#I REFUSE TO NOT POST IT BECAUSE IT TOOK EMBARRASSINGLY LONG BUT. I WISH IT WAS BETTER.

[evilmortys]

“Well, it’s great to have you back here in our chambers again. And by that, we of course mean that it’s literally the worst to have you back here in our chambers, C-136.” There’s a definite familiarity in the way Riq IV utters his indicative numerals that rings almost personal, but understandably, there’s little fondness behind his severe greeting. Jesus Christ, he thinks to himself sourly, this fucking Morty again. “You know how this goes, so let’s get right to it. State your name and dimension number for the record, turd.”

“Yeah, well, here’s somethin’ for the record: I’m not- I’m actually not too jazzed about it myself, y’know? Every time I get hauled here, I gotta- I gotta look you guys in the faces for like, an hour. And they’re really ugly ones.” Morty rebukes, arms folded over his chest defensively. His insides quiver like jelly. Deep down, he’s actually really not so good with this confrontation stuff, believe it or not. What Morty is? Still, he can’t half pretend to be unflinching when a situation calls for it. Nerves sufficiently steeled and outward appearance nothing short of done with this shit, he obliges the demand. “Mortimer Smith, Earth Dimension C-136. No additional numerals applicable.”

“Watch it.” Another council member snaps suddenly, already infuriated by the blatant lack of respect, and Morty’s gaze drifts to the secondary speaker. Hazel eyes rest upon the decrepit figure boredly, and he inwardly debates whether it’d be worth it to point out he doesn’t even know the name of any of these other assholes- that’s- that’s about how relevant their input is to him right now. Probably shouldn’t, he concedes grudgingly. Don’t bite the bullet when it comes to spitting snark, y’know? Employing restraint now leaves wiggle room to get away with saying more once this discussion inevitably goes to shit. He looks back to their spokesperson wordlessly, gaze expectant.

“Yes, Rick Prime, you’re absolutely right. He says what we’re all thinking! Now... let me see what you’ve gotten up to this time, C-136. While I’m reading the report over, why don’t you go ahead and tell me: who the fuck do you think you are? And why do you think you can get away with this shit? We’d all love to hear it.” Riq IV gathers up the loose-leaf before him and taps the papers against the imperial desk he sits behind, neatening the stack before beginning to look them over.

“I don’t think I’m anyone- anyone... look, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Morty protests defensively. “There’s nothing I’d even be getting away with! That’s- whatever’s written there, it won’t- it’ll all be a bunch of bullshit!”

“Really? Because let me tell you, this is all lining up very well with what we’ve come to expect of your character.” Riq IV heaves a world weary sigh, bracing himself for what’s to come (this particular turd, and the circumstance of his Rick being such a generous contributor, always makes everything so difficult), and passes the report along for the other council members to peruse. Can’t effectively threaten this one, really. But like hell he won’t try. “Here’s our working theory, turd. You believe that you’re special, and brave, or some shit, and- and you think that because your Rick happens to donate to us often that we have to tolerate this kind of shit from you and take it on the chin. That your actions here don’t have consequence. Am I in the ballpark, C-136?”

“Not even close!”

“Then do you want to tell us what the fuck happened?! Do you want to, oh, I don’t know--- clue the council in on why you saw fit to push a Rick to the ground, stamp repeatedly on his ballsack, and punch him in the face until... he- cried---? Jesus Christ, in- in hindsight- this geezer’s not reflecting on us well. How does this even happen? He got fucked up by a Morty? I mean, at that point, you pretty much deserve whatever happens, right? What the fuck was I even reading there, y’know?” 

Riq IV isn’t quite addressing C-136 come the end of that impassioned order for an explanation, and is instead glancing at the other members incredulously, brow knitted indignantly. The other four Ricks murmur heatedly in irritable agreement, though they’re keen to point out Mortys should never possess the balls to lash out at a Rick violently regardless. With a nod of his head, the spokesman looks down upon the yellow-shirted bastard beneath him, and snaps, “Whenever you’re ready, C-136. Take your time! I know you think this Citadel bows to your goddamn whims either way. Go ahead and phone a fucking friend- why not? You’re- you’re a little monster.”

“Oh, I’m ready, you stupid haircut having- you’re a- dumb ass motherfucker,” Morty spits vehemently, gritting his teeth, before catching himself. His gaze briefly averts, as if in wordless apology for his blunt outburst. He draws himself up slightly, gesticulating with his hands as he attempts to get across his reasoning. “Look, I know it sounds bad. It was bad! It was! I know. But that Rick, he- he was, he was pushing this Morty around, being such a dick, making fun of him, and- there was... he didn’t even have a reason! That Morty was mute, y’know? He’d- he’d had his tongue cut out, or- or maybe ripped out by some sorta alien... I don’t know. He was making this awful gurgling noise, he was frightened, and- what, was I just supposed t- to walk on by? Pretend I couldn’t see that happening?!”

“That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.” Riq IV says pointedly, as if affronted he has to clarify the obvious at all. “We can only assume that Morty was behaving in a way to make him deserve that, just as you should have assumed, turd. Besides, I’ll have you know that tongueless Mortys are in, uh- pretty high demand, for the more morally ambiguous Ricks. In fact, I’m pretty sure we offer services for a humane snip of the tongue. We do that, guys, right? ... Maybe it’s more of a black market thing? Yes. It’s- it’s just an adjustment that can be made to you little bastards, for a price, much like implanting chips into your spines and weaponizing you for efficiency. And let me tell you something: it’s one that I plan to recommend to your grandfather if you continue to push your luck. Our tolerance only goes so far, no matter how much of an asset Rick C-136 is to the development of our Citadel. We won’t exactly crumble without him.”

“Fuck you! Wh- what the fuck is WRONG with you?! Y- you wanna know something?! You wanna know what I think?! Don’t answer: I- I know you don’t, but fuck you, and listen up anyway! Every single one of you BASTARDS are DEFINITELY gonna die with each other’s dicks in your throat from how much you suck each other off! How can you sit up there, and say shit like that, and- and not hear how fucking awful you all sound?!” 

His gesturing hands have long since returned to his sides, and his arms are tensed where they rest- C-136 is acutely aware of the fact that he’s trembling, shaking with anger that has never felt more well founded. Despite himself, he curls his fingers and balls them into fists, as if- as if he could swing for those smug motherfuckers up there from all the way down here. Morty has to jut his chin just to regard them with all this fury, and there’s nothing to goddamn do with it- his breathing quivers from his lungs tensely, and there’s a challenging look crystal clear in his blazing eyes. Can’t do anything about it, the reminder bangs in his brain. The Guard Ricks posted all around don’t even motion to grip their guns tighter, because they fucking know it, and the council fucking knows it, and they know he’s painfully aware of it, too. 

Their broad, shit-eating grins say it all--- at least, they do, until Ricktiminus Sancheziminius sees fit to glance upward briefly by chance, and winds up visibly starting, and fixing his gaze on something else entirely. Somebody else. Somebody other than the spectacle of that notoriously difficult Morty having an outburst. Ricktiminus Sancheziminius nudges Riq IV sharply in the side, and upon gaining the other’s attention and irritable acknowledgement, indicates the new arrival to the spokesman. He soon sobers, flashing the figure at the entrance to their chambers a bemused look- and the others are quick to follow his lead. Morty’s brows knit, and he glances over his shoulder- heart sinking---no, outright dropping---deeply into his stomach the very instant he’s processed it. 

Fuck.

“Ah, your keeper’s here, C-136. Rick Sanchez, earth dimension C-136! We presume our message reached you in a timely manner... and yet, enough time has passed for your grandson to spit vulgarities at us for quite a while. I certainly hope we didn’t pull you away from anything important...” Riq IV smiles strangely, almost as if simpering. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and there is something deeply false to the curve of his mouth. Belching, he waves a careless hand, as if to dismiss his own backhanded, apologetic sentiment before the other can even respond to it. “... Though it begs the question of what could be more important than the Citadel. We both have this society’s best interests at heart, after all.”

“Yeah, y-eeeuurgh-eah, what-the-fuck-ever.” Rick replies, sweeping into the chambers and standing at Morty’s side, flashing him a deeply vexed look. He probably heard that whole last part, and out of context, it doesn’t really reflect well on the flicker of patience he's been trying to maintain all the while. “I was balls deep in the concept of time when you motherfuckers called me, so ex-cuse me if I’m not particularly chirpy about being called over this time around. He- he better have at least killed someone, is what I’m saying. I was getting action. Literally fucking with time. I- I don’t wanna fucking be here for anything less.”

Morty’s mouth falls open as he hastens to try and explain himself, ready to trip over his own spluttering words until Rick comes to understand that he was just trying to help- before he realizes, dully, that it won’t even matter. Huffing, the teenager simply looks askance, knowing full well Rick won’t take his side on this. Almost can’t take his side on this. Though it’s not like the other ever strives to have his back anyway. 

This train of thought is a bitter one, and it rattles through his head so loudly, all the biting reminders that he’s in a room full of people who don’t give a shit what he has to say in the slightest, that he briefly tunes out from the exchange between the council and his disapproving grandfather. Their words are little more than buzzing in his ears, but he doesn’t miss much. They’re just filling his companion in on what shit trick he’s pulled this visit. A sharp flick against the side of his head soon bumps him back to reality, and a deep scowl curls the sixteen year old’s lip as he rubs it, fighting the innate urge to bitch. Rick scoffs at him, before turning his attention back to the six alternates perched up there.

“See that? Not even listening. Look, this time last year, Morty was all over the Citadel, just like I am. Nobody’s saying anything about taking issue with this place. Nothing but support in the C-136 household. He’s just going through a little phase, in case you can’t tell. You ever had a sixteen year old Morty? Nightmare. Rebellion, he’s all- all stick it to the Ricks, y’know? He’s just being a c-eeeuurgh-ontrary little shit. Christ, the whole reason he’s here is to pick some crap up that I ordered- did you even fucking get around to grabbing that, Morty? Before you started swinging for Ricks?”

“Yeah. I got it.” Morty says shortly. “Laruxion ore.” 

He finds himself physically biting down on his tongue, as if to chastise it prematurely as it twitches to run away with him about what a nightmare even just grabbing Rick’s shit was, too. The shopkeeper glared down at him, and asked a few dozen hostile questions about what a Morty was doing picking up something so volatile, so potentially dangerous, for his Rick. If it were up to me, he’d declared, unwillingly bagging the package up all the same, you wouldn’t be running around with something like this. Taking it to your Rick or otherwise. Guy can’t pick up his own shit?

“Aw, jeez. Well,” Morty had shot back, unable to help himself, “don’t you all think we’re too stupid to do anything smart anyway? Either you think Mortys are capable of falling the entire Citadel with this ore, and you won’t fork that shit over to me because of that, or you think we’re dumbass, i- incapable, um, y’know- sidekicks. In which case, there’s- there’s no harm in handing it over to me. Right? Just saying, y’know. Y- you guys should pick a lane. Aw, jeez.”

Suffice to say, Shopkeeper Rick was not impressed with his take on the matter, and all but threw the bag across the counter into Morty’s fumbling hands, before angrily shooing him off.

“Might as well have done it myself. Can’t even run an errand without getting stirred up in shit. Look, council,” Rick grouses, pinching the bridge of his nose in a show of utter annoyance, “Let’s just call this square. We all fucking paid for his shit trick today, right? I got blue balls, you had to, uh... rightfully bitch at him, waste your... precious time on a dumbass Morty. And he’s gonna get a fucking earful. I’d- I’d say it won’t happen again, but, Christ- is- was he even entirely in the wrong? If a Rick can get taken out by a Morty, he’s not exactly a valuable member of this society. The society I funnel a lot of fucking cash into on a monthly basis, might I add. G- g-eeeUURGH-etting pretty sick of the same old bitchfest about every toe my moron puts over the line when he’s here. Do you guys do this for every Morty that acts out? I’m just sp-eeEUURGH-itballing over here, but- I kind of thought I was donating to people that had slightly better shit to do than pull my Morty up for being a little- a little angsty, or whatever the fuck, right now.”

“... We do this for Mortys that repeatedly cause issues within our citadel. Which yours does to the point of notoriety, C-136. If you’d only rein in your Morty, this wouldn’t be an issue to begin with---”

“Oh, my God- shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck UP---”

“Morty, YOU shut the fuck up. Sorry for him, as usual. Are we done here?”

“... Of course. We, uh, we’d like to reiterate our gratitude for your contributions to maintaining the-”

“Yeah, yeah, leave me another f-eeEUrrrgh-ucking voicemail about it. Come on, Morty. Y- you’re gonna- I’m gonna fucking kill you when we’re outta here,” Rick chastises, and reaches out to grip his forearm and pull him along as he paces away from his six alternates, muttering darkly under his breath all the while. Visibly nettled by the threat, the sixteen year old bitches top note and makes several efforts to wrench his arm free- and easily manages it once they’re back in the sea of alternates that is the main hub of this hellhole as Rick reluctantly eases his hold.

“Don’t grab me! And- and y’know what, don’t bust my balls about this, either. Would it kill you to be on my side? Like, ever? Wh- why would I beat on anyone for no goddamn reason, Rick?!” Morty explodes, and his grandfather rakes a hand through his tufts of blue hair and glares.

“You know exactly why, Morty. Besides. I’m not exactly in the business of backing you up- not sure if you’ve noticed. Because you’re never actually in the right. You’re just taking everything to heart and poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, as usual. Got that?” 

There’s a certain bitterness behind his words. How the hell do you think it’s going to reflect on me if they know I’ve never been able to put a lid on your shit, Morty? Rick sets off walking, and for a moment, Morty hangs back- hesitating to follow, eyes narrowed fiercely at the other’s retreating back... before he groans, and hastens to scramble through the thick crowds and catch up, demanding an explanation all the while.

“Why do you even put up with their crap, Rick? I- I don’t get it. You’re throwing money at a bunch of dicks, t- to support something you don’t even- to support the fucking Shitadel?” Morty gesticulates wildly, hazel eyes narrowed and gaze intent as he regards his older relative, forearms raised and fingers splayed out in a demonstration of utter bewilderment. “I’m just trying to understand why- why the fuck you would do that! Y’know? Y- you don’t even like this fucking hellhole! The people who live here don’t even like it! I just, I- I don’t---”

Rick’s shoulders slump under this bout of badgering, and, if only to quieten the idiot down, he caves. Lowers his voice and mutters quietly, so as not to be listened in on by anyone around them. 

“You don’t g-eeURRGH-et it? Yeah, I heard you the first time. Look, M-Bomb, if I know those assholes---and I am those assholes---being, y’know, blatant about hating their fucking guts isn’t the way to go. If I say what I think, tell ‘em to suck my balls and shove their society up their ass, how- how exactly do you see that playing out for me?” 

Rick pauses, as if awaiting an answer. Bewildered, the teenager beside him blinks a tad owlishly, and at long last, opens his mouth in preparation to fumble for some sort of answer. The very moment he begins to speak out uncertainly, his grandfather purposefully presses on with his point, much to the boy’s visible aggravation.

“I’ll tell you how it’s gonna play out for me. I- I know it’s a little beyond your, uh, limited understanding, Morty. They’re gonna scout for a new paypig, come in the night, haul us outta home, take my portal gun, and make me a fucking janitor, Morty. Meanwhile your dumb ass is gonna- you’ll end up in that shitty Morty School, taking classes on how to bark great idea, grandpa, like- like some mindless little moron who can’t think for himself. They’d parade you around as an example of how well they break you little bastards down into yes-man sidekicks, since you’re such a stubborn piece of shit. And that’d be if y-eeEUrgh-ou’re lucky, by the way.”

“... Ha. Yeah, well, don’t- don’t talk like you wouldn’t like that. The last part, I mean.” He snorts, and a brief flicker of amusement brightens his companion’s resigned expression. Rolling his eyes, Rick rolls his shoulders into a shrug as they walk, moving through the sea of yellow-shirted teenagers and lab-coated fossils.

“Only if you don’t talk like you wouldn’t get a fucking kick out of seeing me scrub a toilet,” he snipes, and they exchange a glance. 

There’s a brief, strange moment wherein something shifts between them- all the unspoken anger, the seething temper, the typical wariness that clings to the air that hangs between them seems to all but ebb away. 

Morty cracks first. The corners of his mouth twitch upward slightly, a fit of snickers rises in his throat... and the second Rick clocks that he’s going to burst out laughing, he cracks up, too. They laugh, and they laugh, and just when it seems that they’re going to calm back down, they catch each other’s eye and lose it all over again. The other Ricks and Mortys waiting in line for a return portal to their dimension cast them strange looks as they all but giggle feebly beside each other, adamantly refusing to meet each other’s gaze in a fervent effort to recover, now; letting things lapse back into their norm. 

All good things eventually draw to a close, and sure enough, this temporary, shared moment of reciprocal sentiment is one of them. The teenager can’t help but push it, however. Let it last just a minute longer. I won’t hate you again, just for a fraction more time. Don’t hate me again, just for a bit longer. While Rick moves to procure his silvery flask from his pocket, amused grin easing in the corners as his expression becomes idly impatient once more, Morty inhales, picking at a loose thread on his sweater if only to busy himself with something, too.

“Hey, Rick?” His tentative broach at conversation is met with a grunt while the old man slugs back his potent alcohol supply. Casting his grandfather a tentative smile, he fidgets with his fingers. “... Thanks. And- sorry. I- I know you hate, y’know, this whole- paying off this shithole, so we don’t wind up here, and stuff. And seeing those motherfuckers, and their stupid haircuts, more than you have to.”

... The sentiment doesn’t quite have the effect he wanted. Rick doesn’t smile back, once he’s finished downing the last drops from his flask. His brow narrows as he shoves it back into the pocket of his lab coat, and he shakes his head dismissively, refusing to take the attempt to uphold their good mood at face value. Disdain creeps right back into his tone- that distaste and disapproval over Morty’s every choice today rearing it’s ugly head with a vengeance, it seems.

“Yeah. I do. So I guess you owe me b-eeUURGH-ig time, Morty.” 

He returns simply, and Morty’s heart sinks upon registering the snippy edge to Rick’s tone... before he soon finds himself frowning deeply, annoyed with himself for even trying; consumed with that aching anger once again. There’s a certain, undeniable comfort to be found in how familiar the feeling is. Losing the moment of enjoying one another’s companionship, of things being how they were some two years ago again, stings. Undoubtedly. But it’s better not to dwell on them. 

Part of him always wonders if it’s his fault they are the way they are. Keeping each other at arm’s length. Essentially communicating through picking fights over nothing, and bickering over absolute bullshit, with terribly occasional, painfully rare warm moments interspersed amidst all of their resentment. If he were only more wide-eyed and naive, Rick wouldn��t be like this with him. Right? Rick thinks that Morty doesn’t know precisely what his fucking problem is, but it doesn’t exactly take a genius to decipher why he’s so harsh with him most days. Read between the lines of his grandfather’s unspoken resentment. 

No. It takes a smart, capable Morty, unafraid to call him or anyone, really, on bullshit, and injustice. And he never wanted that. What sort of Rick fucking does? The entire point of a Morty is to stand beside you, go along with whatever you say despite their own rightful apprehensions, to freak out and struggle and be impressed, awed, and horrified by the shit you pull. They’re sidekicks, but they’re never supposed to be all that competent. That’s the role of the Rick, after all. C-136 was fearful and clueless when they adventured in his youth, sure. There was a time. But he outgrew it far too fast, picked up on things far too quickly, keen for approval he didn’t want to give purely because of how actually deserved it was. Jesus, even as a kid, he was perceptive. Intrusively so. Full of cutting observations--- with alarmingly poignant outbursts over how Rick conducted himself, dripping with disdain for his behaviour, being plentiful from the tender age of eight.

Rick speaks.

“... Quit pulling this shit.”

Morty snaps.

“Quit being shit, Rick.”

They fix one another with a long, lingering look. It feels like a game of chicken- daring the figure across from them to be the one to break the prolonged staredown they’re locked into... and in turn, out himself as the coward ultimately too afraid to face up to the other. It ends in a perfect draw; grandfather and grandson tear their gazes away at the same moment, scoffing over how stupid it was at all, deliberately shuffling to sit a few more inches apart from one another. 

Distance from it, the duo both decide sullenly. Never as different from one another as they like to insist, unbeknown to the two of them. All you can do. He can’t be told.

Rick and Morty, Earth Dimension C-136, await their assigned portal back home in silence; the balance restored in their uncaring world, and dynamic decidedly chilly once more.

[redrobbingabank]

Reparations

I wrote a one shot that was fluffy. Nice and happy. My friend proceeds to go ‘i want to make this angsty’. I gave her a copy of the doc and she did. These are the two things that camoe out of it, yes hers is better I just wanted happiness. Anyway twenty notes and I’ll post the version where we talk on the doc while she worked and I do everything I can to make her life harder.

Mine:

“Slime, can you go get Foolish? I need advice on these blueprints,” Quackity called without looking up from the blueprints he was hunched over, hands pressed against the wood like if he applied enough pressure his energy would seep into the design. There were plans to build a new casino, and he had never been as good a builder as the totem god.

“Who’s Slime?” Quackity froze. He hadn’t heard that voice in months. He looked down to his side, where a pair of wedding rings were sitting on the table, and turned around.

Sapnap stood behind him, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He’d taken his armor off, but his sword was still sheathed at his side and his headband was in its usual place on his head. He looked around the casino appreciatively. “Nice place you got here.”

“Well, it's not as good as a kingdom, but I tried,” Quackity said before he could stop himself. He crossed his arms defensively over his chest. 

Sapnap’s smile turned into a grimace. His eyes slid down to the rings on the table. “Quackity��� I came to apologize. I… we –– George and I thought… Kinoko was Karl’s idea. He said he was going to invite you. With everything that’s been happening, I should have checked. You’re always a part of anything we make.”

“Oh,” Quackity said quietly. “Wait… what’s going on with Karl?”

“I don’t know.” Sapnap frowned and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Something’s up with him and he won’t tell me what it is, but he keeps forgetting things.” It would be killing him to watch Karl hurting. The thought of it made Quackity’s heart twist painfully.

“Should we go check on him? Maybe I could try talking to him,” he offered.

“He’s been gone for a few days.”

Quackity sighed. They weren’t strangers to Karl’s disappearances, but for one to happen right when he might need help was infuriatingly inconvenient. “When he gets back, then.”

“Yeah. When he gets back.” Sapnap looked towards the casino’s skylight for a moment, then back at him. “Until then, wanna give me the tour?”

“Something in Quackity woke up. It was that feeling, that thrill he got from showing a new project that had done well to people he cared about. He wasn’t sure when it had gone away, but suddenly it was there again. He smiled. “Of course.”

Leading the way out of the casino, Quackity took a deep breath. He’d been inside too long. The sun reflecting off the sand made him blink quickly. Where to show Sapnap? He didn’t want him to see the wedding bridge, but the strip club felt stupid now that he thought of it. Then again, it was Sapnap. He’d probably think it was funny.

“Where do you wanna start?” he asked finally, turning back to his fiance.

Sapnap grinned. “How about there?” He nodded towards the strip club.

Quackity laughed, because he still knew Sapnap and from the look on his face, Sapnap still knew him. “Right this way, then.”

It didn’t take any time for things to return to the way they always were. Sapnap walked into the club, nodded approvingly, and said, “Quackity, I think the wedding’s off.” They cracked up, and the conversation flowed from there as Quackity led him around, explaining everything he’d had even a minor thought about in the design. Sapnap followed along, commenting like he was both a comedian and a reviewer with only good opinions.

“You really did an amazing job, Q,” he said as they stepped out of the elevator after looking at the tower. 

