Fanfiction Fridays: This American Life episode 141: A Whole New World. (Transcript) by NaomiK

A lot of popular fictional stories have, as their primary premise, their protagonists traveling from one world (typically our world) into another, far different, world. Whether this is something like The Forbidden Kingdom (a movie about a white savior transported to ancient China which I nevertheless loved as a child) or the much better Spirited Away (a movie about a young girl who falls into the spirit world and grows up along the way), traveling to new and fantastical worlds is such a part of our fictional tradition that it’s seen dozens of times in new stories every year. But very few of these stories really explore the emotional cost of traveling to these new worlds. That’s where today’s fic comes in. Through the use of an unusually real medium, This American Life, today’s story This American Life episode 141: A Whole New World. (Transcript) discusses the pros and cons of traveling to new worlds.

(via disney wikia)

Spider-Man: Homecoming Sticks Its Landing

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into Spider-Man: Homecoming. I did really enjoy Tom Holland’s outing as Spidey in Captain America: Civil War, but I was kind of out of the loop for the pre-movie publicity (I barely even remember the trailers) and I felt going in more like I was seeing it out of MCU obligation than genuine hype. Plus, I still had some lingering resentment from the whole “pushing back the entire MCU production schedule to slot another white dude in” thing.

Coming out of Spider-Man: Homecoming, however, I had a big ol’ grin on my face. This movie was fantastically well-crafted and cast, and was loads of fun while also telling a heartfelt and complex story at its core.

Major plot spoilers after the cut! Please don’t read if you are planning to see it; it’s really worth going in unspoiled!

(via cosmicbooknews)

Trailer Tuesdays: Black Panther

The new Black Panther trailer has been released and I’m beyond hyped. February can’t get here soon enough! Coming off the heels of Wonder Woman’s success and a wave of support for inclusion of marginalized voices, Marvel finally released a trailer with a non-white male lead. I got to see the intersection of Black Twitter and Nerd Twitter come out in full force, so with all this excitement, I should probably explain why it looks so great. 

Oh, My Pop Culture Islam: Ms. Marvel’s Respectful Portrayal of Religious Characters

Comics and religion don’t often mix, and that’s why it was so surprising when the new Ms. Marvel burst onto the scene and became such a smash hit. Kamala Khan (i.e., the current Ms. Marvel) and her Muslim family and friends provide a respectful, realistic portrayal of a family of faith that anyone from a religious background—especially one grounded in a strong family and ethnic tradition—can relate to. Of course such a story could have been written about any religious family, because the same thing could have come across if the Khans had been Greek Orthodox Christians like my family, or Polish Catholics, or Orthodox Jews, or Indian Hindus, etc. etc. But it’s extremely important that the series instead chooses to normalize a family of darker-skinned Muslims, as they have been such a persecuted group in the Western world lately. Realizing that a group different from your own is, in fact, simply human Just Like You is the first step in encouraging empathy and in changing attitudes, and Ms. Marvel does a great job with that. Now, I’m not Muslim, nor do I know an awful lot about Islam. I’m an Eastern Orthodox Christian with a priest for a father, and I grew up hearing some very Islamophobic opinions from him. It took me a long time to get over that, but it wasn’t until reading Ms. Marvel that I realized that Orthodox Christians and Muslims might actually have a lot more in common than I thought. It’s also just lovely to have representation of a religious character in comics, in which faith is organically woven into the story without being preachy or just surface-level!

Note that I’ve only read through the latest trade paperback of the series (Volume 6, up to issue #12 of the current run). But Saika tells me these points still hold for the latest issues. Mild spoilers up to my current stopping point below!

(via Marvel)

Throwback Thursdays: Doctor Strange: The Oath

After revisiting the adorable Doctor Strange of the Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur comic last week, I found myself craving more Strange stuff. And while I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to bring myself to watch the MCU movie, I do own a few trades’ worth of Doctor Strange comics. I remembered enjoying them well enough when I first read them, so I figured the time was nigh to revisit one and see if older, woker Saika still thought they were any good. And that’s how I ended up rereading the 2007 comic Doctor Strange: The Oath, by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin. Turns out, while it’s a good standalone story to read if you’re interested in the good Doctor, it’s also full of some tired tropes and isms.

