we need to bring back anon kink memes in a big way. no one is horny enough anymore. the other night i found a fic on an old kink meme from 2009 that was so well-written and also so raunchy and foul (affectionate) it could have stripped paint off my car. there is something about truly unapologetic filth that can be transcendent and tender and marrow deep and maybe if we all leaned into being anonymous depraved little weirdos again we’d learn how to have more fun.
The Marvels is being scathed by critics, and that’s a good thing.
I finally saw The Marvels today. I’m a bit late to the party, so all I saw about the movie was the teaser at the end of Ms Marvel, and way too many critical reviews of it.
Now, obviously on Tumblr you find the good reviews, like, the cats outnumbering the white men and how Kamala Khan is, like, basically all of us. But in person, I’ve had someone tell me that it’s bad because Rotten Tomatoes rates it 43%, which– besides wondering why anyone would listen to Rotten Tomatoes, I’d have to wonder why the website would give it such a low rating. The easy answer is that the Tomatoes review committee is populated by white men, who, upon having no one to relate to, react badly to the movie. But I think there’s more to it.
The Marvels is a revolution. Through its character-driven writing and brazen exploration of morality, it rewrites the superhero formula completely, by questioning what exactly it means to be a superhero.
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The Marvels was directed by Nia DaCosta, an award-winning Harlem native and creative visionary whose approach to this film was to define these characters as humans, not as superheroes. Her approach to heroism directly addresses that the idea that a hero is not always right. A hero, DaCosta claims, is “someone who’s trying their best with the information and tools they have at the time. They’ll always get it wrong.” Carol Danvers’s arc directly addresses this, as the resolution of her subplot involves her re-igniting the sun that she snuffed out. Her heroic act is to undo the damage that she wrought.
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When compared to old Marvel, this message just doesn’t come through. In WandaVision, Wanda’s grief is for a family that was killed by the Avengers. Yet, she is painted as a villain, even as she searches for a happy home, even as she at one point joins the Avengers. The Avengers cannot undo what they did, and don’t really try. They defeat the big bad, sacrifice their lives, but nothing brings back Wanda’s family. Nothing undoes that war. No one searches for Wanda after the event, to try to help her with her grief, except for Monica, and she’s working against orders. Their heroics are militant, but while they excel at destruction, they leave the people they hurt in the dust.
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This antiheroic plot of old Marvel is precisely what appealed to so many American audiences. Their protagonists are: a rich corporation, a super-soldier, a privileged teenager, a scientist who makes weapons, an ex-convict, a man born into godlike power, and I’m sure there are others but I don’t actually care that much… (these would be iron man, captain america, peter parker spiderman, hulk, antman, thor, and etc). All these archetypes appeal to American ideals that the wealthy would sympathize with. They claim that there are people who are inherently bad and seek the power that they have, in the way that a poor person might want a job that a wealthy person wants their child to secure. They claim that it is their business to save those which cannot save themselves, and use this to get involved in wars that are not theirs, and beat up badguys whose backstory they have no way of knowing– and they punch before they stop and listen.
They are cops in every sense of the word. The responsibility of the vigilante is to defend against evil, but part of that responsibility is to figure out who exactly is evil and who is in need of help.
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The Marvels creates a team that tries to distinguish evil from good, and delves into the grey area between them. The final battle between Carol Danvers and Dar-benn has the superhero pinning the grey-haired antagonist to the ground as she begs for, then demands, that Carol fix what she damaged. Monica urges her to listen. Through this, The Marvels argues that a hero does not always beat up the bad guy and fight against unrelenting evil, but that a hero can be wrong, and that a hero can reconsider. It’s kindness in the way that is revolutionary, where it’s much easier to choose cruelty.
The fact that the movie is getting torn apart by critics, then, is not just because it is a “girls movie” or it doesn’t have a strong white man for the white male viewer to sympathize with. The Marvels cannot appeal to Marvel fans because it rewrites the genre itself. It takes a film series whose purpose was to depict the struggles of cops, of the wealthy, of people with too much power who are trying to learn how to responsibly wield it, but don’t. And it gives that power to people who have watched superheroes try and fail, who are slowly learning to be better heroes than the ones before them.
The next generation is a critique of the last, a group trying not to make the mistakes of the chosen ones that came before them, and as such, the movie exists to critique the movies that came before it. Therefore, a viewer of Marvel who would positively review it, due to sympathizing with the previous heroes and enjoying the power fantasy, would dislike it out of its existence being critical and contradictory to the films they like themselves.
The Marvels is not for Marvel fans– at least, not those who saw the Avengers as purely heroes. Instead, the film reaches out to people who would have been against the old Avengers, who want a story that dismantles the unquestioned idealism of superheroes and writes about people trying to protect their communities and the people they care about.
