YOU GUYS IT’S DECEMBER 10TH YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS HAS BEEN IN MY QUEUE SINCE FEBRUARY

— you are not Atlas; you cannot shoulder the world alone | m.a.w.

steve rogers: aka captain america, a master tactician and a strategist.  

My bicep porn actually worked

Basically 😂

sam “i’m tired of everyone’s bullshit and super-powers” wilson.

This is so wonderful. Everyone needs to read this.

Seb and Mackie on: shirtless scenes, sitting in salt baths, biceps, & coconut oil

remember when tony shot sam wilson point blank in the chest after he selflessly attempted to save rhodey and then APOLOGISED for not being able to even though the entire thing happened because team iron man were trying to take sam down in the first place?? :))))

I use tumblr more out of habit than enjoyment at this point

желание [žilánie] - desire ржавый [ržávyj] - rusted семнадцать [simnátsatʹ] - seventeen рассвет [rassvét] - dawn печь [péčʹ] - stove девять [dévjitʹ] - nine добросердечный [dabrasirdéčnyj] - kind-hearted возвращение на родину [ vozvraščénije na ródinu] - homecoming один [adín] - one, alone грузовой вагон [gruzavój vagón] - freight car x 

‘Learning Russian has given me a whole new life’ Mary Hobson: It took me about two years [to read War and Peace]. I read it like a poem, a sentence at a time. English writer and translator Mary Hobson decided to learn Russian at the age of 56, graduating in her sixties and completing a PhD aged 74. Now fluent in Russian, Hobson has translated “Eugene Onegin” and other poems by Pushkin, “Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov, and has won the Griboyedov Prize and Pushkin Medal for her work. RBTH visited Hobson at home in London to ask about her inspiring experience. 

RBTH: Learning Russian is difficult at any age, and you were 56. How did the idea first come to your mind? 

 Mary Hobson: I was having a foot operation, and I had to stay in bed for two weeks in hospital. My daughter Emma brought me a big fat translation of War and Peace. “Mum, you’ll never get a better chance to read it”, she said. I’d never read Russian literature before. I got absolutely hooked on it, I just got so absorbed! I read like a starving man eats. The paperback didn’t have maps of the battle of Borodino, I was making maps trying to understand what was happening. This was the best novel ever written. Tolstoy creates the whole world, and while you read it, you believe in it. I woke up in the hospital three days after I finished reading and suddenly realized: “I haven’t read it at all. I’ve read a translation. I would have to learn Russian.” 

RBTH: Did you read War and Peace in the original language eventually? 

M.H.: Yes, it was the first thing I read in Russian. I bought a fat Russian dictionary and off I went. It took me about two years. I read it like a poem, a sentence at a time. I learned such a lot, I still remember where I first found some words. “Between,” for instance. About a third of the way down the page. 

RBTH: Do you remember your first steps in learning Russian? 

 M.H.: I had a plan to study the Russian language in evening classes, but my Russian friend said: “Don’t do that, I’ll teach you.” We sat in the garden and she helped me to remember the Cyrillic script. I was 56 at this time, and I found it very tiring reading in Cyrillic. I couldn’t do it in the evening because I simply wouldn’t be able to sleep. And Russian grammar is fascinating. 

RBTH: You became an undergraduate for the first time in your sixties. How did you feel about studying with young students? 

M.H.: I need to explain first why I didn’t have any career before my fifties. My husband had a very serious illness, a cerebral abscess, and he became so disabled. I was just looking after him. And we had four children. After 28 years I could not do it any longer, I had break downs, depressions. I finally realized I would have to leave. Otherwise I would just go down with him. There was a life out there I hadn’t lived. It was time to go out and to live it. I left him. I’ve been on my own for three years in a limbo of quilt and depression. Then I picked up a phone and rang the number my friend had long since given me, that of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London University. “Do you accept mature students?” I asked. “Of sixty-two?” They did. When the first day of term arrived, I was absolutely terrified. I went twice around Russel square before daring to go in. The only thing that persuaded me to do it was that I got offered the place and if I didn’t do it, the children would be so ashamed of me. My group mates looked a little bit surprised at first but then we were very quickly writing the same essays, reading the same stuff, having to do the same translations. 

RBTH: You spent 10 months in Moscow as part of your course. How did you feel in Russia? 

 M.H.: I hardly dared open my mouth, because I thought I got it wrong. It lasted about a week like this, hardly daring to speak. Then I thought – I’m here only for 10 months. I shall die if I don’t communicate. I just have to risk it. Then I started bumbling stuff. I said things I didn’t at all mean. I just said anything. The most dangerous thing was to make jokes. People looked at me as I was mad. I hate to say it, but in 1991 the Russian ruble absolutely collapsed and for the first and last time in my life I was a wealthy woman. I bought over 200 books in Russian, 10 “Complete Collected Works” of my favorite 19th-century authors. Then it was a problem how to get them home. Seventy-five of them were brought to London by a visiting group of schoolchildren. They took three books each. 

RBTH: You’re celebrating your 90th birthday in July. What’s the secret of your longevity? 

M.H.: If I had not gone to university, if I had given up and stopped learning Russian, I don’t think I’d have lived this long. It keeps your mind active, it keeps you physically active. It affects everything. Learning Russian has given me a whole new life. A whole circle of friends, a whole new way of living. For me it was the most enormous opening out to a new life.

…my inspiration…

For anyone thinking “it’s too late to learn a language, I’m so old” well lemme tell you a thing

TEAM CAP (Insp.)

Tony and Bucky + shared trauma.

