it’s a good thing denethor died when he did. he narrowly avoided getting his ass kicked by his daughter-in-law, who would doubtless be steamed on behalf of her kind-hearted husband over the crappy parenting he received.
I’m now picturing Eowyn dangling Denethor upside-down over the edge of the walls of Minas Tirith and yelling “I SAID APOLOGIZE”
I started going to the dojo when I was in sixth grade. It was a very masculine environment; there weren’t a lot of other girls there but the male senseis who ran the place were great guys and they genuinely loved having female students because we were such a rarity.
Now back in sixth grade I was tinier even than what I am now, and now I’m only 5’2. Then I was probably even under 5’0. I mean I was a squirt of a kid. But I loved to fight; I loved to be in the ring, I loved the adrenaline rush and I loved having punches hurled at me. It was fun for me. Our dojo did full-contact sparring, which was pretty brutal. These were the only rules:
you must wear a mouth guard and gloves
no hits below the belt
That’s pretty much it.
Anyway every Thursday was Fight Night, where all we did was spar each other. And on my First Night Sensei Diven—who has since passed, bless his soul—paired me up with this really cocky and assholish brown belt to show me the ropes a little. This brown belt kid was bigger than me by a lot; he must have been at least six feet and twice my weight. But man was I excited to get into the ring! I had a fight boiling in my blood.
Now, Sensei Diven was not a stupid man and he hated high-ranking kids that showed a bad attitude. This kid had a bad attitude. So he must have seen the evil gleam in my eye from a mile away and decided it was time for a little improvisation.
Anyway, Sensei yelled, “Start!” and I leapt into fight stance and the other kid didn’t even put his hands up. He was laughing at me, sneering, the whole nine yards. “I’ll give you a free one.” he joked, and he slapped his side. “You barely weigh 100 pounds and you’re a girl. So go ahead, little girl. Hit me.”
And I hit him. I cocked my leg up as high as it would go and roundhouse kicked him right in the ribs with all of my might and all of the contempt I felt for his stupid cocky face which was covered in ugly-ass freckles and his nasty-ass braces. And I heard a crack. Like a real snap! sound. And the kid has a look of surprise on his face like it was nobody’s business, and then he goes right to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
Now, Sensei Diven leisurely strolls over from the group of black belts who are laughing their asses off at me, the tiny little white belt, sending my Goliath to the floor. I mean they’re laughing so hard they look like they’re about to pee themselves. They think it’s a game. And in his great booming voice he hollers:
“Brown Belt! Why are you on the floor? Do you not see this white belt has been assigned to fight you?”
And meanwhile he is just crying. I broke one of his ribs.
And Sensei Diven just squats down next to this poor kid and whispers, “Don’t you know that women are made of pain?”
fun fact M’baku mentions that the Jabari tribe worship Hanuman, the Hindu god. The monkey link is obviously there, but it’s also a nice shout-out to the strong Indo-East African cultural transference that has taken place for centuries, and shows that despite the insular nature of Wakanda specifically, Indian customs and traditions and religion have still found their way in. The Jabari’s vegetarianism is also likely influenced by Indian/Hindu tradition. My Indian dad, who was born and raised in Kenya and has Swahili woven into the Punjabi he passed down to us, loved the film. Wakanda forever!!
But hear me out: when Tony finds out about how Shuri healed Ross he moves hell, heaven and earth to get there and downright begs Shuri to take in Rhodey as a patient because she’s clearly the best and he’ll sell his soul if it means healing his best friend but then Shuri just smiles and says ‘sure!’ and he bursts into tears right there in her lab.
Okay, but this isn’t painful enough, so time for me to shine!
Everyone expects Tony to be a dick to Shuri the first time he meets her. Like I mean, EVERY-damn-BODY. His ego is legend, he once made Neil DeGrasse Tyson cry at the Nobels. It’s especially bad when it’s someone new to him. And here’s this itty bitty girl-child making claims to greatness and scoffing at Tony’s work.
Reporters are waiting with baited breath.
T’Challa has practiced his “Make my sister cry and no-one will find the body” speech in from of a mirror.
Oyoke and Nakia have insisted on teaching Shuri hand-to-hand.
Pepper and Happy institute social media lock-downs at the Stark Gala the meeting will take place at (they couldn’t exactly not-invite the girl who donated the most to the Maria Stark Foundation.)
Peter actually webbed his way to the tower to try to calm Tony down the night before, and got yelled at by Aunt May for breaking curfew.
Tony walks straight to her at the gala.
The world seems to pause.
He puts a folder in front of her on a side table meant to hold drinks.
“My best friend. Care to take a look?”
She hands him her sparkling cider.
Pepper near about has an aneurysm in the two seconds before Tony happily takes it from her.
Shuri looks at the file.
“Another broken white boy for me to fix?” she says with a grin like sunshine and open sky. “Of course.”
“Rhodey is black,” Tony says quietly. It is the only time in their entire friendship over the next decade he corrects her. He doesn’t cry. Stark men are made of iron. But he holds whatever she hands him. He never puts up the wall of sass and self-image to push her away.
And when she tells him Bucky Barnes, his parent’s killer, is Rhodey’s physio partner?
He sends her every single page of his father’s notes on Super Soldiers.
oh my god yes please
@bairnsidhe you just made this SO much better. Would you mind if I used your addition to this post as the center of a story I want to write?
wupacing 