#he’s outlandishly sexy. OUTLANDISHLY.

[vveissesfleisch]

borgias season 1 down - enamored with these terrible people and the way the relationships between them are written. all of the siblings are absolutely insane. delightful! (and micheletto! my beloved!) and the costumes! chefs kiss. v excited to see what happens next in this fiendishly horny and witty show.

[cloudywriting05]

How do you feel about Finnick x Virgin/Innocent Reader?!

SHORT BECAUSE I DONT HAVE MY LAPTOP. But yessss, FINNICKKKK😍

NSFW, 18+, GRAMMATICAL ERRORS!

SUGGESTIONS OPEN (coryo…..smut…?🤨😏)

Finnick was taken aback when you told him you hadn’t ever done the deed, or any deed. He felt almost guilty for all the times he’d looked at you with lustful eyes. Imagining how you’d look bent over, crying, begging for him to cum on your tongue; he felt humiliated. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that the most outlandishly sexy woman he’d ever come across his entire life was completely untouched.

It explained your standoff-ish demeanour, and your refusal of any sort of contact with any man who came off the slightest bit sleazy. The revelation had haunted his mind for a very long time. You on the other hand were always fond of Finnick. You knew him as the Capitols sweetheart, the darling of the districts and the hottest male victor.

Everyone wanted to fuck him and you were constantly reminded of it. The idea of sex itself was a lot for you. You hadn’t kissed anyone, touched anyone or even spoken too many words to a man before. It was overwhelming. What you did know was that Finnick was hot. That whenever he came too close around your pussy pulsated, have suddenly sweaty palms, and stumble over your words for no apparent reason.

You tucked your fears away for just one night. You came to his apartment unexpected. Finnick revelling at your sudden appearance. You sat on his couch talking about everything and anything that came to mind, the topics turned sour and before you knew it you were getting emotional talking about your family and the games.

You laughed at yourself for getting teary eyed and he laughed with you, wiping the singular tear from your cheek. You observed him and calculated what to do next and only came to one conclusion. You leaned in and once again, kissing him without hesitation or second thought. Finnick silently rejoiced, not hesitating to reciprocate the energy.

You learnt that night Finnick was a passionate lover. He asked you if you were okay every chance he got. Sucking his penis was confusing at first for you, you’d never seen a penis in person before and you didn’t know if his was meant to be as big as it was. But, he managed to help you through it. Watching you latch your lips around his dick, moving to his instructions.

You winced in pain as he put it in for the first time, telling him it hurt. He kissed your forehead and lips at every opportunity, until you got used to his size. He kissed you and told you that you had every right to ask him to stop at any point, and that you didn’t have to do this. You shook your head, you wanted Finnick.

His use of the words baby, darling and sweetness boosted your confidence. His words of encouragement rallying you on as you rode him, or anyone for the first time. Did it hurt? Yes. But he made up for it by bringing you to what you now know was an orgasm by using his tongue on your pussy, your favourite part arguably.

Finnick finished on your tongue like he’d fantasied about for the longest time. He fell back and ushered you to lay with him. You both fell asleep that night, knowing that after today you could never be just friends.

FIN

[the-house-of-auditore-frye]

So... is anybody accepting requests for Netflix's Scrooge?👀

Because I can't write to save my life but I had an idea for one of Harry's friends who has a big crush on Scrooge but knowing he'll never feel... feelings... she decides the best way to deal with it is to flirt with him outlandishly.

"Mister Scrooge... if i had no money to repay my debt, could i pay you back some other way?😏😉😈"

And then after the ghosts visit him and he realises he could have a happy future with her, the next time he sees her, he flirts back and catches her off guard

"Naughty girls need to be punished, don't they?"

I'm just being self indulgent here. I don't know who's idea it was to make Scrooge sexy but I don't know whether I want to thank them or yell at them. If someone told me a few years ago that I'd be thirsting over Scrooge, I'd think they were high.

And the cane doesn't help...😫

[scifrey]

Hold Tight (2/6)

Status: Complete. Unbeta’d, we die like Hob doesn’t.

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse, but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death. Also includes some erotic content. Please curate your internet experience accordingly.

Relationships:  Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Past Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past), Hector Hall/Lyta Hall (past)

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Matthew the Raven, Desire of the Endless, Lyta Trevor-Hall, Daniel Hall, Rose Walker, Jed Walker 

Summary:

Hob is tasked with his first quest as Vassal of the Endless, Morpheus is bad at using his words, Destiny thinks he’s so clever, Desire makes a confession, Rose Walker meets her Uncle’s boyfriend, and Lyta Hall punches Dream of the Endless in the nose. Or, the one where Hob Gadling turns into everyone’s therapist, and honestly, he ain’t mad about it.

Set at the end of Cling Fast - after the premiere of “Elizabethan Manor”, but before the Epilogue.

READ ON AO3 or below:

Chapter Two

Easter is coming up, and Hob still doesn’t teach on Tuesdays. So after some back-and-forthing via text, and a few video chats to prove that he’s not catfishing the Walkers, Hob’s got a flight booked from Heathrow to Newark Liberty for the Friday morning of the holidays. He picks a hotel at random from the half a dozen near the Walker’s apartment building, and splurges on a pair of tickets to see the big ‘It Show’ on Broadway that season. It’s been a lifetime since he saw live theatre in New York, quite literally, and Morpheus is fond of stories in all their forms.

He reserves a swanky pan-Mediterranean restaurant with a Michelin-starred chef for the same night, but doesn't bother with a second plane ticket for his lover. Morpheus is still Dream enough to travel without needing to be crammed into an airtight metal tube for nine hours, and Hob’s not wasting the money (or, frankly, the patience.)

While he’s not hurting for cash, Hob is desperately aware of how fast everything can go to hell, and his wages and savings are soon enough going to have to stretch to cover the needs and wants of two immortal humans. While it is more or less true that two can live as cheaply as one, as the old maxim goes, there are renovations he wants to make to the living quarters of the Inn so he and Morpheus aren't tripping over one another. And Morpheus is going to have to eat (whether he likes it or not), which means an increase in the grocery bill, if nothing else.

Hob assumes that eventually Morpheus will get a job, but before that he’s going to have to get used to the pleasures and frustrations of occupying just one body on the mortal plane. Though, what kind of job will be suited to a former Onieromancer, Hob can't even begin to guess. His mind baulks every time he tries to imagine Morpheus in a barista's pinny.

Hob has vague ideas of not telling Morpheus about the New York trip. Of just heading to the airport and falling asleep in New York, and shouting “surprise!” when his lover pops into existence in his hotel room. But about a week before he’s due to travel, Hob finds himself in utter brain-dead exhaustion and tipping into slumber draped over a pile of marking. He opens his eyes in the interior of an airplane.

It’s a weird amalgamation of all the earliest flights he’d ever taken, painted with an ever-shifting palette of generous legroom, outlandishly luxurious curtains and carpets, over-the-top Golden Age of Airtravel cocktails, and sexy little airhostesses (what? Hob is only human, and the outfits were designed to turn the girls wearing them into works of art. Hob's allowed to admire art.)

“I would not be opposed to wearing such an outfit if it would please you, Hob,” Morpheus rumbles in his ear, deep as night and sweet as sin. His timbre here in the Dreaming remains what Hob thinks of as his Dream Voice, laced with magic and the deepness of night. Sometimes, when he makes the effort to draw the cloak of his Endless nature about him, he can still access it in the Waking. But it's becoming less and less common. “Though I do not think my legs would be as comely.”

“They would in those heels, babe,” Hob laughs, and turns toward the window seat to catch Morpehus’ mouth quick and dirty with his own. “But that’s not why I’m dreaming about air travel.”

Morpheus bites his lower lip playfully. “Are you planning a trip, erasti?”

“Betrayed by my own subconscious,” Hob huffs, and pulls back. “It was sorta supposed to be a surprise.” Concentrating on his lucid dreaming, Hob produces replicas of the Broadway tickets.

Morpheus takes one and studies it, eyebrows lowering in confusion. “You would cross the ocean simply for a play?”

“A good play,” Hob hedges, wondering if he is really going to get away with the subterfuge.

Does he tell Morpheus it’s just for the performance, and then spring the Walkers on him?

Or would that do the opposite of what Destiny had asked, make Morpheus resent both Hob and this mortal niece and nephew? And what would it mean for this mysterious friend Lyta that Hob’s supposed to reconnect Morpheus with?

Hob hasn’t looked into her too deeply, for fear of coming off creepy or weird. However, according to both the internet and Hob’s chats with Rose, Lyta is an architect, and the sole partner in a firm that used to include her late husband. She lives in the same building as the Walkers. They share a tight bond, as Rose had been there for her husband’s death, and then Lyta returned the compassion while Rose slowly lost her mother.

Lyta’s also recently had a baby. The dates around the death of her husband don’t align with when she might have conceived, so Hob assumes there’s a new boyfriend in her life, or a rebound that had gone wrong (or right,) or the late husband had frozen his sperm, and Lyta had done IVF. All possibilities, and all none of Hob’s goddamned business.

He wants to form his own relationship with her as honestly and organically as he can, before shoving her at his lover and telling them to make up. (Hob still has no idea why she hates Morpheus.)

“Well, it’s not Shakespeare,” Morpheus allows offhandedly, manifesting a single puffball-perfect, light purple scabius blossom.

Hob laughs. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. My taste isn’t that bad!”

He takes the flower, presses it to his lips, and is about to suggest he and Morpheus join the mile high club when the blossom wavers and reblooms as a darkly purple, star-shaped nightshade.

Morpheus looks from the plant to his lover, and smirks. “Are you lying to me, Hob Gadling?”

Hob puffs out a sigh and runs his free hand through his hair. “No! No, not… not lying. Just… not telling the whole truth.” He twirls the stem of the tattle-tale flower in between his fingers, releasing the sweet scent of the flower into the cabin. Then he sets it down and takes Morpheus’s hands between his own, resting them on the narrow arm rest separating them. “I’m going to New York to perform a boon-–no don’t ask me which sibling, or what the task itself is, I won’t tell you. But I’m going to New York, and I want you to come with me.”

“To a play,” Morpheus repeats, clearly unconvinced. "For a task, as Vassal of the Endless."

“The play is a reward for your good behaviour, O Prince of Stories, and a treat for me.”

Morpheus wraps his fingers around Hob’s, tight and demanding. “And pray tell me, what does this visit entail for me, that you feel the need to pre-book a reward for my lack of a tantrum?”

Hob licks his lips. Morpheus’s starlit eyes drop to them immediately, so Hob does it again.

“You are stalling, innamorato,” Morpheus growls, but doesn’t lift his gaze away from Hob’s mouth.

“I… I’ve been in communication with Rose Walker,” Hob confesses in a rush, deciding to rip off the bandaid.

Morpheus rears back, eyebrows bouncing high, lips pursed in a pissy frown. “Who gave you permission? She is my niece–”

“You’re not her only uncle, you know,” Hob says, taking his turn to squeeze his lover’s fingers and keep him rooted to the dream seat, preventing him from whispering away in a sandy strop. “And like you said, I am Vassal of the Endless. All of the Endless, not just the siblings you get along with.”

