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#marvel parallels and themes

abarbaricyalp · 3 months

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Since the original post about the line has been going around, I've been thinking about the "It's hard to find someone with shared life experience" line from Steve in The Winter Soldier.

Yes it sets up parallels between Steve and Bucky, whatever. I don't know that it was actually meant to do that. The viewer should understand without being told that Steve and Bucky have shared lived experience.

That scene has always struck me much more as establishing the relationship that Steve and SAM were going to have. The movie said Steve is searching for shared life experience and then plops Sam down in front of him like, okay, here!

(Reckless) Military man part of experimental technology? ✅️

Lost your best friend during a military mission right in front of you? ✅️

"All I had to do was hold on."

"It's like I was just up there to watch."

Displaced soldiers--out of time, out of service ✅️

Anti-authority 99% of the time ✅️

"The number of people giving me orders is down to...zero 😊"

"I'm not looking for forgiveness and I'm way past asking for permission."

(I mean, I could find these quotes all day)

Heart of gold and moral compass stronger than magnetic North? ✅️

"Not a perfect soldier, but a good man."

Fiercely loyal and natural born leader? ✅️

Specialized training used to protect people at great personal sacrifice? ✅️

"I do what he does, just slower."

Loss of family as affective but off-screen development? ✅️

Strong ties to one geographic location that shaped them? ✅️

"Home is home, y'know."

Sam's theme song is literally called Louisiana Hero

Ridiculous relationship with one James Bucky Barnes, who is understandably obsessed with each of them? ✅️

I mean, I just can't believe how tightly interwoven Steve and Sam's stories are. Of course Sam gets the shield. Of course he's Captain America. Of course he's Steve's best friend. THEY are each other's parallels. Sam is everything Captain America should be. He's everything Steve needed and wanted in a friend/partner/successor. I always think Sam was kind of the first breath of fresh air Steve got, the first time he felt less alone in the future. They're mirrors of each other. Someone they could reach recognize themselves in. It's such a beautiful relationship that Marvel should have done more with.

That line is always going to be a SamSteve line to me 🤷‍♀️

#samsteve #sam wilson #captain america #the falcon and the winter soldier #steve rogers #captain america the winter soldier

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ricstarweek2024 · 12 days

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Can you believe Rictor and Shatterstar’s relationship was made canon 15 years ago? Well, it’s true! So, what better way to commemorate this iconic moment than with all of us sharing our love for them with a whole week dedicated to them?

The RicStar Anniversary Week 2024 will be held June 21-27, 2024.

The purpose of this event is to celebrate 15 years since the first kiss between Rictor and Shatterstar which happened on the pages of X-Factor #45 on June 24, 2009, which not only was the first gay kiss between two superheroes in Marvel, but it also confirmed years of romantic subtext between the characters. It’s been 15 years of canon RicStar, a couple that paved the way for more couples and pre-established characters to come out in later years.

Prompts:

Subjects

DAY 1: Early years/ X-Force era

DAY 2: Missing moments

DAY 3: Mexico road-trip/ Mojoworld

DAY 4: Free day (It’s the Anniversary day!)

DAY 5: Alternate Universe

DAY 6: Krakoa Era

DAY 7: Family/ Friends

Themes:

DAY 1: Neurodivergence

DAY 2: Sacrifice / Parallels

DAY 3: Powers

DAY 4: Soulmates

DAY 5: Music/ Movies

DAY 6: Hurt/ Comfort

DAY 7: Childhood

Rules:

There are two prompts per day – a subject and a theme, feel free to use only one or a combination of the prompts.

All kinds of fanwork are welcome, from fanfics, fanarts, fanedits, playlists, photography cosplay, and even baking! (I’ve made Ricstar cookies in the past), handcrafts or even if you just want to share your thoughts, headcanons, etc. that’s perfect too. Let’s all just share our love for this couple in whichever way we want and can.

Remember to use the #ricstarweek2024 hashtag so we can find your work. For Tumblr, you can also tag us @ricstarweek2024.

