God, the look on his face here – that smile, that absolute feral smirk when he knows the bullet’s connected, and the shot is fatal. I’ve seen meta suggesting this is where the programming breaks down because how could the Marvel universe’s deadliest assassin miss, but to me that’s not at all what’s happening here. Bucky’s just been strangled unconscious; he’s likely still stunned. Steve’s dislocated his human shoulder and twisted and warped the plates on his left arm in their previous fight. Bucky isn’t missing because he wants to; he’s missing because he’s stumbling, dizzy, unable to aim. He’s missing because his arm isn’t stable. Look at that third gif; he’s in pain as he’s shooting; the blowback from each pull of the trigger is making him wince and he’s having trouble keeping his arm steady. And through all of that, despite the fact his body — his ultimate weapon — is failing him, this is still his mission. More than that, the mission is personal. That, above all else, is where the programming is cracking: the Winter Soldier isn’t supposed to think in terms of personal; he isn’t supposed to want for himself, even if that want is violence, is retribution. He’s supposed to follow orders, and in this moment, he wants to cause harm to someone who’s getting the better of him. Tit for tat. He feels threatened by this man who’s making him feel, and he wants those feelings to stop. And he’s willing to push his broken, twisted body to the breaking point to do it.
We see this again, not long after, when he breaks down farther, is left backhanding Steve, repeated, distressed and sloppy hits that don’t mange to kill him, despite the fact that earlier we saw a single punch destroy concrete. In those final blows we can hear his arm squeaking, plates grinding against each other – we get a real sense of how damaged he is. But he’s fighting, not on the orders of others, but because the things Steve is saying are terrifying and he wants them to stop, no matter the cost.
And now compare this — how damaged he is physically, how much pain he’s in, and how much of that pain he’s willing to ignore if it will make the main causing the chaos in his head stop talking — to what he must go through, jumping in to the Potomac after Steve. Using his crushed and warped left arm to pull him to safety; using his dislocated right arm to move both of their bodies through the water. The amount of pain he’s ignoring to save Steve; to save something important to him; to complete a mission of his own choosing. And it’s completely, wholly altruistic. He walks away: injured and without any concept of his own identity or where he should go from here. The man on the ground — he’s the Soldier’s only link. Someone who’s repeatedly offered to help him, to save him. And the Soldier stays only long enough to make sure the man’s still breathing, to make sure he’s in clear enough view to be saved by his own team, before disappearing again.
For seventy years, Bucky’s entire existence has been a backdrop of pain that he’s learned to wear like a skin. But that moment marks the first time he’s used his resilience against it for his own ends, against those who have made him into a weapon of destruction.
I will never get over this final scene.
Tag: interesting
Modern Disney Girls! Who’s gonna be next?
You choose!
EDIT: Updated the post to put all new Gilrs in one place!
EDIT: Updated the Pocahontas picture!
Modern Disney Girl – MERIDA!
Why short hair?
Merida was a young, teenage rebel. In the movie, she was always against the way of princess lifestyle. And her hair show this very good – in her times woman should braid her hair, cover them – but she always had this “mess” on her head.
What would modern Merida do? She would cut her hair, because many of people would say to her – you have such a lovely, curly, red hair, you should be so proud, don’t shave it, cut it…
But she would surely do that. That fits her character.
Modern Disney Girls – Tiana and Charlotte
Modern Disney Girl – Ariel
OH SHIT THAT LAST ONE
ok, ok so this is more than Bucky asking Steve to move in with him:
All you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash…
he’s asking Steve to move in with him rent-free. how much you want to bet Steve was going to art school at the time – so on top of having his mother die, he was going to have to quit school to support himself. And there’s Bucky saying you don’t have to do this alone, let me help with what I have…
#(also for the love of god somebody tell us what year this is supposed to be) (via legete)
hardboiledmeggs and I were discussing this, and she suggested mid-1930s, based on Bucky’s hair (slicked back) and attire. Can’t see it here, but he’s wearing a wide tie, and a (double-breasted?) suit with wide lapels, so I would guess around 1938, which is when the heavily padded shoulders and wide trousers came into vogue (in part due to the popularity of gangster films, which is what I thought of when I saw Bucky’s outfit). For reference, that makes Steve 19 and Bucky 20 when the scene takes places.
I’d just like to state my deep appreciation that someone dated this thanks to fashion history. God bless fandom.
