Marvel: Are you ready for the GOD of motherFUCKING THUNDER?????? He’s six feet of RAWMUSCLE and his hobbies include SMASHING things with a HUGE, MAGICHAMMER and being a generally SEXY BEAST
The fandom:
10/10 gif usage
The funniest thing is I imagine Diana and Thor would get along very well, and bond over their dads being the head honchos of the gods. Also lightning and thunder! Diana would probably be like a slightly exasperated big sister to Thor at times. Oh and she can 100% lift Mjolnir and wield Stormbreaker.
and we all know how Thor feels about female warriors. he would think Diana is the absolute coolest
Mjolnir? Stormbeaker? If Thor met her he would absolutely gush over her Lasso of truth!! A weapon designed to have one last ditch effort to resolve a situation even when your opponent has already resigned to battle? One last chance to resolve the conflict before anyone has to get hurt? Even just the fact that it can grapple an enemy instead of kill them outright. Thor would be in awe of Wonder Woman. To Thor she is everything a leader should be, brave, strong, wise, and just like Thor she is enamored by humanity despite it’s flaws. Wonder Woman is Thor’s goals personified. She’s the leader he wants to be
You never know when you might have to fight an alien.
According to Dean Devlin, Leverage and Stargate inhabit the same universe, and Eliot was on a gate team so he’d know all about Drake’s equation. Just sayin’.
HOLD ON WHAT?!? W H A T.
… I love everything about this, and this changes everything.
my primary reaction to infinity war is like…. wow. under hypercapitalism we literally can’t imagine any other fables about resource scarcity, huh?
i’m not even talking about only thanos. every time thanos said his plan to kill half the galaxy (because it’s “finite,” lol ok one-semester-of-econ guy) the other characters were like “no!” or “you can’t!” or “that’s madness!” instead of… counter-arguing, or saying anything like “couldn’t you just… double the resources with a snap of your fingers?” obviously, nobody wants thanos to murder all those people, but it’s also as if everyone tacitly accepts his framing of the problem. “i want to kill half the universe because of resource scarcity,” he says, and everyone says “no, that’s too cruel!!” instead of “wait… wait just a fucking second there, paul ryan.” they don’t even have a line like that even when they’re talking amongst themselves, just musing at how twisted his worldview is, that he can only imagine infinite power as an infinite power to kill. no time is spent imagining an alternative.
and i can’t help but think about how we in the quote-unquote “first world” treat the resource consumption of the so-called “developing world.” we, who have enjoyed the pleasures and benefits of fridges and air conditioning and televisions and cars and convenience food and all that shit for generations: we look at the growing energy & plastics consumption of the developing world and go “uh oh, they’re really running the tab up over there, we can’t let this happen, think of the…. trees!!!” we have the audacity to act like people living in poverty in the tropics wanting window fans is selfish and short-sighted for the environment, and meanwhile we use and waste all the energy and resources we can get ahold of, like a continent full of montgomery burnses.
infinity war could have taken thanos’s approach to scarcity somewhere bigger: somewhere that was useful as a parable for our hypocrisy. the way that ragnarok was brave enough to make a parable of empire; the way that black panther could explore diaspora and identity; the way that the winter soldier actually had something to say about the surveillance-terror state. but for all the moving pieces of infinity war, i don’t think it knew where its central ethic rested. certainly, its characters showed the desire to preserve and protect life. but that’s true of any superhero film.
what it comes down to for me, is that it’s not enough for this movie’s theme to be “let’s protect people, because killing people is bad!” or even, sorry steve, “we don’t trade lives.” it’s not enough. thanos basically says, “there’s one bowl of soup and one spoon and two hungry people, so one of them has to die.” so what i needed was someone to openly reject that whole proposition. not just “no, you shouldn’t kill trillions,” but “no, that is fucking ludicrous, i reject that worldview. i reject human life as a brutal competition. group survival, even in the face of scarcity or hardship, is exactly what the fuck we developed culture for.” like, we could use that message. that message, delivered palatably in a blockbuster action movie, could do some good.
