#ultron is at his best when he's not... necessarily a character. when he's just. a sort of reflection of tony.

[krytus]

<- has the best and correct opinions about ultron

[pretty-little-mind33]

BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM!

(ft. aaron taylor johnson characters)

ask: Idk if you do headcanons like these and I don't quite know how to get my ask into words. So, fluff, and positions that reader is usually in with the boys that you write for. I don't mean sexual positions, or cuddling ones, or any specific, just positions.

warnings: briefly sexual (nothing major)

includes - in said order

~ James Potter - harry potter marauder's era (yes ik it's technically a fancast but 🥺 he's my baby)

~ Tangerine - bullet train

~ Dave Lizewski - kick-ass

~ Count Alexei Vronksy - anna karenina 2012

~ Tom Ryder - the fall guy

~ Pietro Maximoff - avengers: age of ultron

~ hope you like this! kinda turned into relationship headcanons with a theme! ~

• James's love languages are a mix of physical touch and acts of service which means he always has his hands on you in some form or another!

• Holding your hand while you walk? Check. Having an arm around your shoulder when you're sitting on the couch? Check. Playing with your fingers/hair when he's bored in class? Check.

• Basically, he's a koala and you're his favorite tree.

• He walks with his hand in yours, your fingers intertwined (just holding them is for the weak) and he'll stroke his thumb on your palm.

• When he becomes agitated and can't sit still anymore, he'll bounce all around you and you physically cannot get him off you. It's times like those that means you aren't the little spoon anymore—he is.

• (Bonus points if you scratch his head while you spoon)

• James gives the best piggy-back rides. THE B E S T. He'll hold your hands in front of him, making you laugh as he runs around the common room (annoying everyone else) and then drops you on the couch. If you're laughing so hard you're crying his mission was successful.

• He loves when you lie against him. Not necessarily for cuddles but just when you're tired, or you're reading a book and he's being used as a prop lmao. He likes feeling useful!

• When he picks you up, he likes having you wrapped around him—your arms around his neck, his on your ass!

• Not in a sexual way but he likes leaning against your boobs and using one as an stress-ball if he can. He thinks your boobs/stomach are the best pillows ever.

• If he's still criss-cross, you'll always find yourself in his lap, playing with his fingers as he mumbles sweet nothings in your ear or just casually has a conversation with his friends.

• When James is talking to you, since he's taller than you (make him any height lmao canon don't matter—have your fun, babes), he'll hold your chin to help you look up at him. He tells you he can listen to you better if he focuses on you like this.

• It's bullshit but you don't care.

• You love wrapping your arms around his strong torso, feeling his muscles under your hands.

• Overall, James can NEVER take his hands off you. You're just his favorite girl!

• Tough guy pretends he doesn't like physical touch—and yeah, most of the time he does hate it. He's kind of a germaphobe and a neat freak so having strangers touch him? He'd rather put a bullet through their skull.

• Only, you aren't a stranger. You're his partner—his lover.

• Tangerine's favorite place where he holds you is around your waist, griping lightly onto whatever you're dressed in and squeezes your flesh. As in to say I'm here, I'll always be here for you.

• His love language is 100% quality time and acts of service. He loves being around you. He likes touching you in small ways, like resting his chin on your shoulder when you cook, or holding your hand in public and overwhelming situations (like in a bus, or a plane, or even walking in a crowded street).

• He's silly and overprotective like that 🤭

• When you're at dinners with friends, he'll always sit next to you. Always. He's facing the door in case something happens, his hand lightly touching your thigh as the conversation continues.

• Big spoon!! His hand gently resting on your stomach, his lips near your ear as he snores only gently. The blankets are a mess all tangled around you both.

• Random but Tangerine 100% likes his room cold!! So, the more blankets the more he's warm and toasty and he can snuggle you!

• He likes picking you up bridal style. 1. So he's all cute and like a handsome prince saving the princess (which makes you swat him over the head because ew) and 2. simply to display his own strength lmao.

• You guys will play-fight often. It's not even training—even though it's disguised as training—it's just him chasing you around the house and attacking you with tickles, smooches, and love-bites!

• He doesn't give you piggy-back rides necessarily—instead, it's more like during those play-fighting times you'll jump on his back and hold an arm around his neck while you laugh.

• Tangerine isn't phased and will often simply shrug you off him and send you a glare (hiding a smirk).

• You like trimming his facial hair while you sit on his lap. He's sitting on the toilet seat, a bowl of hot water on the sink beside him and he has you on his lap, carefully holding his face in your hands as you shave him/trim him and use the water to wipe the shaving cream away.

• Constantly pretends to dislike your attention in a joking way, but genuinely loves when you shower him with love! He's love starved fr.

• Dave is similar to James in the sense that he loves touching you whenever he's around you. He loves nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck and leaving little kisses.

• He likes having his hand in yours when you walk around, or even if you're sitting and doing something—like watching a movie!

• His favorite position to be in when you're on the couch watching a movie is him sitting normally and you're tucked into his side, leaning on him. Poor lil dude sometimes forgets to watch the movie he's so enamored by you.

• When you're out grocery shopping, you like to stand on the cart with his arms around you from behind as he pushes the cart (if that makes sense! it's very cartoon-esque if you know what I mean) and he likes making funny impressions in your ear as you're pushed around the store.

• Dave likes making you laugh! Which means sometimes he settles for stupid jokes, but other times he gets into tickles you mercilessly when you're cuddling in bed. It's so bad you almost piss yourself and you have to push him off you.

• You retaliate—of course—almost breaking his glasses as he flops around the bed too much!

• Dave plays video-games, I feel like that's obvious and he likes when either you hang around him when he's playing or if you like sit in his lap and do your own thing, or watch along with him!

• Sometimes, he'll even let you eat his headphones so you can listen along and "play".

• If you're good at video games, you often take over hard levels for him and he doesn't at all feel threatened! Or maybe only once when Todd and Matry tease him about it but otherwise he likes that you're good at the games he isn't good at!

• Dave lets you try on his kick-ass mask! Which you find super fun and you have a blast, taking loads of cute selfies which you obviously can't show anyone!

• You make fun of him bc his mask is ugly (sorry 😃) but in a loving way because he pulls it off.

• Dave 🤝 peppering kisses all over you!

• Holds your bags for you (school, shopping, any bag) and he knows the side-walk rule! He also does that thing where if you bend over and there is something sharp, he's put his hand over the sharp corner (sometimes even subconsciously)

• DAVE LIZEWSKI IS SOO BOYFRIEND CORE 💞

• Alexei is obviously more formal given the time period and his social status. He grew up rich and well-educated, and he's a cavalry officer meaning he's well-trained in discipline! Which means, he's not a very obviously affectionate person in public!

• In other words—no PDA 🙂

• In public, he'll have his hand resting behind your back, he'll keep you close to him and he'll save all his dances with you but nothing more.

• In private? Oh, he's very affectionate.

• Neck and cheek kisses galore! Whenever he walks by you, he'll spin you around and then press a chaste kiss on your lips—complimenting you on your dress/hair.

• Sits close to you at dinners and he holds your hand under the table, stroking your thumb. It's intimate and private so he loves doing this!

• Alexei helps the maids with your corset and everything if he’s ready before you and he loves watching you put on your makeup and your jewelry. He finds it fascinating and he'll just sit on the bed and talk to you where your maids help you.

• Obviously, he loves going riding with Frou-Frou! He gifted you a horse so you could learn how to ride and you guys can go on picnics and ride around fields all cute 🥰

• While you have your own horse, he still wants you sitting in front of him on Frou-Frou most of the time, your back pressed to his chest as he takes control.

• Very very much into taking control on the relationship.

• He likes to dance with you! You'll have little dancing sessions in the parlor room and it's very very fun!

• Lights cigarettes for you! (like that scene in the movie, yk the one! I'm salivating!)

• OKAY TOM RYDER L O V E S TEASING.

• It's basically his love language! He's very much like a school boy who pulls girls hair in the playground because they like them…so immature at times 😀

• Still, he has his mature moments!

• Tom really likes having his arm around your waist, his palm flat on your stomach—claiming—as in saying you're his and only his.

• Say you're in a conversation with someone and Tom is around? Boom, he's by your side in seconds and he's holding you possessively. Fake smiles all around (yes, he's jealous)

• Tom likes taking you to his favorite restaurants (bonus points if it's fancy and he can see you all dressed up!) He'll pull out your chair and all that! Very gentlemanly when he wants to be!

• He likes laying his head on your lap when you're at home watching a movie or something. It's completely innocent and he especially loves when you play with his hair!

• You like to shower together—no further elaborations 🤫

• Back to the teasing—that means whenever he sees you on set, he'll make small comments or slap your ass and whistle. It can be seen as kinda hostile but you know he means well and you just flip him off if it really bothers you.

• Tom likes to assert his dominance, which means he'll do the thing if you're in the kitchen and he needs to walk by you, he'll lift you by your waist and manhandle you any way he wants.

• MANHANDLING IS HIS THING 😏

• Hand holding but it's his arm across your shoulder as you hold his hand. He likes doing this when you're walking around because he can be close to you!

• If you're a yapper, he'll always listen but he'll also get distracted so he does the humming thing and that's when you know you've lost him.

• You swat him on the back of the head if he's acting too dumb—which prompts him to chase you around and punish you with a thousand little kisses.

• Secretly a dork that acts all cool and shit 🙄

• Very sexual lmao. Horn-dog. Can making anything that isn't sexual—sexual. He'll grind against you unprompted and also pretend to fuck you from behind if ever you bend over!

• Big boob and ass guy so when he's cuddling with you, he'll need to hold onto one of the two or he'll whine like a child.

• "What? I'm just a guy, babe. I see 'em, I want 'em," is his favorite excuse 💞

• Pietro is hyper active and that means he loves doing active things with you: like running, or swimming, or any kind of sports.

• Super spontaneous so he'll just come home with a trip to go rock-climbing randomly and you're just 😀 huh, what?!

• Obviously because of his super-speed he loves to pick you up and have you in his arms while he runs. You guys can basically run everywhere lmao.

• Pietro likes when you dote on him when he's tired from running! He really likes when you play with his hair and make sure he stays hydrated because of all the exercise he inevitably does!

• He's BIG on being cared for 🤭 like treating his wounds after a mission!? He'll stay extremely still for that and grin so hard when you take care of him.

• BIG HUGGER! Fully wraps his entire arms around you like a teddy bear and kisses your neck!

• He's a competitive guy so he likes making up competitions with you. Who can eat more cherries in under a minutes? Who can find the weirdest looking plant in the store? Who can run faster to the pole (this one is plainly unfair) either way he finds random little games he likes to play with you.

• I think he's the little spoon 😌 he likes being cuddled.

• You both tease each other. DEF you're a prank couple (in the cute way not the psychotic youtuber way)!

• He's a jokester so making you laugh is his favorite pastime and his one goal.

• Bonus points if you snort out your water/drink if you do laugh. He likes seeing how embarrassed you become and it makes him want to kiss you even more!

• Very boyfriend core even if slightly immature

[moon-andstardust]

So I've come across a lot of posts that basically say that the only reason people didn't like Steve's ending was because they didn't want him to be happy/they didn't allow him to be selfish. And the last one riled me up enough to post this.

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to attack anyone's opinion, I'm stating my interpretation of Steve's ending and the reasons why I, personally, didn't like it

My reasons for hating disliking Steve's ending, in no particular order:

1. He wouldn’t fit in

Steve has been out of ice for at least ten years, give or take a few. He has had time to adjust and somewhat get used to his new reality. He has also changed as a person(even if his core character traits remained the same). To say that Steve went through a lot would be an understatement: Chitauri invasion, Ultron, Sokovia accords, the whole Thanos shitshow. Anyone who could've understood these things he left behind.

His loneliness isn't necessarily a new thing either, Steve didn't have all that many friends besides Bucky even in the 19s.

By the time endgame rolls around, I think his trouble with fitting in has less to do with what year he was born in and more with other people's reluctance to see beyond his captain america mask.

He'd be just as out of place in the Past as he was in the Future.

2. Peggy has already lived her life.

It's been made obvious that she lived quite a happy life without Steve even if she mourned his death. Peggy had a husband. She had children. All of her life choices were completely disregarded by Steve when he shoehorned his way back into Peggy's life.

Also, she has been dead for about seven years now. And Steve, whose entire character arc before this movie was about changing and adapting, never giving up despite the trauma he experienced, never came to terms with it? He hadn't even known her all that well before going under the ice.

3. Steve can't back down from a fight if his the only one who can help

It's been established many many times that Steve hardly ever backs down from a fight, he's always trying to help people: "If I see a situation going south I can't ignore it." This guy. This guy proceeded to ignore: His best friend being tortured, experimented on and brainwashed by nazi scientists for seventy years; His other best friend being tortured, experimented on and turned into a child assassin by kgb; A secret nazi organization keen on murdering twenty million people slowly corrupting an organization his girlfriend/wife is trying to build.

