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ncssian · 2 years

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this is only a prompt if you decide it is BUT:::

AF au and it is lucien kissing elain in the midst of her mean girl rant and she’s all flushed with anger and furrowed brows and pointing fingers until her grabs her hands and kisses her and shes goes embarrassingly silly and wobbly kneed and loses her train of thought very fast but still cannot be bothered to be mad at him enough to stop kissing him and it is just so unfair and honestly a bit scary he gets to do things like that to her 🤪

i've been sitting on this ask for months and i got wayyyyy carried away this. a little NSFW

***

Their relationship begins the same way it will inevitably end: with a fight.

A fight that poor Lucien isn't aware is going to happen yet. Elain's silence is calculated as she stands before her bathroom vanity, removing pins from her golden brown hair one by one. Through the doorway, she can see Lucien taking in her tiny bedroom for the first time. Like he's afraid of disturbing a single dust particle in the room, he carefully lays his suit jacket at the foot of her bed.

Growing irritated at his lack of words, Elain decides to break the silence herself. “You just had to embarrass yourself and your family on that yacht, didn't you?"

Russet eyes flash to her in disbelief, Lucien looking surprised by the sudden topic of conversation. "Excuse me?" he says.

"The panting, desperate dog act is almost cute when it's just with me, but in public..." Elain drops the last bobby pin onto the sink counter and shakes her head in disappointment. Her hair flows around her shoulders with the movement.

“Are you…mad at me for trying to protect you back there?” he says, incredulous.

Elain is mad for a number of reasons, still simmering from what took place hours ago on that boat. All six of Lucien's brothers and his father had been there, and it was Elain's first time being with more than three Vanserras at once.

They were the most horrible people she's ever met—and that's coming from Elain, who grew up with a family too dysfunctional for words. As soon as they laid eyes on Lucien standing too close to Elain, leaning in and chatting too comfortably with her, they descended on her like a pack of wolves. Eris, her former crush and now absolute shithead, included.

"Now who, is, this?" Aldritch Vanserra approached Elain and Lucien mid-conversation, putting a stupid emphasis between each word like a villain in a cartoon movie.

Elain only raised her delicate brows at him in innocent puzzlement. "We've met before, Aldritch. I was at the end-of-summer party at your house, remember?"

At the blank look on the oldest Vanserra brother's face, she added, "I volunteer at the local women's shelter with your mom? She introduced us to each other?"

"He doesn't remember," Lucien snapped at her. "Let it go."

Like sharks catching a whiff of fresh blood, it wasn't long before the rest of Lucien's brothers joined their group one by one: Garrett, Lyon, Bastien, Killian, and finally Eris.

“Little Lucien’s finally found himself a girlfriend,” one of them drawled.

Another one, Killian, clicked his tongue and shook his head in mock disappointment. “You think this one will last?”

“I’d give it six weeks.” Eris. “She’s too pretty for him.”

“Not too pretty for me,” Bastien took a step closer to Elain, close enough to make her stiffen in discomfort. But Elain kept her unassuming face on, a little blank in the eyes and bland in the smile. After all, as her mother would say, when would she ever get the chance again to have this many men’s attention on her at once?

“A little too whorish, then,” Eris said. Elain’s mouth actually dropped at that, though she quickly snapped it shut. This was the same man she’d had a huge crush on just some weeks ago?

Eris had the nerve to actually offer Elain an excusatory look. “Not in a bad way, doll. It’s just that Lucien over here is something of a prude. It would never work out.”

Beside her, Lucien didn’t move or say anything.

“Again,” Bastien interrupted, and Elain could hear the tinge of alcohol in his words, “not too whorish for me.” Snickers went up all around the little circle of brown- and red-haired men, and for the first time all day Elain wanted to slink into her pashmina and never come out.

As for Lucien… Elain dared a glance over to him. His face remained uncomfortably blank, but his jaw worked as if he was gathering up the nerve to tell his shithead brothers off for good. Elain hadn’t expected Lucien to be so passive in the face of such clear insults toward him, toward her, but her heart softened as she realized—he was probably used to being outnumbered like this. It had never been said aloud, but anyone with eyes could see that Lucien was the black sheep of the family.

She would have to be his ally, then.

“How… comedic you boys are,” Elain said pleasantly. She slipped her hand around Lucien's, wanting to support and fortify him. They were a team, she wanted to say. But just as fast as she took his hand, Lucien dropped it and took a subtle step away from her. Shock and hurt wound through Elain as Lucien shrugged and told their audience, "What can I do if I'm the favorite brother for once?" His eyes lazily slid to Elain as he added, "Unfortunately for all of you shits, we're just friends. She's not my type."

He was too convincing. Too bored, too casual as he said it, and it was all the brothers needed to lose interest and back off. A new voice spoke up then and said, "Good."

Elain and Lucien both turned to find Beron Vanserra nursing a glass of whiskey, having been listening in to the conversation from the fringes. "No son of mine is going to be caught with trailer trash on his arm. Lucien's already learned his lesson about that, hasn't he?" His gaze went from threatening to charming as it moved from Lucien to Elain, and he smiled almost apologetically at her. "No offense, Miss Archeron. You've been a joy to have around these last few weeks." The gleam in his eye told her no matter how much time she spent hanging around the Vanserras, flaunting her newborn connections with Rhysand and the higherups at Night Court Inc., she would never be accepted as one of them. She would never have a chance at touching one of his precious sons.

