#im just looking for more gotg to talk to

[kingoffantasy516]

Please reblog this if you're a fan of Guardians of the Galaxy

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

https://gamerant.com/loki-season-2-mcdonalds-partnership-sylvie-details/

There's such an insanity in this. The fact they are taking this so seriously and expect the audience too as well. Like, people don't fondly look as product placement as something positive in movies and tv.

GotG works because stuff like 80 music and aesthetic is something that can be liked even if one doesn't have personal nostalgic attachment to it. And it is music, aesthetic and pop culture that people do form attachment to and keep in their lives.

For most McDonald is not some warm nostalgic experience people think of. It's thought of as cheap, unhealthy and more often than not poor quality food. No one attach is themselves to eat fast food chain like they attach themselves to their music. It doesn't inspire people like movies and tv can when writing their own stories.

Like, Wanda finding comfort in watching sitcoms is a thing people do. Sylvie finding comfort in working for a fast food chain is a joke and them taking it so seriously just makes even more of a joke

Yeah, it is kind of weird. You think maybe it's an American thing? Maybe they feel some kind of attachment to McDonald's for some reason, but I doubt the rest of the world gives a damn. It's just one of a million other fast-food joints that I particularly never go to. If I go fast-food, I'm buying pizza, baby.

I wasn't watching the MCU back then but did they make such a huge fuss about Stark eating a burger back in IM 2? It's like they're trying to convince the audience that this has a deeper meaning or something. Wanna give it an emotional angle? Do it in the script! The fact that they're trying to sell this so much and so repeatedly kind of makes me think they didn't do a good enough job of it in the episode and they're trying to cover their asses or something.

Anyway, Sylvie is not human. She could find those families with kids at a park or coming out of school, the McDonald's thing was done for marketing purposes and that's it.

I gotta say though, this part in that article is bothering me:

"The season 2 trailer indicated that he (Loki) is having an issue with time slippage, and there would be no individual better at understanding the problem than a person who spent her entire life hiding in the timelines."

Sylvie knows nothing about that. She didn't even know magic didn't work at the TVA. She's not some expert about timelines and time shenanigans, she was only at the TVA for a few minutes as a kid. Loki said in ep2 he had been watching videos regarding those aspects of timelines, etc so if anything... he knows a lot more than she does. But S2 is going to be more of the same, I'm afraid. Loki being clueless and Sylvie showing how much more than him she knows.

PS. Isn't this show supposed to be about him? Yet all articles I've seen talk about her. Why don't they change the title of the series? Oh right, it may not sell as well...

[kitausuret]

opinions on venom interacting with rocket raccoon or groot? im not super into GoG, but i know they've probably interacted at some point in time. any headcanons for them? :D

Hiya, friend! You'll be pleased to know that Venom (host: Flash Thompson) and Rocket have interacted! Now, at the risk of alienating my friends who hated this run, I'm going to still point out a few of my favorite moments, because I did like a handful of the times they interacted. It was fun. Bendis didn't deserve Flash.

They actually met in the 2014 Free Comic Book Day issue of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is kind of odd to put a major change in a team lineup in a FCBD book, but... at least it was accessible?

Beyond that... they teamed up for quite a while during Bendis' GotG run, from Guardians of the Galaxy (2013) #14-27, and then in the next volume (GotG 2015) #1-19. Now, don't go looking for Venom in every issue, because you won't find them. But I think they could bond over cool weapons and general bad-assery.

There was an interesting moment in GotG #19 when the symbiote actually bonded to Rocket, but it was brief, and largely so it could grab Drax later and pilot the ship to Klyntar.

Flash cares about his buddy. 🥺

They're also a little snarky with each other! It's fun though. They had a great team-up scene in GotG #27 that also is a neat showcase of Venom's new abilities.

Overall they have a fun dynamic. It's a lot of them being a little short with each other but they fight together really well!

There is just one thing that they don't agree on... and that's how much to respect Spider-Man. But, to be fair, most people don't have as much respect for Spidey as Flash does.

(GotG v5 #14)

And they got one final fight together against Thanos in GotG #19! As well as a last goodbye...

Now, all that said... It's been told to me many times that Bendis' Guardians run is... hm... how to say it... not very good. But! I would love to familiarize myself with some other runs and maybe build some better HCs off of those. Bendis didn't exactly utilize Flash or Venom in the most interesting way, and unfortunately that means they didn't really get any well-developed, meaningful relationships with their teammates. But I would say that maybe more than any of the other Guardians, Flash and the Symbiote did seem to get along with Rocket really well!

I really enjoyed this delightfully specific ask and it was fun going back through the issues. If there's anything I really love, it's talking about Flash and his dynamics with other characters... so this was a real treat to me! Thanks! 💖

[im-a-heartstomper]

i propose to you:

gotg au where... most of them are human!

okay i don't have a real name for it... BUT. HEAR ME OUT. it's 1998. quill is taken out of the room after watching his mother die. he doesn't know what to do. so he runs. he runs as far as he possibly can, and before he knows it, he's completely lost. after a few hours, two men named kraglin and yondu find him, and give him a place to stay. they try and find his legal guardian, but they just... can't.

they aren't able to get him to speak for a couple of days, but when they finally do, they learn his name, and they learn he's from Missouri. and they live in Tennessee (yes, before you ask, this is specifically so i can make ONE joke if I ever write anything for this) so they're really confused. they ask how he got there before they saw him, and he reluctantly tells them. they partly feel bad for him, and the other part is just confused. because how could a boy of his size and age run all the way from missouri to the middle of tennessee in just a couple hours? let alone without stopping?!

now, at this point, he's only with one of them at a time. he's not really sure why, but one of them is always out. unbeknownst to him, these two adults he's put his life into the hands of are in a gang called the ravagers. they go out, one at a time, either to go shopping, deal with business within the ravagers, or try to find a way to get peter home. no one knows about peter but them. at least not yet.

eventually, they give up on getting peter home. of course, they don't tell him that. he wants to leave. as he gets older, he finds out about the gang and joins it. they don't do anything special, just small robberies and the occasional fight with other ravagers. whenever he has the time to get away from everything, he likes to sit under a tree. he named this tree Groot. Once, under the tree, he met a raccoon. he named it rocket and begged yondu to keep it. yondu pretended to hate the idea, and "reluctantly" said yes. this was hard, considering it was wild, but peter was hard to say no to.

sometimes he would walk around town growing up, and he met this girl named Gamora. well. he saw her. and thought she was pretty. and saw her other times too. he would always try and think of what to say if he ever talked to her, and he finally figured it out.

"are you from tennessee? because you're the only ten i see..."

"what the fuck"

after that... awkward encounter, they become friends, he shows her groot after they become close, and everything is great. (they're like 18/19 for this. yes, im pushing them closer together in age.) there's this record store they enjoy going to there. the only employee they ever see there, however, is this old man with tattoos all over him. he always wears a tank top and pants, he always greets them with the same "hello" when they walk in, and he never smiles. over time, they get to know him, and learn that he has a family. well, that he used to.

one day, they meet this girl named mantis. they both immediately think, "that's a weird name" "who names their kid after a bug?"

she's here to attend college nearby, and despite her lackluster social skills, she quickly befriends them. she just seems to know exactly how they feel all the time. one day, they propose going to her dorm to get snacks, because she somehow always has the best snacks with her when they have a fun day out. so they do, but her dad just happens to stop by for a visit, which makes mantis very tense for some reason. he introduces himself as ego, and said he was on his way to missouri, and just HAD to visit his daughter before he went over there. so gamora and peter introduce themselves in return, which seems to make mantis far more uncomfortable. ego takes a long look at peter, who only introduced himself by his first name, and says "quill?"

"uhh, yes, sir?"

"son of meredith quill?"

"...yes, sir."

