rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo
This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.
I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.
This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.
I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.
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Irondad fic ideas #125
AU where Thanos never happened and the Rogues eventually return. They've been pardoned and they're supposed to get the team back together, but there's still tension. A lot has changed.
Tony has told them repeatedly to never call in Spider-Man for backup. Steve doesn't understand or approve. He assumes Tony is just holding a grudge, trying to keep this new, obviously powerful recruit on his own side.
One day, Tony is caught up in SI business somewhere when a mission comes up, and they need extra hands. Steve decides to call in Spider-Man.
At first the mission goes smoothly, but then of course things take a turn. All hell breaks loose.
Tony taps into comms not long after to tell them he's on his way. He's left his meeting and is flying as fast as he can, though he's still a long way out. Somehow, Tony figures out that Peter is there. (Maybe he overhears Peter quipping, maybe Steve casually references Spider-Man.)
One way or another, he figures it out. He goes deadly quiet, then switches to a private comm with just Steve.
Tony is betrayed, aggravated, terrified and trying to bury it (and not doing a very good job), and honestly kind of bitter and insulted that Steve can't hear his obvious fear. Steve is annoyed at Tony's childish stubbornness, assumes the man is just mad at things not going his way. Still in the midst of battle, he dismisses Tony's concerns.
Then, Spider-Man gets hurt. Bad. Tony had already been frantically trying to get there faster when he heard the kid was there, but he still doesn't arrive in time.
At some point -- maybe there on the battlefield, maybe later in med bay when Steve arrives to chew Tony out for leaving with Spider-Man instead of staying to help -- at some point it becomes abundantly clear that Peter is Tony's son.
(Bio, adopted, emotional, doesn't matter)
It becomes clear that Tony wasn't making Spider-Man off-limits for selfish reasons. Steve, blinded by his own view of Tony, was unbelievably wrong.
It turns out, he had just been trying to keep his son safe.
Bonus:
If the reveal does happen later in med bay, there could even be a moment after the battle where Steve, fuming about Tony's lack of help and general inability to be a team player, is intercepted by Rhodey.
Maybe Rhodey arrived just after Tony (flying from the same meeting, but Tony freaked out and raced ahead) and then stuck around to help finish the fight. His reaction to Steve's unempathetic and baseless reading of his best friend is stone cold.
Bonus 2:
Steve fails to notice or understand Rhodey's meaning. Then he gets to med bay and is faced with the image of Tony holding a sleeping Peter on the hospital bed, glaring right across the room at him.
Both of them completely aware of what Steve had assumed, all these years, about the kind of person Tony was
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I'm thinking about Steve and his first conversation with Tony on that damn quinjet.
Like, at this point, Steve is absolutely not okay. How long ago was he punching through gym bags? A couple hours? A day or two at best?
Not to mention, he's a soldier. The last and only time he fought in a battle, he was fighting in a war. The war. The last and only time he fought someone more than human was in that war. And on top of that, the first time he has to fight Loki is in Germany, listening to him talk about world domination.
And then comes Tony, Howard's son, the one person who could maybe mean something to him in this century.
And then Tony tells him "You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as a Capsicle."
That must have hit a spot. Again, Steve was trying to punch that exact feeling out just a few hours ago.
He tries to change the topic, but Tony tells him that Fury doesn't tell him everything, and I can't imagine that helps either. Fury's probably one of the few people who actually talked to Steve since he woke up, he probably needs moment to process that, even if he's ready to admit it right then and there.
Like, congratulations, boys, that was a shit show of a first impression all around.
