Mad Genius Loves Loki

Iron Man 3

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:46:36 -0400

It all came together for me this time, the whole movie, its theme and message.

I mean, of course it’s about Tony no longer using the suits as a crutch and dealing with his issues more directly. But I see now how the thread runs through the whole film.

Strangely enough, it all came into focus because the first time I saw it, some of Tony’s dialogue reminded me of House, M. D. and when I saw it the second time, I wanted to focus on whether that was a consistent style change, or if it had to do with the character’s state more than the writing.

What I noticed is that, leaving out the narration and strictly focusing on dialogue, he’s the same old Tony for the first part of the movie; actually during most of it. The parts that remind me most of House are between two distinct points: when Tony loses the use of his suit and Jarvis, and when he snaps out of it and realizes he can build more things.

That makes sense, because that’s when he’s feeling the most crippled; he feels that the suit is part of himself, and that it has been taken away, and he can’t function without it.

That brought to mind a word that was brought up in IM2, jokingly at the time, but now seems thoroughly appropriate: prosthesis.

The armor is a high-tech prosthesis, something that makes up for all that Tony feels that he lacks, something that allows him to do what he feels he should have been able to do in the first place.

And of course with that in mind, the whole movie snaps into place. It’s about the mindset of being crippled. The idea that you can’t function without this thing that’s missing from your life, that there is no way to help yourself except to get it back.

With those who have taken Extremis voluntarily, it’s a much more literal picture - Aldritch Killian would do anything to get back the use of his leg; several of the test subjects were missing limbs or otherwise missing physical function.

And everyone with this mentality, everyone who is focused on acquiring the one thing they perceive themselves to lack to the exclusion of all else, is setting themselves up for a hell of a fall when the price they pay for that one thing is their sanity, or their soul.

Tony is going to pay his sanity just to get his suit back when he is made to realize that he can function, he can be useful, and can even be a hero, even without his suit. That his mind and his abilities are what make him who he is, not any one object, or even set of objects, that he owns.

When I realized how strongly the movie makes this parallel between Tony seeing the armor as a part of himself and feeling helpless without it, and people who are actually missing parts of their bodies, I did some quick research into the effects amputation can have on people mentally.

I read about learned helplessness, a type of depression in which a person has come to believe that nothing they ever do will help them to improve their own life. When someone sees enough negative things happen that they have no way of stopping, eventually they lose the will to even try to have an effect on events.

Tony deals with something like this in all three movies; he has trouble believing that he has the ability to make positive things happen, because there were so many negative things he just failed to stop. In all three movies, he needs someone to snap him out of it and remind him that he can change things.

In IM3, we also see learned helplessness in action on a political level. Because the Mandarin is a fraud, a coverup and a distraction, there is no way to use him to stop the explosions he takes credit for. Because the Mandarin does not actually want anything from the President, there is no way the President can stop him from shooting that random accountant.

The Mandarin may have speeches about the lessons he wants to teach the world and the American government, but all he is really teaching is helplessness. “There is something wrong with you and your culture,” is the gist of his message. “There is something fundamental you lack that keeps you from saving these people, but there is nothing you can do to change that.” The reason that the Mandarin exists is to focus attention on the one thing that the authorities will never be able to do - find the Mandarin, and figure out why he keeps blowing things up.

He’s a distraction, to keep people from looking at what else could be causing the explosions, and solving the puzzle.

So on multiple levels, the whole movie is built around the idea that if you’re overly focused on getting one thing that you feel will make your life worthwhile, you can end up losing sight of all the other things that are important. Sometimes you just have to let go of that goal, and look for other solutions that maybe aren’t so obvious.

Tony’s rebirth as the Mechanic is about letting go of that prosthetic, that idea that he needs the suit in order to be a whole being.

mjwatson: #HERE HAVE THE ‘MINDLESS BEAST’ JUMPING INTO THE AIR...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:21:54 -0400

mjwatson:

#HERE HAVE THE ‘MINDLESS BEAST’ JUMPING INTO THE AIR AND CLINGING TO A MOTHERFUCKING BUILDING TO SAVE THE ONLY PERSON WHO BELIEVED IN HIM!!!!!!!!!!!! #help feels

brucedoesmath: slydig: tsarbucks: slydig: dont be mean be median or mode damn math fandom...

