lesser-mook

[lesser-mook]

The Issue with Black Widow’s Fight style is it’s oriented for takedowns instead of knockouts. (Iron Man 2 Black Widow fight)

Black Widow vs Hammer Security — Fight Scene — Iron-Man 2 (2010): The fight scene most people think is legitimate in how it portrays a woman fighting men- “realistically”.

Wrong.

The most legit takedowns was 0:25 , 0:48 (generously) 1:45 (And that’s if she choked him out squeezing his neck in-between her thigh & calf. If she just forced his head to the ground, he’d have a broken face but he wouldn’t be knocked out from that- so headcanon essentially) the rest of that should’ve been edited better. If that’s realistic to some folk, then Hollywood isn’t doing women in action movies any justice these days.

As opposed to better examples that aren’t bound by realism:

As entertainment the Widow hallway scene works, it’s fun but when ppl say shit like this:

“I loved this scene so much, I always keep rewinding it 🤣 I love the realistic portrayal of a woman fighting men. She uses gadgets to her advantage and her/their weight against them.”

“I love the realistic portrayal of a woman fighting men. “

“realistic-“

Nah, a realistic fight is Desh vs Bourne, that’s realistic, why? Exchange, resistance, Bourne was so desperate he resorted to throwing shit at the dude just to buy 2 seconds of breathing room or an opening; but only if you want to argue realism. 

Because most of what what happens in Widow’s fight happens in most action fights (telegraphing, waiting, playing up damage so they get in cue), the point is to maintain the illusion so viewers immerse so deep you don’t notice that the whole thing’s a practiced dance.

With women participants or most of the time when they lead the dance, the illusion is harder to maintain. Especially if she isn’t a fighter in her personal life.

Steve vs Winter Soldier Round 1 was stylistic but even that was more grounded because the EDITING/ The cuts were on point.

Otherwise, the rest of this Widow fight is not believable, (mind you- i stand by what I said in the Ruth post where Scarlet sells it better, YES! But is it realistic? Hell no) it just got even worse with Ruth & some of Yelena, so in comparison Scarlet’s Widow is obviously better in execution.

I repeat:

They (MCU) shoulda made her (Widows as a whole) super soldiers like in ultimate avengers, a lot of her impacts wouldn’t down a grown man. That knee strike is a big maybe, the nut shot would buy her maybe 60 seconds, the widow bites are her only guarantee —legit enough to KO in ideal conditions, the other 90%? Whack.

“You’ll note that we have 12 super soldier candidates, for whom we are developing 12 different serums, it’s unique for every person.”(Bruce Banner 2006, Ultimate Avengers)

Natasha is one of those candidates, thus a super soldier, tho a lesser potent serum. Which is how she was able to force a needle into Hulk’s hide with her bare hands, which is a minor detail that only now have I noticed. A normal man wouldn’t have been able to do that even with standard steroids.

That’s what the MCU should’ve done, & if not immediately, by CA:WS or AOU she should’ve gotten something after Steve’s thawing.

Or the Red Room should’ve been a Super Soldier program, didn’t they do some shit with red fart dust or something? Instead of mind control via some funky hormones, just make them bootleg super soldiers.

These small af women kind of needed to be enhanced in some way, if the fight process going to be like what we’ve been getting, otherwise step up the women’s choreography game. 

Or enhance them so their punches have more weight, and them throwing grown men makes more sense. That actually makes things more fun to watch tbh, like with Trinity’s fights.

The only reason why Silk Spectre in Snyder’s film gets a pass is because the way that action is shot & the nature of the setting: it’s not realistic. And the actress sells the fuck out of those fights. She’s not enhanced but her status as a vigilante in that movie puts her on a level above the average man and by design it’s not — “Realistic”

No quips, no jokes. 100% deconstruction of the opponent

In Marvel movies it’s more “realistic”, and the  price of realism is believability. The more you make it realistic, the more you limit your ability to sell it.

I look back on this Ironman 2 Widow fight with positive outlook but only when compared to what we got now, but that Ironman 2 Widow fight wasn’t the perfect gem we think it was in terms of “woman wins against a man (realistically)”.