but it wasn’t really in there. maybe in little bits, in pieces. maybe. so i’m sure we’re going to have to endure a bunch of “welllll, thanos was a bad guy, but he did have a point about scarcity” metas. because we’re still failing to see how asking other people to die so that the rest can enjoy plenty is itself exactly the fucking problem on this bitch of an earth
i will acknowledge that gamora comes the closest to doing this. gamora comes down on thanos for slaughtering half her planet. but!! but! then thanos gets this horrible line about how the children who grew up after his genocide got to have “full bellies” and the planet’s a “utopia” now. and what does gamora get to say back to that? nothing! she doesn’t get a line after that! she looks angry and grief-stricken, but the writers don’t give her a single fucking thing to say in disagreement!! like, how about: “growing up as a traumatized survivor of genocide isn’t very fucking utopian????” the writers couldn’t imagine that fucking line?
Yay I’m not the only one who thought, “Oh no, at some point I’m going to inevitably run into some jackhole trying to defend Thanos as having a point…”, and “OR you could just create more resources and distribute them equitably?”
I was so fucking pissed about that, because we KNOW what happens to cultures when substantial percentages of the population are eradicated by famine or disease or war. It is not a good time! It is not twenty years later and everyone’s well fed! Because if you eradicate 50% of a population, you destroy labour, you destroy infrastructure, you screw absolutely everything for the survivors.
THIS! Halving the population vs doubling the population hypothetically has the SAME DAMN EFFECT on population growth. Unless Thanos’ actual goal was to cripple the population in the way the previous post mentions.
And don’t think for a fucking minute that Thanos is not an unreliable source for what’s happening on Gamora’s planet.
The longer this movie sits, the angrier I get. I will not be seeing it a second time in theaters.
I haven’t seen any of those movies, but this strikes me as a Necessary Take on a villain in 2018 spouting college-student overpopulation rhetoric.
I am not a fan of college-student overpopulation rhetoric.
I am … Even less a fan of this big-budget franchise choosing it as a motive in 2018.
There have been many genocides in human history, and not one of those populations has bounced back with a cheery “Gosh, with all THOSE fuckers gone, I can finally stuff my face with croissants and accumulate wealth!”
The only way that killing some people results in other people getting more stuff is if you kill the people who hoard disproportionate amounts of The Most Stuff, and take their stuff on behalf of people who have less stuff. And that is called a Revolution, and that is frowned upon and considered antisocial in most circumstances. Stuff is distributed unequally. It’s a fact. Killing half of people does not magically free up 50% more stuff.
I don’t know how seriously people take the “finite amount of energy in the universe” thing, but it’s something that creationists attempt to use to bully everyone else. The idea is that it makes evolution seem improbable, “because entropy.” Under creationism, “entropy” means “things inevitably getting worse” and it fits in well with their view of the world. They think it’s physics. Creationists say “energy in a system dissipates”, and ask how life could evolve and be complex without God to power it.
The gentle stock response is that Earth is not a closed system. It receives a constant source of energy. This energy comes from the Sun. We have a direct conduit to a sufficient amount of energy to power the life force of the planet, in terms of Making And Eating Stuff. The Sun shines on the Earth, it grows the plants, and everything eats the plants or each other. (All of the other stuff happening on Earth is basically recreation.) but while the Sun will one day burn out, the plants do not eat up the Sun. Even if every square inch of the sinful earth was covered in greedy trees and cabbages, the Sun would continue to shine on it. That’s the energy source. It’s. The Sun. It’s usually up there somewhere.
So, like, if people are justifying genocide with “oh well, there was limited energy in the universe” then, like, do these Marvel movies take place somewhere without anyone having heard of the Sun? Does their planet have a plug leading out the back, that’s plugged into a big pot of fossil fuels? Does everyone have a mild concussion that makes teenage-philosophy-Discourse sound edgy and deep? Is the Sun in their universe actually just a Chris in a very large hat? This piece of lore worries and vexes me
One of the big names in population and resource theories was Malthus, who a bit before the industrial revolution theorised that humanity was on its way to a cataclysmic event due to population increase and subsequent resource scarcity. His theories proved false, however, when the industrial revolution came along and we started producing more food, allowing us to support the population. His issue was that he didn’t take into account human ingenuity, or compassion. Now, I’m not trying to say the industrial revolution was all roses and puppy dogs for the majority of humanity (there was some pretty horrific stuff going on in a lot of places) but it got us through without near – extinction. And we’ve continued to develop and increase our ability to support more people, not just with food but energy, medicine, and a myriad of other resources. And again, the system is far from perfect, there are shortages all over the world and capitalism is terrible, but the point is if we could get our socialist butts in gear long enough to distribute things evenly then literally no one would have to go without. The issue isn’t resources this time, it’s distribution and a few assholes at the top making it difficult for everyone.
