#3. one upon a time Steve did have ‘another human being to whom he can reach out’

[daydreamerdrew]

The Avengers (1963) #35

[lookoolah]

love in every sip (1.9k) read on ao3 for the “coffee” square on my @tonystarkbingo flash card

Tony startled himself awake when he made a move to get into a more comfortable position on the tiny couch that was clearly not meant for sleeping on, which he certainly had a difficult time learning over the course of the years that the tiny couch had found its way to Tony’s workshop (with some help from Pepper, probably). He wasn’t sure whether he woke up in the millisecond that he was hovering in the air between the ridiculous couch and the ground or when he facepalmed into the floor, but awake he definitely was. 

“Ow, shit.” He groaned, looking up vengefully at the stupid sofa. “J, as soon as you can, place an order for the biggest, comfiest couch you can find on the internet, thanks!” He gritted out through his teeth, hoping that the tiny couch felt insecure and unlovable. 

“Right away, Sir.” 

He looked up at the StarkPad displaying the time that he had perched on top of his coffee-table as a make-shift digital clock (whoever said he wasn’t one for interior design?). It was 9am, anyway, so he might as well be getting up now. That is if he was pretending to be a healthy functioning human being that didn’t spend the last 72 hours in his workshop and fell asleep 3 hours ago on this stupid, unlovable couch. 

He made his way to the main kitchen, waving sleepily at the team that was lively bickering in the breakfast nook. Oh right, that’s what they looked like, other people. He thought it would be a good idea to brush his teeth before any silverware made contact with the inside of his mouth lest it immediately corroding. 

After spending way too long sitting on the toilet because his body seemed to enjoy falling asleep in the most uncomfortable of places, he finally made his way back to the now-empty kitchen, where on the counter he found a steaming coffee in the Iron Man mug from the Avengers mugs set that Clint thought was the perfect $15 Christmas gift for the people that literally risked their lives by his side on day-by-day bases. Tony frowned, walking over to the island, unsure whether he blanked out and made coffee in the short interval of semi-wakefulness between sleeping in odd places. He spotted a napkin next to the mug, where a neat cursive looked back at him.

“Good morning, Tony. Please stop pulling all-nighters for three days straight,”  it said. 

Huh? Tony really only had the energy to ponder about when, by whom, and why the note was written and the coffee made for a total of ten seconds before his sleep and caffeine-deprived mind short-circuited and he gave in to the inviting aroma of the drink. And, well, whoever his barista in shining armor was unquestionably knew just how strong and sweet Tony liked his coffee (that being, real strong and real sweet). 

☕.

He really didn’t expect it to become an ongoing thing. He didn’t expect that the next morning, upon walking into the kitchen (from his bedroom this time, thank fuck ) he would be met with the same Iron Man mug on the counter with another napkin neatly placed next to it, its edge tucked under the mug as if to make sure that the soft blow of air from the air conditioning wouldn’t blow it away, care written all over the scene. 

“Good morning, sleepyhead. Glad you actually got some shuteye tonight, finally. Hope you have a good day.” 

Tony read the note over a few times, twice in his head, and once under his breath, with a small smile that he didn’t notice was there until Steve, who was apparently in the pantry, called attention to it. 

“Cheery this morning, huh?” 

“Oh, uh,” Tony looked up from the napkin in his hand, trying to hold back the smile, “You tripped and fell in my dream, still laughing at it.” He lied, protectively wrapping his hands around the warm Iron Man mug. 

Steve chuckled in response, putting down the box of Lucky Charms and reaching above the sink to grab himself a bowl.

“You want some cereal?” He asked, putting down a bowl in front of Tony without waiting for a response. 

“So courteous of you, Cap,” Tony started filling his bowl with milk while Steve was pouring cereal into his, “And they say chivalry is dead.” 

Steve made a face at him, probably about to give a schpiel about why would you pour the milk first, Tony? 

“Why would you pour the milk first, Tony?” He said, handing Tony the Lucky Charms and taking the milk from his hands. 

“Because I’m a certified genius, that’s why.” Tony winked, taking a sip from his coffee. Shit, so perfect again. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to see who made this coffee, would you?” He asked tentatively, filling his bowl with cereal. 

“Didn’t you make it?” Steve canted his head in confusion and brought the spoon to his lips. 

“No, actually, I didn’t,” Tony took another sip of his coffee, “I wonder who did, though.” This time, as he looked down at the dyed marshmallows in his milk, he failed to notice both the involuntary smile he pressed into the rim of his Iron Man mug and the one Steve stifled around a mouthful of his cereal.

☕️.

The random coffee offerings in a particular Iron Man mug and a neat cursive turned regular from then on, and it was starting to become clear that his barista in shining armor was really more of a secret admirer expressing their affections through coffee beans. 

The mugs waited for him at the counter almost every morning, the team off at a mission, the team just sitting down for breakfast, the team finishing up breakfast. The mugs were on a coaster on his desk when he fell asleep at it while working on a new design, while fixing an old design, while ignoring emails from some super important government officials. The mugs, for fucks sake, were sat on an old paperback next to the tiny couch that Tony continued to fall asleep on, even after the biggest, comfiest couch on the internet arrived. 

“Good morning, hope you slept well. You look adorable with bedhead.” 

“Heard you walking around late last night, I wish I could drive off all your nightmares with a broom.”

“Stop falling asleep at your desk, idiot, your neck will get stuck like that.” 

“That couch looks like it’s not meant for sleeping on.” 

Tony found himself growing more and more fond at every note, every word, every sip. He didn’t think that it was possible for him to look forward to his daily dose of caffeine more than he already did, but this new routine indisputably made him jittery with excitement every morning. 

He started to watch the team closely, in an attempt to figure out their tells. Who saw me this morning with my bedhead? Who likes to broom? Who doesn’t like tiny uncomfortable couches?

But, alas, none of the notes had been specific enough to pinpoint someone or even narrow down the list, and Jarvis was refusing to give him any information on the grounds of some “No Stalking Protocol, Sir” bullshit. 

That was, of course, until the afternoon that Nick Fury, somehow Tony’s saving grace in this mystery, called him up to his office. Tony plopped down on the chair in front of the desk, crossing his leg and taking a sip of his smoothie. 

“You should really try this place from down the block someday, I hear they grow all their shit themselves.” He took another sip, the little to no remnants on the bottom of the cup loudly coming up the straw. “Ugh, to die for!” 

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Nick rolled his eye, and Tony wondered whether The Nick Fury Eyeroll pre tragic eye loss accident was more or less puissant. “I need you to look over this report that Rogers submitted and discuss with the team whether or not every update that you insist on installing in their suits has really been necessary.” Nick handed him a transparent folder and Tony cringed at both the utmost ludicrous implication that advancement is not always necessary and at the prospect of paperwork. “It seems to me like on this particular mission they were more of a disruption rather than advantage.” 

Tony flipped open the file and looked up at Nick through his eyelashes, taking one final loud sip of his Blueberry Mist smoothie. 

“I’m sorry, did you just allude to that progress is not an essential part of human existence? My goodness, I did not know you to be such a conservative, Nick!” He clapped a hand over his heart, prompting another eyeroll. The eye patch, Tony thought, definitely made it more effective. 

“Stop bullshitting me and just look over the report, Stark.” Tony chuckled and looked down at the paper, a neat cursive looking back at him. 

“Uh,” He cleared his throat, flipping through the pages and staring at the way the letters braided into each other, just like on the napkins Tony read sweet nothings form every morning. He looked up at the top of the paper, where next to the printed “Name” it read in pretty, oh-so-pretty cursive, “Captain Steven Rogers.”

☕.

Steve woke up from a dull migraine that he had been nursing for the past week or so. He sighed, taking a large sip of the lukewarm water from the bottle he had discarded in his room a few days ago. Everyone was always talking about how important drinking water is nowadays, but Steve was never really a fan of health schticks anyway. As he made his way to the kitchen, he asked his own brain not for the first time this week why it wasn’t healed by the oh-so-magical properties of the oh-so-magical serum. A look at the digital clock in the elevator told him it was 7am on a Sunday, and he tried to remember what time it was last night when Tony excused himself to his bedroom from movie night, claiming that he was too exhausted for thrillers that evening. 

Stepping into the kitchen, however, he was met with a sleepy Tony in an oversized gray Led Zepellin hoodie and plaid pajama pants, sitting Indian Style in the breakfast nook with an Iron Man mug in his hands, taking small sips from it and the smell of coffee traveling from the coffeemaker on the kitchen counter to Steve. 

Oh. He felt the pang of disappointment in his chest at the realization that Tony woke up earlier than him. This week really didn’t like Steve much, did it? 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Tony broke the silence and Steve felt some of the disappointment dissipating at the raspy sleep-deprived timbre of Tony’s voice, “I made coffee,” he nodded over to the island that Steve was standing in front of, “I hope you don’t mind.” 

“Why would I ―” Steve cut himself off when his eyes landed on the Captain America mug from the Avengers mugs set that Clint thought was the perfect $15 Christmas gift for the people that literally risked their lives by his side on day-by-day bases. Steve felt his heart skip a beat and he held his breath as he reached out and pulled the mug towards him. Under it, of course, there was a napkin with a blocky print scribbled over it. 

“You’re not as slick as you think you are, Mr. Rogers.

Busy tonight?” 

[missabnormal]

Alright, so I watched Wonder Woman 1984...

[MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT]

So, in no particular order:

1) I get where Jenkins and the writers are coming from: they needed a lot of time to develop the characters--establish their stories and their personal lives, especially where they are at emotionally. I just think they needed to find a better balance between the action and that development. That is to say, I think the movie suffers from the 2014 Godzilla movie problem, in which it took a hell of a long time to get to the action parts in a movie that was marketed as showcasing a lot of action. 

It’s... agh, I’m conflicted, but I’m leaning towards there should have been more action. It just needed better balance of it all, even when Diana doesn’t have her powers. After the first movie had a (mostly) nice balance of action and development (for plot and characters)--and frankly better action--it’s hard to then see this movie and not see... less.

I also feel like the movie thought because it was taking place in the 1980s, it needed the nostalgic tone to it; that is, it’s weird for Diana to be, at her final scene with Max to be talking about how beautiful the world already was without the lies that the wishes create, but I feel like she would know that the world wasn’t... that. We’re at the height of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, racism is still rampant, the President (not sure if he was supposed to be Reagan or an analogy to him) in real-world history was defunding a lot of things including mental health treatment, and so on. The movie definitely establishes the Cold War, the conflicts in the Middle East, and at least anti-Irish sentiment from the English, but it all feels... not quite surface-level, but also not quite explored in depth. I don’t know, did Jenkins/the writers just not want to explore the same themes as the first movie? Maybe they thought it would be too similar? It could be, but... there could have been better ways of handling it, you know?

Of course, there was also the topic of racism with Max. Let me tell you, Max’s arc in this movie was so far and beyond what I expected. I thought, from the interviews from the cast and crew, that the movie was going to go full on Max-as-Trump-analogy. To show him as a Latin American immigrant who suffered from racism and poverty is a lot to adjust to. I like JLI Max Lord, but he was also the epitome of born-wealthy white man corporate capitalist privilege--he just had the opportunity to be fully developed by DeMatteis and Griffin as a character and not just be left as a cardboard cutout and personification of 1980s corporate America. 

Also, Max’s development is reminiscent to who he was in the very early days of the JLI, in terms of goals and--at the end of the day--care for like... not destroying the world and all that. The difference is that instead of an alien computer manipulating him (to an extent), the movie had Max use a wishing-stone. Also, he has a son for whom he cares about which, again, I was not expecting.

2) It feels bizarre and so wrong that neither Diana nor Steve asked themselves 1) why Steve reappeared in some random 1980s guy’s body instead of appearing as himself, 2) the moral/ethical questions of Steve inhabiting random guy’s body without consent and just doing whatever with it (especially after it’s implied that Diana and Steve had sex, which HELLO??? That’s not his body???). Like, it’s the kind of plot point that would probably happen in an actual ‘80s movie, no questions asked, but just because the movie is taking place in the 1980s doesn’t mean it should have the same values as the ‘80s. Like, it feels like the “trick” of the wish should have been Steve taking this random guy’s body and life and not just Diana’s powers. 

Anyway, how the movie handled this particular aspect of the plot is all kinds of wrong and baffling to see it coming from a Wonder Woman movie in the year 2020.

3) Flying aircraft from the 1910s would be drastically different from aircraft from the 1940s and on. Pretty hard to believe that Steve would just know how to fly a future military airplane without even a few pointers. 

4) The movie has a tendency of randomly showing objects or characters when it’s convenient instead of actually establishing them in a cohesive manner within the narrative. For example, the Eagle Armor appears just when its convenient to talk about it. The movie could have established sometime in the first act of the movie; i.e. it could have, say, had used the dinner scene to show Barbara asking Diana something like “What made you pursue anthropology?” and Diana answering with a “Oh, I wanted to explore my Greek ancestry” and then shown a brief moment when Diana is at her apartment of her checking the monitors and a brief panning over the ~mysterious~ object under the sheets. 

Another example is Diana using invisibility powers on the jet. I could have lived without an invisible jet in the movie, but if it was gun-to-the-head-there-MUST-be-an-invisible-jet, then I would have tried to also establish those powers before hand. For example, the movie could have shown Diana casually practicing using her powers on random objects once or twice before having her use them on the jet. That way, viewers could have understood that this power is a thing that actually exists within the movie and not just something that comes up when its convenient. 

5) It feels like Diana didn’t get as much development in this movie as in the last one. If anything, it feels like a lot of it was given to Max and Barbara, which on one hand I understand because they are new characters within the DCEU; but on the other hand, it’s supposed to be a Wonder Woman movie with the central character being Diana. She and Steve did have many scenes together, but the Max and Barbara scenes outshone theirs. 

6) Barbara... well, she borderline falls into the “powerful woman becomes evil” trope that is saved from falling into it full-on by the wishes having traps to them. However, things get complicated, narrative-wise, after Diana makes her speech about the world already being beautiful and all that. Sure, in terms of Barbara herself, she was already a kind, if awkward woman; but her coworkers and random men were shitty to her. They treated her like she barely existed, taunted her or attempted to assault her. Barbara became power-hungry, sure, but are the other people who had been shitty to her not wrong, too? There’s something fundamentally wrong with how society treats certain people (like how white Americans treated young Max Lord, or how that English woman treated the Irish man) and the movie can’t show it and then not address it in-depth, especially when the suffering that people have gone through is what lead many of them to make rash wishes (although, to be fair, the grand majority of them didn’t know what the wishes actually entailed). 

The movie doesn’t say if after everyone renounced their wishes everything became better or just went back to how things were. Although this movie is vaguely within the DCEU, it is still in it, to it’s fair to say that the world didn’t become better after people realized the destruction they were bringing upon the world with their wishes. However, to then say that everything went back to how things were is not a good ending, either. Does Barbara have to suffer through people’s indifference to her, if not outright assault, again? Is the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear apocalypse still going to continue? Are Irish people going to continue to suffer through discriminatory English sentiments towards them? Is unchecked exploitative corporate America just going to continue existing, especially those that deal with oil? Are people just going to continue to be racist? Because here’s the thing: Max may have said “life is good, but it can be better” but of course things weren’t great and the movie taps into that; yet, it’s just that, tapping into it. It presents the problems, but it doesn’t present the solution. If it’s not wishes, then what? Because going back to how things were is, you know, not great. 

Any story that presents the existence of complex conflicts has the responsibility of dealing with those in a satisfying way, and I’ve seen many stories that want to be complex, but don’t want to give it a complex solution. No story, or movie, is perfect (and none will ever be), but WW84 could have at least tried a bit more. 

7) I don’t mind Diana grieving so much over Steve, but her reluctance to renounce her wish to regain her powers could have been better handled, along with her grief. The movie briefly established that pretty much everyone she met in the first movie (except maybe Chief?) is dead. Yet, it’s so brief compared to the rest of the movie. To truly understand the depth of Diana’s desperation to keep Steve alive, the movie could have emphasized how pretty much everyone she ever cared about--on an interpersonal level--is dead or on an island that she can never return to. She’s not only alone in terms of romance, she’s alone in almost every emotionally conceivable way. And as time passes, she will remain young, but all the people she meets will grow old and die around her. The movie could have emphasized how Diana is emotionally clinging to those people she met when she first arrived in Man’s World and she can’t take being emotionally close to others again because she fears it will be too painful to see these new people die around her. It’s doubly hard when Diana also loves humanity: she wants to help them in any way she can, but that also means she can never separate herself from them. It’s love and pain interwoven, but the truth is that’s life. You lose people and doors close on you, but others open and new people come through. Everyone wishes to have everything they ever wanted, but part of being human is learning what that “everything” actually means to one’s personal life. 

The movie could have tried of uniting these ideas: Diana’s grief over Steve, Diana’s loneliness, Diana’s love for the world, the state of the world in the 1980s, human desire and fallacy, what it means to truly love and be loved, and what is it that we can do with our lives, and that of others, in an imperfect world. I can almost see some of these ideas floating on air throughout the movie, but they’re just that: floating, not quite coming together in a cohesive manner; a draft that never got that final and needed revision. 

*I might have missed a few things to talk about, but this is what comes to mind for now. 

[lov3nerdstuff]

Being Human {Part 1}

*Loki x reader*

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part: 1 / 4 

Words: 4.8k

Genre: angst (and fluff)

Warnings: mention of blood

Summary: ~Loving Loki was a one-way ticket to misery, a vortex of sadness and pain and solitude. It was like willingly drinking poison and accidentally becoming addicted to it.~

Loki has been ignoring you from the very beginning. You were only human, after all, a representative of a species he so obviously despised. But when an accident in the lab puts your life in danger, Loki has to reconsider his strategy as he is forced to work together with you. And you suddenly start to see that his reasons for staying away might’ve been entirely different from what you had always assumed.

A.N.: So this is another story in more parts! The first chapter is in reader’s perspective, while the second chapter will be in Loki’s and we’ll see about the rest! This is based on a request by @waitforthehurricanrose and I dearly hope it’s any good at all! Hope you guys enjoy 💚💚💚

______________________________

It was already dark outside when you decided that you would go for a walk. Needed to go for a walk. Or was it really going for a walk, not fleeing from the deafening silence of the compound? Through the night, through the forest, in the comfort of only your own company. Maybe you were fleeing indeed.

Living with the Avengers meant living at their headquarters, and that, in the end, meant living alone. Most of them didn’t actually reside at the base, as they had homes, families, friends to return to after a long day of work.

You on the other hand were one of the few people who stayed at the base permanently, day and night, having your own bedroom to retreat to. Other than that, there were only Steve and Bruce, and Thor and Loki. A house full of men, each of whom was more secretive and brooding than the other. And then there was you, boring, fragile, unimportant you… who was nothing more than a publicist, an observer, an ordinary mortal. A necessary evil, required to keep an eye on them at all times.

Most of them actually seemed to have come to terms with your presence, and with you being required to know of just about everything that was going on in the compound, and the team. It really wasn’t your fault after all, it had been a government thing that neither of you had been able to prevent.

As you made your way outside, over the damp, neatly trimmed lawn and towards a small pathway leading into the forest, you asked yourself when your job had started to become so difficult. Or rather when your LIFE had become so difficult, so different… so painful.

Yet, if you were being honest with yourself, you knew when things had started spiraling downwards. It had been the day you had taken a liking to the god of mischief. To Loki, of all people, who despised mortals more than anything. Who had been ignoring you from the very beginning. Who was literally the only person in the team refusing to accept you as one of their own. Who you couldn’t help but love nonetheless.

And loving Loki was a one-way ticket to misery, a vortex of sadness and pain and solitude. It was like willingly drinking poison and accidentally becoming addicted to it. He didn’t look at you, ever. Nor did he ever say a single word when you had tried speaking to him, so you eventually had stopped trying at all.

Now, as you sauntered through the blackness around you in silence and breathed in the moist air, filled with the smell of dead leaves and soil, you thought for the millionth time how stupid you were for even feeling so much pain upon his cold rejection. His ignorance. His distance.

He was Loki, after all. An Avenger, despite his unwillingness to admit so. The most intelligent, intense and intriguing being you had ever come across. A god from another world.

You should have known better than to fall in love with him, and you should know better now than to feel hurt by his silent rejection. He’d never made a secret of his distaste for mortals, his opinion that you all were dumb and shallow and meaningless. And honestly, you did feel dumb and meaningless in comparison to him. Foremost you felt vain, in loving him. You had no right to feel pain like this upon the loss of something that never was yours in the first place.

Maybe the only thing more irritating, more all-consuming and more vile than pain of the soul, the heart, is the anger you felt at yourself upon the dull ache of realization that you should not feel pain in the first place. Like a black raging monster, lurking in the shadows of your mind, an angry guilt comes out in the darkest of times to make them darker still.

And then, you knew, there’s two roads you can take: either you let the darkness consume your very being to the core, merging with it to become one, or you become your own light to keep the darkness at bay.

And currently, it was becoming more and more difficult to be your own light. Every day spent pretending to be fine felt like a new arrow to your back, while every day spent in Loki’s ignorance felt like a dagger to your heart.

You were so lost in your own thoughts, drowning in the depth of your own mind, that you didn’t see the roots wending across the path in front of you. Black like the night, winding like a snake, strong like rock. And being equally in your way as your feelings for the trickster, you didn’t see them until it was too late.

You let out a surprised yelp as you tripped and fell, a pang of energy exploding within you at the realization that there was nothing you could do now to prevent the inevitable.

A sharp pain forced its way through your body, through the adrenaline, to your mind as your knees and palms connected with the hard ground, causing tears to spring to your eyes immediately, involuntarily. You landed in the dirt as ungracefully as it could be, body flush against the mud, the pebbles, the roots… and you slipped down a little slope, feeling your skin being scraped off your bones.

