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chimswae · 3 years

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Untold Bonus Part 3

Foreword:

Some stories are better left unsaid.I couldn’t change anything for the world, although the fame part of this industry is tough to handle.Do i have a life? Yes I have my fans.Do i have friends? Yes the members that I cherish. Do i have love? No I have to let go.Life always offers you a second chance. It’s called tomorrow. But do i have any tomorrow?

Pairing: Jimin x OC (Other characters: BTS, OCs, Lee Taehwan)

Genre: Idolau, Fluff, Romance, Father!Au

Word Count: 2,324

Author Note: I totally forget to finish update Untold! forgive me ;; This is an old story of mine i think i wrote it in 2017, so please ignore my clicheness and the excessive usage of clicheness~ that makes u cringe haha

You can check full masterlist below :)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Part 3

Although their camel tour ended a little comically, everyone had fun. Hoseok on the other hand was salty the whole day because of the poop incident. As soon as they reached their hotel, Hoseok spent at least two hours in the bathroom alone taking super long bath just to get rid of the smell or whatever he thought it was. He claimed it was to stabilize his mental state after the horrifying event.

Hoseok could be a little too dramatic sometimes, no one could stop that guy.

Leaving Hoseok with his delusional thought, others went to get dinner at nearby restaurant and bought takeaways food for him to savor later on. Enjoying the night city view, the stars sparkle in the night sky.

“I love the city when it shuts down” Jimin whispers.

Yeoul smiled upon hearing that low and raspy voice of his, so enticing. They both strolled the parks pedestrian pathways following others from behind silently. The streets was empty, there were minimal number of people around and most of them were couples. The emptiness was strange and magnificent.

“This is perfect” she squished their hand tighter.

In front of them, there were Taehyung with his cameras and his loyal assistant Kim Namjoon, his eyes fixated on his gadgets. These two guys sometimes stopped in the middle of their walk to take good picture and admiring them afterwards. Or ended up bickering over Vante’s photos.

Maknae and Jin on the other side were busy scanning the city and finding good spots to shop, though there were fewer shops opened past 11. The couple did not give up on whatever they were planning to buy, more like souvenirs.

Taehwan and Yoongi went back earlier than them since they wanted to catch up their sleep, with that they offered to bring Minyeol together. Poor Minyeol being dragged around by the adults. Not to mention, they still had to feed loner Jung Hobi, that guy must be starving.

Yeoul and Jimin took their time to enjoy this night stroll exchanging funny stories or stealing glances. Being with Jimin taught Yeoul how to swoon him with a simple flirt and playful kisses. She was taught well.

“Baby..Let’s ditch them” he tugged on Yeoul arm preventing her to move.

“Are you crazy? They will flip out” raising her eyebrows with a questionable look, she watched Jimin took his phone typing something in his phone.

Jimin grinned “Done. I notify them in our Kakaotalk group,so lets go” he pecked her lips, intertwining their hand together. Yeoul could only smile at his randomness and followed him wherever he wished to go. Anywhere with Jimin is everywhere she wanted to be.

Like a flash the couple disappeared from their vicinity for their own oh-not-so-romantic midnight tour. Jin and Jungkook had so much sense in them that they did not even care when they left unlike someone who insisted of following those two. Another reason how they ended in Morocco anyways, Kim Taehyung really need to stop pursuing different career in his life. The preferred V and Vante for now.

Please don’t turn him into Varazzi or something.

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There sitting side by side, two pure soul enjoying each other company under dark sky accompanied by the heat from the bonfire across them. Being drawn by the warmth of their body heat, Yeoul snuggled in Jimin’s embrace smiling as he rested his chin on top of her head.

The fire glimmered and gleamed, its warmth drawn people in creating an atmosphere for sharing and making memories. As the night grows, they wished to linger around just a little longer in the warmth and contentment around the fire.

Everything about tonight was perfect.

“Aren’t you tired?” he was the one who first broke the silence between them.

