Martial artists use a technique called bone conditioning to strengthen high-impact areas (hands, elbows, knees, shins, feet) and prevent injuries during fights. All bones consist of a light-weight mesh of spongy bone tissue surrounded by a shell of compact bone tissue:
By applying various stresses to the bones (doing knuckle or fingertip push-ups, hitting hard surfaces repeatedly, etc.), martial artists cause microfractures in the spongy bone tissue which heal up as compact bone, making their bones stronger and less prone to compression fractures. Similarly, catching the shield probably delivers an impact hard enough to cause microfractures in Steve’s hand and finger bones (regular people would break their hand trying to catch it!); over time, he would build up additional compact bone tissue in his hands to aid in handling the shield and avoid more serious fractures.
The first time we see Steve using the shield in Captain America: The First Avenger, he’s not throwing it but holding it in front of him defensively like a regular shield and using a pistol as his primary weapon:
The next time, he’s switched to using the shield offensively as a blunt weapon but still doesn’t throw/catch it:
It’s not until the middle part of the Howling Commandos montage that we see Steve use his signature shield-throw-and-catch – he probably spent the intervening time practising how to wield the shield, and while doing so also conditioned his hand bones.
(Incidentally, I’ve read a number of fics mentioning Bucky’s gun calluses – mostly on his right index finger from the trigger, occasionally also on his shoulder from the rifle stock – but I’ve never read a fic mentioning Steve’s calluses, which is a crying shame. Even with his serum-fuelled healing factor, I’m sure he must have them in the palms of his hands and across the inside of his fingers from catching the shield, and maybe across his forearms from the straps or across his back from carrying the shield. I’m a sucker for details like that.)
2. Technique (*).
Secondly, it seems Steve also uses different techniques for catching his shield to avoid taking the brunt of hard impacts, depending on the shield’s forward momentum as it rebounds towards him (**):
2.1 Soft rebound (hitting flesh):
When Steve catches the shield after a soft rebound, such as when it rebounds directly off of someone’s body, he plucks it out of the air by letting it hit his palm straight on:
The low velocity (evidenced by the wobbling) indicates the shield has a reduced momentum on the return, allowing Steve to comfortably catch it even though the flight vector means Steve’s hand is taking the full force of the impact. Notice that his bent arm and bent knees (crouching slightly) at the moment of impact further serve as shock absorbers, reducing the stress on the rest of his body.
2.2 Semi-soft rebound (hitting bone/body armour):
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s opening sequence, we see Steve throwing the shield at an opponent in such a way that it rebounds off the man’s body (likely hitting either bone or body armour, as we saw in the previous example that the shield loses too much of its kinetic energy to rebound a second time when hitting flesh) and ricochets off a steel bulkhead before returning to Steve at a much higher velocity than in the example above:
Since the shield is travelling at a higher speed than in the previous example, it has an increased momentum (momentum = speed x mass), meaning it’ll hit Steve’s hand much harder (pressure = momentum/area/time).
However, Steve doesn’t catch the shield straight on this time, but grabs it sideways by the rim rather than letting it slam into the palm of his hand. This 1) reduces the shield’s force by applying a secondary force pulling to the side and back (since force vectors are accumulative), and 2) extends the amount of time it takes for Steve’s hand to absorb the momentum, making the shield exert a smaller pressure on his hand on impact.
2.3 Hard rebound (hitting steel/concrete):
Finally, when rebounding the shield directly off of hard, unyielding surfaces such as steel or concrete which don’t absorb much of the initial kinetic energy–
– it looks as if Steve avoids touching the rim of the shield at all, and instead reaches up underneath the shield to catch it by the leather straps:
The straps probably have enough give in them to reduce the shield’s momentum as they’re pulled, again extending the time it takes for Steve’s hand to absorb it, with the additional benefit that Steve avoids taking a direct hit from the thin vibranium edge (a small area = higher pressure); instead, the shield exerts its force through the thick straps, thereby reducing the potentially bone-breaking compressive strain on Steve’s hand bones.
In conclusion, depending on how much momentum the shield has, Steve has different ways of catching it to avoid breaking his hands.
