During Patty Jenkins’ Reddit AMA, a fascinating interpretation was brought up regarding this scene:
“My interpretation of the revisit was that it actually wasn’t necessarily what he said. She (and the audience) has no way of knowing what he said. But the whole lesson of the film is about faith. Believing in something for the sake of hope. So she thinks back to that moment and chooses to believe that he said something beautiful and moving. Because that’s what she needs to believe in order to have hope.” – Leagle_Eagl
So at first I was a little ??? about Hela being Thor’s sister in Ragnarok (squeezing her into the role Angela so recently acquired as their long-lost-big-sister in comics), but the more I think about it, the more I like what it does for Thor and Loki’s arc.
Thor now has two siblings who became his antagonists because of his father keeping secrets – hiding Loki’s heritage, and then hiding Hela’s existence. Which re-enforces how damaging that habit of lying and secrecy is to Asgard’s growth, as represented by Thor. Having those secrets come out and be faced is necessary for Thor’s development and maturity – confronting the sins of his father.
And for Loki – when Loki tries and fails to be a hero, he becomes a villain. He always measures himself against Thor, and then casts himself as Thor’s opposite. But with Hela showing up, suddenly the role of bad guy has been usurped by another sibling; he’s no longer the baddest Asgardian, or even the baddest of Odin’s kids. His sins are now in a whole new context, where his misdeeds are frankly small potatoes. He’s not only been outstripped as a hero by his sibling – he’s been outstripped as a villain. And that forces him to find some other measure of identity; not wholly good, not wholly evil, but something in between – something new.
Also, it re-enforces their brotherhood in an interesting way. Hela is Asgardian. Hela is Thor’s blood sibling (or at least half-sibling). And Hela is still awful. In that light, Loki can no longer ascribe his wickedness to his heritage – he isn’t evil because of some innate genetic factor, or because he isn’t Asgardian, since Hela is clearly capable of that evil despite being raised on Asgard and having Odin’s genes. And while Hela and Thor share blood, they have no kinship to speak of. Thor and Loki do, despite the lack of blood relation. They snipe and bicker like brothers throughout, and there are callbacks to their childhood and past together (the snake story, ‘get help’).
Hela’s appearance as Thor’s sister lends new context to both Thor and Loki’s relationship with each other and their family, and I think it gives us, as fandom, a lot of fresh material to play with as far as our boys’ character growth moving forward.
The Breakfast Club came out in 1985 and to this day is, in my opinion, one of the greatest damn movies ever to barely even have a script.
During the famous “dance” scene, Molly Ringwald, who played the “princess” Claire, was supposed to a small little dance by herself, but she was shy so all of them did some dancing together, creating one of the most famous film scene’s to date. It was improvised.
During the scene in the film where the characters sat down and told why they were there, there was NO SCRIPT. John Hughes told the cast to sit there and improvise why they thought their characters were there, creating that heart wrenching scene everyone could relate to.
EVERYONE can relate to this movie and thats the best damn thing.
On March 24, 1984, five students entered a detention room thinking it was just another Saturday. Before the day was over, they broke the rules, bared their souls, and touched each other in a way they never dreamed possible.
EVERYONE IN THE WORLD NEEDS TO SEE THE BREAKFAST CLUB.
writers of avengers fic consistently misunderstand this phrase, and honestly i don’t blame them, it’s pretty confusing in context. bucky barnes is a sniper. snipers use rifles. fury was shot outta nowhere, by a sniper, presumably with a rifle. and if you’re not a humongous gun nut, you probably don’t automatically think slug == shotgun, not rifle. nor will you know that ‘rifling’ can mean two different things.
lucky for you, i am a humongous gun nut, so i’m here to sort that out for you!
okay, for starters, shotgun barrels are, in fact, rifled. and we all know you trace a bullet by the marks the barrel’s rifling leaves on it. so how could the winter soldier’s leavings make the ballistics techs at SHIELD shrug helplessly? well, because it wasn’t a bullet, it was a slug. a shotgun slug. and in shotgun slugs, ‘rifling’ doesn’t mean the grooves in the barrel, it means the fin-like protrusions on the slug itself, like so:
that’s an american-made big game slug, and it’s got those fins to keep it twisting despite the drag of the cork back end, which acts to stabilize it with air resistance. short range, but plenty effective if you’re hunting moose.
but the winter soldier was hunting bigger game: nick fury. through a brick wall. which is why he used something more like this:
stainless steel saboted slugs. as you can see, they have no rifling – that is, no twisty fins. they rely on their forward-weighted mass for their accuracy, which is tolerably good up to about 100 meters.