Jimin felt Yeoul shifted a little in his embrace and soon he heard she replied “Tired of what? You? That is impossible.. I prefer to cling onto you for the rest of my life” she teased while wrapping her arm around his waist tighter.

“You cannot be tired of me. My charms are overflowing” he gazed down into her dark orbs. A pair of eyes that never failed to draw him in into this crazy world. World with unspeakable love. World that fills with hope. World that fills with happiness.

If she were to list down her weakness when it came to Jimin, his gaze would definitely on the list. In fact, that’s her utmost weakness.

“Aren’t you being a little over confident right now Park Jimin-ssi?” she ran her thumb over his lips, stroking it softly.

“I don’t mind if it is you I am trying to win over” caressing the back of his hand along Yeoul’s soft cheeks, Jimin closed the gap between them and locking her into a long endearing kiss. A kiss that he wished to give everyday.

Their lips move just perfectly in sync following their rapid heartbeat. He stroke over her back in a light touch that sent tingles in her heart. Every time their lips touched the spark ignite anew. Yeoul placed her palm upon his chest over his heart and felt it strong steady beat. The kiss deepened as she could feel with every stroke of his tongue latching onto hers.

They broke the kiss to catch a deep breath “You are irresistible Park Jimin” Yeoul mumbled against his lips.

“I am sorry. You have to deal with it until death do us part” nuzzling her face, Jimin chuckled softly.

“I don’t mind” this time Yeoul was the one who initiate their second round. Locking her arm around his neck tight, she pulled him down for another kiss. Who knows a kiss with Jimin can be addicting? Well Yeoul had her whole life to deal with it.

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It was time to get back to reality. Everyone was physically ready to be back in Korea but not mentally. They will be missing Morocco for sure. Nonetheless, thanks to Kim Taehyung unexpected plan Yeoul and Jimin stays in Morocco was extra fun than they expected. Creating new memories with their loved one especially Bangtan, Taehwan and Minyeol, it was beyond perfect.

Boarding the plane on time, everyone got into their seat. First class seat as they said, but Jungkook was stuck with Jin for the whole journey, how unfortunate. He liked his hyung but sometimes he’s a little too bubbly for someone at his age. Considering he is in the hyung line, Jungkook felt he had slowly shifted toward the maknae line.

Welcome aboard Kim Seokjin!

Even before the plane took off, Jin insisted to sit on the aisle and made Jungkook stay in the middle. They had no idea who would take the window seat but scratch that, he hoped that person wouldnt snore that much.

Jungkook eyes wandered at the direction of their seat and noticed the window seat was already occupied. He couldn’t get a full view of the person but he’s sure it was a girl. So, he sank in his seat carefully not to startle the girl whom seemed engross with her reading. She had earphone plugged in both of her ears got him less anxious to sit behind a stranger some more a girl.

The older boy came few minutes later with a triumph grin plastered across his face, more like mocking Jungkook for sitting beside a girl.

Maknae grunted under his breath feeling unfair as he sent death glare at Jin’s way “If it weren’t for you……” Jin dumbfounded look was even annoying.

As the plane was ready for take off, Jungkook stole a glance at the girl beside him. He admired her long eyelashes, and her soft fluffy cheeks which again reminded him Jimin’s puffy one. Her fingers were beautiful and those accessories that she wore fitted perfectly around it. He tore his gaze from examining her feature even more like a creep. Jungkook had no idea why was he so nervous when the girl beside him showed no interest to start a conversation even a simple hi.

You are so stupid Jungkook. He grimaced.

The first hour of the journey, Jungkook had decided to pay all his attention on the games in his phone. His mind sometimes was too wild and he tended to over thinking too. The girl snapped the book closed as she stifled her yawn, stretching her aching muscle.

She loved window seat since she had more space for herself and most importantly she didn’t have to deal with strangers on plane. Engaging into unimportant conversation was one thing, but she hated people who snore in the plane.