Fuck nah, ya’ll need to watch more shit. 

minimum effort, no flips

Laurie wasn’t doing no fancy shit, her movements were minimum but her dodging, her weaving was so precise, it looks amazing, still to this day. 

The moves were sharper and meaner than any Widow, less energy spent on takedowns & more focused on knockouts. Better choreographed & edited. And looks better because it was NOT REALISTIC — her stylistic strength fit the setting. We gotta stop worshipping ”realism”.

 The Dark Knight started the trend and it’s been downhill ever since because even those movies’ choreography was lacking in many areas (especially after Batman Begins) and the main issue was realism.

Which is why nobody praises TDK trilogy for the fight scenes but EVERYONE still simps for that warehouse fight in BvS

The editing game has to level up for the women, especially if the movie staff insists on pitting them against more than one MAN and not a woman; because notice how these widows are rarely ever pit against other women on average but mainly men as if to say fighting skills can legit close the gap to best 200+ lbs, denser bones+++ PER Multiple men resisting 115 lbs of counterweight, that’s believable as long as she’s flipping.

Laurie didn’t flip once, she flipped HIS ASS:

But then again, the men fighting these Widows are not really resisting are they? They get hit, they’re stun locked so she can basically do whatever and control the fight because if they resist, then the actress is going to struggle more. Which is the point.

Laurie’s Silk Spectre in the movie fights like Washington’s “Equalizer”, brutal & minimum energy wasted.

The flaw of a Widow’s fight style is they’re sacrificing so much of their stance, footing and energy for theatricality; all just to get their enemies to the floor.

And apparently them hitting the floor means they’re out the fight. 

The Widow style is designed for women to master it, that’s fine but it’s takedown techniques are not ideal when you need to KNOCK+OUT grown men beyond just taking them down.

 I don’t doubt a woman could grapple a man to the ground with some well placed  counterbalance, & submission a victory but how the movies translate their takedowns, is not believable as a knockout. 

Hollywood thinks knockouts and takedowns are the same thing. 

So Nat performs a takedown, I’m expecting bro to get up but he’s still on the floor and I’m like “Whoah what happened?! He fell asleep?”

And it looks like the women “should” win because of how extra they’re making it look but they’re really not doing much of anything beyond bruising & breaking noses, let alone knocking anyone out, most of the time anyway.

 Which is why they need to use the widow bite more to sell the fight. That’s how a WIDOW knocks out a 250 Ib security guard with a killcount, that Widow bite. And that’s something I can praise Yelena for in Thunderbolts she used that Widow Bite effectively.

(Granted the energy feedback of the bite wouldn’t have stopped the downward momentum of a SUPER SOLDIERS stab attempt, so that makes no sense but it draining his stamina slowly, that’s a cool way to use it defensively. At least she’s using the damn Widow bite for something other than decoration)

Scarlet’s Widow overall performs it better than the other 2 but even her fights fall short still, her takedowns are good but all their knockouts are silly. Because that’s the nature of their fight style, it seems more engineered to be a distraction to create an opening for a killshot- Like the widow bite? Or a gun? Or a knife stab? They need to spam that Widow bite or put guns in it.

 It’s basically an assassins dream fight style for misdirection, imagine if a Widow did that spinny shit, and after the guy gets up (because he’s not hurt lol), he suddenly realizes his neck is split wide open because she used that maneuver for something more than just throwing him down & while he’s bleeding out she’s on top of the other four guys just tearing them apart in similar fashion.

 That’s how a Widow should be shown to fight, takedowns mixed with knockouts, or in this case, blatant executions. 

“The Black Widow“ should have the same level of weight as “The Winter Soldier“, that’s the ONLY reason why Winter Soldier would entertain Natasha as a partner during his prime years. Because she’s the same level of beast as him, just not in the same way.  The MCU dropped the ball on that.

Happy’s fight, while less cool, is actually more realistic because his opponent actually resisted in a realistic fight, but only if “realism” is the hill we want to die on.

Looking back on this, It amazes me how many people didn’t even notice or point out that she didn’t use her most valuable weapon in that hall way fight— The Wrist stingers/Widows Bite, she didn’t use them once. 