How long had it been since someone told him he did a good job? Quackity couldn’t remember, and it was making it embarrassingly hard for him to talk. He smiled his thanks, and got out, “So where next?”

“Let’s go over there.” Sapnap gestured to the bridge.

“Oh. Alright.” Quackity led the way over more slowly than he had the other ones. They ascended the steps and stopped in the middle of the bridge. “So. This is kind of. An express marriage spot?”

Sapnap’s eyes widened. “Oh. Like, for people who get really drunk and want to make a dumb decision?”

“Well, I mean, I tried to make it pretty. Anyone could get married here, it’s not just for idiots.” Quackity shoved his hands in his pockets, staring holes into the ground. “Or maybe it is. I don’t know.” Maybe only idiots got married. Prime knew he’d learned love didn’t last long enough.

“Well, I’d get married here.” Quackity looked up. Sapnap was still there, watching him, smiling like he always did when he knew Quackity was doubting himself. 

“Really?”

“Yeah! It’s gorgeous, Q.”

“Oh.” Quackity smiled.

“You wanna come back with me to Kinoko?” Sapnap asked. “I mean, I know you looked really busy working on that stuff before I came over, but ––”

“–– No, no, I’d love to go!” Quackity said quickly. 

“I –– awesome.” Sapnap smiled. He clearly hadn’t expected Quackity to say yes. “It’s not that far from here.”

“Aww, you know I’d go to the ends of the earth for you, beloved.” Quackity put an arm around Sapnap, letting himself be led out of Las Nevadas.

“You stole Tubbo’s line.”

Quackity’s smile soured for half a second. He glanced at the outpost out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe I did. Maybe he stole it from me.”

Sapnap laughed, pulling him towards the main town. “Sure, sure.”

The outpost could wait. Maybe Tubbo really hadn’t meant anything bad with it. Quackity could have another talk with him tomorrow, to see if a real compromise could be made. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand Tubbo’s need for walls. For the first time in a while, he let it fade to the back of his mind as he followed his fiance to Kinoko.

Hers: 

“Slime, can you go get Foolish? I need advice on these blueprints,” Quackity called without looking up, hands pressed against the wood like if he applied enough pressure his energy would seep into the design. There were plans to build another new casino, and he had never been as good a builder.

“Who’s Slime?” 

Quackity froze. Impossible.

The creak of floorboards gave away shifting feet, and then, “Quackity?”

A cold shiver snaked through Quackity’s spine. He hadn’t heard that voice in months. He looked at his desk, burning holes with his eyes where a pair of wedding rings sat in the drawer, still encased in plush fabric at the bottom of an ocean of plans. Quackity never mustered up the courage to fling them into the real thing. He blinked, erasing the image from his mind, and turned around.

Sapnap stood behind him, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. As nonchalant as ever.

Quackity felt the hope he didn’t know he was holding fizzle. There would be no apology today. 

Sapnap had taken his armor off, but his sword was still sheathed at his side and his headband was in its usual place on his head. He looked around the casino appreciatively. “Nice place you got here.”

“Well, it's not as good as a kingdom ––” Quackity spat before he could think better of it. He took as steady of a breath as he could. “–– But I tried,” He crossed his arms defensively over his chest. 

Sapnap’s smile turned into a grimace. His eyes slid down to the rings on the table. “Quackity… I came to apologize.”

“Oh? How kind of you!”

Sapnap flinched. “I… we –– George and I thought…”

Sapnap stopped speaking the moment he realized Quackity wasn’t listening. The axe on the wall beckoned him. His fingers tingled with anticipation; how wonderful it would feel to put it through–– 

He shut his eyes, willing Sapnap to disappear so he could get on with his casino in his beautiful country that was all his own, now. His baby. The only love he could afford to have.

“Kinoko was Karl’s idea.”

Quackity can’t help himself. “Like that makes it any different?”

Sapnap scrambled for words. “He said he was going to invite you! With everything that’s been -- er -- happening, I should have checked.” 

“George told me.”

“I -- what?”

“George told me. You didn’t invite me. Not even then.”

Sapnap took a step back, absorbing the information. Sputtering, practically.

“You’re trying to figure out when, right? When I knew. When you refused to show. I bet it’s making you sick.”

“Alex, that’s not how it happened, we ––” 

“Don’t call me that!” Quackity practically hollered, palms screaming with the pain of his nails digging in his fist. He lowered his voice, repeating, “you don’t get to call me that.”

Sapnap blinks a few times, gaping like a fish. If Quackity’s not mistaken, he might be about to cry. Good. (The funny thing is, Quackity doesn’t feel any better.) 

Quackity spins on his heel, pulling out his chair. “Whatever you came for, I don’t want it,” he says as he tries to focus his attention back on the blueprint. He doesn’t wait for an answer, too busy trying not to let his eyes burn. It all comes soaring back. As if Quackity could trick himself out of it.

Sapnap must still stand there, because finally, he whispers, “you’re always a part of anything we make.”

Quackity isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. It simply wasn’t true. Not anymore. Quackity keeps his eyes down, hoping his voice doesn’t come out as broken as he feels. “I wish I could believe that.”

Sapnap doesn’t leave, and Quackity, despite himself, can’t make him. He replays what Sapnap said, latching on to one detail.

“What’s going on with Karl?”

That, at least, seems to get him talking. “I don’t know.” Sapnap frowned and shifted his weight from foot to foot. The floorboards creak in turn, and Quackity remembers exactly how Sapnap used to be. A child that Quackity could never hate. “Something’s up with him and he won’t tell me what it is, but he keeps forgetting things.” It would be killing him to watch Karl hurting and not know. The thought of it made Quackity’s heart twist painfully.

“Should we go check on him? Maybe I could try talking to him,” he offered. More generously than they had been. Automatically, Quackity dreads seeing Karl’s face again, if it goes anything like this interaction. 

“He’s been gone for a few days.” 

Quackity sighed. They weren’t strangers to Karl’s disappearances, but for one to happen right when he might need help was infuriatingly inconvenient. “When he gets back, then.”

“Yeah. When he gets back.” His voice is uncharacteristically quiet, walking on eggshells. Quackity really wishes he would leave. He suddenly cannot stand to look at his face. His deceitful, ‘forgetful,’ impossibly warm and loving and beautiful, traitorous face. He couldn’t stand this imitation of his fiance in his home. What kind of fiance did what they did? 

“Could you at least give me a tour?”

Under other circumstances, Quackity might have yelled some more. “Gladly.”

Instead, he focused on the feeling, that thrill he got from showing a new project that had done well to people he cared about. He wasn’t sure when it had gone away, but suddenly it was there again. 

Leading the way out of the casino, Quackity took a deep breath. He’d been inside too long. The sun reflecting off the sand made him blink quickly. Where to show Sapnap? He didn’t want him to see the wedding bridge, nor the tower, and the strip club felt stupid now that he thought of it. Then again, it was Sapnap. He’d probably think it was funny.

“Where do you want to start?” he asked finally, turning back to his fiance. He refused to betray any emotion.

Sapnap grinned. (At least he tried to lighten the mood.) “How about there?” He nodded towards the strip club.

Quackity laughed despite himself. He still knew Sapnap and from the look on his face, Sapnap still knew him. You’re angry at him, remember? Quackity turned around too quickly. “Right this way.”

It almost, almost felt like they had returned to the way they always were. Sapnap walked into the club, nodded approvingly, and said, “Quackity, I think the wedding’s off.” 

Quackity froze, if only for a split second. Joke or not, there it was. Sapnap must have noticed, but Quackity didn’t let him show it. He laughed, dissipating the tension as best he could. Sapnap mimicked him. Do I sound that pathetic? 

The conversation flowed –– albeit arduously –– from there, as Quackity led him around his country explaining everything he’d had even a minor thought about in the design to avoid looking at Sapnap, avoid really talking to Sapnap. Sapnap followed along, commenting like he was both a comedian and a reviewer with only good opinions. It made Quackity want to strangle him less.

“You really did an amazing job, Q,” he said as they stepped out of the elevator after looking at the tower. 

Quackity barely stopped himself from tripping on his feet. How long had it been since someone told him he did a good job? Quackity couldn’t remember, and it was making it embarrassingly hard for him to talk. He curtly smiled his thanks, and got out. “Where next?”

Sapnap gestured to the bridge. “Let’s go over there.” 

Slowly, debating whether to show him or not, Quackity nodded. “Alright.” Quackity led the way over more slowly than he had the other ones. They ascended the steps and stopped in the middle of the bridge. “So. This is kind of––” Quackity said it fast “––An express marriage spot?” 

Sapnap’s eyes widened. Quackity forced himself not to read into it. “Oh. Like, for people who get really drunk and want to make a dumb decision?”

Quackity didn’t care if he was being irrational. His anger was easier to humor than his logic. With a snappy tone, he defended, “I tried to make it pretty. Anyone could get married here –– it’s not just for idiots.” Quackity shoved his hands in his pockets, staring holes into the ground. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. Maybe only idiots got married. Prime knew Quackity had learned love didn’t last long enough. Or perhaps, it lasted too long and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

“Well, I’d get married here.” 

Quackity looked up. 

Sapnap was still there, watching him, smiling like he always did when he knew Quackity was doubting himself. It was becoming harder still to stay angry.

“Really?”

“Yeah! It’s gorgeous, Q.”

“Oh.” Quackity smiled. 

“You wanna come back with me to Kinoko?” Sapnap asked. 

There seemed to be no shortage of surprise for Quackity today. Maybe he had started to forget Sapnap’s tendencies.

When he didn’t answer, Sapnap filled the silence. “I mean, I know you looked really busy working on that stuff before I came over, but ––”

“–– No, no, I’d love to go!” Quackity said quickly. Love to go? Are you serious?

“I –– awesome.” Sapnap smiled. He clearly hadn’t expected Quackity to say yes. Neither had Quackity. “It’s not that far from here.”

Quackity furrowed his brow. “We’re going now?”

Sapnap shrugged. “Why not?”

“I, uh,” Quackity struggled. There was no excuse, really, except that he wasn’t quite sure if he could handle that right now.

Sapnap definitely noticed. “Please?”

Quackity sighed, burying his fear. Slowly, he tipped his head. “Lead the way, then.”

And strangely, irrationally, stupidly and for the first time in a while, Quackity felt like he was being led home.

[panevanbuckley]

spare some ronnix headcanons ma'am? 🥺🥺

oh gods i have been thinking about this all day! ily tysm for enabling my love for these two idiots in love. i hope you like these (they're based off a post from a while back because i just love these headcanons so why not do them for ronnix?!) 💜

gives nose/forehead kisses: lew is like literally a cm taller than ron but he squeezes every advantage he can out of that. he also just loves being ridiculously soft with ron so of course he kisses him on the nose a LOT. forehead kisses have become pretty much a natural thing for him and he does it without even thinking? like, if he has to leave (even if ron is currently having a serious discussing with winters or welsh) he'll press a kiss to ron's forehead with a smile. ron definitely does NOT blush (harry gets a death glare or two after he fails to cover up a laugh)

gets jealous the most: ron! he's possessively jealous in the best way. for example, luz was standing just a little bit too close to lew one time as they laughed about who knows what and ron just sidles up behind lew with that stoic expression that has all the boys stuttering out a goodbye. lew milks it for all he can because ron showing the others he's taken (yeah, lew has more than one mark hidden under that damn scarf of his) is ron's most obvious way to reveal how much he loves him

picks the other up from the bar when they're too drunk to drive: ron has had to pick up a drunk lew one too many times, and every time he'll be grumpy and complain about how lew drinks too much and should take better care of himself. every time he threatens it will be the last and lew will have to fend for his sorry ass on his own next time, yet every damn time ron is there to help him home and make sure he has water for when he wakes up

takes care of the other on sick days: ron! we KNOW he's an aggressive mother hen okay, we saw it with lip, and he is ten times worse when it comes to lew because lew just doesn't take care of himself at all. it drives ron mad and they have definitely argued about it countless times. that doesn't stop him from burying lew under a pile of blankets and getting him warm food and an endless supply of drinks whenever he gets ill

drags the other person out into the water in beach days: lew. 100%. ron is the type to sit on the beach sunbathing but looking like he wishes to be anywhere but there. lew won't have that, though, and he drags ron up and into the sea purposefully ignoring his protests. he totally splashes ron too, and laughs when ron growls and tackles them both under the water before kissing him, kinda liking how the salty water tastes when mixed with ron's lips

gives unprompted massages: lew. he's strangely skilled with massages and ron is so damn tense all the time. the first time he does it, he has ron strip on the bed and slicks his hands up with oil before digging deep into the knots of his shoulders and it takes ron by suprise enough to let a loud, sinful moan slip from his mouth before he can stop it. by the end, ron is a puddle of warmth sagged against him, practically purring as he dozes in the embrace, and lew has never felt more proud in his entire life

drives/rides shotguns: lew always rides shotgun. which means ron has to drive whether he likes it or not. lew will sit back and kick his feet up onto the dash of the vehicle, smug smirk on his face as he relaxes. ron doesn't feel enclined to complain when he looks so happy

brings the other lunch at work: ron. lew, again, is awful at taking care of himself. ron might act all cold and unbothered but, and only for those lucky few that he lets close, he actually has a big heart full of love and tenderness. he may or may not write cute little notes and tuck them between lew's lunch for him to find when nobody else is looking. if he does, that's for them two only

has the better parental relationship: ron. lew isn't close with his parents at all, they have huge conflicts. ron isn't so close with his dad, but he's secretly such a mama's boy. when lew finds out, he couldn't believe it. after she meets him, ron's mother totally dotes on him and takes him under her wing. it's adorable and ron can't help but smile when he comes home one day to find his mother teaching lew how to cook a turkey properly

tries to start role-playing in bed: lew. he's the most adventurous in bed, ron is always down to try anything new as long as lew is 100% comfortable with it. he will make sure at least three times before starting anything, even if it was lew's suggestion to begin with. and if lew wants to stop at any time ron will respect that without any questions asked

embarrassingly drunk dancer: ron! he never went to fancy balls growing up so he's pretty much a hopeless dancer. lew, however, was brought up around all that and he vastly enjoys teaching ron to dance. when they're drunk, ron tries to dance with him, but he trips and stumbles so much that lew ends up having to sit down from laughter

still cries watching titanic: it'd be ron, but he's the silent sort of crier so lew wouldn't even notice until he looks over and sees ron with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. he'll coo and wipe away the fresh tears, kissing away any evidence left behind on his face. ron has comforted lew when he's broken down enough times for it to not be something they make fun of each other for

firmly believes in couples costumes: lew. he's into all of that cheesy couple shit and ron used to hate it (still kinda does) but puts up with it for lew if only to see that adorable smile on his face when they rock up to winter's party dressed as peter pan and captain hook. he totally frames a picture from the party over their mantelpiece too, much to lew's delight

breaks the expensive gift rule during christmas: lew!! he has money and nobody to spend it on so of course he spoils ron rotten. ron protests profusely but lew will push him back and kiss him until any complaints have gone forgotten. he reminds ron that it isn't a competition, that he absolutely adores his gift from him and hadn't meant to offend by spending above the limit. anyways, he knows that ron has a soft spot for anything shiny or a collectable so he always makes sure to get something that he knows ron couldn't refuse

makes the other eat breakfast: ron. same as with making sure lew gets lunch, ron will make sure lew has a proper breakfast in the morning. he's also a surprising great cook (and enjoys it a lot) so he has no qualms with spending extra time cooking up something special

remembers anniversaries: both of them. they're not always openly coupley around their friends so most of them assume they're the type to pass by anniversaries without giving them a second thought. that is not true. they celebrate nearly every anniversary; first date, first kiss, engagement etc. they just keep it to themselves. they'll have a cute dinner, go to the cinema or stroll the park under the stars. it's very romantic and definitely not something their friends would expect

brings up having kids: it's ron but he's so awkward when it comes to serious conversations (seriously it took months for him to be able to openly say "i love you") but, after he sees the way lew's face lights up when he holds harry's newborn baby and the way he's so unbelievably great around kids, ron just finds himself yearning to see that look on lew but as he holds their kid. he wants to have a family with this man, and that realisation both scares and comforts him. he finally brings it up as they lay in bed together, hidden by the dark of the night with lew curled up at his side breathing steadily enough that he might even be asleep. he whispers it into the room anyway, voice breaking at the mental image of lew chasing after a little child of their own, and lew stills. ron doesn't want to breath, too scared that lew will suddenly end it all. but lew laughs, soft as ever, and presses a warm kiss to ron's chest. "i'd like that too" he whispers back and suddenly ron can't hold back the smile on his face as he flips lew onto his back and hovers over him, close enough now to see the matching smile on his face under the stream of moonlight filtering through. he kisses lew with a heat he hasn't felt before, love pouring through his lips freely like the blood in his veins and lew kisses back just as fiercely, just as passionately. it's another year before their family expands but the wait is worth it when ron gets to watch lew chase their little girl down the hallway

these ended up so long...i'm so sorry 😅

[lifeoftinablog]

WHAT I LEARNED AFTER BEING DIAGNOSED WITH IC

Strap in, grab some tea, maybe a coffee, this is going to be a long post.

Incase you don’t know what IC is, IC stands for Interstitial Cystitis. About a year ago now, in April 2019, before I quit my daycare job, I started experiencing uncomfortable symptoms in my bladder. I couldn’t hold my bladder, and had to run to the restroom every 5-10 minutes at most. It was an absolute nightmare, and a struggle. I was worried at the time, working a solo position job, that I would lose it. I had no coverage other than managers to come and relieve me for the restroom, and when managers weren’t available and I had no customers, I would quickly run to the restroom. I felt like I had no control, and like my life was primarily being spent in the bathroom when I should be working. I had a hard time suddenly occupying myself with activities with the kids, or watching movies. There was just this constant tugging feeling in my urethra, begging me to use the restroom to catch some relief. A little TMI, I know, but that is my day to day, constant feeling in my body. The tugging feeling never stops in my bladder. I feel like every single moment, I’m going to suddenly use the restroom. At the time I thought I couldn’t live my life like this. I thought a huge contribution to the feeling might in fact be the amount of stress that my job caused me.

In mid May 2019, my job received word that we would officially be closing down for good. Corporate had decided we weren’t worth keeping open. A lot of children and their families were heartbroken, and in a sense I was too. That job had been 7, almost 8 years of my life. The stress of it had finally started baring down on me, and especially my bladder. But it seemed like a sign in the end. I reached out to my long distance boyfriend, and we had decided it would be best for me to take a step forward in life and move to Florida. So I quit my job before it officially closed down, and prepared for my move. In the time frame of moving, and settling down in my new place in Florida, I suddenly felt better. My bladder symptoms seemed like they had completely gone away. In that same time frame, I had made the decision to change my lifestyle. I started clean eating, where I completely eliminated sugar, and stuck to plain and simple dishes with spices. No dairy, very little bread/carbs, and a cheat meal of my choice maybe once every week or two depending on my self control. I ate lots of meats, and complex carbs like rice or sweet potatoes. I had lost 37lbs by the time I completed my move entirely.

I was feeling real good about myself by that point. I finally went from a 1x size in women’s clothing, down to a medium depending on the type of clothes, although it typically stayed around a large in most clothing items. My body felt so healthy. And not to mention, I’d reduced a lot of stress in my life. I moved away from stress in Washington - a stressful job, and some times stressful home life. I’d gained freedom and took a giant leap forward in my life by moving to Florida. It all seemed like I was getting a grasp on myself. I started a new job in Florida, and it felt a new beginning. No one knew me, so it was a chance to potentially make friends and make a secondary home for myself. I learned new skills, and worked harder than i’ve ever worked in my entire life so far. That goes for both physically and mentally. The holidays put a true test to my patience and my newfound skills. When the holidays passed, I was heavily praised by customers and coworkers for all my hard work, and even offered promotions of various kinds. I climbed my way up in my new job. I felt so appreciated, and on top of the world.

And then suddenly that tugging feeling came back. I distinctly remember standing at the register at my job, waiting to take a customers order, and I just couldn’t hold my bladder back. I felt like any second I was going to burst in my pants and embarrassingly wet myself. I couldn’t let that happen. I quickly flagged down a coworker to take over my position, and I ran to the restroom. I suddenly felt a burning sensation after relieving myself, and I started to cry from the embarrassment and pain of it all. My manager was so kind when I had returned from the restroom, and she had made an emergency run to a nearby pharmacy to get me UTI medication and a test kit. I was sent home early that day to test myself and rest. My test came back positive for a UTI, and I was immediately sent to Urgent Care. I hadn’t been to a doctor in years by that point and was very nervous about cost. Luckily, I had insurance coverage, and my family’s help. I seen the doctor, and was prescribed medication for a UTI - antibiotics, and over the counter AZO (a bladder medication that helps relieve pain, burning and urgency). The doctor was certain my symptoms all meant a UTI, and my tests all came back positive for it. They insisted that the antibiotics would be what would cure me.

Weeks later, after finishing my antibiotics and seeing the doctor for a checkup, I was given another round of antibiotics as the UTI supposedly had not fully gone away yet. But the urgency, and frequency I’d been experiencing for months at that point was all still there and continuing to feel fresh. I took the second round of antibiotics, and my stomach became extremely upset. I was sick at work constantly, with severe stomach pain. I decided to come off of the antibiotics a little early, and saw the doctor again. They ran urine tests and cultures, and my UTI was gone, but my symptoms remained. The doctor was baffled - and referred me to a urologist. My job became insistent and urgent that I seek care, and so I did. For the following months, I suffered with constant bathroom useage that hindered every aspect of my life. My time at work was always interrupted by the call for the toilet, and even outside of work I was spending more time in the bathroom than doing hobbies. Trying to walk at the park meant searching for the nearest bathroom every couple of feet. Going on trips, especially long car rides, meant pulling over every 10 miles or so, if I could make it that far, and using a gas station bathroom or a rest stop. My life was getting sucked away from me.

I finally saw the urologist after many appointments beforehand, and after a few weeks of waiting. It was determined that I had IC, interstitial cystitis, a lifelong bladder disease that would never be cured. The urologist refused to treat me until I completed some tests and procedures that would require some hospital time. It wasn’t long after that the coronavirus pandemic started, so I had to hold off my hospital visit and testing required by the urologist. In the time during the lockdown from the pandemic, I’ve learned a lot of things about my body.

I wish I had known much sooner how important it is to take care of the human body, and to listen to it. My body had been telling me for such a long time that things had been irritating it, and yet I’d continued forward with a lot of what my body was hurting from. A major cause for my IC is stress, which is something I found therapy was helping me to work with. For anyone dealing with major stress in their life, I highly recommend finding yourself someone to talk to. Therapy doesn’t fix everything though unfortunately. I found that my body, especially my bladder, was extremely sensitive to a lot of foods. Gluten, dairy, and soy are major triggers. I found by cutting out anything involving dough or bread made with wheat, milk and cheese, and soy sauce or oils containing soy, I’ve felt like I’ve gained a little more control over my bladder (although still not perfect). I also started pushing myself to incorporate more greens into my diet. I started taking supplements that would help try to heal my bladder and body. I take D-mannose to heal the bladder, Pumpkin Seed oil to help the bladder, Vitamin D3 because I’m deficient and low energy, PB8 Probiotics for gut health, Ashwaghanda Root for anxiety and stress relief, Magenisum for muscle relaxation and tension, Claritin for any potential allergens irritating my body or bladder, Peppermint capsules for bloating relief, and a multi-vitamin for women to have healthy skin, hair, and of course my overall body.

