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lokitvsource · 3 years

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You came into the show with the idea of Loki clashing with the TVA already in place. How exactly does this kind of arrangement work at Marvel? Michael Waldron: There was a creative brief that was 20 pages or so that basically said: “We want to do something about Loki running up against the TVA. Here’s some different avenues that might be cool to explore.” It was really serving it up for writers as a jumping off point for us to put together our pitches. Then I went off and really worked on the idea of Loki being brought in to hunt another Loki, and that becoming the heart of the show, and the Loki/Sylvie relationship. The big thing that I did in my pitch — even as early as pitching it to Kevin [Feige] — I really walked through the six episodes, kind of similar to what they were. I knew I wanted Episode 3, for instance, to be a little bit of a Before Sunrise, with Loki and this character walking across this apocalyptic moon. But Marvel had the initial, probably the most important spark of genius, which was just Loki and the TVA.

Where did the idea of the variant being a female Loki come from? That was one of my ideas, that we then confirmed in the writers room. Yeah, we knew from the get-go that it was going to be Loki falling for another version of himself.

Why was that appealing to you? I love writing any romance; it’s fun. Especially, it hasn’t been done a ton in the MCU. There’s an obviously self-reflective quality to it. And a show that’s quite literally about self-love; it is Loki getting to see parts of himself. At the start of the show, he kind of hates himself. He assesses himself to Mobius as a villain. And then he meets Sylvie, and he sees her as someone on a heroic crusade. He sees the good in her, and is able to see the good in himself.

Mobius suggests that, of course, Loki fell in love with his own variant, because he’s a narcissist. Do you think he’d be capable of falling in love with someone who is not a version of himself? [Laughs] I don’t know if he didn’t fall in love with himself first. Maybe after that, but the first time he falls, maybe this is what it had to be.

What’s the key to telling a time travel story that takes advantage of the concept without confusing the audience? I think it’s doing a lot of work that the audience never sees. It’s really understanding the logic of this thing, building out the TVA as a real organization that actually exists in our minds. Our writers room, we had a TVA handbook, encyclopedia, what they do and why they do it, a glossary of terms. And then you want to only give the audience the absolute bare minimum to understand the story, and to just get swept up in the emotional stakes of everything. If the sci-fi of it all, if the time travel logic of this show did not hold up week to week, then that would have distracted from the emotional journeys of the characters. So I’m glad that even though everyone had to take their medicine a little bit, along with Loki, in episode one, I’m glad it didn’t distract from the story we were telling. And we had the benefit of Loki being the audience’s eyes in. The audience is learning as he is.

There’s a funny scene in Avengers: Endgame where the Avengers start arguing about exactly how time travel works in the MCU. How much did you have to study what other Marvel movies had done with the idea to make sure your rules were consistent? Fortunately, Endgame was the main one, and that’s how they understand it. The TVA is an organization that understands time travel on a deeper level, probably more comprehensively than the Avengers do in Endgame. We wanted to make sure we were staying true to any rules that they laid out, but sort of establishing our own rules. It’s a time travel show. What was I thinking? A movie’s one thing, but a show is hard.

How many Loki variants did you have on the writers room whiteboard at various points? Hundreds. So many different Lokis. There was one Loki, actually maybe it was a version of Mobius that took off his glasses, and he just had really tiny eagle eyes, like he could see everything. There was stuff like that all over the white board. Tom Kauffman, who wrote that fifth episode, he’s an amazing comedy writer, and was on the first three seasons of Rick and Morty. His first draft of that episode was just bananas.

Was there a variant, or a crazy idea in general, that you really loved but couldn’t ultimately do? There was so much different stuff that we wanted to do in the Void. But the truth is, I don’t want to say any of it, because you never know. The ideas that I want to do the most may pop up elsewhere.

Okay, so let’s stick with a variant we did see. Was Alligator Loki actually a Loki, or just an alligator that happened to be wearing a Loki’s crown? A magician can’t reveal his tricks, man. That’s the great debate. Let it rage.

What was Alligator Loki‘s origin story on your side of things? Who pitched him and how was that initially received? That was maybe my very first meeting with the producers at Marvel, Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, talking about the show, and me saying, “When we’re doing this, you can encounter lots of different Lokis. You could have an alligator Loki. Why? Cause he’s green.” And us all laughing about how stupid that was. I think I made the point that it’s that energy of what we can do with the show. We can have something like that, but let’s play it straight. Alligator Loki, you get a laugh out of it, but by and large you try and play it straight. That was the fun tonal balance that we tried to strike in the show.

There’s been some conflicting information out there about whether the big bad was originally just going to be He Who Remains, who’s a different comics character altogether from Kang, and whether the casting of Jonathan Majors changed the plan. From your point of view, what happened? The character was always written as a version of Kang, as early as the first draft of the script, we knew in the writers room, relatively early on. He Who Remains, that’s the guy behind the curtain with the TVA, and we saw an opportunity to fuse that mythology with the Immortus mythology. And that was just really compelling. It was a way to elevate, it just felt right for Loki, because Loki was there in the first Avengers, he’s the one who brought the Avengers together, and here is directly related to the exploding of the multiverse, this event that will drive the events of Phase Four. Certainly, when Jonathan came in, it allowed us to step on the gas of just how eccentric and charismatic this character could be. I was inspired in the writing of He Who Remains by Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia, trying to give it that Frank TJ Mackey energy a little bit. He captures that and then elevates it to something else that’s different and weird.

You just said how important the multiverse is going to be to Phase Four of the MCU. How challenging is it to have to set up this big thing for the larger Marvel endeavor while also serving the needs of the particular story you’re telling on this show? It’s a challenge in the sense that it’s all a relay race, and you’ve got the baton on this thing, and you want to do a great job. The name of the game over at Marvel is with each movie or TV show, make it the best it can possibly be. And they’re really supportive of that, and trust that it will organically fit into the larger blueprint of everything. We were excited about introducing a version of Kang, because yeah, to introduce this new big bad was cool for our show. I was aware, and cautious, of the thing I read in your review, that it might not be the most sound storytelling to introduce a new character at the very end that we’ve never seen before as the big bad of this thing. Obviously, we had the benefit that people know who Kang is, and there’s a meta thing where a portion of the audience knows Jonathan Majors is going to be playing Kang in Phase Four. But the finale was only ever going to work if He Who Remains, in a compelling way, serviced the Loki and Sylvie emotional story. That was the most important job that that character did in the finale: he laid out a very compelling conflict that ultimately drove the two of them apart.

There has also been some confusion as to exactly when you knew that there would be a second season, as opposed to you just making a limited series. Initially, in the writers room, we were not operating as though there would be a second season. And the whole way through was, this should be a story that should stand on its own. I referenced The Leftovers and Mad Men all the time. I think about those seasons, they pushed the overall stories forward, but you can pull any one of those seasons and look at it on its own as an individual story. I wanted that to be the case here, whether we did a second season or not. I think we always felt that we would want to propel Loki forward into the MCU after the conclusion of our season. The only question was, would that be in an appearance in a movie, or would that be in a second season. And it was only over the course of development that the stars aligned to make a second season.

But that end scene, where Mobius no longer recognizes Loki and the TVA is filled with Kang statues, wouldn’t have been a satisfying conclusion to a limited series. That is an ending that only works if there’s going to be a second season. So there is another conclusion to the story that I wrote that exists out there, that I guess is just for me. My own little play, that I perform with my action figures.

What was Sylvie’s original plan, before Loki hijacked her to that dying moon? It was to empty out the TVA. The entire bombing of the Sacred Timeline was to create a diversion. She’s not going to be able to create a multiverse from doing that. Ultimately, the TVA has the manpower to get out and take care of these events, but they’re going to have to scramble a lot of their minutemen teams, and it leaves the Time-Keepers significantly less guarded than they would have been otherwise. That was her plan.

You didn’t come into this as a big comic book nerd. So was there someone on staff who could tell you, “Well, there’s this giant cloud called Alioth that eats time,” or, “Well, one time Thanos had a helicopter,” or maybe someone assigned to you by Marvel? I’m constantly reading the comics but trying to not be so beholden to the and do our own thing. I charged our writers assistant, Ryan Kohler, with, “You’ve got to become the authority on all things TVA, all things Kang, and all that.” So he and my assistant, Sophie Miller, became a support staff who read a ton of these comics and became a wealth of knowledge for the writers to turn to. And then the Marvel producers, obviously are very well versed in the comics. It was Kevin Wright who came in one day and was like somebody throwing down a blueprint in an asteroid movie, going, “Alioth! Look at this!” And we were like, “Ohmigod, this is perfect!” The best thing about working on these comic book shows is that if it’s from the comics, it doesn’t matter how much of a deus ex machina it is, it’s just cool, like, “I can’t believe you pulled that from the comics.” Alioth, that was a big breakthrough that unlocked the last two episodes for us.

That is not a famous comic book that introduces Alioth. It’s an obscure Nineties miniseries, with really ugly art. But you look at it and see what it could be. You say, “If we do this, and it feels like Twister, it’s going to be really cool.”

Was Mobius’ love of jet skis there simply to illustrate his character, or did you have a grander idea in mind? I will come clean: I’m a jet ski guy. I’ve spent a good amount of time on jet skis in my day. I used to tow a jet ski to a lake and ride it in college. So it probably was me. Loki, I was just becoming a steward of that character. Mobius was a character I really felt I got to create from nothing. There’s not really anything to that character in the comics. So bits and pieces of me found their way in. I just think there’s something so poignant — here Mobius is, a guy who is literally fighting to preserve all of time in the multiverse, and yet his interests are maybe the most humble, human, terrestrial, unremarkable thing you can think of. Just a jet ski. And when you’ve got Owen Wilson playing him and it’s just that much better.

Will you be back in some capacity for Season Two? [long pause] Time will tell.

‘Loki’ Head Writer Michael Waldron — and ‘Rick and Morty’ Alum — on MCU, ‘Heels’ and More

#loki tv #loki series #michael waldron #interview

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lucianalight · 3 years

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I had no hopes for the Loki show at all, so maybe that's why I found it more tolerable than expected but, at the same time, it feels like a sci-fi version of shows like White Collar and similar, in which a talented convict is "given a chance" to work on the "right side" to catch worse evils and along the way forms a bond with their more-or-less willing working partner, which is... trite? The only interesting thing, so far (aside from TH's acting range) is the explicitly dystopian vibe of the TVA and the faint hope that the end goal would be to bring back freedom of choice, but even then, I think at Falcon&WS and how the Flag Smashers ended and feel that Marvel isn't willing to change things and put in their shows the idea that change is good and often people who fight for it with "bad" methods have good points. In a way, the TVA so far feels like a reflection of Marvel itself, from the way it treats Loki to the reasonings behind it (the Avengers not being in trouble because they stuck to the Sacred Timeline while Loki didn't feels so much like an excuse for themselves!) and of course they'd never admit they're wrong and oppressive, so I don't know if the tiny bit of optimism I have about this show has a reason to be.

Yeah, the talented convict working with good guys was not really interesting imo either. But I think episode two made things more interesting.

The only interesting thing, so far (aside from TH's acting range) is the explicitly dystopian vibe of the TVA and the faint hope that the end goal would be to bring back freedom of choice

This! I couldn't think Loki series could get even more personal for me but now it is. The vile totalitarian fascistic theme of TVA made me shake with hate and rage. It feels weird that you experience and live in a situation that are only imaginary nightmares to others. Any outcome but total destruction of TVA is going to make me seethe with rage.

I didn't even consider the possibility that it might not turn out that TVA is evil. In tfatw they didn't said change is bad. Even the heroes said Flag Smashers had a point. They message was that change should happen within system which is in line with US politics. But now that I'm thinking about it, they framed Odin and Asgard as protectors instead of colonizers until TR and even in that movie they didn't do it right. Also there was another MCU tv show called Inhumans, which was awful btw, and they had this caste system and you wouldn't know until the final episodes, why you shouldn't side with the bad guy who was against this system. This and some of interviews of Loki series have worried me now that this might happen with TVA too.

And if that happens, if TVA isn't shown to be the evil they are is not only a horrible message, but also it would be a very bad artistic choice. When reading dystopian books, and a lot of times, it ends tragically with the system winning, it supposed to shake and make you horrified that sth so terrible can happen. If the authoritarian power wins, it's not because they're good, but because they're vicious and cruel. In superhero genre, they shouldn't be shown as the good guys and they shouldn't win. I really hope this doesn't happen in Loki series.

Also, totally felt the same way that TVA is a reflection of MCU with their treatment of Loki and their stupid this-doesn't-suppose-to-happen reasoning. Like when Loki was supposed to die in TDW or end his story in IW, but every time fans brought him back.

#loki spoilers #loki series #tva is evil #silverloreley #messages

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blankdblank · 3 years

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Poke Pt 18 - Mars

“Hey Mr Stark,” Peter was heard saying on a face call when you had come close enough for a cross by Saturn’s path. “We’re so close to Saturn! These probes are really coming in handy for more details than what are out there already.”

“So, I got a call from NASA, well, several, actually. Since I am the only known public contact for Loki and Pluto, after the slew of explosive comments on her and Eddie being the first humans on Pluto and discovering a new planet far beyond it capable of sustaining human life, which is profound. They want me to ask you guys if on your way back you could check on a meteor, according to our readings it’s another extinction level size, blah, blah, blah. Every time before they never hit the planet but they wanted to see what could be done far away from the planet if possible.”

“Ya, we, we can add that to the list when we get done with our stop on Mars.”

“Mars, what do you plan on doing on Mars?”

“Well, according to the scans Earth has gotten not much to do on Mars but that doesn’t mean we can’t check in on the rovers. We heard NASA was having some trouble with Curiosity lately. Or we’ll just take a scan of the place with our probes to see what else we can get, maybe take a stroll. Plant a flag or something that says ‘Planet 4 of 9’ something like that.”

Tony couldn’t help but chuckle, “I think if you do that they’ll send a probe up just to knock the sign down. Things are getting that petty. You should have heard Thor all but declaring war if anyone tries to take Misique’s ship and planet away from her.” He paused then asked, “Scale of one to twenty, how terrifying is it out there?”

“About a two, but that was mainly for how loud it got at nights on Balder, the animals are so loud we had to play a stereo to get some familiar noise to block it out. Other than that it’s super cool out here between the long spaces of empty space. They really causing a good deal of trouble?”

“More hurt pride than anything. Don’t you worry about it. You all have big allies in new places, enough to scare them off.”

“Did you like the footage?”

“Got one of those Pluto Otters nest as my background on my computer. The world loves the footage. You kids keep up the good work. I gotta head out, I’ll let you get back to your space-cation. See you when you get back.”

“Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something and I eat one of you, I’m sorry. See you when we get back, Mr Stark.” The sign off similar to others that had him worry based on sci-fi films and shows he had flash into his head each time they were said only making him worry about his protégé until more video footage had been released to prove he was alive and well.

Back to the sitting area on the lower level he joined you and the others saying, “Maybe Mars is a bad idea. Mr Stark says NASA’s got a bug about us out here in your ship. Even said Thor threatened war against anyone who tries to take it or your planet.”

“It’s not my planet,” you said making Eddie chuckle and Loki smirk.

Loki replied, “You did discover it and reconnect that race with their homeland and established an alliance within your own solar system. Once they fix that ship you will have generation after generation of backup. And a planet to build your own castle on if you tire of Earth.” Making you giggle behind the hands you raised to cover your face.

Eddie said, “Your planet. And I say we go to Mars anyways, least for a flyover.”

“We’re going to Mars. I hope we find life there, something super adorable too, like six headed cats or something.” That had Eddie pinch his nose to keep his drink from coming back out of his nose in a fight with his bubbling laughter.

Peter pointed at you, “Baby seals, something with adorable huge eyes and pudgy bodies.”

Venom said, “Reindeer, children love reindeer.”

You giggled to the others chuckling and said, “Reindeer would be adorable. And we could make a joke that Santa wanted a vacation home and put it on Mars.”

“Neighborhood Spiderman here, on the tail end of our Space-cation, just one planet away from Earth, that is right, we are coming up on Mars. I’m gonna take a selfie with the Curiosity Rover. We thought at first to do a flyover, but figured hey what the heck, let’s just go down and see what this has got going on. Also as usual like the other planets we’ve passed gonna get some detailed scans of the surface and see what we can find.”

Loki was heard then seen as he read the life scan results, “There’s life signs.”

And Peter let out an excited squeak, “Oh ya, this is gonna be fun. I’m gonna buckle up for landing and we’ll send back the footage when we’re taking off again. Have fun guys, bye bye.” He shut off the video and posted it on his page and smirked to the thumbs up numbers rise along with hits the closer to the atmosphere.

“I take it this one is not breathable at all?” Eddie asked.

To which Venom as Misique replied with a giggle mimicking yours and replied, “Not at all,” then gave you a wink with his faked glowing eyes when he felt you smirk his way as he gave another bit of fake proof that you couldn’t be the same person you just had oddly similar laughs.

“Wonder where the life is hiding, I think the farthest a drone got was just under 40 miles.”

Eddie, “And we’re spending billions on those probes, damn. At least sports cars you get bang for your buck.”

Into the grayish yellow atmosphere just beneath the hazy layer rocky plains with distant jagged peaks in the distance the glider dipped. Across a good distance you traveled passing the Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity rovers in their respective dusty graves to land on the other end of the open stretch across from the Curiosity Rover. Of course on the other side of that camera’s live feed heads popped up in Mission Control in Huston where NASA officials had gathered to look at today’s picture. A ship in front of the rover had phones ringing and people racing in to the rock solid proof for them the trip was absolutely not a hoax.

