#so is truth bombing a guy in your old program so long his brain is broken

[sleep-ylittleloud]

blocking creeps that crawl into the dms is good for the soul

[randomly-random-jen]

Uncalled For Actions (11/?)

A Girl Genius fanfic

When Gilgamesh Holzfäller is fourteen, he’s taken on as an apprentice to Baron Wulfenbach as part of a program to produce the next generation of leaders in the Empire–a group that will hopefully get along (although most see this as wishful thinking on the Baron’s part). He’s learned a lot over the months of shadowing the Baron, but nothing has prepared him for his most challenging assignment: confronting the skeletons in his closet.  

[Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Part 12 ]

Part 11

"That is the most important question," Seffie said excitedly.

"Yes, Seffie, it really is," Gil slurred.

They all stared at him, waiting for the big reveal, but Gil only slumped over, his mouth slightly ajar as he started to snore. Tarvek pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation then smacked Gil's leg hard enough to jolt him awake.

Gil shot upright, blinking around the room before finally squinting at Tarvek.

Barkley stepped between them before any punches were thrown. "Master Gilgamesh, you were about to tell us who poisoned you?"

"You really have to ask?"

Barkley looked at the other children then nodded. "We won't know unless you tell us, correct?"

Gil fell back on the bed again. "When in the den of thieves-"

"Wait," Tarvek said, "are you saying we did this to you?"

"Why would Father poison the Baron's apprentice?" asked Anevka, brow furrowed. "Politically, it would be suicide--the Baron would lock Balan's Gap down hard until they found the culprit. I've seen it happen in other towns for less important people."

Gil rolled to the side, shoulders shaking, and for a moment, Tarvek thought he was going to be sick all over the bed, but then he sat up, giggling.

"No, not you," he told Anevka with that cheesy grin he seemed to think was charming. "You're too nice to poison me." His head whipped around to Tarvek, the smile replaced with a sneer. "Now your brother, on the other hand--he's a duplicitous, treacherous snake so I'd expect that from him."

Tarvek's blood instantly boiled. "Now wait a minute," he shouted, taking two steps towards the bed before both Anevka and Barkley blocked his way. "Why would I poison you?"

"Please, Your Highness," Barkley whispered, "calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down--I've just been accused of a crime in my own house. I will not be calm."

"Tarvek," Anevka said, pushing him back with a hand on his chest. "You did beat him up a few hours ago so it's not too far a stretch-"

"You're taking his side?" His voice came out way too high and screechy. How could she take his side? 

The hurt must have shown all over his face because she dropped her hand and took a step back, but Tarvek didn't want to hear her apologies anymore. He backed out of the room, ignoring her calls then stormed past the Baron's other assistants and out the door of the suite.

People darted out of his path until he suddenly realized there was no one left in the halls. Tarvek glanced around, taking a second to orient himself before turning back the way he'd come, still shaking with anger and betrayal.

That's all Holzfäller was good for--betrayal. If he wasn't the one betraying, he was setting someone else up to do it for him.

"My own sister! I can't believe it." He slumped against the wall. "Of course, I can believe it--she's always up to something." With that thought, he slid to the floor feeling like he'd been run over by a train. An emotional time-bomb of a train set in motion by Holzfäller.

He should have just left him at the table--let him get sick all over Seffie or Cousin Pearl. Should have let him make a big scene in front of the Baron so he'd see exactly the kind of low-brow trash he'd taken pity on with this apprentice charade.

That would have been the smart thing to do, but no, he had to be a nice guy and try to help the idiot when it became obvious he couldn't help himself anymore.

And what do I get in return? Accused of poisoning him at my own table. "The nerve!"

Tarvek sniffed then wiped at his nose, realizing then that he'd been crying. With a sound of disgust, he hopped to his feet and scrubbed his face clean on his sleeve.

He needed to get a grip before someone saw him breaking down over something so stupid as an unfounded accusation by a nobody like Holzfäller. If he cried every time someone said something bad about him, he'd be swimming in his own tears daily.

There was a small voice in the back of his brain that kept whispering that this was different, though, but it wasn't--not in Tarvek's opinion.

"Why would I poison him? It's ridiculous--what do I have to gain?" But that's not the real question, the voice said, now is it? Tarvek frowned at his dirty, scuffed boots, the realization settling heavy on his shoulders.

"No, it really isn't," he mumbled.

* * *

Gil woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed and regretting it a moment later when colors popped in his vision while the room swayed dangerously. He fell back with a groan that sounded like a freight train running through his skull.

"I'm gonna be sick," he muttered, a pressure welling from his gut into this chest.

"In the bucket, please," someone said from the other side of the room.

He lifted himself enough to see Barkley sitting on a chair, reading a newspaper in a robe and slippers shaped like bunnies.

"What?" he managed to slur just as the contents of his stomach launched upwards, and he rolled to the edge of the bed where he found a half-full bucket and managed to keep most of the mess inside. When he finished throwing up, he sat back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

After a moment, Barkley snapped his newspaper shut and got up with a yawn. "I will tell the Baron you are awake--you have twenty minutes to be ready, mind you."

Gil stared blurrily at the ceiling, trying to figure out what Barkley was talking about because his entire head felt wrapped in cotton-wool and filled with molasses so thick even his thoughts were bogged down. He shook his head, trying to clear the haze, but it persisted, and the shaking did nothing for his roiling stomach.

There was one thing he knew, though, if the Baron said he had to be ready in twenty minutes then he better be ready in twenty minutes. Or as ready as he could be, he thought as he dashed into the en suite before he hurled on the carpet.

A few minutes later, he was splashing cold water on his face and taking deep, slow breaths hoping to calm his frazzled nerves. He needed to get a grip--figure out what happened, how to fix it, and be ready in fifteen minutes. Ready for what he wasn't sure yet but he knew it was important.