Morpheus swallows the rest of his indignant protest with an audible click. He chews on the truth of what Hob’s saying, the look on his face suggesting that it’s awfully sour.

“Look, I know you don’t like it, but I need to see them. I need to talk to them. And I want you to come with me.”

“Why?” Morpheus grinds out, the single syllable grating against his teeth.

Hob gawps at him. “Because they’re your family, duckie. You're going to be human soon—don't tell me you don't want the family connection. Rose and Jed, they won't live forever, but they may have kids, and don't you want to be part of their lives? Don't you want that… that anchor? That privilege? I know I would give anything to know what happened to the descendants of my sisters’s living children.”

Morpheus seems to muse on this, and while Hob can't tell from his expression on what side of the fence his lover lands, he does catch the little eyelid flicker which means Morpheus has decided to acquiesce to his pleas in order to keep Hob happy. "Do you require me to intervene on your behalf with them?"

"No. I just… I want you to spend time with them, that's all," Hob says gently.

"And what does this have to do with the task laid before you by one of my siblings?"

Hob tugs on his ear, once again debating the probability of complete honesty working in his favour, or blowing up in his face. The nightshade hanging in the air between them fades away into dream sand and reforms as a spray of freesia.

Morpheus frowns at it, a fetching little furrow appearing between his eyebrows. It's the one which Hob always wants to smooth away with his thumb, and this time he lets himself reach up and do so. Morpheus transfers his gaze to Hob's face, eyes sliding back down to Hob's mouth.

He takes Hob's upraised hand gently, and presses a slow, open-mouthed and lingering kiss against Hob's wrist, testing his pulse with his night-cool tongue. Hob shudders, feeling the dream of the airplane wisp away around them.

"Very well," Morpheus rumbles. "I will do as you entreat and trust you."

"You'll meet me there?" Hob asks, even as the freesia changes again, this time into a headily perfumed white-and-yellow jonquil.

"I will. Name the day."

"Okay. I promise, Morpheus—"

"Hob," the King of Dreams and Nightmares says, and pushes Hob back onto his bed. Hob doesn’t wonder how they got to Morpheus’ private chambers in his castle. He only arches his spine and spreads his limbs wide in invitation, which his lover accepts, as he knew Morpheus would. "I have said I will attend."

Even Hob rarely sees Morpheus' bed chambers in the dreaming, for more often they make love in the Waking, or in a fantasy replica of Hob's apartment or other analogous location. The walls around them are an ever-shifting marble of purple and deep blue, the colours of the sky in the gloaming. The pillows are made up of piles of scarlet-pink-orange-peach sunset clouds, fluffy and sweet-smelling, and the bedclothes the star-pricked heavens of twilight.

If there is other furniture in the room besides the massive, body-cradling bed, Hob has no idea. He's always had much better things to pay attention to when he's in this room than the decor.

"Thank you, duckie," Hob says, as Morpheus fists his long, slim fingers in Hob's hair and tugs just enough for it to be exciting. Hob gasps, high and sweet, as Morpheus scrapes his teeth—pointed and thrillingly nightmarish—along his clavicle.

"Enough talk, Hob Gadling," Morpheus intones, his words an edict. "Put your mouth to better use."

And who is Hob to ever deny a direct order from his King?

See, one of the nice things about sex in the Dreaming is that first, Morpheus can present with any arrangement of genitals that he's feeling fit his current mood he wants. And, secondly, there does not need to be any elaborate hygiene ritual to ensure that one's body is prepared to receive a tongue.

This convenience is balanced out by the extreme inconvenience of mornings where Hob is more often than not ridiculously stuck to his PJs. A wet dream or two (or three, or four) will do that to a man. Hob could, of course, choose not to wear anything at night, but that would just mean he'd have to change the sheets every time Morpheus felt frisky, and that is more work than it's worth. Hob's seriously thinking about looking into period panties as nightwear, solely due to their absorbent properties. Hob's also begun waxing his pubic hair simply because it makes his morning showers faster.

He's not saying that the faster Morpheus the God of Sleep becomes Morph the Immortal Human full-time, the better. Of course not. Morpheus' transition should happen at his own pace and comfort level. But Hob is definitely looking forward to not having to peel himself out of his pajamas in the shower before he can start the day.

"Hob!" Morpheus says with another imperious tug of his hair. "Cease daydreaming and—"

Using the element of surprise, Hob wraps a thick thigh around Morpheus' hip, shoves his shoulder, and gets the skinny little nightmare under him.

"What are you—oh!" Morpheus gasps, as Hob folds his fingers over Morpheus' stomach, rocks back on his own heels, and hauls his lover's pelvis up to his mouth to see what he's working with.

A beautifully camelia-pink pussy pouts up at him. It is already swelling open, moist and delicious, with the cutest little clit winking at Hob from under its soft hood.

"My, my," Hob tuts, rubbing his cheek on the soft moon-pale flesh of his lover's inner thigh, leaving a deliberate ruby-red beard rash behind. "If you wanted my cock so badly, all you had to do was ask, duckie."

Morpheus gets his black-laquered nails into Hobs shoulders and digs in. "This is asking."

"Right, of course," Hob murmurs, smearing the words against Morpheus' glistening labia. "Why use words when you can just sit on my fa—mmph!"

Now it is Hob's turn to be surprised, as Morpheus surges up and, using his superior eldritch power to force Hob's shoulders back onto the springy bed to do just that. Morpheus grinds down against Hob's chin, and Hob opens his mouth, points his tongue, and puts it to the demanded use obligingly.

Even when he desires to be topped, Morpheus is bossy.

Hob wouldn't have him any other way, honestly.

From the moment Hob had craned his head back to look up at the long, lithe line of Morpheus' body in 1389, he'd known that he would be happy to be on his knees, chin tipped up and throat exposed, for the rest of his life. Acts of Service and Gifts are his love language, and like ridiculously expensive Greek wine, whole Inns, venison pasties, and appearing on a TV show to make his lover happy, Hob delights at giving orgasms, too.

Morpheus is his God, Hob is Head Priest and Supplicant, and Hob is filled with zinging joy to be made to lay back on the altar of Morpheus' regard, and worship.

PREVIOUS PART | NEXT PART

[thefvrious]

@blumhouses sent in lestat/akasha

Who would be the big spoon/little spoon? lestat is the big spoon Who would wake up first? lestat wakes at the earliest possible moment, if we're talking when they're vampires, but otherwise, she's a human so akasha Do they have nicknames for each other? oh they have all sorts of interesting names for one another. How do they apologize after an argument? lestat doesn't apologize, he moves on. i don't think akasha does, either. makes for an interesting dynamic. What would they be like as parents? oh, absolutely fucking chaotic. god bless that child. Who is more romantic? lestat has a very romantic nature, but akasha has a desire to be romanced, so it's sort of level What sort of gifts do they get for each other? absolutely outlandishly extravagant gifts. Who gets jealous easiest? they both get jealous pretty easily Who gets more excited for events e.g.. Birthdays, Christmas? I don't think either of them cares much for worldly holidays. akasha might be interested at first because it's new to her. Who is the most adventurous? they're both equally as adventurous as the other Who is the most protective? they are both fiercely protective What would they have been like as childhood sweethearts? i think things might've been more interesting for lestat's story-line had this happened because he would have replaced enkil as the king of the damned, and i don't think he would've gone dormant like that. they'd have been a force to be reckoned with, that's for certain. Who uses all the hot water? lestat makes sure there's an endless supply Who would accidentally set the kitchen on fire whilst cooking? lestat. because why should he cook? Who initiates sexy times the most? lestat, he's a fiend. Who is more dominant? lestat What would they do if the other one was hurt? with a protective vengefulness, absolutely Who gives nose/forehead kisses? hm. interesting question. i don't think this is a big thing for either of them. What their biggest fight was/will be about: probably how fucking stubborn lestat is BONUS #1: Song to sum them up? still good dnce BOTTOM LINE: Do I ship it? who doesn't?

[pumpkinofthedale]

Here’s the fanficfic! Sorry if I stepped on any toes, and I hope you enjoy it :)))

The party was bumping. Though you supposed that was to be expected, given who was hosting it.

Unlike that first Christmas party, however, this one was being thrown for a much different occasion: to end Eridan’s summer vacation with a bang. There were fewer people this time; the guest list mostly consisting of Eridan’s friends, Cronus’ friends, and some of their friends by extension, along with a few tertiary friends thrown in for good measure.

But you weren’t really one to keep track, so you just showed up in a nice blouse and shorts with the intent of sticking by your boyfriend for the evening.

Of course, it was Eridan who greeted you at the door, toothy grin on his face when he saw you. “You came!”

“Of course I did.” You smiled, “Wouldn’t want to miss out.” He let you in, escorted you to the outlandishly large backyard, and you beelined for the food.

The spread was, as usual, incredible. Bowls of fresh-cut fruit, plates of barbecued burgers, hot dogs, fish, and chicken, and a whole table dedicated to drinks. You grabbed a skewer and scored yourself a glass of lemonade. Elsewhere on the grass, a group of kids about Eridan’s age were playing in a sprinkler.

You glanced towards the pool—and oh, it was so big—but made your way towards the hedges near the edge of the yard to enjoy your food in relative peace.

You watched as other guests, troll and human alike, filed in, and wondered how much longer you’d have to wait until Cronus showed up. Not that he was the only reason you came, but he was one of the main reasons you planned on staying.

You’d gotten about halfway through your second glass of lemonade when your boyfriend finally showed up, tight white tank top emblazoned with his sign.

You had to double take when he spotted you, though, because you hadn’t expected him to be wearing booty shorts.

It was definitely a good look on him, though.

You took another swig of your drink as he stalked over to you, shark-toothed grin plastered on his face.

“About time you showed up,” you teased the moment he made it to you. “Almost thought you might not show.”

“And miss this view, babe?” His eyes flicked up and down your body, hands straying towards your hips. “You know I love seeing your pretty eyes up close, doll.”

You took his hands in yours, mostly because you weren’t sure you wanted them on your hips right now.

“Oh, and uh, sorry for being so loud, Tuesday night.” He apologized. “I’ll try to tone it down next time, kitten, so you don’t get quite so many noise complaints.”

You finished off your lemonade. “I don’t know,” and then you leaned in, tugging your boyfriend down by the shoulder so you could whisper in his ear like the smooth, sexy person you so obviously were, “I kinda like it when you’re screaming my name.” You pecked him on the cheek.

Cronus’ face flushed, fins fluttering as he trilled quietly. “Oh… yeah, okay.”

You held up your glass, “I’m gonna go refill my drink real quick, okay?” You turned around and made your way to the middle table, grabbing another chicken skewer as you went.

It was as you were refilling your glass that you were approached by two unknown trolls.

Wait, no, you think you might’ve been told about them by Cronus before. You nodded your head in greeting. “Meenah and Porrim, right?”

Porrim nodded. “And you are?”

You gave them your name.

Meenah cleared her throat. “So how much is that buoy paying ya?”

It took you a second to process this. What did she—

Oh.

Oh.

You weren’t sure whether to laugh or be mildly offended. “He’s… not?”