there are a number of russian makers of these, going back to soviet days, but you can also easily machine your own. these don’t deform on impact, meaning they wouldn’t have great stopping power against, say, a charging polar bear – but also meaning they keep their trajectory when going through obstructions like the wall of steve’s apartment. and that plastic sabot, or boot, which makes it fit tight and grip in the barrel, flies off when fired, taking with it any identifying marks from the barrel rifling.
i don’t think we ever got to see what bucky fired these from, but it would probably have been something like this:
a russian vepr 12 shotgun, which looks a whole lot more like a rifle than a shotgun at first glance. tactical shotguns like these are popular with law enforcement for the same reason bucky used one to shoot fury – urban combat. right through the dang wall.
so there you have it. ‘russian slug, no rifling’ means bucky came loaded for bear.
also, on the subject of steve’s superhuman status…
i felt like this movie was brutally heavy-handed about showing us just how much steve’s body can take. like, we get a hint of it in first avenger but even steve isn’t sure by the end of the movie the entire scope of what his body can do–what can be done to it. then in the avengers, we get a little more…ideas about his endurance, his agility, his combat skill–but they’re just glimpses, and really, nothing earth-shattering is discovered.
and then this fucking movie comes along, and all of a sudden, the audience is seeing in visceral constant detail just how super this soldier has become.
steve fights like lightning in a bottle–he’s a tremendous force in a contained, controlled package. we see his skill, but more than that, we see how his skill is the vehicle for his power. how many times do we get it reiterated that this dude is magnificent? the very first scene of the movie is all about how he’s running THIRTEEN MILES in 30 minutes like it’s nbd. and then rumlow pointing out steve’s jump sans parachute and how well he was single handedly taking on the ship’s crew before rumlow landed. and then his fight with batroc, how it’s very specifically meant to show that even without the shield, steve is more than capable. that he can withstand things and do things other human beings can’t. that HE and HIS FISTS AND FEET AND MASSIVE MUSCLES AND CORE STABILITY can and will fuck you up. the entire first half of the film is all about steve being a force to be reckoned with, not just as a person but as a body, as a physical presence.
and as the battles escalate, so too do the stresses on steve’s body. every new thing was like a dare. a step further. a question–how much can this guy withstand?
steve, leaping through a window into ANOTHER BUILDING ENTIRELY, crashing through WALLS like they’re nothing, running at top speed and withstanding the force of throwing the shield and being thrown the shield, stopping a hairsbreadth from the edge of the roof.
steve, getting ambushed in an elevator, several burly and skilled men and their assorted weapons against him. this scene is SO important–those little electricity things that rumlow zapped steve with at length and several times? remember how a tiny little zap was enough to knock out that french mercenary? yeah, well, it barely pHASED steve even after it’s stuck to his gut for like 30 agonizing seconds, repeatedly. that whole scene is an exercise in showing the audience that steve literally has the strength of multiple men, maybe even more. (and he knows it, too. it’s why his fairness, the fact that he gives those goons the OPTION TO GET OFF THE ELEVATOR, is so much more remarkable than it otherwise would be. because he knows what his body is capable of now. and it’s a fucking lot.)
oh and then he leaps out of the elevator and falls several thousand feet at full speed and not only lives but barely staggers after a couple minutes of shaking it off and then he leaps onto a moving jet and disables it before somersaulting to the ground? this isnt just innate confidence, it’s a lack of fear borne from the knowledge that his body can take it.
like sitwell said–“are you kidding me?” it’s pretty significant that in a world of superheros and mutants and gods, sitwell is shocked by a SUPERSOLDIER and what his body can do. as well sitwell should be, tbh.
bc MULTIPLE TIMES steve uses his own body as a buffer between the shield and people he’s protecting–two times with nat and a potentially catastrophic and close range explosion and once FALLING OUT OF A FUCKING SPEEDING VEHICLE. he knows the shield will provide the first line of defense, but he also knows his body is capable of creating another. his body becomes a shield, too. a weapon and a tool.
and it’s worth noting that he’s posed as superhuman by acting as a mirror to another superhuman. when he’s fighting bucky on the bridge, he matches bucky move for move–i still cant decide whether that fight is meant to drive hom how powerful bucky is or steve, tbh. like, on one hand, we already KNOW how strong steve is, so the fact that bucky is fighting him shows the audience this isnt just an assassin–he’s souped up more than the average human. but on the other hand, we see early on how fast and powerful bucky is, and when we see his fist hit the shield we get a sense of his incredible strength even more, and that just shows us AGAIN how very strong steve must be to keep up with him and fight him like an equal.
