Ariel: Not bad. They go well together. It’s good.
Elissa: Yeah, it’s good. I guess that’s what it tastes like when you…
Ariel: Lick the Hulk? Not advisable.

Ariel: I feel so patriotic…and I’m not even American!

(Before)
Elissa: OK, let’s eat Hawk-
Ariel: (bursts out laughing)
(After)
Elissa: Well, that’s… um….
Ariel: Sweet.
Elissa: It tastes like grape juice.
Ariel: It’s very… in-your-face.

Ariel: That’s really good!
Elissa: Cinnamon doesn’t hit you right away…
Ariel: Well, she’s a badass, but you can’t see that right away because she’s a spy.
Elissa: This still tells us nothing about Budapest.
Ariel: Maybe if you eat it with Hawkeye at the same time, you come to a glorious revelation.

Ariel: I think I ate cinnamon instead.
Elissa: So yours is a Black Widow/Thor ship.
Ariel: I’ve never considered that ship, but now it’s all over my mouth…
Elissa: It definitely tastes like someone who’d be tased by Kat Dennings.

(Ariel and Elissa both die of laughter upon consumption)
Elissa: I like that neither of us can think of anything to say…
Ariel: I’m trying to think of something that’s not an entendre, but it’s hard.
Elissa: …HA!
Ariel: I just feel like I took some random jellybeans and threw them in my mouth…not unlike sleeping with Tony Stark.
Elissa: You can really taste the coffee.

Elissa: Tastes like my father doesn’t love me.
Ariel: It’s sweet at first, but then turns dark -
Elissa: – It’s pretty good -
Ariel: – I’m not just saying that because I’m a licorice fan.

Elissa: The coconut got kind of overpowered.
Ariel: Really? You can taste it in mine…

Elissa: Son of Coul!
Ariel: It’s sweet, but no discernible flavour. Coulson’s not a flashy sort of person.
Elissa: But it’s good. If this flavour were to die, I’d be very sad.

Now, go try our Avengers jelly bean combinations (or tell us about your own fun, food-themed nerdery), or we’ll be forced to do some Avenging. Of our customized jellybean mixes.

…Just try them. We want to know what you think!

PS: To satisfy what we are sure is your burning with curiosity, you should all know that we here at 404 have formed our own little editorial Avengers team, featuring:

Nikita as Iron Man
Ariel as Captain America
Elissa as The Hulk
Rachel as Black Widow
Megan as Hawkeye
and last but certainly not least…
Laura as Thor

Watch out, world.

There’s a special charm to that kind of action onomatopoeia, though, and so my design for today is an homage to the old-school superhero fight scene.

You’ll need:
• Nail polish in at least three or four colors — red, yellow, and blue are classics, with white for a base, but you can pick whatever you want.
• A striper or a toothpick
• Scotch tape
• Wax paper, if desired

First choose whatever colors you want as your base — I did white, with accent nails in yellow and red, but you can go wild if you want. Just bear in mind that you’re going to be putting other colors on top.

The main shape you’re going to be using here is a sort of circular zig-zag where the points aren’t all even.

For your first finger through your pinky, you have three options:

First, you can just use a toothpick to draw and fill in the design — I found it easiest to start at the center and then drag out lines in random directions from there. Use the wax paper if you would prefer to just make a puddle of nail polish to dip your toothpick/striper into – just be warned that the puddle will start getting tacky after too long in the open air.

Second, you can make a stencil out of tape. Press the tape against your skin a few times so that it won’t ruin your base coat. (Make sure your base is really, really dry before trying this one!) Draw the design you want onto the tape and cut the center out. (You may need to cut your design in pieces in order to do this but that’s all right; it’ll make it easier for the stencil to stick completely to the nail.) When you’ve got everything to your liking, paint over the stencil, then pull the tape off while the paint is still wet.

Bear in mind that you’ll only really be able to get one coat, so make sure that your polish isn’t too tacky and will be visible even with a thin coat. If the coat is too thick, when you pull the stencil off it’ll slop over the sides and ruin your lines.

The third option is to apply your chosen color of nail polish directly to the scotch tape, wait about thirty minutes for it to dry, cut out whatever shape you want, tape it to your fingernail, and then put a top coat over that. I didn’t actually test that one out this time, though, so try it at your own risk!