Erm… I have several objections to these parallels.

How is Bucky’s metal arm and Tony’s arc reactor comparable? OK, neither exactly consented, but the arm is a weapon forced on Bucky to make him a super soldier, while the reactor was put in Tony to save his life from a shrapnel ready to pierce his heart. One is offensive, the other defensive, a curse, a blessing. Different things.

Hydra’s electrocuting brainwashing kept on for 70 years. Seventy years of Bucky’s brain in a blender, commands and orders agonizingly forced on him. Jeez. (How the man did not get permanent brain damage is amazing.) Wanda on Tony? Wanda does not brainwash, she triggers your mind for it to create your own worst fears and nightmares. Tony faced his own fears, was not forced into fake ones. 

Also, the triggers on Bucky are induced, brainwashed into him. He has no defense to them, they take over his mind. Tony has no triggers, Tony just reacts out of his own mind, volition and temper.

But most importantly…. Tony, with all his billions, could have had the best therapy in the world at his feet. No one was persecuting him, no one was after him, he was a hero. His PTSD and anxiety could be treated by the best specialists in the world… What help did Bucky have available? What chances of therapy? He was a hunted man, desperately hiding to keep himself away from people who would use him again. He was all alone. 

So…. shared trauma? Bucky and Tony? Yes, they’ve both been through trauma. But paralleling them like that? I respectfully but strongly disagree. 

Some of what you wrote there is bizarre, concerning (Tony should have just got over waking up to that old car battery lodged in his chest cavity???) and not uncommon in the Marvel fandom un-fucking-fortunately.

Thank you for making this gifset a competition for who should win the fandom’s compassion, instead of just recognizing that mental illness and trauma don’t discriminate and that both Bucky and Tony while living very different lives are both suffering.  BUT I’m so glad you wrote this so I know to stay away from you.  

The next time I have a panic attack or daydream about stepping in front of a car I’ll remember that I should shut the fuck up because I wasn’t captured by HYDRA 70 years ago and therefore aren’t deserving of your sympathy.  The shame I felt when finally admitted I was sick (bc this was effecting my quality of life, my relationships and destroying my self worth) means nothing because Bucky Barnes didn’t even have help available to him.  The anger and hopelessness I feel about my situation is selfish because at least I know who I am, unlike Bucky Barnes.

I’m horrified that you think that trauma, mental health and consent issues are like some competition for who deserves the most sympathy and compassion.  Like is there a criteria for who gets your sympathy irl? Do they have to write an essay, do they give you the numbers of 5 references to back up their claim? Note from their doctor?  How do they have to prove to you their feelings are real and they have earned the right to feel them?

It’s people like you and this whole mentality that kept me from getting help for so long.  God knows how many times I’ve told my friends, family and even my therapist “It’s nothing” or “It’s not important” because I didn’t feel like I “deserved” to feel depressed or anxious because my life wasn’t “that bad”.  How many times I struggled with whether or not I was just overreacting or if it was all “in my head”.  The guilt I felt about how my mental illness was effecting the people around me all while I was still convincing myself it wasn’t  “real” and I had nothing to be “sad” about.  My shame that I couldn’t just “grow up”, “get over it” and “stop being a whiney baby” while having terrifying panic attacks and falling deeper into depression.  How this effected my self-confidence, worth and wiped out my ability to trust my own judgment.   How I still question whether or not I’m being too sensitive and blowing things out of proportion even after 6+ months of therapy and group meetings.  How I still fight with my team about medication because no matter how many times they tell me, I still believe that this could all be just in my head… that I’m just being weak.  6+ months and I still question whether or not I “deserve” to be there because “there are people who have it worse than me”.

STOP making mental illness and trauma a competition.

I would like to say that I’m so sorry to my followers, I don’t talk about this shit much… or ever.  I’m still really embarrassed about it and like I said above sometimes don’t feel I’ve “earned the right" to be depressed, have an anxiety disorder or get panic attacks.  I know these are fictional characters (some of my faves) but whats written above reflects a larger problem with how we view mental health and trauma.  Making it a competition by saying the trauma wasn’t as bad someone else’s sends a really horrible message. It stops people who need help from getting it and can make people question whether their feelings are valid.  Mental illness and trauma don’t discriminate.  It doesn’t care if you’re a WWII POW who has been brainwashed and experimented on for 70 years, a billionaire with the resources to get help struggling PTSD and depression or a middle-class girl with depression and anxiety who’s got a great support system and a family that loves her.  

It’s not a fucking competition so stop making it one just because you don’t like a certain character (*cough*Tony*cough*).  This has real world consequences.

@i-gotta-go-good-day-pusscake THIS. This comparison is something I'd never really thought of before. I'd seen some parallels and stuff, BUT, the most heartbreaking thing about Civil War to me was the fact that Tony was in agony. He wasn't dealing with the Ultron incident well. He wasn't handling his break up well. He still has severe PTSD. Geez, in AOU, his biggest fear was seeing his friends die when he could've stopped it. While I don't necessarily agree with Tony, my heart just breaks for him because he is suffering and I hate it. And from a personal perspective, I have severe issues with depression and PTSD. I wasn't "brainwashed", I'm not a POW, anything like that. I was a girl from a lower middle-class family who was trapped in an abusive relationship for a year. Even though my family loves me immensely, I couldn't shake the bad stuff my boyfriend at the time did. It ruined me. So, I gotta say, taking a stand matters. Addressing anyone's mental issues matters. Because there are those of us whose PTSD and anxiety and depression is trivialized just because we "haven't suffered enough". So thank you.