#they're the only twins in the mcu

[ijuststareatstuffhereok89]

"Everyone Loves Sylvie" A Sylvie/Loki Drabble

Oh no, Sylvie can't find the perfect place to have her perfect wedding! Just another wacky day in the life of the MCU's Strongest Woman...or is it?

Pairing: Sylki Content Warning: Sylvie may not be awesome enough in this, I tried! Word Count: a number

Optional Reader Participation: Every time an asterisk (*) appears, play THIS SOUND BITE

Mrs. Anita Aycock was doing everything she could to keep her calm around the irritable woman throwing brochures and paperweights, but my god was she putting a new definition on the term 'Bridezilla.'

"I don't understand it!" Sylvie said, flailing and pacing about the small, white office. "Why can't we have it at the park? Is it because they're afraid I'll do something incredibly strong and amazing in front of their oppressed human faces?" *

Mrs. Aycock shook her head. "Because your marriage is illegal in all fifty states." *

Sylvie's jaw dropped. "I resent that! How so?"

Mrs. Aycock began awkwardly fiddling with the long string of pearls about her neck. "Genetically you are...kind of the same and also not? Like, you're somehow both cousins and twins? We're pretty sure any offspring you have will need an exorcism at birth." *

Sylvie drew her sword and pointed it at Mrs. Aycock's skinny, wrinkly, not-powerful human throat. "I will turn you into a shish kabob if you don't schedule my wedding for the park!"

The woman had dealt with more evil, entitled, barking she-devils in her career than a Hollywood publicist. "Jesus, this is getting convoluted! The President said NO and that is FINAL!" *

Sylvie smirked. She'd managed to waste five minutes of the President's life while insisting that he burn the city down for refusing to allow two of the same person to marry one another. He responded by putting her name on an FBI Top Priority Threat list and telling her to get a dildo.

She was so awesome.

"Loki!" Sylvie huffed. "Have you NOTHING to say?"

"Well--"

"--shut up, Loki!"

Loki shrugged. "Yes, dear. I love you."

She smiled blandly, pretending to have an emotion. "Thanks. I love me too." *

The wedding planner needed a drink, or ten. "How about Alabama? They let anything get married down there!" *

Loki knitted his eyebrow.

"Shut up, Loki!" said Sylvie.

"I didn't even say anything this time!" *

Sylvie put her sword back into the sheath at her hip. "Call him for me," she demanded.

The wedding planner looked as confused as she was frightened for her life. "Who?"

"Al! This Bama Man, call him at once, if he is the only one with the sense to allow me to take ownership--"

"--marry--"

"--do you not know who I am?" asked Sylvie incredulously. "I am a modern woman-hero written by the Disney Corporation! We have NO feelings, NO flaws, and NO need for men! We don't need to train, or understand, or think we could ever be wrong! We' all emerge from the forehead of Zeus full-armored and ready to bust all the balls!" She stood on the table in exaggerated pose, while Ms. Aycock kneeled and kowtowed, her heart instantly changed.

"Truly you are the Son of God!" *

Out on the street, Sylvie walked tall and alert, while Loki minded the mandated seven-and-five-eighths-paces behind and kept his head down. Everything was going her way...but it wasn't going her way enough.

"LOKI!" She called suddenly, causing Loki to accidentally take an extra step forward.

"Yes, Sylvie?" he asked hesitantly.

"I want to stab something." She called, briskly walking ahead and not looking in the direction she was going.

"But my leg still hasn't healed--"

"Not you!" she said angrily, shoving a homeless toddler standing nearby. The lightweight lad careened across the sidewalk and landed in a garbage bin full of medical waste.

"Wow, that Sylvie is such a brave woman!" said the child's mother. *

The three-year-old's head popped up from the dumpster, a used cannula draped over his head. "I wanna be her when I grow up...if I live that long!" *

Sylvie was still stomping angrily into the street, sword out again, when a large black van nearly hit her, daring to go two miles over the speed limit, and running through a green light.

A young man of about 25 leaned out the driver's side window. "I'm so sorry, ma'am! I hope you're okay! The walk light wasn't triggered, and--"

She in her infinite heroic courage did not scream or weep. While the driver was asking for the state of her wellbeing, if he did, in fact, graze her, she drew the sword and impaled the front tire with it. It popped with a loud sound, and the air leaking from it made a high-pitched whistle. *

"LADY! What the hell?! I was going to the hospital!"

A woman leaned out the passenger window. "I'm in labor! I can feel his head crowning..."

Sylvie came around the other side and slapped the pregnant woman in the face. A loud baby's cry suddenly filled the car. *

"Oh! Honey!" the mother's mood suddenly changed as she held her beautiful newborn six-month-old. "Look what Sylvie gave us! Sylvie gave birth to our son!" *

The man looked straight ahead and questioned the validity of his existence.

Everyone on the street began laughing and clapping as Sylvie stood there, silent and proud, having saved the day again...somehow. Loki came up behind her with a lovesick grin, putting a leather dog collar around his neck and holding the leash out to his lady-half. "You're so amazing, saving the day again without doing anything introspective or civilized! Oh, look! Everyone loves you, Sylvie!"

Sylvie looked directly into the camera and smiled. "I know, I love me too!" *

Happy nothing-special-about-the-date-today!

TAGGIES: @acidcasualties @foxherder @fandxmslxt69 @fictive-sl0th @lokisgoodgirl @maple-seed @loopsisloops @joyful-enchantress @muddyorbsblr @mochie85 @mischief2sarawr @smolvenger @holdmytesseract

#marvel loki #loki #fanfiction #mcu #mcu loki #loki fanfiction #sylvie #sylki

[doberbutts]

It does always throw me for a loop when people look for a moral reason not to like something. You can always just. Not like something. And even be normal about your dislike of the thing!

I've said it here before (not recently, see above point and also the one I'm about to make) that I don't really like the McElroy brothers. Not for any particular reasoning, I haven't heard of any particularly heinous wrongdoing as of this moment. I just think they're largely unfunny and outside of a single podcast of theirs I listened to [The Adventure Zone: Balance] I don't knowingly consume any of their media. I liked Balance, but I've also heard that's their best one, and there were pieces of it that were *too much* of the unfunny humor I dislike about the rest of their stuff [Crystal Kingdom my beloathed], so if that's the best one I'm not really willing to try again with anything... "lesser".

(and I only listened to Balance because I saw Cool Art of Taako and Lup and wanted to know more about these trans-and-gnc elf twins, much like I'm only [slowly] listening to Mighty Nein bc I saw Cool Art of Essek and Caleb and wanted to know more about purple elf and ginger wizard)

However knowing that I'm really not their biggest fan, I also... don't go looking for dirt on them? Don't blog incessantly about how much I dislike them? Try to find a moral justification for my lack of interest? I think their brand of comedy is Incredibly Annoying. That's it.

Now for all I know there might be Something they've done that I've just missed by actively refusing to pay attention to them. Or there might not. I don't really care either way- finding out that there is a valid moral reason to not engage with their stuff changes nothing because I already don't like their stuff and so am already not tuning in. Finding out that there's nothing nets the same result, I'm not interested for a completely mundane reason and so they could be the most morally pure content creators out there for all I know and I still wouldn't pursue anything of theirs.

It's not even to say there's not stuff I dislike due to moral reasons- there's a reason I'm not into HP or MCU anymore- just that it's weird to me that people try to look for one. You can always just not like something. You don't even have to justify it. "I didn't like it" is a totally normal reaction that doesn't need further explination.

[jor-elthatendswell]

It's a well worn topic at this point but the imminent release of The Marvels has me thinking about how militaristic the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, with Monica Rambeau aka Photon, a habour patrol member in the comics, reimagined as a captain in the US Air Force.

She follows Hawkeye, who was changed from an argumentative former circus performer with a heart of gold (a character so staunchly against lethal force he once revoked his own wife's Avengers membership because she sort of, maybe, subconsciously allowed a villain to fall to his death) into a hard-nosed black ops assassin.

Sam Wilson/ Falcon made his celluloid debut as an army man with twin submachine guns attached to his wrists. It’s a far cry from his print counterpart’s introduction as a social worker by day who uses his skill at falconry to protect his neighbourhood.

If we allow the argument that modern cinema goers are accustomed to a sprinkling of realism to make their superheroes palatable (and it’s a strange argument really- why should realism be a desirable quality in summer blockbuster escapism?) then what actually constitutes “realism”.

Sure, a man who learnt uncanny skill with a bow and arrow growing up with a travelling show couldn’t possibly hold his own alongside Hulk or Thor in the real world (and, yes, there isn’t a Hulk or Thor in the real world; as I say, this is a strange argument), but if he learned those exact same skills in some kind of military context then that somehow passes the bar for realism? The sinister upshot is that these children’s heroes become more warlike just as, globally, they reach more children than ever before.

