#GAH i love characters that grieve for ''wrong'' reasons. characters that grieve in ways that make them seem cold and uncaring | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

askmerriauthor · 6 years

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Hey, I got to see Avengers: Infinity War on company time ‘cause my job was nice enough to buy the staff tickets. This movie has given me... feelings. Major spoilers ahead, so hit the jump below to read my thoughts on the matter.

Man, what a boring disappointment of a movie.

I’ve really been digging the last handful of Marvel films for their overall quality, especially where the characterization and banter are concerned. Both Captain America movies? Dug ‘em. All the Thor movies? Man, I could watch Hemsworth doing prat-falls getting hit by cars all day long and never tire of it. First Guardians of the Galaxy was great, though number two had missteps. Ant-Man was a fucking delight from start to finish. Spider-Man: Homecoming was pitch perfect. Black Panther has the best villain of the entire MCU thus far. On the other hand, the Avengers movies were a bit clunky by comparison but were overall enjoyable with some great character moments. They served to temper expectations about what big group-event films in the MCU are like. So my gripes on Infinity War is not out of some kind of beef with Marvel/Disney, nor is it out of overblown hype.

With that in mind, Infinity War was incredibly dull as a film. The bulk of the movie is divided into fight scene after fight scene (to the point that they actually cut away from one massive fight to peek in on another concurrent massive fight), introducing characters to one another (generally via fight scene), or Thanos getting “character building scenes” (immediately before or directly in the middle of a fight scene).

One thing I love most about the Marvel movies is the character interaction. It’s why these cinematic versions are so beloved by the fandom, why there’s so much creativity spawned around them - they have chemistry and interesting relationships with each other. A:IW has precious little of that at all. The lion’s share of character interaction goes to Vision/Wanda and Thanos/The Scenery, and not in a good way. Each of these two relationship elements are only present to build up a false sense of drama that falls flat in the end. Though there is one particular scene between Rocket Racoon and Thor (yeah, who saw that one coming?) where the two have a heartfelt conversation that Hemsworth just knocks out of the park. That moment of Thor recounting just how much he’s lost and it being clear how much agony it’s causing him behind a cocky grin is the kind of characterization I adore in these movies. Vision and Wanda being melodramatic about a plot point that is clearly never going to go anywhere in the film is not appealing at all. Their entire story thread from start to finish across the film is Vision wanting Wanda to destroy the Mind Gem (and thus kill him) to prevent Thanos from getting it, and the emotional roller coaster that entails since the two are now in love. Except that entire concept is a total non-starter, doesn’t go anywhere, and ultimately amounts to nothing at all. It’s just a waste of time that eats up writing and screen time that could have been put to better use elsewhere.

Onto the villain: I could not give two flying flips about Thanos. I will fully admit that a part of this is that I personally loathe the cliche “nature is out of balance, I must purge life to restore it” villain trope. That does play a big part in my dislike here. But setting that aside, he’s just a terribly dull character with feeble motivations and justifications for his actions. There’s a major dissonance between what he does and how it’s presented to the audience. While the movie does give a one-line bit of lip service to him being insane and misguided, it’s never fully addressed as a defining aspect of his character throughout the movie. The comics put a major emphasis on the fact that Thanos, for all his scheming and intelligence, is coo-coo bananas. He’s called the “Mad Titan” for a reason. The movie fails to put a light on that fact and it makes Thanos feel like a flat character since all we really get is him just blankly marching toward his end goal the entire film. He has no arc or development and is wholly unsympathetic no matter how many times the movie takes us aside with him in solitary, artsy moments and yells “LOOK AT ALL THIS PATHOS” in our faces.

Thanos’ entire villain scheme is that he wants to destroy 50% of all intelligent life forms in existence in order to bring a balance to the universe. He directly states that the universe’ resources are finite and that life allowed to grow unchecked will snuff itself out by over-consuming these precious few resources. So his solution - which he has been practicing on a planet-to-planet basis for decades by the point the movie takes place - is to divide a world’s population in half. 50% is murdered on the spot while the other 50% lives, purely based on whoever happens to be standing on the left or right. It is explicitly described by Thanos as being totally random who lives and who dies so as to be “fair”. His win-scenario is that the species of whatever world he 50% Genocides thrives in the wake of the purge because they now have a more controllable population size - nothing else beyond that.

