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leefi · 1 year ago

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The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere Read-through | Part 6: 81-90

Using the Power, it was possible to create structures at obscene scales that never would have been feasible with manual or even mechanized labor, and examples of this could be found in most modern cities. There was the Aetherbridge and the colossal towers of the inner city in Old Yru, but I'd also seen the great library of Tem-Aphat, intended to store all the knowledge of the world on parchment, which was 300 stories tall and had the proportions of a pyramid-- They had to pump air into the higher floors so it didn't become hard to breathe. And even in Oreskios, there were the Thyrian Shipyards, which extended almost a mile out into the ocean and even

oh my GAWDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!! (takes off shirt that says I <3 BLACK HOLES to reveal a second one underneath that says I <3 MEGASTRUCTURES)

I glanced at her for a moment. Zeno really did seem utterly infatuated with my grandfather's work. It was making me increasingly curious about what exactly their relationship had been.

oooh she fucked that old man

didnt utsu also think that nef fucked that old man. everyone is fucking that old man

Seth made a skeptical look. "I didn't wanna say this back when we came down here the last time, but I don't think I quite get what makes it that big a deal. I mean, if you need all of this - this much space, this much energy, just to make one person physically young - isn't it just a safer version of cloning someone a new body, and transplanting the brain?" He looked to Kam. "That technology has been coming along pretty well recently, hasn't it?"

SETH SWEEP. SO TRUE.

"Ptolema said the same thing earlier," I told him.

"She did?" He hummed worriedly. "Maybe I should think it over again."

you are all so mean to her and you dont respect her and you

to be honest? to be honest. i think ptolema has good intuition and has probably been correct about a few things so far (ESPECIALLY observational things) and you bitchless losers are too far up your own asses to see it. and you all HATE WOMEN

This dialing back the clock on the world stuff Zeno is talking about is juicy. I want to see the Flower cast play Outer Wilds

Is Zeno even sure that time before the collapse as they currently understand it even exists? Is she even awares of how hard the (redacted) worked to (redacted) the (redacted) only to (redacted) a measly (redacted) (redacted)? play outer wilds

I’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to talk about this but I share sooo many of Kam��s thoughts on death and agree that every human life lost is an unfathomable tragedy. But I just hate how irresponsibly she seems to approach it especially with her complete lack of respect towards others' own autonomy to do what they wish with their lives and bodies. I hate prescriptiveness!!! Your ideal is not everyone else's!!!! i suppose that makes her a visionary but i don't care. kam the utter faith you hold in human technological advancement and evolution absent the fear of death is the same strength of faith that people draw from other sources. how dare you ridicule that, even if it seems stupid to you!!!!!

I personally believe that everything ultimately repeats -- or rather, every iteration of something will eventually play out, and things will keep happening over and over and over again. To be honest, it’s not a healthy belief system to hold. But I don’t really hold out hope for an infinite afterlife either. I guess I hope for it? But also how could we as finite beings ever unite with the concept of infinity? We would have to transform into something completely unrecognizable from what we are now to be able to do that. In any circumstance we eventually have to shed what we believe is integral to our senses of self. This is unavoidable no matter what we do, whether that's live forever or die somewhere else or crunch with the universe and reform exactly as ourselves, maybe slightly differently, maybe slightly worse, maybe sometimes we won't even exist at all. But it goes on forever, so does it really matter? In any case, the ephemerality of selfhood is a tragedy inherent to existing, and I don’t know how to reconcile it in my mind. All I know is that I really hate lasts, but I hate the idea of no new beginnings even more.

ohhhhhh the ransu and the cyclical nature of the narrative ohhhh the aftermath of the suicide attempt ohhhh. I think that suicide attempt really hit Ran with the gravity of what she’s been doing to Su's mental state. She also never answered what she and shiko were to each other…

HAMILCAR BLASTING OFF NUKES IN THE BASEMENT IS MAKING ME LOSE ITJSIDUDHHDDHHDHS

it seems a little redundant to have brought some of the students down in retrospect…could that have been intentionally set up?

