#i forget what i tag my series of 'it happened offscreen!' posts with...

[mittensmorgul]

anarchiana replied to your post “I rewatched S14 this week. In 14x19 there's that harsh line from Dean...”

@mittensmorgul Hi Mittens! Thank you so much for answering, I should have checked your previous posts first before asking my question, I’m sorry! I read the posts you linked now, thank you for linking and for your insights.  <3  I really should know by now to read your posts before I watch an episode. This show is such a minefield of mindfucks, my brain blue screens me when I think about all the spirals and mirrors and layers and whatnots... ����

@mittensmorgul One thing after reading your posts. Do you think that we are supposed to think that Dean and Cas don’t talk about the harsh words between them; that they don’t need words to get over their shit; or that they somehow talk about it and we simply don’t get to witness those scenes? Or it doesn’t matter because that’s not the focus of the show?  Thank you ��

Hi there, and no worries! It’s probably an excellent time for me to have gone back through all of that anyway. :D

I think we absolutely are being told that they DO talk offscreen. And that they do it frequently. That was a major theme of the last few seasons, going back to at least 12.19 with the Mixtape Revelation.We learned at at some point, Cas and Dean had at least one (1) offscreen conversation that we never knew about before, and not only that, but the implications of the nature of that conversation based on the fact that it culminated with Dean gifting Cas a freaking mixtape, well... that’s a personal conversation, you know?

Then 14.18 doubled down on that with all the flashbacks of Mary’s life since her resurrection, which began with Cas’s recollections of her from a time shortly after the events of 12.03. So this “things have happened that you didn’t know about” has been applied to everything, not just Dean and Cas’s interpersonal stuff. But Dean and Cas’s interpersonal stuff has still been at the core of this particular theme, and most of these “we talked about this while the cameras were off” situations ARE about Dean and Cas’s personal interactions. Mixtape, they casually watch movies together, they casually spent several weeks holding down the fort at the bunker together while Sam took off to avoid dealing with the grief of 14.14, etc. These are such TINY moments sometimes, we don’t really stop to think about what they’re actually telling us, repeatedly.

The hard truth is that while we LOVE these sorts of acknowledgements, they constitute the C plot of Supernatural, you know? The A Plot is the mytharc, the B Plot is the MotW and larger individual character arcs, and the C plot is... their relationships. So on the playing field of the story, this is just never gonna take center stage you know? Not that it’s not important, or doesn’t have a significant impact on the larger story. Like I said above, the themes these plotlines are being defined with are also defining the larger story as a whole. By nature, that MAKES them important.

It’s just that they will never (or at least not until right near the very end of the road) supersede the A Plot, and the B Plot. At that point, after the series-long A Plot has been resolved, we will be able to measure the true import of the C plot, you know?

But in some ways, the fact the show is repeatedly reminding us that these offscreen conversations are happening makes them more and more important. We’re being repeatedly badgered to just KNOW they’re happening, because the show has spent several years instructing us to make those logical jumps from what we saw last and what we’re seeing now, you know?

I remember the OUTRAGE from early s11 that Dean and Cas never talked onscreen. We felt we’d been PROMISED this conversation from the PR. Things such as “Dean and Cas resolve their differences,” and “they’re on the same page again” were dropped during the filming of 11.06, and many of us believed we were owed an onscreen conversation where they apologized to one another (Dean for 10.22, Cas for 11.03). And then the feeling of letdown was so powerful, for WEEKS some folks thought there was a conspiracy involving a cut scene that we never got. BUT WE DID GET THE DEAN AND CAS VERSION OF AN APOLOGY.

First off, Cas was trying to save Dean in 10.22, and got hurt because he refused to hurt Dean when he was so obviously going off the rails and not in control of himself. Dean was trying to save Cas in 11.03, and got hurt because he refused to hurt Cas when he was so obviously going off the rails and not in control of himself. PARALLELS! HOW THE TURNTABLES! wait I have that gif...

This is how the show deals with this sort of interpersonal drama... turnabout is fair play and all that. It was an eye for an eye, and they both knew they didn’t need to apologize, because they’d each experienced this painful walk in each other’s shoes, as it were. Neither of these incidents were “he was mean to me wah wah wah” that NEEDED an apology. Call it instant karma. Whatever. In the language of Dean and Cas, THEY understood and forgave each other, because neither had ever blamed the other in the first place.