The combination of everything has started to provide some relief, but I know that I’m not yet at perfection. I can only hope I’m on the road to healing my body. Cutting out all the sugar and junk foods is something I truely wish I had done sooner. Not only did all of it cause me to gain weight most of my life, but it sure took a toll on my health. Taking care of your body is so important. As you get older, you’ll face struggles like myself if you don’t start sooner on caring for yourself and your general health.

[xiaq]

Well you've been doing research about redemption/recovery arcs for a paper or something, right? And you asked for a bunch of HP recs. What's your own head-canon for ignoring Rowlings "happily ever after"? I'd love to read that.

Yes, hello. I want you to know that I was thinking about this abstractly today and you may have just opened a can of worms because I started writing a thing.

The war was over. Or at least that’s what the papers said. They’d been saying it, for months, as if people needed reminding. Maybe they did. Maybe others found it just as easy to forget. Maybe they, like Harry, often ducked at sudden movements, flinched at loud noises, and sometimes, inexplicably, found breathing an uncertain and laborious task. Maybe they went to sleep with ghosts and woke up with guilt and spent a little too long, eyes closed, head submerged, in the bath. The war was over. But what happens to heroes when wars are over? When prophesies are satisfied and evil is defeated. Heroes are supposed to live happily ever after, Harry thinks. But he doesn’t know what that looks like. How that happens.There aren’t stories about that part. He wishes there were because he’s eighteen and living in an empty house with a second inheritance and a job offer and thousands of owl-post letters thanking him and asking him for interviews and—he feels simultaneously ancient and infantile.   He is so, so tired. But he also wants someone to tell him what to do. To tell him what comes after the fighting and the death and the supposed victory. Maybe the better question is: what happens to weapons when wars are over? Because that’s what he is, Harry realizes, and perhaps it is an embarrassingly delayed realization. After all, he had been carefully honed: by ignorance and cruelty and finally, maybe worst of all, affection. His abusive childhood was not just a thing overlooked or allowed, but curated, to make him more reckless, more desperate, more stupidly, fiercely, loyal. More willing to die. It was effective, though, wasn’t it? He’d saved the world. And now he was—he didn’t know. He took Kingsley’s offer to join the Aurors. Of course he did. It was expected. It only occurred to him later to ask why a traumatized teenager without completed schooling or any legitimate credentials would be given that dispensation. But by the time it occurred to him to ask, he already knew the answer. The ministry of magic did not need a weapon, not anymore. But they did need a figurehead. He was the boy who lived twice. The savior. Harry, photographed at crime scenes, returned widespread public approval to the ministry. Harry’s endorsement determined the success or failure of politicians’ runs. Of legislation. Of books and brooms and fucking soap. He shook hands and held his tongue. He learned the right lines. He wore the right clothes. But. You can put a sword on a wall. You can shine it and mount it on mahogany and show it off as nothing more than decoration. But it is still a sword. And Harry is still a weapon. Harry realizes this on an otherwise ordinary Monday, that starts, early, as most days do, with the lingering feeling of nightmare blood on his hands. When the day ends, the blood is real. When the day ends, so does the last of his willingness to pretend. So he goes home and he emails Hermione and he sends an owl with his resignation to Kingsley. He packs a bag, and floos to the international travel office. And he stands in front of the permanent portkey map and chooses the most obscure, ridiculous, location. Somewhere with more livestock than people. With no expectations. With enough space and open air that maybe his lungs will stop feeling claustrophobic in his chest. Where he won’t be able to hurt anyone. He picks somewhere no one will know his name. What happens to heroes when wars are over? In Harry’s case, they run away.**** What happens to villains when wars are over? Draco supposes that, in most cases, they die. That certainly seems to be the ministry’s objective. His father is dead, along with the majority of former death eaters sentenced to life in prison. Admittedly, death was perhaps preferable to the alternative of actually living in Azkaban. They’d given Draco his father’s ashes. A pitiable allowance, really. He wasn’t sure what to do with them. Lucius Malfoy should have been interred in the family crypt, but the marble mausoleum, its centuries of residents, and the estate they belonged to had all been seized by the ministry as reparations. So his father was left, without fanfare, a pound of dust in a wooden box that Draco handled with more quiescence than care. Draco can’t decide if his own punishment is worse. It was professed as a kindness—a mercy due to his youth: Five years without magic. But everyone in that courtroom knew it was equal to a death sentence. He was unlikely to survive one year, much less five. With his magic hobbled, his health and fortune gone, and a face as recognizable as his anathematized surname, Draco quickly finds himself thinking, not fondly, but certainly resignedly, of death. It would be easier. His mother, at least, is safe. And he is indebted to Potter for that. Thanks to Potter’s intercession at her trial, she avoided both prison time and magical impairment. She is a shadow of the woman she used to be, working for the first time in her life at a bookshop in Diagon alley. She lives in the tiny flat above it and is slowly selling the family jewelry collection, one agony at a time, to supplement her meager income. But she is alive. And people do not treat her too cruelly. Draco, though. The black snake on his arm is a testament to the ending he deserves. Six months after Lucius’ death, Draco visits his mother for the last time. He refuses to let her watch him die. He will not continue endangering her and his remaining friends with his presence. He is out of money, he cannot find a job, and the constant rattle in his lungs is getting hard to hide. So he brings his mother a flower at work and kisses her cheek and waves off her concern that he’s lost even more weight. Despite caution, someone catches him with a hex as he leaves the shop and he returns to Theo’s horrible muggle flat—where Draco has been sleeping on the couch—with bloody teeth and enough shame to last for the rest of his life. He packs his father with the meager remnants of his belongings and he walks to the international travel office. He stands in front of the permanent portkey map and chooses the cheapest, strangest, most rural, location. Somewhere that might as well have been called “Anonymity.” Somewhere without city streets or alleyways or preconceived notions. He picks somewhere no one will know his name. What happens to villains when wars are over? In Draco’s case, they run away.

[only-kiwi]

Demons V

okayyy let’s try this again. just posted this but it got deleted so it’s round two. i’m very proud of this chapter so i hope you love this. i love u all - mya x

TW: mentions of self harm, mentions of sexual assault, depression, eating disorder, use of drugs, swearing, age gap (19/24)

Three weeks. It had been three weeks and they hadn’t spoken to each other once. They didn’t even know why. Billie was racking her brain trying to find reasons as to why Harry wasn’t texting her. And Harry was racking his brain with things to say to her. It had all gotten a bit weird after the party.

The morning after the party, Billie woke up feeling worse than she had in a while. It was the guilt and shame of relapsing, she figured. There were so many voices and thoughts in her head and she wanted to scream. She couldn’t let Harry see that. Before, she could have told him any and everything and knew he wouldn’t just her but now, she only felt annoying and embarrassed when she spoke to him about these things. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t him making her feel this way. It was her making her feel this way.

Harry thought that maybe it was the kiss. He thought he made her uncomfortable. She enjoyed it, yes, but he was her only true friend and he ruined that. The party felt like it didn’t even happen, like it was all a dream. He woke up that next morning with Billie’s back to him and he couldn’t help but feel complete with her there. Now, his bed was cold and lonely like it used to be.

Harry would have felt better if he’d seen Billie and therapy but he didn’t and even though he was worried, he didn’t know what to do. She probably just didn’t want to see him. His thoughts were interrupted when his phone buzzed.

i fucked up.

He was worried. Three weeks of no talking and this is the first thing she says. It can’t have been that bad, he thought. But he doesn’t think she would have messaged him otherwise.

Are you okay?

something really bad happened. i wasn’t going to tell anyone but it’s all i can think about. idk what to do.

What did you do?

can i come over?

It didn’t take Billie long to get to Harry’s, maybe around ten minutes or so. Which was weird because it was usually and twenty minute drive from her house. Billie can’t have been at home when she messaged him, it worried him a bit. His doorbell rang and he ran to the door embarrassingly fast. Billie didn’t look good. She looked like she hadn’t slept, like she had been crying. Her eyes were tired and her hair was a mess. The last time she looked like this was the time Harry went to her house after she saw Willow with Claudia for the first time.

“Hey,” her voice was weak - broken, even. All Harry could do was pull the younger girl into w hug. Whatever she was going through, it seemed awful, and he needed to be there for her. As soon as his arms were wrapped around her she started crying. Neither of them knew how long they were standing there for but it didn’t matter. “I’m such an idiot.”

“What happened?” Harry asked slowly, pulling away to look at Billie. “Come sit, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Billie was sat on his sofa with a blanket wrapped around her as she waited for her tea and she suddenly felt at home. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and forget about what she had done. She didn’t want to talk about it, even though she knew she had to tell someone before she exploded. Harry’s voice made her jump slightly as he walked out of the kitchen and he instantly apologised and he placed the tea in her hands.

“I’m sorry to just spring this all on you. You probably have other things to worry about, I just-“

“You have nothing you be sorry for, B.” Harry assured her. “You don’t need to tell me what happened if you don’t want to, you know?”

“I know, but I have to tell someone. You’re the only one I can trust.” The corners of his lips curled up slightly at her words. “I haven’t been home in a week.”

“What? Where have you been? Were you safe? Are you hurt?”

“Willow texted me, saying that she needed to see me. And I know I shouldn’t have gone because I can’t keep letting her do this to me but I went anyway. She told me that her and Claudia broke up and she seemed really torn up about it. The same way I was with her. A part of me was actually glad she got to feel like that, it makes me sound bad but it’s true. But even after all of that, I wanted to be there for her.” Billie’s eyes were fixated on the mug in her hands, she refused to look at Harry. “I don’t know how it happened, or why it happened. We were both there, and we needed to feel something - anything. I’ve been with her all week.”

Harry nodded as she spoke, taking everything she said in. Billie had been sleeping with Willow again. He knew she was doing it as a way to feel, and he couldn’t fault her for that at all. He just wished she would stop doing this to herself. Harry had been in her shoes. After Robin died, he would find anyone he could just to make him forget and feel something.

“I get it, Billie, I really do. But why are you so torn up about it?”

“Last night she kept trying to do it again but I told her that I wasn’t up to it. She got annoyed at me so I let her do what she wanted. But I just felt so uncomfortable so I asked her to stop - she didn’t. I thought that maybe she didn’t hear me so I asked her again. And again.” Harry knew where this was going so he took the tea out of her hands and placed it on the coffee table, moving closer to her. “I don’t know what came over her or why she didn’t stop. I think she was so clouded by her emotions.”

“Don’t make excuses for her,” Harry said before Billie could continue, “what she did was disgusting. I’m really sorry that happened to you. No one deserves that. Did she hurt you in any way?”

Billie shook her head. “No, she just wouldn’t let me move.” She finally looked up at Harry, how eyes were glossed over with tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare. None of this is your fault, okay? She had no right to do that to you.”

“I never should have messaged her back. I never should have gone round. Maybe if I wasn’t so stupid I wouldn’t be here.”

It killed Harry to hear her blame herself, and he didn’t know what to do. So he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He was so selfish, thinking she was ignoring him because of a stupid kiss when she was really going through so much more.

“How about we go upstairs and take a nap, hm?” He asked softly, running his hand through Billie’s hair as she closed her eyes.

“Can we stay down here?” The tired girl muttered. “And can I borrow a jumper?”

Harry breathed out a light laugh, knowing how much she loved wearing his clothes. “Course you can.”

Billie was exhausted. She was broken, confused and hurt. This is a shitty thing to happen to anyone, but she hadn’t expected it to be Willow. Someone she used to be so in love with. She was heartbroken all over again, only this time it was so much worse. Being cuddled up to Harry the way she was now made her feel safe. She was warm and calm and she needed him around. She thought she might have gone completely crazy if she hadn’t texted him.

“My parents are probably so worried,” Billie realised. “Jacob, too.”

“You’ve not spoken to them?” He asked and Billie shook her head. “Where’s your phone?”

When Billie handed Harry her phone, it was already off and he wondered when she last had it on. He could only imagine how many calls and messages she’d gotten from her family. As soon as he turned it on, there were countless messages from her parents and bother asking her where she was and if she was okay. There was one from Jacob this morning saying that their parents were thinking about calling the police. There was a few from Willow, he knew he shouldn’t have read them but he couldn’t help it. Willow hadn’t stopped messaging her all night, it seemed. She asked where Billie went and if she was okay, she even apologised for being ‘too rough’. Harry wanted to be sick. He quickly sent a text to Jacob, making sure everyone knew Billie was safe.

Hi, Jacob it’s Harry. Billie’s safe, she’s been with me for about an hour. I’ll bring her home soon but she really needs some time to rest. I just thought I’d let you know that she’s okay.

Harry didn’t really know what to say. He figured that if Billie wanted to tell them what happened, she would, and it wasn’t his place to do so. He placed her phone on the coffee table and wrapped his arms around her once more. He felt her tighten her grip on him slightly, knowing she needed him close. He placed a kiss on the top of her head and wiped away the tears that were soaking his shirt.

“You’re strong, Billie.” He whispered. “You’ve got this.”

***

Billie woke up hours later with an awful headache and puffy eyes. Sleeping didn’t make her feel any better, it just made her forget about everything for a bit. She wouldn’t mind being able to sleep forever.

“Harry?” She called out, wondering why he hadn’t been next to her like she remembered.

Within seconds, he came rushing into the living room. “You’re awake,” he smiled, “are you okay? Do you need anything? I was just making dinner, thought you’d might like something to eat.”

She stared at him, “stop acting weird.”

“I’m not-“

“Yeah, you are. You’re acting like I’m gonna break or something. I’d really appreciate it if we could just act like everything’s normal. I don’t want you to walk on eggshells around me.” Billie told him. Harry didn’t realise he was actually weird, he just really wanted her to be okay.

“Sorry, I just want you to feel a bit better. So, dinner?” He tried to change the subject.

“I’m not really hungry, Harry.”

“You have to eat something. Even if it’s just a little bit. I know what you’re doing and it’s not good, don’t do this to yourself.” Harry’s eyes practically begged Billie to eat literally anything. Because if she didn’t, she would stop again. And no one wanted that.

“Okay,” she stuttered. She hadn’t eaten properly in a while, she’d been so wrapped up in Willow that food didn’t seem to matter. She didn’t even release how hungry she was.

Harry decided it would be a good idea to put a movie on while they were eating. It would distract Billie and she wouldn’t think about the food too much. He let her pick the movie, and she opted for her all time favourite - Love, Rosie.

“Fucking love this film.” Harry told her, making her smile slightly.

“It’s my favourite. I like how it’s not so straight forward.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most films make out love to be this amazing thing and it is but it’s also unrealistic. This shows that it’s not easy to fall in love, and even when you do, it’s still not easy. Things always get in the way.” She shrugged, sipping her water. Harry thought for a minute, and she was right. He wasn’t stupid, he knew love wasn’t what it seemed, but he didn’t think of the movie in that way. Billie’s next question, however, caught him off guard. “Have you ever been in love?”

He nodded, “once.”

“Kendall?”

“Oh, god. No!” He scrunched up his nose. “I liked her a lot but I definitely wasn’t in love with her.”

“Then who?”

He thought for a moment, wondering if he should tell her. Of course, she wouldn’t judge him. He had just never really told anyone other than his family and closest friends. He trusted her, though, and she had been so open with him that he figured he could to the same.

“His name was Elijah.” Harry smiled at the memory. “Long story short - we were in love, and then we weren’t. Well, he wasn’t.”

“How old were you?”

“Not much younger than you, actually, I was only eighteen. But we broke up when we were twenty.”

“I didn’t know you were bi. You’re bi, right? Or do you just prefer not to say?” Billie hated assuming someone’s sexuality, so even if Harry liked women and men, he might not have liked any labels.

“I prefer not to say, I don’t think labels really mean anything. Of course, they’re helpful to some people but for me, I don’t really need them.” Billie smiled, for some reason, she felt a lot closer to Harry... like she knew every part of him now. Maybe she was being silly, maybe it didn’t man that much to him. But to her, it was everything. “I think we should be getting you home now, B.”

Billie groaned, “Mum’s gonna drive me up the wall.”

“You did disappear for a week.”

“I wish I just stayed at home. None of this would have happened.” Billie picked at her nails.

“Hey, what did I say? This isn’t your fault, stop blaming yourself.”

“Easier said than done, H.”

***

Billie tried closing the door quietly so no one heard her come in. It was fairly late so she prayed everyone was already in bed.

“Billie?” She heard her father called from the kitchen. Shit. She walked into the kitchen, dreading the conversation she was about to have. Billie barely spoke to her dad anymore. After coming out to her family as bisexual, he took it the worst and was a lot harsher to her than he used to be. Billie decided it was best to keep out of each other’s way. “Where have you been?”

He was so calm, it was alarming. Usually, he always shouted at her. Maybe he was so mad, he couldn’t even yell. Either way, Billie was nervous. “Dad,” she started.

“No,” he shook his head, “you scared us, you know?”

She did? “I did?”

“Jacob’s barely slept because he was hoping you’d show up in the middle of the night. Your mum and I have been thinking the worst. Anything could have happened to you.”

“I know, but I was safe.” Mostly. “I don’t know why you even care.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t know why you even care.” Billie said, louder so her father could hear. She knew she shouldn’t have said that, she should have just apologised and gone to bed. But with everything on her mind, she had to let it out.

“Of course I care, why would you think that?”

“Because it’s true! This is the longest conversation we’ve had in months because all you ever do is ignore me or have a go. I get that I’m difficult to handle but sometimes - forget it.”

Her father’s heart broke. He hadn’t realised he was treating his daughter this way. Or maybe he did. “You can talk to me, B.” He choked out.

“Ever since I told you about Willow, I feel like you hate me. I know how you and mum feel about me being bi and I get it but it’s like since that conversation, you guys just hate me. Especially you, dad.” Billie had tears in her eyes and she was forcing them to stay in. She had never voiced these thoughts to anyone, not even Harry, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“I don’t- I could never.” The older man stuttered.

“It’s okay, dad.”

“No,” he shook his head, “it isn’t. You’re my daughter, Billie. My first born. I could and will never hate you, no matter what. I’m sorry I made you feel like that. There’s no excuse, and I wish I had something more to give you than just an apology.”

Billie was crying now, so was her father. She didn’t know how much she needed this until now. She was sure they would have some difficult times, but didn’t most families? But from now on, she knew that her father cared about her and loved her. He pulled her in for a hug and they stayed like that for a while, Billie can’t remember the last time she hugged her dad.

“I love you, Billie.” Her father told her, and she looked up at him like he was crazy. He hadn’t told her he loved her in years. “All the things happening in your life are things you can’t control, and it was stupid of me to think otherwise. You can’t help who you love, or how your brain works. Nothing is your fault and I’m sorry again for making you feel the way you do.”

“Thanks, dad.” She smiled. “And I love you, too.”

“Y-you don’t have to tell me, but where were you this week?”

“I was with Willow.”

“Oh? Are you back together? Maybe we can meet her this time.” Billie could tell he was trying, but her heart ached.

“We’re not back together. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again if I’m honest.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” she lied before changing the subject. “Are you working tomorrow?”

“Decided to work from home. Why don’t we do something? Just the two of us, like how we used to.”

“I would love that, dad.”

Her father smiled, and so did she. She was truly happy right now. The older man announced that he was going to bed, telling Billie not to stay down there too long and to get some sleep as well. She told him she would be up soon, she just wanted a cup of tea before bed (and maybe a snack). As the kettle boiled, her phone buzzed.

Sleep well. Remember that nothing is your fault and you don’t deserve any of this. You’re amazing. H x

Billie smiled at her phone. She liked Harry more than she was willing to admit, she just wished it wasn’t all happening now. When he said things like this though, it was hard not to like him like that. You’re amazing. He thinks I’m amazing. It was beyond her that he could think this way about her, because she didn’t think she was amazing at all. She wondered if the kiss meant anything to him, because he hadn’t mentioned it. Did he like her? Did he like the kiss? Or was he just sad and lonely?

[andcurioser]

Avengers: Endgame - Here, Have Some Thoughts

At last, it is time to discuss Endgame. I’m still not totally sure how I feel about the movie. It’s the sort of thing I think will take time and rewatches to be totally certain of. But I want to get some stuff down here as a starting point, and then see how my opinions develop as time goes on. So, let’s ramble. 

General Thoughts:

I’ve been trying to figure out my overall sense of it, and I can’t really decide if it was a letdown or not. I don’t think it was explicitly disappointing, but the fact of the matter is, it was never going to be everything we wanted. It never could be. The best way I can put it is this: throughout the past year, I’ve had a lot of fun theorizing about what could happen in Endgame. Infinity War set up enough exciting possibilities, and as a fandom person, I specialize in coming up with things the narrative could do/could have done but didn’t. So the second that one potential plot was locked in as the one they were going with, there was a certain amount of wistfulness at the paths we weren’t going to take. That’s no one’s fault. They had to decide on something, and this was essentially what I’d expected for a long time. Still. When trying to figure out today if I feel like the movie delivered on a general level, I can’t really say it didn’t, but I can’t say I feel wholly satisfied either. Alas. That’s what fanfic is for.

So to that end: the movie was fun. It was a lot of fun to watch. After all that buildup, I was just tremendously excited to see what was actually going to happen. It was an enjoyable watch, and parts of it were quite good. Other parts, less so. I think they did some things very right and had a few very big misses. But I appreciate what they were trying to do, and I appreciate that I saw the care in at least most of it. They dropped the ball hard on a few things, but at least on first watch, I could feel the import of it all. If nothing else, it had the tricky task of placing a capstone (lol, Cap stone) on the extraordinarily ambitious experiment of the MCU, so if I feel a little residual malaise afterwards, well. At least I know they tried. 

When I think back on the movie, it seems like it naturally breaks into three parts, roughly corresponding to each hour of the movie. I think these three parts are uneven in quality, but they all had their strengths and weaknesses. To break them down: 

Part One, which I basically categorize as everything up to the Time Heist

Part Two: the Time Heist itself

Part Three: everything post-Snap Deux

And just as a last note, I’m sort of grouping the Russos and Markus and McFeely into one big team, so when I say the Russos, I’m usually crediting (or blaming) everyone in said team. Just a shorthand. 

For your mercy, since this became genuinely embarrassingly long, the rest is under the cut. I wish I could have collapsed each part into sections, but tumblr is so very limited and I couldn’t figure out if there was a way to do it. So this is what we’ve got. I split it up into sections under headers so you can scroll through to whatever part might interest you, so hopefully that helps its readability at least a bit. Beware: there is a veritable essay under the cut. But let’s bravely forge forward, friends. Onward! 

Part One

The movie was a little slow to start. On the one hand, I truly do appreciate that they tried to give the characters introspective moments instead of having it all be flash bang battle boom. That’s what we’re always asking for, and it’s what these movies need a lot more of. Unfortunately, I’m not 100% convinced they nailed most of said character scenes. I can’t remember everything - after all, I’ve only seen it the once, but I hope to shore up my evidence upon rematch - but while some of it worked for me, some of it didn’t. To make it even more complex, sometimes that happened within the same scene. Prime example:

The Steve and Nat scene. I loved it for Nat. I didn’t like it for Steve. In a very confusing way, this movie both did good and did very dirty by both Nat and Steve. I thought Nat’s characterization was very good. At last, her arc was focused on who I really think she is as a person: someone who cares very deeply about the people she’s let into her life, and someone who puts tremendous pressure on herself to fix everything. Her pain at her failure worked for me. Her inability to let go of what happened tracked. She was vulnerable and emotional but not in a way that betrayed the steel of her character. More than anything, she was allowed to be a person and not just the Sexy Femme Fatale with a snarky line, oh boys, eye-roll hair-flip hip-sway. I’ve said it before and this movie just further proved it: I only trust the Russos with Natasha. They’re the only ones who get her, who let her be multifaceted, who let her be whole. I love them for that, and this movie delivered me Nat in the way I was hoping it would. That’s a definitive Good in its favor. 

