#coca-cola x marvel: the heroes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

Text

Games Workshop declares war on its customers (again)

There’s a difference between a con-artist and a grifter. A con-artist is just a gabby mugger, and when they vanish with your money, you know you’ve been robbed.

A grifter, on the other hand, is someone who can work the law to declare your stuff to be their stuff, which makes you a lawless cur because your pockets are stuffed full of their money and merely handing it over is the least you can do to make up for your sin.

IP trolls are grifters, not con artists, and that’s by design, a feature of the construction of copyright and trademark law.

Progressives may rail at the term “IP” for its imprecision, but truly, it has a very precise meaning: “‘IP’ is any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers, competitors and critics, such that they must arrange their affairs to my benefit.”

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

In that regard, it is a perfect grifter’s tool — a way to put you on the wrong side of the line for simply living your life in the way that works best for you, not the grifter.

Now, copyright and trademark’s framers were alive to the possibility that they might become this kind of weapon, and they wrote limitations and exceptions into each doctrine that were meant to safeguard the public’s right to free speech and free action.

But those limitations and exceptions are weirdly self-eviscerating. Both trademark and copyright’s limitations assume that they aren’t being weaponized by immoral sociopaths. Both collapse if they are.

Take copyright. Copyright has a suite of limitations and exceptions under various global legal systems, including US law. US law also contains a specific set of exceptions colloquially called “fair use,” a subject of much mystification for lay people.

Under fair use, someone accused of copyright infringement can ask a judge to find that their use of someone else’s copyrighted work is permissible because to deny it would be socially harmful.

The fair use law sets out four factors that judges MAY consider when considering such a claim. Note that these four factors are neither comprehensive (judges can weigh other factors), nor dispositive (failing to satisfy a factor doesn’t disqualify your use from being fair).

If that sounds confusing to you, don’t worry. It is confusing. As the lawyers say, “fair use is fact-intensive.”

The specifics of a use really matter: who’s making the use, what they’re using, why they’re using it, how they use it, and how much they use.

That’s why anyone who claims that “X is never fair use” (for example, commercial fanfic) are full of shit — as are people who say “X is always fair use”).

Commercial fanfic absolutely can be fair use. No less a body than the Supreme Court says so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone

Despite all this ambiguity and nuance, IP grifters who want to force other people to arrange their affairs to their own benefit are laser focused on the four factors, reasoning correctly that if they show a judge that the factors favor them, they’re more likely to prevail.

Half of the four factors are out of the grifter’s reach. As a rightsholder, you can’t control “the purpose and character of the use,” or “the amount and substantiality of the portion used.”

But the other two factors are more readily within the IP wielder’s remit. As someone seeking control a work, you can frame “to the nature of the copyrighted work” by talking up how much creativity and originality went into it, which judges will weigh in your favor.

More importantly — and disturbingly — is the way that an IP holder can influence the fourth factor: “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

Think about that fourth factor for a moment here: if my use of your work doesn’t cost you any money, then it’s more likely that my use is fair.

The corollary: if you can bully some people into paying for something they’ve always gotten for free, then you can claim that the people who refuse to pay are ripping you off — that there is a “market” for the use, and that their failure to pay weakens that market.

This is effectively what’s happened to music sampling. Seminal albums like “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” were produced with thousands of uncleared samples — but at the time, no one was clearing samples.

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Had the rightsholders to those samples dragged Public Enemy into court, they wouldn’t have had the fourth factor on their side. No one was paying for samples, so a failure to pay for samples had no “effect on the potential market for the copyrighted work.”

However, in the 33 years since Nation of Millions dropped, paying to license samples has become common practice — and the mere existence of paid samples makes not paying for samples more legally risky.

So say a rightsholder decided to aggressively license simple quotations — as the Associated Press did in 2008, when it offered to sell you a license to a 5-word quotation for a mere $12.50.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010341.html

All other things being equal, a short quotation from a news article is likely to be fair use. But if the AP managed to terrorize enough bloggers into coughing up $12.50 for a 5-word quote, it could create a market for 5-word quotations.