There was a small spark of sense somewhere in his addled brain that said this was important. Outside the room, he heard the Baron's angry voice getting closer.

He was in so much trouble. Trouble--right! "I'm in trouble," he said to his reflection that stared back with dark circles under his eyes and a busted lip. "This is all Tarvek's fault. That weasel--he drugged me"

His heart rate calmed some once he began to make sense of the garbled memories bouncing around his head. That crazy miniature Smoke Knight of his and the darts--that's why he'd been acting weird. Why he almost let so many things slip.

Things could have gone so much worse if his father hadn't taught him all of those tricks on self-control and resisting tortures. He'd thought his father insane at teaching a ten-year-old to resist torture, but he'd been right after all. Gil wasn't sure what that said about any of them, but at the moment, he was just grateful or he'd be in even more trouble.

With his previous night somewhat sorted out, he quickly washed up and got dressed, finishing the last buttons as the door slammed open to an agitated Barkley followed by the Baron.

"I told him you weren't feeling well, Master Gilgamesh," Barkley said, the words ending with a soft whine.

"You're ill?" his father asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

Gil stood up straight despite his sore back and head and shook his head. "Must have been the fish--I feel fine now."

His father studied him longer, probably waiting for him to break into a cold sweat and tell the truth like most people do under his scrutiny, but those were other lessons he'd already subjected Gil to. They stared at each for a long moment until the Baron was satisfied with Gil's apparent truthfulness or just didn't care enough to question them further.

"Let's go then," he said to Gil as he left the room without waiting to see if Gil would follow.

They arrived early to the morning meeting--the conference room was filled with only empty chairs as servants set out pitchers of water at each table.

Gil headed straight for a coffee engine in the corner, eyes nearly bugging out at the complicated yet elegant design as he waited for the server to explain how it worked. The thoughts started as a whisper in the back fo his head, becoming louder and more insistent as the information grew. His heart sped up, breath caught in his chest, heat burned his skin.

He needed to touch it--to take it apart and see how it really worked. Time slowed down the longer he considered the contraption, and it was almost as if he could see right through the steel and glass right down to the molecules that made up each substance--maybe even down to the atoms themselves.

He reached towards what was obviously a misconnected set of regulator tubes when the server smacked his hand away then looked terrified for what she'd just done while Gil just simply stared back at her.

"Ow," was all he could manage to say as the brightness of the engine faded back to reality.

"I'm so sorry," the server whispered, nearly in tears, "it's just it gets really hot."

Gil blinked at her then at the machine and back to her.

The girl--who couldn't be much older than Gil himself was still babbling her apology when an older man in a starched uniform came over. "Is there a problem Arabeth?"

Her lip started to tremble, twisting Gil's stomach into a knot--he remembered that kind of fear; the kind that came from knowing your place in the world meant nothing and your disappearance would mean even less.

"No, no problem," he said before Arabeth could answer.

"She just kindly pointed out the dangers of the machine before I could injure myself." He pointed at his bruised face. "I do have a tendency." He laughed dryly, but the man didn't find him at all funny while Arabeth just bit her lip so hard Gil was afraid she might draw blood.

The man huffed when Gil continued to only smile pleasantly, and he could find no other reason to berate his subordinate. "Very well, then; no dawdling Arabeth."

Gil let out a long breath once the man was gone and leaned against the table--was everyone in this castle so tense all of the time? Not even a military vessel like Castle Wulfenbach was on high alert all of the time.

"Thank you," Arabeth said to her shoes.

Gil shrugged. "I should be thanking you; you just saved me from yet more humiliation at my own hands. I can use all the help I can get."

She finally glanced up at him so he shot her a genuine smile because she was awfully pretty, and he felt connected to her in some small way.

Arabeth blushed so bright and so fast it nearly blinded Gil, and he found himself laughing until she turned away quickly, shoulders slumped then handed him his coffee without looking up.

Crap--he really was bad with girls.

He tried to get her attention again, to apologize for being a complete bonehead, to try to make that connection again, but his father stepped between them to retrieve his own cup of coffee.

"I hope you are planning to be on your best behavior this morning--no more of this tomfoolery with Prince Sturmvoraus."

Gil's mouth tightened into a thin line at the mention of Tarvek and the day before like he could forget even after being drugged which was something he was not going to mention to his father ever.

"The apprentice position is a learning experience more than anything and one of the most important lessons you must learn in politics is dealing with people you find absolutely reprehensible."

Well, he knew Tarvek well enough; Gil only nodded and sipped his coffee.

"Leading is about more than control-"

"Leading isn't about control at all," Gil said suddenly, surprising them both. He groaned inwardly--obviously, he was still feeling the effects of the drugs because never in a million years would he interrupt his father like that and definitely not with something so obviously confrontational.

His father sipped his coffee a moment, eyebrow raised then motioned for Gil to follow him to their seats at the empty head table. "Care to elaborate on your statement?"

Gil swallowed the hot liquid, scalding his throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," he said quickly, feeling his face burn as hot as the coffee.

"No," his father said, "please continue--I'd like to hear your opinion on leadership."

"You would?" Gil could never be sure if his father was serious or testing him in some way that would come back to bite him in the ass or humiliate him or both--usually both.

His father nodded. "Of course."

Gil took a deep breath feeling suddenly very exposed and also five-years-old and terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing. "Well," he finally said, spinning his nearly empty cup between his hands, “a 'leader' by definition doesn't control the people under him. Leaders lead--they guide through their actions and intellect. You're not really much of a leader if the only way you can get anything done is by iron-clad control of wills. That's not a leader--that's a dictator."