Increasing the realism of superhero stories only serves to make them problematic. DC Comics' Batman, who is the frequently subjected to “realistic” treatments, is the prime example. If, in real life, a billionaire tooled himself up with the best weapons and body armour money can buy and began dispensing violent “justice” with no accountability, then of course that wouldn’t be a good thing. If they wore a costume with pointy ears and started calling themselves “Batman” then of course we would question their sanity. But Batman isn’t real; it’s a story. Nobody thinks The Muppet Show advocates animal cruelty. Quite the opposite, if anything. ("Not unless they're watching it", as Waldolf once heckled) Yet if a filmmaker decides they’re going to make a “grounded and realistic” remake where Fozzy is played by a real live bear wearing a pork pie hat and spotty necktie, then that's a whole other story. Suspend your disbelief and superheroes are less like the police or army and more akin to volunteers and activists, doing what they can with what they have to improve the lives of those around them. Their actions take the form of crime fighting only because that’s what makes for exciting colourful adventure stories for children.

In the MCU, even Marvel’s poster boy, Spider-Man (another champion of non-lethal solutions, known for his compassion even to his enemies and who possesses an enduring appeal to young children) is given a literal sheen of the military-industrial complex in the form of “Stark Tech” armour, replete with military grade strike drones. Tony Stark even thought to equip his 15 year old protégé-cum-child soldier with an “Instant Kill Mode”. In a moment played for laughs in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man rejects his on-board AI's attempt to activate this feature but seems untroubled that such an option exists and, indeed, come Avengers: Infinity War, he voluntarily deploys it. It’s not clear if Spidey actually does kill any of his alien adversaries, but it seems reasonable to assume that one doesn’t say “Activate Instant Kill Mode” without the intention of ending lives. Fans are expected to smile or applaud as Spider-Man says these words, recognising the call-back to Homecoming, rather than find it a gross misrepresentation of Marvel’s most beloved character or an alarming depiction of a children’s favourite.

The MCU Avengers as a whole are a US government “initiative “. The reluctant superheroes need to be cajoled into putting their differences aside for the greater good by army top brass Nick Fury. In a tweak from the source material, the ‘H' in Fury's organisation, SHIELD, stands for ‘Homeland’, making SHIELD as explicitly American venture as opposed to it being ostensibly intergovernmental in the comics.

There is a comic book precedent for this military take on Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the form of The Ultimates, a 2002 series by the British team of writer Mark Millar and artist Bryan Hitch. The Ultimates ,however, was satire. Millar was an unreformed lefty of the old school – someone who has boasted of voting Brexit for left-wing reasons, someone who once appeared on Russia Today as a guest of George Galloway. The Ultimates took swings at the gung ho jingoism of post 9/11 America. Captain America's “Surrender!!?? You think this letter on my head stands for France?“ is not supposed to be a badass one-liner, but rather a parody of the kind of things US media outlets were saying as Jacques Chirac proved less keen than Tony Blair to follow George Bush in bringing gunboat diplomacy to the Middle East. As Millar commentated at the time:

“The Ultimates is completely different because it's a character-driven piece and (something only a few people have noticed) my attempt as a left-wing writer to tell stories about an essentially right-wing concept and cast. It's very much the Anti-Authority, if you will. Captain America and so on are fully-paid members of the US military machine and this means a very different book and approach from a gang of slightly arrogrant, left-wing, superhuman utopians like The Authority ".

Wildstorm Comics' The Authority, which both Millar and Hitch worked on (although not together), was a precursor to Ultimates, featuring a team of similarly “any means necessary” heroes, albeit with a left-wing bent. The Ultimates does have something of The Authority’s utopian streak; Nick Fury and Tony Stark genuinely want to make the world a better place for everyone. It’s very idealistic – what if the head of the military and the biggest tech billionaire actually had the people’s best interests at heart? – and arguably closer to true superhero ethos (basically “with great power there must also come great responsibility “) than those characters more pragmatic MCU equivalents.

Yet, as Millar's one time writing partner Grant Morrison (who actually ghost-wrote at least one issue of The Authority under Miller’s name) observed in Morrison’s major nonfiction work, Supergods, the likes of The Authority, The Ultimates and, by extension, the MCU represent a “capitulation” to the view “that it was really only force and violence that got things done and not patient diplomacy, and that only soldiers and very rich people had the world figured out”. If the MCU is realistic, then it’s a sad indictment of the real world where the heroes are the ones with the best tech, the best guns and no compunction about using them.

Regardless of intent, The Ultimates left a door at Marvel’s “House of Ideas” just enough ajar to allow a malign notion to creep in: “These soldier superheroes are pretty cool. What If they were like that all the time? Wouldn’t they be more popular then”?

Certainly the navy SEAL aesthetic Bryan Hitch brought to the costumes (replacing the colourful tights and capes with pouches, straps and body armour) was soon adopted by superhero tv and film productions even pre-MCU. In fact, Hawkeye's journey from carny to commando mirrors the changes in superhero attire. Most famously, Superman's appearance with the red “overpants” derives from that of circus strongmen, but seeing any photography of early to mid 20th century carnival and circus performers makes it clear the early superhero creators had them in mind when they first put pencil to paper.

In an interview (found in Marvel Spotlight: Captain America, published in 2009) Hitch related how he showed an initial Ultimates drawing of Captain America with a machine gun to Grant Morrison, which Morrison then “described as the most obscene Captain America image [they’d] ever seen”. (NB: Morrison has since adopted gender neutral pronouns). Perhaps Morrison said this with glee, in on the joke with their friends, but in the years since, Cap with a gun became a common sight, even in family-friendly movies (where it was divorced from the irony of The Ultimates).

By a 2015 interview, Morrison lamented the fact that “the Avengers work for the government, and it's been like that since Mark [Millar] did The Ultimates” and said they were “bored with the idea that the best superheroes can represent is some aggressive version of the military. [...] They're supposed to be champions of the oppressed, they help ordinary people, they make things better for people. They don't prop up our grotesque, doddering culture of war and aggression”.

That same year Morrison introduced a new comic book superteam in the pages of The Multiversity. Pointedly the text likens this group, named “Justice Incarnate”, to a “cosmic neighbourhood watch” rather than any formal military or law-enforcement institution.

Millar himself reunited with his Authority collaborator Frank Quitely to create the comic Jupiter’s Legacy, which comes across in part as an apology for The Ultimates and all it begat. It concludes with the protagonists, Chloe Sampson and Eddie "Hutch" Hutchence taking up superhero mantles and promising not to make the moral compromises of their predecessors:

“No more bowing to authority and insitutions. No more deference to people in power”.

“There's a dignity in public service we mistook for old-fashioned, and a humility in having a secret identity, living among the people we protect.“

The Avengers, Marvel’s breakthrough billion dollar box office 2012 movie, by contrast, concludes with Iron Man dropping a nuclear bomb on the “Chitari”, an invading alien army and it seems likely this influenced Morrison’s comments on modern superhero stories.

In Supergods, Morrison

describes their childhood dread of nuclear weapons. The child of “ban the bomb” activists, the “gruesome hand-drawn images of how the world might look after a spirited thermonuclear missile exchange” which illustrated their parents anti-nuclear literature struck terror into the young Morrison. Therefore they seized upon superheroes as being an idea powerful enough to counteract – and overcome – the idea of the bomb.

“It’s not that I needed Superman to be “real,” I just needed him to be more real than the Idea of the Bomb that ravaged my dreams”.

Within the narrative of the movie, Iron Man takes the only option available to him to save New York. Destroying thousands of alien lives to save thousands of human ones. But The Avengers isn’t a documentary; the scriptwriters could have written a satisfying denouement which didn’t involve mass murder. They could at least have included some words of regret by the heroes over what it took to win, acknowledging that killing is not the ideal solution. Instead the Avengers trade banter and eat shawarma, collective conscious clear.

There is a moment in another Grant Morrison work, Final Crisis, which always brings the MCU to mind. In Final Crisis #3, drawn by JG Jones, (published in 2008, the same year the MCU began) “evil gods” from a higher plain of existence have been reincarnated on Earth. In order for the Justice League to counter this threat, a “draft for Superheroes” is implemented. Green Arrow (a Batman-a-like character who was subsequently reinvented to embody the countercultural sentiment of the late 1960s and has since served as the social conscious of the superhero set) responds to receiving his draft notice thusly:

“If anybody falls for this authoritarian, militaristic crap, it’ll prove I’m absolutely right about absolutely everything!... “

Cue the next page, where the drafted heroes have gathered en mass (including Green Arrow, impotently shaking his fist.)

Such an assemblage of characters in usually a triumphant moment in a summer "event" story, but here is framed as a sign that evil already has it’s hooks into reality. This world has fallen to the darkness and the superheroes who inhabit it are too morally compromised to realise it.