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A bunch of Mario Family headcanons:
Because I think a very normal amount about the larger Mario family and very very very much want The Super Mario Brothers Super Show Reboot all about them
G-Poppy and his wife moved to American from Italy in their 20′s, making Mario and Luigi third generation immigrants
G-Poppy’s dream was to own and run an authentic Italian a Restaurant in America, but after the birth of his oldest son, Pio, the need for quick cash to pay rent was more pressing, thus why he got into Boxing
Papa Mario’s full name is Pio Mario Jr, he’s named after G-Poppy
Pio is a good 5-6 years older than his younger brothers, Arthur and Tony, who are only a year apart at most
Sense bills were tight, Pio spent a lot of his childhood being another income to the house hold, working hard labor work like construction to keep the family afloat while his brothers were young
Eventually G-Poppy got too old for wrestling and finally realized his dream of opening a Restaurant; Punch-Out Pizza. This put the family in more financial struggle, forcing Pio to take up more work while Arthur and Tony helped in the Restaurant
Now that G-Poppy is retired Arthur and Tony run the business together. Arthur’s the finance guy, where Tony runs deliveries and hands on manages other employees
It was actually their Grandmother who made Mario and Luigi’s caps for them, she’s also made G-Poppy’s. She passed before Louisiana was born, thus why she couldn’t make her a cap as well
Tony’s a huge horror movie buff, he loves old classics and has a huge VHS collection. Part of the reason Luigi is so scared of the paranormal is from catching glimpses or watching whole movies with Uncle Tony growing up
Another big part of Luigi’s fear though may just come from Uncle Tony loving to scare him. A big pass time for Tony was waiting around corners in Halloween masks to jump scare Luigi, or telling him ghost stories any change he got
Mario also got a bad fear from Uncle Tony’s movies; Pianos. He’d just happened to catch a pretty nasty scene of the lid of a Grand Piano crushing someone when he was younger and it stuck with him pretty hard
Louisiana is about 11-12 years younger than Mario and Luigi, so despite being cousins the three have a hard time relating to one another from the large age gap
Louisiana prefers to go by Louise, though only Mario and Luigi call her that. She was also the first one in the family to use the “Lou” nickname for Luigi, which Mario quickly also picked up
Arthur loves baseball, the Mets especially, but really he’ll watch any team play. He regrets not being on his school’s baseball team when he was younger, due to having to help at the restaurant, thus why he signed his daughter Louisiana up as soon as she was old enough. She’s stuck with it to keep her dad happy
Mia makes 90% of the meals in the Mario household, with the occasional help from Arthur. She learned most her dishes from her own mom, and a good deal more from Pio’s mother after marrying into the family
Marie is absolute rubbish in the kitchen. Mia’s given her multiple lessons and had her help with dinner many times around when she was expecting Louisiana, but she rarely made anything edible. The only one who ate her meals was Arthur, who just wanted to support his wife with all he had, even if it made him ill (which it did. Many times. Tony made fun of him for it)
Tony loves to work on machinery, mostly motorcycles, and has bounced around working part time as a mechanic here and there before his duties at the restaurant drag him back
Pio, Tony, and Mario are the only ones in the Mario family with a drivers license, though Tony was the only one who drove regularly until Mario bought the van
The Mario family owns 4 gaming devices; The Brother’s NES that they bought with their saved up chore money in Middle School, a Wii Marie and Mia do Wii Fit on in the living room, Uncle Tony’s PS2 that’s mostly collecting dust, and the Home Computer that Louise plays Roblox and Minecraft on
The Mario family apartment has 3 bedrooms; Pio and Mia’s, Arthur Marie and Louise’s, and Mario and Luigi’s. G-Poppy sleeps on a chair in the living room, and Tony sleeps on the couch
Louise has already called dibs on Mario and Luigi’s room when they move out, Tony says he prefers the couch anyway so he doesn’t mind
Pio pushes a lot of his own raising onto Mario, as the oldest he thinks Mario should be responsible, a support for the family, not chasing his own crazy dream that could crash down onto them into debt
On the flip side, Arthur puts a lot of what he wanted for himself onto Louisiana, pushing her to do new things and plays sports and do after school activities like he never got to do having to work in the Restaurant growing up
Tony’s the only one he sees this happening, and thus has stayed the fun uncle who’ll get you out of that thing you don’t want to do if asked. He’s listened to a lot of vents from the kids as he drives them from one activity to the next, and tries to remind them their parents are doing their best, and love them a lot. For everyone but Luigi that reminder fell on deaf ears
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I’m frustrated with this season because while the Jughead and Veronica stuff is cute, it’s happening while Tabitha has all her memories in tact and is still very much committed to Jughead and in love with him while working her best to save everyone’s lives. And it feels a little dirty of the writer’s to wipe Jug’s mind and literally send Tabitha away just so he can touch lips with Betty and Veronica... like Jug loves Tabitha so much, and her not being there feels empty and wrong.
I have no doubt that Jabitha will get back together once the writers put Tabitha back on our screens, but as a viewer it’s just super frustrating. Why does the final season feel so directionless (plotwise)? Why are our characters still memory-wiped? Will they ever actually start to remember? Maybe get Tabitha back in the show and I can forgive it, but we only have like 20 episodes to wrap up the entire show? What are we even doing?
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