Porrim frowned. “Are you quite sure?”

Being completely honest, you fully understood where they were coming from. Hell, you from eleven months ago probably would have felt the same.

But at the same time, you were mildly offended that they pegged you as so shallow, so easily bought. “I am telling you with one-hundred percent honesty: Cronus isn’t paying me a dime.”

You pushed past them, fully intent on returning to Cronus (and maybe laughing about this little incident), but were stopped by Porrim’s grip on your arm.

“Oh, dear,” She all but whispered, aghast, “It’s okay, we can help you.”

…You didn’t think you liked where this was going.

You tried to wrench your arm free, but Porrim was holding it in an iron grip. “Look, I’m not gonna lie and say that I don’t see exactly where you’re coming from here, because trust me, I do.” You set your lemonade on the table and carefully pried your arm from Porrim’s grip. “Believe me when I say that if Cronus was violating the boundaries I’ve set I would not hesitate to dump him, okay?” You smiled, but it didn’t feel quite as genuine as you hoped it looked. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” you grabbed your lemonade and shuffled past them, “I’ve got places to be.”

The table wasn’t that far from the spot you had picked, so there was no doubt that Cronus would have been able to see Meenah and Porrim interrogating you. As you approached, though, you realized why he hadn’t come over: another troll (Aranea? Yeah, you were pretty sure that was Aranea) had him pressed up against the hedges without even touching him, talking him into submission. As you got closer, you could start to make out what she was saying.

You resisted the urge to snort. She was pressing him for information on your relationship, likely out of the same concern that had Meenah and Porrim approaching you earlier.

She hadn’t noticed your arrival. Cronus had; there was a silent plea in his eyes.

Right. You’d told him you weren’t exactly comfortable spilling every detail just yet. It actually made your heart flutter a little to see him trying to respect that, even if the result was him being cagey and trying to be anywhere but under Aranea’s scrutinizing gaze.

You cleared your throat. “Hello.” Aranea turned to face you. “Aranea, right?” You offered your free hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

She smiled, “It’s nice to meet you,—?”

You gave her your name. “And before you ask, no, Cronus isn’t paying me, and no, I do not need help dumping him. Nor am I trying to.”

Cronus made a sound akin to a dying fish being put through a wood chipper.

“Oh!” Aranea startled. “And you’re certain of this?”

“Yes.” You stared her down, taking a sip of your lemonade.

Aranea shrugged. “Well, I guess some people just have terrible taste—” Cronus gasped in offense— “But to each their own.”

She started walking away, but paused, “Lemme know if he ever hurts you, though, so I can get the girls together to give him a good thrashing, okay?”

You shrugged. “Sure.”

Aranea chuckled, then left.

“Wow, Chief,” Cronus sidled up next to you, tentatively slinging an arm across your shoulders, “That’s quite some nerve you’ve got there. Care to show me what else you can do?”

You took another sip of your lemonade. “When we’re not in public, Cro.”

You could feel his eyebrows wriggling. “That a promise?”

You laughed. “Yes.”

_________________________________________________________

Holy shit!!!!! This is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!

You are absolutely not stepping on my toes or anything like that Though I did have a few things already planned out. It’s very cute seeing everyone’s interpretations and I’m so happy people are having a lot of fun and theorizing about things! It’s really amazing and I love it so much

after all, good endings only is based around the same kind of principle that pesterquest and friendsim are where there are a lot of ways things can go down and that’s part of the fun. So while this isn’t the primary ending it is like a fun little offshoot to explore!

[pasteleriasilvestre]

The Sexy-Gross Story of Puce

Cultural histories of unusual hues.

Puce is a color that’s been around for as long as we’ve been spilling blood and watching it dry, but it didn’t get a name until the summer of 1775 when French dressmaker Rose Bertin made Marie-Antoinette a gown in a color that blurred the lines between brown and maroon with only a hint of pinkish-gray. According to a biography of Bertin, the Louis XVI strode into a room where his wife was hanging out, wearing her brand new silk dress, and exclaimed, “That is puce!” He had observed, and rightfully so, that her dress was the same color as a flea (or, in French, “une puce”).

Considering what happens next, I imagine he meant this as praise. While that’s bug-colored doesn’t sound like a fantastic compliment to receive from a significant other, the French court went wild for this King-approved and Queen-endorsed red. “As the new colour did not soil easily, and was therefore less expensive than lighter tints, the fashion of puce gowns was adopted by the bourgeoisie, and dyers were unable to meet the pressing requirements of their customers,” explains The History of Fashion in France. Soon, both men and women were wearing trendy puce-colored taffetas and satins (or sending their old rags out to be dyed anew). “But the color was not always exactly the same shade, so they made a difference between old and young flea, and then made subdivisions, and you could see clothes the color of the flea’s ‘back’, ‘head,’ or ‘thigh’,” adds historian Augustin Challamel. But the muddy, bloody red went out of fashion as quickly as it blew in. Legend has it that, on another occasion just months following his puce ejaculation, Louis XVI saw his wife in a fab new gray gown and said something along the lines of, “That dress is the color of your hair!”

Portrait of Marie Antoinette painted in 1785 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Private collection, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

(According to a collection of anonymous letters from the time period—exhaustingly titled Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la République des Lettres en France depuis 1762 jusqu’à nos jours or “Secret Memoirs Serving as a History of the Republic of Letters in France from 1762 until Our Days”—“queen’s hair” replaced puce immediately as the It color: “From that moment, puce was out of fashion, and valets were despatched from Fontainebleau to Paris to procure velvet, ratteen, and cloth, of that colour…”)

Puce may have faded from prominence, but even the most abstract of things, once publicly named and identified, continues to exist in some way or another. While it may seem odd that the rather crudely named insect-inspired color became so quickly coveted, there was already a conceptual link between fleas and desire. In John Donne’s “The Flea” (published in 1633), the poet uses parasitic insects as a metaphor for fucking, and as a way to pressure his beloved into doing so. “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, / And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; / Though know’st that this cannot be said / A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,” he writes, and that’s just the first stanza. Donne goes on to chastise this poor girl for killing the flea after arguing that she should just “yield” to him.

In a 2009 article on puce in Cabinet magazine, Barry Sanders makes a strong argument that fleas have a murderous side, as well as an “outlandishly sexual” one:

The flea took on its sexual identiy from a string of suggestive cognates with puce, like pucelle, ‘maiden’ (and in certain contexts, ‘slut’); pucelage, ‘maidenhead’; and depuceler, ‘to deflower.’ In addition, the French eroticize the flea in a popular phrase since the fourteenth century, ‘avoir la puce a l’oreille’ (‘to have a flea in one’s ear,’ meaning that one harbors a libidinous urge, ‘a sexual itch.’ Say the word puce today and a Frenchman will either titter or offer a knowing wink.

Image: Wellcome via Wikimedia Commons

I do not know whether Frenchmen still react this way, but there are others who desire puce. According to numerous antiquing bloggers, “bottle-diggers” lust after puce-toned glass relics, which can fetch a high price on eBay or at antique fairs, with the “puce eagle” bottle being particularly popular. (Question: Would you watch a Detectorist-style television series about bottle-diggers set in the American Midwest? I would.) In the past few decades, puce has become one of those cocktail party tidbits of knowledge that gets passed around, showing up randomly in movie dialogue for no other purpose than to showcase the writer’s encyclopedic intelligence/justify their art history minor. Puce gets shout-outs in Monsters Inc., Santa Claus: The Movie, and Fright Night. It’s also mentioned in Ulysses, but I think perhaps James Joyce was thinking of the other puce—the wrong puce—since Buck Mulligan says they want “puce gloves” to match his “green boots”. (The wrong puce is pea soup green and it seems to be a visual malapropism of British origins, and frankly, I think this green-puce is bullshit and should be ignored like the Johnny-come-lately it is.)

Unfortunately for those of us who desire exactitude while hypocritically chaffing under its rigors, puce is still somewhat of an unsettled color. You can find many different puces in the paint color and hex code worlds. Sometimes puce veers closer to mauve, while others it appears downright brown (and occasionally it appears as a pale boy belly-flop pink). Pantone’s puce is a particular disappointment. It lacks the gutsiness of some of the other tones; it’s a matte brown that is neither earthy and warm nor layered and intriguing. Personally, I think we should bring back the original French naming system for these varieties of puce. Flea-thigh, flea-belly, flea-back, new-flea, old-flea, dead-flea, live-flea—each one with its own tint and tone. There is a squalidness to this naming system that appeals to my messier tendencies, and an intuitive precision to it that is reminiscent of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours. It would fit well next to his more corporeal colors—Veinous Blood Red, Gallstone Yellow, and Liver Brown. The slim volume is mainly filled with lovingly named colors (inspired by nature and his paint box in equal measures), yet every now and then, a bodily function sneaks in. Peach blossom red, rose red, and then: arterial blood red. And that is the story of puce—amidst such beauty, such repulsion.

Katy Kelleher is a writer who lives in Maine with her two dogs and one husband.

[air3d3lalm3na]

“Puce is a color that’s been around for as long as we’ve been spilling blood and watching it dry, but it didn’t get a name until the summer of 1775 when French dressmaker Rose Bertin made Marie-Antoinette a gown in a color that blurred the lines between brown and maroon with only a hint of pinkish-gray. According to a biography of Bertin, the Louis XVI strode into a room where his wife was hanging out, wearing her brand new silk dress, and exclaimed, “That is puce!” He had observed, and rightfully so, that her dress was the same color as a flea (or, in French, “une puce”).”

“While it may seem odd that the rather crudely named insect-inspired color became so quickly coveted, there was already a conceptual link between fleas and desire. In John Donne’s “The Flea” (published in 1633), the poet uses parasitic insects as a metaphor for fucking, and as a way to pressure his beloved into doing so. “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, / And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; / Though know’st that this cannot be said / A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,” he writes, and that’s just the first stanza. Donne goes on to chastise this poor girl for killing the flea after arguing that she should just “yield” to him.”

“In a 2009 article on puce in Cabinet magazine, Barry Sanders makes a strong argument that fleas have a murderous side, as well as an “outlandishly sexual” one:

“The flea took on its sexual identiy from a string of suggestive cognates with puce, like pucelle, ‘maiden’ (and in certain contexts, ‘slut’); pucelage, ‘maidenhead’; and depuceler, ‘to deflower.’ In addition, the French eroticize the flea in a popular phrase since the fourteenth century, ‘avoir la puce a l’oreille’ (‘to have a flea in one’s ear,’ meaning that one harbors a libidinous urge, ‘a sexual itch.’ Say the word puce today and a Frenchman will either titter or offer a knowing wink.”

There is a squalidness to this naming system that appeals to my messier tendencies, and an intuitive precision to it that is reminiscent of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours. It would fit well next to his more corporeal colors—Veinous Blood Red, Gallstone Yellow, and Liver Brown. The slim volume is mainly filled with lovingly named colors (inspired by nature and his paint box in equal measures), yet every now and then, a bodily function sneaks in. Peach blossom red, rose red, and then: arterial blood red. And that is the story of puce—amidst such beauty, such repulsion.”