But the show has expanded that language in very deliberate ways since then. Of course there are things they haven’t yet clarified for each other, but at this point, so close to the end, they’re standing right on the precipice. They’re at a point where ~actually having that conversation on screen~ will knock the whole wall down, you know?

Whatever is standing between them in early s15, I’m betting it’s something that will be clarified in 15.01. It’s probably built on the foundation of that conversation in 14.18, because that wasn’t just Dean telling Cas he was dead to him if Mary was dead... because Cas clearly isn’t dead to him. Dean didn’t even cold shoulder him for the rest of the season, you know? But the REAL foundation of any potential rift between them will be from Cas’s side, and the fear he described in that conversation:

Castiel: I was scared. I believed in Jack for so long, I... I believed that he was -- he was good. I -- I knew that he would be good for the world. And he was good for us. My faith in him, it -- it never wavered, and then I-I saw what he did. It wasn't malice. It wasn't evil. It was like Jack saw a problem, and in his mind, he just solved it with that snake. Dean: The snake?! Castiel: What he did wasn't bad. It was the absence of good. And I saw that in him. But we were a family, and I didn't want to lose that, so I thought I could... fix it on my own. Felt like it was my responsibility. So I left. And I didn't tell you. If I could go back and just -- just talk to him right then and there, I would. But I can't, Dean. I failed you.

THIS IS WHAT CAS FEARS MOST. That as much as he talks the talk that he’s part of the Winchester family, he is terrified that he really isn’t. He’s not “useful,” he’s not really family. He doesn’t understand that yet, and seriously, at this point, all it would take is a five minute conversation with Dean to resolve that... so obviously the show is gonna avoid resolving that for a while to drag out the drama, because that is literally the core character issue Cas has been dealing with since 4.01. That’s his entire character arc, and they won’t let him find peace until they’re done, you know?

So... instead, they have given us these important reminders that even though these character interactions between Dean and Cas aren’t crucial to their overall character development, at least not like That Big Conversation would be, or in a “we should take up precious screen time showing them kicking back and watching movies and having casual human interaction” sorts of ways, that they are important enough to tell us about, repeatedly. It’s important for us to know that their relationship is so much deeper and broader than what we see onscreen, you know? Like, they’re actually friends offscreen, who hang out and talk and do fun stuff for fun. THAT is all we really need to understand about them. Because that’s what adds that huge weight of depth to their relationship, you know? And all they have to do to maintain that is to keep surprising us with these little casual mentions of Things We Don’t See. What I like to call “The Other 364 1/2 Days.” Because our window into their lives is only open 42 minutes a week, 20 weeks a year (now, we used to get 23 weeks a year). That’s 840 minutes a year. There’s over 525,000 minutes a year we DON’T see. And the fact they repeatedly tell us how Dean and Cas spend their free time together seems significant within that tiny sliver of their lives, you know?

So it’s not really a matter of “important vs not important,” but priorities within an incredibly limited constraint on storytelling time.

[thesaltofcarthage]

Avengers: Endgame: Did Marvel Pull It Off?

This is a followup to my (surprisingly popular!) post “The Stakes Are Too High.” (at least, it surprised the hell out of me that it got so popular; I wasn’t expecting it to resonate as widely as it did.)

FULL ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I’m putting it under a cut just in case.

Also, above the cut in case you’re still dodging spoilers, tagging @kryptaria @iamanartichoke @taurileonis @hjbender @chey-tips22 @wu-the-stoic @englishontheinside  @rennemichaels @alwida10 @ladylowkeyed @saltoftheearths @mizkit @thelightofthingshopedfor @essesnceofhappiness @theravenofwynter @pinetreeparadoxx @ironhammermagicshieldedgreenbow @philosopherking1887 @waywardkansasflower @lokeanrampant @maneth985 @ilovethemallsoimconfused @bengalaas @icyxmischief @yuuki-fandoms @snailchick  @fictions-stranger  @adhdasianaroace @artherra @missmaladicta @queerfictionwriter because you specifically commented/reblogged.

So having seen Endgame, the question becomes: Did Marvel pull it off? 

My answer is: yes and no.

Did we get an emotionally satisfying ending? Did Marvel understand that closure doesn’t have to come with corpses?

There were a lot of things I loved about Endgame. There were many, many of the “small character moments” we were begging for. Marvel didn’t forget that we fell in love with people and we need to see people and their choices and how they live with the consequences of those choices... mostly.

