ABrighterDarkness

My piece for @alwaysabrighterdarkness who accepted my 2nd chance offer in @marveltrumpshate 2025!

ABD requested Natasha in a balletic pose. Needless to say I needed to know if they wouldn't mind me going all the way with the ballet theme, and it was a yes!I wanted to keep this piece on the simpler side, especially since it is a full body portrait and I wanted the focus on Natasha. Been a while since I drew a full female figure and portrait in the same piece, I think I did a decent job portraying Nat here!

Medium: Pencil sketch and watercolor on 10"x14" Arches cold press watercolor paper. Pose reference stock from faestock.

1) Has a favorite person whom he spends almost all of his time interacting with

2. He loves back pats (Natasha gives him back pats, Bucky gives him back pats, Steve gives ppl back pats)

3. Spends a lot of his time alone, in the quiet, in sun spots, curled up somewhere

3.5. On this note! Steve spends a lot of his time alone and in social situations where there are multiple people, he sticks to the fringes and is still pretty quiet, though he does interact alot with his FAVORITE. PEOPLE! Cat!! Thats what cats do!!

4. WHEN hes SAD he GOES AWAY and SULKS BY HIMSELF

5. Stubborn! Cats are not controllable animals, they are very independent and strong-willed...yknow who else is!?!?

6. Throws himself from tall places

7. ......look at him. He is literally a cat.

IN CONCLUSION.....STEVE ROGERS IS A CATBOY

A CATBOY I SAY!!!!

"Bucky had an enormous family," Steve explained with a cheerful blitheness that Natasha immediately saw for what it was: a front, a distraction to let Barnes collect himself. "He had his Ma and his Dad and three sisters, and then you had two uncles there living with you—your mother's brothers, right? Younger brothers?" and Barnes jerked a nod. "Right, and then your Grandma in the basement apartment—so there were nine of you in that house," and Natasha immediately understood what Steve was telling her: that James Buchanan Barnes had been brought up as a social animal, and was still a social animal, in a way that Steve, for all his nearly luminescent goodness, was not. There was something distant about Steve, some essential apartness—and that was maybe one of the ways in which she and Steve were alike, Natasha realized. They were family-deprived scrappers, lone survivors. Steve's aloofness was somehow key to his strength, which was more like the beaten-down toughness of an alley cat than—

She had to bite her lip, hard, to keep from smiling. Steve Rogers was an alley cat...and James Barnes was the sort of person who'd open a window for a stray, give it a saucer of milk and a home in the shop. And Steve—introverted, aloof, go-it-alone Steve—was a guy who loved his goddamned dogs: animals that were social, obedient, useful—loyal and so terrifyingly trainable. And that thought chased away any desire to smile.

This blew me the fuck away. Bucky is a dog! The "terrifyingly trainable" part is a reference to his past as the Winter Soldier! (Also, Bucky does have a cat in this series, a cat he calls Shop Cat and insists is just there for catching mice, but when he needs comfort he seeks her out and holds her.)

(Source)

Is it just me or did our generation (those of is who are currently 20-30 ish) just not get the opportunity to be young in the 'standard' sense?

Don't get me wrong, we had fun. But all of that, threats of not graduating, threats of failing classes over a single test, over some mini golf and ice cream?

Throughout high school and early in college, my friend group got kicked out of malls, stores, and even a parking lot just for being there wrong. Not being loud of disruptive. Not causing problems. Just being there too long, or without buying anything.

My mom graduated high school, after repeating her senior year, without a single grade above a D, and was offered a full ride scholarship to a state university to play on their women's football team. I had a 3.8 GPA, multiple extracurriculars, a summer job, and over 100 hours of volunteer work, and barely got into that same university, and then couldn't afford to go there anyway.

We've made getting into college so important and yet so difficult that kids are sacrificing their childhoods for it.

Then they become adults and it doesn't go away. Your employer/ potential employers are searching your social media and internet presence so you'd better hope no one has ever posted a picture of you at a party, or with alcohol, or wearing revealing clothes, or whatever else they've deemed unprofessional. And if you want to go out it's a 10 dollar cover and drinks are at least 8 dollars, and you need to tip if there's any kind of live entertainment, who can afford to do all that regularly?

My physical therapist, when I was 18, told me about his 21st birthday, how the last thing he remembers is people taking body shots off him. I spent my 21st birthday alone, was in bed by 10pm because I had to be at work the next morning. My boss had already told me that they knew it was my 21st, and if I called out, she'd write me up for improper use of sick leave because you're not allowed to use sick leave for a hangover. I don't know anyone whose 21st birthday was a big deal. No one went out and partied for it.

Original report (waybacked PDF) is from 2007. That's Gen Z kids.

When I, Gen-Xer, was about 12 - in my rural home, I had about a three-mile range. (Could've pushed it to more, but didn't want to walk that far.) In the city, it was about a mile. Not that anyone was checking; again, that was about the distance I wanted to walk, and besides, that covered all of "downtown."

My kids? Closer to that 300 yards limit at the same age. Not because I wanted to restrict them, but we live next to a freeway on-ramp and between two sets of train tracks... and there is absolutely nothing kid-friendly within a half-mile for them to visit.

I spent my 21st birthday bar-hopping. My kids spent their 21st birthdays at home with a nice meal. I don't think either of them wanted to go bar-hopping - but yeah, as a society, we've removed a LOT of teen-friendly options.

See also: End of Third Places, switch from video game arcades to home consoles (hey, then every kid has to buy their own copy--great for game-makers!), shutdown of malls or restrictions on youth at them, closure of public parks, reduced/removed after-school programs, etc. Plus the places that think it's illegal for a 12-year-old to walk to the corner store unsupervised.

