lands below. The man drove on along the trail, just wide enough for the wide military vehicle and steered into the open mouth of a cave hidden between tall rocks jutting out from the mountain face.

The darkness consumed all but the glowing screen and symbols in the front of the vehicle and when the tires crunched to a halt, you sat up cautiously. The lights all went out and the front door opened and closed. The door behind you swung open and the rigid metal grip pulled you out.

Your feet hit the ground harshly and you stumbled against the man’s unwavering posture. The door shut and he sidled you ahead of him between the metal and stone. You couldn’t see in the suffocating blackness of the cave but he walked on without hesitation. His hold on your arm was the only guide you had.

He stopped as the air grew sharp and startlingly cold. Your teeth chattered and you heard the shift of rock against rock. A glowing blue oval appeared, as if floating, and he covered it with his thumb. A low rumble came from deep in the mountain and suddenly the slate before you shifted and a wall of light shone over you.

He shoved you through the door and followed, the metal door sliding closed as the rock wall on the other side clattered back into place. You looked up and down the hallway. The walls were constructed of metal sheets and the atmosphere was just as sterile as that before. Each door was thick and firmly shut, a keypad set into the wall by every frame.

The metal finger pointed you ahead of the masked man and you staggered down the long hall. He led you from behind, a right turn and then to the end. The only open door led to a peculiarly cozy room. The walls were made of rippled wood and lent the air of a cabin as the fireplace burned with artificial flames. There was a long sofa and two plaid armchairs, and the place was decorated like a real home.

Your eyes were drawn to the walnut bar in the corner where the lone figure stood. The Captain no longer sported his helmet or combat suit but wore a pale blue cable knit sweater. He smirked at you as he swirled the dark liquor in a round-bellied bottle and sniffed the neck.

“About time,” he said to the man behind you.

The masked man poked you and grabbed your elbow. He brought you to the bar and pulled a stool close to you. You couldn’t climb up on your own and so he lifted you and plunked you down. He perched on another as the Captain ordered him to.

“You look confused,” the Captain said coolly, “why wouldn’t you be? I can only assume the breadth of explanation offered by my companion.” He winked at the other man who only glared back above his black mask, “he doesn’t say much but you can call him Bucky, he might answer to it.”

He took a slender shot glass and filled it with the nearly black liquid. He turned it slowly and tilted his head as he eyed it. He put the bottle down and leaned an arm on the bar as he watched you.

“Soldat, maybe,” he offered, “he’s a good soldier. And you already know who I am, but sir will suffice.”

You frowned and glanced between him and the other man; Bucky, soldat, whatever he was. Steve chuckled and lifted the shot. He held it up until you looked at it and just as quickly, knocked it back and hissed as he slammed the glass back down.

“You see, me and him, we have different variants of the serum. Similar enough, one of the things we have in common being our tolerance for alcohol. But this…” he flicked the top of the bottle, “a couple shots and the edge starts to blur. If someone like you were to take just a sip, well, you’d be on your ass.”

You shook your head, not quite catching his point. He inhaled and poured another shot. He put it in front of the soldat.

“Loosen up, will ya?” he chided.

The dark-haired man squinted and stared at the glass. He reached up with one hand and took off the mask. He revealed a square jaw and chiseled cheekbones. He drained the shot in a single robotic motion but when he brought the glass back down, it shattered against the bar.

“He has issues with… restraint,” Steve said, “to him, a knock in the head is like a peck on the lips. He doesn’t feel it. If he can’t feel, how can he know what others can?”

“I don’t…” you sniffed.

“He could’ve killed you. He almost did by the looks of it, but he didn’t,” he continued, “there are flickers in him… little things left behind from who he once was, but I don’t think it was mercy.”

You chewed your lip and stayed silent. You took a breath and once more wracked your tender ribs. You folded your arms around you and grimaced.

“Yeah, hurts, doesn’t it?” he taunted, “unfortunately for us, you’ll need lots of rest if you don’t wanna puncture a lung.”

“What do you… mean?” you regretted asking the moment the question was out. It was a dumb question.

He raised his brows and the scar across his eye paled. He rubbed his forehead and chuckled. His blue eyes wandered for just a moment to the plain gray cotton along your shoulders and he shrugged.

“Look, you don’t wanna do this now,” he said, “so I suggest…” he reached under the bar and revealed a bottle of wine then a stemmed glass, “you get comfortable,” he turned and searched the slim drawer at the top, “and try not to think too much.”

He put an orange bottle of pills down beside the glass and filled the crystal. He pushed the wine towards you and uncapped the bottle. He placed two tablets beside the base and popped the lid back on.

“It will help with the pain,” he assured you, “and it will make it easier to get settled in.”

“I… I don’t what these are,” you scoffed as you pointed at the pills.

“I wouldn’t poison you. I could end it a lot quicker than that,” he tisked, “so, accept my generosity or I’ll shove it down your throat.”

You blanched and stared at him. The other man, Bucky, stood and stopped you from reaching for the wine. Steve looked at him in amusement and watched him jab a finger towards his chest.

“I’m helping her,” Steve said flatly, “but if you have an easier way, by all means.”

Bucky lowered his chin and closed his eyes. He sat and turned to you. He took the pills and held them out to you. You scooped them up shakily and he swiped up the wine, hovering it just before you. You shoved the pills in your mouth and accepted the wine.

His eyes focused on your lips as you sipped and he glanced back at Steve. He put his hand flat in the air, a blunt gesture. The blond laughed and raised his palms defensively.

“He wants me to leave you alone now,” he snickered, “go on then, Buck, find her a bed.”

The soldier stood and waited for you to do the same. You left the wine half-finished and he ushered you back to the door. As he reached it, Steve’s voice rose again.

“Shouldn’t worry so much about me hurting her, soldat,” he called mockingly, “you do that well enough.”

He prodded you through the door and growled under his breath. He directed you down to the corner and pressed his thumb to the keypad. The door slid up suddenly and you flinched. He blocked the doorway behind you as you entered and looked around at the bedroom. Everything you needed awaited you within those walls and if you weren’t in the middle of a mountain, it would seem an entirely ordinary place.

You turned back but all you saw was the metal descend and close you in. You stared at it for a moment then went to the bed. You sat and rubbed your temples. You could feel the pills dredging up your mind and the wine curdling in your stomach. Sleep was tempting as it was your only choice.

★

When you woke next, you felt an odd presence. The room was dark but it was that feeling you got as a child when you left the closet door open and conjured monstrous creatures watching from within.

You groaned as you propped yourself up on one elbow and reached to the switch above the headboard that turned on the lamps on the side table. The room lit up and you crooked as you found a visitor in your corner.

It was the soldat, his mask back in place as he stood and watched you. You blinked and looked at the door. It was firmly shut. You kept the blanket over you like a shield as you sat up and tried not to show your fear.

“Hi,” you said softly, “are you… okay?”

His blue eyes searched you but gave nothing away. The mask and the curtain of his hair shrouded his emotion. You just stared back in silence as his lashes flicked subtly, his irises moving up and down the bed. He took a step closer and you winced, squeezing the edge of the blankets.

He neared and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. He grabbed the top of the blanket and tugged until you let them go. You quivered as he pushed your shoulders down and you were forced flat with your head on the pillows. You gulped and the movement of your throat caught his gaze.

His metal fingers tickled along your neck and sent a chill down your spine. His hand continued down the front of your shirt and he pushed the hem up as the blanket bunched beneath your stomach. You latched onto it in a panic and he tore your hands away. He pressed them to the bed beside you until you went limp.

He raised your shirt higher and framed your ribs with his hands, feeling carefully along your bruised torso. When you exclaimed he retracted his hands and pulled your shirt back down roughly. He shook his head and his brows slanted.

His metal fingertips tapped on his thigh as he thought. You laid frozen on the mattress as his forehead wrinkled and he angled his head as if arguing with himself. His hand shifted suddenly and closed around yours. You let him lift it, terrified to anger him.

He reached to unhook his mask and set it in his lap. He brought your hand to his cheek and leaned his face into your palm as he bent over you. You felt the short stubble stabbing your palm. He took your hand away and swung it back towards him sharply so that you smacked him stiffly.

You stared at him in confusion and he did it again. Then he let your hand go and pointed at his cheek and nodded. You dropped your hand and did nothing. His blue eyes turned to daggers and his jaw squared. He balled his hand and punched his leg in frustration.

He huffed and picked up his mask. He stood and put it back on. He waved his fingers at you dismissively and stomped to the door. He pressed his thumb to the small indent and it slid open before him. When the door shut, you left the lights on.

Even with the drugs still coursing through you, sleep didn’t seem likely.

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sherrybaby14 · 5 years ago

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Brick House

Request: Reader is a new Shield agent and has a huge crush on Steve. Bucky is resentful of all the attention Steve gets and decides to take his pent up jealousy out on you.

Warnings: Smut, slight breeding, Dub-con please do not read if this offends you.

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Words: 2k Just a drabble

A/N: This is for my Darling @opheliadawnwalker3. Sorry it took me so long! Also you’re a shield agent in this so there are mentions of working-out/being in good shape (which I am not).

“You have such amazing definition.” She grabbed Steve’s bicep. “You really have to share your routine.”

“Well I do…”. Steve trailed off as he went into his workout.

Bucky shook his head in disbelief. Not at the fact that his best friend was so oblivious that the new agent was into him, Bucky knew Steve was dense in that department. No, what shocked him was that Steve was the one to grab her attention.

“Maybe you could walk me through it?” She was practically twirling her hair as she tilted her head. “It sounds complicated.”

Bucky scoffed. Playing dumb? No way she couldn’t follow that step-by-step from the simple explanation. Hell, she probably had better work out tips than Steve did.

“How about in an hour?” Steve looked at his watch. “I’ll meet you at the gym?”

“Great.” She clapped her hands. “I’ll see you there. Better come ready to push me to my limit.”

“It’s not about pushing limits.” Steve scratched his head. “You need to start small and build mass.”

“Right.” She nodded and Bucky chuckled. “I’ve got a lot to learn and who better to teach me?”

“How much do you weigh?” Steve looked her up and down. “It’ll help me come up with a plan best suited for you.”

“Come on man,” Bucky muttered under his breath. “She’s a freaking Shield agent. She knows how to lift.”

Besides, agent or not you dont ask someone their weight.

“Guess?” She turned to the side. “You can pick me up and find out strong man?”

Her confidence was hot, Bucky’s cock twitched at the thought of throwing her over his shoulder and slapping that ass.

“I’d never be able to tell.” Steve shrugged. “I can literally lift a car. You’d feel like a feather to me.”

“Yep.” She was trying not to roll her eyes. “Well, see you at the gym.”

She turned on her heel and started to walk away. Bucky let his eyes go to her butt, loving the way it almost bounced with each step. He wanted to sink his teeth into it.

“How much do you think she weighs?” Steve interrupted his thoughts as he pointed to the girl.

“The new agent?” Bucky straightened up. “She’s a brick house.”

“Huh?” Steve furrowed his brow. “She wants me to help her with a workout plan.”

Steve had that part right, but the girl obviously was more interested in the kind that took place in the bedroom than a gym. A woman like that would grow bored with a man like Steve. Bucky had a better idea of what she needed, so he didn’t bother tipping his dense friend off as he slapped him on the back.

“She’s mighty mighty, letting it all hang out.” Bucky didn’t need to look at Steve to know the reference was lost on him.

“You know,” you paused to take a gulp of air. “All this training. I think I need to stretch.”

You were panting on the treadmill as the gorgeous blonde looked up at you.

“We stretched at the beginning, we will again at the cool down.” He looked at the timer on the treadmill. “Two more minutes.”

Was he that oblivious or just an idiot? You went back to panting as you ran down the clock. You were already a freaking agent! Did he not think that you had to pass some physical tests to get that title?

At this point you’d settle for him shutting you down. Maybe it was you? Were you not being obvious enough? It was time for a Hail Mary. You grabbed the bottom of your shirt and tugged it over your head, tossing it to the front.

Your breasts bounced in your sports bra and you tried your best to show them off as you ran. Steve still was more interested in the clock. Was he gay? You’d been flirting with him for weeks now.

If he wasn’t the least bit interested in you then why did he keep dropping little hints? Were they hints at all? All the water in your body had either sweated out or gathered in your pussy thinking about Captain America fucking you against the mats.

It was tempting to just come out and ask him ‘hey, you wanna bone?’. That wouldn’t leave room for these mixed messages.

“Finished.” Steve hit the slow down on the machine. “Now walk it out.”

This was a dumb idea. You put your hands on your hips as you slowed your strut, breathing and pushing down on the cramps in your side. Then a hand touched the small of your back, fingers spreading wide.

“You did great.” Steve’s sparkling blues looked into your eyes. “I am really impressed.”

That was all it took and you were smitten again. Your knees went weak and your pussy tingled thinking about the way he could flip you around. Drive between your thighs. Whatever game he was playing, the outcome would be worth it.

“How about that stretch now?” He guided you off the treadmill.

Your legs would’ve been like jello from the workout, but having Steve guide your sweaty body down on the mat was making you quake. No way were you reading into this wrong. He was just a giant tease after all.

“This should feel good.” He grabbed your leg and bent your knee, pushing it to your chest. “I’m going to put some weight on it. Tell me if you can’t handle it?”

Your mind was racing with the fantasy. Steve would lean over your body, his face over yours, your lips inches away. Then the kiss.

“Hate to interrupt.” Bucky’s face appeared behind Steve. “But Tony need you right away.”

“Alright.” Steve dropped your leg and popped up. “Don’t let your muscles stiffen up. Use the wall to do some of the stretches we started off with.”

“WHAT?” You popped up on your elbows, ready to lose any sense of cool you’d been carrying.

“Don’t worry.” Bucky dropped to his knees and grabbed yours, his metal hand pushing you back into the mat with a thud. “I’ve got you Doll.”

“Doll?” You didn’t get the word out before Bucky was pushing your knee into your chest, his body on top of yours, his face hovering above.

“Thanks Buck.” With that Steve left the gym.

You let out a frustrated sigh and dropped your head against the mat.

“Don’t get mad at him.” Bucky brought your attention back. “He doesn’t know any better, but I do.”

“Huh?” Were you being that obvious.

“Don’t play coy.” Bucky put more weight on your leg. “I see you, the way you touch him every chance you get, make up excuses for his help, you shouldn’t play dumb like that Doll. It’s beneath you.”

Embarrassment started to set in. Did everyone notice your crush? You had been finding excuses to get his help, and Bucky was right, it was beneath you. But Steve’s constant teasing and mixed signals had messed with your head.

“No need to worry that pretty little head.” Bucky’s hand slid down so they were on either side of you. “You’re just cock drunk. I can take care of that.”

Before you could think about what he was saying his hips pressed down. The position had left you so exposed his hard dick pressed right against your pussy.

“FUCK!” You reached up and grabbed his shoulders as a shiver of need went through you.

“All that time you thought Steve was teasing you?” Bucky brought his hips back and pressed himself against you, sliding up again. “It was you teasing me.”

You’d never said a word to the man. You tried to think about how to respond, but then he repeated the motion and you let out a moan. The workout and the fantasies had you soaked and needy.

“Cock drunk?” You dug your fingers into his arms, the cool metal contrasting the warm flesh.

“You’re so horny you can’t think straight baby.” Bucky started moving faster, humping you into the mat. “I’ll take care of that. You’ll go right back to rising shield star.”

“I don’t know you.” You started to push against him, your arms shoving him away, while your hips lifted to meet his thrust.

“You will know every part of me soon.” His head dipped, lips crashing into yours.

A muffled protest came out against his kiss, but your body lit up. He was a stranger, your were in a public place anyone could walk in on at any second, but fuck you did not care.

Any sense of defense melted away as you returned the kiss, rocking your body against his, rubbing your aching clit against his cock as he pounded you through your shorts.

He worked against you, sensing your agreement. Your hands slid to his shoulders around his neck. This was a real man, no games, no questions. He was going to give you what you wanted.

Bucky pressed his forehead to yours and put more weight on you, his metal hand pushed your knee to the side and you put both feet on the mat, your legs spread around him as he humped you. Both bodies working together.

“I’m gonna cum.” Your chest tightened.

“I know.” Bucky licked his lip.

That was it. All it took. The tension in your body overloaded and you exploded. The ecstasy took over. You weren’t sure if you were screaming, quiet, or mumbling.

Bucky was off of you before you could recover. Hands were on your hips and you were flipped around like a rag doll. You put your palms on the mat as he tore your shorts and bottoms away.

“That head is still spinning isn’t it?” Bucky’s member ran up and down your slit as you nodded. “Don’t worry. Daddy’s going to fuck some sense back into you little girl.”

Why did that sound so hot? You had no clue, but let out a purr in response. He filled you with one hard stroke. You knew you should be embarrassed by how wet you were, but your pussy clung to him, happy to have the fullfilment it had been lacking.

“This is what you need, to be fucked raw.” Bucky wasted no time railing into you, making you bounce against the mat. “Next time, take what you need. Don’t waste your time.”

You were drooling as you tried to keep up with his brutal pace. Another orgasm already forming. He slowed down and you whined.

“Do you understand Doll?” Bucky pushed hard and stilled inside of you, his cock against your cervix.

“Yes!” You lifted your head. “Yes I understand!”

You tried to move against his length, but he put his hand on your back, keeping you in place.

“Yes I understand?”

“Daddy! Yes I understand Daddy!” You didn’t know why he wanted to hear that, but you were beyond caring.

SMACK! His metal hand hit your ass and your cried out.

“That’s a good girl.” He began plowing into you again. “I’ll have you taken care of in no time.”

“Yes...yes...please.” You were a mess underneath him, with no care in the world but the finish that was bubbling over. “You’re good girl. I’m your good girl.”

“That’s right.” Bucky’s hand snaked down between your legs. “And my good girl, takes. What. She. Needs.”

His finger pressed your bundle of nerves and you began to spasm. Wave after wave of pleasure flooded your veins. You struggled to breath as you collapsed on the mat, your vision going black while your toes curled.

“FUCK!” Bucky grunted and fell on top of you, his cock convulsing inside, coating you with his seed.

Your eyes started to open as you thought clearly for what felt like the first time in weeks.

“I’m not on the pill.” You started to shimmy away.

“Shhhh.” Bucky pulled you back and rested on top of you. “You let Daddy worry about that.”

A/N: My first attempt at adding a Daddy!kink. Hope it landed OK, thank you for reading!!

#Bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction

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captain-s-rogers · 4 years ago

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Have A Little Faith In Me

(gif credit to the creator)

Part Three

Master List

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC // Clint Barton x OFC Word Count: 2,527 Warnings: none? A/N: Here’s the third part of the rewrite of my first ever Marvel series! Special thanks to the best bestie in the world, @arrowsandmixtapes , for making sure all of my work isn’t absolute garbage! If you want to be added to my tag list please let me know! Feedback is cool :)

Sophia lost track of how many times she listened to Steve’s message over the next few days as her head and heart battled each other. Though she wanted to call him back, at least hear out his explanation, she refused to return the phone call and be the girl who caves to a guy only because he’s good-looking.

“You could just call him back, ya know,” Lucy mentioned, as casually as possible, while the two women were having lunch.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sophia speared a cucumber in her salad and crunched into it, pretending to be innocent of the subject at hand while also trying to convince herself that good looks was all she had seen in Steve the night of the public event.

Lucy reached across the table and snatched Sophia’s phone. Sophia tried to stop her, but she wasn’t quite quick enough.

“Sophia, it’s Steve. Steve Rogers. I’m so sorry about not making our date tonight. Something important came up and I couldn’t get out --”

Sophia ignored Lucy’s knowing look, set down her fork and leaned over the table to snatch her phone back. She cut off the message and shoved the phone back in her purse. She went back to her salad as though she hadn’t practically crawled over the table in a public place.

“I can’t call him back,” Sophia stated. “In case you forgot, Luce, he stood me up, then gave a vague, thoughtless excuse. Aren’t you the one who told me that men are only vague when they’re lying?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I said most guys. And anyway, is sitting here, repeatedly listening to the message and driving yourself absolutely insane, really any better than calling the guy back and going on one little date?”

“Yes.”

Lucy shook her head, taking a bite of her own salad. Since Sophia had apparently dug her heels in on the matter, she took the conversation in a slightly different direction.

“You know, Colin in marketing has had his eye on you for a while. Why don’t you accept his offer?”

“Because I’m not looking for a date,” Sophia replied. “It’s not like I’m lonely and looking for someone to save me from my misery. Steve just so happened to ask me out in a moment of weakness -- I was in the mood to go out, that’s all.”

Lucy took the last bite of her salad before wiping her mouth. “I’m not saying you have to marry Colin or even accept more than one date with him. But, Colin doesn’t seem like he’s looking for anything super serious, either. Maybe going out with him will at least get you to delete Steve’s voicemail so you can move on with your life.”

Sophia leaned back in her chair and huffed. Lucy always had her best intentions at heart, and that motivated Sophia to give what her friend was saying a moment of real consideration. Maybe Lucy was right; maybe Sophia needed to go out with someone else to get over the nothing she’d had with Steve.

“Fine, I’ll go out with Colin,” Sophia relented, drawing a grin from Lucy across the table, “Next time he asks me out, I’ll say yes, but I am not going to seek him out.”

“That’s fair. I do really think it will be good for you.” Lucy leaned forward and gave her friend a comforting smile.

