upon learning Shuri is 16 in Black Panther, I quietly revise all my original shipping plans from “adults” to “Shuri is a hopeless baby lesbian with a crush on every single Dora Milaje and soon a big useless enormous crush on MJ, who is like a semi competent but mostly just grungy bisexual with a super popular twitter account that Shuri is obsessed with and MJ is s t o k e d about everything about Wakanda and tweets that she’s doing her senior research project on Wakandan tech and T’Challa, who follows his baby sister’s online crush’s twitter so he can forward Shuri the most embarrassing tweets that will make her furious (“YES BROTHER I DID SEE THAT SELFIE AND I DON’T NEED YOU TO REMIND ME OFF IT”), is like “this is the moment I was born for. This is why I became king” and tweets MJ like “we’re doing youth outreach, come to Wakanda, my very talented and smart and accomplished sister will give you a personal tour :)” and MJ and Shuri simultaneously die”
the Dora Milaje prepping for MJ’s visit by giving Shuri different and conflicting romantic advice until Okoye tells them it is against their sacred duty to torment the princess into a crush-induced panic attack because she cannot decide between her top twelve outfits and cool confident quips for making a good first impression
MJ meanwhile with Peter is repeatedly punching him in the arm because he just told her that he met T’Challa and she’s furious this hasn’t come up before, and also he’s Spider-man, but that’s not nearly as important as KING T’CHALLA WHAT, DID HE TALK ABOUT HIS SISTER AT ALL, MJ’S BEEN FOLLOWING ARTICLES ABOUT HER FOR YEARS AND SHE SEEMS DOPE AND CUTE AS HELL
Shuri, so excited and nervous that 10 percent of her attention is freaking out about how she can smell MJ oh no she smells so good, and 70 percent is on trying not to jitter so hard she thrums into a new plane of existence (and then the remaining 20 percent for figuring out cold fusion, nbd): HELOO M-UH-MMM- MICHELLE. DO YOU PREFER TO BE CALLED MICHELLE AND WELCOME TO MY BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY OF WAKANDA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO PHOTO WITH IT FOR YOUR INTERNET FRIENDS. I AM SHURI. YOU MUST KNOW THAT ALREADY. HAHA MY BROTHER TOLD YOU ABOUT ME. I WILL MURDER HIM.
MJ, who has spent the last ten minutes hiding in the bathroom applying deodorant to basically every non-face part of her body because she can’t stop sweating oh my god stop sweating you’re sweating on a three hundred year old chair in a sitting room in a palace in fuckin WAKANDA, and who is so stressed that she’s transcended the human for and is now astral projecting somewhere behind her own body, distantly pitying this new york punk gremlin who thought Formal Plaid was a good idea talk to a real ass honest to god genuine princess with a beautiful smile holding a small cat robot that she hand designed this afternoon on a whim: dope. I love murder. call me MJ
Rhodey meeting Shuri like “I must ask of you a favor I’m not worthy of but that we all need” and five minutes later, Stark Industries website is hacked and every usage of “Stark” is replaced with “Stank”
I know it’s in my tags for the Iron Man post but man, do you guys remember the “I am Iron Man” moment at the end of Iron Man 1? Do you guys remember what that represented?
Superhero movies obviously existed before Iron Man. X-Men come to mind, as well as a slew of DC movies like Batman and Superman. But you know what they all had as a subplot? Keeping identities secret. It was such a staple of the superhero movie genre that you went in knowing that there was going to need to be some kind of reset button at the end, or some stupid excuse for why the heroes couldn’t reap any of the benefits (and blame) of having just saved the world. They must always retreat into the shadows at the end, constantly helping but never known, because of “reasons”. Some reasons made sense, like protecting loved ones, but it had the underlying problem of meaning there was always this stale element to so many of these films. The world never fully got to react to superheroes existing, because they always retreated back into hiding afterwards.
When Tony said, “I am Iron Man” the theater erupted. I was barely a superhero fan at that point, and my jaw dropped. Something new had just happened. Everyone sensed it.