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:37:00 -0400

brucedoesmath:

slydig:

tsarbucks:

slydig:

dont be mean

be median or mode

damn math fandom bloggers

Pepper Potts

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:13:31 -0400

roseapprentice:

Major IM3 Spoiler:

Read More

fyeahadigranov: Iron Man 3 Concept art by Adi Granov

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:11:04 -0400

fyeahadigranov:

Iron Man 3

Concept art by Adi Granov

burdenedwithgloriousassbutt: Tom Hiddleston on Loki You know...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:58:37 -0400

burdenedwithgloriousassbutt:

Tom Hiddleston on Loki

You know one of the things I love about Tom Hiddleston? Sometimes Tom is all like :

“He is a combination of mercurial intellectual ability, emotional ambiguity, charisma and provocative wit. He has a wicked inclination to mischief, underneath which is a well of spiritual pain. Both these aspects are central to his depth as a character : his unashamed and perverse delight in creating chaos and his capacity for raw emotional expression.”

Then sometimes Tom is all like :

“Loki is loco. Completamente loco. People go loco for Loki. Livin’ la vida Loki.”

highpriestessofjogan: rdjismydrug: survivingrealitywithoutnorma...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:49:48 -0400

highpriestessofjogan:

rdjismydrug:

survivingrealitywithoutnormality:

Marvel we need to talk about your obsessions with blue glowing objects

Marvel you have a kink

OH MY GOSH GUYS! GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS!!! OH MY GOSH I JUST GOT THIS AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Okay, okay, so you know how it was Howard who fished the Tesseract out of the ocean when he was looking for Steve and then they started studying it? Do you also remember that it was Howard who made the video that told Tony how he could create a new element?

Well, of course Howard wouldn’t have known that Tony was going to end up with an arc reactor in his chest and need to find this new element, so what was he looking for? But if you think about it, the blue glow from the new arc reactor in the first gif matches the blue glow from the Tesseract in some ways.

WHAT IF HOWARD FREAKING STARK REALIZED THAT THE KEY TO THE TESSERACT WAS THE NEW ELEMENT BUT THAT TONY WOULD HAVE TO DISCOVER IT BECAUSE TECHNOLOGY JUST WASN’T THERE YET?!

*running around with head on fire*

QUICKIE META POST BECAUSE CHAPERONED DEMANDED IT

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:05:41 -0400

vilefangirl: I realized.
vilefangirl: Tony himself is an agent of chaos in change in the MCU. His transformation and shift in alignment is what sparked the sudden appearance of all this super shit
chaperoned: oh?
vilefangirl: IDK IF THAT'S OBVIOUS OR NOT
chaperoned: NO
chaperoned: /LEANS FORWARD
chaperoned: WRITE ME ALL THE META
vilefangirl: NO TOO LAZY
vilefangirl: THAT'S BASICALLY ALL I WROTE ANYWAY
vilefangirl: like, first of all SI used to be the leader in war technologies, revolutionizing it every few years
vilefangirl: then
vilefangirl: Tony has the kidnapping and physical transformation, spurring a spiritual/ethical/etc transformation
vilefangirl: which obviously throws everyone in a tizzy once he announces he'll no longer make weapons
vilefangirl: and then proceeds to Stark around
chaperoned: asdklfj stark as a fucking verb ilit
vilefangirl: upsets order, installs his PA as head of the company
vilefangirl: his whole life is actually about causing chaos???
vilefangirl: usually not on purpose
vilefangirl: and it's usually his job to clean it up
vilefangirl: but I can see Loki being all meta like YES THIS MORTAL
chaperoned: omg
chaperoned: ASLDKFJASDFJ MAKE A QUICKIE POST ABOUT THAT

mosellegreen: deefic: “These people are innocent. Taking...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:48:40 -0400

mosellegreen:

deefic:

“These people are innocent. Taking their lives will gain you nothing, so take mine… And end this.”

Okay, so. Here’s the thing.

This entire scene bothers me. Like, really bothers me.