Sophia assured Lucy that she knew her friend had good intentions. With a plan in place, Sophia was able to finish her lunch without Lucy pressing any more on the subject of men and dating.

Steve couldn’t think of anything or anyone else except for Sophia and the fact that she hadn’t returned his call. He threw himself into work, even going so far as to ask Director Fury for extra missions with S.H.I.E.L.D -- ones he really wasn’t needed on -- but the distraction failed. Though he knew that she had to be upset about being stood up, and rightfully so, he had been so sure that she would call back.

Calling again crossed his mind, but he didn’t want to bother her or press the issue if she didn’t want to call him back. Their time together at the public event had been short, but Steve knew that they could be a good thing. Missing his date with her had left him missing out on a good thing, which was another thing he couldn’t stop his mind from reminding him throughout the day.

“Just like Peggy, all over again,” Steve sighed to himself.

His work with S.H.I.E.L.D was important. Steve knew that. If he hadn’t known that from the beginning, he never would have agreed to be part of the supersoldier program in the first place. His need to serve his country, to live up to the duty he had been called to fulfill, did not escape his knowledge, either. But, he was realizing the cost of service and duty now: his personal life was being greatly affected by this work he had been called to do.

The walls of his apartment were closing in on him, and his mind was only racing faster by the minute. He needed to clear his head, to get out and find something else to think about. After pushing his arms into the sleeves of his worn, brown leather jacket, Steve double-checked that he had his keys and his wallet, and walked out the door, making sure to lock it before he walked away.

Present day New York City was still a sight Steve was getting used to. The buildings were far more numerous, not to mention taller. Traffic was more dense and faster and -- well, chaotic, really. Out of all the things he had to adjust to in this new time period, the city traffic was something Steve wasn’t so sure that he would ever be able to wrap his mind around.

There was a coffee shop a few blocks down from his apartment building; Steve decided on a whim to stop there for a cup of coffee. Starbucks was all right, and maybe it was the old-timer in him, but he preferred these little local places. So that he could remember it for next time, he looked up, trying to read the name on the building as he pulled on the door handle. Still trying to commit the name to memory, he wasn’t quite paying attention when he stepped into the shop -- and abruptly bumped into someone preparing to walk out of the shop. The woman he bumped into dropped the small purse in her hand as a result of the interaction.

“I am so sorry,” he quickly apologized, feeling a little ridiculous for not having his head on straight. He picked up the purse and handed it to her. “Sophia?”

“Steve?” She looked just as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

Steve thought his mind had been racing before, but now it was reeling out of control. Sophia was standing right in front of him, looking more beautiful than he even remembered. He stared for a bit too long before registering that her arm was hooked through that of the man standing next to her. He was tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. Steve’s heart dropped, followed quickly by his stomach. No wonder Sophia had never called him back; for all he knew, she hadn’t shown up that night at the restaurant, either.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to knock into you,” Steve apologized. His voice was trembling a bit, so he cleared his throat. “Good to see you again, Ms. Hawkins.”

“Yeah, you too, St -- Mr. Rogers.” Sophia seemed confused, and Steve wondered if he hadn’t also imagined the tremble in her voice.

Steve walked past her quickly and joined the line to order. So much for making sure he remembered the name of the shop. He’d never visit here again, if only to avoid the possibility of seeing Sophia with another man again.

He ordered his coffee to go and went straight back to his apartment. As he walked, his mind slowed -- not that that meant much as it only returned to its normal racing speed from the last few days. The slow down helped him think things through. That man with Sophia wasn’t necessarily a boyfriend, he could have been someone else she was on a date with. Maybe it was serious, maybe it wasn’t.

“You’re going to drive yourself crazy,” he muttered.

The walk and the coffee had indeed helped to clear Steve’s mind. By the time he reached his apartment door, he had decided to give Sophia another call and ask her one more time to go out with him.

Sophia surprised herself by enjoying her lunchtime coffee date with Colin, and quite a bit at that.

Until she ran into Steve.

Seeing him standing right there, within inches of her, in the coffee shop had sent her directly back to square one. Do not pass go, do not collect a fresh outlook, do not move on. Fortunately, she didn’t have time to dwell on the unexpected meeting, as swamped as she was when she returned to work. There were messages to return and vendors to secure, reservations to take for the latest benefit hosted by the firm.

On top of all of that, her desk phone had been ringing off the hook since she had sat back down at her desk. Making a note to talk to someone about maybe hiring an assistant or receptionist, she rejoiced when things finally calmed down. The lull allowed her to finalize the seating chart for the guest list. She forwarded the chart over to Lucy for a second look, to be sure, and then, inevitably, the phone rang again.

“Son of a bitch,” she mumbled under her breath. She allowed herself a frustrated groan and considered letting the call go to voicemail. She didn’t recognize the number anyway, and calls could always be returned. Then, she remembered that a couple of new vendors had been hired for the event. With the most upbeat voice she could manage, and even going so far as to plaster a smile on her face, Sophia picked up the receiver and greeted the caller. “Thank you for calling Rockefeller PR, Sophia Hawkins speaking.”

“Sophia? It’s Steve. Uh, Rogers. Steve Rogers.

The phone slipped from her hand, but she caught it before her shocked reaction could be detected from the other end of the telephone line. “Steve. How did you get this number? And why are you calling me at work?”

“I looked the number up,” he replied simply, leaving out the fact that he’d had to track down a phone book to do so because the internet had been too complicated in his worked up state. “And, I’m calling you at work because I want to ask you again if you would consider having dinner with me. Before you say no or anything else, you have to understand, I know that I messed up last time. I should have called you before our scheduled meeting time. But, I swear to you, I really could not get away from the important thing that came up. I hope I can tell you about it someday, but we can’t get to know each other better and get to that point if you don’t go out with me.”

“Generally, I won’t and don’t get myself all dolled up again for a guy who stood me up, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Sophia --” He started to protest, ready to give another amazing speech, but Sophia interrupted him.

“But for you I will consider it. Give me some time, and I promise to let you know whatever I decide. How does that sound?”

“Much better than a flat-out no,” Steve answered, releasing a sigh of relief. “I’ll wait for your call.”

Sophia promised Steve she wouldn’t let too much time pass before she called him with an answer, and they ended their phone call. Ironically enough, the phone call with Steve helped to calm her nerves and Sophia found the remaining hours of her work day flew by. After setting the phone to go directly to voicemail, she gathered her things and met Lucy in the hallway for the short walk to the subway.

On the ride home, Sophia filled Lucy in on her lunch date with Colin, and then continued on into the phone call with Steve. Lucy listened intently, allowing Sophia to tell her everything before replying. For once, Lucy’s tone was rational and calm and, before Sophia knew what had happened, Lucy had managed to convince her to agree to the second-chance date with Steve.

Sophia waited until they were in the quiet of their apartment to make the phone call. She dropped the couch, not even taking her jacket off, if only to get the phone call done with before she changed her mind. Steve answered on the second ring.

“Hey Steve, it’s Sophia.”

The smile in his voice was evident, though it was fringed with hesitancy. “I wasn’t expecting to hear back from you so soon.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to call so soon,” she admitted with a chuckle. “Listen, here’s the deal. I will go out with you, on one condition.”

“And what would that condition be?” Steve asked.

“We make it a double and you find someone to set my friend Lucy up with,” Sophia replied, stifling her laughter at Lucy’s shocked expression. “This way, if some important circumstance comes up again, I won’t be all alone.”

Sophia thought she might have sounded a little harsh and hoped Steve would understand that was not her intention --

“I think that’s more than fair,” he ceded, “I can find someone for Lucy, no problem.”

Shaking her head, Lucy disappeared into the kitchen while Sophia finalized the plans for the double-date with Steve. Once off the phone, Sophia went to the kitchen where Lucy was waiting at the bar with a glass of wine.

“I didn’t know that I was going to be punished for encouraging you to go on a date with this guy,” Lucy commented through gritted teeth.

“I need you to help me feel this situation out, Luce! You have to be there with me to do that. And, if he doesn’t show, I don’t want to sit there alone, drinking away my humiliation like last time.” Sophia took the wine glass from Lucy’s hand and drank down most of what was left. “You hungry?”

Lucy nodded. “Starving, actually.”

“Oh good,” Sophia grinned, corking the wine bottle and putting it back in its proper place on the counter. “Because we’re meeting Steve and his friend downtown in an hour.”

Lucy finished off the contents of the wine glass and set it in the sink, then headed to her room to freshen up and change her clothes for an evening she hadn’t planned on. Sophia kept grinning as she followed, but Lucy narrowed her eyes at her friend.

“You are so lucky you’re my best friend, you know that?”

@arrowsandmixtapes @the-murder-strut-murdered-me @growningupgeek @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @captain-rogers-beard @kitkatd7 @patzammit @sagechanoafterdark @what-is-your-plan-today

#steve rogers #clint barton #steve rogers fanfic #clint barton fanfic

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helloblobbyblobfish · 4 years ago

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Safety in coils

(Anîla refers to the mains humans as “kids”, but they all are in college, between 19 and 25.)

---

The 32 of July

New place, new diary! Hello, four diary, I will call you Helbert. I think it’s a common name for Americano males. Any way, I shall present myself to you to: I am a member of the proud race of naga, but I have yet to receive a proper name, having only 34 year old in human year. I am currently trying to live away from my tribe as a sign of maturity, however. I have decided that I would also record to myself what I am doing for my descendants to know what I did. I decided also, than, given the fact that I will pretend to be a human, I need to write in their tango, so that I would be prepared to speak with them.

I shall also name myself Anîla âbhoga, as respect for my elders, and because I lack creativiti. I should try to find myself a cave before looking for a house. In all accounts I read, we need to wear “clothes” when we takes our human forms, so I will steal them later on.

See you soon, Helbert!

---

2 of august

Hey, Helbert! You wouldn’t believe in the number of kids that went into the forest today. I could have eaten any of them without issue, they are so trusting! But that would end up alerting someone, and I don’t want hunters yet. Americannans; They don’t seem to realize the danger that exist, I was told of their ignorance; but it is really worrisome.

Trough, that mean that I have plenty of Americanans that can explain to me everything. I am even more persuasive that most of my clan, the reason as to why I was allowed to travel the sea unsupervised. As you serve as my “recording devices”, I think I am supposed to give you the description of the youth I have met. They all got to see my eyes and should not be worried about my half-snake appearance, but I will keep a human look next to them, as to not push their limits. I could not make them come back to me at a precise time, so I will put them back under. It would also make them less suspicious of my questions.

The first kid I found was running, and scared. I guess he was lost for a while, and got into trouble, because he had what he told me were call b-r-u-i-s-e-s. (I Made him spell it, I am learning English word I was not told existed. The excitation!) It’s brownish marks that indicate you were p-u-n-c-h-e-d. He also had a similar marks on one of his eyes, but it was black. Apparently, it is black or blue around the eyes, and as such, you call those bruises “black eyes”. He has yellow hairs, with dirt and twigs in them when I fond him, but I clean him. He had green eyes, if I saw correctly, before he saw mines. I though he was short, but all the humans I met were close to his height. He has 19 year, and is name is Noah.

A few minutes after I brought Noah at the edges of the forest, I fond another male, who is named Andrew Evans. He is really different in behavior and look. I did not tell you about the clothes! It is kind of important! Humans wear different “styles” of clothes depending of their ages, gender or role in the town hierarchical structure. Noah was wearing gray “S-w-e-a-t pants” and a red “H-o-o-d-y” with a green stripe. It was way too big on him, so I guess he and his family does not have a lot of money. He also screamed and tried to run when he saw me. Andrew Evans has black hairs that he “greased”, brown eyes, I am sure for those, I thought to ask. He is wearing blue “J-e-a-n-s” with holes he said he made himself. I guess there is a meaning, but I was asking basic questions, I will interrogate the kids more later on.

Andrew Evans also has a silver chains dangling on the side of his pants, a white “T-s-h-i-r-t” who he cover with a “Leather j-a-c-k-e-t”. He also had dangling “dog tags” around his neck, who reached lower than his “P-e-c-s”. They are by two, silvery, oval, and contain info. His “dog tags” were about his father, who got them in a war. Andrew Evans is proud of his dad and wear them. Ritualistic importance? He also tried to attack me with a knife when I met him. As punishment, I kept the “dog tags” I do not understand the meaning of some of the info, like the “AB” mark.

It appear Andrew Evans was looking for Noah, so I showed him the way to civilisation. And then, I heard cries of “Andrew”, because I presume someone went after Andrew Evans. Perhaps they do know the forests are places you get lost in, but none of the kids seemed prepared to meeting me. Are americanos forest really without nagas? How?

Any how, the third kid has a darker skin color that the other two, but it is not as dark as the skin color of the humans who live in India. He had brown hair who looked that fluffy spikes, and I had a hard time flattening, blue eyes, and was wearing another “T-shirt”. They cover only part of their arm, fascinating choice, in my opinion. He also had “Jeans”, but his were gray, and without holes. He wondered where I was coming from as he never saw me, and did not believe me when I said I was a newcomer. To worry about. I simply calmed him and told him where to find Andrew Evans. I was not sure what to ask of him. Except his name, it’s Leo

I ended falling on a fourth and final kid by complete accident, nearly an hour later, despite him apparently entering with Leo. This kid was looking at least a head taller than the rest. His name is Chris. He stated he “was” 24, witch I think is a bit old to call a human, a kid, but I have to look more into it. He is as pale as Noah and Andrews Evans. His hairs are the fabled red, and his eyes remind me of hazels. He also wears a “Leather jacket”, who he kept closed, because he wears nothing underneath, and blue “Jeans”, who should be burned given the numbers of oil stains who covered them, and also massive holes, with is knees basically being in the open. I had to tell him to change clothes, or he would be hurt if he fall. He wasn’t taking me seriously, so I put him under my gaze at this moment.

Over all, it was an excellent day to start seeing what kids human act and look like. I will go into town tomorrow to meet adults.

---

3 august

Well, wouldn’t you know, Elbert, I was using phrasing of a sentence and idoms who sound old, for someone in his thirties. One day interacting in the town, and I already got a reputation as an “old-timer”. Who could have guess? Most people are wonderful, in any case. I also bumped into Andrew Evans, Leo and Chris. They were with another kid in their age range, Steve. He is taller than Leo, but smaller than Andrew. Oh, yes. Evans is a family name rather than a composite surname. My bad.

Leo was still suspicious of me, and I wasn’t able to talk with them. He said something about “stranger danger”. I wonder if he is more afraid of other humans than what is living outside his town. What are humans doing between themselves? It would appear our knowledge of their society is dated. I need to get alone with him if I want to examine their behaviour properly. Instead I met a few adults and discreetly made their door open to me. I did take a trip to the house seller, but I will need papers and money for one. It’s more difficult than we expected when I left my home forest. There is also that man named John Miller. He seems to think I am weak because he can’t see muscle. Probably an hunter. I need to keep an eye on him too.

Wait, there are footstep sounding close. I come back once I saw who is it, and why they are here. What if they already know?

It was Noah! Unlike the others, he still wears the same clothes than yesterday. Truly poor. And because he already saw my eyes, he is so easy to put under. Actually, he is sitting right next to me, and when I took my hybrid form, he was all too happy to snuggle in. Good human. So, because he is really easy to interact with, and he told me he just often goes into the forest when he is “overwhelmed”, he will be my number one source of information! So, I will ask some questions, and note the answers into you, Ebert!

So, Noah Miller! Turn out he is the son of John Miller, who isn’t a hunter, but a construction worker. Noah seem to be hiding something about him, but I don’t want to push. Noah seems nice, I don’t want to destroy his intelligence or his being. So, I will wait till he wants to tell me for further explanations. He also doesn’t want to tell me where do those “bruises” and cuts come from. I am a bit worried for his safety. Does he try to get into fights to prove himself to his father?

Human kids his age like to play something call “video games”. I need to come to his house to play, however. Well, after I ended up asking question, we will play fetch. I heard pets like that, and I might keep Noah around, I really like him. His outfit is one he picked because he wants to cover “them”; Okay. Apparently, “cool” outfits for him show muscle, leather jackets always work, Jewellery show wealth, seem like the meanings are the same as we naga knew, just a bit differently. Jewelry

Yes, I asked Noah to correct mistakes he saw. It’s useful for my human guise. Also, Andrew is the popular kid who has a bright future. That mean he can get away with selfishness and violence, in this society. I can’t believe it. Well, as a subject and potential pet, I should give Noah a good life, so the research is put on hold the time I get the other kids to respect him.

---

6 August

Hey, Albert. Been a few days, but I had to make Andrew, Chris, Steve and especially Leo way more pliant that they were. But today, they will all come to this forest with additional clothes they think would fit Noah and make him looks “cool”, so that he joins their “friend” group. It looks a bit more like a hierarchy in itself, but I will make sure they treat each other better. Win-Win for everyone! I hope I use those expression correctly. Anyway, Noah too got more contacts with me. He seems to really trust me “more than anyone” he says, but he still won’t tell me where his injuries come from. I am a bit disappointed. Seem like he made some strong barriers about it, if I force the answers from him, it would hurt his brain, a lot.

Leo has arrived. I had to get to his parents first, to be alone with him, but heh. I have a bed in their basement now. Leo was really distrustful. Now, he is a bit over-zealous to obeying me, but I don’t see any other psychological impact. I do keep an eye on him for his safety. He also is the one closer in size to Noah, so I expect his clothes to be most of the ones Noah come home with. Leo also make delicious chicken wings.

Now, Steve has arrived. Coming back to my few notes, I forgot to describe him. He has black hair, brown eyes, and the first time he saw me alone I was shirtless and that made him red, for some reason. But he doesn’t want to talk about it. He is 23. He is the drag-along man of his group, and easily scared. It amuses me to make loud noises behind his back. He jumps every single time! Today, he is wearing a sleeveless black cloth he calls “top”, and blue “shorts”. He really doesn’t know how to visit the forest.

Andrew and Noah arrived together. Andrew is surprisingly the one who brought the more clothes. When I asked, he stated he bought them. He is ironically the one who took the most the rings in my eyes, even more than Noah, who I found easy to put under. And I remind you I am strong in charm by naga standard. Andrew is also missing his dog tags. Apparently, you put “blood type” and height on it. I shall ask for their size and weight once I start the experience again.

Well, Chris is finally here. He at least wears something without “sexual innuendos” for once. I’ll admit I don’t understand them. Also, except Steve, they all have a weird combo with leather jackets and ties, to welcome Noah into the group. Really odd-looking, even fir me, and the fact that I wear “professionals” clothes all the time makes people talk. Noah, of course, is wearing a hoody and “baggy” pants. I’ll tell you how it went.

Really well!!! Now, Noah has a collection of “gym” clothes, rings, chains… the perfect “streetwear”, as Chris said. The boys are all very happy playing with the ball I gave them. And they all are super happy when I tap their head to signify that they are good boys. I’m so happy they stopped using gel, I can play with their hairs. But play time is over. I’m going back to studying them and their interactions, so they aren’t aware I was ever in their lives for now. I want to see them act normally.

Wait, why is Andrew berating them all. I understood he was mean to people outside his group, but he is controlling of the people in it? Chris is obeying him without question and making subtle threat for the others three to follow? Noah is afraid??! Leo is just done with this and complaint but does not act? Steve is not shivering like Noah, but I think he is afraid too. How could I miss that, and how can I let this happen in front of my eyes? I’ll be right back, Albert!

---

So, they have been some changes in the group dynamics of the boys. Now, Leo is the leader one. He also asks for my opinion on things and agree that I am smarter and wiser than him, and as such, my decisions are absolute and override his. Andrew is really happy to be led. He takes more easily to my suggestions than the others, so he is “living the dream”, as the “omega” of his group. I don’t know what that mean, he declared himself one. In his opinion, Leo is an “alpha” and the rest are “beta”. Andrew also wanted to classify Chris as the second-in-command, but I preferred Noah, because I have to admit at being biased, but Noah doesn’t want to lead, and Leo will be a great leader under my guidance, and he wanted to be the “top dog”.

Chris is really the one who got the best changes, though. He was really afraid of what to do without someone who use him as a muscled henchman, so now, he can suck up all type of information. His “G.P.A” will improve, thanks to that. We might have a “smart one”, after a trip to the library. And the, there is Steve. I don’t know what to do with Steve. Steve never showed much personality. When I asked him how he would describe himself, he said “gaie”, which mean cheerful in French, is I remember correctly. Didn’t appear that happy for me… Well, now, he is being nicknamed “the cheerleader” by his friends. They will not question the changes, but I think I will have to drop by their parent’s house later.

Well, I’m glad to see they all are having fun. Leo started a “soccer game”. Look interesting. Steve is cheering for them because they are an odd number. He seems decided to compliment Chris on his muscle, for some reason. Well, he also commented a few times about mine. Maybe he just put a lot of attention in physical health. I’m going to watch.

August 8

At the teaching place the boys are going (I though in English it was called school, but the refer to it as college), Noah is now one of the centres of attention, as a new friend of Andrew and thanks to his new look. Steve convinced him to wear “guyshadow”. Didn’t expect it to work well with the dark lines under Noah’s eyes (named “eye’s bag”, this language relies on such obvious terms, it’s worrying me. Are humans worried about being incomprehensible? It’s probably not the only human one to be this on the nose, but the only one I’m good at.), but now, he has a lot of weird attention from females and a few males, including Steve. I don’t understand why is external looks and money so much more important that what’s inside for humans.