Please don't feel pressured to post something for every prompt or every day. The dates and prompts work just as a guide so if you can’t post the assigned day that’s fine, post it when you can.

Remember to tag any triggers. Additionally, for NSFW material on Tumblr, make sure to put it under the “read more” break and use the function of sensitive content warning for Twitter.

Let’s have an amazing week together!!

#ricstarweek2024 #rictor #julio richter #shatterstar #ricstar #xmen #x force #x factor #xfi #marvel

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crumb · 8 months

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Some interesting things I found while doing some research on the origin of the name Ambrose: (If this has already been pointed out, apologies!)

I know the given name's meaning is more linked to god-like rather than immortality (although those concepts are definitely linked.) The theme of immortality is very relevant to Ambrose and Vincent. He encased dead and alive bodies in wax giving them an immortal second life.

But also, Saint Ambrose is the patron saint of bees, beekeepers, wax melters, and candlemakers, which is a more direct, but still very clever, reference by the writers.

Saint Ambrose's father describes him as having a 'honeyed tongue', which doesn't always have a positive meaning.

This sounds like Bo with his placating words, leading Wade and Carly around Ambrose with all his little excuses about that damned 15-inch fan belt.

"The twin brothers Gervase and Protase are considered the first martyrs of Milan as Saint Ambrose, guided by a vision, unearthed their remains in 386. The martyrs appeared to Saint Ambrose in an apparition."

Twin brothers, martyrs who would eventually be venerated as saints themselves, appeared to Saint Ambrose in a vision. This led to the discovery of their buried remains.

"...We found two men of marvelous stature, such as those of ancient days. All the bones were perfect, and there was much blood."

These parallels, coincidences—whatever you want to call it—are just very interesting.

#house of wax 2005 #house of wax #bo sinclair #vincent sinclair #lester sinclair

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gimmethatagustd · 1 year

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If you are still taking requests I found this and I thought it was funny so I wanted to see if you could please write something with demon Hoseok and this idea thank you😊

satan: I HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU TO THE DEPTHS OF H-

me: wow you're tall

satan: thanks?

me : how tall are you?

Satan : i dunno like 6'6 6'11 with the horns?

me [ twirling hair] omg with horns! You are so funny

NOT TODAY, SATAN | JHS

If you had known the demon tasked with reaping your soul would be a total #daddy you would have gone to Hell sooner!

» pairing: demon!hoseok x reader

» genre: BTS | 18+ | supernatural | humor | a lil bit of smut

» wc/date: 3.7k | october 2022

» notes: THIS REQUEST MADE ME CACKLE. i decided to post it for spooky szn~ so i hope that's ok 🥺 (i'm also dying cuz there's like lowkey unintentional parallels to this and my hobi idol au that's really killing me)

» masterlist

» what was jai listening to? all the good girls go to hell - billie eilish

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Purgatory looked like the DMV.

You should have expected it, honestly. Wasn’t it represented as some type of waiting room in Beetlejuice? Or maybe you were misremembering. Ever since you’d stepped through the front doors, your mind felt foggy. When you looked back through the windows, no parking lot met your gaze. Instead, a soft gray haze was pressed against the glass, causing a bit of condensation to gather.

How had you gotten here?

The answer to that seemed a bit foggy, too.

“Are you going to take a fucking number or just stand there like an idiot?”

The bristled voice shocked you into action. Stepping forward, you ripped a number tag from the stand directly in front of the door and moved to the side for the voice behind you. A few droplets of water splattered against your ankles when the person reached for their tag.

You suppressed a gasp.

She was completely soaked, so wet that she left a trail of water wherever she walked, like some kind of snail or slug. It was difficult to tell what her original complexion was because her skin was now a deep turquoise. Bits of twigs and what looked like seaweed twisted into her hair.

You followed the stranger’s water trail through the folding chairs lining the large waiting room. The speckled brown carpet squished beneath your sneakers. A bit of water was leaking inside to wet your socks.

“Number 746!”

A robotic voice beeped out the number over the speakers just as you sank into an empty folding chair. A man with large, dirty bandages wrapped around his head and over one eye stood from his seat beside you. He clutched a folder of papers to his chest and limped to the counter at the front of the room.