I can see Steve retiring because he trusted his friends to do the right thing and protect people when he couldn't, but I can't see Steve turning a blind eye on the aforementioned when he was the only one even aware of them

On top of it all, Bucky's family was still around when Steve came back. Did he look Bucky's grieving family straight in the eyes as he told them that their son, their brother, was dead and never coming back? Did he toast in honor of Bucky with the Howling Commandos all the while knowing where he really was? I'm sorry, but I really can't reconcile this version of Steve with the one depicted in the earlier films.

In conclusion, my dislike for Steve's ending wasn't because I didn't want him to be selfish or happy, it was because his decision was extremely out of character and badly written.

[traumatizedbymay2016]

Ok this might be a little bit tinfoil hat, but I feel like a large part of the reason that Tony Stark ended up being the de facto soul of the MCU was that he was in a different genre to everyone else. It feels so obvious to me.

Every other Avenger stars in some variation on character versus character conflict the majority of the time, and the exceptions I can think of are still (generally) external (character versus society and character versus fate seem to be common secondary conflicts). Tony is the only character who stars predominantly in character versus self conflicts.

For starters, the Iron Man trilogy is way better when you recognize this distinction. Whiplash and Killian are lame villains, yes, but it's because they aren't the antagonist at all. At best they're secondary conflicts, but at worst they're straight up just the inciting incident. The real antagonist of the story is the flaw that Tony is grappling with --- in Iron Man, it's his willful ignorance and isolation from the world; in Iron Man 2, it's his fear of needing help or being a burden (and secondarily his fear of his impending death); and in Iron Man 3 it's his crippling anxiety that nothing he ever does will be enough to protect the ones he loves. It's relatively rare that we see any other character perform this kind of introspection at all, let alone see an entire story built around it (Thor: Ragnarok is the only one that readily comes to mind).

Even weirder to me is that this somehow persists into crossover films. Age of Ultron features Tony grappling with the way the remnants of his Iron Man 3 anxieties are interfacing with his mask of hyper competence; Civil War centers around Tony deconstructing that same mask and attempting to hand the reins over to someone else; the examples are abundant (even if they're handled worse here than in the standalone films).

And I think that's why so much of the Marvel discourse that the interwebs seem hell bent on showing me ends up presenting every Marvel character as "uwu soft precious pure bean" heroes who are nuance-free portrayals of goodness and light in spite of their own laundry lists of mistakes that they move past but never really grow from, only to reach Tony Stark and present even the most understandable of mistakes as though they were pre-meditated and cold blooded decisions for which he is responsible and can never be absolved. If the narrative never forces anyone else to properly reconcile their actions, then those actions were clearly justified; when it does so to Tony, that sends the message that his actions are clearly worse or of greater significance than the others' are.

But that difference is about presentation. It's about the story being told and the conflict being centered, not the culpability or severity of the actions at play. I'm not sure any Avenger has ever screwed up as royally as the time that Thor's coronation got crashed and he decided to get his friends together to attempt frost giant genocide, but the narrative chooses not to focus on that in favor of other elements of Thor's progression. Weighing it as lesser is purely based on bias.

And here's the thing! I understand that 1) protagonists are not necessarily good people and 2) good people can and do make mistakes. I actually prefer characters who can do something terrible --- whether as a result of ignorance, trauma, or panic --- and then, in time, learn from those mistakes and become better people. I would argue that makes a character more compelling, not less so. In fact, the very way that the narrative never even acknowledges the potential for Steve Rogers' actions to have a negative consequence when even bare minimum common sense would dictate that there must be at least a little downside is part of why I don't enjoy the character.

But so much fan meta fails to engage with this in any meaningful way, and so you end up with situations where people are ranting about Tony blasting Sam after Rhodey got knocked out of the sky while entirely ignoring the obvious and understandable distress that would cloud anyone's judgement in that situation in favor of treating it like an intentional act of malice on Tony's part; in spite of the fact that there are dozens of instances in the MCU of heroes attacking each other with greater force in lower stakes situations --- Thor choking Tony in Age of Ultron comes to mind.

Age of Ultron is actually the perfect case study in this phenomenon, as it stands. Tony's arc in the movie is an explicit continuation of his arc in Iron Man 3: He's terrified by the vision of his teammates dead and the world at risk, and is desperately trying to solve that problem on his own in a panic. This leads to the objective mistake of Ultron's birth and near rise to power, which the fandom all-too-happily places the blame for squarely on Tony's shoulders.

Except Tony is just one piece of the puzzle. At a minimum, Bruce Banner was equally involved in the creation of Ultron; a task perfectly in line with his established character trait of pursuing scientific advancement at any cost. Cinematic parallels between the birth of Ultron and the birth of the Hulk are unsubtle, to say the least.

Thor could (and should) have provided some instruction to the two pertaining to the literal magic gemstone they were studying, but went off to go celebrate another victory. Wanda used her mind control powers to influence the situation in the direction of Ultron. Hell, I find it hard to take Steve's "sometimes my team mates don't tell me things" line seriously when the lab is a room made entirely of windows inside his house.

The cherry on top, obviously, being that even if we ignore all available subtext and let Iron Man be the sole creator of Ultron, the Avengers were still effectively functioning as a team and were properly equipped to prevent Ultron from enacting any real damage to the world when they intervened in the vibranium deal with Klaue --- but a certain pair of Avengers were literally fighting on Ultron's team at that point, enabling him to retrieve the needed vibranium and capture Helen Cho.

They're not culpable for that, though, right? How was it said... "She's just a kid"?

With the final irony being that the selfsame Avenger in question would go on to marry the Vision. A character who is literally just "What Tony Stark intended Ultron to be." But when it comes to Vision coming out worthy to wield Mjolnir, that's not Tony's fault, is it? It was a team effort, or a happy accident, or the Mind stone intervening. Never mind that it's personifying J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony's creation. Tony's not the one who does good things, he's the one who makes mistakes.

Meanwhile from the perspective of someone who loves the man versus self narrative, Age of Ultron is about Tony admitting his mistakes and quite literally learning from them and doing better next time. He spends the film taking responsibility for the places he messed up and working to understand how he can do better, and the next time he tries, he does do better. The narrative functions as intended.

But because there isn't a single other character in the room willing to admit wrongdoing --- or, perhaps more accurately, there isn't a single other character in the room that the narrative is willing to force to admit such a thing --- the implication to someone who isn't acclimated to the cycle of Fail, Learn, Succeed that characterizes Tony is just that Tony is The One Who Made Ultron. I mean, Bruce Banner gets more remorseful about being mind controlled to unleash the Hulk than he does about having been an active participant in the creation of a malevolent AI.

I just think it's interesting because so much of the fandom buys into the idea that the characters who never admit that they were wrong actually never were wrong, and that therefore Tony Stark is the worst; but at the same time, the whole heart is gone from the MCU as a franchise. There are still individual fun properties, especially when your particular favorite character is on screen, but you can feel in the places where the fandom is even still a fandom and not a toxic pile of self-consuming sludge that there's something missing.

As frustrated as I am that the fandom is like this, though, I'm more sad that other characters never got to have this kind of introspection. There's just so much missed potential for growth in so many of these characters.

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

Hey, just wanted to say I kove your blog. Would you mind doing a bit of meta for Avengers Asssemble vs MCU. I’ve also recently developed this sort-of SU where after Endgam MCU Tony wakes up as AA Tony, and goes “actually I like these Avengers more, can I keep them?” And wondered of your thoughts on that.

Thank you for such a lovely ask (and giving me an excuse to gush about Avengers!)

You have no idea how much I dream of MCU!Tony waking up as AA!Tony and finally getting to experience the team as he believed it could be! Might leave my thoughts on that for another post but, yes, I so want to see that too!

Okay, onto the analysis! Gonna start with a little disclaimer: I recognize and respect that the MCU and Avengers Assembe are two separate iterations, told through different mediums with their own unique advantages and limitations. So don’t anyone worry: I’m not gonna hate on either of them. Now that that’s said, here’s why AA is superior...

In a nutshell, the Avengers Assemble team is what their MCU counterparts could have been had they made the choice to stay together.

See, their universes are practically identical up until the Battle of New York. But, in the MCU, they just called it a day after that and went off to fight their own battles like lone gunslingers.

Meanwhile, in AA, the team stayed together after their first victory. Granted, it wasn’t smooth sailing and it didn’t work out immediately: they had some falling out we aren’t shown (Tony repeatedly claims it’s his fault, but given his guilt complex, that may not be 100% true) and they broke up the band for a time. But they came back together in a heartbeat when they thought they had to avenge Cap; then, seeing their potential, seeing that they really were stronger as a team, they chose to stay assembled.

From there on, the universes are so completely dissimilar, it’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

In AA, they face dozens of bad guys and disasters on a regular basis, and they face them together.

MCU: they have, like, one batch of bad guys in a blue moon and either tackle them alone, or on a good day, maybe two or three of them will team-up. They only drag everyone into the same room when it’s absolutely necessary (though what constitutes “necessary” is still up in the air because I think Hydra-is-actually-SHIELD calls for a full assembly, Steven).

AA: in between missions, they live together in the Tower, training and refining their skills as individuals as well as a team.

MCU: again: lone gunslingers.

AA: they obey just laws, try their hardest to minimalize collateral damage, always take the time to evacuate an area of civilians, don’t rush into foreign countries without clearance.

MCU: See: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

AA: when one of them does something totally out of character (e.g. Tony helping Galactus consume an inhabited planet, or Natasha stealing the Infinity Gems) they don’t take it on face value. It shocks them, yes, but it doesn’t immediately shake their faith. They hold on, try to understand, try to step back and see if there’s a bigger issue at play, and when they find the reason, they throw everything into supporting their teammate.

MCU: whatever trust they have is... tenuous, at best, and they give each other up way too easily. (Both Age of Ultron and Civil War expose this).

AA: they aren’t just a team, they aren’t even just friends: they’re a family. They have inside jokes, they play video games in their downtime, and they pull petty pranks on each other. Shawarma Night is a thing. They are forever stealing each other’s food (“If you wanna blame yourself for something, blame yourself for eating Hulk’s guacamole... because he’s gonna smash me for that.”) They even do each other’s laundry! Now, those things may seem silly, but I can tell you: when you live with a bunch of people for a long time, a good sense of humour is indicative of a good relationship and a healthy environment. My mom once told me that a peaceful home isn’t necessarily a quiet one: it’s one where you feel safe to speak up, to be loud, to laugh or cry. This team has exactly that.

MCU: years and years of supposedly working together, and yet they know next to nothing about each other. (“Do we know if she had a family?” What?!)

AA: reduced Thanos to atoms in their 2nd season; only took eight of them and some civilians with bricks. No one died and they even created world peace for a weekend.

MCU: couldn’t defeat Thanos without messing up a couple of timelines, pulling in entire armies and a bazillion heroes from all over the galaxy, and losing two founding Avengers in the process.

I have so many other areas I could delve into, like their Civil Wars or how much I adore this version of Sam Wilson, but I’ll conclude with: the Avengers Assemble team is what we all hoped the MCU would become. This version of the team knows and trusts and—let’s just say it—they love each other, and that makes them strong and it makes their whole world brighter.

The MCU Avengers... would never have survived the AA universe.

[fullofmultitudesfullofshit]

hi, i came across your response to someone about clint being married in the mcu and whilst i agree with parts of it, clint was happily married in the comics too. i get that fraction’s run was around the time of his divorce but he and bobbi were married for years, and they were going to have a child at some point. i do think there’s a lot wrong with how clint is in the mcu, and giving him his family from the ultimates comics wasn’t the best idea, i don’t think it’s a totally ooc or anything!

omg hello my beautiful anon friend!!! I AM ALWAYS SO EXCITED TO TALK CLINT WITH SOMEONE!!! also, thank you for being so respectful with your disagreement about my post (i totally agree that it was not perfect btw!)

okay, but quick tmi I 100% GRIEVED when Clint and Bobbi divorced because she grounded him and he was her disaster!husband. honestly, a malewife all around and we love to SEE it. (also TMI TMI i lowkey was a kid when clintbobbi divorced and i was also going through my own parents' divorce and it was lowkey like watching my second set of parents divorce as well lmaooooo)

ANYWAY, i 100% agree with your criticism -- it's not completely ooc for Clint to be married with kids (as you pointed out he did have a family in the ultimates!!!!) I think what bums me out is the way that his character and story was handled more so than the decision to have a "wife and kids" attached to him. Instead of developing Clint "into" someone capable of having a spouse and kids, they kind of jumped immediately in his development to someone who never really needed to be fleshed out since he already had his "life fulfillment, self-contained story" of being dad!Clint, if that makes sense. I would've LOVED if MCU Clint started somewhere amidst Fraction's characterization of him and grew into farmer dad!Clint that we have in the MCU. I think that would've been a natural progression too since his origins began on a farm in Idaho. So, then we would have the trauma he had as a kid, growing into circus bonanza where he was trained, roped into being an trainee Avenger with Natasha, and then he grows into the guy we see in Age of Ultron.

I also think a lot of it deals with Disney/Marvel Studios' doubting Hawkeye's likability as a character to audiences (which is funny considering that Entertainment Weekly, back in 2016, published a list of 100 best Marvel superheroes and Hawkeye was #1). Thor, Cap, and Iron Man all received trilogies over the course of their MCU tenure, so, of course, their characters all had the chance to grow/develop in certain ways -- Clint was never given a similar chance in 93 minutes of total screen time he was given in the 23 films Marvel Studios has released.