Wait, I hear sobs. Why is Noah in pain?

HIS FATHER WAS VIOLENT TOWARDS HIM!!! THE FIEND! HE DESERVED BEING REDUCED TO A HUSK BY ME! SO GLAD HE IS NOW OUT OF NOAH AND MISS. MILLER’S LIFE!! Now, I heard a mother without a husband faces hardship in this “tolerant” society humans call America, so I will make sure the remaining Millers in town are wall-loved. I think I will move my human place from Leo’s house, he is okay, and go to live with Noah and his mom Susan.

---

August 10

Albert, while I was playing with Noah, he called me Dad. Apparently, it means he sees me as a major role model, and it’s a sign of a deep bond, said Susan. She seemed ready to laugh, and also a bit awkward, when she said that to me. Well, I’m glad he thinks so highly of me! I also think highly of my pet. Now, he is completely open to any change in personality or look I ask of him. I have a little doll I can dress and make talk as I want. He is a cowboy, a pre-re-education Andrew, a hunter, a servant. I asked of my sister she send me some jewelry, and now, he has wonderful gold hoops in his ear, and a silver chain with an emerald that he show to no one, but whose touch remind me of how good he is while looking at me... Truly, I am enjoying this study.

---

Author’s note (how do you make italics on Tumblr?): So, this is a story I wrote in Summer 2020 for a contest about supernatural on a hypno-site. I planned to make a one-shot, then I liked the characters too much and started making an universe for them. If you have questions on them, I probably have some answers. It feature no pron, so I though. You know what, I should publish my own stuff on Tumblr. Hope you people enjoy

#male hypnosis #naga #no sex #sfw #hypnosis #tw: abuse #?#personality change #safety in coils #forgot tu put the series tag oh my god

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arandompostarchive · 4 years ago

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SALEM - Ch. 8

SAVED WORK

Summary: In all the centuries of your existence, you had never been dragged out of hiding by another god, put in a superhero team and forced to save the universe. But it seems your luck has run out.

_______________

“So he’s gone? Again? Sorry, is this a bad time to say I told you so? Cause it seems appropriate right about now.” Tony said.

Bruce had found out you were missing, and he had only talked to you about three hours ago. He had found a small note saying that if you were gone longer than two weeks he should open it. Of course, he wanted to open it then and there, but he wouldn’t be surprised if you put some sort of magic timer or something on it to make sure he didn’t open it. You probably didn’t… but you definitely would.

Either way, you were gone and one of his ships was stolen. Granted, it wasn’t any of the ones he actually cared about, but still. It was more about principle.

Everyone had gathered in the common room, sitting on different pieces of furniture, doing their best to not only figure out what happened, but how to deal with it.

“Tony, now isn’t the time.” Steve said. “But, to be fair, we did tell you so.”

Thor thought for a second, deciding what to say. He knew the two of you didn’t just vanish. “They didn’t just disappear. My brother asked if I wanted to help take out Ker, I said yes, but with the team’s help. He left pretty quickly after that. I think they’re just trying to help.”

Tony scoffed, “Okay, well this isn’t very helpful. What would have been helpful is to have the two people who know anything about Ker here with us. That would’ve been nice. And as I’ve heard Y/n point out, myths aren’t always accurate, so all we know is that she’s a weird teleporting sorta-goddess. That’s basically nothing. We don’t know where she’s from or where she’s going. Or, more importantly, what the plan is here.”

He was right of course. You could tell them everything they needed to know, but you left almost nothing behind. A small part of Tony thought that might be the point. That maybe you didn’t want anyone else hurt, it was something you would do. Find some way to prove you’re the hero.

As far as he was concerned, you had proved that a long time ago.

But Loki was with you, and Tony didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him.

You had taken all of your weapons, from guns to spears. Part of him was terrified. If you really thought you would need all of that, what were you getting yourself into? Everyone else in the common room seemed to have the same thought. Steve stood from his seat, pacing a bit.

Your letter was on a table nearby. Every so often he’d glance at it, trying to figure out what you were doing that would take two weeks.

“Do you think it’s possible Loki forced her to go? I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before?” Clint asked a very unamused expression was plastered all over his face.

Tony laughed a bit, looking back at Clint. “Yeah, I really don’t think he could force Y/n to do anything, and even if he did, she’d put up a fight. Maybe she dragged him into it?”

Natasha looked up at Tony and Steve, nodding her head. “That’s possible, but Thor said Loki talked to him. I think they both left willingly. They’re the two people in this tower that we still don’t trust.”

Tony scoffed, “No, Capsicle, I think that’s just you.”

Steve glared a bit, “Well, you can’t tell me you trust Loki.”

Tony grumbled a ‘fair enough’ before looking around the room. Steve started speaking again. “What we need to do now is try to figure out where they are and what they’re doing. They’ve got a lot more info than we do. Tony, she left you a note right? It says two weeks but we should open it now. It might tell us what’s happening.

Tony shook his head, “Yeah, it’s a no-go Cap, I tried that. She did something to it, but there’s no getting that thing open.”

Tony had 13 days until he opened your note. He wasn’t sure whether he hoped he would never read it, or if he hoped 13 days would go by and he could have an explanation already. Either way, he knew something was wrong.

***

13 Days Left

Shapeshifting was the perfect ability when it came to sneaking around. Turning a completely different person hell— a completely different species— made hiding in plain sight easy.

It was too bad you didn’t have that advantage. So now, you were stuck with Loki, who was disguised as a human with short hair, granted being human was definitely out of place, but with all the species you saw, you didn’t think people would care that much.

Luckily, sneaking in wasn’t insanely hard. All you had to do was insist you were there to join the army, something that no general would turn down, extra hands. You carried your weapon on your back, a small strap made it much easier than carrying it behind you. Loki had a few daggers at his side, even though you thought there were much more useful weapons, he didn’t seem to care. So, now you were infiltrating an alien army to find a glowing blue cube. Admittedly, this isn’t how you thought you were going to spend your Tuesday.

The army’s base was dirtier than you would’ve liked, not that you were expecting it to be perfect. Dirt covered the floors and the mud people tracked around certainly wasn’t helping. Loki didn’t seem any more comfortable than you were. He held on loosely to your forearm, leading you down a hallway. There weren’t many people around, hopefully, something else was going on.

“Alright, Y/n. We need to split up. It will be easier for us to talk with more people that way. Find someone who knows something or someone—anyone who knows anything. Then meet me back here when everyone goes to sleep, whenever that is. Hopefully, someone here saw it.” You nodded. Loki left in one direction and you went to the other.

As you walked down the hall, you could hear shouting in the distance. The hallways smelled metallic, you were confused before you took a close look at the walls. You were certain the red staining the walls was blood, but there was no way in the universe you were going to test that. The blood dripped from deep scratches that littered the wall, almost certainly the result of some brawl that had broken out recently. It was clearer now that most of the ‘mud’ was likely blood, make you all the more uncomfortable. The shouts got louder and louder and you approached a room full of aggressive-looking soldiers.

One of the larger ones, who reminded you of an oversized lizard, was slamming another against the wall, cracking it behind the soldier. The room erupted in cheers, and you decided to avoid them. Not that you couldn’t take them, but they didn’t seem like the type who would keep tabs on relevant information. Lucky for you, you eventually found some sort of computer room. Just a few guards there, chatting about something or other. Loud thuds from other rooms echoed in the hall, screams bounced around, but it all fell on deaf ears. They barely acknowledged that anything, even laughing at some of the more painful sounding ones. It only made you sad, people dying— likely being torn apart— and people laughing at the thought.

Part of you was slightly okay with taking the more violent option here, but you weren’t going to do that again. So, you went the sneaky way. Seemed Loki had really rubbed off on you. Of course, there was the chance that they didn’t know anything, but hey, worth a shot, right?

You took a deep breath, gripping your necklace tightly. Shadows rose from the hall, swirling in front of you. Pure darkness, the complete absence of light and heat. If you weren’t used to it, you would’ve spent hours looking into it. They swirled into a vague outline of a person. The edges melted into the scenery behind it, and you could feel the hair of your arm stand up at the cold. It slid past you, and into the room. The conversation immediately ended. You could hear the chairs they sat on slid back across the floor, probably scraping up dirt. One of them started yelling about attacking before you just heard muffled screaming. No, you weren’t going to kill him. Of course not, but he’d be much easier to deal with unconscious. The two others started making the same noise before it all went silent. The shadow drifted back out of the room before completely evaporating, sliding back into its place on the floor.

You walked in easily, a slew of weapons were scattered on the floor, admittedly a lot more than you expected three men to have. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t shut off the computers, so accessing information was easy. Right now, you were thankful for allspeak, but the computer gibberish still didn’t make much sense. You closed the door behind you once you heard people in the hall. Guess it still wasn’t lights out, or whatever their version of that was.

From what you could make out, something that sounded like the Tesseract was recovered. “A glowing box” was all it said. Apparently, a soldier had found it and was encouraged to use it “to benefit the empire”, and honestly it was extremely unclear what that meant. After a while, you determined that was about all you were getting. But it did say that the soldier had turned a small amount of money over to authorities, so it was safe to say he sold it. Although he might’ve gone off-world, the easier option would’ve been to sell it to the bounty hunters. So I guess that’s where you need to look. Next to the soldier’s name, there was a picture of him. He looked smaller than you expected. Significantly smaller than any of the other soldiers you had seen, and a bit more human-looking too. If you were being honest, he could almost pass for human, if it weren’t for the small, pointed ears. There was a small section in his profile that said “Room Unit”, and across from it was a “13-A”, but considering you had just gotten there and barely know anything about the Empire, you thought it best to just ask around with bounty hunters, make a few empty threats, and leave with whatever info you needed.

You swung the door open quietly, making sure to close out of the soldier’s profile. The halls had emptied and the shouts had since died down. You weren’t certain what to attribute this to, but you decided to meet back up with Loki.

Lucky for you, it really wasn’t that hard to find your way back to the hallway you started in. You just made sure not to stop and stare at the fresh blood. You were thankful you didn’t go far in your search. There was a small room in the hall, it was empty and it was comparable to one of Tony’s break rooms he had in the old tower.

When you got back into the hall Loki looked like he had just arrived. He had a hand against his side, and you could see a dark stain against the fabric of his tunic.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He sighed, “If I am honest, I think it would be easier to say what didn’t happen.”

You stared at him for a second. It couldn’t have been more than two hours and he was already bleeding?

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. What did you do, start a fight?” You went to move his hand a bit, at least to examine what kind of wound you were dealing with. It was deep, there was no doubt about that. Loki could heal, but nothing miraculous, and he didn’t seem to be in a good enough state to even attempt healing. Your abilities really only gave you resilience, unless he just wanted you to cover the wound, you were pretty useless outside of skills you learned from Dr. Cho when she was willing to let you listen in.

“Actually, yes. I did start a fight and I’m sure you’ll be happy to know I won.” You rolled your eyes.

“My hero.” He put his hand back over the wound and you started speaking. “So, did you manage to find anything? Or did you spend the whole time getting stabbed?”

He laughed a bit but stopped and winced at the action. He held his hand tighter, holding his hand tighter against his side. “Yes, I ran into a soldier who sold it. It seems I underestimated him.” You were a bit surprised.

“That guy? I saw him, didn’t look like warrior material.” Loki nodded with you, pushing on the door of the nearby room you had open. He took a seat on the first chair he saw and took a moment to breathe. He was clearly in a lot of pain, and you weren’t certain how to help.

“Well, it seems he’s still in this army for a reason. Impressive magic, I will say that. If it weren’t for his friends it would’ve gone a lot smoother though.” He removed his hand from the wound, examining the state of his clothes. “Shame, I really did like this outfit.” You smiled a bit. Well, he can’t be too hurt if he’s making jokes, right?

“We should go Loki.”

He shook his head a bit, standing only to lose the door more. “He said he sold it, that’s it. I have no other information.”

That’s when you started speaking, “Loki I checked a computer file, he sold it to the bounty hunters. I mean, if he was going to sell it, why go far?” He nodded. “Now the only problem is making sure you don’t die on me.” He laughed.

“Believe me, darling, I’m not planning on it.” He stood, walking towards the door with you swiftly after him.

“We’re going to have to find your medical supplies, you know that.” You tried to keep your voice down. The screams and shouts from earlier had died down, leaving the hallway silent, save for the sound of your shoes hitting the floor. Loki headed for the door, mumbling something about having supplies on the ship. You were thankful he brought them because you definitely didn’t.

Unsurprisingly, the lack of people didn’t mean there weren’t any guards around, just that they were stationed outside now.

“Any ideas, Loki?” You said, looking at the guards in front of you. They were directly outside of the entrance you came in, chatting about something or other. Another guard walked by, nodding to them before continuing to walk towards the two of you. You pulled Loki to the side of the door, pushing your backs flush against the cold metal wall. He sighed a bit, probably in relief. “Well?” You said, looking over at him.

He took a second to think before turning into the guard that had just passed you, a rather tall man with purple-tinted skin. Loki stood up before offering you his hand and pulling you up. “Let’s see if we can get past them.” He said.

“Uh, I don’t like that lack of confidence.” You said, but he had started to walk around the door.

The second he walked out, the guards spotted the two of you immediately, although that wasn’t very surprising. They stopped talking and turned towards you two. They had the same purple tinted skin, and one was much shorter than the other. They looked a bit scruffy, to say the least. Unkempt beards and hair jutting out from all sides under their helmets.

“Mal?” The shorter one asked. “Why are you back out, didn’t someone take over for you?” The shorter one said. He looked more confused than suspicious, especially by you.

Loki nodded. “Yeah, new recruit. Doesn’t know her way around.” You smiled shyly, waving a bit. The guard nodded and turned away. You headed towards the outside of their compound, sneaking past most of the other guards and letting Loki improvise his way through the others.

Once you were out, you ran. Sure, they probably thought that was pretty damn suspicious, but it’s not like you were going back. You ran for a while, doing your best to subtly assist Loki. His hand went up to his side every once in a while, doing his best not to seem like he was hurt too badly. Eventually, you got to your ship. Loki looked like he was about to keel over, so you thought that was a good time to get some medical supplies. He sat outside the ship, hand close against his side. Gods can take hits, there’s no doubt about that. But he wasn’t healing, not even a little. He shifted back into himself while taking a deep, shaky, breath.

“What the hell did you get stabbed with?” You said, bringing over a bag of medical supplies.

Loki sighed, taking off his tunic. “I don’t know. I’ve been stabbed before, this was worse. It burned. It was like my skin was refusing to heal itself. I fear someone knew we were here.”

You nodded. It looked like a fairly normal wound, but when you looked closer you could see small burns around it, branch out from the one wound. You sighed. “I think you’ve got to heal the human way now.” Loki made some sound of disappointment, but let you continue cleaning and bandaging it. He hissed every once in a while in response to any cleaning solutions you used, but you were done quickly and he pulled his tunic back on, sitting with you on the soft grass.

“You know,” You started, “I think I’m gonna miss this grass. It’s like petting a really fluffy cat.” As much as you wanted to go home, you tried to look on the bright side. Night on a beautiful foreign planet? Not bad.

Loki smiled at you, “I’ll take your word for it.” He leaned back into the ground, looking up into the stars. You looked for a minute or two before you processed that this isn’t your sky, or your stars, or you planet. All new constellations. Part of you was thrilled at the thought, but the other part just wanted to go home even more now.

Your hand went through the grass, before you touched some sort of plant. A small thorn dug its way under your skin, and you jerked your hand away on instinct. The thorn tore a cut in your skin all the way down your finger and a few small drops of blood dripped from the cut, sliding down your arm and staining your skin. It only stung a bit, but the momentary pain took your attention away from the grass which made Loki turn to you.

“You’re bleeding?” He said, reaching for the first aid kit on your other side. The action made his side shift, and he hissed in pain when he finally grabbed it. You rolled your eyes and took it from him.

“Loki, I’m fine. You were stabbed, it’s just a cut.” He laughed a bit, he’s literally got a hole in his side and he’s worried about a thorn.

He nodded, “Yes, but you’re bleeding?”

“So are you! I’m fine, I’ll just grab a band-aid.” He looked over to the plant behind you, plucking it from its spot in the dirt. He avoided the thorns on the flower. There was no doubt it was pretty. It reminded you of a rose, but with a much darker purple than the grass. The thorns were larger too, looking more like spikes along the thick stem. He placed it down, checking to see if there were any more around you. He found two others, both smaller and not in bloom like the first one.

“They are pretty, as much as they hurt.” You said. He nodded, picking up the first one and examining it. It was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. “Loki, look at this.” You showed it to him, admiring how the moonlight seemed to bounce off the petals, making them look more iridescent. “They’re gorgeous.”

You pick up the other ones as well, make a small bundle and standing up to put them inside. “C’mon. At least I’ll be able to show Peter something cool from another planet.” You said. You walk into your ship, Loki close behind you as you found a nice place to sleep. Admittedly, you were worried. If you find the Tesseract, you might need to leave immediately. Bounty hunters usually don’t appreciate thieves. If you don’t, you’ll have to do things the hard way. The really hard way.

You found somewhere and curled up, slipping into a dark, dreamless sleep. You could swear you felt the soft ghost of a kiss on your forehead.

***

“Okay. So, where would you go to sell the Tesseract?” You asked, entering the bounty hunter’s town— if you could even call it that. It was more like a group of buildings. Poorly made and thrown together, although it was surprisingly cleaner than the soldier’s facility. There were certainly blood stains, but it seemed someone was nice enough to clean most of them off, although not all the stains were the same deep red you were used to with humans, even though yours was much darker.

Loki took the lead, poking his head into bars, something that could be found every five feet. Loki’s idea wasn’t a bad one. That soldier, whoever he may have been, sold the Tesseract recently. Apparently, one or two people had destroyed themselves grabbing it with their bare hands. Loki thought that a find like that had to be celebrated. Somewhere, in this whole town. There had to be someone excited about it.

Loki was looking around the next bar while you stayed outside. Crowds of loud, drunk, people really weren’t your thing. Until you saw a small light out of the corner of your eye. Someone with a hood over their head was holding something small, wrapped in fabrics. You could see the smallest amount of blue peeking out of the corner. The person waited a second, glancing around, so you looked away. Loki came out a second or two after, just as you had started to subtly follow the person, whoever they were.

“Everyone in there is too intoxicated to even answer me.” He said. You weren’t focused on that. You put a finger to your lips, pointing towards the person who was walking away. You followed, Loki with you. “They have it.” He said in realization, close behind you. You nodded and continued walking, doing your best to stay quiet, but not obviously follow them.

Loki’s theory was near right, since the person handed off the Tesseract to someone else who handed them a bag of something. Your new suspect immediately walked in a bar, either to celebrate like Loki guessed, or pawn it off to some drunk who would pay much more than necessary to get their hands on it.

You followed them in, Loki close behind. You straightened up, doing your best not to look out of place. No one blinked when you walked in, continuing on their drunk tirades about something or other. Your new suspect had taken off a coat, and you could clearly make out the face of a man, looking the Tesseract over.

Now, all you needed was a plan. “I’ll try to talk to him, you take it while he’s distracted. If I see a chance to grab it, then I’ll try. Then, we run.” You said, barely staying long enough to see Loki’s small nod.

You weren’t one for clever plans. Although you could come up with a well-thought-out prank, an actual battle plan was not something you were known for. Most of your best ideas could be boiled down to ‘punch it harder’, something that only worked about 70% of the time, much to Steve’s dismay.

You walked up to the man pretty easily, he had already chugged some kind of drink, and called for a second one at his table. The second you came into his peripheral, he smiled, calling over another drink.

He didn’t seem too bright, especially for someone literally holding an infinity stone, but all you had to do was play dumber than him, and he’d end up doing something stupid. Three drinks in, and he hadn’t really noticed how drunk you weren’t. A small glass of whatever it was he was chugging hardly made you tipsy. Most of the time, you were sure if this was a perk or a setback of being a god.

“Hey, you know, I just got a new item, worth a lot of cash.” This made you think for a second. Either, you’re dealing with the dumbest person in this universe, offering to show you an infinity stone because you laughed at his shitty jokes, or the smartest. Who’d pegged you for stupid and planned to get you to want this ‘new item’.

“Oh, yeah? What is it?” Honestly, part of you was just curious where he was going with this.

“Not sure honestly, wanna see?” Okay. Still the dumbest.

You nodded, watching as you took the fabric and uncovered it, the small swirling light beneath. You inwardly let out a sigh of relief when you saw it was the real thing. You faked a small gasp, seeming much more amazed than you really were, wrapped up in how pretty it was. You fiddled with the fabric as he chugged another drink. He was tipsy, that was for sure. The bartender kept refilling his glass, probably to rack up his tab more than anything. But it definitely served your purpose too. Until you noticed Loki missing, and the fact that the ‘bartender’ seemed to only be around your table. Sneaky bastard.

You took the opportunity to ask questions about the man, getting him to ramble on about his sister’s husband, or something like that, and Loki refilled his drink, taking the Tesseract and leaving behind a similar lump of fabric, something he seemed to have swiped off another patron. You laughed at some terrible joke he made and excused yourself, mumbling something about getting a drink. He smiled at you, finishing off another drink easily. Loki led you out, changing form back into himself the second you were outside.

You smiled, glancing over to Loki who spoke, “Well, that was much easier than expected. Honestly, I thought something was going to go wrong.”

