[NEWS OUTLET VOICE OVER]Doctor Jane Foster was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her groundbreaking work on the
Einstein-Rosen bridge theory attributed to Thor’s intergalactic travel methods, as well as her work in finding a cure and a treatment to those affected by Loki’s failed attempt at colonizing this world through the Battle of New York, last night in Stockholm, Sweden. She received the prize off the hands of now world famous theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly, who has gained recent fame in his collaboration with the United States army during the Apparition of the 12 alien shells, and assisted Professor Louise Banks in deciphering an alien language. It would seem that we’re beginning to understand the powers around us a little bit better, aren’t we?
Clint watches the replays, hand resting lazily on the remote control. He isn’t absolutely sure as to why he feels so tired – it wasn’t so much being undercover and still being on television, it was the entire sense of achievement. When he’d learnt that Jane was up for the Nobel Physics prize, he had immediately asked Helen Cho and Erik Selvig for their opinion – sure, they had helped him with getting fine tuned to his role as Ian Donnelly, but maybe he needed their expertise a bit more when it came to the fucking Nobel prize.
Thankfully, not a lot of people cared about this year’s prizes, other than the one attributed to literature- Bob Dylan, of all people. He laughs, more of a chuckle, as he turns the television off.
It had been a night where he had felt so out of place – everything was scheduled down to the first plate to be brought out to the security everywhere. If anything, he’d hoped – half expected – the secret services responsible for the protection of the Swedish Royal Family to do a security check on all guests present. Or, maybe, as Helen had told him later on, when he’d promised to guide her through the ceremony and get contact cards for some scientists she wanted to talk science with, it was because the secret service had figured out Ian was just a cover for the Avenger Hawkeye, and had decided that he posed no threat.
(After all, opinions in most European countries was that if anything, if an Avenger like Hawkeye wanted to pay tribute to a scientist who had been able to explain part of the Scandinavian mythology in a logical and sound manner, as well as helped them find a way to understand mind control and move mental health therapy forward, it would be okay).
He smiles to himself.
Jane had thought he was there for protection – she’d asked him, a whisper in his ear as he handed her the prize, if this was like Miss Congeniality, where they put someone in with the rest of the scientists? He’d shaken his head and laughed, moving aside to let her shine.
He didn’t tell her that her experiments, studies and research on the Infinity Gems is what keeps him going – somehow, he wishes she could find the solution faster. But, he guesses, she battles her own battles with her stone, just like he does his, and if anything… She can maybe actually crack the code to healing all of those who had been taken by magic far more advanced than they had ever thought.
based on @alexinthestrangeworld‘s tags on this gifset of when Jeremy Renner awarded Natalie Portman with the Best Actress award at the 2016 Critics Choice Awards:
#okay but imagine #jane wins yet another award for her scientific achievements #maybe one for her studies on bifrost #or maybe reality gem #clint is there undercover as some physicist (ian donnelly ‘cause why not?) #and he is the one give her the award #but also give a little speech thanking her for what she shared with the world #of course jane knows clint and as he hands her a statuette she ask what is it all about #they expect a terrorist attack? an assassin maybe?he just smiles and whispers that he really wanted to be the one who thanks her tonight #he mumbles something about infinity gems and how her studies will make dealing with them a lot safer in the future #he thanks her once more than disappears backstage leaving spotlight for her #yea
The first time Nursey saw one of those movies where someone drove out to some middle-of-nowhere field and screamed, all he could think was, wow, that’s fucking genius.
As a 15 year old, he was full of annoyances and frustration, but as the only black kid in a place like Andover, he was overflowing with anger and a bullshit sense of otherness they’d forced on him. He wished he could be the guy in that movie, shouting his frustrations out into the void where he couldn’t be judged for it.
At 16 years old, the day he got his driver’s license, he drove to an old farm that’d been abandoned for years a few miles outside the city, and he let everything come pouring out of him. Rich, entitled white kids and their equally shitty parents, his fear of anyone finding out he was queer and becoming even more of an outlier, his mind numbing anxiety about his future.