Lucien tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at his father, one of the strands that'd fallen out of his ponytail sliding across his forehead. “Take that back,” he ordered, actually ordered his father.

Beron's face darkened as he eyed Lucien. "Excuse me?"

“Apologize to her. Now.”

Elain's heart leapt into her throat. "I'm alright," she tried to say, but trailed off when neither man turned to her. Lucien had the ember of a rage she'd never seen before in his eye, and it honestly frightened and thrilled her a little.

“I didn’t know she was yours to apologize to.” Beron lifted his chin at Lucien and looked down his nose at him with a disgust that Elain hadn't known fathers could have for their children. “Go on, son. Claim her if she’s yours.”

It was a challenge, a dare. Elain watched the whole exchange with bated breath, as she was sure several guests were also doing, wondering what Lucien's next move would be. But Lucien saw that dare and only took a slow step back, shaking his head in disdain. That ember in his eyes dimmed until it extinguished completely. Like none of it was worth it. Like she wasn’t worth it.

“Let’s go,” he said lowly to Elain, placing a hand at her back and steering them both toward the ramp leading off the boat. The party was clearly over for them, yet all Elain could feel as she left was his touch that remained distant and cold on her middle back.

Being called trash by a man she believed had liked her hurt. Being harrassed by Lucien's brothers hurt. But all of that would have been tolerable if Lucien hadn't let go of her hand. For all his promises, he was so quick to let go of her.

"Why would I be mad?” Elain lies as she takes out her earrings, carefully replacing the backings and placing them into her jewelry box.

"Well, I'm sure being called a whore and trash within minutes of each other couldn't have been fun," Lucien retorts, ever the genius.

“Oh, did you notice that too?” she chirps.

Lucien sighs through the bathroom doorway. “I warned you that a family event was the last place you’d want to be.”

“Your family isn’t the problem here.” Elain wraps her fingers around the sink edge in an attempt to appear calm, throwing a cool look over her shoulder toward Lucien. “The problem is you. It’s been you this whole time.”

Lucien goes carefully still at that. “What did I do now?” he says.

Elain’s facade crumbles at his ignorance, and the next thing she knows she’s storming into the bedroom and jabbing a finger at him in accusation and anger. “You have been nothing but a waste of my time since I first met you,” she hisses. “That’s what you did.”

“Don’t point your finger at me,” he threatens in a low voice.

"Oh, Elain, I love you, I'm gonna marry you, you're mine." She throws his words back in his face, laced with acid cruelty. His face burns with humiliation, a look that both satisfies Elain and enrages her further. She should be the humiliated one for how wrong she was about him. "Fucking liar," she spits, pointing again just to piss him off.

"Is that why you're upset?" Lucien takes a dangerous step closer to her. "You're upset I wouldn't lay a claim on you in front of my whole family?"

“I’m not upset.”

“You’re losing your Tennessee accent.”

“I’m NOT UPSET!”

Lucien chooses that moment to snatch both her hands out of the air and tug her mouth to his.

Everything pauses for half a second, Elain’s eyes blown wide with shock. And then she realizes that this is their first kiss, that Lucien’s lips are waiting for a response from hers, and she utterly melts. By the end of the half second, she’s standing on her tiptoes with her arms flung around his neck, kissing him back with a fervor that neither she nor Lucien expected.

Her three a.m. fantasy of the last few weeks becoming reality, all the ignored and neglected tension from the moment they met—Elain moans her relief into the kiss. How romantic, she thinks.

Lucien lets go of her hands to grip the sides of her face. “Listen here, dove,” he says into her mouth. “My family doesn’t get to fucking touch you. They don’t even get to fucking look at you.”

Elain’s stomach does a rollercoaster-worthy flip at the words, and flips again when Lucien finds the zipper at the back of her dress, pulling it down with one tug. The lilac fabric spills down her shoulders and chest, revealing her bare breasts and stomach. Another precise tug from Lucien and the whole thing drops to a heap at her feet, and then she’s being shoved against a wall with Lucien’s thigh pressed between her legs.

But just because they’re kissing doesn’t mean they’re done fighting. “They seemed to be looking at me pretty damn thoroughly today,” Elain rasps as Lucien’s hot mouth goes for the most sensitive skin at her neck.

Only half the buttons on Lucien's shirt are undone at this point, Elain not even remembering how they ended up that way, but she gets so frustrated with the lack of skin she has access to that she simply fists each side of his shirt and tears it open the rest of the way, ripping some buttons off as she goes. With newfound eagerness, she presses her naked chest to Lucien's and drags him into another dizzying kiss before he can respond to her.

Lucien breaks away too early, panting with his forehead pressed against Elain’s. “I'm sorry about today," he says roughly. "It was my fault—for being too close with you. I should have protected you better."

Elain furrows her brow, confused and yes, still hurt. “I didn't want you to protect me. I wanted you to stand by me."

He shakes his head quickly, and genuine fear laces his next words. "I don't want them to know. It never ends well when they know."

“It’s happened before?” Elain can’t believe they’re talking about this while their bare chests heave against each other, but jealousy at the thought of Lucien having someone before her sparks in her gut.