So... I mean, right out the gate, that’s the stupidest damn thing possible. It’s not like he’s going to each of these worlds and carefully examining the state of conditions, then deciding they need to be culled because of their abuse of their resources. He’s just doing it willy nilly without any justification as to whether such a culling is actually necessary or whether it would even be beneficial to the world in question. I mean, hey, how can openly slaughtering 50% of a world’s population at random possibly be a bad thing? Surely that won’t throw their entire society and culture into a death spiral, right? It’s how he picked up his adopted children - Gamora in particular. While he was busy murdering 50% of her world, he just sort of kidnaps her because... uh... because he wants to, I guess. He literally just walks up to her in the middle of wrecking her world and decides he arbitrarily wants to take this one tiny green girl with him for no apparent reason whatsoever. So, hey, way to undercut your own practice there, Thanos. 50% of the population dies with it being completely random and fair... unless I happen to fancy taking a souvenir, apparently.

The movie beats us over the head with the idea that Thanos is in turmoil because of his mission to balance the universe. That it is a massive strain on his soul, that only he has the willpower to endure what he sees as a necessary culling. Not a “necessary evil”, mind you - he never views his actions as being morally wrong. Just difficult. But, y’know... it’s kind of hard for me to sympathize with a character introduced to us as being an omnicidal maniac who has built a fanatical cult of personality around himself and callously murders literally trillions of people. Especially so since, as cannot be overlooked: HE’S DOING IT ALL BY HIS OWN CHOICE. The whole universal culling this is entirely his idea and pet project, so he is completely responsible for whatever so-called internal suffering the movie is trying to make us feel for him.

This whole affair becomes especially annoying when Thanos acquires the Soul Gem. There’s a little test he has to perform to get it - he must sacrifice the one thing he loves most. It turns out this is Gamora, aforementioned adopted/kidnapped daughter. He has a moment of realization, cries stoic tears, and murders her by throwing her off a several-hundred foot tall cliff to that he can get the gem. He then spends the rest of the film with the fact that his choice is emotionally wrecking him inside, that he’s grieving and saddened, that his quest has taken everything from him and--

Y’KNOW, YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO THROW HER OFF THE DAMN CLIFF, RIGHT? NOBODY WAS FORCING YOU TO DO THAT.

Gah, this entire character angle just pisses me off because of how inane it is. “You must give up the thing you love”. Thanos, you smug bitch, you kidnapped a girl at random while in the process of murdering everyone she knows and loves, then spent the next 20 years putting her through an endless array of physical, mental, and emotional abuse to try and shape her into one of your fanatical Thanos-worshipping minions. IN THIS VERY SAME MOVIE you tricked Gamora into thinking she brutally killed you just to see if she’d feel bad about it afterward, then literally dismembered her sister before her eyes to force information out of her. Then, y’know, you murdered Gamora herself.

YOU DON’T FUCKIN’ LOVE HER. THAT IS NOT LOVE. I don’t care how many melodramatic “single tear down the cheek” moments you have - there is absolutely nothing about this character or his established, presented backstory that gives even the slightest hint he cared about Gamora beyond her ability to serve him as a tool. If the Soul Gem was really supposed to be using this “sacrifice your love” test as a measure of who gets to take it, then Thanos should have just failed flat-out. Even if one tries to argue something like “Oh, well, it was genuine love in Thanos’ twisted perspective”, that doesn’t matter. The Infinity Gems - especially the Soul Gem - are presented as being semi-aware and capable of making decisions as to who they want to serve. So it’s not Thanos’ call as to whether or not Gamora is the thing he loves, but the Soul Gem’s. But it works because we need to get to the next fight scene but quick, so off we go!

The final climax point of the movie is right after Thanos finally gets all the gems and snaps his fingers. He wins. In that instant, 50% of all intelligent beings in the universe just sort of go away. They don’t really die, per say, but rather just poof out existence. Effectively dead but maybe not specifically so? It isn’t explained. So we get this lengthy montage of main characters going poof into particle-effect clouds one by one, with how abrupt or extended the disintegration is depending on whether or not the writers wanted to give them a dramatic final speech. Oh, how sad. How very sad. Boo hoo. My eye-rolling on this point isn’t because of the meta-awareness of me knowing Marvel isn’t going to purge its main character roster because money. Rather, it’s because the movie itself takes a moment to pull us aside and assure us that literally NONE OF THIS MATTERS AT ALL.