So, I think, the situation is just sad for Clint fans all around! Even if you were rooting for the family story arc, he's not given any kind of development into that story and he's not necessarily allowed to explore his past. In short, Clint in the MCU has always kind of just been stuck.

However, I'm excited for the new series next month! I'm hoping with the intro of Miss Katy Kate that they do some of the things I mentioned earlier -- they actually explore his character, highlight some of the actual frameworks that make Clint, well, "Clint," and at the very least, give us some background about his family!

Anyway, thank you so much again for your lovely response!!! if you ever wanna talk Clint or comics -- just message me! :)

[avelera]

Writer Traps: Telling one thing, Showing another

Sometimes as a writer you face a problem: your character needs to be someone who would credibly be in a position of power, or competent in a certain skill, or in a relationship with someone. But, for your story to advance, they need to fail.

For example, we’ve just been told by the narrative that our protagonist, a female starship captain, is the veteran of hundreds of battles, widely respected, and extremely good at her job.

Yet the first scene we’re given of her in a position of command is her ship getting blasted to pieces, people dying everywhere, and in a moment of stress as the world burns around her, she breaks down and starts crying while her subordinates beg her to tell them what to do.

Now, as the writer, this scene may seem necessary. You’ve just introduced a new alien bad guy who has better fire power than the good guys, who manages to blindside them in this attack, and you want to SHOW how advanced they are by having them utterly destroy the best in the fleet and overwhelm this amazing commander, perhaps setting  up her tragic backstory and subsequent redemption arc. And, you may argue, it’s a legitimate emotional response in the face of overwhelming terror at this new threat for even hardened veterans to break down, it helps emphasize the stakes!

Except what you’ve shown has now undermined what you’ve told. This loses reader trust, which can be a deathblow to the chance that someone will read this story to the end and even get to the promised redemption arc. 

If we’re told someone is a leader, but they can’t keep their head under fire and instead we’re shown them failing to give orders while in a state of panic, we have instead a lot of evidence that they’re not a very good leader. 

If we’re told they’re a good fighter and they can’t win the first fight we see them in, it undermines our trust in the narrative. 

If we’re told someone is good at their job but the first time they do it they fail we’re left wondering if they really are that good at it. 

And if they have an emotional breakdown the first time we see them in crisis, we may have sympathy for them, but we don’t necessarily trust those in the narrative who said this person can handle a difficult situation. 

(Note: This can also apply to relationships. If we are told two characters are wildly in love and in a relationship, but don’t see any chemistry between them, not tiny moments of affection BEFORE we are told this, it leads us to wonder why the heck we’re supposed to believe these people are together. (I’m looking at you, Nat and Bruce in Age of Ultron, #neverforgive #neverforget.))

Unfortunately, because of plot demands and pacing, it can be hard to recognize when the telling is undermining the showing. Also, if you’re writing a character far outside your personal experience (a military veteran when you’re not one, because you’re writing a very cool space opera which by necessity has some military characters in it) it can hard to identify which traits give away your lack of experience with the world you’re portraying. As said above, it may be sympathetic to have someone crack under pressure, but it may undermine the more important point at that this stage in the narrative of setting up their competence, which is required if you want to have a more impactful emotional breakdown later, after you’ve shown how capable this person is when they fail at a truly critical moment in the plot. 

Two solutions for this are as follows:

1) Figure out which traits are truly important to the character, what do people really need to understand about them for your story to make sense. If it’s the example of the starship commander, it’s much more important that people understand that she’s a good officer who is unfairly blamed for a situation beyond her control than it is for us to see her in a moment of vulnerability to earn our sympathy at this early stage of the story. The breakdown can come later. In the moment of the attack, we need to see her do everything RIGHT, keep a cool head under fire, command her subordinates with competence, and lose to the bad guys only because of their overwhelming firepower. That way we feel the injustice of her being stripped of command and it becomes a true tragic backstory and redemption arc as she salvages her reputation. She can still have an emotional moment, but it needs to be in a setting where a strong person would realistically have that breakdown, maybe hours or days later when the danger has passed and she finally has a moment to process in private. 

2) Show things work at least once before you break them. This applies to introducing new magic systems or technology as well. If something breaks the first time we see it, we don’t know how it was supposed to work, so we can’t determine when and if something has gone wrong. You can’t have the wizard fail the first time he casts the spell in a system we’ve never seen before, because we can’t anticipate the spell going wrong, so it doesn’t mean anything to us emotionally. We need to see Superman’s powers work before we introduce Kryptonite stealing his powers. If the first fight we see with Superman is him throwing one punch then having Kryptonite shoved in his face, we don’t really understand how his powers work before they’re taken.

Similarly, if a character is good at fighting, at least once we need to see them win a fight, spectacularly, before we see them lose. If they’re good at picking locks we need to see them crack a safe before they meet the big challenge of your plot that is the safe that can’t be cracked, otherwise we might just assume they’re a crappy safe cracker. 

Evidence is important, evidence is what lets a reader trust that the story and the writer know what they’re talking about. It helps build anticipation as readers can make predictions based on that evidence of what will succeed and what will fail in your story. And, most importantly, it keeps your characters from coming across as a joke instead of the darlings or fiends you want your readers to know and love the way you do, if the skills or powers they have never seem to work because all they do is fail before they get the chance to succeed.

[whetstonefires]

mcu ethics bad

The thing is that, while I was angry at Tony during Age of Ultron, particularly when he rode over Bruce’s compunctions about building a giant combat super-robot and pressured him into the project like a very very bad friend who happened to also be wrong...

...and when he equipped Hulkbuster armor and fought the Hulk in the middle of a city rather than attempting de-escalation or attempting to haul the Hulk out into the giant adjacent desert....

(And my suspension of disbelief snapped like a frayed cable when he brought down a skyscraper that had had no time to be evacuated on a street full of fleeing people and the only reason we were given to believe he hadn’t just cold-bloodedly created massive civilian casualties was that he told his AI to find the impossible magic angle where doing this wouldn’t kill anyone...)

While I was angry with him then, and unspeakably relieved that he recognized his own damage and retired at the end, haha psych, I was revolted by him during Civil War.

It’s supposed to make us sympathize with a character more, spending so much time with them, getting into their heads, being shown their emotional drives and reactions to things, and we spent so much time with Tony during that film, understanding his point of view. And...I did understand him. He’s not complicated. I even sympathized with his emotional state.

But in the context of his actions, throughout the film, I gazed into that understanding the way I did into Kylo Ren’s face in the seconds after he first unmasked. I see you, I know you, everything you are is written here, and the lines of your shame and self-revulsion are so thick upon you, and you should be ashamed but your self-destruction does not expiate or justify one jot of the harm you do.

Because everything Tony did in Civil War came from a place of selfishness. He was selfish all throughout that movie down to his very spine.

And selfishness isn’t itself necessarily bad--you need a little, to get through life, you have the right to your own portion of it. Your boundaries and your needs. But the type of selfishness that is forcing other people pay dearly for your emotional comfort and sense of control: no.

That is tyranny. That is not acceptable.

And you know how I know he was being selfish? Because his motive for pushing the Sokovia Accords was his personal guilt for the destruction of Sokovia.

But the Accords didn’t address that at all! They were tangential to the issue! None of the terms of the Accords would have saved Sokovia--in fact, the existence of them could easily have prevented the evacuation and harm-reduction the Avengers managed there, without saving a single soul.

The Ultron crisis was something Tony did, not as Iron Man but as Tony Stark, with Bruce Banner’s help, and which Wanda as criminal fugitive later helped exacerbate, and which all the other Avengers were involved in only to mitigate harm.

Legislation, or...treaties, idk, the UN isn’t actually empowered to pass laws so who knows what this thing was...aimed at preventing another Sokovia would mandate constant ethical oversight of billionaire science man’s mad science. At the very least! He never has to run things by ethics boards because he’s self-funded, at the very least let’s invent a mechanism to make up for that.

That would address the actual Sokovia issue, both in terms of risks and in terms of Tony’s personal guilt feelings.

But no one suggests that! It’s not even on the table! Because no one, certainly not any government, can tell Tony Stark what to do unless he lets them, that’s been a clear matter of record since Iron Man 2.

And because no one writing this legal instrument of whatever description was actually motivated by wanting to avoid another Sokovia, or even another ‘Wanda tries to neutralize a suicide bomber but merely gives him a different, smaller victim pool’ incident.

They didn’t care! They blatantly didn’t care! The entire thing was a ghoulish use of the dead to gain enough political leverage over the Avengers to put a leash on them!

(Which might not be a bad thing in principle, everything needs its checks, but when the last quasi-governmental organization you worked for turned out to be Nazis who were only prevented from staging a mass slaughter of undesireables by the skin of your teeth, I think you’re well within your rights to be very choosy about who you agree to obey, and to be firmly against pledging your honor to follow people whose first move was dishonest coercive tactics.

Actually you’re well within your rights to demand to negotiate the terms of even a much less sweeping contract, even without the Nazis. The whole approach to this thing stank to high heaven.

The fact that it was written by the UN like a treaty, expected to be signed by private individuals like a contract, and then enforced like a law except not because 1) laws are for everyone 2) if you break a law you get a trial not extrajudicial incarceration and 3) being pressured to consent to a restriction and then punished for refusing consent is hypocritical circular logic and in fact police corruption at its finest, all continues to show it was a bullshit nonsense franken-document.)

The whole movie is people ghoulishly using the dead to manipulate Tony into making bad decisions in response to his emotional pain. That’s. The plot of the film.

Then Zemo staged T’Chaka’s assassination and framed Bucky for it to raise the tension, ramp up the pressure, and prevent any sitting-down and talking reasonably through this, which might have allowed for the recognition of how extremely bullshit the entire concept was.

Tony was being used. Tony was a tool of bad people for most of that movie, and while Zemo banked on using his wrath for it, the politicos were leaning on his guilt.

And there’s honestly little I hold in deeper scorn than going out and hurting other people to assuage your own guilt and treating this as having the moral high ground. No. You don’t have the moral high ground on account of your guilt motivation. You have it if the actions you took were just, or at least could reasonably be assumed to have been so at the time.

And Tony fucking knew they weren’t. He didn’t even last to the end of the movie before recognizing that he’d been manipulated and fucked up, and doubling back.

That he then walked into a different manipulation, turned on a dime, and had to be stopped from doing a murder doesn’t unwrite that.

And it drives me nuts that people will say Tony was acting out of principle while Steve was acting out of personal attachment. Because sure, the Bucky thing was important, was the reason he was walking forward against all opposition instead of standing still to argue, but it wasn’t the reason Steve said no, while...

Tony wasn’t acting out of principle. Tony isn’t...very good at having principles. That’s not even a criticism or condemnation, it’s just how he functions. Since Iron Man he’s been substituting good intentions and emotional investment, which has worked out to varying degrees. It works best for huge, difficult, very straightforward decisions like ‘ride the nuke through the portal and save my hometown.’ It works less well for nuanced situations.

Tony was, as usual, acting out of emotion. And some awful shitheads who’d figured out where his levers were had calculated how to jiggle his emotion switches in the right places to make him do exactly what they wanted.

And you can tell he wasn’t acting out of principle because, for example, someone who was trying to get the superhero community under outside control for the sake of harm mitigation...

...well, firstly wouldn’t have chosen to stage a massive battle? But it’s possible someone in the UN specifically told him to do that, and in theory they at the very least signed off on it, presumably for its PR value of making Captain America look deranged and violent since it’s a deranged decision from every other angle, so yay, he can pass that responsibility up the chain and not have to angst about it, as promised.

But I was going to say would not have approached a minor who (this timeline takes pains to show us) had no prior experience of battle or even, somehow, serious violent crime, to recruit him to go be a government child soldier on another continent, without his guardian’s knowledge or consent. There were overtones of blackmail in Tony’s approach, before it turned out Peter was such a big fan he didn’t need that. What the fuck frankly.

That is not the action of someone who wants to start doing things by the letter, scaling the violence down, keeping within the law and putting the power of decisionmaking in other people’s hands because he’s realized he can’t trust his own.

And frankly even if he did act like that I wouldn’t necessarily support his choices, in particular his snap decision to behave coercively toward other Avengers with vastly less social power and security than he has.

And that’s the other thing! Everything about ‘Tony + Accords BFFs’ rings so hollow because he has never thought rules applied to him, and he knows perfectly well the entire time he’s fighting to force this surrender of agency down other people’s throats that he is going to be practically immune.

This man was technically a terrorist, proabably the most prolific single terrorist in world history until his rogue android exceeded his body count, but he was immune to prosecution because he was in tight with the United States military-industrial complex and basically untouchable due to his status within capitalism, and pursuing their international goals anyway. In the time between Iron Man and Iron Man II he was basically a one-man upgrade of the US drone program, and so good at it that the crest of blood he carved through the Middle East allowed him to announce he had ‘privatized world peace.’