He was there for two hours. He screamed, and he screamed some more, and then he laughed. He laughed and fell back onto the ground, because fuck, that felt good. Nobody heard it, nobody knew he was anything but the chill facade he’d kept up for years, but he still felt lighter than he had since he was a little kid.
The first time anyone came with him on one of these nights was at Samwell. He’d gotten stoned with Lardo, and he was sat on the couch watching a movie, pleasantly fuzzy, when Chowder slammed the front door of the house and stalked in, pausing and forcing his face into something happier when he saw Nursey.
“Hey,” he said, a tight smile on his face.
Nursey shook his head and stood, grabbing Chowder by the arm and dragging him outside.
“Get in,” he said, nodding towards his car. “You’re driving because I smoked with Lards earlier. I’ll tell you where to go. It’ll make you feel better, I swear.”
Chowder nodded and opened the door on the driver’s side, hopping in and waiting for Nursey to follow and hand him the keys. Nursey did so, and Chowder started the car, pulling away from the Haus and following Nursey’s directions.
Nursey directed him to a grassy hilltop half an hour away from Samwell, and ignored Chowder’s confused expression, sliding out of the car and walking to the peak of it. Chowder followed him and stood next to him, unsure of what they were doing here.
“I know it’s cliché as fuck and something straight out of teenage movies, but this shit works,” he said. “Just fucking scream man. Doesn’t even have to be words, if you don’t want it to be, it’s just the best thing to get everything out.”
Chowder nodded and took a deep breath, shouting in the direction of the trees. There weren’t any words, just a frustrated scream into the air.
“Hell yeah!” Nursey shouted when Chowder was done, clapping him on the back. “It helps, right?”
Chowder nodded, his face surprised.
“You do this a lot?” he asked.
“Not as much as I used to, but yeah. How do you think I can be so chill when people are being pieces of shit? I get to come here and scream about how shit they are afterwards,” he said, nodding his head.
Chowder laughed, smiling as he yelled again, though this time it was a “Fuck you, Williams!”
Nursey lost it at that, flopping down onto the ground and cackling. He cupped his hands around his mouth, a smile on his face, shouting, “Yeah, fuck you, whoever the fuck you are!”
Chowder sat next to him, out of breath from laughing, and laid his head on Nursey’s shoulder.
“Thanks for this,” he said, a small smile on his face.
“Anytime, man. Just don’t tell anyone about this place. Except maybe Lardo,” Nursey told him.
“Nobody else knows?” Chowder asked, his surprise evident in his voice.
“Hell no, who else would I bring? Everybody else has a way of dealing with their shit.”
Chowder nodded.
“Lardo would think you’re a genius,” he said.
“Probably. I’ll bring her too next time.”
When they did bring Lardo, she put them both to shame, screaming about everything that pissed her off until her voice went hoarse. And she did, in fact, think Nursey was a genius for it.
look I know it’s been like 3 years since any women had a a meaningful conversation in an MCU movie but that’s no reason to skimp on the femslash there are so many possibilities
Helen Cho and Claire Temple go out for coffee; end up falling in love over mutual complaining about their ridiculous superheroes.
Pepper Potts and Hope Van Dyne meet up to negotiate cooperations between Stark Industries and Pym Tech. Aggressive negotiating turns into eye fucking turns into making out in someone’s office.
Sharon Carter having a ridiculous crush on Bobbi Morse ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. boot camp and wanting to tear her hair out every time Bobbi gets back with Hunter.
Ayo accompanies T’Challa to Avengers Tower on business; is so hot that Useless Bisexal ™ Helen Cho actually drops whatever she was holding.
The Avengers appear on Trish Talk and after being totally unimpressed by any of the guys Trish Walker discovers she can’t even make eye contact with Natasha Romanoff without turning bright red. What are coherent sentences?
Jane Foster and Lady Sif get tired of waiting for Thor to quit dicking around and notice one of them; Sif sweeps Jane off her feet and they ride off into the sunset together.