You heard a crash from inside the bar. “Really. You really had to say something?” You said, rolling your eyes. You ducked into an ally nearby, watching the man stumble drunkenly out of the bar, shouting for “that pretty bitch”.

“I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment.” You said, taking the Tesseract from Loki and unwrapping it. You gripped it in your hand, it felt odd against your hands. Cold, but hot. It was smooth, comparable to clean glass, but you didn’t have time to marvel in it. You turned to Loki, smirking.

“Ready to go to hell?” You said. He smiled in return.

“Born ready.”

In a flash of blue, you were gone, and the cool breeze of Kalan faded into hot, stagnant air all around you.

***

#loki x reader #loki #salem #saved work #fanfic

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innuendostudios · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on Even More Games

[vague, unspecific spoilers for Heaven’s Vault, Later Alligator, and Life is Strange 2]

Thoughts on Heaven’s Vault

Heaven’s Vault is a game about archeology, which means it’s also a game about incompleteness. This is very clever. Inkle - also the developers of 80 Days, which I will play someday! - specialize in deep narratives that can be explored many, many ways, allowing for a lot of player choice. You make a lot of small decisions - do you share a discovery with the trader in exchange for a valuable item, or hide it so he doesn’t plunder it? do you go looking for your missing friend, or let her stay missing in case there are people trying to follow you to her? These all have their own little arcs and resolutions, and there are so many of them, and so many ways they can play out, that the game can never be played the same way twice. The overall story begins and ends in the same place and theoretically hits the same major beats, but the journey is tailored broadly and finely to each player; it’s a style of design Aaron A. Reed refers to as “not... a branching tree but a braided rope.”

Making a narrative about archeology is how you dodge the exponentially complicated nature of that design: if there are dozens of locations, characters, plot threads, bits of color, which can be engaged with at many points in time, or ignored, or dropped by the player halfway through, how do you avoid telling a story full of gaps and dead ends? Well... you don’t. Having only partial information and having to infer the rest is what archeology is.

The protagonist of Heaven’s Vault, Aliya, is digging up the secrets of an ancient civilization, having been sent by her academy to find a researcher who’s gone missing, and stumbling into his incredible discovery. Everywhere she goes, there are holes: she has partial understanding of the researcher’s journey and motives; he, in turn, had partial understanding of the mystery he was uncovering, and Aliya has only fragments of his knowledge; the ancient texts she translates are usually fragments of larger works, and she is guessing at the meanings of many of the words; the game’s constantly updating historical timeline has entire centuries with nothing but question marks. Aliya arrives in a new location and wonders aloud to her robot companion about what this place was, when it was founded, when it was abandoned, how her predecessor found his way her and where he went next and what he took with him.

The constant feeling of discovery - of unearthing - is magnificent. Site after site, I asked, “What is this place?” Always thinking, if the eventual answer is any good, this is going to be one of the best games I’ve ever played. And, in the end, it doesn’t give you an answer, it just give you enough to make the story feel complete. It answers by not answering.

Also, translating alien texts is just extremely my jam. I’m the weirdo who enjoyed the ending of Arrival but secretly wished the whole movie had been about xenolinguistics like the first half. I guess Inkle felt similar.

The game’s by no means perfect. I think I enjoyed the sailing between worlds more than most - it’s slow, but very pretty - but it’s going to discourage a replay. I don’t think the relationship between Aliya and her robot, Six, ever gets terribly interesting. Some of the archeology is a little too obviously game-y - sail around, wait to find a random ruin, beam Six down to grab an ancient doodad, translate a bit of text, lo and behold it’s from one of the sites you’re looking for and it’s narrowed your search radius somehow. (It gives Star Trek explanations the first few times - e.g. “it has radiation that only exists in one part of the nebula” - and then stops bothering.) And the game sags a little in the middle; it could’ve hacked out 3 or 4 dig sites and still given me the same experience.

But, all told, there’s magic in it, and it just feels good to be there. Do not sleep on this one.

Thoughts on Later Alligator

There’s not a ton to say about this game except that is charming as hell. Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera have build a beautifully animated world of cute alligators, one of whom is having a birthday party where he’s convinced he’s going to be murdered. He wants you to run around getting information out of everyone who’s going to be there, which you get by completing minigames. It’s a cast of weird and funny characters with weird and funny dialogue and there’s not much more to it than that.

The design can be a little frustrating. Some minigames, if you lose, you don’t get to try again. Some are annoyingly finicky. You need to complete them all to get the true ending, which means, in my case, playing the game three times to complete all the bits you missed or got locked out of. The ending was a little different each time, so it wasn’t a total wash, but the game’s on a timer that only advances when you play a game or take the bus, and once you’ve completed most of the games there’s a lot of traveling back and forth from one nowhere to another just to advance time to the next unskippable plot beat.

(It’s also a little unclear what you’re missing as you try to get the final ending, as some of the ongoing puzzle are optional.)

But I can’t get mad. The game is too damn cute! Each character is lively and unique, with tons of personality, and the dialogue is just clever enough not to fall into empty adorkability.

It good.

Thoughts on Life is Strange 2

Somewhere, early in the development of Life is Strange 2, some Dontnod employee wrote in a design document “Episode 4 - cult?” (but in French) and nobody told them “no.”

I will not forgive them for this,

After twenty minutes of LiS2, I was ready to yell at everyone who had reported it was boring. It has one of the most powerful, gut-punching openings of any game I’ve played in recent memory. And all through the first, second, and third episodes, I was in love. Unlike Before the Storm, this was its own creature, willing to make dramatic departures from the original game’s template. Instead of controlling a character with supernatural powers, you play as the superpowered character’s older brother. The one with the magic is a 9-year-old, unable to fully understand or control his abilities, suffering a recent trauma, and needing to be guided through a dangerous and racist world. All the ambition missing from Before the Storm is back, and this time the animation isn’t creepy and the writing is wildly improved (thanks to some journeyman script work from Fullbright’s Steve Gaynor) and I even have a computer able to play it on higher graphical settings.

But nothing good lasts.

Everything good about the series screeches to a halt in Episode 4, the one where some asshole said “cult?” and didn’t get a Nerf football thrown at their head. And it’s not just that it’s a terrible idea; it’s actually sort of amazing how much the game relies on an alchemy of plot, tone, theme, and writing, and how a slight imbalance can throw the whole thing off. Episode 4 has scene after scene that are powerful in their conception - brothers reunited after a violent rift; a boy having his first conversation with his estranged mother in nearly a decade; getting interrogated by the feds for a crime that can’t even be explained by physics - fall flat because the writers can’t think of anything interesting for the characters to say. (Steve Gaynor’s name stops appearing in the credits as of this episode.)

And here the game’s rickety bits, kept delicately together for three episodes, start to shake apart. Dontnod’s overly-earnest voice direction, which I didn’t notice in the early episodes, started to wear me down. (”Could you sigh mid-syllable, like you’re slightly overwhelmed with emotion?” “Sure, on which line?” “All of them.”) The thinness of the secondary characters, most of whom pop up for one episode and disappear, became more noticeable. The lack of a mechanical hook like the time rewinding of the original game, and the attendant commentary on choice-based games and power fantasies, made the game feel less substantial. The surreal imagery of the original, obligatorily evoked in the prequel, is sensibly absent, but there’s nothing equally striking that replaces it. Even the branching path decisions become less clear: the end-of-episode stat screens for the final episodes mentioned at least a dozen choices I didn’t even know I’d made, some of which were critical in shaping my younger brother’s morality and were not necessarily the choices I’d have made if I’d known I was making a choice at all.

Come the final episode, I got An Ending that seemed right for the way I’d played, but much of the way I’d played felt accidental.

So what are we to make of this? Life is Strange is a beautiful disaster, an ambitious disaster, where Life is Strange 2 is almost less interesting for being more competent. It has a huge mess of charged topics - American racism, teens losing their virginity, raising a child outside the nuclear family, grief and trauma - and, while it handles them without the gracelessness and sledgehammer subtlety of the original, it doesn’t come to any conclusions about any of them. LiS1, for all its jank, had some opinions, where LiS2 falls into the category of “this sure is some shit, innit?” games.

It starts with a powerful premise, deeply relatable characters, fine writing, beautiful art, but can’t even manage, in the end, to be a disaster. It is the only game in the series so far to be forgettable.

#Adventure Games #capsule review #heaven's vault #life is strange 2 #later alligator

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lowkeyorloki · 6 years ago

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Snapshots

having moments with Loki isn’t all what it seems

A/N: Sorry I haven’t been updating as much as I normally do! I have a job now, and besides, I’d rather have quality over quantity, ya feel?

Also, I’m trying not to romantasize loki as much as fic writers (including myself!) tend to. Hope it worked!

“These publicity events really aren’t for you, are they?”

You turn around to see Loki leaning in the doorway. You finish pouring yourself a drink of one of Tony’s fancy liquor, and take a gulp.

“How could you tell?” you ask, with just a bit of teasing in your voice. Loki smirks.

“You’ve had two glasses of champagne already.” he says while walking towards you, joining you at the mini bar. “And you seem to have snuck away with the hopes of finding more alcohol.” you refill your glass, then gesture towards an empty one.

“Can I get you something? Based on how everyone on Earth feels about you, you could probably use it more than me.” your words could seem harsh, but you say them gently. Loki glances around the room, considering your offer.

“The last time I was offered a drink here, Banner slammed me back and forth on the floor.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” you say, handing him his drink. Loki accepts it. For a moment, there’s a comfortable silence. You can hear the bustle of reporters, billionaires, and the rest of the team below you, but don’t pay attention. It’s easy to tune them out with Loki in front of you.

“So why are you here?” you ask.

“Same reason. I don’t like these events. They bore me.” Loki shrugs, a movement you haven’t seen him do. It humanizes him, in a way.

“Right.” you say. “So you follow one of the only members of the team without powers? You know, I really think you and Wanda could get along.” you can feel the alcohol making its way to your brain, you almost told Loki he and the Scarlet Witch could bond over the guilt of killing people. Luckily, you catch yourself.

“You don’t bore me.” Loki’s reply is immediate, almost defensive. “You’re one of the only mortals, if not the only one, of whom I can stand to be around.” your stomach jumps at Loki’s praise. Or maybe the whiskey. It’s probably a combination of both, you think.

“Why?” you ask. You haven’t ever done anything that would have grabbed the Trickster’s attention- At least, nothing that came to (albeit, your slightly intoxicated) mind.

Loki meets your eyes in a cool gaze. For a moment, you think they flicker down to your low-cut dress, but you decide you’ve imagined that. No sense in getting your hopes up.

“Because you’re angry.” he tells you.

You sigh, not exactly disappointed by Loki’s answer, but not happy with it either.

“Let me tell you something, Loki.” you finish off your glass full of overpriced whiskey, or brandy, or whatever it is, putting it on the counter with just a little too much force. You lean forward on your tip-toes, your chest almost pressed against Loki’s and your lips brushing his ear when you talk. It’s move you’re sober enough to know not to do, but one you know you could blame on your drunkeness if need be. “We all are.”

After that, you leave. You’re tired.

There are little thing that Loki does. Things you try not to notice, things that raise your hopes.

The only reason he refilled your drink is because he was getting up already, and from what Thor has told you, Frigga taught Loki how to be a gentleman.

The plausible explanation for Loki allowing you to sleep on his shoulder after missions was because he was tired of hearing everyone worry about your lack of rest.

Loki just happens to make an extra cup of coffee, and anyone could notice you put exactly two tablespoons of almondmilk creamer them.

And he only lets you read, criss-cross applasauce on his perfectly made bed, because he wants someone to talk to about books. God knows Steve or Falcon aren’t cracking any open any time soon.

These little things are simply convince. They aren’t anything to take note of.

You have a very intense love/hate relationship with Loki being your sparring partner.

The sessions were all voluntary. Whether you like it or not, Loki gives you a good workout. Besides, you’re improving. He still beats you whenever you spar, but it’s slowly taking him more time to.

And even if you didn’t like it, you would still do it. This was where you let yourself have your one luxury with Loki: You let yourself take in the god wearing skin-tight spandex, and a muscle shirt that basically covered nothing. With your own shirt already off and both of your bodies glistening with sweat, it was easy for your mind to wander. Because of the physical activity, you didn’t have to worry about explaining why your cheeks were red, Loki just assumed it was from the workout.

However, all this only made you want him more, something outside of this room, you wouldn’t ever admit to yourself.

So, yes, sparring with Loki was neither good nor bad. You looked forward to it, but also dreaded it.

This time, you’re determined. You’re not sure . why, but today, you don’t want to go down easy. Every one of Loki’s punches you reflect, every kick you dodge.

It’s when you decide to throw one of your own he finally gets you. You kick your leg towards Loki’s chest, and he catches it, pushing you towards the ground.

But before you can land, Loki’s wrapped his arm around your back, falling with you and acting as a cushion. He looks down on you, his knees on either side of your hips, and his pants matching yours.

“That... That was longer than usual.” you finally say. You glance at the timer behind him. “I lasted eight minutes.”

Loki nods, tearing his eyes from yours as he begins to get up. Before he can, you reach out and grab on of the straps of his stupidly small shirt.

Loki freezes. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at your lips and then back up to your eyes. Before he can pull away again, you slide your hand to the back on his neck so you can bring Loki’s lips to yours.

It wasn’t a romantic first kiss, it was a hungry one. Loki responds to you instantly, dropping lower to you so his chest is pressed against yours. His tongue darts forward, moving over your lips, urging you to part them. You do, and relish as your tongues dance and explore parts you two had only fantasized of.

You tug Loki’s shirt over his head, your hands moving over every bit of his stomach and chest that you can. Loki’s lips move from yours to your collarbone, sucking as he begins to massage your right breast with his hand. He stops only to take your sports bra off, tossing it well out of both of your reaches.

You move your arms, cradling Loki’s head as he gives you bruises in places you know will be visible. You can’t seem to care.

You comb your fingers through Loki’s hair, letting it out of the bun he had it in and resting one hand on the small of his back. His teeth carefully teased the soft skin of your neck now, and you let out a sigh.

Wanting to give him something, your raise your hips and roll them against Loki’s. The thin material of his workout leggings are no match for his hardness, you close your eyes when you feel him separated by something so small.

The groan Loki lets out is sinful, orgasmic. He drops his head, tucking it in your neck and panting on your panting.

The noise spurs you on, giving you confidence, and you do it again, earning another moan, when-

Suddenly, it’s over.

Loki has moved away from you, sitting on back on his knees with an unreadable expression.

“We can’t do this anymore. We have to stop.”

“Wha- Why? What’s going on?” Loki’s lips are swollen, his eyebrows knit. He looks at your naked torso, then looks away, and when he does, you’re wearing your bra again, with a shirt added. He had spelled them on you.

Loki doesn’t answer. Before you can press him for one, he’s gone.

You didn’t want to have this conversation, but you knew it was coming. Might as well get it over with now.

You knocked on the door to Loki’s room, praying he would open it. You then realized there was no point in that: Loki was a god. Something told you he wasn’t exactly on your side right then.

But he opens the door- He even lets you in. He doesn’t say anything, and will only look you in the eye, but Loki still lets you in. With him, it’s something.

“Hey.” you say in a voice smaller than you would of liked.

“Hello.” Loki greets you back. When it’s obvious he’s not going to say anything else, you sigh.

“I think we need to talk about yesterday.” you slowly say. You feel like you’re walking on eggshells. Like if you step on Loki to hard, he’ll break. Did you have that much power over him?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Loki turns around, beginning to walk away. “Now, if that was all, I really need to-”

“Wait.” you reach out, grabbing Loki’s wrist and pulling him towards you. “Loki.” you cautiously move your hand from Loki’s wrist to his hip. His eyes shut, and you see his adams’ apple bob as he swallows.

“Don’t touch me.” he says quietly. “It’s better for both of us if you don’t.”

“What are you talking about?” you say, but you do step away just slightly, just enough so you aren’t touching him.

Because the God of Mischief always gets what he wants.

“...I’m sorry if that wasn’t what you wanted yesterday. I read the situation wrong, and I-”

“No, you didn’t.” Loki interrupts you. “Not on my part. I’ve wanted that for quite some time.” he doesn’t explain any further, turning you more from sympathy and towards anger.

“Then what is going on?” you ask. “Loki, I was the one who started it! If you’re worried I don’t want it... you, then-”

“Oh, I’m sure you did. Asgardian women go into heat too. Nothing like a mortal bitch doing the same.”

Loki may as well have hit you. You’re shocked. These weren’t the worst things Loki has ever said, and it’s not his first outburst, but Loki has never acted this way towards you. You feel all the air in your lungs leave, and for a few seconds, your whole world explodes.

“Okay.” your voice is thick, betraying you. Anyone who heard it would know you were holding back tears. “I- I can’t-” you stumble backwards, towards the doorway, out of Loki’s room and to safety. Whenever you find the door, you run out it, tearing down the halls before someone can see you. You can’t breathe.

“Y/N.” you hear behind you. You don’t stop. “Y/N.”

You slam into Loki’s chest. You curse the fact he has magic. You try to move around him, but he blocks you every time.

“Let me go!” you say.

“No. I’m sorry, let me-”

“NO!” you yell. Loki looks taken aback. “You can’t just say something like that and expect me to listen to you!” you shove Loki away with all your might, and he lets you. “You can’t just say you’re sorry and think it’s all better!” you ball your fist, striking Loki on the chest with it. “I have continuously stuck up for you, helped you, fuck, until like, two minutes ago I thought I loved you! And that’s what you tell me?!” you hit him again. “You have no respect for me at all!”

All the fight taken out of you, you collapse on the floor, letting out a sob. You don’t even have the strength to be embarrassed.

“You don’t care about me.”

“Y/N.” Loki’s voice is full of emotion, concern and sadness. You feel him take you in his arms, tuck your head under his chin and run his fingers through his hair. Loki is the last and first person you want to be around right now. You don’t move, to dazed and tired to.

“I’m sorry.” he murmurs. He begins swaying back and forth, probably attempting to comfort you. “I’m so sorry. I’ve no excuse for that. Something tells me I’ll be regretting those words for the rest of my life.” Loki tries to laugh, but ends up just letting out a breath instead. “I’m trying not to do that anymore- especially to someone like you. Someone I care about.” Loki leans back, cupping your face and forcing you to look him in the eye. His thumbs wipe away the stray tears falling down your cheeks. “Darling.” he whispers, looking pained. “I’m so sorry.” Loki presses his lips against your forehead, leaving a lingering feel when he pulls away. “I couldn’t... make love to you... Yesterday because I was worried it was a one time thing. And I couldn’t have you once. Once wouldn’t be enough. A million times with you wouldn’t be enough. I was wrong.” Loki shakes his head. “I’ll regret what I just said to you forever, but I’ll regret yesterday for even longer. Not because I didn’t have you, but because I didn’t have any faith in you. You don’t deserve that, Y/N. Not you.”

Loki is the first and last person you want to be around right now.

Unsure of what else to do, you burrow back into his chest.

#loki #loki imagine #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki laufeyson imagine #loki laufeyson x reader #avengers #avengers imagine #avengers x reader #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel x reader

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fanfic-scribbles · 6 years ago

Text

Safe As Houses

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: You provide a safe haven for Steve when he needs it most– in more than one way.

Quick facts: Romance – Steve Rogers/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Fluff, some pining, Reader doesn’t live in NYC

Words: 4640

A/N: I’ve been sitting on this for a bit, unsure of whether I wanted to post it or not, but I’m going for it =] Based on a weird snippet of a dream I had, this thing was going to be long and involved but it just didn’t…have enough to it to make it a multi-chapter thing, so I decided to pare it down and apparently this is where it made the most sense to me. It is pretty much Steve/Reader wanting each other and beating around the bush until…well, it’s fluff, so you know how this goes. I also think it’s easy to tell that I love that tank top he wears in CA:TWS a liiiiiiittle too much. I failed at trying to use the gif search to find it though, so you’ll have to use your imagination u-u. Anyways; please enjoy.

“Why is this one more expensive…” you mutter to yourself and study both cans. All those years of ‘spot the difference’ have to count for something, but grocery shopping still remains a challenge, somehow. In more ways than one, as someone hovers behind you. You scoot to the side but they follow you, big and looming. Who the hell creeps at a grocery store? You turn, hoping a flat ‘fuck off’ stare will do the trick, but what you find is a shockingly familiar face.

“Steve?!” you hiss. It’s not the nicest welcome for him maybe, but it isn’t like it’s easy for him to just drop in.

“Shh,” he says and tucks his hat lower. He glances around. “I’m sorry to do this but I need help. Can I lie low at your place?”

Without giving it even a second thought you pull out your keys and take off the one for your house. He practically seeps relief when he slouches and you can see a flash of a cut by his ear. “Thanks,” he says and hugs you carefully. Fear wells up in you. Who (or what) hurt him? Why is he here instead of hunkering down with his team? This isn’t the place to ask, though, and any impulse to try fades when he aims a smile at you. “By the way, I missed you.”

You smile at your customary greeting. Long-distance friendships with a superhero aren’t any easier than ones with normal people, but you wouldn’t trade this for anything. Not anything. “Likewise,” you say softly and touch his cheek. “Go to my place and relax; I can get in through the garage. I’ll be done here soon.”

He nods, hesitates, and then leaves. You watch him go before you dump the cheaper can in your cart and then grab several more. At least he’s stopped in before you’ve finished your shopping– you’re definitely going to need a lot more food.

