#cherryblossomshadow

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

TONY's standing in the lab and rolling a half full glass of whiskey between his hands. Drinking it obviously doesn't do anything for him, but the familiarity of the weight does.

Steve got beat to bloody pulp in the last battle. Since he's no longer living at SHIELD, Tony's the one who repairs his suit.

The Hulk's saliva. Steve's blood. His own enduring brilliance.

He thinks he might have figured out a potentially viable super soldier serum.

He hasn't told JARVIS.

The calculations are still running, but TONY's got one locked up tight in his mind - or his closed servers - that he thinks just might work. Or might work on a living person, anyway.

This isn't the first time his own genius has gotten him in trouble, but it's approaching the most inconvenient, and he's including that time he woke up with a car battery trapped to his chest with orders to create a bomb or else.

He'd wiggled out of that one. He's not sure he'll be that lucky this time.

He can just say nothing. There's a pretty decent chance that JARVIS won't figure it out on his own. They can keep running through possibilities and not finding any solutions until JARVIS accepts that Tony is gone.

The super soldier serum is dangerous. More dangerous than his suits, even, and god knows the effort he's gone through to make sure those don't fall into the wrong hands. If he tells JARVIS about the serum, there'll be a record of it. If he just keeps it to himself, it'll be lost when he's decommissioned and reset.

Then again, if he can prove to JARVIS that even a viable serum won't bring Tony back, maybe that'll be enough.

"Incoming," JARVIS says smoothly.

TONY looks around, but there's nothing incriminating, of course. JARVIS wouldn't be letting anyone down here if there was.

He's expecting Bruce or maybe even Steve, but instead Pepper steps through the door in leggings and a Nirvana shirt that TONY knows is his. "Hey, honey. What's up?"

He's pretty sure Pepper is supposed to be in DC right now and she's usually against things like taking the jet in the middle of the night on a whim.

Pepper doesn't say anything, just crosses the distance between them and wraps her arms Tony, pressing her face into his neck.

If he had a stomach, it'd drop. He hugs her back, resisting the urge to press a kiss to the side of her face. "Something I said?"

"Nightmare," she says, voice muffled.

"A call might have been faster," he says gently.

She shakes her head and presses her ear to his chest, at the exact angle necessary to hear his heart beating beneath the arc reactor. It's there because he designed it to be there, even though there's no heart in his chest.

"Pep?"

"I just don't understand," she says, voice wobbling. "I know it was - I mean, I can't even imagine, Tony, god. And I'm trying, I am. But I miss you. I don't understand why you won't let me in anymore. I love you."

He presses his face into her hair. He can't smell, exactly, but he can analyze and identify them. She smells like home.

He's torturing her.

She doesn't know, but he does. He was stupid and awful and selfish about this. He thought he could just pull away and get JARVIS through this and then it would be over.

But she doesn't understand and he can't tell her and it's killing her, it's hurting her, he's hurting her. He's never wanted to hurt her.

He can't do this anymore.

She'll understand one day.

"You don't understand," he says, forcing himself to pull back from her. "You're right. This was a mistake. I never should have - this is my fault, okay?"

He's no good at lying to Pepper, even like this. His best chance is to just not say any untrue thing.

She's gone very still, a look in her eyes like she's being hunted. "What are you saying?"

"I'm very sorry, Miss Potts," he says, stepping back from her.

She grabs onto his hand. "Tony, stop. You're being ridiculous. You can't just-"

He pries her hand off him and it kills him. "It's me, it's me, the problem is me. It's always been me. I'm sorry. It's not you. Things are just different now."

"Tony," she says, and she's crying now, fuck, he can't stand her tears.

He turns his back to her, needing to get away, unable to look her in the eye and break her heart even if it's for the best.

It is. It is for the best.

It was on back order ig 😂

Thank you for your patience

"I have seen things you

people wouldn't believe" and

they are all haikus!

@cherryblossomshadow asked:

I am so so happy to hear you watched and loved Arcane! I love your curation and commentary 🤗

Hi there,

There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.

Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.

But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.

Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.

Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.

(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).

Oh god this is my dream read below the cut

Wei Wuxian takes off and leaves Jiang Cheng to save the Wens both because it was the right thing to do, and also because Wen Ning and Wen Qing did him a solid one time right after Jiaojiao tried to maim him.

MianMian takes off and leaves Zixuan after defending Wei Wuxian, both because it was the right thing to do, and also because Wei Wuxian did her a solid one time while Jiaojiao was trying to brand her.