I loved how Marvel rewarded the audience for watching 11 years of movies. It was practically wall-to-wall Easter eggs and callbacks. I loved how the time travel allowed us to loop back through some of our favorite scenes and see them from other points of view, and the additional information. (Sitwell and Brumlow taking the scepter immediately after Loki’s capture: oh, so that’s how HYDRA got the Mind Stone!) I loved the cameos upon cameos (despite how silly it is for someone like Natalie Portman to show up for literally 15 seconds and not get any lines). I appreciated that Captain Marvel was used exactly the right amount: she saved Tony and Nebula, she was established as part of the post-Snap team, she came in at the end to lend some firepower, but she did not have any part in solving the problem nor was she the person who ultimately handed Thanos his raisin ass. I LOVED THE FINAL BATTLE, HOLY FUCK. (With the exception of Loki not being present, but I’ll get to that.) There were real laughs, and real tears. I cheered when Steve summoned Mjolnir (and laughed my head off at the Cap-on-Cap fight). I loved Morgan and Cassie, and the echoes of fathers and daughters throughout.

There were things I did not love, even before we got to the final or semi-final fates of some characters. I was genuinely offended with Thor’s treatment. I was not happy with Loki. I was confused about Vision, Gamora, and Black Widow, because they are due to return for future TV shows and movies, so leaving their statuses open or cloudy (or “dead,” which I put in quotes for a reason) was just disconcerting. The time travel opened up a lot of problems.

My original post was about endings, so let’s talk about those. In approximately descending order of Satisfying to WTF:

Stan Lee: Got his last cameo in the end of the arc so he didn’t miss any, driving along, clearly having the time of his life. Excelsior, Stan, and thank you for everything.

Clint: Got his happy ending. He was deeply bitter about losing his family, but got them restored to him. He did lose Nat, but I’ll cover her in her own section.

Steve: He did get his soft epilogue, albeit with Peggy Carter, and I can’t fault that. Marvel was never going to give us the Steve/Bucky romance no matter how obvious it was, and Steve/Peggy also works. (And really, I love Peggy, so for her to get a happy ending too is a bonus.) Steve gave so much of himself over the years. I can’t object to allowing him to be selfish and re-live his life quietly, to finally put down his shield and go home from the war. He got his reward.

It basically works with the existing timeline if you squint and assume that Peggy’s Alzheimer’s was messing with her at the beginning of Civil War, or if there’s another timeline altogether. I’m slightly annoyed that whatever he got to have with Bucky all happened offscreen between the stinger of Black Panther and the beginning of Infinity War, but apparently they did spend time together. And Steve clearly told Bucky was he was planning; that’s what “I’m gonna miss you” was foreshadowing.

STEVE IS WORTHY OF MJOLNIR. YESSSSSS!

Bruce: I was okay with the “Professor Hulk” storyline (which I was told by a sharp-eyed nephew is from the comics), although I wouldn’t have minded seeing that internal struggle onscreen, but I understand it’s an IP rights issue and there isn’t going to be another Marvel standalone Hulk film.

Tony: Augh. AUGH! I get it. I know why he died, on a meta level. But still.

This, at least, we can say is mostly “heartbreaking” and not “burn.” Tony got the five-year interval to make some kind of peace with his losses. He and Pepper got married and had Morgan. He got some kind of Happy For Now. He got some kind of reward, which RDJ brilliantly conveyed even in the few minutes we saw.  

@hjbender linked @starkysnarks’s excellent post about Tony’s arc. One important part:

That’s why I think that giving a better, more positive message is so important. While other characters have flaws, it’s only Tony who has this consistent, this carefully streamlined storyline of improvement, of redemption, of self-realization and self-betterment. It’s Tony who is most often referred to (by the aforementioned mainstream outlets AND within the fandom) as the most human of the characters, and his story – as the most humane. His happy ending with a new house and young family will not feel like an opt-out, it will not feel complacent, at least not to me. It will feel like hope. It will feel like achieving, at least partially, the goal of that endless internal struggle that we all go through daily. It will feel like it’s possible to be good and be happy and be content, to know that you have done you best and your best is good enough for you to live, and go forward, and be.