Jessica Jones starts jokingly flirting with Claire Temple, asking if she wants to cross another Defender off her list. To her absolute shock Claire takes her up on it.
Before she infiltrated Stark Industries, Natasha Romanoff went undercover at Pym Tech. She stole their corporate secrets and Hope Van Dyne’s heart.
Daisy Johnson and Wanda Maximoff take a day off from being stressed out baby superheroes with crappy lives and messed up families to go see a movie together. Making out ensues.
Melinda May, who deserves nice things and rough sex, starts hooking up with Agent Piper, who’s a little scared but also really doesn’t want to question her luck.
Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis have been living together for a year and a half, but don’t realize they’re married until they absentmindedly kiss in the lab one night.
Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the galaxy, becomes a stammering dork when faced with Mantis being completely adorable. Mantis is puzzled.
I could do these literally all day please come talk to me about MCU femslash or tell me yours I need more gay MCU ladies
We all know that Hoth was a simmering mess of hormones and stress and I would pay good money for a soap opera about them. Here are some things which Definitely Happened:
There’s a betting pool going on who takes Luke’s virginity. The favourites are Han and Leia, but Wedge Antilles has pretty good odds, and there’s a small contingent of aliens who are convinced it will be Chewie (after all, who could resist that Wookie musk? Headcanon: most alien races consider humans soft and gross. Most alien races find Wookies absurdly attractive. Han Solo isn’t the ladykiller; Chewie is.)
Leia and Han scream at each other in every corner of the base. Everyone is desperate for them to fuck. They do not. The sexual tension is so thick that it could be cut into blocks and sold as wall insulation. More than once they are ‘accidentally’ locked in a supply cupboard in the vain hope that claustrophobia will act as the catalyst that enables their frustration to spark into true love – or at least nasty raunchy cupboard sex. It does not. All that happens is that the offender has legally changed their name to escape the Wrath of Organa.
Someone paints a shirtless Han Solo on their X Wing. Leia is furious. Han is delighted: both at the highly flattering portrait (he has an eight-pack, he is shredded) and at Leia’s fury (you’re jealous princess/no I am not/you’re jealous, hey I can pose like that for you if you –). Hoth’s winter had nothing on the chilly silence that followed that suggestion.
Luke and Leia both have very graphic dreams about Han Solo. Han Solo has very graphic dreams about the twins – individually, together, he’s thirty fucking years old, why is his brain doing this to him.(Later on they will, individually, realise that due to Luke and Leia’s Force-bond they probably created a circle of Han Solo Sex Dreams: Leia had them, so Luke sensed her lust for Han which intensified his own lust for Han, which led to Luke having Han Solo sex dreams, which led to Leia lusting – and so on, and so on. For the sake of their sanity, they never share this revelation which each other.)
Luke is SO COLD. All the time. WHY DOES NO ONE APPRECIATE HOW COLD HE IS. He comes from a desert world. Of course he’s cold! What is all this white stuff? It was pretty for the first fve seconds but holy fucking Force it is so cold it burns and what the hell is going on with that? He bundles himself up in so many layers that he waddles rather than walks. Fearsome Last of the Jedi indeed.
Luke tapes a knife to a cleaning droid (disc-shaped things that swish around the base, sucking up dirt) and names it Stabby. Why, says Leia. Luke, the boy from Tatooine, shining and happy despite everything says why not. Why not indeed. Stabby is very fond of chasing Han. Han wants desperately to shoot the fucking thing– but then he sees big-eyed Luke and sharp-toothed Leia cooing over it and, well. A little bit of light stabbing is nothing, compared to those two smiling.
STABBY THE SPACE ROOMBA!
I am torn between wanting Stabby to be grabbed and evacuated along with the Rebels and make it to the next base, and wanting Stabby to get Vader.