anyway, the next round of death defying comes with the helicarrier business. and a lot of his awesome comes from how well he moves and how tactical he is, but there are elements–when he leaps into the open air and freefalls waiting for sam to catch him, when he uses his upper body strength to fucking climb up the outside of the helicarrier after being thrown off the side–that you’re reminded again that beyond him being a great soldier, he’s also got a body that is a conduit for all that knowledge, all that skill. and that body is a weapon unto itself.
guys. guys, he’s shot MULTIPLE TIMES and STABBED and he just wrestled a super assassin into submission and he STILL makes it up to change the blade for the helicarrier. and when the helicarrier is crashing, he stILL has enough strength to move a steel beam off bucky. and then he SITS THERE AND GETS PUNCHED REPEATEDLY IN THE FACE BY A METAL HAND. this is the first time we really see steve rogers bleed in this movie. the first time we really see how exhausted and worn down he must be. THE FIRST TIME in TWO HOURS–after multiple battles and running away and fatigue and villains.
but even as he bleeds, he lives. he’s alive. conscious. TALKING. as a viewer, at this point, i was just like–how much can steve take??? how much MORE??? and it seemed that steve would keep answering me with “i could do this all day!”
except then he falls into the potomac. but EVEN THEN we don’t see him get mouth to mouth. we see bucky drag him to shore and leave and steve’s breathing on his own. his lungs are EXPELLING THE WATER IN A THIN STREAM OUT OF HIS MOUTH. steve is literally defying everything i know about drowning and breathing in this scene. his body 😦 so magic 😦
given all this, the fact that one of the last scenes of the movie was steve in a hospital…it feels right. it feels like we finally get to see steve slow the hell down and take CARE of himself. it feels like there was a natural culmination to all that getting beat up and beating other people up, and it’s there in that hospital bed, waking up with his wounds not yet healed, showing that as superhuman as he is, even he has some limits.
but those limits are pretty well fucking beyond most powered humans, imo. and that’s another reason i love steve rogers.
I will never tire of remembering things I love about Leverage but my fave are these:
Parker and Sophie’s dynamic : It honestly floored me how there was never a stereotypical or negative dynamic between these two. They were always supportive of each other, tried to understand each other, and honestly were a healthy friendship. Finding that without it being made into something outlier or strange is rare sometimes in shows, at least with this consistency.
Alec Hardison and his importance to the team : Even though it was Nate who formed the team, it was Hardison who brought them together with a proper place to be, not just once. He is cool but also emotional when needs come, allowed to be nervous, allowed to have hobbies and be so much more than a ‘typical’ geek, especially a black man playing a tech whiz, could be stereotyped as. Alec is the one who buys a pub and brews his own beer, gets excited over lasers in cooking, complains about things people would do in certain situations like insane stakeouts. He isn’t a crusader, isn’t representative of any mission, and isn’t an ideal. A human character and a great one at it.
Sophie Devereaux and identity issues: Right from the start we are told that Sophie has identity twists. She is not who she shows in terms of her official name or identity. But this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t show her character to her group. She is open about her fears and love but is allowed her secrets. When Nate asks for her name she says he has to earn it, which is such a wonderful moment because it shows the balance in their dynamics. Her name matters to her and her group respects it. Even when he proposes, Nate doesn’t use her real name because that is a secret but he is proposing to her and that is all that matters to both of them. It showed people and secrets and the importance of respecting those.
Parker and romance + intimacy : Again, this is shown right from the first episode. While Eliot and Nate are baffled by her in the beginning, and even Sophie is, the show never once makes us think that Parker is ‘abnormal’ for having intimacy or emotional issues. Instead it shows the others learning to communicate with her and building their own ways to connect with her while her growing to understand their communicative styles too. Especially when Hardison and Parker show prospects of dating, Hardison is shown to learn her thought process and he is happy to learn but it’s not seen as something absurd. Parker learns about Hardison’s likes too and they share their likes by being interested and genuinely liking in each other’s company. Parker is an orphan who has been through abusive foster homes and never once does the group call her out badly on it or make her feel uncomfortable for it.