"well, it seems like you and mantis here are related."

welllll that's all i have time to write, but that's okay. im probably going to turn this into a story anyway so why spoil what i have planned? thanks for reading y'all 🥹

[basslinegrave]

no i think i remember.

i read a ton of criticism about marvel as a whole, which i wholeheartedly agreed with, with the way they treated loki and how unfortunate his story in the mcu was. also disliked taika (still do. just something about this guy...) i vaguely remember some talk about how they made this show only to set up TVA, which i also partially agree with, and while im not up to date with all new marvel movies (and i couldnt give two shits) iirc it wasnt used at least not until this year, idk whats coming out now and if they deal with that or not. i only saw those posts about the og avengers making a comeback so im wondering if this is the connection thats gonna happen?

but as for the whole thing, i remember there was a lot of stuff about the mcu and how poorly they handle loki, how they blame him for things and make him evil when he was literally under thanos' control at the start. yes hes a trickster, yeah hes not entirely good, but hes not the monster they keep painting him as. i also only watched movies only for him (except for gotg as i like them too) so killing him off was lame but i prefer him dead than misused. i honestly loved thor ragnarok because of the teamups and all but looking back its just not the greatest movie (it took several watches to realize that ive had enough of that fucking movie) but even though he was treated extremely pathetically i enjoyed it. but thats where i saw the main critique, about how taika decided to make him an useless prop and stuff like that, i cant confirm or fact check that but it was a whole thing about how he treats tom in general, again idk if true but it did open my eyes and showed me how poorly lokis character is treated.

then came the show and i liked it at first cause yay! loki! yippee! and he has a boyfriend yippe!! but then again i realized he, being in a show literally Named After Him, he was just being useless in the background and then completely controlled. thats why its hard for me to look past that again and just try to enjoy s2 and the shipping (cause that might be the only thing worthwhile) i just dont know what to think of it. and im saying that as a person that has liked slightly "problematic" ships (and just look at my otp being ganling) its the uneven control/upper hand in the relationship i guess? its why i stopped shipping 2/doc too cause thats just a mess, but a nice example is stobotnik where stone is seemingly weaker and being controlled, its possible to even it out by a different kind of dominance (iykyk) plus he is shown as capable to kill etc. and obviously very much happy in his position. with ganling theres also a difference but its being downplayed in the source material and thats why i allowed myself to dig deeper and see more of the relationship, so while it might seem unfair, its pretty even there. but here with lok1us with loki being entirely stripped of power and mobius very possibly just manipulating him (dont take this fully seriously as i dont remember much of s1!) its just hard to take it as oh they like each other :33 yeah idk man. and no i dont think they will make them a couple, youre watching disney ffs

hnnngggggg people are posting things online that are making me want to give loki a chance

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for being an Avenger from outer space

Avengers x reader

warnings:

a/n: this isn’t great but like im down for some avengers hc requests

prompt:

you weren’t exactly accepted on earth the moment you got there

but it wasn’t long before the avengers spotted you

“state your name and your business here” -tony

“wait, stark, just a moment! are you a [alien species]?” -thor

“...my name is y/n, i had nowhere else to go. and yes, i am [alien species]”

i mean, this would be much cooler if the avengers hadn’t already had a bad run-in with the chitauri army

but at least you weren’t trying to destroy any part of earth

“why don’t you come with us for a while? you might be safer in our custody” -cap

you were very uncomfortable with that, but you believed that whatever you were running from couldn’t get you if you stayed with “earth’s mightiest heroes”

and that you were...sort of

the bounty hunters that were on your trail, they didn’t know much about the avengers

so they were dumb enough to strike first

luckily, the avengers took a liking to you

“this is for messing with our new friend!” -tony as he straight up fries one of these goons

you seemed to fight well with them

it made them want to keep you around more than they wanted clint

“having fun, y/n?” -nat

“honestly, yes! i’ve never kicked ass in a group before!”

“i felt the same way on my first mission with these guys” -nat

“wait...is this a mission?”

“well, yeah? what’d you think it was, chess?” -nat

“what? what’s chess?”

oh, my god, this was like thor all over again, it was gonna be great

once the battle was over, they had a question to ask you

but before that...

“did any of you kill the leader?” -you

“which one was the leader?” -sam

“the one with...with the face” *puts clawed hand in front of face for effect*

“thanks, that was really specific” -sam

“you know, he’s got...” *puts fingers near face* “tentacles?”

“you couldn’t say that first?” -tony

“i didn’t know if they were called tentacles here”

okay, that was fair

at that moment the mf hopped out and you pushed clint out of the way so that he didn’t get shot. he said “ow” :( but u were too busy tackling a fellow alien

“you let the rest of those hunters know that they shouldn’t even think about coming after me, are we clear?”

“you’re sparing me?”

“don’t be too flattered, you’re nothing but a messenger to me” *shoots him in the arm*

okay that was a power move

as you kicked this bounty hunter back into his ship, the avengers crew reapproached

“got any plans now that you’ve taken care of your little ‘issue?’” -cap

“you know, i haven’t really thought that far ahead”

“well, if you’re up for it, the avengers would love to have you” -nat

you couldn’t have agreed faster lmaoo

the government didnt like you much

the human population actually wasn’t too fond of you either

but the avengers wouldn’t let anyone touch you

thor made it his own mission to show you all the new stuff that he had discovered on earth

“and these are pop tarts!!” -thor

im talking animals, snacks, music, and more

and dont even get me started on parties

no actually i will

“so, youre from space? list 3 species i’ve never heard of before” -random partygoer

“well, how would you know im not making them up if you’ve never heard them before?”

not much of a comeback for that

you’d only answer questions that weren’t stupid

like “how far away is your home planet?” or “did you have any friends or family?” or “what other planets have you been on?”

and you had a lot of questions too

“what is pizza and where can i get it?”

“you’ve never had pizza? oh, we have to change that” -tony

“what is it though?”

as you went on more missions, you got a better feel for how to work with teammates

especially when they had such different skillsets

“wanda, would you give me a boost?”

“with pleasure!” -wanda

“why didn’t you ask me? i could have flewn you!” -rhodey

“it just feels cooler when wanda launches me, but i’ll let you have your turn later”

“y/n, we should have coffee after this!” -thor

“WHATS THAT?!?!”

you always got excited when offered new things

*muttering* “what the fuck” -you

“OKAY, WHO THE HELL TAUGHT Y/N CURSE WORDS???” -tony

“hm. i wonder” -nat

thor brought you to asgard once

it was pretty. (pretty wild, that is)

“maybe you can take me to your planet one day!”

“i’m pretty sure i’m wanted on my home planet, but i’d love a challenge!”

okay maybe he was ur new bff

“so, y/n, how long is your species’ life span?” -bruce

“im not sure that our measurements of time are exactly translated, but i believe in your time it would be....900 years?”

“oh...may i ask how old you are now?”

“wouldn’t you like to know...”

“...n-no, thats okay”

honestly? sometimes your days were nothing but lazy, so you’d learn about human pop culture

“‘tatooine?’ odd, that’s a planet in my solar system. do you think this ‘george lucas’ is an alien?” -you, lying

*cue the entire fucking team going nuts bc they’re about to believe this conspiracy*

okay but like. you KNEW about thanos. you just never thought he’d be a problem all the way out here

so when the whole thanos situation came to earth you were just kinda like 👉👈 sorry guys, shoulda said smth earlier

“you know who thanos is?” -dr. strange

“...yes. i do. he’s big. really big. and purple. kind of looks like a raisin. oh, yeah, he’s crazy. obsessed with balance.”