Of course, that said, it’s fun to note how the Winter Soldier has absolutely zero shield-catching technique and just catches it straight on, stiff-bodied, outstretched arm and all (because he’s just that badass):
Considering how Steve is pushed backwards across the roof from the force of the return throw, I assume the Winter Soldier is bracing his foot against the brick parapet; otherwise, he’d probably have been catapulted clear off the roof by the shield’s momentum. ;)
(*) Please note that I don’t know if Steve’s shield-catching techniques were intended by the directors or (more likely) coincidental and I’m just reading too much into the film (I like to, though, it’s fun coming up with fan theories). (**) I’m a physician, not a physicist, so please forgive (and preferably correct) any glaring errors regarding force, momentum, velocity, etc. :)
Anonymous asked: "I live in Europe. I posted a couple of fanfictions online. Should I take them down in preparation for art13? I'm a bit scared of the possible consequences if it passes (although i surely hope it doesn't)"
That’s why they’re implementing the filters; worst case scenario you’re just not going to be able to upload and view fanfiction anymore, or you might simply be locked out of sites like AO3 because you’re European (is my guess).
Because of that we really do need to fight this thing with tooth and nail, we can’t entirely calm down.
So please, do share this with your readers and your followers, and everybody you know! And call and email your representatives!!
Again! Don’t panic! I know it’s easy to; I certainly panicked when I first heard! But there’s no need to delete your fanfiction just yet!
two things i understand about black panther gathered solely from my dash because i havent seen it yet
it was an incredible film with perfect casting and exceptional representation. it is relevant to real life issues and a breath of fresh air for the marvel movie universe.
michael b jordan likes anime and nobody is ever going to let anyone forget it
“this character did a problematic thing-” its a story helen, commonly including things like conflict and drama
The thing an astonishing amount of people keep ignoring is framing. It’s not enough that a character Did A Bad, how does the piece of media present that action?
There’s a world of difference between: a) this character Did A Bad and That’s Bad b) this character Did A Bad and the creators don’t seem to be aware of this so it’s Just A Thing That Happens c)
this character Did A Bad and That’s Great, people who think Doing A Bad is Bad are Wrong.
Like, both Atlas Shrugged and Bioshock are about a guy who’s sick of people and their “rules” and “caring about people other than yourself”, and decides to build his own paradise hidden away from the world where he doesn’t have to kowtow to any of that tedious ~morality~ other people seem to have for some reason. In this kind of reductive mindset, both must be equally hashtag problematic.
In Atlas Shrugged, the book is so keen to trip over itself in glorifying the mindset behind the story that it literally stops dead for sixty solid pages of the author giving up what little pretence of actual narrative the story has to just pasting The Objectivist Manifesto into the mouth of one of the book’s many, many empty mouthpieces. The guy is so right, he’s a genius and could revolutionise the world if only those pesky normies with their ~ethics~ would just get the fuck out of his way and let him do whatever he wants.
In Bioshock, the guy’s glorious monument to self-interest falls apart into a hellish dystopia only a few years after being constructed because, shocker (heh), gathering an entire city’s worth of amoral “rational free thinkers" would result in everybody turning on each other and their unchecked scientific experiments turning everyone into barely-human monsters. Because safety laws and the bounds of ethics are for squares!
One of these is an unabashed advertising tool for the ideology behind it, one of these is a satire of that same ideology by presenting a realistic prediction of how the original set-up of an objectivist “paradise” hidden from the world would actually play out anywhere on Earth that isn’t inside Ayn Rand’s head.
Framing, my lovelies. It’s very important, far more important, in fact, than the immensely shallow surface-level reading of “in media A character B did thing C and thing C is bad therefore everyone who so much as thinks about liking media A is literally worse than Satan”.
Then again, actually engaging with media on any level beyond the immediate surface isn’t conducive to holier-than-thou Hot Takes so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
chinesegal asked: "Forgive me for venting, but one especially bad militant vegan post I have seen is by an user who basically says: "Since I am a sociopath, someone who completely lacks empathy is a vegan, what excuse do c*rnists who don't have my disorder have?""
I can all but promise you they aren’t a sociopath, they’re just a narcissistic sack of shit hiding behind an intellectually lazy self-diagnosis that affords them a fantasy of victimhood and freedom from culpability.
