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The Dragon will never harm you, Mira.

Он - дракон (On-drakon) (2015) dir. Indar Dzhendubaev

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(Concept Switch ver.)

our sun and moon

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snoopy of the day

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thunderbolts* ⇾ bob & yelena

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Inspired by @urulokid /neoheartbeat’s fic High And Falling Fast

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Now I need them to make a Lego Marvel Superheroes 3 because I need to play as little depressed-but-hanging-in-there Lego Thunderbolts.

Lego Ghost Rider for tax 💀🔥

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LEWIS PULLMAN Thunderbolts* Interview

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The Thunderbolts really said, “I’m going to defeat you with the power of friendship and this gun I found.”

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thunderbolts* ⇾ bob & yelena

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This is pretty stream of consciousness, but some observations about the prevalence of toxic masculinity and how damaging it is in the Thunderbolts. How the characters try to survive & overcome it.

Thought of this partly due to my last post on here (Guinea pigs in a maze), but Walker seems, on the surface, not as traumatized or effected as the others. I'd posit saying that's not necessarily true, his trauma is more insidious, prosaic and due to that, scarier, because it's so omnipresent in the real world. Dude is a poster child for toxic masculinity and the damage it can cause. His perceived belief in what he should be vs. who he actually is. Him doing everything 'right' per the 'rules' (of a world dominated by toxic masculinity), but still being a failure in his view. His own depression likely direct result of his belief not 'measuring up' to some unrealistic standards. Dude also so easy to goad with the slightest provocation. Getting violent when people laugh at him, the verbal abuse of his wife & neglect of his son due to his fragile male ego bruised, ready to shoot somebody due to a "junior varsity Captain America" comment, probably other examples. None of that is any way to go through life, but he doesn't seem to know another way. He may be learning another way slowly, he's not without hope.

Also some likely very wrong-headed ideas of what Cap really stood for and who he was, likely why he keeps failing to measure up to Steve Rogers.

I also can see some narcissistic collapse there with his doomscrolling (from stuck in his phone instead of caring for his crying baby and him paying attention to "nasty memes").

Toxic masculinity is all over this movie. It's in Bob's abusive father, echoed in Void's words. The violent & arrogant nature of Sentry, a pure male power fantasy, easily overwhelming his opponents. The hatred of the whole world manifest in the Void, the culmination of decades of repressed trauma without a healthier outlet for those decades of abuse (from his father), pain, trauma & addiction. Void went after *everyone* indiscriminately.

Valentina not being "afraid" of Sentry despite him choking her to death slowly. Valentina is FAR from some saint (and still too representative of the dangers of American imperialism*, her comments in the hearing about needing some defense against "hostile" nations with far more advanced tech & tying that to her whole Sentry Project 👀). However, got to ask how many times has Valentina had to deal with arrogant, frightening men in power in her line of work? Ones that have been similarly violent towards her?

We all know about Dreykov and how vile he was, his psychotic need to control young women & use them from the "Black Widow" movie. This is what Yelena is still coming to terms with, struggling to survive from what the Red Room did to her. Telling how its a man who strolls up to shoot Anya in the head. Whatever adult women there only propagating Dreykov's mission while Yelena desperately trying to be the caring, nurturing adult for young, memory Yelena trying to block her ears from the whip cracks.

Frightening the first civilian we see sacrificed by the Void is a little girl.

Also seems telling it was women holding the line against Sentry and then the Void. Its Mel who triggers the killswitch to save Valentina, even if that turned out to be a temporary measure and what brings out the Void.

It's Yelena instrumental in stopping the Void. It's also Ava who surmised the truth of the Void first and ready to run in and try to save Yelena. Then Yelena's solution to save Bob and everyone not through being the one who shoots straighter or kicks harder, but via compassion & tenderness. Telling someone she's there, that they're not alone (again, which she tried futilely to do with her younger memory self because undoubtedly she'd have wished an adult intervened to help her when no one ever did). Two people with deeply traumatized children buried inside of them reaching out to one another. The rest of the brutal fighters band together in Yelena's compassion to save themselves from the Void and save New York. So yes, they save the day with the power of a group hug and friendship. Not cured, but surviving and now they get to do it together.

The undeniable tragedy of Taskmaster, what her own father did to her, to be saved by Nat the last time we saw her only to be unceremoniously shot in the head by Ava and her body looted. She's the only one in the core marketing to die in the movie. Though this early in the movie, the characters still deep in all their psychosis and trauma. The Ava at the end of the movie wouldn't have shot her or at least that's what I'd like to think, but they all had to go on a journey yet to cast off that toxic baggage this world imposed on them all. Taskmaster the one casualty to that toxic baggage.

*There can be a whole lot said about toxic masculinity and ties to American heroism, colonialism & imperialism, how Valentina & Walker are both "polluted" by that, but again, don't think I'm smart or knowledgeable enough to get too in depth on that.

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Guinea pigs in a maze.

Thunderbolts spoilers below.

We see Yelena with the test subject guinea pig she saved from the maze in the lab.

Speed to movie's end, all the characters are trapped in the Void's memory nightmare world, reminded me heavily of "Inception", mazes on the dream/psychological level. We focus on Yelena's and Bob's trauma. Replaying the same horrible memories in loop or to stumble out of one memory into "way worse" ones.

Knowing most of these characters were either experimented on, brainwashed and/or abused as kids or as adults. Walker the only one who willingly took the super soldier serum as an adult when he "should have known better". Not sure what happened with Alexei, but whatever free will he believed he may have had was probably more illusory than anything being a high level figure in an authoritarian regime.

Yelena's description of her loneliness, guilt & despair also described like this endless cycle of going home to an empty house, remembering the horrible things she's done, drinking, going to work and over & over. An inescapable maze.

However, in the end (or always), they're all the guinea pigs trying to escape, not just for their own sakes, but also, for their powers & abilities that are capable of helping people, for the sanctity of NYC. Yelena and Bob were at the center of it all, but it took all of them supporting & fighting together to get out. Saving Bob, they were saving themselves and in turn saving the city. Which is how they'll likely continue to keep pulling themselves out of their own (nightmares, trauma, depression, etc) mazes, supporting each other & reaffirming none of them is alone in this now. To keep fighting another day to save themselves and now to save others.

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In IMAX about to watch this again. I haven't been this trash for a movie in..... I don't even remember last time I was, but I'm so back on this MCU train. 🤩

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Generations of pilots

Bill Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore in Independence Day(1996) dir. Roland Emmerich

Lewis Pullman as Lieutenant Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd in Top Gun: Maverick(2022) dir. Joseph Kosinski

(A sticker design of Bob’s helmet will be available on Etsy soon! Along with all the others of the dagger squad!)

Little gift I whipped together for @thespillingvoid!!

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the first time i cried in thunderbolts was when they all worked together to save that woman from the chunk of a building

superhero movies are about people who have the ability to help people and choose to do so

that isn’t all there is but i think the mcu has gotten so focused in the weeds of the multiverse and inner group politics and whatever that they forgot that the reason we watch superhero movies is because we want to watch good guys fight bad guys, but more importantly, we want to watch them help people because that’s why they fight the bad guys in the first place

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Can’t believe all it took for me to care about the MCU again was Yelena getting a super-powered boy toy with crippling depression

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Yungi For DAZED