(If you want to say she’s that good, that’s not gonna work because most of what she did wasn’t enough to KO a  WOMAN, in fact most of those guys should’ve gotten right back up, which is the point of the widow bite or widow biting them mid spinny move. Since Disney doesn’t have the balls to make a Widow into the threat they should be.)

She used them in 2012 a few times which was good and in 2014, 2015, 2016, don’t recall her using them in IW against Promixa of all people but overall she didn’t use them enough, all things considered.

Instead of slowing down a fight to show her using it, just subtly put sparks in between her punches to visualize the bite being used mid-momentum and weakening her opponents to the point of eventual atrophy and collapse. 

Like Yelena did in Thunderbolts, easy fix. Just keep doing that, so while  Scarlet’s combat portrayal was better in hand to hand delivery-- Pugh is not far behind if she keeps this up. 

By mixing Widow-Fu with the Widow Bite to K.O, that’s a more balanced, more legitimate/ “REALISTIC”  Black Widow. 

All in all, the 2011 fight sold better on the first watch when i saw it in theaters, cause it was a new gimmick then.

And the number 1 issue isn’t Scarlet or any of the actresses, it’s how it’s shot & organized.

The only reason why Jason Bourne’s scenes sell so well for the most part (beside the shaky cam being annoying) is ironically —  the shaky editing, the snap cuts, by the time we know what even happened, the fight’s over or it transitioned. The momentum and speed or at least the illusion of it.

That’s how Bourne is depicted to be more than what a man should even be capable of, kinda like the Watchmen 2009 vigilante’s. That’s how a Widow should’ve been shown to be fighting, and if they wanted an explanation for her strength in realism? Bootleg Super Serum. Because Ultimate Avengers 06′ did it.

Sometimes to pull off a good fight doesn’t mean showing everything, because the more audiences see, that’s more that can work against the choreography if what the fighter is actually doing isn’t effective in the slightest to actually K.O someone, “realistically”. Leave some mystique, keep the illusion maintained..

Realism is not our friend in action genre, you’ll just bottleneck your options that way.

ESPECIALLY IF SHE IS NOT ENHANCED vs in a stylistic setting where her strength as a female is irrelevant- aka Kung Fu movies, anime, parody, etc.

-the MCU doesn’t want everyone to be super soldiers, got it but they & other movie studios need to exploit better techniques if they want base form women to be out here mopping up dudes. It can be done, but you just have to give a damn.

That widow bite needs to be spammed waaaaaay way way more, because that’s their biggest advantage. Anything less just looks too silly and telegraphed. Because that’s the price of wanting a woman to basically be Jason Statham, and not all his fights impress me either.

Spoiler alert: Being a Widow is not a insta-win formula

A 120 Ib woman slamming a 250 Ib man on the ground from a flip or kicking him in the chest (Yelena’s first fight scene in Thunderbolts*) isn’t going to down him for the fight-

at best that’s a set up for the ACTUAL finisher, snap his neck, dislocate his shoulder, widow bite his lower back, poison tipped knife, widow bite his temple & make his brain fry, idgaf, DO SOMETHING legit. 

Make a Black Widow scary, not predictable. That was one of the MCU’s greatest failures: not making the Widow’s & Red Room  more of a “Babayaga”.

A takedown is not a finisher, (again) Hollywood seems to think “takedowns” are “knockouts”. If that were the case, Khabib would’ve been winning fights in seconds during his UFC career.

A takedown is taking someone down to the ground, grounding them which the Widow style does effortlessly,.

A legit knockout is legitimately taking them out the fight, period.  (via broken bone, killing them, submission hold, nerve strike, elbow to temple etc). 

A Widow’s fight style is takedown focused to favor a woman’s lighter build; not knockout focused. The takedown is merely you buying a window to do something else to actually end the fight.

Realism, editing, mistaking takedowns for knockouts. Top 3 reasons why a Widow’s fight style is lackluster,

The Iron Man 2 Widow fight is iconic, a good attempt at selling the concept, but overall not a realistic representation of women fighting legitimately against men because no woman is winning a fight against multiple men flipping around, let alone one (who can fight too) when all she can do is do stylistic takedowns which is only ideal against 1 person and her ground game better be on point to get that submission hold quick before he gets on top on her. It’s whole different ball game when he knows what he’s doing too.