To say it hurt would’ve been an understatement, and you let out a pained whine, biting down hard on your bottom lip to keep from crying. Maybe taking a walk in the forest in utter darkness hadn’t been the brightest idea, no, it had been stupid and silly and falling even more so. And yet all you really felt was pain and… relief? Yeah, relief it was, a weight being lifted off your heart that you didn’t even know was existent in the first place.

It had only been a short moment, a brief speckle in time, but the realization hit you deeply as if it was a constant, lingering hand on your shoulder. The physical pain that surred through your body was numbing out the emotional pain you’d been feeling for days, for weeks, as it was spreading out from your knees like poison from a snake’s bite, and the relief you felt upon that scared you way more than the pain. This knowledge was dangerous, and you would not let your mind delve into that.

So you only frowned to yourself as you got back onto your feet carefully, hissing at the pain that was just everywhere within you now, as you limped back towards the compound.

_______________

The distance was way longer than you would’ve assumed; how far had you even ventured while so deep in thought? The walking really didn’t do your knees any good and once you stepped into the entrance hall of the base, once you could finally see something again, you frowned deeply at the sight of your hands and legs.

Well, your palms were only scratched and dirty, that would be fine after washing and cleaning with some antiseptic, but your knees… The fabric of your jeans was ripped and drenched in blood and mud, leaving you only guessing what the skin beneath it actually looked like. Great…

With a quiet groan you made your way towards your room, half hoping and half expecting to see no one anyway, for there was NEVER anyone around at this time of night. But of course tonight you would have no such luck as to count on the ordinary for once. Why was it that the things you specifically wanted NOT to happen would always end up happening as if only to prove to you how little you had to say in the composition of the grand picture of reality?

As you crossed one final corner and stepped into your hallway at last, your eyes fell upon the tall figure crossing over at the other end immediately. Your heart skipped a beat, while the only thing on your mind was WHY?!

Of course it had to be Loki who stopped dead in his track, eyes locked on you from where he stood a good fifty feet away. You didn’t doubt for a second that he could see every little scratch on your body, every streak on your cheeks that the few tears had left, every ounce of pain in your gaze.

His eyes locked with yours and for a few seconds you both just stood on your own end of the hallway, looking at each other. This was actually the first time he ever looked at you for longer than a few seconds and you felt the depth of his eyes devouring you even with such a great distance between you. It covered your skin in goosebumps and made your heart beat faster than your mind could bear.

And despite everything, you smiled at him. Through your pain, through your tears and through your hurt, both because you didn’t want him to see how deeply shattered you were and because he needed some kindness in his life just like everyone else. And since nobody was being kind of the god in front of you, it shall be your mission to see to it. Sure, he had hurt you, but not once intentionally. It wasn’t his fault that you loved him so unconditionally, so stupidly.

But you also weren’t going to torture yourself any more than necessary, and thus you averted your gaze after a moment, once you couldn’t bear his intense eyes on you anymore. With as little limping as possible you crossed the final distance to your room and fled the hallway like the coward you knew you were, only allowing your eyes to water once the door had closed behind you. He didn’t need to see how weak humanity could be, how hurt you were now, and how stupid you had been to fall in the first place.

Very carefully, but not without pain, you got rid of your coat and shoes, scarf and hoodie and finally peeled your jeans off your shaking legs. Some dried blood made the fabric stick to your skin and you had to tear it all open again with a small whimper.

Then, there was a faint knock on the door, making you halt in your attempt to get the dirt off your legs. You expected Steve, hoped for Bruce and longed for Loki, but honestly you had no idea who would knock on your door at this time. Quickly you put on some very loose jersey shorts that at least covered everything that needed to be covered, before finally moving to open the door a tiny bit only, for you didn’t want anyone to see the bloody mess that were your legs right now.

In front of you stood neither of the men you’d thought of a second ago.

“Hey Y/n…” Thor greeted you in an unusually quiet voice, offering you a small smile.

“Oh, hey Thor.” You replied with as much of a positive expression as you could manage. Thor was a lovely fellow and you really did consider him a friend, but right now you just wanted to get yourself cleaned up and stop the bleeding. “Is everything alright?”

“That’s actually what I meant to ask you… there’s a small trail of blood leading from the entrance right to your room.” He frowned at you in sincere worry. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, sure…” You lied, a too high pitch to your shaking voice that made even Thor realize that you weren’t telling the truth. With a sigh you opened the door completely, thus allowing him to look at your wounded self. Really, considering what THEY sometimes brought home in the terms of injuries, this was completely ridiculous.

“That looks horrible!” Thor started immediately, his frown deepening as he inspected your knees. “What happened to you?”

“C'mon, don’t act like it’s anything worth mentioning.” You sighed, crossing your arms in front of your chest in discomfort. “I tripped and fell and that’s it. Only scraped knees, nothing serious.”

“But it looks really painful!”

“It is painful, Thor, and I’d very much like to take care of it now. I’m sorry if I made a mess in the hallway, I’ll clean it up in a bit. Okay?” You tried to stay polite, but it was honestly getting difficult. Not even because of him, or because of the pain, but simply because you felt stupid for getting hurt in such a mundane way. Embarrassed, and stupid.

“It’s not about cleaning up the building, Y/n… Do you even have anything to clean the wound with? Maybe you should go to the medbay?” He asked, looking at you rather wearily.

“It’s honestly not as bad as you make it out to be. And I don’t want the entire team to know by tomorrow…” You sighed yet again, thinking that you actually didn’t have any medical supplies at all in your room indeed.

“Can we at least go to the lab and have Bruce take a look at it?”

“I’m not a child, Thor. Nobody needs to take a look at anything.” You rolled your eyes at your friend, appreciating that he worried, at least.

“But they have that medical stuff in the lab that I know nothing about…” He whined. “C'mon, Stark will be mad if he finds out that all of us didn’t do what we were told. Please, Y/n… if you don’t want to get it checked for your own sake, please do it for mine.”

You groaned with yet another roll of your eyes, and limped out into the hallway as you closed your door behind yourself. If he made you go down there already, he’d just have to deal with your stupid pajama shorts and bare feet.

“What did Stark tell you to do that you didn’t?” You wondered with a frown as you made your way to the elevators slowly enough for you to feel as little pain as possible. And without the fabric of the jeans constantly brushing against your open skin, walking actually was pretty bearable.

“He told us to look out for you, like he does every night when he leaves. We’re supposed to make sure you’re safe and unharmed so that they won’t send anyone else in replacement.” He shrugged, then blushed a little at his own words. Thor really was more muscles than brain, but you liked him nonetheless.

“So you were supposed to make sure that nobody breaks the only non-avenger? So that you don’t get anyone worse than me?” You snorted, shaking your head to yourself. That really did sound like something Tony would say.

“Yeah… but as it seems we didn’t do the job very well.” Thor stated as he pressed the button on the elevator that would take you down to the labs.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I was just dumb enough to go for a walk in the darkness.” You sighed deeply, tapping your feet against the marble floor impatiently. Luckily the building had floor heating… you felt cold anyway. “Loki is right after all, us ordinary humans are weak and stupid.”

“He said that to you?” Thor asked incredulously, frowning deeply as the elevator door pinged and you continued your journey towards the large room at the end of this short hallway.

“Obviously not!” You replied in an instant. “He doesn’t talk to me at all. That really tells me more than words ever could.”

“So he’s never insulted or mocked you either?”

“No, like I said… He doesn’t talk to me at all. Until today he didn’t even look at me, like he just refused to acknowledge my existence.” You snorted, as that was the only thing you could do that didn’t completely give your hurt at his behavior away.

“He must REALLY like you then.” Thor chuckled, smiling to himself which only made you frown.

“LIKE me?! How on earth did you get that out of what I just said?” You asked with wide eyes, lips agape. Thor wasn’t bright, but he wasn’t stupid either and misunderstanding you this badly wasn’t something he could seriously do to you.

“He insults everyone. All day, every day. Especially the people he doesn’t respect. The only things he keeps to himself are his honest thoughts, and his emotions. And if he doesn’t insult you, chances are good that you’re the only person he doesn’t despise. Also, he talks about you sometimes when you’re not around. Only ever positive things, as far as anything Loki says is really positive.” Thor explained lightly and somehow his words made you shiver. There was no way Loki didn’t hate you… he hated your entire race after all!

But your thoughts were brought to a sudden stop once you walked into the lab, spotting Bruce sitting at a PC in a corner.

“Hey Banner!” Thor started loudly, making the man in question jump rather badly.

“How often do I need to remind you that scaring me isn’t exactly the best idea?” Bruce sighed as he turned in his office chair with a roll of his eyes. Only once his eyes fell upon your legs, his face fell and he rose to his feet in an instant.

“Geez, what happened to you?” He asked in a careful tone. “That looks rather painful.”

“Thanks for the brilliant evaluation, genius.” You snorted sarcastically, moving to prop yourself up to sit on top of a table and yet forgetting that your palms weren’t exactly fine to support your weight. Wincing, you rubbed over them gently with your fingers as you sat on the table in relief at being off your legs finally. “Thor made me come down here… I’m just here because he wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Because she refused to go to the medbay.” Thor added with a sigh. “She doesn’t think her injuries justify proper care.”

“I didn’t say that! But it’s kinda true. You guys get hurt all the time, way, WAY worse than this silly incident and don’t need anyone to take care of it. I honestly would’ve been fine just washing the dirt off in my room.” You argued, looking first at Thor and then at Bruce. “It’s just a little skin that’s peeled off.”

“Well, it’s bleeding quite a bit for ‘just a little skin peeled off’… I think Thor is right, we should patch you up properly.” Bruce nodded at the other man and you rolled your eyes.

“Fine… but don’t tell anyone about it, alright? I don’t want them to think of me as any weaker than they already know I am.” You grumbled, watching Bruce with a small pout as he moved around the lab to gather some supplies.

“Nobody thinks you’re weak, Y/n…” Thor said calmly, placing a large hand on your shoulder in an attempt to comfort you.

“Loki does for sure…” You muttered under your breath, hoping that neither of the two men in your company had heard you.

“You’re human, and that’s perfectly fine.” He added, assuring you in your hope.

“Natasha is human and she isn’t weak at all. Same with Clint, or Tony… Rhodey, Scott, Sam… Would you like me to continue?” You smiled at him in exaggerated sweetness.

“This is gonna hurt now.” Bruce mumbled and wiped your sore and torn skin with something that made you hiss at the deep burning that followed, rippling through your body and leaving your nerves aflame.

“I can really do this myself, Bruce. Please, you don’t have to, just let me…”

“Nope. This is my lab, so I’m patching you up. No protest.” He smiled at you. “Makes me feel of use to somebody at least. I’m only human too, after all…”

“You’re not human… Not really, I mean. You’re Banner!” Thor laughed, frowning at Bruce in amusement and you only rolled your eyes, letting Thor have his fun and Bruce his wish of attending to your knees.

With actually appropriate curiosity, you let your eyes wander through the lab slowly, taking in all the smaller or bigger projects Bruce and Tony were working on. Some of the stuff that was stored down here was just so alien that nobody really knew what it was yet… because if anyone would’ve known, it was you.

You were no scientist, not really, but smart enough to understand what everyone was working on and sly enough to find out as much as possible about everything and anything. So yeah, maybe your only value lay in the knowledge that was safely stored and organized in your head. That’s why you had been picked for the job in the first place… not because you were physically even remotely able to keep up with the team, but because you surpassed almost everyone intellectually and cognitively. Well, maybe not Vision, but he was something else after all. And who knew if you surpassed Loki, for no one really knew too much about him in general. But you definitely could compare to Bruce and Tony, if not do them one better.

Your eyes fell upon the tesseract. The strange blue cube had been in the lab for some time now, ever since Loki had brought it from Asgard. A few feet away lay the other infinity stones the team had acquired after defeating Thanos.

It had been such a close call back then, he had almost gotten all the stones and finished his mission… Yet, with the Avengers having Loki’s magic and the tesseract, they eventually had defeated the mad titan during the battle of Wakanda. Shortly after that it had been decided that you would need to watch over them, both the Avengers and the stones, permanently.

You jumped a little as Bruce started wrapping a bandage around your left knee, before putting a large bandaid on your right one. This really did feel like you were back in primary school, but since the two dorks currently in the room with you refused to have it any other way, you could at least make the best of it and use the situation for some casual snooping.

“How’s the energy project with the tesseract coming along?” You asked Bruce with a badly hidden dash of curiosity. Really, snooping in their research was just too much fun.

“Not as good as we want it to, but better than we want the public to know.” Bruce chuckled, finishing up on your legs and thus causing you to sigh contently. It didn’t hurt any less now, but just knowing that it was properly treated was making you feel better already. If you just put on some longer bottoms now, nobody would be able to tell you had hurt yourself so stupidly.

“At least it is actually coming along, I’m glad you and Tony are making some progress.” You smiled at him, then looked down at your legs dangling off the table. “And thanks for patching me up… it really was my own stupidity that caused all this trouble in the first place.”

“Don’t say that, Y/n… You’re very welcome, and it wasn’t trouble at all.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think it was trouble either!” Thor said, picking up random objects around the room and inspecting them before putting them back with a confused look.

“And who asked you?” Bruce chuckled, looking at the god with a smile and a frown. “You’re just creating a mess in the lab.”

Thor held his hands up in defeat, grinning at Bruce with that slightly irritated look he always sported. You only shook your head at both men as you got off the table and tried walking, making a few reluctant steps towards the cabinet with the infinity stones. Somehow they just seemed to call you, to draw you in like they possessed their own gravity and you were happy to comply.

“Don’t get too close to those…” Thor chuckled. “I’ve seen too many things going very wrong upon humans touching them.”

“Oh, don’t worry… I’m done getting myself into trouble for today!” You laughed, turning to the god of thunder in amusement. “I’ve seen what they can do, and if even you guys as gods have trouble in carrying them, I am sure as hell the last person trying my luck.”

Your mind inevitably reverted back to Loki as you looked down at the crisp white bandage around your leg. He was able to carry the stones, you knew that, and exactly this was where the problem lay: you were coming home with scraped knees and he was concerning himself with the greatest powers of the universe. Two very different levels, at least on the outside. You understood why he would think of you as puny and weak, for your body really was just that. And he had never given you the chance to prove to him that your mind was everything but weak and could most likely intrigue him for eternities. That’s what you told yourself at least.

It was impossible to believe what Thor had said earlier… there was no way Loki could actually like you. But falling in love with someone without ever having talked to them was equally unlikely. So maybe… you would just have to find a way to figure out if he did like you indeed.

“I better go clean the hallway…” You sighed after a moment, looking at Bruce who was back at his computer.

“Why would you want to do that?” He asked in return, leaning his head to the side as he looked between you and the computer screen.

“I bled all over the floor.” You shrugged. “That’s why Thor came knocking on my door in the first place.”

“Well, the security cameras don’t pick up a single spot of that…” Bruce gave back in irritation as he turned the screen for you to see the live footage.

“I swear I didn’t imagine it!” Thor said immediately, frowning at the screen. “C'mon Banner, I know droplets of blood could be missed by Stark’s weird camera system, but muddy footprints? Hell no.”

“Weird…” You mused, watching Bruce as he got back up and walked over to check another screen at the opposite wall. “I did think too that I left footprints at least.”

“See! I’m not making this up.” Thor grinned at you, playing with a scanner that he most definitely didn’t know the use of. Then however Thor’s grin slowly fell, turning into a deep frown. You looked over at Bruce, who was frowning in an equal manner, almost frightened for all you could tell.

“Guys? Do I have something funny in my face or…” Your voice trailed off as you noticed how they weren’t looking at you, but rather at something behind you. With one swift movement you turned around, and your mouth dropped open while your eyes widened quite a bit. You found yourself staring at the metal container that held the stones, as it was floating a few inches above the table, shaking ever so slightly as if the entire surface was vibrating.

“Don’t touch it!” Bruce said immediately as you moved the tiniest bit forward, making you jump.

“Darn it, Banner! I wasn’t going to!” You complained, frowning to yourself as you watched the box, well aware that you indeed would’ve touched it out of instinct. But no one needed to know that.

“Does that happen more often…?” Thor asked reluctantly, upon which both you and Bruce shook your heads. “Maybe someone should call Stark, or Fury, or both…”

“Nah, we will be fine… I know everything they know. And I wouldn’t want Fury’s wrath on me for calling after midnight.” You mused as you took a few careful steps backwards, eyes not once leaving the odd occurrence, while Thor stepped towards the floating metal container in newly found confidence.

“I think we should open it!” He stated, upon which Bruce immediately let out a very loud NO while jumping backwards instinctively. You on the other hand found yourself agreeing with Thor, knowing full well that the stones didn’t do anything without a reason. They had a mind of their own, if one could call it that, and right now they were clearly trying to tell you something.

“Open it.” You ordered calmly, taking up a more defensive stand even though you knew that was a ridiculous reaction. There wasn’t any physical opponent, or any opponent in the first place… just a mystery to be solved.

“That’s not a good idea Y/n…” Bruce argued, already hiding more and more behind tables and putting distance between him and the floating container. “Not even you can predict what’s going to happen.”

“Well, if anything was to happen, it already would have.” You stated in a calm that surprised you a little. Somehow, this wasn’t making you nervous at all and you couldn’t help but wonder why. “The stones would never let themselves be contained by anything as simple as a metal box. If they wanted to, they could have destroyed the compound weeks ago.”

“Sounds reasonable enough.” Thor shrugged and once Bruce failed to come up with any more counterarguments, he reached out to place a hand on the vibrating metal. It stilled immediately, and Thor looked at you over his shoulder. You gave him a more or less certain nod, upon which he opened the lid. A second later, you felt a liquid cold run through your veins and then everything turned black.

______________________________

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[crimes-and-gelato]

Only Half a Blue Sky (Chapter Four)

Rating: M Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes

Chapter Title: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

A/N: If you're still here, thank you for sticking around! But heavens, you should not trust me. :D Of course, my beta for this chapter had been nothing short but amazing. Thank you so much 12AngelOfDarkness21 (PSA: all remaining mistakes are still mine because I can't write on/at/in properly and so much other more grammar rules). I suck at chapter summary, so I'll just gotta tell you in advance that I have introduced a new character from a different universe. The competition really. So, are y'all ready for Player 3? Well, you don't have much of a choice actually. LOL! But I'm crossing my fingers that you'll like them. And off you go and hope you enjoy!

**

**

“Addiction is tricky. For example; a man who quit smoking for eleven years spent fifteen seconds in an elevator with a man smoking a cigarette. He gave in. What I’m trying to say is , I think I love you again.”

**

**

Bucky needs to tell Steve about his conflicting emotions. Not conflicting because he’s very sure about how he feels for the other super soldier. Instead, it’s the additional person that’s messing up with his emotions, making it impossible to be satisfied with what he has, when he selfishly craves for someone who is also — supposedly — his soulmate.

He wants to curse the day that Tony muttered his name so casually, no warmth or feelings. Nothing at all. Which hurt, at some point. But not as much as it hurts now, when he can’t tell Steve or touch Tony when he desires to.

Google doesn’t have much about someone who has two soulmates. It rarely happens, according to his research, with  JARVIS’ help, of course.

‘JARVIS?’ he calls out, glancing up at the ceiling, where he knows JARVIS’ cameras are located.

‘Yes, Sergeant Barnes?’ the AI dutifully replies.

Bucky likes having JARVIS around very much. The AI is such a great help these last few days, especially when Steve’s been too busy to attend to him. Not that he wants Steve to mother hen him, because that’s really not healthy at all, and besides, he’s the one who suggested independence. But he’s lost his friendship privileges with Tony after the incident .

Ah, the loathsome incident, where he’d learned that he’s Tony’s soulmate, while the engineer introduced him to Dr. Banner. And thank heavens he hadn’t uttered Tony’s name or else the genius would have found out about being bonded to Bucky.

He can’t imagine what it feels like to be tied to your parents’ murderer. What a twist of fate. Cruel, cruel fate. Tony really deserves better.

Tony’s the other person who helps him — sometimes — to ease into the current century. It’s refreshing to have him around because he doesn’t mother hen Bucky like Steve would do. It’s a bonus that he’s got a great sense of humour and a truly amazing ass.

He mentally berates himself for thinking about Tony inappropriately. He feels like he’s cheating on Steve and at the same time defiling Tony’s privacy. God, what is wrong with him?

‘J, do you know who Tony’s soulmate is?’ he asks, trying to play nonchalant again while secretly hoping the AI doesn’t see right through him. But, perhaps JARVIS does, because why else would his heart suddenly start to beat so nervously? He needs to use his Winter Soldier training and calm himself down. ‘Just out of curiosity, y’know?’ he adds when it takes time for JARVIS to reply. ‘Also, you’re not going to tell Tony that I asked, right?’

Shit! He should not have asked that at all. Maybe JARVIS has some sort of protocol that reports things back to Tony?

‘I apologise if it took time to answer your query, Sergeant Barnes,’ JARVIS says, sounding more human with his sincerity. Tony makes such awesome creations. ‘I was checking and rechecking my protocols about your first question. I have observed that Sir takes caution with the soulmate agenda.’ There’s another short pause. ‘But upon my inspection, Sir hasn’t announced the matter of his having a soulmate or not.’

Bucky tries to process the new information. It doesn’t confirm or deny his theory about Natasha and Tony.

‘And as to your last query, I would like you to be rest assured that whatever inquiry you ask from me will be kept private,’ the AI continues. ‘Unless it’s a query that conflicts with my major protocol, which is to ensure Sir’s safety along with the residents in the tower.’

He nods at JARVIS. ‘Thanks, J.’

‘Any time, Sergeant Barnes,’ the AI replies.

It’s quiet again. Bucky’s alone with his vexing thoughts.

He needs to talk to Steve. Or he’s going to go batshit crazy.

**

**

Steve’s nowhere to be found in the tower, even when Bucky’s sure that the blond’s not in the Avengers HQ. He asks JARVIS where his soulmate — his first soulmate, not Tony — is. The AI tells him that Captain Rogers is in the workshop with Sir, surprising Bucky.

