I think my favourite part of the Thor trilogy is how at the end of dark world we saw this
And we all just went “OH SHIT!!! LOKI’S KING!!! EVERYONE’S FUCKED!!!” But then Ragnarok rolled around and it turns out all he does is
Watch plays of himself and
Build big statues like hot damn the avengers really wasted a whole movie tryna stop this bitch when they could have just written him a play and built him a statue and he would’ve been satisfied
He also built rails on the bridge so people would stop falling off of it.
All the man wants is some entertainment and basic safety.
The biggest problem with every single bad review of Captain Marvel coming from a man is that none of them seem to comprehend a narrative that isn’t meant for them.
They see Carol finally breaking free from being gaslighted by the Kree as “emotionally underwhelming,” never realizing that a climactic, emotional showdown with her abuser would be giving him exactly what he wants. Being in control of her emotions? Choosing not to react to a provocation? That’s strength most male comic fans don’t understand. They see masculine-coded strength as the only kind of valid strength. Carol not being angry and putting Yon-Rogg down in a shonen-esque battle doesn’t make sense to them because it’s not what they would have done.
They see a woman struggling to work through lies she’d been told as “bad narrative structure,” when in reality the movie was never about building Carol up from nothing, but about her realizing her true potential through seeing past those lies. Carol’s character arc parallels many women attaining social consciousness, throwing off patriarchal lies they’d been conditioned to accept about who they are and what they can do. Her strength isn’t about attaining power, but about embracing her true potential that had been deliberately hidden from her.
They see Carol’s emotions not lining up with the lies her abusers told her about being too emoional as “bad writing” or “bad acting,” never realizing that that was exactly the point. They only understand defiance as impassioned, outward battles of will and pride, not understanding that quiet, steadfast refusal to bend to others’ designs of who you should be is strength too.
Brie Larson was absolutely right. Carol’s story is not for men. And nothing proves that more than all the fanboys who didn’t understand it throwing fits on the internet.
“Jeez dude, what’s wrong? I haven’t seen you so mad since… ever, actually.”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You’re making an angry face.”
“Yeah ha ha, last week I marched over to my neighbor’s house to tell him to turn the music down or I’d slash his tires. I accidentally dropped my Emote Remote™️ into a puddle on the way over… I’ve got it sitting in a bag of dry rice but I think it’s really broken this time.”
“Aw, shit, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I’vd got resting murder face until I get a new one.”
Today I got curious about nutmeg and wound up learning something I never would have expected: it looks Incredibly Cursed™️ when raw!
The outside fruit is normal enough, but the nutmeg seed itself is encased in this strange scarlet webbing, called the aril, and looks exactly like the demon-infected heart of a video game monster. That haunted webbing is the source of mace, an apparently common spice that I have literally never heard of but which is the source of the classic doughnut flavor, among other things. (It’s not related to the self-defense aerosol.)
I think most people know you can also get balls high off freshly-ground nutmeg and possibly die after the absolute worst trip imaginable, potentially lasting several days.
So, that’s fun! Doughnuts are flavored with Deeply Cursed Monster Hearts and I find this utterly delightful.
ALARMING! I love it!
When I took a trip to Dominica, a cab driver once spontaneously pulled over to the side of the road, hopped out of the car, ran off into the bushes, and returned carrying a handful of fruit.
“I bet you don’t know what this is!” he said excitedly as he split one open.
He was right, I definitely did not.
(He also did this with several other fruits and vegetables–apparently one of his major sources of amusement was how few foods Americans can actually recognize in their natural state.)
Why do you get high off freshly ground nutmeg but not like, the stuff you buy in stores?
I think you can get high off old, pre-ground nutmeg, but the active chemical myristicin might be more potent in freshly-ground nutmeg and require you to eat less of it. It’s an insoluable dry powder, so eating large amounts of nutmeg is difficult to begin with.
That said, it’s apparently the Worst High Imaginable with a long, uncomfortable hangover.
And here I thought we could go without romanticizing one more white male villain smh
I would argue there is a difference between acknowledging that a character is a fantastic, multifaceted villain and romanticizing them.
Pierce is cold. He is calculating. He knows how to manipulate people into doing what he wants. He’s not afraid to use pawns and sacrifice them accordingly. God, he is an awful person. A terrible one. He’s an abuser and unapologetic and willing to take out millions of people for his vision, however fucked up that vision is, of the greater good.
Recognizing that he is one of the most terrifying villains that marvel has rolled out with does not equal romanticizing him. He’s the kind of evil that creeps up without you noticing and by the time you do it’s too late. He’s smiling as he stabs you in the back. Pierce is important because he’s the bad guy who can actually exist in the world today. There aren’t people building giant robots, there aren’t Norse gods or nazis peeling their faces off. What there are in this world are politicians in positions of power who abuse that power and nothing is more dangerous than that.