When you got out of the ship just a look out at the ground had your heart pumping faster for this dream feat for the space travel centered world. Just three steps in however to the shut of the hatch behind you and the ship shrinking to be pocketed for what might be found out here, a probe meanwhile scanned the whole surface of the planet that gave off a whoosh that faded in the distance and stirred a reaction that couldn’t be missed. Small puffs of dirt lowered everyone’s eyes to the ground in the circle around all of you making Peter say, “Maybe I shouldn’t have made that egg laying joke.”

“Are those tunnels?” you asked creeping closer to the one that was a few steps from you where you crouched confusing the crowd in Houston wondering what there was to draw attention. Gently your fingers brushed along the dirt to reveal a honeycomb design across a panel about the size of the top of a large can of baked beans that glimmered in the sunlight, “It’s a door,” you giggled and said, “Someone’s home.”

Eddie chuckled taking his turn of inspecting the panel you didn’t know to be see through for the guard below who sent word the visitors moved on from his gateway to the others alerted of a craft landing on the surface. “Well let’s not try to find the doorbell. See if they want to be neighborly and say hello.”

Peter said, “Good idea,” and stepped closer to his side as he continued the path to the rover curious of where he stepped to avoid any other possible doorways if he could.

Venom stated as his head retracted from fake Misique’s neck of the Kree suit, “Very smart, these panels seem to be charged with explosives in defense.”

Loki chuckled saying, “Creatures after your own heart Pluto, however instead of trap doors for traveling salesmen they blast theirs into space.”

That had you giggle and say, “I wonder if they live off of minerals or if there’s some sort of insect colony here. Most burrowing creatures eat insects, or maybe there’s some hidden layer of water channels and they have something close to fish or aquatic based organisms.” Loki’s grin spread to your amusing try to figure this planet out on the minute clues from the surface alone.

“Whoa, this thing is huge,” he said approaching the rover whose camera swiveled to see what you were all up to.

Peter pulled out his phone and said, “My picture,”

“Ooh, Buster’s got it,” fake Misique said and he gladly handed over his phone that your bee Buster picked up to carry a distance away to capture your group in a picture around the front of the rover. And with a wide smile he accepted his phone back and said, “I am posting this.” And for the slow wait of a couple minutes he waited for his picture to load on his social page that instantly racked up and right away had him say as you took a wider circle around the rover to look for something that might be of interest on the planet. “I got some comments from NASA, asking what the ground feels like. Should I tell them about the door?” He asked in a poll and you all shrugged and he said excitedly, “I’m gonna tell them. Ooh, there’s one here, I’ll post a picture too.” He said lowering to snap a picture of a formerly hidden door and adding the caption that they are made with explosive charges so to be careful of where they might be drilling or the rover will be blasted off of Mars by accident.

A bump against your foot had your eyes lower to the rock your boot had bumped against the rock creature’s try to avoid contact. “Oh,” you said watching the rocky red dome tipped over revealing a midnight blue and silver feathered belly and bird like feet that curled up and tucked into the belly. Instantly you crouched and to the focus of Venom and fake Misique you were seen to gingerly take hold of the rock and up it back upright again and softly said, “Sorry,” up again you stood and stepped over the rocky creature saying, “Careful of the rocks. Not rocks.”

Peter squeaked, “First contact, so awesome!” and hurried around a grouping of rocks that when he stepped over, him, Eddie and Loki noticed their turn and inch after him to the side of the creature you had tipped over.

Loki to his own glance down took notice of a rock that shifted around the side of his foot to join the others. Smoothly he made his way to your side stating, “I do believe you have made an impression.” And it seemed the small conference broke and from their huddle their spiraled circle they broke to a layered arrow formation that moved closer to you. Peter snapped pictures and captured the moment the rocky outer layer popped apart to reveal they were bundles of rocky scales grouped together covering the silver and midnight blue feathery bodies of what appeared to be silver eyed burrowing owls with blue beaks.

In a voice eerily like Morgan Freeman the one in front stated in their own baritone hum of a language, “We humbly welcome you curious travelers to our home. From where do you hail?”

Loki answered for you all, “I am Prince Loki, of Asgard, this is my intended, Pluto Pear, her brother Eddie Brock, Misique of Earth who is currently housing the Symbiote Venom of Klyntar, and Spider-Man, also of Earth the third planet in this solar system.”

Wide eyed the group puffed up their feathers and the lead said, “You are a Prince! You should come meet our Leader!”

“That would be magnificent, thank you, that was far more than we anticipated. The scientists of Earth have been exploring sections of this planet for over a decade now and they have come up with nil.”

A second creature asked, “You are not in consensus with the scientists of Earth to travel here? Our view of your ship was not of human capabilities.”

“No, Misique and Venom were gifted this ship from the Kree. In a sort of alliance to grant them the capability to travel to space if required to aid others throughout the universe. The humans who send their rovers here such as that one are quite envious of our voyage through the solar system.”

Another said, “Yes, we are able to monitor the Earth through broadcasts on what they call the internet.”

The first said, “We shall show you to our largest entrance built for the anticipation of guests, you are the first to have traveled here in person.” He went to turn then said in a sharp turn back, “We humbly ask you do not record our path there or inside our civilization.”

Loki nodded, “Of course, we shall respect your wishes.” He said then relayed what was said making Peter pocket his phone as your bees went into sleep mode and were placed in your pocket.

And with a smile Loki smoothed his gloved fingers around your palm in the shadowing of the quick steps of the rocky owl creatures who led you all to a mound that had to be just over three feet tall and across. All together they lined up to scan their feet raised to the hidden door that rippled from mirroring rock to the honeycomb design on twin doors that rippled like slide doors and retracted. The small size alone had you all bite your lips to wonder how far the cramped tunnel would go and if the civilization would be as cramped as it to have you on your bellies the entire time. The owl creatures gave an excited shift of their feathers and led the way making Loki say, “I shall go first.”

As he bent to lean forward on all fours to creep inside and Eddie smoothed a hand over the belly of his suit saying lowly to you, “Let’s hope this suit doesn’t just look slimming on me.” And you giggled in his nudge saying, “You go next. Then Pete. Me and Venom will bring up the rear.”

Down you crouched at the doors and as Loki’s feet vanished into the shadowed doorway that with his belly nearly to the polished midnight floor in the otherwise silver downward angled tunnel, on hands and the toes of his feet barely able to plant his knees to adorably wiggle his lower half to keep moving. Softly you let out a breath and on your hands leaned forward to start for you what would be a slightly less awkward crawl similar to Peter and fake Misique who insisted to go behind Eddie practically in a stomach top wiggle. A long time you crawled to the point your arms began to ache and your shoulders felt as if they’d be locked in this position.

Loki in front to the end of the tunnel looked up at the ten foot high hall with walls and ceilings decorated with imprints of flowers in what seemed to be the midnight crystal surfaces. Hastily he gave his shoulders a rotation at their stiffness, partly wishing if he had not the need for the suit to breathe he could have transformed himself into something smaller to make the trip easier.

On his knees however to the feel of your hand on his ankle still in the way he smirked and offered you a hand to come to a painful crouch. As you rotated your shoulders he rose and kept hold of your hand to help you up and did the same for Peter afterwards. Eddie took help from you and Loki to wiggle his way free and chuckled at your soft giggle and turned to confirm Venom had made it after him from the now shut tunnel.

Again focus turned to the guards who led you all beyond the start of the pillars shaped like stacks of eggs in the downward stepping levels to the floor in long spirals of stairs with open upper halves to crystal formed walls that faded from clear to glittering silver shaped like feathers. All enabling glimpses of what seemed to be hundreds of layers to this civilization that spread in every direction, and every level grew taller than the stairway.

Your hand on Loki’s back kept you from running into his back when the guards did stop to peer up at the four foot tall pair that eyed you all and greeted Prince Loki then turned to finish leading the way from the stairs onto a level that fed into more rooms until inside what could only be taken as a library a crowd of the creatures grew. Smallest in front leading up to a trio of twelve foot tall owls who looked you all over and in the same voice as the smaller creatures the far left one spoke in English, “Welcome travelers. We welcome you to our home, we are the Haiku, formerly of another name, however from our explorations of Earth we have chosen this new name as it suits our preference of prose. And namely welcome, Prince Loki of Asgard, we do hope you find our home and people hospitable for your visit.”

Loki smiled and said, “We are all honored to have been invited within your home and to have met your people. Lovely falls utterly short of its splendor.”

Their Leader seemed to smile by the shift of the feathers on his face and replied, “Thank you, as well, Spider-Man and the mechanical creatures we know to be modeled after bees for honoring our request to not record this visit.”

Peter said, “Oh, it’s no problem, and if you wanted I could delete the pictures I captured of the guards on the surface.”

In a ruffle of feathers the trio shook their heads and the one on the left spoke, “You are welcome to keep what you capture from the surface.”

And the third asked, “Do you intend to bring more from Earth here?”

“Not if you would not wish for visitors, just us, unless you would not want us to return again.” you answered.

The Leader spoke again, “This group seems to be honorable. We have been watching the voyage footage that has been sent back to Earth. However we are confused how among you Misique and the Venom Symbiote are said to be two creatures by your Prince.”

Loki gave you a timid glance and you stated, “I am Misique, Venom is aiding in granting us false proof for Earth that I am simply Pluto, and not Misique as well. A great deal of people still wish me dead and by keeping separate identities myself and my family and friends are safer.”

Peter added, “And I’m Peter Parker as well, behind the Spider-Man suit.”

The Leader said, “Yes, we have seen the hatred for Misique’s past actions, although how one could not be admired for reverting the depletion of the atmospheric safety by increasing the agricultural integrity of the surface of the planet humans have been destroying for centuries, we cannot understand. We thank you for entrusting us with these names, never would the Haiku betray them. Visitors outside of this group kindly would not be permitted. Too long have we dwelled under the threat of invasion from Earth. Should more outside of this group touch our surface we will devour them. Generations we have explored your planet to gain intelligence upon intentions to attack us. Most thankfully amongst the population deem the trip to be impossible, a fool’s errand, one had dubbed.”

Eddie said in their silence, “I’m a reporter, when I get back I am expected to write about our voyage. I will tell them any more to travel here will not be allowed and taken as a declaration of war. Our planet was invaded not long ago, twice now this year, we have few to no defenses as you have seen. Our planet would not want a war with yours.”

“The only reason that talk of trips to Mars came up to humans is because there have been dreams to have colonies on other planets, to explore the universe. But only ones uninhabited by anything sentient, I’m sure. And only in case our planet would die, but it’s gotten better now and we will tell them, we swear.”

Venom chuckled, “The humans do not believe this planet to be occupied by any forms of life, their infantile satellites barely were able to find traces of a hidden glacier miles under its surface.”

The trio smiled again as did the crowd and the leader said, “Come, we have prepared a display of our history and voyage here from our former home devoured by a Titan named Thanos.”

Peter instantly said, “Pluto killed Thanos,” that turned their heads around to look you over.

And Loki stated, “Amongst his try to invade Earth within a great battle in the continent of Africa we fought off his forces, it was in that battle a Kree warrior Ronan the Accuser gifted Pluto as Misique the ship as a gift.”

Again they smiled, though wider this time and the Leader stated, “A great warrior of honor indeed to have allied to our defense against the humans.” Sharply their heads turned around and you followed deeper into the library to a projection room and sat beside Loki and the others inside the nest shaped cushions to watch a rather heartbreaking destruction of their home. Tightly Loki kept hold of your trembling hand and joined in on the shedding of tears with more to blink away at their haggard arrival here just over 500 years ago and the skilled crafting of their home a mirror image of the one they had lost. A home formerly known to have held a great expanse of knowledge from every race to have existed, all thankfully spared of the destruction with their evacuation plans sound for generations prior to Thanos’ try to destroy that hub of knowledge and keep it for himself.

Sharing of their culture and a glimpse of some of their own agricultural capabilities came next keeping you in awe of how they had rebuilt their world in so small a time. And an alarm from the surface when their limit to what had been agreed to be shared had been reached that had them respectfully showing you to a platform that would raise you all to the surface before an atmospheric storm would hit the surface they estimated would take weeks to cease. Time for a return visit was told to be delivered to you upon their reflection on how the Earth’s population would take the news of their anticipation of an invasion of the Haiku.

And once back inside the ship again and you were out of your suits across your lips your hand laid to more tears flooding your eyes that had Eddie lift you up and carry you to his seat to hold you through the stunning turn to this visit with a new race. Peter asked Loki softly to Venom’s departure from his outer suit to take the helm, “Do I post about their warning?”

Loki said in a calming pat on his shoulder, “I believe it is best we leave that news to Eddie in his paper. The format of sharing such information surely would hold more profound weight than over social media. Surely news of these new races and life on more planets could cease attempts to colonize on Mars. They have stated NASA is welcome to keep their rover there and explore what they can of the surface as long as they do not attempt to break beneath it.” He shifted on his feet stating, “Do not trouble yourself with this news, should the humans try to infiltrate Mars anyways my people will step in. We have given our word to aid them.” Peter nodded and turned to head for their seats.

Venom stated, “We shall scan for this asteroid Stark has warned of.”

Not far away from this planet the supposed threat of a meteorite was found and with aid from Loki on the communicator found to be a ship of scavengers actually hauling a grouping of asteroids from around the moon away to sell you parted with causally and turned for Earth.

“What is that?” You asked returning mid wash of dishes after supper to the pilot’s seat to an alarm of inbound object that as the others joined you the glider’s system zoomed in on the object to a gasp worthy sight of an astronaut broken free of its tether. To the right dial your hand moved to flip the switch in the center to lock onto the astronaut with frantic results on the heartbeat reading. Behind you as Peter urged his suit out over himself the thud of the suited visitor behind you had you all group up at a safe distance from the frightened man who with wide eyes looked you all over.

“Spider-Man?” His head turned, “Misique, Venom, you’re in space?”

Peter answered, “Yes, just back on a trip out to Pluto. You ok? You’re out here alone?”

“I was at the space station, one of the fins turned and sliced my safety tether.” He replied.

“Well we can take you back, easy,” you said with a grin and went back to your seat asking, “I’m guessing your station is back the way we found you?”

“Yes,” he said taking up a seat as Loki kept hold of the back of yours while the astronaut guided you on the right path and watched as you pulled up to the side of the shuttle, “If you could just get me back to the exit hatch I would be so grateful. I have to get those repairs done.”

“Not a problem,” you said and to his shock backed the ship into place where he said he was working. Everyone went down to add their suits again so you could open the hatch for Venom to shoot a web to the ship your stunned passenger eyed and you said, “You can use it to hold onto, if your jets aren’t working.”

He nodded and said, “Thank you guys. Really, I owe you one.”

Peter said, “Oh we’re going too, I couldn’t live with my friends hearing that I got this close to the station without touching it.”

The astronaut chuckled and after a slip away Venom disposed of his fake Misique suit to fill up his Kree suit to follow you after your suit rippled over your body to the ignite of your hair and eyes in a race across the line of webbing to the side of the station. With help of a magical green mist from Loki the astronaut made it back to his former spot and with his instructions you and Peter helped him get the parts Venom collected from their float away after another fin swing had knocked them loose.

The help greatly shortened the time of the repair and stunned his crew who sent word to NASA on the change of status on their presumed lost crew member that with grips from you and Peter was led back to the exit hatch. His eyes were fixed on your boots that stuck to the side of the ship just like climbing buildings and other things back home in amusement for imaginations for a superhero crew being sent on missions one day. Easily he let himself back inside and once out of his suit he joined the others who waved and grouped up for a picture Peter took of them before you turned to head back for the ship Loki had maneuvered to a small leap away that sealed to let you alter your projection to line up the best path to get to Stark Tower.

“Aerial craft inbound.”

The announcement had heads turn and Tony said to the clear sky, “About time they got back.” Closing the tablet cover on the invention diagram he was tweaking he set aside to stand and cross the room to greet the returning group. Peter and Loki both had hold of their bags and exited with you behind them after a hug to Eddie who was off to head to your place and unpack before driving on his bike back to his place once Venom was bonded to him again and the ship was safe in your garage.

Once inside the glass doors Tony asked as you all took in Fury’s presence amongst the team, “How did the trip go, let’s start from Mars and work our way out, shall we?”

Fury added not a moment later, “Got a call, NASA said that you found some doors on Mars and you all looked at something then walked off somewhere then vanished. Any details on that?”

Peter said, “Well we found these blue owl creatures with rocky scales on their bodies they use to look like rocks on the surface. They call themselves the Haiku.”

Fury’s brow arched up, “Haiku?”

“They had a different name before,” you said, “But 500 years ago Thanos destroyed their home world. They managed to save their library and ended up on Mars they turned into their new home. Apparently they’ve been investigating Earth and through their link to our internet have read about our histories and intentions to invade their planet to colonize.”

Steve muttered, “That can’t be good.”

“In their research they’ve concluded that human’s can’t be trusted since we’ve had several genocides surrounding the integration of cultures when a new territory is found. So they asked us to share that we are allowed to scan the surface as much as we like but any try to drill or infiltrate their city will be taken as a declaration of war and they will devour us.”

The group stood silent a few moments until Fury asked, “Are they actual owls or could they be like Flerken with a whole hell of a lot of tentacles that shoot out of their beaks?”

Loki’s brows furrowed a moment, “We did not discuss their anatomy, however it would not be impossible for them to have some similarities to a Flerken.”

Thor asked, “When did you come across a Flerken?”

Fury answered, “We had a Skrull problem in the 80’s. Met one, hit it off for a bit. Then my friend Carol took him off with her into space.”

Loki said, “Well a Flerken most definitely would assist with that problem.”

Fury said, “Well I’ll let them know about the Haiku’s terms that they want us to abandon plans for Mars. They’re heavily armed?”

Peter, “The doors are charged for explosions so if they were to drill into one by mistake they would be blasted off the planet. We’re allowed to go back though, they said we seem trustworthy. Said after they see how Earth takes the news they’ll let us know when our group can visit again.”