The two must have mended things between them. Not that there’s something to mend about, in Bucky’s opinion. Steve wasn’t the one who killed Tony’s parents. Bucky did.

The guilt over that fact will never wear out, will never go away. But there’s still a part of him that  hopes it will.

He gets into the the elevator and asks JARVIS to bring him to the workshop, trying not to fidget with all of his nerves.

It’s only when he’s on the workshop floor when he thinks that perhaps he should leave Tony and Steve alone, for now. To catch up and go back to their old routines as friends. He’s heard a lot of this so-called friendship from Steve’s own mouth, one of the reasons why Bucky had trusted Tony with his arm, even when he had had his doubts about the genius.

‘JARVIS, are they busy inside with something? Is it okay for me to intrude?’ He doesn’t want to disturb the two’s bonding time, but he’s not sure if he’s okay being all by himself right now.

‘It’s perfectly fine to enter, Sergeant Barnes,’ JARVIS replies, and opens the door for Bucky.

He steps into the controlled chaos that is Tony’s workshop. He’ll never stop being awed by the wonders of Tony’s mind and invention. The future is amazing. And he thinks it might be sixty percent because of Tony’s brilliant mind.

‘Tony,’ Steve screams, pulling Bucky out of his astonishment about Tony’s lab.

The said man is actually up in the air. But he’s also falling, for reasons Bucky hasn’t figure out yet, seeing as he only just entered the room.

Steve’s too far to catch Tony. Captain America looks more panicky than Bucky had ever seen him on this side of the century. For a second he’s reminded of Steve’s face before he’d fallen off the train. Maybe not quite that sort of panic yet, but three steps from there.

It’s only thanks to his super soldier reflexes that Bucky manages to catch Tony before the genius can hit the cold, hard floor, saving Tony from a trip to the medical bay that they both have similar hatred for.

‘Oh my god.’ Steve has a hand over his heart, traces of his fright lingering in his voice. ‘You will be the death of me,’ he tells Tony in his patented Captain-America-is-disappointed-with-you tone.

Tony scoffs and rolls his eyes at Steve. ‘That’s impossible, Capsicle,’ he states with confidence, and with as much authority he can muster while being carried in Bucky’s arms, bridal style. He’s got an arm over Bucky’s good shoulder. Good thing the man had landed with his back on the flesh arm, instead of the metal one.

‘Well, you’re always trying for the impossible,’ Steve retorts, putting both hands on his hips like a cross mother.

The genius gives Steve a proud beam. ‘One of my personal talents,’ he agrees haughtily, which only makes Steve sigh in resignation. ‘Right,’ he says like he’s only remembering that he’s still in Bucky’s arms and looking everywhere but the Winter Soldier’s face. ‘Thanks for the catch, Red October.’ He taps his other hand on Bucky’s metal shoulder. ‘It’s okay to put me down now.’

Bucky obeys. Slowly, and mutely reluctant, but he does.

‘Thanks again,’ Tony says, not meeting Bucky’s eyes for some reason.

‘Do you need to go to medical, Tony?’ Steve asks with a concern he’s trying to mask somehow. ‘Maybe you need to check if there’s a broken rib or bone.’

Tony waves off Steve’s concern and walks away from Bucky. ‘Please, Brooklyn, it’ll take more than a fire extinguisher to break me.’

‘But it almost did,’ Steve points out in annoyance.

‘And in the end, it didn’t,’ Tony concludes, walking further into the lab. He stops near the broken fire extinguisher and a robotic arm, whom Bucky believes to be DUM-E. He pats the bot’s arm, who’s beeping in what sounds like concern. ‘I’m okay, DUM-E. It’s just an experiment gone wrong.’ There’s more beeping sounds that Bucky doesn’t understand, but it seems that Tony does perfectly. ‘Well, that’s lesson learned for you too that fire extinguishers are dangerous little shits.’

‘Tony,’ Steve scolds.

‘What?’ Tony turns to them innocently, still patting DUM-E on its robotic claw.

‘You’re not supposed to swear in front of your kids,’ Steve nags without heat.

‘Right,’ Tony agrees. He turns back to DUM-E. ‘Please don’t use words like fuck and shit because Mr. Rogers gets upset, okay?’ DUM-E beeps something back.

Bucky can’t see it but he can tell the smile on Tony’s voice as he tells his robot the instruction, while in the background Steve makes another sound of protest and mutters a reprimanding, ‘Language, please.’

Tony only glances back at Steve and gives the blond a shit-eating grin, while Steve raises both hands in the air in resignation. But he doesn’t look annoyed, Bucky notes. No, Steve looks far from irritated. The blond man actually has a fond smile on his face despite his attempt to show his vexation.

Steve looks fond. At Tony.

Steve is humouring Tony.

Steve looks fond at Tony and is humouring Tony.

Fucking hell! Steve Rogers is flirting with Tony. Not blatantly, but still... flirting! And Bucky would bet Tony’s whole net worth that Steve doesn’t even know he’s flirting, and practically swooning over Tony fucking Stark.

Of course not. Steve’s loyal to the very core and he’s not going to think about cheating on Bucky. But at the same time he’s a naive punk who won’t even know he’s got a crush even when it’s staring right at him.

And on the other hand, Bucky’s actually not jealous about Steve’s obvious-but-not-so-obvious crush on Tony. On the contrary he’s quite fine with it.

He’s fine with it. Why is he fine with it? He’s not supposed to be fine with it, right? Right? But he is fine with it.

This is a wonderfully, truly fucked up situation. What even is his life right now?

**

**

‘Remind me again why I need to be here?’ Rhodey asks dryly. His smile getting tighter by the minute. Tony also notes that his best friend looks tired.

‘Because,’ he not-whines, ‘I needed a wingman. Somehow.’

Rhodey sighs in disbelief. ‘Tony, this is not what the charity event is for,’ he lectures. ‘Finding a one night stand material isn’t why Pepper wants you in these events.’

He scowls at his best friend. ‘I know, platypus,’ he agrees, winding his arm through Rhodey’s. ‘But this is the best place to find someone of my calibre.’ The black man only narrows his eyes at him, as if he’s trying to piece Tony’s thoughts  together.

‘You’re not dying from another poisoning, are you?’ He sounds worried, and Tony hates that Rhodey has to have some traumatic stress because of him.

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I just need a new distraction,’ he explains as he subtly eyes Steve from across the room, laughing at whatever Sam is telling him. He looks away immediately, in the fear of getting caught by Rhodey or Steve. ‘I’ve been thinking about settling down these last few months. Maybe.’

Rhodey only stares at him, studying Tony’s face and reading him. ‘That’s great.’

‘Yeah,’ he agrees, and gives his best friend a smile. He expects Rhodey to ask him about details for his plan to settle down, or about his soulmate. But his darling sugar plum didn’t. Thank heavens for that. Because honestly, he’s not sure how he’s going to answer that query.

How does one tell your best friend that you’ve found your soulmate, but will settle for someone else? It’s not very common for people to ignore their soulmates and marry someone else, because such relationship are often doomed. Take Howard and Maria’s for example. Only a lucky few has been able to defy the laws of the universe, been able to stay happy and together despite not marrying their soulmates.

And Tony plans on being one of those lucky few, or so help him.

Besides, if he doesn’t find a suitable proxy, Natasha did say she’ll marry him. So, he’s not really losing here. In your face, universe.

His eyes wander to Steve again. He knows he said he’s going to let go, that he needs to stop being such a fool and move on. For Steve’s sake. And for his own sake, too.

Steve’s in navy blue tux, perfectly fitting him. He looks beautiful like he always does, but even more so than usual. And he’s standing there in radiance, representing everything Tony wants but can never have.

The pain follows like it always does, because fuck his life. Nobody has died of heartache though, right? He will survive this. He’s Tony Stark. Stark men are made of iron.

‘Shall we go rub elbows with your potential spouse?’ Rhodey teases, knowing exactly when best to pull Tony out of his dark thoughts. And this is why he likes Rhodey the best.

He wishes he’d been mated to Rhodey instead. That would have been easy. It’s never painful with Rhodey, it’s always easy. As easy as breathing.

‘Lead the way, sour patch,’ he replies.

**

**

Who knew trying to find a prospective mate is as hard as looking for a needle in a haystack. The answer is to bring a magnet. But he’s not quite sure if the magnet that he often uses to make people fawn over him is enough to pull a genuine needle towards him.

And try he will to attract the perfect needle to himself, metaphorically speaking. He’s always been a firm believer in not giving up unless tested thoroughly, until the facts and evidences are as clear as day.

So, he’s going to endeavour this boring gala when he could be in his shop right now and inventing something that could change the world. Or maybe just play catch with DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers. He’d probably formulate a few new schematics out of that. That’s how boring this gala is, all pretentious smiles and fake conversations with people who probably talk ill-mannered things about him behind his back.

But he’s here for charity and Avenger business. The team needs to shake a few hands and keep their ears on the floor for any information about the current HYDRA base they are trying to track, whom they think have stolen Loki’s magical sceptre from SHIELD.

And just to reprimand himself, he keeps himself to the opposite side of the room, where he’s going to be safely away from the Wonder Twins. Steve’s a distraction enough, not to add one James Barnes into the mess that is Tony’s errant emotions.

He truly needs to stop this pining and move on. But also, why was Rhodey taken away by those military guys for “classified” conversation, when he needed someone to distract him from his own lack of self-preservation? And Pepper’s not even here to help him out either. He should have gone with her to that Spain meeting instead.

‘Tell me, Stark,’ a deep husky voice begins, ‘how’s the green energy front doing?’

Tony’s almost annoyed at being disturbed with his long distance ogling, but he reminds himself that it’s for the best.

‘I can’t say financially better than before because that would be a lie,’ he tells the other billionaire, Bruce Wayne, owner of Wayne Enterprise. ‘But it’s doing great because I’m still richer than you.’ He flashes the man a smug grin.

Wayne only gives him a tight smile. ‘And still funnier, I see.’

‘Of course, Mr. Wayne,’ he agrees. ‘That’s my best selling trait.’ He winks at the man.

The other billionaire only gives a quiet amused huff in return.

‘How is it that you two are here together when there are people out there dying to talk with you?’ Dr. Helen Cho asks rhetorically as she approaches them.

‘Helen,’ Tony exclaims. ‘You’re here. And Banner didn’t even say you were coming.’ He wounds his arms with her. ‘It feels like he’s trying to have you all to himself when he knows very much how I love talking to you.’

‘I don’t think I can say the same about you, Dr. Stark,’ she replies, a small teasing smile on her lips.

But before Tony can react and pretend to be hurt, the other man clears his throat to insert himself in the conversation. ‘Dr. Cho,’ Wayne says as a way of greeting and reaches over for Helen’s free hand to kiss the back of it.

‘Mr. Wayne.’ She offers him a smile as he lets go of her hand. ‘It’s surprising to see you in a Stark event.’

‘Makes me curious too,’ Tony adds, attention back at the other billionaire. ‘I mean, you’re usually only out of your cave for Halloween events, right?’ He looks at him from head to toe, the man wearing a dark black tux, along with everything else that’s as dark as the night. His face is also fixed on a feature that Tony would call a Resting Bitch Face. ‘Although, it’s quite refreshing to have you out and about on these special occasions and representing your goth cult.’

Wayne doesn’t react at all, doesn’t break his stoic eye contact with Tony at the unnecessary comments that most would find annoying. No, Bruce is different. He’s perfectly confident in his own skin, so banters and insults don’t stir him at all.

The black haired man studies Tony for a few more seconds as if waiting for the genius to add more jokes on Bruce’s expense. And when there’s none, he merely looks down at his glass of scotch and stirs it slowly, knowing full well that his two companions are watching and waiting for him to say something in response. But the air in him says so otherwise, Tony notes.

One businessman to another, Tony knows how to read the other like a book. Everybody has telltales, according to Natasha. And right now, Wayne isn’t up to retaliate, but he’s luring them in by acting nonchalant about Tony’s statement, making them wait for whatever is going to happen next. Not to mention the sudden mysterious pause, as if he’s contemplating on something.

And people like them value their time. So, if they are giving it some time to think it over, it means it’s important. Bruce knows that Tony knows this too and he’s taking this opportunity.

‘You might be surprised as to what pulled me here tonight, Stark,’ he states smugly before taking a small sip of his scotch, not breaking eye contact with Tony. He brings his glass down and licks his lips, eyes still not leaving Tony’s. ‘I can promise that it will blow your mind.’

Tony’s only a man. A weak man who hasn’t gotten laid in a long time, so no one should judge him if Wayne’s words pushed his mind into the gutter. And, in his additional defence, Wayne is gorgeous too, even not adding that deep raspy voice. He can imagine that voice whispering filthy things to him while Wayne fu—

Okay, not the time. Not even if he’s trying to move on from Steve and denying his growing infatuation for James. Sometimes his libido and heart just can’t work logically. Both keep wanting things that are bad for him.

On the other hand, maybe what he needs is a quick fuck to forget about Steve. Pepper won’t approve of that solution, and it’ll only get him in hot water with the redhead if he creates more scandal when they’re groundbreaking in Europe with the green energy this month.

‘Now, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.’ He gives Wayne a lewd smile, expecting the other man to either show a hint of annoyance or back off completely. But, contrary to his prediction, Wayne’s eyes only grew more eager. Interesting.

They’ve known each other for a while, since that terrible Stark Expo where Vanko extracted his revenge. And they’ve always been competitive with each other. So, he’s out of his depths as to why Wayne is even interested, and since when.

That, or Tony’s reading it all wrong. But whether Wayne is indeed promising him what Tony is fantasising, or it’s truly just business related, he’s willing to find out either way because it’s the very distraction that he needs.

‘Trust me, you won’t regret it. I’ll make sure of that,’ Wayne vows solemnly, a layer of the smugness from awhile back vanishes, replaced by a small earnest smile. ‘Shall we, Stark?’ He offers his hand out to Tony like the proper gentleman he is.

He’s not sure if Wayne’s voice was suddenly softer than they were before, or if Tony’s imagining shit again. And for the life of him, he didn’t blush. He didn’t. Or maybe he did because Helen’s trying not to smile at Tony’s reaction. He’s not actually sure what’s on his face right now because he didn’t see this coming from Wayne.

He composes himself again and puts on his media mask. ‘Well, since I’ve always been up for anything different,’ he replies lightly and takes Wayne’s offered hand. ‘I guess I’ll see you around, Dr. Cho.’ He unwinds his other arm from hers and places a kiss on her cheek.

‘Sure, Tones.’ She kisses him back and whispers, ‘Enjoy. But not too much.’ And when she pulls back she winks at him cheekily.

Tony laughs at that. Bruce might be right and he’s becoming a bad influence on her. ‘And if you see my dear Rhodey, please tell him Goth Man has me, okay?’ he says while winding his arm through Wayne’s. Helen nods. ‘And you,’ he turns to Wayne, ‘stop calling me Stark it sounds as if we’re strangers when we’re practically frenemies.’ He rolls his eyes at the man.

‘Fine,’ Wayne agrees, though it sounds more like it’s a compromise and not something he happily obliged to. And Tony needs to remember that Wayne is a businessman like himself, who often doesn’t agree to someone else’s demand. They are people who are used to other people agreeing with their condition. ‘As long as you stop calling me Wayne, as well.’

Ah, there’s the compromise.

The other man leads them away from Helen slowly, and they talk as they walk.

‘Fine,’ he agrees, copying Wayne’s — Bruce’s — tone. ‘But that would be very confusing, y’know?’ The other billionaire gives him a quizzical look. ‘I already have a Bruce in my life… Dr. Banner.’ And if Bruce notices that Tony says his name deliberately, the other man doesn’t seem to mind.

‘I’m sure you will find a way to clear all the confusion, Tony,’ Bruce reasons. Maybe he says Tony’s name like it matters, like Tony has value, but it’s not enough.

Tony needs to accept that anyone can say his name with such love and adoration, but still have him feeling like it’s not enough. Only Steve could be enough.

**

**

Bucky stays by a corner nearest to Steve because crowded places still freaks him out. He’s rounded the perimeter thrice and knows all the exits by heart. He’s counted all the people in the gala, including the guards and secret agents. The feeling of the glock in his waistband is a comforting feeling, along with the rest of the knives he brought — total of eight, and Steve only has to know of two.

He also sticks to the corner because he doesn’t trust himself. Doesn’t believe himself capable of any semblance of self-control without Steve’s close presence to ground him, and remind him that he’s at a public function; and no it’s not allowed to stab someone with a knife just because their touch lingers far too long on Tony’s shoulder, or when they bat their eyelashes at Tony.

And that’s why Bucky has to stay by Steve’s corner of the room, when he’s itching to go over across the room and pull the engineer away from the rich looking guy in all black ensemble.

It doesn’t help that Dr. Helen Cho, bless her soul, is lucky enough to have Tony’s arm intertwined with hers. So lucky. Bucky wants to have Tony all dolled up in a tux on his arm too.

But life is unfair. Well, half-unfair because he’s got Steve. He’ll always have Steve and his warm smile, that’s full of love and concern that he throws Bucky’s way from time to time. And it’s everything he needs to survive this charade.

He told himself that he shouldn’t look across the room to where Tony is. He shouldn’t because it will only hurt, and will only make him angry with everyone that’s touching Tony who’s not him.

As if that task is easy. Not even with Steve to distract him, because Steve in a deep navy blue tux is a great distraction. But it’s not enough. Not when Steve has a job to do at this party, and is usually away from Bucky’s quiet corner near the wall.

So, pining over Tony is inevitable. It doesn’t help that the man is definitely the life of the party. Every person tries to get to him like moths to a flame. Tony is in his element, shining so brightly amongst these throngs of dim people who don’t care about anything or anyone except themselves.

Tony looks beautiful like this: surrounded by great splendour and important people but burning far more radiant than all of them combined. He likes this side of the engineer, even when Tony’s smiles are dimmer than the ones he gives back home. It’s still a sight to behold.

God, what would it feel like to see it closely. If he allows himself, he wants to be pulled in Tony’s circle and listen to him talk and move those lively hands of his. He wants to be part of those secret smiles he sends Rhodey when people aren’t looking.

But he can’t. He needs to look out for Steve, and at the same time contain his murderous glare of jealousy out of the public eyes.

He’s about to make peace with himself and stay where he is, and not disturb Steve or Tony, when the rich man from before is suddenly offering his hand to Tony. Dr. Cho looks like she’s swooning. And Tony… he’s flustered. From this distance it almost seems like Tony’s blushing.

‘Steve,’ he calls as he strides towards where his soulmate is. There must have been something concerning on his face because Steve’s face is masked with worry as he excuses himself from the group he was talking with.

‘Is everything okay, Buck?’ Steve pulls them away from the group, Bucky thinks. But he’s not sure because his eyes are glued once more to Tony, who now accepts the outstretched hand shyly.

Bucky’s going to break something, or cut someone’s hand. So, he looks away and faces Steve instead, because he needs those blue eyes to ground him and to stop him from doing something he will regret.

‘Buck, what’s wrong?’ Steve asks anxiously.

Only his great training under HYDRA could have masked the real wrath he feels deep within his chest right now.

‘Who’s that guy?’ He jerks his chin sharply towards Tony and the dark-haired stranger.

Steve follows Bucky’s gaze and doesn’t see the way Bucky’s feature clouds with more jealousy and anger as Tony snakes his arm over the man’s own.

‘That’s Bruce Wayne,’ the blond supplies. And Bucky can tell the small hint of dejection in Steve’s voice. ‘I didn’t know he was coming. Tony always said he’s a reclusive billionaire.’ He turns back to Bucky with a smile that doesn’t sit quite right on his lips. ‘Well, I guess he’s not so recluse.’ He glances back once more to the leaving pair.

‘I don’t like him,’ he states in a low growl.

Steve’s attention is on him again. ‘He’s okay, Buck,’ he assures doubtfully. ‘He’s actually friends with Tony. Wayne’s someone Tony trusts. So I guess he’s okay.’

Christ, Captain America having to repeat something twice and sounding like he’s trying to convince himself, rather than the other person is a painful thing to watch. Bucky wants to shake Steve and point out the truth that’s been staring Steve in the face the whole time.

‘I still don’t like him,’ Bucky says instead of pouring the reality of his own jealousy into the picture. ‘Tony could do so much better than that goth man.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, that man is going to be Tony’s boyfriend,’ Bucky explains as softly as he can, but the venom in his voice still colours his statement.

‘Boyfriend?’ Steve’s eyes are so wide with surprise. ‘Tony’s not gay,’ he whispers.

And that’s another surprising fact he didn’t know about Steve. Well, he did know that his soulmate can be quite oblivious. Just not this oblivious.

‘Oh, Stevie, I have news for you…’ He drapes an arm over Steve’s shoulder.

Bucky’s quite sure with his facts, he’s seen Tony looking at Steve’s ass, at Thor’s biceps when he’s around. Hell, he’s even dug old files about Tony’s past life and past lovers. And by far he hates Tiberius Stone the most.

**

**

IronBatFTW:

Hello, New York! Did you all have a great Friday night? Well, probably not as great as our renowned playboy, Tony Stark, who was spotted leaving the SI charity gala with another well-known billionaire: Bruce Wayne. Some of you must have gone, ‘OMG! Is this finally it?’ I did ask the same question this morning. This could finally be the denouement of our four years of pent up suffering under their slow-burn Jane Austen like love-hate relationship that we have watched since day one after that Stark Expo incident.

You have to be blind if you didn’t see the sexual tension between these two as they try to outsmart the other with their company’s success. It’s such a joy to witness the whole enemies-to-friends trope happening right before our eyes. And now we might just have enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope that has been everyone’s bandwagon for quite some time now. Because this is it. It might happen indeed.

Don’t worry, little ones. I’ll keep you all updated like always. xoxo

[comicbookuniversity]

Ten Thoughts on Avengers: Infinity War

I’m writing this the day after my second viewing, but by the time you’re seeing this, I’m hoping the majority of you have seen this.

So if you haven’t seen it yet, SPOILERS.