"Hammy decided he wanted us well done," Fang explained. "Melted this whole weird place, but it looks like you hit the thingy in time." They furrowed their brow. "Is it weird that I always wanna give people cute nicknames right when they're trying to murder me?"

SO TRUEEEEEE JIA FANGGGGG!!!!! LET'S HOLD HANDS AND SKIP

kam is SOOOO funny in life or death situations. she should be put in them more often

The Fang/Kam beef being mutual is hysterical to me. I thought the contempt would be one-sided from Kam but some of these quips from Fang seem VERY pointed. That administrator comment hurt MY feelings

Lowkey this kids book about the fused people sounds like something in Plato’s Symposium — lovers used to be one person and then were separated by the gods for their hubris or some stupid shit, doomed to spend their lives trying to find their other half again. anyway look at this

Ohhh im at an index/glossary. Ok a few things here

Collapse: Shorthand for 'false vacuum collapse', a phenomenon of astrophysics where a lower minimum of energy in the vacuum is suddenly achieved, causing destabilization at a subatomic level which spreads at the speed of light until equilibrium is once again reached. Sometimes called 'decay' instead. Such an event was largely responsible for ending the Imperial Era and almost destroying human civilization, though there were also socioeconomic factors which radically impeded the response.

WHEEEEEEEE I KNEW IT. THE INHERENT HORROR OF COSMOLOGICAL PHYSICS SWEEP. It’s connected to entropy btw! I typed out a whole explanation then spared you of it :)

Also that last line? Those refuged in the tower of asphodel were only ones with the means? the rest of humanity (assuming an interstellar civilization/species, a population potentially numbering into the trillions) just dissolved with the old universe? Oh my god…

Uana immediately caught my attention as the only place that hasn’t banned egomancy. The description of their world is sooooo cool too. can we vacation there

so it’s the pneuma that makes the act of cloning so tricky?? that makes sense. Research surrounding it seems limited too considering pneumancy is banned. Never mind that the brain is such a sophisticated organ to begin with. as they say so much of engineering is merely a cheap imitation of mother natures beautiful gifts (read: refinement on scales of time that will be inaccessible to humans, assuming consistently positive progression of technological advancement, for a long time)

refractor rifles are soooo coollll kudos to Lurinas genius mind for those

Tower of Asphodel: The structure created by the Ironworkers at the end of the Imperial Era to provide refuge to those who could obtain it, and later to act as a foundation for the planes they would create. It is visible in the sky at all times, though it exists only partially as a physical object.

aawwwwwwwuuuu?? why did i think she was ten googolion miles away

Ok character info time!!

Oh my gawddddd i share a blood type with Su! ^_^ come here and touch your open wound to mine

Oh my gawddddd Theo too! ^_^ (doesn’t extend the invite again) whats with the ??? in his description btw. theo chan

HIS LOW CARB DIENTJDJUDDUDUDHDH

ugh resistances were explained earlier but I forget what they mean

teehee. kam is 5’3”

“extra meat, please” ema im gonna go to so so many steakhouses with you and keep you alive forever

Seth is gonna die to his tree nut allergy 😭😭😭😭😭 no 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

OPHELIA BLOOD TYPE N/A? N/A???????? WHAT DO YOU MEAN N/A. maybe it’s a religious thing. or bc she’s from a lower plane? is their biology different there?

Ummm but her second pea in the pod’s IS specified at B+? Do they share it across seeds? Why are they collecting blood type info anyway. for the beast?

god it is still so weird that they share a seed. what are the odds. where are the odds. why are the odds

interesting that both the rhunbards have vegetarian-based diets? Wonder if it’s a regional thing

mashallah playboy bardi didnt drink. also forget what I said about the vegetarian diet he just broke the trend

Fang and Ran went to the same university at some point? Saoyu university?

