Confusticated and Bebothered

#he did what he had to do #legality is not a guide for morality

bonus:

MBTI & Youtubers (x) Simone Giertz: ENTP

“I got interested in building robots, and I wanted to teach myself about hardware.

But building things with hardware, especially if you’re teaching yourself, is something that’s really difficult to do.

It has a high likelihood of failure and moreover, it has a high likelihood of making you feel stupid.

And that was my biggest fear at the time. So I came up with a setup that would guarantee success 100% of the time.

With my setup, it would be nearly impossible to fail. And that was that instead of trying to succeed, I was going to try to build things that would fail.

And even though I didn’t realize it at the time, building stupid things was actually quite smart.

Because as I kept on learning about hardware, for the first time in my life, I did not have to deal with my performance anxiety.

Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually. 

If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”

“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”

“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”

“Cool.”

It’s not hard.

The hoodie as a veil. 

Weisman cigarettes

Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker. 

No Vacancy sign on the motel. 

Dove sticker over Maria’s head. 

Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head. 

The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”

The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’

The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet. 

It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!

Ugh.

Instead of being choked out by Thanos, Loki is caught up in the bifrost beam Heimdall summons and is thrown to Earth. Hulk is blindly flailing though, and inadventantly punches him out of the beam, so unlike Bruce, Loki doesn’t land in New York.

He lands outside a small rural farm.

Hard. 

And when Clint Barton goes outside to check out the meteor that landed in his field, he gets a hell of a nasty shock. He grabs a shovel, wishing he had his bow, ready to fight Loki to the death to give Laura and the kids a chance to escape. 

Only– Loki doesn’t attack.

Loki looks like shit. 

And more than that, he looks scared. 

Clint doesn’t want to listen to a thing the guy says, but as Loki pleads with him from where he’s lying, battered and broken in a crater made by the impact of his own body, Clint can’t help hearing him; Loki tells him Asgard is fallen and Thor is in danger. Thor might be dead. And the guy who sent Loki to invade in the first place – and Clint remembers Loki had a boss he was scared of – is coming, and he’s going to wipe out half of all life in the universe if they don’t stop him.

Clint swallows and points out there’s fuck all he can do about it – he’s under house arrest. Loki came to screw with the wrong person if this is one of his tricks. But Loki insists it isn’t – he didn’t mean to fall here. But if he’s on Midgard, Heimdall must have sent him here for a reason, and since Earth’s Mightiest Heroes definitely won’t rally around him, it must be for something else. 

There is a sword, he says: Lævateinn, lost to Midgard in the last great Aesir-Jotun war. It was forged by elves and imbued with power by the Norns, with a blade made of seidhr – it might be weapon enough to kill Thanos, if Loki can find it. 

But he’ll need help to do that.

Someone with… heart.

Clint lifts the shovel and he’s ready to kill Loki on the spot for that, but Loki doesn’t move. He’s unarmed, and Clint’s mind remains his own. 

Thanos, Loki tells him softly, has killed his people. And he has likely killed Loki’s brother by now too. If Clint will help Loki get his vengeance, then Loki will, when this is all over, submit to Clint’s.

Clint.. considers it. Seriously considers it. But he’s still under house arrest, and if he leaves the property, the government might never let him see his family again.

Loki shrugs, slowly getting up. If Thanos wipes out half of all life with a snap of his fingers, he asks, which of Clint’s children is he willing to see die?

…

Ten minutes later, Loki has a black eye, and Clint goes and gets the keys to the truck, grabbing his go-bag that he never unpacked, and giving his wife a kiss goodbye.

He’s got a sword to help an asshole god find. 

Before it’s all too late.

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