Alas. The Steve of it all. I have a lot of things to say about Steve in this movie, and I’m still trying to work it all out. His was the journey I was most focused on, understandably, and the one I was both most anticipating and certainly most dreading. Steve was barely in Infinity War, so I was very curious to see what they’d do with him when he took up a proper leading role again. And...I’m just. I don’t know. It wasn’t bad, mostly (aside from one very large asterisk, but we’re gonna talk about that a lot more later). But it wasn’t great either. It was. Fine. He wasn’t explicitly out of character, but he didn’t feel so essentially Steve like he did in the first two Cap movies. He had great moments, and he had meh ones. I think the scene with Natasha highlights a lot of what felt a little off about Steve for me. In theory, a scene in which Steve and Natasha commiserate would be my absolute bread and butter. But while Natasha worked so well for me, Steve seemed, if not wrong, still a little off. He seemed distant, a bit cold. I guess I just didn’t buy that Steve wouldn’t have been right there with Natasha during those five years. The implication that he’s been largely absent struck an off chord for me. If Nat’s the one in the chair managing the team, Steve’s the first person she’s sending out. Even more, Steve’s the guy in the kitchen, making her a cup of tea to make sure she’s hydrating. Their friendship was there, but it didn’t feel as vital as it did in Civil War. And it was essentially dropped after this scene, which is no good at all. So I don’t know. I think I need to see this scene again - it’s possible I’m not remembering it entirely well. But the fact that it wasn’t a scene I remembered as a standout means there was something missing. 

As for the rest of Part One, I thought it was a bit slow at first. I liked that they didn’t waste much time in going to get Thanos, because that tracked for me, but after the 5 Years Later title card, it started to drag a little. I did like the sense of atmosphere it established, though. Even if the dark, looming haze was a little pathetic fallacy - I suppose Thanos theoretically could control the weather, but I doubt he was bothering - it made for an appropriately effective setting. But Part One felt a little like it was spinning its wheels til Scott showed up. Speaking of which: 

I loved the Scott stuff! Paul Rudd is just so intensely likable, and I think they did a surprisingly good job of incorporating the more lighthearted caper-y feel of the Ant-Man movies into what is usually a more serious Almighty Doom Avengers vibe. But even more, I thought that Paul Rudd did a really good job with the emotional stuff. He’s a good actor! He excels at comedy, but he’s also so good at that stuff because he gets at the emotional cores too. He wasn’t overdoing anything, but when he reunited with Cassie, when he referenced Hope, I felt it. He did great. Scott’s stuff was pretty universally good. 

The Hulk stuff...not so much. On the one hand, it was refreshing to have Bruce/Hulk to be more comedic than ‘woe, for I am a Monster,” but this was...um. Not my favourite. It was just silly. Like, not bad bad. But I definitely didn’t need it. The whole lunch scene was as close to cringe as this movie came, and it was pretty close. I guess I like what it says thematically that Bruce was able to meld the parts of him that had always been in conflict, but I suppose I was hoping for more after the Infinity War storyline. I wanted to know why Hulk refused to come out in IW. I was intrigued by that in a way I hadn’t been intrigued by pretty much any of Bruce’s story lines until then, and the fact that that all disappeared and we got this instead was, well. Let’s use the intellectual term and call it a bummer. 

That being said, Brulk (what I suppose I’ll be calling him from now on) immediately worked better when he went into Thor’s storyline. I maintain that Thor makes everyone better, but I never actually enjoyed any of Bruce’s arcs until Ragnarok, and this movie proved that, unsurprisingly, Thor elevates Brulk like he elevates Rocket and almost every other previously lackluster character he touches. it’s a talent. 

I...did not expect Thor’s strolling to be. That. I really, really didn’t. That was the one true surprise of the movie, frankly. It’s not what I would have picked for him. But I guess I’m not exactly mad about it? For me, Thor is at the point where any storyline, no matter how ridiculous, works for him. Thor’s so good at this point, and Hemsworth is so charming, that I really buy whatever they want to sell me with him (not all they’s. Not Josh Wheat-thin. But we were nowhere near that level of awful). And to be fair, though this was all mostly played for comic relief, I can’t say it’s not also warranted. Thor clearly went overboard with the self-isolation and coping mechanisms, which isn’t strictly in character. But he went through so much, such an outlandishly awful string of events, that I can see how it would break him. It’s a weird way to process all that trauma, but they did the work to get him to a place where I could see him reacting like this. Again, not something I ever expected, and certainly not something I would have written for him. But after all that? I mean, I get it. And the most Thor thing about it was that his version of a breakdown was still sweet and kind to others. He wasn’t great for his people, but he’d given them a home and set them up with leaders who could take care of them, so if he retreated, it wasn’t really abandonment at that point. And when people came to see him, he wasn’t dark and dramatic and all ‘no one can understand my pain.’ He’s not that guy. He’s just too innately good. So even though it was certainly odd, and definitely not my favourite storyline, at least they kept the core of him intact? I’m bright siding here, but still. It’s fair. 

Though truly, I have to say: there’s something about this that I find mildly annoying. Thor and Chris Hemsworth are extremely objectified, and I’m certain that this was intended as a dismantling of the expectations we have for Thor to be the sex god that he is. But also...I don’t know, man. After so many years of us having to endure oversexualized female characters, you couldn’t let us ladies have just this one thing? The one time a male character is openly subjected to the female gaze in any long-term way, and it becomes a joke to remove that? I don’t actually think there was any ill will there. But I do think it speaks to the continuing inability of male writers and directors to really get it. To be absolutely fair, the Russos objectify women way less than the other films do, but still. They might think it’s funny to make fun of a character’s broad sexual appeal appreciated by a female audience by undermining it, but really, it’s just more of the same. 

Yay Korg! Yay Valkyrie being the real leader! Boo Valkyrie still not having a name (seriously, it’s her JOB TITLE. She was one of many Valkyries. Give her a name, for fuck’s sake.)! 

Tony being such a dick at the compound was a surprising move. It was a bad look, but I was intrigued that they’d let their golden boy act that badly. Tony’s always had such deep flaws, but they’ve always been simultaneously excused within the text, so to have him be so rough without excuse was interesting. Of course it was setting up for his ultimate redemption arc, but still. And then cut to 5 Years Later, and finally. This is the TonyI was promised in Iron Man 3, the Tony I still cared about. I liked him again in Infinity War, but I needed to see how they’d follow up to cement it. I’ll never love him like I do some of the others, but the only Tony I ever wanted to invest in is the Tony we finally got, the one who was fully and properly committed to Pepper, and the one who did the work not for his ego or his lack of impulse control, but who did it after a mature and honest discussion with his partner about the pros and cons, about what he was risking and what sort of person it would make him. This movie was primarily a sendoff of characters, and I’m not sure how many were supposed to be fully sent off. Btu there were two characters as the main objective, and the movie at least nailed one of them. 

I was so overwhelmingly ready for Tony Stark, billionaire playboy philanthropist, to go to bed, and for Tony Stark, devoted husband and father who uses his intellect responsibly and thoughtfully, to come forth. He got to keep an edge, but it tempered the parts of him that made him so easy to dislike. It’s too late for me to be a full Tony convert at this point, but I enjoyed him in this movie, and thought he was served better than most, which was 100% to be expected. But frankly, what some people think is a good sendoff is not always what I think is, so I was worried. And I was right to be worried, but surprisingly, not about Tony. More on that later. 

The time travel tests were fun, but I still found everything involving Brulk to be kind of painful to watch, so. Not saying I didn’t laugh here or there, though. 

Was Endgame sponsored by Audi?? Seriously, why was there so much Audi product placement. 

I’m not sure I even want to touch whatever was going on with Clint. I don’t think it was handled particularly well. In theory, the idea that one of them snapped (lol, sorry) at the unfairness of the random dissolving and decided to take out the bad people who should have been snapped away is interesting. But it was so barely glanced at, so underdeveloped, and then proceeded to go nowhere. We were clearly supposed to be concerned at what Clint was doing, but then he suffered no consequences for it? No reckoning, no moment of remorse, no acknowledgement that he’d let himself go too far? What was it all for? I buy that Nat would sacrifice herself to save hi, but it was an extra bitter pill to swallow given that I’m not entirely sure this version of Clint was worth saving. Certainly giving up Nat for him was a price too high. 

The Biggest Flaw

One of the things that disappointed me the most was the lack of presence for the characters who were lost in Infinity War. For a movie that was supposedly about loss and a drive to regain, there was absolutely nothing specific about it? So the whole mission read as generic hero-type “we need to save everyone because it’s the Right Thing to Do,” rather than a need to get their friends and teammates back. Of course the team wants to bring all the millions of people back, and of course they feel a responsibility to them because they had failed to protect them. But where was the sense of loss about their personal friends? Where was the feeling of lacking, that they had to adjust because the people they’d been fighting alongside for years were now gone? Where was their guilt that they’d not only let down the world at large, but the people whose backs they’d promised to always have? I think that’s part of why the first hour felt a little lacking to me. They were all so ad, but about what? The personal stakes were completely removed. The only one who had any degree of it was Clint with his family, but we don’t care about Clint’s family beyond an abstract familiarity. I suppose Tony had his moment with Peter’s picture, which served as an effective motivation. But what about the others? Why were Wanda, Sam, T’Challa, hell, even Vision, never even mentioned? The people they’d lost, the soldiers who’d fallen. That’s what should have made this movie different from the other Avengers ones: not that the team lost a big battle, but that they lost so many of their own because of it. That’s what hit so hard in Infinity War, and why it felt unique. And they didn’t pick that line up again. Such a missed opportunity. 

It’s taken me too long to write all this and I’m starting to forget everything, so fuck it, let’s move on to Part Two. 

Part Two

This was unquestionably the most fun hour of the movie. It's also probably the hour that's going to hold up the best in retrospect, simply because it was a lot of fun and had a good amount of drive without feeling overwrought. A lot of it was gimmicky, but it was the kind of gimmicky that I'm fine with in this type of movie. It was an unrepentant trip down memory lane, complete with all the cameos that get people so excited, and it was a little silly, but it was also a good time. If it was a bit scattered, it was also nostalgic and served as a neat little retrospective of where we've been. So, while it was definitely a little trite in its execution, it was also a lot of fun, so I'm cool with it.

I was highly suspicious of who was assigned to which stone because I knew it was setting up for more meta things rather than practicality. Steve and Tony had to go together to have one last bonding trip, and to be somewhere where they could meet their respective Important People from the past. Nat and Clint had to go together because they were the only team who would be resonant enough for a sacrifice (it couldn't be Steve and Tony that early in the movie, and they would never let Steve and Nat be a team even though by rights they would be). There were definitely more logical times to get some of the stones (seriously, why wouldn't they grab the Tesseract when it was just hanging out in that wall in Norway? Or when it was safely on Asgard in the vaults before Loki took it? Or or or, etc. etc. They chose a window that gave them about 30 seconds to enact the plan. I know, I know the first Avengers movie is a soft spot for most people. But logically, that was very nah.). But whatever. 

The cameos! There were so many, and they were surprisingly high-profile. I had always expected to see Loki again in pretty much this exact scenario, but I did not expect for Robert fucking Redford to make a two-minute cameo. Damn, son. Once I realized we were in the big leagues of cameo season, it was fun to guess who might make an appearance, and even more fun to see people I never would have expected. 

You know who I was surprisingly happy to see? The Ancient One. We rewatched Dr. Strange as part of my Marvel marathon a few weeks ago, and as thoroughly mediocre as that movie is, I forgot how much fun she is in that movie. Tilda Swinton is just really good. So she was kind of a delight. I still don't get her absolute faith in Stephen Strange, of all people, but I liked her scene even if I still don't really understand what the weird wizards do. It was also really nice to get to see Mark Ruffalo instead of Brulk for a bit. 

Seriously, Robert Redford! And holy shit, Rumlow! Super didn't expect that. And that elevator scene! I totally expected a repeat of the Winter Soldier elevator fight, though I'm not actually mad we didn't get one (it would never live up to the original, the Best).

Loved seeing Frigga again! I don't know that I buy Thor being that unable to rise to the occasion, and his therapy interlude with his mom was kind of a weird left turn. That being said, I liked it, and I'm happy they got to have that time, and I love Frigga and want to bask in her wiseness and perennial chillness always. It was sweet. 

I was also totally shocked to see Natalie Portman again (though I think I saw a headline that it was actually just old footage? I haven't confirmed that, but it would make more sense than Natalie Portman coming back for all of four seconds of filming), and I 1000% appreciated her (mostly off-screen) request for pants as her Asgardian wardrobe (which was subsequently denied). I love Jane. I miss Jane. 

So this now paves the way for random Loki appearances in the future, yes? Ngl, I grinned when Loki just noped out of space, and I'm all for vague possibilities of further Loki. Even if it raises a ton of questions about the space-time continuum (seriously, we're gonna talk about that), it was still fun.

I actually liked the Howard/Tony stuff. It was definitely a little saccharine and on the nose, but not too much. It worked, and it was sweet, and it gave Tony a nice moment that I think only really worked because he'd finally become the more mature version of himself. I buy that the Tony of 5 Years Later had a better understanding of Howard, and tried to give comfort instead of taking his own absolution. The Tony of all the other movies would have made this interlude about how he could assure himself of his father's love. This Tony just tried to connect in a way that seemed unselfish. While I was still lowkey stressed because, seriously, you guys are gonna get caught if you're just strolling out in the open like that, we know they're looking for you, I still liked this part well enough. 

Steve and Peggy, though...look. I don't know. We're gonna go much more into detail about this later, and some of this is clearly my own bias. But a) I do not care for the weird clearly film screenshot photo on Peggy's desk, which is a 100% no, and b) something about the chance of it all irked me. I'd buy Steve seeing Peggy's office and going in, but that he happened to hide in there? Nah. Not my fave. And him gazing wistfully at her...like, in theory, romantic? But I was already certain about where we were going with this, so all I could see were the problems in store, and I couldn't really enjoy it. Much more on that later. 

For the Agent Carter fans, I certainly appreciated the Jarvis cameo. I still haven't watched the show, but nonetheless. Cute. 

Steve vs. Steve

Look, I should have known better than to think that an Avengers movie could go without a big set piece internal conflict fight. This one was slightly less egregious because at least it made sense, but man. Every Avengers movie (Civil War included) features some big fight scene between friends and colleagues, and I’ve never known why Marvel is so into that when there are so many actual bad guys to fight. This scene at least led to some funny moments, but for real, why can’t these movies resist having the Avengers fight themselves, and in this case, literally themselves? I’ve always found it baffling. 

Meanwhile, more of me close-reading things that probably aren’t there: I like to think that the absolute bland stodginess of 2012 Steve is a veiled reference to Josh Wheat-thin’s paper-thin one-dimensional understanding of Steve Rogers. Maybe I’m giving the Russos far too much credit for this (I probably am), but Russos-brand Steve knocking down Wheat-thin’s Not!Steve was a physical manifestation of something I’ve long intellectually felt, so. It’s only that reading that kept me from sighing at how boring 2012 Steve was for a thousand years. So I’m sticking to it. 

That is America’s ass. 

Much like with RDJ and Tony, Steve has always been at his finest when they let Chris Evans and his charm bleed through. So the “I could do this all day,” *sigh( “yeah, I know,” was a clear comic highlight of the movie for me. That sounded like something Chris would say in an interview. Chris Evans is a funny guy! His actual personality (at least his public personality) is what won me over to him long before I started to like Steve. So whenever these movies let him be Captain America as played by Chris Evans rather than dull manifestation of watered down American values whatever that means Captain America, played by Man Who Is Not Robert Downey Jr., I consider it a win. That’s one of the Russos’ great strengths: that they let Steve be fun and quippy too. Not as much as RDJ gets to be, naturally, but still, their Steve gets to have a personality intend of being just a haphazard pile of tropes. The Russos nail him in varying and inconsistent degrees, less well in the bigger movies and never so well as in Winter Soldier, but at least they understand that you can have more than one character with a personality, unlike certain unnamed hack writer/directors whom I shall never stop excoriating. 

You know what I didn't love, tbh? Steve using "Bucky is alive" as a cheat phrase to shock 2012 Steve into letting him go. In theory, I can appreciate it. Steve knows that the only thing that can make him freeze is a reference to Bucky. It's a callback to what he talks about in Civil War - one mention of Bucky and he becomes 16 again, etc. etc. I get it. I understand that the Russos are sort of trying to throw a bone to the Steve/Bucky fans out there. However. Given Bucky's complete lack of presence in the rest of the film, it felt cheap? I never fooled myself so thoroughly into thinking the Steve/Bucky crew would ever get anything but crumbs, and that's exactly what they're giving us. But it's about what I discussed before: there was no feeling of loss throughout the entire movie, no lingering presence of the friends who'd been snapped away. I never thought they were going to have scenes of Steve caressing a picture of Bucky and weeping. But Steve didn't seem to care at all about who specifically was gone beyond a vague "we let down the world," so when he said this, it felt like a trick. It felt like manipulation, which it was, but it made Steve seem cold and dispassionate. Like he was playing his past, more emotional self. Idk, Steve was just so weird to me in this movie. He had awesome moments and then 30 seconds later, would have moments like this, which don't feel like Steve at all. Because he uses this cheap shot, gets 2012 Steve knocked out, and then doesn't follow it up with anything relevant. Just makes a quip and bounces. And don't get me wrong, I laughed at the quip! I did! But it further diminished the moment before, how he'd so casually thrown out this bit of information that had been so important to him in previous movies. It was his entire character arc in Winter Soldier and Civil War. And here, it felt meaningless to him, and the rest of the movie sort of supported that reading, and man. It just made me sad. 

And now we come to Natasha and Clint and the damn Soul Stone. 

First of all, a lot of this scene was repetitive. I get that they have to understand how it works, but man, we just did this. 

Next, did Nebula seriously not prepare any of them for this possibility? I suppose she couldn’t have known for sure how it worked, but afterwards, she sure seemed to connect the dots pretty quickly. Sure would have been logical for her to at least mention that there might be something shady going on over there. 

Ok, so. The sacrifice. I don't mind how they played it. One of the most in-character things in the whole damn movie was Nat and Clint physically fighting to sacrifice themselves to save the other. It works. HOWEVER. I really just...can't with the Soul Stone. I think it's so flawed. I understand the notion of a soul for a soul, but sacrificing someone else's soul? That's not yours to give. I don't understand why the Soul Stone would decide that you understand its power because you're willing to kill. And even if you have to specifically kill someone you love, that doesn't make you responsible, it makes you a zealot, which is exactly what Thanos is. I know this is how it went in Infinity War. But in the ensuing year, I've thought about it a lot, and I became convinced that there must be another way, because the logic is so bad. So I came up with the idea that the Soul Stone will also reward people who understand that the initial deal is bullshit and won't give someone else for their own agenda. And during this scene in Endgame, I basically started to write my own version, in which whoever won the fight to sacrifice themselves, not for their own designs, but to achieve the true greater good that they wouldn't even be alive to see, would be rewarded with the Soul Stone. So if Nat jumps off, sacrificing herself for her friend, to save him and save the universe, she would become the master of the Soul Stone. This makes sense to me. This is a cool twist. And once I thought of this, I became so sure that this made so much more sense than the Soul Stone rewarding murderers that I wasn't even able to fully feel the emotion of it all. I was just surprised that I'd been wrong, even though of course I'd been wrong. They weren't going to do something clever like that if they had a chance for an emotional sacrifice. I got too in my own head about it all. So I had to react very quickly to a scene that was already ending because I just wouldn't take the signs for what they were. 

Nat was always at risk, and I can't be mad about how she went. Of course she'd sacrifice herself for Clint, and for everyone else. But as I mentioned above, is this really the version of Clint that Natasha should give herself up to save? It's not out of character for her, and hell, at least Clint brought up what he'd done for the only time in the movie, but still. This wasn't a good trade to me. To quote another super lady I love, I suppose it's not about what they deserve, but still. 

But most of all, the problem was that once again, we had to sacrifice a female character for the good of the men. Individually, neither of the Soul Stone sacrifices were bad choices. In Infinity War, it could only be Gamora for Thanos, and in Endgame, Nat's arc had been building up to this. It wasn't a bad sendoff for a character like Nat. But on the macro level, just. I'm tired. And all it does for me is pinpoint the problems with having such a lack of female representation in the movies. They're doing better now than they were. Truly, they are. But after Nat dies, we have this scene of five men being sad and angry and throwing things, and it just drives home again and again that Nat was the token girl in the Avengers. There couldn't be another woman in that reaction scene, because in 2012, Marvel wouldn't invest enough in female characters beyond the Only Girl, so that's what we're left with now. If we want to foreground the original six Avengers, and we want to give Nat a dramatic death to finalize her journey, all we can do is filter that through manpain because those are the only characters we have left. And I know this is an old wound. It's futile to rail against it, and at least Marvel's kind of trying a little now with their newer movies. But the rot is still there, deep in the foundations, and it makes this stuff hard. Nat has as much right as anyone else to get a dramatic sacrificial death. But I didn't need both the Soul Stone sacrifices to be both the token girls in two sausage fest teams. I'm simply tired. 

Beyond that, when Clint comes back and the team reacts to Nat's death, Brulk didn't deserve the first reaction. He just didn't. At that moment, I was literally sitting there thinking, if they don't cut to Steve, I swear to god...and they did eventually. But Steve and Nat's relationship was so much more developed and meaningful than Bruce/Nat, so it frustrated me that Brulk got to have the big reaction. And frankly, it frustrated me that once Clint showed up, Steve and Nat's friendship was essentially dropped. I like Nat/Clint. I do. Their friendship worked for me in Avengers 1 in a way that pretty much none of the other relationships in that movie did. But Clint isn't Nat's best friend anymore. I don't begrudge them getting their moments, but I do begrudge the movie for sidelining Steve/Nat after that one scene, which already sidelined Steve/Nat in its implications. Frustrating, and out of character for the Russos. 

Not to mention the scene of them being sad together was very meh. I don't go for manly displays of sad aggression, even if you are part-Hulk. And their whole handwaving of 'she just can't be brought back, just deal with it!' Weak. I don't care for being told to just accept something you haven't explained. I think we all hoped there would be a more nuanced portrayal of whatever the Soul Stone is, shadowy and mysterious as it seems, and there just wasn't. We had to take it all at face value. I'm not one for willfully undoing deaths, because of course that lowers the stakes, but still. If you have an all-powerful gauntlet that can make and unmake a universe, you're gonna have to explain to me why you can't bring someone back, even if the circumstances were particular. Clint is not some expert on the Soul Stone. He just decided this was how it had to be just...cause. Nope. 

The Snap

This was, if nothing else, interesting. It was perhaps closest to the detail that we fic writers crave, because they actually discussed who would wield the gauntlet and why. It was akin to something I'd write for this scene, though it went differently than my own would (will...you'll see.). And I'm glad that at least the arguments were logical. I always assumed it should be Thor but wouldn't be Thor, though I don't know that I buy them sidelining him like that. I think he could have handled it. But whatever. I had assumed that for thematic reasons, they'd make it be Steve or Tony, so I guess I appreciated that Brulk did it, because frankly, the gamma radiation explanation made sense. I didn't think he was a frontrunner going into this movie, but the reasoning was logical and sound, something I wish there'd been more of in some of the big events of the movie. 