That market would change the fair use argument for people who don’t pay — yes, they’re making a transformative, critical use, but they’re also undermining the market for the copyright, and a judge might find this change tips the scales away from fair use.

Even more importantly, the additional uncertainty might stampede more people into paying $12.50 for a 5-word quote rather than risk a $250,000 statutory damages award for copyright infringement.

The more people who pay for 5-word quotes, the sturdier the market becomes and the riskier it is to rely upon fair use.

The fourth factor looks like an escape valve for uses that harm no one.

But it actually rewards to bullies who intimidate others out of money they don’t actually owe — until they do.

Trademark has a similar gotcha. Trademark is very different from copyright. Fundamentally, trademark is about protecting buyers, not sellers. Trademark meant to help buyers avoid being tricked into buying an inferior product because it was deceptively named or styled.

If you buy a can of Coke, you want the true Black Water of American Imperialism, not an inferior brand of dilute battery-acid.

But if your Coke turns out to be a fake, you might shrug off the harm or balk at the expense of punishing the fast operator who mis-sold you.

So trademark empowers Coke — and other vendors — to punish third parties who trick their customers, acting as their customers’ champions. Trademark doesn’t exist to prevent Coke from losing money to a rival — it exists to help Coke drinkers get what they pay for.

Trademarks can be registered with the USPTO, who nominally weigh trademark applications to ensure that they’re distinctive and original. Practically, examiners are busy, sometimes careless, and ideologically inclined to grant, not deny, claims.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

But you don’t have to register a trademark to assert it. You can threaten or pursue legal action on the grounds that someone has violated an unregistered trademark, which is any distinctive graphic or phrase that is associated with your product.

Registered or unregistered, trademark enforcement primarily comes down to whether a “naive consumer” would be mislead by someone else’s use of a mark. That is, when you bought a Coke-branded sack of chicken feet, did you think it was blessed by the Coca-Cola company?

If there’s no likelihood of confusion, trademark holders struggle to enforce their trademarks.

This standard seems reasonable, but, like the fourth factor in fair use, it has a sting in its tail.

One of the ways you can induce confusion in the public is to gain a reputation for being a litigious bully. Say Coke is known far and wide for clobbering anyone that uses its trademarks, no matter how trivial the use and no matter how bad it made them look.

If Coke is truly notorious for its zero-tolerance policy, that will lead to a widespread public understanding that every time you see Coke’s marks, the use was blessed by a Coke lawyer — meaning a use that might not otherwise be found to be confusing can be made confusing.

“If that was any other company’s trademark, I’d assume that they had nothing to do with it — but since I know Coke has an army of baby-eating attack lawyers who destroy anyone who uses a mark without permission, that must be an authorized use.”

Like fair use’s fourth factor, trademark’s confusion standard rewards the most vicious and uncaring businesspeople with new rights that their more reasonable competitors do not enjoy. IP selects for sociopathy.

Now, IP — in the most sinister sense of the phrase — has pervaded every industry, but the contradictions of IP are felt most keenly in its spawning grounds: the culture industry.

Culture is in tension with the control of ideas, because culture is the spread of ideas.

Creators (and execs) are vulnerable to the pirate/admiral fallacy: “When I take from my forebears, that’s legitimate artistic progress. When my successors do it to me, it’s theft.”

This pathology, combined with ready-to-hand IP weapons, incentivizes all manner of wickedness. Remember when Marvel and DC teamed up in a bid to trademark the word “super-hero” so that no one else would be allowed to use it?

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/03/18/marvel-comics-stealing-our-language/

These perverse incentives are made tragic by the inherently participatory nature of culture.

It’s not merely that Marvel and DC wanted to steal the word “super-hero” right out of our mouths.

It’s that super-heroes are culturally important because of how we take and remix them in our lives. Marvel went on to use the law to stop us from pretending to be superheroes online, something Casey Fiesler called “Pretending Without a License.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277598023_Pretending_Without_a_License_Intellectual_Property_and_Gender_Implications_in_Online_Games

Which brings me, at last, to Games Workshop, a company that has consistently led the IP bully pack, indiscriminately terrorizing the Warhammer 40k fans who made it a massive commercial success.

