#Endgame killed Steve with compulsory heterosexuality

[burberrycanary]

End of Year Stucky Recs [10/15]

Stucky as a fandom is lucky to have a lot of classics. But I want to give some love to authors who’ve kept writing fantastic stories over the last few years for us all to enjoy!

Title: As Time Goes By

Author: Trouble_With_The_Snap ​

Summary:

Steve returns the Infinity Stones, and then he returns to Peggy. He believes that he’s prepared to live out the twentieth century with her as an ordinary civilian, even if the inexorable passage of time finds him increasingly haunted by the ghosts of futures past. It’s everything he’s wished for.

Nothing comes without a price.

—

This story brilliantly plays out why Steve returning to the past can’t work and isn’t compatible with any ultimate happy endings, for anyone. The fact that the author manages some real empathy for Steve (and Peggy!) makes the relentless unfolding of the consequences of Steve’s choices even more satisfyingly brutal. Steve ends up getting exactly what he asked for and it hollows him out until I, as a reader, wasn’t looking for him reach any redemption or even meaningful self-knowledge. The Bucky in this is heartbreaking and fantastic and, as always, deserves better than he gets but keeps on being a good person despite everything. Which is more, in the end, than you can say for Endgame!Steve. Extremely cathartic. (Warning for Steve/Peggy but this is not a Steggy fic. It’s not even an anti-Steggy fic. If I had to characterize it I’d say it’s a Peggy-deserved-better fic. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being the only fic with Steve/Peggy content I ever rec.) I hope the author someday continues this series. - B.

Art: Robert Rauschenberg, Stop

[perpetuallyfive]

some thoughts on Endgame

I always find it a lot easier to write very long rants about things I dislike than praise about things that I like. It just feels like the good things are obvious, you know? So compiling them in lists feels a little pointless.

It’s why I haven’t written anything about Endgame yet. I honestly thought Infinity War was pretty average at best, so the fact that I fucking loved practically every single minute of Endgame kind of caught me by surprise. It checked so many of my boxes that it’s almost hard to even articulate. 

So much of what was good about it honestly felt almost inevitable.

Mark me down as pretty confused then as I read some of the negative responses. Like... obviously, I’m just being dense. Nothing exists, especially on the internet, without some negative response. And I don’t even mean that in a pithy way. People are really different and what works for one person doesn’t work for everyone.

Which brings me back to my earlier point.

Just because I thought some of this stuff was obvious or amazing doesn’t mean everyone did, so here are a few observations, in an unordered list:

The way that time travel works in the movie is deliberately left a little vague, in my opinion, to allow wiggle room for the multiverse moving forward, especially as they expand into streaming services.

They do however clearly say that you cannot change your own past. Bruce says it. This means that Steve absolutely is not in our timeline, whatever the writers might say about it now. He’s not. In our timeline, he knew Peggy married someone else. That’s in his past. He cannot change his past in his own timeline. Therefor he cannot change who Peggy marries in his own timeline.

Seriously, he’s not in our timeline. They’re just wrong.

This means you have a million possibilities in fanfic for all the things Steve did that sent out ripples in his own new timeline or the many multiverses he could have created. It’s a fucking candy shop.

Try not to be too hard on the writers for having no idea what they’re talking about, I guess; it’s hard writing characters that are way smarter than you.

Am I less than charitable toward the writers because of their dumb takes on Natasha in defending why she’s not a part of the funeral at the end? Yes.

Just put a fucking second wreath there, god damn, would it have been so hard.

Framing Nebula’s storyline as a bad thing, which I’ve seen a few times now, is frankly insane to me. She isn’t, as the daily dot put it, killing herself. She missed her chance to save her sister five years ago and has regretted it every since. The second Gamora is at stake this time, she makes it clear that she would sacrifice anything (even someone who looked like her), to prevent losing her sister again. That’s great shit!

I am bummed we don’t get original Gamora back, but I’m also intrigued by the soft reset this does on her relationship with everyone in the Guardians. I wonder what their plans are with that in Vol 3. In many ways, her healing process away from Thanos was sidelined in the first two films and this allows the possibility of reframing that as more central to the focus in the third. Fingers crossed.