During an earlier point in the film. Dr. Strange takes a moment of meditation and uses the Time Gem to peer into the future. He looks at millions of potential futures and says that they only beat Thanos and win the day in one of those probabilities. It’s done in a way that seems to impress upon the audience just how hopeless this whole effort seems, but it’s a blatant Chekhov’s Gun moment since Dr. Strange acts extremely out of character with his decisions from that point on. He surrenders to Thanos and, right before dying himself, looks at Tony (and almost directly into the camera) to assure everyone that “this is the only way”. Whiiiiiiich very blatantly means that his out of character decisions were actually intentionally made to set up the one lone “we somehow manage to win” future he saw. Because HE SAW HOW TO DO IT BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE TIME GEM DOES so literally NOTHING that happens beyond that midway point in the film matters because it’s all predetermined to end up well for the heroes. Which, right along with the “kill everyone to restore balance” trope, is another of my hated cliches because IT’S SO DAMN LAZY.

That’s really what this boils down to for me. A:IW is lazy. It’s all flash and fluff without anything really satisfying under all the sparkly varnish. There’s no genuine substance to it. Just a few faux plot concepts that are dressed up to look like they’ve got weight, but just end up being hollow.

Also... Thanos? Buddy? If your whole bit is that the universe has finite resources and there’s too many mouths to feed, why not just use your newly-acquired phenomenal cosmic powers to make more resources? I mean, if you can literally snap your fingers and cause an unimaginable volume of matter (ie, people across the universe) to just spontaneously stop existing, why not just make the universe bigger and fuller for everyone’s benefit? That maybe might go over better with the crowds, y’know?

#marvel #avengers #avengers: infinity war #infinity war #thanos #spoilers #movie review

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blackwinged-soul · 7 years

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...i may or may not be kin with blue pearl

i’m still trying to sort a fuckton of emotions over here. but uhhh

wwhen the fuck did THAT nexus connection open up

(--just now as far as I can TELL? bd’s been a deep connection since. uhh...? ..........shortly after That will Be All i’m sure. pre-connective “tissue”feels are there because, duh, a lapis laz’i. not close. but... ....Emotional About It.)

.......and i....

,...i ahve.......

....entirely.... too...... many feelings

right now.

(and i, at the very least am really RELATING to b.pearl for some reason, and i don’t know why.)

{{ Adding more posts to Keep my Revelations.Journey in Discovering B/lue chronological!

May-Aug 2017 (The Trial, empathy, analysis):

May 29: http://beyondthetemples-ooc.tumblr.com/post/161220725682/i-dont-even-know-how-to-talk-about-it-just

I DON;T EVEN KNOW HOW TO *TALK* ABOUT IT

Just! LIKE

The EXPLOSION of POWER.

Did she even MEAN to do that–?! (Like, wishing she’d FEEL it? Or was that an Accident?)

i mean yellow’s look was very reminiscent of a big sister going “another one of these? come on sis we don’t need that”

and she didn’t cry that’s what’s killing me and Creating a Thousand Question MArks here.

i am fucking addicted to learning about the Dimaonds, seriously you have NO idea how i can possibly– how deep it goes– i ahve no diea how to exPLAIN it–

.i just

aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

http://beyondthetemples-ooc.tumblr.com/post/161221152192

#THERE IT IS THERE'S THE MOMENT THAT FUCKING *SHATTERED* ME INSIDE NAD FROZE EVERYTHING IN MY EXISTENCE, T H E R E I T I S, .su wanted, su spoilers, every single fucking frame is just. gods. so... intense.... so emotionally ccharged?????, gah the animation is;;; way too emotion how do they DO that,

http://beyondthetemples-ooc.tumblr.com/post/161223790342/i-think-half-the-reason-i-want-to-rp-blue-is-that

–i think half the reason i want to rp Blue is that analyzing her is an AWFULLY enjoyable thing.

(she’s so expressive? it’s not Hard to know what she’s thinking? or FEELING? And THAT’S where the magic is?)

and it’s so easy ot rELATE to her. like– lapis was exhausting for me to keep up with;; and i don’t know what’s Different about Blue… ;; (…besides being able to Connect more easily, for some reason. I genuinely don’t know Why; I generally don’t Connect with Very Emotional Characters like this… ;;;; )

…but her Current Workings seem clear enough to me.

I learned from trying to rp Lapis that if you don’t know anything, and your Brain / Instincts / Nexus weirdness aren’t giving any Answers, just roll with it. Work with what you DO know.