Whichever option you choose, wait for it to dry completely, and then put a smaller circular zigzag over top, in a contrasting color. The results should look something like this:

The design on the thumb is slightly different — a circular zigzag outline, with whatever action word you want written inside in a contrasting color. Learn from my 20/20 hindsight, though: either write your letters before you draw the outline, or make sure that your letters are a darker color than your outline. Either way, you can do both with a toothpick and a steady hand:

Remember that the zigs don’t have to be evenly spaced, so don’t stress over that.

Make sure it’s all really dry, and then put a top coat over it so your action-packed nails don’t get destroyed in the heat of battle!

You may also like:
China Glaze Hunger Games Polish in “Stone Cold” and “Aggro”
Easy Captain America/Red Skull Nail Art
OPI’s Spider Man Collection

Canadian superhero (and X-man) Jean-Paul Beaubier proposed to his boyfriend Kyle Jinadu in Astonishing X-men #50

Wedding bells will be ringing soon for Marvel’s first gay fiances, and – hot on its competitors’ heels – DC announced that they’ll be unveiling a major character as gay in the coming months. Speculation on who it will be has made comic books news explode, but along with the excitement and dishy gossip are accusations of bandwagoning and a fair amount of backlash from fans.

DC comics recently rebooted their entire universe (a power that we all wish we could sometimes apply to our own lives) and with that reboot came new chances to reintroduce beloved characters in exciting and diverse new ways. From costume redesigns to entire new backstories, DC characters have eventually been put into a box, shaken thoroughly, then tossed back on to the pages of the comics, so it’s not really a surprise that a character’s sexual orientation might be changed. Right?

Well apparently, DC co-publisher Dan DiDio stated that DC’s policy on changing a character’s orientation had “changed.” Wait, does that mean they had policy against that in the first place? Originally, DC had announced they would be introducing a new LGBT

Remember how EXTREME life was in the 90s? Flying swordfights, every day.

character, but after JP popped the question, DC changed their tune, and the cynical part of me is pretty sure it was because introducing a new character would just not be as newsworthy as revamping a known character.

I shouldn’t really be criticizing one company over the other in terms of media-grabbing tactics: Northstar was actually Marvel’s first gay character as of 1992, though there was not the sort of media buzz and hype around it then as there is now – times have changed, I know, and folks at Marvel say they’ve always striven to have their comics a reflection of the world around us, but the press releases and major media attention seems a bit unwarranted for something that’s completely in-character and fairly normal for a gay mutant to do in NY in 2012.

Reintroduced a couple years back, Batwoman enjoys fighting crime and spending time with her girlfriend.

I’m not going to go into how nobody’s complaining about if Wonder Woman were to get a little lesbian action, except to say that I hope it’s because people recognize that it is possible to be a badass lady while at the same time liking dudes, or that Batwoman is so immensely popular already that an orientation switch-up for Wondie might not generate the hype DC wants.

At the end of the day, Marvel and DC are headed in the right direction, and though their motives are debatable, their actions are not. Let’s hope that fandom and society at large catch up soon.

* Is Batman gay? at the Daily Mail

** Gay superheroes: Holy cow! Why is everyone in a hurry to out Batman? at the Guardian.

Scarlett Johansson has been refreshingly vocal about the way women, especially leading women, are treated in superhero movies.  In an interview with Entertainment Weekly (speaking alongside Joss Whedon and Samuel L. Jackson–it’s great, you should read the whole thing), she addressed the idiocy of the typical woman’s outfit in these types of movies:

EW: So you think the problem is just too much focus on the sexuality of female superheroes?

Johansson: Yeah, I think they’re always fighting in a bra, so while it might be exciting for a still photo, it’s ridiculous. … I do think superhero — superheroine movies are normally really corny and bad. They’re always like, fighting in four inch heels with their [thrusting out her chest] like a two-gun salute.

Even after The Avengers, in which she was clothed in an outfit very similar to her male counterpart’s (no gratuitous bra scenes, thank you Joss) and kicked a more-than-respectable amount of ass, the media continued to focus on her appearance rather than her abilities.  This exchange in particular highlights the ridiculousness of the whole situation:

Reporter: I have a question to Robert and to Scarlett. Firstly to Robert, throughout Iron Man 1 and 2, Tony Stark started off as a very egotistical character but learns how to fight as a team. And so how did you approach this role, bearing in mind that kind of maturity as a human being when it comes to the Tony Stark character, and did you learn anything throughout the three movies that you made?

And to Scarlett, to get into shape for Black Widow did you have anything special to do in terms of the diet, like did you have to eat any specific food, or that sort of thing?

Scarlett: How come you get the really interesting existential question, and I get the like, “rabbit food” question?