Rhodey, “So you can go back,”

“Most of the planet seems to be a library, they’ve collected knowledge from every corner of the galaxy, that was why Thanos attacked them, he wanted that knowledge for himself. I don’t think it’s a forever ban, maybe after a few centuries when we stop killing each other and big businesses stop trying to kill our planet that might change. Just, with our history, we can’t be trusted to come visit without an invitation.”

Rhodey said, “That’s promising, future talks are possible, not a forever ban.”

Fury nodded, “Not a locked door just a come back later sign. It’ll help a good deal with the government officials. I’ll let them know and they can ease NASA down from their plans for a setup there and I suppose your brother is off writing up a story about it?”

You nodded, “Wanted to get an early start.”

Peter said, “And they all sound like Morgan Freeman!” Lifting brows and you lifted the bee from your shoulder that flew to the nearest tv to settle and replay the entire recorded blip on the surface of Mars.

Fury, “Well paint my face and call me Sally. They didn’t make you delete this?”

Peter shook his head, “Nope, said we could keep what we got on the surface. The ones inside, their three Leaders sound more like him when they speak in English.”

Thor stated, “Our kin will honor your word to defend the Haiku against invasion from Earth.”

Rhodey, “I heard you saved one of the Space Station Engineers too.”

“Well he floated into our path.” Loki answered, “He was rather stunned we were there to assist him back to the station and to mend the repairs he was sent to handle.”

Jane asked, “What was Pluto like? I’ve watched the footage a dozen times, but what was it really like?”

You grinned and the group delved into the details while Fury excused himself for a phone call that by his expression didn’t go over well. And Tony kept ignoring the pop up windows on his tablet of visitors leaving messages at the front desk for word on when you all might be returning so the press could come and hound you all for interviews. A dinner was called up and while you waited through your backup of messages through your trip you answered as many as you could including a few smirk worthy ones from Eddie. Already his Editor was calling about his first edition and from his packed notes in notebooks he had filled during the trip there was ample to write out beginning with the message from Mars.

All across the front pages would be a spread on the statement that a formerly devastated race with hopes to have a bright future including their younger neighbors to share their surplus of knowledge gathered from all of the universes and races known now feared said neighbor would leave them in danger once again. A plea to Earth to not continue the act of colonization and genocide to simply expand into the stars, or else. All around a marvelous piece to make people think on if the money they had spent so far into Mars would be motivation to keep pressing and spell the annihilation of the human race or if they could step aside and be patient and gain trust as tech caught up to the task of planet shopping if the worst should arise. For the rest however a surplus of publishers was willing to offer deals on his writing a book on the entire voyage to the Kuiper Belt, something he said he would only accept if it could be a co-author situation with his sister to fill in the parts he would miss.

“So, Pluto, how’d you know how to fix that communicator?” Bruce asked and you looked up from your phone telling Eddie you’d help him with the book if he wanted to do a co-author situation on it.

“Well, we opened it and it was basically clean the dirt out and scrub what we could, then just checking wires and replacing some that were worn.”

“How did you know it was the proper metal for the wire?” he asked, “Could have damaged it more if they didn’t match.”

Loki said, “We matched the wires before installation.”

Bruce, “How? You didn’t have a manual on it. I don’t-,”

“By the smell.” You said cutting him off with a flinch of a grin. “Different metals when they burn have a unique scent. You could smell what type of wire it was.”

He sat open mouthed and Bucky said, “And good work on that portal from your ring.”

Sam asked, “What were you listening for? You had your Aragon Orc hunting moment.”

“Yggdrasil, clearly,” Thor answered for you and you nodded, “Shieldmaiden Pear must have heard one of the roots calling to her to aid our new allies on Misique’s new realm of Balder.”

Jane asked, “And it’s her new planet? Like an actual Queen or something.”

Bucky smirked to your glance away and subtle eye roll at the title and Loki stated, “The title is yet to be defined, however it is her realm as it was her ship to bring us there to aid Lord Trouge and his people.”

Jane, “It just, works like that?”

Thor, “For Lord Trouge and his people they would not lay claim over the planet but take part of the structure of it until the true ruler of the realm could be located.”

Rhodey, “Don’t they have a planet they rule over?”

Thor, “They have the planet they were created on, they do not rule it, they are a structure within that world. Their rule is over one another not the planet they dwell on.”

Steve asked, “Where’d Misique fly off to?”

“To unpack and help Eddie. Apparently someone’s offering him a book deal but he’s saying it’d have to be a co-authored one between the both of us.”

Natasha, “How would that work out?”

“Most likely he would cover the grander aspect of the events to draw people into the story and I would keep up with the details most likely. Usually with his big stories he runs them by me first anyways to tweak a few things.”

Bruce, “Surely you could do more than tweak things. I mean you could give the whole female view to discovering new planets.” Your eyes narrowed at him in a wonder for what he meant and he said, “I mean men go places to conquer, what would the mindset be for someone who’s built to be more nurturing. Have to be a whole new way to look at bonding with new races, especially those who might be ruled by a matriarchy.” He glanced at Tony saying, “Help me out here.”

“You’ve got two shovels you are doing just fine, Buddy.” Sam said to Tony’s shake of his head.

Bruce sighed and said, “There are different ways to bond is all I meant. Seemed from the footage Lord Trouge took to you the best, aside from age gender is a main dividing factor between everyone in the group.”

“I’m also impossibly hard to not find adorable or intriguing,” you quipped back, “And I spend time talking to plants and animals. I think a race of sentient tree based races could be perfectly up my alley to bond with the Flora Colossus.”

Loki stated, “And though they are matriarchal gender is the least of their concerns in meeting new people, it’s their souls, inner essences. If they are kind or not.”

Bruce, “And they somehow got along with Venom too?”

You smirked saying, “Just because you don’t get along with your Other does not make him cruel or vicious. Symbiotes were bred out of a dark force created by Knull. They have no control over that and often take on the history and culture of their hosts, which can lead to some bad habits outside of their obvious carnal lust for blood. Venom isn’t evil, he’s carnivorous, there’s a difference. Hulk was born of radiation experimentation, painful way to die and it’s a painful way to be born.”

Thor nodded, “She speaks the truth.”

Bruce, “You can’t be serious.”

Thor, “The Hulk’s rage stems from pain, born out of an experiment and bonded to a man who refuses to listen to him. He protects you and you speak of him with such a bite of poison to your words.”

Loki spoke silencing Bruce, “He can hear you, try listening. You are his family, the longer he feels your revulsion the longer his rage will linger.”

Bruce, “We’re talking about space.”

You nodded and lifted one of the dead crystals you had been allowed to keep that had Bruce’s arms on the table clench in Hulk’s try to see what you had. “Only thing I didn’t have in my case was the crystals to replace the dead or broken ones. I have no clue what they do or what most of the parts did but I can take things apart and clean them and swap wires and then just cross your fingers to see if it works. Didn’t feel like I was helping very much until I got the portal ring to link to Asgard and called in the experts.”

Loki said, “Ignorance of the language does not mean you lack intelligence for the context. All technology is a language.”

Thor nodded his head, “Even Heimdall has shared that our Scientists could not decipher the workings of their ship. Their people would have to contact their home world. I have seen the scans of it, and I am no expert, but even the steering is quite foreign to me, and I have piloted an abundance of crafts to aid Loki in his thievery in our youth.”

Loki gave him a purse lipped gaze, “My thievery? I can recall ten ships you yourself stole and then I took the blame for it, even the one where I was not even in that dimension at that time.”

Thor, “That, was after four barrels of mead. I am not responsible for what I do when I am inebriated, you know that brother.”

Loki scoffed and turned his gaze to you at your try to bite back a giggle that urged his body to lean a bit more onto the arm of his chair blocking him from drawing you into his side. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”

Natasha asked, “They let you keep the crystal?”

You nodded, “It doesn’t power anything now, isn’t giving off anything detectable and doesn’t even hum anymore like the fully charged ones.”

Natasha asked, “What are you going to do with it?”

You shrugged, “Don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out.”

Pepper asked, “When is the next trip out?”

“Don’t know. The Kuiper Belt was fun to explore. But there’s your wedding and the rest of my summer break to figure out which University I’m going to. Eddie said I have a stack of packets from Universities in my back up of mail. Got an email from Columbia and they said something about wanting me to speak about the trip to students when the year starts and several of the Science Professors said they would save me a slot in their research plans for the year if I was interested. One of the Mathematics clubs also sent me an application form.”

Sam asked, “That a good thing?”

“Well they only gain members by invite alone, but I heard they have a sort of initiation thing and I’d rather not have to deal with that no matter what prestige it might fluff up my resume with.”

Bucky asked, “What sort of initiation?”

“Well last year charges got pulled against a first year when they called for a group dinner at an upscale place then ditched him with the bill. Almost got kicked out of the school after the owner of the place roughed him up saying he was the one to be unruly first when another diner called the cops.”

Sam, “Oh we did worse than that in the Fraternity I was in.”

“That’s what the cops got called on, not their full initiation. I never needed any sort of clubs that require humiliation in a faked means to instill trust.”

Tony said, “I wasn’t much for clubs in MIT either. No trouble in being a lone wolf to keep up your own pace and not be drug back down by people coasting on your coat tails.”

Pepper said, “Well Tony can give you a lift home when you’re ready so you can miss the press.”

“I should be okay getting home on my own. I’m sure you’ve been put out enough since we were gone.”

Loki said, “Press is nothing for my mist. I can easily transport my car closer to Pluto’s home.”

Pepper, “For now just focus on food, I can’t imagine eating in space had much variety.”

Peter said, “Well we packed three months of food, tons to choose from.”

Bucky chuckled out, “Never hurts to be prepared.”

Jane smirked saying, “I do like that phrase you used, you pack for chaos. I need to start doing that. Always run short of things on research trips.”

“Well you have your basic list and then you have your chaos list with the optional weather and damage kit.”

“You packed an actual table,” Steve said.

“Never know when you need a table.” Natasha said.

“Or a wheelbarrow,” Sam said, “Can’t tell you how often we could’ve used one overseas.”

“Packed one, it’s collapsible.” you said making him smirk.

Pt 19

All –

@sherala007, @mariannetora, @jesgisborne, @knitastically, @catthefearless, @theincaprincess, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000, @alishlieb,

Not nsfw(smut) - @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore

X Loki - @pastelhexmaniac

#Mars #The Haiku #Mars Invasion crushed #Meteor Check #Space Station #Back to Earth #Loki x OC #Eddie Brock/Venom & OC Siblings #Peter Parker #Spider-Man #Marvel

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ignisgalaxia · 3 years

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So, that Disney Investor Day huh?

Man did they drop a lot of bombs on us. Mostly good bombs in my opinion. I have several thoughts on many of the stuff they announced and since I have nothing better to do you’re going to hear them.

This is a repost because I’m an idiot and deleted the last one on accident whoops

Firstly, glad we have an official release date for Raya and the Last Dragon. The animation looks amazing, the world is intriguing, and did I mention Raya is gorgeous? Lowkey excited to have our first Asian heroine/princess in like forever.

I have VERY mixed feelings about the casting of the new Little Mermaid. I’ve slowly warmed up to the idea of Halle Bailey playing Ariel and was actually interested in seeing a more realistic take on our favorite mermaid. But who is this man playing Trition? There’s no reason for her father not to be black unless they show her mother (which would be awesome but unlikely). And Melissa McCarthy? Really? Are they going to make Ursula a comedic villain? I really don’t think she fits the part. And tbh, Eric ain’t that cute. He’s fine, just not what I was expecting. I’m pretty indifferent about the other cast members.

A series all about the most hardworking princess??? Sign me up! Tiana is such an underrated princess and so is her movie. I’ve been hoping we’d get more Princess and the Frog content, and that hope has paid off! We’ll get to join Tiana as she navigates being a princess, wife, chef, and business owner!

Hello? An animated African sci-fi series with the possibility of our first official African princess??? Heck yeah! Iwájú definitely looks interesting and creative (and not at all like Wakanda), but it might be kinda hard for Africans to enjoy it when they don’t even get Disney+ there. Might wanna get on that, corporate.

A Buzz Lightyear movie? All about his origins?? And played by Chris Evans??? I’m so on board! For those that don’t know, there actually was a Buzz Lightyear show back in the day and was the supposed “in-universe” show that toy Buzz was from. Don’t know if it’s gonna follow the same route or be a completely new story, but I’m interested nonetheless!

And lastly, I’m really looking forward to Encanto. With music by Lin Manuel Miranda and gorgeous animation, it looks very promising! As someone with a Central American background, I’m very interested in seeing a Disney film set in Columbia. I loved Coco and it’s portrayal of Mexican culture, so hopefully Encanto will be just as fantastic and respectful!

Overall, I’d say Disney’s got some pretty good stuff in their line up! Too bad most of them are over a year or two away. But in the meantime, you can bet I’m gonna be enjoying the upcoming Marvel series’, specifically What If and Loki. What are you most excited for?

Bonus mini thoughts on other announcements:

Boy they’re really going ham on the Star Wars licensing, aren’t they? So many upcoming series, it’s almost overwhelming. The ones I’m most interested in are the Ahsoka series and of course the Obi-Wan series.

Disenchanted was a surprise. Enchanted is a good movie, but I wish it had more of the animated segments. Hopefully we’ll get more of that in the sequel.

Apparently the rumors of another live action Lion King are true. What I didn’t expect was for it to be a prequel. Didn’t watch the first one and I kinda don’t want to, having heard what others think. Honestly, unless they’re gonna explain how Scar became who he is (and not in a bs way like Lion Guard did) or introduce Zira and the outlanders, then I’m not gonna bother.

Definitely excited for the Moana series and the opportunity to explore more Polynesian mythology! Hopefully Auli’i will come back to be Moana.

#my posts #disney #disney investor day #disney+#opinions #raya and the last dragon #the little mermaid #tiana #princess and the frog #buzz lightyear

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crowdvscritic · 3 years

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round up // JULY 21

‘Tis the season to beat the heat at the always-cold theatres and next to fans set at turbo speed. While my movie watching slowed a bit with the launch of the Summer Olympics on July 23rd, I’ve still got plenty of popcorn-ready and artsy recommendations for you. A few themes in the new-to-me pop culture I’m recommending this month:

Casts oozing with embarrassing levels of talent (sometimes overqualified for the movies they’re in)

Pop culture that is responding or reinterpreting past pop culture

Stories that get weEeEeird

Keep on-a-scrollin’ to see which is which!

July Crowd-Pleasers

1. Double Feature – ‘90s Rom-Coms feat. Lots of Lies: Mystery Date (1991) + The Pallbearer (1996)

In Mystery Date (Crowd: 7.5/10 // Critic: 6/10), Ethan Hawke and Teri Polo get set up on a blind date that gets so bizarre and crime-y I’m not sure how this didn’t come out in the ‘80s. In The Pallbearer (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow try to combine The Graduate with Four Weddings and a Funeral in a story about lost twentysomethings. If you don’t like rom-coms in which circumstances depend on lots of lies and misunderstandings, these won’t be your jam, but if you’re like me and don’t mind these somewhat-cliché devices, you’ll be hooked by likeable casts and plenty of rom and com.

2. The Tomorrow War (2021)

I thought of no fewer movies than this list while watching: Alien, Aliens, Angel Has Fallen, Cloverfield, Interstellar, Kong: Skull Island, Prometheus, A Quiet Place: Part II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, The Silence of the Lambs, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and World War Z. And you know what? I like all those movies! (Okay, maybe I just have a healthy respect/fear of The Silence of the Lambs.) The Tomorrow War may not be original, but it borrows some of the best tropes and beats from the sci-fi and action genres, so much so I wish I could’ve seen Chris Pratt and Co. fight those gross monsters on a big screen. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6/10

3. Dream a Little Dream (1989)

My July pick for the Dumb Rom-Com I Nevertheless Enjoyed! I CANNOT explain the mechanics of this body switch comedy to you—nor can the back of the DVD case above—but, boy, what an ‘80s MOOD. I did not know I needed to see a choreographed dance routine starring Jason Robards and Corey Feldman, but I DID. All I know is some movies are made for me and that I’m now a card-carrying member of the Two Coreys fan club. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

4. Black Widow (2021)

The braids! The Pugh! Black Widow worked for me both as an exciting action adventure and as a respite from the Marvel adventures dependent on a long memory of the franchise. (Well, mostly—keep reading for a second MCU rec much more dependent on the gobs of previous releases.) Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

5. Liar Liar (1997)

Guys, Jim Carrey is hilarious. That’s it—that’s the review. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

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6. Sob Rock by John Mayer (2021)

It’s very possible I’ve already listened to this record more than all other John Mayer records. It doesn’t surpass the capital-G Greatness of Continuum, but it’s a little bit of old school Mayer, a little bit ‘80s soft rock/pop, and I’ve had it on repeat most of the two weeks since it’s been out. Featuring the boppiest bop that ever bopped, at least one lyrical gem in every track, and an ad campaign focused on Walkmans, this record skirts the line between Crowd faves and Critic-worthy musicianship.

7. Double Feature – ‘00s Ben Affleck Political Thrillers: The Sum of All Fears (2002) + State of Play (2009)

In The Sum of All Fears (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), Ben Affleck is Jack Ryan caught up in yet another international incident. In State of Play (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), he’s a hotshot Congressman caught up in a scandal. Both are full of plot twists and unexpected turns, and in both, Affleck is accompanied by actors you’re always happy to see, like Jason Bateman, James Cromwell, Russell Crowe, Jeff Daniels, Viola Davis, Morgan Freeman, Philip Baker Hall, David Harbour, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, and Robin Wright—yes, I swear all of those people are in just those two movies.

