#marvel phase four

[realtalkswithfinn]

“Are You Wearing Mismatched Socks?”

Shang-Chi x widow!reader

summary: Shaun sees a new game circling the internet and decides he HAS to challenge his girlfriend to a round.

warnings: violent play fighting, very brief mention/ joke about DV (no actual domestic violence!!), very brief mentions of Shang-Chi and Readers times as trained assassins, sex joke at the very end.

authors note: I have never written any sort of fight scene or action before so this is very new to me, but it had to be done. Also, I requested this idea to another creator here on tumblr before deciding I wanted to give it a go myself. If they write their own version, I’ll tag them so you can read that version as well!

“BABE!”

“WHAT?”

“COME IN HERE!”

“WHY?”

“JUST COME HERE!”

You sigh, blowing a strand of hair out of your face. You roll off the edge of your bed, clicking your phone off in the process, and saunter down the hall toward the sound of his voice.

Shuan stood in the center of… what used to be your living room? Both recliners and your big green couch were pushed flush up against the walls. You could see your coffee table stacked on top of your dining table in the next room over. All your blankets and knick knacks were scattered throughout the space. On the bookshelf, counters, window sills - anywhere but where they belonged.

He was looking down at his phone with an amused smile on his face.

“Done some… redecorating, have we?”

He glanced up, excitement clear on his face. “I’ll put it all back later. Give me one of your socks.”

You stared at him. “Give you… one?”

He nodded, jutting his palm out. “Yeah.”

“… why.”

“I found this game, it looks super fun!” He said, walking over to where you stood. He held out his phone, which was playing a video of what looked to be a set of twins. Each girl wore one white sock. “The goal is to rip the other persons sock off and keep yours on!”

You watched the girls tickle, tackle, and wrestle each other until one emerged victorious, sweaty sock in hand.

“I don’t know Shaun, I’m not sure I wanna play a game where I have to free your dawgs.” You teased.

“Hey! My ‘dogs’ aren’t that bad. Yours on the other hand-“

You smacked his arm. “Hey-“

“That’s the spirit!” He said, tossing his phone on the couch. “Now, give me a sock.”

“Get your own so- HEY!”

He yanked your right leg up by the back of the knee, quick but careful to make sure you didn’t fall, and slid your sock off. “See, next time, you’ll try to make sure I don’t do that.”

Oh, it’s on.

“Fine.” You sigh, trying to seem unamused. In reality, you were rather excited to play. The game looked fun enough when the girls played, but a round between two ex- child assassins? Things were going to get interesting fast.

Shaun beams at you and slides the sock onto his own foot. He looks at you, then your remaining sock, and raises an eyebrow. “Are you wearing mismatched socks?”

“Do you want to play or not?”

He backs away, hands raised in a surrender motion. “My bad, my bad, I should know better than to question you.” He moves a good three feet in front of you and reaches out for a handshake. “May the best man win.”

You yank his hand forward and flip him over your shoulder, slamming him down hard onto the cushy carpet. You twist and dive, aiming for his pink striped sock, but he rolls away quickly, jumping to his feet.

“That’s totally not fair! We hadn’t started yet!”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you made all your opponents wait for your mark before fighting.”

He scoffed. “I was trying to be civil with you.”

“Don’t.”

He kicked out with his bare foot, leaving the socked one on the ground. The impact set you back a bit, but you regained yourself before slamming into the TV.

“Watch the furniture!” He teased, diving down toward your feet.

You dove over him, rolling and landing on your feet far on the other side of the living room. You crossed your arms and tapped your socked foot impatiently. “Gee, I thought the great Shang-Chi would find this game tedious. Assumed you would’ve won by now.”

Shaun rolled his eyes before running toward you again. You attempted to jump out of the way, but he snagged you by the waist. He tackled you to the floor as carefully as he could. Sweet, but his mistake. He only held you with one arm, using the other to stop your fall, making it easy for you to wiggle out of his grip.

You rolled slightly to the left and knocked him face first into the carpet. You crawled toward his foot, forgetting to keep your own feet away from his hands. You yelped when you felt him grabbing at your ankles and started kicking violently. He managed to tug your sock a bit, but lost his grip quickly.

You yanked yourself away from his hands, curling your feet under yourself into a crouch position. Shaun wasted no time crawling toward you, laughing as he went. You scuttled backward but came to an abrupt stop when you slammed into the couch.

He was closing in. You didn’t have anywhere else to run, so you took the offensive route and thrust yourself forward, sending the two of you sprawling across the carpet. The force of you landing on him was unexpected and totally knocked the wind out of Shaun. While he laid there catching his breath, you swung around and reached for his sock.

