THUS I HAVE CONCLUDED IT IS SOME SORT OF RARE CAP MEMORABILIA,

uniforms

Multifandom meta. A general explanation of the knotting trope plus the lard that accumulated around it and hardened into stone. I did have to explain this topic to someone once (and provide illustrative fic links), and this would have been handy. // N.B.: I recall reading the earliest variations on this theme as Jensen/Harley bestiality fics (courtesy SPN/J2 kinksters). Eventually Jared elbowed the middledog out of the way and acquired his own knot, and it mushroomed from there (more after a nuclear cloud than a penis pun). It seldom had anything to do with werewolves, IIRC, but they showed up eventually. At any rate, bestiality, mpreg, and knotting are all very well, but my hatred for noncon/slave/mpreg combo fics maxes out the loathing scale.

... for people who have seen the movie(s) and want more comics background information.

Fanfic as worldplay/paracosm creation, a la the Brontes. Short, but interesting and well observed for a mainstream piece (well, Wired is SORTA mainstream). Though I do wish people would stop referencing ff.net as though it was the end-all of fanfic writing culture.

The relationship between Amanda and Nolan is my favourite thing about Revenge. This show does a lot of interesting things with gender roles, beginning with the fact that the protagonist is a woman who, for all intents and purposes, is Batman. One thing I particularly love about Amanda is that unlike most female spy/deceiver characters, she doesn't rely on sex appeal and seducing information out of people. Although she uses her relationship with with Daniel as an integral part of her revenge plans, it's an actual relationship, not a collection of scenes where the camera pans over her wearing a sexy outfit before cutting to some man's comically gobsmacked facial expression. To me it feels quite telling that although the female characters in Revenge are mostly trophy wives (or, in the case of Fauxmanda, a former stripper), they are judged far more on their own terms than most female characters on TV.

With Nolan and Amanda, you have this brilliant relationship where Nolan is basically her henchman, but also is the one person who knows her secrets. On paper, it seems like he should have been more of a mentor figure to her -- he's older, he was friends with her father, he's her key to the Hamptons -- but instead he's very clearly in the sidekick role. Also, Nolan is the only character in the show who isn't desperate for control, either of his life or the world around him. There's this almost submissive side to his personality that means he's perfectly happy to look to Amanda for direction and take genuine pleasure in her success.

Steve Rogers has the same goofily earnest attitude as Clark Kent/Superman, something that's rather hard to pull off in a movie aimed at the cynical bastards of 2012.

(2012-05-25) "We Want Your Soul" by Adam Freeland. The Grid wants your soul.

Background comics info about the Natasha/Clint relationship, and Bucky.

As far as I know, the story Natasha tells Loki -- where Clint is assigned to assassinate her and brings her in as a recruit instead -- has no comics counterpart, although in the main comics continuity Clint is responsible for Natasha's change in loyalties.

Two years ago, former Marvel Comics bullpen member Steve Bunche posted a comics try-out page submitted to Marvel in the 1990s by an unknown hopeful. The page, while lacking in polish and technique, nevertheless had very clear storytelling, and, as Bunche notes in his blog post: “While this guy would never have gotten work in a professional comic as a penciller, I have to admire his talent for creating an instant classic of a non sequitor:”

T. Mills Kelly encourages his students to deceive thousands of people on the Web. This has angered many, but the experiment helps reveal the shifting nature of the truth on the Internet.

Written for this prompt on Norsekink.

Loki discovers slashfic on the internet. Naturally, he uses it to annoy Thor, Tony and Steve

Humorous (and Loki-centric) review of Thor which points out its divergence from Norse mythology.

Gender the film treated with rare and unexpected subtlety, and I stand in admiration of how it highlights and embellishes the unstable sexual categories of the Norse mythos. We are accustomed to Loki’s dual-gendered nature, but instead of re-treading that ground, we are presented instead with a deeper examination of gender imbalance in Jotun society. When we are informed Johtenheim has a single ruler, we might expect one of the great Jotuns the Thunderer usually battles, such as Bergelmir, or Utgardsloki, or perhaps Loki’s father Farbauti. Instead we find Laufi, Loki’s mother, on the throne, and having taken a male form, presumably in order to command respect from a patriarchal society, much as her famous son/daughter does. This pathos of this grim portrait of cultural pressures to use shape-shifting to renounce female form in a pre-feminist culture is then multiplied when we see masses of jotuns during the battles and destruction and realize that all of them have the same, hulking, distinctly male form. What might be attributed to bad CG or chauvinist casting reads now as a silent proof of the sub-human position of women in Nordic culture.

AVENGERS THOUGHTS
- Okay, but where did Clint find all those random people and scientists to recruit to Loki's secret base? None of them were brainwashed--they didn't have the glowy Spice eyes. I can believe that he easily knew where to find people willing to go after SHIELD, but it's hilarious to imagine how that recruitment went. I bet there were some awkward phone calls involved, and a lot of variations on the theme of, "We're going to fuck SHIELD up. Want in? Just pay no attention to the mad scientist in the corner or the crazy alien with the melodramatic hair."

Sentiment. It's not a two dollar word, really, is it? You don't lay even odds on getting to hear it on any given day, because it's not an everyday word, or notion -- unless you own or work in a gift shop that specializes in engraving.

But that word is used in the Avengers four times. And each time it's spoken with scorn about something the speaker is trying to disprove -- and each time, the speaker fails to disprove anything at all, and in fact that point goes on to be staggeringly proven later on. It is, if I may say so, a beautiful evidence of Joss Whedon's actual skill as a writer well beyond snappy dialogue.

okay now we’re getting a crash course in why tony and bruce’s first meeting is the greatest fucking thing

because think about how everyone else greets him with this obnoxious feigned ignorance of the hulk’s existence

like, natasha has an entire squadron outside at the ready but feels the need to pretend they’re just having a friendly chat, and fury does not say a word about loki’s prison being intended for the hulk but it’s so obvious banner’s mere presence there is conditional and with EVERYONE AT THE READY TO RESTRAIN HIM IF NECESSARY BUT THEY’RE WILLFULLY PRETENDING THIS ISN’T THE CASE

no buddy you’re just like the rest of us

- Okay, but where did Clint find all those random people and scientists to recruit to Loki's secret base? None of them were brainwashed--they didn't have the glowy Spice eyes. I can believe that he easily knew where to find people willing to go after SHIELD, but it's hilarious to imagine how that recruitment went. I bet there were some awkward phone calls involved, and a lot of variations on the theme of, "We're going to fuck SHIELD up. Want in? Just pay no attention to the mad scientist in the corner or the crazy alien with the melodramatic hair."