(You are never going to get a world peace worth anything on the basis of a giant flying gun, okay.)

He went to war as a private individual, against non-state actors who were not directly threatening him, which is very much defined as ‘mass murder’ in all domestic and international law, and the US army in response sued him for control of his weapon. And lost! Lost.

No one attempted to press charges. No one. Because Tony Stark is above all that. And he knows it.

And like. I’m willing to accept the mass murder under the heading of ‘superheroing’ within the terms of this setting! Even if, after his vengeance rampage on his specific kidnappers, this violence was kept strictly off-screen for a reason. I did that! I bent that far! Genre convention!

But this history is kind of vitally important to any analysis of what he thought he was doing, and what he actually was doing, when he decided to become the iron gauntlet of the Sokovia Accords.

The currently active member of the Avengers who needed muzzling most was very manifestly Iron Man, and he knew even as he jammed the muzzle on all his comrades to make himself feel better that it would affect him the least, even if he didn’t finally retire for real this time. You don’t force Tony Stark. Not if you want anything out of it but blown up. You persuade him.

And once you have...oh, look at what he can do.

[thespectralvision]

Twelve Days - 11. Gift Wrap

Happy Holidays! This is my Wanda x Vision holiday countdown consisting of twelve interconnected stories exploring their changing and evolving relationship and family at Christmas time. It starts with the first holiday after Age of Ultron and will go through the post-WandaVision domestic setting found in my Flufftober series featuring Tommy, Billy, and Viv.  

You can also read this on Ao3 HERE

Rating: PG

Pairing: The Vision x Wanda Maximoff

Characters: The Vision, Wanda Maximoff, Tommy Maximoff, Billy Maximoff, Viv Vision

Warnings: N/A

Other: This story takes place after WandaVision

Summary:  Vision reflects on how his past holidays have helped prepare him for fatherhood as he teaches Viv how to wrap gifts.

*- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *- *-*

December 24, 2026 9:36 PM– Maximoff-Vision Residence

Seeing how excited his three children are as they sit and enjoy the chosen Christmas movie in their newly opened pajamas brings Vision more joy than he knew was possible. It was such a small thing, really, but getting to open a gift early had clearly been the highlight of their day. The tradition was yet another stolen from the Barton family, but Vision didn’t think that was necessarily a bad thing. Their friends clearly knew how to celebrate the holiday in fun ways. Some festive sleepwear and some snacks for the film made for a nice Christmas Eve treat.

He finds himself drifting in and out of the film, already familiar with the story of the wayward ‘elf’ Buddy. Instead, Vision takes the time to reflect on the day while Wanda rests comfortably against his side. The remnants of their gift opening are still strewn about the floor and Vision had thought it made more sense to leave the mess until morning, knowing they would just have to clean the room again. Somehow the torn paper and bows scattered around just add to the feeling of Christmas in their home.

The holiday printed paper itself takes him back to earlier in the day when he had been attempting to teach Viv how to neatly wrap a package. It was a skill he’s gotten better at over time, having practiced each year to give the utmost care to the gifts he’d give Wanda. The first time he had wrapped a box, Vision had pulled up a number of video tutorials online, doing his best to carefully cut and crease and fold the decorative paper. He’d done the same for each of the Avengers that year, the first and only time they had spent the holidays as a team. The end result had still looked rather amateurish, but Wanda had appreciated his effort. 

The following year had been both harder and easier. Wanda had been an international fugitive and Vision himself was being watched at every turn. Any gift he had wanted to provide had to be small enough to fit in her overnight bag and sent ahead of time to avoid raising suspicion. When Vision had finally made it to the Icelandic cabin he’d secured for a few nights to watch the Northern Lights together, the gifts had already been there neatly wrapped and placed under the small tree he had requested for the room. Everything had been perfect and Wanda had loved the necklace and earrings set he’d chosen; the professional wrapping nearly as beautiful as the precious metals and gems within. Somehow it hadn’t felt quite the same though, a gift he had bought but not put the time into presenting like the year before.

In Edinburgh at least anything they had got could be left in the safety of their home when they were pulled in different directions. Vision had once again taken up the task himself, carefully working late in the night long after Wanda had fallen asleep to get everything ready. His attempts had fared better than his first year, although they were still not quite there. Ultimately during those years apart, the real gift had been the time he and Wanda got to spend together. He’d spent most of that evening wrapping dreaming of the future that he had only started to construct in his mind – a home, a safe life for them both. He’d never imagined a family back then, or if he had the thoughts had never been said out loud, but they had been happy together. If it had truly been he and Wanda’s last Christmas together, Vision thinks it would have been a good send off.

When death had turned out to be less permanent for Vision than expected years later, gift wrapping had been the last thing on his mind. He’d been deconstructed and rebuilt by SWORD, his mind encrypted and control stripped away. Being turned into a living weapon and sent to kill the woman he had loved in his past life had, unsurprisingly, put a damper on Vision’s holiday spirits. In hindsight, he is glad he had taken up the offer to visit an old friend and her daughter even if he had more akin to the robotics toy he purchased for Morgan than he did the humans in the room with him at the time. The gifts purchased had been out of obligation and he had opted to have them wrapped by a service the mall was offering. Ultimately they had matched the pristine décor found at the Stark Eco-Compound and the little girl hadn’t cared either way.

Wanda had been with him again the following year. They’d reconnected and renewed the bond between them, learning that they still worked in the months leading to the holiday. By midyear they had revealed Vision’s existence to close friends – fellow Avengers they knew could be trusted to keep his secret safe. When Clint had invited the two of them to his home for the holidays, Vision had thought it would be a good idea and Wanda had agreed, thinking it would be nice to spend time with others as they still worked through their changed life together. They had fallen into an easy rhythm as they had prepared the gifts for their hosts and it had reminded Vision of their first year together in the old Avengers Compound, now nearly a decade ago (though for himself and Wanda it felt much closer). Their gifts for the Barton’s had been split between them and Wanda had made it a competition, laughing as she had teased Vision’s slow and methodical process. At some point he had retaliated by attempting to fix one of her gifts, insisting that the label of the toy within was still visible, which had earned him tape being stuck to his vibranium forehead. He’d gotten even by throwing a wad of paper back, grinning as she playfully smacked him with a discarded cardboard tube. It had been childish, perhaps, but Vision fondly remembers their fight ending with him carrying her off to bed for a little unwrapping of his own, gifts forgotten on the floor.

Having children in the house last year had changed the dynamic yet again. Going from wrapping a few gifts for Wanda and their friends to having what felt like a mountain for the twins meant Vision’s usual process needed to change. He and Wanda had snuck in the time to do it after the boys had been put to bed each night, dividing and conquering. The practice made him faster at the process, if nothing else, and when Christmas morning came the delighted twins had torn through all his carefully applied tape and ribbons and paper so quickly Vision found himself wondering if it was worth doing next year. Wanda had assured him it was – opening the gifts was the best part, it was the surprise and finding out what was inside that made it special.

This year the children had asked to help them with the gifts. Wanda had thought it would be fun, even if they only did a few and Vision didn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t. If nothing else it would make the gifts they had gotten for each other feel more authentic. Managing holiday shopping with three children had taken some thinking but a system had been worked out – a family trip to the nearest shopping center and a system of swapping out which children went with who throughout the day – and by the time they got home each member of the household had purchased a gift for all the others.

Getting said gifts ready to go under the tree had required a similar process and Vision had found himself paired with Viv while Wanda helped the boys with plans to switch off. His daughter had pulled up similar videos to those Vision had used years before but much like his own early attempts, something had not been clicking.

*-*-*-*-*

“Vivian, why don’t you try it like this-”

“I know what I’m doing, Dad. It’s just not working!” The younger synthezoid sighs in frustration as she tosses another piece of too-small paper to the side to join the others. “I’m calculating it correctly but when I attempt to wrap the box it does not look right.”

“That does often happen, yes.” Vision smiles, remembering how many tries it took him to wrap his first gift just right. “I have learned that this is not an exact science, despite what the tutorials indicate. Add slightly more paper and you can always trim it if you need to.”

Vision returns to the packages he’s working on, some gifts for Wanda, when his daughter makes another irritated sound. “Why is this so hard?!” 

She drops the paper again, running red fingers through her hair in a motion that reminds Vision of his wife. Watching Viv adjusting to life here has been full of these little moments. Seeing her settling in has been one of the greatest joys in his life, even at times like this when things are not going as planned. She seems to be adjusting to a human-like existence far quicker than he had, though whether that is due to her core programming or having a loving home and his guidance, he is not certain. Vision likes to think his support has been integral – he’s done his best to impart the knowledge he’s retained from years of observations and trial and error. Viv will never be human, and neither will he, but he hopes that she can be more than he is capable of being one day. At the very least he hopes that  knowing there is another being in the world like her brings her comfort.

“May I?” Vision gets up to move closer, kneeling down and inspecting the square of paper and gently placing his hand over hers, white fingers enveloping red to show her what he would do.

“But it doesn’t look like the photo. I want to do it right.” Viv sighs, and her glum tone leads Vision to pull her close. He understands how difficult it can be as a being of logic and numbers and calculations to allow imperfections. It’s something Wanda and their friends used to tease him about, and something he still struggles with at times. It’s gotten easier over time; accepting that failures and mistakes and inconsistencies are just part of human life. A Christmas gift’s wrapping being a little sloppy is not the end of the world. It’s the moments like this that remind him that while Vivian, much like himself, was created with access to all of the information in the world she still has a lot of growing up to do. He is also beginning to suspect there is more at play in his daughter’s mind than just trouble cutting wrapping paper. He’s gotten better at detecting that too, with all of his children.

“It’s alright, Viv. I promise you your brothers will not notice. I doubt Thomas will even look – last year we barely saw him opening the gifts, just a blur and paper flying.” Vision chuckles at the memory of his speedster son and his need to do everything quickly. Wanda has assured him her twin Pietro had been the same way when he got his powers. From what they now understand it’s not even intentional, the enhancements his eldest was born with just mean he does everything quickly as he perceives the world quicker than most. It’s no wonder he’s struggled with paying attention in school when stuck working at the pace of everyone else.

Viv leaning into Vision’s chest and seeking comfort catches him off guard but he’s happy to provide it, wrapping an arm around her and rubbing her arm in solidarity. She sighs again before replying, “I know. It’s just...why is being human so hard?”

“Because we aren’t.” Vision answers softly. It’s an honest reply even if it’s sometimes painful. “Vivian, I understand to an extent what you are going through because I have been there myself. As synthezoids we…it often feels as if we are trapped between worlds. We perceive things differently than the humans that we live among, and process that data in ways they are incapable of doing. Humans, even those who love us like your mother and brothers, often forget that while we are created as fully formed beings, we are still growing just like they are.”

Vivian shifts against him, pulling back to look up and meet his eyes. “Even you?”

“Especially me.” Vision grins, breaking the moment. “Ask your mother if you would like to confirm. It took me a long time to grow used to life as a synthezoid. You have the advantage – you have never been anything else.”

“What else would I be?”

Vision understands the question is likely rhetorical. His daughter is aware of where he came from, and therefore where she came from. What she does not know, and what Vision hopes she never will, is what the people who made her intended her to be. What they had tried to turn him into. The reason his body is so changed – why he is stark white instead of the vibrant red that vibranium fused tissue should be. The reminders of what the world wants them to be, and what could have happened lead Vision to pull her close once again, taking a deep if unnecessary breath as he hugs her to him.

“The only thing you need to be right now, Vivian, is a child. Take your time, and enjoy each moment. The experiences you will gain far outweigh the knowledge you already have.” He touches her cheek gently and smiles when she leans into it, taking comfort in the loving touch. “We’ll get that gift wrapped soon enough then you can go play with your brothers and we’ll all watch a movie later. It’s nearly Christmas, after all. Your first. Your mother and I can not wait for you to fully experience it.”

The sound of a crash and shouts from beyond the door signal the end of this heart to heart. Vision sighs, he’s not certain what the boys are getting up to but he hopes Wanda can handle it. “I think...maybe we should go check on that.”

Viv stands first so Vision can get up as well and the two of them step through the door by phasing, keeping the secrets of the gifts strewn about the room intact. He’s greeted by the sight of Wanda sighing and rolling her eyes from the other doorway. They join as she watches Billy chase his brother down the hallway, wielding a cardboard tube that had formerly held gift wrap like a sword. “I’m the Jedi knight, and you know it! I can use the force!”

“Using your powers is CHEATING!” Tommy streaks past and Vision laughs at his son’s hypocritical statement. It seems they have finished wrapping gifts with their mother though considering the length of time they’ve been in the boys’ room he suspects not much was accomplished there either.

Viv watches with interest, and Vision nudges her gently. “Go on, we’ll finish up in here later. After all, once they’ve all gone to sleep we will have plenty of time.” He winks, secretly promising his daughter she can stay up late. It’s not like either of them really need the sleep.

The bright smile that lights up the young synthezoid’s face is enough for Vision to forgive any extra work he may end up doing to ensure their gifts are ready in a few days. He watches fondly as she phases through the floor in an attempt to cut the boys off at the stairs as Wanda comes up beside him.