@cor-ardens

[codylabs]

My Top 10 Ships

I’m not a very romantic sort of guy, I’m not real forgiving to departures from canon, I get easily annoyed at inconsistencies, and I don’t watch much television and movies, so in order for me to ship something, it has to be a GOOD ship. I default toward rejecting ships, so to impress ME, it must be built on logic, and evidence, it’s gotta be something I can suspend my disbelief far enough to accept. And it’s gotta have story behind it, something deep, some hefty emotional weight; if it doesn’t tickle this man’s cold reptilian heart with strong beats and excellent writing, it goes straight to the trash. I absoLUTELY will not stand for any of these weird little cute, pretty, pandering, trashy crack ships that everybody seems to be clumsily throwing characters into. Most ships are trash ships. They are not good ships.

You think your ship is good? You like your ship?

You ship it?

No you don’t.

Get out of here.

You will listen to me. I will tell you. Look at me. I’m the Captain now.

Here are the 10 good ships.

10. The Rocinante, The Expanse

A resoundingly excellent ship. Unlike most ships you see out there, this thing was actually designed with realistic space combat in mind. It’s got 6 computer-controlled gatling turrets covering every angle, it accelerates in whatever direction it’s pointing, its bridge is right in the center to put as much armor as possible between enemies and crew, overall a much better-designed vehicle than most everything you see about.

That being said, I didn’t have much connection to this ship. Its crew weren’t really interesting, the aesthetic was kinda bleak, and I basically stopped watching after the phazon showed up. And the Rocinante itself has pretty poor redundancy. Enemy bullets can literally just pass through it (as is realistic for a ship this size) so how about multiple main engines huh? Absolutely tragic oversight. And its interior looks too much like an Apple product. How are you supposed to work on it? Where are the wires and pipes??? The handholds?????

9. Ares IV M.A.V., The Martian

Almost more of a symbol than a ship. A symbol of freedom, of escape. A beautiful symbol. This is what Mark Watney spends the whole movie trying to reach, with an entire world backing him up, and an entire world trying to stop him. It’s the goal of the movie, and it just looks so beautiful when he finally reaches it and sees it sitting there in the middle of the desert, ass down, nose up; a tall, proud symbol. This ship has a special significance for me because the author of the original book really did his research on the scientific requirements and details of a Mars Ascent Vehicle, and it was actually inspired by the E.R.V. in another book, ‘A Case For Mars’, which I read when I was younger. “Makes its own methane-oxygen fuel on-site by using nuclear power to break down CO2 in the atmosphere and combining it with stored hydrogen, don’t you know.” I say as I adjust my spectacles and puff my pipe.

The M.A.V. in the movie does have a few issues, such as hallway and rooms running straight up through where the fuel tanks ought to be (instead of a lift/ladder on the exterior) and a rugged, industrial aesthetic that looks too heavy and cumbersome for a ship of its type. (And you’re seriously telling me he couldn’t have used the capsule’s RCS to literally bypass the movie’s entire climax? WHY NOT? The book never mentioned him having to drain the monopropellant!!!) But I’ll let that slide. Great movie.

8. Biggest Boy, The Greatship

(I don’t know the ship name so I had to make up a name. You know what, I think it’s actually just called the Greatship.)

So it’s a starship the size of Jupiter, empty, unmanned, perfectly mysterious, that comes gliding into the galaxy a couple million years into humanity’s future. Where did it come from? Who made it and how? Good questions. It’s powered by matter-antimatter annihilation reactions from within planet-sized internal tanks, and its engines use hydrogen and fusion exhaust as reaction mass, and its hull is made of hyperfiber, a super-strong fictional material with a 4-dimensional lattice structure, able to weather impacts by spreading them out over various dimensions where the impact occurred in a different place.

I hope that after the first few entries, you didn’t get the impression that I am somehow against futuristic, far-out, impossible technologies. Quite the opposite! I love me some hyperdrive and anti-gravity and A.I. and stuff. However! Ships must be well-designed for the technology available, and must take no creative liberties except those explicitly allowed by the difference in the setting. The laws of physics don’t disappear when the magic crystals come out, the magic crystals are merely a different tool to combat them. Engineering will always exist, should start with the tools and work outward, form follows function. Star Wars ships, for instance, are trash because they don’t mount their repulsorlift arrays consistently, they’re not aerodynamic, and their engines aren’t aligned around their center of masses.

So I like the Great Ship. Although the story is pretty far-fetched, and a lot of crazy, out-there scifi events transpire deep in the ship’s depths, the book always strictly kept its own rules in mind, and never broke those rules, no matter how outlandishly crazy things got. Thanks for comprehending something so incomprehensible, Robert Reed. You inspired me miles in my own work.

7. The Ghost, The Sea Wolf

The story may be fiction, but the Ghost was as real as ghosts can be.

Jack London did his research. No, not research, he LIVED this. The Ghost is a seal-hunting schooner much like one that he served aboard during his rollercoaster of a life, and he captured every detail of its operation, of its requirements, of its mechanics, and of the incredible toll it took on the people that lived such a life. The boat is made to feel as oppressive and claustrophobic as a prison, as if it were an extension of the monster that commanded it, directly in contrast to the expansive beauty of the sea around them. My goodness, what a beautiful book. What a moving, interesting, challenging book, with such a story! This book is one of the climaxes of fiction, and one of the inspirations for Shifting Sands, if I remember correctly. I would recommend this book to anybody. Beautiful.

6. Ferbnessa, Phineas and Ferb

Okay, so I hope we can all agree that Vanessa is nothing but bad news. But that being said, Ferb knows exactly the relationship he wants, and by golly, he goes for it. Most male characters would stutter or get nervous or lose confidence around their crush, especially if that crush is about a hundred miles out of their league or if they already had another boyfriend, but Ferb? No. Not my man Ferb. He’s slighly too much of a legend to fall for such childish pitfalls. He doesn’t posture, he doesn’t creep or flirt or try to sabotage the other men in her life, he doesn’t even speak a word, he just maintains his blank expression, cranks his own already-inhuman levels of confidence and competence up through the roof to borderline olympian levels, and continues being himself. These rare moments of Ferbly passion are some of the few open windows we get into the grandiose machinations of his mysterious mind, and he uses it to bring out the best in Vanessa as well. And in the future episode, set years down the line, wouldn’t you know it, they’re a pair.

All joking aside though, this whole ship is basically comedy. It’s a super small part of the show, it’s only in like 5 episodes, it’s a running gag, it’s hilarious. It’s great. And it fits right into the tone and the feel of the show, because P&F’s entire world really is a comedy about going for it and living your dreams. So this is just the best thing ever. It’s been about a decade since then, and I still burst out laughing at how much of a pristine picture of ideal masculinity Ferb is. Become like Ferb, boys, and you will become men.

Legendary.

Eat your heart out, Dipper.

3. Shunk, Voltron

(I don’t know the ship name so I had to make up a name)

Huge props to the voltron team for making a female alien character (even a romantic interest) with NO BOOBS. Do you have ANY idea how sick and tired I am of artists throwing a big ol’ pair of balonkadongs onto lobsters and snakes when almost everything in the real world besides folks and cows have either 0 or 8+ of them? Everything’s gotta be traditionally sexy and recognizably-feminine and GREAT now you just canonized all the porn! Disgusteg

but now look at Shay. She’s a rock person. She’s got silicon-based biology, she probably weighs 500 lbs and bleeds sand. She’s got enormous hands and weird knees and no nose and lumps everywhere, AND YET STILL the show plays all the tropes 100% straight with her being a fair young maiden and a sweet princess. And it works because Hunk is just this great guy who’s exactly as sweet and caring, and he’s not the most attractive of the Paladins either, so he probably lives his life looking past appearances. He doesn’t care that she’s an alien rock, he cares about her as a person, and she obviously worships him right back. Even though Shay is shown in season 1 and then never again until season 7, Hunk still avoids alternative romantic entanglements, citing ‘a rock I know’, and it just adds to his persona as this infinitely loyal teddy bear. I tip my hat to this, the single ship I know that’s 0% sexy and 100% wholesome.

And Hunk is the best Paladin. He’s just the greatest. I revere him. I salute him as he walks past. This man among men. Look at this guy. I don’t even care about any of the other ships in Voltron (I mean, the Castle of Lions is okay, but it’s outriggers are kinda spindly) but Hunk and Shay deserve each other.

4. Wendip, Gravity Falls

So Dipper’s 12/13, and Wendy’s 15. That’s a pretty giant age difference. Maybe you fans have fooled yourselves into thinking it’s not, but it is. She knows it. He knows it. His sister knows it. Your mom knows it. So halfway through the show, when he finally got around to confessing his feelings to her, she told him no. Sure they’re still friends, sure they like each other, and sure they have a lot of chemistry and they still have a movie night every Friday, but at the end of the day, he’s a smelly little midget who has to go back to California at the end of the Summer, and she’s a older girl with approximately zero romantic feelings for him. So the notion that it could work out is pretty obvious to everyone, and especially to him, pretty much hopeless. And he really did handle it all pretty poorly and immaturely too, he objectified her and stalked her and simped up a storm and sabotaged her boyfriend, so perhaps he deserved what he got. Perhaps it’s better this way.

And yet.

And yet Wendy never really got a happy ending in the show. And Dipper never got a conclusive romance either. So after everything, it’s easy to think about it how he thinks about it, by wondering how things could have been, if everything were just so slightly different, if she’d said yes or if they united again. She wishes she could be younger, he wishes he could be older. She’s more dominant, he’s more recessive. She has a lot of serious issues in her life, and could really seriously use a driven, heroic, intelligent friend to help her out, give her purpose, and steer her right. And Lord knows he could use somebody with street smarts and actual muscles to have his back now and again. They complement each other perfectly. They make up for each others’ weaknesses. They’re everything they ever wanted from another, and if you do the math, their children would be actual literal supersoldiers.

Or at least that’s the way a lot of people see it. There’s been immeasurable mountains of fanfiction and fanart from people who are just so sad that in a show full of happy endings and dreams coming true and old regrets being resolved and children growing up, that one ending would never be happy, one dream would never come to pass, one regret would stick with you forever, one child would never grow up. Maybe if you extrapolate out the story they’d end up together? Or maybe they’d find other, better partners? Maybe romance isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things, and this is the best ending there could have been? Perhaps, perhaps not. But in any case, there’s a lot of very rich storytelling potential for the untold journey before them, and for the paths that could have been.

Stop drawing fetish art of Wendy, you insufferable heathen actual donkeys.

3. Kataang, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Now HERE’S a serious relationship. Not just a romantic ship, (though it is that,) not just some cutesy, funny thing or some ship-war fodder, (though it is cute and funny and did spawn a ship-war,) not just a matter of certainty and destiny, (though it is certain and was destined,) this is a real, TANGIBLE relationship, that these characters built together over a solid year of on-screen adventuring and fighting. They’ve helped each other through trauma, they’ve been there for each other in their darkest moments, they learned martial-arts together, they’ve fought back-to back against grown men, they’ve worked front-to-front sawing through steel girders, they’ve saved each other’s lives, he once ACTUALLY DIED and she brought him BACK. They end up respecting each other, and valuing each other in the intimate way that only true friends do.

