ALL THESE AVENGERS FEELINGS

[sleepingwgods]

I had to put this post on hold for like a week because of all my feelings, but here it is.
On the 28th Athena and I donned our Team Loki shirts and went to the local cinema to see The Avengers (I refuse to call it Marvel's Avengers Assemble, a'ight?). We ended up seeing it twice in one day, once at 3ish in 2D because all the IMAX screenings were sold out, and then at 11pm in 3D - which didn't look all that different from the 2D version, mind. Then we saw it again on the 3rd of May.

There are no words for how glorious this movie is. It is perfection from every aspect and angle - I was worried that one or more of the facets Athena and I had discussed in the months leading up to now would be forgotten or handled poorly, but that didn't happen. At all. For anything. It was all exactly as it should be, while accessible to all ages and with enough well-written exposition that watching the other movies isn't even necessary. Like, how do you even do that, Joss Whedon. HOW.

Now I need to gush in a spoiler-like manner so, naturally, spoiler tag. Click at your own risk.

[My hopes and dreams for this movie CAME TRUE OMFG]
Things I wanted to see/was worried about not seeing, and what we got to see:

• Thor and Loki in the aftermath of what happened in Thor. I wanted to see the brothers again, to see Thor's reaction to finding out Loki isn't only alive, but he's scheming to take over Earth and become its king. And what did we get? The most glorious scene ever, beginning with Thor yanking Loki out of a SHIELD plane after Captain America, Iron Man and Black Widow capture Loki in Germany. Thor flies in with Mjolnir, grabs Loki by the collar, and flies out. Cue brotherly fight, complete with Loki's aggravated man tears, and (finally!) his admission to feeling inferior to Thor all his life. "We're brothers. We were raised together, we played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?" "I remember a shadow... Living in the shade of your greatness." /SOBBBB LOKIIIIII ;___________;
• A mention of Jane Foster. I knew Thor's love life couldn't be the focus of this movie on any level, but I wanted him to at least ask where she is, to show he still cares for her despite the timeskip (and in light of the fact Selvig gets snatched by Loki within the first 3 minutes of the movie, leaving her alone). We got exactly that: Coulson assures Thor that Jane is safe in an observatory somewhere, protected by SHIELD agents. Boom.
• Tony Stark mentioning his father in the context of Howard Stark's friendship with Captain America. Despite countless fics in which this exact thing becomes a factor in Stark's idolising or resentment of the Captain (it varies from fic to fic) that eventually leads to the two pairing up, the mention was brief and kind of dismissive. Stark and Rogers clash vehemently at first but grow to respect each other and work well together, primarily due to Stark's tendency to give orders and Steve's tendency to follow, and the eventual reversal of that dynamic. It never becomes more friendly than that, though, and there are zero bromance moments. That was Whedon's way of trolling the fangirls - the two heroes that end up becoming friends are actually Stark and Bruce Banner, who is the most amazing character ever but I'm going to get to that in a second.
• Captain America angst. SCORE. In an extended version of the post-credits Captain America scene in which he's punching the lights out of a sandbag and then gets paid a visit by Nick Fury, we see him having flashbacks from the war and the people he's lost (anyone who ever knew him personally before he went under is now in their 90s or dead); clearly he hasn't had too much time to adapt to the new world, either, because he's like a fish out of the water constantly - he doesn't get references, technology confuses him, and so do the ideals of this modern world he's found himself in. "They told me we won... They never said what we lost." /COME HERE BB ;_________;
• Tony Stark character development. SO MUCH YES. I generally have issues with the Iron Man movies; despite Stark being a fabulous character, he's just annoying and self-serving a lot of the time, making him hard to sympathise with. After being called out by Captain America (Cap: "You're not the type to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let someone else crawl over you."* Iron Man: "I think I would just cut the wire." Cap: "(scoff) Always a way out." OUCH.), you can see that it's beginning to bother him. All the more after a beloved secondary character** gets Jossed for maximum emotional effect (which works wonders - that's how the team puts their differences aside and gather to gang up on Loki), Tony is zealously protecting everyone. He is the most useful of the bunch, saving the entire team twice with his tech and engineering knowledge and skill, and in the end even sacrifices himself in order to save NYC from being nuked by the stupid-ass SHIELD council. He almost dies, and he accepts this fate humbly, unassumingly, because saving the others has become his priority over himself and his inner circle. Luckily he doesn't die, but re-emerges a changed man. I have to say I fell in love with Tony a tiny bit in this movie.
• I was worried Loki would die or be stripped of his powers. None of that, thankfully. He does get captured and taken back to Asgard to answer for his stupid-ass decisions, and we'll get to see that in Thor 2. CAN NOVEMBER 2013 COME NOW, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
• Some Hawkeye and/or Black Widow backstory.  Check and check. The universally accepted pairing became canon when we found out how Black Widow joined SHIELD - they'd sent Hawkeye to kill her but instead he spared her life and brought her in. Ever since she's felt indebted to him (she says twice, "I've got red on my ledger. I'd like to wipe it out", indicating her stint at SHIELD is so she can make amends for the countless lives she's taken; Loki mentions a hospital fire, a dead child, and a couple of other incidents in which she showed no remorse for her actions' consequences); it's obvious they are very close, probably even together. They are as adorable as they are deadly.