#the marvels #mcu #the avengers #grant morrison #mark millar #bryan hitch #the ultimates #marvel #dc comics #the authority #opinion #long form #comics #movies #superheroes #superhero #spider man #mcu critical #marvel critical #mcu criticism

[stuckytoyoulikeglue]

I've been wanting to get my thoughts on Steve's ending off my chest for literal years and I read something earlier that finally prompted me to write it all down.

This is entirely my own, personal, biassed opinion.

I do not want a fight. Or even a 'healthy debate', if I'm being honest.

If you don't agree, that's cool, just move along, nothing to see here.

Please don't be mean, I'm a delicate flower and I can't take it.

So... Like most of the people I've come across in my preferred branch of the fandom, I didn't love Steve's ending.

Unlike a lot of people, I didn't actually have a problem with the end result, just the motivation behind it.

Chris was done, Steve needed to be written out, Tony founded the universe and deserved to be its ultimate saviour, so the best case scenario was to give Steve a happy ending. I'm glad he got a happy ending. I love him, I wanted him to be happy.

But...

The exact same story arc, only without it being his choice, would still have given him the happy ending that Marvel presumably wanted for him. It would have given him the girl that got away, and the chance to finally live the life that he thought he'd lost, and all without betraying his character.

I still think it was incredibly dumb not to leave him trapped in the past (and making the most of it) after returning the stones, rather than having him choose to walk away (from everything, but especially Bucky, no matter how you see their relationship), but one thing that I keep seeing posts about (some joking, but most not), that I do not get at all, is why so many people seem to think that everything else would have played out exactly the same, just with him as Peggy's hubby instead of the man she married in the MCU timeline (I'm not debating here whether that was Daniel or not).

Yes, Steve's character was damaged by his choice to walk away, but he's still Steve. He wouldn't have sat idly by and watched Hydra sink its claws into the SHIELD Peggy was building in front of him. He wouldn't have just left Bucky to stew in Siberia. We don't even know if he actually put down the shield for any real length of time.

After all, he didn't return to pass it on to Sam until he was an old man, and the shield he passed along was a different shield. Maybe it was a new one that was made for him after his old one was lost to the ice, maybe he had it made specially to give to Sam, who knows? But what we do know as a result, is that whatever happened in his new timeline, it was not the same as what happened in ours.

Personally I choose to believe that Bucky lives next door, the Starks come round for tea most weeks, and everyone just dotes on ickle baby Tony, not least his dad. They're still in touch with the rest of the Howlies, though they don't get to see them as often as they'd like, and ideally Zola is rotting in a cell somewhere.

Admittedly, I'm not sure what I reckon happened to the original Steve from that timeline. Maybe he didn't survive the ice, maybe they defrosted him early and the two Steves started a rota for playing Cap so they both get a chance to actually have a life in between punching bad guys. Maybe he's living in sin with Bucky, pretending he's our Steve's identical twin brother if anyone ever sees them both at the same time. It doesn't really matter.

My point is that damn near anything could have happened in that new, mysterious universe, because the only certainty we have is that it was exactly like ours until Steve went 'back' to it, and it was definitely not the same as ours from that point on.

Butterfly effect and all, Steve's mere existence guarantees that it's different and, as I already mentioned, the shield that he gives Sam provides concrete proof of it.

Of course, I'm not saying things necessary played out any better. Maybe SHIELD didn't fall, but the governments of the world did. Maybe Steve saved Bucky only for him to be hit by a bus mere weeks after he brought him home to Brooklyn. But in no world did Steve sit there casually tossing a salad while fully aware that his brainwashed best friend was off to murder the president.

That is all (for now).

PS. I love Peggy. I'm still miffed they cancelled Agent Carter. I don't think having her marry Steve in an alternate timeline takes anything away from who she was or what she built in ours. Her legacy is entirely intact in our world, and in another world she was doubtlessly equally kickass, she just got to have Steve too.

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #peggy carter #captain america #stucky #steggy #avengers endgame #i am absolutely going to regret posting this in the morning

[scarlet--wiccan]

I’m still meh about marvel. I believe that teddy and billy are still underdeveloped characters that are being used as a golden ticket for Disney. I feel like they’ve both ‘lost’ traits about their personalities and are very attached to each other, this is being used in a devious way imo… also they’re comics biggest lgbtq+ couple yet it doesn’t seem like it, more tokenised. Forever stuck together in infinity comics. I wish the best for them, I do for the whole maguns family but I can’t help but be sick of the way marvel treats them. Like also tommy, I think luna has more appearances than him lol. There’s so many cool things they could do but don’t, explore dynamics, re write retcons exc.

I mean you’d think billy would be really mentally unwell fighting these wars in space. Plus the identity issues both the twins would have. Marvel could do so much yet decide not too. I just feel melancholy when it comes to billy and teddy these days. I feel like it’s gonna get worse, especially since the mcu is trying to adapt ‘billy’ but in the most horrific way. I’d love to hear allan heinbergs thoughts on that lol. But yeah I don’t mean to be sappy, I just feel meh when I think of the missed opportunities and the way disney/marvel is treating them. bland in its nature.

While Billy and Teddy have never reached A-list status, I wouldn't say they've been underutilized. They are the only characters, along with Kate and America, to succeed as breakouts from Young Avengers, and they were consistently employed by Al Ewing for, like, six years, with an actual continuous storyline that spanned multiple titles and a major event. That doesn't happen for many characters, and I'm sorry, but that's not tokenizing to me. They had a really strong arc and were written by multiple authentic voices. They have been more out of the spotlight lately, but they're also coming back soon in Guardians. I'm not saying you shouldn't be critical, but I'm honestly grateful that the 2010s worked out as well as they did, and I try to remember that until very recently, championing LGBT characters was an uphill battle at Marvel. In many cases, it still is.

Of course I want to see more of them, and of course I want there to be more follow-through on the implications of the Kree-Skrull Alliance. I loved Empyre and there's really not much I would change about that story, but it created a lot of loose ends and open questions that haven't been resolved yet, and that is frustrating. That's kind of the theme of the last couple years, though-- my main frustrations with Krakoa are very similar.

Regarding Billy's mental health, I'd rather see him demonstrate growth and healing than continue being defined by his depression, and to their credit, Ewing and Oliveira illustrated that pretty clearly on multiple occasions. We know that Billy still experiences these challenges, but we also know that he's better equipped to work through those challenges than he was in CC or YA-- and that resilience translates literally into more powerful magic.

I feel similarly about Wanda, and in both cases, it's a fine line to tread. You want to show hopeful futures, but you don't want to diminish the reality of the situation-- and in Wanda's case, the desire to repair her character from ableist, sexist writing can make it difficult to linger on her mental health. Ideally, there would be more time and space to show these characters going to therapy or putting in the daily effort of recovery, but unfortunately, that's not the sort of thing that gets prioritized in limited pages.

#billy kaplan #teddy altman

[erinptah]

I think Moon "gives headaches to low-level telepaths by being neurodivergent" Knight should be forced to work together with a telepath for an issue just for the comedy AND drama potential

My vote is for little known telepath Xi'an Coy Mahn/Karma because how consistently she's a pacifist AND a control freak and how much they'd clash personality wise because MK system is pretty violent and prone to improvisation which would drive her up the wall

But I'll settle for anyone (David Haller would be fun for all the foil potential as they're both Jewish systems)

You did some interesting things with MK and Wanda, yourself

"by being neurodivergent" is underselling it imo! Haven't seen Marvel telepaths having trouble with characters who only have DID, it's just that Team MK's psyche is also a toxic pit of acid and bear traps (affectionate).

I know nothing about Karma, but that sounds like a great personality clash. And her wiki page says she has a whole thing about...absorbing her twin brother and then sometimes being controlled by him? Steven could be all "let's go out for drinks and commiserate about the angry violent guys stuck in our heads." (Marc: "hey!" Jake: "hey, that was only in the Bemis run!")

All I know about David Haller is "this character/backstory is more of a mess than I feel qualified or motivated to fix", heh

Does the House of Shadows count?

Over in the MCU side of things, whoo boy, have I got some quality Wanda And Team MK Working Together content coming up...

#Moon Knight #Ptah's inbox #Ptah's fic

[lunarspiral1127]

*Multiverse of Madness SPOILERS*

Can we talk about how stupid Wanda's plan was in MoM? And I don't care if she was corrupted by the Darkhold, it doesn't excuse her actions nor how dumb her plan was.

Even though she had her goodbye to Vision and technically her goodbye to her kids in Wandavision, it was ruined thanks to the post-credit scene and is now obsessed with going to a universe where they actually exist and be their mom....okay, questions here.

Why not find Pietro, HER TWIN BROTHER WHO'S ACTUALLY REAL?! Hell, why not Vision since she's still sad about his death?