Nate’s alcoholism : The very first shot of the show is Nate getting a drink while a guy comes to offer him a job and manipulates him emotionally using his son’s death. Talk about a brilliant opening setting, because this is his entire history set within the first 5 minutes. Nate is an alcoholic and has deep trauma from his son’s death along with a lot of impulsive guilt inspired reactions. He is the leader of this group of cons. He is called out every single time he screws up but not mockingly about his past but more in frustration about his lack of taking help. There is an entire episode where a con is planned in a rehab centre and it backfires because Nate is shown to have a breakdown when he is withheld from alcohol. His issues are highlighted and he doesn’t get into a serious romantic relationship without understanding that he should work on them. Alcohol is not glorified here and being an alcoholic is not shown as mysterious or hot. He goes to frickin jail because he fails to get things under control and the show doesn’t shy out from that.
Eliot and Cooking: How many times do you find this trope where a Manly Man™ guy loves cooking but still doesn’t get shown to be compromised from his role as a Hitter? Eliot is a guy who hits but he does not have anger issues. He does not seek violence. He does not like guns. He loves cooking and is serious about it. He is the guy who had issues with being a team in the first episode and he is also the guy who would do anything to protect his team. He’s the nurturer of this team who feeds them and is loyal to the core. His cooking has a past too and that rocks because he learnt it from someone he was supposed to target. It is his calming mechanism. This is a Hitter who would make a beautiful dish because he likes it and still beat someone if they hurt others. It’s not one or the other, it’s both.
Maggie, Tara, and every woman who played a supporting cast: Maggie is the ex-wife of Nate who is NEVER shown to be jealous or weird around Sophie. She doesn’t get back together with Nate or regret things but she also deeply cares for him. She is successful, has her own principles, and also helps this group con for revenge when she wanted to. Tara is a Grifter who is brought in when Sophie takes a break. She is thought to be a replacement and everybody hates her at first because they miss Sophie but they grow to respect and like her for WHO SHE IS and not for how she fills Sophie’s role. It’s not a replacement, as they realize. It’s a change and she brings her own dynamic with it. There are so many more like Ana who helped Parker when she had a broken leg, every single female client they had, Peggy who became Parker’s first friend outside the group and was starkly different. This show never made every woman the same because *gasp* they are not.
From hurt the bad to help the good: Usually this concept remains of hurting bad people and Leverage does do that. But the team grows and their motto shifts too. They grow from hurting bad people to helping the good and both go hand in hand for them. It’s not just about removing the problem but also about finding the solution for them.
It’s Personal: The group has one of the best team dynamics I have ever seen and it’s not just because they work well together. It’s also because they work with and for each other too. Each person has had personal cases on the show and even when the team thinks twice on certain things, they respect that personal aspect. The show portrayed the idea of ‘I might not think the same way you do or make the same choices but I understand why you make them and I respect you’ with beautiful ideas. Be it Parker with Luka and the orphans in Russia or Eliot and the horse job; the team gives each other the benefit of doubt and trust when needed.
Platonic relationships: I cannot tell you how much I love the platonic relationships of this show. Be it the parents-wards bond of Nate+Sophie and the others or the Eliot-Hardison-Parker dynamic which I know many people see as Ot3 (highly possible); every platonic bond is valuable and no single character is graced higher.
Plot: Last but not the least, the plot. It came a full circle. The show finished its plots and had continuity of arcs. They started because Nate pushed them to find compensation for the past and the show ended with Nate pushing them to find their resource for the future. Every single character came a full circle by the end and we see growth in them.
I honestly wish we had more episodes of this show but I am really happy that we got what we did. To Leverage – the show that told that good is not who you are but what you do and choose.
you should totally rewatch the first movie and pay close attention to what Steve’s face does. Or doesn’t do. Because Steve is not a puppy dog, Steve does not wear his heart on his sleeve, Steve is still and steady and tries so very hard not to be easy to read because Steve’s life is pain he cannot share for fear of having his personhood literally revoked. Steve is stand-offish. Steve sees that you’re angry with him and flatly makes light of what he’s doing that’s pissing you off. Steve will give one-word answers to shut you down. Steve doesn’t meet your eyes until he’s finished speaking. Steve rarely smiles and when he does, they’re rarely bright–they’re small and mostly in the crinkle of his eyes and god forbid you make him smile when you’re arguing with him because then they’re sharp and bitter just like his laughter.
Steve Rogers starts fights. Steve Rogers lies to your face. Steve Rogers stands as straight as he can with his crooked spine because he refuses to let you assume he can’t. Steve Rogers is not a golden retriever, he is a sickly, pissy little cat who will bite the shit out of you for trying to pet him.