Of course, he regained his breath too fast. He sat up and grabbed you, pinning your arms to your sides. “Not cool y/n.”

“I can be less cool.” you panted. He started to say something, but you thrust your arm back and elbowed him in the ribs. You snaked out of his grip and ran across the room yet again.

Shaun stood up slowly, rubbing his rib. “Come on!”

“Sorry baby.” You laughed. You stuck out your bottom lip in a teasing pout. “I’ll kiss it better after I win.”

“Oh no, I can’t let you win after this.” He chuckled.

But you had a plan.

…Hopefully, the TV wouldn’t pay the price.

You ran at your boyfriend, gathered at much momentum as you could, jumped up, and wrapped your legs around his neck. He stumbled, but managed to regain his balance.

“Aw dude!” His voice was muffled. “Can a guy get a warning before getting a crotch to the face?”

He started smacking his own back, desperately trying to grab at your sock. But ultimately he couldn’t reach your feet at the angle. You laugh and let yourself fall backward. You dangled yourself from his shoulders and looked through your eyebrows to locate which foot had the striped sock.

Honestly, there were a million ways Shaun could have escaped this position. But all of them would’ve been pretty painful for you, and you knew he would never actually hurt you for a game. Or anything, for that matter, but especially not a game. So he continued to reach and grab for your sock.

You reached down and tickled his right leg. He kicked out a little, as that was the last thing he expected from you. He stopped reaching for your sock and grabbed your thighs instead, trying to keep you from falling while he lost his balance.

You took the opportunity to snatch the sock off his foot.

“BOO!” Shaun complained.

“Whats that?? I can’t hear you over the sound of me WINNING!”

You reached your hands down to the floor and unhooked your legs from behind Shaun’s head, gracefully kicking down as if out of a handstand, and waved the sock around in victory.

Shaun stared at you. “I can’t believe you just black widowed me.”

You shrugged. “I can’t believe you talked such big game just to be taken out by a little tickle.”

“And a crotch to the face?”

“Whatever.” You rolled your eyes. “So… what do I win?”

A mischievous grin spread across your boyfriends face. “Who said you won? We gotta do best two out of three.”

“What? No! I won fair and square-“

Shaun ripped the sock out of your hands and took off down the hall. “BEST TWO OUT OF THREE!”

————

You padded into your bedroom with a glass of water and a handful of ibuprofen. Shaun was already under the covers, but you could see bruises sprouting up around his exposed upper body. You weren’t much better — you had a nasty spot right on your cheekbone, as well as littered all over your body.

“Hey,” you greeted gently, sitting on the edge of the bed.

He set his phone down and looked up at you with his beautiful brown eyes. “Hey.”

You took his hand and dumped a few ibuprofen into it. “Maybe we should play a little gentler next time.”

He smiled before popping the tablets into his mouth. “Maybe.”

You passed him the water glass and he took a swig before passing it back to you. You took your own dose and set the glass on the nightstand. Shaun pulled the covers up for you to crawl under, to which you happily did, curling right up against him.

He ran his fingers over the forming bruise on your cheek. “Aw dude. Does it hurt?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“People are gunna think I hit you.”

“You kinda did.” You laugh.

“Not on purpose!” He defended. He moved his hand to cup your face before sending you a pointed stare. “You, on the other hand, had malicious intent.“

“And who won all three rounds?”

Shaun glared at you but couldn’t argue. He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the bruise. “Thanks for playing with me.” He said softly.

You reached up and rested your hand over his. “Anytime. Thanks for putting the couch back.”

He chuckled, closing his eyes. “Anytime.”

————

“Dude, what happened to you?” Katy asked gawking at Shaun, who had stiffly shuffled into work covered head to toe in bruises. “Bad guys?”

“Y/n.”

Katy curled her lip in disgust. “Didn’t need to know that dude.”

“What? Oh my god Katy, no, we were playing the sock-“

“Nope. Too late. Image is already there.”

“KATY.”

[wickeddruig]

i miss them so much

[captainwaffles]

(This is not slander promise)

[jinxquickfoot]

Phase 4 really screwed the pooch by not setting a bunch of its properties in different universes.

Now we’ve hit Phase 5, with Kang as the new Big Bad, I would care a lot more about the threat to the multiverse if there were characters I cared about in the multiverse.

It also would have refreshed a lot of the Phase 4 properties, without making the 616 universe feel so bloated and disjointed, and it would have provided a reason why none of the new superheroes we keep meeting never meet each other.