He forced his hands to stop shaking and slowly looked up at his father--it wasn't often that he contradicted anything the man said, and he was more than a little scared to find out what would happen, but his father only nodded.

"A very astute observation although there are times when speeches and persuasion can go only so far."

"I suppose that's true," Gil said glumly.

His father squeezed his shoulder. "But a good leader knows when to lead and when to dictate for the greater good, and if you are good at the former than the latter is rarely needed."

A swell of pride Gil had never experienced before nearly overwhelmed his senses as he fought to keep his head on straight and his expression neutral lest his father know how much his approval meant.

[ Part 12 ]

[ralph-uni]

I was talking on a MCL’s group today and someone post this :

Ok, so let’s call this story The twins do shit together !!!

At first, there is the pain. Some deep headache, like two big, enormous hammers hitting my brain. I need water…

I step over few people. All asleep in such a mess. Judging the amount of arms and legs there’s around four people with me on the mattress. Carefully, I mean, as carefully as my body could, I leave the room. My head’s spinning. Hopefully, I manage myself and find the living room. All over the place, the proofs of the past night are scattered the floor. Old pizzas, drinks, and this old cigarette's smell. Man, I would not like being in Candy's place. Her parents will kill her.

- Oi, Armin !

Damn… How could she be able to be so beautiful after all this alcohol we drink together ? Kim looks like she woke up after a long and delightful night. She is smiling, knowing perfectly that I’m a disaster.

- Come here, I’ll give you something.

- Thanks.

A pitiful croak. All my throat could do. With a small laugh she goes to the sink and bring me back a glass with some tablet inside. After some time, I drink the content. The coolness help me to emerge. I know something's wrong...but what ?

Next to me, Kim switches on the TV. It’s a reality show about celebrities whose disguise themselves into common people to do pranks. I can’t focus on the program. Always thinking about the missing parts of my memory. I have to know :

- Do you remember last night ?

- Huh ?

- I feel like I forgot something, not a big deal though. But…

- Yeah, get it. Well I was thinking about that too. Don’t know if it was all the Jagger Bombs I drink but I can’t stop thinking about Castiel with greenish hairs. And a tutu.

Was the word tutu a key for my destroyed memory ? A quick flashback of the past hours cross over my mind. Candy throwing a party for her birthday. Alexy trying to seduce Kentin with no result. Yes, I remember. He was crying about the lost of his unique love of his life. I was drinking with him to help Alexy to forget. And then…

- Oh shit…

Kim is looking into the hall. I move a bit to see what's going on. I just freeze.

Castiel is actually wearing a tutu. Probably Candy’s stuff (this girl has an incredible amount of clothes). It could be funny, very funny.

But Castiel's green.

Kim bursts out laughing.

- Wah ! Ahah… Castiel, did you look on a mirror recently ?

He grimaces

- Shut up… I know I’m handsome. No need to check.

- Uh...you should anyway.

I’m feeling quite bad telling that. Fuck, is it guilt ? Why ?!

The truth it me. Like a lightning. Alexy sobbing. Castiel boring the shit out of him. Our plan to take a revenge… Oh lord...no. No, no, no !...

At the same moment we hear a scream coming from behind Castiel. Candy.

- What do you do with my tutu ? And above all, what the heck is that Castiel ?!

She rushes next to him. He keeps a straight face, having no clue about this mess. She turns toward us. I don’t like the way she looks to us.

- May I know why my boyfriend has green hairs ?!

- Actually, it’s called lovat green.

Of course, Alexy chooses this moment to come. Dear brother, I’ll kill you later if Candy does not before. He seems to not be bothered by her wrath. He moves closer to Castiel to take a look at his chef d’oeuvre. Appreciated the nuances of the color. The rebel guy starts to lose his temper :

- Give me your phone, Candy. Don’t know where’s mine disappeared.

She obeys with a sigh. After several seconds of pure tension, he looks at Alexy with the most neutral expression I never seen on his face.

- My hair’s green.

- Lovat green, I told you.

- Fine… my hair’s lovat green.

- Yup.

- You know I loved my red hair.

- Absolutely.

- Why did you do that ?

- Cause you’re an asshole, Cassy. Oh ! And Armin thought it will be funny.

Ok, game on : who will kill my brother first ? Candy, Castiel or me ?

She was about to burst into anger but her boyfriend stops when he laughs hysterically.

- Ok, ahah, well played. Somehow I deserved it.

- You definitely deserved it.

- But don’t you think I’m cute like this ? I mean, I’m sure I have my chance with Kentin now.

While Castiel sneers, Alexy tries to hit him Candy holds back with some difficulties. I guess we will not die today.

