Once A Hero, Always A Hero🦾

Something I wish we got a little more of was Coulson comforting/encouraging Fitz??? That dynamic was played out a little bit, yes, but I feel like there's something there.

The way how Coulson would clasp Fitz shoulder as he was on the verge of tears, and in s4 when Coulson laid his forehead on Fitz' head telling him it was gonna be alright, and how he held Fitz' forearms as he was spiralling after coming out of the Framework....

Do you think Coulson was imitating what his father did for him when he was little? Comfort through physicality? I'd like to think so...

But also, Coulson has to know about Fitz' dad and how he left. He's gotta know there's a sort of hurt there. Maybe he feels the need to step in a little bit and show him what a real father is like? That it's okay to not only break, but to also be gentle.

nothing will ever live up to the moment when after devouring over 250 pages deeply immersed in the characters and story and after the emotions of the proposal I reached the very end of the letter that turns everything on its head only to find out that Mr Darcy's name is Fitzwilliam

The Lay of Leithian

(insp)

What are some of your favorite fictional teams and crews? Groups of characters whose relationship is founded on the goal of accomplishing something together. They might become close friends and important presences in each other's lives--or just finishing the mission without biting each other's heads off might be a win--but either way, they have to work together and use each other's skills. I love this type of dynamic--tell me yours!

Reblog if it's okay to invade your ask box

Always

I attended a The Oh Hellos ( @theohfficialhellos )  concert this past Friday, which happened to coincide with Good Friday.  One of there songs, Caesar, describes Christ’s Passion, so I had to make a comic and give it to them (I was able to give it to their merch guy, I hope the rest of band saw it!)

On an aside, that night, the concert, was particularly healing for me, as I’ve been going through some dark valleys lately.  Sometimes Gods love appears in the form of a banjo ya know?

I really don't like it when people try to present Team Cap and Team Iron Man as being the same thing, bc they're very clearly not? (And sorry for doing this type of discourse in 2025, but it needs to be said)

Because let's be honest, the mainline MCU didn't really focus on the Sokovia Accords past Civil War. It's not present in Doctor Strange, Black Widow, Homecoming (at least in a large capacity), certainly not Ragnarok or GOTG 2, Black Panther, and almost no one cares by Infinity War. When we look at the projects post Accords, there are hardly any moments where they matter, and by 2025, they're fully repealed. Nine years of being active, five of whom were during the Snap, meaning only four years, and most of the projects don't go very in depth. That tends to lead mainline audiences into believing it was never that bad in the first place and that Cap was being selfish

But we see how the Accords really effect everyday powered people in the supplemental material like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. After being introduced, powered people had three options

Go into hiding. Live a normal life. Never show off your abilities

Sign the Accords. If you were part of a government agency like S.H.I.E.L.D., it is heavily implied you had to sign or you couldn't work for them anymore

Don't sign and show off your powers? You go to the Raft

This went for everyone, it didn't matter if your power was making farts smell good, you counted as powered. Imagine the bank down the street is getting robbed, with these in place, you couldn't do anything about it if you weren't signed or you risked going to jail; they're awful options

Or what if you were signed? Great, now all your information (powers, weaknesses, danger level, LITERALLY EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU) is held in a massive server that can be easily hacked and accessed. We see in AoS s4 that signed Inhumans are getting harmed bc the Watchdogs, a hate organization, was able to get their hands on their information and find out exactly where they were. POWERED PEOPLE WORE TRACKERS THAT WAS CONSTANTLY BEING UPDATED ON THEIR LOCATION. THAT'S FUCKING WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS

Let's switch gears for a sec here and go to another side, where thankfully, that isn't happening to you, but you do wanna make some kind of change in your community. You notice that people are going missing, that there's weird power outages and decide that's worth looking into, so you go to the council and present your case. Now, as we all know, politicians never agree on anything, so the chance of getting an immediate yes is almost impossible (I'd argue 1% is far too generous in this case). It may take weeks, months, or the decision is swept under the rug and oopsies, now the entirety of Florida is covered by a blanket of darkness!

Or you get a no, and actually, they want you to check out this tiny little village in New Zealand, and so you have no choice but to go. You quickly realize that this isn't really worth your time and feel like your services are required elsewhere, but again, you're not able to back out. When you return, you find that London has been utterly destroyed. This is a situation that Steve himself brings up, and it's something that absolutely could happen! There are just endless risks to this

Then, of course, the worst scenario, being sent to the Raft, which, bc it's in international waters, they can do whatever they want to you!! Doesn't matter if it's inhumane, no one can do shit about it. It's stated in "Jessica Jones" that prisoners aren't allowed to have any contact with the outside world, and if you go in there, you go in for good. Almost no one makes it out. Again, it doesn't matter who you were and what your powers were, you would be stuck inside with the worst of the worst. WANDA MAXIMOFF WAS IN A SHOCK COLLAR AND STRAIGHTJACKET. How in any situation is that okay??

Steve understood this, understood the true consequences of handing themselves over to hundreds of governments. He wasn't against having regulations (neither am I) but he knew this wasn't the right way to go

One side holds all the power. The other holds nothing. This is in no way equal

Friendly reminder that Bucky Barnes read "The Hobbit" when it first came out and therefore he is a Tolkien-adjacent character. And a huge hot nerd.

Sam: I have a feeling they might be a part of the big three. Bucky: What big three? Sam: Androids, aliens, and wizards. Bucky: That's not a thing. Sam: That's definitely a thing. Bucky: No, it's not. Sam: Every time we fight, we fight one of the three. Bucky: So who are you fighting now, Gandalf? Sam: Ev- How do you know about Gandalf? Bucky: I read The Hobbit. In 1937. When it first came out.

it's funny how often, in the queen's thief books, the sad and shocking twist is that the love was there all along. there's the big obvious one, of course, but it comes up again and again: Dite with his hopeless crush, Sejanus with his mocking cruelties, Relius with his abject devotion and Teleus with his stalwart loyalty, Attolia's ladies closing ranks around her, Sophos telling all his tale and bashfully leaving out how often and how wistfully he thought of Eddis. in other cases it grows silently and catches our narrator by surprise: Costis down the well, Pol on the cliffside.

and it doesn't save everyone. love is not always a gentle thing, and it's not always enough. the minister of war nearly strangled his son to death. Sejanus committed treason. Eddis went to war. but it's always there, unobtrusive as a shadow, pervasive as the sunlight.

I think sometimes of a quote from mwt saying she front-loads the trauma: the worst thing that is going to happen to the characters, emotionally, generally happens in the first few chapters. their world ends, their life shatters, they lose everything, they are alone and afraid with no allies and no hope. and then we rebuild. over the course of slow, painstaking pages, they regain their footing in the world, carve out a new self, discover a new perspective and a new strength. further ills befall, of course, and at the great climax everything seems bleak and dire once again, but it's still not the worst thing to happen to them. they face the dire moment bravely, afraid but not alone, certain now in who they are and how they will face the end if it comes.

I'm still mulling this over, I don't have a tidy knot to tie between these points, but they feel connected. something about the compassion woven through these stories, both for the characters and for the readers. something about how they're tales of intrigue and adventure, yes, but they're also stories about building something good, and about seeing the best in people even when their worst is horrific, and about love as an act of courage in a cruel world. love as an act of faith. love as the last thing left that might be able to save you.