Why not go to a universe where Billy and Tommy don't have their mom instead of trying to steal them from another Wanda?

If they're real in other universes, who's their father? Sure as hell ain't Vision.

If there's a universe where a Wanda was able to conceive Billy and Tommy without the Hex, why doesn't MCU Wanda do the same?

How and when did she know about America Chavez's powers?

Why couldn't she ask America to use her powers to send her to a universe instead of hunting her down, traumatizing her and trying to kill her? She could've been patient with her when she'd finally mastered her powers. Yeah, I know Wong asked that question, but her answer was stupid.

If Wanda needed America's powers to go to another universe that can cure something that the boys caught that can't be cured in the universe they resided in, WHY NOT ASK AMERICA TO SEND THEM SOMEWHERE THAT THEY CAN BE CURED?!?! Or better yet, Wanda learns some healing magic instead? She's a witch, there's gotta be some healing spells she can learn. Also, not every universe will have a cure for everything!

Not a question, but I wanna point out that Wanda's such a freaking hypocrite when she tries to call out Strange for doing things. But, here's the thing. Strange dream walking was to save America from getting killed by Wanda. Her dream walking was to hurt and kill people who got in her way, and possess an innocent Wanda. Him breaking the rules was to help and save people. Her breaking the rules hurt people. Plus, Strange gets called out on the things he's done and when he messes up. Wanda doesn't get called out on Westview (except Agatha), and is only called out on her plan in MoM. Hell, I don't know if she gets called out for her actions in Age or Ultron.

And, that's pretty much it. I'm so done with Wanda and how her character went from Age of Ultron to Multiverse of Madness. Plus, there's the whole whitewashing that I was addressed about a while back, which is a major issue. We could've had Baron Mordo, Nightmare, or even a Scarlet Witch variant be an antagonist, but no.

I don't know if she'll stay dead in the MCU though, because of rumors of a Scarlet Witch movie (even though MoM technically became one). Part of me hopes not, but another part of me does so that she'd get the crap beaten out of her. But, I'm not gonna hold my breath with how she's been propped up by stans and the MCU crew.

#anti dsmom #anti mcu wanda #anti wanda maximoff #anti marvel #anti mcu #mcu critical #marvel critical #i'm usually critical with many characters #but i've now become an mcu wanda anti #should've been one in the first place but MoM was the last straw #i'm so done with this character #please let her stay dead

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

You know I am gonna put side argument about , Loki x sylvie are incest or selfcet or fair game?

Let's be real i don't think loki showrunner know meaning of 'same person', I meant same person it can be anything, yeah you and your alternative self and dooublegenger (twin different blood) are considered 'same person' but other people that act like you and having same thinking like you can considered as 'same person' too like Tony Stark and Stephen strange

And in loki series it's very confusing they keep saying loki and Sylvie are same person (because they both loki and all that stuff) but they saying too they are not same person because they clearly very different in all aspects, my God pick your side man, you make fans confuse.

You know I am gonna using Krishna and rama or parasurma as example, they are incarnation from visnu but while they are not really visnu self they are part of him, and they are different person from each other. If loki show using avatars visnu as example, than they are wrong doing it. Because look like they not understand what they were writing

So what actually make 'same person'?

So far, we have variants in two movies and one series. In both movies, the variants are considered the exact same person as the OG character.

The series is the only time we're told both are the same but it still ends up in a romance - not a coincidence that the variant in the series is a woman... all the other variants are men.

In fact, the very idea that Loki and Sylvie are the same person is used to call him a narcissist...

Although of course the same does not apply to her. He's a narcissist for loving her, but her love for him is proof of her inherent "goodness" and kind heart.

At the end of the day, I go with MCU canon: all variants are the same as the OG character and... 👇

She's a Laufeydottir according to the series, which means she has the same father as Loki. That makes them related, whether they're the same person or siblings I don't care too much. It's still weird and completely unnecessary.

#antisylki

[orangesunsets12]

Tagged by the amazing @icedteaandoldlace-- 20 questions for fic writers! Thank you!

How many works do you have on A03?

102

What's your total AO3 word count?

625,524

What fandoms do you write for?

In order of most stories to least (posted on AO3):

The Flash, Stranger Things, Young Justice, the MCU, Encanto, Lego Ninjago, Star Trek: Next Generation, Arrow, and Superman & Lois.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

It Takes Two to Survive (Stranger Things)

2. Begging on my Knees (why won't you believe me?) (Stranger Things)

3. 5 Times Steve Helped the Kids and the 1 Time They Helped Him (Stranger Things)

4. One in the Same (Stranger Things)

5. Loosened Grip (Stranger Things)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

It always depends, I always would love to say "thank you" because I am indeed super thankful for all of the comments that I get, but sometimes my anxiety gets the better of me and I'm too scared to reply, (I overthink a lot, and think that what I say could be considered weird, to put it simply). It's something I'm trying to get over, but if my anxiety is bad I usually have to wait to respond to comments and then I sometimes forget to reply.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This one was hard to find. Although I write a lot of angst, most of my fics have a happy ending, or at least one where things are looking up. However, one of my Stranger Things fics, Flayed, ended with Steve's mom kicking him out of the house and disowning him. I would say that that's one of the angstiest endings that I found within my fics.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Avalanche, a fic I wrote in The Flash fandom. It ends with Cisco and Kamilla having twins, and it's all happiness and fluff. Even thinking about it makes me smile!

Do you get hate on fics?

Not usually, I've gotten some comments/questions about changing my fics to be different, or criticizing a choice I made, but I haven't gotten any major hate (at least none that I know of).

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No, I'm not a smut writer.

Do you write crossovers?

Only if they're in the same "universe", like the Arrowverse. I've done an Arrow and The Flash crossover, and a Superman & Lois and The Flash crossover as well.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I did have someone comment saying that one of my fics was stolen and posted elsewhere, but I was never able to find proof, so I'm not sure. It wasn't for one of my most popular fics, and for that I'm thankful.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I think that that would be super cool to experience! I would be so happy if one of my fics was translated! The only thing I would ask for, though, was for my fic to be tagged in the translated one, and that I was given credit for the original story.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, I haven't, but that sounds like a fun idea! I think I would find it to be a challenge, though, as I find it a bit hard working as a team. Group projects in school were so hard for me lol.

What's your all-time favorite ship to write for?

I don't write much for romance, but I would have to pick Artemis Crock/Wally West from Young Justice. I haven't written a fic for them in a while, but they are so sweet together! I find their relationship easy to write for, too.

What's a WIP you want to finish, but but doubt you ever will?

This one was easy to think of for me. I had begun a MCU story called The Warehouse, where Peter and other kids with powers were homeless but eventually met Tony Stark. I loved the idea, and I still do, but it's been so long since I've touched it and I don't think that I'll get to it in a long time, if not at all. It's a bit heartbreaking, because I love the story so much, but I just won't have time to get back to it.

What are your writing strengths?

Angst. I think that I can write pretty good angst and whump, as it's basically all I write. I can write the initial experience of angst well, and the hurt/comfort after comes really easy for me. I also think that I can write really good platonic relationships.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Romance. I feel like whenever I write any sort of romantic relationship it feels a bit forced. I'm not sure it it's true or not, but I wish that I was better at writing people in love. I also struggle a lot with deep dialogue, I always feel like I make it sound cheesy lol. I would love to get better at describing scenery and movement, too, as well as fight scenes. I also struggle a lot making summaries and titles.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I think it's awesome! I think I've only used a few words in a different language in my fics, as I only speak a bit of French and I'm terrified of using Google translate too much and getting the translation wrong. If I ever learned a different language, I would totally include it in my fics, with the translation, if it fit into the story.

First fandom you wrote for?

Lego Ninjago! It was the fandom that got me into writing fanfiction, and it helped my writing improve a lot. I was (and still am, to a degree) a big Jay fan.

Favorite fic you've written?

AAHHHHH HOW CAN I PICK????

Let me think here...

I think it would have to be my longest fic, It Takes Two to Survive, for the Stranger Things fandom. Not only was I able to write a fanfic that was 160k words long (which I'm still shocked and so thankful about), but I loved seeing the storyline develop, as well as friendships. It's a story I enjoy reading, and I love how far it came. When I look back at this fic, I'm reminded that I can write something crazy long, that I can write a good storyline, and that I can write character development without loosing sight of the plot, and for that I'm so thankful. I feel like I did the impossible with this fic, and that's probably why it's my favorite.

I do have to mention my second longest fic though, Avalanche, for The Flash fandom. It was a lot like It Takes Two to Survive, but I feel like this fic was one of my best stories in regards to romance, and writing it was so fun! It was really focused on the idea of surviving the worst pain to protect the one you love, and to see them again, which I think is so sweet! I also got to write Cisco and Kamilla having a family, which was awesome! I haven't read the fic in a while, so I honestly don't remember much, but I really love that fic, too!