Who is Loki trying to kill? Thor. Some mortals keep getting in the way, whatever. Then Thor’s friends appear — the ones who, let’s remember, are committing treason just by being here — and hey, may as well do something about them too.

But they guy we’ve really got a hate-on for? Thor.

And, lo. There he is, making his “so take mine” speech. Well, okay. Just humour me for a second. Let’s imagine this scene from the other way around. Let’s imagine Thor is the Designated Villain of this film. He’s been banished for attempted genocide and is generally considered dangerous and unstable. We’ve got to kill the guy. Maybe we don’t really want to, but… well. Gotta make the tough decisions, as king.

But first we gotta fight through Thor’s army of mortals, then his Quirky Miniboss squad. Pain in the ass. We just want to kill the Big Bad and get this level over with. Whatever.

Suddenly, he’s there. All-but begging to be killed. This is like trying to rob a bank — to mix our analogies a bit — and having to fight our way through security, only to have the bank manager walk out at the last minute with a huge sack of cash and begging us to just take it and go and stop killing his guards. As if that wasn’t what we were trying to do the whole time.

Well, whatever. Never look a gift-horse in the mouth and all that. (Ehehehehehe…)

Boom. Dead Thor.

Except, lo! Here comes the deus ex fratricide. Because apparently Thor’s “sacrifice” is “heroic” enough for him to be deemed “worthy” of Mjolnir once more.

Except, wait a second. Who is Thor sacrificing himself for again, exactly?

His friends? Who are already, a) committing treason (did I mention that already? I think I should’ve), and b) wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place if it weren’t for Thor.

The mortals? Who — wait for it, wait for it — wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place if it weren’t for Thor. Like, just get out of the way, puny ant-like mortals. We’re trying to walk here!

We’re here to kill Thor. Who “nobly” sacrificed his life to stop us… killing… Thor…

Wow.

So, basically, the only deed that makes one “worthy” of wielding Mjolnir is saving Thor’s life. Or possibly being Thor in the first place.

Jeeze.

Talk about playing against a stacked fucking deck.

(Or, yanno. Just flat-out shitty writing.)

So ‘s long as I’ve been meta-ing lately, Imma talk about how Mjolnir works.

In theory, Thor can only lift it if he’s “worthy”. So if he’s a bad boy then he can’t lift it for a while, until he’s good again and then he can.

I understand that in the comics, it apparently really does work as a moral barometer - sometimes. The evidence for this is that a small number of very virtuous people (Captain America is one) are also able to lift it.

Occasionally in emergencies, Odin will temporarily allow someone else to lift it so they can save everyone and then when the emergency is dealt with they can’t again. Superman and Wonder Woman both got to wield it briefly in the Marvel Vs. DC series.

A couple of pages later, suddenly Superman couldn’t lift it anymore, because everybody was rescued and there was no more need.

Got that? Superman is not, normally, worthy. Superman.

Right. Moving on.

This panel is from “Fear Itself: Book One”. Odin is going insane. He and Thor are arguing because Thor wants to keep defending Earth and Odin doesn’t want him to.

Got that? Odin is losing his mind and still controls Mjolnir’s liftability. Mjolnir doesn’t go thunk because Thor did something bad - he didn’t, he was insisting on defending Earth - but because Odin told it to.

Then there’s Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes Vol 2 #19. This incident is so outrageous that I used it in one of my fics to illustrate Odin’s A+ Parenting. Odin figures Thor needs a swat upside the head, so he takes Mjolnir away from him and gives it to Loki for the day. Loki does various heroic things with it - I think the idea was supposed to be that he wasn’t as good as hero-ing as Thor is, even though he rescued people and defeated baddies and whatnot. Then Odin hauls his boys back to Asgard and apparently they’re Highlanders now:

So yeah, Odin was doing the same thing here with the hammer that he did with the throne in the movie: pretending that there was a contest between the sons about which one would get it in order to manipulate Thor, not giving a shit about how deeply he hurt his adopted son by dangling things in front of him he had no intention of ever giving him, no matter what he did.