Warhammer is a strategy/roleplaying game that is played with miniature creatures that players buy, modify and paint. If you’re not familiar with all this, maybe this sounds a bit like toy soldiers.

It’s a lot more interesting — not just because of the game rules or lore, but because of the incredibly, unbelievable, jaw-dropping virtuosity of Warhammer players when they paint and style those miniatures.

There’s a reason I look forward to Saturday morning’s weekly linkdump from Jonathan Struan of the week’s best Warhammer and other RPG miniatures:

https://www.superpunch.net/search?q=warhammer&max-results=20&by-date=true

and why I follow incredible painters like Aurelie Schick:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/110246635@N06

Warhammer is intrinsically participatory, co-creative and active — it’s not media you consume, it’s media you produce.

Games Workshop has become fantastically rich off of this…and they hate it, and they always have.

For years they’ve pursued fans for producing their own fan-made supplements and additions to the game:

https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/99301

The more Warhammer players complained about the indiscriminate censorship of their fan media, the harder GW cracked down on them, wiping out whole genres of creative work:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/48933/games-workshop-files-purge-09

GW claimed it was only defending its rights, the grifter’s signature move, making you a crook for having the audacity not to put their shareholders’ interests ahead of your own.

Then Games Workshop claimed a trademark on “space marine,” a generic term that had been widely used in science fiction for decades, including, notably, in Heinlein’s classic “Starship Troopers” (1959).

https://web.archive.org/web/20130207002144/http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593

They didn’t just go after RPGs that used the phrase — they used trademark claims to remove novels from Amazon for having the phrase in their titles.

“Space marine” is a generic phrase, but GW was betting if they were sufficiently, spectacularly brutal in their enforcement, they could create a proprietary interest: “Now, I know GW destroys anyone who uses ‘space marine,’ so this ‘space marine’ must be endorsed by GW.”

GW just launched a new set of terms of service, including: “individuals must not create fan films or animations based on our settings and characters. These are only to be created under licence from Games Workshop.”

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-WW/Intellectual-Property-Guidelines

Now, this isn’t how copyright works. There are many ways in which a fan film or animation could be fair use, no matter whether GW forbids or permits their production. But this isn’t mere overreach: it’s a direct play against the fourth factor in fair use.

If GW can establish that all animations and vids are produced under paid license, then any fanvid that doesn’t pay for a license has a weaker fair use case, because the fourth factor protects existing licensing markets.

Indeed, as Rob Beschizza points out on Boing Boing, GW timed the terms of service change to coincide with the announcement that they’re launching a subscription service including “cartoons, in-house hobby videos, access to a vault of ebooks and mags.”

https://www.pcgamer.com/now-even-warhammer-has-a-subscription-service/

This is bullying with a business-model, in other words. Fans have figured out how to have fun with each other for free, and GW wants them to stop and pay the company for its in-house version of that fun.

Warhammer creators are demoralized and disheartened. The creator of the hugely successful Oculus Imperia Youtube series posted a heart-rending message of surrender.

https://twitter.com/OculusImperia/status/1421136444437970949

Oculus Imperia also edits “If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device,” (TTS) another beloved Warhammer fan series. Alfabusa from TTS posted his own absolutely demoralized goodbye to his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXljeaktnDA

Ironically, both channels would have a stronger fair use case if they mocked and criticized Warhammer, rather than celebrating it, as fair use tips favorably towards critical uses.

The fact is, they love their hobby and its community and they want to improve it, not tear it down.

Neither wants to get dragged into a brutal copyright case against a deep-pocketed corporation. Even people with great fair use cases balk at that:

https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/

Now, some people might be thinking, what’s the big deal? Why don’t these creators just make up their own stories instead of remixing the ones that come from Games Workshop?

Those people are assholes.

*All* stories are fanfic of some kind or another. Every mystery novel is a remix of Poe’s Murders In the Rue Morgue. Games Workshop’s stories are the thrice-brewed teabags of many sf writers (remember “space marines?”).