Which is why her fight against Clint is one of her most underrated highlights of all time (tho she didn’t Widow Bite then either *smh), that was still a solid fight, dodged one of his arrows damn near point blank and she won legitimately- with an injury, against brainwashed Hawkeye of all people.

But other than that, Widow-Fu looks nice tho, but it’s not realistic- especially when they refuse to use the Widow bite.

If Hollywood wants women to be on that level, the ladies need to be smarter or enhanced; they’re not men and not every male character’s fight works either. 

These women need to be directed to throw their punches sharper, faster, going for throat, finger striking eyeballs, grappling & dislodging bones and joints — WHILE STANDING UP. 

Elite tier shit, Equalizer level combat. You don’t need super strength  to do that, but it does look more convincing when a Man does it, but it can be done. A woman’s punch is not akin to a child’s punch, they’re still grown adults, the actresses just need better direction.

 (and at minimum, the editors need to make up the differences in post.)

[lesser-mook]

Issues with My Hero Academia #52: You can’t fix what was always broken

Funny thing is, all most cared about was Ochaku-- and even then it fixed nothing really, he didn't dedicate the chapter to just deku & ochako recapping or connecting. It was the same sterilized bullshit, they work better as a sibling esque/platonic dynamic, not romantic. They get along for sure, but little to no chemistry there.

And yes, correct 1000% that when you inch once to the collective over your work, it's no longer yours. Excellently said.

[lesser-mook]

People Are Mad At Pokimane Again..

7:15 EXACTLY, bro is here defending Vtubers and immediately gets assaulted with cringe anyway, exactly my point.

This is why i don't take them seriously. Straight parodies of actual content creators, their clout is carried by those avi's, not actual talent.

Literal weeb mascots cosplaying as streamers, anything to avoid a day job..Anyone with a brain knows precisely why the top female streamers are Vtubers and it has nothing to do with the content.

[lesser-mook]

trolling the biggest man child in gta 5 rp

8:11 "you just desecrated a human corpse!"

[lesser-mook]

Fallout: A World on Fire

"I'm sure there's a lot of money in selling a political ideology that ends in bread lines."  1:43:37

WHOOOO, buddy. That's the show right there, just wrap it up. Roll credits. What a comeback..

this video put me on Fallout 2's Tandi. she has an interesting story.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Tandi

[lesser-mook]

Kamen Rider Drive (Recommended show)

[lesser-mook]

Melody vs Jenny

S3E4, i dug the powerpuff girl sfx during this particular clip.

(recommended show)

[lesser-mook]

I Played 5 Weird Games That Had Mixed Reviews (Macrophilia isn’t weird, it’s predictable because it’s a product of the times. At best it’s an embarrassment.)

regarding the “giant woman” aka mommy issues simulator– “girl shrunk the neighbors” nothing new here. Same ol same ol recycled “Cry for help”/ “Get off the internet & call your mom” red flags.

Dev needs to stop following in the footsteps of other macrocreeps & step outside the box. 

Could’ve even had each chic be a separate level in a different room, or represent different layers of protagonists own insecurities, give the little dudes a means to fight back or something, to metaphorically defeat his inflated insecurities. Like DO SOMETHING with this beside using the internet as your emotional punching bag like 99% of macrophiles do as is, go to therapy for that.

Innovate first, not all of us were battered & broken like dogs to laud women as gods & men as 5th class citizens to cower before them, some of us still have our balls attached.

Make an option to fight back you coward, hell even Shrink High (as absolute garbage as those games were) gave that much to an extent! Ant Bully managed it, The mushroom men games did it.

If bro managed to code & cultivate this much (assuming this wasn’t a team), they can do better, this is just basics. Make the enemy npc into carnivorous eldritch aliens & winning the game is preventing an alien invasion or something, instead of this Honey I shrunk the kids crap- yet again.

Women are not out to get you sport, they’re not your overlords, get a grip.

Cause all jokes aside? What was dude thinking? What even was this crap? How old is this guy with this stuff living rent-free in his head? An insecure 13 yr old with too much time on his hands, fine, teens get leeway to be morons, but a grownass adult? man or woman, doesn’t even matter. Nah bruh needs a hug, not an internet connection.