Those tags are great because if you go against Pierce in a battle of wits you WILL NOT WIN. Plain and simple. Literally the only way to stop him was pure force.
TLDR – pierce is a despicable human being but recognizing why and how he is an excellent villain for this day and age does not equal romanticizing him.
I actually just used the wrong word, I meant glorifying not romanticizing
I’d still argue though that he’s not being glorified? Everything within the post is canon.
I think everything you need to know about Pierce is in the line “the man turned down a Nobel Peace Prize.” He had literally everyone so fooled that not even NICK FURY suspected him until far too late. I’m not trying to put Pierce on a pedestal or anything like that, but he was winning at a game that no one else even knew they were playing.
Like I hate Pierce. I HATE him. Like I said, he is an abuser and a terrorist and a terrible person. But Talking about his effectiveness as a villain in context of a movie still doesn’t equal glorifying him.
For a villain to be effective, they must be the hero of their own story.
THAT’s what makes a good villain. THAT’s what makes a villain terrifying. THAT’s what makes Pierce terrifying. Because Pierce is the best villain Marvel has given us because he is real. He’s in congress; he’s leading our troops; he’s in the Senate; he’s sitting in the UN; he’s at the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation and he’s drafting laws and hey, did we forget that we already have a project insight? Because what’s the difference between the helicarriers and drones?
What makes CA: TWS such an amazing piece of storytelling is that it is absolutely a sociopolitical thriller disguised as a superhero movie. And if Pierce wasn’t the cold, smart, dispassionate, well-spoken, insidious bastard that he is, he wouldn’t be nowhere as effective. Even after Steve gives his passionate speech at the Triskelion, even when the World Security Council turns against him, Pierce still thinks he can win by spinning things his way. He absolutely believes he’s doing this for the greater good. No villain worth his screen time ever looks at the things they do and thinks ‘ah yes I am such a terrible person, doing these evil, awful and morally wrong things.’ Every single villain must absolutely think they are absolutely in the right, and the hero is their villain. Or they become stereotypes and caricatures.
Discussing the type of villain Pierce is has nothing to do with glorifying him or romanticizing him. It has everything to do with recognizing the Russos’ clever, brilliant writing, which shows us that real, true evil doesn’t need to have a red skull or an army of chitauri. Real evil exists, we are steeped in it, and we don’t even fucking know it until it’s too late.
also, don’t think for ONE INSTANT that casting Robert motherfucking Redford — All-American roguish Good (white, blond, CLONE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA) Guy Robert Redford — wasn’t possibly the most deliberate casting choice made in this movie. Robert Redford is a Good Guy, and you know it. How do you know? Why, just look at him! Look at his blond good looks! Look at his nice suit! Look how perfectly uber-American and…and…and he just LOOKS like he should be in charge, um, because he’s so. White. And Perfect. And. Rich. And uber-American and…we let those kinds of people get anything they want…oh.
whoops.
Reblogging for commentary.
Alexander Pierce really is the absolute best villain Marvel’s done to date, and could well be the best they’ll every do, because of this. He’s utterly terrifying, and hits far too close to home.
All of this — I love Alexander Pierce, in the sense that I fear and loathe him: He is the real deal; he is the kind of person you do find in glass-and-steel high-rises, in backrooms of clubs with panels of dark wood, in all the exclusive places where powerful people gather. Because these people, these people are still mostly older white men with the “right” kind of origin story and, yes, looks. Not to mention the whole meta commentary of casting Robert freakin’ Redford: this idea of, beyond the sheer acting, of what he can evoke in others. Someone else commented that had Captain America been made almost fifty years ago, this would have been Steve Rogers.
The thing that works about him, really, is that he’s like the villains we have in real life America. Slick and wealthy and powerful and white.
Making Robert Redford the villain was possibly the most terrifying casting choice because he is usually Mister Hero, or at least not a bad guy. And You can’t really go into this movie without knowing at least a little who he is (or like me both on & off screen) and that plays into your expectations of his character. And then his villainous aspects just hit that much harder, and you realize that (to quote above) it is absolutely a sociopolitical thriller disguised as a superhero movie.
I think Pierce is terrible, he is clearly irredeemable, and I think his ending was the only way to take him out of play. I love how he was portrayed, but not him.
Iocane Powder: keep the MSDS on file and know the precautions
But this file is incomplete – I need to know the LD-50 (average lethal dose, in mg/kg body weight). In at least one instance a person has spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder, so clearly a small dose is survivable.