“I’m guessing you didn’t get very far either?” His wife leans into him, now watching the battle taking place below..

“No, but they’re still kids. Let them play. We can handle the rest.”

*-*-*-*-*

Wanda moving on the couch to get more comfortable against him brings Vision back from his musing. She’s looking up at him, green eyes curious as they sparkle from all of the lights around the room. It’s a look he knows well and the familiar brush of her mind reaching out leads him to pulling her closer as an attempt to reassure her that he’s alright.

“What are you thinking about?”

The voice echoing through his thoughts is comforting and familiar, going back to a different time. Wanda doesn’t need to share his headspace nearly as often these days as she once did. His wife had learned to live with the silence during their time apart, but she’s always welcome to reach out to him these days for a private discussion. It seems she doesn’t want to disturb the kids while they watch the movie.

“Just reflecting on the holiday.” Vision sends the thought back, not sure how to explain. He looks down, meeting her eyes as Wanda raises an eyebrow. She clearly knows he’s not being entirely honest in an effort to not worry her. His wife knows him too well. “I was thinking about Viv.” He clarifies.

Wanda’s gaze moves from her husband to their daughter, currently snuggled up under a blanket on the chair and fixated on the movie with a smile on her face. Vision likes to think she now better understands the points he had made a few days ago during their failed gift wrapping lesson. Even with just the one small gift, seeing her face light up with curiosity and excitement had been a highlight of Vision’s evening. Watching all of the kids was, of course, but seeing his daughter who is so much like himself had reminded him of the first time he was handed a holiday gift back in the Avengers Compound. Being an AI, he had not fully understood the traditions or gifts that accompanied the time of year until he had experienced it himself. He understood the pressures of trying to blend in and appear less unsettling around one's peers and how being expected to just understand holidays could be difficult. Vision hoped that the lesson he had tried to impart made more sense now. It wasn’t about making everything match society's view of the holiday – that was a trap Vision had fallen into at first – it was about the way humans connected to one another and went out of their ways to do so. It was about the moments like this, a family content and comfortable together in new pajamas, eating sweets and watching a film.

When Billy had handed Viv her gift for the evening, the paper poorly fitted and nearly hanging off one corner indicating the boy had wrapped it she had accepted it without question, with a big smile as she tore into it. In that moment there was no denying that she was a child – not an AI, not a weapon, just a girl. It’s something he’s tried to remember about himself as well. Much like the gifts, the covering on the outside can be easily discarded – it’s what is inside that is important. He’s mostly come to terms with who and what he is now. The man in the mirror has become familiar to the point that seeing images from he and Wanda’s past are unusual. White against red, with or without the Mind Stone - ultimately he is the same Vision regardless.

Wanda seems to sense his thoughts, or perhaps he projected them loud enough for her to latch on with the link between them. She finds his hand resting at his waist and links their fingers, squeezing gently in understanding. “She looks so much happier. I’m glad her first Christmas is going well. She’s lucky to have you.”

“Lucky to have us.” Vision sends back. Wanda shakes her head where it’s resting against his chest and leaves the conversation at that as a funny scene in the movie causes laughter to erupt around the room. It’s funny to think all of this had started over a decade ago with this same film, and he and Wanda had planned a trip to New York City together.

Once the film ends, Wanda asks him to get the kids into bed while she goes up to do the same, and Vision is happy to comply. He has a few last minute tasks to handle before morning but doubts he will sleep much. Once Wanda is asleep he can step away for a few minutes and take care of everything they need to do to ensure a happy Christmas morning.

As soon as the three youngest Maximoff’s are tucked in, Vision returns downstairs to clean up a little before heading up himself. He loses track of time as he finds himself transfixed by the moment. A lived-in home, glowing with the warmth and love that a family brings it. JARVIS could never have expected a future like this was in store for him all those years ago, watching a drunken holiday celebration through the security cameras of Tony Stark’s Malibu home. He may not have learned about the holidays the human way but Vision thinks he finally understands. At the very least he knows that the real gift is the life he was granted  and nothing underneath the tree, hidden beneath loving if imperfect wrapping can compare.

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

I’m still annoyed by Captain America: Civil War

It still annoys me how weak the arguments were on both sides of the accords debate in Civil War. You have Tony discovering that a kid was killed during the mess with Ultron and deciding that the Avengers need to be put in check but that's about the entirety of his argument. Then on the other side, you have Steve saying that the Avengers should be free to operate because they might need to react quickly to threats but neither side's arguments are really developed. And worse, we don't really get to hear why most of the people involved pick one side or the other.

There are plenty of potential points that could be made from either side, and who makes them could say something about their characterisation.

You could have someone like Rhodey compare the Avengers to military contractors - technically civilians but acting as soldiers in dangerous situations. He could point out that those contractors are still supposed to be held accountable if they hurt civilians or something goes wrong and that there are still rules they have to follow.

You could get someone not necessarily on Steve's side in principle but just a bit cautious point out that the accords document is about the size of a phone book and say that they should get more time to read it and understand it and maybe talk it through with a lawyer before they're expected to sign it.

Someone could try and find a middle ground position, saying that maybe the Avengers should be free to act when they need without getting prior approval to go into a situation, but that there could be reviews after the fact to determine if they overstepped any boundaries and a fund set up to provide emergency relief for anyone who's home gets blown up or whatever.

Someone really ought to point out that blaming the Avengers for the damage in New York in the first movie is ridiculous when the authorities aimed a nuclear bomb at the city and that the incident at the start of the film was about Wanda trying to stop a terrorist releasing a bioweapon that would have been devastating. She was trying her best to stop there being any casualties and slipped up, but she still saved a large number of lives. This is like a team a fire fighters trying to save a hundred people trapped in a burning building and only managing to get 98 of them out - you wouldn't claim that the fire fighters killed the two they didn't manage to save so Wanda shouldn't be blamed that she didn't manage to save everyone.

Steve definitely should have pointed out that the last time he was working under the authority of a government body, it turned out to be secretly Hydra, so maybe he's justified in not wanting to put his trust in another organisation. It's ridiculous that this didn't even get a mention given the events of his previous movie.

Someone could point out that the situation is different for different members of the Avengers. People like Hawkeye, Black Widow, Ant Man, even Iron Man all get their abilities from technology, while people like Hulk, Captain America, and the Scarlet Witch all get their abilities from their biology. Civil War comes after Iron Man 3, so Tony has had his arc reactor removed at this point. He could stop being Iron Man by just... stopping using his tech. But Steve? Steve is still going to be a supersoldier, no matter what he chooses. Setting rules for enhanced people has very different implications depending on whether those enhancements are something they can just take off or not.

But someone on Tony's side could still make the argument that it's about reassuring people that the Avengers aren't a threat, and that because they have these extra powers, it's important that they are held to a higher standard. They could make the argument that people in positions of power are often held up to greater scrutiny and that the same principle should apply here.

Someone could make the argument that the Avengers are based in America and most of them are American and this leads to some fraught political situations with people worried that they might be deployed against other countries in a war - and hold up Captain America as an example of exactly this sort of thing happening. Putting the Avengers under the authority of an international body with rules about the sort of conflicts they should/shouldn't be involved in (i.e. fighting aliens is fine but going up against a non-enhanced force in a mundane conflict isn't) would put a lot of political folks at ease. The Accords could make the Avengers a genuinely international organisation and that could give them more freedom to operate and help people outside of the US.

I'm sure there are more points that could be made for each side - or for finding a middle ground compromise - but no one makes them in the film. That just makes the whole conflict seem silly and weak because it feels like the disagreement is based on almost nothing. It feels like it's based on petty stuff like Wanda not being happy about being grounded instead of serious issues that impact global politics and people's lives.

If the writers had just made the arguments for or against the accords stronger and had more people than just Steve and Tony voice those arguments, the movie would have felt a lot stronger too.

Plus it still bugs me that Tony is the person pushing hardest for the accords - but he disregards them the second it's inconvenient to him. He realises that Bucky was framed and he immediately hacks the security on the Raft and flies off on an unauthorised operation without the permission of the very authority he was arguing ought to have oversight of them. I mean... this is entirely in Tony's character to act like this, but it ought to have been called out. There ought to have been consequences for him. He's there going, "We need to be kept in check. There need to be rules we should follow." Then the instant he wants to do something, he just does it, screw the rules. At the very least, someone should have called him a hypocrite on screen.

Preferably Rhodey.

I would have loved, during the scene at the end, for Rhodey to just call Tony on his bullshit, especially since Rhodey was on his side through the accord argument. If Rhodey was in favour of the accords because he was genuinely of the opinion they were important, he should have been mad as hell at Tony for breaking the rules five seconds after agreeing to them.

TL;DR Basically, the whole foundation of the movie was the accords and the arguments were dumb, which made the movie irritating.

[servinglemonade]

WandaVision Review

BEWARE: SPOILERS FOR ALL WANDAVISION EPISODES AHEAD

Didn't WandaVision end over a month ago now? Yes. Wasn't The Falcon and Winter Soldier finale yesterday? Yes. Is that going to stop me from talking about this incredible show? No, it won't.

Hi everyone! I started writing this review while WandaVision was still airing, but got so swamped with life that I did not have time to finish it. But here we are, finally! I adore this show, it is a fresh and different take on the MCU and I personally loved every second of it. The concept should not have made sense, like Paul Bettany kept saying, it is bonkers! However, somehow, they just made it work and I just enjoyed it so much! The sitcom aspect, the different songs and score, the attention to detail, the new characters, and spending time with Wanda and Vision was just fantastic! Because at the end of the day, that was what this was all about, Wanda and Vision and their relationship! For a more in-depth and spoiler review of every episode, keep on reading!

Episode 1 - Filmed Before A Live Studio Audience

Many people expressed their annoyance with the fact that the first two episodes that aired were very slow, and yes they are. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. This is not a movie, it is a show, they are building the story, just enjoy the ride and the mystery because even the first episode left so many questions! I loved seeing Wanda and Vision as the stars of the show for once and I enjoy spending all this time with them. The production value of the whole show is amazing but the black and white episodes are something special. I have never watched the old school sitcoms they are referencing here in episode 1 (and 2) but I found it so charming and cute. The square aspect ratio, the black and white, the old school VFX, the laughing track from the audience. I thought it was really cool to see. One of my favorite moments in this episode was the dinner scene with the Harts. When Mr. Hart chocked and Mrs. Hart just kept saying stop it, and Wanda and Vision just kind of looked at each other like what is happening, was so tense. When Wanda looked at Vision and said to help him was so well done by both Elizabeth and Paul! So, I really loved this first episode.

Episode 2 - Don’t Touch That Dial

Episode 2 is where you really start to see that nothing is at it seems in this ‘perfect’ world. So, there is a talent show that day and our favorite unusual couple is preparing for their magic act. Wanda also tells Vision that is their home and she wants to fit in. Later, Vision goes to the Neighborhood Watch because of a strange sound he heard the night before, where we meet some more people from Westview and Vision’s co-workers. Vision mentions he does not eat food. However, when Herb offers him gum, he takes it but accidentally swallows it. This leads to a really cool animation that Vision might not be doing so well after eating that piece of gum. Meanwhile, Wanda hears a strange noise so she goes to check it out, and it is this little red and gold-colored drone with a logo on it... Which was later revealed to be the SWORD logo. But then who comes to visit... Agnes. She was suspicious since the beginning and we were right about that... So Wanda joins Agnes for a meeting with the Planning Committee. Here we meet, Geraldine aka Monica Rambeau, Dottie, and some more people from Westview. So, Wanda is trying really hard to fit in but is not really successful. They say the talent show is for the children but are not any children in Westview... Fishy! Then Wanda has to clean everything up after the meeting and has a really weird moment with Dottie. Someone is trying to contact Wanda through the radio which freaks Dottie out completely, the glass breaks and Dottie’s blood is red, while the rest is still black and white just like that little drone... So, when it’s time for the magic show, Vision shows up at the nick of time and appears to be acting a little weird or ‘drunk’ so to speak. So of course, everything goes wrong during the show and Wanda tries to cover it up. But everyone thought they were being funny so they won! And they go back home, and Wanda turns out to be pregnant! I thought it was a really cute reveal but it did not last long because there is some strange dude outside in a beekeeper costume coming out of the sewer and Wanda is like ‘oh hell no’ and rewinds time like it never happened. Badass.