Three people in matching black professional uniforms sat behind the counter. You thought they resembled bank tellers from how they were spread out with glass barriers separating each person’s portion of the counter. The first two employees sat too far away to make out important details of their faces, but the third was only a few feet away from you.

He was easily the most beautiful person you’d ever seen in your life. The sharp cut of his jawline and the thin length of his nose slicing through high cheekbones and deep-set eyes made it difficult for you to pull your gaze away from him. Luckily, he was none the wiser of your ogling, for his attention was spent on assisting the person standing in front of the counter. You were free to marvel at his angular features, eventually shifting your eyes from the bow of his lips to examine some of his gentler features. His hair was dark like his outfit and fell soft against his forehead. Poking out of the layered waves were two thick… horns.

You pressed your thumbs into your eyes, but when you moved them away the horns remained.

They twisted at the tips, spiraling in opposite directions. A swirling pattern was etched into each of them. It reminded you of fingerprints.

“Number 749!”

You glanced down at the crumbled tag in your hand. 749.

With a sigh, you trudged up to the counter and stood in front of the beautiful man with twisted horns poking out of dark, luscious hair.

“I need an official form of identification and your death certificate.”

You stared at him blankly.

“An official form of identification and your death certificate,” he repeated with more force.

“I… don’t have a death certificate.”

Were you dead? How had you died? How could you have possibly received a death certificate if you were dead? You assumed your mother would have it; that was how things went, right?

The name badge clipped to his shirt read Hoseok, Assistant Manager. Assistant Manager of what? Purgatory?? What in the fuck was going on.

Hoseok turned to the computer sitting off to the side of his desk.

“What is your full name and date of birth?”

You gave him the information he was looking for and leaned forward to watch him tap away at the keyboard. What appeared to be a profile of you flashed across the screen. There was a photo of you, the one from your driver’s license. A few stats about you like your height and where you were born. Toward the bottom of the screen in large red block letters read TIME OF DEATH. You were pretty sure the date was recent, but you didn’t know what day it was currently. Before you could read further, Hoseok closed out the page.

“I need you to come with me,” Hoseok said abruptly. He gestured for you to step around the counter.

You took a look over your shoulder. No one else needed to go behind the counter, as far as you could tell. Although, you hadn’t paid much attention to the other people waiting for… whatever it was everyone was doing here. You still didn’t know.

With a nervous inhale that tickled your throat, you followed the… man? Whatever he was, through a door marked for employees only.

(So they were called employees. Hence the Assistant Manager badge, and all. What the fuck kind of job was this?)

Scurrying behind him to catch up with his long gait, you noticed that this person was tall. Like, impossibly tall. Come to think of it, it wasn’t just his height that was staggering. Everything about his presence seemed larger than life, like the very walls of the hallway needed to shift and expand to accommodate the power radiating off of him as he walked. You kept your eyes trained on his lean shoulders, watching the way his shoulder blades and back muscles made his shirt ripple when he breathed or turned around the corner.

“Ahem.” You cleared your throat.

Silence.

“Ahem.”

You did a little skip to speed up your walking and finally fell in line with the man. You flashed him what you’d consider an award-winning grin.

“Hoseok, right? You’re really fucking tall.”

He glanced down at you out of the corner of his eye.

So, a man of few words. Unless he was snapping at you about IDs and death certificates. Apparently.

“Where are we going?”

Hoseok immediately halted, catching you by surprise and nearly causing you to trip.

“Here.” With an outstretched arm, Hoseok opened the door to a simple office. He held it for you as you crossed the threshold.

“Please, take a seat.”

You eased into one of the chairs in front of the desk, which Hoseok sat behind once he snapped the door shut. The fabric scratched into the back of your legs.

