So this is something I’ve had on my mind for awhile that I don’t think I’ve ever seen mentioned on here before.
In “The Incredible Hulk”, when Bruce hulks out, the first thing that changes are his eyes.
In “The Avengers”, his eyes are the last thing to change.
Just that I find interesting, but it could also be looked at symbolically. Eyes are commonly considered windows to the soul.
In the first film, or at least in the scene above, Bruce is trying to bring out the monster.
A. Because it’s the only thing powerful enough to stop the abomination
B. He figures if he learns to control it, he can use it to help peopleObviously he does eventually learn how to have a handle on it [see “I’m always angry”], but when Bruce first hulks out in the Avengers, it’s unwillingly.
It’s stress, and fear, and high heart rate, and “Oh no, I’m going to hurt someone.”
In the first GIF Bruce is channeling the Hulk as a hero.
In the second GIF, he’s resisting the Hulk as a monster.
“Is that dirty enough for you?”
#natasha is a lake; you only see what is reflected at the surface#you have no idea how deep it goes; or what is hiding in it#she could lure you and swallow you whole and you wouldn’t have any idea of it until it happens#or she could let you go away and you wouldn’t know what exacty you have escaped#she keeps assessing and assessing and people only see a pretty face#a nice smile with pouty lips and bright wide eyes#they never see the danger hiding behind#you don’t know how cold and deep a lake can be until you’re in the middle of it#with no way to go back to the earth (darlingdukeofsuffolk)
Ward’s aversion to touch is incredibly noteworthy, now that we know what we know about him.
The first time Fitz claps him on the back, he actually flinches. He doesn’t just look annoyed, his shoulders tense up as well in discomfort. At the time, this seemed like another indicator of his prickly personality and lack of people skills. But now, we know that his reaction stems from a history of abuse. Even though he was a Hydra sleeper from day one, that reaction, that physical, instinctual reaction was real. He never would’ve expected Fitz to clap him on the back like that, so he didn’t have time to act in line with his cover - macho man, Agent Grant Ward. His instincts took over in that moment and he reacted to physical contact the only way his body knew how, with fear. He was trying to curl in on himself, to protect himself, because in his experience, physical contact has always been accompanied by pain and abuse.
The next couple of times that Fitz pats him on the back, he’s better prepared. He doesn’t let his body show his discomfort this time, he just looks really annoyed. Really annoyed, like, more annoyed than would seem reasonable. And let’s think about why. The act of patting someone on the back is usually done by someone older to someone younger, as in, good job, I’m proud of you, way to go, etc. Like a father to son, or an older brother to a younger one. I’m betting either Ward’s father or older brother used to do that to him. I’m betting they used to do that to him after they made him hurt his younger brother as a way of inundating him into the cycle of abuse. You’re one of us now. They would have used that pat on the back to make him feel like he belonged, and Ward would have desperately wanted that feeling of belonging.
But the act of slapping someone on the back, specifically when used by men, is also typically an expression of toughening up. Buckle up, man up, be strong. Ward’s father/brother is not only saying you’re one of us, but also you have to be strong to be one of us. And in their eyes, the only way to be strong is to make someone else weak. They taught Ward to be disdainful of weakness, they taught him to look down on weakness. They taught him that those who are weak get hurt by those who are strong. So even though Ward would have hated hurting his younger brother, he would have been terrified to speak up for fear of being seen as weak himself and receiving even more of that abuse.
Let’s discuss the significance of Fitz being the one who keeps slapping him on the back. Fitz, who is younger and smaller and less experienced and physically weaker than Ward. When Fitz looks at Ward, he sees someone who is strong in all the ways he isn’t. I don’t think Fitz necessarily wants to be Ward, but he still sees him as that stereotypical strong male figure to look up. But when Ward looks at Fitz, he is reminded of his own weaknesses that no one else can see. When Fitz slaps him on the shoulder, he hates it because he imagines his younger brother doing that to him and he doesn’t feel proud or strong, he feels shame and helplessness. That’s why it bothers him so much that FItz specifically is slapping him on the back. Because he could imagine his younger brother doing that. We don’t know what Ward’s relationship is like with his younger brother, but it doesn’t seem like he keeps in contact with him either. Maybe his younger brother hates Ward just like Ward hates their older brother. His annoyance at Fitz is also hatred at himself that he will never have that sort of relationship with his actual younger brother.