FANG NO CULINARY NOTES!!! I WILL GO TO SO MANY RESTAURANTS WITH YOU AND KEEP YOU ALIVE FOREVER

why is Zeno as a man 6’1. That doesn’t really make sense to me. 5’4 as a GIRL checks out though

Bals culinary note saying no breakfast required confirms to me that he’s a little freak. Even more than the wearing sunglasses indoors. What was that about by the way

Bal has NO QUALIFICATIONS. asked to READ MAGAZINES

these culinary notes are making me crave ‏شوربة عدس. because half of these ppl are old and can’t chew their food

is nobody here a universal donor. that’s so sad (double checks) she’s dead

Oh Ran just confirmed the Plato children’s book thing from earlier!! All of the epic of gilgamesh shit is soaring over my head which is embarrassing because I’m literally Iraqi but I’m glad I caught this one.

I blinked. "It's from mythology?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Or at least, it's the only place I've seen something like this depicted before - a person with double limbs and two heads, I mean." She continued flipping through it as she spoke to me. "It's an Inotian story from late in the Old Kingdoms Era. It goes that originally, there weren't men and women, but just one unified type of human being that were immortal and didn't need to to reproduce. The specifics of it are kinda a mix. Sometimes they were shapeshifters, sometimes-- Well, more like it's depicted here." She gestured to the illustration. "In this version, the king of the gods was afraid of this version of humanity, so he used lightning to split them down the middle. And so everyone spends their life in search of their other half, so they can be complete again."

"Huh," I said. "That's... Conceptually romantic, I guess."

I didn't actually think it was romantic. It just seemed weird.

Yeah it’s a bit weird innit. Anyway can you come and touch your open wound to mine

I wonder if the kid’s book was trying to sell the merger of pneumas as a good thing — two “half people” becoming whole

also realizing the adventure time clip didn’t really make sense without more context. here’s the first page of the passage from my copy of symposium feat. annotations from 18 yo hana

Linos nodded. "We've taken all due precautions. Anna has the lower floor warded, and I've set the defenses in here," he pointed to the refractor rifles mounted on the ceiling which I noted the previous day, "to fire disabling shots should anyone draw a weapon."

is he stupid

Right now su is going on a philosophical walk of what defines a person and I just wanna say I really love what Lurina did with the idea of the pneuma. I always thought of the idea of transferring a consciousness as a kind of nebulous thing that is never truly successful (due to a full lack of understanding of the human brain, the true result is more like a glorified cloning) but having a physical portion of the brain connect to a metaphysical aspect of the self that exists outside the body is soooo clever and sells it for me in a way that nothing else ever has. I almost want it to be real lmao

I would actually read 1k pages of just kam and zeno beefing they’re SO funny. The beginning of chapter 86 has me cryingggg

“Linos bit his tongue. "That's obviously the impression the culprit... Well, Hamilcar, knowing what we do now... Intended to create, but it seemed fruitless to alarm anyone further at the time." He looked between our various faces. "Obviously, there wouldn't be any beasts, 'divine' or not, down there. Just a lot of cement, and a much thicker metal hatch at the terminus.”

BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS

“Ran continued to navigate the golem along its route. The elevator in the research tower wouldn't descend without a human present, so she was forced to have it climb the glass on the exterior wall, which felt like it took a excruciatingly long amount of time, though it was probably only five or so minutes. Eventually, it made it to the floor on which Balthazar had been left behind.

I noticed Fang's attention had perked up significantly.”

I KNEWWWWW IT WAS WEIRD HOW THEY KNEW SO MUCH ABOUT HIM!!! also me whenever bal is mentioned

but how do they know about bal???? how??? they never should have been able to meet him! unless they have loop memories, or they arrived at the sanctuary before we think...but why!!!! why would they conceal something like that!!!

“Ran held my hand tightly, which was good, because it otherwise might've slipped. I stared at the floor, my eyes out of focus.”

RAN IS SOOOO SWEET HOLDING HER HAND (they're all holding hands because of the spell) and Awwwwuuuuuu....Samium deceasaed...why did he refuse treatment. So that the beast could get him?

Ohhhh Susuuuuu….this chapter is so hard to read

““Like, if you break it down," they went on, "it kinda seems like there's been three, right? Putting aside Vijana, who died way earlier, there's been the big spectacle crimes that are obviously meant to come across as supernatural - with Durvasa and Bardiya, I mean - and then two where it comes across more like they were just killed in a totally mundane way... And then what happened with Saci and Yantho, which is somewhere in-between.””