I've already put some of my favourite quotes in there in bold (* some paraphrased because of my shitty memory). Such good writing, guys, you can't believe. JOSS MOTHERFUCKING WHEDON AND HIS GOLDEN PEN, JFC <3 It's amazing how he managed to keep the movie PG but not childish, give everyone equal screentime and character development (EVERYONE goes through an emotional journey, no exceptions!), and of course advance the plot while layering the characters' backstories within the subtext so the prequel events are implied but not spelled out. So much happens in this movie; it's the tightest 2-hour story where not a second is wasted. If that's not A+ quality screenwriting, I don't know what is.
[Character development sub-plots that make me happyyyyy]
Character development! SO MUCH, AND SO WELL-DONE!

• Thor - he comes in to reign in his brother, whom he's been mourning for God knows how long. He meets this group of weirdos who want to stop Loki too, but have none of the compassion for him that he does - how could they, after all, he's his brother. Throughout the movie he's like a guest star, an outsider, and although he garners the respect and awe of everyone involved he's still not one of them entirely. He faces off with Loki several times, and always caves into the love he has for his brother, which Loki is amazed by but keeps taking advantage of - Thor gets thrown off the heli-carrier in a huge steel-and-glass cage, stabbed, and insulted repeatedly. He defends Loki until the end, despite the numerous attempts Loki's made on his life. Ultimately he gets to take his brother home, though cuffed and muzzled like a dangerous animal, and his decision to fight him seriously has been made at a cost that is unfathomably great, and a burden he carries all by himself. He's made some new allies and gotten his brother back, but this whole experience has changed him and his relationship with Loki for good.
• Tony Stark - as I mentioned before, he goes from self-serving rich prick to self-sacrificing hero, with nudges from Captain America and Bruce Banner. His burgeoning friendship with the latter is the cutest thing in this movie - it's amazing how well the two men understand each other and their burdens: Banner with the inner green monster of rage, Stark with the shrapnel inching towards his heart and the arc reactor that stalls death artificially. They accept each other and offer advice and support unconditionally; initially they bond over science and engineering, but end up discovering that they have more in common than they thought possible: they're lonely, smart, isolated people, and they gravitate towards each other entirely naturally.
• Bruce Banner - BRUCE FUCKING BANNER. Okay, let me gush about Mark Ruffalo here for a second. This man is perfect. He is the perfect Banner, and Idgaf if you liked Norton or Bana, Ruffalo is where it's at. Banner has this immeasurable turmoil inside him; Norton's performance paints him as the sad, run-down and misunderstood hero, who is always on the run from someone - mostly himself. Ruffalo's Banner is both scared and fearless: he's terrified of Hulking out and hurting others, but he's also resilient and exudes a strength that comes out when everyone else seems completely lost. He confesses to having attempted suicide, but even when he shot himself in the mouth Hulk just spat the bullet out. Knowing he can't ever end his suffering, he focuses all that despair into helping others in whatever way he can, while keeping 'the other guy' in check. There's a sense of foreboding about Banner, like there's something right underneath the surface threatening to come out at any second. Before the last battle, he reveals his secret about how he keeps calm: "I'm always angry", he says, and instantly Hulks out in what can only be described as the most moving slo-mo shot of the movie. I love this guy now. Norton's Hulk left me largely unimpressed, but THIS GUY IS SO FIERCE. /swoon
• Hawkeye - He gets magically brainwashed by Loki along with Selvig at the beginning of the film, and spends half of it in Loki's service, even attacking the SHIELD heli-carrier at some point. Black Widow manages to knock the mind-control out of him by literally hitting his head hard against some metal railing, and he snaps back to reality with a conviction to put an arrow through Loki's eye-socket (NOOOO MY BB ;____; he's just confuuuused!!). Despite Renner's zero archery skills (he admitted in an interview that he didn't do any archery prep for this movie) he is convincing as a master archer, mostly because his equipment is super cool. He sort of leads the attacks against Loki, because he really, really wants to get back at him for mind-controlling him into killing SHIELD agents and attacking his friends. It's really sweet how much he seems to care about Natasha, and she for him. She might argue that love is for children, but there's definitely something between them that transcends a debt.
• Black Widow - Her appearances in the Iron Man movies were, like the movies themselves, neglectable. Aside from looking utterly badass, we knew nothing about her. It was refreshing to have her reveal a bit of herself, and I especially like that romance is largely written off in her book because of scars too deep to heal - it makes her strong and real and in a lot of ways more vulnerable than characters like Iron Man and Thor, who wear their hearts on their sleeves. The debt she owes Hawkeye is one of endless gratitude, and the bond she shares with him over it is immense; at the very mention of his being 'compromised' by Loki she drops everything and comes in to help, because she'd never let him go without a fight. It's not a coincidence that it's her that brings him to his senses - tbh, I don't think anyone else could or would be willing to do it. They'd sooner put a bullet in his head than try to deprogram him, but that is unthinkable to her; she'd sooner die than let that happen.
• Captain America - He wakes up after 70 years in the ice, his last memories being of fighting against HYDRA and Schmidt in WW2. They tell him we've won the war, but in the time he's been gone he's lost everything he ever knew, including the world he lived in. There's officially no one left alive who knew him as Steve Rogers - before the serum and the muscles and the heroics in the war - so he's lost his identity as well as his friends (and potential lovers). Now he is Captain America, an icon, a hero and a leader, and he must be that forevermore. He struggles to accept the new world order, but he quickly adapts because he's called in as a soldier, and his training kicks in. However, so does his instinct, and when he takes a little initiative he loses faith in this new regime instantly: he finds out they're building weapons using the Tesseract, which is exactly what Schmidt was doing before he defeated him in the 40s. In effect, SHIELD are no different than the Nazis, and that hurts him deeply. He is the only one who's dealt with the Tesseract and this type of situation before, and yet no one listens to him. He keeps following their orders because defeating Loki and containing the situation is more important than his own qualms, but ultimately he dislikes SHIELD and only marginally respects the other Avengers. He is the loneliest of them all, and no one seems to extend the slightest bit of compassion - what need does a soldier have of that, after all? In the end, he's the only Avenger to leave on his own: on a motorbike, without a friend or a lover to go home to. Actually, I believe he's still a virgin... at 90 years young. Good luck with that, Cap.
• Loki - My bb Loki DDD: We learn that after he fell in the abyss, he went through worlds even Asgard had no knowledge of. He's met some dangerous people who have promised him an army, and power enough to subjugate Earth and become its ruler - in return for the Tesseract, and all the power that comes with that. He hides it well but he's being threatened into this, and his ass is on the line in the event he fails (which he essentially does). The notion of freedom being an illusion and that submission is humanity's natural state is new to his vernacular, which makes me wonder about the things he's been through between Thor and now... These don't sound like his ideas at all, but rather like someone else's convictions thrust onto him. He appears madder and sadder than ever, his inferiority complex and abandonment issues now blown out of proportion like the images on a balloon about to burst. He's afraid of confrontation with Thor, but puts on his bravest face and know-it-all smirk when in front of him (or anyone, really) - and even though his brother gets to him more than once, he tries to kill him every single time, seemingly resenting Thor's sentimentality while shedding big manly crocodile tears himself. I think that by the end he's realised that what he's done is beyond terrible, but he must defend his decisions if he means to salvage his dignity. I'm so anxious to find out what will happen in Thor 2; will there be a trial, a war against Thanos*, the new Big Bad, a much-needed scene of redemption and forgiveness? All he needs is a hug, can someone please give him one so he stops acting out? Geez.