Episode 3 -  Now in Color

In this episode, Wanda and Vision prepare for the arrival of the baby, which of course causes some trouble not just in the house but in the neighborhood of Westview too. I loved how Vision was making Dad jokes and was quite nervous about becoming a dad. Yet, Wanda was just like chill, we got this, so cute. The pregnancy goes very fast, which confuses Vision. He also starts questioning the situation they are in and how weird the citizens of Westview act sometimes. He even looks straight into the camera! So, Wanda looks a bit scared and rewinds again!! So, it was becoming very clear that Wanda is pulling the strings here and can alter what happens. Afterward, Vision runs to get the doctor and Geraldine (aka Monica) shows up. At some point, Geraldine realizes what’s up and she helps Wanda deliver her baby, or babies as we later find out. Twins! What a twist, as Darcy says in the next episode (although it was in the trailer that there were 2 babies, I just wanted to make that joke). So, everyone is very happy and as Vision lets the doctor out, Monica stays with Wanda. Now, this is where this episode gets super weird. So, Vision sees Agnes and Herb talking and they are discussing how Geraldine is an outsider since she just showed up in Westview with no home and family. Then, Herb wants to say something important, but of course, Agnes stops him. Meanwhile, Wanda and Monica are inside and Wanda mentions Pietro for the first time in a long time!!! I think since Age of Ultron. Speaking of Ultron, Monica then mentions that Pietro was killed by him. We do not see what happens next (just yet hehe) but the aspect ratio changes and we go outside of Westview where SWORD is monitoring the hex very closely...  This episode brought up a lot of questions, which is one of the things I loved about it. A scene I liked was when Wanda’s water broke and the house got all wet. So, Wanda used her powers to create some wind to dry off. She was standing there very gracefully and Vision was in the background struggling to keep his balance. I just thought that was funny. 

Episode 4 - We Interrupt This Program

Did I mention how much I love the titles for every episode, I think they are so clever. In this episode, we see the last 3 episodes but from outside the hex! So, we get a couple more answers to our questions. For example, that it is ALL WANDA! Wanda is creating a reality where she can live in a perfect world with Vision. We get re-introduced to some characters we have not seen in a while! Jimmy Woo, who has mastered close-up magic like he was practicing in Ant-Man and The Wasp! We love to see it. And Dr. Darcy Lewis, who is now an astrophysicist, just like Jane! I think it was really good to pair these two together because they had a great dynamic and quickly became such a fun duo! We also get introduced to one of the worst people in MCU history, the new director of SWORD... Tyler Hayward. The literal definition of a bastard. I mean this man is a liar and is sitting in Monica’s chair (who should obviously be the new director). This brings me to the beginning of the episode, which in my opinion is the best perspective on the Blip we have gotten so far. The VFX when Monica blipped back was incredible. I also thought that whole sequence in the hospital showed how chaotic it must have been for some places after Hulk snapped everyone back. For example, when this one guy said “Everyone is coming back, we don’t the capacity!” I think that is a really interesting angle to explore the ramifications of The Blip. But the most heartbreaking thing about that scene was Monica finding out her mother, Maria, passed away while she was blipped. That was just awful. A fun thing about this episode was that everyone at SWORD was kind of like us, trying to piece together what was going on! But the best part about the episode was, of course, seeing how Wanda took Monica out of the hex. She really looked and sounded like a villain. It was amazing, but the most creepy thing I have ever seen in the MCU was talking zombie Vision. Really good jump scare and very unexpected and dark! 

Episode 5 - On a Very Special Episode...

And we are back with Wanda and Vision living their ‘perfect’ life, trying to get the twins to sleep, which is not really working out for them. And of course, Agnes shows up to help them. Vision is kind of apprehensive and prefers if Agnes does not get too close. However, Agnes starts acting weird and asks Wanda: "Do you want me to begin from the top?" WHAT...?! I thought this sounded like she knew Wanda was in control. Wanda tries to talk some sense into her and lets Agnes do her thing. Vision starts getting really suspicious of the situation in this episode and I loved seeing that and how Wanda dealt with it as well. We catch up with SWORD and our favorite duo has become a trio!! Jimmy Woo, Darcy, and Monica! Hayward is briefing everyone about Wanda’s history, tells more lies, Monica actually sticks up for her (yas), and Jimmy & Darcy agree with the whole world that Hayward is a bastard. Back in the hex, we are introduced to Sparky the dog, and the twins age up to ten. Later, our favorite trio is on a mission to figure out what is going on. What I found most interesting about this scene was when Jimmy mentioned Captain Marvel, Monica was super dismissive... I smell some drama between those two. They then figure out if they can send something in the Hex to contact Wanda. While Vision is at work, they get a mysterious e-mail from SWORD trying to make contact inside the hex, which results in Vision waking up Norm from someone’s control!!! Such a cool scene, very well acted as well. Back at the Vision residence, Wanda has a little heart to heart with the twins about family, which I thought was very heartwarming. But then, a SWORD drone has come into the hex and Hayward actually weaponized it. And we get one of Wanda’s most badass scenes ever! She comes out of the hex and throws the drone right back at them and tells them to leave her alone since she has everything she wants. Then, she amplifies the hex with her powers and now it has this red glow around it. What I found really interesting about this was her Sakovian accent, which was so present here. The commercial for ‘Lagos’ paper towels this episode was very clever: ‘when you make a mess you did not mean to.’, which is obviously a reference to what Wanda did to that hospital in Civil War. So, Sparky is missing and they find him dead in Agnes’ hands. RIP :(. The ending of the episode where Wanda and Vision fight was amazing and SO WELL ACTED by both of them. Super tense! And of course, in the end, Evan Peters shows up as Pietro. I have never seen the X-Men movies (I know, I am sorry.), so I had no clue that he actually played Quicksilver in the FOX movies. 

Episode 6 - All-New Halloween Spooktacular!

This was one of my favorite episodes and it may or may not be because of the Halloween elements. I thought the twins talking to the audience in this episode was really cute and a great way for us to get to know their personalities as well. Wanda comes downstairs looking fabulous in her classic Scarlet Witch costume from the comics!! The kids and Pietro kind of think the costume is a bit meh, but they obviously do not know what they are talking about... Pietro then talks about trick or treating with Wanda in Sakovia and Wanda says she does not remember... Clue #1 that this Pietro is being kind of weird. Later, Vision shows up in his classic comics costume, which was funny to see him in that. So Vision tells Wanda he cannot go trick or treating with them because he is doing some stuff with the Neighborhood Watch tonight, while in fact, he is going to be doing some investigating in Westview. So Pietro joins the fam instead with his classic Quicksilver costume and Tommy has the same outfit on because it is later revealed that he also has super speed. I really enjoyed the trick-or-treating bit. So, Vision is nearing the edge of the Hex and seems as though people are either stuck in a loop but still conscious or just standing completely still. Back at SWORD, our favorite trio is taking matters into their own hands and are trying to figure out a way to go back into the hex and they find out that Hayward is tracking Vision and the decay of Vibranium. Which raised a bunch of questions for me, like is Hayward just after Vision? Darcy mentions that going in and out of the hex is changing Monica’s cells. Interesting and scary. When Vision found Agnes at the edge of the hex and got her out of the spell, she knew about the Avengers but Vision did not since he has no memory. She was acting really weird though... AS ALWAYS! The town square with all the Halloween decorations looked so cute and gave me serious Halloweentown vibes! Pietro is fishing for answers with Wanda and we get another jump scare with zombie Pietro... This was even worse than Vision. Then, we get this heartbreaking scene, where he is trying to get out of the hex and tries to tell SWORD the people need help and he is slowly falling apart and nobody tries to help him but Darcy. I really thought he was going to die again and I was not ready for that. Luckily, Billy senses his dad is in trouble and goes to Wanda. She then freezes the whole town and EXPANDS THE ENTIRE HEX. That was just crazy and what a cliffhanger. 

Episode 7 - Breaking The Fourth Wall

This is the Modern Family style episode and as a huge fan of that, this was sooooo well done! The humor, the confessionals to the camera, the camera work even. It was perfect. So, it’s not going so well in the hex. A lot of furniture and things in the house are switching between decades, like the twins’ game consoles and the milk. Wanda kept saying she was fine, while we can all see she obviously is not. Agnes suggests taking the twins so Wanda can have a little self-care time. Speaking of which, her confessionals to the camera were so funny! Vision seeks out Darcy and Darcy just thinks he wants to go on a date with her. All I kept thinking was: Vision, just take her out of the spell. Which of course he does later and Darcy says how she thought it would be fun to be on WandaVision but in reality, it was not, that was great. They then escape the circus by getting in a funnel cake truck. Meanwhile, Monica and Jimmy meet up with the engineer who turned out to be no one we knew. But she did bring a vehicle that Monica could use to get back in the hex. Which eventually did not work, so Monica literally runs in there without any protection really. But we got this beautiful sequence where Monica gets her powers and it was just stunning. She hears all these voices of her past and she is also ripped apart somehow with different versions of herself but she pulls them all together and she goes comes out on the other side in a superhero landing and GLOWING eyes, wow. Vision and Darcy are stuck somewhere in Westview like someone really does not want them to get to Wanda. Darcy basically tells Vision his whole story and he finally learns what Wanda had to endure concerning his death as well. Vision’s confessionals in front of that funnel truck were hilarious as well! Another thing I loved about that was that Darcy mentioned how she had been watching WandaVision (just like us hehe) and the love Wanda and Vision share is real, which I thought was really cute. Monica visits Wanda at home and she is NOT happy. Elizabeth Olsen is really selling the more villainous moments and Teyonnah Parris killed this scene as well, the emotion in her voice was on point. Agnes sees what happens and goes to stop it and takes Wanda to her house. Wanda sits in the living room and the twins are nowhere to be found, so Agnes says they are in the basement. Which has these really weird branches coming out of it, Wanda goes down and there are all these weird artifacts and this book, very WITCHY... And it is revealed that Agnes is Agatha Harkness, a witch!!! This leads to the instantly iconic smash hit, Agatha All Along!!! (which I am still very much obsessed with) So we see her messing with events like the talent show and it was also revealed that she was the one that killed Sparky... I had been following theories throughout the show, so some already suspected Agnes was Agatha but the way it was revealed was just iconic. 

Episode 8 - Previously On...

I loved this one too. This episode gives us some answers to our questions and a glimpse into Wanda's past. Hosted by none other than Agatha Harkness! (I love how she was giving commentary on everything this episode, Katherine Hahn is amazing!) In the beginning, we also see some of Agatha's past and I thought it was really cool, I love the magic section of the MCU and I feel like they are starting to explore it more and more. It was also a very dark scene, really great stuff. After that, Agatha is explaining to Wanda why she came to Westview, why is she is seeking her out specifically, and showcases her magic. She also explains how she brought FIETRO in the picture (cannot stop calling him that now lol). We then take a trip down memory lane. First up, Sokovia. I thought this was cute and gave us an answer to why they are referencing sitcoms. I did not expect to see the bombing that Wanda and Pietro talked about in Age of Ultron and as it turns out the bomb did not go off because Wanda put a spell on it! Then we move to the Hydra facility where Wanda and Pietro volunteered. So when Wanda was alone with the scepter, the mind stone went to her by itself, almost like it chose her or something. I thought it was really cool that it was showing her true self or her future self for that matter. Next up, the Avengers compound. I loved how when Vision entered he came through the wall, just like he did in Civil War and he is kind of confused about the sitcom she is watching. They have a little heart-to-heart about how Wanda is feeling after Pietro's death. I have to say the writing and lines here are great but Vision says this gorgeous one: "But what is grief, if not love persevering?" That is one of the best lines in the show and MCU, so beautiful. I mean even Agatha had to wipe away a tear. The last scene was incredible. So we find out that Wanda never took Vision's body from SWORD and that Hayward is a lying bastard (tells us something we do not know). I was on the verge of tears when Wanda went to Vision's body and said she could not feel him anymore. Gosh, that was sad and made me think of Infinity War. She then leaves the SWORD HQ and drives to Westview and she stops at this empty plot of land... Because Vision bought that for them to live there :( That is just so sad and Wanda her grief was so great that SHE created the hex out of nothing. On top of that, she even created a new Vision. That whole scene was so visually striking, it was incredible. So back to 'reality'. Agatha leads Wanda outside and she is wearing her costume (which looks great btw!) and her hair is blowing in the wind and she is holding the twins hostage and she tells Wanda she used chaos magic to create the hex, which makes her THE SCARLET WITCH!!!!!! SHE SAID IT! The way I screamed omg, it was amazing!