I am, however, DELIGHTED to hear that the booze & other vices industries are panicking over Gen Z not going out to party. Like, you spent 30-odd years removing all the places and ways people can hang out together and have fun outside of someone's personal house, and... guess what, when people hit milestone events (graduation, milestone birthdays, job promotion, whatever), they don't immediately flock to the Party Zone that they have never been welcome at. How shocking.

and nowadays?? we've made the bar so fucking high for these kids. i participated in this mock interview program as an interviewer guest from the library, where seniors would get a chance to pretend interview for a job with me to get some experience before they entered the workforce.

and my god. the resumes on these kids. they're pumped full of sports, arts, extracurriculars, awards, volunteer work, like 60% of them had already had at least one job, and at least 2 of them had already started their own fucking businesses.

like. i'm impressed of course, overall this isn't a terrible thing. but when do these kids get to take a break? when do ANY of us get to take a break?? we have made society so back-breaking that 15 year olds are starting businesses while they run the student council, attend five clubs, volunteer on the weekends, and do ever increasing mountains of homework to maintain a 4.0 GPA.

Like again. I was a fucking square in school. I had all A's in everything and i did extracurriculars, i even did some volunteer work here and there. but mostly i went home, i read books for fun, i went rambling in the woods near my house for no particular reason. i chilled out with my friends and doodled pictures and wrote piles of fanfiction. i spent so much time in high school just...relaxing and playing.

when are these kids getting time to do that, between all the stuff we expect of them? where are these kids getting the space to do that as we continue to push them out of every single physical space, because teens hanging out in a gaggle of friends is somehow threatening?

why are we expecting this much out of kids, out of young adults, while we refuse to offer even a fraction of what our parents and grandparents were given for a fraction of the work we're putting in?

adding the ability to search, filter, and sort bookmarks by word count

making sure bookmark search results are correct when you use tags containing letters and numbers

preventing series blurbs from listing tags that were only used on draft works

preventing series blurbs from listing tags used on restricted works for guests

updating series bookmark search so it only searches the tags on works you can access

Happy New Year everyone!

We're starting it out with open signups for Thundershield Bingo!

Here is the link to the signup form!

Signups for custom cards will close on 15 January however, open signups for premade cards will open on 1 February and will remain open until the end of the round on 30 November.

Happy New Year everyone!

We're starting it out with open signups for Thundershield Bingo!

Here is the link to the signup form!

Signups for custom cards will close on 15 January however, open signups for premade cards will open on 1 February and will remain open until the end of the round on 30 November.

Sign-ups are now OPEN!!

Round 5 sign-ups for Steve Rogers Bingo are officially open and will remain open until January 31st. You can find the signup form HERE!

Rules, FAQ, Schedule can be found HERE!

Sign-ups are now OPEN!!

Round 5 sign-ups for Steve Rogers Bingo are officially open and will remain open until January 31st. You can find the signup form HERE!

Rules, FAQ, Schedule can be found HERE!

If I was an old-school Irish-Catholic and gave up my body to ‘surpass human potential’, actively playing God, and the second I walked out of that machine the man who made the Super-Soldier-Serum was MURDERED IN FRONT OF ME I would immediately assume that’s an Omen. “I’m cursed now. A curse has been put on me. I’m fucked.”

Keeping this in mind lets go down the list:

Bucky is taken from him and made a prisoner of war

Steve gets Bucky back :D Bucky is then also killed in front of him

Steve kills himself (Suicide, a sin.) And comes back to life. (Immortality and evading Gods plan. MAJOR sin.)

Everyone is dead. The Howling Commandos. Howard. Bucky. Everyone.

Coulson: super fan and potential friend. Murdered.

Bucky’s back :D Bucky was tortured for 70 years. Bucky leaves.

Nick Fury is murdered.

Bucky’s back :D Bucky leaves, on the run from the government.

Peggy dies.

Bucky’s back :D Bucky leaves to enter cryo in Wakanda.

FINALLY Bucky’s back and nothing’s stopping them from being together :D

HALF OF THE UNIVERSE IS MURDERED INCLUDING BUCKY AND SAM.

He and Tony make ammends

Within the SAME HOUR that Half The Universe comes back Tony and Natasha are murdered.

Literally the only way Endgame makes sense to me is if the Century long nervous breakdown that’s been in the works finally catches up to Steve and he finally snaps. He assumes he’s cursed, as long as he has the serum everyone around him is doomed to be murdered and he needs to leave right now to keep the people he loves safe. The farthest place he can think to go is an entirely different timeline. He knows the exact date, time and cause of Peggy’s death and unless thew universe bends itself in half to kill her before her time, she should be safe.

Happy New Year everyone!

We're starting it out with open signups for Thundershield Bingo!

Here is the link to the signup form!

Signups for custom cards will close on 15 January however, open signups for premade cards will open on 1 February and will remain open until the end of the round on 30 November.

Happy New Year everyone!

We're starting it out with open signups for Thundershield Bingo!

Here is the link to the signup form!

Signups for custom cards will close on 15 January however, open signups for premade cards will open on 1 February and will remain open until the end of the round on 30 November.

He is the son of a single mother who was an Irish immigrant, he's born and raised in New York City in the 1930s, he shared his childhood with Bucky Barnes, he was terribly ill for more than half his life, he hates bullies, he was willingly experimented on, and he has fought in one of the most violent conflicts of world's history. All this has created a paradox where he won't strike first if he can avoid it, because he greatly values the ideals of love and respect for others, but also, he charges these ideals in all the blows he delivers. He will make you swallow them together with your teeth.