Lucien only shakes his head dismissively. “These aren’t people that you can play nice with, Elain. And you can’t play rough either.”

“Then how do you survive it?” she retorts.

“By pretending I don’t exist around them.” Like how he pretended not to care for her today.

Pity blooms in Elain’s heart at that, that he was conditioned to act this way after a lifetime of neglect. But she still disagrees with Lucien. He’s focusing on the wrong problem before him.

Taking his face in a much more gentle way than how they first started, she commands, “Lucien.” His name flows like honey off her tongue. “Stop worrying about your family and start worrying about me. I won’t do a secret relationship, and I can’t be abandoned in the lion’s den again like that. Can you do that for me?”

Of course, she's already got him hooked and baited. He would do anything for her, confirmed by how he closes his eyes and nods slowly, his nose rubbing against hers. “I can do that.”

Elain's stomach finally settles, and she smiles a sweet, reassuring smile. "Good," she whispers, and gently brings his mouth down for another kiss. This one is soft enough to make Lucien shudder, and his hands slip up her shoulderblades as he readjusts so his hips are pressed more thoroughly between her legs. The air between them pierced with a much less volatile but much more tender emotion now, they slowly continue the process of exploring each other.

Elain peeks open an eye mid-kiss so she can watch as she pushes his shirt off the rest of the way to the floor, revealing the tan toned muscles of his biceps and forearms. She actually makes a pleased noise of surprise into the kiss at the sight of it. He’s been hiding from her this whole time in designer jackets and sweaters. She’s going to have to burn all his long-sleeved shirts after this.

Becoming greedy for more, Elain's hands drop to the front of Lucien's pants, making quick work of the button and zipper there. Before she can slide her hand in and cop a feel, though, Lucien snatches her wrists up, repinning her to the wall with his hips. A choked sound leaves her at this precise new angle, where she can feel exactly how hard and ready he is and he can probably feel her throbbing through the layers of remaining fabric between them.

Lucien is the first to change up the rhythm, his kisses becoming less patient and more desperate, hungry. A low moan leaves him and rumbles down her throat, and Elain is so glad they're on the same page for once. She rises onto her tiptoes so she can meet the roll of his hips thrust for thrust, and nearly keens when he hitches one of her thighs beneath an arm so they can get even closer.

Bracing his other hand against the wall by her ribs, Lucien ducks his head down to leave open-mouthed kisses across her chest. "You know, Elain," he groans over a small breast. "You just might end up being worth more than all of this."

“More than what?” she pants, watching him suck a flushed nipple into his mouth, feeling him flick his tongue against the flesh. His shoulders might tremble beneath her hands at the taste of her.

Instead of answering her question, Lucien sweeps her up into another heady kiss.

Thoughts are near impossible to form at this point, but somehow Elain goes so far as to form words. "I know you hate your father," she gasps between kisses, "and I hate him too." She bucks her hips up against his groin, searching for friction while she speaks. "But I'm going to make him love me if it's the last thing I do."

Like hell would that nasty old man get away with calling her trailer trash—nor would the Vanserra brothers get away with seeing her as a toy to be played with. Before she inevitably leaves Lucien, she’ll have to become one of them. No, become better than them.

Lucien clasps her jaw with one hand and presses her head back against the wall, his other hand searching along the inside of her thigh for the line of her panties. "Is this really what you want to be talking about right before I fuck you for the first time?" he grits out.

‘The first time’ indicating that there'll be several more times, a thought that makes Elain smile despite herself. Just for now, she almost—almost— wants to stay like this with him forever.

“Just wanted to get it out of the way—” She gasps as his fingers finally find the crotch of her underwear and push the soaked fabric aside. "I'm going to charm the shitty personality and old money right out of him, until you don't have to worry about protecting me anymore."

He chuckles darkly against her collarbone and slides two fingers along her slick skin, teasing until the last possible moment. "You fucking gold digger."

And whatever he does next with his hand must make Elain unravel completely, because she drops her head to his bare chest and pants, "Only for you. Only for you."

***

im at work so i couldnt finish editing the smutty parts sorry 😬

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#elucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #ncssianwrites #elucien drabbles #a favor verse #ncssian asks

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xialing-tenrings · 3 years

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What you need to know about the previous MCU ahead of watching Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

(does not contain spoilers, but you might be able to deduce what’ll happen, so if you want to go in blind, skip this. You barely need to know anything.)

The Ten Rings organization kidnapped Tony Stark in IM1

Trevor Slattery posed at the Mandarin in IM3, claiming responsibility for various terrorist attacks that were actually done by Aldrich Killian. Trevor was revealed as an actor and put in prison, but was broken out by a member of the Ten Rings who stated that the Mandarin (real) wanted his name back

Half of the universe was snapped out of existence and snapped back in recently, and the Avengers are still keeping up with issues

Wong is a competent sorcerer (friends/allies with Dr. Strange) who is actually responsible

Honestly, you don’t need to know much more. There are some stuff from previous movies you need to know to understand the easter eggs in the movie, but not necessary. I’ll still list some:

In Spider-Man: Homecoming, there was a guy who told Spidey to do a flip

Abomination (aka Emil Blonsky) became an alternate version of the Hulk and has not been seen on screen since 2008.