Tolkien straight up ripped off his characters from the 1000-year-old Norse poem “Elder Edda,” which features dwarves named “Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur.”

https://musingsofatolkienist.blogspot.com/2015/07/hobbit-origins-catalog-of-dwarves.html

Culture is made of other culture.

GW made something wonderful with Warhammer — by plundering the stories that preceded it.

The sin isn’t in the taking, it’s in the pretense that it never happened, and the vicious grifting that punishes anyone who does unto GW as they did unto everyone else.

#pluralistic

163 notes · View notes

the--sad--hatter · 5 years

Text

Name Calling (27)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU

PAIRING - BUCKY X READER (female reader, no physical descriptions)

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION - In which the ongoing and bloody war of words between you and Bucky turns in your favor when a disgruntled one night stand of his lets slip a secret when you run into her in the elevator… Now you have all the ammunition you need to destroy your enemy but you don’t plan on killing him quickly. Oh no, Bucky Barnes was going to suffer and you were going to enjoy every second. You just didn’t count on how much you would enjoy it.

Current Word Count - 77,208

Chapter TwentySeven - Daddypool and Princess Peach

Once upon a time in the land of Marvel there lived a dashingly handsome, witty beyond compare, braver than a pride of lions hero, who was hung like a horse on steroids and his name was fvrggvf3bn3gfvrfve2gr nfr2vgfr 3gfr2 hgt et1gt565g6 ve42f2te gfrbgr gr g gw

Sorry, the author tried to fight me for control of the keyboard. As I was saying, there was a hero with a cock like a python that had swallowed a slightly larger python and he knew how to use it. His name was Deadpool. One day Deadpool decided out of the kindness of his heroic heart to rescue a fair maiden who was being held captive by an evil secretary called Ross. He called forth his noble steed, Dopinder…. Hey, I wonder what the author is going to do with that chainsaw? Fvecfv2FEERr 5,f432 AE\

**We apologize for the interruption, now back to our regularly scheduled programming**

It took you all of ten seconds to realize that Deadpool was insane and a further ten seconds to realize that you liked that. He wasn’t trying to stop you leaving and he didn’t seem to want to hurt you or change your memories so you decided to stick around.

You finished eating your third Chimichanga when you noticed Deadpool had snuck behind you.

“Can I have your autograph?” He asked, leaning over the back of the couch to peer at you.

“Can I have another Chimichanga?” You bartered.

He threw one at you and pushed a pen and a wrinkled playboy towards you with a hopeful expression on his mask. You grimaced but signed your name on the cover of it with one hand while you tore the foil of your food with your teeth.

“So, why exactly did you rescue me?” You asked.

“Well I was flipping through the channels, looking for a Golden Girls rerun to get me in happy time mood, had my lube and my unicorn ready to go when I saw you on the news. Loved your work with the cliff and the nazis and all the killing. I thought to myself, Deadpool why can’t you find a nice girl like that? So I came and got you.”

“So you use the News channels as your own personal Tindr?” You asked.

“Well what else is a… what are you doing?”

You had put your hand in the air and were making a sweeping motion.

“Swiping left.” You said.

He gasped and put his hands on his chest, falling to the ground with a dramatic thumb and lying there, completely still. You ignored him and happily munched away on your pilfered food.

“Though at least you’ve never lied to my face about my own actions and messed with my memories. You know, you’d think he of all people would have told me the truth.” You ranted.

“Wait, I have the perfect outfit for this situation!” Deadpool yelled.

He ran into the other room and came back with a pair of glasses perched on his face and a box of kleenex. He forcibly shoved you down on the couch so you were lying down and pulled up a chair to sit next to you.

“Now, tell Dr. Daddypool your problems.”

You shrugged and gave him the rundown. Why the hell not, it wasn’t like you had anywhere else to be.

He oohed and ahhed in all the right places and turned out to be a surprisingly good listener.

“I KNOW A GUY WHO CAN PLAY WITH YOUR BRAIN!” He squealed excitedly.

“Well actually I know several but I only know one who can do it without physically pulling your brain from your skull.” He amended.

“I’m not following.” You admitted.