When you get home it’s dark inside from all the drawn blinds and completely silent. Steve would tell you if there was danger inside your house, right? This is just him being paranoid. …You hope. “Home at last,” you say, just a little above normal volume, and start putting away groceries like everything is normal.

Until you turn and run into a body. You barely clamp down on a yell. “What the– f– Steve!” you hiss.

“Relax; there’s no listening devices. I checked,” he says.

“Then don’t sneak up on me!” You smack his chest. “Also, thanks for the new nightmares about something I’ve literally never thought about before.”

He has the good sense to at least look apologetic. “Sorry,” he says. He shifts his weight to his other foot and clears his throat. “Do you need help?”

“I got this.” Even in the dim, mostly blocked daylight you can see the dirt in patches on his skin and clothing, a recently healed cut on his neck, and eyes that sag. “Why don’t you go take a shower? Once we’re both done you can tell me what’s going on.”

He looks like he’s going to argue, but then he actually says, “Okay.”

“No arguments? Shit; you must really need to sleep,” you say and wipe off a smudge on his cheekbone.

“Don’t push it,” he says with a slight smile and grabs your hand. He doesn’t push you away though; his fingers lightly curl around your hand and you can feel his warmth seeping in. Even in the parts of your skin he isn’t touching.

You don’t know what to do, and Steve freezes too. You both unhook then; jerking like puppets whose masters don’t understand movement, until he rushes upstairs (shockingly quiet) and you go back to the mindless task of putting groceries away. You stop for a moment in the middle to start making a couple of frozen pizzas– if Steve didn’t stop to shower you doubt he stopped to eat.

Steve’s and your friendship is…unconventional. Mostly because of who he is, but also partly because you don’t make a habit out of befriending random people while on vacation. But Steve is special. A chance encounter at a museum turned into lunch, which turned into going to a few spots he recommended, which turned into spending the rest of your week in New York together, switching between playing tourist and acting local.

That, in turn, has become a long-distance friendship that is one of the most solid relationships you’ve ever had. It’s also…occasionally…flirty. You think. Okay, you’re pretty sure, actually, it’s just– what if you’re wrong? And how could it even work, in the best case scenario of returned feelings, when you live a life here and he has a life there? Ultimately you’re happy with what you have, so you try not to think about what could– or could not– be.

Except those thoughts are hard to ignore when Steve is here. In your house. In your shower.

The oven timer goes off and saves you from having to jump into a cold shower of your own. Steve makes his appearance just a minute or so later, when you’re taking a few slices onto your plate.

“Help yourself,” you say, trying to avoid looking at him directly. You steal a little glance at him and as nice as he probably looks with damp hair and dewy skin, you can’t help but slide right over those to focus on the ridges of cuts healing fast and purple blossoms that seem to be fading before your eyes. But they’re still there, and without thinking you touch a yellow spot on his collarbone. A combination of how soft that spot is and him flinching makes you gasp and jerk back.

“I’m so sorry, I– holy shit; is it broken?!” you ask, dumbfounded. Logically, yeah, Steve has to get hurt sometimes, but he always seems so sturdy. Almost unbreakable.

Except now, exhausted to the point of wild eyes trying to stay open and covered in cuts and bruises. “It’s fine; it’s healing.”

“Steve,” you say, and he pulls you into a hug. You avoid that side of his chest (how he’s walking and talking without curling into a pain-crying ball is beyond you) and hug him gently. His clothes smell like smoke and musk and it mingles with the scent of your soap and shampoo. You stay in that moment as he whispers, “I’m fine.”

It’s a terrible lie, but he’s not going to admit otherwise. His stomach rumbles and causes a little break in the tension. Enough for you to pull back and say, “And hungry, apparently.”

He smiles at you, and you sigh. “Fine; I’ll wait until you're done eating for the explanation.”

You don’t have to wait long. He scarfs down the food so fast that he finishes even before you do. He looks a lot better for it though; he doesn’t look as pale and the injuries are just about gone.

“See?” He grabs your hand and puts it to his collarbone– now back in one solid piece. “I’m fine.”

You’re a little distracted with feeling over his skin, but you still roll your eyes. “Just because you heal doesn’t negate that you were hurt in the first place.” Reluctantly, you take your hand back. “So: what the hell is going on?”

Steve’s expression loses any lightness it had and becomes a straight face befitting a troubled captain. “I’m still not quite sure,” he says and crosses his arms as he leans back in his seat. His eyes go down, but his mind obviously travels elsewhere. “Short version: Bucky, Sam, Tony, Bruce, Natasha, Clint, and even Thor are missing.”

“Missing?” How do the Avengers– especially already-(in)famous billionaire Tony Stark– go missing?

“I don’t know who, how, or why,” Steve says, aiming his frown at the table. “Pepper put Stark’s tower on lockdown– I think Darcy, Jane, and Dr. Selvig are there as well. They sent me an SOS letting me know that Tony and Bruce and Thor were missing and I tried to go looking for them and the others. Clint and Natasha could have gone underground, but I feel like I would have heard from them in some way by now, and Sam and Bucky are definitely missing.”

“And nobody’s gloating about it?”

“That’s actually what concerns me the most,” Steve says and looks up at you. “If just capturing us was their only goal, whoever it is would have come forward. But they haven’t. They’re still trying to catch me in secret.”

“Because whatever they want the Avengers for they need the full set?” you guess.

“I can only hope,” he says and runs his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I dropped in like this, it’s just– I’ve kept our friendship to myself. No one knows about you, and this is the only place I could think of where I knew I would be safe.”

You puff up a little at that. Steve hasn’t even been to your house before but he feels safe here– which means, for some reason, he feels safe with you.

“I won't stay here long,” he says and before you can protest, adds, “No. Thank you, but I can’t put you in danger too.”

You hesitate. You want to insist that he can stay as long as he wants, but finding his friends is a time-sensitive thing and you don’t want to seem callous. “Whatever you need, Steve.”

His smile is warm but worn, and for a moment you can see his weariness– his fear. You get up and go next to him, and wrap your arms around his head and shoulders. “It’s going to be all right. Your friends are all smart and can keep themselves safe until you find them. And you will find them. Without getting captured yourself.”

Steve chuckles. He holds onto you, arms around your waist, for several seconds before he releases you. “How did you know that was the back-up plan?”

“It’s the dumbest thing I could think of, so of course you have it as a plan.” You squeeze his shoulders. “Steve…”

“Don’t worry; that’s an absolute last resort,” he says and stands. He wobbles but rights himself. “I have other leads, other ideas.”

“Okay. But Steve?” you say and he frowns like he knows what’s coming. You rush through it. “I know you're worried and I know you have to get to work but you're not going to save anyone if you pass out, and you are one strong breeze from toppling over. You’re all your friends have, so can you please at least take a nap?”

He seems to consider that. You know he knows you’re right, but it’s still a relief when he sighs and says, “Just a nap.”

“I’ll take care of this.” You shoo him away from the plates. “Go take my bed; the guest room isn’t set up.”

“Don’t you need a nap too?”

Steve’s joke makes you stop cold, (or, um, hot), but you crack a smile. “If you want to get me into bed, you’re going to have to do better than that.” It’s a straight lie– sometimes your fantasies are as pathetically simple as sharing a bed and being able to wrap around him like an octopus– but you want to play along. You actually make him blush, and as he runs away with a mumbled goodbye, you allow yourself to watch him go with unrepentant longing.

If only he wasn’t joking.

“Are you sure about this?”

Steve sighs and slams the trunk so hard you’re surprised it doesn’t break. The little old beater he’s ‘borrowing’ must be sturdier than it looks. When he turns to face you, you look down, already anticipating the exasperation. “Sorry,” you say.

“No, it’s…it’s fine.” He places his hands on your shoulders and you look up into weary eyes. “Trust me, I understand. I’m worried too. So just know that…that I’m the only hope my friends have, so I have to be careful.”

You put your hands on top of his. You want to reassure him that they’re all strong and capable but it’s just lip service, and he knows them better than you do. So while he likely knows that, knowing and believing are two different things. “Hey Steve…I know you don’t want to ‘drag’ me into it, but you can crash here whenever you need to.”

He smiles. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he says like a promise, hugs you tight, and takes off.

You spend the rest of the day using your nervous energy to make up the guest room and clean the house. Just in case.

“Hey.”

You almost drop your bowl and you whirl around. “Steve!” you say and dump the bowl in the sink so you can hug him. You’re mindful of your wet and soapy hands– though you doubt his dirty uniform top would mind it. He hugs you back and you are definitely going to need a shower now, but you don’t mind. Especially when he exhales like he’s deflating and leans on you. He’s surprisingly heavy, but you don’t bend against the weight.

…Much.

He lets out a weak huff that you think is supposed to be a laugh. “About that offer to ‘crash here whenever I need to…’”

You pat his back and (reluctantly) separate. “The guest room is all set up. You’re stuck with my soap and shampoo though.”

“I don’t mind that,” he says with a sly smile. Quickly, though, it disappears. “Um, sorry. Can I use your laundry?”

“Sure. Secret agent man you are, you probably know where it is.” His smile answers in the affirmative. “Good. Do you need me to do anything?”

“No, but thanks,” he says and, while he doesn’t run, he certainly walks with purpose.

And quite a bit of focus, apparently. You’ve just finished the dishes when he comes back, clean and changed. You never expected shower-damp Steve to be such a constant threat in your life and now that he is you’re not sure if you should curse it or praise it. Maybe both.

“Can I have these?” Steve asks, holding up three boxes of macaroni and cheese.

“Of course.” You turn off the faucet and dry your hands. “Want me to make them for you?”

The look he gives you can only be described as ‘pissy.’ Someone on the outside might describe it as ‘disapproving’ but you know him too well for that. “I can make macaroni and cheese.”

“Since when? I gotta see this.” You hop up on the counter and lean over to watch. “Big pot is in the cabinet right there.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly and goes about filling it up with water so it can start boiling. As he’s getting the milk and butter together, something occurs to you.

“Hey,” you say. “I could have been offering to make it for you because that’s what a good host does.”

“That’s not why you offered though.” Steve winks at you and wow. That’s so much worse/better than the emojis he sends you. Worse than that: that’s all you’re going to see in his texts from now on.

“How did you know?” You turn your head to watch the pot.

“Because I know you,” he says. Fondly. You’re sure of that part; the real question is: fond like fond-of-a-friend, or fond like getting-fonder fond?

“Well it’s not out of bounds for me to assume you don’t know how to cook. Popular media tells me all New Yorkers only have a fridge, a microwave, and maybe one counter to store their take-out menus on.”

“Well I have a fridge, a microwave, an oven, and two counters,” Steve says and pours the pasta into the pot. “One for the take-out menus, and one for food.”

“Fancy,” you ‘gasp’ in awe.

“You don’t remember it?” He turns his head to look at you but keeps stirring.

“I’ve never been to your place,” you say. “I’m not part of that cool kids club.”

Steve’s smile is a little sad– like he’s thinking about that club. You wince. “How’s it…going?” you ask, even though you’re afraid to.

“Better. I’m…I’m making progress.” He looks at the pot. “Sorry but I think it’s safer if you don’t know the details.”

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re being safe about it,” you say and scoot over as he comes to the sink to drain the pot.

“Like you said, I’m all they have.” Steve sets the bowl of pasta sans water in the empty sink and turns to you. He moves his hand to your other side and puts it on the counter right next to your thigh. Your stomach flips but you barely get to freak out about that when he moves his face incredibly close to yours.

“Thanks again,” he says. “For letting me stay here.”

“Anytime,” you say before you can think about it. It’s still true, at least. But Steve stays there, and stays there, and stays, but does nothing and shows no sign of doing anything. Which is…

…the right thing. Much as it hurts you to admit it. Steve is alone and scared and you are not going to take advantage, even despite the overwhelming temptation. You lean back. “You should, uh…”

He blinks and jerks back. “Right– right.”

“Before the, um…”

“Yes, thanks.” Steve goes back to making his dinner but shoots you a relieved smile over his shoulder. It’s disappointing to be so close to something and have to let it go, but you’re starting to think…maybe he’s more receptive than you previously believed. Maybe after all of this is over you’ll see if he’s as interested in you as you are in him.

Or maybe you’ll just…continue to stare from afar. And aclose. It’s a toss-up.

Though the next day you find yourself struggling with the idea of letting him go. He had insisted he rested enough and needs to head out, which is why you’re sitting in your car at the airport drop-off, currently scrambling for excuses to make him stay.

He doesn’t leave right away either. Though he does sigh and say, “I should go before the, uh, officer gets back.”

“That guy’s a dick,” you mutter. But when Steve unbelts and opens the door, you catch his arm before he’s out of reach. “Be…be safe.”

“I will.” He puts his hand over yours and lingers.

Until a loud ‘whoop!’ of a police car makes him slide it away and he gets out, grabs his bag, and disappears into the mill of travelers.

You drive away, already settling in to wait on the edge until he comes back.

A few days later you’re just getting up, shuffling to get ready for work, when you pass by the guest room and stop suddenly. Steve is lying face down on the bed, sleeping soundly, wearing only his pants. His back is covered in fading purple and the curves of his muscles catch your eyes for only a moment before you focus on those bruises, the stray cuts and small trails of dried blood that he couldn’t quite reach with the damp rag that now sits on the floor just under his dangling fingers.

You sigh and shamble back to your room to call out sick for the day.

“Ow!”

“Stop being such a baby.” You dab the area with a dry cloth. “You walked and talked with a broken clavicle; this does not hurt that bad.”

“I told you, I heal fine on my own.” Steve holds up his arm. “See? This one already closed up.”

“Great; so infection sneaks in and gets sealed in fast.”

“And then eliminated by the serum.”

You hit him with the washcloth but he leans back and laughs. You smile too, despite what a child he’s been. How can you not, when he manages to be light incarnate despite everything going on? His smile dims, but that’s reasonable. You’ve never minded his shadows, anyway.

“I know you’re a liar,” you say and gently wipe away the rest of the blood from his shoulder. “I have a patch of wet carpet from your own attempt to do this that will testify.”

He rolls his eyes. “I already apologized for that.”

“Steve. It’s not about the carpet.” You put your hand down, still holding the rag. “It’s okay to…get help, you know?”

“You help a lot.” He puts his hand on yours, and wraps his long fingers around. His eyes are…so blue, it’s almost unreal. He squeezes your hand and water from the cloth drips to the floor, but it sounds distant. You can’t look away from him. Even more so when Steve licks his lips. “I…in case something happ–”

His phone trills three times and Steve jumps up so fast he almost knocks you over. He catches you with one hand, apologizes, and runs over to check it. After staring at the screen for a few tense seconds, he inhales sharply. “I have to go.”

You throw the rag onto the table and wipe your hand on your pants. “Do you need a ride?”

“I got it; it’s probably safer if you’re not with me right now,” Steve says as he taps out something in his phone. He darts up the stairs without another word.

You barely get to clean up before he’s rushing back down, dressed, with his bag on his shoulder. You stand to toss a ‘be safe!’ at him as he inevitably runs out, but find yourself face-to-face with him. He grabs your shoulders to steady you. “When I get back,” he says, “I have something to tell you.”

“O…kay?” You can’t imagine what he has to tell you that he can’t do it right now, but it’s a good assurance nonetheless. “Don’t make me wait too long.”

He smiles. “I won't,” he promises, pulls his hat low, and slips out.

Only a couple of nights later you wake up to a large shadowed figure standing just outside your bedroom door.

“Steve?” You yawn. “Are you okay?”

“So, the captain is staying here.”

The unfamiliar voice wakes you up better than an espresso injection and you jolt up only to stare at a shadowed figure holding something out. You know what it is when you see it glint in a sliver of moonlight.

“Do not move. Do not scream.”

You clutch the blanket in a tight fist. You obey, and hope that he won't shoot you.

“Where is Captain America?”

“I don’t know,” you whisper.

“I have no patience for liars,” he says and steps forward.

“I’m– I’m not lying!” You scoot back as far as you can. “He doesn’t tell me and I– I don’t ask.”

“Hm.” He’s silent for a few seconds, during which you make a conscious effort to breathe quietly. “So you are useless, then.”

The gun clicks and you freeze. At this angle there’s no way to get cover and you don’t know if your petrified body can move anyway. Still, you try and you roll out of bed. The shot is loud and you can feel bits of plaster hit your back as you hit the floor.

“STAY DOWN!”

Steve. You curl into a ball as shots fire and something smashes into your walls. It’s cacophonous, but quick– the noise ends, though your ears keep ringing, and when heavy boots rush at you, you curl up tighter.

“Hey, it’s all right,” a kind voice says. “I’m Sam Wilson and I’m gonna help you up. Are you hurt?”

“No,” you say but as you stand you wince at a stinging cut in your back. You try not to focus too hard on the rampant destruction of your room. You’re alive, at least.

The shock is enough that you’re at the bottom of the stairs when you blurt out, “Steve,” and look around. “I heard him; where– is he oka–”

“Easy,” Sam says and leads you to the couch. “He’s fine; just rounding up some stragglers.”

“Okay,” you breathe, but there’s that pain again.

“I recognize that face.” Sam pulls out a small bag. “Where’s it hurt?”

Sam takes care of you and you try not to worry about how long it’s taking Steve to track down ‘stragglers.’ But it’s not easy to relax after a wake up like that. Or when a red-headed assassin and her blond partner are watching you like hawks. Well, one hawk. You’re more worried about the Black Widow.

“There.” Sam pulls the edge of your top back down, returning to you some modicum of dignity. “Doesn’t even need stitches.”

“Thank you,” you say and blink away sleep.

“So…” Nata– Black Widow and Hawkeye walk over to sit and stand in front of you, respectively. “How do you know Steve?”

“Um…” You know Steve never told them, but it doesn’t feel like your place. What should you say? “I–”

Your name is called by a comfortingly familiar voice and you get to your feet as he rushes in the back door, Bucky at his heels. Steve’s suit is a little dirty and his hair is messed up, but he looks fine.

You breathe for what feels like the first time as he strides up to you. “St–”

Warm.

Steve’s lips are very warm.

You know this because they are very on your lips.

As soon as you make this realization, you snap to– and you wrap your arms around him and open your mouth to his. Steve responds immediately, slipping his tongue in and holding you as close as he possibly can without breaking your back. Not that it matters, because you’re dead. You have to be. You’re dead and in some fabulous afterlife, or you’re dying and hallucinating, because this can’t really be happening.

Can it?

You both break apart, (well, at face level at least), gasping for air. You lick your lips. “That was…new.”

You’re so close to him you can practically feel his cheeks radiate warmth when he blushes. “I’m sorry, I…” He hugs you tight. “I can’t believe I almost lost you.”

You’re content to stay in his arms forever, but pointed coughing makes you recognize other people are in the room. Steve practically leaps away from you, which is fair, considering just how amused his friends are and, okay, this isn’t the first impression you would have wanted to make on his friends, but you find it hard to be upset considering Steve just kissed you.

“I cannot believe you kept this a secret from your best friend,” Bucky says, placing a hand over his heart, but he’s grinning. You know well enough from the stories Steve has told you that poor Steve is never going to get to live this down.

“How do you know he didn’t tell me about it?” Sam says. Bucky shoves him, and they start to bicker. Steve puts a hand to his face.

“I didn’t know.”

Natasha’s words still the room. She’s vaguely impressed, but…

“Successfully keeping a secret from the Black Widow.” You squint at Steve. “Is that something that goes on your resume or your tombstone?”

Steve and some of the others laugh and you feel a little less on edge. Just a little. But they talk to each other, and Steve uses the opportunity to pull you into the kitchen.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he says, eyes darting and head moving as he looks over every inch of you.

“Fucking hell, Steve, take me to dinner first,” you blurt out, and he blushes.

But he says, “I’d like that.”

You blink. “You would?”

“Yes.” He moves in closer. “And we’ll talk about this.”

You lick your lips. “We will?”

“Yeah. Later. For now…” He pulls you into a kiss. And follows it up with even more.

Later, then.

You have plenty of time.

#steve rogers x reader #captain america reader insert #avengers reader insert #captain america fanfic #avengers fanfic #romance #fluff #mutual pining

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persxphxne · 6 years ago

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Coincidences Part 2 (Steve Rogers x Short!Reader)

Okay, readers, I sincerely apologize for the long delay but things kept happening one after the other. Anyway, here is the part 2 that you all have been waiting for, hopefully, it leaves you as confused as the first. Enjoy >.

Pairing: Steve x reader, but that this point who knows XD

Summary: Pre-CACW. You start off the day with people teasing you about the one thing you can’t control, your height. Then just when you thought your day couldn’t get worse it gets…better? You start seeing the same cute guy everywhere you go and you start to wonder if it is just a coincidence or fate.

Word Count:1,572

Warnings: A handful of swears.

(Y/N) – Your name

(f/f) - Favorite food

<< Part 1

“Ok before I let you in, I would like to apologize in advance for the state of my house, I didn’t anticipate having such a,” I bite my lip to stop myself from voicing my true opinion of the fine specimen which stood before me, “polite gentleman over for dinner.”

“I’m certain that your home is fine m-(Y/N), but if I am intruding we can always reschedule-” I put up one hand to cut Steve off while using the other to find the right key for each of the three locks that adorned my entrance door.