What I don't understand? The gauntlet itself. I don't really see how a random Iron Man suit glove would be enough to channel the Infinity Stones? They never fully explained how Thanos's gauntlet worked, but presumably metal forged from a collapsing neutron star would be formidable and unusually strong. I get that the Iron Man suits are fancy, but they're still just Earth metals. This has always been an inconsistency in the MCU that's bothered me - Tony's suits have intermittently been able to stand extreme displays of force only to become vulnerable to the elements a few scenes later - but this still seemed a bit handwave-y. It certainly won't make or break the movie for me, but hell, if I'm airing every single thought I had during this movie, which judging by the length of this thing I sure seem to be, well. Might as well mention it. 

I've forgotten to discuss all the Thanos/Gamora/Nebula 2014 stuff. Frankly, that's because it was the least interesting part of this segment. It was fine, but when I figured that Nebula would have a big role to play in Endgame based on what I'd heard about the comics, I didn't think it would be to our heroes' detriment. I grant that it wasn't her fault, but man. Everything that went wrong did so because of Nebula, and that's a rough thing to put on one character. 

This part also falters because in retrospect, that was another aspect of the time travel set up that failed. We're gonna go into the time travel problems in a devoted section, but if anything didn't make sense even at the time of watching, it was this stuff, which made it hard to love. Also, I've had more than enough scenes of Nebula either being annoying or tortured, and I just. Don't care. I've warmed to her more lately, but I'm still not invested in any of that stuff. I stand by my statement that Gamora is the only one worth anything in the entire Guardians franchise, and while it was nice to see her again, I don't love all this stuff going wrong because of an inconveniently timed technical glitch. 

The abrupt and brutal transition from Part Two to Part Three was intense, and I was into it. Part Three had some problems, but a lack of excitement certainly wasn’t one of them. So let’s get to it. 

Part Three

The momentum of the big battle was pretty excellent. Once it got going, it didn't stop, and if this is what these movies were building towards, well, it certainly did the job. As epic battles go? This one was really good. I think it got that edge because for once, we genuinely didn't know who would make it out. Shows and movies always tease that this one could be the one, no really, we mean it, so much stakes, such high stakes! And they never follow through. But we knew someone wasn't getting out of this one. It was even money at this point whether it was Steve or Tony or Thor (yeah, I said it. I wasn't sure about him), but I think we all knew that all of them surviving after all of this would be a cheat, so. Someone was going. And yeah, we all fretted about it in Infinity War, but we always knew there was another movie to go. This one is the confirmed end for some of them. So it wasn't a matter of if anymore, but when and how. And that, finally, made this battle feel breathless in a way that none of the others could. It's not that I'm bloodthirsty. I am absolutely not someone who thinks you need to kill off major characters in order for it to mean something. But to genuinely not know what was going to happen for once? That's an experience that a jaded over-analytical girl like me doesn't get a lot, and it's pretty unbeatable in terms of anticipation.

Having them split up like that from the get-go was fun. Clint clutching the gauntlet and running through the hallways away from those awful unexplained monsters was exciting as hell. Scott running to save the ones trapped in the flooding basement was great. I don't really understand why Thanos was just sitting there, but having Steve, Thor, and Tony as the ones face to face with him was smart, because those were the main guys, so you never had that sense that nothing important could happen yet. The big characters were present at the epicenter from the get-go. 

The billowing dark smoke and crumbling rubble were an excellent atmosphere. If nothing else, this movie did scenery very right. It felt apocalyptic without being unexplained. 

The Fight

The thing about me and fight scenes: I get super tired of formulaic, generic fighting. Big car chases, too much CGI, muddled directing, it bores me. The first couple of Avengers movies were like that, which made the fight scenes eminently skippable to me. But a good fight scene? I love it. I absolutely love good choreography, sharp directing, the way it can feel like a dance. This is why I can't say enough about the Winter Soldier fight scenes. They're exquisitely put together, and I find them utterly invigorating every time, no matter how many times I've seen them. This fight scene? It was somewhere in the middle, but it edged more towards the good end of the spectrum than the bad. The Russos are very good at directing fight scenes. They're not always awesome at articulating the reasons for said fight scenes (looking at you, Civil War), but they are adept at making fight scenes feel coherent and exciting. This is often because they understand that you need a focus. The focus can shift, but in every aspect, you need to have someone you're following, and you need to be able to understand what's going on. And more than anything, I think the Russos are good at centering on the physical toll that a fight takes out of the characters. Sure, there's a ton of CGI. You can't get away from that with a Marvel movie. But they're great at filtering it all through the perspective of a character, and they're best at it with Steve. They get right to the core of the grittiness of Steve in a battle. You feel his struggle, you feel how much it hurts when he gets knocked down but still gets up, again and again. This was not my favourite battle scene in the MCU, but I liked it a lot, because you feel like it means something. It isn't just an excuse to have cool explosions and CGI weapons going wild. This battle said something about who the people fighting it are, and that's the best case scenario for what this scene was going to be. 

I can't remember everything about the battle. I'll have to fill in some of the blanks upon rewatch. But hey, it was fun. I don't really understand why Thanos's weird blade thing was so powerful. I really don't know why it was able to slice through Steve's shield like that. But if I try to close read a battle too deeply, well, there lies madness, so. There was enough going on in distinct sections of the field that it kept things interesting. I knew everyone was going to show up at some point (thanks, Sebastian Stan, for spoiling that, like, a full year ago), but I didn't feel like we were spinning our wheels til then. And let's be real, most of it was Steve vs. Thanos, which was a good time for all sorts of reasons. Especially this one: 

STEVE AND MJOLNIR!!!!! Listen. Listen. I know I'm being played to. I know this is just one of those overly manufactured moments specifically designed to make you go "fuck yeah!" I knowwwwww. But goddamnit, it worked. Boy, did it work on me. The way they directed it, the way they hadn't tipped us off too much (like they did with some other things), all of it...I did go fuck yeah. Fuck yeah, man. That's my guy with Thor's spare hammer, because he's worthy and he's wonderful and he's gonna fuck Thanos up with it. And I remember when this stuff was first teased way back in Ultron, it annoyed me, because a) I didn't care about Steve at the time, and b) it didn't make any sense. Mjolnir is supposed to choose the person who is worthy to rule Asgard, and that was already Thor. Why would the hammer switch allegiances, and what, would Steve then rule Asgard? But at this point, Thor's got a new weapon, and more than anything, Asgard is gone. The hammer's choice no longer has real world consequences. It's merely an indicator of personal value. And that's Steve. So, fuck yeah. 

Again, it only really worked because the hammer wasn't choosing Steve instead of Thor. It was in addition, and Thor had Stormbreaker anyway, so I didn't have to feel threatened on Thor's behalf. But also, it allowed for little moments like, 'no, you get that one, I get the big one,' from Thor, which was delightful, simply because Steve and Thor's mid-battle engagements are always delightful. That's a tradition I'm pleased got to be continued in this movie. 

I know what they were doing, I see what they were doing, but hell, I'm gonna treasure the image of my man wielding the shield in one hand and Mjolnir in the other. I never knew I wanted it until I got it, but I will take it and cherish it always.

I'd been waiting for everyone to show up. I didn't know how they were going to do it, but I knew they were, because, well, Sebastian Stan had told me so, but also because I knew Marvel could never resist having everyone fighting all at once. That's what this movie was made for, let's be honest. So it was only a matter of time. However, I didn't know how they were going to do it, and frankly? On your left. ON YOUR LEFT. Reader, I loved it. 

Sure, all the portals were a little silly. How did they coordinate so quickly, and why did they all show up at once instead of each of them just coming in when they were ready so they could help as quickly as possible (I mean, we know why. But diegetically, etc. etc.)? And this was another one of those tailor-made 'fuck yeah' moments that more often than not make me roll my eyes instead because of the desperate transparency. But you know what? It was fun. I know what this movie was, and this was what it came to do, and I am capable of just enjoying it. So I did. Everybody shows up and the wizards are finally being useful and you know it's time to just abandon yourself to the crazy and let it all happen. It's grand. 

But truly, on your left was a perfect way to do it. Maybe I should have called it, except that I never would have assumed that something so precious to fandom would actually be what the film itself chose to do. There were certainly a disproportionate number of references to Winter Soldier in this movie overall, which I appreciated, but this was a dream. I got chills. Elegant, lovely, character-appropriate. A++. 

Once the madness got going, I was just along for the ride. I don't have a lot to critique about the battle royale. It was a lot of fun. There were little things peppered in that elevated it - particularly whatever character reunions we could get quickly. I was particularly partial to Scott and Hope and their smiles at each other (plus Hope calling Steve Cap. We'd just watched Ant-Man and the Wasp the night before, so I freshly remembered Hope mocking Scott for calling him Cap, and then here this was as a cute little reference to reward the loyal. Not too heavy-handed, but little sprinkles for the devoted fans, and that's the kind of care for the seriality of the MCU effort that I appreciate from the Russos). It was impossible to give every character fair play, but I enjoyed the characters who did get moments. I liked the team work of passing the gauntlet between people. I did wonder if anyone would put it on, but no one did, and I see why. Still, it was a fun sub-mission within the larger battle. 

CAROL. I haven't talked nearly enough about Carol in this movie. She was sadly not in it that much, which I suppose makes sense (apparently she filmed this before Captain Marvel? So she really wasn't fully Carol yet when they were doing this movie). But I appreciated that her clear power superiority was suitably respected. And before she turned up, that moment when the guns turn around and everyone's like, 'what are they firing at?' And I knew, I knew. And my mind screamed CAROLLLLL and there she was and it was glorious. 

The charge of all the women. Look, I know 100% that I was being played. This is the kind of soulless pandering to your female audience to make them think they're getting a lot more than they are. We've already talked about the iffiness of the female presence in this movie, and how they're continually sidelined for plot reasons. That being said. I can see what they're doing, I can roll my eyes at the manipulation within it, and still fucking love it. I can. I contain multitudes like that. And when all the women marched boldly across the screen to protect each other and break through the fight, I absolutely fucking loved it. I teared up, honest to god. I LOVE THEM. I love these women and I love their power and I will cheer with abandon at their strength and solidarity. I absolutely understand that this was yet another manufactured moment designed to hit at people exactly like me. And yes, I can be critical of the fact that they're not giving us more than token moments. But I will still love this moment, because look at all those women. I meant what I said when I admitted that Marvel's at least been doing better in recent years, because the fact that we even have women in the double digits to fill this scene is the result of maybe just the last three years or so. It's not enough, but it's better than it was, and I hope it leads to a better future. So my heart swelled and I smiled like crazy while my ladies got their moment. May it be merely one of many more. 

Also, Pepper got to fight! Loved that. I have long felt cheated out of the Pepper Extremis storyline, so while this doesn’t make up for it, hey, it was something. 

I don't know why it is that Tony and Dr. Strange as a pairing work for me. They're two characters I've had tremendous problems with who are somehow very interesting together. But when Strange looked at Tony and held up the one, and it was a quiet, intimate little thing amidst all this chaos - it got me. I don't know. Something about it was very affecting. The moment of understanding between them, and what Tony rose up to do. It really worked. 

So, Tony. Frankly, this was precisely the kind of moment I anticipated Steve going out in, but they gave it to Tony instead. I'm both surprised and not. They were always going to prioritize Tony and his journey. That being said, while I intellectually understood that Tony was at risk in this movie, I never really thought Marvel would have the stones to actually kill him and thus make it impossible for him to return. I was too spooked from the last round of wrapping up Tony's character arc only to strike a deal with RDJ and thus rework the entire MCU specifically for his benefit. So yeah, I could never fully wrap my mind around Marvel really letting him go. So in that, I was genuinely surprised. But on a narrative level? It worked. Yeah, this is something I'd have expected Steve to do instead, but honestly, Steve didn't need to do this to prove what kind of person he is. Steve was always the person who would sacrifice himself to save everyone. He's done that already, and he'd do it as many times as he needed to (the ending of this movie notwithstanding, I guess...). There would be nothing added by Steve sacrificing his life by using the gauntlet except an extra sharing of tears. Tony, though? Tony needed something like this to fully complete his journey as a character. Let's be clear: he didn't need to die. I'll never say that someone needs to die to achieve full redemption or growth. There are other ways they could have come to this point with Tony. But this is one way to do it, and it's not wrong. Really, it should have been someone else. There was probably time, and other people on the field had a better chance of surviving the Snap. But if you're in that situation, and you're maybe not thinking totally clearly and things are looking rough and you see an opportunity like that? Yeah, I get it. Tony's always been impulsive, and his growth in this movie tempered his impulsiveness. But if he's going to have impulsive moments, it's progress that they're for the genuine good. 

In a lot of ways, this climax was formulaic. While it's a stretch to call Tony a father figure, he's still a sort of father figure of the MCU, and they're usually the first on the chopping block when it comes to epic fantasy conclusions. But I didn't really have a problem with it, because it was clearly meant to be a tearjerker, but it wasn't just that. More than any other character, Tony needed something that would really indicate that he'd changed as a person, become better. Of course Tony has put himself at risk to help others throughout these movies. But it's never been entirely selfless in the way this is, somehow. I don't know that I can articulate why it's different. But it felt different, and it felt like something that worked for his character more than it would for others. I don't doubt for a second that Steve or Thor would use the gauntlet without hesitation, and Nat already proved that she'd do the same. When Tony used the gauntlet, he suddenly held more control than he's ever had in his life, and yet he gave up control in the most powerful way he could have. Tony has always been obsessed with directing the narrative, creating monsters in his attempts to control the future. But by using the gauntlet, knowing what would happen, even as an extraordinary display of power, he's relinquishing his stranglehold on control and fully giving himself over. In order to win, we have to lose. In order for the Avengers to win, Tony has to lose. At the end, he understands that, and he accepts it, and Iron Man can really, finally die. 

His death scene was effective. I felt things, and I could definitely hear a lot of the theatre sniffling around me. They also did the right thing in terms of the relationships they foregrounded. I was genuinely worried that they'd have Pepper move away for Steve to be the final moment with Tony, and I was ready to riot, but that's not what happened. I'll give them credit for that. Rhodey, Peter, and then Pepper, and it absolutely should have ended with Pepper. I have always said that Tony only works with Pepper, and this movie did a good job of establishing his devotion to her and the way it's inspired him to finally be better. And I really liked how quiet this moment was, and how calm and strong Pepper was. It felt like a natural continuation of that scene they'd had earlier in the movie when they'd discussed what to do. They have matured together as a couple, they went into this understanding the stakes, and they are genuinely prepared to face the consequences. It was really nice, and it gave me emotions in a way that a more desperate show of misery wouldn't have done. 

I saw it coming, but I still appreciated the parallel of “but would you be able to rest?” to “you can rest now.” It was lovely. 

If Tony's death scene was handled well, his funeral was a bit more meh. I get what they were going for, and it was fine, but it didn't get me the way the previous scene had. It was a little too grandiose. I enjoyed seeing some of the groupings - special mention to the Pym/Lang clan, which I'm surprisingly invested in - but the slow pan to every single group was a bit overdone. At a certain point, we were reaching clusters of people who had no real connection to Tony, and a general pan up to include the crowd as a group would have sufficed. It definitely started to feel a little overindulgent. But what else did I expect. 

That video, though - that was the kind of stuff that does get to me more, even if it’s an easy get. I don’t have much to say about it. It was nice. 

And now we must discuss the thing I’ve least been looking forward to going through...

That Ending

I've been having trouble figuring out how exactly to tackle this. I'm honestly really curious about how other people viewed the ending, particularly people who actively ship Steve/Peggy. Because truthfully, this whole ending felt incredibly off to me. I'm trying to parse out how much of it is that it's an extremely fanservice ending for a ship I don't fully ship, but I don't think that's all of it. Regardless, I'd love to hear what people who do ship them thought, and if the pros outweigh the cons if you ship them enough. I've been trying to sort out if I'd feel the same way if it had been, say, Bucky that Steve went back to live with (in a 10000% hypothetical world in which a Disney-owned franchise would ever dare). It's hard to discount the effect of shipper goggles, and maybe I'd be more forgiving if I were more attached to the pairing in question. But I've been thinking about it a lot, and I just can't get past a few major things.

For one, let's get it out in the open: I didn't like the ending, at all. That being said, I was absolutely certain they were going to go this way. Not the whole time - for most of last year, I was still putting even money between Steve dying heroically and Steve getting stuck back in time. But once the trailers started coming out, I became increasingly sure. First, the Peggy compass makes an appearance despite the fact that I didn't even know Steve still had it (seriously, did it show up in any of the previous movies? Maybe it did, but it was unremarkable enough that I didn't remember). Alarm bells started to ring. Then they had that trailer with Peggy's voiceover, and I was certain. Listen. I know when I'm being primed. I see when they're trying to 'subtly' remind me of characters, themes, relationships. They were laying groundwork to make people think they'd earned this ending. And I tried so hard to make myself ok with it. I really, really tried. I prepped myself, I talked it through with myself, I warned myself again and again to make peace with it, because this is where they were going. But still, but still...man, I hoped it would be better than this. Even when Steve mentioned Peggy as the love of his life during that therapy group, which was more than a little heavy-handed and definitely not his style, and I became 100% sure that we were locked into this path, I gave myself another shot of 'prepare for this! It's happening!' and just hoped for the best. And instead. Well. 

The most essential problem of this whole, messy thing, is that time travel just doesn't work. It just doesn't. We'll hit on that again later, but if you're trying to come up with an elegant solution to a problem involving time travel, it can't be done. This movie came closer than some, but it's an impossible problem, and it always will be. Separate from the logical pitfalls, though, there are myriad character problems that this movie just didn't deal with, which kept me from being able to find any satisfaction in the ending. First and foremost, they never committed to whether Steve was going back in this original timeline or branching off into an alternate timeline. The only logical thing would be the latter, because otherwise things would start to become undone before our very eyes, but the fact that he's sitting by that lake in our original timeline at the end ruins that option. In the days it's taken me to write all this, it's since come out that the Russos claim that it was in fact the former - that he was in an alternate timeline and it's a mystery how he ended up back in this one - but the problem is, that is not at all supported in the text. I 100% believed he had stayed in this timeline based on him appearing in our timeline at the end, and there's literally nothing in that scene that would indicate otherwise. So, frankly, no matter what the Russos are saying in interviews, the film itself does not make that clear, and there's no guarantee that any subsequent films will reference what the Russos are hinting at in the future. So for the moment, we can only assume what we've seen, and that's that Steve went back in this initial timeline and lived out his life from 1970 to now with Peggy. And the problem with all this, the risk you take in taking on time travel, is that if Steve goes back to 1970 to marry Peggy and live out his life, there are two and only two options. 1. He goes back in time and alters things, because how could he not? All the things he knows, the people he can help, hell, the very fact that he's there at all - they all change what the reality of this timeline is, and the repercussions echo through to the present and the whole world suddenly shifts. But clearly, that's not what happened, because Sam and Bucky and Brulk are still there, they don't feel a thing, nothing's changed. Which brings us to 2. Steve goes back in time, understands he can't change anything because of the risk involved, somehow manages not to change anything unintentionally despite his presence there (in itself, a complete impossibility - time travel doesn't work), and chooses to live his life quietly, without affecting anything, and that's his happy ending. And that? Is awful. 

So let's say I buy it. Let's say I believe that Steve can go back like that and not significantly unmake the world. To me, understanding Steve's character the way I do? That isn't a happy ending. That's a tragedy. That means that Steve will have to watch everything that he knows is going to happen, every injustice, every crime against humanity, and just let it happen. He takes a back seat throughout all the wars and the misery and the atrocities. He sees someone walk into the road in front of a bus and doesn't try to help, because that would alter the timeline. There's letting Steve retire, and then there's letting Steve become an apathetic drone out of necessity. 

But even worse is the personal scale. When I complained about this to my sister, she said that a person wouldn't necessarily feel the need to avert, say, the Vietnam war, just because they knew it was going to happen. Sure, fine. I'd argue that if any person would, it'd be Steve, but ok, let's say for the sake of argument that I agree. But what about the stuff that hits closer to home? Even if we can accept that Steve wouldn't care that Bucky was still in Hydra's clutches for roughly 40 more years (and hey, this movie made an honest effort of trying to say that Steve only tangentially cares about Bucky, so maybe we are supposed to believe that), could he really be happy knowing that Hydra is growing and taking over the very organization that his wife founded, and is currently working at?? We know from Ant-Man that Peggy remains involved at S.H.I.E.L.D. until at least the 90s, if not longer. How could he watch her go to work every day not knowing what she was helping to create? What about the Starks? Seeing little Tony born, knowing he could help, maybe ease the tensions between Tony and Howard, help them come together? Only you can't, because if Tony doesn't have the childhood he has, then maybe he never becomes Iron Man, and what would happen then. So watching all that happen, and then knowing the exact day his friends Howard and Maria get violently murdered, and sitting back and letting it happen. Knowing that somewhere out there, Natasha is a child being trained to be a killer, being gaslit, being owned, and just leaving it alone. This doesn't sound like a happy ending. This sounds like a genuine nightmare - paralyzed, watching a slow-motion car crash that you know you could stop if only you could just stand up. It's horrifying. And that's what I'm expected to rejoice in? Because him getting to date Peggy again makes that all worth it somehow?

But fine, let's be absolutely, totally fair. Let's say it's ok for the Russos to just tell us what happened vs. everything they showed us in the movie itself. So, cool, Steve went back in time and sprouted off an alternate timeline. Fine. It's better than the alternative, that's for sure. But it still feels wrong for him, and here's why. The tragedy of Steve's story has always been in the longing to go back while facing the impossibility of it. He lost his friends, his girlfriend (I guess...more on that later), everything he knew. It's heartbreaking. It's a lot of why Steve and Bucky are so popular in this fandom - they represent that feeling of nostalgia that we all feel about our lives, brought to an extreme and fantastical degree, and it's fascinating material. You can't go back, but oh, wouldn't it be lovely if you could? Except what makes Steve so incredible, so resilient, is that he adapts. He wakes up 70 years later and everything is different and he finds a way to move forward. It's sad! It's so sad to think of him like this, this man out of time. That's why we have so many fics about some magic trick that lets him go back in time like he's always wished to. But I ask you - how many of those fics end with him staying in the past? Genuinely, I'm asking. I've never read one that ends like that. Because that's not how these stories need to go. Returning to the past is so alluring. It is. I'm an exceptionally nostalgic person, and I absolutely romanticize my happy childhood, or my teens, or my college years, when things were good, when things were easy. Everyone does. But you can't go back. Even if you somehow could, it's not the same, because you're not the same. That's always the moral of these stories, because it has to be. Because humanity is about adapting, about moving forward because there's just no other choice. And of course escapist fantasies of going back and fixing everything are fun. But I've watched and read a lot of sci-fi, and the message is always that that isn't really what it's cracked up to be. And there's a reason for that. 

But sure, let's move forward. Let's say he creates a branched-off timeline and is thus able to affect change in a truly Steve Rogers way. Cool! So I'm gonna assume he roots out Hydra from S.H.I.E.LD., he goes and saves Bucky, he improves the lives of his friends once they're born. Awesome! What a cool AU! Except. It's still kind of a miserable fate to wish on Steve. He can't save everyone, and he knows that. He can do some good, but rewriting half a century of history is too much for any one man, even Steve. But god, imagine the pressure. Imagine the guilt. He does what he can, but he can't fix everything, and he's Steve Rogers, so of course it weighs on him. And yes, you can say, that's what people live with every day! We know there's suffering out there, but we find a way to live through it! Yeah, of course. But you know why? Because we have the blissful luxury of not knowing for sure. We know there are terrible things out there, but a) we're not super soldiers, and b), we don't have advanced knowledge. We can know things are going on out there, but we also can't know that it isn't going to get better, that there isn't someone out there about to fix it. If you go back in time? You know for sure. You know how many people die in useless wars. You know about the epidemics, the awful chapters of human history. And you know it doesn't get better. What do you do?? You can't save everyone. But then your wife comes home from work and turns on the news, and you see the latest death count from something happening out there, and you sit there and think "maybe I could have stopped that." It's ghastly. Time travel is great for fantasies and quiz questions, but it's a gift that it isn't possible, because it would drive you to ruin. It would break your heart every day. So when people say it's wonderful that Steve got to be selfish and live out his life in the past? I can only see the things that are going to make his life miserable. I'd love to be happy for him, but instead, it's this. 

