#but also fuck chris carter forever

[mindibindi]

Let me tell you for why. This pairing never won. I know virtually nothing about the other pairing in this race but I know this: Mulder and Scully ALWAYS and ONLY EVER got within a hair's breadth of what they searched for, longed for and deeply deserved. Whether it was the truth about aliens and the paranormal, justice or accountability for the greater powers that controlled their lives, killed their families and impeded their quest, or just the simple and satisfying expression of their desire and devotion, Mulder and Scully only ever got THIS CLOSE. They never reached the truth. They never received true justice. And their love never achieved full and open consummation. They were and remain perpetual losers clinging to each other as they battle powerful and established titans. Here, they are pitted against a worthy adversary. It is right that these two pairings be in the finals together. And even in defeat, there would be something both consistent and poetic about Mulder and Scully once again coming this close to glorious closure and validation only to lose out. There would be irony in them losing to a human/alien pairing. And there is a now signature pathos in them being, to some, the scrappy underdog without a hope in hell and, to others, a strange and unknown quantity. Ultimately, MSR shippers know that, should these two face defeat, should validation elude them yet again, Mulder and Scully will still, as always, have each other, even if it is in some sweetly screwed up form. If you believe in truth, justice and love, AND you believe Mulder and Scully deserve to get theirs then VOTE here.

[catharsis-in-darkness]

Grief of Hearts Pt. 3

pairing: Ricky Olson x OFC Iris

warnings/tropes: slow burn, enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, smut, language,

summary: Iris' passion has always been passionate about music, specifically her band. What happens when she gets to open for her favorite band of all time and finally gets to meet her heroes?

author's note: This took me forever to write but here it is. I read through the last 2 chapters and I kinda of hate them now but it's whatever. Enjoy :)

word count: 1540 words

Iris Hart

The cold air hit my body as I made my way outside. Lighting a cigarette, I sat on a nearby bench. I heard the door open again, making me look up. Seeing Vinny walk outside I gave him a soft smile. 

“I’m sorry about Rick, Iris.” He shuffled the weight between his feet, standing in front of me. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh. He seemed genuinely sorry for me. For us. We worked hard on our music, and it took us a long time to get where we are now. We had finally gotten some recognition all for it to be diminished by Ricky fucking Olson. The man I’ve looked up to for the past 10 years. 

“It’s fine Vinny. I just- I didn’t expect to hear that coming out of one of my idols mouths.” I shrugged taking a hit of my cig. 

“I know, I wouldn’t take it personally. He just found out he had been getting cheated on for the majority of his relationship. I know it’s not an excuse, but he’s been acting that way towards everyone.” He trailed off looking a little sad. It was hard hearing that from Ricky as a stranger. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like having your best friend acting like that to you. I felt bad for him. 

“I’m sorry that must be hard.” I mumbled, flicking my cigarette onto the ground before crushing it under my boot. 

“It’s okay, you wanna go back to the hotel?” He asked me, only to offer a hand to help me up. I smiled at him, taking it. 

“Only if we hit the bar first.” I said, nudging him lightly with my shoulder. 

We made the short walk back to the hotel, taking seats at the bar. 

“What can I get you guys?” The bartender asked. I ordered a tequila and diet coke while Vinny just ordered a beer. I took a sip of my drink, the tequila making my stomach warm. 

“So, what made you come out and not my friends?” I asked curiously. I figured Nora or even Carter would’ve come after me. 

“Well they tried, but I figured that you’d understand it better coming from me. And I also didn’t want to pass up the chance to get to know you better.” He blushed lightly. He wanted to get to know me? Interesting. I let a small smile slip, making his face light up. 

“Well I’m glad you did. Thank you.” We ended up staying at the bar for another hour talking about everything and anything. By this point we were both more than a little tipsy. Vinny was such a laid-back guy, he was so easy to talk to. I was turning myself left and right on the bar stool as he was telling me another tour story. 

“Iris?” Vinny slurred.

“Hmm?” I looked back up at him. 

“You’re really pretty.” He smiled at me. His face was flushed and his eyes were hazy. 

“Thanks Vin.” I smiled right back. I heard a cough coming from behind us seeing none other than the asswipe himself looking at us disappointedly. I rolled my eyes, groaning before spinning back around. I downed my drink, quickly ordering another one. 

“Chris sent me to get you guys.” Ricky said from behind me. I let out a scoff. Why would he send him? I don’t want anything to do with him. 

“He also wanted me to apologize…” With that I spun around glaring at him. He gave me one right back. 

“YOU want to apologize or CHRIS wants you to apologize?” I coldly asked. He visibly tensed. 

“I don’t want your bullshit excuse of an apology Ricky. You said what you said. Own up to it, stop trying to make amends with me for the sake of your bandmates. My problem is with you, not them.” I stood up abruptly. I grabbed my bag from my chair, looking at Vinny. I put some cash on the bar, forgetting about the drink I had ordered. 

“Thank you for hanging out with me Vin. I’ll see you later.” I kissed his cheek and left without sparing Ricky a glance. 

The Next Day

“Riri you gotta wake up.” I felt Nora nudging me. My head was pounding. I really didn’t mean to drink that much last night. I wonder how Vinny is feeling. I sat up slowly letting my eyes adjust to the light. 

“God damn it’s bright in here.” I groaned covering my face with my hands. Nora gave me a worried look. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked, handing me a water bottle. I quickly chugged it before giving her a look. Seriously? She chuckled before getting off my bed reminding me we have to go check out the venue and do sound check. 

“What time is it???”  I asked, knowing sound check wasn’t until 5:30. I grabbed my phone, checking, when my eyes widened in shock. Oh fuck! I’m so behind. It was already 4:00, I had to start getting ready now. Nora gave me a knowing look and I jumped from my bed running into the bathroom. 

An hour later, I was showered and ready to go to the venue. Luckily the show didn’t start until 9 so I had time to get fully ready after we were done. I grabbed a granola bar we luckily had in the room and went downstairs to meet the guys. 

“You doin alright Riri?” Carter asked me as we walked up to them. He pulled me into a quick hug, doing the same with Nora. I shrugged his question off and pulled my sunglasses over my eyes. Arlo wiggled his eyebrows at me, then looked behind me. I turned to see Vinny walking up to us, a pair of heart shaped sunglasses adorning his face. He looked almost as bad as I did. I texted the group chat on my walk back to Nora and I’s room, making us have a group meeting last night. I told them what had gone down at the bar. 

“Hey Vin, how are you feeling?” I asked with a giggle. He groaned, pulling me into a hug. Wow, okay he’s touchy. To be fair, I may have started this with the kiss on his cheek. 

“I’m taking it you feel the same as me.” I chuckled and I let myself sink into his arms. He smelled like shampoo and a woody cologne. I let out a deep sigh. He was so warm. An awkward cough broke us apart. I blushed, removing myself from his embrace.

“Alright, love birds let’s go.” My eyes fell on Nora who had a smirk on her face. I looked down at my feet. Vinny chuckled from beside me, earning him a smack on his chest. He looked stunned as he looked down at me. 

“Wow so that’s how you feel?” He faked being hurt. I rolled my eyes with a laugh. Love birds my ass, Vinny’s just really sweet. I’ve only known him for one day. 

“Alright shit faces let’s go!” Carter grabbed me, throwing me over his shoulder. I let out a yelp, throwing my fists into his back lightly. I started trying to wiggle my way out of his grip as he ran outside. 

“CARTER ALEXANDER REYNOLDS IF YOU DON’T PUT ME DOWN I WILL STEAL ALL OF YOUR LEFT SHOES!” I screamed, trying to stay serious. He stopped abruptly, a gasp leaving his mouth. He placed me down in front of him, his eyes forming into slits. 

“You wouldn’t dare.” He stared blankly. The next thing I know, Nora came flying from behind him landing on his back. He stumbled before he started spinning in circles. I started laughing loudly. They were so cute together. My two best friends are in love with each other. I pulled my phone, snapping a couple pictures, then taking a video and posting it to the band account. 

“Nora my savior!!” I cheered as she put Carter in a headlock. Everyone had slowly made their way to us. Nora finally got off of Carter's back once his face was bright red. Vinny came up next to me with a questioning look on his face. I smiled at him innocently, seeing the car pull up from the valet. 

“Shotgun!” I yelled running to the car and jumping into the passenger seat. I got comfortable seeing Vinny slide into the driver's seat. I quickly sent Nora and Carter the pictures separately, knowing they both were too shy to admit their feelings to each other. I watched in the rear view mirror as they checked their phones, their faces turning red. I giggled starting to connect my phone to aux. 

“Who said you get aux?” Vinny asked with a raised eyebrow, playfulness showing in his eyes. I put my hand on my chest. 

“Uh shotgun always gets aux duh.” I gave him the same look. I put my playlist on shuffle, smirking at him. 

“Whatever you say, passenger princess.” He said as he started the car. His fingers started drumming lightly against the steering wheel along to the beat. With that we made our way to the venue. 

