My Endgame thoughts are still all over the place, but this is one I really want to set down and organize before it gets lost in the haze of memory and oh-shit-I-have-a-term-paper-due Sunday.

One of the things that, upon reflection, intrigued me was how all of the Avengers were depicted at the five year mark. The choices were at times incredibly insightful and, in at least one case, incredibly misguided. The insight might have been unintentional, but...
( for length )

I saw it last night, have some thoughts that will be burped out in random order as I organize them. Starting with the end of the movie first:

( here be spoilers )

I have not written anything but grad school assignments in forever, so excuse the rust....

Particle of Light

Maria Rambeau, Carol Danvers
1400 words; gen

( Maria Rambeau's life does not return to the status quo ante after Carol flies off )

Originally posted on the tumblr, but...

* We’re getting Spectrum/Pulsar/WhateverMonica’sCallingHerselfThisWeek in Phase 4. We have to be. You don’t do what they did to set her up like that without doing it. And I am here for it.

* Also for Maria, who was the heart of this movie. She should come back, too.

* I was so happy to see Kelly Sue DeConnick make a cameo (she’s the magenta-headed lady who gives Vers a look in the LA subway near the beginning) because she’s as important to this movie’s existence as Ed Brubaker was to Captain America: the Winter Soldier and he got a cameo for it there.

* The opening credit tribute to Stan Lee was lovely.

* Brie Larson was really, really good. I was not sold on her casting, even after they said the movie was taking place in the 1990s, but she was fabulous.

* This movie was built on banter and I loved all of it.

* Thank christmas there was no love interest. There was a lot of love in this movie, more than usual for an MCU movie, but it was all of the good kinds that don’t involve eros. Love in this movie deserves a more thorough treatment because it drives everything that happens.

* OMG, Goose.

* I am exactly the right age to desperately want the soundtrack. And to laugh at the aliens being gob-smacked at our computers.

( a little bit of spoilery stuff below: )

* The Spider-Man: Far From Home international trailer (which apparently has a few extra bits than the US version -- Eurominutes?) Which looks well enough, although a pal thought there was something off and disjointed about it. My response was that you have to remember that the movie (1) has to pretend that Peter did not have the most dramatic death scene in Infinity War and yet is alive now in a movie that is in MCU continuity as after it and (2) comes out three weeks after Endgame and cannot spoil anything apart from the fact that Peter's not dead anymore. There's only so many scenes they can pick and choose from. 


* I am so chuffed that the cat in the Captain Marvel trailer, the one that Fury's so fond of, gets a one-sheet. And that his(?) name is Goose. Because of course it is. 


* People give me strange looks when I tell them that The Flintstones was possibly the best comic I read last year. They are possibly going to give me strange looks in 2019 as well because I just got my hands on Volume 2 and I'm even more in love. 




Saying that it's the Flintstones fanfic you never knew you wanted is deeply underselling it. It works so well because Russell goes all-in and what comes out is an ingenious combination of razor-sharp social satire and life-affirming faith in humanity that even the best TV sitcoms can hardly reach. It never loses the goofiness of the cartoon or the surreality of television co-existing with saber-tooth tigers, but it also takes itself completely seriously and that makes everyone pop as people instead of just as sitcom characters. Fred has some post-war trauma issues, Wilma is figuring out how to follow her dream... and the appliances talk to each other after the humans have gone to bed. The appliances possibly have the best arc in this volume, certainly the most deeply-felt, but the humans do pretty well here, too. There's an alien thing happening that sounds like it could be series-killing awful but turns out brilliantly (hey, Dino!) and there's a story about faith -- and faith and science -- that does not go anywhere you think it's going to go. Also a history of economics that doesn't quite become the broadside on capitalism that it appears to be, plus a sharp satire on consumerism (a recurring theme.) There's a parable about domestication. And Carl Sagan and Werner Herzog and Tony Danza are in it. What more do you need? 

* Over on the tumblr, I posted a link to an article that confirms (from Feige's mouth) that pretty much all of the Avengers: Endgame trailers/teasers/clips will be coming from the first fifteen or so minutes of the movie. So in addition to the usual context-free and intentionally-wrong stuff, we're working with nothing. Something to keep in mind as the ramp-up begins.


* Someone gifted something called Dreamwidth Points to me and I keep meaning to say thank you to my anonymous donor, but then forget because I haven't had much else to say to make a post. Also, I had to look up what they were. But! Thank you, Anonymous, for the gift and I shall make use of it now that I know what they do. :)


* Holy carp and other religious fish, my hockey team is in a funk. Eighteen goals in seven periods the Rangers gave up. EIGHTEEN! That is a lot and that's terrible. They're not supposed to be very good, but when they put in effort they can sort of fake mediocre and recently they haven't even managed that.