1. This was easily one of Marvel’s better films. The scale of it all could have easily collapsed this into a mess, but McFeely, Markus, and the Russo Brothers kept this film moving along at an exciting and steady pace that built into an intense climax- insert sex pun. I loved this film and loved it more the second time around. I don’t think it was as good as Black Panther or Civil War, but neither of those films operate in the same way as this one. This film was a rollercoaster experience, and a fantastic one. I think this film has to be judged in a different manner, because even Black Panther and Civil War still operate by relatively conventional film standars. Infinity War is a different beast; one must be fluent in the language and conventions of the MCU to really understand it. There has never been another film quite like this; the closest examples don’t operate on the same scale. Never has it been more true to think of the MCU as the world’s biggest and most expensive TV show than it is when you’re watching Infinity War. I will need more time to think upon where it lands on my list of Best Marvel films.

2. Between this film and Ragnarok, Marvel has made an excellent case for Thor traveling around the stars in a similar to the Guardians of the Galaxy. I would love to see Thor and Valkyrie gather up a crew and bring the fight to whatever cosmic asshole is trying to threaten the innocents of the universe. They should be called the Thor Corps. I am surprised at how Thor had somehow become the protagonist after Thanos, if you don’t want to consider the bad guy the protagonist, even though he functionally is whether you like it or not. Until Ragnarok, Thor had been more muscle than heart, and when you consider how much more focus and success has been built out of the characters of and the relationship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, its surprising to think that Thor would be given so much screentime. It makes sense that he is the Avenger with the best chance of actually beating Thanos in single combat, but you don’t build stories around military tactics- you build them around emotional journeys. Thor has lost nearly everything, whereas Steve and Tony still have more to lose. When that is considered, it makes sense to focus on the building rage of a god while you build towards the ultimate loss of the great leaders of men. And Thor with his new hammer was freaking great.

3. I’ve seen a few critics argue that there were few characters arcs and that humor was used as a substitue. Plenty of great comedies have used humor as character work, and I think Infinity War also substantively used humor to efficently establish and advance character development in between the dramatic moments of the film from wherever the last time we saw them. This film had so many moving pieces to balance and it did so artfully.

4. Dr. Strange might have jumped significantly higher up my list of favorites thanks to Cumberbatch’s effective performance and the incredible fight sequences the movie utilized him in. Holy crap, you guys, Dr. Strange was fucking awesome in this film. Speaking of the weilder of the Time Stone, I decided to rewatch the Dr. Strange film the next night, and something occurred to me. I’m still debating whether this is just a common factor or a deciding influence, but I looked up the run times to all the Marvel films and had my hypothesis mostly confirmed. Generally speaking, the longer over 2 hours (including credits) the film goes, the better it has been recieved both financially and critically. This makes sense, because Marvel has even more time to develop all the relationships between characters; and the greater we are invested in these relationships, the greater the payoff. I think the Dr. Strange film would have been better if it had an extra 10-15 minutes to develop all the relationships at Kamar-Taj and a little extra for Rachel McAdams. I say only a little for McAdams, because I don’t think the film really needed that much more time in that arc since it was about him leaving her and the world she represents. My larger point is that Marvel should embrace two hours as the new minimum for their films.

5. Thanos is definitely one of Marvel’s better villains and that’s largely thanks to the brillaint performance of Josh Brolin, who commits to seeing and bringing the vulnerbility under all of Thanos’ power and evil plan. He’s still not Marvel’s greatest villain as that honor belongs to Killmonger, who will likely hold the honor until the next Black Panther film. Despite Thanos’ plan, Brolin, the writers, and directors of the film really give him certain amount of sympathy in seeing his commitment to his cause and the fear that ultimately drives him to act as he does. And it is fear that ultimately drives Thanos to act, because he sees the injustice in Life’s capacity for growth at the expense of the living. Thanos is someone who cannot and will not accept that Life is unjust and rages against this existintial condition with all his strength, and by the end of the film, the strength of the universe itself. But despite the great work of Brolin, what really helps Thanos is the sheer amount of screentime that the studio was willing to give him. With so many characters, many of of whom anchor their own franchises, it makes sense center the film on the least well-known character and force others to react to them, because it’s not about them in this moment. It’s all about their lives being interupted and forced to react to this almost natural disaster like situation, where winning doesn’t feel like an option and losing less feels like the only prudent mindset to have. Against the threat of Thanos, the superheroes are reminded of their own vulnerablity and mortality, and they feel more human than ever in this dark moment.

6. As introduced by Jonathan Hickman, my favorite members of the Black Order were Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight; look they all had wonderful names, Black Dwarf, Supergiant, Ebony Maw, and then they had the other name for their group- The Cull Obsidian. Damn those are wonderful freaking names, so I’m a little disappointed that the members of the Black Order didn’t even get named, outside of Thanos’ passing reference to Ebony Maw simply as “The Maw.” Also, this Ebony Maw has a different power set than his comic counterpart, but damn was he great; easily the creepiest and best member of the Black Order. Black Dwarf did have a weapon that kept changing into different modes that I thought was awesome. I wasn’t ever expecting them to be big and I was never certain if they would last beyond this film, but would it have added that much time for the Black Order to have gotten called by their names?

7. I thought Vision would have recieved a more significant arc in this than he did; Peter Quill did and all he did was lose his girlfriend, whereas Vision litterally has an Infinity Stone in his head and is willing to sacrafice his life to destory it. Vision spent most of his time being stabbed instead of being a hero. He would have made a good point of contrast to Doctor Strange; they’re each the weilders of Infinity Stones, but have radically different ideas of how deal with the stones when presented with the threat of Thanos. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense, due to the fact that he he is a Thor class fighter and that he hasn’t had much of a chance to develop as a character. To me, Vision is a low-key Superman figure of the MCU (or more accurately Martian Manhunter in direct compairson, but he’s just a more stoic version of Superman), and he suffers from the projections of Superman as tedious and boring figure being placed upon him. I think Vision suffers from the same problem that Star Trek does when compared to Star Wars; instead of treating the intellectual and philosophical pursuits with respect and excitement, the filmmakers assume that the audience is going to find it boring and treat it as boring instead of finding away to actually make it exciting. I think the best examples of the superhero genre are essentailly philosophical and ethical works that present the issues in a dynamic, colorful, and charming story, but because of what can be best called an attitude of anti-intellectualism based from ignorance, rather than something worse, the philosophy is often overlooked in favor of the simpler steps that would tie the character arcs and themes to larger philosophical concerns. I know it is not the most well liked of the MCU, but Vision’s scenes in Age of Ultron are some of the most earnestly poignant on the fragile beauty and duty of and to life itself. And these scenes also speak pretty directly to the core of Avengers philosophy, which has now been summed into a single line thanks to this film: “We don’t trade lives.” I just think Marvel missed an oppurtunity to really sell Vision as being more than a secondary figure and someone who is a product of the moral core of the MCU.

8. Considering how thoroughly representative of nearly every tone and narrative aspect of the MCU this film is, it only serves to highlight how underrepresented women and people of color are in the MCU. None of the Avengers or other characters who would typically hold franchises of their own are given nearly the same amount of screentime or material to work with in this film, because of it’s epic scope and the relatively simple nature of the conflict; but that being said, the women of the MCU are still given very little to do overall. They are supporting players while the men are off leading the charge or creating strategy that determines the fates of hundreds of trillions. The first person to die on screen is a black man, and there’s only one black man who is in a real position of power. Marvel still has trouble of thinking beyond America’s history of slavery and a segregated citizenery with African-Americans to see America’s other troubled relationships with national, ethnic, and religous groups and also give them some kind of positive representation. The only woman or person of color given a significant role similar to the signifcane of say Iron Man or Dr. Strange fighting Thanos on Titan is Scarlet Witch. This is a film where Scarlet Witch really gets to unleash her full power, and it’s seen in a tragic moment of where she is forced to kill her lover for the sake of the universe while holding back a nearly omnipotent being who defeated the Sorcerer Supreme just moments ago. Before I go on with this analysis, HOLY CRAP that’s kinda crazy to think how powerful she must really be, so I 1000% agree with Okoye when she asked why Scarlet Witch was not on the field of battle the whole time in Wakanda. Like, damn, she must be so powerful, so can we please get a film where Elizabeth Olsen is given more to do than play rookie and wear a sexy corest? And while there admittedly is a certain value to seeing her power arise from her love to Vision in this tragic moment, the fact that we have seen so very little of Wanda compared to her many male peers and her moment of great power is defined in part by her romantic relationship is not the most progressive choice. Had we had more time with Wanda in previous films, I don’t think I would find this choice as anything other than a sad moment in a star-crossed relationship, but because she has had so little time by comparison (and even without comparison) to her male counterparts this moment loses a little bit of the power it could have had as a symbol of female power equaling male power.

9. I’ve seen a few people complain about how the drama and value of the deaths of half the universe is undercut by the knowledge that these characters will be back in their own films within the next year or two. But I call bullshit on this complaint because it is based in cynicism and ignorance. There are three parts to this complaint: the first two problems are tied together in that the characters don’t know they’re going to come back, so if the film had botched its execution of setting up the emotional beats in this film to continue and progress our attachment to the characters, then it would have all fallen apart. But the film didn’t botch it, every line and edit is proposeful and effective in engaging and reminding us of why we love these characters in the first place, so since the film was executed well, we can sympathize and empathize with the characters in their sadness and shock at all these deaths. Second, even if we didn’t know from announcements made by Marvel or somehow guess from Marvel’s previous works that these characters would be coming back, the film establishes that its not over. Dr. Strange clearly knows what is going to happen (or at least something extremely close to the victory he searched for in all the possible futures). And even if Dr. Strange didn’t know, do we really believe these characters who we just watched try so valiently to fight Thanos from achieving his goal would allow him to go unpunished for his crime? Let’s assume for a split secon that there is not some way to fix what Thanos did, do we really believe that the film would spend so much time on all these different characters for it to just end on the one guy sitting on a hill when all their emotional threads are just left unfinished? The answer to all of these scenarios is no. There was never a version of this film that was a single part or the final film; this is clearly the first half of a story, so the audience value of all the deaths comes from thinking about and then later finding out how it all be fixed to as much as the heroes can fix it. People who compalin about the deaths as having no value or drama are just being babies about having to wait.

10. After having seen this twice and considering how well Marvel has been doing since the release of Civil War, I really think Marvel has found it’s groove and I am so excited for the future. While I would understand if they want time to do other projects, I would hope that the Russo Brothers, Stephen McFeely, and Christopher Markus always have one hand on driving the MCU. Feige has been there since the begining, but I feel like working with these four has really helped him focus overall and loosen his grip to trust the filmmakers he hires to execute their visions within the MCU. Gunn, Watts, Waititi, and Coogler all breathed new life into Marvel with their style and emotional honesty, and it’s this trend Marvel should continue to follow if they want to keep their success going. Infinity War is representative of many of the best elements of Marvel, and everyone involed in it should be proud of the work they’ve accomplished with it. That being said, Marvel still has progress that needs to be made, and it looks like it is going to be able to effectively do this by closing one chapter of the MCU and starting the next. I am so very excited for the journey we’ve all got ahead of us.

[crystal-siren]

Knowledge (Dad!Tony x Reader + Loki x Reader) Pt.2

Part 1 can be found here

Continuing with the story-line from the request by @dovies666 :) <3

@mymourningtea

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I cannot read stars or converse with The Fates but I do know this: I’m all in, Here and Now, until I’m dead in the dirt. No matter how difficult it gets, or how desperately the world tries to tear us apart, I’ll be yours.” ~ Beau Taplin (Certainty)

A soft knock on her door caused Y/N to look up from her book. “Coming.” Sighing, she placed a bookmark in the book and put it to the side before getting up.

Upon opening the door, Y/N expected to see her father. Instead, she was greeted with the sight of four S.H.I.E.L.D agents. “Hello. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Yes,” one of the agents answered and stepped forward, “Director Fury wants to see you. You need to come with us.”

Y/N narrowed her eyes in confusion. Why didn’t her father just come and collect her? “Have I done something wrong?”

“He wants to ask you some questions Miss, that is all. Now, please come with us.”

Seeing that she wouldn’t be able to get any more answers out of them, she sighed and stepped out of the room and was immediately surrounded by the four agents. As they made their way down numerous hallways, Y/N felt as though she was being merely pulled along by her ‘escorts’, her mind was going down every avenue trying to figure out her situation.

Finally they came to a halt in front of a rather plain looking door. One of the agents pushed the door open and gestured for Y/N to enter. “The Director will be along shortly.”

Nodding, Y/N stepped into the room and jumped a little when the door was closed behind her. Looking around, her e/c eyes scanned the room. It was bare save for a table in the centre and two chairs facing each other on opposite sides of the table. There were no windows or lights save for the one that hung from the middle of the ceiling.

“This can’t be good,” Y/N murmured to herself. Curious, she walked to the door and tried the handle. The door was locked. “Lovely.” Moving away from the door, she pulled a chair out and sat down and promptly rested her head on the table and closed her eyes.

~ ~ ~

“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Steve glanced at his teammates.

“If Tony’s right,” Nat spoke up, “then Y/N is the only one that might have a lead on where Loki might be.”

“And right now, we need all the information we can get.” Tony spoke from the back of the group and everyone turned to him in surprise.

“She’s your daughter Tony.”

“I know,” sighing, he turned away from the group, “that just makes this all the more difficult.”

“Well,” Clint piped up, “let’s get this over and done with. The sooner we find him the better.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

~ ~ ~

Y/N was jolted awake at the sound of a door closing. Sitting up, she blinked while taking in the newcomer.

Nick Fury pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. “Miss Stark, I wish I could say it was a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” smoothing her Y/F/C hair away from her eyes, Y/N glanced at her visitor. “Why am I here?”

“I need answers to some difficult questions and I have been led to believe that you could provide those answers.”

Sighing heavily, Y/N smiled, “ask away.”

“Are you familiar with a person named Loki?”

Closing her eyes, Y/N bit her lip and looked down. When she looked up, a small smile graced her features. “Of course I am.”

“You are?” Fury was surprised, maybe this wouldn’t take as long as they had initially thought.

“Yeah.” The smile widened into a smirk. “I’ve read quite a few books where he’s mentioned. He’s not very popular in Norse mythology.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Now what’s that for a question,” Y/N raised an elegantly shaped brow. “Of course I haven’t. I’ve only ever read about him. I mean, I’d like to meet him, he was always a favourite of mine. But that’s never gonna happen.”

“Is that so?”

Y/N nodded, “yep.”

“And why is that?”

“Quite simply because,” Y/N shifted slightly in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. She had forgotten her book. “He’s not real. Simply a myth made up by people who lived long ago.”

Nick Fury was beginning to think she may not be quite with it. “Well, Miss Stark. I have news for you.”

“You do?” She cocked her head to the side.

“Yes.” Reaching into his coat pocket, Fury pulled out a photograph and placed it on the table. “He’s quite real. Have you seen him before?”

Instead of answering, Y/N leant forward and gently pulled the photo closer. Her eyes scanned the image and smiled slightly.

“Miss Stark?”

“Yes?” Tearing her eyes away, she looked up at the Director.

“Have you seen this man before?”

Briefly closing her eyes, Y/N licked her lips. “Yes. I saw him back when my father was first recruited to be part of that team of yours.”

“You saw him?”

“Yes,” sighing, Y/N ran a hand through her hair. “My father was given something black and that had images in it. His was included.”

“Did you ever speak with this man?”

The smirk came back. “Now why would I do something like that? He’s obviously a dangerous person, so why would I want anything to do with him?”

“Security footage suggests otherwise.” Fury watched closely for her reaction.

“How do you know its real?” Leaning back in her chair, Y/N smiled charmingly at the Director. Her heart rate picked up, there had been cameras?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fury narrowed his eyes at the young woman.

“Director,” leaning forward, Y/N looked him in the eye. “If you know anything about this man, then you’ll know that he is a master of creating illusions. So what I’m saying is, how do you it’s actually me in the footage?”

“Because it looks pretty damn real.”

Chuckling, Y/N shook her head. “Then he tricked you pretty good.”

“If what you’re saying is true, then why did he pick you?”

“Good question,” Y/N eyed her companion. “From what I know of him, he detests humans, so why would he want anything to do with me? Why would he want to associate himself with me? Why go through all the trouble of creating an illusion with the two of us in it? I’ll tell you why. Because that’s what he does, make trouble and causes chaos. Have you ever thought that maybe he wanted all of this to happen? For you to see the security footage and then drag an unsuspecting me in here to interrogate while he was left to carry out whatever he had planned? Has that ever crossed your mind? Besides,” she got up and pushed her chair in before leaning on it. “I am just a mere human in his eyes, what could I possibly mean to him?”

Fury said nothing for what seemed like hours. Then he too got up. “Then explain this.” Pulling a device out of his breast pocket, he lightly tapped the screen before holding it out to her.

Y/N’s hand trembled slightly as she took the device and looked down at the screen.

She saw her room and two figures whom she immediately recognised. They appeared to be quite close to one another. She saw herself nudge him towards the door before he turned to kiss her a second time. “Farewell then, my Queen.” Y/N heard herself reply, “farewell, my King.” She fought back tears as she had then when he said, “I will return for you, I promise.”

Shakily handing the device back, Y/N retreated a little before looking up. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“When he comes for you,” Fury met her gaze, “we will be ready for him.”

Y/N’s eyes widened, “you want to use me as bait?”

Fury nodded and tucked the device back into his coat.

Shaking her head, Y/N retreated further. “I won’t let you. I will not let you use me like that.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

Struggling to keep calm, Y/N folded her arms again. “He’s clever. Much too clever for the likes of you. He’ll figure it out. He won’t come.”

Fury simply looked at her as though she were a mere child. “He will come. We’ll make sure of it.”

Y/N didn’t like how the Director spoke those words. “Does my father know about this? About what you’re planning?” She was grabbing at straws, she knew her father felt betrayed by her lies, but she needed all the help she could get.

Fury nodded, “it was his idea.”

Y/N paled and retreated until her back came in contact with the wall. “You’re lying. My father would never do that.”

Silence answered her. Fury said nothing as he turned to leave.

“May I have that photo?” Her question stopped his departure. Turning around, he looked at her, standing with her back to the wall, her e/c eyes pleading with him.

Taking the photograph out of his coat pocket, he laid it on the table before leaving, closing the door behind him.

Y/N didn’t move until the door clicked shut. She slowly made her way to the table where the photo lay. Her hand trembled as she reached out to take it. Her feet carried her back to the wall where she sank to the ground, the photo clutched to her chest like her favourite book.

“Don’t come for me,” her voice broke and fresh tears came. “Please don’t come.”

~  ~  ~

“Please don’t come.”

The whispered words seemed to come from the very walls. Loki looked around to see if anyone else had heard the whisper. If any did, they were doing an excellent job of hiding their reactions.

He had not known her long, yet he would recognise her voice anywhere. Closing his eyes, he imagined her in his mind’s eye. What he saw made his blood boil.

There she was, hunched on the ground in a dimly lit room, she had clearly been crying and both hands were clutched close to her chest as though she was holding something. There was fear in her eyes, but not the kind Loki had previously seen.

“Y/N?” He whispered her name and when she looked up, his heart leapt. She must have heard him! He watched as she searched the room with hopeful eyes and saw how eventually she shook her head, no doubt telling herself she had imagined it.

As he looked closer, he saw something else in her eyes. Something he was more than familiar with. Betrayal. It shone like twin suns from her eyes. Who could have done something to elicit such a reaction from her ?

“Sir?” A foreign voice shook him from his ‘vision’ and back to the present.

“Yes?” Loki turned to face the speaker, “what is it?”

“Dr. Selvig says it’s ready.”

“Excellent.” In a dismissive gesture, he signaled for the young man to leave. Clearing his features of all emotion, he left the room and headed towards where the good doctor would be waiting for him.

~ ~ ~

Tony hated seeing her like this. The hidden camera provided him with a full view of the room in which she was being held. Hunched on the ground, she looked like anything other than the confident yet recluse college student. 

“Tony?” Bruce’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. 

“Yeah?”

“You ok?”

Turning to look at his friend, Tony sighed heavily and ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “I feel terrible for doing this to her.”

“Hey,” Bruce abandoned what he was doing, “she was the one that lied to you about what she was doing, not the other way round. Remember?”

“How could I forget?” Tony murmured to himself. As far as he could remember Y/N had never lied to him or to her mother. “But lie or no lie, she’s still my little girl, Banner.”

“That’s just it Tony,” Bruce moved to stand in front of him, looking him in the eye. “She’s not a little girl anymore. Her actions were her own as were the decisions she made.”

“How do we know that? How do we know that Loki didn’t somehow manage to influence her?”

“Oh Tony,” Bruce shook his head and took off his glasses. “ You yourself saw the security footage from her room.” 

“Can you really blame me for wanting to believe the best of her?”

“No,” Bruce answered and sighed, “I suppose not.”

~ ~ ~

How much longer were they going to keep her locked in that room? Y/N found herself asking that question over and over. She didn’t know whether it was day or night or what the time was for that matter.

The lone light in the centre of the room flickered and Y/N groaned. “Fabulous.” Bracing one hand on the wall, she pushed herself up and scanned the room, once again confirming that she was alone. Clutching the photo in one hand, she stood and leant against the wall. Eyeing the door, she began to contemplate how difficult it might be to open. Approaching the door, she expected to see some fancy high-tech lock. Instead it looked just like any other. Bending down slightly, she eyed the lock and unhooked one of her earrings and proceeded to work on picking the lock. It took longer than she had initially thought it would, she had read about it many times and had often wandered what it would be like to actually do.

Her eyes lit up when she heard a click. Carefully sliding the earring back in, she tried the handle and grinned when it gave way.

Poking her head out, she was surprised to see no guards and that the hallway was empty. Deciding not to push her luck, Y/N slipped out of the room and ran as quietly as she could down the hall. Relying heavily on her memory of the ship’s layout, Y/N made her way through countless hallways and passages. Her eyes darted frantically as she ran, her breathing quickly became ragged and she had to stop at intervals to catch her breath. Her eyes searched desperately for any signs that would direct her in the direction of the main deck.