More Gamora and Nebula in general but especially in Guardians 3 please; I might threaten to retroactively like this movie less if this is the last we get of this much attention on their relationship, please and thank you.

The problem with the MCU crossover movies is they have to exist as two things at once. They have to be a movie that works as its own thing with good timing, pacing, structure, and an end that feels conclusive. They also have to pay off minor characters that mainstream audiences might not care about, as part of larger world building and the stories shared across an entire universe. Endgame, in my opinion, did a much better job of it than Infinity War or Ultron. (it’s hard to compare it with Avengers, when the scale was much more intimate.) 

No but really, I don’t think a lot of us in fandom have an appreciation for how many people don’t know any of this shit we take for granted. A shocking number of the people I have spoken to IRL who are entirely apart from fandom didn’t even know what “on your left” was a reference to and were actually a little confused by that moment. 

Just think about that and understand the levels this movie has to operate on at all times. It’s almost enough to make me feel bad for the writers, except they still said dumb shit about Nat, so I’m good.

I did actually love all the more subtle callbacks, like Natasha’s necklace and T’Challa knowing Clint’s name, but the direct quotes were pretty great too, especially Steve’s reaction to “I could do this all day.” Super charming.

Another awkward thing about the crossovers is they have to try to level the playing field slightly and there are some Avengers who are just way more powerful than others. Carol was disappointingly absent, but she’s also insanely OP. It’s why Thor got depressed and it’s why the Russos now say that Hulk will have limited use of one arm. They nerfed some of the classic Avengers, but kept Carol full powered just off in space. That’s preferable, so long as she gets more screen time later and jesus please fix the wig. Or just do the actual haircut now that it doesn’t have to be a secret.

Please dear god the hair is great in concept but seriously if there’s anything about the straight agenda ruining Endgame it’s how borderline soccer mom they managed to make that hair look.

Natasha deserved better and I think we can all agree on that, but here’s hoping that her prequel is deliberately designed to echo the destination we know she’s headed toward and to give her a better resolution more in line with what she deserved. I want to believe that they didn’t give her a full ending entirely because they knew she still had a movie coming up and didn’t want to create that sense of finality that might keep audiences from seeing it. Here’s hoping they can make it work. 

Like specifically with very different writers, please. Hopefully a woman. You’ve maybe heard of them before, one of them wrote Guardians, the movie that nobody thought could work and fucking made it work. Yeah.

Tony and Steve were always headed in opposing directions at the end of their arc. This has been covered. Tony went from living selfishly to living selflessly. He went from a playboy bachelor, to a husband, to a father. His one priority when he decided he had to save the world wasn’t even himself, it was specifically keeping his daughter in existence. He went from a selfish dick with daddy issues to someone whose only priority was being a dad.

it was perfect. Like people can say otherwise... but they’re wrong.

 I’m an expert on this, clearly. Tony’s death was perfect. 

THEY FINALLY GAVE ME RESCUE. I loved everything about it, from Tony planning it carefully for a long time -- like obviously I think it’s because he was customizing the design to be more in line with Pepper’s wants and values, like it is in the comics -- to the fact that it actually does look more defensively focused but still super capable in battle. I want to watch this movie a billion times, honestly, but this scene in particular. I need to know everything about what her suit can do.

Steve was always going to end up settling down. We don’t actually know what he did in his own timeline -- again, IT’S NOT OURS -- so there’s a chance he was still a bit of a troublemaker, but honestly the five years seemed to take a lot out of him. He doesn’t always need a war, and that actually is forward momentum and growth. I get that some people are against the idea and think that getting to be with Peggy was somehow a step back, but I’m not sure I buy that.

Tony taking out the arc reaction at the end of IM3 wasn’t actually about him erasing his trauma or leaving it behind, and Steve getting to be with Peggy doesn’t erase his growth. It was part of it.

Theoretically Sharon was always an option, except the audience (and fandom) response to her was pretty terrible, so actually she wasn’t.

And not to just keep harping on points made in an article that I think is frankly pretty terrible, but Steve going back to the past instead of settling in the present wasn’t about compulsory heterosexuality so much as it was about a franchise that is going to keep making movies needing to keep the next decade of films in mind. 