With Aldritch Killian, AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) developed a super soldier serum in IM3 that allowed recipients to heat up and breathe fire in addition to becoming stronger

#shang chi #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #marvel #mcu #shang-chi #scatlottr

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capfalcon · 4 years

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hela was honestly a great villian because she had a clear purpose, she was powerful enough to cause genuine issues, and she was fun to watch too

thanos as a villian doesn't really do it for me because it's so heavy and his character is so morally depraved and cruel and it's just not fun to watch him do. like anything

the same stands for red skull, he was boring and tiresome and also kind of just. not plesant, it's easy to root against him but it's not fun at all to watch him on screen

adritch killian was a GREAT villian because he was squirmy and nasty but in all the fun sort of right ways and he was a formidable villian, he wasn't pathetic, and it goes double for maya's influence

but yeah, hela was a fantastic villian because she perfectly fit the storyline. with both aldritch killian and hela, they both are seemlessly integrated into the stories. with villians like thanos, there are so many characters against this one villian that it doesnt give the characters enough time to shine and it makes the villian the focus of the story

and that's why hela is so great. the movie is a funny, sort of rag-tag thing, and it wouldn't make sense to have this super grave dark villian. and because thor and loki are both in it, it's a family film, and so it makes perfect sense for hela to be their sister, and for her to be angry over a familial dispute. and her power is reasonable, it isn't over the top, like thanos's is. she's a genuinely fun villian that still manages to be fully evil, and for the audience to be happy when she loses.

#hela #thor ragnorok #thor ragnarok #jordan talks #im RIGHT

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masonicon · 3 years

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MCU!Mandarin in a nutshell

Trevor Slattery: guy that plays Osama Bin Laden with plastic surgery

Aldritch killian: Nanotech-powered MCU Supervillain

Wen Wu: closer to Comic!Mandarin

#Marvel Comics #marvel cinematic universe #mandarin

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beginagainhq · 4 years

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mw villains marvel or dc, i don't mind

Here are just a few! Members, feel free to comment who you’d like to see!

Terra

Venom

Doctor Doom

Deadshot

Mysterio

Lex Luthor

Poison Ivy

Scarecrow

Riddler

Sebastian Shaw

Kite Man

Eobard Thawne

Sinestro

Aldritch Killian

Justin Hammer

— Admin Ashley

#answered #marvel rp #dc rp #comics rp #appless rp #Anonymous

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blood-and-winter-buckynat · 5 years

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Obadiah Stane, Quentin Blake, Helmut Zemo, Ultron, Ivan Vanko, Aldritch Killian, Justin Hammer, actually a lot of people: Tony Stark insulted me once so I'm going to kill him dramatically, also I enjoy causing collateral damage because it helps me feel confident

Bucky Barnes: I killed Tony's parents and then he tried to kill me when he found out, I'll just let that reinforce the false notion that I'm a terrible person and I don't deserve happiness

#might be exaggerating #bucky barnes #mcu #marvel villains #tony stank

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patwrites · 1 year

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Ranking Phase 2 [2013-2015]

Films:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Guardians of the Galaxy

Ant-Man

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Iron Man 3

Thor: The Dark World

Main Antagonists:

Alexander Pierce

Ultron

Aldritch Killian

Darren Cross

Ronan

Malekith

#mcu phase 2

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the-drunk-game-master · 5 years

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Norman Osborn wants to be Tony Stark

Spoilers for Spider-Man Far From home ahead! Marvel gets a lot of shit for making all their villians the same. Or at least, they used to. Everyone was a dumb grey monster or an evil businessman that was pissed off at Tony Stark (Or a very similar character, Hank Pym). Obadiah Stane, Justin Hammer, Aldritch Killian. Even Spider-Man's villians are only fighting him because Tony Stark Screwed them over. Adrian Toomes steals from Tony Stark, and tells Spider-Man to stay out of his way. Quentin Beck had his "Glory" stolen by Stark and copies his shtick by flying around in armor and shooting lasers from his hands.

It would be super easy to make Norman Osborn one of these cookie cutter bad guys. Barely an inconvenience, as a popular youtuber is known to say. He is a chemical weapons manufacturer after all. If I myself were a youtuber, I'd show the scene from Sam Ramey's Spider-Man where Norman Osborn gets screwed over by his shareholders, and edit in Tony Stark at one of the chairs at that table. I don't even need to give him any lines, just have him be on his phone and ignoring William Defoe's great performance. Hell, the special weapon that those bigwigs choose to fund instead of Oscorp looks a lot like an early Iron Man prototype.