8. Loki (2021-)

Unlike Black Widow, you can’t go into Loki with no MCU experience. The show finds clever ways to nudge us with reminders (and did better at it than Falcon and the Winter Soldier), but be forewarned that at some point, you’re just going to have to let go and accept wherever this timeline-hopper is taking you. An ever-charismatic cast keeps us grounded (Owen Wilson, Jonathan Majors, and an alligator almost steal the show from Tom Hiddleston in some eps), but while Falcon lasted an episode or two too long, Loki could’ve used a few more to flesh out its complicated plot and develop its characters. Thankfully, the jokes matter almost as much as the sci-fi, so you can still have fun even if you have no idea what’s going on.

9. Double Feature – Bruce Willis: Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) + The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Before Bruce Willis began starring in many random direct-to-DVD movies I only ever hear about in my Redbox emails, he was a Movie Star smirking his way up the box office charts. In the third Die Hard (Crowd: 10/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), he teams up with Samuel L. Jackson to decipher the riddles of a terrorist madman (Jeremy Irons), and it’s a thrill ride. In The Whole Nine Yards (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), he’s hitman that screws up dentist Matthew Perry’s boring life in Canada, and—aside from one frustrating scene of let’s-objectify-women-style nudity—it’s hilarious.

10. This Is the End (2013)

On paper, this is not a movie for me. An irreverent stoner comedy about a bunch of bros partying it up before the end of the world? None of things are for Taylors. But with a little help of a TV edit to pare down the raunchy and crude bits, I laughed my way through and spent the next several days thinking through its exploration of what makes a good person. While little of the plot is accurate to Christian Gospel and theology, some of its big ideas are consistent enough with the themes of the book of Revelation I found myself thinking about it again in church this morning. (Would love to know if Seth Rogen ever expected that.) Plus, I love a good self-aware celebrity spoof—can’t tell you how many times I’ve just laughed remembering the line, “It’s me, Jonah Hill, from Moneyball”—and an homage to horror classics. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

1. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Television Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

Even director Questlove didn’t know about the Harlem Cultural Festival, but now he’s compiled the footage so we can all enjoy one of the coolest music fest lineups ever, including The 5th Dimension, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, who made my friend’s baby dance more than once in the womb. See it on the big screen for top-notch audio. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

2. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Robin Williams takes on the bureaucracy, disillusionment, and malaise of the Vietnam War with comedy. Williams was a one-of-a-kind talent, and here it’s on display at a level on par with Aladdin. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

3. Against the Rules Season 2 (2020-21)

Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, adapted into a film starring Jonah Hill), is interested in how we talk about fairness. This season he looks at how coaches impact fairness in areas like college admissions, credit cards, and youth sports.

4. Bugsy Malone (1976)

A gangster musical starring only children? It’s a little like someone just picked ideas out of a hat, but somehow it works. You can hear why in the Bugsy Malone episode Kyla and I released this month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, plus how this weird artifact of a film connects with Gilmore Girls.

5. The Queen (2006)

Before The Crown, Peter Morgan wrote The Queen, focusing on Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) in the days following the death of Princess Diana. It’s a complex and compassionate drama, both for the Queen and for Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, who has snuck up on me to become a favorite character actor). Maybe I’ve got a problem, but I’ll never tire of the analysis of this famous family. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

6. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

This month at ZekeFilm, we took a closer look at Revisionist Westerns we’ve missed. I fell hard for Roy Bean, and I think you will, too, if for no other reason than you might like a story starring Jacqueline Bisset, Ava Gardner, John Huston, Paul Newman, and Anthony Perkins. Oh, and a bear! Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10

youtube

7. New Trailer Round Up

Naked Singularity (Aug. 6) – John Boyega in a crime thriller!

Queenpins (Aug. 10) – A crime comedy about extreme coupon-ing!

Dune (Oct. 1) – I’ve been cooler on the anticipation for this film, but this new look has me cautiously intrigued thanks to the Bardem + Bautista + Brolin + Chalamet + Ferguson + Isaac + Momoa + Zendaya of it all.

The Last Duel (Oct. 15) – Affleck! Damon! Driver!

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Nov. 11) - I’m not sure why we need this, but I’m down for the Paul Rudd + Finn Wolfhard combo

King Richard (Nov. 19) - Will Smith as Venus and Serena’s father!

Encanto (Nov. 24) – Disney and Lin-Manuel Miranda making more magic together!

House of Gucci (Nov. 24) - Gaga! Pacino! Driver!

Also in July…

Kyla and I took a look at the classic supernatural soap Dark Shadows and why Sookie might be obsessed with it on Gilmore Girls.

I revisited a so-bad-it’s-good masterpiece that’s a surrealist dream even Fellini couldn’t have cooked up. Yes, for ZekeFilm I wrote about the Vanilla Ice movie, Cool as Ice, which is now a part of my Blu-ray collection.

Photo credits: Against the Rules. All others IMDb.com.

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scarlet--wiccan · 3 years

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your ideal billy/teddy duo comic (plot, character designs, artists and writers involved etc)

One thing that I've always wanted to see is a comic about Billy and/or Teddy that was produced entirely by mlm creators. Vecchio, Robles and Gracia are all gay artists who've worked with the characters on recent titles, and I'm eager to see more from them. While none of these artists have ever shown the characters in a way that exactly suits my wants, they've each demonstrated a clear personal vision of who Billy and Teddy are that I can respect. I find that Vecchio and Robles, as illustrators, both articulate a gay sensibility in their designs and are able to represent a range of gay identities and expressions with not only dignity, but real love, which is frustratingly hard to come by. Oh, also, Kevin Wada covers, because duh.

Writers are a little bit more difficult for me. I love Anthony Oliviera and I know that he's got a lot of ideas for the characters, so I'd be delighted to see anything that he might pitch. Vecchio also does write, and his creator-owned series, Sereno, is an urban superhero story in a modern fantasy setting-- something he describes as Batman Beyond meets Sailor Moon. Based on that, I think he'd do a great job telling a story about a witch and shapeshifter from New York. I know that Sina doesn't work for Marvel anymore, but I've always wished he could've done Billy and Teddy in a sweet little rom-com miniseries, or even just a single issue special. He's particularly good at writing tender, funny, and just unapologetically gay characters who signal authentic elements of our culture and community without making them cheap or laughable. That is a quality which I find essential for Billy and Teddy, and it's part of why I want more mlm creators to work with them.

If you had asked me this question last year, I would have had an easier time pitching ideas for these characters. I'm eager to see what the future holds for them, but "rulers of an interplanetary nation" was never part of my vision for how Billy and Teddy would be spending their early twenties. I did have this idea for an ongoing series about their "college years", wherein Billy would be studying magic with Wanda and Agatha, and Teddy would work part time with Carol or Alpha Flight while attending community college or learning a trade, like piercing or tattoo artistry. The idea was that they'd often spend time apart, as they'd each be focusing on their own careers and having individual storylines, but they'd always come home to each other at the end of the day and lend each other support, in ways both mundane and super-heroic.

I used to imagine that they'd stay in that nice apartment Sunspot got them, which would act as sort of a crash pad/base of operations for a revolving cast of their friends. They could convert one of the rooms into a magical sanctum for Billy, and another into a study room or art studio for Teddy. Tommy, America, Kate, or whoever could crash on their sofa whenever they're in town or need to do a team-up. Wanda could help Billy ward the apartment so that he and America are the only ones who can portal in and out, but then Loki would find a way to get around the wards and cause trouble, and there'd be a whole dramatic reunion. The whole idea could easily be adapted as a Young Avengers ongoing if you widened the focus from the main couple and treated it as an ensemble piece with individually chunked plot-arcs, much like the original series.

Unfortunately, that idea no longer holds as much water as I'd like because, for one thing, they lost that apartment and never explained why-- it seems like it was passively retconned out in between New Avengers and Death's Head. More importantly, they now live in space, with Teddy being a busy ruler of an interstellar Alliance, and Billy his prince-consort.

I would still like to explore the idea of them pursuing separate goals and working in separate fields while never being truly apart. Empyre introduced a clever plot device wherein Billy is now able to sense Teddy's location and teleport to him instantly, no matter the distance, which, I assume, works in reverse as well. This feat of magic is made possible by their marriage, which binds them symbolically and draws on the power of their love. They can go anywhere and do anything on their own, and still be together again at a moments' notice, which is super romantic and also affords them more flexibility than most superhero couples. I would still pitch a series about Billy doing magic work on Earth while Teddy does diplomacy in space, and one can always warp to the other when they need backup fighting a bad guy. They could even switch back and forth between staying on Teddy's throne-ship, and getting cozy at Billy's little Manhattan apartment when they want to get away from it all.

I guess my final answer is that I want the two of them to be fully realized, individual characters whose love is illustrated through mutual support rather than, like, being glued to each other's hips. The things that I want to see Billy doing are very far removed from the things that I want to see Teddy doing. Superhero characters tend to lose momentum when you marry them off, and superhero couples tend to fizzle when you keep them apart, but Billy and Teddy's unique strength is that they're never truly apart, and their relationship never seems to lose steam-- they've been a pair from the start, and... they're a little obsessed with each other.

The Billy story that I most want to see right now is a full Maximoff team-up. It could go in one of two directions: A) a quest to uncover Natalya's history and finally vanquish the Emerald Warlock, in which they're waylaid by Doom and other magic villains from their past, while teaming up with their magical friends around the world-- basically a sequel to Scarlet Witch; or, B) a showdown with Krakoa and a resolution of their relationship with Erik, which, best case scenario, partially reverses the Axis retcon and proves once and for all that the Maximoffs are mutants. If we got a longer series, we could actually do both plots-- they learn something about Natalya which leads them back to Erik, and the two arcs become a larger story.

The Teddy story that I most want to see is a Guardians-esque space romp with political elements featuring Teddy, Xavin and Noh-Varr as, like, a sexy-alien-boys version of the Gullwings from Final Fantasy X. Does that make sense? I don't have a great grasp on the political landscape of Marvel Space so it's a little hard for me to come up with details, but I know that the status quo has been totally upended, so there are going to be different factions and movements springing up, and likely no shortage of villains and space monsters rearing their heads when the dust of the war has fully settled. Teddy's a monarch now, but he's also been set up as this Arthurian hero-king, so I think there's still room for him to go on adventures and fight his own battles with his magic sword and, maybe, a crew of loyal space knights.

Having said aaaallll of that, I would absolutely die for a full-on fantasy adventure story with Billy and Teddy. I mean, Teddy's a king with a magic sword and his husband is a super-powerful witch. It's gotta happen. I'd actually be into them having a rematch with Mother, who is a pretty adaptable villain, in that her abilities and motives will differ depending on how she's been summoned. I'd also really like them to have a chance to go up against Sequoia directly, and on more even grounds. Quoi is such a great enemy for them because they represent the same generation of Avengers babies, and, actually, Quoi's origins are directly tied to Billy's-- their respective parents had a double wedding together. Sequoia and Teddy's arcs in Empyre paralleled and contrasted each other beautifully, but the two characters had no meaningful interactions. I want to see thems as arch rivals, and maybe, begrudgingly.... friends? Plus, I love that they're both alien princes who live in sci-fi stories, but whose aesthetics and powers are pure fantasy-- Quoi's a dryad wizard and Teddy is King Arthur, if King Arthur was a gay anthropomorphic dragon.

Anyways, that's my Wiccan+Hulkling pitch. The first arc is Billy and Teddy facing off against Sequoia in a magic forest that he's grown on his new planet, only to find out that they've been set up by Mother.

In the second arc, the three of them grudgingly team up against Mother while hashing out their shared backstories and giving Quoi, who's literally never had peers to relate to, a chance to fully come to grips with the way he was conditioned and manipulated by his father. Instead of conjuring dead parents, Mother seems to be able to summon dead children, which makes her particularly dangerous around the Cotati, Kree and Skrull, who've just emerged from a war and have countless recent dead.

In the third arc, Mother has freed R'kll and they've set their sights on Earth. Billy heads out with America and Tommy to ask Loki for advice on defeating her, while Teddy brings Sequoia before the Avengers as his charge in order to ensure that Quoi receives provisional immunity.

Loki is able to provide insight on how Mother might have been summoned and what the parameters might be for breaking the spell that's tethering her to Earth-616. It turns out that Mother is essentially holding Anelle's soul hostage and has been appearing to R'kll in her form. Mother's hold, at this point, has spread to the entire Alliance, and Teddy will have to defeat her or else she'll use it to destroy Earth and decimate his nation in the process.

Teddy recruits Wanda to help face Mother down. (side note, I'm desperate to see more of their relationship as in-laws.) Wanda agrees to work with Sequoia but insists on calling Mantis and making them talk.

The final showdown is the three boys, plus Wanda and Mantis, against Mother, R'kll, and an army of dead alien soldiers. Mantis and Wanda are able to pull Anelle's soul from Mother's grasp, but this doesn't banish her-- Mother's true anchor was R'kll, who'd been carrying Anelle's ghost in her heart ever since the destruction of Tarnax.

R'kll believes that she's always acted in the best interest of her nation, and she thought that bringing back Teddy's mother would finally make him see her way. Anelle and Teddy have a tearful reunion, but he admits that the only mother he's really mourned was the woman who raised him.

Wanda, Mantis, and Anelle, as a trio of mothers united with their lost sons, are able to reverse and seal Mother's power, which was based on lost children. They are not able to banish her, however, until R'kll steps forward and sacrifices herself, believing now that the best she can do for her nation is to rid the Alliance of the curse she brought upon it.

R'kll and Anelle begin to dissipate, but R'kll's sacrifice has called forth the spirit of Mrs. Altman, who is finally granted some closure and dignity in death by getting a chance to see how far Teddy's come and the peace that he's built in her memory.

Lots of crying! I made this sad. I'm sorry.

#young avengers #teddy altman #hulkling #wiccan #billy kaplan #empyre #robintext

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deliquescentnightmare · 3 years

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Getting to know me

Oh look, another oddball has joined tumblr.

Hello there!

(general kenobi)

(If you're wondering what I sound like, I won't disclose my age but I'm younger and reading this aloud in a British accent as I type it. I won't disclose where I'm from at the moment however.)

Nice to meet you. My name is unimportant, but if you must you can call me Deliquescent. If that's too long, Del works fine. (DElinquent has a nice ring as well, does it not? feel free to use that too) I'm new here, but it's so nice to be here finally. I guess introductions are in order?

I'm a teenager. I use they/them and occasionally she/him as pronouns. I'm a writer, and write anything from fan-fiction to original screenplays. I'm not British, but I wish to be, so feel free to read all of these in a vaguely posh British accent. I like to sing, and I play 2 instruments. I will take writing commissions once I get a tad bit more settled on this platform, feel free to get in touch with me about them!

I love Earl Grey tea, quoting my favourite media, and the rain. Green or purple are my favourite jolly ranchers and I prefer Dr Pepper over Pepsi or Coke in terms of pop. I like 2000's American punk-pop and punk-rock, and sci-fi and crime television shows. I also really really like Marvel, specifically the MCU. I'm biromantic, demisexual, and I am also Polyamorous. I also have very bad ADHD, so don't expect a regular posting schedule. My favourite animals are snakes, foxes and frogs. I have a cat, but want two more. (Yes, I would likely name them Stephen and Mycroft.) I would also eventually like 3 snakes as well. (Their names would be George Salazar Slytherin, Janus, and Loki.) I want to major in Education with minors in History, English, and possibly Creative Writing or Drama.

I think that covers all the bases, but below I shall list my fandoms/hyperfixations so that you have a rough idea of what I write for, roleplay and just generally talk about. Thanks for reading about this disaster bisexual, hes shes theys and gays!

Till next time, loves!

My infatuations are:

- Sherlock (BBC)

- Marvel (cinematic universe)

- Harry Potter (but not JKR)

- Friends

- Infinity Train

- Steven Universe

- The Owl House

- Supernatural

- Thomas Sanders (AKA Sanders Sides)

- Hamilton

- Dear Evan Hansen

- Beetlejuice (Both movie and musical versions)

- Kong: Skull Island

- Crimson Peak

- Frozen II (Frozen I is okay but II is my fav)

- My Chemical Romance (MCR)

- Panic! At The Disco (PATD)

- Fall Out Boy (FOB)

- Green Day

- Star Wars.

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aussie-tea · 3 years

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so im just kinda reading through a lot of fandom wank and idk if I'm just in a specific corner of the fandom or if it's a general consensus but do some of those who dislike sylve really believe sylvie is 'abusive and toxic' to loki? I can understand being upset at loki having to "share" the lead in his own show or just not liking the way the writers wrote/developed her and/or loki's characters or just plain not liking the character. I personally cant see the abuse in their relationship and I feel like if I said that I would be ripped a new asshole by some of these people rather than them give me convincing and concise examples. (I've seen arguments both for/against mobius' "abuse and/or toxicity" to Loki and have seen both sides make sound points.) I mean not to say she and loki are somehow saints. they are both tremendously flawed (& while loki has suffered emotionally/physically, people forget he has also caused suffering) neither of them are perfect by any means & I'm happy to see loki trying to evolve and grow, especially for those he cares about (thor and now mobius & sylvie) but I had no idea some took the sarcasm and sass and having confidence in herself/her own ideas & giving loki attitude over it (his idea to kill allioth, him not having anything to say if kicking down the door was a bad idea, or even calling his idea of a blanket a 'tablecloth') and equated it to abuse in their minds (& imo they were only TRULY antagonistic BEFORE they got to know each other. even their fight/argument in the finale was more like them being dismayed/disappointed in each other's words and actions but simultaneously caring greatly about each other by loki trying to convince her to do what he thinks is right and sylvie sending him through a portal so she doesn't have to hurt him in order to fulfill her take-down-the-tva!revenge mission) tusure I can possibly see how some could call that being abuse in a relationship in which conversations are NOTHING BUT antagonistic, but they've also been supportive/awkward/candid/doubtful/disappointed/sad

Thank you!

A lot of the people in the comments of that post are saying that “Sylvie is abusive” “Sylvie treats Loki terribly” “Sylvie invalidates Loki’s trauma”, and like… where.