I love so many of my stories though, I can only think of a few that I didn't like.

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

Thanks again for the tag, @icedteaandoldlace, this was so fun!!

I'm not sure who to tag so if anyone sees this and wants to do it feel free to!

#ao3 writer #ao3 fanfic #fanfic questions

[onlymorelove]

Thank you for the tag, @greyhavenisback! xoxo

Getting to Know You

Three ships: Only three?! I have an armada. :D

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (MCU and comics)

Lan Mandragoran/Moiraine Damodred (The Wheel of Time) I watched the show's first season in July and fell ass over teakettle for them. The show made me ship it; I've only read a little of the first book in Robert Jordan's series. I know, I know, they're supposed to be platonic, and I respect anyone who only sees them in that light. Sue me for being a contrarian shipper.

Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire) The show ultimately did them dirty, but until then, they were perfection. "It's yours. It will always be yours." *sigh* Kill me now. I ship them in the books, too, but I haven't read all of them—yet.

Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken (Teen Wolf)

Bill Tench/Holden Ford (Mindhunter) They were super messy and compelling and I will forever be bitter they canceled Mindhunter.

First ship: Hm. I'm not sure, but I think the first ship I wrote fic for was either Jason Morgan/Brenda Barrett (General Hospital) or Jason Morgan/Elizabeth Webber (General Hospital). The first ship I shipped was either Jo/Teddy (Little Women by Louisa May Alcott) or Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery). ;)

Last Song: Lover, Don't Leave by Citizen Shade

Last Movie: Red, White & Royal Blue It was okay, but even though I started but didn't finish the book a while ago, I still think I preferred the book.

Currently Reading: I finished They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us by Prachi Gupta a few days ago and am still recovering. I don't usually listen to audiobooks, but I decided to check one out from our library using Libby, and am currently listening to Educated by Tara Westover while I do other things. And I'm reading The Phantom Twin by Lisa Brown.

Currently Watching: DH and I are slowly and occasionally watching Better Call Saul. We watched Breaking Bad years ago but never got around to trying BCS until recently. DH, my kids, and I are slowly and occasionally watching Abbott Elementary. I've seen it all already; the rest of my family only recently discovered its greatness. ;)

While doing cardio at the gym, I recently finished watching Good Omens and Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. Good Omens is a fun romp. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, a Korean drama, is funny, sweet, and chock full of small-town, found-family vibes. Not sure what I'll watch next. Does anyone have any recs for me?

Last Thing I Wrote: The last thing I wrote is a Steve Rogers/Tony Stark fic that I posted on AO3 in June.

I'm really fortunate, and I have a great life, but it's also really stressful; I haven't figured out yet how to manage the stress so I can be creative more consistently. So while I'd love to write more and write more often, I don't know how—at least not yet. But it's October now, which also means it's Flufftober. I might try to fill some Flufftober prompts.

Tagging: I always worry about unintentionally excluding people or pressuring them with these tag games, so please consider this an open tag. If you see this and want to do it, go ahead—and @ me so I can see your answers. :)

#tag games

[fasterthanmydemons]

would pietro have TSA (twin separation anxiety) in the Sotg verse? after seeing those results for basch and noah I think pietro and wanda would also have it but mostly pietro. I could totally see him turning to rocket or mantis for comfort since they're the ones who are talking to him the most for now (as much of an asshole as rocket can be lol)

{out of breath} First of all, thank you for reading my huge headcanon post over on my other blog. You are awesome. =) For those who don't know what the Anon is referring to, I basically analyzed by muses' mental (and partially physical) health over on my other blog for their MCU verse, kindof as an evaluation report they would have done before they could qualify to do field work with the Avengers. If you're interested, you can read it here. I'll put the actual ask answer below a cut because long, heh.

TSA (twin separation anxiety) is a specific type of anxiety that happens to twins when they are separated from each other. It doesn't necessarily have to be under traumatic circumstances. It could be going off to separate colleges, moving out and having their own places, one twin beginning to date and the other feeling left out, etc. In other words, normal growing pains and milestones in life can contribute to TSA, and that's okay. It's when normal TSA isn't handled properly, or when TSA results from a sudden and/or traumatic separation, that it can have lasting detrimental effects on the twins' psyches, such as some anxiety disorders, insecurity, uncertainty about oneself and their future, fears of abandonment or of being alone, and even lashing out in the form of erratic emotional or physically violent outbursts.

Pietro and Wanda both have longstanding experience with TSA, unfortunately. They first experienced it shortly after their parents died and they were placed into an orphanage that separated girls from boys. Because of this and because the twins were said to have been "too dependent" on each other, they were kept separate a lot, which resulted in Pietro sneaking over to the girls wing to see Wanda, and then in them running away from the orphanage to avoid being separated again.

The twins' TSA only got worse once they volunteered for the Hydra experiments. They were kept in separate cells, were afraid for each other's welfare, but could not always see or communicate with each other. This was a serious shock to them, since they had always been so close before.

In MCU canon, Wanda experiences TSA to an extreme degree after Pietro dies. She also experiences what is known as being a "twinless twin," which is a specific type of grief and trauma response someone experiences when their twin dies.

In an AU where Pietro lives, they both still experience some TSA just from having their own separate rooms in the training compound, being trained separately and differently, falling in with different circles of friends, Wanda starting to date Vision, being sent on missions separately, etc. None of that is necessarily bad, but before that, they were extremely emotionally co-dependent on each other, so any kind of separation is going to cause anxiety at first.

And then once again, imprisonment in the Raft heightened the effects of TSA on the twins by physically separating them under stressful conditions. Not only were they worried for each other, but they were each under a lot of stress without the one person in the world they were most used to going to for comfort.

So by the time he gets to the SotG AU, Pietro's TSA is pretty damn bad. Wanda's... hmm. It's not that Pietro has it worst than Wanda, but Wanda has an easier time of it for a couple reasons. First, she has Vision to support her. Pietro doesn't have anyone but Wanda, to that degree at least, except in verses where he's shipped with someone. Wanda is a lot more mentally stable at that point in her life than Pietro is. He is more prone to emotional and violent outbursts, he either overshares or completely closes off from others and switches between those at random, he takes things very personally, and the more time he spends without Wanda, the more unhinged he becomes in a lot of ways.

In AUs where Wanda dies instead of him in AoU, or if he's alive during the Blip but doesn't get snapped like she does, he spirals out of control very quickly and can becomes suicidal. Wanda never really got to that point until the end of DSMoM, after she'd lots not only Pietro, but Vision (like what, three times?), various friends, and her sons. So Pietro is actually a lot more emotionally fragile and vulnerable than Wanda is. It takes a lot more to break her down than it does him.

So at the time SotG is happening, Wanda is a lot better supported and more mentally stable than Pietro is, so that makes the effects of TSA worse for him. By that point he is very jittery, his nerve damaged arm and hand shake a lot worse and more often, he has even more trouble sitting still, and his behavior is erratic. He'll go from crying to yelling to shutting down all in one hour. And all those insecurities he's been picking up throughout his life (being the worse twin, his ADHD symptoms making him feel stupid and like he can't learn, and the times he couldn't protect his sister making him feel like a bad brother) are also amplified as a result.

These kinda of asks give me life, so thank you for asking! =)

#{ out of breath } ᵒᵒᶜ #tw: suicidal thoughts

[tyrannuspitch]

thor meta directory

hello and welcome, i'm lucian and i've been analysing mcu thor in excruciating detail since march 2022. this directory is intended to help me and anyone else interested to navigate my backlog of thor posts, which were all initially grouped under one umbrella tag.

a few notes:

my main focus is on the asgardian royal family, and my favourite portrayals of them come from 2011-2013. i have a bit of a loki-centric bias, but i do my best to be self-aware. i think all members of the family are terrible people and i love them for it <3

older posts should be taken with a pinch of salt. my opinions have developed a lot since i first started posting, but i've left pretty much everything up for archival purposes.

sometimes my opinions are strong, but they're never personal, even when i express them in hyperbolic ways. i promise i don't really hate you because of a marvel movie :3

to prevent clutter, source, character, relationship and theme tags are only applied to posts that also qualify for a meta or concrit tag.

some of the theme tags overlap a lot, but i'm doing my best.

most of the theme tags don't have an immediately obvious "thesis" post, but hopefully you'll get a sense of them by scrolling through. i'm also happy to answer any questions on this!

at the point when i organised this archive, it contained 1600 posts, so please excuse any tagging mistakes or typos, and let me know so i can fix them :D

finally: my inbox is open and i love talking about thor! comments, questions, suggestions, discussion, and lighthearted/friendly debate are all very welcome :D also, if you send me music associations or fanart, i'll love you forever - i probably haven't seen it, since i hardly follow anyone in this fandom. (just please no th-rki - i'm firmly in the familial relationship camp.)