Another normal day with my brother in short.

~~~~~~

Well it’s the first time that I wrote a story in english. Please, feel free to notice me any mistake.

Thank you @sinto-hell , @iamguiltyofeverything , @moondaythe13th and the others (please guys, give me your tumblr) for their ideas and support. And also a big thanks to @sakurina-mcl for her time and kindness

[hedgehog-goulash7]

OK - this is the piece I wrote in refutation of this now-notorious (because of its many, almost hilarious inaccuracies) article on Screen Rant: “15 Reasons the MCU Should Retire Iron Man”

This is:

A Rebuttal to ‘15 Reasons The MCU Should Retire Iron Man” -- or, Iron Man Should Retire Only If and When RDJ Wants Him To

By Hedgehog-Goulash7 

I will preface this by saying: I know all good and great things must someday come to an end. We’ve all been blessed now by almost a decade of RDJ in the armor as Tony Stark, and with all the other opportunities in movies, TV and elsewhere calling to him, we can’t expect one of America’s finest actors to stay an active player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe forever.

As Chris Evans -- another MCU player who’s potentially on the cusp of change -- said recently, and more poetically than I ever could, “The passing of time and the passing of torches is part of the experience. Nothing lasts forever. There’s a beauty in that departure, even if it can be sad at times. It’s also joyful.” 

But there’s that type of graceful nod to what may and will come, later if not sooner -- and then there’s a completely other type of thing: a pseudo-expert on a movie news site willfully CALLING for a character’s end, and using dubious and easily refuted pseudo-”facts” to back his points up. That’s about when I feel the need to respond. So let’s go. 

(Continued under the cut.  This is LONG, but it needed to be, to answer a lot of his badly construed points.  Your comments are always very welcome -- and I’m sure I missed a lot of things, but had I included everything this would have been 6,000 words long!  As I mentioned before, I actually sent this to Screen Rant; they thanked me, turned it down because they don’t accept “guest posts,” but liked it enough to consider me for a staff writer position -- about which we shall see...  - Hedge)

I was puzzled and disappointed to read Evan Killham’s “15 Reasons the MCU Should Retire Iron Man.” At first I thought it had to be satire, but then realized that wasn’t the case. And then as I plowed through, I realized that Evan misstated and downright confused so many elements in the MCU’s Tony Stark story that in some cases I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about.

As a Marvel fan – particularly of Tony Stark/Iron Man – for many years, and continuing to enjoy Iron Man as my favorite character in the MCU, I disagree wholeheartedly with Evan’s article, which seemed a rather mean-spirited attack piece on a beloved character. So please, allow me to rebut point by point and show you the OTHER side, from a much more optimistic Iron Man fan’s point of view.

15.  Tony Stark did NOT “create most of his own enemies”

Vanko was “created, if anything, by Tony’s father -- as was Obadiah Stane. The only enemy Tony Stark really “created” was Aldrich Killian, but who could predict the insanity of a dude you barely knew building an entire villain persona inspired by a slight at a party years ago?  

Yes, Tony blames himself for creating Ultron, because Tony is all about taking responsibility and blame upon himself (unlike most of his teammates).  But Ultron was clearly NOT Tony’s fault. Tony may have been the catalyst who physically added the alien intelligence to the Iron Legion program. But at the time he was under the influence of the vision Wanda had implanted in his brain: of his greatest fear, losing his teammates and not having done more to save them.  

And more important, he was ALSO under the influence of the Mind Stone in Loki’s staff, which, as we saw in the first Avengers movie, can sow discord and control the minds of even superpowered beings.  The Mind Stone manipulates Tony and Bruce into inserting it in the Ultron/Iron Legion program, and from there it self-promulgates, embodying itself as the evil robot. Tony and Bruce go off to the party not thinking anything of it, because they are being manipulated into thinking nothing’s wrong.  The entrance of Evil Ultron is a huge surprise to them.

14. Tony Stark is not “overused”

Evan says Tony Stark has appeared in “eight of the 16 released MCU films.” He rushes to clarify that one appearance – in “The Incredible Hulk” – was just a few moments’ worth in a tiny cameo. So then that’s seven of the 16 films, fairly speaking.

So three of those were star appearances in his own franchise. Three were in Avengers movies (because Cap3: Civil War was really an Avengers movie, albeit one that RDJ made a mark for himself in, despite having far less screen time…). And yes, of course Iron Man should be a star player in the Avengers movies.

And most recently he made, oooh, wait for it: a 15-minute guest appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

“Overused”? Hardly.

RDJ, sadly for us aficionados, is only in about one movie per year, of ANY type. So a year in which he makes even a small appearance in an MCU movie is a precious year indeed. In fact many of us think some of the Iron Man-less MCU movies could actually have benefited from a strong injection of Iron Man, which always makes everything that much better.

 13. Tony’s teammates really DO like him.

Sure, Rhodey loves Tony and they’re besties from way back. But there have been many, many moments of friendship and affection from his other teammates for Tony Stark throughout the MCU saga.

Natasha practically mouths Russian prayers for Tony to return from the wormhole in Avengers, and in Civil War she holds and massages Tony’s shoulder and asks if he’s OK. Thor apologizes for doubting Tony in Age of Ultron and admiringly admits Tony was right. Bruce Banner warms to Tony’s friendship in the first Avengers movie – yes, the one that launched a million “Science Bros” memes because their affection for each other was so evident. When Tony is jolted back from the dead by the Hulk’s snarl at the end of the Chitauri battle, the smile on Steve’s face could light up a room.

There are countless other little moments like that throughout all the movies. They’re “just” character moments, though – not part of the big bashing action setpieces – so casual viewers tend to overlook them. I don’t get that the heroes of the MCU are generally touchy-feely emotive people (except for you, Thor, you giant puppy). But they DO express their feelings in small, very meaningful ways that are fun to watch.  

Does Tony annoy them? Sure, like an annoying brother. But we love that brother anyway, because he’s family and he’s actually pretty entertaining. (If only my brother were RDJ, it would never get old…)

 12. Tony loves his teammates, too

Tony Stark sometimes doesn’t know how to deal with feelings of care and affection, so he sometimes tries to buy it – as he’s doing now by providing ALL of the Avengers’ amenities: the Tower and now the Compound, their uniforms and equipment and tech, their room and board. (It’s actually led to a “Team Freeloader” meme among the fans, since Tony is pretty much giving them everything.)  He doesn’t NEED to do this, but he does. Because he cares about them, and they’ve become his surrogate family.

