#russo brothers can suck my left nut

[the-citrus-scale]

In Defense Of... Steve Rogers’ Happy Ending

written by @the-galaxy-collector

People have a lot of opinions about Endgame. Like A. LOT. The one I’m concerned about for this article is Steve Rogers and his happy ending. I’ll try to address all the problems people have with it, but I’m sure I’ll leave something out because I don’t have that kinda time. No one does. However, just to get it out of the way, I am in favor of the ending of Phase Three, so if you aren’t, this may not be the place for you. You are entitled to your opinions, though, so if you have any and can be a respectful member of fandom, I am more than willing to listen to all the ways you think I’m wrong. I’m not, but I’ll listen.

Before I actually start, let me say that I do not approve of most of what has gone on in the MCU. I think the writing is irredeemable, at this point, but that’s another article.

So, let’s do this.

The first thing people seem to take issue with is the time travel nonsense. It hurts your brain. It does for me too, but I’ve also written whole time travel novels, so go with me on this for a second. Yes, I want to play the ‘What If’ game. Sue me.

Now, Steve goes to the Ancient One™, and after she gets the Time Stone back, she turns to him and says, “You might wanna go hang out with Peggy Carter. Turns out you’ve been her baby daddy this whole time. If you don’t, all the other stuff won’t happen and then we’ll be right back in this mess”. If you watched Timeless you’ll know that even when you wanna tell someone what horrible things are gonna happen, you can’t if you want to wrap up the timeline. It’s completely plausible that Steve going back in the past and having kids with Peggy (and yes, that’s been confirmed by Marvel), makes everything else happen. If he doesn’t live his life with her, everything else doesn’t happen either. He’s just closing a time loop. Doctor Strange says there’s only one scenario in which they win, so if Steve changes, even a second, including his future/past self, he screws all of it up. It’s possible he had to go back and be with Peggy or Thanos would win.

Which leads into the second major argument: StEvE iS OOC. This one seems so painfully obvious to me, I almost didn’t want to bring this up. It’s just ridiculous. Steve promises Peggy a dance. He has the ability to go back and give it to her. Until we found out about him marrying her, that’s all it was and no one could even accept that. Steve Rogers keeps his promises. Why are you even surprised? The whole Bucky thing is a separate argument, as far as I’m concerned, so we’ll just deal with his OOC-ness here and call it a day. He was not OOC. Done.

Now, onto the second half of that. Steve didn’t abandon anyone. Bucky isn’t a little kid. He isn’t hopeless without his Stevie Poo, okay? He has Sam, for one thing, a guy literally trained to deal with soldiers with extreme PTSD. He has support, and it isn’t Steve’s job to give up everything to be his emotional support penis or whatever. He desperately needs to figure out who he is without Steve and without his trauma. He can’t do that with how unhealthy and co-dependent their relationship has become. Let’s be real. He was doing a really good job of doing just that before Infinity War, which is why he’s cool with the way things play out. He’ll be okay.

And we’re never getting Stucky, so stop. I want it too, so don’t call me an anti. There was way too much underlying sexual tension between the two, but it doesn’t matter now. Stucky is not canon. It was never going to be. Marvel and the Russo Brothers are so #nohomo that it makes me sick. Literally nauseous to think about. I mean, why else would they need to play the “only” gay character in the universe? Because giving it to an actual queer person would equal representation, and Marvel is pretty slow on the uptake with that one. They fucked with our sandbox. It was rude. Super effin’ rude. If they had just let it be, it would be one thing. We could have still played with that line of inquiry like we always have, but now it seems like it was demolished. Obliterated. Blown to smithereens. But that’s the beauty of fanfic. Nothing is gone. No one is permanently dead. We do what we want, remember? When did we forget that? They don’t get to decide anything. This is our sandbox.

But that begs the question, why are you all so hellbent on Steve getting effectively fridged for everyone else’s happy ending? Do you not want him to be happy? Do you think the only way for Steve to be Steve is if he’s miserable? Can he only be him if he’s sacrificing everything for literally everyone else? Because that’s not fair. Why are you cool with asking that of him and his character? If it was anyone else, you would have thrown up your hands and been pissed about him dying. But Steve is the martyr. He can never evolve, according to fandom lore. And, frankly, that’s not realistic.

Basically, what I’m saying is that you need to direct your anger at the appropriate source. The writers are lazy, homophobic assholes (yeah, I said it!) who don’t understand how any of this works, but leave Steven Grant Rogers out of it.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.