okay that's all. have fun! 💚💙💜

main tag (completely unfiltered: 1600+ posts, including liveblogging, thinking aloud, silly jokes, complaints, and just about every other thought i've ever had)

by post type:

meta (600+ posts) - meta highlights (100+ posts) - concrit/negativity - text reblogs - fanart - gifs - stills - edits (mine)

by source:

thor 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - avengers 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - loki tv - other mcu - comics - thor: tales of asgard (cartoon) - other marvel - myth + history - fandom - other

by character:

thor - loki - odin - frigga - laufey - hela - malekith - thanos - the other - sif - warriors three - heimdall - valkyrie - jane - erik - sylvie - mobius - kang - avengers - fury

note: tumblr has a link limit! i've had to remove the links to supporting characters' tags to stay within it, but the format is: /tagged/ch:%20laufey, /tagged/ch:%20hela, etc.

by relationship:

thor: frigga - loki - odin - sif - w3 - jane - erik - avengers - fury

loki: frigga - odin - laufey - sif - w3 - thanos - the other - sylvie -mobius - kang - erik - jane - avengers

odin: frigga - laufey - hela - kang - fury - bor

house of odin (for when it's really the entire family at once - not an umbrella tag)

by theme/topic:

abuse + empire - fate + hierarchy - suicide + sacrifice - imprisonment + exile - devotion + treachery - honour + villainy - cycles + scapegoats - manipulation + mind control - order + chaos - war + apocalypse - undeath + afterlife - the threefold death - trickster loki - jester loki - servant prince

childhood + immortality - gender + sexuality - ergi - sorcery - prophecy - disability - ethnicity - godhood - monsterhood - playing the monster - mirrors + masks - eye motif

expressions of love - love as horror - neck/throat motif - grief - codependence - odinsons as twins - redemption - mjolnir - saint thor - thor's sinister side

worldbuilding - modern psychiatry - etymology - mimesis

and finally, my ao3 is here. i'm not as active as i'd like to be, but i'm working on it!

#space viking tag #this took one hundred thousand years

[thevindicativevordan]

Bouncing off your rant against Marvel editorial's stupid decisions, what makes Wanda and Vision an interesting couple ?

She's the only one who treats him the way he wants to be treated: like a man. He's the only man in her life who hasn't exploited their relationship to benefit himself. Both of them are weirdos who don't really fit in.

Then of course there's the family issues. Vision has Ultron for a father, Wanda has Magneto (regardless of current continuity). Vision has an evil "brother" in Grim Reaper while Wanda has her morally flexible brother Quicksilver. Vision built his own kids while Wanda used magic to have twins. They're two broken people who come together because they desperately want someone they can rely on, and find that person in each other. Or at least they were until Byrne destroyed them, leaving Vision spending various periods of time dead or changed, while Wanda just got treated worse and worse.

Only Peter/MJ could compete with these two in terms of "most people love them being together, but not Marvel editorial, who seem driven by spite to keep the two apart". MCU has failed my favorite character but it has been a godsend for WandaVision. Wanda is the most popular Marvel heroine right now, an organic success to contrast with the editorial driven push to make Carol that, and part of what people love about her is the relationship with Vision. Only took the most successful film franchise of all time to fish those two out of the garbage pile, but that franchise has cemented the relationship as important to both characters in the minds of a global audience. Can't be erased like Marvel tried to do ever since Byrne, and we're finally getting the two of them on the same team again. I won't get my hopes up that the two will get back together, not unless the MCU goes that route, but just seeing the two of them talking to each other regularly is a promising start.

#scarlet witch #vision #wandavision #avengers

[ashes-writing]

wanna be yours pt III | mcu ; p.maximoff

A/N ; And here we are. Another chapter and even more intense sexual tension. Maybe a lil softness here and there too. This just came to me on a whim earlier so I present it to you without any beta whatsoever because honestly, I fly by the seat of my ass here. Anyway, let's get to it, shall we? There will be more parts to this incoming.

Pairing ; Pietro Maximoff x Stark!Fem reader. I realize this possibly narrows the whole 'reader' thing, but alas... I will try to be as vague as humanly possible so that anybody who wants can imagine themselves in this, I'm still new to this tho.

Timeline / Other Stuff to Note ; part I || part II can be found by clicking the links I just gave. Again, let it be noted.. This is after AoU. Before all the other shit and Pietro's death is ignored. Also, Spidey makes an intro to the fold a little sooner because sue me, Reader needs her psuedo lil bro and she will in the future parts of this too. We're also pretending that Stark Towers is not destroyed or that it's been renovated / rebuilt and the Avengers are now staying at the tower and working at the compound. Makes sense? I hope so.

Tag List ; @beardedbarba is the only person on my MCU tag list. if you'd like to be added to my taglists for anything including fandom piece in question is for, please let me know or add yourself -> here.

Warnings ; Even more heavy lingering sexual tension, babes and dolls. Even more. This is going to be one of those intense ones, me thinks. There is just a little touching, an intimate moment here and there but overall, this one is safe to read.

Other Stuff ; tag list doc || my rules - fandoms and some characters I write for || requests are open (pls.. pls... send me things) but they're limited to headcanon asks + filth/fluff alphabet letters and I'm not accepting wrestling / wrestlers in my ask box. Any other fandom/character but wrestling that I happen to write for is fine and I beg of you -> send me things.

I do not consent to my work being reposted elsewhere or copied/reworked/rewritten and reposted here or elsewhere. You don't own this, I do. So like... don't steal my shit.

Translations if any; — Ți-e foame, prințesă? - “ are you hungry, princess?” -- thanks to google translate. as per usual, draga mea means my darling / my dear and I'm basing Sokovian on Romanian.

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

“It’s impressive.” Wanda mumbles from beside her twin. Pietro’s eyes flit around the massive foyer of Stark Towers and he shrugs. But his eyes are still wandering and Wanda doesn’t need her nifty little abilities to know exactly what her twin is searching for. Or who, more to the point. She gives him a nudge as Natasha tosses keycards on a lanyard in their direction. Pietro catches his and turns it over in his hands, gazing at the credit card sized plastic just to avoid the pointed look his twin is giving him.

Natasha speaks up. “The living space out here, the game room,  the kitchen, the bar, the home gym and the home theater and the spa are ours to use too. We just have to stay out of the garage, the basement lab and the fourth wing.”

“What’s the fourth wing?” Peter Parker asks.

Bucky chuckles and reaches out, smacking the bright eyed teenager in the back of the head. “That’s baby Stark’s personal wing. You oughta know that, kid.” and briefly, the hardened soldier locks eyes with Pietro Maximoff and shakes his head while mouthing, “Don’t you fucking dare either, kid or so help me God.”

And almost as if summoned, you wander out into the living room, pausing at a control panel on the wall. The ambience of the room goes from soft classic rock to loud and angry hard rock with heavy emphasis on guitars and screaming. It's Avenged Sevenfold, this is what they're known for and also, they happen to be one of your many favorite bands...

You wander right past the group lingering in the room and into the kitchen, your nose stuck in a thick book as you walk.

Wanda elbows her twin. Pietro’s gaze is locked on you and he’s biting his lip. He’s doing that thing he does where he’s thinking entirely too hard about doing something that’s likely not a good idea. Wanda palms her face.

Peter nudges Pietro. “Dude, I’ve seen her leg sweep a guy.” Peter nods at you and laughs to himself in amusement upon seeing the way Pietro is staring at you like you're on fire and he's got a hose.

“Mhm.” Pietro’s only half listening, instead he’s watching you as you slice tomato on a carving board. You pile the tomato into a bowl. A few seconds later, you’re tearing lettuce and letting the leafy green vegetable fall into a slightly bigger silver bowl. Then you’re scaling the counter, poking around in a cabinet that’s way over your head, pots and pans clanging together noisily as you dig into the cabinet as deep as you can. You find the frying pan and in your triumph, you lose your balance a little.

Before you even have a chance to steady yourself on your own, Pietro’s taken off in a blue streak blur and he’s scooped you up into strong arms bridal style just as you nearly take a tumble off of your high perch. You stare at him with a raised brow and wide eyes as you blow some hair out of your face. Pietro stands you on your own feet in the kitchen and he’s doing that thing again where he lingers, towering over you. Staring at you intently as if he wants to say something.

Blue sky eyes settle on the various ingredients spread out on the counter and the battered Ace of Spades playing card that’s marking your page in the thick textbook you’d been reading as you navigated the living room a few minutes before. He nods to the ingredients and chuckles quietly. 

“— Ți-e foame, prințesă?” the question is asked quietly. You tilt your head and you’re pouting at him. “English, please? Or at least, y’know… Teach me your language?”