But even beyond all that, what about what it says not only about his character, but about everything that's happened in the MCU so far? Listen, I'm the first to say that his friendships with most of the Avengers were tenuous at best. When the Team Tony contingent of the internet railed against Civil War Steve for picking Bucky over his 'new family,' well, I didn't have a problem with that. It made sense to me. But he also wasn't abandoning everyone. He wasn't completely giving up the life he'd built. But by doing what he does in Endgame, Steve's basically saying he doesn't care about any of the people he's formed relationships with over the past 13 years as much as he cares about dating Peggy. And I...look. Some people will find that super romantic. Maybe I would have when I was, like, 19. But at this point in my life? Romance is great, but so are friendships. So are the bonds with people you've formed over years of trust and companionship. And giving up all of them for a chance at a girl you were into for a couple of years a decade and a half ago? That's not romantic to me anymore. That doesn't do it for me. Steve deserves his chance with Peggy if that's what he wants. But not at the expense of everything else. And I'm supposed to rejoice in that? That after 5 years of missing his friends, he spends, what, a week with them, and then leaves them forever? I'm very carefully trying to remove my feelings about the Steve/Bucky of it all for fairness, but what about Sam? What about Wanda? Remember that relationship that I was so attached to? Even removing the Avengers, there are people Steve loves who I can't wrap my head around him willfully leaving forever (especially since, god, doesn't Wanda need support more than ever right now? He doesn't even stick around for that?). I'll admit, I buy it slightly more now that Natasha's gone (sighhhhh), but even if she'd lived, I don't think the writers would have changed their minds about this ending, and then you'd better believe I'd be screaming bloody murder about this. I don't know, man. Maybe it's me! I have definitely turned on a lot of mainstream romance plots over the years! But god, isn't that what these movies were supposed to be about? The bonds of friendship, the bonds of brotherhood and comradeship, soldiers banding together against an insurmountable army? Am I still, after all of this, supposed to be happy that Steve drops all of his relationships so he can have another shot at an almost girlfriend? 

So let's talk about the Peggy factor. I love Peggy. She's wonderful. But you know what's a real sticking point to me in all this? We know for a fact that she had a life that she loved, lived fully and without regret. In her own words, her only regret was that Steve didn't get to live his. But I never took that to mean she wished it for him at the expense of hers. And yes, I'm sure she would have been happy with Steve too! Well, at least we can hope. But one of the greatest gifts Winter Soldier gave us was allowing Peggy to be a character separate from Steve. As much as I love her in The First Avenger, she still mostly served as a support in Steve's journey. But in Winter Soldier, they made it very clear that Peggy was her own person. That she was there for Steve, that she loved him and cared for him, but that her life was not dependent on him. She found her own adventures, her own happiness. Everything she built, she did on her own, separate from her connection to Steve. I loved that. It was so refreshing to have a character who had been conceived as a love interest get to boldly make clear that she was her own entity. That she was a whole person. And then...this. 

I'm sure that lots of people don't think Steve going back in time and marrying Peggy alters this. None of my irl friends seem to mind this ending like I do. But for me? It feels like a life stolen. Peggy got married! I'm not sure if she had kids, but she might have, and she had a brilliant career and made a name for herself. And Steve knew this. And he decided to make it all never happen. He inserted himself into a place he no longer belonged and took it all for himself again. I know that some people are celebrating this choice as Steve being finally, rightfully selfish, after a lifetime of sacrificing his own happiness for others. But this? It feels wrong. It feels willful. And sure, if it's in a branched timeline, maybe you can look at it sideways enough that it doesn't feel like the theft of a happy life to you. But it still says something about Steve that doesn't sit right with me. I'm all for Steve being less self-sacrificing. When I headcanon my ideal ending for Steve, it always involves him getting to take a slice of happiness for himself. But not like this. Not by undoing someone else's life, not by taking something directly from others. That's not Steve Rogers. 

Meanwhile, let's settle an area of confusion. When I watched the movie - hell, when I first started writing this - I thought he went back to live in 1970 after he dropped off the Tesseract. Frankly, that was the only good thing I had to say about this ending (and I did say it when I was discussing the movie with my friends directly after) - that by going back to 1970, at least Peggy had some time to live a life without him, and he just joined her partway through. But given how long it's taken me to write this, other things have filtered in, and I guess the prevailing wisdom is that he actually went back to the 1940's? I know the cars looked old, so maybe that was the clue, but I wasn't certain, and maybe I just hoped it wasn't the case. Because while this maybe makes it better on the Steve front, it makes it worse for Peggy. She doesn't get to live a life without him at all. And listen, I don't doubt Peggy Carter! I think she can do anything, and she certainly doesn't have to be alone in order to establish herself. But do we really think that in 1945, hell, 1950, 1965, anyone would think Peggy did it all on her own when she had Steve Rogers on her arm? That was part of what I loved about how Steve/Peggy went down. While it was sad for them on a personal level, it meant that after the war, during a notoriously sexist backlash era, Peggy's success was never attributed to her connection with Steve. But with this? It's absolutely unfair, but it would absolutely tarnish her own agency. And I think she would suffer with it. I have long thought that Steve and Peggy, if given the chance to be together in the 40s like they planned, would have actually run into some problems once the war settled down. I have a whole treatise to write on this that perhaps I will someday. It's not that I think they wouldn't have worked. But I'm not certain they would have, because I think the things that make them wonderful as people would have made it difficult for them to be a couple. And this kind of timeline fuckery is exactly the kind of stuff that I think would have tested them, and not necessarily in a strengthening way. Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. I absolutely don't think they're doomed to fail. But by forcing them into this kind of trite 'happy ending,' this movie is asking me to ignore what I know about these characters, who they are and how they live and what they've done. That doesn't feel like a satisfying end to me. 

Beyond that, it's impossible at this point to separate the way I feel about Marvel's treatment of its women from what happens in the narrative. In the same way that I don't dislike Nat's storyline for her character individually, but I'm fully raising my eyebrows at them killing off the token girl in the team, it's hard for me to separate all that stuff regarding Peggy. Diegetically, Peggy deserves her chance with Steve. But on an outside level, it doesn't feel great that she exists solely as Steve's Reward in this movie. She doesn't even have any lines. She exists to be gazed at, and then to be danced with. I know we know Peggy's powerful and amazing. But the fact of the matter is, if you only watch the MCU, Peggy's only been in two movies, and one of them for only a few minutes. They killed her off-screen in Civil War. And then she's this in Endgame. Howard Stark gets a long, extended walk and talk with Tony, and Peggy gets this. It doesn't feel great! The exhausted feminist in me is always struggling with this stuff. Peggy doesn't have to be alone in order to be her own person! But I don't trust the MCU to put any of their women in relationships with men (even friendships, frankly), and have them still be the main characters. God, no one even says her name in the whole damn film. I'm probably nitpicking! Welcome to the hell that is living in my own head 24/7! Pity me.

God, I don't know. It's all so complicated. I might be entirely wrong in this. I really would love to talk to others about this and see if I'm just looking at this all wrong. But even though I've long known they were going this way, it's still precisely why I was hoping this movie wouldn't go the time travel route. That way lies madness. It just creates so many more problems than it solves. Problem is, when I planned for this eventuality, I always thought it would be an accident or some sort of necessity and that Steve would get stuck in the past. He'd get cut off back in time and adapt like Steve Rogers does, find the happiness in his new circumstances like he always has. But somehow, it never occurred to me that he would choose to go. That he would willfully decide, all on his own, without consultation or discussion, that he was doing this. And something about that particular change has just been rankling me. For all the reasons outlined above, it lessens Steve's character to me in a way that I never anticipated. I always wanted Steve to retire. My happy ending for him is having him find other, non-fighting ways to help people while also getting to live his own life. But I always wanted it to be his own life, not someone else's. I'm certain people will argue that Steve was never supposed to be in 2012 in the first place, that he was meant to live out his life in his own timeline. But that's not what happened, and the MCU asked me to invest in the last 8 years of Steve learning how to adjust to the extraordinary things that happened to him. If I wasn't interested in seeing that, I would have stopped after The First Avenger. While I understand that Steve getting stuck back in time would have done iffy things for his agency, I think I could have made this work if that was how it all played out. But by him choosing this fate instead, I'm having trouble embracing it as a triumphant end. I wish I could explain it better. I've been soul-searching all week trying to figure it all out. But it just makes me sad at the end of the day. 

Last of all, but it must be said: Sharon Carter deserved better than this. Listen, I remain the first to eviscerate that weird romantic curveball in Civil War. It was a hot mess. But the same damn writers who wrote Endgame wrote that romance too, and they don't get to nope out of their own mistakes. Listen, I'm a fan of acknowledging when something didn't work! I am very pro how the Russos handled the failure of Bruce/Nat! But the thing I liked so much is that they breezed past it, but still allowed it to have been a thing that happened. That significant look in Infinity War was literally all I needed. That was a 'we know this was a misstep and we're calling the loss, but it still did happen and we can't ignore that completely, so we're allowing a diegetic reference to it and then closing the book on that.' Perfect! All I ever needed! Steve/Sharon as it was handled was thoroughly a mistake and absolutely should have been backtracked. But it definitely feels a little gross for Steve and Sharon to kiss and then for Sharon to never be seen or mentioned again. Not even once. All it needed was some side-reference in Infinity War about how Steve's life on the run had been too much to manage between them. That's it! Call it a loss and be done with it! But to completely cut Sharon out of everything just to gloss over the narrative stumble and smooth the way for Steve to get back with her aunt? Yikes. And I say this as someone who has absolutely zero attachment to Steve/Sharon. I appreciate that they didn't double down on that. But snapping Sharon out of existence from the entire MCU was a cowardly way to do it, and I judge them for it. 

Two final petty things: 

I am a little salty about them using "It's Been A Long Time" as the final song, which I understand is a bit irrational. The only reason I know that song is because of Winter Soldier, but man, it's always been a Steve/Bucky song. And I guess the Russos didn't see it that way, and hey, Winter Soldier is their movie, but it only makes sense if it's about Bucky, because in Winter Soldier, Steve has been hanging out with Peggy for a couple of years now, and the song takes place just before Bucky shows up. I know, I know. Shipper goggles are powerful. But I also know how to close-read a film, so. My perspective is probably skewed, but it's also not wrong. 

During that ending, I so, so hoped the Russos would just leave it up to interpretation. When Sam asks about the ring and Steve elects not to tell him about it, I sent a prayer up hoping that the movie would cut off at that. Of course it didn't, for fan service and heterosexual romance reasons, but I really wish it did, because of this: 95% of people would have understood that the ending was exactly what it turned out to be. But for the other 5% of us? For god's sake, dudes, give us that sliver of wiggle room. Let us headcanon what we wanna headcanon. I've always wished this, even for fandoms that I'm not in - fans are great at running with things if you just give them the slightest bit of room. Just let them have it. I've always thought that J.K. Rowling put "19 Years Later" into Harry Potter precisely so that people couldn't do this and they'd have to accept her version of the future, and frankly, I think it's why people have always hated that epilogue, even casual fans. Let us imagine the future. Give us hints, do whatever, but throw a bone to the fandoms out there and let us have some fun. I mean, yeah, we can still headcanon elements of that ending (and we certainly will), but it's still disappointing. Unsurprising, but disappointing. 

Time Travel Doesn’t Work

It just doesn’t, guys. Every movie that takes it on thinks it’s different. They’re all convinced that they have the solution. And they never do. It always, always breaks down. And yeah, that sucks! Time travel is super fun! But it just doesn’t hold up, and I’m tired of movies telling me they’ve cracked the code when they just haven’t. 

I really don't understand why they thought one throwaway line from Brulk was going to satisfy all the issues with time travel. I appreciated that Rhodey and Scott brought up all the other time travel movies that thought they had it down, but Brulk's brush-off was nonsensical. Yeah, if you go into the past, that becomes your future. Everyone gets that. But that doesn't protect the rest of it. Steve can go back in time and live out his future in another period. I 100% get that. But everyone he talks to - their paths will all change because they met him. Events will alter, timelines will branch off. It's a mess. Don't talk down to us like we just don't understand how it works. We understand that it doesn't work. Fuck off, Brulk.

I briefly thought they had a pretty good thing going, though, when they came up with the plan of returning the stones to the exact moments they took them. Honestly? That would have worked. That time travel storyline would have been clean and logical. They were almost there! But then they had to go and have Thanos and crew come to the present from 2014. And then it all breaks down. I don't get it! Are we just branching off another timeline, but in the original timeline, the world is still terrible? I like the twist that we get Gamora back through 2014 version showing up just cause I love Gamora, but it simply doesn't make sense. Ugh, the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. I similarly love Loki grabbing the Tesseract and bouncing because a) it's a very Loki thing to do and b) it gives us a vague but real chance of seeing him again. But it also doesn't work! If Thor doesn't bring Loki back to Asgard, all of Thor: The Dark World doesn't happen, which means present day Thor can't get the Aether, etc. etc., and fuck, is anyone else's mind spinning? Say it with me: TIME TRAVEL DOESN'T WORK. It's just exhausting. But they were there! They were almost there, to a place where it could have worked! We were so close! Oy. 

A Confession

Alright, I have to admit it. I was wrong about how much this movie would center on Steve and Tony’s relationship. I’m very glad I was wrong. I am pleased that the writers understood that there were more important relationships to focus on. There was still a healthy dose of Steve/Tony thrown at us, but it didn't supplant too much. So, I’ll allow that I was more worried than I needed to be (about that, at least). I’ll give you guys that, Russos and co. 

Final Thoughts

This has taken me so long and gotten so thoroughly out of control that I'm certain there were big things I was planning on talking about that I'm just totally forgetting now. But I just need to be done with this thing. I'm sure I'll write a lot more about this movie over the coming months, but for now, here are just a few more things.

SAM!CAP!!!!!!!!! It could only be this way. But I'm so, so happy that the MCU acknowledged it. I have always, always said that it needed to be Sam. That Sam was the only one who made sense, the only one who was really capable of taking up that mantle. But I still thought Bucky was the frontrunner because he's a fan-favourite pretty white boy, and you can never discount the odds in favor of that. But they did the right thing! I'm so glad. All hail Sam!Cap. 

Thor becoming one of the Guardians of the Galaxy was legit the only thing they could have done to make me interested in seeing another Guardians movie if Gamora isn't in it, so damn them. Damn them for hooking me when I thought I could get free. Fucking genius move, that. Presuming, of course, that Thor is actually going to be in the next one. If he isn't, I riot. MORE THOR ALL THE TIME. 

So where do we go from here? I assume there are going to be more Avengers movies, but how and when? Are we going to establish a new core team? Do we really need a team when Carol's around? It'll certainly be interesting. I don't know how long the MCU is going to be able to sustain all this, but man, as someone who takes an interest this kind of stuff, it sure is fascinating. 

Ok, so this whole post got super embarrassing. I set out to write a series of bullet points and instead ended up with a 10-page essay. It's truly unreadable, and I know that. I tried super hard to make the format bearable on tumblr, but such a thing is obviously impossible, so instead it's this. I genuinely expect no one to have gotten through all of this, but hopefully some of you have found bits and pieces that interested you, because I'd absolutely love to talk more about this movie. I've been stewing in my own thoughts all week, and I want to bring in other perspectives. So come join me in over-analytical hell! 

[killing-your-favorite-characters]

I just got to the scene in Explorers that inspired my post saying that Chatot was badly written. And now that I have it on my mind, I am extremely angry about it. Like, I wasn’t even reading the dialogue, but just knowing that’s what was written still made me mad.

Anyways, have a nice rant under the cut.

So the scene in question is the one where you and your partner are trying to convince the guild that, hey, Dusknoir is a bad guy and Grovyle’s the good guy and you need the Guild’s help to prevent the planet’s paralysis. And the thing that really makes me angry during this scene is when, after you’re done talking, Chatot refuses to believe that Dusknoir’s a villain. Now, I understand why this was put there story wise. Mostly just to help establish that Wigglytuff is bad*ss. But, it makes absolutely no sense that Chatot is the one who doesn’t believe your story.

There are like, ten members of the Wigglytuff Guild. Anyone of them could’ve been chosen to disbelieve this story. Of course there are some where this would’ve made no sense, like Sunflora or Bidoof. There are two I can think of that easily could’ve been given this dialogue instead.

The first is Loudred. Loudred has been shown to not really believe in the player and partner. (Such as when he remarks that it would make more sense for the player and partner to not recognize a pokemon’s footprint than Diglett, or when you absolutely fail the sentry duty mini game. I did that once (embarrassingly not on purpose) and I highly recommend doing it. It’s pretty easy, and if you still want to get items and poke for the day you can always just reset. I advise doing this on a sentry duty day after the tutorial. The tutorial’s really long and kind of unnecessary so don’t put yourself through the pain of having to sit through it more times than you need to.)

The other person is Corphish. Corphish is basically this game’s Bunnelby. He doesn’t really add anything to the story in the slightest, and if you took him out there wouldn’t really be any consequence. So giving Corphish this dialogue would actually make him a better character. (I feel like Dugtrio might also work, but I dunno. Loudred and Corphish were the first two that came to mind.)

Anyways, this is supposed to be about why I think Chatot was probably the worst person to have not believe the player and partner’s story so I’m gonna get back to that.

The reason why I think Chatot not believing in this story is an example of bad writing, is that when you compare it to some of the main things he does in the it makes absolutely no sense. And, funnily enough, the first example I have can also be used to explain a part in a story where Chatot is really well written. (But I’ve already gotten distracted enough.)

The first example is Bidoof’s Wish. After Snover asked Bidoof to explore Star Cave with him, Bidoof went down to ask Chatot for a day off. When he claimed his stomach hurt, and that’s why he wanted a day off Chatot was very suspicious. And for good reason as later on in Bidoof’s Wish it turned out that Snover was actually the leader of a gang of bandits and he had lured Bidoof to Star CAve in order to steal his money. But, before they could do so the entire guild entered and fought off the bandits.

After the battle it was revealed the reason why the guild was there in the first place, was because Chatot was so concerned with Bidoof’s behavior that he talked the Guildmaster (and the guild) into going after him. And just to have it sink in, I shall repeat. Chatot was so concerned by Bidoof’s behavior he decided to follow him to make sure he was okay.

Now, there are two more examples. And surprise, surprise, they both happen in Brine Cave. (I think about Brine Cave WAY too much.)

So when you reach the halfway point in Brine Cave, Team Skull come in and steal the partner’s relic fragment. And while they’re gloating they mention that they were the ones that made the player and partner’s attempt into getting perfect apples fail. And they then proceeded to run off. And after they ran off, Chatot was so furious that he took off after them. Alone. In a cave that he almost died in years before. Despite the fact that Wigglytuff, his best friend and partner, who he respected greatly, told him to stay with the Player and Partner.

And the last point is that, y’know. He almost died saving the Player and Partner from an attack. And that he had done the same think years ago with Wigglytuff.

So, if Chatot did all of these things, why the HELL wouldn’t he believe that Dusknoir, the guy who literally kidnapped the player and partner right in front of their eyes, before anyone could fight back, was a bad guy. He was so quick to change his mind about Team Skull, and yet he basically had to be forced into believing Dusknoir sucked?

I call bullshit.

[girlinthe-chair]

Such a Simple Thing

PART 1 (of who knows how many)

PAIRING: best friend!Tom Holland x Reader, best friend!Haz x Reader SUMMARY: It’s been a very long time since you’ve seen your two goofballs of best friends, but as soon as you get the chance to visit -- you jump. But it’s gonna be difficult keeping some pretty big secrets away from them. WORD COUNT: 4K-ish A/N: this is literally the first thing I’m posting on here, and I have no idea where I’m going from here (suggestions and advice are ALWAYS welcome) so...like, thanks! WARNINGS: ...idk, swearing *shrugs*

It was always the look in his eyes. God, his eyes - beautiful brown that lit up when he was excited. There was even something tempting about his eyes when he was sad. You couldn’t see his eyes downcast without wanted to change it, to see his face brighten. Of course, you could never tell Tom that. There are certain things that should be kept from your best friend.

But it’s the exact look he gives you when he sees you after so long. For once, it was you who was gone for months, taking an extended holiday to relax. You had to admit, writing with the Mediterranean laid out in front of you made it a whole lot easier.

“Hey! Long time, no see,” Tom says, picking you up into a hug and twirling you around. “How was the writing? Take any good pictures? Oh, got any new scripts for me to read?”

You smile as his arm snakes around your waist, pulling you closer to his side as you wait for your luggage. “It went better than expected if I do say so myself.” You glance up at him. “And if you’re trying to get a script out of me, Holland, it’s not gonna work.”

“Oh, come on, darling!” he exclaims. “Can you imagine? Tom Holland stars in…Untitled, written by Y/N Y/L/N. It’d be perfect!”

You smirk. “I refuse to work with you, Holland. You’re such a drama queen.”

Tom feigns hurt, scoffing and slamming his hand on his chest. “What? Me, a drama queen?” He shrugs. “Eh, it’s better than being called movie-star.” Tom looks down at you and sees the smirk on your face. “Don’t you dare.”

After a moment he says, “Haz is sorry he couldn’t be here to pick you up. He had some things to do with his family, but we’ll see him tonight.”

“I know, he texted me before I got on the train.”

“Oh,” Tom says, surprised. “Well, I hope you’re excited for some down-low stuff tonight.”

London wasn’t technically home for you — or, at least, not where you’re from. You’re a States girl yourself, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t until after university that you decided you were going to pack up and move across the pond, working for a publishing company in London. They worked closely with Sony Entertainment, working on scripts for movies and video games. It was because of the job that you got to meet the famous Spider-Man, some fancy event in London you wouldn’t have been able to go to if one of the editor’s assistance, Ana, didn’t get sick.

Lucky for you, Ana did get sick and you got to actually be social for once. Though, you’re the first to admit that being social isn’t exactly your forte. For the majority of the event, you sat in the back in your low-cut red dress that kind of made you feel like a princess (hey, it was the only formal dress you brought with you to London) with a chute of hard cider in your hand. Of course, people from work came up to you to say hi, introducing you to other people at the event — screenwriters, playwrights, actors and actresses of all calibers.

At some point, Tom and his friend Harrison were the people you were being introduced to. You immediately knew who they were, embarrassingly enough, after following them on social media since before Spider-Man: Homecoming. You already had a mildly immature celebrity crush on, well, both of them, really, so the conversation that followed was a bit awkward for you. You had always imagined yourself being cool, calm, and collected if you ever met someone like them. Well, you weren’t. You were all sorts of flustered, trying not to scare them away with the abundance of knowledge you already had about them, or the high level of fangirl you actually were.

Tom and Harrison, at that point, were more or less used to it and didn’t bat an eye. After the nerves and fluster calmed down, you guys actually had the type of conversation normal human beings tend to have, with a sprinkle of small talk. It helped that each of you had a little bit to drink.

