December Daily: Thor Ragnarok

[resonant]

laurenthemself, "What are your thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok? I know ya boy Steve wasn't in it but did you have any shippy feelings?"

I feel kind of bad, but I never saw it!

I'm disengaging from MCU movies because the stakes are too damned high. If it's the end of the world every time, then mere humans, or even enhanced humans, don't seem realistically likely to make any difference. I would much prefer a movie where they were just fighting Hydra -- or, better yet, where they were just fighting like a bunch of ordinary criminals or something.

Or maybe one where they had to go live on a farm in Colchester, Illinois (population 1,493) and not raise anyone's suspicions, or get anyone killed, or let the cows out too often.







1 -- goss, "VENOM! Why do you think it's been such an instant hit with Fandom, and what are some of your favourite fanworks so far?" and nestra, "Any Venom recs?"
2 -- anitac588, "How do you relate to different fandoms? Do you revisit them? Sometimes I find it difficult to go back to reading stories in 'old' fandoms after discovering new OTP."
3 -- marginaliana, "what is your favorite physical non-living thing? Not a person or a pet, but it could be something you own or a piece of art, etc."
4 -- cesperanza, "I'll ask an HP question, actually, because I wasn't really ever in it and I'm interested in the reactions of people who were. It seems to me from the outside so spectacularly meh now; like, it was the fictional equiv of Lost (which I also didn't watch) where it was fascinating as a piece of serialized fiction but where the execution simply couldn't live up to the collective imagination. Am I wrong?"
5 -- teigh_corvus, "Your thoughts on James Joyce and Ulysses."
6 -- kass, "If the you of 10 years ago could see you now, what would surprise her most?"
7 -- jjhunter, "What do you carry with you?"
8 -- mific, "Sounds like you commute to and fro still. How do you pass the time traveling? Music? Audiobooks? Something else? Any reccs? :)"
9 -- torch, "favorite advent songs!"
10 -- princessofgeeks, "How did you go about changing fandoms? Was it, historically, something you did or something that just happened? Did friends lure you? Did you find new shows to watch?"
11 -- reginagiraffe, "(It's MrGiraffe's birthday so...) Have you ever written a birthday themed story? If not, what couple would have the best/funnest/easiest birthday story to write and why?"
12 -- laurenthemself, "What are your thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok? I know ya boy Steve wasn't in it but did you have any shippy feelings?"
13 -- allheadybooks, "13. What's your least favorite thing about splitting your time between two houses? (My wife and I are also in a commuter marriage at the moment, and I get so frustrated every weekend when I have to go grocery shopping AGAIN because I thought I had eggs but that was at the other apartment!"
14 -- schneefink, "how about your field of study/work/specialization/hobby and how a book/movie/series/canon got it terribly/hilariously wrong?"
15 -- china_shop, "What hooks you into a fanfic? Is it banter, characterisation, tropes, or...? Is it different from what hooks you into original fic?"
16 -- muccamukk, "Describe a long fic you always wanted to write, but never have and likely never will."
17 -- ride_4ever, "rec two due South fanworks: a favorite that you created and a favorite that someone else created. (Anything! Triggers and squicks not a concern for me.)"
18 -- kass, "What have you read recently that you've enjoyed?
19 -- jjhunter, "What are five words you like or find especially meaningful + 1 word you despise? Why?"
20 -- terminally_underwhelmed, "do you have fandom/character/relationship "types" that you find all your fannish energy going towards? Like, Gryffinpuff/Slytherclaw (and more simply hot/cold) relationships grab me, and so do characters that are both super popular and super ooc in fanworks.'
21 --
22 -- mekare, What would Ben Fraser do in 2018?
23 -- marina, "What was the last book you read that wasn't fanfic and that you intensely loved, and why."
24 -- wychwood, "Something about SGA! What's the one fic you're sorry you never wrote? What was your favourite episode? Do you still love John/Rodney? How gay WAS John Sheppard? Where in Atlantis would you live if you could pick any room you liked? Pick one or a topic of your choice."
25 -- isabellerecs, "What was your most favorite Christmas present that you ever received as a kid?" and/or "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?"
26 --
27 --destina, "how has your relationship to fandom changed over the years? By which I mean not just participation in it, but your level of tolerance/interest for the cyclical things about it, the way old arguments never really stop or die, etc, but also the ways fandom changes and new ways of doing fandom evolve. (And old ways evolve out, and terms evolve, etc.)"
28 -- kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 --
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"

Comments

[sara]

LOL Herself's tutorial group was supposed to come up with an inspirational film to watch for the holidays and guess what they picked? Yep.