Pietro leans in a little. “I asked if you are hungry, princess.” as he nods to the food on the counter again. You glance back at it and laugh softly while nodding. “Starved, actually. I kind of missed lunch today. I was working, it slipped my mind.” you shrug as you say it.

“How do you forget to eat?”

“Uh, you realize who my father is, yeah? It’s a genetic thing.” you shuffle bare feet against the marble flooring of the kitchen as you try to look somewhere else, anywhere else but his eyes. But you’re lost in them and drowning all over again.

You jump a little, startled when Natasha makes her way in, watching you and Pietro like a hawk. A little smirk on her face as she opens the fridge and digs around until she finds her usual beverage of choice. Once she’s popped the cap against the edge of the quartz countertop, she shotguns the drink down and drags her hand across the back of her mouth, glancing at Pietro.

“Stop bothering her, Speedy.”

“He’s not, uh.. He’s not bothering me, Nat. It’s fine.” you smile to reassure the older woman. You nod to the thick book sitting nearby. “That’s what’s bothering me and if Finals week doesn’t hurry and end I swear to God I’ll punt that book out of the Tower.”

“I thought you were in the dorms.” Natasha questions.

“I was. But my roommate is in the honeymoon phase with this idiot she met on a dating app, so…. Home it is, I guess.” you grimace and Natasha laughs. “Yeah, I don’t blame you.” and she’s made herself comfortable sitting on the kitchen island as she takes a tomato slice and pops it into her mouth, much to your chagrin.

Pietro’s gaze lingers on you. You reach for the soda you’d gotten yourself while foraging through the fridge across the kitchen and you twist off the cap and take a sip, staring right back at him. Stepping just a little closer before you even realize you’ve done it.

Natasha clears her throat and glances from you to Pietro and then hops down from the counter, sauntering out of the room. You take a deep breath or two and they come out just a little shakier than they should have. Pietro chuckles. “Relax, draga mea. You seem so tense.”

“Tense. Yeah, that’s uh.” you raise a hand to drag it through your hair and blue eyes fix on the movement intently, distracted by it for a few seconds. “That’s one way to put it, I guess.” - oh you're tense alright. the sheer sexual tension you feel right now is almost overwhelming but you're not admitting to that, oh no.

A throat clears from the kitchen door and a girl wanders in. When she lapses into the same language Pietro uses around you a lot, you glance from one to the other. Scarlet Witch.. Pietro's twin, Wanda Maximoff...Your father told you about both of them joining the team, he mentioned it casually a while back.

You smile when she happens to look up and catch you watching them. Then you grab the package of bacon you’d been about to fry for the biggest bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich you can possibly make yourself in one sitting and you turn your attention to the stove, turning it on.

You plop down a few pieces of bacon into the pan and the whispering back and forth heatedly continues behind you between the Maximoff twins. You can’t really understand it and you’re really not trying to listen, but every now and then a word or two grabs your attention and you wonder what they mean.

Grease pops out of the pan and splashes your wrist and you swear under  your breath, holding your wrist against your body for a second or two to dull the sting. You didn’t realize he’d come across the room until he reached out and grabbed hold of your wrist, studying it with brows knit in concern.

“It’s just a little bacon grease. It’ll sting then it’ll be fine. Just hurt like hell.” you reassure him. Pietro nods and he mutters something under his breath and in his mother tongue that you can’t understand. That you’re probably not meant to understand. Which has you frowning a little because you want to know what he’s saying when he talks to you in Sokovian.

Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold begins to play and you hum along quietly as you grab a pair of tongs from the utensil holder by the stove and begin to pull crispy strips of bacon from the hot pan. You turn to Wanda and Pietro. “Do you guys want one? It’s fine, there’s enough tomato and lettuce. Definitely enough bacon.” you nod to the bowls in question. The twins share a look and Wanda politely shakes her head No. Pietro shrugs. “ I could eat.”

“You’re always hungry.” Wanda retorts, giving her brother a teasing look as she laughs. 

Wanda turns and walks out of the kitchen and Peter, the kid your father has taken under his wing, he wanders in. You grin at the bright eyed teenager. “Hey, Parker! You hungry?”

“Is it bacon, lettuce and tomato?” Peter asks with a broad grin.

“That’s the only thing I know to make beside grilled cheese, buddy.” you smile back and shrug almost apologetically. "Sadly.. My dad's great at a lot of things.. Cooking so he could show me how is not one of them. But he's learning. At least one of us is," you laugh softly.

“Yeah, that’s right. The last time you tried to cook the fire department was called in.”

“Oh fuck you!” you pout at the teenager and he laughs. Raising one side of your thick text book to look at the title. “You’re in medicine? I thought you were going into somethin else?”

“Mhm. Nursing. I decided I wanted to go into it to help people as best as I can.” you smile as you say it. Peter grins and pulls himself up onto one of the tall stools. Pietro, you notice, is giving the teenage boy a dirty look. You laugh softly. And despite trying not to, you find yourself stepping even closer to Pietro Maximoff.

He mirrors it and one of his hand lingers close to one of your hips. You glance down at his hand when it grazes your hips and you bite your lip quietly. Peter makes his way out of the kitchen after mumbling something about needing to breathe and you swallow hard.

Now that he’s mentioned it, the air is thick again. When is it not thick when Pietro Maximoff is present, though. That's the real question.

You spread mayonnaise on two slices of bread and begin piling tomato, lettuce shreds and bacon onto your sandwich. Pietro is still lingering close behind you and when his hand grazes your side again you gasp quietly and glance sideways over your shoulder at him. A soft giggle leaving your mouth.

You start to make another sandwich for Pietro and you feel his chest press into your back carefully as he watches you, reaching out to steal a strip of bacon before you can swat away his hand. You finish making the sandwich for him and turn to face him, holding it up to him. Smiling a sweet little smile that Pietro stares at for longer than he probably should have. He wants to stop staring, to stop touching you and stop being so painfully aware of you but it’s like he can’t. He’s tried everything he can within reason to do so. Nothing has worked yet.

You’re literally the one girl he wants more than any one in the past and you’re also the one girl who happens to be off limits.

And it’s driving him crazy, he doesn’t know how much more he can take.

You take a bite of your own sandwich and Pietro reaches out, dragging his thumb across your cupids bow. Fighting off the urge to groan at the way your lip felt like velvet under his thumb. Or the way it quivered.

He licks his thumb quietly and chuckles. “Messy eater, draga mea.”

Your eyes are glued to his thumb as he does it and you can feel your thighs clench so much tighter. To counter this, you shuffle your bare feet against the marble floor. And you finally manage to look anywhere else but his mouth. Or his hands.

“Kind of.” you shrug and smile. “I’m gonna go watch General Hospital now.” you announce as you gather your soda and the massive sandwich you’ve made yourself and wander into the living room. As you flip through the channels on the massive television on the wall, you can feel Pietro’s sister watching you intently.

You glance over as you stop the tv on General Hospital right as the opening credits roll and you take a bite of your sandwich. Wanda moves so that she’s sitting next to you.

After a long pause when you’re getting absorbed in the latest drama to befall your favorite mob don, Sonny Corinthos, Wanda gasps quietly.

You glance over at her.

“Hm?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.” but Wanda says it quickly. A little too quickly.

The reason for her gasp was because she accidentally brushed against you and the second she did, she got to see in high definition clarity exactly what you were thinking in regards to her brother, Pietro. She also got a real good glimpse into the way he’s been plaguing your filthiest dreams every single night and exactly how frustrated you are because you can’t figure him out.

Wanda smiles to herself. Nods to the television. “What is going on here?”

“That’s a mob meeting. Sonny’s trying to take down a rival family, I think.. Or he’s being threatened by one. They’re discussing how to handle it.” you explain, throwing up your hands in annoyance when Sonny’s wife wanders onto the screen. “Go away, Carly, oh my god.” you groan as you palm your face. Wanda laughs softly and nods to the screen again. “You don’t like her?”

“I mean, she’s okay? She’s just very, very… Involved. It’s invasive. And nine out of ten, when she does get in the middle of something she makes it so much worse..” you cringe as you listen to Carly talking to someone on the phone a scene later. “I swear to God, if she even thinks about it.”

Wanda laughs again. And she watches you quietly, smiling to herself.

Maybe she could drop a few hints with her brother, ease his mind. She’d never seen him twist himself inside and out quite so much before. Normally, he kept it fairly surface level, stealing the girl who caught his eye little gifts and trinkets, flirting openly. For some reason, whenever he tried with her he claimed that the words wouldn’t come.

Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe he needed to keep doing exactly what he was doing.

Wanda rose from the couch and made her way into the kitchen where her brother sat eating the sandwich you’d made for him.

“It might interest you to know that she feels… Very intense things for you as well. Don’t make a mess of this, Pietro. This better not be one of your little whirlwind flings. She’s been hurt a lot, I think.”