Part 4

[mlobsters]

the x-files: fight the future (1998)

the x-files s2e24 our town

i'm watching fight the future. again. because listening to an elizabeth holmes trial coverage podcast that had someone named kurzweil in it. so clearly... anyway. apparently this is my liveblog of my millionth rewatch. i had this movie on vhs, my friends.

it's gary grubbs who was in the cannibal town episode!

you know what else i like about this movie. someone's clear helicopter obsession. give me all the helicopters.

what about my men?!

i just think it's neat how they managed to make a fucking cool ass movie in the middle of the tv show run. i know it was hell on the cast and crew and the show itself kind of suffered but damn they made a good movie (some plot silliness aside, it is chris carter after all)

SCULLY: Well, I just climbed up 12 floors, I'm hot, I'm thirsty and to be honest, I'm wondering what I'm doing up here.

MULDER: You're looking for a bomb.

SCULLY: Yes, I know that, but the threat was called in to the federal building across the street.

MULDER: I think they have that covered.

MULDER: Whatever happened to playing a hunch, Scully? The element of surprise, random acts of unpredictability? If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.

What are we doing up here, Scully? It's hotter than hell.

glenne headly (uncredited, bartender)

mr holland's opus (1995) - glenne headly as iris holland

i love her voice. and she had this great little scene with mulder.

MULDER: I'm the key figure in an on-going government charade, the plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials. It's a global conspiracy, actually, with key players in the highest levels of power, that reaches down into the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet. So, of course, no one believes me. I'm an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers. They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid and who now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling and when it hits it's gonna be the shit-storm of all time.

BARTENDER: Well. I would say that about does it, Spooky.

martin landau as alvin kurtzweil

fox peeing in the alley on the independence day poster. keep it classy.

KURTZWEIL: That official FBI business?

MULDER: What?

KURTZWEIL: Bet the Bureau's accusing you of the same thing in Dallas. Standing around holding your yank while bombs are exploding.

choppers!

plague to end all plagues. and FEMA!

"going that way" forever burned into my brain. little dudes with their thick accents and coordinated pointing. maybe i'll draw that some day.

MULDER: Five years together, Scully. How many times I been wrong? Never. Not driving anyway.

helicopters and the jiffy pop poppers (still an hour left, how many more choppers can we cram in)

MULDER: But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest ... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything ... Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I wanna do this alone... I don't even know if I can ... and if I quit now, they win.

fakeout kiss whatever. these little speeches, hugs and forehead smooches are a balm.

LANGLY: What can we do?

MULDER: You can strip Byers naked.

john neville as the well-manicured man

well-manicured man is well manicured.

In the DVD commentary, Chris Carter tries to peddle the idea that the emotions from the almost kiss in the hallway plus the CPR scene later in the movie equals a kiss. Not surprisingly, nobody buys that. (source)

oh, chris carter.

also, famously:

In X-Files Redacted, a 30-minute special that premiered on Comcast (before being leaked online and making its rounds on the Internet, of course), creator and showrunner Chris Carter set up the scene about where the main duo currently stand coming into the revival of the show: “Mulder and Scully, for 9 years, had a platonic relationship.”

SCULLY: I had you big time.

handwave the halfdead out of antarctica to talk to blythe danner.

CASSIDY: Bees and corn crops do not quite fall under the rubric of domestic terrorism.

SCULLY: How many other lives can we save? Look ... If I quit now, they win.

all right, all right. i'm done--WAIT

[starry-mist]

I love the younger generation discovering The X-Files and filling my feed with nostalgia. Welcome to the wildest ride.

Also fuck Chris Carter always and forever, bye.

[stormblessed95]

Wolfsong Quotes I Love 🐾🌈

Pack Pack Pack!

The author today just announced that the book is finally being released in Hardcover with brand new cover art! And I'm excited, so I sharing some of my favorite quotes from the book! Will possibly (probably) include spoilers, so beware of that if it bothers you! I just adore this book though. I really love all things werewolves in the paranormal world and this pack is just all queer. Lol which is amazing!! And our Main Character for book 1 is equal parts badass and total disaster panic bisexual lol. Also forewarning, that while I love these books, they won't be for everyone and there some trigger warnings to be observed and some choices made that some people probably will find detract from the overall story a lot. So just look into it to make sure its something you'd want to read as well.

Panic Bisexual behavior out in full force in these first quotes because I legitimately giggle every time reading these:

“Hi,” I said. My voice was much deeper than it’d ever been before. “I’m Ox. Oxnard. Call me Ox.” I tried to pose against a 2007 Chevy Tahoe but I slipped and skinned my elbow. I pulled myself back up. “Or Oxnard. Whatever.” “Oh boy,” Rico said. “This is so awkward to witness. We should save him. Or leave.” No one saved me. Or left. “Hi, Ox,” Jessie said. “It’s nice to meet you.” She grinned and it was a mischievous thing with a hint of teeth. My mouth went dry because her lips were pretty and so were her eyes, and I thought, Well, that’s just fine. “You… ah. You too?” “Maybe Ox can show you around school next week when you start,” Chris said. I dropped a socket wrench on my foot."

"He turned and grinned at me, and it was Joe, but it was Joe. So, naturally, that’s when I walked into the side of the house. The tomatoes in my hands crushed against me. My head hit the wood siding and I thought, Oh shit. I stepped back from the house. Bits of tomato fell onto the grass. Dammit. I felt my face flushing as I looked back at the Bennett brothers. They all stood there, watching me with concerned expressions on their faces. “What the hell?” Carter asked. “You know there is a house right there? It’s been there. Pretty much for forever.”

"Joe took another step toward me and he had pecs. He had a chest that was just… it was just very nice and it gave me ideas and I said, “Whoa there, cowboy,” and kicked myself internally for such bullshit. “What’s at your house?” Joe asked, and that motherfucker started sniffing the air. “Ox,” Carter said. “Your heartbeat is going crazy.” Stupid fucking werewolves. And Joe was standing right there. With muscles. “To change!” I shouted and all three took a step back. I lowered my voice. “I have to… change. My shirt.” I pointed at it. “Tomatoes and houses don’t mix. Ha-ha-ha.”“I still have no idea what is happening,” Kelly said."

"And so was Joe. Sitting at our kitchen table. Wearing dress pants, a dress shirt. And a bow tie. Which, unbeknownst to me, turned out to be one of my greatest weaknesses. I walked into the kitchen door at the sight of that."

Fanart from oblivionsdream

“It’s always the ones who are the quietest who often have the greatest things to say."

"But I swear to god, if you choose me, I will make sure that you know the weight of your worth every day for the rest of our lives because that’s what this is. I am going to be a fucking Alpha one day, and there is no one I’d rather have by my side than you. It’s you, Ox. For me, it’s always been you.”

“My future,” Joe said, “is Ox.” Ah god, that made me ache. “Is that so?” Mom asked. “How do you figure?”“He’s really nice,” Joe said seriously. “And smells good. And he makes me happy. And I want to do nothing more than put my mouth on him.”“Ah well,” Thomas said. “We tried.”“He’s our little snowflake,” Elizabeth told him. “You want to what?” I asked Joe incredulously. He winced. “I didn’t mean to say it like that.” He was sweating much more heavily now as he looked back at my mother. “I want to court your son.”

“Your first mistake was underestimating me. My pack. I may be human, but I run with wolves.”

"Oh my god, Ox, your life is like those shitty sparkly vampire movies. That I’ve never seen and don’t like at all, shut up.”

"You can plan for life, but life always has plans of its own."

"I googled “what to do when your future werewolf mate / boyfriend /best friend courts you and brings you a dead rabbit.” First, there was a lot of porn. Then I found a recipe for Maltese rabbit stew. It was delicious. The stew, not the p*rn. The p*rn was weird."

"You don’t get to decide what you’re worth because you obviously don’t know. You don’t get to decide that anymore because you have no fucking idea that you’re worth everything."

"Pinecones, candy canes, epic and awesome"

Fan art by gabriella bujdoso

And honestly book 2 I think is even better with Gordo and Mark. And book 3 and book 4 are great too! Again, there are choices made in this book that are CHOICES. Lol so just make sure you read your trigger warnings, which I'll include here

[yuknowri]

I know some people theorized that Peggy Carter made a cameo in Loki show and while that would be interesting, i really want Steve Rogers to also be a variant. Cause like one of my biggest problem with endgame is how out of character Steve's ending was and how it literally made no sense. Cause like him leaving everyone, even his best friend forever "i'm with you til the end of the line", for the so called "love of his life" (bruh like ??? was she ever tho) was literally a dick move, but it literally fucks up with his whole narrative and character development, that he needs to move on and find himself in the present. Also why the fuck was he an old man he's a super soldier AND Peggy carter got married and lived her life as a boss ass woman, so like ???? why screw that up for such a heteronormative ending ????

Okey,

now imagine he got back to Peggy and the TVA is like "haha u thought this was it well nopee" and idk he gets mixed up in that and while that would still not be enough, it would at least explain how he came back to our timeline in endgame with like no help, why he was super old, because i assume he spent like decades fighting crimes, and it would still leave Peggy as the girl boss she is. It would also make me feel a hell of a lot better knowing that marvel at least didn't just toss Steve's whole arc in the trash for no reason.

but who am i kidding Chris Evans is no longer on contract.

But maybe in what if...?

TLDR, i want Steve rogers to be a variant cause it would kinda make sense.