So, let the critics complain. The MCU is shedding its roots as a pro-cop and pro-colonialism power fantasy, and evolving into an exploration of what it means to be a true hero.
lol 28 years ago today, the Star Trek Voyager episode “Threshold” aired. The premise of the episode was that humans cannot travel at or faster than warp 10, because if they do, they would be traveling at “infinite velocity” and would exist in all points of space time simultaneously. Tom Paris found a way to travel at this speed, and doing so accidentally hyper-evolved him and his captain (Janeway) into giant salamanders, whereupon they immediately reproduced and created 3 baby salamanders. They were then turned back into normal humans, and forced to leave their salamander babies on the planet they had escaped to.
The episode was long held as the worst star trek episode. Not just the worst Star Trek Voyager episode, but the worst episode, period, because it was extremely weird and people turning into salamanders greatly annoyed a lot of people who don’t know what fun is. Tumblr, having discovered this episode like excavating an exciting fossil, has taken a shine to this episode and many people now produce art and memes and eat pepperoni pizza in celebration of its air date, mostly to annoy the episode’s creator, as in a very Arthur Conan Doyle way, he hates this episode and wants it de-canonized.
Humongous data breach just happened, with loads upon loads of sites being affected. Tumblr’s among those. Also on the list is Wattpad for you fanfic people out there- among many, many other places.
There’s a searchable list at the bottom of the article. Highly recommend scrolling or searching through, seeing what places you may be on that have been affected, and securing all your accounts. This thing’s kind of big.
Every night at eleven I have to choose between enjoying the sweet embrace of slumber or staying up late to do something enriching and fun that I wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to do. And every night at eleven I take the secret third option of “doing nothing on my phone until one in the morning.”
I would be fascinated to know how you normally find fics to read, and your reasoning about it, if any. Has your behaviour changed over time? What fandom are you in?
When I first started reading, I usually do ship tag and then filter out things I don’t like, and I usually start from the oldest when I first start reading. From there I find authors, from authors I check the bookmarks of the fic I love and from there I look at the other fics the people who also loved the fic bookmarked or collections. I usually keep browsing the tag from the oldest and the newest because there are always fics I might like! Tho there’s a definitely a point where I’m not looking as much and if I’m writing, I check out everyone who bookmarks my fics. I definitely want to read the other fic people who liked my fic like. Etc.
Mostly wanted to express my continued confusion at sorting by kudos or comments! Lots of fics with tons of kudos are very much not my thing. Probably also because I’m generally a writer of middling to low popularity and sorting by kudos wouldn’t find me and I love me! I think I write stories that are exactly what I want!
So I’m in the middle of rewatching “Grace Under Pressure” for the first time since maaaybe? university? many years ago and I’m losing it because I fully forgot that one of the reasons this episode is so beloved is not only because it’s Rodney all alone with a head injury, it’s also Rodney trying to convince himself that anyone cares enough about him to try and save him.
Meanwhile: EVERYONE IS TRYING TO SAVE HIM.
ESPECIALLY JOHN SHEPPARD.
CARTER: Look, I hear what you’re saying and I’m telling you – you’re wrong. You have some very smart, very motivated people on the surface, and the only thing any of them are working on right now is rescuing you.
McKAY: Oh, come on! They are planning my memorial service.
CARTER: If your plan fails – and it probably will – you could jeopardise their plans.
I completely forgot the whole Atlantis portion of the episode over the years and basically only retained how incredible of an actor David Hewlett was in it.
MEANWHILE! John is all, “I will absolutely order that scientist to risk his life to save my scientist, and I will pretend I have any authority to do so because my scientist is in danger and I am prepared to make all kinds of unethical decisions for his sake,” and now I’m ensconced in all the mcshep feelings of my past.
SHEPPARD: Well, Doctors Moore and McNab are here to study the ocean on M8R-1229, which happens to be under a thick sheet of ice, so they brought a thousand-foot cable and a pretty powerful winch to lower their instruments.
WEIR: OK.
SHEPPARD (gesturing to a nearby scientist): And Edgar over here is responsible for the magnetic grapple designed to lower the F-302s into our Jumper Bay.
WEIR: And you intend to put the two together.
SHEPPARD: Like chocolate and peanut butter.
It’s absurdly emotion-fueling that John’s really not a social person, but look at him assembling his own li'l team of people to go save his shouty nerd boyfriend. :’)
McKAY: Well, we’ll never be able to stop it.
CARTER: I’m not saying that we could – we’re just trying to buy time here.
McKAY: In order to make death as long and as drawn-out as possible, huh?!
CARTER: Just max it out, McKay.
I’M NOT OKAY! JUST! RODNEY DOWN THERE ALL ALONE TRYING TO TELL HIMSELF OVER AND OVER THAT THE PEOPLE HE CARES ABOUT, THE PEOPLE WHO ARE HIS EXTENDED FOUND FAMILY WHOMST HE’S SAVED OVER AND OVER, WON’T JUST WASH THEIR HANDS OF HIM BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO SAVE HIM.
SHEPPARD (over radio): All you have to do is open your door and walk to my Jumper.
(Sam smiles.)
CARTER: I told you they’d come up with something.
NOW IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME, I’M GOING TO GO REREAD WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS AND CRY MYSELF INTO OBLIVION
THISSSSSSS.
Ah the McShep of it all (and all of Atlantis saying “No we will save McKay”!)
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