It’s stuff like this, media—this is why we can’t have nice things.

Thankfully, Johansson has been pushing back and pointing out the double standards at work here, which is no mean feat.  If (hopefully “when”) a Black Widow movie is officially greenlit, her work both in- and out-of-character will have been a huge reason why.  Both Johansson and Avengers producer Kevin Feige have talked publicly about a Black Widow origins film that seems to be in the works; we can only hope that it’s handled as well as Marvel has handled its other films to date.  (They’ve got a pretty good track record on their superhero movies, all told.)  If Johansson and Whedon are both involved, a strong superheroine movie might just stand a chance; both are aware of the mistakes made in this arena in the past, and seem determined to show that a fully, practically-clothed, ass-kicking woman is more than capable of helming a movie that will appeal to both sexes.  And really, we’re all hoping for more information about her and Hawkeye, because let’s be honest with ourselves: we all want to know what happened in Budapest.

REVELATION AND WONDER: The Cabbage Guy Lives On!

In all seriousness, industrial giant CabbageCorp gets shut down under suspicion of supplying the Equalists with their electric powergloves etc, foreshadowing the eventual search of Hiroshi Sato’s Future Industries… but I’m getting ahead of myself. This episode really got me to warm up to Asami Sato as a character – keep reading to find out how!

Because the probending arena was attacked (and summarily wrecked) last episode, Mako and Bolin packing up to go live at Asami’s mansion. Korra, who invited them to come live at Air Temple Island, yet again has to deal with the fact that Asami is so annoyingly perfect. And rich. And Mako’s girlfriend.

She’s a pretty bad sport about it, but gets dragooned into a pool party at Asami’s nonetheless.

Korra might be a bad sport about it, but she gets dragooned into a pool party at Asami’s nonetheless.

Asami’s really not so bad – she and Korra go drag-racing after their time in the pool and get in some girl bonding; if there’s one thing to be said about Asami’s character so far, she’s fun, unpredictable, and her loyalty and faith in what she believes is unshakeable.

Which is why when Korra accuses Hiroshi Sato of conspiring with Equalists (based on an overheard phone conversation), Asami stands her ground and strongly insists her dad has nothing to do with Amon, even though Hiroshi denies ties with the Equalists so vehemently it’s pretty obvious that Korra’s legitimately on to something.

She inspires this loyalty in others, as well: Mako comes off as super jerktastic when he accuses Korra of being jealous of Asami and threatens to end their friendship if she continues to push for a police search of the Sato mansion. But Korra also holds deep convictions and pushes for what she believes is right, and doesn’t back down until Tenzin, Bei Fong, and the police have uncovered hard evidence against Hiroshi.

An underground lab with platinum mechas is pretty much the hardest evidence you can get, really.

The episode culminates – as all great stories do – with Our Heroes surrounded in a secret underground laboratory, hopelessly outgunned by bad guys in mechas. Interesting note: platinum is a metal “so pure” that even Toph, the inventor of metalbending, could not bend it. Water and fire don’t really do too much against robotic armour; neither does air, for that matter.

And so, it is Asami who saves the day. Even though Mako, believing she would get hurt instead of helping, told her to stay behind while the benders went ahead to fight, Asami followed the heroes to find out what her dad was really doing – believing, up until the moment she sees him viciously taunting Mako, that he could not be an Equalist sympathizer.

Asami’s loyalty does not blind her, however, and it’s clear that this girl acts on what she believes is right, even if it means sacrificing the strongest relationship she has: she rejects her father’s entreaties to join the Equalists, and instead pulls a wicked combo of mixed martial arts and electrocution via powerglove to save the day.

In this situation, bending was almost useless; Asami, having never had to rely on bending, uses not only her physical resources, but emotional as well.

In this episode, Asami shows that being conventionally “girly” does not mean being helpless, over-emotional, or any of those stereotypes girls are often plagued with in adventure cartoons. She, Bolin, and Mako will be living with Korra until further notice, and I cannot WAIT until the shenanigans of next episode. Sadly that’ll be a while, since there’s no new episode this Saturday.

Style

• Cosplay
• Make up/nail art
• Fashion/clothing
• DIY wearable items
• Shopping lists

Science & Technology

• Video games and consoles
• Innovations and new ideas
• Robotics, gadgets
• Space

Of course, the bullet items are only to give an idea of what goes in each section – we’re open to your ideas if you have something new! If you are interested, please send an email to blog404.org[at]gmail.com that includes a brief spiel about yourself and your relevant experience (if any), as well as 1-3 pieces of sample writing. Specify which section(s) you are applying to with the subject line “ATTN: [section]”.