So (according to the concept art book) as the Fellowship travels deeper into Middle Earth, the places they pass through become inspired by progressively older periods of history. The farther along you are in the story, the more ancient the design influences
We begin in The Shire: which feels so familiar because, with its tea-kettles and cozy fireplaces, it’s inspired by the relatively recent era of rural England in the 1800s
But when we leave Hobbiton, we also leave that familiar 1800s-England aesthetic behind and start going farther back in time.
Bree is based on late 1600s English architecture
Rohan is even farther back, based on old anglo-saxon era architecture (400s-700s? ce)
Gondor is way back, and no longer the familiar English or Anglo-Saxon: its design comes from classical Greek and Roman architecture
And far far FAR back is Mordor. It’s a land of tents and huts: prehistoric, primitive, primeval. Cavemen times
And the heart of Mordor is a barren lifeless hellscape of volcanic rock…like a relic from the ages when the world was still being formed, and life didn’t yet exist
And then they finally reach Mount Doom, which one artist described as
“where the ring was made, which represents, in a sense, the moment of creation itself”
I’ve watched the movies a few times and love them so much so I can’t believe I actually missed this!
I was thinking about that question Seb got asked at Wizard World about how Bucky was making money in the two years before Civil War no Mackie he was not a dancerand consider this:
Bucky as a cook.
scary-good with knives
never needs an order repeated / never fucks one up
working through his ‘automatic-obedience’ trauma in a low-stakes environment
hidden away from the public / less chance of being spotted
using the supersoldier!stamina to stay on his feet for hours without flagging and the grace to move around the kitchen like a dancer
telling the other staff he has a badly burned arm/hand (which is why he’s shy and has to wear a glove all the time)
picking up red-hot pans/handling hot food without getting burned because he’s using his metal hand
getting the habit of wearing his hair up in a bun (or in a hairnet!!)
learning to enjoy food again
(aka, how he got thicc)
because the Winter Soldier only ever ate to replenish energy or was force-fed through a tube
going to the market for good produce for the restaurant (plums!!)
being an uppity restaurant-patron’s worst nightmare when they make the mistake of asking to see the Chef.
sorry but – Bucky starts watching this guy’s videos on youtube, his face is never shown and Bucky’s sure there’s a little bit of post-production work screwing with his voice but he has great videos – and he’s sure the guy is former army or something, he’s definitely been around, there’s some very distinctive knifework going on – it’s years later when he’s in Portland eating what is the best fucking burger of his life that he realizes who made it and dashes into the kitchen – the chef instantly positions himself between Bucky and his staff, knife at the ready – ‘I am your biggest fan, can I cook with you?’ – Bucky gets tazered by a blonde dropping on him from the ceiling – best burger ever
Concept: some Jedi can sing in the Force. They can manipulate their Force presence like an instrument, creating tiny variations that propagate in the Force around them, and which read like some sort of soul music to other Force sensitives – but which can travel much farther than sound.
Concept: Qui-Gon is tune deaf. He can’t sing or whistle worth shit, he just doesn’t hear the difference between one note and the other. But he can sing in the Force, so in tune with the Living Force as he is. He sings to himself and the whole Temple listens to him as they go about their business. The children love it – he’s very loved in the crèche for evening lullabies.
In December of 1940, America still hadn’t entered the war.
There were a lot of Americans – such as the 800,000 paying members of the America First Committee – who looked at fascists massacring their way through Europe and declared “that’s not our problem.”
Captain America was created by two poor Jewish Americans, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with the specific intent of trying to convince Americans that entering the war was the right thing to do. It wasn’t easy – Kirby went far beyond what was expected of artists at the time, penciling the entire issue with a deadline that would have been difficult for a two-man crew to pull off.
Captain America punched Hitler right on the cover, at a time when a majority of Americans just didn’t feel like doing anything decisive against the Nazis.