Up close, Hoseok was even more breathtaking. You found that the horns weren’t as much of a creepy turnoff as you may have initially thought. Somehow, paired with the shimmering red tint to his eyes and the slits he had instead of proper circular pupils, you were rather turned on by this… otherworldly look he had going for him. It was spooky, in an “emo kid who works at Hot Topic and thinks Happy Tree Friends is edgy” kind of way. So… not spooky at all. Just endearing to the part of your brain where you’d locked up all your teen angst.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

You watched a transparent film slide sideways across Hoseok’s eyes and you realized he blinked with a third eyelid.

Weird, but kind of hot. Fuck conventional beauty standards! You could dig it.

“Because a handsome stranger brought me here?” You took a shot in the dark, though Hoseok didn’t appear to have followed you. He stared at you with his third eyelid and his slitted pupils and his sharpened teeth.

Wow, he had really pointy teeth.

“You’re here because…” Hoseok drummed his fingers against the surface of his desk. His nails were black and chipped. “You were never reaped.”

“Reaped? Like, the Grim Reaper?”

A low hiss came from the back of Hoseok’s throat. The sound made your skin prickle.

“The Grim Reaper is not real.” His voice slithered out of his mouth at the same time his tongue did. It was red and forked. “You were supposed to be reaped by one of us when you died,” he gestured to himself, “a demon.”

Well, obviously he was a demon. Or else he had a great sense of fashion.

You leaned forward to rest your arms on Hoseok’s desk. If he thought his freaky tongue and animalistic eyes were going to scare you, he was terribly wrong. You’d been on Vampirefreaks.com back when it was still a social media platform.

“Listen, Hoseokie. Can I call you Hoseokie?” Silence. “I don’t know why I’m here and I don’t know how I got here, but I promise you, I am not dead.”

With a sigh, Hoseok flipped open the laptop on his desk. After a few moments of typing, he slid it toward you, adjusting the screen to make it easier for you to see.

There was your profile again. Hoseok quickly scrolled down to the section you hadn’t gotten to read earlier, the part about when you’d died.

“In my records, it states you are dead. As of,” he turned the screen toward himself for a moment, “As of 7 PM yesterday. Yet there is no record of how you died, where you died, nor which demon escorted you here. And no death certificate on file.”

Clearly, the missing death certificate situation had rubbed the guy the wrong way.

Maybe you should have felt more concerned that you had a snake-eyed self-proclaimed demon trying to convince you that you were dead and chilling out in Purgatory unchaperoned. But this was all fake, obviously. A dream. There was nothing to worry about.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Hoseokie.” You gave the man - demon - a shrug.

Hoseok’s eyebrows pulled toward each other, causing the skin on his forehead to crease.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh really?”

Hoseok pursed his lips and gave you a curt nod.

“It already states here that you’ll be going to Hell, so I may as well just reap you myself since no one else has. I need to go downstairs anyway. We’ve been getting a high volume of damned souls recently and working overtime can be sustainable for only so long…”

Whatever else Hoseok had to say about “demon burnout” during a time when debauchery was at its highest on Earth (“Aside from the 70s, wow, the 70s was a time.”), you didn’t hear the rest of it. There were more important things to worry about.

You were going to Hell.

“Wait, wait, wait, Hoseokie, wait a minute.” You curled your fingers around the edge of his laptop screen. “I’m going to Hell? For what?! I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life.”

This was the part where Hoseok was supposed to say, “I know this, and I love you.”

Except he didn’t! The bastard just let his gorgeous mouth hang open and flicked his freaky forked tongue over those pearly fangs.

“I beg to differ.”

“How would you know?”

A small smirk flitted across Hoseok’s face and you felt your stomach twist into knots.

“Your memories, your experiences, your life - none of that belongs to you.”

You couldn’t tell which was more unnerving, the words he said or the dark tone he said them in. With a shiver, you chose to ignore whatever riddle he was speaking to you in and tried to change your strategy.

“Hoseokie, baby.” You ran your perfectly normal tongue along your lips and leaned even further into your companion’s personal space - as much as you could with a desk in between you. “Let’s not get carried away here.”

“Proper protocol was not followed, so we must rectify that,” Hoseok huffed. His shoulders sagged slightly, causing him to lean inward. Maybe your cute nickname was finally breaking him.