I need to talk about the fact that Bucky’s still got his right hand 100% free and could be punching Spider Man into next Tuesday already. But he still stood frozen, looking shocked as all fucks and lemme tell you right now that that was not because someone’s managed to block his metal fist because lbr the metal arm was never unstoppable before, especially when super-enhanced/-equipped people are involved – so basically he doesn’t take that punch cus he’s actually just now able to hear the other guy’s voice and it clicks that this is just a fucking k i d
yknow what makes me emotional? that when Hippolyta gives Diana Antiope’s tiara she says “Make sure you are worthy of it” and Diana doesnt put it on (just like she doesnt let her hair down) up until she is going to go up the trench and like???? thats poetic cinema right fucking there my guys, Diana put on the tiara because she is basically the product of Hippolyta’s righteousness and Antiope’s fearlessness in battle, she put on the tiara because she feels like helping humanity and saving these people makes her worthy of it.
finally a powerful woman is powerful because of the *love women have given her* and the things women have taught her – after freaking decades of “i was raised by a single father and 15 rowdy brothers!” and other narrative conceits entered on men being the explanation for a woman’s power
“I was raised by my 700 warrior mothers” is a much better narrative.
“listen… harry’s in trouble, and we could tell mum and dad, but I reckon we should just steal the flying car and go kidnap him in his muggle neighborhood, even though I’m 12 and you’re both 14 and this is a crime and the three of us cant drive”
“excellent”
This is bullshit.
Nobody in Harry’s life – no ADULT – ever did anything about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. Nobody did anything when they were told he was being starved, that there were bars on the windows, that they. Albus Fucking Dumbledore didn’t do anything about it.
Nobody in canon, or JKR herself in interviews or on Pottermore, even uses the word “abuse”. It’s all about how “the Durlseys treated him badly”. Nobody says abuse.
What Ron, Fred, and George did was nothing short of heroic. That they needed to do it is an indictment of every adult in Harry’s life, magical and non-magical alike.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower Need some back-up here because I’m hitting that point of “I want to set something on fire.”
I thought you did a pretty good job, actually. Even when adults are told about the conditions Harry was found in (literally IMPRISONED: remember, folks, the Dursleys were not going to let him go back to Hogwarts in book 2) nobody does anything. Nobody acts on the fact that a family literally imprisoned a child.
Someone I used to follow on LJ/DW was literally imprisoned by their parent. Nobody ever did anything. No one would believe them when they told other adults. No one wanted to believe it.
This shit happens and adults do nothing because it might interfere with their worldview that everything is just fuckin’ peachy…or someone in *power* that they respect/fear has told them not to interfere for the good of some cause/reason or another. That is one of the most terrifyingly realistic aspects of JKR’s books, but it’s glossed over by everyone who doesn’t believe that could ever possibly happen in real life.
And hey: there is more than one way to imprison someone.
(Aside from the fact that my mother locked the door and literally stood in front of it in an attempt to keep me from leaving the house once. Afterwards she pretended it had never happened.)
JK is actually on record (a radio interview, I think, but don’t quote me) as saying she doesn’t think the way Harry was treated by the Dursley’s was abuse.
That was the moment I lost all respect for her.
I do not care that she donated millions to charity, I care that she clearly thinks starvation and swinging a frying pan at a child’s head is an okay thing to do. That it’s okay to put bars on a child’s window to keep them in, and bolts the door shut.
@jabberwockypie Now I feel like setting something on fire too. *passes the chocolate and marshmallows*
Just … *SCREAMING* So. Much. Screaming and FIRE.
See, when I learn things like this, I also become somewhat Concerned about the person’s children. (Jude Watson has a daughter and considering the Jedi Apprentice stuff, I’m ALSO worried there.)
Do I think JKR would lock her kids in their rooms with bars on the window? Probably not, but if you’re not willing to admit that withholding food and is abuse, if you’re not willing to address emotional abuse and gaslighting AT ALL, trying to make a child hate themselves (like with what the Dursleys do with magic). I’m extremely concerned about what you think appropriate parenting looks like.
Frankly I also think it’s extremely irresponsible when your intended audience consists of children and teenagers. At some point somebody needs to say “This thing that happened to this character was wrong”. Because children who are being abused? we don’t KNOW. Or we don’t necessarily process it that way. It’s “not that bad” or it’s “It’s not like they’re beating me.” and every time it gets worse (the time my mother gave me a black eye), you move the goalposts of Not That Bad “It’s not like it’s ALL THE TIME”.
knitting in the dark 