I think it would be more interesting if, instead of hating Stark, Osborn LOOOVES Stark. He wants to be Stark, and copies him. Not the way Quentin Beck copied Stark, just going for the glory of superherodom. Norman Osborn should believe in what Stark believed in. He should believe in protecting Earth, by any means necessary. the only difference is that he should take it too far.

about a decade ago, I was reading spider-man comics, along with some X-Men and other stuff. I wasn't the super nerd that I am now, but I was reading Spidey's arc for civil war. it started with Peter already working with Tony, in his Iron Spider Suit. MJ and Aunt May knew about his life, and even lived safely in Stark Tower. The civil war broke out, and as a show of good faith towards Tony, Peter willingly showed his face and gave his name on national telivision. it showed the reaction of everyone he knew, including his hated enemies. Then Spider-Man realized that Tony Stark (And also Reed Richards) were going way too far in their pursuit to track down and arrest rogue superheroes. Spider-Man realized he was on the wrong side of the war, and had to do the right thing, even though it would put the two women he loved in mortal danger. Shit hit the fan hard, Iron Man's Gauntlets clashed with Cap's shield, and at the end of the day, Peter returned bloody and bruised to a hotel room where his wife and Aunt were staying, ready to leave New York as fugitives. The Civil War story arc for Spider-Man ended with Aunt May getting shot by a mercinary with a sniper rifle, and Peter holding her in his arms.

the next Arc, Back in Black, begins with Peter losing his shit and throwing a jeep throw the third floor wall of a building across the street, trying to kill the man that shot his aunt. Shit gets super dark, with Peter going to Batman or Daredevil lengths of vengeance, and then almost going full Punisher. he even puts on a clothe version of his black suit, to signify that while the red white and blue Spider-Man was a protector, a symbol for justice, the black and white spider-man has nothing but vengeance in his heart.

The Civil War story also leads into the Secret Invasion storyline, where a shit ton of skrulls impersonate superheroes now that Earth is vulnerable. In Spider-Man Far From Home, we get hints that there may be some kree agents impersonating humans, and perhaps a hint to that Back in Black storyline, although I doubt that would get as dark. the reason I'm bringing Secret Invasion up at all is because it's resolved by Norman Fucking Obsorn shooting the skrull queen in the god damn face. I don't remember how he managed it. the guy dresses up like a skrull all the time, so maybe he just wrinkled the chin on his goblin mask and waltzed on in, figuring Skrulls would never expect someone to impersonate them. but what is super important is that this caused the god damn green goblin to be allowed to run the next friggin set of Avengers.

y'all remember Iron Patriot from Iron Man 3? that was originally Norman Osborn, wanting to merge the styles of the two leaders of the Avengers so that he could be a big dick hero. He had his name run through the mud, and rightly so because he’s an asshole who clones people just for shits and giggles. but he wanted to change how the people perceived him. He got it in his head that he could be a better superhero than Spider-Man. After the Secret Invasion, they had the Dark Reign, where Osborn hired a bunch of supervillians to impersonate the old Avengers team. Wolverine was replaced by his son, Daken, wearing a wolverine suit, while Bullseye got to wear Hawkeye's suit, and venom got to impersonate Spider-Man.

Now, there's also an extra twist in this that connects to the MCU. At the time of the Dark Reign, it wasn't Eddie Brock or Flash Thompson bonded with the Venom Symbiote, it was Mac Gargan. The Scorpion. the guy who got put in jail in Homecoming, and said he had guys on the outside that would kill Spider-Man and his family once they got his name. Well they sure have his name now! I doubt Gargan would become venom just for the Dark Reign storyline, but I can see him getting into the scorpion suit just to go kill Peter. It was originally designed to be an anti-spider-man weapon, and in the Ultimate Comics Scorpion was even a Clone of Peter. So Scorpion being the evil mirror of Spider-Man could work. The suit would give him similiar strength and speed. Osborn could still hire Mac Gargan as his official Spider-Man stand in, and since Spider-Man is labeled as a terrorist, they don't even need to pretend he's Spider-Man, just someone like Spider-Man for theming or branding purposes.

hell, we might have already even seen the Scorpion suit, or at least part of it. Spider-Man keeps his Iron Spider suit in a fancy containment chamber in his house, and never even puts it on in Far From Home. I assume it's an emergency only suit for him. Since the baddies know who he is, it would be pretty easy for someone to break in and steal it, if they know what they're looking for. A few tweaks and a new paint job later, Spider-Man is fighting a viscious killer who's wearing the suit that helped him fight aliens a short while ago. the spider-legs in the back could be rebuilt into a tail, perhaps by a Doctor Otto Octavious...

Now, that's how the Dark Reign started. you know how the Dark Reign Ended? Thor came back to Earth after Asgard's destruction, with his entire floating city. Norman framed one of the Asgardians for the destruction of a stadium full of people. Then he led Hammer, which had replaced Shield at the time, on a full on war against New Asgard.

All the pieces are in place for this storyline to commence. New Asgard is in Norway. The Avengers are mostly either retired or passed on. Spidey's framed. Skrulls and Kree are running around Earth playing Guess Who. Osborn probably already bought Stark Tower during the Blip timeskip. If they bring Task Master in for Black Widow to fight, he could wear the Hawkeye suit. Although I’d love to see Bullseye in this sort of movie... hell I’d also love to see Taskmaster copy all of Black Widow and Captain America’s moves. Maybe Taskmaster could secretly be a woman who was part of the Red Room stuff? that would be pretty neat for a Black Widow movie...

What I'd especially like to see from the MCU version of Norman Osborn is them introducing him as a guy who wants to be a hero, trying so hard to be both Iron Man and Captain America. It would be a great superhero tragedy if he really believed in Iron Man’s dream of a suit of armor around the Earth, but he became a dictator. Maybe he thinks he's created the next Super Soldier Serum, but it turns out to be the Goblin Serum instead. He could test it on himself, and it could amplify his already present violent tendencies.