“Do we really?”

“Yes.”

“But, really? Hoseokie, babe, do I look like I belong in Hell?”

The demon blinked with his third eyelid a few times. You watched the slit of his pupils flicker as he genuinely took the time to look you over. It was a hypothetical question and now you were scared of the actual answer. He was a demon, after all. He’d know what a damned soul looked like, right?

“Well.” You watched Hoseok’s throat bob as he swallowed. “You did read a lot of serial killer fanfiction on AO3.”

You scoffed, leaning back in your chair and crossing your arms against your chest.

“Are you kink-shaming me right now?”

Hoseok mirrored your scoff and busied himself with tidying up a stack of loose papers on his desk, but you saw the way his cheeks turned a healthy shade of pink.

Interesting.

“So, I’m going to Hell because I read One Direction serial killer AUs? Really? That’s why I’m going to Hell?”

“No!” Hoseok huffed again, louder this time. He ran his fingers through his hair and gave you a pleading look. “I don’t know! I don’t decide who goes to Hell, I just take them there!”

“Then don’t take me.”

It seemed like the obvious solution, but Hoseok looked at you like you’d threatened to kill him.

“I have to take you.”

“Oh yeah? Or else what?” You were back to leaning against his desk, your head in your hands and your elbows on the surface. “Satan damns you to some horrible eternal punishment?”

Hoseok turned his head and mumbled to the side, “Something like that.”

You wanted to ask him what it mattered if he was already a demon working for Satan, but you figured that would push him a bit too far. Instead, you were just going to beg. Considering the circumstances, you allowed yourself to do it without hurting your self-respect. Dire times, dire measures.

“Hoseokie, please,” you whined with your bottom lip jutted out. You reached out to hook your finger around one of his, pulling his hand away from where it rested against his chin. “Please, don’t take me to Hell. Let me stay here, with you.”

“With me?” Hoseok’s eyes widened, slitted pupils dilating into ovals.

“Mhmm, wouldn’t that be nice?” you purred, lightly tracing the lines of his palm with your index finger. “You’re so pretty and you look so stressed. What did you say earlier, about burnout? They aren’t taking care of you here, are they, Hoseokie?”

The demon bit his lip. His razor-sharp teeth pressed deep indents into what you knew were soft pink lips.

“I could help you out, Hoseokie, baby.”

Those dark eyes shimmered red and finally met your gaze, though his face was still flushed and his expression almost… timid.

“Help me out?” he murmured, almost as though he were talking himself through the conversation rather than asking you a question.��

“Mhmm…”

You pressed your hands flat against the desk and hoisted yourself on top of it. The stack of papers Hoseok had just fixed went flying. He weakly reached out to stop a few of them from slipping off and floating to the carpeted floor.

“I don’t know.” Hoseok’s voice wavered, though you had to give him credit for his ability to maintain eye contact with you as you scooted across the desk.

“I think you do know, Hoseokie.”

Hoseok shook his head, third eyelids putting in work to blink away the shock when you eased yourself into his lap.

You’d been so caught up on how tall and menacing he’d looked in the hallway that you hadn’t stopped to consider the rest of his details, like how firm and comfortable his thighs were. You wiggled your ass to get settled, eliciting a low groan from the demon whose red eyes still rounded under your gaze.

“I’m going to get in trouble,” he pleaded with you when you dug your fingers into his hair and yanked his head backward. “I really don’t want to get in trouble.”

“And I really don’t want to go to Hell.” You dug your teeth into the soft skin of his throat and Hoseok let out a whimpered hiss. “Do you see our problem here?”

Of course, he could see the problem, but Hoseok was driven mute by your free hand palming his cock through his pants. His hold on your waist was bruisingly tight, but you kept a firm grip on his hair and a hot hand on his crotch. There was no way he was getting an upper hand in this, not that you expected him to. He was whimpering and pliant underneath you already.

Maybe you were absolutely insane, but if you had to suck some demon dick to get out of Hell, you were going to fucking do it. No matter how weird it probably looked.

