#handypolymath

[turtletotem]

Tagged by the wonderful @roosterbox !

Without naming them, post a gif of ten of your favourite ships (any media), then tag ten people to do the same.

(WITH Elizabeth included, but i couldn’t find a good gif of all three of them)

We’re pretending this is Mercy Thompson and Adam.

Yeah, yeah, fight me about it.

Tagging: @kernezelda @lindstromm @akasanata @kaydeefalls @niniblack @krakenartificer @spacelesbin @tippenfunkaport @handypolymath @gerec

[khaleesa]

Last Sentence Tag

RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

I was tagged by the lovely @staceymcgillicuddy. Here's the last sentence I wrote in that Hellcheer fic I haven't fiddled with in over a week but really do intend to get back to! (It doesn't help that it's about a heatwave and the heatwave here broke so I've been slightly less inspired than I was when I began. But we're only having Fake Fall, and the 90s are returning next week, so that may just motivate me.)

"How about a cannonball instead?"

I can't remember who all has been tagged to do this, so forgive me if I'm double-tagging! @gloriousclio, @handypolymath, @lafseanchai, @misscrawfords, and @mxkelsifer

[thassalia]

@handypolymath if this wasn’t our writing aesthetic I don’t know what was

i love you intimacy in reverse order. yes we've had sex before and i know all the details of your pleasure, but i don't know anything else. i don't know what it feels like to embrace you carelessly. i can barely hold your hand, the grip is so slight it makes me lose my breath. i want to kiss you but what pressure is the right one? how much is too intimate? yes we've had sex and i've done all these things before - but without the guise of mutual pleasure, can i be sure you won't turn me away? will you allow me the delicate feeling of your hand in mine when you know it is me asking to hold it? i know i've held you before with our clothes off, but can i hold you even tighter? may i listen to the steady sound of your heartbeat? is it alright to look for it in front of everyone? yes, yes of course we've had sex before. i know what you look like naked, ive touched you with the lights off. is it alright to want see you with them on? in the morning, with the sun flitting through the blinds?is it alright to want you when the sun is up? yes we've had sex before but have we ever been intimate? can we be? tell me that it's alright to hold you. no, not like that. just like this.

[bbluberrys]

so sorry to tell you this but tumblr user faygos is a proshipper https://faygos.tumblr.com/post/765137294917255168/mikkeneko-violent-darts-handypolymath

fucking god damn it okay i deleted the reblog

[redspiderling]

I'm really digging your shot composition breakdowns. It's fascinating how the MCU has failed to utilize these tools (and the skills of the thousands of pros they hire), when their whole job is to adapt material from another successful beloved visual storytelling medium. Thanks for the tasty meta!

Hi!

Oh wow, thank you so much! I’m glad you’re enjoying them.

The shameless way Marvel, as a studio, continues to unapologetically waste time, effort, and enormous resources in order to produce mediocre or downright bad films and then market them as groundbreaking is something that causes me heartbreak (and heartburn), so writing these breakdowns is a therapeutic process.

It’s fun to point out just how deeply they’ve failed to meet even the most basic of criteria as film-makers. I’m happy to make lots of excuses for creators, I know the executives are pressing hard on them, but when basic compositing evades them, well, it’s just necessary to criticise. Especially when there’s so much exceptional material out there that hardly gets the exposure (or the budget) the MCU does, to drive the point home.

Makes you wonder what the Russos would make on a 500K budget. *shudders*

Thanks again for dropping a word, I really appreciate it xo

[khaleesa]

First sentence:

When did the dread turn to anticipation?

@handypolymath gave me this opening line for the Five Sentence Ask Fic game. Feel free to drop a sentence in my askbox if you want one!

It's been longer than I can remember since I wrote BruceNat. <3

~*~

When did the dread turn to anticipation?

Natasha crouched, looking up at the huge green palm that opened toward her. Each finger was bigger than her entire hand, and once had grasped for her, compelled by mindless rage to smash. She'd run in terror then, and even since, fear had spiked the hairs at the back of her neck at the thought of what that hand could do to her if this went to shit because of misplaced trust.

Not now. Now, she smiled and waited for Hulk to trust her enough to let her place her hand in his.

[thassalia]

This. Yes. @handypolymath

3 components of worldbuilding:

1. The author’s kinks

2. The author’s power fantasy

3. The author’s political agenda

Plot and logic optional

[themonkeycabal]

handypolymath replied to your post: re: your roadtrips post, i would totally go on...

Weather, weird spots, snacks, those incidental deep conversations and serendipitous moments…I love a road trip.

So many good things. I’m glad to see how many people actually do appreciate a good road trip. 