* I am officially back in school, getting stuff graded and everything. I'm on the bunny hill right now and the semester starts for real in a few weeks, but... school! I am not worried about the material very much, but what has become quickly apparent is that I have a bit of work to do to learn how to be a student in the 21st Century. I finished my first masters in 2001 and I wrote the exams for that longhand. Things have changed a little since then. I am going to finally have to learn Powerpoint and conferencing software and figure out how all of these new research tools work. The first go-round, if I wanted to strip-mine an article for citations, I had to sit there with a pen and paper and transcribe them upon encounter. Now, all I have to do is click. It's a brave new world, I'm telling you.

Growing up means you can sit at home on NYE with your hockey and your hot toddy and your pile of tissues and not feel like you're missing out. (Except on the two-working-nostrils thing. That I'm resenting.)

A drabble, for values of drabble that are whatever I say they are. Post-CA:CW, pre-IW. In my head it's a POV shift for Buratino, but it's completely canon compliant, so that's optional.

Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova; 700 words that probably don't need a cut

( Orpheus but with better impulse control )

Happy New Year, folks.

I don't get sick often -- major stuff, yes, but I don't really catch cold at a rate commensurate with my cramped exposure to other humans on the NYC subways. I'm sick now, however, and I (for values of the person behind DMZ) have had an utterly devastating week otherwise, so... frivolity it is.


* Infinity War was trending on twitter the other day and apparently it was because it went up on Netflix. I'm all set to watch Steve's five minutes of screen time once I finish the current season of GBBO. 


* I have been getting a ton (for me) comments on Maqqaba over the last fortnight and I know it wasn't because I put it on tumblr. So, whoever it was that recced it and sent people who comment my way, you have my earnest gratitude. Especially because it's Yuletide season and most folks are off reading that.


*Speaking of reading:



(L) I have a graduate degree in history of science and technology and a love of food, so this book was pretty much written for me. So far, it's a lot of fun. It's broad rather than deep -- considering much more than the fork rather than just the fork -- but I don't think that's a problem here. It's a social history more than a history of product design (although that gets covered, too) and rightly addresses class and gender issues as part of the tale. For example, smooth and finely textured food has gone from aristocratic fare (they were the ones with the laborers to pound something for hours) to proletarian (enter the food processor!) while 'rustic' and textured food has become fancy because now it's what proves the human labor that is the actual valued bit. Also the fun stuff, like how eating eating meals with a fork was at best odd and at worst a sign of moral deviancy until fairly recently.

(R) The actual mystery's a bit of a let-down for the way it resolves because it's pretty good until that point, but it's really a terrific depiction and exploration of a particular time and place and the way it addresses race and racism from all perspectives and how very clearly cut it was not. Who associates with whom and why and how and a pointed exploration of 'passing' and what comes with it, both the privileges and the price. But it's not a lecture or a harangue, it's a story and one worth reading.


* What're you all up to?

So I went over to Tumblr and my dash has plenty of stuff on it, but no fannish content at all. It's like Garfield minus Garfield over there. It's very odd. I mean, my dash is all sophisticated and cultured now, but that's not why I went on there in the first place.

Also, belated greetings to everyone who has followed me in the last few days. Welcome and feel free to (re)-introduce yourself. :)

The Cloying Fantasia of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

I really wanted to love this show because, like Nussbaum, it's squarely up my alley. I had to overcome a few quibbles to be charmed by the pilot -- is pretty Irish girl Brosnahan the best they could do for an Ashkenazi Jew? Why the hell is Midge (a) a regular at a butcher shop that sells pork and (b) why is she going there to get High Holiday food... to serve a rabbi?!? -- but I just kept noticing more things that annoyed me. And Midge being a Mary Sue eventually got to be too much for me.

The show was recced to me by a good friend and I passed the rec on to my BFF, who loves it a lot. So I just sort of stopped watching without explaining why because I didn't want to harsh anyone else's squee and because I thought I was just being a sourpuss. But apparently I'm not the only one, so here I am, letting my squeekiller flag fly.

I know that, according to the 'how to return to DW blogging' manual going around, I am not supposed to confuse readers by bringing up multiple topics, but you are all wise and intelligent souls who are fully aware that I will think no less of you for choosing to reply to one (or more) topic and ignoring the rest. Also, I'm contrary and don't take direction well and never read the manual first. 


* Over on tumblr, I reposted a link to this hilarious article about an utterly insane movie and I think y'all should read about it, too: An Important Discussion About ‘Pottersville,’ The Weirdest Christmas Movie Ever. Because: 



* Uproxx's discussions on batshit movies are generally worth reading, evidence the second: An Important Discussion About John Travolta’s Speedboat Movie, ‘Speed Kills’ . 