“Y/N, wait.” Hoseok shuddered as you popped open the button of his pants and dragged down the zipper. “Listen to me, it’s not, it’s not a good idea.”

You let your fingertips dance along the waistband of his underwear. You weren’t sure why it was funny that he was wearing underwear; it just seemed like such a silly thing for a demon to need. Out here reaping souls and getting angry over death certificates, and going to the store to buy underwear after work.

It was just funny.

“Why not, Hoseokie? Don’t tell me they don’t let you have a little fun around here.” You batted your eyes at him and slide your hand beneath the fabric.

“It’s not- fuck.”

Hoseok tried to lean forward, to curl into himself, when you pressed your thumb against his leaking slit, but you kept his head pulled backward by his hair.

“Now, I’m gonna tell you what we’re gonna do, okay Hoseokie baby?”

The demon opened his mouth to speak and you shivered as his forked tongue wet his lips.

“Okay.”

“Good little demon, thank you,” you cooed praise that made his face flush an even deeper red. “I’m going to suck your dick and then you’re gonna delete whatever record you have of me and we’re going to forget I was ever even here, alright?”

When Hoseok didn’t speak, you squeezed the head of his cock.

“Fuck, yes, yes, yes, alright,” he sputtered.

“Good.”

The bright side to all of this was that his dick didn’t look any different from any other dick you’d ever seen, although it did seem a bit long. Which was fine. You had hands, didn’t you? You knew how to do a little two-hand twist when needed.

Just as you were about to slide off Hoseok’s lap and get on your knees, the door to his office flung open so hard it slammed against the wall.

“Oh fuck,” Hoseok gulped. He quickly stuffed his cock back inside his pants and zipped his pants up with trembling fingers.

“Oh fuck is right. What the fuck is going on here?”

You turned to look over your shoulder at the person who owned such a smooth, sinister voice that dripped enough malice for you to drown in it. You felt your entire body grow cold when you were met with slitted eyes that glowed even more brightly than Hoseok’s. The eyes roamed your face, your body, your position still straddling Hoseok’s lap. And you did the same, your human eyes taking in the man’s black fitted suit, the swell of his thighs beneath the fabric, the pout of his lips, the craters his dimples made in his cheeks as he sucked on his teeth in seething anger.

“I-I-I-I, Your Majesty,” Hoseok’s tongue fumbled over the words as he tried shoving you off of him.

Oh shit, was this God? He was way too hot to be God.

You stood when Hoseok did, the two of you blinking with your eyes wide and mouths hanging open like idiots in front of the sharply dressed man. Just past the doorway, you could see a few other men flanking the entrance, as though they were guarding it.

“Don’t fucking call me Your Majesty while your cock is twitching in your pants, Hoseok. Have some decency,” the dimpled man chastised with a snort.

Was God allowed to curse? You supposed he was, but multiple F-bombs and a casual “cock” thrown around seemed like a lot for a guy who was meant to be the holiest of the holy.

“And you.”

You poked your index finger against your chest when the man suddenly loomed over you.

“Me?”

“You’re supposed to be with me.”

You rose your eyebrows and shot Hoseok a look, but he had his eyes on the floor.

“Oh… you’re not God…”

You felt fire lick and burn up your chest and across your throat when the man leaned his head back to bellow a laugh so deep you swore the walls moved just as they had for Hoseok when he walked.

“Sweet of you to think so highly of the Devil, little human.”

Aw, fuck.

You were going to Hell.

“Now, listen, the One Direction serial killer AUs weren’t actually that bad. Like, if you’d just give it a chance, you’d understand,” you began.

“Reasoning with me is futile, pet.”

The sound of your teeth clamping shut echoed through the room. You probably should have been scared of how poisonous his tone sounded, but excitement thrummed in your stomach.

No one had ever called you pet before. It was kind of cute.

“Now, let’s go, shall we?”

If Satan had a problem with the way you whimpered when he wrapped a smooth, tan hand around your bicep to haul you out of the room, he didn’t make any indication. If anything, you thought he squeezed you a bit tighter.