“balance? what do you mean by that?” -tony

“like, he likes to kill half of each population for ‘balance,’ you know?”

anyways you went back to space

“so, anything else about thanos we should know?” -tony

“he has 2 adoptive daughters, they’re both badass, i know then personally, he’s from the planet ‘titan,’ last of his kind, aaaand he has an army”

“we have a—wait, no we don’t” -tony

“are there aliens that lay eggs in people? or is that just a stereotype?” -peter

“peter, is it? i heard that you’re taught that there are no stupid questions, but that was a very stupid question”

“...i don’t know if that was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’” -peter

tony asked if you could fly the ship. no.

eventually making your way to titan

which was surreal since it had just been so long since you’d left earth

gotg in the house

“where’s gamora?”//“who’s gamora?” “why’s gamora?”//“you know gamora?” “you know gamora?”//“do you work for thanos?”//“no, i’m here to kill thanos”//“so you’re here to kill gamora?”//“what? no! gamora doesn’t work for thanos anymore, it’s been like 4 years”//“holy shit”

and then thanos popped in and nebula too and she recognized you and it was kinda awk but were just gonna pretend it didn’t happen bc it gets worse <3

u, tony, and nebula got trapped in a ship for like 3 weeks but it was good for catching up

and u met captain marvel and honestly youve just met too many people in the past few weeks u were not vibing

“so, y/n, miss space at all?” -tony

“up until we went back to space, yeah. i’m not leaving this planet ever again”

“we need to find thanos” -bruce

“fuck”

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @rorybutnotgilmore // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @natasha-danvers // @lokihiddles // @frostedficrecs // @lotsoffandomrecs // @johnmurphyisbisexual // @teenwaywardasgardian // @pappydaddy // @captainshazamerica // @freya-xo // @ravenmoore14 // @thisetaernallove // @ofthedewthesunlight // @canarypoint // @zoeyserpentluck // @randomawesomeperson102 // @spideyandtheboys // @ghost-bich //

[bikenesmith]

this is the only thing i have to slot into my wanda hellfire death folder so far. from excalibur. this person looks a lot like wanda (costume wise - retire the button nose ffs), and she's talking to trevor, a member of x-factor, who will be handling magneto's trial.

narratively & with reference to the teaser blurbs, it seems like beast being murdled would make the most sense (and i'd be down for that, honestly), but its too early to tell yet. there a lot of hellfire issues left to go. i also can't see erik turning to murder over harm brought to humans (though it is like, chemical warfare).

i think the culmination of hank's story in the hellfire gala could just be him eventually having to confess to his like...war crimes, to help characters neutralize the plant person threat bc the gala erupts into chaos

tommy's here now (x factor previews), and there are aliens, so im sure we'll be seeing billy and teddy at some point. unless they're still salty about the pretender stuff (i would be too). i'd love to see commentary from tommy on that.

(ive also heard theories that mags will kill tommy or trevor at the gala. tommy is a c-lister, his death cannot carry an event, he's not dying. trevor is similarly far fetched, and nobodys supposed to know that precogs specifically cant be on krakoa. a murder at the gala is just needlessly messy.)

one more thing.

this preview for gotg no 15, described as a crossover between sword + gotg. billys on this team! im not sure of the dynamics between nova and billy - i dont read gotg - but he is a space cop. would it be off if nova punched the murderer of his teammates mother? the mother of the prince of the kree and skrull empire?

otherwise, the reasoning would be that mags killed a big shot alien that attended. something he has no reason to do as far as we've seen.

billy also just looks pissed in general here

but also! nova could've just punched mags bc he doesn't work with ~evil villains~ and erik will always be treated as a villain by some no matter how much he reforms 😭

[moontours]

Please gush to me about DC or Marvel

hmmm ill do marvel just bc its been one hell of a week in marvel comics bjhabsasjhd but idk if its just bc my faves are winning but comics are so exciting right now?? well actually as a tonynat/avengers fan im still losing but the hellfire gala has been so much fun and i actually look forward to every issue which feels insane considering how boring x of swords was but also more importantly the magnet fam vs krakoa confrontation coming up HAS ME SO EXCITEEEEDDD ESP KNOWING THAT EWING WILL BE HANDLING THAT IN BOTH SWORD AND GOTG im so excited for billy and magneto's confrontation ive been thinking abt it non-stop and i just cant WAIT to see where this will lead im actually so hopeful that we'll get our famly back togther but also anyway NEW TITLES AND CREATIVE TEAMS im still thinking ab the anon who was talking ab the new spidey run being titeld beyond like that rly is so funny bc of kamala's new title but ALSO did u hear ab the new spidey creative team for asm .... theres three writer and two artists or even five writers bc the artists also write n idk i was confused BUT ITS ALSO GOING TO SHIP 3 TIMES A MONTH NOW??? its insane idk i feel like things are moving rapidly in marvel comics rn and after this week im just :D very happy. which could all change knwing comics BUT ITS SO GOOD RN ALSO PRIDE !!! THEIR STORIES WERE ACTUALLY SO GOOD AND I THINK THIS NEEDS TO BECOME A MONTHLY THING OR AT LEAST PUT IT INTO THE REGULAR TITLES WE NEED MORE OF THESE SMALL MOMENTS I BEG.

[terribluh]

i wrote this for me

ive got this zadr au in my head ill never do anything with and its not particularly special bc every iz fan comes to this inevitable zadr au lmao

this got very long and probably ooc lmao rip dont worry u dont have to read it in fact please dont read this i did not format this at all and i did not proofread 

basically dib and zim are dating and dibs home situation has deteriorated, and in light of irkens managing to escape the florpus hole, they kinda go, “lets be young and free and run away together” and so they go to space!!! i feel like these self serving jackasses probably wouldn’t join the resisty straight up?? theyre too dumb for that, like yea dib has a hero complex and zim would probably love to be incharge of people but alas, dibs actually an asshole and zim probably wont hurry to align himself with irken enemies despite kind of being one himself.

so they float through space. things r kinda bad kinda good, but theyre surviving. the irken armada isnt exactly after them, but i imagine they probably have a run in with irkens who just start trying to kill zim and realize avoiding irkens is something they should do. the idea that zim terrifies the tallest is hilarious bc then they operate on a, ill avoid u if u avoid me basis and thats such a concept bc im thinking dib and zim become space pirates. will be honest, got a lot of inspiration from ravagers in gotg bc thats an aesthetic and i was way into kragdu at some point in my life. also im a slut for space operas.

they r in space, kinda keeping to themselves and stealing things. they become space cryptids. i love the idea that they become space cryptids lmao. zim is just such a small irken and dib is this tall gangly human and no one knows what the fuck a human is. lots of humans are fucking weird to other aliens stuff. also i love the idea of them in a fight with space bounty hunters or something, and dib gets shot and just keeps going. this strange lanky figure in a dark coat with blood spilling from his injured shoulder just not going down. and zim as an irken is functionally immortal anyway so theyre like an unstoppable team. i love battle couples! 

i like the dynamic they could of had in canon, someone made a post once, where zim wouldve been the one to fight and dib wouldve been mission control, but i think in this au, it would be the other way around? or more equal idk. zim has to learn to do the talking bc dib dont speak alien, and dib has to protect zim a lot. and then over time they just pick up each others slack lol. i just like the idea of dib being kinda intimidating looking, which when paired with zims shit eating grin is such a combo. 

theres probably a scene where an alien is like ooh scary bounty hunter that even the fucking irken armada avoids and is scared shitless but its just dib. and dib, never having seen this kind of alien before, starts asking a million questions and is just kinda offputting/adorable lmao and then zim has to drag him out. 

anyway things keep like this, they hash out a living on stealing and trading. their number 1 priority is avoiding the massive and any irkens out there. maybe dib misses earth. maybe zim misses… something. the ship they have is kind of scrap and very much homebrewed, all stolen parts and mishmashed pieces and it was originally zims voot lmao, but zim is a genius and dib is a membrane and it still works. zims house computer is in the ship now and minimoose lives in the vents.

and then theres gir. i love gir but also i feel like theres a lot of untapped gir related angst like, gir is essentially scrap??? shit breaks 

they shut him down a lot for his own good bc he malfunctions sometimes and its awful bc zim loves gir. 

and then one day, zim and dib making a run for it, dib scooping zim up and hoofing it with the alien in his arms shooting over his shoulder and yelling at dib at the same time. and someone or something hits gir hard enough he shuts down, eyes dimming into black and collapsing mid giggle and zim loses it, destroying the attacker while dib grabs for gir and checks his internals and has no idea how to fix him because nothing seems wrong. 

and this is something like the breaking point. things were ok, but now things arent. maybe zims pak is broken, has never worked properly, is dying, and they get by with scraps and parts but its very borderline. and the ships basically scrap and supplies are always tight but they make do. 