[louisdreyfus]

season 9 sucks.

i mean, everybody knows that, of course, it’s a hot mess.

but if there is one silver lining is that it’s the only moment in the last 27 years that scully had someone other than mulder to count on.

scully is known for her stoicism, for her overall distancing from social stuff. even before the xfiles, she didn’t really had a lot of people. sure, she has melissa and mrs scully and ahab and even bill and charlie, but other than family, she pretty much bottled up all of her life. 

encontering mulder was a game changing point in her life, regarding relationships; but it took her FOREVER to talk to him about stuff. irresistible and elegy are good examples of situations that she didn’t say anything to him even though she was bothered, and scared, and uncomfortable. even with the person she loves and trusts the most, she can’t talk to. she just doesn’t open up.

and then comes reyes

which is warm, and just an overall great person, who reminds her of melissa and presents herself available emotionally to help with the burden of scully’s life

“i have no one else to say this to”, she says to monica, and it’s true: she never had before, maybe not since melissa, maybe not ever.

this is scully opening up, trusting a friend for the first (and only) time since the begining of the show, and it’s just so valid that she found someone to count on, to talk, specially during the most difficult time, without mulder and paranoia at high levels. so yeah, i don’t stand by most of s9 (and SPECIALLY the mythology episodes), but if there’s one thing that makes my heart a little warmer, is the true friendship scully manages to build with monica (and doggett, to an extent).

also fuck u chris carter for ruining monica you piece of shit rot in hell motherfucker

[geneeste]

Genie’s SG1 Rewatch: The Enemy Within

This one is slightly less gross than the last one, but not by much. (Also, there are quite a few time breaks in this one, just ignore them.)

Season 1, Episode 2:

9:03 PM “With all due respect” everyone take a drink I don’t think I’ve watched much of any of the first season since I originally watched it 9:04 PM I hardly remember any of The Enemy Within Poor Kawalsky 4:14 PM I will say it's fun to watch them figure out all the Stargate terminology we take for granted and to watch their relationships develop 4:15 PM Uh, yep, the doctor was here before and the gross goa'uld killed him 😬 I already don't like COL Kennedy Yay Jack, so glad you're here 4:19 PM I really do just love Chris Judge He gives such nuance to often really stilted dialogue 4:20 PM See, here though, discovering that Earth was the seed planet for all those humans that are now enslaved/mistreated that is plenty compelling. it's a great motivation for the SGC and really anyone to, you know, join the cause Which makes the fact that they abused and then fridged Sha'ré even more frustrating to me Because it was just. So unnecessary. (and Skaa'ra too!) Poor Daniel 😢 I love Sam and Daniel's budding friendship (Side note: I get frustrated by all the shortcomings of the show and then they give us great little moments and I remember why I loved it to begin with.)

4:24 PM Oh jeez, that hand falling, I don't think Daniel's gonna sleep any time soon

5:26 PM Yeah sure doc, you go ahead and hit that alarm that'll help I mean it will but maybe also run I dunno Eep Sam I will forever love how you can see Sam calculate the risks of what she's about to do Like, "this is a terrible decision but I'm gonna do it anyway"

5:28 PM So that part where Kawalsky throws Sam into the wall in the elevator? That's another AT story: "And so they had a shot of my face, so I couldn't use a stunt double and I smacked my head against back of the elevator and dropped down, so when you actually see Carter drop down to the corner of the elevator slumped into a pathetic little heap, that was really Amanda slumped into a pathetic little heap."

5:32 PM Daniel sounds constantly bewildered in these early episodes "Someone in the elevator hit the emergency stop..." WHY WOULD SOMEBODY DO THAT? 😆 Oh Kawalsky I hate that they did this to yoooouuuuu

5:33 PM What an uncomfortable gurney do I even want to know where they found that gurney I mean jeez I can't take the close up on Kawalsky's face I'm such a baby

5:36 PM (it occurs to me that Kawalsky's begging Jack to help him, then they do the exact same thing to Jack later during In The Line of Duty -- ugh, poor Jack)

5:38 PM No seriously Kawalsky is heartbreaking ugh Fucking Kennedy He’s so rude

7:23 PM This is very unpleasant Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be interested in talking 

7:25 PM This is just not super fun to watch Dr Warner needs Frasier desperately lol 7:27 PM Kennedy is a jerk and I don’t like him I do love me a sassy hardass Hammond however 7:30 PM Teal’c is a really amazing person for letting them experiment on Junior like that 😳 Also: yuck

7:31 PM Yeah Jack, let the man settle his affairs jeez Sigh. Poor Kawalsky. I would not be watching this surgery  7:34 PM I think warner is just speaking jibberish now I’m so glad they got most of the gross stuff out of the way early 🤢

7:37 PM I totally don’t remember how Kawalsky dies Oh fuck off Kennedy This whole “already took over the host” dead symbiote thing is hard to believe 

7:40 PM Oh yikes Walter, ow Also goa’uld are really not strategic at all Just lay low  and pretend you kumquat 7:42 PM Oh no Now I remember how Kawalsky dies 😬😬😬

7:43 PM Oof What even Was the thing falling out the back of his head really necessary

7:45 PM Oh man ahahahaha I LOVE Hammond flexing on his phone call with the President and making Kennedy stand right there and watch We stan a sassy hardass Hammond 7:46 PM Yay Teal’c A bright spot in an otherwise miserable ep

7:47 PM Is P3-575 the one with where Sam gets drunk on alien booze and gets naked? (According to show lore?) [It was P3X-595 for those of you following along at home]

7:48 PM Aaaand that’s over, phew

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

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.

[withallthingslove]

avengers endgame spoiler-filled review

below the cut bc spoilers obviously

even after two viewings this movie is super overwhelming so I’m just gonna jump right in

- clint’s family disappearing was so haunting and traumatic omg

- i didn’t like the music choice over the marvel opening crawl

- nebula was so adorably intense when tony playing footbal with her

- carol is such a bad bitch she just carried an entire fucking ship through space

- steve running up to tony and holding on to him... that was content I didn’t know I needed

- the pepperony hug ughhh I’m not a huge gwenyth paltrow fan but she was so good as pepper in this

- honestly I get tony has been through a lot but he was such a dick back at the avengers compound. I’ve always preferred steve to tony and that scene really displayed why. Yes tony was right something bigger was coming, but his way of going about preventing it was proven wrong both times. I don’t consider ultron to be super canon because joss whedon sucks but tony’s first idea to try and solve it failed, and then the accords also failed and even rhodey regretted it. Infinity war was basically “hey yeah the accords was dumb af and steve was right and now the avengers are scattered.” Both tony and steve were selfish and made mistakes in civil war but the fact that it had been over three years and tony was still soooo angry with steve and holding a grudge just rubbed me the wrong way.

- I really felt for thor when they went to get thanos. Chris hemsworth’s acting in that scene was so good when he realized they had failed

- again who on earth put steve in charge of a support group. And while yes its nice to have some lgbtq representation marvel is way behind on that so to me it did not feel like enough

- paul rudd did so well in this movie and scott is such a good dad ugh

- 10/10 would die for morgan stark. She is soooo cute and it was hilarious when she was like “mom told me to come rescue you”

- i know a lot of people are mad at tony dying bc he could have “retired” but that scene with his daughter before steve, nat, and scott show up shows he could not. He still had a garage where he built iron man suits and suits for pepper. That’s not what someone does when they are out of a fight. That’s why he fell back into it so fast because he never left it. He was still tinkering and preparing and even when he retired he was still fully ready to go back

- i like professor hulk but at the same time i miss bruce

- tony and steve love each other so much it made me so happy when tony showed up at the compound. they’ve had their differences but there is real love there

- speaking of real love I will still never forgive joss whedon for taking clintasha away from us like yes their platonic friendship is great but UGH. They love each other SOOOOOOO much 

- tom hiddleston as loki always steals the show and i miss him so much. I was convinced he wasnt dead so I’m sad that he was still dead in the current timeline. But maybe since there is now an alternate dimension with loki and the tesseract he will show up again

- him impersonating steve, his side eye, just... *chefs kiss*

- the america’s ass comment... amazing, iconic, beautiful. And then steve’s “yeah I know” comment to his 2012 self. I’m so glad the russos let steve be funny

- I love how much winter soldier played into this one especially since it was the russo’s first mcu movie. The elevator scene... steve outsmarting the hydra agents. Secretary pierce showing up... and then steve fighting his past self was just *chefs kiss* again. The fact that he knows his own weakness is bucky and uses it against himself 

- not excited to see tilda swinton’s character because its just a reminder of marvel’s whitewashing but I appreciated it trying to explain the timeline/dimension stuff

- i also loved that at the army compound tony was able to get closure with his dad, something he deserved for a long time. I think that was another hint he was going to die because his arc was completing while steve’s.... the look on steve’s face when he saw peggy just broke me. absolutely broke me. Steggy was my first ship in the mcu and so steve and peggy hold a special place in my heart. The fact she still keeps the picture of tiny steve after all these years (a reference to agent carter)... they both moved on enough to enjoy life but never truly moved on enough to leave the other behind. And so while tony was getting closure, steve was being reminded of what he wanted most and couldn’t have. I also loved the tie in with agent carter and showing Jarvis this movie was truly a fan service to us all

- okay so rhodey/nebula: so ive never been a huge nebula person but i really liked her in this movie. I loved rhodey’s line about “you work with what you got” as far as their disabilities. I felt so bad for new nebula because old nebula SUCKKSSS and I hate she had to face her. I loved that in this movie thanos was wearing his armor because 2014 thanos was not as strong or secure with himself. His energy was SO different compared to the thanos we saw in infinity war so props to josh brolin

- natasha/clint: Well go ahead and rip my heart out. The audience knows only one of them is coming back but they have no idea. And they love each other SO FUCKING MUCH they both tried to sacrifice themselves to save the other person. That is true love. Jeremy renner is such an underrated actor and his reaction to natasha dying just killed me. But so did scarlett johansson’s acting as much as I hate to admit it because I’ve really stopped liking her as much due to her recent acting choices but she played that scene so well. And I will miss natasha romanoff forever. She deserved so much more and paved the way for all the other female superheroes in the mcu

- everyone crying over nat and especially steve broke me. They had such a special friendship, almost as strong as her and clint and I feel so many people forget that because of how natural they were together. And her last words to him were that she would see him in a minute and then she didn’t come back..