“Not exactly a vast swathe of evidence to assume a pattern from," Kam said flatly. "One could just easily conclude that the killers are simply playing it by ear."

"I mean, yeah, I guess?" Fang fiddled with their bangs, thinking. "But to turn it around, why would you go to so much effort to keep up a narrative for most of the deaths, only to turn around and not bother with two of them at all? It feels like it makes the whole concept pointless."

YES!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

“I had a theory about that, actually," Kamrusepa chimed up. "Yantho's death, I mean to say. Is it possible that he was some manner of imposter-- Or rather, that his body was being controlled remotely in the same manner as the professor does with his?”

I WASN’T EXPECTING TO AGREE WITH KAM TOO BUT YES!!!!!!!!!

“It's not just that." He held his arms together, looking towards the ground. "Back when we were in the guest house, when I was in that room with Bardiya..." He swallowed. "I didn't want to say it back then, since I was sure it would, ah. Make people think I was even more suspicious. But... When it was happening, when he was being lifted into the air... I thought I saw something behind him. Dragging him up against the barrier."

"Why would you only mention this now?" Kam asked, her tone terse.

"Well-- Because it's impossible. There was no space for anything to be dragging him. It was like a ghost. It was there and it wasn't." He kept looking down, his knuckles tight. "I was sure it was just some trick of the light, since it was so dark. But back when I rushed out in the conference room, I thought I saw it again. In the corner. The same shape..."

"What shape?" Seth asked him.

"The same one you saw in the hall. Or in the story Saci told." He swallowed. "Like a cross between a winged creature, and... I don't know. Some sort of insect."

A bird and a spider.

Start of chapter 89 has more su backstory how funnnn! ^_^ *starts reading* oh no

are these shiko's memories...oh my godddd

wow. that was painful! :) that's so weird, experiencing two memories at once? i can't wrap my brain around it. but god...

#tftbn

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 6 years ago

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Steve’s Ending: What the Fuck Just Happened?

************WARNING***********

BIG-ASS ESSAY WITH SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME AHOY

I have been largely out of the fandom sphere for a spell because of personal stuff that went down and then subsequent Endgame anxiety (I’m sorry, I really will get to some BW asks as soon as I’m done reeling from this film), but I wanted to get out some thoughts about Endgame while they are fresh in my mind. I have seen Endgame twice since its release. I saw it Friday morning, debriefed with my beta @pitchforkcentral86, and then turned around and bought tickets for an evening showing the same day. Why? Because I had to process Steve’s last scene. I had to see it twice just to comprehend what the hell happened and then try to interpret it. I went through several hypotheses and waves of accompanying emotion and then came to a tentative personal conclusion about what the hell Steve’s ending is to me. But first I had to ask— Is this a true happy ending? Is this lazy writing? Is this a character assassination? Is this a legitimate choice Steve would make? Some combination of the above? So, here go my hypotheses—

Hypothesis 1: This is a legitimate happy ending for Steve and his timeline.

If you only look at the images shown to us and don’t devote much thought to the implications of Steve’s choice for other people in the world, it might appear to be a beautiful ending. After a decade-and-a-half of compass-gazing and pining for the good old days of segregation and boiled food, Steve gets what he wants. He gets the person who is — surprise! — “the love of his life.” This plays into the ongoing narrative that Steve has never been able to find contentment in the modern world or with modern people (some of whom he refers to as “family,” interestingly enough). This hypothesis also assumes that he can only be happy if he is with one woman, because he assumes shared life experience is a prerequisite for partnership, which means that he has essentially preemptively foreclosed on any relationship with anyone who is not Peggy. Since Bucky’s name has barely even entered Steve’s consciousness lately, except to emotionally whump his past self into not choking him to death, even their friendship seems to be a question in the last two films in this series.