“No!” He looks down at me with a kind smile and eyebrows raised. “Sorry that was loud…” he laughs, “But you already bought my groceries, which you didn’t have to, therefore I insist that you come in.” As I finish my last line I push open my door and step aside, allowing him to enter with the groceries first. Giving me a nod of thanks, I follow him as he walks inside and places the groceries on the kitchen countertop. I see him survey his surroundings, from the small living room to the multiple security doors that exit off sections of the house, and I know that he is just itching to ask a question.

“It’s not big, but it’s enough for a small girl like me,” I state pulling him out of his evaluation, unpacking the groceries.

“It’s a perfect fit for you (Y/N),” he turns towards me, and helps unpack the groceries after realizing I was doing it myself, “Not because of your physique, but from what I’ve seen, the style fits your personality quite well…” He trails off like he wants to ask something else.

“Is something on your mind Steve? Oh, and where are my manners, do you want anything to drink while I prepare the meal?”

“(Y/N) I wouldn’t mind helping you if-” I cut him off with a glare before he pouts and sits down in one of the tall chairs by the tabletop, begrudgingly stating, “Water sounds great it’s not too much of a problem.” Pouring some cold water into a glass I look at him, then while giving him his glass he asks me a question.

“So, forgive me if I overstep my boundaries, but might I ask why all the security doors?” He questions suspiciously, causing me to laugh and light-heartedly state,

“Um, well I guess because of my small frame, and I don’t have anyone,” namely a tall, muscular, blue-eyed blond, “to assure me of security, I guess this is just an extra measure of protecting myself. Not a big reasoning but let’s just say I’m a bit paranoid.” Steve looks at me, expecting the rest of the explanation that never came as I turn my back to him and continue to make my (F/F). “But enough about me, what do you do for a living, you look like someone who could do well in security ironically.”

“I suppose you can say that my job somewhat involves that,” he takes the last sip of his water before positioning himself next to me while placing his empty glass into the sink, resting the other hand in the dip of my back. “But my job isn’t that interesting so there really isn’t much to talk about.” I listen to his vaguely explained job as I make a mental note of the holes, but still, continue to ask my questions as I stir the pot.

“So is your co-worker, Natalie…Natalia….Natasha! Right is she also in the “security” business with you alone, or is there a group of you?“ He raises his eyebrows while pushing his hand through his hair thinking about my question before answering,

“Yea, she works with me. Although she doesn’t look like it, she does better than me sometimes at her job. But besides us, there are only about a handful of people who work alongside me that I respect…you in fact might meet them soon.” Noting the weird statement I take a few steps back, pretending to look through the cutlery drawer.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well let’s just say that you are a very interesting person (Y\N), or should I say Siren?” His tone of voice falls from kind to serious within that one line as in that moment chaos ensued. The light had reflected off of the tranquilizer in Steve’s right hand before he was able to fully remove it from his pocket, which gave me enough time to pull out my gun and aim it right at his chest.

“Look I don’t know what you want, but I don’t know who this Siren person is.” “Sorry ma'am, but that’s what they all say,” Steve attempts to duck under my arm, which I react to by spinning to the side while grabbing the second pistol behind the blender, now pointing both at his face.

“But I’m not lying. Now, I suggest you leave before-” Before I could finish, my front door is literally blown open along with living room window which pelts glass shatters everywhere. With my gun still focused on Steve, if that even is his real name, I glance to the right, in time to see the Avengers enter my house. Hawkeye, Thor, and the newest member, whose name I believe was Vision, swoop in through my newly broken windows. From my door, however, enters Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, followed by a visibly perplexed Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man.

“Ok short stack, before we take you I have got to comment on that entrance algorithm which was driving me insane like I had seen it before but I couldn’t put my finger on it, so I decided to just blow the door down. Now if you don’t mind, you can move the guns away from Cap now.” Tony remarks as the rest of the Avengers form a semi-circle around the kitchen area.

“Cap? As in…Captain America…shite,” I look at Steve in betrayal which he responds to by turning his face away causing me to sigh. “Fine, clearly I’m outmatched,” I place my weapons on my counter as I sit on the countertop, showing my tired surrender.

“That was strangely….easier than I thought.” A Sokovian accent points out as I turn towards the voice, whose appearance is as beautiful as the voice that came from it. The Scarlet Witch didn’t fit the typical appearance of the said witch, but still looked menacing with her long brown hair and hands radiating a red electricity like mist.

“Well to be honest,” I start replying as I push myself off the table, the Avengers standing on guard as I realize Captain America has now joined them…as if we were enemies…

"I don’t know who this Siren person is, but I guess since you guys still plan to take me, we are on…lockdown.“ And with that last word all the lights in my house fade, only the sounds of confused shouts and titanium doors slamming down resonate through the room, muffling my casual steps to the oven, where I smell that my (f\f) has finished. By the time the lights turn back on, my house has been locked down, every entrance blocked by impenetrable metals and multiple padlocks that all link to one particular room in the home. "What the hell was that!” Hawkeye exclaims, moving towards me in an enraged manner before being held back by the Black Widow…who looked strangely like…now I get it.

“ That, my friend, was lockdown and before you accuse me of anything, I didn’t install it,” I shrug, taking out multiple bowls from my cupboard, “Anyway, it locks people in and keeps others out until I figure out why it took a whole team of Avengers to, first of all, find me, and secondly, to capture me.”

“(Y\N)-” Captain attempts to interrupt but I interject in annoyance before he could continue.

“You tried to tranquilize me ‘sir’, and besides, you are stuck here for the next 24 hours unless I have anything to say about it.” This causes Thor to laugh outrageously before explaining,

“Little mortal, while I admit you do have spunk, your metal cage cannot contain my thunder.” To emphasize his words, he smashes his hammer onto the titanium protecting the windows, only seconds before he gets blasted back with his own bolts.

“Exit attempted, timer now 12 hours till exposure.” A voice resonates through the room, coming from speakers installed inside the walls.

“Thanks, Jordan,” I reply as my artificial AI responds to me with “not a problem” before going back dormant.

“Firstly, we have got to partner up on advanced technologies,” Iron Man states as his helmet comes off, “and secondly, exposure to what exactly?”

“You can find out if you try a couple of more times, but I’d recommend against that.” Placing cutlery on the countertop and stepping back I continue, “ Now we could wait twelve hours if you want, or you could eat while you explain your purpose for trying to kidnap me?” This causes Tony Stark to smirk before taking a seat on my debris filled couch before stating,

“You got Scotch?”

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ahouseoflies · 6 years ago

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The Best Films of 2018, Part V

We’re finally here. Thank you for reading. Or at least scrolling around to the movies that you care about. GREAT MOVIES

12. Minding the Gap (Bing Liu)- In part because it's produced by Steve James, Minding the Gap's easy short-hand is "Hoop Dreams for skateboarding." Because most of the film's pleasures come from following the subjects over the course of five or six years, that makes sense. What differs is that director Bing Liu is so young, which makes this a promising film if a less definitive one than James's feature debut. It’s trying to do so much, but it never feels calculated or constructed as it expands. Boldly, Liu seems to suggest that people don't really change that much, that what drives them or gnaws at them just manifests itself in different ways. The cycle of abuse ends up being a common element for the three skaters, and, as Liu admits on camera, domestic violence is the reason he made the film. (The treatment of it is raw, a blunt object when a more delicate instrument might work better.) He got the hard part right though: delicately getting us to care about people who sometimes don't care about themselves. 11. A Quiet Place (John Kransinski)- Strong early Shyamalan vibes from this lean chiller. Krasinski's directing debut, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, didn't do much for me, and I skipped his obligatory man-comes-back-to-hometown-because-his-mom's-dying follow-up. But the filmmaking really impressed me here just by understanding how to set the table of this kind of movie. A close-up on an important nail sticking out of a floorboard here, an effortless explanation of a rule there. The hang-up for a film this high-concept is that you get distracted by all of the unanswered questions. (How did he get a printer quiet enough to print out all of those radio call signals?) But this world is fleshed out enough, especially an eerie dinner sequence, to bypass that kind of stuff for me. More than anything, there's a sort of elasticity of shot selection that serves the suspense. A tender early scene in which the central couple is dancing while wearing headphones goes on for maybe twice as long as one might expect. So later, the cross-cuts and smash-cuts have even more weight because the camera was allowed to linger earlier. Here's maybe the biggest reason for the movie's success: The characters are all slightly smarter than the audience, whereas the temptation might have been to go the other way with it. 10. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)- I don't know if I can add anything to the discourse on this meditative yet ambitious film. I do think one early scene points at what makes it special for the genre. When T'Challa is first named king, he has to be drained of the Black Panther powers to fight anyone who wishes to challenge the throne. A member of an outsider tribe challenges him and nearly beats him. It shows a) the world-building of this noble, fair culture, b) the existence of this fully developed clan that will be important later, c) just how human T'Challa is if his reign can come so perilously close to ending just as it has begun. Every scene like that has a logical purpose. Of course, once Killmonger, the best, most realistically motivated Marvel villain of all time, gets introduced, we return to that method of challenging the throne, and writers Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole aren't afraid to let the worst possible thing happen to T'Challa. What occurred forty-five minutes earlier makes this fight seem like a fait accompli. And it's in this sort of narrative detail that the film is able to work up to its thematic purpose. The first half is about, to quote T'Chaka, whether a good man can be a good king. But the second half is about the responsibility of goodness. Show me where Iron Man bit off that much. 9. Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski)- Although it takes place mostly in one location during one day, Support the Girls has a bigger world going on in its margins. We hear it on radios, or we see it in the people taking a pitstop in Double Whammies while they're on their way somewhere better. But the force that's really encroaching on the characters' insulated environment is Mancave, the national chain that threatens to put them out of business. "They have commercials and everything," one character complains, and we get snatches of those commercials that were presumably directed by Andrew Bujalski himself. It's ten seconds of content maybe, shot in a bigger, broader style than the modest approach of the rest of the film. But the key to understanding how far Bujalski has come is realizing that he is no longer making fun of the people in the commercial, even if they're jacked bros screaming for a boxing match. That portrayal is amplified, sure, but Bujalski is mature enough now to not ridicule those people. It's okay that they're just not the people he's interested in. He's supernaturally empathetic toward the rogue's gallery of people he is interested in, who spin the ordinary challenges of the working class into something extraordinary. The sunniest member of the team is played by Haley Lu Richardson, who deserves special recognition as the indefatigable Maci. I can't think of parts that are much different from her roles in this, Columbus, and Split, to the extent that people probably don't realize they're played by the same woman, but she rules in every single one. The sky is the limit for her. When a workplace is described as "a family," it's usually just a way for the boss to take advantage of workers when the "family" designation does nothing to help them: "I know I shouldn't ask you to work off the clock, but can you help me out as a FAMILY MEMBER?" Occasionally though, it does feel like a family when people work closely to one another for hours on end and depend upon one another for real life needs. This movie is about what happens when a work family is both control and support.

8. Roma (Alfonso Cuaron)- The trailer for Children of Men advertises itself as "from the director of The Prisoner of Azkaban and Y Tu Mama Tambien," and I remember an audience giggling at that strange CV. For one thing, at the time people didn't understand yet why someone would brag about contributing to a Harry Potter movie. But to pair that children's picture with either a Spanish title they hadn't heard of or a movie that they knew was sexually explicit? Who was this guy? Roma is who he is. I like some of his other films more--I would argue that his approach hurts the performances here--but it seems impossible for him to make anything this personal again. The baldly emotional highs that it reaches come not only from the direct simplicity of the story but also from the sophisticated perspective with which it's being downloaded directly from Cuaron's memory. (It's also, accidentally or purposefully, quite a political film at this moment in time. It insists, sometimes in the dialect of Mixtec, that these people around us silently washing dishes or picking up dog poo are, in fact, part of our family.) There's a moment when one brother throws something at another's head, barely missing, and they both stop in their tracks with fear about how tragically things could have ended up. My dad experienced a similar moment in his childhood, and he would tell the same story about Uncle Steve throwing a shoe at him any time we passed the wooden door with a dent in it at my grandma's house. What a tiny moment to live on for decades, in tangible and intangible ways. Cuaron claims that all of these moments shape us, and taking us to the moon was only a warm-up for resurrecting them for us. 7. Happy As Lazzaro (Alice Rohrbacher)- Alice Rohrwacher won the screenplay award at Cannes, probably because her script for Happy As Lazzaro is fundamentally unpredictable. Games of checkers are unpredictable though. That word doesn't quite cover the way the viewer is forced to guess at something as elemental as "What year is this taking place?" And none of the twists and turns of the storytelling--I refuse to spoil--would gel if Rohrwacher as a director wasn't teaching you how to watch the film the whole time with a rich, warm, light touch. Considering the purity of this vision as a fable, buoyed by realistic labor concerns on the other hand, it's a pity that people are calling Birdbox "crazy" when something like this is just a few clicks down on that service. 6. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)- When assessing The Favourite, the easy temptation is to say that because it isn't stuffy, because of its scabrous wit or its intimate filming techniques, that it "isn't your mother's chamber drama." It is invigorating, but in a lot of ways, the film isn't saying anything that the average Masterpiece Theater production doesn't. Instead it takes cultural touchstones about the emptiness of power and distorts them, much like the fish-eye lenses that Yorgos Lanthimos favors to photograph the palace. It says an easy thing in a hard way, with conviction to burn. Lanthimos seems freed by not having to write the screenplay, and every decision of his is rooted in making things more narrow. The barrel distortion of the fish-eye seems apt for this idea, but so do the secret passageways that Queen Anne gets wheeled through to avoid the lower rungs of the estate. Of course there's no outside world to intrude upon her majesty. But there's even an inner world to the inner world. (It's impossible to watch Olivia Colman's gonzo depiction of Anne's incurious indolence and not think of Trump.) I'm convinced that Emma Stone can do anything, and the final shot, an all-timer, only validates that suspicion. 5. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (Gus Van Sant)- You have to check out every Gus Van Sant movie, even after a few missteps, because you never know: He might take the emotional climax that you didn't even know you wanted and score it to inter-diegetic "Still Rock 'N Roll to Me," thus grounding real poignance with even realer goofiness.I'll admit that the bar is low, but this is probably the most authentic, least treacly movie ever made about addiction recovery. Van Sant, who wrote, directed, and edited, tells the story with patient command. We take Joaquin Phoenix for granted at this point, but everybody on the poster is exceptional. And Udo Kier gets to say, "Pop, pop. It's always about penises." INSTANT CLASSICS

4. A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper)- In one scene Cooper's Jackson Maine wears a black leather jacket under a brown leather vest, and the movie itself risks that kind of hat-on-a-hat silliness and redundancy. But instead it comes off as the best kind of big swing, a comforting and warm serving of Old Hollywood. Cooper's camera knows how to embrace silence and let the leads play off each other to craft raw, touching performances. Sometimes the close-ups are so intense and focused that, when he cuts back to a master, it's disorienting to be reminded that there are other people in that space, in the world at all.The movie's deficiencies come from "Wait, how much time has passed?" moments in the writing, problems that I always have had with Eric Roth projects. But it's easy to get swept up in a movie of moments that believes so much in itself.

3. Mission: Impossible- Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie)- The pattern of Mission: Impossible- Fallout is: infodump that explains the stakes and the strategy of what we're about to see, followed by an action sequence that is somehow even more thrilling than the one that came before it. Imagine a really interesting day of grade school classes, in which you learned, like, multiplication, followed by recess every other period. As for T.C., what more could you possibly want out of a human being?

2. Wildlife (Paul Dano)- When Jerry, Jake Gyllenhaal's groundskeeper of pathetic pride, figures out that his boss is about to fire him in front of his son, he smiles and, through clenched teeth, asks if this talk can happen tomorrow. Part of him actually believes that postponing the meeting will help; maybe the boss's temper will cool overnight. But this is a man who is bound by the same desperate spirit as his wife Jeanette, who muses, "Tomorrow something will happen that will make us feel different." When people are living day-to-day, clinging to their dignity--he refers to himself as a "small person" at one point--tomorrow really does offer a regenerative power. Those characters are the same-pole magnets that inform this coming-of-age tale, and the subtext of the film is "Can you believe Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal have a fourteen-year-old son?" It works for the 1960 setting because these are people who defined themselves before they knew who they were, and they'll now do anything to re-define themselves as brave/sexy/valuable. But it works for the actors too. Gyllenhaal in particular is tender and heartbreaking in a true supporting role, allowing himself to look his age, framing himself with the dad akimbo arms. But Mulligan's fake confidence is great too, especially in a scene in which she nearly begs her husband to let her work. Something tells me that I should credit a director for coaxing two career best performances from two great actors. Some people just have it, and Paul Dano does.

1. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)- In 1998 I dragged my father to see Paul Schrader's Affliction, a movie that was kind of about my father's father. When the end credits rolled on that bleak, wrenching film, my dad turned to me and said, "I feel like I have to take a shower." We walked around a nearby hotel and talked for an hour, not that he was able to articulate why he was so shaken. We discussed the difference between entertainment and art and what makes a piece of either successful. Even though he hated the experience, he couldn't deny that it was an experience. He kept on saying, "That's not why I go to the movies." And no matter what I, fifteen at the time, told him, he couldn't understand that's exactly why I go to the movies. First Reformed had the same mesmerizing effect as the best of Schrader's work: When I exited the building, I stumbled into the sunlight because I had been trapped in someone else's mind for almost two hours.

Part of that effect comes from the narrative device of Reverend Toller's journal, which plants us in his headspace from the beginning. Part of it comes from the intimate scale of the film, which features only a handful of locations. But if what I'm explaining seems small, then I'm doing a bad job. The canvas expands. Schrader insists that our care for the environment is our most immediate responsibility; this film historian has no problem with planting the film at 2017 in dialogue. And that emphasis is matched only by his disdain for how big business encroaches on personal aspects of our lives. There's even a scene that tries to account for a recent rise in extremism among young people. As if to prove that he isn't being pedantic, he has one character communicate one of those ideas, letting you assume that role is his mouthpiece, then he has another character reply with something just as convincing. First Reformed weaves in those elements, but it's ultimately a character piece that humanizes the type of person we think we know but for which we have no frame of reference. In Ethan Hawke's piercing performance, we see a Reform minister who punishes himself actively and passively for what he thinks are sins. He uses faith as an armor and as an excuse, being so of the mind and--as another character puts it--"in the garden" that he denies himself medical care. No matter what anyone else tells him, he is convinced of one of the tenets that Schrader could never shake from his Calvinist upbringing: There's nothing you can do to save yourself.

#film #lists #movie reviews

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coffeenfun · 8 years ago

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Lala

Summery: Dinner with the family

Triggers: none I can think of

Word Count: 900+

A/N; what is in italics, I said in real life to my mum when I was 3 years old and thought it was very fitting. (*not my gif but in love with it)

Tagging: @helllaellla @bovaria @marvel-ash @marvelfanfichq @givebuckyhisplums2k16 @starstar1012 @fairy-frills @emilypkuzu @annadier @buckystories @shamvictoria11 @feelmyroarrrr @totheendofthelinepal @thelazyorange @creatorofwritings @callingmrsbarnes @whotheeffisbucky @palaiasaurus64 @likochkah @professional-fandoms @james-bionic-barnes

‘Uncle Lala!’ Your 3 year old son shouted at the sight of T’challa. He had come over for the week. After Bucky moved back to Brooklyn they hadn’t seen much of each other, considering they usually saw each other everyday back in Wakanda.

‘Hello Jamie’ he picked up the toddler, laughing at James’ name for him. T’challa was hard for a 1 year old to pronounce so the king of Wakanda quickly became known as Lala throughout the compound. At first the two would argue over who was correct and after hours of your son being as stubborn as his father “Lala” accepted his new name.

‘Are you going to stay for dinner?’ You son said running his hand over t’challa’s hair. The movement must have tickled the king because he visibly shivered after.

‘I am’

‘Yay!’ Jamie wriggled his way out of T’challa’s grasp and lead him to the kitchen, where you and Bucky stood adding the finishing touches to your lasagna before putting it in the oven ‘I helped mummy and daddy today. We made lasagna and I chopped up some cheese to put on the top and mummy says that the cheese is the best part of the lasagna’

‘Your mother is right.’ He confirmed. He then turned to you, and with a palm on your waist, kissed your cheek. ‘Hello Y/N’ he did the same to Bucky. You both replied politely and watch on at the conversation between the two men (one man and a toddler)

‘So’ t’challa said pointing at Jamie ‘here’s the Mini Bucky but where’s the Mini Y/N?’

‘She’s sleeping’ your son practically yelled the words out, forgetting everyone he was talking to was in the same room as him.

You nodded at looked over at the clock, knowing it was time for your daughter to cry out. And she did. Right on time.

‘I’ll go get her’ you husband told you while walking to the room where your daughter had been sleeping. James, who was still talking to his Wakandan uncle, proceeded to give a very detailed explanation of how to make a lasagna.

The three of you migrated from the kitchen to the living room where you all sat with drinks in your hand. Jamie having orange juice and T’challa having cloudy lemonade. You were greeted with the growing sound of your husband entertaining post-nap Saffie. They entered the room and the almost 1-year-old nearly jumped out his Bucky grasp at the sight of her uncle. He put her down on the floor, ensuring she was stable on her feet before letting her waddle over to the sofa, always following closely behind her.

She managed her way over to the sofa and fell on you. You caught her expertly and lifted her high in the air. She giggled at your motion as you brought her down to kiss her cheek. You sat her on your knee but she made it very clear that she wanted to see her Uncle Lala.