Do you think that, the MCU at least, if Erskine hadn’t died then we’d have seen something like the Hulk a lot earlier? A whole lot of stuff in Marvel can be traced back to Cap like Wolverine, the Hulk and all that hot mess, Deadpool, and the Winter Soldier. All of them trying to recreate the Super Soldier Serum or just more supersoldiers.
Well, remember, the Hulk as an experiment in re-creating the super-soldier is very recent — I’d have to check with Mage for the precise date but I believe it only dates to the Ed Norton Hulk film. But to make it easy, let’s stick with MCU for now and ignore the comics, because in MCU Hulk was an attempt to re-create the Super Soldier Serum, though Bruce Banner wasn’t apparently aware of that.
I don’t think we’d see the Hulk sooner, at least in America, but the why of that is a complicated one.
If Erskine had lived, the Serum formula would have been in his control, which I don’t think was an accident; Erskine came from Nazi-controlled Germany and he presumably had a very healthy paranoia about authority. Even if the US had no plans to kill him, he knew that they wouldn’t dare think about it so long as he was the only one who knew the formula. It also meant he could exercise the same rigorous quality control on later test subjects that he did when choosing Steve. Phillips, for all his likeable qualities, was a military man in wartime and like most of the people he represented, he wanted the biggest, dumbest asshole to get the treatment — if Erskine didn’t control who got it, then the Army would start shoving men like Gilmore Hodge into the Sarcophagus of Pretty. And as we know, in the Sarcophagus of Pretty, good gets better, and bad gets worse. So you either get a lot of indestructible bullies, or you get a lot of dead ones. Erskine won’t have that.
So you have Erskine who is willing to make super soldiers but who is not going to unless they pass his personal inspection. The government’s still getting its soldiers, even if it’s not getting them super fast. Maybe they want more than Erskine is willing to give, but a bureaucracy at rest tends to stay at rest; as long as Erksine’s willing to play ball, it’s unlikely that anyone but a psychotic would push for parallel experimentation just so they could get more soldiers, and highly unlikely it would get funding.
There was a fanfic once, I wish I could remember where, that had one character talking about how it was a good thing Erksine died, because then the genetic arms race would have kicked into high gear, and you’d get armies of Super Soldiers running around fucking shit up. Another character pointed out that no — if personality affects how one reacts to the Serum, then what you get for candidates are people like Steve Rogers — people who will not use their power for personal gain, who will not blindly follow orders, and who will not stand to see the powerful dominate the weak. So what you end up with are a bunch of rational, thoughtful, stridently anti-authoritarian and nearly indestructible men who are trained to work well together and collaborate to achieve their goals. I can’t think the military would want too many of them.
If we did see a Hulk, I don’t think it would be an American one; I think it would be the product of Russia, post-war, trying to break the cold war stalemate by producing its own super soldiers with partial information taken from spies in America.
A literal Red Hulk, if you will.
Lesbian History: World War II and Beyond
In honor of the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and LGBT Pride Month (in the US), here’s a fascinating article about lesbians during World War II, focusing on those in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). It also includes an annotated bibliography for further research – always a bonus for history nerds like us.
This fantastic little booklet was issued to US troops headed to Britain in 1942. It contains some useful pointers and charming attempts at cultural sensitivity.
On “British Women at War,” the following information is given:
A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can and often does give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame. For British women have proven themselves in this war. They have stuck to their posts near burning ammunition dumps, delivered messages afoot after their motorcycles have been blasted from under them. They have pulled aviators from burning planes. They have died at gun posts and as they fell another girl has stepped directly into the position and “carried on.” There is not a single record in this war of any British woman in uniformed service quitting her post or failing in her duty under fire.
Now you understand why British soldiers respect the women in uniform. They have won the right to the utmost respect. When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic – remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich.
The full text can be read here. Here is a story from LIFE magazine outlining the use of the booklet. eatingcroutons has also posted a photo of this excerpt from the booklet, which you can see here.
Flange, I’m posting this because it is perfect and I will never be as eloquent as you.
BRINGING THIS BACK BECAUSE I FUCKING LOVE THESE TWO DORKS
Not screen-reader friendly, and has bluespace, but very interesting anyway,
Facts from the 2014 UK Editions of Harry Potter
- Before the Hogwarts Express, some young wizards and witches made their way to Hogwarts on broomsticks and in enchanted carriages
- There are other fractional platforms at King’s Cross station. Try 7 1/2 for a trip to wizard-only villages in Europe.