And they’re shown working through all their imperfections and mistakes too. Aang sometimes oversteps boundaries and says stupid stuff because he’s a kid, and Katara sometimes scolds him and controls him because she’s motherly and orderly, they get jealous of each other, but none of those things drive them apart, and they deal with them, and they conquer them, and they keep a very legitimate and multi-faceted friendship going, and that’s the key to it all. The fact that this friendship becomes romance is just proof that it was a friendship of quality.

I think people tend to overlook or forget this ship because the last few episodes of the show found them in a pretty dark place, needing to deal with matters of life and death and justice in very different ways, and unlike all their other issues, we don’t really get to see them reconciling these differences before the story ends, which kind of leaves a sour taste between them. And Katara goes on a couple missions with Zuko around the same time, so now half of all people want Zutara, when in actuality, Zutara is a trash ship, which is a true science fact.

2. Serenity, Firefly

Only reason this ship isn’t #1 is because it isn’t constructed using a proper aerospace philosophy; it’s made of bulky machinery and steel beams and chunky plates, it looks more like an ocean vessel from the inside, and is WAY too big for its 6-12 person crew and light cargo capacity. Plus it doesn’t have any room for fuel and its got no wheels on its landing legs and no downward-facing windows and its reactor is just too dang SMOL and its engines are attached too flimsily. This all wouldn’t be too much of an issue if they were going for a far-future aesthetic, but if you’re trying to do something grounded and semi-contemporary, you need to lose some weight girl, I’m sorry.

But by gosh does it make up for it in heart. The entire inside of this ship was mapped out and made on set, with so many homely little decorations and touches to make every room feel like the person who inhabits it, sterile professional blue for the doc’s medbay, warm happy red for Kaylee’s engine room, all-serious-business-but-also-plastic-dinos for Wash’s cockpit... It hit me hard when this baby it crashed in the movie, and it felt almost real when River pretended to mind-meld with it. This ship has more soul in one buffer panel than most shows have in the entire cast, enough to make it seem like its own character, even in a show crowded with charming characters. I love this ship intimately, even if I would have built it differently.

1. Colonial Vessel 46.18′\, Gravity Falls

(I don’t know the ship name so I had to make up a name)

You didn’t think I’d leave out this one, did you? After all the fanfiction I’ve written? This is basically my ship at this point. Anyway, enough about me; the vessel beneath Crash Site Omega really is the quintessential alien ship; its perfectly cliche flying-saucer design taps into all the audience’s pre-existing fanciful notions and imaginings and disbelief-suspension, meanwhile its presentation isn’t cliche or fanciful in the slightest. 

There’s not much to say about it from a technical standpoint, besides personal musings: it would need anti-gravity to stay airborne without thrusters, it would need a FTL drive to cross the distances it did, its drones would need to be made of some kind of semi-liquid to move like they do... But these sort of out-of-the-box, never-before-seen, world-expanding brain-knocks are exactly what makes this ship special. It’s an alien ship, built with technology unknown to people, forged from materials that people don’t possess, and inhabited by beings we will never meet. For all we know, this ship could be perfectly sound from an engineering standpoint, and no engineer in the audience could claim to prove it otherwise, because unlike something like the T.A.R.D.I.S., they never try and fail to explain it away with science buzzwords or canonize its details or show off some fancy glowy reactor. This ancient husk is left as a yawning pit in reason, and that’s beautiful.

Moreover, this ship is an amazingly powerful narrative tool, and a mind-blowing surprise to drop in as a setpiece during the show’s final episodes. This ship embodies everything that made the show’s mysteries special: the evidence presented so early and so consistently, the creativity in creature design, action, and worldbuilding, the yawning depths of unknowable lore, and most of all the burning, unquenched desire to know more... The imprint this ship made in the cliffs over the town has been hanging over the characters’ heads the entire series, and its hull was below their feet from day one, so when they finally revealed it, and explored it, it felt invigorating. Rewarding. This ship, and the glorious feelings and thoughts it represents, have inspired to no end, and haven’t ended yet.

Honorable mentions:

Westley and Buttercup, The Princess Bride

Ooooh man I tell you what, it was really hard trimming this down to 10 for the list, and this one just barely didn’t make the cut, and that mainly because I have a sweet spot for animation and for warrior women, and this sweetness ain’t animated, and this damsel is as distressed as they get. And they don’t have a whole lot of chemistry? I don’t know how to measure that, but I feel like there was a lot of friendship stated that was never shown? Is it sacrilege to say that about True Love? I guess I’ve never exactly had True Love, so what do I know?

The entire plot centers around his devotion to her, and her love for him, and the lengths they go to for one another. He studies fencing and wrestling and wits and tactics for years on a pirate ship as he tried to return to her, and she refused the advances and the offers of an actual prince for as long as she could, even though she thought him dead, and was ready to kill herself when she knew him to be alive and not to be hers. And just such excellent action and characters and humor and story in the entire book surrounding it. Possibly an even better movie, somehow. Happy happy happy happy. They don’t make movies like this no more, why is that? Sad.

Endurance, Interstellar

Actually a pretty realistic design, all considering. They nailed the aesthetic, and the cinematography, and the feel.

It does lose points though, firstly because the shuttlecraft require a booster stage to make it into orbit when leaving Earth, but for the rest of the movie, whenever they’re landing on planets with similar gravity and atmosphere, they can just fly away like it’s no big deal, which is a big inconsistency, both with real life, and more importantly with itself. And how did an under-equipped and struggling space program put this thing in orbit in the first place, anyway? And why don’t their ships land on their asses like proper rockets? And why not tell the crew members the full plan before leaving? See, it’s little things like that, little inconsistencies made for the sake of fitting with story beats and simplifying it for the audience’s sake, that sours this ship for me. I don’t mind creative liberties, but actual plot holes? This thing has a few plot holes, and plot holes are absolutely yucky. So although most of this ship is very yummy, the yucky parts make it all yucky.

Yucky.

Plus its heavy cargo shuttles are about the least-aerodynamic things imaginable, and that’s also yucky, and there’s porcelain tiles in the stasis bay, like what?

Couldashouldawoulda been yummy.

The Hermes, The Martian

This ship. This friggin’ ship.

A beautiful ship. A well-conceived ship. A mathematically sound and engineered ship. It had so many many good ideas behind it. So much math went into calculating its thrust and orbital dynamics for this movie, so much work went into making it fit a contemporary space aesthetic, the panels, the heat sinks, the tanks, so much PRESENTATION I could KISS IT HMWA, but taken as a whole, engineering-wise, the whole ship falls flat on its face, because it just doesn’t fit together. It doesn’t make sense. Look at all those countless modules along its length. What do they do? They don’t do anything! It’s a quarter mile long, and it’s built for only 6 people? It’s meant to carry a lander? Where does the lander dock? Why are the useful airlocks so far off the center of gravity? Why does it have a cockpit? Why is the forward airlock so looooong? Why is the entire ship so loooooong? Why is the ring spinning so slowly? It’s not hard math to figure out how fast it needs to spin! You’re telling me you did ORBITAL DYNAMICS but not the SINGLE physics 101 equation needed to figure out how fast the ring needs to spin??

Btw, let’s talk about that rotating section in the middle! Think about the rotating section! That rotating section means that the front and the back of the ship aren’t actually connected! There’s just a pair of ring-shaped slip-slidey bearings bridging the ship’s middle, slip-slidey bearings that electricity, computer signals, and water and air pipes can’t cross. Why did they design it that way?? In the book the entire ship spun, which makes so much more sense! Why does it have solar panels when it has a reactor canonically capable of 40 times their output? Why are the fuel tanks so small? Why is it always facing prograde even when canonically burning retrograde? Why? WHY? BLRRRRGGGGGRGGGRGGG

In Conclusion, Ships Are Neat

[gascon-en-exil]

Ferdinand/Hubert

002 | Send me a ship and I will tell you:

When I started shipping them:

I’m fairly certain I had a post saying I was intrigued by them once I read they had a paired ending, so around the time we got the text dump.

My thoughts:

The fandom has run with the full comedic potential of just how on point their aesthetic is so much that it can sometimes be easy to forget that they’re weirdly perfect for one another. I remember reading an opinion just before my first Crimson Flower playthrough that Ferdibert represented the most natural conclusion for both their character arcs, and a few months later I’m inclined to agree. I’ll have to write about it sometime. 

What makes me happy about them:

They fit all the AUs. All of them. From canon-divergent scenarios where Ferdinand joins the Lions and saves Hubert from death and suddenly they’re left to deal with that and each other to silly musical AUs to the general feeling of Regency romance* that pervades about half their overall fan content. The other half consists of outlandishly filthy sex. Both are amazing.

*If anyone was wondering, this is most likely a result of their A support being effectively Darcy’s first proposal scene from Pride and Prejudice, only with a Darcy who’s every bit as awful as his reputation suggests and then some and an Elizabeth who’s, ironically, not entirely repulsed. From there it’s a spiral into nervous gifting and UST-laden tea dates.

What makes me sad about them:

Crimson Flower will not end well for them. At best they can hope to die together as the liberators of Fódlan march on Enbarr, but that would require Hubert to publicly express his devotion to his lover above Edelgard and/or her successor…and how likely is that?

Things done in fanfic that annoys me:

Any attempt to make Hubert out to be remorseful for his many heinous actions, or having him believe he’s not good enough for Ferdinand because of them. Hubert is not the sort of man to regret, ever, even with such an outwardly honorable boyfriend. In any case CF!Ferdinand is already ethically compromised in that he prioritized restoring his family’s honor and status over doing the right thing, so if anything he won’t “fix” Hubert so much as being with Hubert will further erode his moral qualms about what the Empire is doing.

Things I look for in fanfic:

Anything that gets the above dynamic and doesn’t try to sanitize Hubert. He’s not a nice guy, even if he’s capable of being a good boyfriend and capable lover and Dom. Comfortably feminine Ferdinand is also nice to see when it shows up, because it’s canon that he’s an opera fanboy who’s down with performing female roles so mild fem!Ferdinand does feel appropriate and true to canon.

My wishlist:

Just keep those AU ideas coming, most of them are gold. 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

Hard no on Edelgard for Hubert, she and Ferdinand have no chemistry either but at least they get married and make sense as a political marriage. I don’t really have any others I ship with either of them, but various supports they have with women do have actual chemistry. They’d never join the Lions orgy in an AM ending, mostly because Hubert absolutely would try to kill Dimitri mid-coitus. Plus, most of the Lions would probably find their polite garden romance unusual, enmeshed as they are in the deeply homosocial culture of Faerghus knighthood that contextualizes love and sex between men very different from the heteronormative standard Ferdibert seem to be approximating.

My happily ever after for them:

Obviously not happening on CF, but a post-AM outcome where Hubert ends up under indefinite house arrest at the von Aegir estate and he gradually grows to move beyond Edelgard and maybe even (very grudgingly) share what information he has on the remaining Agarthans with Dimitri and his court might turn out pretty well for them in the end. Ferdinand just has to regularly sate Hubert with baskets of puppies to kick and babies from which to steal candy and/or offer up his ass nightly for all manner of terrible, sexy horrors.

