Foggy + connections
I love this bit of characterization, especially in contrast to Matt. Matt’s a reserved guy with one (1) friend, but he still feels this deep connection to the people in his neighborhood – a connection that I am 90% sure comes mostly from the fact that he can’t turn his senses off. He knows and is connected to everything that’s going on around him, he can’t help it.
But it’s essentially a one way connection. Matt knows Hell’s Kitchen but Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t know him, not really. Matt cares and he gets involved through Nelson and Murdock (re: through Foggy), but I feel like he keeps his distance when it comes to, you know. Actually interacting with people and making meaningful connections.
But Foggy, on the other hand? Hell’s Kitchen definitely knows Foggy. And he clearly knows them – he knows their names, what they do,
what they want, how to talk to them,how their kids are doing in school.
And I think it’s really interesting that, even if they aren’t on screen, so many people are shown to be willing to talk to Foggy and give him information and do him favors. It’s a reciprocal relationship with the community that I really don’t think Matt has on his own.
Matt’s the guy who swoops in and saves you in your moment of crisis, then vanishes into the dark, leaving you saved but on your own. Foggy’s the guy you call in the morning, who you know will lend a hand while you piece your life back together because it’s Foggy. And everyone knows Foggy.
Foggy in s2 was a constant source of love and joy. And Foggy and Claire? UNSTOPPABLE TEAM OF BADASS NORMALS.
Tag: meta
I like to imagine that the Winter Soldier would have been programmed with basically every language that he would need for missions, and, for the sake of versimillitude, his handlers would make sure that he had the appropriate accent/diction and backstory to flawlessly pass as a native of a decently sized city in the country he was working in. So he speaks French like he’s from Toulouse, German like he’s from Cologne etc., allowing him to seamlessly blend in with the locals when he’s out raining destruction across Europe.
Unfortunately, the Red Room – not being known for its commitment to multiculturalism – didn’t think this system through very carefully when it came time to send the Winter Soldier off to do his first ever long mission for their comrades in China. They just program him to speak Mandarin like a statistically unremarkable proletarian from Zhangjiakou and send him on his merry way.
So he arrives in China with his Soviet handler and the following circumstances align to make the entire mission, from the perspective of the Red Room, a disaster from start to finish.
1. It’s 1971, and China is not open to the outside world. Most of the men on the Soldier’s strike team have never met a foreigner in their lives.
2. Those who have met a foreigner have never met one who speaks completely fluent Mandarin with a paint-peeling Hebei accent.
3. This is ENORMOUSLY INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING to everyone he encounters.
4. Instead of being unremarkable and blending in with the locals he gets mobbed by curious spectators everywhere he goes. His strike team, despite being a little scared of him at first, are so excited to talk to a foreigner who they can actually communicate with that they constantly come up with excuses to hang out and chat.
5. China’s relative lack of development in the early seventies means that there aren’t the facilities to wipe him or put him in the freezer, so the main weapons that Handler Dima has at his disposal to keep the Soldier in line are 1. it’ll be hard for him to run away because he tends to attract crowds, and 2. He sometimes looks very ashamed of himself if you give him a sternly worded talking-to.
6. The Soldier is having the time of his life. Look at me, look at all of my friends, I have so many friends, EVERYONE LIKES ME.
The Winter Soldier, doing shots of baijiu and toasting to the health of Chairman Mao. The Winter Soldier, chain smoking and eating millions of sunflower seeds while playing Fight the Landlord with his new pals on a cross-country sleeper train. The Winter Soldier, doing morning tai chi and calisthenics along with his team. The Winter Soldier, preening every time someone tells him that he looks like a movie star (his handler says “They’re just saying that because they only ever see Europeans in films,” to which the Soldier replies, “But Dima, why don’t they say that you look like a movie star?”). The Winter Soldier, showboating shamelessly for his strike team, who have started calling him Lao Da and looking to him for orders while ignoring Handler Dima, who can’t speak Chinese and definitely can’t shoot two people at the same time while doing a backflip. The Winter Soldier, making elaborate Chinese puns and teaching his guys useful English phrases that he can’t remember learning (Did you come here alone, doll?). The Winter Soldier, harassing his buddies until they show him pictures of their wives and kids and then sincerely complimenting them on their beautiful families. The Winter Soldier, suspecting that he has experienced this kind of camaraderie before but unable to remember when and how.
His next mission, in Vietnam, is the first time that they muzzle him.
How dare
THIS MADE ME SO HAPPY AND THEN SO UPSET
that was the swiftest and most unexpected knife in the heart tbh
WELL
Good tags though @beabae
#but look#once he’s back as bucky#does that mean there are potentially a bunch of really old chinese men who hear the winter soldier’s back in public and are like eeeeeey!!#is bucky going to get a bunch of super sketchy old friends crashing in his and steve’s house#what does sam have to say about this#it’s probably sam’s house#sam’s ex military#the winter soldier is going to cause an international incident and he won’t even have to kill anyone
I would read the hell out of that fic.
