The Story

More thoughts on the rest of season one:

Raina keeps talking about what she and Skye will become even way back here.

A guy stabs May and she later uses the same knife on him, just like with Izel later.

The contrast of Quinn hugging Skye to shoot her again more effectively with Coulson cradling her body hurts.

Garrett doesn't realize that all the kerfuffle is because Hydra has revealed themselves until Skye decrypts the signal.

When Coulson locks May up in the cage, you can see Ward trying to figure out if she's Hydra too. He's so confused for a minute, and it's hilarious to me.

Speaking of Ward, Raina tells him how she would manipulate him if that's what she wanted to do and then immediately follows up and does it, but he totally falls for it.

I forgot how intense (and ridiculous) Fitz's one-sided grudge against Tripp is. The Moby Dick bit is great.

Daniels tells Audrey something like, "I'm a monster, but you can save me," which is interestingly similar to how Ward is treating Skye in these episodes.

Speaking of which, the cello continuing to play over Skye discovering Koenig's body is amazing.

Skye says May left because she didn't care at all, but it's the opposite—she cares too much.

While they're talking by the pool, Jemma says Fitz will never have to find out what it would be like if she were Hydra, but thanks to the Framework, she will have to see him that way. Poor babies.

Garrett sarcastically tells Deathlock/Mike that he loves him right before a cut to Fitzsimmons in the pod.

Coulson says Skye was compassionate, not weak, when she chose not to let Ward die, whereas Garrett calls any sign of compassion in Ward weakness. It really hammers home how much of a difference it makes who finds you.

I've recently started rewatching Agents of Shield with my sister who hasn't seen it before, so here are some rewatch-inspired thoughts about the first half of season one:

The Bus Kids are all such babies! Especially Skye.

May gets knocked out in each of the first two episodes. It's definitely taking her a moment to readjust to fieldwork.

So many Shield water bottles.

Even though I know what Ward actually is, he still makes me like the version of himself we see here.

May and Coulson's one-sided conversations are amazing.

I honestly can't remember. Did Ward's younger brother die in the well? The flashes we see aren't super clear.

Interesting that Coulson tells Skye that there was a little girl in Bahrain, but he doesn't mention that she died.

I'd never realized that we get a glimpse of the carvings during Coulson's flashbacks of being revived.

Speaking of which, I thought looking at the carvings was what triggered his instinct to carve, but the drawings on the whiteboard in Eye Spy don't seem to set him off.

I love the way that when Coulson is kidnapped, he doesn't say the "Previously on" or "We'll return in a moment" bits. I remembered that from later seasons, but it's a nice touch to start it now.

I'm being stupid again...

I previously had a Coulson thought the other day, but couldn't remember where he grew up, so I googled it, right? Then I did some v v light research about the area, and uh....

You've gotta be joking me...

Febuwhump Day 19: Death Wish (Captain America)

“So why did you decide to crash the plane into the ice? Wasn’t there another option?”

The breath froze in Steve’s lungs. He blinked at the interviewer, who was leaning over his desk with concerned eyebrows and a wicked glint in his eyes.

That question hadn’t been on the approved list.

They’d promised they would stick to the list. It was the only reason Steve had agreed to a live interview, his first since being thawed out, his first since coming into this new world where he was a piece of history, not a person.

And now they asked him this, on live TV.

Steve cleared his throat, clasped and unclasped his hands between his khaki-clad knees. “I’m not sure I understand the question,” he said quietly, hoping that would be enough to re-route the interviewer back to the list.

The interviewer didn’t take the hint. Instead, he unfolded a piece of paper, tapping it with one manicured finger. “Your decision to ground the plane has been studied by experts since the records were declassified,” he said, flashing perfect teeth in a predatory grin. “They estimate there were at least six other ways out of the situation without taking it down. So why was that the route you took? Was it a death wish?”

Steve’s throat closed. For a moment, he could only see the glaring white of the ice through the windshield, hear the static of the radio, the shriek of the wind…

He kept his jaw set, measuring each breath until his vision cleared and he could see the room again. The studio audience waited in breathless anticipation; the interviewer had arranged his face into an expression of polite concern. Somewhere behind him, Steve could hear the furiously whispered argument as SHIELD’s PR rep urged the television crew to go to a commercial break.