Pausing to get her breathing under control, Y/N’s eyes swept around the passageway for any pursuers and landed on a sign that made her eyes light up. “MAIN DECK” with an arrow pointing diagonally to the right. Taking a deep breath, she made to run up the stairs when a foreign voice echoed behind her. “There she is!”

Glancing behind her, Y/N’s eyes widened as she saw three agents just a little distance away. Swearing under her breath, she bolted up the steps and soon heard the agents follow. Coming onto the deck, Y/N had to blink and shield her eyes against the bright sun. Being spurred on by the sounds of pursuit, Y/N kept running. Dodging deck-hands and equipment, she soon came to the edge of the deck and skidded to a halt. Her arms flailed as she struggled to keep her balance. Looking down, her heart sank, “I didn’t think this through,” she murmured to herself. Her plan was to get out, she hadn’t thought any further than that.

“Don’t move,” one of the agents spoke from behind her.

She wouldn’t move even if she wanted to. Her dislike of heights kicked in and her feet became rooted to the spot.

“Back away from the edge Miss.”

Her feet wouldn’t move. Her whole body seemed to have frozen.

When she didn’t move, one of the agents approached her and took a hold of her left wrist.

It was as though something inside of her was triggered. Tearing her arm free, Y/N threw her elbow backward and made contact with the agent’s jaw. Spinning around to face her assailant, Y/N let instinct take over. Her fighting was basic, to say the least. Having had no self-defence training, Y/N relied heavily on the flight-or-fight instinct.

“Miss Stark!”

Her name brought her to a sudden stop and back to reality. Sudden pain lanced through her jaw and right eye and she felt something warm drip from her nose. Lightly touching it, she hissed in pain, great, a broken nose. Her hand came away covered in blood and she groaned in pain and in frustration.

“Miss Stark!” The Director spoke louder, and finally caught Y/N’s attention.

“Director,” Y/N smiled as best she could. Her injured jaw inhibiting her ability to do so. “What can I do for you?”

Nick Fury looked at her as though she’d grown a third eye.

When she got no answer, Y/N shrugged her shoulders before limping past him.

Fury’s hand shot out and grabbed a hold of her bicep.

Hissing in pain, Y/N stopped and turned to face him, “so there is something I can do for you.”

“You can tell me where the hell Loki is before he manages to achieve global domination.”

Prying his hand off her arm, Y/N looked him in the eye. “I. Have. No. Idea.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“Now why would I do something like that?” She looked at him as though he was child who had asked a question with an overly obvious answer. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the Director nod to someone behind her. Before she knew it, her hands were being pulled behind her and a blindfold was pulled over her eyes.

“Wait until my father hears about this,” Y/N snarled. Despite not being able to use her hands, she lunged in his direction before being pulled back.

“No you don’t,” Clint spoke up from behind her. When she tried to see who it was, he spoke again, “Agent Clint Barton, at your service.”

Y/N curled her lip at him.

“Your father told us where you were.” Fury informed her. “He also told us that they’ve found him.”

Y/N stopped her struggling, “then why did you ask me in the first place?”

Fury smirked, knowing she couldn’t see it. “To see if you would tell the truth.”

‘How. Dare. You.” Clint had to pull her back again, more forcibly this time.

“Come along,” Fury nodded to him and Y/N felt herself being pulled in the general direction of the ship’s entrance.

~ ~ ~

A sense of contentment coursed through Loki as he stood at the top of Stark Tower. Everything was going to plan and soon he would be free to return and collect her as he had promised.

Taking a deep breath, he turned and re-entered the tower. He stopped short when he saw two men drop a figure in the middle of the room. His eyes widened when he saw the figure’s hair.

“Y/N?” She looked terrible, even from where he stood he could see that her nose was broken. Waiting until the men had gone, he made his way over to her. He watched as she tried to lift the blindfold with obviously injured hands. They were shaking as she tried to lift the fabric.

Y/N never thought that taking off a simple strip of fabric would take as long as it did. She had to make sure that she didn’t worsen her existing injuries. Her swollen eye making it hard to avoid brushing against. She had to move slowly and hissed when her hand brushed against the bruise on her jaw.

“Y/N?” He spoke a little louder this time, not sure if she had heard him the first time.

The sound of her name brought her trembling hands to a stop. The blindfold wasn’t even half off.

Setting aside the scepter, Loki reached out and gently untied the black fabric, being careful to dodge her swollen eye and jaw. “Y/N, it’s me.”

Blinking rapidly from the sudden assault of light, Y/N shied away and covered her eyes, swearing and immediately recoiling from the pain of the bruises.

It felt almost like second nature as he reached out and gently took her hands. “Y/N, look at me....please.”

She froze, her eyes traveling down to where their hands were joined. The joints in her fingers ached as she traced invisible patterns on his hands. “It’s you?” She sounded as though she was speaking to herself rather than to him.

Loki began to wonder if she could hear anything at all. He had gotten no obvious responses from her. This worried him more than it should have. “Y/N, please.”

Soft, almost pleading words reached her ears. Y/N looked up from their joined hands and narrowed her eyes slightly before reaching up with one hand and placing it gently on his cheek. “Loki?”

He felt, in that moment that he were hearing his name for the very first time. Nodding, he smiled gently. “Yes my love.”

Her answering smile was brighter than the afternoon sun. The smile faltered however as she remembered something. “It’s a trap. You have to leave.”

“Leave?” Confusion coloured his tone.

Nodding frantically, Y/N pulled herself to her feet, “yes. You need to go, you need to go now.”

Loki made to reply when Tony stepped into the scene, fully dressed in his armour, minus the helmet. “He won’t be going anywhere.”

Gripping Loki’s arm for support, Y/N turned to face her father. “Dad, please, don’t.”

“What’s going on?”

Turning from her father, Y/N looked up into his green eyes. “I was the bait.”

“The bait?!” Loki made no effort to hide his shock.

“Yes,” nodding, Y/N swallowed heavily, “to keep you here, while they dismantled any plan you may have had in place.”

He didn’t answer right away, but Tony did. “And as you can see, it worked perfectly. Your little game is at an end.”

“You have every right to hate me,” Y/N looked down, not able to meet his emerald gaze. “I know that I do.” She backed away and wrapped her arms around herself.

Before Loki could do anything, he was pinned against the opposite wall by none other, than Thor. “Hello brother.”

It seemed as though all of a sudden, the Avengers were all there. Y/N seemed forgotten, now that she had played her part. Being the shortest and by far not as strong, Y/N knew she had no hope of getting past them. She felt like a traitor as she stood there while they locked shackles around his wrists and a horrible-looking gag over his mouth.

Y/N felt the familiar sting of tears. She didn’t bother to try and stop them as they broke free. This was wrong! Angrily brushing the tears away and ignoring the pain from her eye, Y/N pushed through the small crowd until she stood just a few short feet away from him and his brother.

“This is wrong,” she spoke the words with all the resolve and passion she felt at that moment.

“He is a criminal,” Natasha spoke to her as though she was a child. “He’s done some very bad things.”

“Haven’t we all?” Y/N looked the Russian in the eye as though to challenge her. “No one here is perfect. I do not condone what he has done, not in the least. But I do know this,” she paused and turned to look at him before continuing. “That he has shown me only kindness, despite how he’s been treated by us. In the eyes of this world and its government he may be a criminal who has committed unspeakable acts, but to me,” the tears came again and she let them. “He is one of the most beautiful souls who decided to give me a chance at being different from others of my race.” Turning fully to face him, she cocked her head to the side and smiled. “And in return for that kindness and that chance, I offer you, Loki of Asgard, the most precious treasure that I own, my heart. I have the faith to believe that you will keep it safe.”

Loki simply stared, he couldn’t do much else. He had done nothing to deserve the angel that stood before him. Defending him and speaking up for him when all others condemned him. He longed to reach out and hold her close and tell her that his heart was her’s for all eternity. But the shackles and the gag prevented this and it pained him that she would never know just how much her words were reciprocated. He hoped and prayed with all his heart that his eyes conveyed his heart’s message.

No one really knew what to say after Y/N’s speech. Most were shocked and surprised that she would feel that way about such a person. Tony, perhaps, was the most shocked of them all.

“Time to go, I believe,” Thor broke the silence and the others nodded in agreement. “Come along brother,” he gently pulled Loki forward and past Y/N.

Not thinking twice, Y/N reached out and lightly touched his shackled hands. Thor did not miss this and stopped, allowing his brother a moment.

Turning to Thor, Y/N spoke, “could-could you please take that thing off him?” Her e/c eyes pleaded with him and darted to the gag as though to illustrate her request. “Please?”

Without a word but with protests from the others, he reached up and undid the gag.

They were like magnets, hungry for contact with the other. They seemed to forget that they were in the company of others and only broke apart when the need for air became mutual.

“I am a monster, like they say I am,” Loki whispered the words, meant only for her. “But I do have a heart, and it belongs to you.” His green eyes met her e/c ones as he took her hand and reverently kissed her knuckles. “It will always belong to you, my Queen.”

Y/N could form no coherent words, the tears ran in torrents down her cheeks. “Will I see you again?” She murmured, her tear-filled eyes hopeful.

‘Who knows my love,” Loki brought up his shackled hands and gently brushed away her tears. “But know this, that no matter where you are or where you may find yourself in time, I will always love you, until the end of days.”

Before Y/N could reply, Thor came with the gag and secured it on his brother. Loki’s eyes never left her’s. “I will find you, I promise,” her words followed him as the power of the Tesseract took him and his brother from her sight.

To be continued....

Part 3

[seekfirstme]

The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2021. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.net

Meditation: Why does Jesus describe his mission and the coming of God's kingdom in terms of conflict, division, and war? Jesus told his disciples that he did not "come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). The "sword" which Jesus speaks of here is not a physical weapon that cuts people down, but a spiritual weapon that cuts through the inner core of our being to expose the corruption of sinful thoughts and intentions as well as the lies and deception of Satan and his kingdom of darkness.

Sword of the Spirit

Scripture describes God's word as a sharp two-edged sword that "pierces to the division of soul and spirit... discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12, Revelations 19:15). Scripture also describes "God's word" as the "sword of the Spirit" which has power to destroy every spiritual stronghold that keep people in bondage to sin, deception, and Satan (Ephesians 6:17). Jesus came to rescue us from slavery to sin and to set us free to live as citizens of God's kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17).

Spiritual warfare

Jesus' mission was an act of war against the spiritual forces who oppose the kingdom of God and his rule over the earth. That is why Jesus identified Satan as the ruler of this world whom he will cast out (John 12:31). The battle Jesus had in mind was not an earthly conflict between individuals and nations, but a spiritual warfare between the forces of Satan and the armies of heaven. Jesus came to wage war against the spiritual powers of this present world that turn the minds and hearts of people away from God and his kingdom of joy, peace, and goodness.

Kingdom of light versus kingdom of darkness

The Scriptures make clear that there are ultimately only two kingdoms or powers and that they stand in opposition to one another - God's kingdom of light and Satan's kingdom of darkness. John the Apostle contrasts these two opposing kingdoms in the starkest of terms: We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19). The Scriptures describe the "world" as that society of people who are opposed to God and his kingdom of righteousness, truth, and goodness. Jesus came to overthrow Satan's power and to set us free from everything that would hold us back from knowing, loving, and serving God who has loved each one of us with boundless mercy, compassion, and goodness.

God must take first place in our lives

Jesus told his disciples that if they followed him it would be costly because they must put God's kingdom first and obey his word. Whenever a great call is given it inevitably causes division between those who accept and reject it. When Jesus remarked that division would cut very close to home his listeners likely recalled the prophecy of Micah: a man's enemies are the men of his own household (Micah 7:6). The love of God compels us to choose who will be first in our lives. To place any relationship or any other thing above God is a form of idolatry. Jesus challenges his disciples to examine who they love first and foremost. A true disciple loves God above all else and is willing to forsake all for Jesus Christ. Jesus insists that his disciples give him the loyalty which is only due to God, a loyalty which is higher than that owed to spouse or kin. It is possible that family and friends can become our enemies if the thought of them keeps us from doing what we know God wants us to do.

The just reward

True love for God compels us to express charity towards our neighbor who is created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus declared that any kindness shown and any help given to the people of Christ will not go unrewarded. Jesus never refused to give to anyone in need who asked for his help. As his disciples we are called to be kind and generous as he is. Jesus sets before his disciples the one goal in life that is worth any sacrifice and that goal is the will of God which leads to everlasting life, peace, and joy with God. Does the love of Jesus Christ compel you to put God first in all you do (2 Corinthians 5:14)?

"Lord, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has conceived the things you have prepared for those who love you. Set us ablaze with the fire of the Holy Spirit, that we may love you in and above all things and so receive the rewards you have promised us through Christ our Lord. (from A Christian's Prayer Book) "

The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2021.

LIVING IN REALITY

“He who will not take up his cross and come after Me is not worthy of Me.” —Matthew 10:38

Jesus is a real Person. He came from heaven to earth, and lived among human beings (Jn 1:14). During the three years of His public ministry, Jesus often had no place to lay His head and no home in which to sleep (Lk 9:58). He suffered rejection and intense persecution. He suffered physically and emotionally (Lk 19:41; Jn 19:33-35). Finally, He was unjustly condemned to death. For our salvation, He carried a real cross, was nailed upon it, and died for our sins.

Jesus cuts through the confusion and falsehoods in our culture by calling us to follow Him and carry our own daily crosses (Lk 9:23). If we actually do this, we will be so preoccupied with the demands of carrying this cross, following in His footsteps, and dying to ourselves that confusion will likely be replaced by clarity. To do this, we must “fix [our] eyes on Jesus” (Heb 3:1) to such an extent that we won’t have time or energy for much else. But Jesus will then count us worthy of Himself (Mt 10:38).

Tell Jesus: You “must increase, while I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, fill me with such a love for You that I will consider You my greatest Treasure (Mt 13:44) and give all I have to possess You.

Promise:  “Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” —Ps 124:8

Praise:  An invalid for many years, Teresa ministers to her caregivers by her kind words.

Reference:  (This teaching was submitted by a member of our editorial team.)

Rescript:  "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for the publication One Bread, One Body covering the period from June 1, 2021 through July 31, 2021. Reverend Steve J Angi, Chancellor, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio January 20, 2021"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

June Reading Wrap-Up

Audio Books

The Bungalow Mystery, by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew #3)

Nancy’s life is saved by a girl who has been recently orphaned and about to be given into the care of two cruel and selfish guardians. Nancy works with her new friend to uncover their plot to steal the girl’s fortune. I gave this book three stars. 

The End, by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events #13)

The final word of the series made me want to read the whole thing over again! Or at least re-watch the Netflix series. I am excited to see the remaining books adapted for the show. But did I miss the conclusion with the sugar bowl? Did I just space out at that part of the audio book?  Overall, this is a middle-grade series worth the full read. I gave this book three stars. 

The Secret of Shadow Ranch, by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew $5)

I listened to books 4 and 5 out or order because of their availability on OverDrive, though it didn’t make any difference in being able to follow the story. I wasn't very interested in the story in this one. Also, it includes appropriation of Native American clothing as "Indian costumes." I gave this book two stars. 

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, by Julia Serano

I learned so much reading this! I highly recommend it, if you’re interested in learning about trans identity. I gave this book four stars. 

Novels

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed this! Jane is an awesome character, and it was amazing how modern everything felt! The book follows Jane from childhood to her 20s, first being sent to an all-girls boarding school, then becoming a governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester, whom she eventually falls in love with. But of course it’s not as simple as that. It’s about finding and knowing what’s good for you, what you believe in, what you want for your life, balanced with what you are willing to do for the person you love. I gave this book four stars. 

Sad Cypress, by Agatha Christie

This book is about the investigation into the possible “murder to gain inheritance” scenario, but also- and more so- the investigation into the murder of someone who missed out on the inheritance. I felt the ending was a bit complicated. I gave this book three stars. 

The Girl in 6E, by A.R. Torre

This was a quick read, but be aware that there’s a trigger warning for pedophilia; a plot line I definitely could have done without. The main character is a cam girl, who takes it upon herself to investigate one of her clients whom she believes has kidnapped a young girl. Oh, and did I mention she has homicidal ideation?  I gave this book two stars. 

Fanny Hill; or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland

Trigger warning for rape. It was interesting to read a book that was so scandalous in its time, but the language, for me, was sometimes hard to follow. I could follow the plot alright, but I felt there were small pieces I was missing. I gave this book two stars. 

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, by Julie Berry

I was quite impressed with all the twists and turns! This middle grade book is about seven girls (aged 12-16, I’d guess) at a small, private boarding school. Right at the beginning, their headmistress and her brother both die during their Sunday dinner. The girls, not wanting to be separated and sent home, decide to bury the bodies and attempt to hide their deaths from the rest of the adults in town so that they can stay together at school. This quickly becomes harder to do than they expected. I gave this book three stars. 

The Girl Who Was Taken, by Charlie Donlea

For the first one hundred pages, I probably would have given up on this book if I wasn’t reading it for my book club. It’s one of those books that, when it comes to descriptions of female characters, was so obviously written by a man. But eventually I found myself wanting to read it, and I read the last two hundred pages in two days. There were still things I didn’t like, (small things that didn’t make sense) but overall I’m glad I stuck with it. This is a thriller about a woman named Livia Cutty. The narrative flashes between present time, and one year ago, when Livia’s sister and another teenage girl named Megan went missing. Megan was found two weeks later, but Livia’s sister Nicole is still gone. The two begin working together to find out what happened to Nicole, and how their stories maq be linked to other missing girls. I gave this book three stars.  

Graphic Novels

Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: Blood, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

I am renewing my efforts to find a Wonder Woman comic series that I enjoy. I had tried to read this one probably a year ago, but was bored by it and DNF’d it before the end. But I loved the movie, so I wanted to give it another try. This was nothing like it. I wasn’t interested in the story line at all. I gave this book one star. 

Wonder Woman, Vol. 2: Guts, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

This one was even worse that Vol. 1, unfortunately. Maybe I'd like a different plot line better, one that was focused more on humans, and less on the gods. Wonder Woman didn’t really feel like Wonder Woman for me in this one. You could have replaced her with any other hero, and the story would have been the same. I gave this book one star. 

Lumberjanes, Vol.5: Band Together, by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Waters, Kat Leyh, Brooke Allen, and Carolyn Nowak

Rock n’ roll mermaids! But more importantly, lessons about being a good friend. I wasn’t immediately drawn into this story line, but I liked the message it had, which is at the heart of what Lumberjanes is about. I gave this book three stars. 

Lumberjanes, Vol. 6: Sink or Swim, by Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, and Carey Pietsch

I love the story arc in this one! It had great pacing. I gave this book four stars. 

Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: The Lies, by Greg Rucka and Liam Sharp

Not at all impressed. In fact, I was bored. It made absolutely no sense to me why Steve Rogers and Etta Candy were there in present day. The attempts to make it feminist fell so flat. I didn’t like the artwork at all. I’m going to give volume two a try, because it was illustrated by a woman, but as much as I loved the movie, it may be that I’m not a fan of the comic books, no matter the creative team. This is the third series I’ve tried, and they’ve all been disappointing. I gave this book one star. 

Daredevil, Vol. 3: The Daredevil You Know, by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

What I love about Daredevil is that he spends so much of his time actually helping people. That, and spending time with his friends. That's the superhero dynamic that appeals to me, and that's why I like Daredevil. Also, excellent surprise on the very last page! I gave this book three stars. 

Non-Fiction

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, by Caitlin Doughty

I read this six months after my grandma passed away. That, in combination with this book, has made me re-think what I would like done after I die. If you’re ready to read about death, this is a perspective worth reading. I gave this book three stars. 

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living, by Jes Baker

This was the @lets-read-about-feminism book for June. The language style took a little time to get used to, but it really grew on me. I’m really glad that this was our book club pick. I think it does what it sets out to really well, and does an especially great job at explaining fat phobia. I gave this book three stars. 

Please let me know if you have read or are interested in reading any of these books! I’d love to talk more about them. 

Average rating for June: 2.7

Books read in June: 18

Books read in 2017: 71

Find more bookish posts here: Reading Wrap Up Tag | Monthly Comic Book Pull Lists | 2017 Books tag | 2016 Books tag

And join my book club: @lets-read-about-feminism and on Facebook!

You can also follow me on Goodreads! 

[awwcxxffee-blog]

Just a heads up, trigger warning for child abuse. If you still want to read if but can’t read about that, let me know and I can send you an edited version <3

THE BASICS

What is your full name? Clinton Francis Barton

Where and when were you born? Waverly, Iowa. June 18.

Who are/were your parents? Harold & Edith Barton. 

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like? An older brother, Charles Barney Barton. He taught Clint how to fight, but their relationship, like everything Barton related, is dysfunctional. He became jealous and bitter, later becoming Trickshot and is now at literal blows with Clint. 

Where do you live now, and with whom? In an apartment building in Brooklyn Clint owns. 

What is your occupation? Avenger and teacher.

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses? Clint is deaf.

Are you right- or left-handed? Ambidextrous. Primarily right handed.

What do you have in your pockets? A couple quarters, kibble, keys, batteries for hearing aids, band-aids, loyalty card to local cafe.

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics? Tilts his head when talking a lot, subtly trying to get better angles to hear what the other person is saying - especially if they have an accent. Rubs back of his neck when nervous. Drinks straight out of coffee maker with no thought to anyone else that may use it. Is a slob because he doesn’t have the energy to clean. 

GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general? Traumatic. He and his brother were abused by Harold while Edith did nothing to stop it from happening, Clint went temporarily deaf thanks to his father, they became orphans, sent off to foster homes, ran away and joined the circus-- Clint doesn’t talk about it. 

What is your earliest memory? Playing sword fighting with sticks outside his childhood home with Barney, before being called into dinner with their parents. The rest, Clint can’t remember. 