Because think how much fun we could have had if Phase 4 was set throughout the multiverse. Shang-chi lives in a world without superheroes, only warriors. Moon Knight is set in a universe where the Egyptian gods are real. Another version of Carol Danvers was the Tony Stark of Kamala Khan’s reality. Eternals can exist without justifying why they never interfered in any of the threats the Avengers faced. The MCU can get weird and experimental and take huge leaps, and then when Phase 5 hits, we see Kang hit multiverses we already know, and that’s how the heroes start meeting other and teaming up.

I haven’t given up on Marvel or Phase 5, but I can’t help but think this would have been a much more fun way to tackle Phase 4.

[eddieshellscape]

I actually hope the new strike delays marvel movies. I hope it slows down all their productions. I hope they actually give writers time to make a good and well thought out movie. The shit they've been chucking at us, all hobbled together in a crunched time limit, isn't as good as the stuff that took longer to make. I sincerely hope that they slow down production and bring marvel back to what it used to be. I can wait more than a few months in between movies. I don't need to be constantly watching them. There's already so much content in the world to watch, I can wait a year to watch a new movie, especially if it means it's going to be higher quality.

All of Marvel phase 4 was shot out in just over a year, i think. Most of it (excluding Wakana Forever) was very clearly hobbled together movies. This is not to say marvel has bad writers, or directors, or anything. This is clearly because of the crunch time put on the writers.

Feel free to correct me if you think any of this is wrong, but this is what I have observed.

[gingy7891]

Marvel's Black Widow The Art of the Movie Official Cover Art 

[alethianightsong]

What’s the name of the trope where the villain is 95% correct but the writers make them do something evil to erase empathy?

The most recent example to me is Namor from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Namor is centuries-old and he’s observed colonialism firsthand. He wants to team up with the only other nation un-colonized(Wakanda) so they can fight the rest of the world(keyword: fight) rather than wait for the world to discover his kingdom and raid it for resources. Keep in mind that western nations are already testing Wakanda’s defense to try and steal their stuff, so he’s right, they should team up. But uh-oh! He wants to kill a teenager. He kills the queen of Wakanda. That’s what you get for buying into his story, audience. Another example is the Vulture from the Holland Spider-man series; he’s a working-class guy who lost his job due to a certain billionaire so he sells advanced weapons to make ends meet. The movie has him flippantly kill a random character so you feel bad for empathizing with him even though Tony Stark killed thousands by selling weapons, got thousands killed when he created a genocidal robot that wrecked Sokovia, and uses his billionaire wealth to make fancy weapons for himself known as his Ironman suits. “But Tony got better.” Right! Tony was allowed to get better, to continuously fuck up then overcompensate for said fuck-up, while the villains weren’t given that opportunity. Redemption is for heroes, punishment is for villains.

[aesthetic-solar-space]

Hi

Soooo I know it’s really late to the trend. Better late than never though.

This show was one of my favorites for the new Marvel tv shows with Disney plus,I will admit though that I did have to watch this show one and a half times. My first watch as it was coming out I only made it about halfway before losing interest, for me it was more of a binge show. So once it was all out I sat down and gave it another go because this show had some of my favorite characters, I had to give it a second shot. It worked. That second watch through I was much more there and into the story line.overall I will give this show a 4/5 stars ✨

[amelia-mariee]

stoooop with the video essays about mcu's phase 4 being bad. yeah so whatever i didn't like it that much either but im boooooored with your "uhhhhh there was no main focus, too many shows, this show took itself too seriously, this movie didn't take itself seriously enough, I am the first person to ever say this" like I get iiiiit you can stop with all these videos, I can guess what you're gonna say before you say it, you act like this is a very original hot take like "phase 4 wasnt actually that good" omg stop whining or im gonna uninstall youtube

[seeforyaself]

State of The Franchise: MCU

[nerdalertgirls]

Nerd Alert Girls take the time to discuss MCU phase 4–what it did well, what it didn’t, and why some movies and shows did better than others.

[gingy7891]

Spider-Man No Way Home The Art of the Movie Book Cover

[marvellousgifs]

Wanda Maximoff in DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (2022)

All this for a child you met yesterday? Wanda, you are justifiably angry. You had to make terrible sacrifices. I blew a hole through the head of the man I loved... and it meant nothing. Do not speak to me of sacrifice, Stephen Strange.

[marvelsgirl616]

Johnny Storm Icons

[ Chris Evans as Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch in Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) ]