[Death-type spoilers and a rant about Greek stuff]
* re Thanos: Possibly the lamest name for any comic book character EVER, even though it's supposedly a derivative of thanatos, the Greek word for death. I know he's supposed to be a super bad villain type in the comics, but with a name like that, he might as well be called Bob. Thanos is actually a legit Greek name that derives from Athanasios or Thanasis, which means "immortal" - so whichever genius at Marvel thought of this in the 60s really had no clue about Greekness and mythology, and the fact you can't just derive shit out of Greek words, because chances are you're making up words that already exist and sound/mean a lot lamer than you could possibly fathom with that simple English-speaking mind of yours, ahem. /rant over

** Son of Couuuuul DDDDDD: Joss motherfucking Whedon, you terrible, terrible man, you went ahead and picked the one character we innocuously fell in love with over the course of three other movies plus this one only to give him the most adorable moments in the movie and then KILL HIM WITH A LOKI STAB, SO NOT COOL OKAY ;__________; I'm still going through the stages of grief and I'm stuck in denial because COULSON IS NOT DEAD, ALRIGHT? He's in a hospital somewhere mourning over his Captain America cards that got all bloodied up because Nick Fury is a dick. I won't have it any other way :|

Also, idc that it's supposed to be hilarious, but that bit where the Hulk snaps up Loki and starts smashing him against the floor - I WANT TO CRY EVERY TIME. It fucking hurts, okay, and I don't care that the timing is funny and it's meant to make the whole thing more lighthearted, Loki's been smashed up enough as is (lol, the bit where he catches Hawkeye's exploding arrow - jfc, Loki my dear, stop trying to come out on top and look at the fucking grenade in your hands, mkay?)... I just can't handle it. The rest of the cinema is in stitches and Athena and I are like NOOOOOOOOO DDDDDD': I know nothing much happens to him (which is insane, his back should be broken six ways from Sunday), but still. So painful >.<


In any case, YOU GUYS, THIS MOVIE IS FUCKING PERFECT, OKAY? If you haven't seen it, what the hell are you waiting for, it's out everywhere now. Get off your chairs and sofas and beds and go see it right this instant.
And if you have seen it, SHARE THE FEELS WITH ME BBS, come wallow in the angst and awesomeness with me ;___; Tell me all about the bits where you cried because I know you did, admit it ;P