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family? Clint despised Harold, was angry toward Edith but didn’t hate her the same way. If Harold ever tried to touch her, Clint would attack him and end up worse off for it. Was close with his brother even thought they fought all the time. 

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? A firefighter. 

As a child, what were your favorite activities? Sports, anything that got him out of the house. 

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display? Restless, impulsive, fiery, compassionate, vulnerable. 

When and with whom was your first kiss? He was thirteen, it was right before he and Barney ran away for good. He was only in this foster family for three months, but there was a girl in his grade he spent the last few weeks trying to impress. He was angry and distant, she was the only one that took the time to get to know him. He lied and said he was being moved to another foster family (instead of telling her he was running away) and he got a kiss. Barney teased him about it. 

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? He has kids. But Clint’s first time was while he was training under the circus. He was eighteen, so was she. By this point he had muscles and was able to keep up with the circus acrobats. He managed to impress this girl, it was the first time he actually tried flirting properly. A few hours of tension and he took her amongst hay bales nearby the circus grounds. 

PAST INFLUENCES

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far? Becoming a father. It’s something he never thought he would be, but here he is. 

Who has had the most influence on you? It’s a toss up between Steve and Nat. He looked up to and respected Steve, but Nat was also able to sway him into working with her when she was a Russian spy, cementing his debut into the hero world as a bad guy. For both these people, he drops everything. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Not turning into Harold Barton. 

What is your greatest regret? Failing to be a good dad. 

What is the most evil thing you have ever done? Attempting to murder Tony Stark. 

Do you have a criminal record of any kind? Yes. It was all expunged, but plenty have inclinations of what it contained. 

When was the time you were the most frightened? When he lost his hearing. Both times. 

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why? Screwing things up with his family. All of them. He’s made too many mistakes, he pushed his brother away, he ruined his marriage, he’s screwed up all his other relationships, he wasn’t there for his kids. Nobody wants to live with that on their shoulders, knowing it was their fault. 

What is your best memory? Realising he had people that had his back, despite his character. 

What is your worst memory? Being shot and beaten by Trickshot only to discover it was his brother who patronised him and declared one of them would have to kill the other. 

BELIEFS AND OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic? Pessimistic. 

What is your greatest fear? His kids growing up to be like him. 

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable? Yes. Clint has killed before. The lines are never black and white. 

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love? No. People are people, there’s no one person for someone. 

What do you believe makes a successful life? Luck, a strong moral compass, and skill.

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings? Clint prefers just not to talk about them in general. He will actively avoid talking about them. When he voices his thoughts, however, they’re generally honest. Or sarcastic bullshit. 

Do you have any biases or prejudices? Plenty. 

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)? The Avengers and his family. He’s almost been killed by Emma Frost, before, and he knew it was likely his actions would cause his death, yet he persisted to try to buy the rest of the team time. 

RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS

Who is the most important person in your life, and why? For so long, it was his brother. He was the only person that actually knew what Clint had gone through. But that ship sailed. He still cares for him, but he has kids now. If anyone touches a hair on their head, god help Clint’s career. 

Who is the person you respect the most, and why? Steve Rogers. He’s Captain America, he’s tactical, he embodies what strong morals should look like. He holds his ground, he gets back up, he’s skilled. They may have had differences once upon a time, with Clint’s lack of planning and impulsive tendencies, but Steve holds Clint’s respect. 

Have you ever been in love? Yes. 

How close are you to your family? Very distant. He doesn’t know what his daughter’s favourite colour is, or what his son’s favourite food is. 

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help? Nat. Always. 

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why? The Avengers. They’ve had each other’s backs before, but Clint wouldn’t go to them unless more than his own life was at stake. He’s stubborn in thinking he can take care of things on his own. 

If you died or went missing, who would miss you? Lucky.  Someone’s gotta feed the dog. Probably his tenants in his apartment building, too. 

Who is the person you despise the most, and why? The Swordsman from the Circus, for using him and making him shoot his brother, then later turning his brother against him. Trickshot simultaneously gave Clint the ability to do something with his life, and helped ruin his relationship with Barney. 

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict? Argues. Straight up. He’ll only avoid conflict if he’s tired and needs a nap, aka he’s too depressed to care. 

Do you care what others think of you? Yes and no. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks unless he cares about them. If his team start treating him the way everyone else does, he has a problem with it. 

LIKES AND DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? Archery, naps, throwing knives at walls, eating, training, watching tv, imposing himself onto the lives of others.

What is your most treasured possession? His bow. It’s unique, it’s special, the draw strength required to pull it is outrageously high for a human. Students do not have the strength required to draw it back unless they have superhuman strength, or have trained since they were a child. He would say Lucky, but Lucky isn’t a possession. 

What is your favorite color? Purple.

What is your favorite food? Pizza. 

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)? Tv shows, he hasn’t seen many movies and doesn’t really listen to music, especially now that it means having hearing aids in to do so. 

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit? He’s dabbled here and there, but nothing ever stuck. He used to hate drinking, because of his dad. But his fridge always has beer in it, if nothing else. 

How do you spend a typical Saturday night? Laying around on his couch, eating pizza, drinking beer, watching tv with his dog. 

What makes you laugh? It depends.

What, if anything, shocks or offends you? He likes to think he’s pretty immune to shock, after what he’s gone through over the years. But anyone talking shit about him offends him, he worked hard to get where he is, just because he doesn’t have powers doesn’t mean he’s worth less than his fellow Avengers. Also when someone hits someone and it isn’t for sparring or fighting in general. 

How do you deal with stress? Sleep and laying face down on his bed, face buried in Lucky’s fur. Also target practice. 

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan? Spontaneous, what are plans?

What are your pet peeves? Masks that cover mouths, on the off-chance he either doesn’t have his hearing aids, or they aren’t working for whatever reason, he has no idea what the person’s saying if he can’t read their lips. At least Wade is courteous and lifts his mask up for him. 

SELF IMAGE

What is your greatest strength as a person? His loyalty.

What is your greatest weakness? Not being able to relate to people easily, he doesn’t know when he’s doing something that’s going to piss someone off unless he does it on purpose. He’s a pro at screwing relationships up.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? The ability to tell how you’ve pissed someone off, it would come in real handy. 

Are you generally introverted or extroverted? Bit of both, maybe more introverted. 

Are you generally organized or messy? Messy. So... so messy...

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at. Archery, acrobatics, lip reading. Bad? Technology, cooking, languages.

Do you like yourself? Not particularly. 

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime? Getting rid of as many bad guys as possible and realistically prepare the kids at Scions for hero-work. Injuries, agony and pain come with the job description. Either teach them how to avoid that, or how to handle that.

If you could choose, how would you want to die? In a blaze of glory, self sacrifice for the greater good - or to protect someone. 

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left. Write a will consisting on someone to look after the dog, the apartment building, and his special bow. Write a letter to his kids. Get drunk with Nat or Bobbi, whoever answers first. 

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death? As a hero.

What three words best describe your personality? Loyal, choleric, realistic. 

What three words would others probably use to describe you? Sarcastic, dysfunctional, unlucky. 

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: August 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of August 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten. 

When there was the possibility of the parliamentary sovereignty that Leavers harp on about, off sprinted proven liar Boris Johnson to Balmoral to beg the Queen to suspend parliament in order to force through a No Deal Britait - but of course, everyone but him are the “traitors” in this sordid affair, even after Ben Wallace apparently forgot that cameras and microphones exist when blabbing about how Johnson did this due to fearing that his working majority of one wouldn't survive a No Confidence vote

It was so nice of Michael Coudrey to post a blatantly faked screenshot of El Paso shooter Patrick Crusias’ MyLife profile page to try and claim that Crusas was a left-wing extremist rather than, oh I don’t know, a white supremacist who happened to parrot several of Trump’s soundbites about Hispanics, let alone consider that maybe mass shootings are something that shouldn’t happen with alarming frequency

Meanwhile it was equally predictable that Paul Joseph Watson was jumping up and down yelling “See!  See!  A leftist went on a killing spree!” which not only made it obvious he was trying to divert attention from the El Paso shooter, but also drew attention to the fact that while the alt right were tripping over one another to make excuses for Patrick Crusas as he’s some poor innocent victim of society, as soon as it emerged that Connor Betts isn’t one of them the excuses evaporated

So naturally, peak twattery followed when Dmitriy Andreychenko walked into his local Missouri branch of Walmart toting a tactical rifle and handgun while wearing body armor, and when he was arrested for being such a monumental fuckwit he bleated something about testing to see if Walmart respected his Second Amendment rights

Yet somehow the UK couldn’t laugh at Americans trying to blame video games for mass shootings thanks to Priti Patel trying to create a direct link between stabbings and fried chicken

Of course Jo Swinson has taken it upon herself to say she and only she can stop Britait, which was obvious by her rejecting Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal of an interim government out of hand without any reason in spite of the fact that, as Leader of the Opposition, of a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson does get through the Commons it will be Corbyn who is asked to put together an interim government - but Jo Swinson instead suggested the first tow backbenchers she could think of because she cannot countenance the idea of Labour stopping Britait, as at that point what is she other than somebody who lies about her voting record?

This month it was Arron Banks who wanted to sound triggered to a sociopathic degree by Greta Thunberg with his lovely response to her yachting across the Atlantic by tweeting that freak yachting accidents tend to happen at this time of year, while Julia Halfwit Hartley-Brewer posted some lame tweet gloating about she and her family would be flying across the Atlantic instead, meanwhile Roger Helmer resorted to calling her a “Swedish pixie” during one of the rare occasions he remained awake when in public and Paul Joseph Watson talked about how an autistic girl was being “exploited” - but because Arron Banks has to be Arron Banks, he had to have the most cuntish last word and said it was just a joke...like saying women wearing burqas look like letterboxes

As if proven liar Boris Johnson hadn’t used the NHS as a platform for his outright lies enough in the past three years, he pledged an increase in funding...that was actually funding that NHS providers had been saving up for the past three years, but had been unable to spend in that time as the Tory government banned them from spending it...until it became convenient enough to allow them to spend their own money

If only somebody suggested to Lou Dobbs that, if you see a group of protesters sat in the road outside the ICE facility that employs you, driving your truck just inches from their faces is guaranteed to piss them off - and then using that as an excuse to plow through the pissed off crowd is guaranteed to cost you your job and piss off everyone bar the weirdos who believe it’s not vehicular assault if you run into people with differing opinions to you

It clearly did not occur to Steve King when trying to find a logical reason to say abortions should be banned that saying the human race may not exist if not for cases of rape and incest tens of thousands of years ago doesn’t in any way defend his position, instead make it sound uncannily like he’s on the side of those who raped and pillaged

It didn’t take long before Boris Johnson started reading from the Bannon playbook, stating that he would not take interviews with the press as they’re all biased against him - yes, even the BBC, the Murdoch Empire, the Daily Mail and Daily Express, all of whom have been churning out unthinkingly slanted headlines in his favour

It was so nice that James Cleverly repeatedly wanted to talk about how the Tory MP  William Wilberforce fought to end slavery...even after it was pointed out to him the first time he made that statement that Wilberforce stood as an independent and not a Tory, no matter how many times Cleverly tries to rewrite history

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: the Lib Dems state that they will do everything in their power to stop Britait...yet Jo Swinson has ruled out going into coalition with either Labour or the SNP, in spite the fact they both have far more MPs than the Lib Dems and just so happen to also be opposing Britait

Similarly, the best idea Caroline Lucas had for solving Britait was for an all-woman cabinet that just so happened to include her, Jo Swinson, Heidi Allen, Justine Greening, Yvette Cooper and Anna Soubry among others - and seemed confused when it was mentioned that not only did her dream cabinet exclude all men but it didn’t include a single non-white MP either, and appears to have forgotten that a woman spent between 2016-19 fucking the process up at every turn

In the latest Priti Patel brainfart, she suggested that migrants earning less than £36,000 a year are no longer welcome in the UK...clearly failing to comprehend that arbitrary figure is higher than the basic salary of any member of NHS staff, any teacher or any police officer - you know, something a Home Secretary should be able to understand...

Walking proof that nominative determinism isn't really a thing James Cleverley could only try and claim that the leaked Operation Yellowhammer dossier was “out of date” and was no remotely relevant to any discussion about what would happen if the UK leaves the EU without a deal...even though the dossier was dated 1st August 2019

There was something deeply sinister about how the BBC described Owen Jones as a “Labour activist” after he was assaulted, as opposed to...oh I don’t know?  A journalist?

With the Leave hardcore now lionising chlorinated chicken of all things, it;s not surprise that Darren Grimes tried to say there’s no issue because we also have chlorinated water...somehow spectacularly missing the point

I have no idea how the Entertainment Software Association managed to bungle so badly that they managed to release the personal information of thousands of people who attended this year’s E3, including games journalists and Youtubers/Twitch streamers, but they managed it nonetheless

In a quite remarkable turn of events there was a controversy regarding Borderlands 3 that didn’t involve Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, instead it was Take Two Interactive sending private investigators to the doorstep of Youtuber SupMatto to harass him into keeping quiet, and because he wasn’t keeping quiet they abused Youtube’s copyright system on an industrial scale with over 100 copyright strikes to force him off the platform because of reasons

For a documentarian Stacey Dooley makes an awful lot of factual blunders, the latest of which being a Panorama documentary where she described a Muslim prayer gesture as an “ISIS salute”, leading to the BBC removing the clip from the documentary...on the iPlayer, but leaving it in unchallenged for its initial broadcast

You would think that Microsoft wouldn’t be so dense as to release an update that cripples the computers of everyone using Windows 7 due to somebody typing a 2 instead of a 1 in one line of code, but that’s exactly what happened with the KB4512506 update that was coded by someone who assumed everyone has Windows 10

As it was time for Suzanne Moore to vomit another opinion piece into the pages of the Guardian, she took it upon herself to write a piece that managed to insinuate that Shilpa Shetty somehow deserved the racial abuse she received from Jade Goody, Jo O’Meara and Danielle Lloyd on Celebrity Big Brother back in 2007 because...hold on a minute...because Shetty had servants at home while the others didn’t which apparently makes it alright

The outraged howls from Manchester City fans and football pundits alike all because VAR rightly disallowed what would have been a last-minute winner for City was truly a sight to behold, because apparently VAR exists to make things easier for a small kabal of teams and everyone else can get fucked

...and demonstrated by Mike Dean using The Wenger Defence of “I didn’t see it guv” a week later to overrule VAR stating that Tottenham should have been awarded a penalty

...and yet the depths were truly plumbed when Ian Holloway blamed the EU for the fact he doesn’t understand the offside law, even though as a football pundit (and former manager) he’s literally paid to understand it

Ooblets developers Glumberland decided to double down on their dickheadishness which began with their smug and condescending blog post explaining why they decided to make their game an Epic Games Store exclusive, but they followed that up by acting like complete bellends on their Discord that culminated with them responding to somebody asking when they could buy the game with their own currency by telling them that nobody owed them the game

With both Bury and Bolton facing extinction, trust Sky Sports News to cover this by having a clock ticking down in the corner of the screen all day, as if the possibility (and, in Bury’s case, eventuality) of a club being kicked out of the league was the same thing as Deadline Day

Britain’s most triggered man Piers Moron Morgan was predictably irked by the Meghan Markle guest-editing Vogue because obviously somebody doing that is only after the publicity...a sentiment he neglected to express when Kate Middleton did the exact same thing a few years previously

The sensible thing that Bethesda should have done after the have done after the humiliation conga line that was Fallout 76 was try not to do anything that would irritate gamers further.  So instead they decided that, when releasing Doom - that’s the 1993 original, not the 2016 reboot - it would require players to use their Bethesda account to play the actual game 

I know it’s a cheapshot, but did UKIP really elect somebody named Dick Braine as their new leader?

How the hell did Apple develop a credit card that gets discoloured if it touches materials such as denim or leather, or to put it another way if it’s in somebody’s pocket or wallet?  What are they supposed to do?  Carry it around in their hand at maximum reach?

If you have a name like Michael Buerk it isn’t a good idea to make your name fair game, but that’s exactly what he did when he suggested that it’s potentially a good thing for obese people to die early as it would save the NHS money

And of course, it wouldn't be a month without Donald Trump being a colossal cockhead, and he certainly disappoint with his prioritising schmoozing with guests at Mar A Lago while people in Dayton and El Paso were experiencing the aftermath of their respective mass shootings, and when the Orange Overlord deigned to make a statement he not only demonstrated he couldn’t give a toss by talking about the mass shootings in Toledo and El Paso, but his response to it being plain for all to see that white nationalism was the catalyst for both was to blame video games for all of society’s ills

[ultralifehackerguru-blog]

New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/the-tragic-beautiful-true-story-behind-peter-dinklages-my-dinner-with-herve/

The Tragic, Beautiful True Story Behind Peter Dinklage’s My Dinner with Hervé

Sacha Gervasi’s HBO film chronicles a wild encounter with Hervé Villechaize, just days before the Fantasy Island actor committed suicide in 1993.

In 1993, Sacha Gervasi was working as a journalist in London when he received what would become the strangest—and most meaningful—assignment of his life: an interview with Hervé Villechaize. Gervasi was supposed to crank out a 500-word “Where Are They Now?”–style blurb about the French actor, perhaps best known for playing evil henchman Nick Nack in 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun. But it had been about a decade since Villechaize was fired from his last high-profile job—the TV series Fantasy Island,where he played sidekick Tattoo—after demanding equal pay to his co-star, Ricardo Montalbán. And aside from the occasional Geraldo appearance or odd Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, Villechaize’s career had dried up.

Gervasi did not expect much from the interview.

The reporter dutifully flew to Los Angeles, and met Villechaize for what was supposed to be a quick conversation at a West Hollywood restaurant. Gervasi ran through his questions and collected a few quotes, before packing up his recorder and notebook—eager to get to a more exciting interview on his itinerary. But Villechaize was not finished talking.“I had seen some rapid movement [out of the corner of my eye],” remembered Gervasi during a conversation about My Dinner with Hervé, a touching tribute to his misunderstood interview subject starring Peter Dinklage as Villechaize and Jamie Dornan as Gervasi’s proxy. The film, written and directed by Gervasi, premieres October 20—twenty-five years after Gervasi was rushing to leave that fateful interview.

When Gervasi turned around, having packed his bag, “Hervé was standing there pointing a lock knife at my throat. He said, ‘Listen, you’ve written the story before you got here. You just wanted Tattoo stories and Man with the Golden Gun stories. So I’ve told you all the bullshit. Do you want to hear the real story of my life?’”

Gervasi had not given Villechaize’s story much thought. But, recalled Gervasi, “There was something about the look in his eye which was so intriguing and compelling and strange. When he pulled the knife, obviously it was a sort of coup de théâtre—about getting my attention. It was about puncturing this sort of bubble of judgment that I had walked in with. . . . To suddenly be presented with this living and breathing human being who was just fully aware of his being stereotyped by the press as a punch line was quite something.”

Intrigued, Gervasi ended up meeting the actor three times in a five-day span, and hearing his tragic life story. Villechaize’s father had been a doctor in Paris. Upon discovering that his son suffered from proportionate dwarfism, he took Hervé to medical clinics in Minnesota, England, and Germany in hopes of curing the condition. At a young age, Villechaize was subjected to barbaric treatments including having sheep’s marrow injected into his spine. He did not grow taller than 3-foot-10; Villechaize was bullied mercilessly.

“There was an almost medieval intolerance for people who were different at that time,” said Gervasi of Villechaize’s coming-of-age years in 1950s France. “His brother, Patrick, told me that [Hervé] would walk down the street and just be kicked in the head for being different.” After a promising start as a painter—he became the youngest artist to have his work shown in the Museum of Paris—Villechaize changed course at his father’s suggestion.

“His father said, ‘Go where the freaks go. Go to New York,’” explained Gervasi. “So he was sent there and became a part of that burgeoning avant-garde sort of Greenwich Village theater culture. He became a character. He would wear a poncho and smoke cigarillos—and based his new persona on the Man with No Name, having learned English watching Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood and John Wayne on TV. As he was telling me this story, I was thinking. ‘My god, there’s so much more to him than this punch line of [his Fantasy Island character’s tag line] ‘Da plane! Da plane!’ . . . He is a tremendously complex, contradictory, brave, crazy, hilarious, wonderful, dangerous person. He was the most original person I think I’d ever met, so I promised him that I would one day tell his story.”

Gervasi returned to London with 12 hours’ worth of cassette tapes from his time with Villechaize. About a week later—on Sunday, September 4, 1993, at around 5:36 P.M.—the phone in Gervasi’s Clapham flat rang.

“It was Kathy Self, who was Hervé’s real-life girlfriend. She called to say that Hervé had committed suicide just a few hours before,” said Gervasi. “I spontaneously got incredibly emotional. I started listening back to the tapes and I realized that he knew he was going to do it. For some random reason, he just grabbed onto whatever journalist passed by and poured his guts out to me in literally the final week of his life. He’d entrusted me with his story and, in effect, I was his suicide note.”

Taking his promise seriously, Gervasi wrote a piece that he felt properly honored Villechaize—a complex human whom Hollywood essentially dismissed as a punch line or sight gag. When the paper watered down his draft, Gervasi decided to tell Villechaize’s story in another medium—and wrote his first script, a 34-page screenplay about his evening with the actor.

Because of the subject matter, the screenplay wasn’t exactly rushed into production. “One particular studio said, ‘Look, I want to save you a lot of time: you could not come up with a more uncommercial concept. The suicidal-dwarf movie with elaborate sort of time jumps. It’s never gonna happen. There is nothing that will ever justify the money to make this the way you want to make it.’” But after he attended U.C.L.A. film school, the script did lead to a meeting with Steven Spielberg, who hired Gervasi to write The Terminal.