After that night, it seemed like you saw them everywhere. Not just on social media, but almost everywhere you went you ended up seeing either Tom or Harrison, especially if it was work related. During one event, Tom invited you to come to a party that was happening afterward. From there, it was easy to start a relationship with the two, working and personal.

For the year and a half you lived in London, the three of you grew really close. Hanging out at Tom’s or your apartment, going out to dinners, seeing movies, shopping — the whole shebang. Of course, Tom being who he was, he had to leave for his job, often being gone for a couple of months at a time. Sometimes Haz would go with him, other times he’d stay home. Whenever they were both gone, whether or not they were with each other, you being social was totally out the window. Work and writing were the only things you really did.

It was when both of them were gone that your health suddenly became something you had to worry about. Well, more than worry about, actually. It started with the nausea. You brushed it off, thinking it was period pains and nothing more, but it kept going well past your period, and it was getting stronger. Then, the mere sight of food made your skin crawl. It wasn’t until you passed out at work that Ana finally made you go to the hospital, and you found out that all the pain you were going through was because your kidneys were failing.

As soon as you were diagnosed, you went back home to get treatment, and to be with your family. Tom and Haz certainly weren’t happy when they found out you left London without telling them, but you didn’t have the heart to tell them why. So, to cast off any worry or anger they might have been harboring, you told them your brother was sick instead. You immediately felt guilty once you sent that hurried text, but you had panicked. They tried to come to visit multiple times, but every time they did you told them it was a very family-oriented time. At some point, they just gave up and resorted to calling and texting.

After six months of dialysis and no luck finding a donor, your brother came back as being a perfect match, and you were finally able to get the kidney transplant you so desperately needed. Once you were well enough, you called Tom and told him you’d be going on a holiday to Italy so you could get back to writing. He immediately jumped at the idea of you cutting your time in Italy short and staying with him for a couple of weeks since he wasn’t working. You weren’t about to pass up on that opportunity since it’d been so long since you’d seen him and Haz. So, after three weeks in Italy, you hopped on a train to London to finally see your best friends again.

Later that evening, after you unpacked all your stuff in Tom’s guest room, you take yourself on a little tour of his apartment. The first thing you notice: damn, is it a nice apartment. A lot bigger and a lot nicer than the one he lived in before. Hardwood flooring, granite countertops, the comfiest couch you have ever sat on. Second thing: this boy is definitely obsessed with himself. In nearly every room, there’s a reminder that Tom is in fact Spider-Man. Action figure here, set memorabilia there, a dash of exclusive Pop Vinyl characters in the kitchen. You even noticed Spider-Man bedsheets in the linen closet.

“You’ve gone overboard, my friend,” you say, plopping down on the floor next to Tessa, who curls up closer to you.

Tom is stretched out on the couch, flipping through channel after channel in a t-shirt and sweatpants. “Not possible, mate, I’d say I haven’t gone far enough.”

“We get it, Tom. You’re Spider-Man,” you say, deadpanned. Tom chuckles.

The two of you end up watching a movie — Skyfall, incidentally — while you wait for Harrison to arrive. While you watched, Tom reaches down to mess with your hair, just something he does absentmindedly, and something you revel. Even knowing his focus isn’t completely on you, it feels nice to be that close to him again.

You know Tom has played around with the idea of being the next 007, and talking to him about it is the only thing keeping your mind from straying to dangerous places.

“You think you’ll ever be James Bond?” you say jokingly.

“Only if you’ll be my Bond girl.”

Goddamn is it a good thing he can’t see your face because he’d lose it if he could. You’d think that after knowing him for as long you would get used to small sly comments like that, but no. Of course not. They still got to you, even though you know they mean nothing. But, luckily, you’re good at playing it off like they didn’t.

“Ha, you wish, Holland,” you retort. “And I’m more likely to write about a Bond girl than be a Bond girl.”

Tom shakes his head. “Why not both?”

“I’m not an actress, Tom.”

“You were.”

You turn to look at him, and he lifts his hand out of your hair. “Yeah, in high school. I haven’t been on stage in years, let alone in front of a camera.”

You don’t know why you got so defensive so fast, and by the took on Tom’s face he doesn’t know either. “Sorry, it was just a suggestion.”

“Well,” you start, not really knowing what to say. “Yeah.”

After a moment of watching the movie, Tom gets up. “I’m going to get something to drink. Do you want a hard cider?”

You look back at him. “You don’t like hard cider.”

He smirks. “You do, though, so I stocked up. And besides, I’m not getting one, I’m getting a beer. So…?”

You give him a smile and nod, and Tom trots off into the kitchen. A few moments later, there’s a knock at the door.

“Hey, can you get that, dahlin’? It’s probably Haz,” Tom calls from the kitchen.

“Yup,” you say, getting up carefully as not to disturb Tessa. “Who is it?” you sing-song.

You hear a thump at the door. “Come on, Y/N, open the door.”

“Hmmm, why should I?”

“I brought food, that’s why.”

As soon as you open the door, you are bombarded by a constant stream of your name and a tight hug from Haz, taking your breath away. When you’re able to take a step back, you see that Haz is dressed pretty nice — white dress shirt, suit pants, loose tie.

“Damn,” you say, looking down at your sweatpants and concert tee, “I’m feeling a tad underdressed.”

Tom pops his head out of the kitchen to see the two of you at the door. “Yeah, what the hell, mate? Didn’t have time to stop and put on sweats or something?”

Haz sighs. “I know, the whole family thing ran a little later than expected and I didn’t have time to stop at home and change. But,” he says, kicking a duffle bag through the door, “I came prepared. Not only do I have sweats, but I also brought sweets. Now, if you don’t mind,” he says in a low voice, “I’m going to slip into something a little more comfortable.”

You roll your eyes, smiling, as he kisses you on the cheek. He brushes past you and runs to the bathroom, duffle bag in hand.

You’re friends with a bunch of flirts.

“Dinner” wasn’t really a part of the night’s plans, unless a bag of party sized Doritos and almost three pounds of candy count — which it doesn’t. Apparently, though, Harrison nearly choking on a skittle, getting drunk and doing an impromptu photo shoot, and watching seven and a half straight hours of Harry Potter was. Not that you minded since it was actually pretty entertaining. By the time the credits for Prisoner of Azkaban rolled on screen, the two boys were lumps, fast asleep on the floor.

You pick yourself up off the couch and scoop the mess from the floor, tiptoeing around the boys and trying to be as quiet as you could. Tessa wakes up, however, and lifts her head off the floor where she was sleeping. She only looks at you for a moment before falling back asleep. When you walk into the kitchen with three bottles in each hand, you realized you have no idea where Tom hid his recycling bin, and decide to just leave them in a neat pile on the counter.

“You don’t need to do that, Y/N,” Tom whispers behind you, startling you.

“Thought you were asleep,” you say without turning around, throwing an empty bag of Doritos in the trashcan. You can feel Tom’s gaze on you, and you ignore the anxious pit in your stomach. Maybe it was just all the junk food.

Tom walks towards you, his bare feet slapping against the cool tile of the kitchen, and hugs you from behind. He rests his chin on your shoulder.

Junk food. Let it please be the junk food.

“It feels like forever since I last saw you.” You can feel his breath on your cheek. Beer and syrupy sugar.

“We were just talking, like, two hours ago,” you say. “Before you and Haz blacked out.”

You turn around, facing him. He drops his arms from around your waist but keeps that classic cheeky grin planted on his face. It’s too dark to actually see his eyes.

“After everything you’ve been through with your brother,” he whispers, his smile wavering a bit, “I don’t know. I’m just glad you decided to come here.”

Tom may be a flirt, but you can tell he’s being genuine. “I know, I am, too. And while I’m here… ” You take a step closer to him, surprising him a bit. “…I’m going to act like a proper house guest. So stop complaining, Holland.”

You step away from him and walk out of the kitchen. Tom sighs. “Goodnight, dahlin’.”

You only wave in response.

The next morning, you find the apartment very still, very quiet. Also pretty cold, you realize as you step out of bed. You immediately pull on a long cardigan and walk out into the hall. Large windows lined the hallway, letting in an abundance of light. Your eyes have to adjust to the brightness of day for a moment before stepping into the living room, where Haz is curled up on the couch still very much asleep. Tom and Tessa are nowhere to be seen, so you assume Tom took her for a walk.

You grab yourself a glass of water from the kitchen before going back into your room and start editing the manuscript you finished writing on your Italian getaway, taking advantage of the early morning quiet. Pages upon pages are sprawled out in front of you, your notebook full of little notes and ideas sitting in your lap. As you go through the pages of the first chapter or two, you mark the pages with an insurmountable amount of red they’re almost unrecognizable. To say you are a relentlessly harsh critic of yourself would be a severe understatement, but it is what makes you a great writer — if you do say so yourself.

There’s a knock at your door, and you realize you’re not quite sure how much time has gone by. “Come in,” you say, capping your pen.

Haz opens the door. The sleep has barely left his eyes, you notice, but he gives you a flashy smile anyway. “Well, aren’t you up working early,” he yawned. “Never realized you were much of a morning person.”

“I’m not. But hey,” you shrug, “my words were calling me, and I’m not very good at ignoring myself.”

Haz smiles, sitting at the foot of the bed. His weight shifts the papers around, some falling off completely. “Sorry,” he says, wincing.

“No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” you insist, picking up the fallen pages and arranging them in the right order.

“So,” he pauses, “how’s your brother doing?”

The question kind of catches you off guard. You figured it would come up at some point, though you really wished it wouldn’t, but you didn’t expect to talk about it less than twenty-four hours into your trip.

“Yeah, Aaron…Aaron’s doing a lot better,” you stutter. “He’s been out of the hospital for almost three months now, which is good. No complications. He’s…feeling a lot better.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

He gives you a weak smile. “Y/N, we barely talked when you were home, and whenever we did you completely avoided talking about you or how you were feeling. It was all about me or my work, or Tom — anything besides you. When you told me you were finally going to come and visit, I was actually really relieved. I know I don’t really have to worry about you when you’re here, with me or Tom. I just want to know you’re okay.”

You let out a shaky breath before going to hug Haz. Something in the back of your mind was screaming at you to tell him, to confess, but you smothered it with the excuses you’d so desperately clung onto. “Thank you, Haz. And I’m fine,” you mumble, lifting your head from his chest to look at him properly. “Really.”

Harrison nods. “Good. And seriously, mate, anytime you need to talk —”

“You’ll be a phone call away, I know,” you laugh. “Now, Haz, I love you, you know I do, but I need to get back to work.”

He squints at you. “Well, before you do that…”

“What?”

“You might wanna shower first.”

Haz smirks at the horrified look on your face as you throw the papers off of your lap and hurriedly stand up. You push Haz off of the bed and out the door, slamming it when he starts laughing.

“I’m going home for a little bit, just to get ready,” he says through the door.

“Good! ’Cause you’re smelling a bit ripe yourself!” Haz laughs. You growl, pulling fresh clothes out of the drawer and stalking into the en-suite.

You start getting undressed before you realize there were no towels in the bathroom. At this point, you’re down to your underwear and didn’t really want to pull on the dirty clothes you just took off, so you called out to Harrison, hoping he was still in the apartment and in earshot. Luckily, he was and left some towels outside the bathroom door. Once you heard the bedroom door close, you went and grabbed the towels and put them on the counter.

As soon as the warm water hits your skin, you’re wondering why you didn’t take a shower before now. You’d sat on a thirteen-hour train ride and somehow decided not to take a shower when you got to Tom’s apartment. Refreshing isn’t quite the right word for it, but it’s definitely something beautiful. Beautifully warm, beautifully relaxing.

Until your hand grazes the scar on your abdomen. You’re suddenly pulled back into reality and remember why you had yet to take a shower until now. You didn’t want to have to be reminded of the months of pain, physical and emotional, you had gone through, especially while you were in London. It’s something you try to avoid thinking about, let alone talk about it, which is why Tom and Harrison don’t know about it. You’d convinced yourself it was something they didn’t need to worry about, especially when the whole ordeal was happening, so you kept it to yourself. You didn’t need either of them worrying about you because there was nothing to worry about…until there was, and when that happened, you didn’t want to pull them into it. Spare them from the pain you were going through. Not a big deal.

You shut your eyes, letting the hot water spill over your face, before turning it off and stepping out of the shower. You weren’t going to let the bad overtake the good being in London brought.

That’s when the door to the bathroom swings open and you see Tom standing in the doorway, towels in hand, and — thank god — not looking in your direction, but staring down at his phone. And then, of course, he looks up and it feels like you can’t move with his eyes on you — and, my god, are they ON you — and your suddenly completely aware you’re stark naked and dripping water in front of your best friend — in front of Tom fucking Holland.

Holy fuck.

“Tom!” is the only thing you can manage to muster as you lunge for the towels on the counter. Tom does this spin thing, dropping the towels, stuttering this incoherent mess.

“A-a-a-a-a-ummm, o-okay,” he stutters before attempting to shut the door. Only, of course, the towels are in the way, so he just leaves the door halfway open and hobbles out of the room, his cheeks burning red.

TAG LIST (Hello fellow spiderlings)

@ineedsomemoremetime  @spidergirlwanab  @penisholland , @ibtomholland , @hollanddolanfluff , @fandomdarlings , @romanoff-queen , @hollandboipeter , @holyheckholland , @whyistomholland , @racing-faster , @whyispeterparker , @unicorngummybears , @notimeforthemessenger , @hollandlovely , @idektomholland 

[sickdaysofficial]

Day 1: The Oblivious Partner (Klance)

Written by @caramelfuzz

“MY HAIR!”

Keith winced as his boyfriend snatched the umbrella from his hand and scampered as quickly as he could towards the science building-without Keith, naturally-to protect his hair from being messed up by the rain.

Keith walked leisurely after his boyfriend, feeling himself beginning to shiver. He knew he was coming down with something, so why try to fight it? The damage had already been done so there was no sense in risking dropping all his things by running to the building.

Keith was shivering uncontrollably after the five-minute walk in the rain, and could already feel that this cold would be a doozy. He allowed himself to cough briefly, both to get Lance’s attention and to rid himself of the tickle that plagued his throat.

Lance looked back from where he’d been chatting with Hunk and Pidge and twirled the umbrella in his hands, flashing a cheeky grin.

“Thanks babe! You know I have to protect my hair at all costs.”

“Mm-hmm. I know, Lance. All that styling you did earlier can’t be wasted.”

“You mind if I keep this during lab?”

Before Keith got a chance to respond Lance was throwing a “thank you!” over his shoulder and racing to his class.

-

By the time Keith’s 3-hour lab was finished, he was pretty sure his lab partners hated him even more than they had before. Rollo had even done some work for once when Keith’s hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t hold the boiling beaker properly with the shoddy tongs they were given. Why did it have to be so freaking cold in the labs? Keith, whose clothes had finally dried, was dismayed to see that Lance’s lab had gotten released before his own, and that Lance had apparently decided he needed his boyfriend’s umbrella more than Keith, and had taken it from its spot in one of the cubbies outside of the lab.

“H’kxthch! Hh…heh’kdch’uh!”

Aaaaaaand there were the rest of Keith’s symptoms that had been making themselves increasingly known throughout the lab. Nyma had scooted her stool a little further from Keith every time he sneezed and she’d moved almost four feet by the time Professor Coran had dismissed the class, casting a concerned glance towards Keith as he exited the room as quickly as possible.

Keith was trying to avoid Shiro, as his adoptive brother had been looming a few feet away from him throughout the entire lab, trying not to embarrass him by fussing, and completely neglecting his duties as TA.

“Keith!”

Great. I’m gonna get a lecture about forgetting an umbrella—oh wait! LANCE has my umbrella.

Keith rolled his eyes, still bitter about his boyfriend’s betrayal from earlier. As he turned around to talk to Shiro, the tickle from earlier once again assaulted his nose, and he was forced to muffle four sneezes into his jacket sleeve, not having time to try to stifle.

“Ha’mmphsh! Mmph! Ksh! Eh’mpch!”

“Bless you! I was just about to comment on the frequency with which you were doing that, Keith.”

“Why don’t you comment on the frequency with which you refused to help a student because you were focused on me?” Keith snapped, trying to locate something to wipe his nose on in his backpack, his sleeves were used up, and now that he had access to his things again he wanted to find something dry to sniffle into.

He was pleasantly surprised when Shiro handed him a travel packet of tissues, feeling a little guilty for his harsh words. Shiro was just concerned for his health after all.

“Thaggs. Sorry for beigg ad ass, it’s just that Ladce—”

“Let me stop you right there, buddy. Blow your nose so I can understand you.”

Keith blushingly complied, softly blowing while refusing to make eye contact with his brother. Once he trusted his voice not to be so congested, he tried again.

“Lance took my umbrella from me this morning and ran to class because he didn’t want to mess up his hair. I was just a little chilled in lab, but I think I’ll be okay now that I’ve warmed up.”

He tried to sniffle as discreetly as possible as another relentless tickle was awakened in his sinuses.

Shiro looked skeptical, but didn’t comment as they made their way to the front of the building in silence, both shocked when they saw Lance sitting on a bench with Keith’s bright red umbrella.

“Hey! Sorry for taking your umbrella. My lab got out like an hour early so I went ahead and ran to the post office and came back to walk with you so you won’t get all wet like you did this morning!”

Shiro decided not to make a comment on Keith’s health while Lance was around, taking pity on the frantic manner with which Keith hid the pack of tissues in his pocket and instead elected to depart in the opposite direction, offering a small wave to signify his departure.

Keith, feeling yet another tickle prick in his nose, just offered a smile in response to Lance’s long-winded explanation and followed his boyfriend outside.

Lance kept most of the umbrella for himself, so Keith’s shoulder was soaked by the time they made it to his dorm, causing him to have to fight off small shivers as he hugged Lance goodbye, not wanting to kiss his boyfriend if he was in fact coming down with something, which he probably was at this point.

Lance, though disappointed that he didn’t get a farewell kiss, decided that Keith was just grumpy about being left in the rain earlier, and brushed it off.

Keith frantically scrubbed his wrist under his nose as soon as he was turned away from Lance, he just had to hold back the sneeze until he made it inside— “Heh!”

“Did you say something, Keith?”

“Ihh-Ndo. Bye! I’ll see you at didder!”

Keith nearly slammed the door behind him as he let out an embarrassingly loud “Heh-ISHEW!”

He snuffled into his arm pitifully, half wishing that Lance had been observant enough to notice his current affliction.

After grabbing some tissues and swiping at his streaming nose, he curled up in bed for a short nap. Just half an hour, he thought to himself, trying to set an alarm but not…making it…

-

“-eith? Keith, honey, are you awake? Oh, sweetie you look terrible!”

Lance exclaimed, palming Keith’s forehead and tutting at the heat.

“You seemed fine earlier, how did you get so sick?”

“Umb…I thigk I bight have gotted a bit chilled durigg lab. Shiro always said that if I kept mby hair wet I’d get sick…”

He murmured, not really thinking about what he was saying. He looked up to see Lance tearing up a bit,

“W-wait what’s wrogg? What did I do?”

He panicked, getting up to try to hug his boyfriend but doubling over with a harsh set of coughs,

“No, it’s not you babe. How could I not notice you were soaking wet before lab? And I’m the one who forgot my umbrella. It should be me who’s sick, not you!”

Lance sniffled, looking up to see Keith offering a tissue. Keith got the adorable little embarrassed look he sometimes got when he was being romantic,

“I’d buch rather be the ode who’s sick if it beads you dod’t have to suffer, Landce.”

Lance giggled at his boyfriend’s congested words,

“Okay loverboy, blow your nose and then we can cuddle and watch a movie,”

“No cuddligg, I dod’t wadda get you sick, but a bovie soudds great.”

“Blow your nose, Keith! Then we’ll negotiate how much I’m gonna cuddle you!”

[lokilickedme]

I gotta tell you guys a funny story.  I’m going to put it under the cut because it’s long and also probably not of any interest to anyone who hasn’t sold on eB*y before, but it’s a followup to something I posted back in October and the ending is kinda epic:

Okay, so back sometime around the end of October I posted about a buyer that was giving me trouble.  She had filed for a return label to send back something she bought from me, due to the fact that she’d found it cheaper someplace else after she’d paid for mine.  Which isn’t allowed - the only valid reason eBay allows for requesting a refund is if the item isn’t as described.  Which mine was.  So I politely told her her request wasn’t valid and as per eBay’s rules I was under no obligation to let her send it back or issue her a refund.

She fired back a rant telling me that I should read the rules because she was ABSOLUTELY allowed to get a refund for that reason if she wanted to (yes, she did actually use the term “if I want to”).  So I pulled up the easily accessible Rules For Buying page, copied and pasted the paragraph where it’s clearly stated that the only situation in which a seller is required to issue a refund is the one situation that ours clearly wasn’t, and sent it to her with a “thank you, have a wonderful weekend” because that should have ended it right there.

She threw an ungodly SHIT.FIT.  Told me I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about and she was gonna get me kicked off eBay AND get her money back.  Oh and for my information, the “real” reason she actually wanted a refund was because the item wasn’t as described (which is, coincidentally, the rule that I had copied and pasted to her in my previous reply, which she vehemently denied was anywhere in the rules).  I laughed hard at that...like, pants pissing hard.  She hadn’t even known about that rule until I told her, and then she immediately changed her story to fit it.

BUT - she’d already filed her complaint under the category of “found item cheaper somewhere else”, which in eBay speak = shit out of luck.  You can only file once and you can’t change anything once you’ve submitted it.  She filed with an invalid reason, the first one they immediately disallow straight across the board - Buyer’s Remorse.

She blew her load in her own damn face.

Cue multiple more emails threatening me, telling me I have no idea what I’m talking about (I’ve been selling there for 20 years this Autumn, she’s been registered for less than 2 years) and insisting that I do what she says and give her her damn money back NOW.  I say sorry, but no.  But I still have to take some sort of action on the filed complaint, because that’s just how it works (a seller can lose a case that they’re clearly in the right on just by failing to respond to it officially).  That plus the nutbag had added more details to her side of the case, stating now that the item wasn’t as described (despite having officially filed it as Found It Cheaper Elsewhere).

So now she’s got two conflicting reasons listed for wanting a refund, but since she filed it under the first one, she’s screwed and there’s no unscrewing her.  But still I gotta do something official from my end, I’m just not sure what.

So I called eBay and asked if I should ignore the request or decline it.  The rep got the details from me, read all the emails between myself and Nutbag, reviewed the case notes, and came back to the phone LAUGHING HER ASS OFF.  Decline it right now, she told me in between choking sobs.  So I hit the decline button while the rep tried to get herself under control (and failed, because yeah, Nutbag’s emails were amusingly unhinged and ridiculous as hell) and we chatted for a minute because this was apparently the best thing that had happened to her all day and she was grateful to me for calling.  So I ask her what Nutbag can do next.  “Absolutely nothing” she assures me.  “Block her unless you just really enjoy being harassed, though from the looks of it you were having a great time.”

Yeah, I admit I was :)

But to avoid any more wasted time and energy, I go ahead and block her, meaning she can never contact me again because all of our correspondence has been through the eBay messaging system and she doesn’t have my email address.  It also means she can’t bid, buy, or send offers on any of my things ever again.  I’m shut of her.  Good riddance.  Ebay rep assures me that if Nutbag strikes back with negative feedback, all I have to do is call again and they’ll remove it and give her a strike for abuse of the feedback system.  Everything is in my favor and there’s absolutely nothing for me to worry about.

Ebay rep thanks me again for the good time and we say goodbye.

I keep an eye on my feedback for a few days, but nothing happens, and after about a week I stop even checking it.