But when you really get down to matters of the heart – which these movies don’t very often – look again at the vision Wanda implanted in Tony’s brain; the one of his greatest fear. Of all the Avengers who were affected by Wanda’s visions, only Tony saw a vision of his teammates dying. That is his greatest fear: that he didn’t do enough and then all his friends die. He admits to Nick Fury that he’d rather die than have them die.

I don’t know how much more blatant the MCU saga could get in practically underlining the point that Tony loves his teammates and takes responsibility for their lives and well-being. He FLIES TO SIBERIA all alone in Civil War -- one little guy in an armored suit flying hours and hours through ocean storms -- after braving The Raft and immense danger to find out where Steve is, once he learns the truth about the Vienna bombing. That’s called true friendship, and being there to make things right even after you and your friend both screw up.  

Oh, not to mention he designs everything, pays for everything and makes everyone look cooler.

 11.  Tony may “desperately need a break” -- but he just got one

Yup, we fans have been saying all along that Tony Stark needs a break and a long vacation in some beautiful place where he can quietly heal and come to terms with all that’s happened since 2008. And remember, only about five minutes ago in screen time, he just learned the truth of his parents’ murder and his friend’s betrayal, which probably triggered every ounce of PTSD inside him.

And…he just got a break, thankfully.  In Spider-Man: Homecoming he goes to India to rest and recharge and find himself (it’s glossed over quickly in the movie, but in the novelization, based on the script, it’s clear). Hey, if hanging out and meditating in some ritzy ashram is what it takes to get the old Tony Stark back, then yay.

But more than that: in Homecoming he has reunited with Pepper, the “one thing he can’t live without.” And even more than THAT, he has also gained a surrogate son in Peter Parker, the young superhero who is so much like Tony in almost every way: impulsive, mouthy, quicksilver, utterly determined. So now Tony, who probably thought he lost a family in “Civil War” (in more ways than one) has a close cadre of people he loves around him again.

And remember: this is an ongoing saga. Civil War brought everyone to their low point, the nadir of the story. From here on it’s onward and upward for all of them.

10.  Tony’s motivations are not “questionable”

You could say everything Tony Stark does has “guilt” behind it, as Evan did in his listcicle. But you could say that about all of them – every last one of the Avengers is either driven by guilt or shame. They’re all broken in some way. But if the story plays out as I think it will, because this is how stories work, they will all find their destiny in working together, as a team, as a family – when the Earth is threatened by a Big Bad only the Avengers can defeat.

Tony is not a perfect person. That’s what makes him a fascinating and compelling character. Yes, guilt over his family’s weapons-making legacy drives him to become Iron Man once he sees that those weapons are being diverted and sold to bad guys by Obie. (P.S.: Evan, Stark Industries NEVER sold weapons to evildoers. They were contracted to the U.S. military only.)  

Yes, Tony nearly weeps when confronted by the mom of the young man who died in Sokovia. Yes, he blames himself for Ultron and feels desperate guilt over that, because he’s not aware that he actually WASN’T to blame. And yes, these things and more drive Tony Stark toward advocating the Accords, which (I don’t know, I haven’t read them and I don’t know anyone who has…) seem to simply say that super-powered beings who pack the force of a bunch of atom bombs shouldn’t go tromping across international borders without permission, and should have some oversight. I don’t know – seems reasonable to me?

 9.  Tony Stark definitely DOES want to be Iron Man

Of course he does, because he’s a hero, and hero-ing is what heroes do. He even admits it to Cap: “I don’t want to stop.”  He TRIES to stop – probably to try to be a better mundane man and for Pepper’s sake. But he keeps coming back. Because he wants to. Because the inner drive to be a hero never stops.

We see this most clearly in his interactions with Peter Parker. Peter’s statement that “if you can do the things I can do, and you don’t, and bad things happen, then that’s on you” clearly has an impact on Tony – because it hits him at a time he’s been roped back in after trying to step away from his hero duties. It brings back to Tony that by trying to sit these things out, he’s actually making things worse -- because the world benefits from his actions as Iron Man.

Out of the mouth of this innocent kid – in whom Tony sees an unspoiled version of himself that he feels compelled to protect and guide – comes the entire credo for why he Iron Mans. And why any of them do what they do.

 8.  He’s NOT “more of a wild card than the Hulk.”

No. Just no. The Hulk can’t help himself. Tony can. Most of Tony’s decisions are pretty rational, when he’s actually thinking for himself and isn’t controlled by some outside force. Tony “submitting to registration” in Civil War was not a wild or unexpected decision. It’s the reasonable outcome of the huge fiascos the Avengers have gotten themselves into.  None of it because of anything they’d intended, but the collateral damages happened, right? Massive loss of property, life and limb?

And who was stuck with cleaning it up and paying for it all?  Why, it’s Tony Stark, the ONLY one taking any responsibility whatsoever. More on that in a moment.

 7.  Tony Stark does NOT “actively hold people back” – LOL, what?!!

Where in the world did THAT accusation come from? I’ve literally in all my years of fandom never heard that Tony Stark holds people back. Au contraire, mon Screen Rant frére. Tony Stark revels in being a futurist and in looking ahead to what the future will bring to all of us.

He takes on mentorship of Peter Parker because he knows that this youngster will someday, probably sooner rather than later, be a great hero – and that the kid won’t stop being a hero, whether or not Tony Stark is there to guide him or not. Thus, Peter is in active danger, out there on the streets in his onesie, punching far above his weight.

Tony isn’t holding Peter BACK, he’s keeping him SAFE. Can you imagine the time, effort and thought that went into that high-tech suit and its “Training Wheels Protocol” – Tony spending hours and hours planning how to keep this impetuous young padawan from being killed before he’s 17? Can you imagine Tony’s guilt if he had the ability to protect Peter and he didn’t?

Tony’s only mistake here is not realizing how much like him young Peter is, because of course Peter would disable the protections at his first opportunity. Remember “JARVIS, sometimes you gotta run before you can walk”?

 6.  Tony does not “refuse to take responsibility” – quite the opposite