And the weather, yes -- one time, I was in northern New Mexico, heading north to Colorado, up through the Jemez mountains, it’s late October and it started snowing. And I’m going up this winding mountain road and they’re those big fat early season flakes, so it’s not sticking to the ground, the road and visibility are good, and the snow catches just right on the pines, giving them a nice brush of winter, and it’s picturesque as hell. And then as I get up a bit, the clouds come down and settle. And off the side of the road, there was that first line of dark, green pines, and then the world just ended in a solid wall of white. It was actually freaking magical. 

And then I randomly came across a little box canyon that had cliff dwellings. It was so odd, because it was clearly a park, there was a sign and all, but it wasn’t on any map I had. But, shit gets weird outside of Los Alamos. 

[allofthefeelings]

#flirty man hand hook car door... made me sporfle out loud, so thank you

I’m gonna be honest here, I try to keep my shitposting in tags whenever I don’t know the OP, but I was so proud of that I almost regretted leaving it in there.

But you sent this ask and three different people reblogged that post with my tags and I basically ascended to a higher plane of being.

Now I just have to wait for someone to write the fic where Sam is telling that particular horror story and it becomes increasingly clear he’s changed it to be about Bucky hanging on to his roof to steal his steering wheel while Bucky, not one to be out-assholed, refuses to let it hang there as a joke and is like “What happens next, Sam? Tell more of the story.” and it’s a battle of jackass wills.

[ellewritesfiction]

WIP word: coffee

“I’ve got like fifteen bucks man, you’re going to have to pay for my dinners,” Bruce warned him but he was smiling and the acceptance, the readiness, made Tony beam and he slammed his beer down on the coffee table with splendid finality.

[scapeartist]

Guerrilla Radio : )

Mmmm. This one I’m actually thinking about turning into something not fanfiction one day, but who the hell knows, so here’s my summary because I don’t have a ton written. 

Killian Jones (aka “Captain Hook”) is the dj for a (literally) roaming guerrilla radio station, “Neverland Radio.” He reads fairy tales on air (as well as plays music) that are actually coded messages and information for a group of rebels fighting the “Evil Queen.” Emma Swan, and her son, Henry, stumble across the station late one night, and over a couple of weeks, Henry figures out what’s going on. In trying to prove to his mother that the stories and what’s going on in their world is real, they show up at the next place the rebels are going to be and wind up getting drawn into the rebellion themselves. Henry helps Killian with the code book/stories, Emma interrogates prisoners and spies thanks to her ability to suss out lies.

At some point, the EQ realizes that Henry is the key to the code the rebels are using to communicate and kidnaps him, leaving Killian unconscious. Now the rebellion must save Henry and bring down the EQ once and for all.

I loved Rage Against the Machine back in the day and the chance to song fic Guerrilla Radio was too tempting. 

[atratum]

Prompt--any combo of the following for Bruce and Natasha: sterilization techniques; the scents of rust or clove; 'if you keep picking it'll never heal'.

i’m cheating a little here -- this one is also for @thassalia, who wanted natasha, out there alone. i didn’t intend to combine them, but here we are.

"You know, if you keep picking at that, it'll never heal."

Bruce is extra careful to make noise when he comes out, heavy boots crunching through the hard-packed snow, but Natasha doesn't bother looking up. "Because leaving the shrapnel in worked out so well for Stark?"

Bruce rolls his eyes. "It's not really comparable."

Natasha ignores him, and Bruce tries not to wince as she drops another small piece of metal on the ground and goes back to digging around in her broken skin with a pair of tweezers. Jesus. "I wish you'd let me do that," he says, crossing his arms. They're not even good tweezers. They're the ones she uses on her eyebrows. He hopes she cleaned them first, but she probably just stuck them in her mouth and called it good. Saliva promotes blood clotting and fights infection is a sentence that he has heard, with his own two ears, come out of her mouth. "Natasha--"

"No."

Bruce sighs. His breath hangs cloudy in the air between them. "I don't know who you're trying to impress. I already know you're tough, and we're the only ones here."

That, of course, is because Natasha killed everyone else. There's blood everywhere, still steaming as it seeps into the frozen ground, the scent of iron so thick in the air Bruce feels like his own organs are rusting, oxidation slowly eating away his stomach lining.

Natasha looks up, eyes so hard Bruce thinks she's going to try sinking the tweezers into his throat. That'll go well for everyone. He waits.

"You think I'm trying to impress you?" she asks, voice quite a few degrees colder than the air. No mean feat.

"Honestly, I don't know what the hell you're doing."

"Feel free to go inside and leave me to it, then."

They stare at each other, the moment heavy with things unsaid, and finally Bruce takes a few deliberate steps in her direction. She tries to go back to digging around for shrapnel in her hip but her shoulders are hitching up as he moves closer, and he can see she's not as steady on her feet as she wants to be. Which is no wonder, considering how much of the blood on the ground used to be in her body.