Now I’m seriously contemplating writing the story in the tags, just Bucky tooling around Flushing with his grizzled 60-something 哥们儿 while Steve looks on in utter bafflement
It bothered me that there were no Squibs allowed in Hogwarts. Fine, I can get that Squibs would not be able to do any wand magic, and would not be able to fly a broomstick. They still apparently possess enough innate magic to see the school and other magically hidden locations. Out of the classes at Hogwarts that the kids take, a Squib could take and benefit from the following classes: History of Magic, Astronomy, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, MUGGLE STUDIES, Potions (there will be little foolish wand-waving here), Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and partially theoretical classes on Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms.
That’s a long list of classes. And some of them are particularly upsetting to me because there’s stuff like History of Magic being left out- that’s their own history they’re being barred from learning. Since Squibs are often forced into the Muggle world, a Squib would make an ideal Muggle Studies teacher and would no doubt be able to teach a more realistic and informative class than someone going off of biased wizarding texts. Squib kids looking into living in the Muggle world would absolutely benefit from learning Muggle studies, especially if they’re from a mainly pureblood family who doesn’t venture out all too often.
And then there’s the rest of them! Arguably you could have a Squib gifted with prescience, and Divination is supposed to be a very accessible branch of magic. Squibs being excellent at taking care of magical plants and animals and making groundbreaking advancements, Squibs working in tandem with each other to breed different magical herbs for potions, Squib potion masters creating all sorts of amazing concoctions. Squibs working with muggleborns and using logic and science to advance magic theoretically, Squibs being huge pro-muggleborn/pro-muggle advocates, Squibs making star charts and Squibs going into the muggle world to use their healing potions in their jobs as nurses and doctors.
Squibs being so completely shut out of magical education was such a sore point for me in the books, especially viewing the treatment of our only prominent Squib- an angry, bitter, glorified janitor often at the mercy of brats with wands. I’m not justifying or endorsing his abusiveness at all, but this was an awful character to use to explore people without magic in a society that bases your worth on it. A lot of time Rowling seems to validate Wizarding prejudices more than she challenges them. While I really enjoy reading the headcanons about Hogwarts being very accessible to people with disabilities, I can’t bring myself to see that as the case with Squibs being treated as they are.
Bolding mine. Squibs always read to me like the learning-disabled of the wizarding world and the fact that they were just sort of shoved under a rug is such a perfect metaphor for how students with disabilities are treated in most schools BUT IT DIDN’T FEEL LIKE SHE WAS CRITICIZING THE ACTION and just. So much about Hogwarts gets so gross the more you think about it.
There was a quote from Rowling about how she was conflicted about how to treat people with disabilities in HP when magic cures things, and I felt like screaming SQUIBS ARE DISABLED BASED ON YOUR LAWS OF YOUR UNIVERSE, and how you JK Rowling are treating them is SHITTY.
this is so true omg. from the harry potter wiki:
“Even families that are tolerant of Muggles and Muggle-borns seem to regard Squibs poorly. For example, the Weasley family seems embarrassed to have a Squib who works in the Muggle world as an accountant in the family. Also, many wizarding families are anxious to see early signs of magical ability and are upset by the prospect that a member might be a Squib.”
“The term likely comes from the English expression “a damp squib” (dud firecracker), an expected delight that disappoints.”
this sounds exactly like the shitty narratives written by non disabled parents of disabled children :///////
For all of you who are reblogging this, I highly suggest reading Leigh A. Neithardt’s “’Spinched’: The Problem of Disability in the Harry Potter Series” in Critical Insights: The Harry Potter Series (I can’t find a version of the essay accessible online, sorry). Neithardt goes into a couple of the disability issues in the series, and one of the characters specifically examined is Filch:
“Filch is pained by having to admit that he is a Squib. Even though readers, like Harry, do not know what one is, they likely guess that it is something negative. Filch believes that it is the reason for the cruelty inflicted on Mrs. Norris. Ron’s amusement at Filch’s condition demonstrates an immaturity that actual people may have when discussing someone’s disability. Likewise, Ron’s assumption that Filch is bitter is akin to the assumption that people without disabilities may make about those who have them – that the wish they were like “everyone else,” and are bitter toward those who are “normal.” … Rowling doesn’t just “make him” a Squib, however. She makes him despised by most of the students. She then has Ron attribute bitterness and, perhaps, jealousy to Filch because of his disability… the only substantive pieces of information [readers] get about him are that he has a disability and a nasty temper.” (279-280)
Highly unfriendly reminder that Neville Longbottom was subjected to abuse by his uncle until the age of eight in repeated attempts to “surprise” him into doing accidental magic.
At least two instances of this were clearly life-threatening (being dropped off Blackpool Pier and nearly drowning, being dropped head-first out of a window), so the train of thought seems to have been “well if he’s a Wizard he’ll survive and if not…oh well, he was a Squib anyway.”
Note that apparently his grandmother had no problem with this, since she allowed his uncle to keep coming around Neville after the drowning incident, and her primary reaction to Neville being dropped out of a window was tears of joy that he finally displayed some magic.
Recall that in the book (SS chapter 7, original hardback U.S. edition, page 125) Neville’s recounting of this was written as though it was no big deal, and he happily relays how his uncle basically “rewarded” him for surviving this abuse and proving himself magical by buying him his pet toad, Trevor.
sHIT I FORGOT ABOUT THAT
it’s been so long since i read that i had completely forgotten about that wow
Steel Phoenix Studios 