Thank god, the two guys beside him seemed normal. She totally forgot to take a glance at the guy beside him and only to realize he’s quite good looking. Not an average look for a man at his age, but his eyes and those visible veins were her weakness.

Reaching out to her hair, she’s about to tie it into a bun but only to lose grip on her red hairband. It landed just few inch from Jungkook’s feet. Jungkook realized that and put away his phone. He bent down to pick the hairband up but at the same time the girl was already reaching for it. Their head were hitting each other, earning a low gasp from both Jungkook and the girl.

Jungkook straightened up with a baffle look “I am so sorry” he apologized earnestly.

The girl took the hairband and rubbed her sore head with a small smile “It is alright. I am sorry for dropping this” their eyes met. The girl grew anxious at the sudden staring battle that they had right now. She touched her face in case she smeared her lipstick.

“I am sorry? Is there something wrong” she inquired.

He was brought back to his sense as he blurted without he realize “Nothing. You are just pretty” Jungkook himself couldn’t believe what’s coming out from his sinful mouth. Clasping his hand over his mouth, he patted it giving it a scold.

The girl blushed upon hearing his compliment as he watched him in horror “W-hat…” she faked a laugh and averted her gaze from Jungkook.

“I mean..I didn’t mean to say that. That is just weird. I am sorry again” He bowed a little hoping he would not scare the girl away. What’s wrong with him anyway? This stupid filthy little mouth gave away compliment so casually especially to a stranger like her.

She shook her head “It is alright. It must be the gravity” she reasoned.

Jungkook bit his lower lips to surpass his chuckle at her silly reply “Urm.. I am Jeon Jungkook by the way” he flashed her a charming smile not trying to win her over but that’s just how he smiled.

The girl was taken aback at first not expecting the guy beside her would introduce himself. This was the start of every conversation, how she hated that. Therefore just to be polite, she replied Jungkook casually “Nari…Son Nari” her eyes gleams.

“Nari.. Nice to meet you Nari-ssi”

“You too Jungkook-ssi”

Interestingly, this Son Nari girl seemed to not recognize him. Not to sound like a superstar, but to be frank everyone knew Bangtan Sonyeondan but for some reason this girl had zero idea of his existence as one of famous idol members.

After exchanging their names, they fell into silence again. Nari exasperated a sigh of relief knowing Jungkook was not a talkative person, so she could enjoy this plane ride with ease.

Little did Jungkook know, Jin was actually faking him being asleep. He heard it all up until those little innocent conversation made by Jungkook introducing himself to some random girl. It was a rare sight but he’s proud of his dongsaeng mustering his courage to talk to opposite sex.

Jungkook stiffened in his seat still contemplating whether to ask questions or kept his mouth shut. Part of him wanted to prolong this conversation as he was curious of this Son Nari person. A soft sigh escaped as his fingers fiddled nervously.

“You should be thanking me later Jeon” a soft voice whispered awfully low and close to his ears causing him to jerk backwards accidentally hitting Nari again.

“I AM SO SORRY AGAIN” he looked over at the confused girl and threw a nasty glare at Jin, grinding his teeth together.

“You seem to have the knack of bumping into others clumsily” she chortled.

The corner of his lips tugged into an embarrass smile “I thought there was a bug on my seat” he lied. Studying her facial more clearly know, he could tell she’s judging him considering how hard she tried to hold back her laughter.

“Actually you kinda remind me of one of my friends.. he is..” Nari couldn’t believe with her own eyes that she actually felt comfortable talking to a stranger exchanging their stories and life which was she rarely did every time in public.

But..Jungkook. Something about him made it feel different.

Was it his smiley face?

Was it his perfectly round eyes?

Was it his giggly side every time he got shy?

It had always been a start of something new. Nari could use new friends.

Previous | Next: Epilogue

#untoldseries #bts fic #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #jimin x oc #jimin idolau #jimin father au #park jimin father au #bts series #jimin parenthood au

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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

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Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers (2012)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

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

Three (23.07% of cast).