- i just realized i havent talked about thor and thats honestly because my brain blocked it out. I like that they explored his depression but dont like that he was made the joke of the avengers and I don’t think it was handled well. I did enjoy his conversation with frigga and by that I mean it made me cry. (also loki deserves a conversation like that too don’t @ me)

- STEVE WIELDS MJOLNIR!!! IT WAS SO BADASS AND MY DREAM COME TRUE I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE EXCITED IN A MOVIE. To me that was the absolute highlight of the movie

- And then sam says “on your left” and all the characters come and the music... poetic cinema

- thanos is a weak little bitch and as soon as wanda was beating him he was fine with his own troops dying just so he could get away

- TONY AND PETER REUNITING CURED MY DEPRESSION AND THEN GAVE IT RIGHT BACK

- CAROL IS SO POWERFUL MY LESBIAN QUEEN

- sebastian stan has no business looking this good my god

- I forgot how much I missed peter parker

- I didn’t notice mbaku until my second viewing and honestly the wakandan characters were shafted like poor shuri we didn’t even know she was dusted until a few weeks before the movie

- I know everyone loves the scene of all the women characters carrying the gauntlet but honestly marvel has a long way to go before they reach equality and it honestly wasn’t enough for me

- side note pepper fighting back to back with tony was awesome

- ugh tony’s face when he realizes what he has to do and he looks at strange for confirmation... give rdj an oscar like my god. He knows that the past few years have led up to this moment and he is absolutely terrified and determined and I am tearing up while writing this because I am remembering it so vividly

- peter parkers goodbye had me crying why is tom holland such a good actor

- pepper’s goodbye BROKE ME... “you can rest now” I think that is the epitome of tony’s arc. For his entire storyline he has been trying to right his wrongs and save his friends and the world and that is so much for one man to carry on his shoulders and everyone knew it would be the death of him. I know tony stans are pissed off that he died, but I don’t see him just being able to retire. Obviously I didn’t want him to die, but his whole storyline has been leading up to this. He truly got a hero’s sendoff and was solidified as THE hero of the mcu. This era started with him and it ended with him. It was a beautiful sendoff for the character that started it all. And I don’t think rdj would go along with it if he didn’t approve

- Steve’s ending.... so I knew from spoilers what would happen and while it was something I wanted in theory I was pissed when I first found out. But it somehow worked. If you look at steve’s arc, he has always been a man out of time. For everyone getting mad he was hung up on a girl he kissed once, it’s pretty much confirmed in agent carter that he and peggy were on the DL for 3 years. she wasnt just a crush he knew for a few months. They loved each other and fought side by side for three years and time took him too soon. In age of ultron the only part I liked was steve’s vision where he gets a dance with peggy. As much as he moved on in the present, the possibility he missed with her always haunted him. You can tell in peggy’s video in the winter solider that even though she married and had kids, the thought of steve still gets her choked up. When she sees him as an old woman she immediately crumbles. They both have referred to each other as the loves of their lives. 

- So with that said, I don’t think it’s weird or out of the blue that he would suddenly decide to try and go back to peggy. They won, bucky is back and safe, sam is back and safe, he can finally rest, and he has the tools to go back in time. The way I interpreted it, Bucky 100% knew what he was going to do. The look on his face, the tone of his voice. He knew Steve was not coming back, and he also knew he deserved to have that happy ending. So while sam and bruce thought it would only be 5 seconds, bucky turned away from the machine, knowing steve wouldn’t show up there. I ship stucky too because I just want steve happy so while at first I was like “how could he leave bucky??” watching it on screen it made sense. Bucky approved of his choice, and while he was saddened by it, he understood it. 

- In my interpretation, I don’t think steve stayed in the main timeline. I think him going back created an alternate timeline where he married peggy, dissolved hydra earlier, and freed bucky earlier. At some point, those two timelines merged, and he wandered over to where he knew they would be. OR after peggy died, he used the technology to travel back to that timeline when he was old. Or my friend suggested he could have met tony stark in his alternate timeline and asked for his help. Who knows. He literally came back with a shield, meaning he was at one point captain america again in that timeline. I don’t think there is anyway he could just stay quiet for 70 years about bucky being tortured and peggy running shield that was secretly hydra. I refuse to believe that. If the russos come out and say that’s what he did, then I’ll backtrack and say I don’t approve of steve’s ending. But as of right now I’m okay with it. 

[bridgertonlife]

End Game Q&A from Russo Brothers in China

Q: Why Ironman has to be the one to do the final snap, couldn't the people like Thor, Starlord or Captain Marvel whom all previously have handled the power of Infinity Stones done it instead?

A: Thor in this movie couldn't do it, only Hulk was strong enough to do the snap without dying. We are still not sure whether Captain Marvel can also withstand all the power of Infinity Stones at once. The reason we choose to let Ironman do it in the end was because he was the closest one to Thanos at the time. In all the futures Doctor Strange foresee, Ironman was the only one who could get close to Thanos and do the snap. People usually think the death of a hero is a horrible tragedy. But we think this is different. When his death was able to bring back hope, to save half of the universe, then his death was powerful and meaningful. We shouldn't feel too sad or anger about it.

Q: Peggy Carter was probably already married and in her mid 40s in 1970, in that case what year was it that Captain America went back to dance with her?

A:We can't answer it for now, this is a story that happened in an alternate reality. Maybe it will be revealed in the future.

Q: Did Captain America's action at the end affect the timeline? Does that mean there was a time where two CA existed in a same universe?

A: To me, CA's action in the end wasn't the fact he wanted to change anything, it's more like me has made a choice. He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality. He lived a completely different life in that world. We don't know how exactly his life turned out, but I'd like to believe he still helped many others when they were needed in that world. Yes, there were two CA in that reality, it's just like what Hulk said, what happened in the past has already happened. If you go back to past, you simply created a new reality. The characters in this movie created new timeline when they went back to the past, but it had no effect to the prime universe. What happened in the past 22 movies was still canon.

Q: In both IW and EG, the heroes tried their back to take the glove away from Thanos, so why didn't Doctor Strange just cut off Thanos' hand with his ability?

A: Thanos' skin is almost impenetrable, we don't know whether Doctor Strange had the capability to do it. If he failed to cut it on time, Thanos would still able to do the snap. Doctor Strange realized this issue during his millions test runs.

Q: Why did you make Thor fat? Did Chris also become fat for the roll or it was done throug CG?

A: It was mostly CGed. Thor suffered more loss than anyone else, he has been living in constant pain and regret.

Q: Was old Cap played Evans using make up? Or it was also post production CG?

A: 95%CG, 5% make up. But the voice was 100% Evans, no modification for that.

Q: Can you get the soul your sacrficed for the Soul Stone back when you return it?

A: No, the process is irreversible. Even if you have returned it to its original location, you wouldn't be able to get the person back. In fact, it's not really returning the stone, more like put it back properly. The tribute soul for the soul stone will forever be sealed in that place, therefore Black Widow is gone forever.

Q: How would Cap react when he encounter Red Skull when he returned the stone?

A: Red Skull would probably put the soul stone back to its location, and wait for the next unfortunate stone seeker to make sacrifice. Cap and Red Skull probably won't fight. It's because it's his mission to return the stone to its original place. The Red Skull is also no longer the same Red Skull from FA. He is more like a ghost, you could almost say he's a completely different entity now. He only exist to guard the stone, his past conscious may or may not exist anymore.

Q: In IW, Thanos used the time stone to reverse the time so he could the already dead Vision, and it didn't cause any time parallax. Why did no one use time stone to save Ironman's life in EG?

A: It's because even if you save Ironman, it will still not change the fact that Thanos will eventually win the war. Among the 14million possibilities that Doctor Strange has seen, Ironman's sacrifice is a must for that one win scenario.

Q: How did Thanos bring his army to the future?

A: There is a guy called Maw in his army, he was a great wizard. Thanos himself was a brilliant genius as well. Those two easily reverse engineered and mass produced Pym Particles.

Q: What about those people who got dusted? What did those five years mean to them? Why didn't they grow older when undusted?