And then about two weeks later I get a notice from PayPal.  Nutbag has filed a chargeback on the transaction.  She has filed a claim that her credit card was stolen and the purchase wasn’t made by her.

This is conflicting lie #3 on this purchase, and they’re just getting more hilarious as she gets more desperate to win.  The big gaping obvious hole in her claim this time?  The item was shipped to her home address, addressed to her, and the USPS tracking that PayPal had access to showed it was delivered to her at that address.  Why would someone steal her card and make purchases on it, only to have them delivered to her, the card owner?

So I called PayPal and pointed this out.  Another rep got the opportunity to laugh their ass off, and laugh he did.  I had already called eBay and requested permission to share with PayPal all the correspondence that took place through their system, so the PP guy read it all and just fell apart.  He counted the lies and I could all but see him shaking his head in disbelief.  And then the big whammy happened, and my faith in the entire universe was completely, unequivocally restored (with the exception of the rock Nutbag lives under).

PP rep informs me that not one penny will be taken from my account, because I’m covered by PP’s insurance and the case OBVIOUSLY is fraudulent...and then he tells me the really good part.  Because she filed the chargeback through her credit card company instead of through PP themselves, according to PP policy her account with them would be closed permanently.  As in, no more PP for Nutbag.  EVER.

I about choke on my tongue.  Every crooked thing this woman has done has backfired on her SO EPICALLY that it’s starting to border on unbelievable.  It’s like the two bank robbers in Raising Arizona who ended up just breaking back into jail at the end because everything they did blew up in their faces.

So PP rep guy (still laughing) tells me not to worry about anything, there’s nothing I need to do, even if her credit card company goes ahead and grants her the chargeback (which wasn’t likely because PP rep guy was typing notes about the fraud into the claim page as we were speaking) that PP would pay it through their insurance and not a penny of mine would ever be touched.  The claim wouldn’t count against me and absolutely nothing was going to happen to me.

But Nutbag was about to get a very upsetting email from PP, and dear god in heaven I wish I could have been there when she got it.

So PP rep guy and I bid each other good day, he thanks me for the funsies, and I spend the rest of the day giggling because omg it feels so good when lying dishonest assholes get what’s coming to them.

She lost, completely and ignominiously, at both eBay AND PayPal (and probably her own bank as well) - and all her frothing at the mouth to get even with me had failed embarrassingly.

So...all of this wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, and earlier tonight it crossed my mind to check my feedback at eBay, because I’d sort of forgotten about Nutbag.  Still no bad feedback, which is really surprising based on her previous refusal to back the hell off no matter how many times she was proven wrong.  But hey, I’m not complaining, that’s one less phone call I have to make.

And then out of curiosity I click on her ID and look at her purchase list on her feedback page.  There’s been no transactions since her run-in with me.  Not one.  And then I realize...without a PayPal account, her eBay account is basically useless, because a good 99% of all sellers there require PayPal as their only accepted payment method.  Some will take credit cards, but after PP reported her attempted fraud to them, they probably canceled her card as well.

Nutbag can’t buy on eBay anymore :D

I kept my hard earned money and my good selling reputation and got a good jolly giggle out of the whole thing.  And somewhere in New York, a failed fraud with the worst lying skills in the history of dishonesty is probably still trying to figure out how to get that $18 back from me.

And that’s the story of how I saved the rest of the eBay selling community from ever having to deal with Nutbag.  You’re welcome.

[staying-awake-today]

@Evan anon??? Why not just make a roleplay account instead of spamming this entire blog with too many asks??? It's getting difficult for the followers to actually bother keeping up with this blog.

((Boi there is nothing to keep up with because I am the world’s worst roleplayer

All jokes aside, that’s the truth. I haven’t done any other replies, and let me explain why (because really, this is no different than if they had a separate blog for Evan). Basically, this is how I approach stuff on rp/cosplay blogs as of late:

I look at what has been sent and what threads are going on. From there, I look at which has me most excited and which I can actually whip out a quick response. Sometimes, things that interest me most are the longest for me to make a reply to. This is because I want a response I am happy with. Embarrassingly enough (because I can assure you I rarely do this with academic essays), I look at sentence structure, word flow, and all the stylistic devices we learn about in class. I want it to sound good, and I don’t want it to be too full of fluff. And a lot of the times, that shit doesn’t come to me quickly. If you were here for my old threads with timidrocknroller, you’ll see that it took us a damn long time to get shit done, because we wrote with such care. But at the time, those were the threads that really grabbed my attention.

And if any of you came because of ANY of the previous blogs I was on, then you’ll know how AWFUL my writing was anD I REFUSE TO GO BACK TO THOSE DAYS FOR THE SAKE OF A QUICK RESPONSE RATE LIKE BELIEVE ME I’M DOING ALL OF US A FAVOR THAT SHIT WAS B A D

I wish I could answer things in order that they are received, if that is what you’re getting at (if not, then ignore this). But unfortunately, that is unrealistic. I personally will get nothing done on this blog if I chose that approach. 

And like I mentioned earlier, it wouldn’t make any difference if there was a blog for Evan. It would take the same amount of posts, the same amount of space, and the same amount of time on this blog. The only difference is the format. 

TLDR; I am a stressed, full-time undergrad with a part-time job I hate. I’ll decide how to spend my time, especially on this blog. If I want fluff, which I rarely do nowadays, I’ll write fluff. If I want some heart-wrenching, angsty scenes, I’ll do that. And if I want something completely silly, I’ll very well do some ridiculous threads. I write for myself and my partners. And if there is a problem, we can settle it privately like mature individuals. Thank you.))

[writingguide003-blog]

22 Writing Experts On Overcoming Their Greatest Writing Challenges

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22 Writing Experts On Overcoming Their Greatest Writing Challenges

I won’t lie to you.

Writing is a tough, demanding and lonely craft.

You’ve got to think of an idea, figure out if it’s worth writing about and then get the words down on the blank page in a room, by yourself.

Even when you’ve got this part of the creative process under control, it’s still your job to turn up and write every day, to publish your work and to find an audience.

The journey of every writer is marked by creative, personal and business challenges just like these.

I wanted to find out more about these types of challenges and how today’s professional and successful writers overcame them.

So, I asked 22 top authors and fiction writers one question:

What was your greatest writing or creative challenge and how did you overcome it?

This is what they said.

Doing The Work

Rachel Aaron – Author of Nice Dragons Finish Last, 2k to 10k, and The Legend of Eli Monpress

I’d say the biggest writing challenge I’ve faced was actually the book I just finished.

It was a sequel to a very successful first book. I went into the project thinking I knew exactly how it would go, but every time I tried, it didn’t feel right.

I banged my head against that book for a year trying to hammer it into place, but it was never right, because (as I finally discovered) I was trying to make it into something it would never be.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to admit I was the problem, but in the end, the only way forward was to swallow my ego, cut myself free, and start over with an entirely new idea.

This is a terrifying thing to do when you’re already months behind.

Plus, I’d already written and trashed over two complete novels worth of writing. That’s enough failure to make anyone hate their book.

If I gave up, though, I’d be abandoning my fans and a series I really did love before months of dead ends soured me on the whole thing.

Starting over and pushing through that project was the most difficult and humbling experience I’ve ever had as a writer, but I made it, and even better, I made it with a novel I’m very proud of.

I think when I look back on my career, I’ll consider refusing to give up on this book or to publish something I couldn’t be proud of as one of the watersheds of my progress as a writer.

Awful and humiliating as the failures were, pushing through them forced me to grow as a writer and as a professional in a way the successes never could.

I wouldn’t wish a hell book experience like this on anyone, but I think I came out stronger for it, and for that alone, I’m grateful.

Marion Roach  – Writing coach and teacher, specialising in the personal essay and memoirs

My biggest writing challenge is the same today as it was for the first piece I wrote when I worked at The New York Times, the same it was for all four of my books, and for every radio essay, magazine piece or op-ed: Making that extra phone call.

Stopping one call, fact-check, or piece of reporting short of what is needed is a hallmark of a lazy writer.

But it’s also the hallmark of a busy life, and we cannot let one influence the other, since while being busy is a cultural reality, it is no excuse for turning in a piece that is anything but as good as it can be.

These days, I write a great deal of memoir, a genre that has an unimaginable (to me) and wholly inaccurate reputation for being easy.

“You don’t have to check your facts,” people tell me, admitting that they didn’t do so. “You’re just depending on memory,” someone will suggest, “so how hard can it be?”

I solved this problem years ago by simply moving the landline phone next to the computer. This is where many writers keep their lucky pencils, worry beads, or photos of a dream house in Tuscany.

For me, that clunky old phone is an amulet as well as a nag, and it serves me every day as I move into that lovely end zone of a piece, when I make the mistake of thinking I’ve got it nailed and then remember that maybe, just maybe, I don’t.

Not quite yet.

The biggest writing challenge I’ve faced is myself. I got in my own way for YEARS!!

Making excuses, placing blame, ignoring my writing dream, letting fear get the best of me.

I’ll never forget the day I finally started to take my dream of writing a novel seriously.

It was a Saturday, and I had the whole day available for writing. But I kept coming up with things I needed to do first, things that were “so much more important” than writing my novel.

And then I found myself with a clean apartment, no dishes in the sink, washed laundry and nothing to do but write.

So I decided to get out a sponge and then get down on my hands and knees and scrub the bathroom floor. (And I HATE cleaning!)

In that moment I knew I had to decide if writing a novel and being a successful writer was truly important to me. I decided that it was, so I began to drop the excuses, flip around the fears and commit to taking action on my writing every day.

I didn’t write every day at first, but I did work on something writing related (story planning, character development, etc).

It took time to get rolling, but 7 years later I’m finally about to publish my debut novel, and I’ve made a career out of being a writer.

Amazing things can happen when you get out of your own way.

Self-belief

David Gaughran – Writer, blogger and indie author thought leader

There is a necessary dichotomy in every writer’s brain: we need a certain level of self-belief to put our work out into the world, but also a healthy dose of self-criticism to ensure its quality.

Dealing with this is the biggest writing challenge I’ve faced. And it’s one I still face, every single time I sit down to write.

The solution (like the problem) is in your own head. You don’t need that critical voice when writing the first draft.

In fact, you should ignore it, because it can make you freeze up completely. If you start being critical about your opening page, you’ll never finish that first chapter, let alone the book.

You need to vomit up the words until you hit The End.

Then you can be critical.

Everything can be fixed in the second draft… except for a blank page. So switch off that critical voice.

Give yourself the freedom to get the bones of your story down on the first pass.

You can worry about putting flesh on those bones later. Because once you have that first draft done, nothing can stop you.

Kevin T. Johns – Writing coach, podcaster and author

The greatest challenge I have had to overcome as an author is the realisation that the financial return will never equal the investment in time, effort, energy, heart, and soul that goes into creating a book.

Simply put, books are a terrible business to be in.

The way I’ve come to terms with that sad fact is by acknowledging that I’m not a writer because it is a smart business decision.

I’m am a writer because I can’t not be a writer.

Marcie Hill – Freelance writer and blogger and self-published author

My greatest writing challenge was confidence. Early in my career, I was afraid to call myself a writer because I was transitioning  from a career I hated to my passion. To overcome this challenge, I wrote consistently and started to BELIEVE that I was truly a writer.

The second case of lack of confidence I experienced was my fear of writing about controversial issues, such as race in America and the media’s negative portrayal of black people, that are near and dear to my heart. I’m still sometimes challenged with this, but when I have to speak up, I’m unstoppable.

My final and worse case of lack of confidence occurred when it was time to charge for services. It took years to get over this. Now, I let people know the value of the services I provide and charge accordingly.

Jen Talty – Romance author and publisher

There are so many challenges to writing and I think the first thing most of us will think of is handling all the rejections.

However, for me it was simply finding the time to write when my all three of my kids played travel hockey and we averaged 170 games a season in two countries and three states.

My first couple of books I wrote at the ice rink between practices and games.

Alex Lukeman – Author of the best-selling PROJECT action and adventure series

It’s difficult to pick out one “greatest” challenge when it comes to writing, especially if you write for a living as I do.

Writing for a living presents an ongoing series of challenges.

There are hundreds, thousands of articles and books about writing that address various challenges.

Things like getting through writer’s block or finding an agent/publisher or plotting or characterisation.

All of that is useful up to a point but always you are faced with the fundamental challenge of being a writer.

To put it simply, it’s the will to create and believe in your ability to create something of interest. Standing in the way is the hard reality that writing is difficult work.

No one tells you what to write. You have to make it up as you go along, out of nothing. You have to allow your imagination to step out and take control.

You have to get it down, one word, sentence, paragraph, chapter at a time. That brings you face to face with what I consider to be the greatest challenge and I face it with every book.

There always comes a point where I think ‘This isn’t very good or worse, this is lousy.’

Sometimes it is and I end up throwing out days of work.

The biggest challenge for me is to know it’s not the end of the world and that sooner or later my muse will return with a better result.

Believing that is the key to meeting the challenge.

James Scott Bell – Award-winning suspense author and writing coach

My biggest challenge came at the very beginning of my writing journey.

I knew I wanted to write, but had been told for years that you either “have it or you don’t” and that you can’t learn to be a great writer.

I didn’t think I had it, but when I determined I had to try, I went out and started studying and .

I kept writing and applying what I was learning, and then one day I had an actual epiphany.

Lightbulbs started flashing. It was realising that scenes should have an objective, obstacles, and an outcome that is usually a major setback.

From that point on my plotting was strong. I started to sell. And got the confidence I needed to go on.

Ian Sutherland – Cyber and crime thriller author and Twitter expert

One of the things I’ve been wrestling with over the last couple of months is, what is my identity?

Am I a fiction writer? Or am I a nonfiction writer? Or am I both?

My website right this minute is a bit of a hybrid.

I’m actually working on that behind the scenes, so I’m going to make sure that my main website that you see from all of the stuff to do with and my fiction work is just about that, and I’m probably going to set up a second website for the because the audience there is other authors.

Getting Published

Gary Smailes – Freelance writer, editor, researcher and historian

The way I often explain this new publishing approach to non-writers is with a restaurant analogy. In the past a publisher might have been happy flipping burgers and selling to the masses.

Now everyone is able to open a burger joint. Publishers now need to be different, better… they are no longer looking for grill cooks, they are looking for Michelin star chefs.

This is a golden age for writers and the impact of Amazon self-publishing platform will continue to echo over the coming years.

But one thing that has already changed is what it means to be a ‘writer’.

Gone are the days of a writer’s only path to success being through the slush pile. If a writer now wishes to side-step the gatekeeper and go it alone, it is a very viable option.

So, what’s the ‘the biggest challenge facing a writer’?

For me, is it the challenge of a writer deciding what type of writer they wish to become.

There’s no harm is being a grill cook, writers can make good money and have the freedom to plot their own publishing journey, but is that what a writer really wants?

Or are they seeking something different, do they need the prestige that comes with being ‘picked by a publisher’?

Are they looking to become that Michelin star chef with all the highs and lows it brings?

Or is the writer looking for something different and new? Technology and the internet are allowing writers to constantly reinvent what it really means to be a ‘writer’.

Only by making and embracing the choice that faces them will writers have a shot at success.

K.M. Weiland – Fantasy writer, blogger and mentor for authors

Being published. No, seriously! Being published and read by others is amazing in countless ways.

It has made my life and my writing richer. But it also makes writing harder.

Once you realise you’re no longer writing just for yourself, but that every word you write is being read (and judged—for better or worse) by others, it’s hard to keep that thought out of your head while writing.

The pressure is on, and it can be crippling. I went through a sophomore-novel stage where I found myself over-thinking my first drafts to a ridiculous extent.

The result?

My writing suffered, and I stopped having fun.

As much as I love and appreciate my readers, I remind myself every day that I write, first and foremost, for myself. I write because I love it—because I have stories bubbling up out of me.

I focus on that and not on what readers may or may not want, and my writing is always the better for it.

I love Anne Lamott’s quote in Bird by Bird:

“I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.”

Terah Edun – New York Times & USA Today Bestseller

My biggest writing challenge is navigating the demands of self-published market as it changes year-by-year. I overcome each day by learning from close friends, networking with marketing experts, and pushing forward to continue writing the books I’ve always loved to read.

Handling Ideas and Plot

Roz Morris – Fiction writer, editor, speaker and writing coach

My biggest challenges are always creative – how to do justice to an idea.

I’ll start with an exciting idea – for instance, what if I turn the classic reincarnation story on its head?

Instead of sending a character to examine her past life, what if she suspected she had a future life and somebody was receiving her as the past?

That’s how was born. These ideas arrive full of freight – although, like dreams, they keep it locked away.

My writing process is part research and part search; a labyrinthine route of interpretation and guesswork to discover what it means.

I write reams of notes; long, secret essays I may never read again.

The chances are, I’ll find them absurd, wrong or naive. But as I keep visiting the book and sharing my thoughts with the page, I begin to understand what my gut is telling me.

My Memories of a Future Life became an exploration of despair – a person who had lost faith and hope in her own life.

The challenge is always to release the potential in an idea.

It’s tough, but once it’s done, it’s so rewarding.

A.G. Riddle – Self-published and traditionally published science fiction author

Choosing which story idea to pursue.

I finally just went with the idea that fascinated me the most–without worrying about how big the audience was for the story.

I think you have to be passionate about your story first–it comes through in your writing and that’s what readers love.

Douglas E. Richards – New York Times and USA today best-selling science fiction author

Plotting has always been my biggest writing challenge, but, alas, it is one I have yet to overcome.

My writing style is fairly unadorned and cinematic.

I want readers to always be thinking, “this passage is so engrossing, I have to know what happens next!” In order to accomplish this, I take great pains to deliver intelligent, tight plots with complex mysteries at their centers and plenty of twists and turns.

Before I begin each new novel, I probably spend a month just trying to figure out the overarching direction I’d like it to take.

But even if I think I have a reasonable idea of the actual plot, I’m only fooling myself, because no plot survives engagement with the page. For me, writing a novel is like putting together a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Until you’ve laid some of the early pieces, you don’t have any idea what you have to work with, so you can’t possibly know where later pieces might fit in.

This is very scary for me, because I’m never able to figure out the endings of my novels until I’m at least halfway through them, and most times I’m convinced that doing so is impossible—until I finally have a eureka moment (after I’ve pulled out handfuls of hair and my stress levels have climbed into the stratosphere).

Robert McKee – A Fulbright Scholar and the most sought-after screenwriting lecturer around the globe

Too often writers spend all their time worrying about marketing themselves. If they would just pay attention to the work, if they put their energy into turning themselves into the best possible writer they can be…to do that, they have to cultivate taste.

The difference between an amateur and a professional is that amateur writers love everything they write, they keep every scrap and every page thinking that some day somebody is going to want to do a PhD thesis on them or whatever delusion they live in.

Professional writers hate everything they write because they have the highest possible standards. They know that 95 percent of everything they do is crap. They are only capable of excellence 1 or 2 percent of the time. They know they have got to get all that crap out, read it and go “That’s just bad writing, cliched writing.”

They know they have to destroy it all in order to get to that precious few moments of real creativity when they are writing at their best.

(Professional writers) hate everything they do because they have high standards. What I see so often in my work is that people have no standards. Or, their standard is what was just published last year, or what was just produced last year. They want to copy that with a slight variation. They want to write the way they think they’re supposed to because they have no real standards.

So don’t worry about marketing. If you write really well the first person you show it to will become your champion.

Philip Kleudgen – Blogger and entrepreneur

The biggest challenge in writing for me is always getting started. It can take hours or in some cases even days to decide on a topic I want to write about.

Once I decided that everything else falls in place. I start researching the facts, collect contributions and links and it’s like a puzzle that shows a beautiful image in the end.

If I am REALLY not in creative mode I sometimes do a filler post consisting of quotes or images only.

This buys me some time before the next epic piece must be written.

The way I try to overcome this is by writing articles in clusters.

That means after finding the topic I will write a blog post, guest posts and maybe even start an ebook about the same thing. This helps a lot to be more productive.

Finding ideas is mainly a process of reading industry blogs, do random Google searches or play around with ubersuggest.org to find fresh content. Talking to other people and interacting in the comment section of any given website or on Twitter also can help.

Marketing Your Work and Finding Readers

Ashley Farley – blogger and best-selling self-published author of Her Sister’s Shoes

I’m sure you’ve heard this time and again, but social media is the biggest challenge I face as an indie author.

There are countless opportunities for an author to interact with readers and other writers online. Too many, in my opinion.

As an introvert, I find the process overwhelming and way too time-consuming when all I really want to do is write novels.

When I found myself close to a mental breakdown last month   over all the responsibilities of launching my latest novel, I had a little heart-to-heart with myself and decided I would restrict my hangout sessions to the networks where I feel at home.

Isn’t that the way we choose to socialize in person? I’m concentrating on Facebook, which is where most women my age hang out, and on Goodreads for the same reason.

I also recently joined the Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association as that seems like my kind of cocktail party—low key, girl to girl talk about women’s fiction.

Mostly, I’m trying to approach social media as fun instead of work, which is helping enormously.

– Author of the John Milton series of thrillers

Finding readers for my work. The way to solve it – hard work, invention and a willingness to learn.

Mailing lists are critical, and then finding readers to fill them.

When you have that sorted, graduate some readers to a street team and work together to solve the visibility problem with early reviews and buys.

And, over all of it, treat customers as readers and be flattered when they get in touch. Answer every email personally and those readers become fans and, sometimes, friends.

Dean Wesley Smith – USA Today best-selling science fiction writer, novelist and editor of Smith’s Monthly

I spent seven long years not selling and rewriting and polishing and writing slow and following every other myth I had ever been taught about writing.

I was just about to give up when I started reading how real writers did it, and then I found .

I decided to follow those business rules without missing.

All five of them. (I wasn’t selling, so I had nothing to

lose.)

I started selling almost at once and have never looked back and never stopped following those five business rules. But I really regret those seven long years of following the myths of writing.

Terri Woods – American novelist and author of True to the Game

I  have faced two very big challenges.

The first is being successful as an independent author and independent publisher. Mainly because it’s okay for you to self-publish a book, but its not okay for you to make a lot of money from it.

So, if you can publish the book and become a self made millionaire, that’s called being ‘divergent’ and if you are me, that is a problem, so much that I was denied the right to do business and I wasn’t allowed shelf space, and was threatened with imprisonment all because I was selling thousands and thousands of books every month.

It got so ugly, folks were not allowed to buy or even order my books from certain bookstores.

Then, the other challenge for me is that I am black and as a black writer with NY Times Best Selling novels, I haven’t been given, and in some cases, not allowed the same opportunities in the market place as white authors with books of less selling potential.

And forget about your NY Times best selling novel being turned into a major motion picture or television series if your African American, your readers are NOT going to see their favourite characters to come to life, because that’s totally not going to happen either.

It’s sad, but the marketing dollars just aren’t given to African Americans and they never have been.

So, these issues have presented themselves to be extremely challenging for me as an African American writer and as the owner of an independent publishing company.

However, these challenges do not prevent me from dreaming, from believing in myself, from believing in my work, and these challenges will never stop me from reaching folks that are willing to support me and read my books.

The Real Work of a Writer

Professional writers don’t quit when things get hard. Even when they’d rather do anything but write, professionals concentrate on improving their craft, on getting the words down and on shipping their work.

They do it because it’s their job.

It’s your job too.

You can use any of the solutions put forward in this post to overcome some of the challenges you’re encountering on the blank page.

For this post I interviewed mostly fiction writers.

Prefer to learn more about non-fiction writing?

Don’t worry.

Check out my follow-on post published recently on Boost Blog Traffic:

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22 Top Writers On Their Great Writing Challenges (And How They Overcame Their Demons)