but then gir shuts down, and suddenly they cant keep living on scraps and avoiding the armada. bc they need to fix gir no matter what  

maybe theyre like theres no parts enough to fix him oh no, but look theyre right around the corner from the massive and it just so happens the resisty are attacking so zim and dib are like. “were really doing this arent we” and the computers like sigh ok 

they really intend to grab a random sir unit and cannibalize it for gir and jet but zim cant keep his mouth shut and suddenly theyre arguing, fighting their way through some irkens that are really just doing their jobs and had the misfortune of running into zim and dib making their escape and its really strangely easy. zims kind of an op destructive force and dibs so used to fighting zim at this point these irkens are like ants and theyve been in space for like a decade at this point, and theyre always in danger anyway, and its easy to get into the swing of it. shoot shoot stab kick yell at zim blast an irken. 

and next thing they know theyve busted through the door to the bridge where a showdown is happening between the tallest and the resisty leader and everyone deer in the head lights. 

both parties yell “ZIM????” like the beyonce meme and zim instinctively goes “yes it is i ZIIIIM” and dib facepalms behind him the tallest are like panicking and the irkens milling around start gunning for zim and the resisty in equal amounts and theyre severely outnumbered and zim and dib start fighting for their lives foreal this time 

and zim yells, “computer! bring the ship around!!!” and dib is like “zim if i die like this-”, “you won’t zim guarantees it.” and its kind of romantic but theres plasma beams everywhere and a deactivated sir unit in zims arms and theyre both hurt but thats what its like, thats what its always like for them and honestly they wouldnt change it for anything. 

maybe dib gets zim to go on ahead and escape without him with the sir unit, or zim goes on ahead himself all i have a plan. and dib is mistaken for a resisty agent bc he obviously isn’t irken and unwittingly teams up with then and then all hope seems lost and dibs like “we’re screwed- “

and gir blast through the glass of the ships bridge all, “Maaaryyy i missed you!!!!”

“gir youre ok!”

and then gir barrels into dibs arms, dib jolting back from the impact with an oof 

“i died but im ok now!” gir screams as he cuddles into dibs neck  

and its v cute but dib is kinda preoccupied with not dying and hes just like “thank fucking god get us out of here” and girs eyes flash red and he salutes “yes sir!” and jets off by grabbing onto dibs back with his tiny hands and thats when the ship pulls up. zim is in the drivers seat and everyone fucking sees him because hes screaming, why is he screaming? hes zim, of course hes screaming. they get away all well and good but lmao their interference was enough that the resisty was able to escape with far less casualties than they wouldve had. 

bc they were losing, real bad lmao zim and dib saved them but they dont even care because that wasnt what they were going for but to the resisty theyre heroes and to the irken armada theyve declared war. and dib and zim are just like “our actions will not have any negative reprecussions no siree.” bc theyre idiots!! 

their actions have negative reprecussions. 

and then they join the resisty. 

and at some point dib goes home and reconciles with his family and gaz kicks his ass 

anyway i just love the idea that zim and dib dont do nothing on purpose but every damn thing they do affects something big. like some kinda cosmic karma, i amn jus standing herr kinda thing lmao a lot of coincidences and pure luck shenanigans. 

an overarching theme of “everything in zim and dibs lives suck except for how much they love each other” 

[shellheadtmark2]

all cruising the dash this afternoon has done is remind me my verse list is woefully incomplete and i have plotting ims to make so here’s a quick list until i get off my ass and like.  actually update my googledoc/verse pop up:

616 / COMIC VERSES

main:  main verse for this blog.  main marvel continuity, does not include secret empire or tony stark: iron man. 616 invades mcu:  hi, welcome to the multiverse.  default verse for mcu interactions, otherwise known as 616 tony pesters the mcu crowd.  twice the tony flavor in a new fun package. superior:  superior iron man, tony still under the inversion spell and living his best(worst) hedonistic life. classic:  everything pre-1996/modern 616 as set in the appropriate timeframe.  otherwise known as tony with the mullet.  rollerskates.  nipple knobs. ai tony:  what it says on the tin.  tony’s brainprint ai as activated post civil war ii. civil war au:  tony turns mole for team cap during civil war instead of doubling down. civil war - warzones:  the what if where civil war has drawn on for six years and the country is split in two. civil war - good end:  the what if where tony and cap come together to find a peaceful solution to shra instead of war. iron man - sorcerer surpreme:  based off the 90s what if where tony becomes the sorcerer surpreme to find a way to heal stephen’s hands after causing the accident that injures them. marvel zombies:  superheroes are now zombies and have devoured everything.  now they’re starving, so it’s time to eat the multiverse.  the more they eat, the more like themselves they feel and the clearer they think.  highly triggering. ultimates:  (still rereading ults i have to do it in bite-sized pieces and you know why) it has president cap, what more do you want.  a different origin for earth’s mightiest heroes. marvel 1872:  drunkard blacksmith falls in love with sheriff.  sheriff is killed by terrible people.  blacksmith drunkard goes on revenge rampage.  other stuff happens.  avengers are born.  you’ll never look at danny boy the same way.  the cowboy au. iron man noir:  enviable 1930s wealthy adventurer goes on adventures for men’s magazine.  has a failing heart.  punches a lot of bad guys.

MCU VERSES (NOT PREFERRED / REQUIRE PLOTTING)

main:  canon divergent post-the winter soldier.  not endgame compliant.  includes director of shield and gotg verses. director of shield:  post-tws - shield revamps with tony as director.  lead up to civil war. gotg:  post-civil war tony takes off to space for a while, has adventures, hooks up with the gotg. civil war au:  tony refuses to sign and the avengers go to ground to fight a secret war against the accords.

CANON AU / AU VERSES

616 fallout 4 companion:  default has maccready and steve pulling him out of stasis after a rescue mission gone wrong before the war.  railroad heavy.  traveling handyman.  full of annoying we can do it attitude. mcu fallout 4 companion:  the arc reactor’s kept him alive and he’s been rebuilding new york bit by bit.  follows the prydwen into the commonwealth. mcu courier six:  kept in stasis in a vault until the first battle of hoover dam.  odd jobs around the mojave.  gets shot in the head in goodsprings.  the iron mailman. 616 vault resident:  fallout 76-based.  funny how tony got talked into a tour of vault 76 on the day the bombs fell, right?  almost like vault-tec knew they were coming.  responder.  fire breather. skyrim:  the last living dwemer on nirn.  tinkerer.  smartass.  loves to pester the college and calcelmo.  great for tours through dwemer ruins.  gets confused for an oversized bosmer a lot.  will let you believe it.  part of the formation of an alternative choice to the companions who seeks to do good for the sake of it.  not a typical specimen of a dwemer. eso:  breton dwemer-obsessed scholar trying to stay out of the war.  fails at that.  also a vampire! no powers:  tony’s just a mechanic living paycheck to paycheck.  all those brains and none of the opportunities.

[softtbucky]

ENDGAME THOUGHTS (SPOILERS)

So after a few days of recovery...

I KNEW STEVE COULD WIELD MJOLNIR, YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT HE’S WORTHY. Trying hard not to scream whilst I was at the cinema like THAT’S MY BOY

RIP NATASHA, MY GIRL, MY QUEEN, I’m still upset over this. Can we just talk about the fact that Natasha sacrificed herself for the greater good. Trying to redeem herself which she didn’t need to do anymore, I STAN 1 QUEEN. I’m devastated she’s dead. Who’s ready for Avengers 4: Return of Natasha ha

FAT THOR WAS EVERYTHING. 90% of the time he was on screen I was just wheezing, it was the best. Such a nice comedy relief

I LOVE YOU 3000. 

“I can do this all day” “Yeah I know” omg 2019 Steve>>>>

“That is America’s ass” LET ME BREATHE

SHE’S GOT HELP! I GOT GOOSEBUMPS, MY QUEENS OUT HERE READY TO KICK THANOS’ ASS. THE POWER I FELT.

I’m so so happy for Steve, when I saw him and Peggy dancing, he had the life he deserved, he deserved that happiness so much.

People who are mad about Sam being “the new cap” like, why? Bucky ain’t about that life.

Talking about Bucky, didn’t he look so pretty? my love.

And when Pepper turned up in her IM suit kicking ass with her husband, WOW.