‘Hello gorgeous, did you just walk?’ T’challa repeated the question only, this time, a few octaves higher.

The five of you sat in the living room for a while, talking and playing. Jamie showed T’challa his Black Panther mask and told him he was his favourite Avenger, after daddy, Uncle Steve, auntie Nat, Auntie Wanda and Uncle Clint. The timer chimed, signalling you to gather at the dinner table.

You got the children into their seats, both of them using boosters to reach the high table, while Bucky set the table and brought out the food you made. You had made lasagna, your son’s favourite food for the taste and your favourite food because you could sneak vegetables in.

You all engaged in more conversation, now mainly between the two fighters on the table. Saffie sat next to you and facing you so it was easier to feed her. She had her regular bowl of puree but you also gave her the tiny pieces of meat from the lasagna. Bucky would always comment on how you would make funny faces when feeding her, then when it was his turn he would do the same.

You were too involved with trying to get some tomato sauce of your daughter’s chin with the obstacle of her hand and her whipping her head away from you every time you would get close to the stain to hear what the boys were talking about. That was until James Buchanan Barnes Jr. said something you would never forget, and he would never live down.

'My daddy, my daddy. He’s so old, but he’s not dead yet’

The entire table was still for a moment, even Saffie had stopped flapping her arms in protest. You tried to process what James had just said.

‘Yet!’ Bucky yelled. ‘Yet? Do you know something I don’t?’

‘Just that you’re very old’ the attitude your son dished out to his father made you and t’challa snigger. With one glare from bucky the laughing stopped and you went back to feeding your other child and heard Bucky talking to Jamie.

‘Eat your dinner, Jamie. We have icecream for dessert.’ you husband grumbled, clearly not happy with your son.

After everyone had finished you and Bucky cleaned the table as Uncle Lala entertained the kids. You were putting plates in the sink and smiling to yourself about Jamie’s previous words.

‘You find that funny, doll?’ Bucky’s words drifted past you as his hands lay on your hips. His lips touched your neck as he whispered. ‘I’ll show you how old I am’

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libraryofrewrita · 6 years ago

Text

Chapter 18: Finding Predictabul

"What are you saying, Hovernyan?"

"The curse that was keeping me in the shed for all of that time eventually wore down enough for you guys to get me out and if you were able to see Pallysol when he wasn't a statue, the same might apply to him and the others!"

Hovernyan was shaking with excitement at the thought of reuniting with his friends once again and he quickly shoved the milk caps into Lucas's hands.

"These milk caps will tell you where to find the place where Nathaniel and Kenny first met the Yo-kai, which is where their statue is also located. I imagine Gin and Kin did this just to shake the two up, but not anymore!"

Hovernyan was feeling giddy over the whole idea and as the kids looked over the milk caps, a concerning thought crossed their minds.

"Hovernyan? We only saw three of these Yo-kai-turned-statues in our time period."

Hovernyan turned his head, a brief moment of fear in his eyes.

"Which ones?"

"Gnomey, Faux Kappa, and Pallysol before we realized that he was cursed."

"Wait, so you don't remember seeing Predictabul or Mermaiden in your time period?"

The kids shook their heads and Hovernyan said,

"Well, see if you can find out where those statues went as soon as you get to your time period. Since they're just cursed Yo-kai, it's unlikely that they suffered from weathering or breaking."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to discuss a few things with a friend of mine who was lucky enough to not get cursed. He's been a pivotal part of helping me fix the timelines and well...I need to make sure he's okay."

Hovernyan looked worried as he said that, almost as if he was afraid that the curse would end up striking on his friend if he didn't go see him at that moment and he quickly left the group to track down his friend.

"Let's summon Miradox and get back to our time period."

After they used the charms with their normal clothes and Nate and Katie put their necklaces and Yo-kai Watches on, they properly summoned Miradox with the Model Zero and the group went back to their time period.

*****

They found themselves in the alley where they first summoned Miradox and started to discuss how they were going to rescue the cursed Yo-kai.

"If Hovernyan is right, then the Rock-Away Extract should have a better effect on the cursed statues here than in the past."

"But you're forgetting that we have to track down two other statues. We have no clue about where they could possibily be, other than that they used to be in Harrisville long before we were born."

"Looks like we're going to have to take another trip to Harrisville to ask around."

As tempting as it was to go to Harrisville through Mirapo to save a lot of time, they knew that they had to plan things out carefully.

"First thing tomorrow, we talk to Mr. Goodsight about getting the Yo-kai Watches upgraded and seeing if there's a way to at least get them back to A Rank as soon as possible. It won't do us any good if it turns out that one of the statues is stuck behind a Watch Lock Door that's higher than a D Rank, not to mention that we're going to have to fight stronger Yo-kai if we're ever going to stop the Wicked Yo-kai."

*****

The next day...

The group walked into Timer's and More and thankfully didn't have to wait too long for Mr. Goodsight to show up.

"I figured you two would show up! I want to take a look at your Yo-kai Watches for a minute, if that's alright."

"What for?"

"I might have found something to make dealing with Ranking a lot simpler!"

Surprised at what he said, they handed the Amano and Kodama Models over to Mr. Goodsight and watched as Mr. Goodsight took apart their Yo-kai Watches, placed a miniture floating and glowing orb in the middle of all of the gears that made up their Yo-kai Watches, and put the models back together before handing them back to Nate and Katie.

"What exactly does the orb do?"

"Oh, that is an excellent question. You'll still have to battle Yo-kai for your upgrades, but the good news is that all I have to do is give you a list of the required Yo-kai that you have to battle to get to the Rank you want and after you track down and fight all of them, the orb will make your Yo-kai Watches act like they're at the Rank you wanted to get to. For example, if you battle the six Yo-kai required to get to B Rank, it will let you open C and B Rank Watch Lock doors, find C and B ranked Yo-kai, etc, etc. Of course, it would be only until you can come and get an official upgrade from me, then all you have to do is wait for me to get your Yo-kai Watches to the proper rank."

"So, what you're saying is that the orb you put in here will act as a temporary upgrade to our Yo-kai Watches in case we're not able to get to you after we met a certain requirement for the Rank we wanted to get."

"Pretty much. At least you would be able to stack the upgrades instead of having to constantly wait to figure out if it's a good time to upgrade your Yo-kai Watches or not. Just go fight all of the Yo-kai you need for the Rank you want and come see me for the offical upgrades."

"Where did you get these orbs from? Did you just have them laying around or something?"

Mr. Goodsight shook his head.

"Of course not. If I had them earlier, I would've placed the orbs in your Yo-kai Watches and just given you a list of Yo-kai to fight for whatever upgrade you wanted."

Given that Mr. Goodsight upgraded their Yo-kai Watches for free and since they knew that he had been around when their grandparents were around their age, Nate and Katie knew he would survive not having to constantly upgrade their Yo-kai Watches one upgrade at a time.

"Where did you get the orbs, though?"

"Oh, Steve Jaws was planning on mass producing the Yo-kai Watch after the whole Mckraken incident, but there are currently some...complications. You see...since you two are the holders of the only Amano and Kodama models, the only known models of the Model Zero were rumored to have been hidden away, I only have the blueprints for the Model Zero, which are starting to turn unreadable at this point, and there are no known blueprints for the Amano and Kodama Models, production can't get off the ground unless Steve Jaws has a model to work with."

"What does that have to do with the orbs?"

"It was supposed to be a feature in his production model. Since he knew that I knew you two well, he just asked me to put the orbs in your Yo-kai Watches and report on your progress with the orbs just so he knows that the idea could work."

"Why didn't he just ask us if he could borrow one of our Yo-kai Watches if that was the case?"

"Oh, I told him that your Yo-kai Watches had to be heavily guarded at the moment. Didn't give him a lot of details about why, of course."

He glanced at the Model Zeroes on their wrists and if this was under normal circumstances, he would be curious as to how they had gotten their hands on them, but he fully remembered the letters that had accompanioned the broken Yo-kai Watches and the time they had walked into his shop sixty years ago and gave him a spicy pepper in exchange for the watch bases that went to the creation of the Model Zero. Honestly, trying to understand time travel gave him such a headache at times, so he never bothered to say anything about it. He just gave them a list of the Yo-kai they had to fight to get to Rank A when they asked about it and watched the group as they left and gave their goodbyes to him and sighed softly.

I really hope they can make things better.

*****

"Okay, for the Rank C upgrade, we have to go to the Old Mansion and fight Helmsman, Lafalotta, and Slicenrice. Next, for Rank B, we head to San Fantastisco and fight Chummer, Chansin, and Ben Tover. Finally, for Rank A, we head to Nocturne Hospital and fight Nird, Espy, and Goruma."

"Seems simple enough. We're already in the area, so let's go do the Rank C fights at the Old Mansion."

*****

After they fought the required Yo-kai for the C Rank, they went to Nom Burger to discuss how they were going to free the cursed Yo-kai.

"Well, Pallysol will be easy to free since people rarely go to the area he's in. Faux Kappa might be a bit difficult to explain his disappearence in case people do actually use him as a landmark, but I don't know...maybe time travel shenanigans will come up with a solution. The really hard ones will be Predictabul, Mermaiden, and Gnomey."

"I get the first two, but why is freeing Gnomey going to be difficult?"

"Because he's been in our grandparent's house for decades and our grandmothers would notice if he suddenly disappeared?"

"Okay, we'll just have to save Gnomey for last until we can come up with a reasonable explanation for his disappearence to our grandmothers, unless you're hoping that time travel shenanigans will help us out with this problem as well, Nate."

Nate just rolled his eyes at the comment as he ate his burger and tried to remember where the nearest Mirapo was.

*****

"Are you telling me that a small bull statue just disappeared from the shrine and somehow ended up at Excellent Tower eleven years ago?"

"And that Mermaiden is currently in a cave in San Fantastisco?"

They used the first Mirapo they came across to fast travel to an active Mirapo near Mount Middleton just to avoid having to explaining themselves to anyone wondering how they had gotten to Harrisville without anyone noticing them. To futher avoid talking to people, they sent their Yo-kai companions to try to figure out any information about where the statues might have gone and they did have the information, but it wasn't what they had expected to hear.

"Look, we had to convince the hiding Yo-kai in the area to tell us where Mermaiden went. It was just pure luck that we came across the story of Predictabul's statue being at Excellent Tower."

They had the information they needed for the missing statues, but they had no clue where to start from there. They were closer to San Fantastisco and could also get the next Yo-kai they needed for the B Rank upgrade, but they weren't sure if there was an active Mirapo in that area. On the another hand, they could warp to Breezy Hills and walk to Excellent Tower since it was close by, but have to spend a lot of time on the train to get to San Fantastisco since they were on opposite ends of the train lines. Granted, they had already knew that it would take a while to free the cursed Yo-kai, but still.

"Guys, why don't you just ask to spend the night here in Harrisville? This way, we can work on freeing the cursed statues and if it starts to get late, we can continue the next day."

How the idea hadn't occured to the kids that actually had relatives in Harrisville, they had no clue, but it was still a good one. Even if they didn't get permission, nothing could stop them from just warping to Harrisville Station and going to San Fantastisco the next day either.

"Well, let's free Predictabul first, just to see if the theory holds up. No use in getting all fired up for a plan if the one component that's required is busted."

"Nate, did you have to quote Space Wars at a time like this?"

"I wasn't quoting Space Wars, I was pointing something out. There's a different."

"Yes, with the exact wording of the space rebel's line before their team tested the secret weapon that was supposed to put an end to the tyrantical empire once on for all."

"Okay, you lovebirds, stop bickering. We have Yo-kai statues to uncurse and limited daylight."

Nate and Katie stopped speaking out of embarrassment, both at being called lovebirds by Whisper and because they knew he had a point.

*****

After they got to the area of Spring, which was where Excellent Tower was located, and boarded the elevator to the top, they located the Predictabul statue and Whisper carefully sprinkled the Rock-Away Extract onto the statue and the group noticed a bright glow surrounding the statue.

*****

Predictabul's Flashback:

"Are you two looking for something by any chance?"

He sat on the steps of the Temple of Virtues as he looked at the two boys walking by for the third time. The two boys stopped and turned to Predictabul, seeming surprised to notice him.

"Yeah, we dropped our books in this area and we would like to find them before it rains and gets dark."

"Follow me, then."

Predictabul stood up and floated up the stairs, watching the two boys follow him into the temple. When they got there, Predictabul went to one of the statues and opened a loose side, allowing them to look through his collection of lost things he had found near the temple.

"Look through these and see if you can find what you're looking for.

"For Enma's sake, how many times do people lose their stuff around here?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised. I try to use my powers of clairvoyance to reunite the objects with their owners, but they're kinda weak. I want to get stronger so that my powers can get stronger and allow me to help people better."

He stopped speaking when he noticed the boys looking at him.

"Sorry, that must sound stupid..."

"No! It's not stupid at all! But why haven't you battled with anyone? Surely you can ask someone to battle with you so that you can get stronger."

Predictabul looked to the side and said,

"Oh, it's because of this silly debate going on. I ask for a battle, they ask me if I liked Soul or Spirit Donuts better, I say I'm neutral about it, they ignore me, and they move on without battling me."

"Well, if you're willing to, we can be friends and you can train with us. We have some Yo-kai you can battle with and they're neutral about the whole donut debate too."

Predictabul looked up at the two boys and smiled.

"Of course! I'm Predictabul, by the way. I knew something good was going to happen today!"

"I'm Nathaniel and this is my friend Kenny. We're going to be a great team, Predictabul."

*****

The bright light died down as Predictabul shook his head.

"Huh...has it been sixty years since I became a statue already? Hello, Nathan, Katie, Lucas, Whisper, Jibanyan, Komasan, and Komajiro."

"Question, how did you get up here and how do you who we are?"

"While I was still cursed as a statue I had a vision of us meeting here when I was able to move. About eleven years ago, I noticed the curse was starting to wear off and remembering my vision, I set out to fufill it. It was annoying having to move little by little at night since that was when the curse doesn't affect me, but it was worth it in the end."

"So, we take it that you know why we're here?"

"Yes and I'm looking forward to seeing your grandfathers again in the proper time period. I missed them so much."

Out of pure happiness, his Yo-kai Medal suddenly appeared in Nate's hand.

"I was planning on giving that to Nathaniel and Kenny when I got back, but my vision tells me that they'll get my medal soon enough."

With a smile, he told them that he was going back to Harrisville and the temple since it had been decades since he was able to properly walk around his home and he missed the place to be honest.

"Wait, did your vision mention anything about the other cursed Yo-kai statues?"

Predictabul tilted his head to the side before answering,

"You'll free all of us, if that's what you're asking about. However, I must warn you that Mermaiden will be the hardest statue to free."

"Why...?"

"Here's some advice...be prepared to battle."

"Oh, boy...how bad is it?"

"Just be prepared."

With that said, Predictabul disappeared into a puff of purple smoke, leaving only the three kids and the four Yo-kai.

"One statue down, four to go."

Previous Chapter: https://libraryofrewrita.tumblr.com/post/179086777069/chapter-17-the-yo-kai-statues Next Chapter: https://libraryofrewrita.tumblr.com/post/181116269639/chapter-19-mermaiden-rescue

#yo-kai watch #yo-kai watch au #rewrite #au #booktwo #chapter 18

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recentnews18-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/jonah-hill-joins-the-five-timers-club-on-a-uniformly-funny-saturday-night-live/

Jonah Hill joins the Five-Timers Club on a uniformly funny Saturday Night Live

Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Candice Bergen, Drew BarrymoreScreenshot: Saturday Night Live

“I guess the worst part of the play was their confidence in it.”

“I’m not an actor, I’m a [movie, Netflix, directing] star!

It’s be nice to think that Jonah Hill has fully stepped out of his pigeonhole at this point. A couple of Oscar nominations, co-lead in an hit Netflix series, writer-director of a promising new coming-of-age movie, Hill has emerged from the Apatow star factory still straddling the line between serious artist and broad comedy movie star. (Sort of like James Franco, except that people actually seem to like Hill’s directorial debut and no one—as of this writing—has accused Hill of being a sex creep.)

That dichotomy showed up in Hill’s monologue, as SNL legend Tina Fey ushered new Five-Timers Club member Hill into the selective lounge set, where fellow FTC members Candice Bergen and Drew Barrymore celebrated his entry by showing an old sketch where Hill’s character admits to doing some serious damage to a toilet. Protesting that he does more than toilet humor now (“But that’s where you shined!,” enthuses Bergen), the disappointed Hill can only endure an all-ladies Five-Timers welcome, since, according to Fey, Bergen, and Barrymore, all the male members have turned out to be, well, sex creeps. (Steve Martin will just play his banjo “without consent.”)

Saturday Night LiveSeason 44

Fitted with the coveted FTC smoking jacket, Hill is disappointed to find that the new female leadership has refashioned it into something like a kicky boldero number. It’s a neat little way to incorporate Hill’s evolving comic persona while still trading on the downtrodden victim vibe he carries with him, especially once Kenan pops in to remind everyone that his record-breaking seniority carries its own privileges. “This is my show. I let you in here sometimes,” he responds to Hill questioning his presence in the Five-Timers lounge.

Over at Vulture, AV Clubber Jesse Hassenger recently did a ranking of the relatively rare phenomenon of SNL hosts’ recurring characters, and placed Hill’s Borscht Belt six-year-old Adam Grossman near the top. I get it. For one, the field isn’t exactly littered with gold (glad I’m not the only one sick of the Omletteville guy), with most of the bits weathering even faster than those done by the actual cast. But Grossman keeps working as well as he does because of a character throughline, as the garrulous little guy keeps tossing out his inexplicable Catskills schtick to his unlikely Benihana co-diners alongside a series of guardians indicating the unstable family life that’s somehow spawned such a weird creature. Here it’s forbearing nanny Leslie Jones, sighing deeply as she weathers Adam’s insult comic “I’m just kidding” one-liners as Grossman attempts to puncture any tension his borderline racist material generates by proclaiming his age (complete with specific and funny awkward hand gestures). It’s never been my favorite sketch, but Hill (who created the bit alongside Bill Hader and Seth Meyers, based on a bafflingly tracksuited child diner Hader once sat with) is into it, and he suggests the merest hints of the defensive mechanisms that are powering Adam’s transformation into a hacky joke machine, which always lends just enough shadings to the idea. Leslie kept breaking, but, then again, so did I.

Weekend Update update

There was a certain elegance to the way SNL kept weaving themes through its political material tonight, with jokes about Trump’s “caravan of scary brown people” terror tactics, and the importance of voting on Tuesday reinforcing each other throughout. Jost and Che were on, each landing their material confidently. On the caravan (of desperate asylum seekers that are a thousand miles away), Jost noted how Trump’s sweatily named “Operation Faithful Patriot” (where American troops are needlessly stringing barbed wire for a piece of election eve fear-mongering theater) sounds like a company that makes “reverse mortgages and catheters.” (Fox News commercial viewers get that.) Che followed up on the race-baiting scare tactics by urging that the old white people being hyped about the looming but nonexistent threat should be more worried about the less-easily-scapegoated specter of their grandkids stealing their pain pills.

On the election front, Che continued his role as Update’s resident “slow your roll” skeptic, confessing that, while he does intend to vote (on Tuesday, November 6, kids), he’s not going to buy into any “final notice for democracy” panic. Joking that, if final notices were actually final, his college debts would actually be paid, Che, as ever, positions himself for the long view, an edgy place to be in a time of national crisis (see, there’s that panic), but one consistent with his stance as a (black) guy who’s been living in a dangerous situation his entire life. For Jost (white guy), the jokes were less pointed, but not bad, as he noted that things are pretty dire when ice cream is taking a side, and that it has to be a complicated feeling when Oprah knocks on your door, only to present you with a pamphlet about Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams instead of a new car.

Pete Davidson has become such a strange star on SNL, his very public statements about his battles with mental health and substance abuse and the recent ongoing saga of his tabloid-fodder relationship with now-ex Ariana Grande have made Davidson more of a personality star than anyone I can think of in SNL history. Pete’s never been the most polished sketch guy (although he’s improved), and his Update pieces as himself have always been his best showcase, especially since he’s sharpened up his material beyond the adorable stoner little brother schtick he started out with. Here, with newly-dyed hair and the elephant of his recent, much-publicized breakup hanging over his head, Davidson delivered a solid series of political takedowns in advance of the Tuesday midterm elections. Sure, they were all cheeky appearance smack (NY Republican Peter King looks like “a cigar came to life,” Florida candidate Rick Scott looks like “if someone tried to whittle Bruce Willis out of a penis”), but, for a young comic staking out political material for the first time in his life, it’s funny stuff. And since SNL has made hay all season long about Davidson’s rising media profile, his genuinely sweet and decent-sounding appraisal of ex Grande was both de rigeur and unexpectedly touching.

Melissa Villaseñor made the leap to the main cast this year, but hasn’t had much opportunity to show off her mimicry skills or her comic chops much on the young season. So, taking a page out of Heidi Gardner’s playbook, she debuted a specifically targeted character piece on Update, with her “Every Teen Girl Murder Suspect on Law & Order.” Honestly, it’s such a specific Gardner niche at this point that I was surprised to see Villaseñor in the chair, but Melissa did fine, as her Brittany—ostensibly there to talk about young adult literature—squirmed and equivocated about what happened to her friend Logan at that “big alcohol party.” Not to harp on the comparison, but Brittany wasn’t as immediately memorable as any of Gardner’s similar turns, even if Villaseñor delivered on the premise with a uniformly strong performance.