If Steve is still around in the now, that will always linger as a nagging question. The same way that people can’t shut up about where Carol was for the last decade, Steve hanging around in retirement refusing to help would hang over the next phases of movies like a cloud. Putting him in the past lets him live (which he deserves) and clears the slate.

Let Steve rest but, more than that, dear god won’t you please let Chris Evans rest too.

This goes back to how these movies, especially the crossovers, have to work on almost too many levels and it’s frankly shocking that they manage to do it and still have moments of sincere humanity and sweetness. 

Like I’m not going to try to oversell it, but seriously fucking think about the fact that one of the most successful blockbuster movies of all time actually has quiet moments where people talk about trauma, loss, parental abuse or neglect, failure, and depression. 

Hey remember when the movie gave us acknowledgement of Rhodey and Nebula’s disabilities? In the possibly going to be most successful movie of all time, they had characters with disabilities say how they’re different now but it’s okay, they work with what they got, and they bonded over that and it was so fucking shocking for me and BEAUTIFUL. Just a reminder for us all that THAT happened in the movie that may actually pass Avatar to become the MOST SUCCESSFUL FILM OF ALL TIME.

Just allowing another moment to let that sink in while I try to wrap this up (for now).

ps I can’t believe this movie made me have nice thoughts on Ultron, which I fucking despise with most of my being. 

Actually I might have to take back every nice thing I said, just because of the Ultron thing. How dare you, film.

But still lol at the fact that even talking about Ultron for a few seconds was enough to make Tony Stark pass the fuck out. Hard same, Tony. 

LOOK OBVIOUSLY I LOVED MORGAN STARK. I AM EXCITED ABOUT MORGAN STARK. SHE IS A PRECIOUS PERFECT ANGEL AND I LOVE HER.

SHIT.

So this is a totally incomplete list but here you go. Some of my thoughts on Endgame.

[eddie-monsterfucker-brock]

Endgame spoilers about Steve Rogers

First of all, lemme just say that I enjoyed almost every second of Endgame except for what i’m about to rant about. okay here we go.

The ending was legitimately so terrible that it completely overshadows how awesome the rest of the movie was. I’ve been following Steves character for ten fucking years and to suddenly throw all of his characterization and development and story out the window randomly just so he can go back in time to ensure that he is heterosexual for the straight audience is just like a stab in the back.

Even if you interpret steve and buckys relationship as 100% platonic, it STILL does not make ANY sense with his character. Steve Rogers fought for Bucky over the course of three goddamn movies, swore his allegiance to him time and time again, and now randomly decides that “the end of the line” doesnt mean anything if he has the chance to go back and be with a woman that he only knew for a few months.

Jesus Christ, steve rogers would NEVER abandon bucky like that??????

The inconsistent character writing here is clearly falling victim to the over-capitalization of the characters, and the compulsory heterosexuality that they all must maintain.

Marvel knew that Chris Evans wouldn’t be back for more movies, so they had to write Steves character out without killing too many fan favorites. Bucky, on the other hand, is still able to be capitalized upon. Bucky can come back in a future movie with Sam. They can still make money off of his character.                          And so they had to separate Bucky and Steve. Because if they had stayed together, then Marvel would have to either give up on using Bucky to make money or bring Steve back without Chris Evans somehow. You can’t have one without the other if they aren’t forcefully separated by the story. The characters are a combo pack that the audience EXPECTS to see together. So by writing Steves character out this way, they subvert that expectation (by basically retconning it) and make it alright for Bucky to have storyline without Steve, therefore allowing them to continue making money off of his character. 

It’s also a neat and tidy way for them to reaffirm Steve’s heterosexuality. Steves journey throughout all three of his movies has primarily revolved around rescuing Bucky, and keeping Bucky safe. He only had a female love interest for the first movie. Which makes Bucky the character that he has shown the most devotion and dedication to. 

But obviously, Marvel couldn’t end the series with Steve and Bucky still single or else it could give off GAY VIBES to the straight audience. They couldnt end up living together, or otherwise being together, because that would come across as too gay for the mainstream audience EVEN IF the movie made it explicitly platonic. 

So they pulled an old romance out of the first movie, and erased Steves development so that they could put them together. This way, Steve is neatly set aside with a heterosexual love interest, and Bucky is still available to make money off of. 

Lazy writing all around here folks.