- It took five and a half minutes for the Sorting Hat to decide whether to place Minerva McGonagall in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw
- Several Hogwarts students have caused mayhem at King’s Cross by dropping suitcases full of newt spleens or biting spellbooks all over the Muggle Station.
- Peeves the poltergeist caused a three-day evacuation of Hogwarts in 1876 after escaping a trap set for him armed with several dangerous weapons.
- The one exception to the general magical aversion to Muggle technology is cars. Even the Ministry of Magic owns a fleet, modified with various useful charms.
- Many wizards were unhappy with the invention of the Muggle-like Knight Bus, and refused to use it when it first hit the streets.
- Headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts can teach their magical portrait to act and behave exactly like themselves.
- Sir Cadogan’s most famous encounter was with the Wyvern of Wye, a dragon-like creature, whom he accidentally killed with his broken wand.
- Only one non-magical person has ever managed to get as far as the Hogwarts Sorting Hat before being exposed as a Squib.
- Of the Eleven wizarding schools in the world, the African school of Uagadou is the only one to select pupils by Dream Messenger, leaving a token in the child’s hand whilst they sleep.
- The 1809 Quidditch World Cup final turned into a human versus tree battle when one of the players managed to jinx an entire forest to attack the stadium.
- The Hufflepuff ghost, the Fat Friar, was executed after senior churchman became suspicious of his ability to cure the pox by poking peasants with a stick.
- Every year St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries treats at least one injury caused by homemade Floo powder.
- Before she became a teacher at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall used to work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic.
- Part of the process of becoming an Animagus requires you to carry a leaf from a Mandrake in your mouth for an entire month.
- A Dark wizard called Raczidian was devoured by maggots that appeared from his wand when he unsuccessfully attempted to cast the Patronus Charm.
- Any part of a person’s body can be added to the Polyjuice Potion to allow the consumer to take their form, including hair, toenail clippings, dandruff or worse…
- Remus Lupin’s father, Lyall, was a world-renowned authority on magical creatures like poltergeists and Boggarts.
- It took 167 Memory Charms and the largest mass Concelment Charm ever performed in Britain to modify a muggle steam engine and create the Hogwarts Express.
- Students from the Russian Wizarding school, Koldovstoretz, play a version of Quidditch where they fly on entire, uprooted trees instead of broomsticks.
Yes, these are all canon. Thought I’d type it up to have it as a text reference. Enjoyyy.
I LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE FACTS!
(n.b. naturally, remus lupin’s dad was also called “wolf.” nothing like tempting fate for two generations in a row, huh?)
ugh okay but now i want a squib who did make it through hogwarts;
a squib who spent her childhood pretending to magically start accidental fires with the lighter up her sleeve; who got her bemused little sister to grow her hair long overnight after a bad trim; a squib who shook all through shopping at diagon alley and who was so relieved that her parents were almost suspicious when they said that there wasn’t enough money that year to get her a new wand from ollivander’s— she’d have to take great-aunt jenny’s hand-me-down, eight and a half inches of oak and unicorn hair;
a squib who made it to platform 9 3/4, who made friends with some shy kid in the back of the express, who made it across the lake and up the stairs and through the great hall doors and by the great long tables and onto the wobbly old stool—
until the hat drops over her eyes
well what do we have here?
she’s got a forged hogwarts letter with penmanship that’s perfect down to the ink splatter; she’s got a complicated string of owls, only half of them forged, from parents to administration to ministry that’s so complicated her name ended up on the first year roll call anyway. she’s got ten arguments, four pleas, and one smothered threat on the tip of her mental tongue for why the house that comes out of this hat’s brim better not be squib
she’s got a lighter up her sleeve and an eight and a half inch wand in her belt that will never, ever work for her.
well, says the hat, better be slytherin then
she finds the room of requirement in her second week, because she has always been a hallway-pacer, her head always ringing with i want i want i need i need i will do this. the room of requirement gives her books of muggle magic tricks, sleight of hand, chemical ways to turn ‘water’ into ‘wine.’
she bribes another first-year slytherin to wingardium leviosa her feathers in flitwick’s class. her shy friend from the train, a hufflepuff and a muggleborn, buys her a new lighter for christmas without being asked. when a gryffindor finds her scrubbing at tears in the back of the library and guesses what’s the matter (he’s seen her classwork), she tells him the story, tells him what it’s like to be denied a whole world because they think different means broken— she expects him to tattle, but instead the gryff transfigures her needles for the rest of her academic career; and she whispers hints to him when his black thumb keeps making him fail herbology.