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

Ten.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Episode Quality:

It’s solid. Unpopular opinion? I don’t think it’s half as good as people made it out to be, back when it first hit cinemas and everyone was swooning. It’s solid, but that’s the best I’ve got for it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

...

Female characters:

Maria Hill.

Natasha Romanov.

Pepper Potts.

Male characters:

Nick Fury.

Phil Coulson.

Erik Selvig.

Clint Barton.

Loki.

Bruce Banner.

Steve Rogers.

Tony Stark.

JARVIS.

Thor.

OTHER NOTES:

‘free from freedom’ is such a wanky piece of writing, man. It’s absolute nonsense, but it sounds vaguely profound if you don’t think about it at all. I thought about it. It’s idiotic.

The very first thing we see of Black Widow in this movie is her being hit in the face, wearing a slinky little dress, tied to a chair being interrogated by a bunch of men. We’re supposed to indulge this excuse for hurting and objectifying a woman and then write it off as ‘empowering’ because she beats the Hell outta the dudes a couple of minutes later. That’s not a game I’m interested in playing. This is garbage.

The classical music over the beginnings of the Stuttgart attack is great.

All those German folks so confused by this Loki dude speaking English at them. What a tool.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard ‘not today’ used as an effective badass declaration. It’s ALWAYS cheesy. Make it stop.

“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.” I don’t really like this line for Steve; he just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would play the ‘one true God’ card, and there was nothing in his origin story which implied that he’s particularly attached to religion at all; plus, he already read the brief on Thor, he knows this is literally the old Norse deity, there’s no question of whether or not they’re dealing with a God here. To argue the point (because he’s not MY God!) is meaningless in context, and feels like a weak attempt to correlate (Christian) faith with being ‘old-fashioned’, like OF COURSE Steve would defend the idea of the ‘one true God’, he’s from the past, not a cool enlightened atheist/agnostic modern man like the rest of us, right?

Thor and Loki are using such archaic phrasing, when Tony makes his ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ joke, it’s...more an observation than a quip. The Asgardians were not half as stuffy in Thor. It makes it seem like someone didn’t bother to see that movie first before writing their version of the characters.

Thor has to fight with the others when he shows up. He’s just gotta.

Gotta give a nod to Mark Ruffalo’s work here; I feel like I can see the clear comparison between his version of the character and Edward Norton’s in The Incredible Hulk, but at the same time there’s no sense of this being a Norton’s-Banner impression. Ruffalo is doing a sweet job of making the character his own without totally overhauling the template Norton laid down, and I dig it.

Oh, here we are. Loki calls Black Widow a ‘mewling quim’, which is just a fancy way of calling her a whiny cunt. Your gendered slur is still a gendered slur, movie.

I know they’re playing the idea that the sceptre is causing the antagonism between the characters, but fuck, it’s tedious. It just feels like they’re all contrived petty versions of themselves, being shitty because it’s ~dramatic~ for them to not get along.

I didn’t see this movie until months after it was released, and people were raving about how crushed they were by the major character death in the film but they were doing a pretty good job of not spoiling it; good enough that for a moment, I really thought I’d get to enjoy the surprise/horror for myself. You know who spoiled it for me? In a tweet, no less? It was the 44th President of the United States. Thanks, Obama.

This guy is the MVP of this film:

You can chalk “Son, just don’t,” up on the list of Things Steve Rogers Would Not Say. Just because he’s technically in his nineties doesn’t mean he isn’t still in his twenties in his mind: I don’t buy that he’d go for a blithely patriarchal term like ‘son’, it seems like another poorly-considered attempt to make him sound old-fashioned. Juxtapose that with ‘just don’t’, which is very modern vernacular. It might seem clever to combine the two as a meta-expression of Steve belonging to two different times now, but in practical application it just sounds out-of-character, and there’s nothing clever about that.