Questions you may have:
What if I’m not a strong writer?
We urge you to apply anyway! We have a team of editors who will work with you with your articles.

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Either/or. We’d love for you to come up with an idea, then you can query the editor via email to have it approved. You’ll be given a word count and due date. If you are open to assignments, we’ll simply let you know what to do.

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Yes. We’d love to get voices from as many places as possible!

1. The comics move much, much more quickly than the show. Are you bored with the farm? Tired of the same crew of characters? Oh, friend, get yourself to reading. To give you an idea of how fast the print versions move (or how slow the show has been), the first two seasons of the show covered the plot of eighteen single issues—three paperback trades—of the comic. Those took me roughly two hours to read, total. These comics are FAST because of the amount of action in them, so I would recommend buying or borrowing the trades (six issues apiece) or, if you’re me, shelling out the money for the 48-issue compendium. And you’re not going to run out anytime soon: as of this writing, there are 96 single issues of The Walking Dead out in print. The next trade, which contains issues 91 – 96, comes out June 19th. Mark your calendars.

2. There are more characters in the comic, and they’re all more interesting. With the exception of a few new additions this season, we’ve had the same lineup for most of the show. With the faster pace of the comics comes a rapidly changing lineup of characters, and with more people and more action, we don’t have time to get bored with anyone. The rapid pace of the comics shows their relationships, mental breakdowns, and changing attitudes in an accelerated timeline, making for some interesting, if unhinged, characters.

The comics also contain much more diversity, and while they’re still focused on Rick Grimes, they give the minority characters more than one or two lines per issue. (I’m looking at you, T-Dog—who, incidentally, is not in the comics.) And I know you want to know more about that machete-wielding badass we met in the season two finale, right?

3. The show doesn’t completely follow the books—and the books are better. From new characters (T-Dog, Merle, and Daryl) to invented plotlines, the show veers off from time to time, though so far it’s maintained the same basic direction as the comic. This doesn’t worry me yet—writer Robert Kirkman is still playing an influential role in the show and I trust where he’s taking it, even if I don’t understand it sometimes. (There are also rumors that Daryl is getting written into the comics, which is great and a definite advantage to having a show based off a work that’s still in-progress.)

The show also ignores, changes, or postpones the introduction of some major characters, and it’ll be interesting to see if they bring them back in next season. So don’t worry about completely spoiling the show with the comics; the writers have shown that they’re not 100% committed to following them.

Like most things, I think that the books are better than the film adaptation here. But I don’t think that you should abandon the show completely—I’m certainly not. The series still has a lot of promise, they’ve established some interesting (new) characters, and, with the end of last season, are coming up to a massive plotline change. I’m excited to see what the show gets up to next…but I’m more excited to pick up the next trade in June. Apparently Kirkman enjoys throwing plot twists out around the 100-issue mark—just another reason to start reading now. Spend the summer reading up, and I’ll see you in October for the next season.

Only two more episodes guys! And next episode, Stannis’ fleet will finally reach King’s Landing. Does it promise to be as epic as in the books? Will he prevail, and become King of Westeros and get rid of that little pissant Joffrey once and for all? Or will Tyrion’s wits save them all? Well, we won’t know for sure until next week. This week, we’ve got a bit of a filler episode, catching us up with all the plotlines and setting them up for the penultimate episode next week. On its own, it’s definitely not my favourite episode, but as part of a whole, I’m sure it works. It just feels like not a lot happened.

Let’s discuss, shall we? And try to keep major book spoilers to a minimum.