After seeing Peter Dinklage in The Station Agent and onstage in Richard III, Gervasi became convinced that “Peter was the only actor who could play the part of Hervé.” After Gervais shared his story with Dinklage about 15 years ago, the actor agreed to star—and My Dinner with Hervé became their joint passion project. A few years ago, the duo was finally about to give up on getting My Dinner with Hervé made. But Dinklage’s Game of Thrones stardom ended up being the currency they needed, and HBO agreed to make the movie.

The filmmaking process was strange for Gervasi—who insisted on filming the final scenes inside the Universal Sheraton, the actual hotel where Gervasi and Villechaize had their last meeting.

“You can imagine how surreal it was to be sitting on the steps in the actual place where the meeting with Hervé had happened,” said Gervasi. “I’m looking at my two actors, one portraying a version of me and Peter Dinklage playing Hervé, exactly where it happened.” Though the film is slightly dramatized—Dinklage and Dornan’s characters spend one raucous evening together instead of three meetings—Gervasi insists that the final 20 or 30 minutes of the film, including the goodbye between reporter and interview subject, play out just as they did in real life.

“He tugged at my sleeve and he pulled me down so that our faces were side by side,” recalled Gervasi. “He looked me in the eye. He had such pain and defiance with tears in his eyes and he said, ‘Tell them, I regret nothing.’”

And in My Dinner with Hervé, Gervasi conveys that exact message.

“I was trying to honor the meeting I had had with him, and how we all kind of walk into a situation with a certain kind of judgment,” said Gervasi. “But once you peel all the layers away, you get to a bit more of what the real truth is underneath.” He still sounded a bit surprised that he was actually able to get the movie made. “Finally, I feel like I’ve dispatched my sort of duty to that promise, and I’ve told the story the way it was meant to be told.”

(C)

[yahoo-shutdown-corner-blog]

Tony Romo, both most overrated and underrated QB? The debate says more about us, really

You’re either Team Romo — an unapologetic Romo apologist — or a card-carrying member of the “Romo Sucks” fan club. There’s almost zero middle ground with perhaps the most polarizing player the NFL has seen over the past decade, and perhaps ever.

Romo walking away from his playing days only has sparked the debate more about how good or bad he truly was.

It’s one or the other, didn’t you know?

Has there been a more “memed” NFL player not named Brady in the past decade? (troll.me)

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How is it that a player can be so widely touted as both the most overrated player and, simultaneously, the most underrated player in the same debate? Romo was that guy. There might never be another player like him. Romo is both the the Erich von Stroheim — “The Man You Love To Hate” — and Tom Hanks, whom hatred for is punishable by death, all at once.

Romo was just good enough — and bad enough when it counted most — to fire up both ends of the sphere. (via Pinterest)

Certainly, polarizing player debates are nothing new in sports — just ask LeBron James. He was roundly despised for “The Decision,” and that stigma was his crown of thorns for years. It took James going back to Cleveland (after winning two rings, mind you) and winning a championship there in which he carried his hometown team on his overworked back to get people to generally chill on that odd hatred. Even the iciest of hearts backed down a good bit after that.

Were they calling LeBron overrated? Not as much as they were saying he was “not Michael Jordan,” which is about the silliest shade anyone might ever throw — and a compliment to pretty much any human that ever walked the earth.

Yes, of course there’s a Romo-LeBron meme. (onsizzle.com)

Tom Brady is hated by opponents for, well, being good, handsome, married to a 6-foot model, well-spoken and the winningest QB ever. That’s sort of understandable — especially when you throw in his CHEATING SCANDALS, which really aren’t cheating or scandals, but well, it’s also understandable that a lot of people might not have a great sense of nuance when it comes to #stickingtosports and all that. Maybe stick to something else?

Still — Brady being called overrated is usually dismissed with a chortle, with little more effort required. It’s an anti-trope best reserved for angry young men and talk shows desperate for ratings.

There are still staunch defenders of Tony Romo, and they’re not a silent majority. (onsizzle.com)

And yet you can’t reflect on Romo’s polarizing career without looking at the other side of the coin. If you polled 1,000 people who called themselves diehard NFL fans, I don’t know if you’d get 500 to call Romo “underrated.” But you might have 300 of them who fiercely defend the guy. They’ll come armed, often as a defense mechanism, with some fairly salient points too. Like:

Most fourth-quarter comebacks from 2006 to 2015

Fourth-quarter passer rating of 102.7 (Peyton Manning in his career: 90.5. Brady: 94.3.)

Playoff TD-INT ratio of 8-2

Unfair blame for dropped extra point — a job he seldom did previously — in playoff loss at Seattle

Defensive meltdowns in big games that he received more of the blame for

Even Romo could laugh at the perception of the Cowboys. (Dallascowboys.com, via champsnation.com)

There’s merit for all of those. And yet you also can’t ignore Romo’s Week 17 and playoff struggles — there are more untimely turnovers than others, it turns out. This is all part and parcel of Romo’s truly unique football c.v.

But this debate is about more than stats and wins. It’s about perception. It’s about Romo’s Brady-esque good looks and sudden rise. Romo might not have been cloaked in controversy the way Brady has been, but Romo’s Mexico vacation — with Jessica Simpson, which made it only worse — was his version of “The Decision” and is still held against him in some circles.

Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson were connected for a long time, a connective symbol of failure. (AP)

It’s also about the Dallas Cowboys, of course, both the most beloved and well-known team (American’s Team!) worldwide and also perhaps the most loathed — by Eagles fans, Giants fans, Redskins fans and also fans of hating things that a lot of people love. It comes with the territory. Romo playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Maybe we’d be able to see his career more for what it actually was.

With Tuesday’s retirement, the Cowboys were the only team — save for a few Eastern Illinois fans lucky enough to see him play in college — Romo was known for and played with. And when he played, it was often on prime time because the Cowboys are always on in prime time. Every interception in crunch time felt like five in our brains.

The injury jokes were common ones. (@theleadsports)

Critics say Romo was always hurt. Apologists say Romo was always playing hurt — look how well he played most of the time! — and there’s a difference.

It’s that Romo was a nice guy. Friendly to the media. Good with kids. Disarmingly funny at times. Grew up in small-town America. The jock we wish we were, good at almost every sport he tried. He did charity work. He took bullets for others’ mistakes. Romo read one of the most passionate and heartfelt statements last season amid the whole Dak Prescott awkwardness and put the team first. It was the non-statistical evidence the “underrated” camp needed.

But naturally, there’s this: Romo’s career playoff record was 2-4. It’s a big one for the “overrated” crowd.

For now, anyway. (Pinterest)

Quarterbacks with a better postseason win percentage: Rex Grossman, Michael Vick, Jim Everett, Wade Wilson (Romo’s QB coach for a while), Daunte Culpepper, Kordell Stewart, Drew Bledsoe (the man Romo beat out), Tony Eason, Donovan McNabb, Neil O’Donnell and — most damning — five other Cowboys QBs (Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Craig Morton, Danny White and Steve Beuerlein).

Quarterbacks with equal or worse postseason win percentage: Steve DeBerg, Carson Palmer, Billy Kilmer, Randall Cunningham, Ken Anderson (a man many believe belongs in the Hall of Fame) and actual Hall of Famer Warren Moon. Until January, Romo had a better playoff mark than Matt Ryan, this year’s MVP and a man who knows a thing or two about narratives.

Note the spelling of “atctually.” (memegen.com)

The Romo debate is the Donald Trump debate: No one is backing down. There’s no fine lines, no softening or altering of beliefs. We believe what we want to believe about Romo and his career because it’s easy to pick a story and stick to it. There’s enough evidence on each side of the ledger to spark a debate and never veer from it. You know how no one wanted to talk politics at Thanksgiving last year? There was a Romo-Dak debate somewhere hidden behind the mashed potatoes that easily could have taken its place.

Quarterback legacies are tricky. Most reasonable-minded folk can tell you that Moon (3-7 in the postseason) or Dan Marino (8-10 postseason, one Super Bowl loss) were better quarterbacks than either Trent Dilfer (5-1, Super Bowl win) or Jeff Hostetler (4-1, Super Bowl wins), but postseason victories count and inordinate amount.

Who has had the better career, Tony Romo or Eli Manning? (gamedayr.com)

But regular-season statistics cannot be the only barometer either. Is Romo better than, say, Mark Brunell … Roger Staubach … Joe Namath? Eli Manning … Vick … Steve McNair? Palmer … Joe Theismann … Trent Green? What about Jim Kelly, Mr. Four-Time Super Bowl Runner-Up? Those are the 10 names most closely compared to Romo statistically, according to Pro Football Reference.

Yes, this was made … (Pinterest)

This is what makes Romo a fascinating study. But let’s clear this up: He’s not terrible and he was never the best quarterback in the game either. He was always closer to the top most of the time but — in a few, well-remembered moments — shockingly near the bottom. A few plays don’t define his career. A poor playoff record doesn’t either. But for all the terrific stuff he did from September to December, there’s also a clear void.

Romo should be one of the great QB debates of our time. But instead, his career has become a symbol of our meme-happy, Twitter-basted selves: unwilling to listen to the point the other person is making. Hot takes these days trump the measured approach.

So this is what we get instead.

We are all Crying Romo on this day. (Reddit)

More from Shutdown Corner on Tony Romo’s retirement • Tony Romo cut by Cowboys, retires to join broadcast booth • CBS wins bidding war for Romo, makes him analyst on its No. 1 broadcast team • Texans are the main domino to fall in Tony Romo fallout, but there are others • Bonnie Bernstein: ‘Total crap’ that Romo gets No. 1 CBS job with no experience • Is Tony Romo the most overrated and underrated quarterback the NFL has seen? • Jerry Jones, Dak Prescott among those to heap praise on Tony Romo upon his retirement

– – – – – – –

Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

Follow @Eric_Edholm

[workreveal-blog]

Did using psychedelics result in a computer revolution? -BBC

New Post has been published on https://workreveal.biz/did-using-psychedelics-result-in-a-computer-revolution-bbc/

Did using psychedelics result in a computer revolution? -BBC

” … in phrases of our view of the universe – or my opinion of the                                world – perception can be greater useful than physics may be.” You might be excused for thinking these are the phrases of a philosopher or a stoned Grateful Lifeless fan, but no. It’s from an interview in 2000 with Mike Lynch, the CEO of Autonomy and Britain’s first software program billionaire, presently in the manner of selling his agency to Hewlett-Packard for $10bn (£6bn). Lynch, who was talking about the strength of the sample recognition that paperwork the basis of Autonomy’s fulfilment, went on to speak about the fascination of desires, near-dying reports and the accounts of those experimenting scientifically with LSD within the Nineteen Sixties: all kinds of altered belief.

Did psychedelic pills play a substantive position in the development of personal computing? In 2009, Ryan Grim, as part of publicising his ebook That is Your Country on pills: The name of the game Records of getting High in The us wrote a piece for the Huffington Submit that made public a letter from LSD inventor Albert Hofmann to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2007 soliciting for investment for studies into using psychedelics to assist relieve the tension associated with life-threatening contamination.

He picked Jobs because, as The big apple Times reporter John Markoff told the arena in his 2005 e-book, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Fashioned the Private laptop Industry, Jobs believed that taking LSD was one of the or 3 maximum important things he’d done in his life. That 2001 conversation stimulated Markoff to put in writing the book: a Records of computing with the medicine saved in.

From 1961 to 1965, the Bay Location-based totally International Basis for Advanced Study led extra than 350 human beings through acid trips for studies functions. Some of them were prominent pioneers inside the development of computing, together with Doug Engelbart, the father of the computer mouse, then heading a venture to apply computers to augment the human thoughts at close by SRI. Grim also names the inventors of digital fact and early Cisco employee Kevin Herbert as examples of experimenters with acid and calls Burning Man (whose frequent attendees consist of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Web page) the present day equivalent for the ones looking for thoughts expansion.

computer

There is a delicious irony in thinking that the same American corporations who require their employees to pee in a cup rely on machines that were created using drugged-out hippies. However, things are not so simple. Markoff strains cutting-edge computing to 2 resources. First is the easy cut, navy-fashion, healthy-carrying Large Iron method of the east coast that, in its IBM incarnation, became so memorably smashed within the 1984 Terrific Bowl advert for the original Apple Mac.

2d is the eclectic and iconoclastic blend of hackers, hippies, and rebels of the west coast, from whose ranks so many of today’s Big Silicon Valley names emerged. Markoff, born and bred within the Bay Region and 18 in 1967, argues the idea of the Private computer as a device to empower people changed into an only west coast concept; the east coast failed to “get” whatever but corporate technology.

There’s a simple precept to invoke here: twist of fate does no longer imply causality. As early Sun employee John Gilmore, whom Grim calls a ” psychonaut”, says in that article, it’s far very difficult to show that drug use led directly to Non-public computers. The Sixties were a time of excessive upheaval: the Vietnam conflict and the draft, the arrival of girl-managed birth control, and the campaign for civil rights all contributed to the counterculture. Become it the intercourse, the medication or the rock’n’roll – or the science fiction?

In 1998 Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, Stated in a dialogue of his leisure of science fiction: “I assume it is also made it simpler for me to reflect consideration of matters that were not quite ready but-but I should imagine would possibly just in all likelihood be viable.”

Annie Gottlieb, in Do You Accept as true within Magic? Bringing the 60s Returned Home, recounts the Personal exploratory reports of a selection of interviewees and is derived to this conclusion: “Any drug revel in is decided ways less via the drug than by using what we carry with it.” Many people tried acid. The best one has become Steve Jobs.

Dan Frydman recollects honestly how the computer he used at school within the Eighties changed his life. Now 38, he turned into one of the eras who grew up with lecture room computers that almost everybody could use to put in writing self-contained applications – the equal of latest telephone apps.

The PC became the BBC Micro, a computing revolution dressed in mild brown plastic. Made with the aid of Acorn computer systems of Cambridge, the first version, released in December 1981, covered an easy programming language known as BBC Basic which even very young children ought to comply with. And with coin arcades supplying video games including Area Invaders, this became their danger to create their very own – loose – model.

  “We all had a bash [at programming it],” Frydman says. Even though he moved into the structure, he came Back to programming, designing and writing websites: “Without that early advent of programming as something that becomes logical rather than scarily medical, I don’t assume I would have were given to it,” he says.

Initially called the Proton, the BBC Micro were given its call after Acorn, then just two years old, won the agreement to make the hardware for the BBC’s then-ongoing computer literacy challenge. It became a settlement that was the making of Acorn – and, arguably, the present day world, for a descendant of Acorn’s chip design methods now powers every mobile smartphone, consisting of the smartphones utilised by hundreds of thousands.

Neil Kinson, forty-two, says the appearance of the gadget when he turned into at school in north-east England “stimulated humans to get under [its] covers… I had visions of my very own little software empire.” Although that didn’t occur, he went directly to Examine software engineering at college “in any other case I would have accomplished a natural physics diploma”. Thats why BBC said that computer revolution plays a huge roll.

Another then-student, Nicholas Radcliffe, recalls that he “ended up producing business software program for my local training authority” – and later use that skill to fund himself through university. “That BBC Micro experience brought about the entirety I’ve completed considering, which has covered being a part of the formation of the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), spinning out my institution from there as Quadstone Restricted, a VC [venture capital]-based totally Edinburgh-primarily based software program corporation that became, in the end, received the aid of Portrait software program.”

Although the BBC unique that 12,000 must be made (so viewers of its new PC Programme might be capable of percentage the experience of the brand new microcomputing revolution), uptake became so speedy that, in 1982, 24,000 have been bought – and schools were soon ordering them via the thousand. Via the 1990s, while Computers strolling Microsoft software program began to supplant the ageing BBC gadgets inside the classroom, 1,000,000 had been sold.

revolution

The Micro wasn’t cheap: expenses started at £235 (£seven-hundred at present day fees) and £335 (£1,000 at late charges) for the Version B, which became the long-lasting version. Costs rose slightly (to £299 and £399 – no longer that rather more than a computer could value these days).

The specs, through cutting-edge standards, have been minuscule: a processor going for walks at megahertz, extra than a thousand Instances slower than a standard CPU these days, and 32 kilobytes of Ram. You needed to plug it into a Television set as there has been no monitor output. There has been no hard pressure; applications had been saved on cassette tape, from which they will be performed Lower back or on to which they could be recorded. (Application names have also been Constrained to a most of 10 characters.) Any of the 163,000 factors, or pixels, at the display, could show eight colourings, or flash in eight mixtures of two colours. Today, screens offer millions of to be had hues and millions of pixels.

But the BBC Micro’s arrival in school rooms as a part of the authorities’ initiative to pressure computing use in faculties revolutionised computing in Britain. Scores of small video games and other software program agencies have been set up by way of folks who had got their start writing programs on the BBC Micro, and on other computer systems from the duration, which includes the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which also ran simple and was drastically cheaper at £80 (£240 at current expenses).

However the arrival of these “extra useful” Computers spelt the dying knell for the self-made study room programmers: the new machines did not have a primary, and pupils have been now taught “ICT” (records and communications era) instead of coding.

A part of the impact has been the continuing talents shortage in programming and the falling enrolment in university publications. Radcliffe thinks that “mockingly, programming is a great deal tougher to get into now, for kids and others. It is a weird mixture of things. Lower back then, each gadget got here with necessary or similar. Programming changed into a much larger part of the experience. I also think there has been less to examine, and the machines have been less summary. You can just set bits to draw on the screen. Now you have got layer upon layer of abstraction to get through.”

Wherein could he begin now? “I think quite often about what I’d be doing these days if I have been 12 or 14, and I’m sure the answer is badgering my dad and mum for an iPad and a developer package. The iPad is appealing as it does have all those sensors and access to a lot of stuff, and because of your capability to show the entire tool into a physical manifestation of something. But the mastering curve to get the first element running is simply huge in that surroundings; you can’t do it with a first aspect.”

Kinson shows “it is genuinely a case of building the proper curriculum, as honestly all of the infrastructures to do that exists nowadays, however stripping Returned one or two layers of the usability of Some of latest tools to make sure humans learn the fundamental ideas and talents”.

BBC

But even while some struggle with reviving the BBC Micro’s legacy, it lives on in at least one shape. Acorn, Apple and VLSI Technology teamed as much as creating a new business enterprise, Superior Risc Machines – later shortened just to Arm – to make higher variations of the specialised low-power chips that had run within the Acorn Archimedes laptop, a successor to the BBC Micro.

An early ARM chip powered Apple’s handheld Newton device. But gun quickly found new markets in cellular phones, and now billions of chips the usage of ARM’s designs energy every smartphone in use, such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android gadgets.

[qwertycallimit]

Midnight Oil - Part 2

continued from Part 1

…He couldn’t get enough of her already. He shut his eyes and let his ears do all the work. A constant smile on his face.

….

“Sir…Sir. Sir wake up,” he opened his eyes to the heavily moustached, hefty security guard. He got up with one quick motion. The sun was high in the sky. “Sir we’ve been looking all over for you” “What do you mean? Why? What time is it?” “It’s 11.30am. And since you haven’t been on your desk since I woke up 6 hours ago, I informed boss. You didn’t even take your phone along so we have been worried.” “I slept that long?!..Woaahh,” quite surprised at the time and the events undergone. “I fell asleep talking to the woman.” “What woman? You were the last one left weren’t you?” enquired the guard. “No she doesn’t work on our floor. Nevermind. Thank you for fetching me.”

As he was hurrying to his place, he happened to notice a colleague’s mug with ‘I love Bhutan’ written on it. It brought back memories of last night and made him smile. 'I have to meet her again today,’ he made a mental note.

It took him a mere half hour to finish off what he had left unfinished. He was happy with the way he it had shaped up. Now that he finally had time to breathe, he went through the events of last night. He shut his eyes as he reminisced every moment. He had a huge grin on his face. 'Why did she not wake me up? Probably didn’t wanna disturb me. Ohhhh she was beautiful. I should ask her out for coffee without much delay.’ His chain of thoughts was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. It was the annoying colleague with no sense of personal boundaries. 'Just the kind of face I needed to see to get me back to earth.’ he thought.

“Whatchu thinking about?” she meddled. “Nothing.” he replied with a straight face. “Liar. That smile on your face is a big giveaway.” “Nothing, just happy that my presentation turned out really well. It should go well with the client tomorrow.” “Fine. Don’t tell me.” she shot back and left.

He wasted no more time. He went straight to his friend, Shoaib, who worked in the Human Resources department. He was someone with whom he could talk without hesitation about women. Beautiful women especially.

“Yo, why didn’t you tell me anything about Kalpana?” Hriday asked. “Who? Kalpana from Mergers and Acquisitions?” Shoaib questioned. “No you nut. The new one who joined last week. She’s beyond beautiful.” “We haven’t hired any woman in the past 3 weeks, let alone a beautiful one at that. I’m sure no pretty lady goes under my radar.” “Oh come on think. You must’ve been on leave or something else she is not forgettable let me assure you.” “Dude, woman don’t have to be unforgettable for me to remember them. And do you remember me taking an off in the past month?” “That is true. But I met her last night. She works on the floor below. We spent good time together.” “The floor below you say?” “Yes.” he replied positively. “That entire floor has gone for an off-site remember? There’s nobody working below save a few office boys.”

His eyes widened. He had not realised this fact up until now. 'Why would she lie about this? Free booze?’ he thought, perplexed. He exited Shoaib’s cabin evidently disturbed.

“I’ll let you know if I come across anything.” Shoaib yelled out.

He felt deceived. He chose the internet to distract himself. The browser restored the 14 tabs from the previous night. Jazz music; scoopwhoop; 'bedfellows’ a horror short film; Google maps; Family Feud; Ozzy Man Reviews; Cats being jerks; Road accidents caught on camera, to name a few. He remembered doing everything possible to stay awake.

He felt another tap on his shoulder. He turned around, expecting the annoying colleague again but to his delight found Shoaib standing. “Any news?” Hriday enquired optimistically. “No brother. None. No Kalpana has been recruited in any of our national offices in the past 2 months. Do you know her full name by any chance? That might give us some hope.” “No man. I don’t. Yes but she did mention he having another first name, Mary, which she seldom used as she disliked it. Other than that I know nothing.” “Mary?” Confirmed Shoaib. Hriday replied in the affirmative.