“I didn’t think Satan would be so buff,” you murmured and you heard Hoseok choke.

You’d all but forgotten about the guy.

“Oh! Hoseokie!” You twisted your neck around to face him as Satan began leading you away. “Thanks for hanging out! I forgive you for being such a rule follower!”

You turned up to look at Satan’s face which was a bit hard to do considering he was so tall and all legs and pecs that looked better than any boobs you’d ever seen. It was very distracting.

“You’re not going to damn him to some horrible eternal punishment, are you?”

“I think working here is punishment enough, don’t you?”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my work

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letstrekintospace · 6 months

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Single Dad Mobius Theory!

Marvel released a mid-season promo today, and I'd like to voice my silly little theory. We see in the promo that Mobius works at his jet ski store, and lives in a suburban house with children's toys outside, but nobody else in the shot. Now, we aren't sure quite yet *where* his home is located. But the theory can still remain.

Now, we also know, reflecting back on the scene where Loki and Mobius have pie together, that Mobius is thankful for whoever brought him to the TVA.

This is where this gets interesting. Why would he be so thankful to be at the TVA after all that has happened with it? We see this as a recurrent theme with Mobius. Loki then quips about how he held NY hostage from Avengers 1 with his alien army.

Wouldn't it be quite interesting, if when Loki travels to the Mobius Variant timeline, he was a single/widowed father? Maybe his kids are no longer there? Or maybe they are and it's just him and them?

A really interesting parallel between the pie discussion and Mobius' life would be if Loki's attack on NY had something to do with Mobius' partner no longer being around. Thus, his constant reiteration of his life being better on the timeline with his newfound family may correlate with the sorrow he faced on the jet ski timeline, and he may only know it subconsciously.

Maybe this is also why Loki is so desperate to defend him, to reassure him, to make amends once he realizes the truth.

Or maybe this is way off. But it would be really cool to see this connection.

#loki #loki marvel #loki season 2 #loki series #lokius #mobius #owen wilson #tom hiddleston

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whetstonefires · 8 months

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The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

#hoc est meum #in real life things happen that you have no good reason to expect all the time #but in real life we know they happened for some kind of reason as in #causality exists and even in situations where we can't dig into the chain #we have cause to understand that it's there #in fiction they happened because they'd be convenient #so the rules of what information can be available and how you frame new information being revealed exist #to keep the audience from feeling jerked around #you have to earn people's trust and if you lose it #that limits the kind of results you can get #when writing fiction one of your tools is the reader's mind #if you give them reason not to allow you free use of it your composition contracts #screenwriting #shazam #and like in this case there's a profound betrayal of the protagonist and thus of the audience who connected with him wrapped up in it

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ddarker-dreams · 8 months

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LOCK. NEUVILLETTE THOUGHTS???

i'm intrigued by him ,, especially how his relationship with justice will progress over fontaine's story. there are a lot of interesting routes mihoyo can take when it comes to a theme like that. i love seeing any form of criminology in media, the main questions of the field can be explored to the fullest in fiction. those standard questions like,

what is crime?

who decides what counts as a crime?

these questions feel like they'd be simple enough, but when put under the microscope, there's a lot more subjectivity than one would expect.

throughout the archon quest, i was reminded of a book that analyzes the penal system, discipline and punish by michel foucault. it could be a weird coincidence but the original text is in french... who knows though. foucault wrestles with some of the issues presented in the story, specifically what neuvillette is coming to grapple with. another parallel is how the panopticon, both as an idea and literal construct, are brought into question.

“The Panopticon is a marvelous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogeneous effects of power.”

we've only ever gotten a glimpse at the inside of celestia once, during venessa's ascension. the interior looks exactly like a panopticon. it feels like neuvillette's relying on a version of justice that's connected directly to celestia itself, which is notable, considering the other dragons that lived before the heavenly principles came down seem to despise celestia (apep, for instance).

i hope they take full advantage of the various concepts they've setup. the payoff would make for such a good story.