[lasturlontheleft]

Stephen King really thinks he Knows how to write kids but he doesn’t....his children character usually sound like adults a lot of the time. But with women it’s even worse??? He either write his women as Gorgeous And Thin Therefore Sexy or Fat Women Are Evil And Disgusting. All his chapters on Bev are cringe af.

Ok...... huge mood. And I think Stephen King is a smart/competent dude sometimes so it really blows my mind to see such textbook misogyny in his books. Like why do all the men get to age weirdly and realistically and Bill literally gets to gain weight and go bald, but Bev has to remain outlandishly beautiful. As well as Audra. Also the constant weird, random mentions of their boobs? Ok Stephen. And then yeah, the literally abusive women are Very Large and just. Yoinks.

And with the kids, it’s a lot of that but also just a lot of unnecessary moments of sexual themes and I know there’s a focus on puberty he’s trying to write about but im personally just uncomfy reading it and then other times there is just. No reason for him to write the thing he has written. Lmfao.

[littlewerewolfsmutoven-blog]

The Great Grindr Incident

Explicit | 2,347 words | Accidentally sexting | archive of our own

Summary: It's late at night & Stiles wants to find somebody on Grindr to jerk off with. Unbeknownst to him, Stiles accidentally finds himself sexting with Derek.

The Grindr community in Beacon Hills was one of the most dismally disappointing things that Stiles had ever had the misfortune of involving himself with. It was practically dead air for the majority of the time, with an occasional appearance from an out-of-town hottie. But even that was a rarity.

And yet, despite the inability to actually receive any pleasure from being on Grindr, Stiles consistently decided against actually deleting the app. It wasn’t really much…but it was something. And considering the fact that he was apparently plagued with being perpetually single, Grindr was something to fall back on during lonely nights of horny boredom.

Stiles tossed around underneath the heat of his blankets, tirelessly attempting to grab some sleep. But despite the fact that Stiles had just spent the last several hours cramming for a psychology exam, his hard cock definitely didn’t appear to understand that bed-time meant bed-time….regardless, Stiles knew that he wasn’t going to catch any “Z’s” until he blew a load or two.

Porn was the go-to kind of deal, but the bright orange Grindr logo caught Stiles’ attention when he unlocked his phone. Sure, the locals were boring as hell…they were all cases of ‘been there, done that’. But trading pictures and jerking off with some random dude on Grindr was so much quicker than searching for a good porno to beat off to —there was no buffering, not fast-forwarding, it was right to the point.

Stiles opened the app and casually thumbed through at his phone’s screen to scroll through the grid of horny randoms. As expected, everything looked to be exactly the way Stiles had left it several months ago. Same old, same old. But just as Stiles was about to ditch the hookup apps and seek out some good porn, his attention snagged on a new profile under the username: ‘Fangbanger35′.

Not surprisingly, the hot newbie followed the unspoken rule of Grindr—advertise with anything except your face. Assets sell faster….and Stiles was pretty much sold. The stranger’s profile picture wasn’t a face-pic, although it did share a glimpse of a sharp and stubble-covered jawline. Not to mention a tanned broad chest, buff biceps, and ripped abs—framed seductively with black, leather suspender straps.

Fangbanger35 was the whole package….and oddly familiar.

There was something inherently familiar about the Grindr newbie that Stiles couldn’t really put his finger on. The jawline was particularly catching. He could have swore that he had seen this person around somewhere in Beacon Hills? A fellow undergrad at Beacon Hills University, perhaps? A professor? Maybe a stranger from the supermarket? Or somebody else that Stiles had crossed paths with?

Stiles chewed on his bottom lip and read through the stranger’s stats. So…he was 6 feet tall, 205 pounds of pure muscle by the looks of his profile pic, and a top. Good…good. Stiles almost drooled, scrolling downward to check out the written information section of the profile whilst hoping that Mr. Fangbanger35 wasn’t some sort of arrogant asshole dude who thought way too highly of himself.

But all the profile description read was: “I bite.”

The aching hardness under Stiles’ covers was an unmistakable indicator that it was time to actually make a move or just retire to some lame pornos. So Stiles opened up the messages and typed out something quick, yet notable. Direct, yet not too overbearing. Enticing, yet not extremely gross and potentially off-putting….it was the best that Stiles could do….

Plaiddandy: “Hi, wanna trade pics and jerk off together?”

Stiles cringed, tossing his phone onto his covers and scraping his hands down his face in embarrassed agony. What. The fuck. Was that? That wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t interesting. It definitely wasn’t enticing. For fucks sake. Mr. Fangbanger35 over there was probably some sort of sex god, as far as his looks were concerned. He could probably get it anywhere, anytime. Why would he concern himself with responding to such a lame introductory preposition?

To Stiles’ surprise, his phone chimed with a response from the newbie stud. Stiles was somewhat scared to see what outlandishly rude comment was tossed back in his face. He picked up his phone with one hand and held his other hand across his face —only allowing himself to peer at the phone’s screen through the allotted space between his spread fingers.

Fangbanger35: “You don’t have a face pic.”

Stiles squinted in confusion, sitting up in his bed—readying himself to shoot back a response.

Plaiddandy: “You don’t have one posted either.”

Like, sure…Stiles didn’t have a face-pic posted on his profile. It wasn’t like he was ashamed or anything. He wasn’t. And he definitely wasn’t in the closet. But Beacon Hills was a hub for inescapable creepiness — in more ways than one. So back when Stiles had downloaded Grindr for the first time, he had elected to just hide his face until he could establish some sort of bearings with whoever he decided to sext with in the late hours of horniness.

Fangbanger35: “That’s fine. It’ll be more fun if we keep up the anonymity.”

Fangbanger35: “I’ll start. You follow.”

It didn’t take long before the first picture was delivered. Stiles eagerly opened up the picture to see what kind of sexting standard had been set, just to get an overall feel for the pacing of the late-night game. But apparently, Mister Fangbanger liked to start things off slow and relatively safe, compared to the other kinds of guys to be found on Grindr. It was practically prudish.

The first picture was just the beefcake stranger sitting in what looked to be a desk chair, in a reasonably lit room, with his face out of frame —of course. The only thing that Stiles could see was the way that the man’s large hand was pulling up the hem of a black v-neck shirt, high enough to teasingly display the chiseled abs underneath.

Stiles stared in awe for a moment. He had originally intended for the whole Grindr deal to be lewd and dirty and blatantly rushed….but there was something so inherently enticing and arousing about his new sexting partner that Stiles was down to take things slow, even though his body was practically starving for quick and cheap stimulation.

To return the favor, Stiles straightened up his posture and snapped a picture —mimicking the same position that was presented in the picture that was delivered to him. And whilst Stiles didn’t have the same kind of “muscle magazine abs” or big tough, beefy pectorals….he had what he had…and what he had was more than enough to drive people crazy with lust.

Stiles upped the ante by showing more than just his abs and treasure trail. He pulled his shirt up and over his head, snapping a picture of his bare chest with his free hand stretched obscenely across one of his pecs, fingers pinching just slightly at one of his pink nipples. With the flash on, his fair skin shined bright amidst the darkness of his bedroom that appeared to surround his body.

Plaiddandy: “I’m sensitive here.”

Plaiddandy: “I’ve considered getting one of them pierced to up the sensitivity.”

Fangbanger35: “You shouldn’t.”

Fangbanger35: “They look hot the way they are right now.”

Fangbanger35: “I like what I see.”

Fangbanger35: “Can you tell?”

The next picture Stiles received was one of his sext-buddy’s crotch, with an unmistakable bulge pressed down sideways and completely erect under the stretchy fabric of grey sweatpants. The sight alone was enough to knock the wind out of Stiles’ body, leaving him desperate to catch his breath and recollect himself in time to respond in a responsible manner.

Plaiddandy: “Holy shit, bro.”

Plaiddandy: “Do you have to wear sweatpants 24/7? Cause I don’t see how you can manage fitting that into normal things like jeans and shit.”

Fangbanger35: “I manage.”

Stiles hurriedly shucked off his blankets and hooked the elastic waistband of his plaid boxers underneath his balls, letting his flushed cock spear up towards the ceiling of his bedroom. He snapped a handful of pictures with his phone, making sure he varied up the angle with each click, making sure to highlight the beaded drops of pre-cum at his cockhead and the strong girth of his shaft, before sending forth the plethora of pictures.

Plaiddandy: “This is all because of you, dude.”

Plaiddandy: “I could bust right now. I fucking swear.”

Fangbanger35: “Ha.”

Fangbanger35: “I like the eagerness.”

Fangbanger35: “Don’t cum yet, tho.”

Fangbanger responded with a few dick picks of his own, with the caption “It’s only fair you get to see me”. And Stiles was lost….actually gone. Completely fried….full-on short circuit…blue screen of death. Fangbanger was a god, or some kind of hot sex demon. Either way, it didn’t really matter, because Stiles was fucking sure of it.

The dick pics were beautiful and vivid enough to elicit an involuntarily submissive response from Stiles. His mouth dropped open almost immediately upon seeing the pictures. The hot newbie Grindr stud was hung like a stallion. It had to be at least ten inches, possibly even bigger, but Stiles didn’t even know how to actually comprehend a living, breathing human being packing that kind of jaw-shattering damage.

At least…not in real life…maybe in porn.

Plaiddandy: “Fuck.”

Fangbanger35: “I bet you have a nice ass.”

Fangbanger35: “Wanna show it off for me?”

Stiles shuffled around atop his bed, stripping off his boxers. He brainstormed for a moment to figure out how he wanted to showcase his other assets, before deciding on a few choice positions that were sure to spin his sext-recipient’s head around and around in lustful bliss.

In one shot, he propped his camera up against the headboard of his bed and set it on a timer, before spinning around and angling the plumpness of his ass towards the lens. In another shot, he stood up for it—letting the camera capture a full body picture that he cleverly cropped to hide his face. And for the third picture, he kept it full body, but made a show of bending forward completely so that the picture ended up being a full display of his round ass, toned legs, and flexible nature.

Plaiddandy: “I think these might work for you.”

Fangbanger35: “I think you’d be able to take a few inches into that tight ass of yours.”

Fangbanger35: “You’d have work cut out for you.”

Plaiddandy: “I’m pretty receptive.”

Plaiddandy: “I play nice with strangers.”

The sexting continued for another large portion of time —stretching well past forty-five minutes. It was filled to the brim with plenty of dirty talk and tons more picture swapping. Nothing halted and nothing slowed, the Grindr session just grew dirtier and dirtier—so much so that Stiles could actually feel his poor phone overheating into the palm of his hand.

But eventually…too much was too much. Stiles really, really needed to cum. He had been patient and he had held himself back, edging himself near the point of no return, only to pull himself back on account of how reluctant he was to be the first one to cum. It had become somewhat of a challenge regarding endurance and brainpower…and unfortunately for Stiles, he was no match for his sext-partner.