“Your experts are misinformed. There was no other option,” Steve said quietly, once he was sure he could keep his voice steady. Then he got to his feet, moving quickly enough that nobody expected the movement until he was shaking the surprised interviewer’s immaculately-manicured hand, squeezing hard enough that the bones creaked under his fingers. “Thank you for having me today,” he said loudly, speaking over the interviewer’s gasp of pain.

The exits were blocked—there was no easy way off the stage. That didn’t bother Steve. He locked eyes with the first kid in the audience he saw, and pulled a pen out of his pocket as he stepped over the camera cables and into the studio audience, leaving the stammering interviewer, cradling his hand, alone on the stage.

Within seconds he was safely surrounded by a delighted crowd seeking autographs. The audience door was a few yards away, and beyond that was freedom.

This interview was over.

But even as Steve smiled and worked his way towards the door, signing hats and hands and t-shirts as he went, the only thing he could hear was the whistle of the wind through the desolate cockpit, and the tremble in Peggy’s voice as she bravely talked him through those last few minutes.

No, there had been no death wish. In that final moment, Steve had wanted to live more than he ever had before.

It had made his choice all the harder.

And now, stranded in this new world, where people analyzed his decisions, dissected and pulled him apart like some grotesque thought experiment, he found himself more isolated even than he had been on that doomed plane.

Because then, at least, he’d had someone who cared.

————

Written for @febuwhump

In the spirit of the “picnic of hobbits” post—and with the help of the genius mind of @redbootsindoriath—I give you MORE funny group names for the various races in Middle Earth:

A stone of dwarves

A dirt of Rangers

A yeehaw of Rohirrim

A keg of Breelanders

A gumption of Gondorians

A desolation of Laketowners

A murder of elves (Silmarillion)

A song of elves (The Hobbit)

A contemplation of elves (LotR)

A troll of goblins

A gobblin’ of trolls

A staff meeting of wizards

And you might think that a group of ents is called a “moot”, but there’s actually a different term that I would tell you if it wasn’t incredibly long and impossible to pronounce

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?

Happy Birthday Chloe Bennet! 🎂🎉

reblog if you’re okay with people writing fanfics of your fanfics and/or fanfics inspired by your fanfics

i love you im glad you exist im so happy you’re alive

5 seconds later...

Driving lessons with the SHIELD family.

B2MEM - "I will not bid the stars farewell, nor say the day is done."

@spring-into-arda (397 words)

There was a point where hoping that things might yet get better - or that at the very least they might endure as they currently were - was not, perhaps, sensible.

With the protections of the Valley breached and the enemy even now pounding at the last barricaded door to his halls, Elrond had to admit that this point might have been reached.

It was an almost unimportant thought, however. For one thing, it changed nothing; this was not an enemy they could surrender to. They would defeat it, or they would be destroyed; there was no other path to seek.

For another, he had spent an uncomfortable amount of his life at this point. Most of his childhood, certainly. And yet, time and again, the light had endured.

The light, he was certain, would again. If he himself would - Well, that mattered far less than those of his people gathered here with grim purpose behind the shuddering door. This hall had been meant for songs and feasting, but he was a child of the First Age and had built accordingly; it would hold a siege a while yet.

Most of those who had won to this redoubt were armed and ready, but there were injured among them, and he moved among those quickly now, giving what chance he could that they might stand ready when the time came.

His ring weighed heavily on his hand.

He had not leaned on it much. He had not dared. And now -

Now he must make his choice. Throw his will and his might into its blatant use - reveal beyond all doubts its presence, throw his will against Sauron’s - or take one last desperate measure to hide it, that at least those others who might still be fighting might have a better chance.

Both measures were likely doomed unless help came.

There was no help that might yet come.

And yet -

And yet.

How many times had he thought those words before?

The door shuddered.

Cracked.

He squeezed the hand of his last patient and stood, drawing his sword at long last.

“We stand!” he cried, the full power of his will weaving through the words.

“We stand!” his people echoed in a response that shook the timbers of the roof.

Splinters flew from the door.

Above the thunderous roars that followed, he could just hear one more impossibly powerful, impossibly familiar voice, ringing out in distant answer.