Random Avengers Headcanon Vol. 5

I know for CAWS we’ve all basically decided that Peggy was in DC, but just consider that deleted scene from the Avengers where her address is listed in Manchester and how her funeral was in the UK, too, and reimagine a CAWS where Peggy was in the UK after all and then think about Steve flying to the UK once a month just to see her and flying straight back because he’s got to report for duty the next day and think about how he doesn’t get enough sleep those days and his eyes are dry and aching from the airplane and think about how being in the UK makes him sad for other reasons because it’s where he and the commandos took shore leave and think about him thinking about that dance in that pub that he and Peggy never had and then cry a lot.

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Days, weeks, really, like the past few are the kind that make me want to become a mountain hermit and never speak to another human being ever again.

But because I don’t just want to be whinging, let me share with you this headcanon which may or may not be inspired by autobiographical events.

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Tony gets panic attacks. Really bad ones. The first few times Steve saw them, he’s wasn’t quite sure what to do, and was kind of just shoved to the side as Pepper or Rhodey or Nat shoved in to count Tony through breathing. Steve tries the count, but he gets just as riled up as Tony, so it’s not exactly calming for either of them. Instead he tries a different angle. The next time Tony starts shaking and hyperventilating, Steve says “Tell me how the weight to fuel ratio affects rockets when they’re trying to leave the atmosphere.” Tony blinks at him, and then blinks again, and between shaking breaths he says, “The weight’s everything.” “Good. Tell me more.” “Too heavy. Can’t fly.” “So how do you keep from being too heavy.” “Cut down on weight.” At first it’s just short replies. One or two word sentences. But Steve is persistent. He asks the most innocuous questions; Tony’s too freaked to tease him. He just answers, hones that amazing brain and aims it until it’s completely focused on one subject. And not focused on anything else. And slowly he comes down and describes to Steve how scientists calculate payloads and fuel efficiency. The next time he has a panic attack, Steve asks about temperature balance in the jet boots. The time after that, how touch-screens sense skin and why do those little touch finger gloves work. The time after that, how JARVIS reads gestures and facial expressions. The time after that…

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Tony texting Steve: 🍆🍆🍆🍆👍😏

Steve: *stares at text for a minute* Hey Nat? Does this mean Tony wants eggplant Parmesan for dinner?

Nat: …Yes, Steve. That’s exactly what he wants.

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(In response to a request to send the Avengers to IKEA.)

I have a confession to make. I’ve never found IKEA instructions difficult. It always makes perfect sense to me how things are supposed to go together, but I know there are a lot of people out there who struggle with them and I’m pretty sure there a few fics and art pieces floating around where the Avengers argue over IKEA construction, but for me, I figure if I, a pretty average woman can figure those diagrams out, they’re probably nothing for Tony. I imagine he probably finds them pleasing because they’re a relatively mindless task for him where his hands are going but his brain can be thinking on other things.

I think the Tony probably takes the Avengers to IKEA for the experience of it, and I feel like Nat and Clint stand back and hide outside the path (they’re brave enough to stray from the path) and take video which they will later upload to Youtube and frighten the bejesus out of people while Tony and Bruce amble along and play tour guides. I think Steve and Thor would be delighted, Steve especially because of IKEAs incredibly utilitarian approach to things. I think they’d buy too much lingonberry jam and too many meatballs and Steve would come home with a plan to make the Avengers’ living space as organized as humanly possible. All the organizers. All of them.

Campus Gothic

 

In the dark cool of the basement, the pastors wait, year in and year out. Their white robes gather gray coatings of  dust that seeps in through the drafty cracks of grimy leaded windows. Though they move, they move imperceptibly, so that if you watched them for five minutes, you would not notice, but if you looked and then looked again, something will have changed. Every so often, the old wood of their chairs settles and creaks and groans under the weight of a faded, sunken body. The pastors do not eat. They do not drink or sleep or dream. In the pale gray of Midwestern mornings, thick with muggy, cloying humidity, they raise their voices as one, and praise a god ancient and terrible, a god who does not speak but watches and watches and waits. Their song drones out a long and faint , and those brave souls who happen to be passing by turn their heads and then just as quickly look away. Their parents warned them, and their grandparents before. Even if the gaping arched maw of the church looks inviting, you must never go in. The sign outside the church changes irregularly, and no one ever sees who shifts the spidery black letters. Its messages seem insidiously friendly. “Church Luncheon, We love having students for lunch.” “Join us in prayer, Pray for Our mercy.” “Do not fear Death, It comes for us all.” One hundred, fifty-eight long years the pastors have been waiting, waiting for you, dear student. Won’t you come in? Won’t you come in?

Did the Deadpool Movie Queerbait?

Maybe I’ll regret writing this, but I’ve seen posts concerned about it, so here are my thoughts.