He ultimately got some of this, for a while. Tony’s fatal flaw is his fear about Thanos, or the threat that Thanos represents. Prior to Avengers, Tony was happy-go-lucky because he could, eventually, beat whatever the world threw at him. But Thanos was not of this world, and would have wiped everyone out if Tony hadn’t managed to get that nuke through the portal. That trauma, that guilt, that fear, is what drives him for the rest of the Infinity Stones storyline. He is desperate to protect everyone. It’s what makes him want to put “a suit of armor around the world” in Age of Ultron, and of course the way Ultron backfires compounds Tony’s PTSD and guilt, which is what leads to his position in Civil War and the fight he picks with Steve at the beginning of Endgame.

And the worst happens in Infinity War, and the Avengers lose. Everything Tony feared ultimately happened.

Five years later, he’s managed to move forward. He has his happy ending — as happy as he can be, given their losses. He’s accepted his failure, more or less. He wants to rest, which is why he rejects Steve and the others at first.

But his tinkerer’s brain won’t let him put their proposal aside. He needs to know intellectually that there’s no chance, that he can’t fix what he screwed up. Because that’s the other part of what drives him: they lost. He lost. “I lost the kid,” he tells Steve (meaning Peter). That fear of loss, of losing people, of failing people, of disappointing people, is what keeps pushing him. If he knows that there’s no possible way he can undo his mistake, he’ll figure out a way to cope, especially since he still has Pepper and then his daughter. But now there is a way, or there might be, and he can’t let that lie, he can’t rest, until he knows one way or the other. And when the way to fix things becomes possible, there is no other outcome for Tony to choose. He wouldn’t be a hero otherwise.

It is a terrible loss, but in the end I could accept it. Tony got a Happy For Now. He was able to enjoy his life for a little while. He got the genuine closure with his father which he couldn’t in the BARF hologram at the beginning of Civil War thanks to the time travel, and he got to see Peter restored and give him the hug which they weren’t at yet in Homecoming. Tony was triumphant. He defeated his greatest, most terrible adversary. He defeated his fear. Thanos is gone, and his minions with him. The echo of “I. Am. Iron Man.” was exquisite. (even more so knowing that line in the first movie was ad-libbed! it wasn’t in the script! It was RDJ’s idea!) So his death is sad, but it’s earned.

Natasha: Meh. Just meh. The scene where she and Clint fight over who is going to die was blackly hilarious. It made narrative sense for Nat to be the one who died — she has found family, but not children; she spent the interval trying to run the Avengers and SHIELD and trying to fix things, and this allowed her to contribute in a material way; she still has a lot of red in her moral ledger — but on a meta level, we know there’s a Black Widow movie in the works. It doesn’t make sense to have a spinoff series set before Endgame when you know how the character dies. It’s not a bad ending, all things considered, but the actress herself can’t get younger. Is it supposed to be her origin/backstory movie after the character has died? Is it Multiverse Branching Timelines? Was she restored when Steve returned all the Stones to their place in the timeline? Was she restored with Tony’s Snap, or Bruce’s? Not knowing how that’s going to work with the rest of the MCU timeline blunted the emotional effect of her death for me.

Although he’s not an original Avenger, I had similar issues with Vision. There will be a Scarlet Witch and Vision TV series. Vision is still dead, according to Wanda at Tony’s funeral. So was he restored with either Bruce’s Snap or Tony’s? Was 2018 Gamora? 

And the two which completely did not work for me, the ones where I think Marvel really missed:

Thor: Of the original Avengers, he was the one I was most upset about.

I really, really did not like how Thor’s very legitimate grief, depression, PTSD, and alcoholism were played for laughs. Thor is down to a “kingdom” of a few hundred people at best (we don’t know what Asgard’s population was to start with, but Hela killed quite a few, and then Thanos killed half of them on the Statesman, and it’s entirely possible that the Snappening dusted half of whomever remained). He’s living with the murders of Loki, Heimdall, and the Warriors Three (I can’t remember if Sif was supposed to have survived the Snappening, but she doesn’t appear in Endgame). He didn’t “go for the head” in Infinity War, which clearly haunts him despite the fact that Peter Quill is just as much to blame for interrupting Strange, Tony, Peter, and Mantis, or Wanda is just as much to blame for not getting the Stone out of Vision’s head faster, etc. etc. He cut off Thanos’s head after the fact and is clinging to that — “Who else here killed Thanos?” — as some kind of cold comfort. “Look, at least I did that in the end. At least I got revenge.”