“Memories, yours. Let’s go get em.” He summed up succinctly.

“Oh, ohhhhh.” You said eloquently, catching on and jumping up to follow him out of the door.

“Wait, I’m forgetting something.” He said, stopping in the doorway.

“That everyone on the planet probably knows what I look like and I’m wanted by the UN?” You suggested.

“Bingo” He snapped his fingers.

“Have you got like a baseball cap and some sunglasses?” You asked.

“Seriously? Because nobody’s going to see straight through that disguise.”

“Steve said it always works.” You grumbled.

“Wanna wear one of my masks?” He asked you.

“No, no I do not.”

“Fine, I guess that leaves me with no choice then. Time for…. A makeover montage!”

He excitedly bounced over and hit play on a boom box in the corner of the room and Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison started blaring.

“I could just wear a hoodie and keep the hood up.” You pointed out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

One very weird (why did he have so many latex costumes?) and pointless makeover later Deadpool threw a hoodie at you with a tormented sigh. You flipped the hood up and followed him downstairs to the waiting yellow cab.

“Wait, we’re still in New York?” You asked, only now realizing.

“Yes maam.” The driver told you as Deadpool climbed in the passenger window and settled down in the seat.

You climbed into the back seat with a glance around to make sure you hadn’t been spotted.

“Peaches, this is Dopinder. Dopinder, this is Princess Peach. She’s a violent, bloodthirsty killer.” Deadpool said gleefully.

“I saw you on the news Miss Deathwave.” Dopinder said.

“You and everybody else buddy. Where are we going?”

“X-Mansion.” Dopinder explained.

“Great, because nobody there will tell my dad where I am.” You grumbled, staring forlornly out of the window as the city streets whizzed by.

You tuned out Deadpool’s chatter with Dopinder about dating and OTP’s until Deadpool made a pained noise.

“Pull over!!” Deadpool shrieked.

“What’s going on?” You asked as Dopinder pulled into a nearby gas station.

“It’s the revenge of the Chimichanga’s!” Deadpool grunted, squirming.

As soon as the car rolled to a stop, Deadpool fell out of the car and ran for the bathrooms. You shook your head in wry amusement at him and got out of the car with a stretch.

“I’m going to go grab a drink, you want anything?” You asked Dopinder, leaning down to look at him through the drives side window.

“Oh, a Coca Cola please Miss Deathwave.” He said politely.

“No problem.” You said, hitting the top of the car as you pushed off of it and sauntered into the gas station.`

You almost turned and walked straight back out. There was something most definitely wrong, the attendant was sweating profusely as they gave you a tight-lipped smile. You nodded back and perused the aisles, grabbing the drinks. There were three distinct heartbeats coming from behind the counter.

Two people hiding, one attendant in sight. Now you very much doubted anybody who was after you would be stupid enough to send only two people to do the job so it was most likely you had just walked into a robbery. You were an escaped convict, you couldn’t afford to draw attention to yourself but there was no way you could just walk away.

You plunked the bottles down on the counter and grinned.

“Got a bag?” You asked.

The attendant nodded and put the bottles in the plastic carrier bag for you.

“Oh, can I also get one of these?” You asked, grabbing him by the shirt and yanking him over the counter and throwing him behind you. out of the way.

The two robbers swore and stood up. They were balaclava-clad and armed, and totally unprepared to see you stood smiling casually at them.

You grabbed the closest one by the gun arm, bending his arm so it was pointing at the ceiling. He pulled the trigger and a small dusting of ceiling plaster sprinkled down over you. You slammed his head into the counter and leaped over his prone form, using the counter to maneuver your body and kick his accomplice in the chest. A super soldier to the ribs was enough to send him reeling back, wheezing, dropping his gun in the process. He tripped over the black duffel bag at his feet and went sprawling onto the ground. You kicked both guns out of reach and kicked open the duffel bag the would-be robbers had with them.

“Looks like this wasn’t the first place these guys hit today. Here, don’t call the cops.” You said, throwing the bag of cash at the gas attendant.

You picked up the groaning robber by the neck and raised him off the ground, pulling his mask off.