Stiles messily scrambled to set up his phone on video-recording mode just as he started to flood the lean ridges of his abs with pearly white heat. He started the video just in time to catch the biggest spurt of cum, which flew past his camera and splattered stickily against his upturned nose and upper lip. As he continued to stroke himself rapidly with one hand and record his orgasm with his other, Stiles breathed heavily and tirelessly—lapping up the residual cum that began to drool into his mouth.

Once he finished, he rest back against his pillows and allowed himself to catch a solid breath, before sending the video forward into Fangbanger35′s direction. And then he waited for a couple minutes, growing increasingly worried as the minutes passed that his lewd partner wouldn’t return the favor….but then a video clip got sent his way and Stiles opened it up with quick desperation.

The video was unbelievably hot —powerful enough to shoot a shit ton of reinvigorated interest into Stiles’ already spent cock. He watched with bated breath and wide eyes as the camera beamed down from above where Fangbanger fucked his massive length into the firm grip of his own sloppy hand. Stiles watched and helplessly moaned out as he watched Fangbanger’s hips stop thrusting and his cock throb out pump after pump after pump of thick cum, that all splattered down messily onto what seemed to be a cement floor.

But just as Stiles expected the video to cut off, it didn’t. It continued for a few more seconds —picking up Fangbanger’s heavy breathing as he came down from his orgasmic high, which was hot in its own right. But then the camera jolted around in a blur, rising up to focus on Fangbanger35′s face….and…..

No fucking way. No fucking way in hell. This wasn’t real. No way…..no way.

Stiles was mortified to see Derek Hale’s face pop up into the camera’s focus —all flushed and sweaty. He watched and listened to Derek’s exhausted voice croak out breathless swears and satisfied chuckles. He watched Derek smile….like, legitimately smile —a tilted grin, all tired and worn out and totally sexed out of his mind.

Things clicked into place. The familiar jaw-line? It was Derek’s. The pumped up muscles? Those were Derek’s. The username; ‘Fangbanger35′? Of - fucking - course. Derek was a thirty-five year old werewolf. Of course….of course. How did Stiles not see that? How did he not know? How did he allow this to happen? How was he supposed to face Derek again during pack meetings?

“That was….fucking amazing.” Derek breathed, bringing Stiles’ attention back to the video clip. “My name’s Derek, by the way….what’s yours?”

[minstrivia]

intro; love on mephedrone

or, just lost drugged up teens fucking.

pairing ↠ min yoongi x reader

genre ↠ fluff, very very soft smut that’s actually kinda filthy, and a dash of angst

warning ↠ creampie, cockwarming, drug use (but please don’t do drugs), kitten!kink, riding, unprotected sex

word count ↠ 2.501

a/n ↠ a little prelude to ywto (or just me being a little shit)

「」

It's a pleasant sort of patter the rain makes, sideswiping the framed sheet of glass before veering down to the alabaster marble sill and threatening to bleed through the vinyl jamb-liners, skinny decrepit branches of the nearby timber tree scuffing across the lunette window gaudily and confusing Yoongi's whereabouts. He isn't at home— he can guess that much— there isn't a tree for miles where he and the boys live, so he can't possibly be at home. But he hears them. At least, he thinks he does.

Yoongi can't actually see the rain or the boys, but he's imagining it— them, coining a paradisiacal imagery of its jarring beauty amongst the monotone buzzing that hums in its background; an amiable lull that keeps everything still— too still. Muted pleading murmurs from, Jungkook? Taehyung? Hoseok?, if it's really raining, then it's definitely one of them, attempting to persuade Namjoon into allowing them to feed their childlike minds and play in the midst of the rain. And if Yoongi goes by the bantam defeated sigh he hears next, he knows Jin's sided with them and Namjoon's been forced into compliance. Like always.

"Yoongi?"

He can vaguely remember a time somewhat similar to this, not that he'd paid much attention to the rain then but he remembers where he was, where they were; cramped up in the small boxy apartment he'd called home once upon a time, settled comfortably on the carpeted flooring next to the jaded mattress, with his back rested up against the wall. Y/N so rightfully in his lap, velvety legs anchored around his slender waist, ankles crossed over the other whilst his cock stayed buried deep inside her, hardened length perfectly accustomed to her snug feel, her feverish warmth and the sweet slickness of her juices. He'd been reluctant to let her go, fingers planing the smooth skin of her ass, tips pressing into the zaftig flesh as he kept her still.

"Yeah?"

"M'hot," she mumbles, her fingers desperately gripping and raking through the snowy white roots of his hair as she sags forward, burying her face into the crook of his shoulder with an all too needy whine. "It's too hot. Want to move, so bad."

Y/N can't begin to understand why he's doing this— why he's keeping her wanting and waiting. There are tears pricking at the innermost corners of her eyes as the intensity of the situation lapses through her in waves. "Need you to fuck me now, Yoongi— please."

Yoongi chuckles, running his palms down the lengths of her spine before jamming his fingers into the tops of her thigh potently. "Just wait."

It'd been warm, almost too warm, fireside burning a fervid heat in contrast to the bitter feel of outside, seeping through their naked skins and glossing a sheen of sweat in its wake. Her eyes barely escaping from their half-lidded lull and he expected it's what he must've looked like then too, complete with laden eyes, a slothful smirk and an obvious lag in his actions, both obliviously high on the pills he'd sought his peace of mind with.

"I'll fuck you soon," he promises, pressing his lips to the top of her head and breathing in her fresh honeyed scent, the feel of her breasts flat against him eliciting a small relieved sigh from the grasp of his lips. "Just need you like this for a bit longer— just a bit."

Yoongi admits it had become a part of his routine he couldn't— didn't want to— shake, having his cock lodged deep inside the warmness of her cunt, her walls tight up against him, fitting so perfectly like only she can. He'd loved it. He'd loved— loves her.

Y/N pulls back from him slightly, moving to rest her forehead gently on his, noses skimming barely and warm breathes tangling together in shared breath. "Can't understand why you like this," she mumbles, attempting to buck her hips expeditiously but he halts her movements before they even begin and she huffs. "It's boring."

He grins, nudging her head back with his forehead before grazing his teeth teasingly along her jaw. "Got me an impatient little kitten, haven't I?" He muses, sinking his teeth into her skin, almost painfully so, if it weren't for the fact that her pain threshold had been dubbed sufficiently. "Should make you wait longer for every time you complain, you wouldn't like that would you? Turn you into a proper whiny brat for me."

He presses his fingers firmly into the lower scapes of her jaw, tilting her head back so that he leers over her. "Open your mouth," he mutters, thumb lining the ridge of her bottom lip softly, forcing her lips to fall apart for him naturally. "Nice and wide."

Y/N's beautiful, her lashes flutter over the apples of her flushed cheeks instantly, mouth parted wide with strands of hair obstructing her features ever so slightly. But it doesn't deter him, only turns him on more and urges his actions. He sucks at his tongue, warranting his saliva to collect in his mouth before leisurely letting it seep past his lips and into her mouth. It fuses with her tongue briefly, slipping past the expanse and down her throat. It's erotic, filthy and yet he tastes so sweet, like strawberries, opiates and terrible decisions.

"There kitten," he asserts. "You can ride me if you want now."

He'd loved when she rode him. She never complained once, even when she was tired she'd do it. She'd waste no time in swinging her legs either side of him, and getting a rhythm going. He'd taken advantage of it— told her to ride him more times than he can remember. But only because she'd been so good at it. He swears.

Y/N sways her hips against him, nails channelled into the pasty surface of the skin at his nape with clammy thighs chafing against his own. A slow deliberate dally in her actions, grinding down on him in such a way one would slosh water in a bath, unhurriedly and tenderly; completely disorientated in the red-hot euphoria that flows through her veins and quells in her brain. She's never felt this high, never felt this good— or this full. He's pressing up against her, every inch of his thick cock stretching at her delicate walls, throbbing bated pulsations that stirs madness at the bottom of her belly.

"So deep," she whimpers quietly, a prominent tremble in her bottom lip when he bottoms out in her yet again, the head of his cock tickling at her cervix all too momentarily and it's everything she wants and some. "Love it like this. Love it deep."

Yoongi groans gutturally, chest heaving as if he's the one putting in all the work when really he's just watching her do it. Watching his girl get off all by herself, hearing the way her words loosen, tongue wrapping around the crude words as if it's nothing. But he knows it's not, he knows if she were at all clear-headed, she'd be ducking her head, flushed with embarrassment and it'd take him a long time to coax her out of it. But not tonight. Tonight she has no qualms and he loves it.

"Yeah, kitten?" His thumb scapes over her cheeks, outlining the shape of her lips perfectly and dragging her bottom lip down as he drops the digit. "You're so fucking sexy," he declares, a stately smirk laded on his mouth as he tilts forward, mouth to her ear when he speaks. "Tell me more. Tell me what else you like kitten and I might just fill you up properly, might just come inside your pretty little cunt instead of messing up your face."

"Fuck," she hisses. His words are always so blatant, so outlandishly provocative that it catches her off guard every single time without fail, pausing at her breath and quickening its beat. "Love when you call me kitten for one."

Yoongi scoffs. "Know you do," he boasts, shrugging his shoulders as if it were a thing of old news. "Turns you into a proper obedient pet for me. But you gotta do better than that— might not let you come either if you don't."

Yoongi knows she's close, her legs quiver beneath her as she bounces avidly, the sound of their skin slapping together only getting louder and louder every time she comes down. So he knows he'll be putting her through torture if he doesn't allow her release soon enough. But he'll hold out. He'll wait until he's heard what he wants.

"You don't want that, do you?" He muses. "Don't want to not be able to cream all over my cock like the dirty little kitten you are, right?"

Y/N shakes her head quickly, lips dropping into a desperate pout as she tries to appeal to him. "No. No. Always feels better with your cock," she admits, voice nothing but a breathy moan as the feeling of his cock everywhere takes over. "Tried— fuck. Tried to finger myself the other day, tried to pretend it was your cock but it didn't work."

"Christ, when was this?"

"Erm, a while ago." Y/N falters for a second, the pressure of her upcoming orgasm making everything all too sensitive and Yoongi notices it, clasping his palms around her hips and moving her forcefully. She knows she can't come though, knows she'll be in trouble if she does. So she tries to distract herself woefully. "When you went to that studio you said you liked for a week— God I— I really missed you. Wanted you to fuck me so bad and you weren't there."

Yoongi curses, holding onto her just that bit tighter as he clenches his eyes shut, steadying himself. He feels like he's floating and he feels like he could really blow his load early if he's not careful, especially with the way Y/N's talking. And when he opens his eyes again, she's staring straight at him, eyes widened marginally and a pleading ask glimmering in the depths of her orbs. She's doing all she can to hold on, teeth gritted together, nose scrunched and her brows furrowed. She's holding out just for him.

He runs his palms up her sides, smoothing over the bumps of her breasts and capturing her face between them. He pulls her closer, intertwined with not even a sliver of space separating them, heartbeats in tandem, captured in the faultless mix of love and lust as one and he kisses her. A teasing brush of the lips at first, before really delving into her, kissing her like she's the air he needs to come down to earth, tongues massaging over the other with strong familiarity. He grins, lips never leaving the touch of hers. "Come kitten," he soothes. "Come all over my cock like the good girl you are. Like I know you want to."

