why dont we talk more about how mcu natasha is some kind of fucking technological wunderkind though?
i mean—really. yes, she is a kickass superspy who could crush you with her thighs. yes, she is a master manipulator who can read you like a children’s book and make you wonder which way is up. yes, she is vulnerable and strong and works with complex motivations towards a goal that’s not quite redemption but always in the service of doing what she feels is the right—and oftentimes the hardest—thing, the thing no one else can or will do. yes, she is pretty much the bamfiest bamf who has ever bamfed in all the ways i just described.
but im also pretty sure she’s kind of a computer genius.
i don’t think it’s any accident that natasha is the one who gets rhodey’s systems back online in IM 2. i don’t think it’s any accident that natasha is the one who gathers intel on the Lumerian Star, then tries to decrypt the flash drive in that Apple store and even SAYS (not even smugly, just matter of factly) that the person who developed the encryption is only slightly more advanced than she is. i don’t think it’s any accident that natasha is the one who hacks SHIELD’s systems and airs their dirty laundry, and she makes it look deceptively easy even though i’m guessing it’s hard enough that your average, idk, SHIELD technician can’t do it.
natasha navigates the keyboard with ease. her face is the picture of concentration and curiosity. she does things that im so used to seeing the requisite geek guy doing, and the fact that she does that despite being originally positioned as the femme fatale with nothing more to offer than a catsuit and a pretty face? AMAZING.
i’m just obsessed with exploring the idea that natasha’s skillset is way more diverse than acting as the muscle, or the confidante, or the investigator, or the hulk-tamer. that she is intelligent in several ways, in a similar way to another avenger, in fact (when you think computer hacker, you think tony, dont you? HA! natasha will show you) and that it’s a subtle but important intelligence that actively moves the plot along.
i’d love to see more of what natasha does. what she knows. how she learned. but im not going to lie, this facet of her? the one that lives out in the open and is so important but so often unseen? i want to know more about that.
no but really, imagine natasha during the space race. not from where we are sitting, decades on, but living through it. her country put a satellite IN ORBIT. they put people IN ORBIT AROUND THE PLANET. first time ever.
she could have watched people landing on the moon. and then she lives long enough to have an alien on her team.
i mean, yes, espionage angst blood woe cold war, but there was so much more going on in the world and you can’t tell me natasha never cared.
I’ve only ever been good at one thing. I did that thing for bad. I do that thing for good. There’s nothing I’m afraid of, save that one thing… That someone might take the good away. If you take that away, I don’t know what I will do. I don’t know who I will become.
This is a map of Asia. North Americans, you may notice this map is not solely comprised of Japan, Korea, China and Thailand. People in the UK, you may notice India is not a continent. That is, if those of you who generalize entire continents can even pinpoint India on a map. Indians are Asian, gasp! And not all brown skinned people are Indian, also, gasp! There are an alarming amount of people, of all ages, from all backgrounds, who seem to be unable to process this.
I’m ethnically Asian. Since Asia is an extremely large continent, I could be from any number of countries. I am neither from India, China, Korea, Japan or Pakistan, yet not so surprisingly, I am still Asian.
Yes, there are commonalities across regions, through the conflation of cultures, colonialism, globalization, transnationalism and movement of diasporas. Sometimes these are all the same thing. Rickshaws, rice and curry can be found across the continent. But let’s not overgeneralize. You can also find Buddhists, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus across Asia. Cantonese Speaking Chinese Muslims! English Speaking Indian Jews!
No, we are not all the same. Orientalism? (Please look up Edward Said for basic concepts) No thank you.
Geography, people. It’s important.
This pops up on my dash every so often. I reblog it again, not just because I wrote it, but because nothing has changed since I first posted this.
What’s cool about Iran is that it falls in 3 different regions of Asia so depending on what part of Iran you’re in, you can kind of get culture shocked a bit. The central and western part of the country is West Asia, the north east is Central Asia, and the southeast is in South Asia.
To the folks wondering about Russia being included, I want to mention that the cultural debates and angst about that has been going on for CENTURIES. While France has been pretty fetishized all the way back from Peter the Great, there is no question that we are not Europe, even with that influence showing really obviously in historical seats of power like St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, the whole country was under control of the Mongols (The Golden Horde) from roughly 1242 to 1480, and that left an enormous Mongolian and Tatar heritage that remains to this day. The ancient Scythians are huge in the cultural imagination as well. And besides… look at the Russians who are outside the standard “Kievan Rus” phenotype (which most folks assume is how all Russians look.)
Here are three of the 30 distinct ethnic groups in Siberia alone:
Buryat grandfather, photo by Alexander Newby
Evenk children, photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva
Young Yakut couple, photographer unknown
boom
Reblogging, and also adding:
Dear Marvel, MCU, and fandom: Natasha’s from southern Russia – home of the Scythians with a concentration of Tatar and Bashir people in the area (the Volga Tatars, actually, which fits as she’s a Stalingrad/Vologograd girl). Her father (or, potentially, grandfather) has a Muslim Tatar name.
Can we stop cutting her off from her roots in favour of ‘lol Generic Russia, lol Moscow and St Petersburg’???