When they all appeared ready for battle like ok first off, when damn T’Challa says YIBAMBE, i tear up, there is some passion in that and I feel it and then

“Avengers...........Assemble” LET’S GET EM

“I don’t even know who you are” “You will” legends only

GUYS OK, my heart was fucking POUNDING and I was shaking when Steve was fighting Thanos just before everyone came back, I thought he was gonna kill him and I couldn’t take it. I had to hold my chest it was beating so fast.

RIP TONY. It was a nice, it started with him so it ends with him. It was legendary and also absolutely heartbreaking. Morgan has a dad to be proud of.

It was so funny when they went back to the GOTG part and you just heard quill singing outloud and Rhodey was like “so he’s an idiot” haha

“NEW ASGARD”

Bruce Banner/Hulk combo, need I say more

DAB

The opening scenes omg, I was like no no no the whole time. Poor Clint :(

Scott Lang and Rocket were just >>>>

THEY REDID THE ELEVATOR SCENE kind of, but it was amazing

When they went back to the other movies to get the stones back and everything, I just loved that so much. I can’t wait for someone to mash it all together. 

When Tony met his dad in the past, that was so cool and Steve was so close to Peggy, i’m not crying you’re crying

Oh and Gamora’s back, sort of?

Carol’s haircut, I mean....okurrr

Thor sitting in the damn corner with his RayBan’s on lmao and then telling us his life story alskdjfhsad

So many moments I’m sure I’ve forgot some but feel free to talk to me about it! I need to see it again. 

[pwnyta]

Full Endgame spoilers/review:

(TL;DR: It was really fucking good. Theres some bad obviously but overall worth it. Even after reading the spoilers and feeling like I may not like it as much as I thought I would... I actually liked it more.)

- - So as I said I loved the movie I had some gripes but overall I thought it was one hell of a fun, entertaining movie. I'll go by each characters story in my review saving Cap and Tony for last.

Natasha- Honestly? Though I think the MCU dropped the ball on the 0G6 being a believable family... I think Nats role in this movie was sweet. I really like the scene where Tony Nat and Bruce were laying down talking about Strange and the stones. It was really cute but it really made me wish we got to see this earlier. Joss dropped the ball hard in AoU. Ive said it one and I'll say it again. AoU should have been the movie where the Avengers were a solid unit throughout the movie.Nats death was... heroic but honestly her and Clint beating the shit out of each other because neither could stand the thought of the other being sacrificed was kinda funny and cute which is jarring to the story. It kinda sucks that she was fridged before the final battle though.

Clint- What are the fucking odds that every one of his family was dusted? But w/e. Clint having a wild sword battle in Japan... it was ridiculous and weird and IDK what they were thinking with that scene but it was played really dramatically but I laughed? Cuz it was so over the top and silly... even though he just slit that guys throat and Nats like :c Clint~ honey no its fine... and they hold hands over the guys warm corpse. LMFAO WHAT!? Im at least happy his kids got him back if nothing else.

Bruce- ... Bruce with Hulks big green body? NICE. Thats gonna have some interesting fanart I can already tell and I lift my glass to you. I once tried to draw a little comic where Bruce and Hulk separated but also had swapped bodies.... so Bruce had Hulks body but I never did finish it I wonder if I still have it saved somewhere. Anyways. Honestly? I found Bruce in this movie to be equal parts funny and annoying? Like it was a bit jarring sometimes that he was so lighthearted despite everything.

Thor- When I read the spoilers I thought I was gonna really dislike Thor but watching it I understood where Thor was coming from and I couldnt really blame him for spiraling and its not like anyone close to him seemed to even check up on him despite clearly knowing where he was. Im really sad that it took all those years and only until he was needed for someone to try and talk Thor through what he was going through. Im not annoyed with Thor. Im annoyed with the rest of them (minus Tony and I guess Clint? Considering.). Bruce was his friend in Ragnarok, Nat keeps talking about them being family, and Steve is their leader where the hell were they? Unless im missing something... I guess Valkyrie too but shes been picking up his slack as a leader and was holding the Asgardians together so I can cut her some slack. ANYWAYS. Thor was kinda funny in the movie but it was kind of hard to enjoy his goofiness. It kind felt like Tony in IM2. Speaking of Im glad Tony seemed really tolerant of Thors drunk behavior... I was sure he would throw a lot of shots like Rocket did. I wish they had a moment to talk about Thor self medicating with booze... Tonys been there. I get why they couldnt really but.. His scene with Frigga was really nice. Frigga is a bad bitch raised by witches and shit.... she knows all~ A wise woman that Frigga.

Scott- HOLY SHIT Did I love Scott in this movie. He was soo funny and cute... and bullied a lot. You know I have a thing for easily bulliable character. And Scott just got spanked left and right. His helpless goofiness reminded me of Harry from KKBB a little. He bounced off everyone well and it makes me kinda wish he was one of the OG6 instead of Clint. He was more of the heart that kept the Avengers together than anyone. Also him and Tony talking about Caps ass? HILARIOUS. Bisexual icons honestly. 'That suit did nothing for your ass.' 'No one asked you to look!' 'I think you look great Cap as far as Im concerned thats Americas ass!' and then later Caps all 'That IS Americas ass.' Unbelievable. But his best scene is still him reuniting with Cassie. She was so big! Im so happy she got her dad back... but Bruces failed time travel machine scene.... that was a close second. 'Somebody peed my pants... idk if it was baby me or old me........ or me me.' Also the 'whats up regular sized man' scene is longer and more hilarious than the preview showed. FUCK YOUR TACO SCOTT. At least Bruce is nice to him. I ship GreenAnt a little. Rocket petting Scott and mockingly calling him a puppy. SAME.

Rhodey- JESUS RHODEY. Speaking of hilarious idiots. Im glad he got a bigger roll in this movie but he didnt hug Tony when he got back so whats the point? BUT W/E... He was hilarious and amazing. It was nice to see him step up as one of the sorta leaders after the snappening. But he was also A HUGE FUCKING DORK THE ENTIRE WAY THROUGH. Thinking that a secret cavern with a spooky name would be boobytrapped like in Indiana Jones and trying to convince Nebula to be careful. Naming a bunch of shitty time travel movies to prove a point about time travel (with Scotts help) and going back in time to kill baby Thanos...and Bruce was like 'yeah... no...' and him fucking TRASHING the magic of the iconic opening scene of the first GotG where Quill is dancing.... 'so hes an idiot?' RHODEY PLEEEEAAASSSEEEE have mercy. Him and Nebula are a trip. Also I made a note to mention Don Cheadles BEAUTIFUL soft voice. So here it is. I love Don Cheadles beautiful soft voice. He had too few scenes with Tony but their first scene when Tony starts freaking out and hes trying to get Tony to calm down was pretty good... and god that ending.... ;-; How come Rhodey got NO lines while Tony was dying? But also in the same position I dont think Id have any words either. I too would just cry. And did... for Tony. But yeah besides his lack of scenes with Tony I really loved Rhodeys scenes. I usually do. Hes adorable.

Nebula: Sweetie... You are just amazing. Shes legit one of the best most solid characters in the movie. The opening scenes between her and Tony? FUCKING adorable. Im sad we dont see more of them after the time skip. I also wish we got a longer scene of Neb and Rocket talking when she gets to earth... I guess just seeing them sit together sadly was enough to portray the emotions but.... I MEAN. More Nebula wouldnt hurt anyone. Having to see two tortured versions of Nebula was upsetting. Future Nebula who lost so much and past Nebula still under Thanos' thumb. 'You can change!' 'He wont let me' OOF. Im sad that past Nebula was killed... but appreciate that even in that moment past Gamora was upset to see her be killed. Im glad with Present Neb, Gamora was so easily heel-face turned. She loves her sister. Also their moment after past Gamora beats up present Quill was hilarious 'Really? This is the guy?' 'The choices were him or a tree.' WHAT ABOUT DRAX, NEBULA?! I know I said I may not watch any MCU movies after this but I might tune in for GotG3 for Nebula (and Thor).