#MCU #Phase 4 #Dark Reign #Dark Riegn #Norman Osborn #Spider-Man #Avengers #Dark Avengers #Tony Stark #Iron Man #Green Goblin #ceaseless rambling #Theories

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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

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Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Episode Quality:

Exciting and full of strong fodder for discussion and debate; by the same token, potentially frustrating.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha directs comments to Wanda in Nigeria, but Wanda addresses her response to the team as a whole.

Female characters:

Wanda Maximoff.

Natasha Romanov.

Maria Stark.

Mrs Spencer.

Sharon Carter.

Mrs Zemo.

Aunt May.

Male characters:

James Buchanan Barnes.

Steve Rogers.

Sam Wilson.

Brock Rumlow.

Howard Stark.

Tony Stark.

T’Chaka.

Vision.

Thaddeus Ross.

James Rhodes.

Helmut Zemo.

T’Challa.

Everett Ross.

Peter Parker.

Clint Barton.

Scott Lang.

OTHER NOTES:

My immediate thought on the concept of the Avengers being directed by a United Nations panel is the Rwandan genocide; follow from that, any number of other major atrocities that have taken place while the rest of the world sat back umm-ing and aah-ing over whether or not they should intervene. Anyone who knows a speck of history should be very reticent about the idea of being shackled by such political whims.

Ross refers to the unknown locations of Thor and Bruce Banner as being like ‘misplacing a couple of megaton nukes’, as if they’re objects and not autonomous sentient beings who can go where they please without having to declare their intentions, and that should really be the first major red flag to everyone that this guy ain’t on the level.

Vision’s equation about causality is a false equivalence, and an irrelevant one anyway, since oversight doesn’t do anything to hamper his theory about strength inviting challenge. You’re not actually reducing your strength, you’re just making yourself less able to meet those challenges as they come. I feel like Vision should be a Hell of a lot smarter than this absence of logic (also, looking at the threats themselves in previous films, the only ones which can be considered ‘strength inviting challenge’ issues in which the actions of any Avenger characters have ‘bred catastrophe’ are the Iron Man films, and Age of Ultron, all of which are examples of Tony’s hubris coming back to bite him, specifically. The conflict of every other film stems from either 1) trouble predating Iron Man (most of it SHIELD/Hydra related), or 2) other-worldly overspill where Earth becomes the battleground for something uninvited (Asgardian and/or infinity stone bullshit). And even when Tony is the one creating his own demons, he usually doesn’t do so actively through his Iron Man tech or persona (Obadiah Stane’s villainy is what led to Iron Man’s creation, not the other way around; yes, Tony’s grandstanding did directly invite competition in Iron Man 2, but he didn’t make an adversary out of Ivan Vanko, that was his father’s legacy; and Tony’s particular cruelty may have incited Aldritch Killian, but that event predated the creation of Iron Man by nine years, so it’s not a response to that strength. Only Ultron was genuinely a catastrophic consequence of Tony’s (and Bruce’s) abuse of power, but hobbling the Avengers’ ability to operate does nothing to prevent that sort of thing from happening again, it just stymies their ability to halt the onslaught after it begins. You solve that one with legislation limiting what anyone can recklessly create and unleash (which includes Vision himself, incidentally)).

And see, Steve is right; the Sokovia Accords just shift the blame when things go wrong, functionally it makes the Avengers less accountable for their actions by allowing them to play the ‘just following orders’ game. And the point he makes about the panel still being run by people with agendas is exactly what I’m talking about in that first dot point; when decisions are being made on a political basis instead of according to need, you get atrocities, and any person working for the United Nations is a political agent by default. Sokovia is actually a great example of the kind of place that falls through the cracks on the political stage, as it was noted to be ‘nowhere special’, i.e. not politically valuable, and therefore unlikely to receive a swift response from powerful nations who have no vested interests in the good of the country.

Tony’s argument here is extremely personal and emotion-driven; it’s all his own guilt about Ultron and Sokovia and his decision to stop manufacturing weapons, etc, and none of that is relevant to the rest of the team’s situation or their choices. He’s also utterly oblivious to his own privilege here, in that it’s super easy for him to handwave the particulars of the Accords, because he’s a filthy-rich white American whose main ‘thing’ is new technologies, which are not being restricted at all by these Accords; he has the luxury of just signing on and hoping to negotiate amendments later (and also, of having the resources to be able to thwart anything he disagrees with and just do what he wants regardless if he decides he’s right). He’s not taking a moment to consider what the Accords really mean for those members of the team with powers they can’t just ‘put down’, who don’t have the kinds of options and opportunities he has, up to and including the bargaining power to have the Accords ‘fixed up’ later. I really do my best to see both sides of this situation because there IS merit in the idea of the Accords, but no one in favour of it makes a good argument for it and it’s really frustrating.

Who tells someone that a close beloved friend is dead in a fucking text message??? The real villain of this film.

It goes without saying but I’m gonna say it anyway: it’s very hypocritical of T’Challa to support the Accords while also donning his super-suit and taking matters in foreign countries into his own hands. All of the destruction that occurs in Romania after Bucky escapes from his apartment building is because of T’Challa’s involvement (because he was trying to commit a literal murder!), and that kinda gets glossed straight over here.

