Shipping ValVers, a Cuban Cinderella, Rose Tico is Back, And More

Hey, nerds! Welcome to the end of the world, friends, as a lot of things were hitting the fandom feels this week. From the press tour of Avengers: Endgame and the lead up to the final season of Game of Thrones to all the love coming out of Chicago with Star Wars Celebration, it feels like the end might be nigh(ish) on some of our favorite obsessions. We got you, Temple of Geek fam! Here are some things to keep you deep in the warm and fuzzies from diverse parts of the ‘verse.

We will go down with this ship

As the “UnDusted” have been making their rounds for the Avengers: Endgame press junket ahead of the April 26th premiere, a lot of love for the newest ship in our fandom sea has hit the webs. No, not Thor and Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel), but Valkyrie and Carol. Fan art has been shared and retweeted by both Brie Larson and Tessa Thompson, but my favorite this week comes from the talented Brianna Cherry and her mashup of Sailor Moon (a Brie fave) and the MCU.. 🌈✨

Source: Instagram

Dream a Little Dream

Cuban-American singer and songwriter Camila Cabello (Fifth Harmony) will live every child’s dream and don the glass slippers in Kay Cannon’s (Blockers, Pitch Perfect) re-telling of “Cinderella” for Sony Pictures. This modern-day version of the tale was inspired by an idea from James Corden, host of Carpool Karaoke, who will also act as producer. This will be Ms. Cabello’s first major film role and she will be doing double duty on-and-off the camera, helping to oversee the soundtrack as well. No word on the release date, but here is Ms. Cabello doing an adorable impression of Hermione to tide you over in the meantime.

Source: Teen Vogue

Black Heroes Matter

With #Hotelpocalypse for San Diego Comic Con in the bag, attendees can start filling their SDCC social calendars by registering for the 2nd Annual AfroFuturism Lounge. This free event is a celebration of ”Black Comics, Sci-Fi, Afrofuturism, and Astral Blackness during the week of San Diego Comic-con.” Attendees will enjoy drinks, music, a cosplay competition, and a “Hero/Villain Lair Design Competition”. It’s an amazing spotlight on Black artists and their super creations.

Source: Bleeding Cool

Captain Carter, Reporting For Duty

More hot Marvel news out of the highly anticipated Disney+ camp this week. In addition to dropping more details around the previously reported live-action series WandaVision and Falcon & Winter Soldier–focusing on the eponymous duos– fan favorite Hayley Atwell (Captain America: The First Avenger, Agent Carter) will be returning to the small screen, this time in animated form. Revealed at the Disney+ event, the first episode of the What If? series will ask the question “what if Peggy Carter had taken the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers.” The episode will explore a world where Pre-Serum Steve, in an Iron Man like metal suit built by Howard Stark, and Captain Carter fight Nazis. Disney+ launches this November, but Marvel’s What If…? won’t be available until later in its first year of programming. This Captain Carter cosplayer is SCREAMING.

Source: ScreenGeek

Less Fi, More Sci

BIG NEWS happened this week in a real-life galaxy far, far away. Several years ago, teams making up over 200 researchers–40 of them identifying as women, according to Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative–collaborated on developing an algorithm that would capture the first-ever image of a black hole. While Dr. Katie Bouman has become the unintentional face of the project, as she wrote in a Facebook post, “No one algorithm or person made this image, it required the amazing talent of a team of scientists from around the globe and years of hard work to develop the instrument, data processing, imaging methods, and analysis techniques that were necessary to pull off this seemingly impossible feat.”

Source: Universe Today

A Rose By Any Other Name

Kellie Marie Tran (Rose Tico, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) took the Star Wars Celebration stage by storm this week, with to help of her costars (and hype team) John Boyega (Finn, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Daisy Ridley (Rey, Star Wars: The Force Awakens). She was greeted by waves of cheers and fans chanting her name. The actress made history in 2017’s The Last Jedi as the first Asian-American actress (Tran is Vietnamese-American) to land a major role in the franchise. The casting, while heralded by most, was met with a gross, racist, and sexist backlash, stoked by the darkest parts of our fan “community.” It eventually leads to Tran deleting her Instagram. “For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth,” she shared in her August 2018 Op-Ed for the New York Times. “This is the world I grew up in, but not the world I want to leave behind,” Tran added, “I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities, and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings. This is the world I want to live in. And this is the world that I will continue to work toward.” The force is strong with this one.