So if we take the arc of these films into consideration, including the last two films, he has apparently resigned himself to a position of “Peggy is my only viable romantic relationship, and she is dead, and I am incomplete as long as this is true.” When you write this thesis for Steve Rogers, which is a sad thesis indeed, this ending might seem like a relief for him. (It could also be argued that it is terribly lacking in resiliency and flexibility and is naive, at best, in terms of what is love versus infatuation versus idealization.) Problematic in this happy ending scenario: The writers clearly did not consider the second and third order effects of this decision. They just needed to tie up Steve’s timeline and get Chris Evans out of the franchise, and this was a way to do it that resonates at face value. Man out of time gets put back in his time. Gets love. Quote: “It was beautiful.” Ignore all of the following and more: -There will now be two Steve Rogers in this timeline. -One of them will presumably be with Peggy Carter for at least a good chunk of time, unless things went south. -Peggy Carter is the director of SHIELD. Her close associates are undoubtedly known to them as a result. -Thus, Steve Rogers probably could not just stay hidden in the pantry. SHIELD would want to debrief him. They would want to know how the hell he got there. Questions would get asked. This could not remain a secret forever. -Is Steve Rogers going to sit out history? Hang on the couch while the world burns, shield unused? -Is Steve Rogers, knowing that Bucky is alive, going to leave him to rot with Hydra? -Even if they made some sort of arrangement beforehand, like Bucky saying it’s okay, don’t come get me, would they both sit well with continuing to let him kill all of the innocents he killed? -If Steve did go get Bucky, he would likely find him some time in the span of however many years he’s in the past. The future would be completely changed. -If he intervened and found Bucky, Sam Wilson would not be Falcon because TWS would not happen. This version of Bucky would not exist. This end scene could not happen. -Thus, this does not seem to be something that Steve chose to do during his life with Peggy. (Debunked-ish, along with other “Back to the Future” science hereafter, below) Which brings me to my second hypothesis about this ending. Hypothesis 2: This was thought out, but it represents writers Markus and McFeely’s disconnect from the character they built. This is where the “there is no way in hell Steve would sit on the couch where the world burns, where Bucky suffers with Hydra etc.” argument comes in. This taints the ending in a particularly sour way, because they have labored so hard to build an image of Steve as someone who would wreck the world to save Bucky Barnes from harm and stop at nothing to prevent serious harm in the world where he could. It’s what he wanted in the first place! It’s where we all started in TFA! The Steve we know and love would want to go to Korea. To Vietnam. He would want to stop the Khmer Rouge and all the bad shit he could intervene with. Right? And his ass would try to save Bucky, especially knowing exactly where he’s kept! Right?? He would keep going and going until he was worn down into a nub of nothingness. Right??? Which meanders me to— Hypothesis 3: This was a decision that Steve Rogers made that is plausible for his character and was deliberate on the part of the writers. Second and third order effects included. This may be a stretch, but I think it could be argued on the grounds of good becomes great, bad becomes worse. Steve does nothing by half measures, an intrinsic trait that is amplified by his transformation. I have always argued that Steve has a very real selfish streak, or else he never would have tried to enlist in the Army so many times knowing he is absolutely unqualified to serve. Serving in his original condition would have put so many lives at risk, and others would have had to pick up his slack, because he would have been next to physically useless in combat as small Steve. But he would not accept reality, and he would not accept a “lesser” form of helping because it had to be the way that served his ego and his sense of rightness and justness for himself, consequences to other soldiers and the mission be damned. It was myopic and self-serving. And if good becomes great and bad becomes worse, maybe this is a form of that. Maybe he and Bucky agreed (because they were clearly in cahoots with that final scene business) that he would not intervene and rescue him, because then there would be no Falcon, or simply on the principle that the timeline must remain as undisturbed as possible. And maybe this one time, Steve didn’t say “fuck you, Bucky” and do what was right. Maybe Steve Rogers was done. Fucking done. Maybe he realized that what he first wanted at the beginning of TFA is not tenable. That he can’t fight forever. That he, like Tony, needs to rest, and that he can’t do that in the modern world. Which is interesting, because he essentially becomes Tony Stark v1.0 in the end, only caring about himself and his own. And Tony Stark becomes Steve Rogers, making the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. So Steve enjoys a life with Peggy while the world burns because he just can’t do it anymore. He’s paid his dues and he’s done being Captain America or Nomad or anyone else. (Wonder how she likes that version of Steve...?) Though how he could possibly say “It was beautiful” is utterly beyond me. I can’t fit that into this hypothesis, unless he has compartmentalized so hard and so well that he has forgotten about Bucky’s existence completely. And if he has, this is a very sad ending for his character.