Now let’s look at how he reacts to Garrett manhandling him. In the context of this scene, Garrett told him to lighten up (so condescending) and tried to shake him into showing a little positivity. Ward’s reaction is literally all of us when someone is trying to coax us into showing enthusiasm when we aren’t really feeling it - that annoyed exasperation. He just stands there and takes it, lets him do whatever he wants to him. This scene sums up his entire relationship with Garrett - Ward passively letting Garrett do whatever he wants. Ward is actually taller than Garrett as well, but again, a physically smaller man is pushing him around and he is just standing there limply.
We have to talk about agency when we talk about Ward and it’s pretty clear here that he has next to none. His abusive childhood has made him a passive participant in his own life and that’s evidenced here when Garrett pushes him around and when Fitz pats him on the back. It would be so easy for him to just tell Fitz to stop slapping him on the back, but he never does. He can’t even say no to something that simple. He can’t even stand up for himself for something that simple. This is how deeply abused and traumatized he is.
This is not a villain. This is not an evil man. This is a person who has so little self-worth that he silently accepts anything that people do to him, not matter how much he dislikes it. This is a man who has been taught that his life is worth nothing. This is a man who deserves the chance to learn that he is worth something.
#yes #yes this so very much #it’s easy to be an asshole in a world full of assholes #especially when you have/had a shit life and have/had some nasty shit happened to you #but to still be kind #not to waver #to stay who you are #is a very hard thing to do #it’s easy to love #and it’s easy to hate #but it takes strength to be gentle and kind #and this is why every single superhero in the marvel universe looks up to steve #clint said it himself #steve brings out the best out of people #when you’re around steve you want to do what’s right because of the sheer power of steve’s goodness #oh god #steve i love you so much it actually pains me please send help
“merriment can sometimes be a heavier burden than battle”
like i understand hes making fun, i understand he’s talkin bout parties, but come on
what thor really means is “im sad” “im sad all the time” “im happy on the outside but im always sad” “because nothing is the same” “ive had to face things that tore me apart from the brother i love and the fun of life and of being young and free” “im conscious and clearheaded and because of that im sad” “but i still smile cause people expect me to smile like the golden son im supposed to be”
I meant to just reblog this, but then I started thinking about it and thinking about Thor and how he deals with this sadness, because, yes, so much of it is about not being that carefree (reckless, arrogant) youth anymore, but having seen the true cost of war (Loki is the cost of war, Thor lost him because of war), he bears a much heavier burden.
And like Thor says, it’s true that surrender is not in his nature, he still gets up every day and still fights to protect people and still enjoys that fighting, his laughter on Vanaheim was genuine, it’s just… not carefree anymore, it’s a fight to try to stay happy now.
But he still smiles because Thor is someone who protects other people, who smiles for them to reassure them, smiles because he is at heart an optimist, even if he’s learning to balance it with realism. And the thing that makes me really heavy hearted for Thor is that it’s not like he couldn’t show that he was sad, it’s not like he couldn’t tell people he was sad, but that it wouldn’t fix anything, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t talk about how he’s sad at the loss of Loki, because what will words do? He doesn’t have the words to bring Loki back. He doesn’t have the words to make him and Jane not from separate worlds.
So he keeps getting up and keeps fighting back Marauders and keeps working to stay positive and help as many people as he can and to try to work through all this, because Thor is never one to give up a fight, even the fight to just simply love people and live his life.
But it’s sad right now. Thor has a lot of sadness because there are so many things that he can’t fix and he’s a doer, he does things, that’s who he is, and doing things can’t fix them now, of course he’s sad and I just.
/cries into my pillow
Steve Rogers is not afraid of strong women.
Steve Rogers is not afraid of strong women.
Stop it with the fic where Steve is terrified of Natasha, or Maria, or Pepper, or guh, Darcy. I guess people think it’s cute, or whatever.
Seriously. Strong women don’t make Steve scared, they make him swoon.