“Do you know who I am?” You asked him.

He looked petrified as he nodded quickly.

“Good, so I don’t have to warn you to never try anything like this again. Because you know what will happen if you do, don’t you?”

“You’ll hunt me down and make me wish I was never born?” He guessed.

“And they say criminals are getting dumber.” You said, dropping him.

He and his partner got up and scrambled away as fast as they could, running into Deadpool at the door. The robbers and the merc all paused in a weird standoff and you coughed lightly behind them, sending the robbers fleeing.

“What did I miss?” Deadpool asked.

You looked at the gas station attendant who was looking into the bag of cash with wide eyes.

“Nothing.” You said innocently.

You grabbed your purchases and pulled Deadpool back to the taxi. You climbed in and tossed Dopinder his coke. You waited until you were at least a mile away before you breathed a sigh of relief.

“What are the fucking chances that the gas station I was in was being robbed?” You ranted.

“That was no coincidence, it’s the author’s divine intervention.” Dopinder tried to explain.

“Since when can you break the fourth wall?!” Deadpool demanded with a dramatic gasp.

“The author likes me Mr Pool, she has taken artistic liberties.”

“Oh hell no, breaking the fourth wall is MY thing!”

“She wants you to know you can go suck a dick Mr Pool, those were her words, not mine.”

“YO KARA, THAT’S RIGHT I’M NAMING AND SHAMING YOU, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE AND SAY THAT TO MY FACE!”

Out of nowhere, Dopinder slammed on the brakes, sending Deadpool careening headfirst into the wind-shield.

You leaned your head through the plastic divider to peer at them.

“What in the actual fuck is going on?” You asked bewilderedly as Deadpool let out a string of impressive and inventive curses.

“IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT YOU PSYCHOTIC...”

“Mr Pool no, do not provoke the author!! Dopinder begged.

An ominous chill wind began blowing and the three of you paused nervously as it picked up. A Newspaper landed on the Windshield, it’s terrifying headline splattered on the glass for you to read.

WORLD RUNS OUT OF MEXICAN FOOD

Deadpool screamed in horror and you began laughing uncontrollably at the strange turn of events.

“Alright you evil mastermind, you win this round.” Deadpool grumbled.

“Can we go now?” You asked them, long past trying to understand what was happening and just rolling with it.

“Yes Miss Deathwave.” Dopinder agreed, putting the car in gear as the wind died down and the sun started shining again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“HI WADE” A colourful bubbly girl shouted out of the window as soon as you pulled up.

“Hi Yukio!” He called back enthusiastically.

He turned to say something to you but you were leaning against the taxi with an amused grin on your face.

“Wade? You name is Wade?”

“Wade Wilson, Merc with a mouth.” He elaborated.

“Well, now that your oh so secret identity had been blown you can lose the big red body condom.” You offered.

If you didn’t know better you’d say he was suddenly uncomfortable.

“No can do peaches, you’ve already had an emotionally trying… life. Wouldn’t want to make it worse.” He said.

“It can’t be any worse than anything I’ve already seen.” You laughed, thinking he was joking.

“Oh no, he is truly hideous.” Dopinder called from inside the car.

“Yes, thank you Dopinder. You can leave now.” Wade said.

Dopinder waved cheerily at you and drove away. Wade turned to walk to the door but you grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Are you not taking it off because you don’t want to or because you think I’m going to be an asshole about what's under the mask?” You asked him.

“Survey says both!”

“Fine, keep it on. If you change your mind though… I am in fact not a complete douche so I probably won’t point out how ugly you are.”

“Fine. Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!” He snapped, undoing the mask.

He paused when it was undone before ripping it off. You tilted your head to the side as you studied him.

“You look like a slighter better looking version of that guy who was in The Proposal with Sandra Bullock.” You informed him.

He blinked in shock at you, mouth gaping.

“Marry me?” He whispered reverently.

“Never gonna happen Daddypool.” You said with a wink and turned to go meet the bubbly ‘Yukio’ and her friend at the door.

“Hey, Deathwave right?” The short haired teen said.

“Yeah, that’s me.” You sighed and pushed your hood down.