"Fuck!" Y/N releases a whine that mutes against his lips, her head thrown back and he follows her, keeping them locked together. She shakes against him, body gone spasmodic against her will, the exhilaration of her release tumbling down her and buzzing in the air around her. She's never come like this, never really really felt it shatter at her bones like it does, frazzling and intoxicating her mind with all thoughts Yoongi. "God," she breathes. "Love you. I love you so much Yoongi, you can't ever leave me. Need you— need your cock forever and ever."

Yoongi sniggers, rocking up into her and tiding her through her orgasm slowly. "Sure it's not just the pills talking."

"It's not. Promise," she insists. "Really do love you a lot."

"Love you too kitten. You tired?" Yoongi wants to come, specifically, he wants to come inside her— he really does. But if she's tired, then he won't hesitate to tuck her in bed. He can easily just jerk off himself, not that he really wants to. But he will. For her.

"A bit," she confesses, locking her arms around her neck hastily when she feels him ready to lift her off him. "Not that much though," she rushes out. "Want you to fill me up properly first, want to feel it leaking out of my cunt. Please."

"Fuck, you're beautiful." Yoongi doesn't waste his time in ensuring he's got a good grip on her hips, sinking his back further down the wall and driving up into her hard. "So so beautiful." He's not holding back at all, not when she'd practically begged him, fast-paced steady thrusts set to ram directly at her cervix, impaling through the sensitivity of her walls. "All mine aren't you? All fucking mine."

"Yes! All yours," she says. And she means it, she's his. Her heart, body and soul, all his for the taking, all his to enjoy whenever he wants and she'll never have it any other way.

Yoongi grunts, twisting their bodies and pushing her back onto the mattress so he hovers over her, cock still firmly inside her as he drives into her at a new angle. An angle that allows him to double over on top of her, resting his head 'midst the slope of her neck as he brandishes her, sucking and biting his mark on the surface.

"God, you have such a greedy cunt," he says, hand massaging a thigh hooked around his hip. "Clenching on me like a fucking virgin would, so tight, so fucking tight."

"Fuck Yoongi— feels so fucking good."

"Shit."

He pounds into her vehemently, her cunt sucking him up with lewd slurps every time. She's so accustomed to him. How can he ever let her go when she fits him so perfectly. How can he ever let her go, when her jaw slackens the way it so celestially does, with an inaudible straggling scream as he jars inside her, slamming back into her forcefully— deliberately. How can he ever let her go when she takes him all so naturally, her walls milking his cock for all he's got, strings of his cum filling her up so deep and so full. How can he let go, someone, he knows he loves more than himself.

But he did. Yoongi had let her go. The rains gentle patter strengthens to a cascading clatter, pelts of water threatening at the mechanics of the window and rendering him the memory. The memory of the day Yoongi had brushed the tears that had fallen down the cheeks that used to beam at him, promising her he'd be back, promising her that he'd always come back— for her. And he swears by the fact that once his eyes can see past the imagery he's created, he'll fulfil that promise, in hopes that it's not already too late, he'll find her again, he'll hold her close, moulding her skin to his and make his heart beat the same way it did all those years ago.

[ceeainthereforthat]

Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

F/M

M/M

Multi

Fandom:

The Magicians (TV)

Relationships:

Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh

Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh

Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh

Characters:

Quentin Coldwater

Eliot Waugh

Margo Hanson

Alice Quinn

Additional Tags:

marqueliot

Threesome - F/M/M

Sex Magic Shenanigans

Porn with Feelings

Oral Sex

Cunnilingus

Vaginal Fingering

Sense Sharing

it's a pagan ritual

that is also an orgy

disco never died

outlandishly sexy outfits

Eliot POV

Feelings

Facial Shaving

"You can't bring homework to Ibiza," Eliot says, and Quentin looks a little embarrassed.

He shrugs. So damn cute. "I thought I'd do it on the ferry. You said there was a three hour trip from the portal to the island?"

Alice looks up. "Not that I've been there but I thought there was a portal directly to the island?"

"If you're attuned," Eliot says. "If you're bringing a tribute, it's the ferry for you."

"Right, so I just thought—"

"Sweetheart, it's a luxury charter. The Star of Bacchus has three hot tubs, two cocktail bars, an outdoor discotheque, and a communal playroom. They'll dump your homework into the sea."

[tipsytaee]

NCT 127 – “Neo City: The Origin” in San Jose (Fan Account - 190509)

Left work at 5:40pm, arrived in San Jose at 7:10, bought chicken nuggets from McDonald’s, and entered the concert hall at 7:50.

Hall feels kind of like a high school auditorium. Was expecting something a little more memorable.

I was kind of nervous and wondering if the $160 would be worth it, but I was excited about it too. Texted BFR and MKT a quick photo and both replied with excitement for me.

Concert begins.

(Cherry Bomb) Took me a little bit to get energized, but the smooth glide, backward fall, and leg split were everything.

NCT lightsticks are bright af. Every time the girl next to me waved hers to my side, I think I went just a little bit more blind lol.

(Chain) Taeyong’s absss. I was trying to fix something on my phone and, BAM! Front and center on the big screen. That shit came out of nowhere >.<

Didn’t have a lightstick this time, so I was just kinda awkwardly standing there. People around me must’ve thought I was the quietest kpop fan ever. But in my head I was hyped xD

(Ment #1) Taeyong really knows how to pump up a crowd—from his stretched out “Ohhh yeahhhh” that reclined into a sexy, throat-deep groan to his vocalized sports tournament siren after introducing his name. And his little fumble when trying to say “lifetime memories” was cute.

(Fly Away with Me) Ugh, this song put me in a mood. And Taeyong’s bouncing dance moves. He does them really nice.

(Back 2 U) Yuta’s vocals o.o And Taeyong’s soft swag throughout.

Not as many Taeyong stans as I thought, but definitely one behind me. I relate to her every time she screams for him when he does something remotely sexy and the crowd is quiet in obliviousness xD

(City 127) Slower song and Taeyong’s still not able to sit still. He was the only one who stood up and danced around for his part, and he continued to wiggle around in his chair after that xD :3

(Angel) So. Much. Skinship. Taeyong scooting his chair over to Jaehyun and being all squishy, touchy, and adorable with him. More with Yuta & Doyoung, and Jungwoo & Haechan. The line, “I’ll be your morning star” gave me all the feels. I eventually found myself swaying along.

(Jet Lag + more) Yuta’s slow, emotional hair flip and his unrelenting cuteness. If Taeyong doesn’t do it first, this kid might just kill me >.<

(Ment #2) Yuta being cute af and possibly throwing some random Japanese in there? xD

(No Longer) Definitely falling for Taeil’s voice.

So many Taeil, Haechan and Jaehyun stans.

(Regular) Taeyong’s sex faces live are killing me.

(Wake Up) The bars have come out. Hyped by Taeyong’s “Are you ready San Jose!” and subsequent ‘yeah’s and ‘whoo’s and arm pumping dance.

(Baby Don’t Like It) Taeyong literally coming in like a pimp on top of the bars. Sunglasses, posture, attitude, and all lmao.

(Mad City) The vibrations man, the fucking building was shaking.

(Good Thing) Taeyong’s outlandishly flamboyant paint-splatter suit, wtf xD Also his moonwalk is so fucking smooth. Yuta is adorably bouncy in his cute yellow sweater.

Seeing Taeyong’s sex faces in person is ridiculous (part 2).

…is Yuta my bias wrecker?

Chipmunk voices on the mic… (Started with Mark’s mic during Mad City and continued randomly throughout)

Changing lightstick colors with the music. Didn’t expect that to happen here. For some reason I thought it was only a Korea/Japan thing lol.

(Superhuman) The superior song. Always fall for that head snap in the beginning.

I was watching Taeyong for most of the concert, but I swear I saw Taemin’s face flash by for like half a second. I think the desperation to see Taemin live is getting too strong xD

(Ment #4) I fucking looked up and Taeyong had taken half of his sparkly jacket off during the ment. Guns fully loaded. Biceps at the ready. But my poor heart wasn’t >.< Haechan speaking Korean for the first time during the concert kind of made it more real that I was watching Korean idols who had traveled halfway across the world to perform in front of me. Taeyong and his backwards visor and casual black clothes is fucking hot. Taeil getting embarrassed when Johnny told him to growl and flex his muscles one more time, adorable :3 Taeyong did clapping push-ups, aegyo-ed, and fucking dabbed in the span of 20 seconds >.< Jaehyun asking if we’re ready to “get hot.” Boy, I’ve been steaming for an hour now (both literally and figuratively lol. Couldn’t find the time to take off my coat xD)

(Summer 127) The resonance and vibrations from the bass line had me shaking (in a good way). Taeyong’s front group seemed a little lost in the music when they finally went back into choreography—they kept looking at each other like “uh…” and wiggled their arms around aimlessly until it matched everyone else lol. Taeyong went HARD during this song. His panting had me thrown, and he rapped so hard his fucking vein popped out.

(Ment #5) Doyoung’s adorably cheesy fortune cookie story. Fortune cookie read, “You will touch the hearts of many.” Generic but absolutely true ^^ Taeyong’s pouty face before his ending speech. And he put his hands together, almost in prayer, when thanking his fans. It was so heartfelt and sweet.

(Pre-0 Mile) Taeyong’s switch from his soft voice when correcting the crowd’s move for “mine mine” to his deep, loud, crowd-pumping voice at the final “girl you’re just mine mine!” I love his duality. And the way he turned around to walk to the back of the stage for 0 Mile. Hot.

(0 Mile) Taeyong being a mom and picking up Doyoung after he fell to the ground trying to protect his abs xD He’s such a sweetheart <3

For the last three-ish songs, Taeyong was super energetic and hyped for the performances. It got me hyped too.

Their “San Jose is a real vibe-killer~~” xD

Someone threw a rose at Taeyong when they were walking from the left side audience to thank the right side, and he got adorably flustered. He fumbled with the rose a little bit, but he did manage to catch it.

Taeyong picked up the rose he had put down earlier to hold his members’ hands and bow. He was being such a tease with it, putting it sexily in his mouth, tango style, and turning around and pausing every two steps to pose with it. He also put on an adorable “San Jose” beauty pageant sash before posing with the rose and heading off stage. He was the last member to leave and he kept dorking around and teasing his fans, it was so freakin cute >.< (Side note: Found out later he was recently crowned “in charge” of their San Jose stop, which is why he had the sash.)

That ending^ was all I needed to make that whole concert worthwhile. I love you Taeyong <3

Concert ended at 10:40pm. Walked back to my car and drove home listening to nothing but NCT songs.

Post-concert thoughts: In the beginning, it felt like I was just watching another random concert. I was also hesitant about going even before that because I only really listened to about half the songs on the setlist. But I realized there’s something about concert settings that just makes everything sound amazing. The concert eventually evolved into something more meaningful and that I was super spazzy about and into (probably triggered by something Taeyong did lol), but it got so much more exciting after that and I loved it.

P.S. Taeyong’s shirt was sheer????

[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!