This, btw, is the only thing Loki does actually wrong in the entire story. (It is arguable he wasn’t as good at hero-ing as Thor in this issue, but he still did a good enough job.) He lets this incident make Thor his enemy, when it isn’t Thor’s fault at all, much as he does in the movie. Not good, but understandable; nature viciously inflicted a hunger for parental love on all of us, but siblings are more expendable. Y’all may have noticed that I’m a wee bit irked that the people who (get paid to) write about these characters seem to believe that wanting your parents to love you is evil. (I guess because if they don’t, clearly you are evil by nature and just haven’t gotten around to embarking on your career of mass murder yet. But your parents instinctively know that’s your destiny and that’s why they don’t love you. Yeah, fuck you, writers.)

Odin’s last remark there - “Loki understands if he were truly worthy, no one - not even the All-Father - could have kept him from hoisting this hammer on his own.”

Where to begin?

What makes you imagine Loki understands this, asshole? His reaction - storming out declaring sworn enmity - doesn’t seem consistent with this assertion of yours.

If the truly worthy can hoist the damn thing whether or not you let them, you wouldn’t have been able to take it away from Thor.

In this story we know from remarks others have made that this Loki has done bad things in the past, but Odin spins this hammer-lifter-for-a-day thing as his chance to prove himself reformed etc. Which would be great except that it isn’t. Loki does what he’s told, he does hero shit like a good boy even if he isn’t as good at it as Thor, but gets no credit at all for this and isn’t given the rewards he was promised.

And now let’s take Odin’s statement as a whole. Do shitty parents all take the same course somewhere in how to gaslight their offspring? Because I have heard exactly the same crap from so many parents in so many situations, and it’s always the same basic thing: the parents refusing to accept responsibility for their sadistic or manipulative behavior. I mean, do they have discussion groups where they instruct each other? “If your kids point out that you’re being an asshole, just tell them that it’s their fault because they’re so rotten. If you’re lucky, they’ll keep buying it until they’re in their 30’s.”

Sometimes when I come across random people hating on us Loki fans and Loki defenders, I have to wonder if they themselves are abusive parents and that’s the angle from which they’re seeing the story. Like, they figure they should be able to torture their kids all they want without then having to deal with the behavior problems that inevitably result, because hey, it’s the kid’s responsibility to remain virtuous even when his psyche’s been warped from infancy and his life made hell!

OK, I’m going to take a few deep breaths here and then talk about movie!Mjolnir.

Movie!Mjolnir does not give a shit about worthiness. If it did, if it had been enchanted to be a moral barometer, it would have dropped in the middle of Thor’s battle on Jotunheim. Or given Thor’s hostile intentions, maybe as soon as Thor got there, or as soon as he started exhorting his friends to go there. But it doesn’t. It drops and becomes unliftable when Odin tells it to.

Thor is able to lift it again not when he does anything worthy - as deefic points out above, he really didn’t. She also has Loki point this out in her fic Bag of Cats: “My brother refused to cower behind a few friends in the face of my wrath. You, Mr. Stark, I believe flew a nuclear bomb into deep space to save a million strangers from the same. If you were to grasp Mjolnir’s shaft… what do you think would happen? Do you think yourself worthy?”

Thor’s able to lift it when he needs it. The Destroyer apparently actually kills him. Odin is still asleep but is evidently conscious of this because he sheds a tear. And that’s when Mjolnir comes rocketing toward Thor, almost smashing Jane in the process, and Thor comes back to life and gets his armor and his superpowers back, destroys the Destroyer, and everyone lives happily ever after (except Loki).

From here it looks like even in a coma, Odin can still magic the fucking hammer to be liftable or not liftable.

There’s a scene in Avengers, after Thor has fallen out of the helicarrier, when he starts to reach for Mjolnir and then hesitates. Some people have read this as his being briefly unworthy. Others, including myself, read it as his hesitating to call his hammer because he knows that once he does, he’ll have to fight his little brother, maybe even kill him. He takes a minute to face that, and then calls the hammer.