Kirby and Simon faced considerable resistance for their creation, including steady hate mail and outright death threats.
Once, while Jack was in the Timely office, a call came from someone in the lobby. When Kirby answered, the caller threatened Jack with bodily harm if he showed his face. Kirby told the caller he would be right down, but by the time Jack reached street level, there was no one to be found.
Both creators enlisted after America entered the war. Kirby, as an artist, was called upon to do the extremely dangerous work of scouting ahead to draw maps. He also went on to co-create Black Panther in 1966.
They didn’t create Captain America to be an accurate depiction of America-As-It-Is. The character was meant to inspire and embolden, to show America-As-It-Should-Be.
The subject of where the Vibranium for the shield came from actually never came up for decades of comics, until it was finally addressed by Black Panther’s writer, Christopher Priest, in 2001. Priest never shied away from acknowledging America’s racism, but he also understood that Captain America represented an ideal, intended to inspire Americans to be better.
The story mixed together a “present day” discussion between Cap and T’Challa with flashbacks to when Cap met the Black Panther ruling Wakanda during World War II.
FLASHBACK:
PRESENT:
PRESENT -> FLASHBACK
PRESENT:
The Vibranium was given, freely, by one good man to another good man.
It is right to rage against the injustices done by our governments. We must call them out, and we must fight for what’s right.
But if you can’t even stand to see the symbols created to inspire people to be better, and rail against those,then you’re just confusing cynicism for realism.
In all fairness, it’s possible last time Thor had to speak English on a frequent basis was in the 16th century, but then he’s spent some time here and he has Updated His Language Pack™ now
my favorite thing about Corporal Carrot is that he’s a romantic hero plopped right in the middle of the greediest cesspit of a chaotic neutral city ever to debase the pages of literature, and yet instead of having his shining idealism destroyed by an uncaring reality, he makes reality embarrassedly put down the weapons and agree to make nice, and then mutter an awkward “Good morning” whenever it passes him on the street.
It takes Pratchett to write the most surprising and exciting total lack of character development litterature ever whitnessed.
no but see Carrot does develop! that’s what makes it so cool – he does change and adapt to Ankh-Morpork, but not by losing his idealism. f’rexample, a lot of the Watch books deal with discrimination in its many forms, and Carrot, for all his kind-heartedness, is just as prejudiced as would be any nice country boy from an isolated mining community that holds its traditions dear. he’s disgusted by the undead, for all he can be quite civil to Reg Shoe when he mets him on the street. when he finds out Cheery is a girl, he is shocked and horrified and asks plaintively if she couldn’t maybe, you know, not tell anyone about her weird gender nonconformity. Carrot’s forced to confront his learned bigotry just as much as Sam Vimes, we just don’t see it as much because we hardly ever see inside Carrot’s head.
and even the idealism isn’t blind idealism. Carrot’s a cop – he sees more than enough of people’s unsavory sides. he learns a lot from Vimes and the rest about not trusting anyone half as far as you can throw them, and he manages to still believe that people are fundamentally good and just need a bit of a push sometimes.
and – AND! – he recognizes that it’s not right to always be pushing them. because he could, he could push everyone to Be Good all the time. people would do it, at least while he was watching. but he knows that that’s wrong in some fundamental way that’s wrapped up in choice and freedom and the difference between doing the right thing Because It’s Right or doing it Because Carrot Said To. and this takes developing, too – he doesn’t think this way when he first comes to Ankh-Morpork. he falls into the excitement of having a king in Ankh-Morpork just as much as everyone else, and it’s only after much internal conflict (most of which we don’t really see) that he changes his mind.
one of the major themes of the Watch books is “who watches the Watchman?” it’s explored and developed a lot in later books, and of course we get it all from Vimes’ perspective because he’s the one who thinks these sorts of thoughts. he’s the one who worries, constantly, that he’s going to slip up and act like the rotten bastard he knows he is, so he’s always watching himself. but the thing is that Carrot is just as much part of the Watch books and of their themes, and Carrot idolizes Vimes. so he also ends up watching himself, and that’s the thing – Carrot’s a good person in part because he’s constantly examining and reevaluating his ideas about morality and about people.
Steel Phoenix Studios 