I know I said after the last movie that I love it when someone gets hit and flies off-screen in an exaggerated fashion, but Hulk punching Thor off-screen after they finish working together to take down the big beastie is an exception, because there’s no reason for Hulk to decide to hit Thor in the first place, it’s just a gag for the sake of a gag. I can’t believe they messed up such a simple pleasure.

I will forgive it, in return for Hulk smashing Loki all over the place. That was funny.

Back when this movie came out, before I saw it, I had people tell me - straight-faced, totally sincere - that it was one of the best movies they had ever seen. The internet was on fire with Avengers love. The film was rated in the IMDb Top 20. Admittedly, that all sets a pretty impossible standard for a movie to meet, and being at least a little disappointed in the result is probably a given. I was not particularly invested either way (I didn’t fall down the Marvel rabbit hole until later), so I didn’t allow myself to go in to my first viewing with such lofty expectations to be crushed, just the general assumption that this was gonna be good, it had to be good, at minimum. And it was that; it’s a good film. It’s entertaining. The plot makes basic essential sense. It’s easy to follow. There are some nice visuals, and most of the special effects are relatively clean, which can be a significant difficulty for big-budget extravaganzas that sometimes/often try to get way too much spectacle bang for their buck, so, a nice win. All in all, The Avengers is not a bad film. Sure is a bland one, though.

I know, I know, getting all these big-name characters from previous films together in one movie was a serious task and it’s hard to write a well-balanced script for so many leads, blah blah. Let’s put that whole equivocation to bed right now, because I honestly don’t think that balancing the big-name cast was the problem. All of the characters had something to do, no one felt like a random extra, I could quibble about certain places where I really wish things had been plumped up a bit (pretty much everywhere - the film is extremely low on meaningful character beats), but ultimately the characters are fairly evenly presented. What makes this movie bland to me is 1) the way that the personalities of the characters deviate from that established in their previous films, and 2) the simplicity of the story they inhabit.

We’ll cover the Avengers themselves first: the good news is, Tony Stark is still Tony Stark. His personality is intact. Bruce Banner is, as noted, not exactly the Bruce Banner we met back in The Incredible Hulk, but that’s both a given and a good thing - the casting change is an improvement. Hawkeye was barely in the MCU previously, so we don’t really have enough to compare him against in order to make a judgment. Black Widow, however, is a bit of a mess; Joss Whedon’s special brand of misogyny is on display from moment one, as noted above (he LOVES writing women being brutalised because ‘how would we know/believe that they’re strong if we don’t get to see them overcoming mistreatment?’ - he tends not to feel the need to ‘prove’ his male characters’ strengths in this way), and Natasha’s personal story for the movie continues in a distinctly gendered vein: as is common for female characters being written by shitty dudes, her arc revolves predominantly around a man (Hawkeye), and she is ‘emotionally compromised’ by her attachment to him. She also zones out in the middle of an action scene and winds up in a corner shaking and traumatised (very out-of-character for a super spysassin), and particular emphasis is placed on all the bad things she’s done in the past and how she should feel bad about it, though no one does more than shrug their shoulders about Clint or Fury or any of the other SHIELD agents who are acknowledged as having dark and dirty pasts. Why is Natasha the one who is singled out to have her morality judged while her ‘arc’ focuses on her inconvenient emotional engagement? You know why. There’s no reason why this particular tack had to be taken in bringing her backstory into the film, and as a result of it we spend little time with Black Widow displaying the kind of cool professionalism and self-assurance she had in Iron Man 2. The inclusion of that vulnerability and backstory doesn’t make her feel more rounded or complicated because it is deconstructing the power and mastery of the character; rather than building upon the foundation set in her previous film visit, we’re questioning the stability of that foundation and seeing if we can get a few pieces of the structure to rattle loose.

