#imagine if the finale of eg. spn was they re-introduced a bit-part female character from s1 whom dean never dated or slept with

[amarriageoftrueminds]

I've seen people try to excuse it by claiming Steve created a new timeline where he fixed everything horrible that happened in his timeline but:

you can't claim that a movie portrays something when it literally physically does not. Not only is Steve creating a new timeline not shown in the movie it's not even referenced, not even in a single throwaway line of dialogue!

(You wouldn't need to make shit up to say Steve did it to explain things if the ending had actually made sense as-shown and been in-character. Ditto showing us a Peggy who's supposed to be in her 50s but doesn't look it -- because that would highlight how fucking weird this whole thing is -- while ignoring that she's working in a "quasi-fascistic black site." Steve going cruising for GILFs in a Hydra base? It's like something out of Deadpool it's so moronic.)

Even if Steve had egotistically made a new timeline, that still doesn't address the fact that a lot of those horrible things in the original timeline happened because of Peggy, the person we're supposed to believe Steve would give a shut up ring. She hired both Zola and Fennhoff to SHIELDra -- jointly responsible for the Winter Soldier and the rise of Hydra in the 20th century. So how can Steve be 'fixing' the horrifying timeline while married to the person responsible for the horror? Is he going back to teach Peggy how to be an actual good person? To poison the wedding cake??

Even if he had made a new timeline, that still means Steve abandoned 'his' Bucky to go and protect a version of Bucky who doesn't have all of his Bucky's trauma, and marry the person responsible for it... Which is just. despicably cruel.

(And that's before you add on that it leaves Bucky alone, as the 'man out of time', the only person in the future who remembers 'their' time, which Steve's whole ending depends on us believing is a terrible thing to happen to you. But it's fine if Steve did that to Bucky...? Is it in-character for Steve to get Bucky back from the dead and then immediately ditch him in the cruelest way imaginable?)

On top of burdening Sam with a difficult legacy, with no thanks and no help for the transition, Steve's ending also means he has done nothing to bring Natasha back from the dead, despite having all six magical stones that can do anything including bringing people back from the dead. And old-Steve, in their present, also did nothing about any of his friend's problems.

On top of which, Steve's ending (returning all the Infinity Stones from the place and time they were taken) means he met with Red Skull, aka the Nazi so extreme he thought Adolf Hitler was mid, who had just murdered Natasha... and instead of fighting him, Steve gave him an Infinity Stone? (Is it in-character for Steve to quite literally empower Nazis and ignore that they murdered his personal friends?)

Since day 1, the MCU has been chipping away at Steve's decent characterisation with this subplot of 'okay yeah he's saved the world and made friends or whatever 🙄 but does it really count as happiness unless he has also attained pussy in a god-honouring way??' 🤩

And annoying as that was, it was more or less tolerable because they kept the rest of him in-character.

But that shit collapses if he isn't otherwise 90% in-character and the plot completely salts and burn every established trait just to make comphet happen.

Guys, I know it was five years ago but Steve’s ending still makes me so mad, like are you seriously going to tell me that he left to go live a life with Peggy and didnt even try to stop the pain and torture that he knew his best friend since childhood was enduring?? I can kind of get over him living with peggy, like, I get it, he’d been fighting his whole life and he just wanted some peace, and if living with peggy meant peace for him than that’s understandable, but the fact that he knew what was happening to bucky and did nothing to stop it, despite fighting tooth and nail to protect him ever since he learned he was alive, just doesn’t sit right with me