A: Yes, those people whom was lucky to survive the snap are 5 years older than the people who just got back. The reason Spider Man saw his friend again in high school at the end was simply because his friends was unfortunately also dusted like Spider Man was. Of course, there are people in his grade whom didn't die and they are probably already in colleges by now. To those dusted people, they had no conscious in these past 5 years. They didn't know what happened. It's as if they had just woke up from a long sleep. The only one who was aware about how many years has passed was Doctor Strange, because he has already seen that when he was time mediating on Titan. Parker's reunion with Nat was a touching moment. There are also people whom indeed moved on but suddenly was reunited with their lost ones. Yeah it's kind a complicated world now.

Q: What if the mouse didn't press the button to turn on the quantum machine, wouldn't that stop EG from happening? Isn't this a bit too much a coincidence?

A: Yes, the MOUSE SAVED UNIVERSE. Among the many realities in those 14millions possible futures Doctor Strange foresee, the mouse failed to press button and thus the heroes failed in those futures.

Q: EG's plot, is it a parallel universe or a closed time loop?

A: Nope, not a time loop. Both Ancinet One and Hulk were right. You can't change the future by simply going back to past. But it's possible to create a different alternate future. It's not butterfly effect. Every decision you made in the past could potentially create a new timeline. For example, the old Cap at the end movie, he lived his married life in a different universe from the main one. He had to make another jump back to the main universe at the end to give the shield to Sam.

Q: There were some metal smashing sound when the movie ended. Was that easter egg? or just a tribute to Ironman, or maybe an implication that Ironman will return?

A: It was our way to say goodbye to him.

Q: Why there was no Ironman's body in his funeral, only his arc reactor? And is there any secret messages for bring back that kid from Ironman3?

A: We just feel that he should participate in Ironman's funeral. As for whether he will appear again in future, who knows.

Q: Why didn't Black Widow get a funeral as well?

A: Did you forget when the heroes where mourning for her after when they returned from past? Maybe her funeral happened off screen. Maybe it will be shown in future installment, because there are still tons of stories in MCU that are waiting to be tell.

Source: https://ent.qq.com/a/20190429/007983.htm . Would be nice if someone can double check the translation

Thanks to anon from 4chan. http://boards.4channel.org/co/thread/107288171

¡¡¡¡¡¡PLOT HOLES EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!! The answers to all the questions are: 

1 - Because, US, the Russo bros. say so.

2 - It was CONVENIENT for our plot (yay same as in CIVIL WAR).

(The MOUSE SAVED THE UNIVERSE is my absolute favourite, because it means there’s a lot of realities where that mouse was killed off, just died, never plugged that engine... Whatever, and that means Tony, Pepper and Morgan lived their happy lives to a full, because Tony was never required for the Avengers Timetravel Shitshow, sorry Scott, rot forever in the quantum realm, I don’t care).

WOW, worst Marvel movie EVER.

I hate those four assholes, the writers and the directors. Fuck them 3000.

[fyeahkristin]

HERE ARE MY AVENGERS: ENDGAME THOUGHTS! HELLO YES THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE!

Hello, welcome to my tumblr! I don’t use it very much except for fandom stuff but I figured this was a good way to talk about my thoughts without everyone losing their bananas over spoilers on twitter. 

It goes without saying that THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE. 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

YUP. 

OK, so probably the thing I’ve been asked the most is How Do I Feel About Fat Thor. Great Question!

The short answer is: PRETTY FUCKING BAD! 

The long answer is: PRETTY FUCKING BAD*, But--**

*The treatment of fat Thor in this movie obviously sucks ass. We’re taking a character who has been through monumental change, and who is obviously suffering so much. And then for some reason, in our grand finale of the whole saga we are using that character... to make fun of fat people AND people suffering from mental illness AND from people suffering from substance abuse issues, all at once. Endgame reallllly runs the gamut here of Bad Fat Tropes: We’ve got an Actor Wearing A Fat Suit, we’ve got The Fatness Being Played For Laughs, we’ve got Jokes About How Fat People Are Slobs, we’ve got Completely Out Of Context Critiques About What Thor Must Be Eating, we’ve even got His Mom Telling Him To Eat A Salad! Like, they really went for it in terms of making me angry at everyone in the theatre who was eating all this up.

I’ve seen this movie twice now and somehow the laughing at the fat jokes was much MUCH WORSE at the second screening (catch these hands, woman who yell/giggled apropros of nothing “he’s SO FAT!!!!!”) I’m basing this on a sample size of two screenings so far, but my chances of getting into a fight with someone for laughing at Thor mid-screening has just been raised to 1/3.

I’m not opposed to the idea of tackling Thor’s obvious PTSD and substance abuse issues with the kindness and sensitivity they deserve. But like... this wasn’t that! Hearing people laugh in the theatre when Don Cheadle said that Thor’s blood was made of Cheese Whiz was infuriating. Especially when you’re dealing with someone like Chris Hemsworth who is obviously gifted enough of a comic actor to sell a litany of things... why punch down? 

**There is one (1) (ONE) (JUST ONE) (ONLY ONE) upside to the presentation of fat Thor. And I’m not so naive to unnecessarily give the Russos credit for making this choice intentionally because it clearly happened for the sake of plot convenience. But the one good thing that came out of making Thor fat was that ultimately, the Thor who helps smash Thanos to bits is... fat Thor! I kinda kept waiting for the montage where Thor loses weight before the big battle and it just... never happened. Like, when he gets back into the swing of things, he gets some armor that fits his new body and his beard braid glow-up, and then he fucking Goes To Town On Thanos (with Mjolnir AND Stormbreaker!!) as fat Thor. And I know it most likely wasn’t intentional, but I will admit I noticed and I was... slightly moved by it! It DOES NOT excuse any of the earlier stuff. Like, not at all. No one here is getting a medal! And this might be a good example of the bar just being so so so so sooooo low for fat representation, that I am like OM NOM NOM YES SO GOOD at something that doesn’t deserve credit. But in the midst of the carelessness of this film’s senseless cruelty about Thor’s body, we are accidentally shown a character who didn’t “lose the weight” in order to achieve his goals. And guess what, the world didn’t end! Thor didn’t mess it up! I think most importantly, it’s (intentionally or not) now an example of why we don’t need a character to lose weight to be powerful again. It honestly made me want to stand up in the theater and be like “WHO’S FUCKING LAUGHING NOW, YOU HORSE TURDS”  

Also, should Thor go on to have a weight loss montage in GOTG Vol. 3: you can basically disregard all of this. 

Anyway, those are my thoughts on fat Thor.

OTHER VARIOUS SKETCHED OUT ENDGAME THOUGHTS THAT ARE VERY DISORGANIZED (AND THAT’S WHY PAYING EDITORS AT MEDIA PUBLICATIONS IS ESSENTIAL):

-- In both screenings I was at, people fucking LOST THEIR SHIT when Cap caught Mjolnir for the first time. I fucking knew it too, Thor!

-- I know a lot of people are pissed about how the end of the film doesn’t really honor Bucky’s relationship with Cap as well as it could, and I think this is legit. But hear me out: the second time I watched this movie it occurred to me (from the way they are speaking to each other) that perhaps Cap and Bucky had a conversation before this that we don’t see where Cap spells out his intentions. Their interaction feels more like a true goodbye, and I think it’s possible we might see a flashback to this conversation early in the Bucky/Sam Wilson TV show.  I also think that anyone who didn’t see Peggy as endgame hasn’t been paying attention (and to be honest about my biases, I have always ALWAYS loved Agent Carter, and so this ending is very much a fix-it fic for me.) (Bring back Agent Carter, you cowards.)

--To quote Alanna Bennett “[Time Travel] has never once made sense in a movie or TV show bc it’s literal nonsense” so of course it doesn’t make sense in Endgame either. I know Cap theoretically should have gone out help Bucky and fix S.H.E.I.L.D. and stop 9/11 or whatnot but he didn’t and to be honest, I’m not gonna spend so much time thinking about it where it hampers my enjoyment of the movie. You know what also has plot holes? Life. Life has fucking plot holes.  Cap is tired, let Cap has his nice life where his kick ass wife takes the drivers seat for once. 

--I agree with everyone who says they did Natasha dirty. Also the black Widow movie coming out next year IS (reportedly) A PREQUEL? Marvel, that’s a straight up Lucasfilm trap, don’t fall for it. Just yadda yadda magic amulet and bring Natasha back, you have the power! As a an aside, I am a staunch believer that prequels are never a way to move a franchise forward. The way to move a franchise forward is to... create more characters and move it forward. I am a visionary, I know. Hire me to consult at your next business gathering!

-- Oh, Tony. In retrospect, this was the only major death that could have both made sense and honored the journey of the character, but I still wasn’t ready. The only upside here is that Shuri must now be Our Princess Of Technology And Gadgets and I am ready for it. 

EDIT:

--MY STONY SHIP LIVES FOREVER this was the most Stony movie I could have possibly imagined that also involved Tony being married with a kid. Tony and Cap spent the whole movie having mental make-up sex, you can’t convince me otherwise, TONY CHECKING OUT CAP’S ASS IS NOW CANON. IT’S CANON. 

[etuwubrutus]

heartsong is amazing but you already knew that

Heartsong. Is. So. Good.

(Spoilers. duh.)

the beginning of the story, when i thought it was taking place before robbie joined the pack? ended me.

and that was literally just the beginning

ezra was actually a likeable character

and then a really, really unlikable one

i hate to say i didn’t see it coming

‘would you hear me, dear?’