Just when I think I’m tired of Kenan Thompson’s Big Papi, he pulls me back in. It helps that there’s a reason for his appearance tonight, as, you know, the Red Sox won the World Series again. (That’s, like, what, four in 15 years, right? Huh. Cool.) Petty sports partisanship aside, Kenan’s performance as retired and beloved Boston slugger David Ortiz has never been the problem. Kenan’s Ortiz, with his nonsensical endorsements, gap-toothed ebullience, and food obsession, is an all-time belly laugh, his infectious enthusiasm for baseball, food, his spokesman deal for the concept of spokes, and simply being Big Papi is impossible to hate. (Presumably even for Yankees fans, whose team got clobbered in the ALDS 3-1, including a humiliating 61-1 loss on their home diamond.) But the jokes don’t change much (as in, at all). Thankfully, it’s been a while, the Sox won the series, and it was nice to see the big lug again. Mofongo all around.

Best/worst sketch of the night

Look, some of you are going to clamor for a “worst” tag on Kate McKinnon’s teacher sketch. You’ll point to both its unexplained weirdness and its languorous pace, and how it never quite announces its authority as something that should appear as early in the show as it did. Well, shush. This was great stuff, not as much for the sketch itself (it really could have used more writing punch to match McKinnon’s performance), as for how it represents the sort of oddball conceptual idea Saturday Night Live desperately needs to encourage. The premise of someone acting weird while other people comment on it is hardly new SNL territory, but, as McKinnon’s overly dramatic drivers ed teacher sprawls on the classroom floor and rambles on about her predicament and its meaning, it was like a cool drink to realize that the sketch wasn’t going to go out of its way to hammer the premise home with explanations for the slowest possible viewer. It was just weird for weird’s sake, and McKinnon, accusing her charges at laughing at her “like this was some episode of Friend,” worked within the framework of the sketch to craft an enigmatically loopy character whose comic integrity isn’t over-explained. There is room on SNL for a lot more shades of humor than its current template generally allows.

This week’s branded content sketch, on the other hand, was pretty unnecessary, even if some of the performances livened it up a little, as another NBC property got some free advertising. Not watching interminably long-running televised talent shows as a rule, I’m not particularly invested in how the celebrity judges were impersonated here (although Kyle Mooney’s perpetually amazed Howie Mandel got a laugh). But at least the joke that there are only a very few possible narratives to every contestant’s journey on such shows took the piss a bit, and Cecily Strong, Kenan and Leslie, and Jonah Hill all sang their hearts out as the contestants who are probably terrible—but then are shockingly not terrible!

Also not terrible but not that surprising was the newscast sketch, where Cecily Strong’s weatherperson is nonplussed by boyfriend Hill’s decidedly unwelcome on-air proposal. Hill manages to create a nicely realized character is his unimpressive suitor, unwisely wearing a green shirt in front of Strong’s green screen and even more unwisely busting out a proposal rap. And the bit even has a decent turn, when Strong reveals that her refusal was only because she’d planned an elaborate on-air proposal of her own. I kept waiting for the reveal that Strong’s too-perfect twist was only in the downtrodden Hill’s head, but the sketch decided to let the improbable duo have their happy ending, so that’s nice.

“What do you call that act?” “The Californians!”—Recurring sketch report

Adam Grossman, Big Papi.

“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report

With SNL’s resident guest Trump Alec Baldwin otherwise occupied (and pointedly joked about), the show opened with the always more-profitable tack of doing Trump without Trump. With Kate McKinnon adding Fox News talking head and smirking white supremacist Laura Ingraham’s glint-eyed provocation to her long list of current right-wing a-holes (“No, you’re an a-hole,” McKinnon’s Ingraham responds to her viewer mail), the sketch ran through the usual roster of weekly outrages. Finding ways to satirize the news at this point is a thankless task since reality is so far beyond satire that our pals at The Onion can essentially just transcribe stuff. Here, the jokes leant on hyperbole to make comedy out of Fox and friends’ (and Fox And Friends’) daily klaxon blare of racist bullshit designed to make white parents vote against their self-interest. Like Trump’s ginned-up, racist, Hail Mary, pre-midterms caravan, which Cecily Strong’s appropriately wild-eyed Jeanine Pirro’s claims contains such terrifying, non-white figures as “Guatemalans, Mexicans, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos, and several Babadooks.” Similarly, Kenan Thompson’s cowboy-hat-wearing disgraced former Sheriff David Clarke showed footage of the caravan in the form of a swarm of migrating crabs. “And those are humans?,” gently presses McKinnon’s Ingraham, to which Clarke replies, “Basically, yeah.”

Unlike Baldwin’s uninspired Trump, which serves as a crutch for some very one-dimensional writing as a rule, the satire here is more layered. There are the performances, which are uniformly great. (McKinnon and Strong don’t need more praise at this point, but they are both outstanding, nuanced comic actresses). And the sketch casts a wider net, encompassing Ingraham’s fleeing sponsors (and the reason why), leaving her thanking warm ice cream, nurse’s sneakers, and White Castle. (“A castle for whites? Yes please.”) And, divorced for now by Baldwin/Trump’s absence, the cold open works to lay the groundwork for some recurring satirical themes for the rest of the show. There’s GOP voter suppression, here prodded along by Ingraham giving non-white voters the wrong advice. There’s Fox’s feverish efforts to mock the very idea that Donald Trump is a bigot. (“Except for his words and actions throughout his life how is he racist?”) And there’s the transparent propaganda of Trump’s latest “brown people are coming at you from below” propaganda, with McKinnon claiming that Trump’s try-hard gung-ho operation is actually named “Operation Eagle With A Huge Dong” and bragging that there will be “five armed soldiers for every shoeless immigrant child.”

Hey, there’s a midterm election coming up on Tuesday, so vote in that. Pete Davidson ended his amiably goofy Update stint by urging everyone to vote, as did musical guest Maggie Rogers (via T-shirt), and, in the Vote Blue campaign ad, so did a roster of very fucking nervous Democrats. While polling shows that maybe, perhaps, enough Americans are motivated, pissed, and goddamned terrified enough to actually go out and vote on Tuesday (yes, this coming Tuesday, you) to put some checks in place against Donald Trump and his GOP accomplices in dismantling democratic norms, environmental regulations, and civil rights of any kind, well, we’ve seen sweaty Democratic overconfidence explode in our faces before. That’s the message here, as the person-on-the-street interviews parroting optimistic election messages all veer into a series of forced grins, shaking hands, binge-drinking, eyes-averted mumbling, and, in the case of Heidi Gardner’s tremble-voiced suburban mom, hair-trigger panic. “Get inside until Tuesday!,” she snaps at her frolicking children, while Hill’s anxious doctor tries to take comfort in the fact that Nancy Pelosi predicted a big victory on Colbert, and Leslie Jones grits her teeth in her stated faith that “white women are going to the right thing this time.” Pitch perfect stuff, right down to Aidy Bryant hauling off to slap teenaged son Pete Davidson when he jokes about forgetting when Election Day is. (It’s Tuesday. November 6. Check here for all the necessary info you need to vote. On Tuesday.)

“HuckaPM” continued SNL’s baffling comedy position that literally every woman involved in the Trump administration is secretly ashamed of her role in, well, every shitty thing Trump and the Republican Party does. You know, despite the fact that there is no evidence to that in the public or private actions of any of them, including (or especially) the sketch’s target, White House Press Secretary and sneering daily mouthpiece for whatever bigoted nonsense dribbles out of Trump’s Twitter account in the middle of the night, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Still, this sketch works because of Aidy. Good god, is Aidy Bryant great at physical comedy. Even if one can’t follow the show’s premise that there is some glimmer of humanity in Sanders’ soul somewhere, Aidy sells the hell out of the idea that only a sleeping pill loaded with quaaludes and “what Michael Jackson’s doctor called ‘one-and-dones’” can knock Sanders out after a day of claiming that “CNN spelled backward is ISIS” and that Trump’s caravan boogeymen includes ravenous chupacabras with a trio of outstandingly timed and committed falls. Sometimes performance overcomes everything else.

The off-Broadway show short film trafficked in a sort of joke that never doesn’t work on me, so I’m going to allow myself to be pandered to. The main joke—that an actor-written topical revue is not very well written—is fine. (I loved how at least two of the numbers shamelessly aped Hamilton). But I’m just a sucker for jokes where scathing review blurbs are read out as if they’re raves by an enthusiastic voice-over guy, and these had me laughing. “This is helping no one,” and “Whose parents paid for this?” were good, but the New York Times critic’s economical “Jesus Christ!” got me out loud.

I am hip to the musics of today

Maggie Rogers came out flat in her SNL debut. Like, vocally, very flat for her first song of lilting, pretty pop. It was the sort of wobbly beginning that could knock a fledgeling performer right off her pins, but, to her credit, Rogers came back stronger in the second number. It helped that that song was more uptempo and didn’t highlight a delicate introductory vocal, but, still, props to Rogers for pulling it together. As Adam Grossman might bellow, “Redemption song!”

Most/Least Valuable (Not Ready For Prime Time) Player

Ego Nwodim got a line. Keep plugging, new kid.

Otherwise, in an exceptionally strong night for the female cast, Kate wins it by a whisker, edging out Cecily and Aidy.

“What the hell is that thing?”—The Ten-To-Oneland Report

While it’s no “Whiskers R We,” “Wigs For Pugs” ably carried on the ten-to-one tradition of doing adorably weird stuff with animals, as Hill and Cecily Strong played a couple of clearly mobbed-up entrepreneurs whose pug toupee business is in no way “a front for something.” Mainly, it’s just pugs in wigs, with a succession of very chill pugs getting carried out in their hairy finery, but sometimes that’s enough. And Hill, Strong, Aidy, Mooney, and Kenan (as a guy making pug beards) are thoroughly committed to their characters in a broad yet deadpan way that adds another level to the premise. Pugs in wigs. What more do you need, people?

Stray observations

Kenan’s Clarke cites his caravan sources as “the crows from Dumbo,” echoing Clarke’s description of his current state as “unpopular with my own people.”

McKinnon’s Ingraham refers to Baldwin as “disgraced former actor Alec Baldwin” and shows a clip from “Canteen Boy” to explain.

Che claims that the country would be doing better if red state parents would stop “sending all their liberal kids to coastal cities to do improv.”

Pete Davidson, addressing his new blue hair, claims he looks like “a guy who makes vape juice in a bathtub,” and “a Dr. Seuss character who went to prison.”

Melissa Villaseñor’s teen suspect finally breaks down, telling Jost that she only stabbed her dead friend as a joke, “but Logan took it the wrong way and started bleeding.”

Big Papi for Apple Watch: “You gotta watch your apples or a monkey’s gonna steal them, man!”

Vote on Tuesday.

The Red Sox won the World Series.

Source: https://tv.avclub.com/jonah-hill-joins-the-five-timers-club-on-a-uniformly-fu-1830206395

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captain-s-rogers · 5 years ago

Text

Have A Little Faith In Me

(gif credit to the creator)

Part Three

Master List

“You could just call him back, ya know,” Lucy mentioned, as casually as possible, while the two women were having lunch.

Lucy reached across the table and snatched Sophia’s phone. Sophia tried to stop her, but she wasn’t quite quick enough.

“Sophia, it’s Steve. Steve Rogers. I’m so sorry about not making our date tonight. Something important came up and I couldn’t get out --”

“Yes.”

Lucy shook her head, taking a bite of her own salad. Since Sophia had apparently dug her heels in on the matter, she took the conversation in a slightly different direction.

“You know, Colin in marketing has had his eye on you for a while. Why don’t you accept his offer?”

“Fine, I’ll go out with Colin,” Sophia relented, drawing a grin from Lucy across the table, “Next time he asks me out, I’ll say yes, but I am not going to seek him out.”

“That’s fair. I do really think it will be good for you.” Lucy leaned forward and gave her friend a comforting smile.

Sophia assured Lucy that she knew her friend had good intentions. With a plan in place, Sophia was able to finish her lunch without Lucy pressing any more on the subject of men and dating.

“Just like Peggy, all over again,” Steve sighed to himself.

“I am so sorry,” he quickly apologized, feeling a little ridiculous for not having his head on straight. He picked up the purse and handed it to her. “Sophia?”

“Steve?” She looked just as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to knock into you,” Steve apologized. His voice was trembling a bit, so he cleared his throat. “Good to see you again, Ms. Hawkins.”

“Yeah, you too, St -- Mr. Rogers.” Sophia seemed confused, and Steve wondered if he hadn’t also imagined the tremble in her voice.

“You’re going to drive yourself crazy,” he muttered.

The walk and the coffee had indeed helped to clear Steve’s mind. By the time he reached his apartment door, he had decided to give Sophia another call and ask her one more time to go out with him.

Sophia surprised herself by enjoying her lunchtime coffee date with Colin, and quite a bit at that.

Until she ran into Steve.

“Sophia? It’s Steve. Uh, Rogers. Steve Rogers.

“Generally, I won’t and don’t get myself all dolled up again for a guy who stood me up, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Sophia --” He started to protest, ready to give another amazing speech, but Sophia interrupted him.

“But for you I will consider it. Give me some time, and I promise to let you know whatever I decide. How does that sound?”

“Much better than a flat-out no,” Steve answered, releasing a sigh of relief. “I’ll wait for your call.”

“Hey Steve, it’s Sophia.”

The smile in his voice was evident, though it was fringed with hesitancy. “I wasn’t expecting to hear back from you so soon.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to call so soon,” she admitted with a chuckle. “Listen, here’s the deal. I will go out with you, on one condition.”

“And what would that condition be?” Steve asked.

Sophia thought she might have sounded a little harsh and hoped Steve would understand that was not her intention --

“I think that’s more than fair,” he ceded, “I can find someone for Lucy, no problem.”

“I didn’t know that I was going to be punished for encouraging you to go on a date with this guy,” Lucy commented through gritted teeth.

Lucy nodded. “Starving, actually.”

“Oh good,” Sophia grinned, corking the wine bottle and putting it back in its proper place on the counter. “Because we’re meeting Steve and his friend downtown in an hour.”

“You are so lucky you’re my best friend, you know that?”

@arrowsandmixtapes @the-murder-strut-murdered-me @growningupgeek @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @captain-rogers-beard @kitkatd7 @patzammit @sagechanoafterdark @what-is-your-plan-today

#steve rogers #clint barton #steve rogers fanfic #clint barton fanfic

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pointofgeeks · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.pointofgeeks.com/spider-man-homecoming-trailer-2-shot-by-shot-breakdown-easter-eggs/

SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING Trailer #2: Shot-by-Shot Breakdown & Easter Eggs

There is one character that is larger than the entire Marvel cinematic universe itself – Spider-Man. So when Sony partnered with Marvel Studios to effectively bring the superhero back into the fold there was a sense that something big was on the horizon. Last year, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker was introduced in Captain America: Civil War and it was clear that a star was born.

This summer will be the web-swinger’s time to shine in his first solo film within the MCU, Spider-Man: Homecoming. Today, Marvel dropped the second full trailer for the film, which gives an in-depth look at the new comic book movie. In fact, the trailer is so full…they may have shown too much, as it seems that the entire plot of the movie is condensed within the two-minute sizzle reel.

youtube

In the past, Marvel has both revealed too much in their trailers and have proven to be masters of misdirection with their marketing as well. Regardless, there is a lot to pick apart and analyze in the new trailer. So, lets jump into the spider’s web!

Queens

It’s no coincidence that they established the Queens, New York setting early on in the trailer. However unlike previous films, Marvel/Sony chose to focus on the actual borough, rather than Manhattan and the overall NY locale. Sam Raimi’s Queens barely felt like it took place in the real world, with a heightened sense of reality that leaned heavily into the early art work of Steve Ditko. This shot in the trailer is a declaration that this Peter Parker not only exists in the MCU, but he also could be walking down Linden Blvd.

The Vulture

Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes is aptly named The Vulture for more than simply his wings. This incarnation of the character runs a salvaging company that cleans up the mess after superhero battles. He then sifts through technology – like a vulture – and engineers new weaponry from it, presumably with an assist from the Tinkerer.

Tony Stark’s Damage Control

This is a clever play on Marvel Comics’ Damage Control, which was a comic created by Dwayne McDuffie, about the clean-up crews that rebuild the city after super-scuffles. Apparently, Tony Stark has gotten into the business, which pushes the blue-collar operation run by Toomes out of the picture. This is the spark that creates a new villain in the Vulture, Shocker, and his other cronies.

Comic Influences

Comic fans should instantly recognize the half-unmasked Parker. The character often partially pulls up his mask to talk on the phone, eat a burger, or to simply get direct access to air in the comics. This shot screams the influences of legendary comic artist John Romita and is another subtle assurance that Marvel Studios will not let its fans down.

Aunt May

This is not your father’s Aunt May. However even from a single shot, the connection between Parker and his surrogate mother, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), is clear. It seems she will continue to dispense quality advice and it’s definitely encouraging that she wasn’t made into a damsel in distress in the trailer. Hopefully the Vulture’s plan isn’t to kidnap her in the third act.

Homemade Costume

In the trailer, Stark takes back his super-suit from Parker and he’s forced to go back to the basics. This homemade costume shares a lot in common with the Spider-Noir look from the comics. While it seems that this scene is a part of the final set piece, it’s hard to imagine him going into battle with anything less than his classic look. Fortunately, only three months to find out how it plays out.

Captain America P.S.A.

There had been rumors that the Captain would be making a cameo in Homecoming, which seemed incongruous, since he was last seen hiding out in the African country of Wakanda. However, it does raise some questions, since Steve Rogers is technically a fugitive of the law. It will be interesting to see how the fallout of Civil War is addressed, particularly in the scenes with Stark, and how the Captain is viewed by the public.

Cap’s Shield

There is a lot to unpack in this single shot. Most will pay attention to the callback to Captain America: Civil War, when he snagged the shield from Cap and greeted the world. However, it’s equally important to note the diversity of Parker’s high school, which is the most accurate representation of modern-day NY, than any of the previous incarnations.

Also, who is standing out in the photo? Yup, Zendaya’s “Michelle” is clearly an introverted outsider and we have never seen a more clear red herring into her true identity. (Cough Cough. MJ…) It seems that director Jon Watts (Cop Car) is trying to make sure that she stands out from the crowd. If only Parker would realize that he has already hit the “jackpot.”

Spider-Tracer

The new Spider-Man suit that Stark made for Parker is full of unknown gadgets and whistles. It seems that this a moment of discovery when he realizes that he has a Spider-tracer. In the comics the tracking device was typically fired from his wrist, however it seems that this incarnation is a fully-functional robot capable of flight. It sure pays to know Iron Man.

Form-Fitting Suit

If you have ever seen someone who has dressed up as Spider-Man for Halloween, you know how hard it is to actually fill out the Spider-tights. The technological explanation for the form-fitting costume is another small detail, that makes all the difference in creating a believable world.

Spider-Ned

This is a small, yet completely believable moment for the two high school friends, as Peter lets Ned try on the Spider-suit. This is a humorous moment, but also may be signaling that Parker doesn’t fully appreciate what has been gifted to him. Now that Ned is in on the secret, it’s clear that he will be an extra set of eyes in Spider-Man’s fight for the city.

Workshop Class

A large part of Parker’s skill set that was glanced over in the previous Spidey movies is his inherent mechanical genius. In Homecoming he seems to be attending a school for gifted students much like himself. In this particular scene it’s safe to guess, Ned Leeds is helping him develop new tech for (presumably) his homemade suit, after it’s confiscated by Stark.

Iron Man Assist

It can be argued that Sony and Marvel may have revealed too much of the story for Homecoming in the newest trailer. Case in point is the Staten Island ferry rescue scene, where it’s revealed that Iron Man gives Spidey an assist. The armor appears to be the Ultimate Iron Man armor from the comics and I’m willing to wager that Spider-Man gets a chance to rescue Stark in return before the end credits roll.

Trick Shots

This sequence in the trailer showed off two different examples of new creative uses for Spidey’s webbing. In the above picture, we see that he is able to accurately shoot two web lines from one wrist launcher. The moment directly after shows a web shot that is either set to a timer, or is motion-activated which traps an unwitting attacker. There are surely even more surprises hidden within the costume that should catch comic fans off-guard.

The Vulture Spreads His Wings

This is perhaps one of the most dramatic and iconic shots in the trailer. Not only does The Vulture have Parker seemingly unconscious on his wingtip, he also is looking at him unmasked. We will see how this is handled in the plot. It’s not as if Parker is famous or easily identifiable, but there’s a long tradition of villains being closely linked to Parker in past films. It’s also worth noting the Coney Island location. Presumably, this occurs after the plane sequence, judging from the homemade costume and fiery wreckage. Hopefully, things go better for the plane’s passengers, than for Spidey in this shot.

Spider-Man: Homecoming opens on July 7th, 2017.

What do you think of the new trailer? Let us know in the comment boards, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! Share our stories by clicking below!

Source: Marvel

#Aunt May #breakdown #Captain America P.S.A.#Damage Control #Double Webbing #Easter eggs #Form Fitting Costume #Homemade Costume #Michael Keaton #Ned Leeds #Queens #Secrets #Spider-Ned #Spider-Tracer #The Vulture #Ultimate Iron Man #Features #Movies / TV #Trailers

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