I seriously can’t find a single part where any of that has any grounds. Sylvie is mean to Loki sometimes. I’ll admit that. That doesn’t count as abusive.

Unless people are referring to the part where they were trying to KILL each other. Which, a) means that almost every single fantasy/sci-fi couple are abusive, and b) is kinda unfair to come for Sylvie like that cause Loki was legit hunting her for the TVA.

But Sylvie’s never unnecessarily mean to Loki. She yelled at him and called him an idiot… AFTER HE LEGIT PUT THEM ON PLANET ABOUT TO EXPLODE WITH NO WAY OFF, DOOMING THEM BOTH TO DEATH. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t fully understand what he was doing. If someone did that to me they’d be lucky just to be called an idiot.

The only other time I can think of is when they were talking about how to take down Alioth. Sylvie thought her way was best. But this wasn’t unfounded arrogance and an inflated sense of her abilities. She had slightly enchanted Alioth whilst running from it so she had a good idea that she was able to do it.

Loki’s idea was to just try and kill it. They didn’t know how or even if it could be killed. Naturally, Sylvie’s idea was best.

None of her actions are abusive. It’s just another desperate attempt for people to shit on the show because they’re the type of people who can never be pleased.

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twh-news · 3 years

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What is the Multiverse? Five Must-See Alternate Timeline TV Episodes to Watch After ‘Loki’

Look, I get it — multiverse storytelling can be confusing. Marvel’s Loki streaming series is only the latest in a long line of stories that plays fast and loose with the idea of multiple or parallel timelines. Loki follows the God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) after he gets involved with the Time Variance Authority, or the TVA, as they try to correct problems in individual timelines. This provides us a chance to see lots of variant Lokis (including our favorite chompy green boy) and opens up opportunities for a lot of zany storytelling that doesn’t necessarily have to impact the primary timeline.

The idea of multiple universes existing at the same time isn’t anything new. Some of the earliest examples date back to Norse mythology, which divided existence into nine worlds. DC Comics first introduced the idea of the DC multiverse in its comics in All Star Comics #3 in 1940, and Marvel later followed suit, starting with their What if? series in the 1970s. While the concept of parallel universes might feel a little daunting to contemplate on your own, these five television episodes will help you understand the magic of the multiverse.

“The Parallel” — The Twilight Zone

When it comes to television that changed the way we think, Rod Serling‘s The Twilight Zone is the forebear of them all. The original series ran from 1959 to 1964 and contained stories from science fiction greats like Ray Bradbury (Farhenheit 451) and Richard Matheson (I Am Legend). Each episode in the anthology series told a different short story, most with the intent of exploring some political or social allegory.

In 1963’s “The Parallel”, Major Robert Gaines (Steve Forrest) is orbiting earth in his space capsule when he suddenly blacks out and wakes up on Earth with no memory of how he got there. He’s uninjured, but the world he’s arrived in doesn’t quite match the one he left. His daughter suspects he’s someone else, his house suddenly has a white picket fence that his wife swears has always been there, and everyone keeps calling him Colonel, which matches his uniform but not his memories. He’s a little shaken until he comes to the conclusion that he’s in a parallel universe, and then takes steps to get back to his own timeline.

“The Parallel” marks the first instance of multiverse storytelling on TV. It doesn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking and is a middle-of-the-road The Twilight Zone episode, but it’s the first, which means it paved the way for everyone else to tell TV stories about parallel universes and doppelgangers.

“Mirror Mirror”/”Crossover” — Star Trek/Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Did I say doppelgangers? If there’s one franchise that has capitalized on the potential fun of meeting your alternate self, it’s Star Trek. In the “Mirror Mirror” episode of the original series, a teleporter mishap sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura to a parallel dimension where everything is reversed. The Federation has become an evil Empire, Kirk is a tyrant, and Spock has a goatee (that’s how you know he’s evil). The episode started several tropes about doppelgangers (including the whole goatee thing), and paved the way for future Star Trek iterations to really go wild with the Mirror Universe.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine explored the Mirror Universe more than any other Star Trek series, with stories taking place there over five different episodes. The first of these, “Crossover,” is the most important and sets the stage for the later mirror episodes. In “Crossover,” Major Kira (Nana Visitor) and Doctor Bashir (Alexander Siddig) have an accident inside of the wormhole near the planet Bajor, sending them to the Mirror Universe. It’s been decades since Kirk and co. crossed over, but things are still pretty backwards in the Mirrorverse. Instead of the Federation, there’s a coalition between the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans. Terrans (a fancy word for Earthlings) have been enslaved. The space station Deep Space Nine is instead a mining operation, run by the alternate Kira, the Intendant.

There are few things in the world as enjoyable as watching Visitor play her double role. The entire cast really gets to go for it with their Mirrorverse personas, and you can tell they’re having a blast. The Mirror Universe in Deep Space Nine gave the actors a chance to explore their characters in new ways, and it provided more insight into their individual pathos. Sure, the Mirrorverse versions were the “evil” versions of themselves, but there were still versions of themselves. Kira is a strong leader with a dry sense of humor, regardless of whether she’s the former Bajoran freedom fighter or the Intendant. “Crossover” set up the following four Deep Space Nine Mirror episodes, including episodes where Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) must pretend to be his doppelganger and deal with the fact that his dead wife is still very alive in the parallel universe. Some of the episodes are silly fun, and some are a bit more heady, but they all get to explore sides of these characters that we’ve never seen before.

“Remedial Chaos Theory” — Community

The NBC sitcom Community frequently made its own riffs on popular tropes, and it had an utter field day with parallel universes. In the season 3 episode, “Remedial Chaos Theory,” viewers are treated to seeing six different ways the same evening could have played out. The friends, who met in a Spanish study group at their community college, are all celebrating Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi) moving into a new apartment. When the pizza arrives, group leader Jeff (Joel McHale) suggests they roll dice to see who has to go get the pizza. Abed, who is sensitive to tropes, points out that Jeff is creating new timelines by introducing chance, and then we get to see each of them play out.

What “Remedial Chaos Theory” does is brilliant. It’s a bottle episode, all set in one location with no visible impact on the overall plot. However, by seeing how the situations change each time a single character is removed from the group dynamic, we’re able to learn so much more about the group as a whole. The episode gives us insight into the characters and their relationships by changing up the formula just a pinch and removing one element. In the Darkest Timeline, which leaves Pierce (Chevy Chase) dead and severely maims the rest of the group, it’s revealed that things fall apart without Troy in the mix. At the end of the episode, the prime timeline continues and it’s Jeff who has to go get the pizza. This ends up being the most positive of the timelines, which means maybe the group is better off without Jeff at all. It’s a great piece of character storytelling and even ends with the Darkest Timeline versions of Troy and Abed making felt goatees for themselves before declaring they are Evil Troy and Evil Abed.

“Rixty Minutes” – Rick and Morty

Community showrunner Dan Harmon clearly has a love for stories involving parallel timelines, so it’s no surprise that he expanded on those ideas in Rick and Morty, the adult animated series he developed with Justin Roiland. Rick and Morty is a kind of Back to the Future for twisted adults; it follows the adventures of alcoholic mad scientist Rick Sanchez (Roiland) and his hapless grandson Morty Smith (also Roiland) as they travel through space and time. In the first season episode “Rixty Minutes,” Rick introduces the entire Smith family to the many parallel timelines that exist. He and Morty watch Interdimensional Cable in the A plot, which gives Roiland a chance for lots of fun improvisational gags, but the B plot is more interesting. In order to enjoy his cable watching, Rick gives Morty’s parents and sister a helmet that will let them see through the eyes of some of their alternate selves.

Jerry (Chris Parnell) finds a version of himself that’s a huge Hollywood player who parties with Johnny Depp. Beth (Sarah Chalke) finds a reality where she’s not a horse surgeon, but a human surgeon, like she always wanted. Their teenage daughter Summer (Spencer Grammar) discovers that she was an unplanned pregnancy and that her parents argued about whether or not to get an abortion. In the parallel universes, she either doesn’t exist or her life is hopelessly boring. This leads to a pretty massive existential crisis, but she’s stopped by Morty, who has already had his fair share of timey-wimey weirdness.

Morty takes Summer upstairs and shows her two dirt mounds in the backyard. He explains that he’s not the Morty from this timeline, and that he and Rick had to come here after things in their timeline got too bad. The Rick and Morty in this timeline had just died, so they slipped in unnoticed. Then, Morty gives Summer a bit of advice that shows he’s beginning to grow up a bit on his madcap adventures.

“Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s gonna die. Come watch TV?” he pleads.

The episode ends with the entire Smith family realizing that dwelling on possible alternate realities will only ever cause problems. It’s a testament to living in the here and now, and is one of the series’ most emotionally resounding moments.

There are dozens of shows with multiverse stories out there, from ’90s sci-fi staple Sliders to the later seasons of Supernatural. These five, however, helped expand upon the trope as a whole, and are worth checking out to improve your pop culture savvy. That, and they’re just a lot of fun.

#loki #loki series #multiverse #article #slashfilm

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lokigodofaces · 3 years

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thoughts on loki ep 3: lamentis

under cut for your convenience

my first thought when i saw C-20 at the beginning was the Framework...i might be a bit too obsessed with an aos/Loki crossover...

C-20 was sorta able to find out something was wrong. from what Sylvie said, that's pretty impressive.

i wonder if Sylvie uses magic similar to Wanda's. like if Wanda just uses it on a bigger scale. the mind illusions thing checks out. and i saw on youtube that another patron looks like Evan Peters, so maybe they're connected? but most likely they just hired a dude that happens to look like Evan Peters.

going back to that, the glitch in C-20's illusion was like the glitches in WandaVision

if this really is similar to Wanda in canon, that means Sylvie and other Lokis might be nexus beings (y'know, the very thing i shout about in tags because i want)

Okay, so Sylvie tried to enchant a minuteman, which means she must have assumed the TVA operates on the same physics as the timeline. So neither Lokis thought magic could possibly be impeded.

good action sequence with Sylvie and minutemen and Sylvie and Loki

dudes...Renslayer can't fight. she literally did a horrible job.

Sylvie really thought the TVA valued Loki and that they really wanted/needed him to stop her. so she threatened to kill him, just for Renslayer to give the go ahead. shows how little the TVA cares and it echoes Odin.

Lamentis 1 sounded cool because that is a very sci-fi-ey name. It means the star the planet orbits is called Lamentis and the planet is the closest planet. That's how we name lots of planets outside the solar system. so i appreciated that.

okay, lamentis is literally just the bi flag. but still lots of purple so i will claim it as ace as well.

teleportation! and actual magic! yay!

okay, are they setting up a Loki/Sylvie romance? the way they framed the two when Sylvie tried to enchant Loki was how it's often done with kisses

Sylvie said with strong minds she has to do what she did to C-20 to enchant them, but she couldn't even do that with Loki. Which shows how powerful Loki is and how powerful the mind stone is.

i will die for more of Loki and Sylvie being chaotic together

Sylvie she said is an alias. Does this mean she is genderfluid but is female more often than male? i'm told some genderfluids are one gender more than the other, and i've considered Hiddleston's Loki to be predominantly male. Could Sylvie be the other way around? & born Loki but haven't changed her name? or have different names for different genders? and doesn't want to be called Loki when she's female because that's not her name as a woman?

literally i can't tell if they're setting up romance or sibling stuff.

i never thought i'd hear the word "savvy" from Loki. but, hey, if Jack Sparrow can say it, i'll allow it.

the effects for the gun that woman used look similar to Daisy Johnson's quakes. for a second i hoped for an aos crossover, but then i remembered that marvel hates it's non-Disney+ series.

i like the differences between Loki and Sylvie. Loki is less confrontational and more likely to mischief his way when Sylvie is more likely to rip the bandaid off and get it over with, if that makes sense. i think that Sylvie might just be so tired from living on the run, only going to apocalypses that she just wants to get it over with.

love is a serious theme throughout this episode. again, are they setting up a Loki/Sylvie romance? or will it be platonic or familial or something else?

Loki is very clearly not okay with the fact that so many people are being left to die, and i'm here for it

so the whole thing to get on the train i think is setting those two up to be a good duo. between illusions and enchantments, they can do a lot. and Loki was able to get them part of the way, and Sylvie the rest. i think it could be foreshadowing both of them needing to use their skills to work together.

never have your back to a door, i guess

Sylvie's reaction to Loki saying he wasn't told he was adopted. man, she was worried. she knows that that is messed up and i think she feels bad for Loki. she's probably imagining how her life would be different if she didn't know she was adopted.

sounds like Odin and Frigga weren't the adopters of Sylvie. Maybe the Lushtons? i don't know anything about them, just that Lushton is Sylvie's last name in the comics. so, yay for her for not having trash parents. unless they were, then sorry for Sylvie. at least they told her she was adopted. but if the Lushtons adopted her, how did they fall across a frost giant? especially the daughter of Laufey?

i've seen suggestions that the post man Sylvie is with could be Stan Lee since a couple cameos were of him as a post man. Maybe a younger post man, but he has less of a lifespan (if he is actually human in universe. i still like to think of him as the One Above All who just really likes to see the drama of things) than Sylvie, so she could be with him for a long time. maybe that's why Stan is always cameoing. he's just trying different things to try to find his love. and maybe he has a longer lifespan (he was in First Avenger) but not as long as Sylvie's so she still was there for most his life but he's dying soon. I actually like this headcanon a lot, i think it's sweet.

YAS BISEXUAL LOKI YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY I AM! but i'm also scared my parents will find out. they're anti-queer. my siblings saw it, & they aren't supportive either but they operate on an "ignore it" policy, so they don't really care as long as it isn't a big deal.

also it is heavily hinted Sylvie is bi as well.

yes, i will continue to headcanon Loki as greyromantic and asexual. deal with it. i will change my language from panromantic to biromantic since the director specifically said he was bi.

also, it sounded like the director might be bi as well. good for her, taking a character she saw as bi and literally making it canon.

i knew Tom could sing, he was on Broadway. but i had never heard him sing i don't think. he has a good voice. petition to make a musical with Loki. watch the episode "Duet" of The Flash. i want something similar to that. can Sophia sing? throw her in too if she can!

translation of the norwegian suggests romance between Loki and Sylvie

was i expecting an "ANOTHER" reference? no. am i glad we got it? yeah, that was a nice touch.

turns out "full" means drunk in Norwegian according to a youtuber? but don't quote that. Loki says he's full, not drunk at one point.

what were they serving on that train? Thor couldn't get drunk on Earth. heck, Steve couldn't. so it must've been a heck of a drink they were serving

ok, the dagger metaphor i actually really liked. could be a shakespeare reference?

the fireworks thing with Frigga was cute

okay, i don't like Frigga much, but this has confirmed that Frigga was, maybe possibly, better than Odin. Frigga at least believed in Loki. but then her betrayal was so much worse.

wait, i just realized. Loki gets a fight scene on a train. a superhero genre staple is a fight on a moving vehicle (bonus if it's a train). yay! Loki hasn't had this trope yet in any of his appearances. off screen before Infinity War, and i don't count his attempt to murder Thanos on the Statesman. but we can add that to his list of superhero tropes.

i feel like the TVA needs to make stronger tempads...

okay, Loki threw the dagger horribly because he was drunk, right?they aren't saying he has horrible aim, are they?

falling out of a moving vehicle is also a superhero trope...at least it went better for them than it did Bucky

i relate to Sylvie screaming in the middle of nowhere

Loki being gentle with Sylvie and letting her talk to him. gosh. i love it. was not expecting to see Loki from my fics make an appearance.

Sylvie explained the enchantment to Loki, which i think was a poor decision for her.

she said C-20's mind was hard to navigate to her original memories. maybe the TVA does something to the TVA agents that join them. maybe if Loki proved useful, they'd do it to Loki.

or maybe variants lose memory over time. Sylvie says something about her memory being like blips of a dream, but I don't remember the context. maybe over time variants lose their memories and only retain a few things. Sylvie is well down that process, Loki has had hardly any change, and those working for the TVA only have a few things to remind them.

Mobius absolutely was a jet ski enthusiast in the '90's when he was arrested, and he loved Josta.

Casey liked Boku juice, a sign he was from the '90's.

whoever makes the uniforms is from whatever period that style of suit was popular ('80's?).

if anyone isn't a variant, it's Renslayer. she knows more than she should, i'm sure of it.

C-20 likes margaritas now, i'm sure of it.

Mobius has an interesting relationship with Renslayer. I wasn't sure if it was romantic or what. Maybe Renslayer looks like his lover from the '90's so he is flirty with her because of the faint memories he has.

Loki immediately catches on to the TVA agents not knowing they're variants. they think the Time Keepers created them. he knows that, Sylvie didn't. this immediately tells Loki that the Time Keepers are messed up.

possible redemptions for Mobius? B-15? C-20? when they find out they're variants?

so does C-20 know now? she kept saying "it was real" when Mobius found her in Roxxcart. maybe she had dreams of her life before, and Sylvie showed her that they were real?

the whole scene in the city was wild. so much color, lights, people, action, it was wild

Loki being protective of Sylvie, helping her up and wrapping his arm around her, i'm here for it.

loved the bit where Loki used telekinesis to stop the tower from falling on them.

there was a bit where Loki and Sylvie fought & their moves mirrored each other and gosh that was a nice touch.

Loki's reaction to the Ark's destruction. standing there in defeat while Sylvie walks away. wow. Tom. you are amazing.

and what the heck why did the episode end there?

can't wait for the next episode

more of TVA being evil being shown, loving it.

really, is Loki/Sylvie a thing? i have a hard time seeing romance some times, so let me know.

can we please get a Kang tease?

great lighting & cinematography. beautiful. lovely. also good action. shout out to the stunt doubles since they don't get enough credit.

okay let Loki & Sylvie be friends (or lovers, i'm fine with that) and let them burn the TVA down together.

aaaaaaaaaaa how are we half way through?

also, have the TVA fixed all the messed up timelines yet?

oh wait i gotta talk about this. the minutemen don't remember their names. i doubt Mobius's name was Mobius Mobius Mobius. Casey is probably not his real name. The Clone Wars fan in me was already screaming, but now it is even more.