Tony falls for Ross’ trick by referring to Wanda as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in the process of his efforts to justify her internment. It’s all really solid writing, really, vernacular choices that highlight the dehumanisation at the rotten core of the Accords and how good people can be suckered into it without realising until it’s too late (even when things like, say, denial of legal representation should definitely be red-flagging up the wazoo right now). But honestly, it’s such a wild leap from ‘Wanda can’t go on missions anymore’ to ‘we’re going to forcibly deny her the ability to go out in public’. Keep trying to tell yourself that’s not a fucked up situation, Tony.

Steve Rogers holding down a fucking helicopter is just...peak Captain America and I’m so glad.

The part where Tony recruits an actual child who is not involved in this situation at all, spiriting him away to another continent to fight supersoldiers, that’s just...beyond, honestly. I hate this as an introduction for Spiderman because it’s so wildly irresponsible of Tony, it’s an unforgivable thing to do. He’s a kid. This has nothing to do with him. This is where Tony officially loses me in this movie. You can take your self-righteous attempts at justifying your actions and shove ‘em, buddy. You’re actively endangering a child.

We really don’t need Steve to kiss someone every Cap movie. We didn’t need him weirdly mackin’ on his recently-deceased ex-love’s niece. Seriously.

Spiderman’s particular brand of quipping while fighting really irritates me, also. It’s altogether a big no from me on the Spiderman front.

Still love Ant-Man, though. He’s delightful. I also enjoy Hawkeye so much more here than I have in the Avengers films.

C’mon, T’Challa. You can’t attack and attempt to kill a guy outright and then play the ‘you must be guilty because you ran away’ schtick. Do a brain about it.

See, everyone else knows why they’re there and what they’re fighting for, they know the stakes. Scott is the only one on Cap’s side who isn’t already part of the situation anyway, but he’s read in on why he’s being asked to get involved and he’s a grown adult person making an informed decision. Peter doesn’t have that, he’s there fighting because Tony said so, and that’s just fucked up.

Heavy sigh. And here we go with the emotional Tony thing. Yeah, he just saw how his parents were killed by the Winter Soldier. That’s rough. It’s really rough. But he doesn’t just have an immediate emotional outburst, he has a sustained homicidal rage, which includes not only trying to kill Bucky, but also beating the Hell outta Steve, who, y’know, did not kill Tony’s parents. The fight scene lasts way too long and involves too much opportunity for cooler thought to prevail (both in problem-solving and in conversational moments), and someone whose emotions can send them reeling so completely out of control - even when they actively know they’ve been manipulated into it! Zemo literally just told you to your face that this was his plan! - someone with so little impulse control should never be given the power to make decisions for others or wield anything over them. This is all just a really, really great case for why Tony is ill-equipped to be an Avenger at all.

Watching Bucky digging the repulsor out of Iron Man’s chest with his metal hand is...so exciting. Rest in peace, awesome metal arm.

Zemo’s just a regular human, but he gets locked up under utterly inhumane circumstances. Again, the Accords involved a deal with a pretty insidious devil, and they didn’t actually have to prove that Steve’s position was the correct one to such a strong degree (we could have had a more nuanced conversation about the subject of accountability if the two sides were more evenly presented), but damn, the red flags, guys. It shouldn’t have taken Tony until he was horrified seeing his friends in the raft prison to finally clue in.

Ok, so, I know I already played the ‘I’m pregnant’ card to explain away my meandering commentary for Ant-Man, but it’s still true and only getting more significant as time goes on, so I regret to announce that - despite having looked forward to disassembling this movie since I started on this Marvel adventure - we’re now only a day out from publication and I haven’t written anything yet. I know, the deadline isn’t exactly set in stone and I could just hold off publishing until I’m ready, but that’s a slippery slope and if I start telling myself to just ‘get to it when you get to it’, who the fuck knows when it’ll happen. This isn’t supposed to be stressful, so I’m just gonna ramble a bit and see what comes out. There’s a thing wriggling in my guts and I have a house to paint. I’m doing my best.

First things first: my stance re: Accords is that the best method of oversight is the one which emphasises accountability, rather than permission (with acknowledgment that this is a fictional universe with threats and powers which do not reflect the real world). The kinds of issues our Avenger characters get involved with are typically of the sort which has to be nipped in the bud right-quick before it becomes untenable, and also not infrequently, the types of problems which do not offer them bountiful evidence to present to a board for evaluation before they get the ok to counter it. Faffing about with diplomacy and bureaucratic carrying-on is a great way to, say, allow Hydra to launch the Insight helicarriers and wipe out all dissenters to their rule before you have the chance to stop them, or (if Zemo’s apparent plan with the Winter Soldiers had been his real plan after all), to be stuck mopping up the global damage as an elite death squad roams around destabilising governments. I’m not a supporter of the adage ‘it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission’ in the real world, but in a comic book universe, with the supervillains and the world domination and the plots which consistently include chronic time-sensitive action and little if any concrete evidence? The Sokovia Accords are woefully inadequate. By all means, the Avengers should be answerable to someone, and being required to submit reports justifying their actions (and face disciplinary measures or even criminal charges if they cannot explain themselves to a satisfactory degree) is a completely reasonable thing to convene a United Nations panel to oversee. Maybe Tony can hop down off his high horse and face actual consequences for the Ultron fiasco. That’s fine with me, and it’s a logical thing for the world to clamour for. Shifting responsibility to a panel of UN politicians who will then no doubt be reticent to send the Avengers into anything pre-emptively (or within any kind of useful time frame) for fear of backlash is a terrible solution, and even more so when you’re being pushed into it without any time to evaluate and amend the original document before it becomes law.