So I think the whole “if he be worthy” thing is just more manipulative bullshit on Odin’s part. It’s enchanted to be liftable only by Thor (and Odin) so that others will not be able to take Thor’s weapon from him or use it against him. Loki’s not being able to lift it has nothing to do with him being evil, or any of the bad things he does in the movie - he wasn’t able to lift it before the movies, we’re given to understand, when the worst thing he’d ever done was turn Sif into a brunette.

Loki can’t lift it because he isn’t Thor. That’s all there ever was to it.

This is all very interesting, and the main thing I take away from it is that morality can be really very subjective. Of course, evidence is building up that it’s just Odin behind the curtain and really I’m in denial about it because I enjoy the lifting of Mjolnir actually meaning something. But still, Asgardian moral standards are obviously different than our own, and the direction I usually go with that is the value of glorious death in battle.

Glorious death in battle is, of course, the one and ONLY thing that will get you into Valhalla, the most desirable afterlife, to the point that stories tell of men who were dying of illness or old age, and cut themselves in order to trick Hel into letting them go to Valhalla.

So that makes this the key to the whole system of thought surrounding Norse mythology - warriors are rewarded for their own deaths in battle. So maybe it isn’t Odin directly, but the context in which both he and Mjolnir exist - the hammer has some independent use as a moral barometer, but only by Norse standards.

And that lends itself to explaining the difference between Steve Rogers and Clark Kent - by our standards, both noble men, with only the best of intentions. But by Norse standards, Steve Rogers is a warrior trained, tested, and ready to die every time he goes into battle. Clark Kent is a man of peace who is nearly incapable of dying, and is also aware of his own value to his world and how much preserving himself will help others in the long run.

Whether or not Mjolnir has some capacity of its own to judge worthiness, it’s more complicated than just Odin being a vicious SOB.

(although he is.)

demmonz: Reblog this if you want Hawkeye in The Avengers 2, played only by Jeremy Renner and with a...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:53:07 -0400

demmonz:

Reblog this if you want Hawkeye in The Avengers 2, played only by Jeremy Renner and with a better development of his character

I wanna see if I’m alone here

do-not-forget-my-url: doctorbaggins: My aunt met someone at her store who worked on the set of The...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:24:41 -0400

do-not-forget-my-url:

doctorbaggins:

My aunt met someone at her store who worked on the set of The Avengers and he told her about how RDJ and Tom Hiddleston were always pranking each other on set and how Robert and Tom were doing a scene together and Robert couldn’t stay still in his Iron Man suit because he was feeling really uncomfortable so they had to take a break and during break Tom walked up to Robert and said, “It’s called itching powder”, took a sip of his water, and walked away.

O

actual god of mischief

Photo

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:15:45 -0400

"Fans of the first film really wanted to find out what happened to Peggy afterwards, so Marvel are..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:06:59 -0400

“Fans of the first film really wanted to find out what happened to Peggy afterwards, so Marvel are also making a short film, which is basically ‘What Peggy Did Next’, which will be shown at Comic-Con and be on the DVD extras of the second film (Captain America: The Winter Soldier). So as well as doing a bit in the new film, I’ve got a whole new spin-off short film. It has been great to be back in training with the stunt coordinators, kicking some butt again.”

- Hayley Atwell (via fyeahlilbit2point0)

A chorus of angels just began singing….

(via therearecertainshadesoflimelight)

I gotta just stop for a second and read this again and have a big dopey grin on my face because, goddamn, Marvel, you are doing it RIGHT. Ten years ago, no studio would have done SHIT for Peggy Carter post-movie, but Marvel’s going, “What’s that? You liked her lots and thought she was interesting? Here, HAVE A TINY MOVIE.”

Plus, you seem to be continuing making efforts to diversify your casting by bringing in characters like Sam, and bringing back Heimdall and Rhodey (in the biggest role he’s had in an Iron Man film with 3), and you’re courting Zoe Saldana for Guardians and continue to take original character back stories that have a bit of a sexist tinge to them now (a bunch of your females were models or actresses or nurses, and Betty Ross was just the general’s daughter) and making them scientists (Sue, Betty, Jane, and Jean Gray) while still keeping some characters with their original back stories (Mary Jane is still an actress) because you seem to get that women can have ALL KINDS OF CAREERS.