#answered #Anonymous

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indominusavenger · 3 months

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Looking back at Civil War and Homecoming, I found intriguing parallels at their endings. When Tony arrives back at the Avengers Compound, he looks at the Avengers symbol with what I'd describe as disdain but I think it's mostly regret and pain. Then, fast forward to Homecoming's finale at the Compound and when Peter sees it, his face lights up. He looks hopeful, happy, excited. I find these as interesting comparisons. Here they are side by side for you to see what I'm talking about.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Do you see what I mean? I want to believe these are intentional because we end Civil War on a somber note-the Avengers are divided, Tony comes home defeated after being stranded in Siberia and he found out the truth about his parents' deaths. What's there to believe in anymore of Earth's Mightiest Heroes? And then, we get to Homecoming. At this point, several months have passed and Spider-Man has just taken down his first major supervillain and saved Iron Man's tech. Tony Stark requested Peter's presence at the Compound and this is the first time he gets to see the place. There's a hope of rekindling of sorts with his mentor. So now, we're embracing a more hopeful tone once we see the Avengers symbol again. To me, that's an important contrast.

The resentment, hurt, and defeat we see from Tony's view reflects that lost hope in the Avengers, in a way. From the veteran Avenger who is tired and tried his best to keep the team together, we feel his shame and suffering at the downfall of his best laid plans. Now, moving onto Peter, we regain that hope and enthusiasm in the Avengers because that's how he sees this team of heroes as an outsider. He's a new recruit, a young aspiring superhero that wants to fit into that world and where better than in the Avengers by Iron Man's side? He's the most relatable of the main characters because his perspective matches that of the audience; we see the Avengers with that same hope, reverence, etc. They feel untouchable, other-worldly in a sense. I think it's also supposed to be a hint from Marvel that just because of the current conditions with the Avengers at that time, they would be back together soon and not all hope is lost, hence Infinity War. But at the moment, it's simply a subtle nod to that. Notice how hope keeps coming up as the key word in this post? I conclude that this theme of hope is supposed to reflect the way we as humans work; we may lose hope due to unfortunate circumstances, however, deep inside, that feeling of hope still lingers and stirs within us. That's why it was the last thing in Pandora's Box and I think it serves to remind us that it's always there, no matter what happens. It's so integral to us, even superheroes.

#tony stark #iron man #peter parker #spider man #avengers #mcu analysis #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #captain america civil war #spider man homecoming

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hithertoundreamtof23 · 10 months

Text

I just finished the Daredevil TV Series and I cannot recommend it enough.

Forgive my rambling, I'm still processing everything.

~I don't know that I've ever been so invested in a show. It has everything!! I was crying, laughing, gasping and sometimes nearly screaming throughout the series. I honestly forgot that it was Marvel because the tone was so different from other MCU projects. It is very dark and gritty and has a heavy focus on the state of humanity.

~There is so much characterization, to the point that I even found myself rooting for the "villains" in some scenes. There is no distinct "black and white" or "right and wrong"; the show thrives off of exploring the grey areas and motivations of each individual character.

~The acting! OMG the acting!! Every single actor was incredible. You could tell that everybody was dedicated and had a clear understanding of their characters.

~I am in love with the soundtrack. I could not bring myself to skip the intro, solely because I enjoyed the theme so much.

~There is so much whump and Matt Murdock is constantly in pain either physically or emotionally, so the whump side of me was extremely satisfied.

~As a Christian that struggles from depression, season three struck me hard. Charlie Cox portrayed the guilt and hardship that comes from faith with such care and accuracy. It made the finale all the more impactful.

~The 👏 symbolism 👏. As somebody that loves to focus on symbolism in works of fiction, this series has it all. The religious symbolism, parallels between character arcs, and reoccurring messages were incredible. (i.e. The scenes with Matt fighting Dex who was dressed as Daredevil were genius.) I could go on about all of them forever, but I won't.

I went into the series because I saw a few gifs on tumblr and wanted to check it out. I did not expect to leave with a new blorbo that I would protect with my life. I seriously hope that his new series coming up does his character justice.

#daredevil #my ramblings #matt murdock #foggy nelson #karen page #wilson fisk

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