Steve: I actually ENJOYED Steve in this movie for the most part. For the first time in any movie... even by himself I kind of enjoyed Steve. Especially the scene when hes fighting himself and his past self says 'I can do this all day' and hes like 'Tst... yeah I know... okay' Like he was sick of his own damn bullshit. And frankly? Same. Also him whispering 'Hail hydra' to get the scepter? Hilarious. I cant help but see it as a knock at that shitty Hydra Cap comic that everyone hated. But despite me enjoying Steve for most of the film... the MCUs inability to write a good romance and pretending like Steve and Peggys relationship was a peak or something completely undoes it all. It would still NOT BE GREAT regardless but the fact the RUSSOS are the ones who brought Sharon into TWS in the first place makes it SO MUCH WORSE that Steve dipped out. Steve should have moved on... even if it wasnt with Sharon. They could have at least MENTIONED HER but they knew they couldnt because then it would be too highlighted that Steve is a fucking FUCK BOY who used the niece of the woman he loved as a surrogate and that him going back to the past means hes gonna be meeting little Sharon at some point. Also? Really? Steve you have this whole new family you supposedly love and can live your life with but you rather go back in the past because the first woman who was nice to you was there? Move on. Its so fucking weird that hes so obsessed with her. You have your childhood friend and the rest of your new friends... and supposedly a girlfriend. IDK how anyone could be happy with that ending for him. But I guess its in character... remember the note he sent Tony 'I've been on my own since I was 18.' What about Bucky? He was there with you and you had family in the Avengers supposedly. Natasha seemed to think so. YOURE SUCH A FUCKIN SCUMBAG STEVE. Jesus.

Tony: First of all Id just LOVED his scenes with Nebula as I said. He sat there patiently teaching how to play paper football and held her win. It was REALLY cute. When he passed out she picked him up off the floor and sat him down on the chair and pat him. REAL CUTE. He nicknamed her 'The Blue Meanie' its cute and he tried to give her the last of their food but she insisted he eat it. Bobbos eyes never looked more gorgeous than in that scene where Carol finds them honestly. Tonys I told you so was really really sad. It had a lot of feeling like that scene in AoU when he laughs hysterically and starts ranting? Rhodey tried to calm him down but he just ripped into Cap. Also he yanked off his arc reactor and I FULLY JUMPED IN PANIC because I forgot it wasnt in him. I fully flinched. But he pulled his heart out and gave it to Steve and then passed out. Tony and Peppers daughter is ADORABLE. And her interactions with Tony are so sweet. Domestic Tony is lovely. I love that when Steve and the gang roll up on him Morgan runs out during their discussion and is like 'Mom told me to come and save you....' and hes like 'Well Ive been saved!' REAL CUTE. Also he swore and his daughter copied him and hes like NOOOOO!!!!!!! LMAO. LANGUAGE Tony. Tony is motivated to fix things seeing that pic of him and Peter. Hes such a softie. IM REALLY REALLY SAD that we finally see Pepper kinda GET Tonys need to be Iron Man and is like 'But could you rest?'. The one time she encourages him to go back to be Iron Man and he fucking DIES. Im so sad for Pepper. But that scene between them where shes like 'We'll be ok.... you can rest now.' FUCK. Im crying again. That scene between him and Steve- 'Someone shoula warned you~' 'You did...' 'Oh did I? Thank god Im here' has the same energy as 'Who taught you how to dance?' 'You did.' 'Well Ive done a marvelous job!' It was pretty great. Tonys nicknames for Scott are 'Pissant' and 'Thumbelina.' Im not OVERLY fond of his scenes with Howard. But honestly? My brother is the same way with our dad... he just chooses to forget the bad stuff and focus on the few good times. I cant do that but if it made Tony happier then VERY WELL. I wish Tony coulda talked to Jarvis too tho... just a word... anything? Best Tony scene is Peter babbling about how he musta passed out because Tony was gone and and and and Tony just hugs him so tightly and Peters hugs back and is like :D 'this is nice'! Though that STARK contrast of them after Tony uses the gauntlet... and Peter is like 'Mr Stark... we won... we did it... no Mr Stark...' Big Simba and Mufasa feels (and kind of Hughes and Elicia tbh). Not cool Disney. I was already crying. Rhodey was the first to reach Tony and Tony couldnt say ANYTHING to anyone and Rhodey just pets his cheek... Tony was just looking around as his family just has to watch helplessly as hes dying and Pepper tells him its ok. His funeral was really nice. He recorded a message for everyone kind of like his message for Pepper on the ship. Everyone was there... I think even Harley (Im really sad we didnt see them get reunited even once). The scene with Happy and Morgan was really sweet. 'I'll buy all the cheeseburgers you want....' It was cool to because... ya know.... Jon Favreau. He got a really beautiful end. I wish he could just retire and live with Pep and Morgan... but if he had to die... that was a really lovely sendoff. SO ALL IN ALL. Awesome movie. I didnt get to see past elderly Steve passing the shield off to Sam... I'll have to rewatch it again when theres a better version. Especially for that fucking STUNNING end battle. Even with the shitty cam I watched it looked AMAZING and I cant wait for it in HD.

[araedi]

Endgame and this blog

OK SO I’m not gonna give a massive rundown of my thoughts on the movie as a whole (feel free to IM/Discord and chat about it tho!) because honestly we could be here forever the movie’s like 3 hours long. Instead under the cut is a more specific discussion about Thor / my interpretation of him relating to Endgame, what I’ll be doing with him post-Endgame on here and some plot ideas/wishlist things if anyone wants to come do a thing!

Also Imma use bullet points bc they look better.

- Chonky Thor is loved in this household; making his clearly disastrous mental state a cheap joke is not.

- Honestly in terms of arc exploration I dig the concept of his decline because after everything he’s bound to hit breaking point. The way it was handled is what makes me prickly. Infinity War gave us a glimpse of something much more nuanced; Bruce started trying to be sensitive to the situation when they first meet but that’s about it and I wish they’d tried to maintain that sensitivity.

- Also sue me but I refuse to believe that Steven ‘good man with his own baggage’ Rogers; Bruce ‘I got low’ Banner or Tony ‘I completely sympathise with the PTSD’ Stark wouldn’t even have visited New Asgard over the 5-year span?? 

- My boy needs a shower, a shave and a snuggle. Pls supply.

- LIGHTING! UP! TONY’S! SUIT! YES! Superhero synergy makes me a happy man it was so long overdue.

- HE’S SO PROUD OF STEVE AND SO SOFT FOR HIM PLS LET MY THUNDER LAD LOVE ON ALL STEVES ASAP

- Actually Thor wants to love on all the Avengers stat.

- 2012 Thor jumpstarting Tony by whopping Mjolnir on his chest all the while being all I HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS IS GONNA WORK. Iconic. @Russos this is the sorta inter-team bs we all crave why couldn’t we have had more of this.

- P sure most stuff I’d fix would mean dialogue rewrites and extra screentime for Thor which isn’t all that feasible for the scope of the movie, but knowing the aether’s location in the timeline aside you can take Thor out of EG and he barely influences the narrative whatsoever which is Frustrating. 

How this all feeds into canon portrayal on the blog

- I’m gonna keep the framework of events for EG canon to this blog but take a less comedic approach to Thor’s portrayal. That’s really p much it; just running the scenes more sensitively and maybe working in some extra interactions where Thor became too closed off to accept offered help over the 5 years, which began to be worn away once Time Heist was put into action. 

- In terms of the ending..I love the GotG but can’t see Thor being content to stay for long without getting itchy. He’s either taking a few months out with them to ‘do something good’* out in the universe before returning to Midgard; looking for Loki or exploring the galaxy for new opportunities. 

- That being said give me more Thor development with Peter and less competition. I’d love to see them both talk affectionately about their mothers and really come to understand that they’re both similarly used to disguising insecurities with brashness.

- Thor stays in direct contact with Valkyrie and I will not accept any version of Thor where he would just abandon what remains of his people after all he’s been through. He uses the Bifrost via Stormbreaker to return to Midgard regularly and keep an eye on proceedings, as well as offer Valkyrie advice and support. He hopes war is over but even if he’s given the crown away he’s going to remain Asgard’s protector.