DON’T DO THIS TO MY SON

I LIKED YOU FOR A SECOND, EZRA

i did find something off about that sentence, but damn tj klune knows how to write well

the bridge scene. the bRIDGE SCENE.

“It’s me. Kelly.” “Who?”

THAT HURT WAY TOO MUCH

okay about robbie’s backstory, shit, it was done so well, it explains so much about him. i wish it was brought up more in the rest of the story, but the thought of six-year-old robbie watching his mother die is arguably one of the best scenes in the book

the GLASSES. HIS MOM. IT WAS DONE SO WELL.

i liked kelly? in the first two books. but we never got to see too much of him - he was mostly cold, awkward (still lovable) but seeing him fleshed out like this, being brutally honest about everything and showing anger, fear, hatred really made me love the character more

(i hate to say this but robbie 2.0 > original flavour robbie) don’t @ me

(they’re the same, in the end)

tony! jimmie! john! brodie! daniel! nikki! sonari? the caswell kids are the best, i love them

it was good how they didn’t downplay robbie’s bisexuality

or kelly’s asexuality

or tanner being aro

or jESSIE BEING BI, DOMINIQUE FOR THE WIN

i also love how dominique is described so frankly, like, she’s a woman of colour and is chubby, but she’s also a feral werewolf waitress? representation? yes?

yes i did line break because streams of text make me nervous

so,,, gavin livingstone? the timberwolf?

he’s such a fucking martyr, he and carter were made for each other

and jessie ANDREWS. chris ANDREWS. rico ESPINOZA. i don’t even know why i’m so happy but they finally have last names, guys

robbie’s inner turmoil, his hesitancy to trust anyone, his fits, they were so in character, tj klune hasn’t ever skipped to recovery, and we really got to see the ugly, brutal sides of robbie’s aftermath here

robbie

punched

elizabeth

in

the

face

i don’t know why i’m so shook by this but what guys original flavour robbie would never

also? kelly being human? that’s...i don’t even know how i feel about that.

also, was that part a hint toward jessie becoming a wolf? i am so lost, but in a good way

rico being distrustful of robbie for so long is so understandable and it still hurts that rico would try and trigger him (as a joke) and threaten to kill him (as a joke) because what do you do when the people you care for the most hurt (kill) each other? rico doesn’t know, but he’s learning

also i love rico and bambi they’re such a nice couple

so nice

not violent and terrifying at all

nope

wonder what hell their kid is going to raise

michelle hughes didn’t deserve a redemption-by-death but i honestly see no other way of her becoming a non-antagonizing character.

like

i really hate her

it’s so funny that the pack were used to robbie not wanting to fight or touch them but then robbie 2.0 comes in like ‘fight me bitches’

he instigates so many people in so little time

see this is why i love him

that end chapter? with robbie’s flashbacks? they were AMAZING

so much ship content

so much emotions

so

sad

also, carter (i like him, but i’m not extremely invested in his character) seems to be getting up to stuff. i didn’t expect that stuff in the end, wow carter, you almost pulled a Joe on us

the timberwolf, gavin (what do we call him) is...man i hope he’s okay

also, fuck robert livingstone

serieously

screw him

he can go and die (again, hopefully forever this time)

also i am proud of my son robbie for tearing out his eye, man, he’s one of the best fighters in the pack

also robbie reading shitty romance novels, i can relate (not really) good for him

kelly’s complete and utter love disdain

i’ll probably add to this later but this book was everything

[pepperony3000-archive]

Wait Endgame is your second favorite? That's surprising! No judgement though, but now I want to know how you rank all of them

Oh goodness… that is TWENTY-THREE MOVIES to rank! That’s hard! This might get very jumbly at around the midway point…

1) Iron Man 3 - Everything about it is so perfect. The Iron Fam being chaotic but also 100% supportive of each other? Tony being the first superhero in history to deal with mental disorders blatantly!!! onscreen!!! The action is top notch. The final battle needs to be taught in film school because it’s literally a metaphor for Tony’s main personal theme of feeling like he’s nothing without his armor, but then at the end he’s able to leap from one to the other because it’s not the armor itself that makes him powerful, it’s that he has the powerbravery/will to leap from one to the other.

2) Avengers: Endgame - Y’all are looking at it wrong. Pretend the Infinity Saga is a TV show and it just ended, and now the rest of the MCU is a spinoff show featuring some of the newer/recently introduced characters, but without the core group of the original show.Suddenly the most important characters getting to leave with a bang isn’t as frustrating.But I also love it because it got my two favorite characters so beautifully right! Tony and Natasha, because they are the two who are deemed worthy enough to be turned into the big talking points of the movies, got to end their TV show finale with a huge glorious heroic sacrifice that will make them remembered forever!The time travel is also REALLY clever. And this is coming from someone who has watched a LOT of time travel shows/movies. There is literally only one movie I’ve ever seen that handled time travel better, and that was Arrival. They did away with the time travel paradox by having every past even just create an alternate timeline. And really? They only asked for suspension of disbelief in service of a joke that was not even that funny and I sort of hated and because they wanted the old Steve scene to have a particular emotional resonance, and having him come back through the portal old… wouldn’t have done that. 

3) Iron Man - I firmly believe that this is the best movie in the entirety of the MCU. It was the first, and yet it has never been topped. (and yet it’s #3 on my list rofl)It gave us a very complex lead character with a supporting cast that had a lot more depth in their first outing than some of the OG6 had after four movies (*cough*Clint*cough*Thor*cough* - Thor only got good development after Ragnarok). There was also subtlety to the story that it seems hollywood writers in general (and MCU specifically) is incapable of anymore.

4) The Avengers - the very first time in history we get a massive teamup of superheroes? sign me the FUCK up!Loki was a fantastic villain, the characterization of all of them (except for Clint… sorry, pal) was absolutely amazing, and it’s just pure unadulterated fun. Not much more to say than that.

5) Black Panther - Live Action Lion King (2019) WHOMST? There was a live action Lion King in 2018 and it was called Black Panther!I have a few issues with it fuck YOU vibranium! but it’s SUCH a good movie. T’Challa is quite possibly the noblest MCU character/lead, and the supporting cast are all incredible. I also loved the idea that the villain was… actually… right? Oh he was wrong a FUCK in deciding that the way to go about getting it was through violence, but his end goal was correct.Which is actually very subtle (and again… one of the very few MCU movies to do that) and very important message - because so often people seem to think that violence is the answer. Because the cause is “right” and “just”, excessive violence or threats of violence are considered the proper course of action. But as Killmonger proved, that wasn’t the way. Instead we all need to be like Nakia - who wanted the same thing, but worked for it through kindness, sacrificing her own desires, and making the first tiny hole in the dam.

6) Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I firmly hold that this is one of the most overrated MCU movies, and it’s what started Steve Rogers down his path to… the character he ended up becoming… but it is an excellent movie!Natasha gets amazing development, Sam Wilson is better in this movie than he has been since, and the emotional stakes are very high and very well thought out. Also I’m sorry but the bold political statement of “nazis torturing people is bad” is… not all that subtle? or bold? I don’t know why people are saying that this is the movie that addresses difficult political questions because… it doesn’t?

7) Spiderman: Far From Home - I’m sorry y’all, but I love my boy Peter Parker and if you don’t like this movie then I might just fight you.It was a terrific followup to Endgame, and Peter’s trauma was dealt with in a very realistic and unbearably painful way. Mysterio was the perfect villain for Peter to face, because he forces him to confront his trauma… even though he forces it by first torturing Peter with it, but Peter is forced to find a way to cope with his fears, his grief, and his feelings of inadequacy. Also Peter/MJ is the literal cutest and I love them so much.

8) Avengers: Infinity War - ngl this was a VERY tough battle between this and FFH, but FFH won by just a hair.Thanos is the greatest villain of our generation, quite possibly of the past 2-3 generations. The characters they chose to pair up together worked extremely well - I didn’t know how much I needed the Thor/tree/rabbit teamup until it happened. And then that ending… never before has the world held its breath together in such shared anguish as when we watched Spiderman all the characters we love so much fade away into dust. And there was a great cry in all  the world, such as never has been or ever shall be again!

9) Captain America: The First Avenger - Steve Rogers has never been better than he was in this film. Unfortunately it was all downhill after that, but it’s because of this film that he was my second favorite character for a good five years. There is a gentleness to this Steve that is utterly lacking starting in The Winter Soldier, where he becomes this machismo who obsesses far too much over anything he has one (1) emotion about because he doesn’t know how to handle it.This Steve Rogers is emotionally very intelligent, and is genuinely willing to do whatever it takes to do what is right.And I will say, I can understand why he made the decision he made in Endgame, because Peggy is such a brilliant and dynamic and interesting person, I don’t think anybody could have resisted staying with her (if she agreed to have him). @Marvel please bring back Agent Carter, because I need more Peggy.