Thor is a mess. His family is dead. His dearest friends are dead. He’s in a depressive spiral, self-medicating with food and alcohol, lost in video games because they are a consequence-free way to “win.” He’s holed up with Miek and Korg because they didn’t know him before Ragnarok and they have no real expectations of King Thor, God of Thunder, Avenger, Hero. He feels he has failed at everything which has ever been expected of him.

And the script... plays this... for laughs.

We are meant to laugh at his pot belly and flabby physique. We are meant to laugh at his unkempt matted hair and wild unbraided beard. We are meant to laugh at his drunkenness, at how he passes out, at how he blearily begs and whimpers to be the one to unSnap everyone ( “Please let me do something good, something right,” he pleads), at how he returns to Asgard on the day of Frigga’s murder and tries to frat-boy off to the cellars for some of Odin’s best ale because he cannot face his failure on this day too.

None of this is funny. It’s not funny at. all. It’s horrifying.

I do understand that this is likely more Hemsworth than Marvel. The actor vocally complained that he was bored with formal, upright Thor and would have been done with the character without Taika Waititi’s more comedic take in Ragnarok. He has said in interviews that Thor in Endgame is the closest to Hemsworth himself that the character has ever been, and clearly the actor loves doing comedy. He’s good at it — I enjoyed Kevin in Ghostbusters 2016.

I don’t object to loosening up Thor. I don’t object to showing Thor spiraling into alcoholism and depression and hiding from the world in food and games. I object to using depression and alcoholism for comedy.

Thor faces Frigga, reluctantly, and she counsels her son whom she loves, telling him not to worry about living up to expectations but to be his best true self. This is consistent with both characters; Thor has accepted how hard it is to be king. Then as Thor is quantumming out she adds “And eat a salad.” Really? You had to throw that in there? She sees the wreck her son has become and she nags? She gives him some kind and loving advice, she knows there’s some weirdness going on, but she has to cap it with fat-shaming?

We are meant to mock formerly ripped Thor for being “fat and ugly,” but let’s be clear: Thor’s appearance is an outward manifestation of deep emotional issues. Thor has not been able to cope with his failure. He and Tony faced similar terrible losses. Both characters originally had sunny dispositions. Tony, who still had Pepper at least, has managed to crawl out of his hole and build something with his wife and daughter. Thor lost his brother, his other half, and has mentally, emotionally, and physically collapsed. There really is no Thor without Loki.

And speaking of, I’m going to scream for a moment:

SERIOUSLY, MARVEL, WHAT EVEN THE FLAMING FUCK WAS THAT? YOU TEE UP A GODDAMN LINE LIKE “I ASSURE YOU, BROTHER, THE SUN WILL SHINE ON US AGAIN” AND THEN IT DOESN’T PAY OFF? I FUCKING WAVED THAT FLAG FOR A SOLID YEAR BECAUSE I WAS CONVINCED YOU WERE SMARTER THAN THAT AND THIS IS HOW YOU DO ME?

Loki: I am well aware that Loki started as an antagonist, and that my perspective is skewed from the fandoms I choose to participate in. I know that he’s not an Avenger.

But purely from a narrative point of view, Marvel, ya done fucked up. You dropped the ball.

From my previous post:

Loki’s death in Infinity War was so stupid and narratively pointless that a lot of fans, myself included, believe that there’s a plan behind the scenes (since we know Endgame involves time travel) which somehow explains it and gives it meaning. Because if not, then one of the most popular MCU characters — the only antagonist to keep returning, film after film, and primarily because audiences love him — died for nothing.

And there you have it. Explaining it after the fact in Loki’s TV show doesn’t count (and we don’t know that they will). Yes, Loki grabs the Tesseract in 2012 and disappears, so you can argue that “he doesn’t die,” but all that really does is screw up the timeline. It creates another timeline branch which isn’t resolved.

Is everything now a branched universe? If Loki took off with the Tesseract, does that mean The Dark World and Ragnarok never happened? If Loki didn’t go back to Asgard in chains at the end of Avengers, that means TDW couldn’t have happened the way it did. It means that Loki didn’t sacrifice himself, but does that also mean that Malekith would have gotten the Aether/Reality Stone from Jane and killed her? (It was Loki’s plan which saved Jane, let’s recall. And killed Kurse.) Does that mean Odin is still alive and on Asgard? And Hela was never unleashed? And therefore Loki and Thor never ended up on Sakaar and Hulk and Valkyrie Brunnhilde are still there? Or worse, that Odin died and Hela was unleashed but Thor wasn’t able to stop her because he didn’t have Hulk, Valkyrie, and Loki to help him? So she’s now loose and rampaging across the realms murdering at will?