Wishlist-stuff wise this is just like a bunch of ideas/opportunities to kick off ideas for plots. HMU if any of these appeal and we’ll work something out! c: 

- The days between the Snap and confronting Thanos.

- Anything immediately post-beheading.

- The construction of New Asgard / inviting team members to the first few nights’ celebrations.

- The 5-year span has a t o n of potential for anything!

- Nightmare/dream scenarios during Thor’s 5 years?? Especially with characters dead/dusted/villains.

- Some wrangled time-travel nonsense

- The final battle! I’m a slut for battle threads so pls feel free

- All the Tony angst

- Post-EG can be anywhere in the galaxy, on Midgard, with the Guardians or other planets!

* Don’t talk to me about that scene it broke me

[langxue]

Avengers Endgame Initial Thoughts

Okay. I have some Thoughts about Endgame, most of them fairly critical. Also highly subjective. So here goes. Spoilers abound, for Endgame and other MCU content.

1. OMFG they completely wasted Captain Marvel.* In her own movie, Carol is a fairly laid back, adaptable, competent, and Silly person. She has a wonderfully casual charm and sarcasm that’s really fun to watch. She’s also a powerhouse, and by the end she definitely knows it. (Like seriously, she destroyed multiple of Ronan’s ships in under a minute. In GotG, it took a whole fleet just to slow one of them down, plus a team on the inside to blow it up. And then Carol’s just like “nah, you’re done now.”) And then you hit Endgame. And we have a stoic, closed off Captain Marvel, who shows up, talks a lot about how awesome she is, and then spends fucking 80% of the movie on a shelf on the justification that she’s helping other worlds that are also in trouble. Which is a fine justification to keep her away for some of the setup. But the heroes’ main plan is time travel. Which means it’s not time sensitive, and they keep making a big deal about only having one shot. Why, in that case, wouldn’t you wait until you could get Carol on your team?? Thor is a psychological mess. Keep him on the bench and bring in Carol. OR have her on hand to use the gauntlet after all the stones are collected. But no, they just went with “eh, we’re not sure how to contact her, so we’ll just skip over that option entirely.” So they wasted her character as a character with minimal interactions with the others, and zero of those interactions actually being in character (except maaaybe with Peter at the end, but that very much felt like two actors trying very hard with very little to work with), and then also wasted her as far as plot impact, opting for a heroic re-entrance most of the way through the movie.

2. The time travel felt extremely poorly explained, which is really bad when your plot completely hinges on it, and is especially bad if you’re gonna rag on other movies with time travel. Back to the Future is paradoxical nonsense, but it’s self-consistent paradoxical nonsense. Endgame was some kind of multiverse with zero clear understanding of how different timelines/realities could and could not interact with each other. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of the possibilities and whether there actually is an internal logic, but at the very least, while watching the movie, it entirely felt like they were doing whatever they wanted to suit the plot. Which is a bad sign when dealing with time travel. (My general approach to time travel is that you either have to completely handwave it or completely explain it. And that explanation doesn’t have to be an info dump! It can just be apparent in the story itself, such as with Time-Turners. Though I personally don’t mind time travel info dump tbh.)

3. Relatedly, the secret to time travel is to model an inverted Möbius strip and get the eigenvector of that one particle there. I don’t think I’ve been that annoyed but technobabble in a long time. That’s math word salad, as far as I can tell (though I’m admittedly not a mathematician. If any mathematicians can clarify how this makes any sense, I’d appreciate it, but in the mean time, I’m going to assume it’s garbled nonsense.)

4. Still on time travel but I’m having one hell of a time figuring out Steve’s ending. Like, how can he do that within the confines of the time travel mechanics? Why wouldn’t he come back and spend that time with Bucky?? Since, you know, they’ve like barely spoken being reunited?? For Pete’s sake, don’t set up their bond like that, spend two full movies on the turmoil cause by Bucky’s return, and then just fucking drop the plot line on the floor because you wanted to stick Steve back with Peggy. What in the fuck.

5. IM. SO. MAD. ABOUT. GAMORA. (And also Natasha, though that’s a slightly different anger.) GAMORA’S DEATH WAS THE MOST BS THING IN INFINITY WAR AND WAS ALSO THE DEATH I WAS MOST CONCERNED THEY WOULDN’T CORRECT. AND GUESS WHAT. THEY DIDN’T. SHE’S STILL DEAD.** The soulstone mechanic can get Fucked, because Thanos should never have been able to get it like that (and relatedly, should Hawkeye have gotten it, since Natasha threw herself, rather than being sacrificed? I’m undecided, but mad either way).

6. Is Loki still dead? Was he ever dead? We just don’t know. If he is dead, that was an amazingly dumb end and I object. If he’s not dead, that is a dumb cliffhanger and I object.

7. I don’t love Thor + Guardians’ dynamic? It feels very off, and I can’t tell if that’s just because it’s Avengers and therefore all the characters have gotten slightly flattened or if it’s just an unappealing dynamic to me. But we already had Quill vs Rocket leadership tension. I don’t was more of that but with Thor. That’s dumb. I’m hoping that it gets more nuance/resolution going forward, but I’m not holding my breath.

8. Relatedly, why would you put Valkyrie in charge of Anything but a battle plan? Nothing I’ve seen of her makes me think she’s well suited to general leadership, and I think she’d chafe under it just as much as Thor does. She’s not the Responsible One to take things over so Thor can go have another finding himself adventure. Ffs.

9. Probably no one’s fault because actor contracts are complicated, but I’m still salty about Lady Sif being 100% absent and unacknowledged for this whole thing. Largely because I haven’t gotten to see her interact with Valkyrie OR Carol and I feel cheated.

10. Some quick minor things before I go on a big rant. It bothered me that Thor’s depression and poor coping was just a joke, basically just “Oh look he’s fat and scared now, isn’t that funny?” I’m so tired of Tony vs. Steve, and I hate that they waited until the last fucking movie to sort of kind of resolve it. You don’t get to pull on found family heartstrings and tropes when you’ve done such a bullshit job of actually showing us a family. You’ve had 20-odd movies to do so. Do better.

11. Okay. I like battle scenes. They’re fun! They’re dramatic! If done correctly, they can give a very tangible sense of odds and stakes. But. Not every movie with high stakes needs a big final battle.

Okay, to clarify a bit, I’m specifically referring to army vs. army battle scenes here. Big punch outs between titans, or scrambling to minimize damage from a disaster are different, and have their own applications and pitfalls. All clear? Great.

Battles, with two armies facing off against each other in fronts, look cool, but fundamentally make no sense in the context of Endgame. Battle lines exist so that you have not very many people actively fighting at once, and so that you can protect the people next to them. When the frontline gets tired, they rotate back and others take over. Battles are not the same thing as skirmishes and they are not mass melees. If a battle turns into a mass melee, something has gone very wrong and you should in all likelihood pull back immediately to regroup.

All of this breaks down when you have an opponent who can break up or ignore your battle lines. Historically, this was artillery and guns—things that forced battles into a cover-based issue. In superhero movies, it’s... pretty much every character of note.

Thor’s lightning —> broken battle line

Black Panther’s suit discharge —> broken battle line

Falcon attacking from above —> pointless battle line

Wanda or Carol doing... anything —> pointless battle line

All of Thanos’ many flying troops —> pointless battle line

Thanos’ warship overhead —> what are you doing pls stop this

All of which is to say that traditional battle tactics don’t apply to this conflict. But the battle we’re shown doesn’t reflect that, and it feels very... weird as a result. Where who’s winning is entirely arbitrary, rather than any kind of steady build.

This tends to lead to a very episodic battle, where you show off individual characters or small groups of characters fighting. Which is fine, though contributes to battle progress being unclear. But there’s a temptation then to give everyone equal levels of badassery in their vignettes, and I think that’s a mistake. The avengers et all are a complementary group. They have members suited to a battle field and members that aren’t. That isn’t to say that Hawkeye and Black Widow can’t hold their own, but their skill sets aren’t specialized for something like this, and so any attempt to make them seem equal in this way is going to either fall flat or cheapen the battle suited heroes’ specialty.