A big part of the trouble for Thor is that he gets saddled with that poxy Ye Olde Cliche dialogue, and there are few things worse for achieving character consistency than changing the way that they talk: no matter how hard the actor tries to play the character the same, they can’t compensate for the fact that the very structure of their sentences has been remodeled. They can improvise rephrasing the lines and/or argue the point if they want, but it’s hard to challenge every line, and if the director (who, oh look, is also the writer) insists you follow the script verbatim, there’s not a lot you can do with that. Poor Captain America suffers the same fate with the overt attempts to make him sound ‘old-fashioned’ by having him utter words and phrases that he never used in his origin movie. What’s worse is, this stilted dialogue is pretty much the sum total of the film’s acknowledgment of the fact that, oh yeah, Steve just recently woke up from the ice to find that seventy years has passed and nearly everyone and everything he used to know is gone. He has an exchange with Fury in his first scene, about ‘getting back in the world’, but there’s zero follow-up on how he’s handling it, what difficulties there might be, or even just how Steve is feeling about all of this on a basic emotional level. And yes, I am aware that there’s a deleted montage of Steve going about his day being isolated and out-of-touch, and it’s a travesty that they cut it because that’s essential character content, but it’s also a total bare minimum which has zero follow-up. Steve Rogers spends the whole film just being...there, speaking lines that don’t suit him or reflect the personality we just saw in The First Avenger, and not even in an understandable character-development ‘throwing myself into my work to hide from the pain’ kind of way. He’s kinda blandly self-righteous and all-business no-pleasure in exactly the way he was NOT in his origin movie; my impression is that Whedon doesn’t care for the character and wrote him off as the traditional patriotic cliche one might have expected him to be instead of the nuanced character that he actually is. As with Thor and Loki, it feels as if Whedon didn’t bother to watch the previous movies first in order to get a sense of the established characters.

Speaking of Loki: if there’s one character who really, REALLY suffered a personality change in this script, it’s him. None of what made Loki the highlight of Thor is in evidence here; where that character was a cunning plotter full to overflowing with complex and contradictory feelings for his family and driven to action by that same emotional cascade, this Loki...wants to rule the Earth. Because. He’s, like, crazy, the other characters all say so, even Thor - the only one who actually knows Loki and is fit to assess his mental state - says that his ‘mind is far astray’ (what Thor thinks of that, whether he’s surprised or concerned, whether he feels like he understands why this has happened to Loki or not, is unclear, because, I dunno, Thor having feelings is as inconvenient to the story as Steve having feelings - as Loki snarls derisively about ‘sentiment’, we must remember that being emotionally compromised is dumb and only for women? Hmm). Loki is just a placeholder villain in this film, driven to action by nothing in particular, it’s just a business arrangement with a mysterious third party that coincidentally happens to involve Earth. Loki prattles and hollers a lot about how ruling is his right and people want to be ruled and blah despot blah, and it’s both supremely uninspired, and not true to the character we met in Thor at all - the Loki we know was not obsessed with ruling, his motivations were all about his family standing and the things he was denied within those relationships and their implications. I remember fandom, back when this movie came out, scrambling with various headcanons about Loki losing his mind in the void or being brainwashed, ad nauseum, because no one really seemed to feel like they were watching a logical progression of the same character at all.