The film had already grounded Tony Stark in the war in Afghanistan, it had already shown him as a fairly realistic tech wunderkind working within the military industrial complex of the day. When you watch the film today, it’s very much a product of the Bush era. For example, everything is about propping up the military, and journalists are automatically annoyances at best and unpatriotic at worst (as a fandom, have we yet acknowledged that Christine Everhart is actually a hero? Her needling helped prompt Tony to change his ways, and far from showing her up by declaring he was Iron Man, he actually handed her the scoop of the century while thinking he was sticking it to her. Hilarious. Everhart is a top-notch journalist and deserves so much more credit.)
“I am Iron Man” heralded a new era of superhero movies. It meant we were going to have more than just Stark grounded in the real world (which was already a refreshing take on the genre). Rather, all the heroes were going to be grounded in the real world and the real world was going to know who they were and adjust as a result. No reset button. No status quo. No slinking back into the shadows.
To this day you can feel how DC superhero films are struggling with this old subplot. There’s an underlying element of staleness in those films because they were unable to make any similar bold and dramatic shift to revitalize the genre and bring it into the modern era. When your heroes have secret identities, the world can’t really respond to the superheroes in it because there can be no dialogue between the world and the superheroes, the world can only react to the disasters and try to recover from them. The superheroes go about their lives.
So kudos to this bold move by the Iron Man filmmakers ten years ago. I don’t think it can be understated that this is why we have the Marvel Cinematic Universe today.
Concept: Some jackass shows Bucky how to make a blog and it becomes really popular. Not because it’s the blog of James Buchanan Barnes, American Legend, War Hero, Infamous Assassin, Alleged Terrorist. Nobody even knows it’s his blog. It gets really popular because people think it’s a really great shitpost generator or something. Because Bucky is just a Weird Fucking Person and everything he posts on his fucking personal blog comes off as somewhere between dril and Jaden Smith and people are like “this is some quality garbage right here” and thus Accidental Memelord Bucky is born.
Bucky posts things like
“What is wrong with bananas. I ate a banana today and it was Wrong. America why”
“Every time I put on my eye makeup it gets bigger. My whole face is eyeliner now.”
“Why does friendship feel so much like punching”
“When I wake up in the middle of the night I am either thinking ‘who am I? does my life have meaning?’ or “did I already eat all of the plums?’”
“Why are you so grumpy” they ask me. they do not realize this is just my Face.”
“I know i said i would give my left arm for a cup of coffee but i am more awake now and i would like my arm back please”
“I guess I must have done something horrible in a past life. I mean. I definitely did something horrible in this life, so. “
OMG I LOVEEEE
YEEESSSSSSS!
“Guy in front of me won’t move his car seat up. I think that might still be upset about all those times I tried to kill him.”
“Got lectured by a guy who had been complaining about how things were Back In The Day. I don’t understand why he got upset. I too lived through the Great Depression and was drafted for the War.”
“The economy in this century sucks. Who exactly though another Stock Market crash was a good idea?”
“Apparently, it was Rude™ of me to pitch in my two cents on a conversation I happened to overhear, despite agreeing with them. On an unrelated note, I am no longer allowed in the ceiling vents.”
“‘If you don’t behave we’ll send (mutual) after you.’ Jokes on them. I’m the one who trained them to be an assassin in the first place.”
“Tried to buy a Chicken Dinner candy bar at the supermarket today. Turns out they were discontinued 54 years ago. Super bummed.”
“Wait. People were on the moon?! We got into space? There is a way off of this rock?! Why am I only just hearing about this?!”
“’Have you been living under a rock the past 50 years?’ No I was cryogenically frozen for 70. I don’t appreciate your tone young man.”
“My friend likes convincing people that I’m the Reckless one in our friendship. As if he won’t find an alley behind a bar to pick a fight in if I take my eyes off him for two seconds.”
“Why would i want to get a haircut when instead I can look like i just returned from a 12 year jaunt in the wilderness every time i grow a beard”
“was having a hard time finding noodles in the grocery store & asked a clerk for help. she looked at me like a crazy person. lady, it’s not my fault you don’t speak russian”
“what kind of idiot thinks dancers are sissies? literally every ballerina i have ever met could kill an adult man with just her legs”
“today i discovered Conditioner. the future is a miracle and my hair like a cloud now”
“apparently just jumping on to a moving bus when you are running late is not a thing people do anymore. please stop yelling at me.”