“I’m Yukio” The bright one said.

“I’m Negasonic Teenage Warhead.” The other one introduced herself.

“And I thought I had a rough childhood, yours must have been a bitch with a name like that.” You remarked.

“I like her.” Negasonic told Wade before promptly walking away.

“Hey, we’re here to see the Professor. McAvoy or Stewart, either’s fine!” Wade called after her.

“He’s not here!” She yelled back.

“God fucking damn it! It’s a fanfiction, there’s no reason I can’t be around the X-Men!” Wade exclaimed, throwing his hands up in frustration and following the two girls inside.

“Hey, congrats on joining The Avengers! That is super cool!” Yukio said to you.

“Uh, yeah I’m not an Avenger. I was like a backup Avenger at best, now I’m just a criminal.” You told her.

Yukio and Negasonic exchanged a look.

“You haven’t watched the new have you?” Nega asked you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Your favorite part was where Secretary Ross addressed the press and told them you were a “Heroic young woman who put her own safety on the line to help take down a criminal who threatened the integrity of The Accords.” Before it cut to Benjamin Newlands being arrested.

Your least favorite part was the rest of it. Your entire history had been handed over to the world, there wasn’t a person who didn’t know where you had come from. It was the price you’d had to pay to be pardoned. It was terrifying, being so exposed. But it was also kind of liberating.

The press were really sticking with the whole “Deathwave” moniker and you were being hailed as The Newest Avenger.

“So how afraid of me are people now?” You asked the room.

“Honestly? People are kind of numb to super-powered people. So you have apocalyptic powers, so what? I think they feel sorrier for you than anything.” Nega said with a shrug.

“Wonderful.” You sighed.

You knew your friends probably had good intentions when they outed you but the fact remained that they had been lying to you for weeks. They had somehow covered up a severe bullet wound to your chest and messed with your memories. Their list of sins was piling up and you were finding it harder and harder to remain in a forgiving mood.

“Have you got a phone I could borrow?” You asked Nega and Yukio.

Nega gestured to the hallway and you followed a bouncing Yukio to a landline, Wade hot on your heels.

“Who are we calling?” He stage whispered at you.

“My dad.”

“Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh”

You dialed Tony’s number from memory and it rang once before Friday picked up.

“You have reached the voicemail for...”

“It’s me Friday,” You interrupted.

There was silence and then a click before Tony’s voice came through the line.

“Kit Kat?? Where the hell are you, are you ok?” He demanded.

“I’m fine. No bullet wounds I need you to hide from me if that’s what you mean.” You snapped.

He sighed.

“Yeah, it’s her. She’s ok.” He said to someone on the other side of the phone.

“Listen kid, it’s a long story. I can explain everything though, I swear. Just tell me where you are.”

“I’m not sure I want you anywhere near me right now Tony. Any of you.” You admitted.

“Sweetheart we had to do it, there’s a lot you don’t understand. We were ordered not to tell you anything.”

“Ordered? I massacred people Tony, I was shot!! Who the hell gave you the right to keep that from me?” You screamed.

“YOU DID!” He yelled back.

You rocked back on your heels and furrowed your brow.

“We were acting on your orders.” Tony sighed.

Deadpool gasped loudly.

“And the plot thickens!”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So after this chapter, I think it's clear the reader has too much chemistry with Deadpool to be ignored! This is now a Deadpool/Reader pairing. Or a Deadpool/Reader/Bucky pairing r urj 4 32rj1wo e3 3e JKBN;PN

NO! This is still a Bucky/Reader story. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean blood out of my laptop.

@nerdandproud-86 @harrison-shot-first@chook007@thejourneyneverendsx@thelostallycat@inquisitor-selvala@the-corruptor @iovher@kendrawr-kitkat@phoenix-whiskey-tears @the–real-wombat@buckitybarnes@fairislesheets@angieptt@meganjonezzzz

@dugan365 @fluffeh-kitty@memanda17@krystallynx@theonelittleone

@piscesbarnes @free-as-fishes@tarastudiesalot@captainamericasbeard

373 notes · View notes