#loki (2021)#loki (2021) spoilers #loki (2021) review #loki laufeyson #tva loki #sylvie laufeysdottir #mobius m mobius #ravonna renslayer #hunter c-20 #hunter b 15

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lokilickedme · 4 years

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Writing Update, 4/17/20

Trying to get back into the groove here - recovery’s been rougher than I expected but at least part of my brain feels like it might be coming back online, so we’ll see how this goes. I haven’t done an update post in a long time, so I made myself a new header for it on the premise that sparkly new thing = motivation. I’m sure that’s not true but it’s worth a try :)

Worked on The Department chapter 35 tonight, which is currently at around 3800 words and will be wrapping up in about another 300. Might be ready to post on Sunday and settle back into its designated timeslot. Updates on that one may slip to bi-weekly until it’s finished, or until I finish one of the books I’m working on and can go back to devoting more time to it. Chief and Greta just made an appointment for the minute Ant leaves town, but first Andy’s gotta survive one more night without being assassinated by his own guardian.

Mapped out the next pairing for Tales From Quarantine. It’s probably going to be Chem!Tom and Anja :) Tom is being a bit macabre, and we all know how weirdness makes him horny.

TOM: Someone will have to find our corpses, eventually. Unless the whole world goes down, then I guess it'll be aliens.

ANJA: What?!?

TOM: Skeletons everywhere, just all laying in bed, watching TV or fucking, waiting for the world to end while it slips quietly into that good night.

ANJA: WHAT?!?!

I have chunks of Hammer Of The Gods chapters 28 and 29 put together, as well as a good part of the final chapter and some of the epilogue. Chapter 28 could go up in the next couple of weeks. Tate’s got Jake’s tuition money and a fierce determination to make sure his selflessness won’t be for nothing.

Jack Montague will be delayed for a little while. This one takes a really specific mindset to write and I’m just not up to it lately and I refuse to halfass this story, it means too much to me. Loki and Adam are still sorting wtf is keeping them flying through the portals every five minutes, but it’s pretty likely that Loki’s already figured it out.

ADAM: You are possibly the dumbest motherfucker I’ve ever had the sorry misfortune to be acquainted with...but it’s been something of a cockassed honor to to die repeatedly with you.

LOKI: Yeah, I guess now wouldn’t be a good time to tell you your daughter is an interdimensional anomaly that’s going to destroy the gods and the gods in question plan to destroy her first and they’ve sent me to do the job...would it?

UPCOMING BOOKS:

The second book in the Strada Trilogy is about half finished, so...not too terribly long till this one goes out. Baltho is still an uncontrollable nutcase and oh yeah, his powers are returning...Keene is still cranky and put out about the whole situation and might be catching feels, if he believed in that sort of thing...the other Strada are crossing over and the Messenger has just arrived with a whole bunch of sticky notes to remind him what he’s supposed to tell everybody, but nobody seems willing to follow that whole “don’t shoot the messenger” thing long enough for him to do his job. The end of the world doesn’t come from a virus, folks...it comes from big guys with wings and really bad attitudes.

Another second book - part 2 of The Carmichael Addendum - is outlined and maybe a quarter written. The war they were expecting in book one? Yeah, it came. Except Kaine is nowhere to be found and Aiden’s name is on the dead list and a rogue slayer is consecrating kills - which is a big no no - and Clarissa’s gotta find the guy before Fitz and his Agents do. She’s got a pretty good idea who it is though...because sometimes the dead don’t stay dead, and a certain archaeology dropout might be harder to kill than everyone expected.

Eidos and The Fifth King are both coming along nicely. These will be housed together in one book. Sexy cyberpunk sci-fi.

Wicklow House is chugging along, I’ve got the entire thing sorted and it’s maybe a quarter written. It’s ended up being the first of a series. Huh, imagine that. Gothic horror romance/mystery.

Chemical Volume Three is nearly finished, this one will go to publishing within a month I think. I rewrote bits of a few of the Prehistories and polished them up some, and did the same with Penumbraluna.

The McClary Chronicles book four is about half written. It’ll go out at some point this year, fingers crossed.

The King’s Heart and The Wolf King are waiting their turn - they’ll be partly rewritten and then published, I haven’t decided if they’ll be together or in separate books yet.

Whisper is almost finished being rewritten, then it’ll be released as a novella.

That’s where everything is at the moment. I’ll try to get back into posting update notices a couple times a week like I used to do.

#writing stuff

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ryanmeft · 5 years

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Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Part 1

The culmination of the superhero ride that started with Iron Man back in 2008 is almost here. Avengers: Endgame tickets are selling out fast even though the movie is nearly three weeks away, and speculation as to how this stage of Marvel’s box office juggernaut will all end is at a fever pitch. What better time to rank the movies that have brought us here? Now, no one with even a tiny bit of objectivity sincerely believes Marvel had a ten year plan and executed it precisely according to a grand vision. Looking back through these movies makes it clearer than ever that, more often than not, they made it up as they went along. In fact, considering all the retcons, changed minds, dropped plot threads and unexpected surprises, it’s amazing the continuity holds together at all. It mostly does...but the bottom part of this list contains the few movies even Marvel’s PR team probably wishes they could have a mulligan on, as well as some good-but-not-quite-lighting-the-world-on-fire fare. Let’s get to it. Warning: this article contains spoilers for nearly every movie in the MCU.

21. Iron Man 2

The red-headed stepchild of the MCU. After the surprise success of the original Iron Man, Marvel Studios apparently forgot that the strength of that film was allowing Jon Favreau and the writing team to put heart before brand synergy, and decided to make a movie that was half marketing for their planned Avengers crossover. Dropping Black Widow in here felt completely jarring, and it didn’t help that her role just added to the jumble of plot threads that didn’t seem to add up to anything; at the time, many saw it as proof that Marvel was putting a little too much faith in their ability to pull off this whole crossover thing. That’s only part of the sordid story, though, because the movie is also a mess in nearly every other way. Rather than the tight plotting of the original, this one sees Tony, Rhodey, Pepper and the rest speeding from random situation to random situation---a car race, an unhinged party, a spy caper---with only the barest of plot threads holding it all together. The movie’s only saving graces are the villains played by Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke. Each of them deliciously devours every scene they are in, providing the film’s lone moments of enjoyment, but they’re also squandered on what feels like an extremely low stakes plan. Iron Man so well proved that superhero movies can have a soul that it even managed to make some critical best-of lists for 2008. The sequel made us wonder if that might have been a tad premature.

20. The Incredible Hulk

There are some genuinely creative moments in this action-oriented “apology” for the in-reality-pretty-good Ang Lee Hulk movie. The opening sequence showing how Hulk’s blood travels, a chase through a Brazilian favela, tossing Bruce out of a helicopter to incite his other half, and the almost-love scene aborted by the alter ego were signs of how clever the movie could have been if it were not focused on cramming in as much smashing as possible. Nick Nolte’s complex antagonist is replaced with William Hurt chewing a little too much scenery, the new super-villain played by Tim Roth is a dull waste of the actor’s talent, the finale is listless, and the entire movie is just one long excuse to show Hulk ‘roiding out as much as possible. The camera work of skilled action veteran Peter Menzies Jr. and some excellent CG on the title character make it more fun to look at than many of the tights flicks of the time, which is something. As a general rule, things that are made to chase fleeting audience sentiments don’t stand the test of time, and there’s been a quiet reversal since 2008 in which Lee’s more original and creative vision for the character has come to be re-evaluated, while this one has been almost forgotten and relegated to endless TNT re-runs. Maybe with Mark Ruffalo having one more movie on his contract, he’ll get a crack at doing it right post-Endgame.

19. Thor: The Dark World At the time, this movie served as iron-clad proof that the only reason the Thor character worked at all was Loki. The god of mischief is at his delicious then-best here, conniving from a prison cell, partnering with his brother out of genuine concern, and eventually managing to actually take the throne. Sure, that latter development was quickly undone in the next film, but what a parting shot. He’s the only aspect of the movie that fully works, and if you pop it in today you sit patiently waiting for his scenes and snoring through the second, Loki-free half of the movie. Thor himself is lifeless when Loki’s not on screen. The Warriors Three are still nowhere near the right balance of humor and bravery. Natalie Portman remains wasted on a supposedly genius scientist who can nevertheless be stunned into immediate silence by Thor’s golden locks, while Sif is still 100% unnecessary in every way. Perhaps worst of all, the underrated Christopher Eccleston is miscast as a villain who always seems to be doing bad Shakespeare. We all tried hard to forgive it at the time (and director Alan Taylor claims it was made “a different movie” in the editing room, not at all implausible) but thankfully we’ve since admitted this is mostly a misfire.

18. Ant-Man

If you were to judge Ant-Man entirely by the size-changing shenanigans, it would be one of the best Marvel movies. Peyton Reed, building off a script by departing director Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (and tidied up by Rudd and Adam McKay) gets a ton of mileage out of the novelty of being the size of an insect, from outrunning a flood in a bathtub to that rather brilliant final confrontation in a child’s playroom, using toys as ammo. Further, Paul “I Am Immortal” Rudd is pitch-perfect in the title role, while Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly bring a lot to the picture. It’s in the details where Ant-Man falls a bit short (pun intended). To start, we have a single major Hispanic character in the MCU, played by the frankly more-legendary-than-you-think Michael Pena, and he’s reduced to a fast-talking stereotype. Judy Greer and Bobby Cannavale are also worlds better than their roles, which are, respectively, a cliche shrewish ex-wife and a cliche over-suspicious cop. What really drags things down, though, is the lackluster villain, who may be the most inert black hole in the MCU’s rogues gallery. He is neither good enough to engage us, nor bad enough to hate. He could have been played by a grip, for all the personality he’s allowed. The core of the film is delightful. The hill around it is crumbly.

17. Captain Marvel

Marvel’s first female-led flick is understandably a phenomenon, pulling down the sixth-largest opening weekend of all time and serving as inspiration to young girls and target to the kind of people who don’t want women in their clubhouse. So what about the movie that’s causing all this hullabaloo? It’s pretty decent. The movie can be summed up very succinctly as “safe”. It takes few chances and is more like one small step than one giant leap for womankind. Had it been released during the early superhero boom, it would still be fondly remembered as a major link in the genre’s evolution. As it is, it borrows from the buddy-cop subgenre to create what is essentially an adventure/sci-fi movie between Carol Danvers and Nick Fury. It stands out more as a callback to the kind of action pics made in the 90’s (when it is set) than the heavily marketed shared universe of the MCU, and includes standout performances from Annette Bening, Jude Law and Ben Mendelsohn. It meets expectations; it does not exceed them, and if you are a fan of the distinctive style practiced by directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, you won’t find it here. It’s only a month old, and it may be too soon to definitely say how it will be seen as time goes on. Right now, it feels more like a solid first step for the character than a fully realized final destination.

16. Thor

The original Thor has some completely solid, indisputable charms. Chris Hemsworth does physical comedy much more skillfully than he is ever given credit for, it is the debut of Tom Hiddleston as Loki, the third act is a rare-at-the-time case of inventiveness in an MCU finale, and it’s always great to see Stellan Skarsgard in literally anything. I would watch two hours of Stellan Skarsgard eating lunch, with a clone of Stellan Skarsgard. His drinking scene with Thor is a seriously underrated bit of awesome. It helps make up for the fact that the movie has no idea what to do with most of the supporting cast, including in part Loki, who at this stage seems to flail around between personalities, having crazy forced on him in time for the final duel despite it not even being hinted at earlier. It’s as if director Kenneth Branagh just let him do his own thing, and Hiddleston’s not 100% sure what that should be yet. The mirror scene is objectively amazing, but he won’t really come into his own until Avengers. The Warriors Three are utterly wasted; Branaugh and the writers just never nail the right combo of comedy and camaraderie needed to pull them off. Sif is superfluous. Natalie Portman is one of the finest actors of our generation, here reduced to goggling over Thor’s pecs. It’s not bad, especially compared to some of the dreck that gets pumped out of the blockbuster machine. It’s just rather inert.

That’s it for part 1. I’m going to be doing some Marvel/Superhero/General Nerd content leading up to Endgame’s release. Check back next Friday for part 2 of this list, and pop by Monday for part 1 of my predictions on the fate of each character in Endgame. Part 2: https://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/184208179827/ranking-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-part-2 Part 3: https://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/184372777282/ranking-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-part-3

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britesparc · 5 years

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Weekend Top Ten #359

Top Ten Future Transformers Spin-Offs

So I finally went to see Bumblebee, the delightful, charming, and utterly loveable Transformers spin-off/prequel from Travis Knight. It’s a great little film, on a much smaller scale than the other films in the series, offering some beautifully retro Amblin vibes whilst telling a more compelling and characterful story full of warmth, heart, and genuinely good performances. And as a great big Transformers fan (is there no Transformers equivalent of Trekkie or Browncoat I can adopt?) I got a huge thrill from the recreation of war-torn Cybertron, straight from the iconography of the classic ‘80s cartoon series. I spent the first ten minutes just cooing and bubbling, going “Look! Wheeljack! And Arcee! And Ratchet! And Soundwave! And Shockwave! And Ravage!” and so on.

Anyway, I think the film is all kinds of great, and captures the spirit of the brand and the stories much better (in my opinion) than the Michael Bay ones do. But if one spin-off could succeed where the “mainline” films failed, could that trick be repeated? And this got me thinking: what other stories and characters are ripe for the big-screen treatment? Where else can Transformers go cinematically, without doing any kind of real follow-up to The Last Knight?

Here, then, are ten suggestions. Rather than proposing any kind of reboot or reimagining of the property, I've tried to find stories that could exist within the loose canon of the movies (which, to be fair, is a fairly shifting proposition anyway, with several movies contradicting one another in large and small ways). So, inspired by my love of the original characters, and often by stories I’ve read in the meantime, and with the potentially large caveat that I’ve still not seen The Last Knight and therefore might actually be retreading story grooves already worn, here are ten suggestions for possible future Transformers spin-off movies.

Megatron: Dawn of the Decepticons: drawing heavily from both IDW’s Megatron: Origin and More Than Meets the Eye, this will be a biopic, essentially, of tyrannical baddie Big Megs. Although I know there’s a strong influence from The Fallen in Cinemegatron’s backstory, I don’t see how we can’t square this with the portrayal developed primarily by James Roberts. Megatron is a miner, struggling under a brutal regime on an off-world energon mine, who has the strength and smarts to lift himself and his co-workers out of bondage. But will he remain true to his principles or follow the advice of a mysterious old ‘bot (who turns out to be The Fallen)? Basically the tragic tale of a charismatic working-class leader breaking bad and becoming a monster. Could feature an Optimus Prime cameo – maybe as Orion Pax?

Last Stand of the Wreckers: a moderately-straight adaptation of the Nick Roche/James Roberts classic, one of the most beloved Transformers series of all time. Instead of Bumblebee’s delightful whimsy and Megatron’s tragic drama, this is a straight-up war movie. Obviously it’d have to be tweaked from the comic: no more Garrus-9 or Decepticon Purge. Perhaps tweak the last third to be a bit more like Rogue One or Seven Samurai; the Autobots decide to stay, and die, for a cause. I’d put some more mainstream ‘bots on the team, from the original cartoon and movie. Perhaps it could, like Bumblebee, even be set on Earth in the past, and end up being a story covered up by both the Autobots and Sector 7? That way you’d make it cheaper by having more humans and a little less CG. But the basic gist – an Autobot black ops squad is sent on a mission that goes very badly wrong and most if not all of them die whilst trying to work out what it means to be an Autobot in the midst of this war – should remain the same.

Windblade : whilst I don’t necessarily think the movieverse should adopt the “Thirteen Colonies” storyline from the comics – and I definitely don’t think they should adopt the “all the girls left” sausage-fest fudge that was required after Arcee was declared the “only” female Transformer, especially as Arcee herself and newcomer Shatter both feature in Bumblebee – I do like the idea of Windblade as some kind of ambassador or diplomat, travelling the universe. Perhaps she left Cybertron before the war really escalated (with besties Chromia and Nautica too, natch) to pursue peace elsewhere? Part flashback to pre-war Cybertron, part return-to-Earth narrative, it would be a great opportunity to focus on the often-sidelined female Transformers and have a positive feminist message. I’d have them team up with a now-adult Charlie and her estranged daughter... Verity Carlo. The baddies should be combiners, to go with the “Combiner Hunters” toy set.

Beast Wars: at the risk of causing controversy, I wouldn’t make this a straight adaptation of the popular cartoon. Not unless they want to meddle in far-flung futures or alternate timelines (although, er, see below...). Rather, I’d introduce the concept of “Beast Modes” that mimic organic creatures perfectly (like the “pretender” Decepticon in Revenge of the Fallen that looks like a sexy human girl, because of course she does). So my pitch is this: a lonely Autobot scientist, on a research ship that has more-or-less escaped the war (let’s make him Perceptor, for kicks) has developed this “beast mode” technology that hides Transformers in organic shells. His ship is attacked by Decepticons, but he rockets his subjects into space where they follow Prime’s signal and eventually land on Earth, befriending a young boy (younger than Sam or Charlie; let’s say about 12). But Decepticon hunters (I’d go for Carnivac, Snarler and Catilla – who later has a change of heart – all of whom have inorganic beast modes) follow. So it would share similar tropes with Bumblebee and the first Transformers, but with three or four cute animals instead of robots. This would skew young, perhaps even younger than Bumblebee.