“went to a club last night to see what the hip kids were into. apparently the latest thing is just having sex standing up with your clothes on in a room full of people.”
“on the one hand, people dressed much nicer in the 40s. on the other hand, yoga pants.”
“rode in a car with heated seats today. it is my house now. i live here.”
“i have acquired a small bear. i am putting a collar and leash on him. he is my dog. no one tell animal control”
“i am working on this whole Good Guy thing but anyone who cuts me in line at starbucks deserves to have their kneecaps shot out okay”
“why did they have to make escalators so terrifying to get on and off of? from now on I’m just jumping off the mall balconies. none of this awful moving teeth staircase”
“i don’t care if it’s a ‘priceless historical artifact,’ punk, i didn’t wanna do the dishes and it makes a pretty good spaghetti bowl”
“hoodie pockets are so great. i can fit like three sandwiches and a grenade in there and my hands are still warm”
“i really though we would have flying cars by now. the future is such a letdown.”
“changed sam’s ringtone to jesus take the wheel.”
“do you know that feeling when you go to lean on your short friend’s conveniently arm-rest-height shoulder but you forget they had a huge growth spurt and you just awkwardly lean your elbow into the middle of their bicep”
“i swear i didn’t know your girlfriend was coming over. i always ominously clean my assault weapons on the coffee table like that. it had nothing to do with you.”
“On the other hand, yoga pants” I hear that, buddy.
“tv dinners are amazing, like ‘here’s this fucking tray with a shitty-ass meal of army-grade beef and potatoes that we froze into an ice cube. go stick it in your magic radiation box and eat it in front of the other magic radiation box that shows you cartoons whenever you want.’“
“the only reason why tv and radio weren’t used for porn from the start was because everyone would have been embarrassed to have their kids in the same room.”
“this jonny depp motherfucker’s on thin ice with me, disrespecting the legacy of tonto like that. come here and catch my titanium fist in your face, you birdhat wearing sonovabitch.”
“heard that bruce lee used to wire up his abs to electrodes to work them out for six hours a day, and i’m like, just six? just your abs? get on my level.”
“it used to be that making your handwriting look nice was just a thing people did, and knowing how to type was a specialized skill how things change.”
“did you know that a screaming orgasm is another word for a type of alcoholic beverage? i didn’t. i think my reaction to overhearing someone order twelve last night at the bar was reasonable, but the bouncer disagreed. sorry, steve.”
I think it’s overlooked sometimes how political Guardians of the Galaxy 2 actually got.
Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther are both about an evil thing, colonization, taking something not yours to take and fashioning it to your own needs. But Guardians 2 forms the first part perhaps of Marvel’s anti-colonization trilogy. Ego is the ultimate colonizer, having no purpose in his life other than taking things and making them into more of himself. To this end he’s become the ultimate eugenicist, too. Every time he creates offspring – potential second versions of him, not even people in his eyes – he tests them and if they’re not what he wants he kills them. He’s a slaver (he owns Mantis in every way that matters) a killer, a manipulator, an absolute monster behind a smiling face.
There’s a running theme in GOTG 2 about the evils of treating people as things.
The Sovereign do this too – they’re gold in colour, but they’re essentially white supremacists. (The slight satire of them also being basically really hardcore video gamers, who sit behind drones and make mass murder into a competition, was not lost on me either.) And Yondu, Rocket, Gamora and Nebula are all where they are because they were treated as things – slaves, experiments, disposables. The movie explores their traumas, and makes it clear that they’re justified in their rages.
GOTG 2 does with Ego what Infinity War somehow didn’t manage to do with Thanos, and completely and utterly kill the monster at the end of its story. Peter is granted by Ego all the power he could possibly want, as well as the promise of the family he’s always craved. But once he discovers that it’s all built on bones, he rejects it utterly, even at what he thinks is the cost of his own life. Ego’s not given an ounce of mercy or sympathy, not even from Peter, his own son.
Essentially GOTG2 follows almost an identical path to Thor: Ragnarok – a god (alright, demigod in Peter’s case) discovers that the powers granted to him came from a place of evil, and rejects them in favour of something better. Those two films and Black Panther form an epic “dismantle oppressive systems, even if they benefit you” triple-bill.
Question of Smoke 