Tony Stark is completely DRIVEN by the impetus to take responsibility. There is literally a whole movie about this, called Iron Man, in case you missed it.

Ever since his captivity in Afghanistan, it’s been that way. He immediately shut down Stark Industries’ weapons manufacturing at great expense and danger to himself. He built the suit to avenge the life of Yinsen and take responsibility for the safety of the town of Gulmira, since he blamed himself for the terrorists getting his weapons (even though that was Obie’s deal…). I didn’t see recklessness – just determination and courage, and some awesome pinpoint weapons-aiming, too. No collateral damage there.

In Age of Ultron and Civil War, Tony is completely horrified by the ravages of Ultron, whom he blames himself for even though (as we’ve seen) he’s really not to blame. And really, even though both Cap and Tony are quite a bit right and quite a lot wrong in Civil War, Tony in the context of real-world affairs is MORE right.  

The Avengers without oversight by some state or world agency are no more than an outlaw militia traipsing over borders and doing what they wish. No iteration of international law would ever allow that, no matter how much “good” Cap thinks they’re doing by “keeping it in our own hands.”

That sort of thinking is dangerously unilateral, and Cap veers close to America First-ism there (not surprisingly) -- but that doesn’t really work well in an international context. Tony has more of the right idea – that the group needs to be held accountable, as any military would, as any international peacekeeping organization would. There are laws in the world, and they’re there for a purpose.

Also, the only one taking ANY responsibility after the Lagos fiasco seems to be: Tony Stark. Cap is curiously subdued, keeping to his rooms while Tony comes back from his mini-retirement. Tony once again takes on ALL the stress of being the Avenger’s PR crisis manager, lead media spokesman, government liaison and all-around cleanup guy while everyone else apparently lounges around at the Compound.

And going back just a little further – remember that the MCU wouldn’t have Manhattan and would probably be embroiled in WW3 if Tony Stark hadn’t shouldered a nuclear missile and gone on a suicide mission to deliver it into space. Talk about being the guy who lies down on the wire…

So don’t talk to me about Tony Stark “not taking responsibility.” So often and on so many occasions, he takes on ALL the responsibility.

 5.  Tony Stark has shown more character development than all the rest of the Avengers put together.

Anyone asserting that Tony “has shown no character development” has had their head under the proverbial rock the past nine years. Tony Stark has had the most continuous character development of any of the Avengers. If you think not, then you’re buying into the motormouth bravado that the character wears like his armor -- and not seeing the man underneath.

In the course of the MCU saga so far, Tony has had his hero revelation moment, soared above the mistakes of his past, been brought very low by both real and perceived missteps along his hero journey, and now is set to fly high again. In fact, judging from Homecoming, he’s just gone through a rather huge glow-up (which makes his fans very happy).

Tony is not a god or an unceasingly good and moral super-soldier; he’s not a Jekyll-and-Hyde rage monster; he’s not a trained assassin or spy.  None of them ever really change, because they’re all locked into their types (or they don’t get their own movies so we can SEE them change: *cough*Black Widow*cough*…).

Of all the Avengers, Tony is the most human and most ever-changing, just like all of us. He’s a flesh-and-bones guy whose only “super power” is his intellect, whose armor is both real and metaphorical, shielding his real and metaphorical heart -- and whose entire story is his leaping, upward, optimistic character arc toward the future.

 4.  His “quipping has gotten exhausting”?! Not a chance.

Listen, if it wasn’t Tony Stark doing the quipping, it would be some other super-dude in the movie. Count on it. It’s a trope.  And I’d much, much, MUCH rather have Robert Downey Jr. as on-site quipmeister than anyone else. He’s by far the world’s most qualified.

Also, can you WAIT for the moment when Iron Man, Rocket and Star Lord meet?  Quip meters all over the world will shatter, and that, as Martha Stewart says, will be a Good Thing.

 3.  All those “murders”? What??  

Please, point me to any occasion in the MCU where Tony Stark “murders” innocent people intentionally.

I’ll wait.

These are superhero movies – ALL the heroes kill people; hopefully, the bad guys. A lot of aliens bite the dust, but occasionally bad humans do too. And Marvel movies, for all their mayhem, are fairly restrained in collateral damages and actually address the issues of unintended deaths and damage and the human consequences that heroes have to live with.  

How many people died as the Chitauri invaded NYC and smashed into buildings? But how many millions more would have died if the World Council had nuked Manhattan? I seem to recall someone in red and gold saving those millions from nuclear annihilation…which is not a small thing. Wanda inadvertently killed 11 innocent people in that hotel in Lagos – sure, “not her fault,” any more than Ultron was Tony’s fault. They both intended to do good and ended up with a fiasco. It’s all become an important part of the MCU story – it’s become a story of accountability and taking responsibility.

I can only defend the Insta-Kill mode in Spidey’s suit with the thought that it was there as an extreme measure of last resort, only to be used in desperation and ONLY when Peter is fully trained and can – yes – take on that heavy responsibility. Tony intended for that training to happen, you know.

 2.  Tony did not “almost literally get everyone killed”

Again, as I mentioned: Tony – who takes on the responsibility and blame for just about everything, which is his main problem in life – was actually and ironically NOT responsible for Ultron. Wanda’s vision, then the Mind Stone, remember. The Mind Stone, not Tony, was mainly responsible for creating the mad robot. Its intelligence entered the Ultron interface while the Avengers were partying, and no one even suspected it was happening.

 1.    We not only “want” to like him, we DO.  

Listen – Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is the reason a lot of us go to the MCU movies. It’s no coincidence that every MCU movie in which he’s played a major role is at the top of the top-grossing movies in cinema history.

Sure, we fans would love to see RDJ in other roles. That’s coming. But if he wants to be part of the MCU for however long, he’s more than welcome. Maybe he could take on a Fury-like role as Director Stark, a role that would let him be involved in the MCU as much or as little as he’d like so he’d have time for other projects.Or maybe he gracefully bows out, with Tony Stark either ending heroically in a blaze of glory or in simply retiring to that country place he’s been promising Pepper. I’m torn, but what will be will be. That’s up to Marvel and RDJ, not some freelance writer with whatever axe you’re grinding.