And this tendency to level the field of badassery can also lead to situations where Okoye is backing up Carol for a charge, and I just.... gah. I love Okoye. So much. Carol does not need her help to rush a group of enemies. Carol doesn’t need help from any of the women who showed up behind her except for maybe Scarlet Witch. I get what they were going for. I get that it was supposed to be a Girl PowerTM moment. It wasn’t. It was dumb. It was so very much the wrong time for that moment, because this was not a context where Carol needed help. She just flew through a spaceship. She can fly through some enemies no problem. And it’s probably easier if she’s not worried about her allies getting caught in the blast. And then they had to make the backup team useful, so they made Carol struggle in a moment where she just shouldn’t have. You don’t get points for Girl PowerTM if you have to de-power one of your women just to make it make sense. Give me more scenes with Gamora and Nebula helping each other through Thanos’ abuse. Give me scenes with Carol and Okoye bonding over putting up with impractical people. Don’t give me this battle scene bullshit, I don’t want it.

11. I remain pissed off that there are no actually articulated arguments against Thanos’ fucking stupid plan. What the actual fuck, this is not that hard. 

Okay. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, some things I actually really liked.

1. Steve wielding Mjolnir was fucking amazing and I’m so pleased.

2. Any time Scott was on screen.

3. Peter Parker is a precious child and he needs to be protected.

4. I actually really like the set up for the time travel nonsense, and I liked that they seemed to be doing something other than a mass melee battle. That the group was divided into manageable teams, and sent on different kinds of missions that required them to be clever and play to their different strengths and help each other through. And then they shoved in a giant battle anyway, because fuck you that’s why.

5. I can appreciate what they were trying to do in giving all of the non-returning Avengers decent send-offs, even if I didn’t like some of those conclusions.

6. There were some genuinely funny moments, but I’m struggling to recall them right now.

7. Oh wait! “It’s an earthquake in the middle of the ocean. We handle it by not handling it.” That one was great.

Okay, that’s all for now. I might have more later, once I’ve picked apart the time travel a bit more and dined some processing.

I think it’s also worth noting that like... ensemble movies with a cast this big are *hard.* character are going to end up feeling confined, and there’s less time to grow because there’s just less time per character. But I think we could’ve had better, and I think if they focused more on group growth in the group movies instead of just drama, then they would’ve been in a better place and had a better story.

It’s probably also worth noting that I really liked Thor: Ragnarok, really like Captain Marvel and really didn’t like Infinity War. So I sort of went into Endgame feeling like it had to make up for Infinity War and live up to the higher at from the recent solo movies. And I really wanted to like it. I really wanted them to pull it off. But those are high and fairly specific standards, and so they fell quite short.

*This should be taken with a grain of salt, because I’d been dreading Endgame as an obligation to watch, and the Captain Marvel movie was the only thing that sparked my interest again. And then Endgame massively dropped the ball as far as I’m concerned.

** there was some stuff at the very end that makes me wonder if there’re plans to still bring her back in a later movie. But it doesn’t change me call bullshit on everything that Infinity War/Endgame has done to her.

[technicalthinker]

both rise of the planet of the apes and dawn of the planet of the apes were nominated for an oscar but neither won and now war for the planet of the apes is nominated

it’s freaking time now guys

[sharksfood]

who wants to hear about a recent hyperfixation of mine?

too late im talking about it anyway

SO ive been more depressed than usual in the past few months and its not going well, but the one good thing is that it in combination with my anxiety-induced need to keep busy and my ADHD meds making my brain never shut up, i will hyperfixate onto anything unrelated to what’s making me depressed (my college and schoolwork whoops)

but anyways, i’ve watching both GotG movies like 4 times in these few months, and an alien that caught my eye is this Ravager with a ....beak?

you can never really see them up close, but i dig their face, and I’ve always been interested in the alien Ravagers, so i did some digging.

I found through the Marvel wikia on the Ravagers that this guy is a Xeronian! and there’s more! There was one in the crowd during GotG when Rocket and Groot capture Gamora, but she’s in the background, too. More prominent is a Xeronian in the Collector’s Museum during Thor: The Dark World (which i’m gonna watch later bcs this is super interesting to me lmao)

and SO this is where the hyperfocus gets real. 

From the info on Xeronians in the wikia, based on which movies they’re in an the communities they’re part of, like the Ravagers and one civilian of Xandar, we know that they’re similar to the invidiual aliens of different races who’re there, too. BUT there has to be a reason for one Xeronian to be in the Collector’s possession.

Its like they’re rare enough of a species to be interesting to Taneleer Tivan, but common enough to live on Xandar and be a member of the Ravagers. This is similar to me with the dark elves from Thor: The Dark World, because Tanaleer also has one of them in his Museum, but they’re in abundance for Malekith to lead, though they’re different in that they’re a super old race and some other reasons, idk, i need to watch the movie again.

But I do know that the Xeronians are not super common, since we never see them in pairs or we have yet to see their own planet, unlike the moment in GotG 2 where Ego’s blob stuff was going to overtake the planet of the Easik (aliens with reptilian eyes and dotted scaley skin). So if they’re not rare, just less common, why does Taneleer have one?

That brings me to why I like them so much in the first place: they look super cool!

They don’t have beaks, its more of an insect-like carapace that covers their mouth and nose (at least for the actor, maybe their species doesn’t have them!). On their wikia its described as “large tusks that obscure most of their oral features” but they don’t look like tusks to me at all. I also love the intricate design on their forehead, which reminds me of cybernetics or ancient alien runes. It’s also interesting that they have eyebrows! I mean, obviously eyebrows help to read facial features and keep sweat out of your eyes, plus they also have head hair and eyelashes, so it makes sense physically, it just seems like an odd choice to me.

The makeup and SFX departmen obviously went less detailed with their prosthetics after GotG 1 (the bottom two pictures are from then, and the Ravager close up and imprisoned Xeronian are from the later films), which make sense as they’re not focal characters. Their faces are more like turtles than insects with the less-detailed makeup, to me anyways. I do love however the color scheme, super pale almost white with bright blue inner edges on their skin, large blue to black eyes, and black hair!

What’s also interesting is that if they actually have mouths, they seem to not be able to open them, so how do they eat? Or talk? You’d think that the Ravager being exploded by Rocket’s traps would be screaming there, but his “mouth” is closed. Maybe they don’t have mouths? I imagine if they did, even if they have a “tusk” or “carapace” covering them, the makeup would be sculpted to give their mouths an opening. I mean, obviously the prosthetics have small slits for the actor to breath through their mouth and nose (which is more obvious on the Ravager than they other characters), but no major opening.

I think that for Taneleer Tivan to be interested in Xeronians enough to actually have one alive in his Museum, he probably just digs their looks, too. Or maybe he thinks they’re super rare? I wish there was more info on them, but I haven’t found anything outside the wikia and James Gunn’s instagram.

HOWEVER it was news to me that Xeronians were not created just for the movies! They were featured in other Marvel comics, though they looked really....stupid. Way different, to the point I wouldn’t consider them the same species. The comics versions of Xeronians thrived on solar radiation, but I don’t think that carried over to the movie Xeronians. I mean, there’s no proof of that, but most creatures with super pale skin don’t go out in the sun (but aliens can do whatever they want, so idk).

I really hope we see more of them in GotG Vol. 3! Or even Avengers: Endgame or other space-related MCU films. i really REALLY like all the aliens in the Guardians and later Thor movies, so i’m glad there’s at least some info about them. And I’m glad there was pictures of their makeup up close!

I’m considering making a Xeronian character, but I need to find out more of their physicality before I’m certain. What does the rest of their bodies look like? Do they actually have mouths? Can they speak? Any special abilities? Why exactly does the Collector have one??? (that’s going to bother me forever I know it)

UPDATE: I checked the wikia again while writing this and went to James Gunn’s instagram, and in his posts about the Xeronians for the first movie, he mentions there were more than one actor, so awesome! Obviously there’s more of them than I could see in the movie, as well as what the wikia has in their gallery. He also mentions that the actors had a hard time talking while wearing the prosthetics, which I think means the mouthpiece doesn’t separate or move according to their mouth movements. So Xeronians don’t have the typical mouths, but maybe something more alien?