(via marvel)

Trailer Tuesdays: Thor: Ragnarok

We’re lucky enough to be getting three MCU movies this year, even if I was a bit underwhelmed by the first one. The casting news about Thor: Ragnarok had me pretty hyped for this movie, but now that I’ve seen the trailer, I’m only about 40% hype. The remaining 60% is confusion.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Chilling Crimes of Chinchilla Chick by Traincat

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
WHO EATS NUTS KICKS BUTTS AND JUST KISSED THE RADDEST ROOMMATE EVER idk but i bet she’s super cool and finished all her homework

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
LIKE A CHAMP #eatsnutskicksbutts #andassignments

Nancy W @sewwiththeflo
So glad Mew approves of my new relationship. That would’ve been awkward. #neithersinglenorreadytomingle

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@sewwiththeflo Hahaha but it would’ve worked out anyway right Nancy

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@sewwiththeflo Nancy?

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@sewwiththeflo NANCY

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@starkmantony aw you ol’ softie you! thanks for the edible arrangement!

Tony Stark @starkmantony
@unbeatablesg Don’t mention it. Really.

Squirrel Girl! @unbeatablesg
@starkmantony could’ve used more nuts, though

Tony Stark @starkmantony
@unbeatablesg What did I just say?

The first time Nancy kissed Doreen she tasted like acorn buttercream and New York City grit. Nancy had never thought of that as a winning combination, but somehow Doreen made it work. She also dipped Nancy, because Doreen kissed like she did everything else: with 300% enthusiasm and like she’d learned it off a pack of trading cards written by a maniac in a full-face mask.

The Chilling Crimes of Chinchilla Chick may not be an actual canonical Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic, but it’s pretty much the next best thing. Actually, it’s got femslash, so it’s inherently better. Let’s do this.

(via projectfandom)

Magical Mondays: “The Smartest There Is” Takes on Magic

(via comicsalliance)

The recently concluded arc of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, “The Smartest There Is”, opened on nine-year-old protagonist Lunella Lafayette learning that, thanks to her results on a test created by Bruce Banner, she is the smartest person. Not the smartest kid, or the smartest girl, or the smartest human, or the smartest being on Earth; she’s flat out “the smartest there is”, hence the name of the arc. The other people on the list (mostly adult men) are a bit salty about a little Black girl from the Lower East Side stealing their thunder, but none more so than one Victor Von Doom.

Doom sends robots to attack Lunella, and they’re unlike anything she’s fought before. Namely, they’re powered by Doom’s magic rather than by some kind of quantifiable science. So what does the smartest there is do when faced with something that defies scientific understanding? Attempt to explain it scientifically anyway.

My Mom Doesn’t Know “Mr. Blue Sky” and Other Things I Had Feelings About During Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Well, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 sure was a thing I watched.

I should start with a positive, right? It had a great soundtrack. (Although I was shocked to discover that I recognized some of the songs and my music aficionado mom did not.)

Also, I’d definitely argue that it was better than its predecessor. If you’ll recall my review, I left Vol. 1 deeply disappointed, and I felt like this movie offered a lot of the character beats and emotional high notes that I wished the first film had hit. It also improved the representation on the team by giving us the first MCU team-up with some semblance of gender parity.

That said, I’m not sure what this story adds to the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe worldbuilding, and being a band-aid for the previous film’s issues isn’t necessarily a good look for a sequel.

(via bleedingcool)

Spoilers after the jump!

Trailer Tuesdays: Marvel’s The Defenders

With the release of Marvel’s Iron Fist earlier this year, we now have first (and the occasional second) seasons for all of the individual Defenders: Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand. However, each of these individual series had their pros and cons, and Iron Fist was so bad that I kind of never wanted to see anything with Danny Rand in it ever again. But now the full-length trailer for Marvel’s The Defenders is out, and it’s actually a little…. entertaining?