 Tony Stark is such a beloved hero to all of us because of how he’s portrayed onscreen, by one of the great actors of our time: as a flawed, fallible, searching, very human character who makes mistakes, learns from them, falls down again and again, but gets back up and soars once more toward the future he loves. He’s important to so many fans who have disabilities, mental illness/PTSD, or who suffer anxiety and depression, because of what he has gone through and what he has overcome. He’s important to those of us who study and love science and technology, because he fails and perseveres and that’s what science is about. Because it’s the failures, the attempts, the trying, the falling and the overcoming – all of that IS the story of Tony Stark. That’s why we love him.

Tony Stark is a hero. Not perfect – and that’s the entire point. Tony Stark is us. Long may he be part of the MCU, as long as RDJ wants him to play him – because we’ll be here to watch and cheer him on.     

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[dailycryptonews-blog]

Crypto News - Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower

Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower Adam Draper is the founder and managing director of Boost VC, an accelerator that focuses on exploring the applications of VR/AR, blockchain, cryptocurrency, bots, space, ar... You May Likes reading: Also Read: How to Buy Bitcoin With USD Dollar

Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower

Boost VC’s Adam Draper on Blockchain as a Startup Superpower

Adam Draper is the founder and managing director of Boost VC, an accelerator that focuses on exploring the applications of VR/AR, blockchain, cryptocurrency, bots, space, artificial intelligence, and drones. Boost VC is more than just a series of buzzwords, as the accelerator has funded over 200+ companies and launched some really cool projects. A fourth-generation VC, Adam Draper invested and backed startups such as Coinbase, Plangrid, Amplitude, as well as many more through Boost VC.

Located in San Mateo in Hero City, Boost VC plays an integral role within the Draper University ecosystem, a world energized by the ambitious and eccentric father/son duo of Tim and Adam Draper.

All it takes is a quick one-on-one conversation with Adam to get a feel for his passion for the startup community and exploring technologies that could potentially solve problems and enhance life for all of mankind.

The following interview was conducted at the DraperU 2018 Blockchain Intensive and goes over blockchain and its role in the growth of the entrepreneurial tech-world.

It’s really cool seeing how DraperU and Boost VC are really embracing multiple technologies like blockchain, VR/AR, AI, etc all on one block.

Yeah, I guess it is sort of interesting for people. Until you’re here, you don’t really see it. It’s really interesting. Yeah, we’re all like right here. It’s been awesome. We have some crypto companies in this tribe who’ve definitely been able to benefit. VR companies learn more about crypto by being a part of all the events that are going on. One of our companies helps people put to put together the ERC20 smart contract so people were getting excited about launching their own coins.

The ground floor of Hero City.

I think blockchain is going to accelerate VR pretty substantially.

Originally, I said this during my talk, but originally, we jumped into crypto and then two years later, we jumped into VR and crypto. People were like, well, where’s the overlap? In my mind, there wasn’t even an overlap. I just thought they were both really important technology and people were going to have them.

And then recently, like in the last six/nine months, I’ve realized that VR doesn’t work without crypto and the perfect use case for the blockchain is VR. We’re realizing that there’s a whole emergence of huge potential just in that category of things, which is wild because it was lucky. I think one of the things that has given me the impression of that being really useful is Crypto Kitties honestly.

It’s underrated technology.

Very underrated and laughable.

Beanie Babies were a $3,000,000,000 industry.

Yeah. I collected comic books. I collected cards. I’m a huge collector of things but digital has never had that feeling of scarcity where it’s like there’s one in 100 of these or there’s one in a thousand of these. Which is super exciting that we can do that now and distribution is the internet. How cool is that? Like instead of distribution being the sports card store or the comic book store, the internet is able to be the distribution service. 

You don’t have to risk putting a rare edition card in a letter and sending it to Pakistan and hoping the money gets to you. It’s just done.

I haven’t seen the traction for art collectibles yet, but I’m really excited about it. And there are a couple of companies that are working literally just on marketplaces like the eBay of these digital goods. I’m really excited, we actually have a company called DarkWinds that’s launching sort of a Magic the Gathering on the blockchain. And I’m really excited about the future of all these things because you can actually long term make the cards more valuable. If someone pre-programs this into the system whereas blocks are mined or blocks are used.

You could also make it so that people can only use cards a certain number of times per week. You can make it like as if in the Magic the Gathering system, but you can also make it so that they become more powerful as you play. So, if you play more, the cards become more powerful. I think that’s so cool. This is such a fascinating concept that couldn’t have existed with flat cards. Suddenly, there’s a truth in the blockchain of transparency that can allow for that. When our company said we’re launching this, it’s sort of like Magic the Gathering but it’s with pirates, I bought a bunch of cards because I got to play. 

Especially if it’s peer to peer dueling sort of thing. As long as it works, and you retain your card value.

Have you seen Ready Player One yet? He goes through the store and grabs the bombs and whatever. That isn’t possible without the blockchain, like having one bomb is not like a possible thing without the blockchain. It’s wild.

Great movie. The inflection point of the technological curve is we’ve got AI, we’ve got VR/AR and blockchain and they all sort of cross-pollinate. Then robotics mixed in there too. All four of them are experiencing massive amounts of rapid growth. Just to see it go down is just like, damn.

Another thing that I’m seeing is the AI characters are going to be a thing in VR. So, there’s overlap of all these is what you’re saying. The overlap of all three is going to be fascinating. It’s going to get to the point where you can interact with animals, characters and stuff who will talk and talk back as well. There are going to be millions of these AI’s out there. Like someone said to me, I love the thought process. There’s going to be 10,000 AI’s per person. The idea that there’s just going to be an infinite number of these personalities, this intelligence out there in software is so cool and you’re going to interact with them through virtual reality. I’m a VR first person, I think VR is going to take off before AR.