There are probably many other hypotheses out there. They just didn’t percolate through my mind yet.

Which brings me to some things @pitchforkcentral86 brought up:

Why was Tony Stark’s arc so perfectly completed, so beautifully closed — truly, even I shed a tear — when we have to sit here writing stupid billion word theses on a nearly defunct blog site, grasping for straws, scratching our heads, wondering what the fuck just happened to Steve Rogers? It’s like getting to know somebody for eight years, being told the same stories about their behavior, learning their values system, their truths… and then being thrown a parting image that can only make sense if a) the writers cannot be trusted — and maybe could not be trusted this whole time, or b) the character is actually not the person we thought he was.

Is either of these what we want to be left with as we close this phase of the MCU? Either the writers failed or Steve Rogers is not the person we love? And do we really not get to see Bucky and Steve’s friendship arc get closed in a meaningful way after building its depth for three movies? Are we really supposed to count a cheap recycling of a TFA line and some shimmery-eyed SebStan woobieface (TM) and some secret time travel hook-up conspiring off-camera (AS THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN SINCE CIVIL WAR, PRESUMABLY, OFF-FUCKING-CAMERA) as “closure”? So, what do I think? I think this was lazy, crap writing, and I think Markus and McFeely thought we wouldn’t consider the timey-wimey implications too much. I think they know this character, and I don’t think they figured this would assassinate his character. I think they just really, really needed to tie this story up in a superficially pretty bow, and they couldn’t kill off both Tony and Steve, so they needed to give him something that took him out of the franchise. And that scene at the end with Peggy was aesthetically BEAUTIFUL. I smiled the first time, ear to ear, until my brain kicked in two minutes later and realized what it meant. They have been building up to this forever, kindling Steggy pretty much every movie. We Stucky people are all like yeah, yeah, Peggy, so sad, but the films have been consistent all along about saying a) Steve is a man out of time, and b) he loves Peggy Carter. (However you wanted to interpret that love... until the support group, where the interpretation is made for us). Support group side note: First, I squeed that Steve was running a support group in what I’m pretty sure is a VA auditorium. And on one hand, I loved the super chill gay Russo cameo and Steve’s untroubled reaction. Three cheers for the first openly gay character in the MCU [eyeroll]. But also, it felt like a total concession, like okay all you Stucky idiots we’ve been queer baiting over the years, we are gonna drop an A-bomb your little kingdom, but look, at least Steve isn’t a homophobe! See? He’s cool with the gays and so are we. Thanks for playing. Maybe you’ll get a REAL queer character in the next phase of the MCU! (If you even stick around after the shit we’ve just pulled.) But this laziness is problematic, because it feels terrible and discrepant. Intended or not, it does have serious implications for the timeline and/or the character, and the final scene existing the way it is potentially means at least one of two things: 1. Time doesn’t work the way we think it does. (In other words, what if there is a world where time travel Steve did all these good things like free Bucky, end the Vietnam War early, etc.?) However, since he is here on this bench with Bucky and Sam, dropping off this shield, this is implausible. If he just disappeared for good and Bucky explained the situation with a tiny, knowing smile, then it would be possible that he started an alternate reality where he did all these very Steve-congruent things and freed Bucky in that timeline, which would not affect this one. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could live with that. Just disappear into the sunset and we can write fics to fill in all the gaps of his Steve-ness. His core character is retained. Hooray.