Episode 9 - The Series Finale

We've made it!! Congrats if you have made it this far, cause this a long post. Let me start off by saying that even though some people hated this finale because of all the theories that had been spread on the internet, I really enjoyed it! Yes, even I was convinced that some of them were true, particularly Mephisto and Doctor Strange showing up. It did not happen and at the end of the day, I was fine with it because they were just theories, it was not confirmed. Now, the whole Evan Peters thing... It was a bit weird that he was just a nobody, but I was honestly not that invested in that storyline, so yeah, I get why other people were disappointed. But to say it ruined the whole show, no way, it was never about him in the first place. With the mystery of WandaVision, I think we all looked too much into every single detail. WandaVision is about Wanda dealing with her grief and the love she shares with VIsion, which they delivered on in spades and I loved seeing that. Plus, it is not to say that Mephisto will never show up, there were a lot of clues here that he might in the future with all those devil references... The finale wrapped up this story and gave some teases for what is to come. It delivered some great action at the beginning of the episode with Wanda vs. Agatha and Vision vs. White Vision. I thought the little philosophy session with the Visions was so in character, it was great. Speaking of White Vision, now that he has all of Vision's memory... WHERE DID HE GO?! I am sure we will see him again. I thought the scene where the people from Westview surrounded Wanda and were blaming her for all their trauma these past weeks, which is totally within their right, was so intense and Elizabeth really sold it!! All the Wanda vs. Agatha scenes were awesome and loved seeing them use their magic in different ways. Now, my two favorite moments of this finale. I did not realize what Wanda was doing while fighting Agatha in the air, not until Agatha could not use her powers anymore... Wanda literally used Agatha's own tricks against her by casting those ruins inside the hex! Wanda accepting her destiny as the Scarlet Witch was such a beautiful moment, I had legit chills! AND HER NEW COSTUME LOOKS STUNNING! With her hair and the headpiece, omg yes queen. Also, I think we will be seeing Agatha again, they really established that her path will cross with Wanda in a future MCU project! Now, my other favorite moment. Wanda saying goodbye to her family. Some of the lines were just beautiful and the score was emotional. I thought it was chilling how you could just see the hex closing in on them, it felt very cinematic. I genuinely think it is among some of my favorite moments in the MCU. It was a beautiful ending to this story. So, what's next?! One post-credit scene was Monica being recruited by a SKRULL!! I love it when the Skrulls just pop up out of nowhere, it's great. So the Skrull tells her there is someone who wants to see her up there... That has to be Nick Fury right?! The last time we saw him he was on some sort of space station with Skrulls in Far From Home. Maybe Monica will also play a part in Secret Invasion?! I am excited about that reunion nonetheless! The other scene was Wanda settled in a secluded area in the mountains. Wanda has been confirmed for Multiverse of Madness with Doctor Strange and I am SO excited for that. This scene confirmed it too! If u listen closely you can hear a different version of Doctor Strange's theme!! I thought it was really cool and a little scary that Wanda could be awake and have her astral projection reading the dark hold at the same time! That was powerful!

So, here we are, we made it! I loved this show and I am so happy Wanda is becoming a very big part of the MCU and her future shines brighter than ever!! Thank you so much for reading this! I hope you enjoyed it :) Next up, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier! (spoiler alert: it was amazing!!!!) Hopefully, my review will be up before Loki has started ;)

PS. I loved all the songs and scores from the show so much, I put all my faves in a Spotify playlist! Check it out here

[florafaunaandeldritchhorrors]

@juravern replied to your post

I’ve like never spoken to you before and also I haven’t rewatched AoU since I first saw it in the theatre but I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you said LOL. How they killed Jarvis off and didn’t even give Tony screentime on his feelings about that, I disliked it even back then when I couldn’t articulate what else I didn’t like about the whole movie.

I’m a simple person who has trouble pinpointing what I didn’t like in a movie if I just finished watching its cool action scenes XD, but I say that Infinity War was still okay compared to Endgame. Endgame truly sucked and I’d read you ranting about it if you wrote it.

they put what’s left of Jarvis into the Vision! and then never deal with that!

as for Endgame: you’re in luck, because I watched it for the first time last week, but also out of luck, because I really liked it! It helps that, because I was expecting to never watch it before that week, I didn’t avoid spoilers when it came out and was forewarned for most of the stuff that might have bothered me more (Natasha’s death and how badly all the Thor stuff punched down stand out). 

I wish I had been spoiled about Hawkeye, though. I’m sure someone else has written about the racial implications of his plotline before he rejoins the main storyline, as an Asian woman I’m too tired to explain why you can’t just have your white guy kill a bunch of unnamed people of color as an easily brushed past turn to the dark side. Also I’m pretty sure the yakuza don’t use samurai swords.

But, zooming out a little, I should probably talk about Infinity War first.

Infinity War is also a movie that I watched for the first time last week. I skipped it when it first came out because I correctly guessed that there were too many characters to do them all justice, and because usually I would see this sort of movie with my dad, who had trouble keeping the characters straight in Age of Ultron, and would be totally lost. He’s the reason why I finally watched both movies last week--he kept talking about how he wanted to watch WandaVision but needed to catch up first, and refused to let me spoil him on stuff, so we watched the movies and he finally learned about the Snap.

(I’m glad we waited, because throughout both movies I had to pause and explain stuff to him. And both of us despise people who talk at the theater.)

So: Infinity War is juggling way too many characters, and is basically wall-to-wall overstuffed action scenes. (Overstuffed action scenes are also a problem with Age of Ultron.) And then, at the end of the movie, they kill off every character they don’t have room for in Endgame, and it makes Endgame a much better movie.

There isn’t time in a movie like that to deal with Wanda’s guilt and grief, so she gets snapped, and that arc is left for WandaVision. Peter Parker can’t have a five year gap yet, so he gets snapped. T’Challa would want his story to be about Wakanda losing half of everybody, so he gets snapped. The Guardians of the Galaxy won’t mesh well with the Avengers unless they’re forced to, so everyone except Rocket and Nebula are snapped. Et cetera, et cetera. You can and probably should interrogate some of their choices, but the act of wiping the table clean is the best remedy for the problem where they’re expected to write a crossover including every living character.

Also, remember when I was talking about overstuffed action sequences? Endgame doesn’t have any of that until the very end of the movie. When it comes, it’s the most overstuffed action scene of all time, and there’s a lot of moments in that fight that just don’t work, but there’s like... two whole hours of not that. 

And then, on top of that, Endgame delivers on the nostalgia factor. The reason that I’m doing this rewatch is how much I enjoyed the time heist part of the movie. It made me want to watch the first Avengers, it made me want to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, it made me want to watch Thor: the Dark World, a movie which is not very good! I just watched it!

(Also ever since Guardians 2, I’ve loved Nebula as a character, and especially her relationship with Gamora. The fact that she was such a huge character in Endgame took me by surprise in the best way.)

Stuff I didn’t like: Traveling back to the forties is a really bad ending for Steve. By the time they were on that cliff, I wanted Clint to die so bad and the fact he didn’t still bugs me. You would think that all ten of the time heisters would be fleshed out, but for some reason Rhodey is noticeably missing a character arc. (Hint: it’s because he’s the only POC in that group.) It makes no sense for Pepper to wear a suit, it only happens because they were criticized for not having enough female heroes. 

[always-winter-baby]

feel free to add anything i missed, endgame haters.

This is a Wordpress post that I never posted about a Facebook post that I made last fall (2019) about how godawful Endgame was.

-------- I know I've been gone for a while and when I was here, I was writing about films I had watched. (Maybe I should start that.)

However, I am a HUGE fan of Marvel and their cinematic universe. I have the movies, the comics, the clothing, and far too much memorabilia to be considered a "casual" fan at this point. I've been reading comics for about twelve years and I started dedicating myself to the MCU around the end of Phase One.

That being said, it means everyone comes to me with their Marvel questions and everyone comes to me to see what I thought of each new film. And I don't give simple, "It was good. I really liked it," answers. I make complete strangers regret their own questions sometimes because I dive into the deep end immediately describing how they really pulled off the Mysterio "mind-bending" stuff fantastically, but how the story hinged really hard on Tony Stark when Peter in the comics stands on his own and Peter in the MCU should be able to as well.

I can give you speeches on the reason why Natasha's backstory would have been better established in The Winter Soldier than Age of Ultron or and how killing off Pietro in his first film did a disservice to Wanda's character, etc, etc. In the words of a person I passed by at work the other day, "I can talk the ears off a snake."

That's not the point of this post. That was just establishing that I am very dedicated and I Care deeply about these characters and this world.

That being said, when someone on Facebook not too long ago asked me to share my opinions on Avengers: Endgame, I asked him if he was really prepared for the novel I was going to spill on why I think that Endgame was a poorly written and directed film. He said his was. But his lack of any response to my novel was proof that he clearly was not.

However, for anyone else wondering, I copied that little book of a response and I'm posting it here. It's a little scrambled up (it was a facebook post so these things happen, okay?). I think it will still get the point across as to why I tell people that if I pulled the good parts of Endgame, I could make a really great thirty minute Avengers movie.

The post went as follows:

-Thor’s characterization was a three hour long fat joke. Thor had the most character growth out of anyone in Infinity War. His part was fantastic. Then they turned around and made everything about it completely idiotic. Thor has lived over a thousand years. He’s lost battles and lost countless, countless people before. Infinity War wasn’t the first time he made a mistake in battle that cost someone their life. He lost his entire family and almost all of friends and none of that turned him into lazy, sloppy, unshowered, fat Thor. I refuse to believe this time would magically break him. Character annihilation.

Banner has hated the Hulk for the entirety of Hulk’s existence. He’s talked about how exposed and vulnerable it makes him feel. He’s always been a quiet, shy, reclusive, and work-focused kind of guy. Now magically, he’s happy being Hulk 24/7, dabs, and takes selfies with kids? He’s hanging out in public as Hulk and drawing attention to himself? Sorry. Refuse to believe it. I know Professor Hulk is from the comics. It seems stupid and forced there too. I’m not of the opinion that just because something is found in comics that it’s necessarily a good thing. I’ve read plenty of bad comics as I’m sure any decent comic reader has.

-Tony isn’t awful. I actually think he’s done pretty well. No complaints.

-However, Pepper is awful. And it makes sense now that they’ve released the info that Gwyneth Paltrow just made up a lot of her own lines. She doesn’t know the character despite having played her for a decade. Pepper is always super cautious and she is constantly on Tony’s case about his heroic ventures, etc. Therefore, I find it incredibly hard to believe that she let him go without a fight after he “solved time travel.” I also find it absolutely impossible that she sits beside him as he’s dying and is peaceful enough to just tell Tony that he’s okay and he should rest. Per her character for the last decade, she should have been frantic. Of course it wouldn’t have been as sad and poetic an ending, but it would have been much more believable for the character.

-Clint. Meh. I can live with Clint, I think. I don’t love it or hate it. I am glad they reestablished his closeness with Natasha after AoU tried to erase it.

-Natasha. I actually like Natasha’s character in this one. Same as Tony, I think they wrote her without compromising her. Good for them. Even though I hate that they killed her off, I think that the final scene where she fights Clint is SO WELL DONE. (Except her father wasn’t named Ivan. Not even in the MCU. But whatever. Maybe Markus and McFeely know absolutely nothing about Russian names despite giving Natasha’s full name in CA:TWS. I’ll chalk it up to ignorance. Whatever.) HOWEVER, despite liking Natasha’s character and death scene, the death should not have happened. I don’t know if you’re a comic reader, but if you are, you know that the trip happens where you see the bad guy or a random person or whatever do a Bad Thing. Then later in the comic, when the Bad Thing comes into play again and there seems like absolutely no hope, the hero pulls out One Last Magic Trick. The hero manages to do what the previous person could not. And they Save the Day because they are the hero. And the hero is the one designed to give readers hope that we can overcome all odds, etc. It is literally the entire point of superhero stories to tell the stories that “realistic” books never could. We’ll come back to my complaint with Natasha’s death in a moment.

-Scott, Rhodey, Rocket, Carol were all fine. No complaints. But Okoye.

They made it out in promo that Okoye was going to have a much more significant part. She was barely in the thing. And I think it was a very missed opportunity. We saw T’Challa turn to dust. And we were told Shuri did (although, I would have paid much bigger money to see her alive and operating as The Black Panther. She’s assumed that mantle in the comics before so definitely not out of the realm of possibility.) I wanted them to show us what Wakanda would look like with half its population dusted and its ruler gone. Does M’Baku rule? What do Okoye and the Dora Milaje look like now without their King and who do they protect/defend? They had a great opportunity to show us how the world was faring after five years post-Snap, especially a place like Wakanda that rarely suffers any devastations due to their tech. Now without that protection, how are they handling the aftermath? Enormous missed opportunity.

-Steve. On my god. Where do I even start? Going into Endgame, Steve Rogers had the BEST story arc of anyone in the MCU. But here is where Marvel really shot themselves in the foot. They let the opinions of fans after Civil War severely alter their original plans for this film. (That’s a fact that’s been admitted by former Marvel employees. I didn’t make that up.). After Civil War came out, there were two strong opinions being voiced. 1) Fans who didn’t know the comics didn’t understand Sharon being there and didn’t like her quickly becoming Steve’s love interest. 2) Fans saw the always-present and ever-growing bond between Steve and Bucky and got bolder about their campaign that Steve and Bucky were a couple. Doesn’t matter if you’re for that or not. The fact of the matter is that the idea of them as a couple has A BIG FOLLOWING. I don’t think people were really pushing to see it become a real thing on screen or anything, but the execs at Marvel suddenly did this thing where they all quickly shouted “NO HOMO” really loudly and promptly dropped Bucky from as many scenes as possible. They admitted to creating distance between Steve and Bucky for this reason. And because Steve and Sharon didn’t get the reaction they wanted, they had Steve go back and get back with Peggy.

But let’s recap here and see if any of that makes sense for Steve Rogers.

—He and Bucky were “inseparable on both playground and battlefield.”

—He literally broke the law and went behind enemy lines against orders just in case he had even the slightest chance of finding and saving Bucky from a Hydra base. He didn’t even know if Bucky was still alive.

—He added Bucky to his elite team and they fought side by side until Bucky’s “death.” When Bucky “died,” Steve went from saying, “I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t like bullies” to saying, “I’m not going to stop until all of Hydra is dead or captured.”