Rodimus Prime: I know Hot Rod is in The Last Knight, but from what I hear he isn’t really representative of the character of Hot Rod/Rodimus from across other aspects of Transformers fiction. Regardless, this film isn’t about him: it’s about Rodimus Prime. Set in the future, it tells a Next Generation-style story of a human/Autobot alliance. Very much a sci-fi space opera, it would feature Rodimus going on a quest to discover the roots of a mysterious force that is attacking human colonies, and its apart links to an ancient Transformer legend. But is he abandoning Earth at its darkest hour to go on a wild goose chase through space? Rodimus must battle his own self-doubt as a leader, as well as a growing number of humans and Transformers who question the alliance. It would have a similar tone to your average Star Wars movie.

Wreck-Gar: Transformers films often have funny moments, but you’d never call any of them a comedy. Wreck-Gar is a comedy, Deadpool-style (but without the filth). A severely-damaged Transformer who crashes to Earth no memory and manages to rebuild himself in a junkyard, Wreck-Gar is a crazy, pop-culture-spouting dervish who just trashes every room he’s in, even though he’s not malicious or a bad guy. Indeed, he is chased by a trio of Decepticons (Swindle, Brawl, and Vortex) who are cruel and unusual (and Swindle wants recompense for a deal gone wrong). An all-out wacky comedy is something not often attempted by big-budget action movies; I’d even go whole hog and get Ward and Miller on board to shepherd the humour to the screen.

Starscream: we’re always focusing on the good guys! Well, here you go: a story about a bot who’s born to be bad. Starscream would be set in the past (naturally, since he’s dead now) and follows Megatron’s least-reliable lieutenant as he heads to Earth to look for Megatron during the time when he was in stasis underneath the Hoover Dam. I can’t remember the chronology, but maybe this could even be set in the late 70s/early 80s, with Starscream assuming a jet form more like his classic toy (and in that colour scheme, too). He’d be conniving, plotting, scheming, and essentially coming across like a giant metal version of Loki. Perhaps he’s playing a number of human “allies” off against one another, as well as some big Decepticons (Thunderwing? Tarn? Who haven’t we seen yet?) and even a troupe of Autobots he double-crosses. It could be darkly comic and incredible fun.

Hearts of Steel: Wild West Transformers! I mean, what’s not to love? Adapted from the IDW comic series (which was supposed to be out-of-continuity, but was so popular that writer John Barber retroactively incorporated it into the main Transformers timeline), this would need a bit of manipulation to change characters around (I don’t think Bumblebee should be in it, but given the often-contradictory nature of the movie timeline, I don’t see why we couldn’t bring back characters like Jazz, Ironhide, or maybe even Optimus himself). A rollicking steampunk adventure that hopefully would capture the freewheeling outback sci-fi tone of Back to the Future Part III, and hopefully not come across like another Wild Wild West.

Cybertron: I suppose this is a sort-of sequel to Megatron (see above). Set during the war, it’s a men-on-a-mission movie starring a young Optimus Prime (perhaps he could still be Orion Pax at this point). I don’t think we should worry too much about mythologies and intricacies of Transformer society the way James Roberts depicted it, but all the same they could do a lot worse than adapting his Shadowplay storyline, where Orion lead a team of misfit Autobots in an illegal heist to save the world. That kid of behind-enemy-lines vibe could give us a great Cybertronian war movie without wallowing in the grimdark explodey nature of Transformer combat. But especially if this was the movie where Orion earned his stripes and officially became Optimus, that might be nice. Like Megatron, of course, this would end up being an entirely CG affair.

Bumblebee 2: Energon Boogaloo? Look, the ending of the film – without wanting to give away spoilers – could be seen as neatly segueing into the 2007 Transformers film. One could imagine no additional adventurous meetings between Bumblebee and Charlie. But on the other hand, let’s not rule it out. Perhaps Bumblebee has been on Earth, dicking around, since 1987, and during that time he got up to more mischief with his first best human friend. Some covert Decepticon invasion requires him to break cover, or he needs some kind of human contact to spy for him, and oh look he goes back to Charlie. I’d skip forward a little bit, to around ‘91 or ‘92, slap a bit of early grunge on the soundtrack. See what happens. Just bring back Travis Knight.

So there we are. My ideas for ten possible Transformers spin-off movies. I didn’t really intend for this to turn into ten pitches with little mini-synopses; it was really meant to just be a quick fun game of “stories or characters who’d make a cool movie” but then I thought about it too hard, as I tend to do where Transformers is concerned. Hey, look, some of these films could even tie together! Megatron and Cybertron especially, but you could scatter seeds of stories or references among the lot. Anyway. Wishful thinking. But hopefully a film like one of these will roll out before too long (see what I did there?).

#top ten #transformers #bumblebee #movies #comics #toys #hasbro

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winterironbang · 6 years

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ART CLAIMS Winteriron RBB

Below you will find the names and descriptions of the entered pieces of art, please take care to read through them and be aware of any warnings when thinking about which piece it is you wish to claim. Make sure to have two in mind when choosing as your first choice may already be taken.

To claim a piece of art, send an email to [email protected] with the titles of your top two favourites. There may be a second round of claims if there are more authors who wish to participate, but this second round will not start until all pieces have been claimed in the first round.

I’ve just had a few people tell me they sent in asks trying to claim work but I have no record of them, from now on please claim via email only. If you have sent in an ask and not had an email with one of the drafts you claimed, please email me. I have sent out the drafts to everyone that I have seen a claim from so far, if you havent got a draft in you inbox your claim may not have come through, please consider claiming one of the works still available.

I’m so sorry about this, I’m not sure why I haven’t been recieving those asks and I do apologise to everyone it has effected.

Title: By my side Description/Prompt: Tony and Bucky have been in a secret relationship for a while. After Civil War events, they talked things out and after some time everything turned right for them. They can't see each other so easily because of the Sokovia Accords, so they take advantage of every second they spend together. It has been four months since last time they saw each other, Tony noticed he has been followed lately and had to stop their meetings. Tony, despites everything, have been working on a way to change some things on the accords to also protect heroes, he wants to help Bucky and the others so they can stop being fugitives, wanting a normal life with the one he loves and wanting the world to be a better place with heroes protecting it. He planned a meeting in Wakanda to discuss the issue with T'Challa and also using that as an excuse to see Bucky again. Bucky thinks it's time to tell everyone about their relationship, but Tony is still reluctant about it, he wants everything to be solved first. Warnings: Explicit Limitations: I don't want: unhappy ending, cheating, death of Bucky or Tony, bashing any character. A/N: It's based on MCU~ Love the idea of them having this kind of pure love inside some sort of forbidden relationship. Not only for what had happened between them, also because of the accords. The art is a moment they share together after the meeting in Wakanda. Hope you like it~

Title: Exposure Description/Prompt: Set of 2 drawings. Setting: sci-fi/android AU? 1. A digital drawing/painting of a Winter Soldier-esque Bucky, wearing a lower face mask, carrying a wounded Tony in his arms. It's darkly lit, and he's standing knee deep in reflective water. Tony's chest cavity is exposed, showing metal and wiring. There's a faint glow of the arc reactor. 2. A digital drawing/painting of a shirtless Tony about to kiss Bucky over his face mask. There's smoke venting out of Bucky's face mask. Warnings: N/A Limitations: Would prefer if there wasn't solely pre-slash, or include major character death, infidelity, dub/non con, or unhappy ending. A/N: Drafts are not finalized so looking forward to working with the author to fill in details!

Title: Post-apocalyptic Description/Prompt: Post-apocalyptic AU! Scrappy mechanic Tony meets badass loner and fighter Bucky (with a clunky metal arm)? Maybe some getting to know (and later: trust) each other and surviving (together?) in a hostile world? Trying to make a living? Warnings: - Limitations: Bucky and Tony should survive. No sad ending. A/N: The art is a design for Bucky. Optional art: Bucky watching over a sleeping Tony. Let’s brainstorm together.

Title: A Quiet Evening in Description/Prompt: It's hard to braid your hair one handed. Thankfully Tony doesn't mind lending his hands and his cats, Dum-E, U, and Butterfingers don't mind having someone extra around the apartment to spoil them. Warnings: None Limitations: Would prefer no pwp

Title: Snow White/ Fantasy AU Description/Prompt: Huntsman Bucky is sent out to assassinate Prince Tony in the woods and bring his heart to King Obie. The problem? Prince Tony turns out pretty hard to kill, and his heart is a price worth way way more than Bucky could have imagined. Not to mention the hunter is haunted by his own demons... One drawing is of the two fighting in the woods, the other of Huntsman Bucky crouching, (his dragon arm showing), and having a L'Oreal hair moment. Warnings: violence (semi-graphic? they are fighting - there's no blood, but non-sexy choking) Limitations: please no damsel-in-distress Tony, character bashing, and dub/non-con A/N: You can take the prompt or leave it, (although I'd love some huntsman Bucky and maybe technomancer Tony) and I would love to help you brainstorm and cheer you on. I generally like traumatized Bucky more than pre-war Bucky but I'm open for everything. :)

Title: Noir Description/Prompt: Iron Man Noir AU with Tony and Bucky standing arm in arm on Tony’s airship, looking down at the clouds. They lean into each other. Warnings: none Limitations: MCD, darkfic, A/N: I would love to talk about it all.

Title: Not really a villain Description/Prompt: Tony knows about the Winter Soldier: He's an assassin, often working for Hydra. He has killed or maimed politicians and secret agents alike, most recently he'd been after Alexander Pierce. Everyone knows about Iron Man: He's a villain, although some people want to call him vigilante. He blows up Stark Industries' facilities and takes apart crime syndicates. When they meet, it seems unlikely that their goals align, but they might have more in common than they know. But, you can't just trust a villain, can you? Picture: In a dark room, Iron Man is aiming a repulsor at the Winter Soldier. The soldier is almost hidden in the darkness of the room, looking serious, and armed with knife and gun. Warnings: Limitations: Please let it end somewhat happy. Please no MCD, or actually evil Tony and Bucky. A/N: brainstorming together is one of my favourite things.

Title: Concubine AU Description/Prompt: When Bucky gets sold as a concubine, he already knows how this works: keep your head down and hope his new master doesn't notice him too much. Getting noticed either brings pain, or pain and… other attention. Slowly, he notices that King Stark is not at all like the rumors suggested… The art is Bucky, posing with some jewellery and revealing clothes. Warnings: partial nudity? Limitations: No dubcon or noncon between Bucky and Tony, dark Tony, major character death, or too much gore. A/N: Dark themes are fine though. Maybe some pain, some recovery? I usually like stories where they grow to love each other before they end up having sex. Stuckony is also an option. I’d love to talk about ideas and plot!

Title : Fateful Encounters Description/Prompt : Iron Man AU Tony and Bucky meet at the gala. Bucky is a businessman like Tony. They end up liking each other a lot. Everyone is human. Bucky likes riding bikes just like Tony loves cars. Tony becomes iron man but he himself destroys the suit after Stane is dead. He doesn’t believe the world needs that kind of technology. Stark industries also goes into making better medical equipment’s. So, the only ones who know about him being iron man are Rhodey, Pepper and later Bucky. Iron man becomes an urban legend of sorts. They date for a while and when they decide to move things further it’s very special for both of them. Bucky is extremely proud to learn that his boyfriend had been iron man. He realizes that himself as he spends time with Tony. A year or two later Tony develops MCU stabilized extremis and gets rid of the arc reactor. This knowledge he does share with the medical community. Warnings : No Warnings Limitations : I don't want these two pairings in the story in any way or form. Not even a slight mention. Not even as a joke or an offhand comment. Nothing. Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanoff Tony Stark and Sunset Bain No Steve and Loki bashing. If the latter isn't even in the story, that's fine. No cheating, non-con, child abuse and alcohol abuse. A/N : Happy ending for the story. And there are two more pieces of art.

Title: Long Distance Disaster [working title] Description/Prompt: Still struggling with guilt and/or due to pressure from the government, Bucky agrees to go on a long term mission to space. Tony is very unhappy to be left alone. Long distance relationships are tough; even more so when Bucky’s mission ends in a fiery crash leaving Bucky seriously injured and Tony afraid that he’s about to lose the love of his life. Format: Video, expected final length roughly 4:30 minutes. Clips primarily drawn from Iron Man (1, 2, and 3), The Soloist, Political Animals, The Martian, and Gossip Girl. Audio drawn from the same sources as the clips, as well as Ally McBeal, and the song “If There’s A Rocket Tie Me To It” by Snow Patrol. Warnings: Established relationship, guilt, near-death-experience/serious injury, relationship drama, hospitals, angst. Limitations: Happy endings only. I’d strongly prefer that either Civil War never happened, or the fic is set far enough past it that it doesn’t come up at all. No bashing of other characters/ships, especially Pepper and Tony should be on good/friendly terms if she’s around in the fic. A/N: I’d love to brainstorm/discuss the fic. I tried to leave it as flexible and open as possible and I don’t expect the fic to necessarily follow the video exactly.

Title : Fools in love Description/Prompt : Bucky and Tony have a friends with benefits kind of relationship. Bucky went through a very bad break up with his boyfriend and it hurts Tony to see him like that. He’d liked him for a while. They end up sleeping together and come to an arrangement of sorts. Tony is literally like : I’ll take what I can get. He is not going to burden Bucky with his feelings when he is going through such a hard time. Tony is usually sad and he’s virgin too. One day it gets too much and Bucky sort of shouts at Tony. Tony starts crying. Bucky realizes he loves Tony and berates himself for not realizing Tony had always loved him. They are both engineers and enjoy reading a lot. They are in their twenties. Warnings : No Warnings Limitations : I don't want these two pairings in the story in any way or form. Not even a slight mention. Not even as a joke or an offhand comment. Nothing. Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanoff Tony Stark and Sunset Bain No Steve and Loki bashing. If the latter isn't even in the story, that's fine. No cheating, non-con, child abuse and alcohol abuse. A/N : Happy ending for the story. And there are two more pieces of art.

Title: Winter Piano Teacher [working title] Description/Prompt: Concerned for her son, Maria Stark decides that Tony needs more in his life than computers and robots. Little does she know that HYDRA has taken the opportunity to install a sleeper agent in the Stark household. Tony certainly didn’t expect to fall in love with his enigmatic, volatile piano tutor. Format: Video, expected final length roughly 2 minutes. Clips and audio primarily drawn from Political Animals, Ally McBeal, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, piano instrumental music, and “The Winter Soldier” theme. Warnings: brainwashing, deception, implied abuse, typical winter soldier stuff Limitations: In this AU I do not want Bucky to be responsible for the Stark parents’ death. Happy endings only. Tony cannot be younger than 17; I would prefer he be 21. A/N: I would love to brainstorm/talk over the fic together. I have 2-3 of “fixed points” of the plot that are important to me but I tried to leave as much of it open to the author’s discretion as possible. You don’t have to follow everything shown in the video exactly.

Title: Mob Mentality Description/prompt: Comic panel style. First panel sees Steve, Bucky, and Natasha entering. All look angry. There is evidence of blood on them. Second panel shows bound hands, obviously injured and bleeding from the ropes that tie them. Third panel has a furious Bucky screaming ,”Where is he?!” Fourth shows Tony looking down, distraught, but he raises his head at something, saying “Bucky?” Last panel isn't sketched out quite yet, but I plan to have them embracing. Warnings: Blood, though not gallons of it or anything. Implied violence that is off panel. Limitations: Happy ending. No infidelity. No graphic or gratuitous torture. No death of main characters. A/N: I personally headcanon this as a Mob AU (as evidenced by the name) but I would be happy with any story the art inspires! Art

Title: Rocket Science Description/Prompt: Tony's at MIT, sleep deprived on the first day of classes, and ends up walking into an intro to physics course and taking a seat next to freshman Bucky. Tony becomes aware of things half-way through class, realizes he's in the wrong place (he doesn't even *have* class at this time!), and has a moment of panic/annoyance. Bucky thinks Tony's having trouble following the lecture, and offers to study with him. Tony almost blows him off but "oh no he's cute." Cue Tony having to attend a class he doesn't take and play dumb through tutoring/study sessions he doesn't need in order to have an excuse to hang out with Bucky (but he's SO BORED and itching to show Bucky some good shortcuts and correct his math). (Art description: Tony and Bucky are seated at a library table, disposable coffee cups, books, and notes strewn across it. Bucky is pointing something out to Tony in a textbook, while Tony looks on attentively. Both are college age. Bucky's left sleeve is pinned up; he's an amputee.) Warnings: none Limitations: no big age gap, no ABO 'verse, no unhappy endings A/N: Any additions of identity porn (i.e. Bucky doesn't realize he's been tutoring the famous genius heir to the Stark empire) would be welcome; the prompt is open to discussion (nothing's set in stone). I'd love to be included in the brainstorming if possible. :D

Title: Mafia!au Description/Prompt: Tony is seated in a chair with a gun in one hand pointing towards viewer, while Bucky is in a suit standing to behind his left shoulder. I was thinking Mob Boss!Tony with Bucky as enforcer/bodyguard/something like that. Warnings: I don’t think any, but there is a gun being pointed at someone off-screen Limitations: No MCD please, I am fine with smut as long as there is no bottom!tony, other than that can’t think of anything right now- I am pretty open A/N: Look forward to working with you!