But if he started an alternate timeline, he would not be here with Bucky and Sam like this in the original timeline as an old man, which suggests that he jumped back in the same timeline. Unless they invented technology to jump between timelines. Or Dr. Strange jumped him back to this bench just to drop the shield off and high five with Sam and then is going to take him back any second or some dumb shit that has no basis in anything we have seen on screen (see @pitchforkcentral86’s point above about grasping for bullshit just to make sense of this). Or it means that— 2. Steve did not do anything and did not give a fuck about it. Both of these are terrible. Terrible. I would rather have had Steve die than have this ending. And this has nothing to do with Stucky for me, because Stucky is mostly just a fun fandom thing for me. I don’t mind that he ended up with Peggy per se. It’s the implication that he didn’t save his friend, knowing EXACTLY — geographically and historically — where he was, not only saving Bucky but also all the innocent people Bucky would kill. OR I hate the implication that the smug motherfucker let Bucky rot — perhaps per their agreement, maybe he kept a promise, whatever — and he had the gall to call it “beautiful.” And this is after Markus and McFeely slaved for three movies to convince us that these are best fucking friends from childhood who are with each other “‘til the end of the line.” At the very least, even if they are not going to be physically together, friends do not let friends suffer for decades at the hands of Hydra, and if they do, they do not fucking enjoy themselves while it’s happening. If this is the Steve they are leaving us with, I do not want him. And I kind of don’t know what to do now.

Am I missing something? Please tell me I am. I’m desperate for a way to make sense of this. Truly.

OKAY, EDIT:

@koubashii very kindly sent me a message reminding me that Bruce spent quite a bit of time belaboring on the point that changing the past doesn’t change the future. She reminded me that Nebula killing her past self didn’t obliterate her from existence. I did forget about all this. So I can’t use Sam and Bucky Prime’s existence in their current form as evidence that Steve did nothing, if he went back in time. Point taken. THANK YOU!!

(Edit: As far as I can gather from some research from actual astrophysicists and not MCU Bruce Banner, this “changing the past doesn’t change the future” stuff is just one small theory and does not appear to be the prevailing theory. However, this is the quantum realm, so we can make up all sorts of silly rules about infinite possibilities, infinite realities, yada yada, because nobody understands quantum physics except Hank Pym. Comic book science wins again!)

So, if he’s creating a separate timeline, let’s say he rescued Bucky early. Is there another Bucky running around with him? (New fun theory to make the pain better: He danced with Peggy, had a good time, went to find Bucky, married HIM, and that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it with Sam. THERE. Fixed it.)

But this still suggests that he broke off into an alternate timeline, one that did not disturb the current one. So if he went off into this entirely new timeline, how did he bounce into this old one? Pym particles? Sure. Fine. Comic science Whatever. Maybe he gets some. Did he just drop in by the lake and pop a squat on the bench right before Bucky told Sam to look? Sure. Was he there the whole time? Perhaps. Fine. Who the hell knows.

So, one possible explanation is that there IS an alternate timeline where Steve did the right thing. And he jumped back here because Pym particles. His character’s integrity is potentially saved and who the fuck knows who he ended up with in the end. Let your imaginations run wild. It’s too late for Bucky Prime to get saved, poor Bucky. At least he has Sam and their upcoming Disney spinoff series, which sounds like a fucking joke when I write it (but srsly I’m dying and cannot wait).

And there are still problematic things with this narrative for me, such as the idea that Steve’s entire happiness hinges on one woman he barely knew, largely because she didn’t scoff at him when he was smol and I will be DAMNED if Peggy kept his picture on her desk, and there is no effing way that she would even have her back to the door, but whatever. And I still hate that Steve and Bucky’s relationship arc was treated so horribly by these last two films. NO HOMO, indeed. Just in case we got the wrong idea from the intensity of the relationship that the MCU created for us. I will be posting more on this later.

AND STILL — we should not have to work SO HARD for this kind of "meh” explanation. You should not need a group effort to make sense of your character’s ending, after so much wallowing in despair. And this might still reek of bullshit to many of you. I need to percolate more.

Pym particles and Wakandan Vibranium trauma-healing brain magic — quick and dirty shortcuts for real character development. Thanks, MCU. Consider my brain exploded.

#avengers endgame #help #endgame spoilers

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