You not only handed Pepper Potts Stark Enterprises, but you never, ever played the “the business is failing and Pepper is blamed” card. In fact, you have always played, “Pepper is fucking awesome at business and life card.”

You also cast Sitwell with a Latino actor without making some big thing of it (same as you cast Hemidall), and you went with Ult!Fury and Samuel L. Jackson and every time you’ve put a woman in a dangerous situation, she’s gotten to save herself in one way or another (and sometimes just straight up completely).

You all don’t always bat 1000, but you seem to be aiming for it like crazy, and I really appreciate the hell out of that.

(via sweaterkittensahoy)

tonyloki: He can’t sleep, simple as that. When sleep eludes...

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:10:47 -0400

tonyloki:

He can’t sleep, simple as that.

When sleep eludes him, Tony’s usually in the workshop, tinkering away at the latest suit or the next innovation with a brain that’s too restless and loud. It’s not uncommon for him to lose days at a time until Jarvis initiates the lockdown protocol of Tony’s no-food-no-sleep warning limit. (Three days: it used to feel too short, but now he’s not so sure anymore.)

Close his eyes for a minute or an hour, it’s the same deal: body too tired to rely on caffeine alone but mind too stubborn to simply settle. His thoughts leap a mile a minute from space suits to axolotls to Extremis modifications to the left-over pizza he knows should still be in the fridge to—

Oh.

Loki, sound asleep in his bed or very nearly close to it; weathered green tunic open enough to allow a peak at his smooth, flat chest.

Tony pulls the towel away from his head and lets it fall to the ground. His hair’s still not entirely dry from the brisk shower, but it’s getting there, ends curling every which way in the afternoon warmth. He treads quietly across the thick carpet floors, cutting shadows through the rays of a setting sun that splinters gold over Loki’s face. It’s five long strides before Tony’s at the side of the bed; he takes a moment, a deep breath.

While Loki can be the most infuriating lightest of sleepers, he can also sleep deeply when he wishes. Tony has no fear of waking him up today.

Tony places one knee on the bed, tests his weight against the covers before he settles onto his side, body three-quarters on the bed with his legs not-quite dangling off the side. The mattress dips and evens, and Tony sidles closer to prop an elbow onto the same pillow where Loki rests, careful not to let any water droplets fall too close. Loki turns towards him, chin angling down ever so slightly.

With a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, Tony slides his other arm along the seam of the jean-clad hip, fingers edging up, seeking skin underneath Loki’s tunic. Loki shifts again, his hand moving to cover Tony’s in the loosest of grips as Tony’s fingers trace around his belly button. Loki makes a small sound, low and sleep-gravelled.

Tony shushes him gently, hands stroking slowly over his belly. His fingers feel cold, especially against Loki’s bare skin, but he knows it’ll warm up soon enough.

It might’ve been a minute or an hour, Tony doesn’t care to keep track of how long he stays nestled at Loki’s side, watching. He takes in the sight of faint veins crawling up Loki’s neck, bluer in the arc reactor’s wash; in the way his lashes flutter with REM; in the barest hue of rose dusting his cheekbones; the straight line of his nose and the soft flicks of his hair—that he’s here.

Here it’s quiet—and that’s so cliché and domestic it would’ve been cloying had Tony cared to think on it. He doesn’t, because it’s a pleasant quiet he rarely experiences, one just as good as sleeping, maybe even better.

Eventually, Tony falls asleep.

lo-kithe: D is for Dangerous - Arctic Monkeys More of my...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:40:48 -0400

lo-kithe:

D is for Dangerous - Arctic Monkeys

More of my stuff

Apparently I am writing a Thor/Jane Phantom of the Opera AU?

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:34:58 -0400

Apparently I am writing a Thor/Jane Phantom of the Opera AU?

Photo

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:31:52 -0400

voodooling: Doodled some Jotun Loki =)

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:30:44 -0400

voodooling:

Doodled some Jotun Loki =)

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:43:11 -0400

Reblog if you don't think Clint Barton (Hawkeye) is useless.

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:49:33 -0400

hawkeyeagentbarton:

8rocks:

I’m trying to prove a point to my friend and my brother.