10) Captain America: Civil War - This movie did a lot of studio mandated things, and because of that was weaker than it might have been, but I hold that it is a very good and very solid movie. Unfortunately, a big fault of the movie is that I don’t think Chris Evans believed in what he was performing, and so couldn’t give it the complexity that it needed (particularly as the Russo’s take input of their cast into consideration when making their movies… actors get to choose a lot of their own character beats unless it’s a plot-mandated beat). And unfortunately, Steve Rogers suffered for this.If The Winter Soldier is the one where he began obsessing over anything that gave him one (1) emotion, this is the movie where that tendency grew two extra heads and turned into a monster. Steve sees this argument the way a soldier who is used to following orders during wartime would, whereas Tony sees this argument the way a strategist during peacetime might. Steve thinks Tony is “trying to win a war before it starts”, while Tony thinks he’s deescalating rising tensions. And unfortunately, Steve is too blinded by his one (1) emotion to see the complexities in the situation.Which, while it frustrates me how poorly this movie did Steve’s personality, those dynamics are very interesting to watch play out onscreen. Plus, the dialogue is sharp and witty, and the emotional beats - particularly everything that has to do with Tony, is some of the most beautifully written and performed drama I’ve seen in a while.

11) Spiderman: Homecoming - This movie did such a good job of giving us a teenaged Peter Parker. All the other movies, Peter didn’t feel like a teenager. He felt like a grownup. This Pete is definitely a teenager - he’s a young kid in a big world trying to be a superhero, and because of that trying to take on problems that he is not experienced enough to take on.The journey he takes on this movie is to learn just exactly that, and by the end he probably is experienced enough now  to take on those bigger threats, but he makes the mature decision not to do that quite yet - proving exactly the kind of man he will eventually grow up to be.

12) Thor: Ragnarok - Finally Thor gets developed. Hemsworth really shows off his acting chops in this movie. He’s always been very charming as Thor, but this is the movie where we learned that he’s not just charming, but also a very talented actor. I personally found some of the clumsiness/slapstick around his character a bit much, but Hemsworth performed it perfectly.This is a movie where the story doesn’t actually matter. Honestly… who even remembers the story? The important thing about this movie are the characters, and they are all done incredibly well, except possibly Loki, and even he got some good development at the very end of it. Thor is finally an interesting character, Hela is an amazing villain, Bruce got some fun development, and Valkyrie should have been introduced five movies ago (@Marvel give me a Valkyrie movie! Why the FUCK are we reportedly getting Thor 4 when you could have had Thor stay behind as king of Asgard and giving Val her own  movie instead? Especially since all of Thor’s important relationships are dead or in the gotg movie, so he has nowhere to move on to! If we don’t have good characters/dynamics, Thor 4 will suck! It will also suck because the heart of his movies have been his relationship with his brother, and that’s gone now).

13/14) Ant Man and the Wasp/Ant Man - Honestly these movies can just be grouped together, because they’re very very similar, and all I would have to say about one I’d say about the other.

The Antman movies are very light hearted and comical, and the important thing here (like Ragnarok) is not the story, but the characters. The family relationships explored here honestly feel like real families - they just happen to live in a world with superheroes. I think AMaTW is the better of the two, but only by a little bit.

15) Iron Man 2 - This is another movie that was made lesser than it could have been due to executive meddling. Honestly, if you re-cut the movie and just take out all of Coulson’s scenes it becomes a much better movie (and would have gone higher on the list).As it is, Coulson dumps expositional world building that doesn’t really work in the context of the movie.What does work is the chaotic-yet-supportive Iron Fam (once again), and the introduction of Black Widow. I think Natasha might have had the best introduction in the MCU, because the audience was who she was fooling. Her job is to manipulate people and fool them into thinking she’s what she wants us to think she is, and only reveals the truth when she’s ready for it. And that is exactly how we were introduced to her. The underlying plot of Tony struggling with his imminent death was also incredibly well done. He wanted so desperately to not be dying, but there wasn’t anything that he could do. And when he ran out of options, he behaved in such a way to make things worse for him (health wise), because nothing was worse than sitting back and waiting for death to come. Better for it to come quickly and for the agony of just waiting for it to pass. Unfortunately Coulson takes away some of the gravitas of that by forgetting Tony was dying and threatening to taze him…All in all, a weak story but fleshed out by some of the best characters the MCU has ever created and introduced.

16) Doctor Strange - A decent movie with decent characters. There is nothing particularly memorable about it, but also nothing particularly bad about it either (beyond casting a non-Asian actress as the Ancient One).

17) Thor - Sort of like Doctor Strange, a decent movie with a charming lead but mostly terrible supporting cast. I will hold that none of the human characters are actually very good. At all. The best thing Ragnarok did was drop them all like the movie ruining load that they are.Once again, Loki is a good villain and an interesting character, and while Thor is underdeveloped he’s incredibly charming and likable in spite of that.

18) Captain Marvel - Yes I am a woman. Yes I disliked Captain Marvel. Can we move on from that please.If Thor is a decent movie with a charming lead, Captain Marvel is a decent movie with a terrible lead. I do not find Carol to be particularly interesting, and will hold that Brie Larson was incredibly miscast in the role. (if you want to hear why, you can peruse this). In general, it’s also a movie that relies a little bit too much on 90s nostalgia, and as somebody who personally hates when a movie relies on nostalgia to be considered “good”, all of that rubbed me the wrong way. The same applies to Ragnarok tbh, but I didn’t mention it up there because I wanted to rant about wanting a Valkyrie movie. (@Marvel please)Unfortunately, this movie is also not one bit subtle with it’s message. And as a woman, I do not relate to a woman whose only personality trait is “stand up to men”. Every other female character in the MCU is quite capable of standing up to men, and they all have a lot of character outside of that. And I will stop there because even saying that much risks me getting blocked right off of this hellsite…

19) Guardians of the Galaxy - I am definitely in the minority for this one, but I never liked this movie. If the 90s nostalgia in Captain Marvel rubbed me the wrong way, the 80s nostalgia in this movie was rubbing me the wrong way. with sandpaper.But my biggest problem with this movie is that Quill is not interesting enough (in my opinion) to be the central character. These characters all feel like sidekicks, and without a strong central lead for them to be sidekicks to, everything just feels very underdeveloped. I also find the humor in these movies to be very cheap and childish.However, I love that the team very much became a family. I believe in their relationships with each other even if each person as an individual character feels very weak.

20) Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - If you took GOTG1 and flipped it on it’s head, you’d get GOTG2. This is quite possibly the worst MCU movie ever, except that… somehow… it has some of the most heartfelt and meaningful emotional beats out of all of them.I felt every single emotional beat, and the fact that the characters were all sidekicks… actually worked well for this movie. They didn’t need to be more than sidekicks, because the “kick” part of sidekick stands for “kick ass”.However, the story was atrociously bad, and one of the worst the MCU has ever done, which is why it’s below GOTG1. But only slightly.

21) The Incredible Hulk - Does anybody even remember this movie? It was boring, uneventful, had the wrong guy playing Bruce Banner, and was just poorly written throughout. 

22) Thor: The Dark World - This movie is a boring, dreary, horribly written, badly directed mess. Some of the stuff up on Asgard was decent except for the fact that they fridged Frigga for no goddamn reason, and everything that happened on earth was goddamn awful, verging on embarrassing. And don’t even get me started on the dark elves. They were rightfully dropped from the MCU and never mentioned again because they are just That. Bad.

23) The Avengers: Age of Ultron - the movie where Joss Whedon fucked up Natasha’s backstory for the sake of his self-insert ship, infantilized Wanda Maximoff by insisting the woman with cleverly displayed cleavage who was clearly in her 20s was actually only 15, did not solidify the team as a family (THIS IS THE MOVIE WHERE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN GODDAMMIT), and disrespected literally every movie that came before (including his own goddamn flick).Wow I just realized that most of the awful shit he did was done to the female characters. Can you believe this disgusting asshole has the audacity to call himself a feminist? Fucking disgraceful…Fuck Whedon. He doesn’t deserve to come within a thousand yards of a woman.

[agentem]

Endgame Questions: Racism, Branch Realities, Sacrificing Ladies, and other unpopular opinions

So at the end of Endgame, Old man!Steve gives the shield to Sam. And I have seen more than one tumblr say he gave it to Sam and Bucky to “share.” As a white lady, it’s really not my place to say this, but you’re a fucking racist piece of shit.

I can’t be nicer than that. I can’t. If you are so focused on the white guys in the movie that you can’t even seen what is happening in front of your face, then there is something fundamentally wrong in how you watch movies.

He gave it to Sam. To SAM. Bucky was not part of the conversation. Bucky hung back? You know why (He was mad that his “best friend” was going to let him get tortured by Hydra for years? Possibly.) But also because he knew it was Sam’s turn.

*

Another thought I had about this same scene is that Thanos destroyed the shield. Yet Cap has it back as an old man. So that means we definitely know that Steve has created a branch reality with no shield.

Thanks, Steve. You did a great job chopping the branches. We totally should’ve relied on you and no one else to do that.

It’s not like the Ancient One didn’t warn us that they were bad or anything.

I think Doctor Strange 2 should just be about him having to clean up the mess the Avengers made in this movie. That’s what he deserves if this was his big plan.

*

You might be sensing anger in this particular post. That is because Joe Russo is out there saying if your soul is sacrificed to the Soul Stone then you cannot ever be brought back.

And it kind of ocurred to me that he looked at photos from Avengers 1 and Guardians 1 and thought “You know what each of these franchises has too many of? Women.”