It was appropriate for the larger arc for Carol to be part of the cavalry swooping in during the final battle to pummel Thanos for a while, but I kept waiting for Loki to show up. Loki was tortured by Thanos and Ebony Maw, which is what kicked off the plot of Avengers. If 2014 Thor was willing to break Loki out of prison to get revenge for Frigga’s death, why wouldn’t either 2014 Thor or 2023 Thor be willing to tell 2012 Loki “We have an opportunity for you to get back at Thanos. Wanna help?” Because as strung out and as still cocky as he was, jauntily waving in the elevator at the beast who just beat the shit out of him, I bet Loki would have been delighted to take a few swings at Giant Purple Nutsack Face. Yes, he probably would have escaped at some point during the final battle, because that’s who he was at the time, and still is — he’s “very comfortable with chaos,” as Hiddleston notes. And that would have been consistent. Help others if it also helps him, he’s not really a hero at that point in his arc, check out after Thanos is dead because he doesn’t want to go back to prison. That all would have worked. Even if he had no more to do than Shuri or Okoye, just to show him shooting a few blasts of seidr and showing that he is in fact just as powerful a sorcerer as Doctor “I’ve only been doing this for a year” Strange.

But Loki’s death in Infinity War is for nothing. Even if I wasn’t as invested in the character as I am, from a storytelling standpoint, it was pointless. The entire heavy foreshadowing of that line was utterly whiffed. You can’t even argue that “Loki sacrificed himself for Thor” because Thanos disappeared with the Space Stone, leaving Thor behind, and Thor crawled over to his brother’s dead, broken body and crumpled there to die. Thor gave up and never recovered. The last word he expected he would ever say was “Loki....” 

Thor didn’t choose in that moment to use Loki’s sacrifice to stand up and claim revenge. Even Clint did more than that after Natasha’s death. Thor only continued on to forge Stormbreaker because the Guardians happened to pick him up in the vacuum of space after the Statesman exploded. That wasn’t a choice by the character, which is what moves a character arc forward. It was happenstance. Thor’s heart was destroyed with Loki’s death. It’s a shell of a man who eventually beheads Thanos.

Loki got an “Avenge the Fallen” poster, but he wasn’t avenged. The 2012 version of him escaped and branched off a new timeline, according to the Ancient One’s explanation of how time travel works in the MCU.

We don’t know if either Tony’s or Bruce’s Snap restored 2018 Loki. Endgame is the end of this arc. Marvel can’t patch stuff up later and claim a do-over. 

AND FOR FUCK’S SAKE MARVEL WE NEVER GOT THOR AND LOKI’S HUG.

So: did Marvel hurt us?

Not as badly as I feared. There was a ton of fanservice and moments which were so go-for-broke that I felt like we were watching wish-fulfillment fanfic. (So many jokes about Steve’s ass. Steve joking about Steve’s ass.) The script didn’t stop to explain who people were or give context; it assumed the audience knew everything and was keeping up. And that last battle, have mercy, Helm’s Deep and Pelennor Fields look like playground skirmishes in comparison.

BUT: The loose ends are deeply frustrating, and I think the Loki fandom is going to blow a collective gasket. Grotty Drunk Thor having constant My Dick Is Bigger fights with Peter Quill is not going to make me want to watch Guardians 3. (Although if Loki comes back and sneers at Quill, and Thor follows his brother off into the wild yonder with stars in his eyes, okay, call me.)  

I will watch the Marvel TV shows because I’m a masochist, but I don’t know how much I’m going to allow myself to get emotionally involved. My expectations are far lower than before IW/EG. I don’t know how the shows and movies involving “dead” characters are going to explain things. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey handwaving is kind of a cheat, and it doesn’t excuse the shit storytelling which was allowed to happen in the first place.

Do I regret the journey? I don’t. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’m so glad to have met these characters. I could wish for some things to be better, and hoo boy is there going to be a lot of corrective fanfic, but I’m not sorry I came along. 

(and P.S.: Loki lives. :P)