* On a completely different note... I debated not posting this link because I try to keep politics out of my fannish space and I have less than zero interest in discussing it with anyone. But I also do believe that it's worth reading because it does provoke thought. Once upon a time, I canceled my The Atlantic subscription because of Andrew Sullivan's idiotic conspiracy theories about Sarah Palin's baby, so he always gets a big asterisk from me. And yet. Note that this is from the same magazine that posted the Jonas Brothers stanning earlier in the week. 


* I got most of the way through Chanukah before I remembered (a) that I wrote Chanukah fic and (b) there is no law about reminding folks about it. It's Peggy Carter and the SSR, ftr. 


* While on the topic of the MCU: there has been discussion about the moment in the Avengers: Endgame trailer that shows the compass with Peggy's picture in it, last seen on the control panel of the Valkyrie as it went into the North Sea in the first CA movie. It would seem to be a giant flaming callback to the first time Steve attempted suicide for the good of the many and the indication that he is about to do it again at that moment, but I would like to suggest that it is not and is instead a giant red herring. Which does not mean that Steve is not gonna die by the end of the movie, but more that it's not then and not there. My reasons: (1) Marvel has never, ever played the teasers and trailers so straightforwardly and, in fact, they do enjoy throwing in comics and movie callbacks that are completely bait-y to throw everyone off. They thrill to it. (2) Skip ahead to the 1:39 mark, right after Clint's debut as Ronin, which is when the compass appears. Steve and Natasha... and then there's a cut to the hand with the watch. It's not from the same scene, or it's from a different part of the same scene, or it's not Steve's hand at all. There's a limited number of other people whose hand it could be if you count the white dudes with regular left arms who'd be wearing fingerless tactical gloves, I know. But, but...  (3) The picture of Peggy in that compass is made of newsprint. It went into the water in 1945. It's looking awfully good considering. I know Marvel is shit with prop details, so this might be yet another oversight on the long list, but.... maybe it's not. 


* Is there anything else we should be talking about? I leave it up to you. 

So the great Tumblr shenanigans have sent us all back here. Good. I've never posted anything naughty over at tumblr, but they don't think so, flagging two of my Veterans Day posts. 

Other things: 

* The Captain Marvel trailer released tonight. There's rumor that we get an Avengers 4 teaser later this week. 

* I discovered Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat on Netflix last night and I'm enraptured. Simin is the best. Such love for what she's doing and eating and learning and there's nothing precious or performative about it. It's just a gal going around learning about food, mostly by talking to other women. 

I've asked NYPL to get the ebook, but they think I nag them because they tell me I suggest too many things. 


* This is what NYPL did give me: 


These are both worth reading, I think. The Black Plague novel is a page-turner because it's essentially a zombie movie and you genuinely fear for some of the characters' survival. It does a brilliant job of worldbuilding and scene-setting and portraying how small a serf's world was, physically and socially. It's also completely anachronistic inasfar as Lady Anne is a completely modern 20th Century woman who just happens to have been born in 1319 -- she has modern notions of hygiene and literacy and egalitarianism and a few Catholic heresies to boot. You'll like her a lot anyway. Lady Eleanor is a comic book character in the worst ways and you won't like her long before the unfortunate last twist. Thaddeus is the one who'd have the most fanfic on AO3. It's part one of two and I would like to read the two. 

Norton's history of women's exactly that, but a good one because it utilizes women of all classes and circumstances to paint a full picture of what it meant to be a Sixteenth Century woman in England. 

 

Buratino

31k words | Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Shuri, T’Challa, Ramonda, and a lot of cameos and OCs.

summary: Bucky Barnes is still tangled in his puppet strings even though he’s free. 

The hand is still pretty far down the line, however, and there are a lot of challenges to conquer before he can even consider it. The next day is his first surgery – surgeries – as the Wakandan doctors will have a go at both of his shoulders. He’s fine right until he’s not and Steve is there when that happens. So is Shuri, who doesn’t understand the nature of his terror, but is very sure that talking him through it will help.

“Knowledge is power,” she tells him as they sit next to a giant machine that looks more like a carnival ride than a medical tool with its vivid colors and wild designs along the sides. “Let me show you how we do things here in Wakanda.”

She makes Steve get inside the machine and then brings up a 3D sand image of his body that Bucky is allowed to touch. 

“I’m poking you in the head,” he tells Steve, who cannot see a thing stuffed into the machine as he is. “Maybe now you’ll make sense.”

The sand image flips him the bird and Shuri’s laughter echoes around the room.

NO SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR.

780 words, none of them naughty.
[also at ao3]

( Bucky is canonically a happy dude, not a moper )