Now, one of the main ways that the lack of character consistency contributes to narrative blandness is that it disrupts narrative immersion - we’re re-negotiating the way that we engage with the characters, and that distracts from engaging with the story itself. At worst, we may even find ourselves cynical about every decision that a character makes (whether it’s in-character or not), because we’re too aware of the man behind the curtain to buy the act. There are definite shades of that in this film, but the worst of it comes from the whole team-antagonism schtick that is vaguely blamed on ‘Loki’s manipulations’ and the sceptre. The thing is, this all requires the characters to behave out-of-character, and since they mostly already are out-of-character due to bad writing, the exacerbation of that by creating artificial conflict feels like more bad writing, not actual plot. Having the characters initially get along poorly before triumphantly uniting to win the day is such an overused device, it’s easy to construe the conflict as arbitrary, and as it turns out...it is. Loki/the sceptre causing the Avengers to argue doesn’t actually impact the narrative in any meaningful way, since they don’t start a fight or fracture over it, it doesn’t slow down Tony’s efforts to learn what Fury is really up to, nor does it prevent Steve from investigating the same thing in person. Them conflicting with Fury and questioning their decision to work with SHIELD, etc, is a normal thing to have an argument about, no magic-mind-stick required; the only mileage the movie really gets out of the forced-conflict ploy is that Steve and Tony keep pissing on each other, which is extremely OOC for nice-guy Steve and WOULD throw up a big red flag for mental manipulations if the movie weren’t already misrepresenting him as an insufferable stick in the mud anyway, and even for Tony it feels off - he’s generally a jerk as a rule, but he doesn’t pick unprovoked fights - but again, when the movie is already so left-of-centre on so many characters everyone feels off, so it’s easy to assume the characters are just falling victim to contrived drama, and not something in the actual story. As noted, it doesn’t end up mattering where the conflict comes from anyway; the bad news is, it takes until the halfway point of the Goddamn movie before the characters get their prescribed ‘rough patch’ out of the way. The fact that they were just being really annoying for no real reason and without narrative consequence kinda steps on the idea of it being ‘triumphant’ when they all come together at the end to fight Loki, because there was zero reason for the audience to ever legitimately doubt that it would happen, not even in a begrudging-putting-this-genuine-disagreement-aside-so-that-we-can-save-the-world kind of way. It’s just dead air with no weight behind it, and with characters reduced to such cliche versions of themselves that it’s hard to muster the will to care.

AND SO, we have a movie which, as previously noted, is awfully damn simplistic. That’s not a terrible thing, in and of itself - it’s all about what you do with an idea, and I would posit that a more complicated plot wouldn’t be a great idea here since there are so many primary moving parts in the form of characters to justify. But, the aforementioned griping about the skewy characterisation makes this film a bad candidate for character-over-plot, and if the shenanigans are falling flat, that’s when simplistic plotting becomes a problem. It goes like this: Loki shows up and steals the magic cube (action ensues). The avengers assemble to catch Loki (action ensues). The characters argue on a helicarrier until Loki’s goons show up to wreck shit (action ensues). Loki escapes and goes to New York to use the magic cube to portal an alien army to Earth. Action ensues until the portal is closed and Loki is defeated. The end. I’m not complaining about the action - it’s a standard facet of the genre, and most of it is entertaining enough (though the unnecessary Thor/Iron Man fight I coulda done without, and the battle of New York runs a bit long) - but the plot itself is pretty point-A-to-B-to-C without much in the way of surprises, and like I said, that’s fine so long as you’re delivering in another arena, i.e. STRONG CHARACTER NARRATIVES. And character is sooo far from being this film’s strong suit. The result? Is not very compelling.

It tends to wind up that, by the time I get to the end of explaining why I think a thing didn’t work (and this is...the abridged version), it maybe seems ridiculous that I’m also saying ‘this thing isn’t that bad’. The truth is, there’s nothing that I think this movie does impressively well, and there are a lot of pretty major things that I think were poorly handled. BUT, I still meant what I said: it’s entertaining. It makes at least basic sense, and flows easily enough. And while I have serious issues with a lot of the characterisation and feel that - though balanced(ish) in handling - the plot failed to take real advantage of any of the character resources at its disposal (except maybe Tony), the actors still brought the goods to the table, and those whom I enjoyed in their previous films (I mean you, Chris Evans) didn’t disappoint, even though the material they were handling did. It’s a solid film, it’s good fun, I don’t regret watching it, and while I am irritated by various aspects, I don’t feel the need to keep ranting about them. And hey; Mark Ruffalo is really very wonderful. They’ve got that going for them.

#The Avengers #MCU #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Bechdel Test #female representation #Avengers

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