As for the game = Tldr, trash, it’s been done, a lot.

And it, the fetish is not even weird, it’s annoying, it’s embarrassing, invasive, misandrist, misogynist, misanthropic (meaning Anti-Human), strange yes, but not weird as in mystery or weird because of lack of information, because nothing about this is a mystery. It’s a product of the times.. It the fetish, is actually funny because it’s so basic, it’s basically wanting mommy’s undivided attention. Psychologists telling ppl to “explore” it, now that’s way beyond weird & reckless.

But the game? predictable & depressingly consistent with usual standard macrocreep M.O, because insecurity is consistent.

I get the vibe here that these cats dropping these games like this are doing it thinking they’re still on DeviantArt or something where the less than bare minimum (cringey/ unhinged GTS cliche’s) will appeal to their likeminded whackos & that’s enough.

When in reality when you put your crap on public platform that far out there? You’re getting ALL OUR attention, not just the attention your peer sycophants who will praise product for ticking all the right boxes macrocreeps look for like crack addicts. 

They’re getting way too comfortable, frankly.

I’ve demo’d, played, seen and watched better children’s interactive learning games & experienced way better content in Plug n plays than looking at this crap.

Next time, dev needs to give the player the ability to comatose an enemy NPC with a rare hornet sting or something, get Ant Bully with this joint.

 Stop with the fee fi fo narrative- apparently the point of the game was projection, not the game or making something cool.

They will never make a great product with that goddamn fetish hindering every phase of production like a festering tumor, they really need to let that shit go if they seriously want to make a title.

And if the point of this chiczilla simulator was projecting mental issues, or (generously) repressed emotional impairments as usual on the rest of the planet, then don’t put that crap on steam, keep it in your cult where it belongs.

Cause even if the game was on-point, my question would still be: “Why tho?”

Fact is, for many of these cats, they need to understand that the rest of the world is not their brow beaten, misogynist yet purse whipped little macrophile cult.

If one wants to appeal to the mass public? They gotta stop clinging to that fetishes skirt for dear life, break free or pretend to be sane for a few months and actually give a proper GAME next time, unhindered.

Not asking for AAA, but not something so embarrassingly brokeback that I would NOT gift it to someone I hated either.

[lesser-mook]

Do YouTube Subscribers Still Matter in 2023?

Subscribers would matter if the number of subs were 3:4 or higher equivalent to the views you get, consistently, if subs actually affected your views as a rule (like in the past) vs how the algorithm now determines your video getting trafficked/ or left to dry up, Subscribers would matter if they mattered to video traffic.

It's not like Youtube prioritizes people with higher sub counts, subs don't matter, people with millions of subs somehow only get 100k views anyway. Subs do not matter.

When the algorithm decides if your subs even get the upload notification in the first place, what matters is the algorithm, subscribers don't matter. They're a measure of illusion of success.

When majority of your viewers are not even subscribed, subs don't matter. VIEWERS matter. Algorithm MATTERS. The bot is god.

Subscribers are cheerleaders that control absolutely nothing, the loyal ones can come back to the channel sure, but they only do that if they even get the videos you upload in the first place.

Again------ VIEWERS matter, they can be sub or not subbed. "Subscriber" is a catchy term but the word we're looking for is "viewer"/"viewer engagement", viewers adding a view/like/dislike/comment/share, adding a metric, sub or not, a viewer is what matters.

Subs matter if you want to think they matter, reality be damned. Youtube as it is recently to as it is now, subs do not matter.

Heck, YT can even manipulate who is subscribed to you or not, they can UNSUB people. That's how much a subscriber matters.

[lesser-mook]

DAREDEVIL BORN AGAIN Season Finale Review

well they likely spent way that time dragging to this & sitting on certain closures, due to presuming they get a season 2

Never blue ball audiences for an entire season on presumption that you'll get a chance to wrap it up later, that is never smart, even if it's guaranteed.--- you can do that in movies with ongoing uninterrupted immersion narratives that are not cut up into episodic pieces as much.

But in serialized tv shows? Don't do that if one can help it.