(It’s worth noting that the person most likely to appreciate how easily the UN panel could be hijacked by political machinations not in the interest of the public good is Steve, owing to his personal role in uncovering and thwarting Hydra’s plans; Sam was roped into the Avenging world through that event, and thus it’s unsurprising that he would have the same concern chief in mind when refusing to sign. While Natasha does sign on to the Accords, she explicitly does not do so because she thinks the Accords are a good idea; she’s playing the political game and ‘reading the terrain’, as she says, and that’s consistent with her character. Tony being impulsive and dangerously emotion-driven is also unfortunately consistent, as is his self-righteousness about imposing his will on others to assuage his own guilt. Vision really has no excuse for being so bad at logicking his way to signing the Accords, but it’s no surprise to me that the most clear-headed staunch Accords supporter would be Rhodey, since following orders from others and unquestioning trust in your governing body is dead-on character for him as a career military man. I think he’s categorically wrong, yes, but I’m not mad at Rhodey for being a True Believer any more than I am at Natasha for being mercurial; both are in-character choices and ones which involve evaluative thought processes, and while ‘in-character’ may still be in play for Tony, evaluative thought processes are not, and that does make me mad. As I’ve noted before, he tends to work as a likable character despite his MANY flaws when he’s in his own movies, because acknowledging those foibles and working to fix them is a core part of his personal arcs in each Iron Man film; it was an essential quality missing in Age of Ultron, and one which made a monster of the character which I AM glad this movie is addressing with fallout; still, there’s a lack of tangible self-reflection and making amends from Tony in this movie, alongside some of his worst personal decisions, and I sincerely do not love him by the end of it.)

The good thing is, despite a few lazy elements - Vision! You tool! - and despite some very frustrating decisions, the central dilemma of the film is a strong and nuanced conversation-starter (and perhaps, argument-inducer). Even though the specific scenario and the people involved (Ross (both of them) and the floating Guantanamo, et al.) skews the narrative definitively against the Accords by the end, there is still fodder there for an intelligent debate about the merits of the concept if not the execution. And, most importantly, Steve’s position on the matter is the MCU’s Captain America to a T - a political story about the appreciable and essential difference between doing one’s duty to a concept, vs adherence to a moral code. Disobedience is a core part of Steve Rogers’ dilemmas - not that disobedience IS the dilemma for him, but that it is at odds with the patriotic good-ol’-boy image he is expected to inhabit from outside. Every Captain America film carries with it the idea that to do the highest good can mean rejecting everything that the people and institutions around you try to insist is right; refusing to play a role that has been prescribed to you; always making the choice for yourself, by your ethos, no matter how hard it is. Refusing to compromise when you see the compromise as an evil; planting yourself like a tree, and saying ‘No. You move’ (a great way of keeping Peggy’s influence alive and moving in the plot, by the way, and a key demonstration of how she and Steve met on the same wavelength. Lots of strong details in this movie, tbh).

My primary complaint, however, is that this is also too much like an Avengers film; nearly all of the other major characters are there, and Tony especially gets a LOT of screen time, and since Cap and his films are my uncontested faves I am pretty salty about having to share the stage for his last outing. The tone and the subject matter are still totally on-brand, but the focus is split, and that’s particularly annoying for what it leaves behind. While Bucky is made central to the drive of the plot, Steve finally being reunited with him, bringing him in, getting the cathartic other side to what was so exquisitely set up in The Winter Soldier, it falls by the wayside a bit and comes off underdone. Sam is certainly there, being wonderful as always, but he doesn’t get a lot to actively influence, he’s mostly just That Other Guy, and it’s a real shame since he was a highlight among super-stiff competition in his introductory film. The touch of Peggy that shines through the film is poignant, but Sharon Carter gets the bad end of the stick with under-developed characterisation and a very ill-advised zero-chemistry attempt to stir a speck of romance in a story with no room for it, and altogether, the kinds of quiet character moments which added so much depth to The Winter Soldier are very much lacking here. We’ve got so many other characters on deck already, plus the introduction of two new major players (T’Challa has a solid, sombre presence which suits the film, and even his hypocrisy fits snugly into the plot so as not to be a barb against him, but as I’ve mentioned already, I am squarely against Peter Parker’s squeaky excessive comic-relief inclusion and the dire implications it has for Tony Stark’s moral compass), and we’re already spending so much time on beefing up Tony’s side of the Civil War. I don’t personally think the movie is bloated, overlong, or incoherent, but it definitely wanders close to all three and I wouldn’t be inclined to argue very strenuously with anyone who wanted to denounce it on any of those fronts. It has a lot going on, not quite too much for an ensemble movie, but more than it should as a story with a single character’s name in the title. I’m still mostly-satisfied by it, and consider it one of the stronger MCU films to date, but as a third Captain America, specifically? A bit of a let-down.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #Captain America: Civil War #Bechdel Test #female representation #MCU #Captain America #Civil War

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