Think about this. If an AI is just so good at understanding the human brain, how humans interact and how they de-stress and stuff, you can literally do therapy in VR without talking to another human being. There’s an AI here helping. But in VR, you can put that in everybody’s home and make a big leap in solving a global mental health issue.

And without pills. We have one that’s for Alzheimer’s. Reversing Alzheimer’s is their goal. You’d actually be in control of reversing. There’s a lot of studies that show that music, exercise, and experience are all very helpful in reminding the brain about who you are. Alzheimer’s patients will go through this product. It’s really interesting. It’s on a bike, you’re biking through this forest area. There’s music that’s playing in the background that’s from your childhood and it’s really captivating. That’s exciting. The medical use cases that aren’t medical. The ones for mental health or for brain health which is the whole category.

Any sort of isolation can be cured through that as well.  Like astronauts in space. I don’t even know how they do it. Spending like six to eight months interacting with only three people. VR puts them down here.

Six months in space, VR would solve that completely.

You’d be able to chill with your friends and family anytime you want to.

Someone’s got to send a VR headset up to space. Put the first VR headset on the space station. Let them play with it.

Exactly, or stream them down to their family.

When’s the next space thing going up? Can you just look up these things on the internet? Let me follow this thing. Space, that’s another thing that’s intersecting with all these technologies.

It was science fiction before but now it’s blending into reality. When I was growing up, the idea of being able to video chat with somebody was insane to me. I was like, THAT is a future. And that was commercially popular in just a few years.

The thing that showed me the power of technology was actually Napster, peer-to-peer file sharing. I think it was the true power of networked computing where someone had music on their computer and I was able to see it and then I was able to bring it into my computer and I was able to listen. That asset-based sharing thing blew my mind and I was obsessed with it for like a long time. I went through the phase of downloading things and you had to misspell to get the right downloads.

It was a really interesting phase to go through for everything. I mean, without Napster, there was no Skype. That technology needed to show itself as peer to peer technology in order to… Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just peer to peer technology. It’s a peer to peer networked system that’s hooked to a ledger.

The differentiator between today’s companies and the early Internet companies was where those companies, their growth was limited to the growth of the Internet because who was on their computer? A very little amount of people. We have fully loaded internet where 12-year-olds and eight-year-olds are on it and they understand how to use it.

They understand how to use it without ever not understanding how to use it.

Every single company coming out now has instant access to all of these things. Feedback loops can be an hour short whereas back in the day, it was just like days, weeks. It’s pretty fascinating stuff. What I like about the Blockchain Intensive is you guys are really taking ownership of blockchain as a technology and educating people into it and you guys have an amazing platform to do it. 

I don’t think we realize how great of a platform it is. This was a shot at seeing how impactful we can be. I will say I’m not affiliated technically with the event other than genetics with my dad, but we’re geographically in the same location. So, I help just by talking, speaking. I didn’t set it up though, that was all my dad and his team. He has a great team. We’ve gone big on crypto and we’ve been doing for a while now. I was technically the first Bitcoin fund. It wasn’t called crypto. It was just called Bitcoin. Then I got obsessed and then he got obsessed and then he got the Marshall coin and we just went. Now, the world has gone crazy with crypto. I was in Singapore three weeks ago and it’s just all anyone could talk about.

No matter what your intelligence level is or what you’re doing in life, if you just heard about crypto, which most people did mid-2017, you’re tasked with this enormous burden of learning blockchain theory and everything that has to go into it in such a short period of time to be able to make an educated investment in coins that are going up, regardless of whether they’re a good investment or not. It was just such a little wacky…

Now, I think that like a big piece of last year was about education. So, you guys do the service but supplying as much content. But those people who didn’t really understand it but were playing had to learn over a course of time exactly how everything worked. So, that’s really exciting. It’s sort of like the Internet is common knowledge now, but when the Internet was being pitched in 1995 to 1999, it was probably an equally unfathomable thing. You connecting digitally to people makes no sense.

I always try to put myself in the mental perspective on the cusp of innovation with the general before like what people were thinking before a lightbulb turned on. What is this thing? What implications does this have? Now, we can work at night.

Do we have more time now to do things? That’s crazy.

They just won another four or five hours at their own leisure. 

That’s awesome. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I love it. So, in my head, you’re not replacing dark with light, which is definitely a huge value add. You wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing in the basement without light. It’s a trust system. So, somehow there’s this on switch where now there is machine trust. I wonder what the next generation is going to be like? What their lightbulb flip on is. That’s going to be cool.

That’s a great way to think about it.

It’s like the cyborg merging.

I think that’s the next one. I’ve got this wacky theory that our generation, people that are relatively young now, there’s going to be a point where the ability to transfer your sentience into a machine is going to be a possibility. I don’t have a trajectory for it, I just think it’s going to happen at some point. There is going to be a significant drop-off of people that are just getting older and things happen to them and they die before that sentience uploading point. The ones that make it past that point live to infinity. The ones that don’t, don’t.

Then it’s like, what is a human? That’s basically what the question ends up being. If you had Einstein’s brain, do you have his soul? Do you have the pattern recognition that he’s created for decision making? That’s what existence is. And memories.

Lightbulbs.

Perfect.

To keep up with Adam Draper, check him out on Twitter. Boost VC invests $50k – $500k in exchange for 7% of companies and provides housing, workspaces, and a deep network in the startup world.  You can learn more about Boost VC here.

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