"I stayed inside and left you to this." He gestures at the pile of corpses. "Now it's my turn." He holds out his open hand. "Please."

Natasha looks for a long time at the tweezers, and her hand is shaking as she lays them carefully across his palm.

[thassalia]

@handypolymath this is amazing!

one of the deans in beijing dance academy rehearses with students

[bynightafangirl]

#SaltBae

For @handypolymath on her birthday. A greatest hits album of MCU Dr. Banner.

[thassalia]

What happens in a fucked-up de-aging scenario stays in a fucked-up de-aging scenario. Teenagers, amiright? Author:@handypolymath Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: F/MM/MMulti Fandoms: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)Marvel Cinematic Relationships: Bruce Banner/Natasha RomanovNick Fury/Natasha RomanovBruce Banner/Tony StarkTony Stark/Nick Fury/Natasha Romanov/Bruce Banner

I have a lot of deep feels for this story, for the teenage versions of these characters, and for the way in which @handypolymath took this story in a different (sort of) and brilliant (definitely) direction than I probably would have because her vision is always broader, richer and more nuanced.

She does such good work and there’s no better feeling than throwing a “what if” at your favorite writer and then seeing it stunningly realized.

[redspiderling]

Imagine my shock to see the Russos in the credits of Arrested Development's pilot. Per IMDB they directed 10 episodes, which don't suck. They DO have tight character-based writing, a solid vision of specific locations, seasoned actors with other series under their belts who grok ensemble work, and an established fake-documentary visual language of quick cuts with camera motion and close-ups. Costumes, props, editors, narrator, even the music is on-board with what story they're all telling.

That’s an interesting piece of information. 

I haven’t seen Arrested Development so I can’t really judge the quality of that project, but assuming they did do a good job directing episodes for it, that makes their work in the MCU even worse, in a way. Because if they were otherwise capable of creating good content, why mess it up this badly now? Especially since the MCU has a big similarity with TV productions: It’s, for the most part, the same group of people working on each film. So they’re all on the same page in terms of what they’re doing.

So why didn’t the Russos do their part? I mean, sure, there’s pressure to finish fast, there’s pressure to do things in a specific way, but how come other people manage? I could be unfair and compare them to Taika. And I’d say I’d be unfair not only because Taika is a talented director, but also because one could argue that solo MCU films aren’t as taxing as the group projects. Still, I look at the Winter Soldier and I look at Thor: Ragnarok and I can’t help but wonder. 

The Winter Soldier is arguably their best work in the MCU. It had a decent script, (even though there are things that I’m decidedly dissatisfied with in that film). Looking at it in terms of film-making, it’s nothing special and it does have a lot of badly directed scenes, mostly the quiet/non-action heavy ones. Not to mention it suffers from the same bland lighting and locations most MCU films suffer from. I say most because the 2 films that have managed to make a space for themselves in the MCU (imho) are Thor:Ragnarok and Black Panther. 

Those are 2 films that don’t suffer from lack of cinematic merit. And those are the films that dared to adapt elements of the comics in their language (the colours, the bold characters, the extra dramatic scenes, all that fun stuff we actually like from the comics). The Russos make grey film for the MCU.

Creative decisions (or lack thereof) aside, making films for the MCU comes with its special set of challenges. I’ve heard enough stories during VFX meetings and seminars, to know that most FX studios are not exactly happy with Marvel, given how often they end up remaking the same scenes for the most ridiculous of reasons (e.g. re-render the Endgame entirely, because Marvel suddenly decided they wanted some changes on a “watch” the characters were wearing). Usually those stories end with a “welp, that’s Marvel for ‘ya”. 

But in spite of that dissatisfaction (and the ridiculous deadlines), those studios manage to produce solid work (except for Endgame, but that’s a disaster for another day). So do the other MCU directors, not to mention the countless composers, make up artists, costume designers etc. Solid, not necessarily noteworthy. 

I see how it might look like I’m targeting the Russos, and while that used to bother me (they are people trying to do their jobs) I’m not feeling particularly bad about it anymore. It becomes more and more obvious that they simply didn’t care after a point, something that their more professional coworkers didn’t end up doing. 

Plus, I look at all the female film-makers (and composers and actresses and costume designers etc) out there, fighting tooth and nail and praying to their Gods that they don’t misstep because that would be the end of their career. And I look at those dudes who made 4, 4 films for the MCU, of which 1 is somewhat good, whom the male part of the famdom has deemed untouchable for whatever reason, and I end up being particularly petty. Damn those Russos xDThanks again for the ask! I’m loving the discourse on the subject and I have to go watch Arrested Development now, from sheer curiosity xo