The Shoaib said something silly that shook the ground below his feet. His eyes widened. His heart raced. A thought entered his mind which he hoped wasn’t true. He was almost shivering.

He got up at once and ran towards the security guard. He found a different person. “Where’s the other guy?” “Sir Manjeet left an hour ago. What happened? I’ll help you.” “I want to see the CCTV footage from last night. Now!” “Sir it requires clearance and might take some time.” “No I don’t have time. Give me the other guy’s number. I need to speak with him.”

He dialled his phone without wasting a breath. The phone rang a long time before being answered.

He then had a conversation with Manjeet that more or less confirmed his worst fears.

Hriday collapsed in the chair next to him. “Thank…. you..” and he hung up. He was lost in thoughts. He was terrified of this news. He wanted it to be prank. But he knew in his heart it was anything but that.

He went to the washroom to freshen up. 'Some cold water on my face is the need of the hour’ he thought. While coming back he again spotted the 'I love Bhutan’ mug of a colleague. This time it didn’t bring a smile on his face. Instead he remembered something else. And he connected it almost instantly. 'I had been to Bhutan in 2014 for a week. Beautiful place. I loved it. You should go. Although I should tell you I did get MUGGED there. I fought back and some locals intervened luckily, but all is not hunky dory…’

He went to his place and sat browsing through the internet when yet another thing caught his attention. His mind again raced back to last night’s conversation. 'I really feel for my dad. He’s been in the middle of a feud that has gripped our family for years now. He’s been trying to sort the matter out, playing Switzerland but to no avail. He tries to keep a funny face but I see right through it. I see he’s troubled. He’s now developed memory issues. He mixes up names. Moreover, people who haven’t seen my mother say I’m adopted. That does bother him somewhere I’m certain. He’s tall, dark and bald. Wears a thick moustache. Basically nothing about him resembles me. But I love him. I know he has done a lot since mum died. He has raised me alone and I guess done a fabulous job of it.’

Now he hunted other tabs thoroughly for more. He couldn’t help himself. He now had the picture more or less clear. He had completed going through all the tabs, save one. He finally started watching the video 'Cats being jerks’ with some minor surety, there’s no surprise awaiting him here. He was wrong. Very wrong. He then saw something that was definitely the final nail.

There was no denying the truth now. His tear ducts had been activated. He ran from his place. He wanted to get away from all the chaos. He wanted to be alone. He went back to the terrace. He wanted to think. He got out his cigarette pack. Looked at it and threw it away since even that reminded him of her. He shut his eyes, leaned over the railing and enjoyed the wind caressing his face. He needed it.

He knew it was time to have a conversation with himself, since he couldn’t confide in anyone else.

'She never existed. You hallucinated her. Your sleep deprivation played a pivotal role in it. Everything she told you was a product your own sub conscious. Everything your exhausted mind had experienced last night. You were right indeed. It felt like she was a part of you, because she very much was. The tall, dark, bald father with a thick moustache playing a mediator in a feud who mixed up names, was Steve Harvey in Family Feud you fool. Her mother’s accident was identical to the one you saw in 'Road accidents caught on camera.’ The mugging incident in Bhutan was a result of the 'I love Bhutan’ mug you must’ve seen during one of your office strolls to stay awake. In fact, you saw her in one of the 'Cats being jerks’ clip and brought her to life. That would also explain the scratch marks on her arm. You wouldn’t have figured it out had Shoaib not cracked that silly joke.’

He went through his conversation with Shoaib once again in his head.

“…Mary, which she seldom used as she disliked it. Other than that I know nothing.” “Mary?” confirmed Shoaib. “Yes.” “Mary Kalpana?” Shoaib asked again. “Yes.” “Hahaha it must be your Kalpana only,” he laughed and left mid way to attend a call he received.

'It must be my Kalpana only? What did he mean?’

'Then it finally dawned upon you. Mary Kalpana with a slight modification becomes Meri Kaplana, which in Hindi is 'My Imagination’. Wow. It was right in front of you the whole time. Mocking you but you could never pick it up. Not your fault. And the only other thing that could corroborate this fact was the CCTV footage or the security guard, Manjeet. Due to your very understandable impatience, you had to settle for a very earth-shattering phone conversation.

“Hello.” “Hello Manjeet it’s me Hriday from..” “Yes sir I recognised you from your voice. What can I do for you?” Manjeet broke in without letting him complete. “Manjeet the woman with me. In the CCTV footage. From last night. Have you seen her before?” Hriday changed the nature of his question for the still wanted his thought to be a stupid one.

“What woman Sir? You were alone. Smoking, talking to yourself. I found it weird honestly but I presumed it has been a hard couple of weeks for you and it’s your way of destressing. You then got two beer bottles from our fridge and offered it to someone. And then you left. I didn’t know what to make of that honestly.”

'That confirmed it did it not? You had spent a night with a beautiful woman who was nothing but a figment of your imagination. The picture was clear as day now.’

He felt good talking to himself. He had heard himeslf out. He was sure of two things now. One. He was never going without sleep for long. Two. He was never ever going to forget her. The realisation of second point filled him with immense grief almost too quickly. His life might never be the same again. He wasn’t prepared for that.

He climbed up the railing and flung himself. He was seeing her face for the final time as he was descending. He smiled. For the final time.

_____

News headline the following day: Mentally unstable patient jumps to his death from Bombay Mental Asylum.

Spokesperson for the institution stated, “The patient was brought in two weeks ago due to a severe case of Delusional Disorder. He had been in solitary confinement since. We are currently investigating as to how he managed to break through. The negligent guards have been suspended effective immediately. Thank You.”

[aion-rsa]

Violence is Golden: 16 Bloodthirsty Superheroes

Two things can usually be expected when reading a comic book story: a hero and a villain. Of course, when we think of villains, we generally assume they want to cause death and destruction, to commit atrocious acts of violence. Meanwhile, we think the hero does the other thing: saves the day with non-violent righteousness. But that isn’t always the case.

RELATED: 15 Superheroes Who Are Total Jerks

We forget that comic book heroes are just as capable of violence as their opposite numbers, and sometimes come across as even hungrier for bloodshed than their infamous villains. Just take a look at the list below; these cases-in-point are heroes whose taste for justice have twisted, turned and soured into a lust for bloody vengeance.

WOLVERINE

Being the best he is at what he does, the most obviously bloodthirsty hero is Marvel’s one and only Wolverine. He first appeared in “Incredible Hulk” #180, bearing his claws and boldly snarling at the Hulk, so a little violent streak was to be expected. While the next issue didn’t actually contain an epic fight, Wolverine would more than make up for that lacklustre appearance over the next few years.

With Logan’s uncontrolled rage, several powerful villains and some heroes have met their violent deaths and/or dismemberments at the end of his deadly adamantium claws. The “Old Man Logan” story arc, for example, saw him burst out of a tyrannical Hulk, and also showed us how he could completely eviscerate the X-Men. He’s certainly no stranger to violence, but where others like Captain America might show a little restraint, you’ll get no such mercy from Wolverine. Considering he’s more than a hundred years old, it’s been speculated that he’s killed thousands throughout his time on this earth, on top of the multitudes he’s killed in the pages of comics.

ELEKTRA

She swings around two Okinawan sai, she’s mastered a wide variety of weapons and she’s a trained ninja assassin, so she’s bound to have some blood on her hands. Of course, you might have guessed that after hearing that she was created by Frank Miller, known for graphic novels like “Sin City” and “300,” both of which are violent as hell.

Elektra’s violent nature stems from quite a dark past. In Marvel’s “Elektra: Assassin” #1 (written by Miller), it was revealed that she’d been self-harming as a means to cope with haunting voices and doubts over vague memories of abuse. She also witnessed her father’s death, she’s been killed multiple times and there’s doubt as to whether the psychotherapy that was supposed to give her some sense of stability ever actually worked. That anger and turmoil manifests in the violence, blood and gore she leaves behind her in her comic series, like the slew of S.H.I.E.L.D agents she slaughtered (though had no memory of), for example, before killing a hitwoman and the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who put a bounty on her head in “Dark Reign: Elektra” #5 (written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Clay Mann, Mark Pennington and Matt Hollingsworth).

HIT GIRL

Don’t be fooled by the eleven year old girl you see before you. From an even early age, Mindy McCready was trained to be a lethal assassin with a heart of stone. Since her first appearance in Icon’s “Kick-Ass” #3 (written by Mark Millar and illustrated by John Romita Jr.), we’ve come to know Mindy as a foul-mouthed violent little superhero, the yin to Kick-Ass’ yang. Where she teaches David Lizewski to live up to the name of his alter-ego, David tries to teach her how to just be a “10 and ¼” year old girl. Because of her violent nature, that’s not always easy.

In “Hit-Girl” #3 (written by Millar with artwork by John Romita Jr.), we see Mindy taze her bully, Debbie Foreman, before dangling her over the edge of a recycling facility and allowing the terrified Debbie to fall straight into a passing garbage truck. That’s actually the least violent thing Hit Girl has done to an enemy, so it’s no wonder the character has stirred controversy in both her comic books and subsequent film adaptations, though controversy for the latter was more focused on her constant cursing and not the trail of broken corpses she left behind, weirdly enough.

HAWKMAN

Next on the list is the Thanagarian with an ancient soul, bashing his way through his enemies with his Nth metal armor and various medieval weapons. He first appeared in “Flash Comics” #1 (written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Harry Lampert) and while over the years the DC universe has changed quite a lot, Hawkman’s terrible violent streak hasn’t. He’s got quite a temper and it shows in the mess he leaves behind. Even in his appearance in 1940’s “All Star Comics” #1, he was seen defeating the sorcerer Trygg by destroying his lair with an explosion while the sorcerer and his assistant Beldame were still inside.

This is one superhero any villain definitely wouldn’t want to cross, because unlike most heroes, there’s a huge chance villains will not walk away. It’s undeniable that Hawkman has little to no regard for human life, which often puts him into conflict with members of the Justice League, at one point battling Green Arrow due to differing views on how best to handle villains.

BLACK ADAM

If you thought that was harsh, just take a look at this next DC superhuman claiming to fight for justice. Son of Rameses II, this ancient Egyptian dictator was imbued with the powers of the gods by the high priest, Shazam. Betrayed and corrupted by the high priest’s own daughter, Teth-Adam became Black Adam and was buried, only to be discovered and unleashed upon the world a thousand years later by the unknowing archaeologist, Theo Adam.

Black Adam does not shy away from violence; in fact, he constantly uses it to intimidate his foes or make a point. That earned him the distrust of almost every superhero in the “52” series, after he very literally tore the villain Terra Man in half in front of the press as an example of his stance (and by association his country, Kahndaq’s position) on crime. That’s not even the worst of it. While enraged by the death of his beloved wife, Isis and her brother, Osiris, he massacred the nation of Bialya, just for being associated with the forces that stole the lives of his family. In doing so, he single-handedly began World War III.

MIDNIGHTER

Like all superheroes, Midnighter fights for justice and peace. What sets him apart from the rest is that he genuinely enjoys the violence and bloodshed in fighting crime. He was first introduced in “Stormwatch Vol.2” #4 (written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Brian Hitch), along with his partner in heroism and romance, Apollo. He has limited precognitive abilities (a computer in his brain analyzes every fight he gets into, telling him all the different ways to win), he’s incredibly fast and strong. He also has regenerative abilities, which come in handy, since he never shies away from dangerous situations and always seems to have everything under control. Many have said that he’s basically Batman, but with superpowers… and a great love of killing.

The best example of just how violent Midnighter can comfortably get can be found in “The Authority” #16 (written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Frank Quitely, Trevor Scott and David Baron). After the implied assault and sodomy committed against Apollo by The Commander, Apollo and Midnighter take down The Americans in the most brutal way possible. At one point, he smashes someone’s head clean off with a stick and the whole thing ends with Midnighter standing over The Commander with a jackhammer to inflict a terrible retribution. If you’re not crossing him, however, he’s actually quite compassionate and has a very soft and sweet side. So don’t cross him.

RED HOOD (JASON TODD)

Within the realm of DC’s Batman-esque characters without the limit of his one rule, we find Red Hood with Jason Todd beneath the crimson helmet. Even when he was Robin, Jason was angry and lived in a moral grey area. He fought for justice, certainly, but his kind differed greatly from that of his mentor, Batman. This was most notable in “Batman” #422 (written by Jim Starlin and illustrated by Mark Bright, Steve Mitchell and Anthony Tollin), wherein Robin hunts down and sees the murder of a serial rapist who had diplomatic immunity. We never really find out whether or not Todd actually did push him off that balcony, but given all he’s done to date, we can make an educated guess in the affirmative.

In other comics, he’s seen wielding guns and trying to hunt down the Bat-family, essentially because Bruce never avenged Todd’s death, his return from which drove him insane. Generally, though, having taken advice and resources from Talia Al Ghul, Todd’s aim is to strike a more adamant fear into the hearts of Gotham’s underworld, and he has rejoined Batman’s most-trusted ranks as an ally. With his tendency to solve problems with blood, though, he’s best described by Ra’s Al Ghul who called him a curse upon the world.

RORSCHACH

As we’ve seen, sometimes wearing a mask can bring out the more savage side of a crime-fighter. The mask and all its anonymity might engulf the person beneath it, making him or her all the more fierce (sort of like a Twitter handle). That’s essentially what happened to Rorschach, as we can see when he refers to the ever changing ink blots as his real face in Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” series, published by DC.

Rorschach sees the world around him in black and white, which leads him to do some extremely brutal things to decidedly evil people. The best evidence of his extremely violent streak is when he’s locked in prison, surrounded by people he put away and every single one of them wants to kill him. One of them tries and immediately gets hot oil thrown in his face, while another is outright murdered. Then we’re given his interview with the prison psychiatrist to whom he admits incinerating dogs and their murderer/kidnapper owner, going into detail and revealing that he watched the fire for hours. That’s the crazy kind of vengeance you can’t just wave away.

THE COMEDIAN

Rorschach wasn’t the only ultra-violent superhero in the “Watchmen” series. Eddie Blake, also known as The Comedian, is guilty of quite a lot, some of which wasn’t done in the name of justice or doing the right thing. He just had a temper and didn’t value human life, which is what led to him shooting a Vietnamese woman he’d impregnated after she scratches him in the face.

In fact, in “Before Watchmen: Minutemen” #1, it was revealed that before becoming a costumed vigilante, Blake had a long record of criminal activity, none of which he seems to be trying to make up for. Then there’s the reason he was kicked out of the Minutemen group: after a photo shoot, he tries to get Sally Jupiter to sleep with him. When she rejects his advances, he violently assaults her, though he’s stopped and beaten by Hooded Justice. This vile character isn’t part of superhero team because he believes in it, but because he loves the violence that goes with it. This is one ‘hero’ who needed to die.

RED HULK

Marvel’s Hulk is the embodiment of pure rage. However, he just wants to be left alone. Red Hulk on the other hand, isn’t as simple. Thaddeus Ross first appeared as the Red Hulk in 2008’s “Hulk” #1 (written by Jeph Loeb with artwork by Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines and Jason Keith), though his true identity wasn’t revealed until later. We find that he became Red Hulk with the aid of A.I.M and Intelligencia in order to fight Hulk. Unlike Hulk, Ross maintains his mind, although that doesn’t seem to help. Thaddeus Ross is generally just a violent person.

When his daughter was getting married to Bruce Banner, seemingly cured of the Hulk in “Incredible Hulk” #319 (written by John Byrne with artwork by Byrne, Keith Williams and Andy Yanchus), he entered the venue wielding guns and making threats. When Rick Jones attempted to stop him, Ross shot Jones (don’t worry, there’s a happy ending there). As Red Hulk, Ross has destroyed an entire S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier with everyone on board; he’s even punched Uatu the Watcher in the face, just for trying to watch his fight against the original Hulk! Yes, he’s an Avenger, but a hero? Not exactly.

VENOM

Though he was introduced to us as Spider-Man’s greatest foe in “Amazing Spider-Man” #300, Venom was more crazed and misguided, rather than actually evil. Aside from fighting the wall-crawler, Eddie Brock used the power of the symbiote to become a lethal protector of the innocent. It was something the symbiote continued to do even after forcibly leaving Eddie Brock. As an anti-hero, the monstrous symbiote found a way to save people and sate its appetite for blood. During Flash Thompson’s brief period as Venom, the symbiote devoured Flag Smasher’s arm during the rescue of Yusuf Kassim in “Amazing Spider-Man” #654.1. There was also the murder of Angelo Fortunato, an act committed by the symbiote which allowed Angelo to fall to his death, just because it saw him as being weak.

While Venom has worked with many superheroes to save lives, it’s pretty safe to say that Venom has destroyed or ended more lives than he’s saved. Interestingly, the symbiote’s species — the Klyntar — were recently revealed as being not just non-violent, but actual protectors in space, though easily manipulated once attached to the destructive power of the human ego. So you have to ask, who was the true bad influence in Venom’s various relationships?

LOBO

Considering this character was DC’s reply to Marvel’s Wolverine and Punisher, it would be silly to expect anything other than the most ridiculous displays of violence and bloodlust from Lobo: The Main man. Being a galactic bounty hunter, this Czarnian really only has one rule: he keeps his promises to the letter. That’s exactly as confining as it sounds… which is to say, not at all. He’s free to indulge his sadistic nature by carving a path of destruction through his enemies and contracts.

Lobo is the last of the Czarnians. That might sound tragic, but in “Lobo” #0 it was revealed Lobo unleashed a host of flying scorpions upon Czarnia and single-handedly annihilated the population of the planet. Why? For fun! If that somehow doesn’t persuade you of how bloodthirsty he is, remember that when he died and went to heaven (yes, that heaven) “Lobo’s Back” #4 (written by Keith Giffen and Alan Grant, illustrated by Christian Alamy and Daniel Vozzo), he massacred everyone there and was subsequently banished. Hell didn’t want him so he’s essentially trapped on Earth forever, unable to die even if his incredible regenerative abilities fail him.

DEADPOOL

Speaking of regenerative abilities, our beloved Deadpool actually began as a supervillain in “New Mutants” #98 (written by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicienza, illustrated by Liefeld and Steve Buccellato). Over the years, he’s grown far more over the top and violent (and as a result, more popular). He’s immortal and is really neither a hero nor a villain, meaning he’s free to indulge himself in violence, especially since he’s completely aware that he’s a fictional character and none of the blood and gore really matters. That applies even when that blood and gore is his own, like in “Deadpool Kills Deadpool” #1 (written by Cullen Bunn with artwork by Salva Espin and Veronica Gandini), when he killed alternate universe versions of himself violently and on a whim.

Of course, there’s that time he killed everyone in the Marvel Universe, too, in “Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe” (written by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Dalibor Talajic and Lee Loughridge). Heads are separated from shoulders, bodies impaled on street signs and what was it all for? The voice in his head told him to. That’s one way to end crime.

SPAWN

From the depths of hell and the imagination of Todd McFarlane (which incidentally may be the same place) comes a hero unlike any other. Arguably more powerful than most comic book superheroes, Spawn’s power does have a certain usage limit, but his rage doesn’t seem to be so restrained. He’s been to hell and back, and been caught in a war between its forces and the forces of Heaven. Generally, he doesn’t really take a side and can usually be found in dark alleys and dangerous situations. Sometimes he does good things and helps people, but most of the time he’s just venting his anger. Seeing as how he lost everything and everyone he loves, he’s got a lot of anger to vent. As you might expect of someone given the power of hell, it’s made him pretty violent.

Take, for instance, his battle against Thamuz, grand master of torture and someone who now probably regrets torturing Al. During the “Armageddon” storyline, a more angelic Spawn encounters Thamuz as the latter is rampaging on Earth, as part of Satan and Mammon’s apocalyptic plot. Spawn swiftly defeats Thamuz by punching his face clean off, killing the demon. He just wasn’t cut out for being an angelic being, we guess. Though afterwards, his face was pretty… holy.

PUNISHER

Marvel’s Frank Castle lost his family in an ill-fated visit to the park where a gangland war took place. That moment birthed the Punisher, a ruthless anti-hero who will use any means necessary to ensure that bad guys stay down. That’s what makes him bloodthirsty: his philosophy. Essentially, he believes that if he lets some murderer get away, he’s responsible for the next life they take. It has made him deeply cynical and dark, putting him at odds with other superheroes in the Marvel Universe.

For example, in “Civil War” #6 (written by Mark Millar, illustrated by Steve McNiven, Dexter Vines and Morry Hollowell), when Goldbug and the Plunderer humbly offer their aid for Anti-Reg forces, the supervillains are immediately gunned down in cold blood by Punisher, who seems confused by the angered reaction he receives. But the best example of his need for violence is in “Secret Wars” #1 when he visits a room full of villains and promises to rain bullets upon them, even though the world around them all was about to end. There was no point to it, but he was going to kill them anyway; not because it was necessary, but because he had to.

BLADE

Marvel’s half-vampire vampire hunter is probably the most literally bloodthirsty hero on this list, even if his victims are generally vampires, the immortal lives of which Blade clearly does not value very highly. It all began with his hunt for Dracula. Sure, he was always pretty dark, having killed vampire children in “Marvel Preview” #8 (written by Doug Moench with artwork by Sonny Trinidad). Over time, he grew even more ruthless in his methods, and you’ll often see him depicted wielding various weaponry drenched in blood, reflecting how he’s also grown to care less about saving lives, and more about killing.

We can’t forget that he even spends Christmas surrounded by death, like that time he went toe to toe with Santa Claus! Okay, it wasn’t really Santa, but it did end with some jolly-looking demon losing a lot of blood in “Blade” #4 (written by Marc Guggenheim with art by Howard Chaykin), as he stood atop a pile of dead bodies, the only one still standing.

Who do you think is the most bloodthirsty hero? Let us know in the comments!

The post Violence is Golden: 16 Bloodthirsty Superheroes appeared first on CBR.com.

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