Out in the living room, you yell at the television set and as you make your way into the kitchen to grab another soda for yourself, you’ve got your hands thrown up in disgust. “I can’t with that show.” you grumble aloud as you step past Pietro and open the doors to the fridge, digging around until you find your usual brand of soda.

You can feel Pietro’s eyes fix on you intently. Practically burning a hole right through you as he stares. You pretend you don’t as best as you can and you wander over, picking up the textbook you left behind on the kitchen island. Then you wander into the living room and switch off the television set. You settle in on the couch with every intention to study, but at some point, you doze off.

Pietro happens to catch sight of you sleeping on the sofa and he shuts the book open in front of you, careful to place the battered Ace of Spades on the page where you left off. Then he tells himself he’ll just walk away, but he can’t. It’s as if his feet have grown roots.

He spots a sweater knit throw blanket draped over the arm of the couch on one end and he grabs it, spreading it out over your body. Then after smoothing his hand over the way your hair is fanned out all around you, he hurries off to his assigned wing in the tower.

And he knows he’ll try and try but given what Wanda’s told him tonight, sleep probably won’t come fast or easy because now he knows that whatever he feels right now is mutual. And he knows he’ll never be able to keep ignoring it or pretending that he doesn’t feel the way he feels.

You’re under his skin. Deep under his skin. And now, he knows that he’s not the only one affected.

Now, the only question is… Does he abide by what everyone keeps insisting -that you’re off limits, or does he act on what he wants most?

It’s gonna be a long night for Pietro Maximoff. A very long night.

#pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff fanfiction #pietro maximoff fanfic #pietro maximoff imagine #pietro maximoff x stark!fem reader #pietro maximoff x stark!fem reader imagine

[dontcallmecarrie]

So I read the No Hero-canon crossover and I'm confused on who the Maximoff Twins' father was? Was it Canon!Victor? Or a non-mutation Magneto? And how are the Infinity Stomes their family heirlooms?

Whenever possible, I tend to stick to [what little I know of] the comics, friend. Well... okay, not exactly, most of what I know of X-Men and the Fantastic Four is from the early 2000s movies so I'm cribbing a lot from there too, for some things.

In this case, yes, Erik Lensherr is the father of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.

In the main No Hero [Downward Descending] universe, he's one of Victor's mentors during the Latverian civil war, and is part of the reason he is Like That in terms of a) badassery, b) zero tolerance, 'shoot first, ask questions never' policy towards anything that smacks of Nazi ideology, and c) complete and utter inability to tell he's hopelessly in love with his close friend who he hasn't seen in years.

In NHDD, Erik ends up with Charles Xavier— and is also part of why Victor can only suspect him as the potential father of these little twin hellions. Kinda hard to do something like a genetic test for it, in a completely different dimension, after all. Not to mention that Victor distinctly remembers his mentor constantly writing to his pen pal to someplace in England— and, later, New York, and in all that time he's never once so much as glanced at anyone else with a fraction of the interest than he did those letters.

...so you can imagine Victor's bewilderment when he wakes up in a completely different dimension, and among HYDRA's potential lab rats are twin hellions who take one look at him and refuse to leave him alone. Which, in retrospect, would have been enough of a clue, but one has his mentor's eyes and laugh, and the other his smile and death glare.

It's not a paternity test, by any means. But it's enough for Victor to make an educated guess, and more than enough to royally piss him off— because while Wanda and Pietro may not know their father, having been raised by their maternal family and sharing their name, Victor is well aware that Erik's a Holocaust survivor. So the idea of HYDRA experimenting on his kids is more than enough to get Victor's blood boiling, even if he hadn't already been this close to losing it.

...and is also a bit of a commentary of mine re: the MCU's writing, because there's a laundry list of issues I had with it before ragequitting, but this is a big one for me. Ahem.

I've been leery about including 'mutations are known' in NHDD, mostly because if I go that route, I'd end up having to factor in an wide-scale alternate history no matter what I do, and my hands are full just trying to get the Fantastic Four movies and the MCU to cooperate.

Also, for Infinity Stones: no, one isn't an heirloom. It ends up *stuck* in an heirloom, completely by accident, but it's also one of the last things the twins have left of their mother, so they're reluctant to do anything that might possibly break it.

Please note that by this point in their timeline, they've pestered Loki into teaching them magic. Grudgingly. Because they give him migraines, because gdi, Pietro, magic doesn't work like that, like that, what the hell did you do? And Wanda's magic isn't much better, but at least it makes sense.

So when they show up, and ask if the "weird glowy thing" stuck in mom's favorite necklace/what-have-you is safe to wear, Loki's long since used to their bullshit and doesn't even question where tf they found an Infinity Stone. Just tells them that if it hasn't killed them yet, it probably won't, and so Wanda and/or Pietro goes "okay, cool, I'm wearing it then" and then proceeds to never take it off.

[look, before Infinity War, the MCU had long since established that humanity had a terrifyingly good track record with items of extreme cosmic power that they had no business in handling, okay? look, if a cat can apparently eat one, the twins can wear one gdi]

...and that is ALSO the story of how they unintentionally save their timeline/universe/whatever, because while Wanda and Pietro aren't heroes in this AU [more chaotic neutral than anything else, tbh, just like the rest of their friend group], they are NOT happy with the purple jackass who keeps trying to take one of the last things things they have left of their family.

Which results in them probably complaining to Loki, who tells his freshly-busted-out-of-Helheim good friend Hela that hey, looks like that stalkery creep's now bothering those two little brats that have somehow wormed their way into both of their hearts, and next thing anyone knows, the world is now sans one Mad Titan.

#No Hero [Downward Descending] #No Hero [And Not Made Of Stone] #thinking aloud #3 am musings

[lunarspiral1127]

*Multiverse of Madness SPOILERS*

Ah, Charles Xavier. Now, I love the X-Men. It got me into Marvel (that and Spider-Man). Patrick Stewart was great playing him in the Fox's X-Men movies, and in MoM. When he shows up, he looks exactly like the Professor X from the 90s animated series. From the suit to the big yellow hover wheelchair (honestly I preferred his previous wheelchairs from the previous movies cause it looks more practical and less clunky) to the wave effects whenever he uses his telepathy, to the FREAKING X-MEN THEME PLAYING WHEN HE FIRST SHOWS UP! It was pure nostalgia bait, and I fell for it. I wish I didn't, cause I had to watch him die again for the third time by Wanda snapping his neck.....how dare you MCU?

HOW FREAKING DARE YOU?!?!

This was what pissed me off the most. I threw my napkin on the floor and slammed my arms on the arm rests in anger nearly hitting my best friend who was sitting next to me. This was nearly my rage quit moment, as I had the urge to walk out, but I didn't.

Xavier was an Alpha-Level Mutant, possesses the most powerful brain in existence, and was supposed to be the world's greatest telepath. He was the only competent member of the Illuminati willing to tell Doctor Strange where he can find the book of Vishanti (even though he didn't set him free), bought time for America and Christine to escape, and tried to free the Wanda that was possessed by MCU Wanda. Only for her to snap his neck which reminded me of his death in the Ultimatum comics where Magneto snapped Xavier's death, which I also hated in the comics.

Yeah, Wanda is really powerful in the comics so of course Charles would struggle. But, I thought it'd be different in the MCU or something. Guess not....it still hurt to see that though.

Honestly, I'm so done with seeing this character die. Sure his last two deaths had an emotional impact with Logan, Storm and the other X-Men, but this was just more anger-inducing because this was just to show how Wanda is a big threat, which okay yeah sure. But, did he had to die like that?! Also, in X-Men Apocalypse, Charles fought Apocalypse in his mindscape but the injuries he had in that fight didn't appear in his physical form. So, would the neck snap still happen physically or at least do major damage to him? Cause I'm confused about that.

This is the third X-Men character that was brought into the MCU (fourth if you count Evan Peters' Quicksilver), and look what they've done. A Quicksilver who dies in a lame way and is forgotten and barely mentioned in years until Wandavision. Hell, Wanda doesn't even bother trying to find her TWIN BROTHER through the multiverse, but her kids that only existed in the hex. Another Quicksilver who isn't Pietro, but another guy for the sake of a boner joke. Wanda, who's a whole can of worms right there that many people here have pointed out so much wrong about her (better than I could). And, Charles Xavier, who was just nostalgia bait and killed off to hype up an antagonist who I don't give a damn about and wants her to go away.

If this is what the MCU has done to those characters, imagine what they'll do to Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Jean, Ice Man, Nightcrawler, Beast, Magneto, Mystique, Deadpool or any other character. If they're done dirty just like the previous ones, then Disney and Marvel Studios shouldn't have gotten their hands on the X-Men. Same for Fantastic Four.

#professor x #charles xavier #x-men #anti dsmom #anti mcu #anti mcu wanda #anti wanda maximoff #mcu critical #charles xavier deserves better #mcu salt