The only thing Steve is afraid of is that strong women won’t like him.
Acting like Steve is afraid of women also ignores one of my favorite moments of the movies, where Steve isn’t sure if Clint can be trusted, but he looks to Natasha and it just takes one nod from her for Steve to be okay with it. He respects people who know what they’re doing, male or female.
Captain feminism
“What was interesting to me was to be able to create the look that Black Widow has as Natasha. Like, who is Natasha outside of her costumes, her disguises, her suit, what does she look like regularly? It’s certainly not this. This is a disguise. What does she look like day to day? We decided she definitely drives a black Corvette and she definitely wears tailored leather jackets, with very sleek no muss, no fuss, no fancy anything. Everything’s just badass and simple.” — Scarlett Johansson
(x)
This is a panel from Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2.
In Marvel’s main continuity, on Earth Prime, Tony Stark aka Iron Man and Steve Rogers aka Captain America (BOTH DUDES—keep this in mind, this information is important) fell on opposite sides of a debate during Marvel’s CIVIL WAR event. Tony Stark was pro-registration after the Superhuman Registration Act was passed—which demanded superheroes reveal all of their personal information and give up their rights to privacy, concede to being labeled a “human weapon of mass destruction,” and undergo proper training determined by the US government—and Steve Rogers was anti-registration. There are a bunch of reasons why the both of them sided the way they did, but the whole thing was a big mess and in the end, Steve ended up dying.
On Earth 3490, Tony Stark was born a woman—Natasha Stark—and instead of the big mess and the fighting and the death with the whole civil war thing, she and Steve just got married and boned a lot.
NOW. LOOK BACK AT THAT PANEL UP THERE. Reed Richards is looking through some big machine he made or something to see where he went wrong with the Superhuman Registration Act and is looking at alternate universes to see what resulted from the same actions and determine what ended in conflict and what ended peacefully.
“THE 47TH PEACEFUL MODEL EXAMINED BENEFITED PRIMARILY FROM THE ROMANTIC INVOLVEMENT OF CAPTAIN AMERICA, STEVE ROGERS, AND THE IRON WOMAN, NATASHA STARK.”
IN SUMMARY: IF TONY STARK AND STEVE ROGERS HAD GOTTEN MARRIED AND FUCKED THE CRAP OUT OF EACH OTHER ON EARTH PRIME, THE WAR OVER SUPERHUMAN REGISTRATION WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED. This is canon. The relationship between them is so passionate, it saved another Earth from a civil war between superhumans because they were allowed to act on their passion. Steve/Tony is canon, in at least one universe.
I’m just saying.
Let’s discuss “Hello, mother. Have I made you proud?”
—In front of Odin to show Odin which parent is still a parent to him, and which parent he feels treated him well.
—A joke to cover up pain and nervousness, in the manner that Loki always uses to cope with those emotions.
—The content of the joke is partially bleak farce at how even she would not be proud of him, or if she were, she could not show it in front of Odin.
—Despite all this he is hoping against hope that she will say yes and oppose his father openly. She judges it best to subvert Odin quietly. Frigga’s position is not an enviable one, to be sure.
Additionally:
—Notice Frigga’s hand gesture? Who else does that to calm down? Loki.
—Odin scheduled Thor to be away fighting rock beasts in Vanaheim on purpose so that Thor could not be there for his resolve over Loki’s fate to waver, I’m convinced.
I think that a lot of the reason Jarvis has become so human is because Tony treats him like he’s human. Tony talks to Jarvis in a very colloquial way. He says “you up?” when he knows damn well that Jarvis is operational. He says “throw a little hot-rod red in there” instead of “paint components x, y, and z with red paint #20.” Tony treats all his machinery like that—Dummy and You, especially—and Jarvis is no exception.
Jarvis has become much more human since Iron Man 1. He actually displayed emotions in Iron Man 3—specifically when he feared for Tony’s life, his voice sounded terribly frightened, and in instances like the second gif where he said “I need to sleep” and not “My battery is depleted.” Jarvis has grown and changed, as any self-aware creature does. He has become human because he is treated as such.
can we talk about how he did the same for bruce