Because Endgame was supposed to be all about the “OG Six” right? And then I remember that the original plan for Avengers was not to have Black Widow, and Joss Whedon actually had to say to Marvel “No you need at least one lady.” And that doesn’t mean how Joss Whedon ultimately wrote that one lady wasn’t problematic. It just reminded me that there were legit people at Marvel who thought “we don’t need a single woman.” And those people are probably still there and right now they think it was a good movie and nothing is wrong now.

Maybe it doesn’t matter what Joe Russo thinks anymore. Maybe we should ask Cate Shortland and James Gunn if they think those two ladies are gone forever period end of story.

Like is it a coincidence that GotG 2 mentions Adam Warlock and he is deeply associated with the Soul Stone in comics? IS IT? (I ask, in all earnestness because I have read a bunch of articles about Adam Warlock because of this and I still don’t really get it.) Is it weird that I am counting on Gunn to bring Gamora back when he was the one who pushed her to the side, and made Star-Lord the lead of Guardians in the first place?

And then if Gamora comes back then Nat should come back, right? RIGHT?

I mean it is great that we have one franchise that is led by a women and, therefore, cannot just remove said woman from said franchise. (Like apparently Natasha and Gamora can be removed from Avengers and Guardians and how Jane Foster and Sharon Carter were removed from Thor and Captain America before them.)

But does that mean those created before Captain Marvel can NEVER expect equal treatment? Like can we expect Scarlet Witch and Nakia to both go insane, as they do in the comics, and be written out?

I can’t help thinking that they never would’ve switched the endings, and had Tony sacrifice himself to the Soul Stone and Nat die in the battle. Or that Chris Pratt could never have been sacrificed in Infinity War with no real follow-up. (Also why does “Chris Pratt” get a “with” credit like Samuel L. Jackson does? Like Robert Redford does? Get the fuck out of here with that shit. SLJ would eat him and I like Chris Pratt okay.)

[samcarpnter]

my endgame thoughts (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Alright so I saw Endgame last night and I have had time to process my feelings about it so be ready for my rant, and again this includes MAJOR ENDGAME SPOILERS

I first want to say that I did really like the movie. After all of the spoilers got loose and people who hadn’t even seen the movie were just slandering it nonstop, I was really scared that I was gonna hate the entire thing. That definitely wasn’t the case. I hate a few of the decisions the Russo brothers made but overall I thought the movie was really good. It’s not going to be my favorite marvel movie, nor do I think it’s the best one, but I think it did have an overall good ending to the Infinity Saga, even if some of the character’s endings weren’t what I liked.

C A R O L. Fuck the Russo brothers for teasing her so much just for her to be in five minutes of it. I will say though, when she was in it, she was the goddess we knew from her own movie and she KICKED ASS. I’m looking forward to seeing her lead the rest of the next chapter of the MCU. And I am really shocked that we actually got Carol in her iconic pixie cut, definitely didn’t think the MCU was gonna give that to us.

I am LIVID at the Russo brothers for saying “oh yeah we have a gay character in the film whoohoo!” AND IT WAS FUCKING JOE RUSSO’S STUPID FACE TALKING ABOUT GOING ON A DATE WITH A MAN. OOH I’m mad, because number one that is QUEERBAITING because we thought it meant Carol but no the Russos don’t want us to have nice things.

Thor. My god that was awful. I knew about his awful hair but I did not know about the beer belly and his weight gain. That pisses me off so goddamn much. It wasn’t necessary, it really fucking wasn’t. There are many other ways they could have depicted his depression without that. As a plus size person, I was disgusted because everyone in the theater was dying of laughter just at the sight of Thor almost anytime he came on screen. He was there just to be a lazy source of humor because people love fat jokes. Obviously, there really isn’t plus size representation in the MCU and I am perfectly fine with that because I mean these are superheroes and aliens and literal gods, it makes sense that they aren’t, and sure there was a fat joke every once in a while but even I find the occasional one funny. When it is pretty much the biggest source of comedy for the movie minus Scott, that crosses a line. It really felt like the only reason Thor was there was to supply constant fat jokes, and honestly that’s just lazy writing on the Russo brother’s parts not that I expected much more let’s be honest

Nat’s death … I mean if you’ve followed me for a while I don’t think it’s a secret that I don’t like Scar Jo and I don’t like MCU Nat because the writers have screwed her over time and time again and then on top of that, Scar Jo just doesn’t … do anything ?? Like I do not see the appeal to her acting if that’s what you want to call it. Hell, I could probably do a better Nat. Honestly I’m pretty happy that they killed her off because that means Nat won’t have to be portrayed poorly anymore and I won’t have to see Scar Jo’s face for the rest of the movies, with the exception of maybe the Black Widow movie if that happens but it’ll probably be a prequel so I am all good with that. I am sad that any version of Natasha dies but I just don’t want to see one of my favorite characters get treated so badly anymore.

Nebula. I was really happy with how big of a part she played in this film, she has always been a favorite of mine and her development has just been amazing. Karen Gillan really did so well in this film and I’m happy she was given the chance to show how important of a character she is.

Where was Okoye ??? Why put her on the poster, why have Danai on this huge press tour, why do any of that if I saw her A TOTAL OF TWO MINUTES?!?! They just baited us the whole time ugh....

I was not a fan of Professor Hulk. I don’t know it was but I just ... it just felt like something was off about him the whole time, and I really hope that it’s the end for Hulk just because I don’t know if I could take that again.

Scott is a gem. Scott is perfect, no one hurt him, no one change him, he stays forever. 

The time travel plot wasn’t bad, I thought, it’s basically what we expected even without the spoilers. The little changes when they went back in time to get the stones were great, especially Loki. Like the Tesseract just appeared next to him and he said YEET and left.

The final battle was EPIC especially the moment when all the portals open and everyone appears oh my god that was magical, though I wish we got to see more reunions like Steve should have RAN to hug Bucky :( but Sam saying “on your left” to let him know they fixed the snap was incredible. And the Steve fucking WIELDING MJOLNIR !!! AMAZING. And that scene when all of the super ladies were helping Carol get the gauntlet to the van I mean GODDAMN that was breathtaking. Literally everyone in the theater was cheering and shouting during it which made it so much better too. And Pepper as Rescue, wow I’m so happy I was given that.

I was really happy that we got to see Gamora again, I mean seeing her kick Chris Pratt in the balls was one of the highlights of the movie for me. I hope that maybe they’ll find a way to bring her back but I’m a little hesitant because then that might mean Scar Jo would come back

Tony. As much as his death hurt me and as much as I love him and wish he didn’t die, I really do think that his death was the right way for him to go. We all know Tony, he could pull himself away for a while but he always went back to the fight, and he died to protect the family he found and that is the most Iron Man thing he could’ve done. And the fact that his last words were “I am Iron Man” ?? I mean come on that is how this whole thing started and we’re gonna end with that ?! Oof that was the most beautifully heartbreaking part of the movie. I love you x3000 Tony.

And now we get to the part that I’m most angry about … Steve Rogers. One of the best characters of the MCU (in my opinion) and the Russo brothers gave him That. I was seething when I saw it play out on screen, even though I had known it would happen from spoilers. There is no way, absolutely NO WAY Steve would have gone back and just lived a mundane life while KNOWING that Bucky was out there being brainwashed and tortured and he knew HYDRA was invading S.H.I.E.L.D the whole time, the place that Peggy, the person he went back for, built up and dedicated so much of herself to … and him leaving Bucky after Bucky had just gotten back to him? Nope, that is not the Steve Rogers that we have grown to love and I would rather he had died protecting those he loved than THAT. Yes, I think he deserves to be happy and Peggy is one of many sources of happiness for him, but he has so many more in the timeline he left behind that I just don’t see him risking all of that for Peggy. I really think this was the easiest way for Marvel to establish that Steve is heterosexual and that there is Nothing There with Bucky because they are cowards. And another thing, it just completely goes against literally everything Agent Carter was about. I love Peggy, and I always loved her with Steve, but she moved on and he needed too as well WITH BUCKY OR SAM OR TONY OR REALLY ANYONE ELSE. Agent Carter was basically all about Peggy proving herself to be more than just Captain America’s girlfriend, and Steve going back to disrupt all of that is just so wrong on so many levels. The only good thing that came out of this ending for Steve was that he gave Sam the shield, and I hope in the Falcon and Winter Soldier show we get to see Sam fulfill that role. I love Bucky (if you couldn’t tell from my URL) and I loved him as Cap in the comics and I would love to see him as Cap in the MCU, but I really think Sam should take the mantle from Steve, at least for right now just because Bucky is really still healing from his memories of HYDRA and everything that happened with Civil War, and my baby just needs to rest at least a little bit

I do like that Thor is partnering with the Guardians, I really think they will be a great new family for him. And we were fed well when he crowned Valkyrie the king of Asgard, which is what she deserves. It does worry me that maybe we won’t see her again unless there is another movie with Thor in it, but it’s not really confirmed if Hemsworth is done with the franchise, so if this was it for her, I’m glad she got that ending.

So I’m still pretty heated about Steve and Thor and the fucking Joe Russo queerbaiting cameo, but overall it was a really good movie, and I think a good ending for most of the characters. It was a crazy ride but I am very much looking forward to Far From Home and everything that is to come, I think we have a great lineup of superheroes to fulfill the next phase of the MCU. And also, the America’s ass line was the best thing that happened in the movie.