• Oh Yara. Always there to put Theon in his place. She can probably take you, Theon. I hope she bitch slaps him! Oh man, even worse, she sisterly loves him! That’s almost a sweet moment between those two, with almost-normal sibling affection!
• Oh wow, that Jon Snow part is totally different, isn’t it? The King of Bones (?) is rad looking though. Kudos to the costume designer.
• Wow, Catelyn let Jaime go so soon! I’m excited for more Jaime/Brienne times though. They are my favourite part of the later books. Come on Jaime, no one has fallen for that one yet. Anyone else find it weird they’re in a canoe?
• Oh God, he’s leaving Arya with the Mountain? Probably a pretty good reason to decide to bail. There’s no way something horrible wouldn’t happen to her under that thing’s service.
• Did Hotpie get fatter? Also, why are you beshirted Gendry? I thought we both agreed that this was not allowed anymore!
• Aw, missed you Bronn! I enjoy how he and Tyrion are squabbling like an old married couple. Giving the internet some slash there writers!
• Samwell Tarly: Boy Archaeologist. Tell me you wouldn’t watch that.
• Hey-o! 12 year old beat you at your on game H’ghar, and proves her brilliance and amazingness to the audience yet again.
• I feel like the prostitute double feint worked better in the books. Did Roz steal that lion necklace or did Joffrey give it to her for her “service”? Someone said Tyrion gave it to her last season, but I don’t remember that. I can see why they wouldn’t want this girl to be from the Summer Isles (i.e. non-white) like she was in the books though.
• Well, I’m glad they found a dude creepy enough to play Roose (is this one Roose, I can’t keep track) Bolton.
• God, finally! FINALLY they explain Talisa. She still wouldn’t be able to follow around a Westerosi army  though, not by herself. Not without some sort of man for protection. Sorry writers, but it’s such a big oversight that it’s totally ruining that whole plotline for me. Love Oona Chaplin (she’s got a great butt), but you just dropped the ball.
• Noooo Davos that pin is a death sentence!
• I love Varys’ kimonos.
• Hahaha “Where is the god of tits and wine?” “The Summer Isles.” “We should go there immediately!” Best. conversation. ever.
• You know how you know those charred bodies weren’t Bran or Rickon? Osha and Hodor’s bodies weren’t there too. OR the wolves. I can’t believe anyone in the castle bought that for a second.

P.S. I am playing the videogame that came out last week, and it is decent! Warging made me nauseous though.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America convened on Saturday night in Arlington, Virginia (why there?) to give away one of the highest awards in sci fi and fantasy writing — The Nebulas. There were a lot of really great books that came out in the genres last year, and a lot of really great books were nominated. However, only nine people can walk away with the prize, which includes scripts for TV shows. Here are the winners:

NOVEL: Among Others, by Jo Walton (Tor)

 

NOVELLA: “The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2011)

 

NOVELLETTE: “What We Found,” Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011)

 

SHORT STORY: “The Paper Menagerie,” Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

 

RAY BRADBURY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DRAMATIC PRESENTATION: Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)

 

ANDRE NORTON AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY BOOK: The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)

 

2011 DAMON KNIGHT GRAND MASTER AWARD: Connie Willis

 

SOLSTICE AWARD: Octavia Butler (posthumous) and John Clute

 

SERVICE TO SFWA AWARD: Bud Webster

 

Congratulations to all the writers, publishers, and The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy on their wins!

Gale and Peeta movie promo shots

This week I was reading through an article on the Bitch magazine website and was struck by the thought that I’d never considered the male characters as anything other than, well, characters. I focused on Katniss while I was reading. All of my attention was consumed by being generally impressed by her and later raving about how refreshing it was to have a female lead like her as our new teen heroine.

The male characters were present in my mind because they were relevant to the story, but I never thought twice about what Gale and Peeta represent as young men. Each presents a very different expression of masculinity, and each version of that masculinity is presented as equally legitimate.

I won’t prolong this, but in case you live under a rock and missed the recent media explosion of The Hunger Games here’s the breakdown in a nutshell: Gale is the hunter-strong-silent-emotionally distant-rebel type and Peeta is the creative-expressive-emotionally open-caring type. Remember, that’s the in a nutshell version. The interesting part of all this is Peeta displays many qualities that are often attributed to women, but Peeta is never portrayed as effeminate.

I’ve heard “Peeta is such a sweetie” and other variants of that line many times. It’s often ingrained in our consciousness to want a strong silent partner who we can be that one person who taps into their soul and gets them to open up. Or at least that’s what a lot of movies tell us about romance. But the reality of that is not the fairytale it’s made out to be.

We also long to have that partner who does open up and express emotions and creativity naturally, and I mean on their own free will, not because they’ve been nagged into it (which many sitcoms lead us to believe is how men and women work). Having a male character display all of this without any jokes or connotations attached about him not being a real man is something exciting to see.

Once again I’m happy that The Hunger Games has been so successful. Lots of people love Peeta. And even if you’re team Gale you can’t deny the interesting dynamic between Katniss and Peeta. He’s such a better romantic interested than those ridiculous vampires/werewolves who shall remain nameless.  Here’s hoping some of our real life male leads catch on to the Peeta style.

Approve: One more check mark for The Hunger Games