Title: No title yet

Description/Prompt: Tony learns about his parents’ murder and, against Natasha’s warnings, decides to go looking for the Winter Soldier. When he finds him in cryosleep in the hidden depths of a Hydra base, he rashly decides to wake him up…

Submission is a fanvid, so warning to the author that there’s only so much flexibility with the plot because of needing to stay close to the source material, but I’m excited to work with them to figure out how the fanvid will go :)

Warnings: None

Limitations: No Mpreg

Title: Escape from the Murderbots (working title) Description/Prompt: Tony and Bucky stand together, Tony is slightly in front, holding a strange piece of tech in his right hand, there is bandage around his left bicep, and the arc reactor is visible through his tank top. Bucky stands on his left, touching Tony's shoulder. Buck is only wearing a pair of drawstring sweatpants; he is pointing to the left, out of frame, with his metal hand, there is a cuff of some sort on his metal wrist. In front of them and behind them are hovering drones, pointing guns at them. The background is a dark, futuristic cityscape with lit up signs advertising 'Viastone - Bring Your Dreams to Life', and other slogans. Warnings: None that I'm aware of. Canon typical peril? Limitations: No major character death. No non-con between Tony and Bucky. No dark!Tony or dark!Bucky. Also, no character bashing, please. Definitely would like a happy ending. A/N: The Viastone signs haven't been worked in yet, and can be changed to a different company, or Hydra, or something completely different, if that fits better with your plot or ideas, I just kind of liked the potential creepiness of Dream vision, also Ty as Tony's creepy ex could be interesting. I don't really have an idea of a plot, just the concept of a vaguely cyberpunk scene in which Tony and Bucky are being pursued by flying drones that want to shoot them, so feel free to go wherever that takes you. I'd love to hear what ideas you have.

Title: Dr Dolittle AU

Description/Prompt:

Fluff/ crack

If powered AU i.e. Avengers-compliant AU(sans TS as Iron Man)- On the day before the fateful night that Howard and Maria would have died, Tony dropped the bombshell that he was going to become a vet instead? Howard was too busy calling up lawyers and ranting at the sky about disowning Tony to drive them to their deaths. WS waits by the road until he gets bored, murders his handlers and runs away? Else post CA-WS?

WS!BB has been in hiding at a special needs animal sanctuary (for lots of pics - goats of anarchy, edgar’s mission) that TS volunteers at, doing check ups and fitting prosthetics.

Does WS!BB approach the vet about a new arm? Does WS ever get the goats to stop eating his sleeves off? Will they ever get the animals to stop tripping them up and falling into compromising positions atop each other?

Hilarity ensues. Also probable pining, bored match-making goats who are fed up of their caretakers.

(Besides designing prosthetics for animals, Tony also makes collars for animals that translate thoughts into speech, like Dug in Up or soft-cyber implants from Rats,Bats & Vats, gaining him the nickname Dr Dolittle? Animals love him regardless, like he’s a Disney Princess) Healthcare for animals is incredibly technologically advanced and has to be reverse engineered for human usage lol? If non-powered au, anything you like! just crack/ fluff about mutual pining between volunteers at special needs animal shelter? It’s like a coffee shop- meet cute AU but with additional baby goats playing the floor is lava.

Warnings: -

Limitations: Stark seniors not murdered by Winter Soldier. No bad endings, dub-con/non-con, a/b/o

A/N: Super secret super-soldier serum picked up by SHIELDRA since Howard was too busy rage screaming. Results in more Shieldra supersoldiers in Avengers Initiative? Howard designs Ironmonger? Chitauri Battle of NY, no nukes? Alternatively Hulk or heroic Vanko in Iron Man suit launches the nuke through the portal? Jarvis the alpaca- Just A Really Very Intelligent South-american-camelid? You is an ewe? DumE, a very recalcitrant llama wielding a mean wrench? Butterfingers? The universe is saved from Thanos by an enraged herd of enhanced llamas? https://i.redd.it/8vncab0cz3jz.jpg

Sorry, it’s all crack, feel free to yell at me if it decides to consume your brain

Title: Fantasy - Dragonrealm/ Forgotten Realms??? inspired AU Description/Prompt: Undead dragon/ dracolich, the Red Skull, captures other dragons and restores his rotting body with parts carved from his prisoners. Mage-knight/Artificer (Tony) rescues an imprisoned dragon(Bucky) from the clutches of the Red Skull and his cult(Hydra). image desc - A dracolich confronting two men(backs facing viewer). One is injured and leaning on the other who has his hand raised with a spell. Warnings: not in image, but for story - likely to have mentions of torture and non-consensual body modification Limitations: no dub-con, non-con, vore, a/b/o, protagonist death A/N: In the Dragonrealm series, drakes can take the alternate form of a fully armoured knight. In Forgotten Realms, dracoliches are usually surrounded by a cult that worships them (and performs the phylactery transfer process) http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Dracolich Prompt completely open for discussion/reworking, words hard, please message

Title: Loving a Vampire Description/Prompt: Bucky is a vampire, Tony is a human. They meet, eventually fall in love, wear 'wedding bands' on chains around their necks. Warnings: N/A Limitations: N/A A/N: Would like more angst and drama than fluff, preferred rating for fic would be M or higher.

Title: And From The Dark Description/prompt: The prompt that inspired me was actually a writing one that went along the lines of: “do you want to die?” “that's a loaded question, if I say no that means I want to be immortal. If I say yes that means I'm suicidal.” I'm imagining a demon/fantasy Au(However I am open to Tony messing around with things he shouldn't and being transported to this place via science/magic) and the image itself is of Tony and Demon!Bucky on a balcony in a cavern, with Bucky leaning over Tony holding his chin. Maybe Tony has entered their domain for some reason? Or is trying get out to surface? And encounters Bucky. Warnings: little bit of blood. (Not much tho, a couple small injuries) Limitations: none that I can think of. A/N: I am a big fan of darker works and would love to see where this could go. I'm more than willing to help brainstorm if the author is open to that. And beta if needed.

Title: Found in an Alley Description/Prompt: Bucky is broke and wandering around the alleys when he finds android Anthony. Warnings: Nudity (not explicit) Limitations: N/A A/N: Author will pretty much have free reign on what they want to write, prefer that the fic itself be rated Teen or higher

Title: Mission in space Description and/or prompt: Bucky and Tony are on another planet, wearing spacesuits. They are looking at a strange flower. There are mountains and a starry sky with two moons in the background. What are they doing there and what is the plant? Warnings: - Limits: No major character death or super dark fic or unhappy ending please! A/N: I'm open to most everything! Things I like but don't need to be included are plotty fic, humor, fluff and pining :D

Title: Reactive Art descriptions: Bucky, holding the arc-reactor in his hands, flames on one side, smoke on the other./ Bucky crying, the black mask still covering his face. Art prompt: Partially Infinity-War compliant (except for the ending). After the initial battle, the team regroups and discovers that Tony is still missing. Bucky embraces his old identity as the Winter Soldier to track Tony down. It's the only way he can set his morals aside and do what he has to do to bring Tony back. (I am open to other prompts based on the art description - happy to work with the author to come up with something different!) Warnings: n/a Limits: None. All Author's choice. A/N: Would love for this to be a dark fic, possibly with major injury and/or a death scare. Angst and hurt/comfort preferable. Happy ending or not, author's choice. Art is about 90% complete, although I may want to create more pieces depending on where the author goes with the story.

Title: By the Glittering Sea Description: Bucky is a newly hired employee of an aquarium, and he quickly realizes that they have some interesting exhibits. Mainly the one with a large tank in the middle of the entrance floor, showcasing a merman, who looks very unhappy to be there. He then realizes that he needs to get him out, with the help of his friends, of course. Warnings: None that apply so far Limitations: No rape/ non-con, or major character death. A/N: Tony is obviously the merman in the situation, but whoever writes the story can figure out how they get him out and what will happen if they do.

Title: Ill met by Moonlight Description: Tony finds a transformed Bucky in a cage at an 'abandoned' hydra base, who is stuck behind a huge bulletproof glass coating. In any way the author wants it, they escape and the rest of the story will be about Tony and Bucky learning to heal together. Warnings: There will be violence, nothing out of the ordinary for the Marvel universe. Limitations: No rape/non-con, or major character death. A/N: I based Bucky's werewolf form loosely off of the Skyrim werewolves.

Title: Those Soft Petals Description: Tony slowly realizes, to his horror, that he's fallen for James "Bucky" Barnes. The only problem with that is =, Bucky seems to despise him. He doesn't like him because of what he did to Steve and Bucky that fateful night in the abandoned Hydra bunker. Of course, Tony still has nightmares from that night, of the blood, filling his lungs as he truly believed he was going to die, but now isn't the time for that. RIght now he needs to figure out why he's coughing up these damn flowers. Warnings: Tony does what severe PTSD from that night, piled on top of the Afghanistan hostage situation from years ago. Limitations: No rape/non-con, or major character death. A/N: You can choose a different flower if you'd like, but I think the peony would be good, considering it's the state flower of Indiana.

#claims #winteriron #winteriron bang

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tyrantisterror · 6 years

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Well Made Futility: Infinity War Thoughts

I saw Infinity War for a second time and have some thoughts. SPOILERish thoughts, so, y’know, a cut here for the sake of those who care about such things.

I mean, I actually think this movie is better if you know what you’re in for going in, but I’m weird so what do I know.

So like... Infinity War is fucking difficult to evaluate. It’s a movie that does something completely unprecedented in film - while we all enjoyed joking about it, no single movie crossover has attempted to weave this many VERY different stories, characters, and (especially) tones into one coherent narrative before. It is a crossover unlike any other in film. And it’s mostly successful!

but

I know we all like to dunk on Marvel’s films because they’re popular and make a lot of money, and all of us have an inner hipster who hates things that are successful regardless of their actual quality or content, because fuck that man we’re not normies we only like things BEFORE they’re cool. But as a person who loves “genre” fiction - i.e. Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, anything that isn’t set in standard reality - the Marvel movies have been kind of revolutionary. Genre films had gotten so LIMITED before Iron Man, and it was stupidly limited at that. We could accept that a billionaire fury who punches criminals could walk into a police department without making everyone burst into laughter, but we couldn’t accept that a strange chemical bath would permanently bleach a clown-turned-criminal’s skin. We could accept a guy getting powers from a spider OR a guy being really good at science but not both. We could accept a guy growing claws out of his hands, but god help you if that man also wears something other than black skintight leather. Everything had to be “grounded” and “real”, and I put quotations marks around those words because what they REALLY meant in the context of Hollywood was “boring.”

but

And then Marvel slowly chipped away at that. Not at first - Iron Man and The Hulk were about as restrained as the superhero movies that preceded them, but slowly the movies conditioned us to accept weird shit. Thor brought in Norse mythology and a certain kind of magic, although they dressed it up as “advanced science”, because we were in a transition and that was a concession they could make. Captain America took us out of modern day - a risky idea, period piece action movies are never a sure thing - and also introduced the idea of a serum that can turn you into either the ULTIMATE BEEFCAKE or a red skinned skeleton man depending on your moral compass, which is PRETTY FUCKING WEIRD when you think about it.

but

Then The Avengers happened. Before that movie came out, every conventional Hollywood line of thinking told us it would fail. Movies with multiple heroes don’t succeed. That’s why Batman and Robin sucked, right - too many heroes? And Batman and Robin, why, that’s the worst film ever! Spiderman 3 had too many villains! You can’t have more than two super powered guys in a movie - that’s just movie law! Having more than two super power guys is box office poison.

but

But The Avengers wasn’t. Maybe most of you don’t remember it because we’ve had 10 years of these Marvel movies and their success seems like an inescapable fact now, but The Avengers defied expectations by being both good AND a box office success - a ridiculously lucrative one at that! The Avengers took a huge fucking risk and it paid off.

but

Then it happened again. People assumed The Avengers was as weird as you could go. Critics were CERTAIN these movies would peter out eventually, that they couldn’t keep doing the impossible. One of these risks had to doom them. And a lot of critics looked at one movie on the post The Avengers slate - Guardians of the Galaxy - and said, “That’s the one - that’s gonna be the turd. A movie about a talking raccoon and a tree monster - two RIDICULOUS character concepts that sound more like jokes than something a studio would actually put in their action movie - along with some d-listers no one but hardcore nerds care about, all directed by a guy best known for gore-filled low budget b movies? That’s going to kill Marvel. There is no way that film can be good, much less a financial success.”

but

Guardians of the Galaxy was not just good, but it’s the best series within the franchise. Yeah, fuckin’ fight me on it nerds. (no actually don’t I’m voicing a subjective opinion in this paragraph I don’t actually give a shit about ranking movies like this)

but

Even when their movies weren’t game changers, they were still solid and fun. Whether or not they’re your cup of tea, Marvel’s superhero movies are never worse than “good.” Some of them are “great.” Some, like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Black Panther, are arguably transformatively great. At the very least, these films taken as a collective whole have changed the way we approach Genre Films. They have redefined what is possible - they reminded Hollywood that suspension of disbelief is a malleable thing, even if some studios haven’t quite grasped the concept yet.

but

Which brings me back to Infinity War. Like The Avengers before it, Infinity War brings different characters from many different stories with many different tones and styles and, to an extent, genres/subgenres, and blends them into a coherent and emotionally resonate whole. It requires you to have seen at least the majority of the previous DECADES worth of movies to work, but that’s not a flaw - no more than, say, the twentieth chapter of a novel requiring you to read the previous 19 at any rate. Infinity War needs those previous films to function, and to its credit, it not only uses what they built, but does so in genuinely surprising ways. You didn’t think you needed a Rocket Raccoon/Thor team up in your life, but this movie proves you did. You also didn’t think you’d see Rocket Raccoon genuinely reach out to Thor (who, to him, is a relative stranger) and try to help him through his grief, but it happens, and it’s a legitimately interesting moment that movies both characters forward in their respective arcs. This movie is more than just taking a bunch of toys out of a toybox and smashing them together (though yes, there are parts of it that are very much that - these are action adventure movies, after all). Characters develop and bounce off each other in glorious and meaningful ways. There is a weight to everything beyond the obvious, mercenary Hollywood mandate to make as much money as possible by getting fans of all these different franchises into one theater.

but

The movie even tries to rectifies some of the franchise’s most notable flaws, in particular their lack of decent villains. You could count the number of actually compelling and interesting villains from the previous 18 films on one hand. Thanos, the big bad of this film, finally gets us to the other palm. His motives are understandable but NOT justified - that is to say, you can understand why a person may believe what he believes, but at the end of the film you know for a fact he’s wrong. Thanos is a bad guy whose evil plan will destroy countless lives, but he manages not to be the cartoonish caricature of a villain whose over the top “destroy the world” motivation makes no sense. It’s nuanced, is my point. I don’t think he’s the best Marvel has offered us - he wouldn’t crack my top three just yet - but he’s miles above most of the competition.

BUT

So here’s the crux of my review. When I got to the ending of the movie - an ending that, admittedly, I spoiled for myself ahead of time, because I do that for most movies ever since I got majorly burned by Jurassic Park III when I was a teen - I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because it’s... it’s a paradox. Not just the ending, either, but the whole movie. This is a film that both does and doesn’t work. It is both an amazing feat and... and fundamentally broken.

And it all has to do with those 18 films before it.

Ok, so: if taken as its own story, that is to say, as just it’s own thing, not the part of a greater whole... then the ending of Infinity War is exactly the ending this story needed. This is Thanos’s story more than anyone else’s, when you get right down to it, and from the perspective that this movie is meant to tell his story and his story alone, the ending is the only one that would fit. Thanos gets everything he wants, at the cost of everything that mattered to him. His crazed vision finally comes true, and the audience feels the full weight of how horrible that is. That ending - that maddening, confounding ending, where almost every hero we’ve come to love over 18 goddamn films is killed with the snap of his fingers - shows us exactly why we can’t let monsters like Thanos come to power, and how even the monsters like Thanos himself are destroyed by following those mad dreams through (a point reinforced by the cameo of a long forgotten past villain, Red Skull).

However, as I said before, you really CAN’T take this movie on its own. Structurally it DEPENDS on you seeing those previous films. You have to have seen them just for this movie to make sense, and to be emotionally affected by it you must also have cared about those movies and their characters. This movie is a sum of those parts.

And as a followup to those 18 films - as a part of their greater whole - it fails. So many characters we followed and love - Black Panther, Spider-Man, every fucking guardian of the galaxy except Rocket and maybe Nebula if we count her, just to name a few - is killed off in a literal instant. With the exception of Loki, each of these deaths kind of renders their preceding journey pointless. Peter Parker was just starting his journey in his preceding film - so was Black Panther, so was Dr. Strange, so were many of the others. Imagine if Hamlet was killed in act 1 of his play - everything about him would be unresolved, and all of his supporting cast would have no anchor to the plot since the conflict they’re involved in is removed with Hamlet’s death. You’d have to start over. Other characters are farther along, but with rare exception, none of them had what could be called a satisfactory end. If the deaths in this movie actually hold true, then most of the preceding 18 movies have been broken. They are wastes of time.

Of course, a savvy person would note that literally every character killed in this movie has been cast in the next Avengers film, due out next year. Spider-Man and the Guardians have announced movies with release dates after that one, too. Black Panther’s sequel has been announced although the release date has not. These deaths are highly unlikely to stick.

BUT if that’s the case, well... then this movie’s broken again, because now that ending has no weight. Now that ending is pointless - in fact, this whole movie is, because it’s all just going to be undone by the next. Either this film was a narrative waste of time, or the preceding 18 were. There’s no other option.

...but...

There is, I suppose, a possibility. A faint one, admittedly - I have no idea if they can achieve it. There’s a possibility the fourth Avengers film could find a way to make this movie’s weight hold while still putting all those dead characters’ stories back on track. Infinity War was conceived as a two part film story, after all, even if they dropped the “Part 1″ label come release. No matter how much this film wants you to think otherwise, it is just part of whole - and maybe, just maybe, the second one will make the first work WITHIN that whole.

I don’t see how it can, but then, I didn’t see how they could make me care about fuckin’ Rocket Raccoon. And Guardians of the Galaxy is, as I said, the best one.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet on this movie ultimately being a narrative cul de sac - a very well made, but ultimately pointless entry that is invalidated by what comes after it. If that ends up being the case, then that’s kind of sad - but there’s a chance they may make it work after all, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s not to bet against Marvel.

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