Compromise: shortly after losing the Millennium Falcon, Vader, storming through the Rebel base, is startled to feel a sudden jolt of pain from the artificial sensors on his left leg prosthetic: a sharp sensation on his ankle. Surprised, because he sensed no threat–is the limb malfunctioning?–he looks down, and there is a cleaning droid with a knife taped to it, a little painted-on Rebel lieutenant’s insignia, and the word STABBY written on it.
He stares down at it, completely and utterly taken aback for the first time in over a decade. Fearlessly, it chitters back at him, sounding very triumphant.
He picks it up.
Off in the fractal weirdness of hyperspace, Rebels on several ships are surprised to find an update on Stabby’s kill-update feed, and then thoroughly shocked at the accompanying image: the upward-pointing camera has captured an image of Darth Vader staring down at the droid.
It’s the fastest news ever to travel through the Rebel grapevine, the mix of triumph and loss that is, they are certain, Stabby’s heroic last stand.
Until a day later, when the thing updates again, this time showing an extremely confused Imperial officer. And another, and another, and another, day after day.
They cancel the funeral.
Vader hasn’t done much just for the fun of it in two decades. Watching Imperial officers swear and clutch their ankles as a cleaning drone with a knife taped to it, an Imperial emblem, lieutenant’s insignia, and the word STABBY painted on it, bumps into them and then chatters triumphantly, he’s figured he’s earned.
STABBY FIC! STABBY STARWARS FIC! YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY!
But do they send in a rescue unit to reclaim their most honorable POW?
no, the rebels are all too happy to have vader backing one of their most valuable psychological weapons. stabby’s antics are invaluable for their ability to escalate tension within imperial ranks, and vader’s personal amusement means stabby will get to keep running his miniature interference mission for a long time to come
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS
STABBY LIVESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Grand Moff Tarkin limps into Vader’s quarters. Again. “Lord Vader, enough of this.”
“I have altered the droid; pray I do not alter it any further.”
(If there’s one thing young Anakin Skywalker can appreciate, it’s a hot-rodded maintenance droid, c’mon.)
VADER PUTS A LIGHTSABRE ON STABBY
HE CALLS IT HIS APPRENTICE
MY SON WILL NOT TURN TO THE DARKSIDE BUT MY SON’S STABBY SON WILL
Stabby is eventually recovered and given a medal after the defeat of the Emperor, but his poor little chassis is too badly damaged by then to even hold onto the knife anymore. His internal mechanism is removed and upgraded, and then the Master Droid Tech charged with fixing him casts around for a new casing to put him in.
“Hey!” calls a teenaged Poe Dameron, walking into the Droid repair shop. “I got this decommissioned BB-8 chassis they said to bring in here. It needs a new owner. Captain said I can have it if I can find a new mechanism for it.”
The Master Droid Tech looks at Stabby, then at the BB-8 chassis, then back at Stabby. Stabby turns his unsheathed ocular sensor to Poe and beeps adoringly. (This is a common if relatively new reaction to Poe Dameron, who has just graduated from his Awkward Stage.)
“Yeah, I got one for you right here,” the Tech says, grinning.
It’s the complete results of the Fansplaining Fic Preferences Survey! What were the tropes people loved? The ones they hated? The ones everyone was like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ about? GO FIND OUT NOW!
This is much more detailed than the title suggests and it’s pretty fascinating. Who knew the eighth most popular AU type is “non-coffeeshop retail & service industry”?
“You have to be kidding me.” Peggy doesn’t try to hide the sharp disbelief from her voice as she glares at the men who consider themselves her superiors. Honestly she wouldn’t put it past Dooley to go out of his way to make her miserable. Thompson, wearing a smirk on his face, isn’t helping.
“Some of the preliminarily simulations we’ve run suggest you two might be Drift Compatible,” Dooley says. “Will that be a problem, Carter? I thought you wanted to get back in a Jaegar.”
“Yeah, Peg, is there a problem?” The handcuffs rattle as Dottie shifts position, grinning at Peggy.
Peggy looks between her pig-headed chief and the smiling Russian assassin who has tried to kill her more than once. She isn’t sure which sight is more unappealing.