(the first thing she’d said, when she realized he’d guessed her secret, had been ‘you should’ve been in ravenclaw’ and he had looked at her gravely until she apologized)
the room of requirement gives her books and books on potions, arithmancy, herbology— these things are not about magic. these things are not about power that lives in your bones. she knows power, knows the way sparks fly from her little sister’s wand when they take her to ollivanders, knows the way it flicks under her quill when she practices mcgonagall’s signature and sends home disciplinary letters to the parents of every student who ever bullied her friend from the train.
she waters nightshade and re-pots mandrakes, can tell poisonous mushrooms from magical (…also poisonous) ones by a glance. she drops in just the right amount of unicorn horn powder in potions class (.025 g more than the instructions suggest) and when making sleeping draught stirs for half a stir extra.
this is about power that you make.
she studies and invents, schemes and lies and excels. she holds potions tutoring in the slytherin common room when her friend from the train suggests it, then moves it to the room of requirement after it gets too large and someone stains the green-and-silver upholstery. (her arithmancy sessions are much less well attended).
she keeps her lighter, her little packets of carefully measured powder, her jokeshop tricks up her sleeve—she keeps the names of people who she can trust, who she can call on for distraction, for help, for a needed lie on the tip of her tongue—she keeps her gryffindor’s heavy wand and quick wit close at hand; keeps her hufflepuff’s steady patience closer; keeps her own bright improvisations at her fingertips.
her bemused little sister ends up in ravenclaw, and they all eat at the hufflepuff table for breakfast because (she says) slytherins weren’t meant to follow rules and because (her sister says) how stupid is this seating thing and because (her shy friend says) didn’t you hear the hat? helga said she’d take them all, so hold your tongue, macmillian, scoot over, and pass my friends here the hashbrowns.
when she graduates, she heads for the ministry. she has plans, and she has brave, smart, true, cunning friends to back her up.
power should never be something born into your bones.
ok that went somewhere fabulous.
One of the things that struck me about the scene in the bank vault in CA:TWS is just who is in the room. There are two people who I will consider doctors, one of whom may be the “doctor in charge”. There is at least one technician who deals with the Winter Soldier’s arm. And then there are the guards.
The Winter Soldier is just sitting there, getting his arm fixed when the memories of the time when he was Bucky Barnes, of the time when he was just becoming what he is now, comes bleeding through. Up until that point, when he throws the technician across the room, he was behaving as they expected. And yet, despite this, they still have maybe half a dozen guards with guns in the room who draw on him the moment he acts and stay drawn on him until Pierce comes in the room and waves them down.
How does the Winter Soldier interpret the presence of armed guards? What does this mean to him? He certainly has enough tactical understanding to know that the very fact that the guards are there (even when the guns are not yet drawn) means that the men he serves do not trust him. They are telling him, he is dangerous, even to them.
In 1941, Jews throughout the Third Reich were forced to wear a yellow Star of David. That same year, the first gassing experiments were conducted at Auschwitz and 33,771 Jews were killed by Germans and Ukrainians at Babi Yar outside Kiev. At the beginning of the war, the U.S. media rarely reported on or even knew about these horrific events, but word of Jewish suffering at the hands of Nazis trickled down to Kirby, Simon, and other Diaspora Jews in the form of wrenching letters from relatives trapped in the old country. Simon and Kirby used Captain America to strike back and boost American morale while proudly alluding to their religious faith. In a later issue, Steve Rogers watches newsreels depicting Nazi atrocities — newsreels Kirby and Simon surely must have watched as well.
Captain America’s weapon of choice was a strange one — not a machine gun, but a shield. The shield is a famous Jewish symbol, the Magen David, which means the “Shield of David.” (It’s also known as the “Star of David” because the Magen David is a hexagram.) The term “shield” in Jewish prayer denotes the closeness and protection of God. In a sad twist of fate, Captain America’s costume featured a star at the same time that Simon and Kirby’s European brethren were being forced to wear a star of a very different kind.
Simcha Weinstein, Up, Up, and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero (x)
knitting in the dark 