"There are a lot of guys in the class."

"I guess!"

[resonant]

Inspirational? What did it inspire?

[sara]

Neither of us is really clear on that!

[out_there]

I'm disengaging from MCU movies because the stakes are too damned high.

That's a fair call for most MCU movies. I mean, technically it probably applies to Thor:Ragnorak as well, but most of me thinks of it as a movie of "a guy who gets lost and has to find his way out" (and I clearly mentally glaze over the whole Ragnorak and all of Asgard threatened sideplots, because I kind of love Thor catching up with Bruce, and the brotherly snarking with Loki).

Basically, I enjoy the stuff that's not about the big world saving.

[resonant]

I've been saying since the first Iron Man movie that if someone wanted to do a cut of only the scenes in which you could see and recognize a human face, suddenly all these superhero movies would be things I'd fully enjoy.

Were you around in Sentinel fandom for the "loft tape"? Something like that.

[out_there]

I wasn't in the Sentinel fandom (no, back then, I just watched the Sentinel because I liked the show and thought Blair was cute) but I'm guessing it was an edit of just the domestic scenes together?

[resonant]

Exactly -- the part that we're really interested in, where they're making popcorn and having tiny relationship moments.

[laurenthemself]

Totally fair. I haven't watched Infinity War yet because the death list annoyed me.

That said, I have been telling people that Thor: Ragnarok is an excellent sequel to Jupiter Ascending (I love JA), and I think I'm actually convincing some people.

Also don't be ridiculous, you know there would be COWS EVERYWHERE.

[norsellie]

Jupiter Ascending is a criminally underrated film.

[resonant]

Oh, man, the cows would boldly go where no cow has gone before, and even Loki probably couldn't make a cow go anywhere it didn't want to go. Though he might eventually give birth to a calf or two.

[resonant]

I just realized that I never actually followed up on what's really interesting here, which is: Tell me your theory about Thor being a sequel to Jupiter Ascending?

[laurenthemself]

Let's see if I remember all of the stuff... I had the notion that the Grandmaster was a Recurrence of Balem Abrasax (because Jeff Goldblum is the evolved form of Eddie Redmayne, apparently).

Partly it's a spiritual successor in the sense of the vibrancy and colour and glorious space-ness of it all; where Jupiter Ascending was within our solar system, Thor: Ragnarok expands beyond it and beyond even Midgard.

I swear I had more concrete points than that, but my brain simply doesn't want to cough them up right this minute.

[resonant]

because Jeff Goldblum is the evolved form of Eddie Redmayne, apparently

Well, I accept that headcanon.

[norsellie]

Yes! I have been feeling less and less engaged with MCU films since Civil War. It's not just my problems with that film (which are manifold), but what you put your finger on here. The storytelling (what there is of it) has lost all perspective.

[resonant]

I guess this is what we have fandom for.

[laurakaye]

100%.

Like... there's this skill you can cultivate where you can watch the new canon as an interesting what-if and/or grab bag of new fic elements to play with, heh.

Fic is the collage/ransom note. Canon is the newspapers and magazines we cut up to make them.

[laurakaye]

(Though side note: the fact that Thor: Ragnarok is so heavily anti-colonialist in addition to being really funny and having a lot of great character interaction never fails to make me smile.)

[resonant]

I love it!

[laurenthemself]

Fic is the collage/ransom note. Canon is the newspapers and magazines we cut up to make them.

May I please post this to metaquotes?

[anelith]

You put into words my issues with a lot of the MCU movies (although I did enjoy Thor:Ragnarok). I would love to see the one about hiding out in a small town. What a joy that would be.

[resonant]

Little by little, people from fandom are becoming The Powers That Be. Maybe now we'll get the movies we really want to see.