Never assume anything; if you set it up, then wrap it up. Especially if you made the audience sit through all that slow burn story, you should just pay it off out of respect really, don't just chew up people's time like that then say "come back later".

otherwise, I like how character driven born again is, it's well directed.

[lesser-mook]

"shut up buttercup" Blossom said calmly (recommended show)

Blossom got some tyrant-isms in her genes, I'm sincerely glad Buttercup is as tough as she is, it's a necessary counterbalance.

show: The PowerPuff girls 1998, DO NOT watch that 2016 garbage, only watch the original 90s series for the love of Mojo.

[lesser-mook]

Kevin was hardass at times, definitely--- yet unlike most channels; He wasn't trying to break the will of the women he poke to in the process in order to reach them.

--------------

Oil rig techs, Sewage techs, Railway techs, Ceiling installation, Elevator installation etc. all the things people expect to get done, but we never think about who's doing it. This is why men run shit-- Because somebody's son is going to work to get it done & because of that inevitable outcome, women don't have to step up in more appropriate numbers.

Otherwise, sexism can do a lot of things but it doesn't force a 4 : 3 majority ratio of women to men from working brutal trade jobs & do it better while bleeding or whatever some tell themselves.

Sexism doesn't prevent the majority of the species from helping, deliberate life choices do.

Reality is--- Men are carrying (doing majority of the dirty/dangerous jobs) & women have the immense privilege to ignore that, not forced to help, or majority have it so damn good they don't even have to realize this reality as they drive their vehicles on roads, into concrete tunnels, throughout cities filled with stories tall monoliths.

Oblivious & blissful.

Kevin's entire point is: 'we're allowed to think women don't need men, because since your foremothers' era & beyond, men have always been there to do what women don't have to do, even now when you should be helping to do it.

It's not men carrying that's the issue entirely, women have jobs & play other roles----

It's the surplus of attitude coming from vocal sections of the majority of the species that have yet to build their own New York City, but some have a brazen narrative of inflated self-importance as if women as a bulk across the globe are hiding their own Type-3 Civilization Themyscira somewhere on this planet but they're just not telling men about it as a prank.

So much to say about what men aren't doing, what women can do, but we see nothing of women doing it. 

The ego many women possess isn't earned, it's founded on what they've been told & not what's been built brick by brick and that's 100% society's fault. Enabling & gaslighting is what causes mass delusion. 

We say one thing, refuse to take a chance on matriarchy elsewhere & build on that system, thus we stay put, still suckling on the resources & advancements of patriarchy.

It's the cognitive dissonance that's the issue here, complete mass enabled lack of self-awareness..

Sauce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn-YtuMumDE

Sauce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn-YtuMumDE

[lesser-mook]

PC Christmas Carol 2 | FreedomToons

not enough poc diversity on that stage, i feel assaulted.

[lesser-mook]

Galaxy News Radio - Let's go Sunning

I used to hate this song.

[lesser-mook]

Nicolas Cage as (not Batman) "Big Daddy"

The dream casting nobody asked for.

"Switch to KRYTONIIIIIIIITE!!!"

[lesser-mook]

(Nice tapestry design)

"a world without trans people has never existed and never will", duh.

In retrospect tho, we're talking a minority of 0-3% (a generous 3.5 if we count the undocumented), no one reasonably should propose a world without them because the number is so deflated.

So what would be missing in a world without trans people-- is there would be one less way for people to argue, label, and put themselves in a box. Which people do anyway, regardless of trans people.

so a world "without" trans people would be redundant because the statistic is so inconsequential as is, it makes no difference.

They might as well exist, why not.

To no one's surprise, there are even smaller groups among the layman- worth heaps more trouble, cringery, & mischief disproportionate to their demographic sizes. And a mild mannered trans community is not one of them.  

a world without trans people has never existed and never will

prints

[lesser-mook]

Practice what you Preach, Chibi #21: Chibi Reviews doxxed himself and cr...

chibi reviews, with his particular taste in anime had the nerve to speak on Avatar the last airbender, in any context & specifically what it did right with how it handled "SEXISM" on Kyoshi Island, book 1

 this same guy, same channel. talking about sexism.

Mushoku Tensei, what’s that? A new dance?