“Simply avoid Narrating what you Don’t Know About! It’s that easy!”

Aaaand it’ll be HELLUVA lot easier RPing a character when my options are narrowed down. 8F

(…i never get dammed up with writer’s block. I get writer’s FLOOD, and an indecisive ADD brain makes it Impossible to choose Which One to write about. o~o; if i only Know enough to write about one or two things? Well. Bring ‘em on, because I may not be any good at Headcnaon’ing when we have No Substantial Canon to work With on That Particular Subject. But when I’ve got a grain of an idea planted: I can reap an entire motherfucking field.)

http://beyondthetemples-ooc.tumblr.com/post/161225492797/enlightened-introvert-listen-im-not-even

enlightened-introvert:

Listen, I’m not even kidding here. I had this problem in Steven’s Dream, too. When Blue Diamond makes all the other gems around her cry, I literally almost teared up. I think it’s probably the way the tears are drawn (big and gooey, probably would hurt your eyes) that just affects my empathetic mind, but I like to think that Blue Diamond’s abilities are effective in multiple dimensions.

…so, I’m not the only one.

#look i've got THEORIES and it's no scientific fallacy that multiple dimensions seem to interact.re: theoretical physics and quantum physics., (read: the way molecules at tinier levels than neutrons/eectrons seem to vanish out of existence even with the most acute 'scopes.), also: string theory?

ask-all-of-homeworld:

Blue Diamond speaking. Sometimes, do you ever feel like you’re shattered WITH her?

...that's what I've been trying to say.

mrgeekonthiswebsite:

Holy shit blue diamond is an empath

#~<33333333333, you have no idea how much my soul fucking SOARS at this honestly.

JUNE 4 http://beyondthetemples-ooc.tumblr.com/post/161419121347/reasons-i-relate-to-blue-diamond-and-then-some

Reasons I relate to Blue Diamond (and then some):

- Distant presence. - Contemplative. - Melancholy. - Smiles are small and rare. - Watchfulness. Closely, intently. - Intense sense of justice and Right/Wrong. - Driven by loyalty. - Gentle… until you cross that line. - Immediate severity in my treatment of those I distrust. - Righteous FURY when somebody hurts those I love. - NEEDING time to process my emotions. - Prioritizing emotional well-being over productivity. - Closer to my little sisters than anyone else in the family. - …slightly rasping voice? - Draping, slightly-shapely blue clothes. - Poised elegance. - …until something manages to Affect me Emotionally. - And then, I become Obsessed. - Thinking, analyzing, needing to know the “why”. (Yes, it’s NECESSARY.) - We are not DONE until I UNDERSTAND. - I will not choose my RESPONSE until I understand. - Seriously upset when somebody breaks certain “codes”. - VERY upset when plans are changed by impulsivity. - “Can’t you RESTRAIN yourself?” - “Can’t you let me grieve?” (No, I cannot stop feeling.) - I am going to fight you if you tell me to Get Over It. - Feeling guilt over not doing enough, even when there was nothing I could have done. - Deep, pervasive mourning. (I couldn’t stop crying when Fizzy, my familiar, my first dove, my sweetest bird, died because the family neglected to give him water while I was gone. But largely in private, or with close friends.) - Clinging to reminders of that which was loved, and now is lost. - Not generally bitter. But very specific in my objects of fury. - Fury is a cold, sharp, glaring, and focused, controlled type. - E m p a t h y . (Emotional projection, when it hits me too hard…) - Psychic dream-connection to people like me. (I’m sorry…) - My hair even parts slightly similarly? ?? ??? (Middle-part, bangs forward over brow a bit, then curling against the cheekbone before it sweeps back, and comes over my shoulder from a little ways behind it. Not to mention, long and light-colored naturally.)

- What IS the use of feeling? Does it matter? I am.

#and i'm sure i'll think of more. but........ this was the list i came up with tonight. on little more than a whim

June 7

Fun fact: My hair does the chest-loop thing when I wear my cloak.

(At a different angle. But especially when I move my head– you know, like you do when you’re watching the street for a vehicle you’re relying on for transportation? My hair pulls out form under the neck seam and tends to gather in front of me for some reason/

I used to compare it to a cybunny (from Neopets).

Now I’m just really freaking amused, and thinking if I ever cosplay her, I’ll just do it with a cloak, some light silver hair-spray-paint, and my own freaking hair.

#rwt nexus #digital mirrorbooking #rwt lapis laz'i

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