“Sir,” she says to Dooley, “she is a criminal. A known enemy of the country and the Jaegar program.”
“And she just might be the last option we have,” Dooley says flatly.
Thompson’s grin only grows. “What’s the matter, Marge? You don’t think you can handle her?”
Dottie’s smile is wolfish, all sharp teeth and predatory promise. “Oh, I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”
In a way, Peggy feels like she should be grateful to be Compatible with Dottie. She might have finally found someone who can keep up.
“No,” John said, standing up straight for maybe the first time in his life.
“No?” Landry raised an eyebrow and the screen flickered momentarily as the connection through wormhole fluctuated. “What do mean, ‘no,’ Colonel?”
“I mean I’m not coming. Tell them there was an emergency. Or tell them the truth for all I care. I’m not traveling to another galaxy to shake the tiny hand of a racist, sexist, xenophobic cheeto and pretend to like it.”
“I might be persuaded to go just to see the look on his sorry excuse for a second in command’s face when you introduce me as your husband,” Rodney piped in sarcastically from behind John. “We can tell him all about the gays in space who save his ass every day.”
“Yeah, just tell him we’ve all caught the gay and had to be quarantined so it doesn’t spread to the rest of his precious, totally straight military. Nobody’s ever relieved the stress of living in a combat zone with a little guy on guy hand job exchange,” John drawled.
Landry rubbed his temples.
“I’m afraid I stand with Colonel Sheppard and Dr. McKay on this issue, General,” Woolsey interjected. “This is an IOA expedition after all, and the, er, man’s policies have the potential to be incredibly divisive among our expedition members, many of whom are from the very countries the, er, president–” Woolsey swallowed, as though the word caused bile to rise in his throat–“Has continuously vilified without cause.”
“I see,” said Landry after considering them for a moment. It lasted so long, John was beginning to think the screen was frozen. “Off the record, I can’t say I blame you. To be honest, I’m a little jealous of your current position in another galaxy. On the record, I’m so sorry to hear of Atlantis’ recent outbreak of Athosian Whooping Cough. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.”
also palpatine knew leia was anakin’s daughter from the moment she made planetfall on coruscant.
of course, was more generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter; when the threat comes—and it will come, he would not be a sith master if he could not feel the force gathering like a storm—he knows alderaan will be the tip of the spear. accordingly, he has armed himself against it. why else would palpatine have pressured bail to retire from the imperial senate, and send his beloved daughter in his place?
(children are weaknesses, children are the softest, most vulnerable place, where any blunted knife can cut. he has known this since anakin came to him, wracked with nightmares of birth and death.)
but being generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter is very different than knowing leia organa, feeling her drop like an ion bomb through the atmosphere of coruscant, so screaming-loud and shiveringly powerful through the force that palpatine stops dead. it’s been over fifteen years since he last felt that raw, unchecked, untaught power—since anakin skywalker returned to coruscant after so long away, all of nineteen and long-limbed, something animal have taken up residence under his skin. palpatine had taken one look and wanted to leash it.
and now his daughter is here.
(palpatine has been making do with such puny, stunted specimens lately. crippled things, taught in the dark by vader and then presented to him as though they were something to be proud of. but a skywalker daughter, who did not even know enough to shield herself from him—)
palpatine is patient. (he has always been patient.) he does not reach out, he makes no overture; instead he gives her his glittering planet with all its pleasures and strangeness. he even pulls his spies and guards back, to give her more room to run. aldera is hardly a backwater swill, but there is nothing in the galaxy like coruscant.
on the fifth day, the junior senators are presented to the emperor.
leia organa looks so very much like her mother, that for a moment, palpatine is back on naboo, standing before another little girl with a crown of braids. but her expression is all anakin, a badly-hidden contempt behind her eyes.
“leia organa,” emperor palpatine says, extending his hand for her to bow over. “we are gratified by your coming. may you serve us as loyally as your father has.”
Steel Phoenix Studios 