By the standards of what we consider queerbaiting (two male or female characters who are clearly close friends and who, were one character of the opposite gender, would automatically be considered romantic interests), Deadpool didn’t queerbait (Wade Wilson’s closest male friend is very clearly in the Bro-zone and not so much in the sharing long, lingering looks zone). But here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter. Why? Because there is a backstory behind Deadpool, a history of canon that affects who he is as a character and as an icon in the larger Marvel universe. And moreover, the lead actor has gone on record saying that Deadpool is pansexual. There is an expectation, a hope, that has been placed for those of us who would like to see overt indications of queerness in a superhero film headliner. And Deadpool doesn’t deliver.

If Ryan Reynolds had not gone on record in an interview stating that Deadpool is pansexual, there is nothing in the film that would indicate queerness. There are scenes that I know people will immediately point to as a counterargument for my claim, so let me preemptively touch on those.

“But Wade kisses a guy on the cheek almost right at the beginning! That’s queer, right?”

Wrong. Context. The dude he kisses is his mark, a man he’s been paid to threaten. This is not a dude he’s flirting with; it’s a dude he’s scaring shitless. It’s made clear very quickly that one way Wade keeps his marks and enemies off balance (this is Wade before his torture and insanity) is by acting amiable and friendly one moment and terrifying the next. He get’s his mark off his guard by treating him nicely and joking with him, and in the next moment threatens him with a gun. Just after that, he’s smiling again and saying bygones are bygones, and then he’s got his mark by the throat. On top of all this, the kiss (to the cheek, mind, not on the lips) just plays out as another way of fucking with someone. It doesn’t come across as Wade considering this guy a possible partner.

“But Wade gets pegged by Vanessa! You can’t tell me that’s not queer.”

Uh, no. Wrong again. Anal sex does not automatically translate to queerness. There are heterosexual men in this world who enjoy anal sex with women. There are heterosexual women in this world who enjoy anal sex with men. A given sexual act is not an expression of sexuality; it is coded as belonging to a certain sexuality by our society. The assumption that anal sex automatically equals homosexuality, bisexuality, or pansexuality is a false one.

And what’s more, it’s made abundantly clear that Wade does not enjoy this sexual act. He winces and frowns and looks generally nervous through what the camera shows, and when the camera pans away, he makes a few noises and then says “Nope. No.” It is evident to the audience that this is a favor he was doing to Vanessa, that he didn’t enjoy it, and that it likely won’t happen again.

“Just because he doesn’t make a pass at a dude doesn’t mean he’s not pansexual.”

While this may be true, in our unfortunate society, the base assumption is always heterosexuality. If a character does not act overtly in a queer manner, that character will always be assumed, by and large, heterosexual. This is a fault in our societal thinking, and an unfortunate one. I’m not asking for Deadpool to be campy. I’m not asking for him to fit the unfortunate stereotypes associated with queerness. But I am asking that we be given more than a token statement after the fact. And that does not happen in this film.

Combine this with the very dudebro attitude of some of the humor, and Wade doesn’t come across as the first openly pansexual superhero. He comes across as just another white dude who likes ladies and teases villains by implying they’re gay. (Did I forget to mention that? Because it definitely happens.)

I don’t blame Reynolds for this. I imagine somewhere in the reels of cut adlibbed material, there are probably (my optimistic mind hopes) jokes and statements that made it clear Wade wouldn’t have minded hooking up with anybody, regardless of gender. But this wasn’t just Reynolds’ movie. There were directors and executive producers and studios involved, and they remain as they ever were: self-assured in the belief that a queer superhero will never track well in America.

I enjoyed Deadpool. It felt like a movie length Netflix type superhero film. There was no saving the world–there was just a dude living his incredibly fucked up life. The humor and writing is sharp, and I did laugh, because there are jokes in there that are just for the fans. The tongue-in-cheek nods to us all are great. I’ll even say that Vanessa is perhaps one of the best female love interests to ever be portrayed in a superhero film–she feels like a person who has her own agency and she is clearly not just there to prop up Wade’s character arc.

But I’m still disappointed by the queerbaiting. Deadpool was supposed to be the pansexual hero we needed, but instead, he just wound up in another hetero story line we didn’t deserve.

 

 

Obsessive Cat Mom Pt

Many cat pics behind the cut.
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Obsessive Cat Mom pt 2

A poem from my cat to all of you:

My nayme is cat
and wen it’s morn
I sit in hyuman’s
lap so warm

She holds a thyng
I lean in close
I snyff it welle
I lik the toast

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Me all day: Where’d the cat go? Did she hide under the bed? I guess I can’t blame her. They were testing fire alarms after all.

*just now, from inside my desk the flap-flap-flap of cat ears being shaken at high speed*

Me: Oh my god, really?

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Me: I wish to spend an extended time rubbing my fingers over some small patch of pleasantly-textured surface. Perhaps the fur of an animal?

The miniaturized apex predator with which I share my home: [vibrates at a soothing frequency to encourage this behavior]

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There is nothing quite like the look of betrayal cat gives me after I eat an orange and she wants to sit in my lap. She haaaaates the smell of oranges, and cannot bear to be near me when I smell of them.