—Years later, when he realized Bucky was still alive, he literally stopped mid-fight and dropped all defenses. Later in the same film (on the helicarrier), he refuses to even fight Bucky. He drops his shield and was going to very willingly let Bucky kill him rather than fight him.

— When the Accords become a thing, Steve defied his own friends and 117 countries to get Bucky to safety. And then continues defying them with Bucky at his side because he is determined that Bucky deserves due process and a lawyer and help, not imprisonment.

— He helps Bucky get somewhere safe to hide and recover and visits him there. (Russos said they even discussed showing that Steve and Bucky were in regular contact between CW and IW.)

—He fights the Battle of Wakanda with Bucky and then gets to see him disintegrate right in front of him. It’s built up to be a very big moment. Bucky collapses into nothingness and Steve sits there touching Bucky’s dust remnants and with tears in his eyes. “Oh, God.”

—Then, magically comes Endgame and Steve is in a support group for people lost in the Snap and he’s grieving over PEGGY??? HE NEVER EVEN WENT ON A DATE WITH PEGGY. NOT ONE DATE. He kissed her ONE TIME very briefly 75+ years ago! HOW CAN HE BE SO SURE THEY WERE SOULMATES?! This is just awful writing.

— Then when everyone is brought back through the portals, Steve doesn’t even look for Bucky to make sure he’s there. They fight far away from one another. They never acknowledge the other one. These men have literally looked at each other before thinking that would be the last face they ever saw and then at the Battle to End All Things, they don’t even glance around to see if the other is present.

— Steve literally barely says goodbye to Bucky. He fought and was willing to die for the man, but now he is in such a rush to get back to that one girl he kissed that one time that he forsakes the people he should care about. (Sebastian Stan says he questioned this to the Russos and was actually told to just imagine Steve and Bucky must have talked it over offscreen and Sebastian tried to fight it, but was shot down.)

— Steve jumps in a time machine and goes back to live with his supposed soulmate thus creating an alternate timeline.

I have a real problem with this. A man who has been selfless his entire life chose to go and be selfish for 75+ years instead of helping anyone. This man lives to fight injustices and we are supposed to forget that? In order to believe that he went back to a woman he didn’t know that well and who already had a husband/children. CA:TWS showed that she had lived a happy life. She told him she only regretted that he didn’t get to live his. She didn’t regret them not getting to spend theirs together. And he didn’t seem to either. He was actively moving forward with his life. Thus the reason for Sharon.

Anyway, his entire story arc which is based around him being partners with Bucky and him being selfless got absolutely destroyed when he went back in the time machine and just ran away from everything he had built.

Which seems more likely? That everything in the three Cap films and IW was wrong about his character? Or that Endgame just slapped a big “No Homo” sticker on the script and did whatever they could possibly do to make sure fans could not say that Steve and Bucky were a thing?

Furthermore, I have no problem with Sam becoming the next Cap. I have a big problem with them doing it if the reason was to further the sever the ties between Steve and Bucky.

-And the Russos said that Bucky couldn’t be Cap because his mind had been compromised and that he couldn’t be trusted with a weapon. Which means that Bucky’s whole recovery story was what? A lie? They established that Bucky was really a great guy and not a terrible terrorist. And they said Shuri fixed his mind. And we still can’t trust the guy with the shield?

So either Shuri failed dramatically even though we saw her talent and progress with him in Black Panther and IW, Bucky is now magically “too broken,” or the writers and directors are stupid.  Your call, I guess.

They literally foreshadowed Bucky!Cap in all three Cap films. Bucky handles the shield in ALL THREE FILMS. But now he can’t be trusted with a weapon? Now he’s dangerous? He literally fought the battle of Wakanda with knives and an assault rifle. The shield is a DEFENSE weapon. So this excuse is the flimsiest argument ever and says horrible things about putting trust/faith in people after they’ve been victims and recovered from trauma. Gross.

-At least they FINALLY got Scarlet Witch right. I’ve been waiting to see my favorite Avenger done right for years. No complaints here except it took them long enough.

-Let’s not even discuss how their time travel ideas and theories are a MESS. Plot holes everywhere. (Steve would have created a new time line by going back. Did he just magically put the aether back in Jane? Did he have to kick Red Skull’s ass again on Vormir because I can’t imagine he would just stand by idly. This stuff would take me too long to even add onto here.)

-But back to Natasha. If it’s a “soul for a soul,” then when Steve returned the soul stone, he should have gotten Natasha back. Apparently a lot of fans saw this plot hole because they asked the Russos about it and the response they seriously got was something to the idea of, “No, you can’t do that. It doesn’t work that way.” Which WHY NOT? (Apparently because of poor writing.)

-Also not bitter (yeah right) that Tony got this big deal send off and everyone forgot about Natasha half an hour after she died. Shouldn’t the big send off at the end have been for both of them?!?! Would that have been SO hard?!

-Should I even discuss the fact that for some stupid reason Steve goes back in time and the serum stops working? Why does he age? Thor establishes in AoU that he doesn’t think Steve is mortal. And Peggy says in CA:TFA that Steve’s cells regenerate at four times the rate of average human cells. So he should still be fairly young even if he went back to the 40s. He shouldn’t start to age like a regular human just because he time traveled. He didn’t travel back to before he got the serum. I literally said, “No,” angrily the second they showed the back of Steve when he was sitting on that bench at the end. The other people in the theater turned to look at me and I was already pissed as hell and the movie wasn’t even over yet.

-Nebula having to kill her last self just seemed sloppy and cliche. I wasn’t impressed. That character had been through hell.  She is the one who really turns the tides in in the Infinity Saga comics so for her to get such poor treatment in the film?  SHE should have been the one to kill Thanos.  I know what Thor said, but Nebula literally has a lifetime of torture to make up for and she would have gotten some small consolation in avenging the death of her sister. GUH.  THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY.  SHE DESERVED THIS.

-So we really just backtracked and retconned Gamora’s whole story like that, huh?  I’m sure James Gunn is thrilled. (I’m joking. I’d be annoyed to high heavens if I were him.) Gunn had literally written this character’s story arc and progression and the Russos and Markus/McFeely took over and then literally wrote the story equivalent of “and then they all died” with Gamora’s story.  Such a jerk move and I sincerely hope Gunn finds a way to make GotG Vol 3 work out really well despite this.

I’m sure there’s more I’m unhappy with, but you get my point. I had high hopes for this film and they did not deliver.

It’s been months and I am still so immensely disappointed in Endgame. I expected the people who had written such great films in the past to deliver with another great film and they did not.

It wasn’t a completely awful film though. I thought they did a really good job with Doctor Strange and Wanda (finally!). And I loved Steve lifting Mjölnir! Carol’s short hair made me hot and bothered.  So the film had a few perks. 

I have friends who liked the film until I started pointing out its flaws. Sorry, not sorry. I'm glad Marvel broke box office records, but I'm not going to lie to anyone and say it was with a great film.

They are ----- And look, I never posted it on my blog because the rant ends there mid sentence and was never completed, but I think it’s safe to say I’m not happy.  That great cinematic masterpiece is a mockery of good character arcs. Anyone is welcome to try, but I’m unlikely to change my mind.

ETA: Since writing this, I have found multiple things about Tony’s character that upset me too.

[veliseraptor]

How about top 5 reasons you love Steve Rogers? (Because I have recently fallen back into the pit of feels that is that man and you have some of the best meta for him)

The Steve Rogers pit of feels is a good one.

1. His determination to be a good person. Steve is very much “good person in a bad world” and that’s honestly...one of the things that’s so powerful about him. His determination to do right by as many people as possible, to protect and defend others even when it’s not easy or popular or fun for him. Steve’s someone who is just very moral and that’s...I mean, it’s just inspiring. 

Steve isn’t someone who doesn’t know that the world can be horrible and cruel and ugly. He is intimately aware of that, from a young age and through his life, which has been kind of a fucking shitshow. But he stays determined to stay decent. He doesn’t give in to cynicism or apathy. And he doesn’t let it sway him from doing what he believes is right. 

I think there’s a tendency to see that as very...idk, cliche, or weak, or whatever, but honestly if there’s an embodiment of the “hopepunk” thing, I think Steve Rogers is it.

2. His defiance of authority. Speaking of punk. Steve is someone who is never afraid to flout authority when the situation calls for it. He’s not someone who does it reflexively, necessarily - but he’s someone who will put ideals over rules any day. Basically every movie he’s in he ends up flouting some kind of authority figure, and the thing is that he’s usually right. And I respect that. I respect the Steve Rogers who is an absolute punk, but very much in the sense of “do the right thing” punk. Civil disobedience, man. 

Steve is the kind of person who would throw himself into illegal protests as a means of protecting more vulnerable people because arresting Captain America (at least up until Civil War) would be a very bad PR look.

3. The hurt he keeps walled up inside himself. I love me some good repression. I mean, I also love my disasters who spill their emotions all over the floor while trying to pretend they don’t have any, but - that good repression. And specifically with Steve it’s not just a matter of “I need to be TOUGH and a MAN” but very specifically a desire to - there’s an interview where Chris Evans is talking about how both Steve and Sam are “wounded warriors who don't bleed on other people.” Steve keeps his pain to himself because he doesn’t want to make other people deal with it. 

And there is a lot of pain there, a lot of trauma of war and loss and the difficulty of being, to many people, a symbol more than a person - which is another reason to keep his hurt to himself. 

It’s just all very crunchy and good character stuff, and I love him both for the hurting (because traumatized characters! love em!) and because of the way he (doesn’t) deal with it.

4. “I could do this all day.” See also the “plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth” speech from the comics (given to Sharon in the movies, as a mouthpiece for Peggy, which, legit); Steve just doesn’t give up. He can be getting punched in the face and beaten down by whoever and he’ll still get up again and just keep. Going.

This isn’t from the MCU but I feel like it’s very much MCU Steve, so here, have a comics scan:

HELL FUCKIN YEAH STEVE.

5. His underrated complexity. I think often Steve gets written off as a simplistic character who is just, you know, the Goody Two Shoes (or, alternately, the Rebellious Punk), and that...undersells a lot of what makes Steve a good character, and what I love about him, as usual, is the ways in which he’s complicated. His trauma and loneliness against his compassion for others and willingness to reach out to them is a big one, but there’s also the tension between Steve as a man stuck in a war that he can’t leave and Steve as a man who really wants to go home. 

A theme throughout Steve’s arc is that he can’t stop fighting. His conversation with Tony on Clint’s farm in Age of Ultron, and his vision from Wanda in the same movie, are about the war still being with him. His conversations with Sam in The Winter Soldier about not knowing what he wants/struggling to reintegrate in the way soldiers do when they come back from a front. Just...the impossibility for him of moving on, stepping aside, giving himself breathing room to live his life - not just because he doesn’t really know how, but also because I don’t think he feels like he can. He owes it to everyone, to the world, to keep going. 

And he will keep going, until it kills him, because that’s the right thing to do and he’s not going to count on anyone else to do it.

And just...god I have a lot of feelings about Steve Rogers and his continuing willingness to sacrifice himself and his happiness. In some ways, whatever my feelings about his Endgame conclusion (not terribly positive), I do think it’s a good thing for Steve to learn how to be just a little bit selfish.

[mashitandsmashit]

America’s Got Talent: Season 15 - Auditions 4

11: Christine Hurley. I will say, I wasn't a big fan of the stand-up for the most part anyway, as she basically came off as Bargain Bin Barbolak (with only 10% trailer nasty). I mean, I've seen this character plenty of times before...But I also felt bad for that little flub; She was doing fine up until that point, and it really threw her off by the end...I will admit that Howie gave some pretty good advice, and I hope she takes it to heart to improve for the future...Best wishes to her!

10: LILIAC. Shame we didn't see more of this act...I enjoyed what little of them I saw! But I guess the next entry had to be the focus of the segment...

9: Luca Di Stefano. Barry White he is not, but this amused me enough...I wouldn't say this guy is necessarily a talented singer OR a talented baritone, as I could hear his voice cracking up throughout...But I enjoyed the gimmick for now, knowing that he's very likely going to be cannon fodder in the next round. (And probably for the best...Doing that CAN'T be good on his throat!)

8: Ashley Marina. So we're combining the drama from the Ansley Burns, Lamont Landers and Daniel Emmet auditions now, huh...? This kid gets THREE tries, HUH!? Honestly, it's getting harder and harder to understand Simon's standards by now, because I thought she did really good with both of those other attempts...But this was an obvious set-up...I liked her precious little dad song enough, and her singing voice is legitimately good (though nothing particularly new for me), so I'd say she deserves a shot in this game...I'm just sick of all this manipulative drama...Simon, I'm coming for your dogs! (This is becoming a VERY disturbing running gag...)

7: Olox. And from here on out, it's nothing but overwhelming positivity! When these two Power Rangers villains walked out, I knew they were either gonna suck, or we were gonna get something truly entertainingly bizarre! I am beyond happy that it was the latter! As far as such an unappealing talent as throat singing may be, they really are talented in that department, and they found a way to make it fun! ...And yet strangely the lady still sounded less like a goose than Dolores O'Riordan...(I'm just teasing; I like the Cranberries AND that song...) A silly gimmick that's sure not to get very far, but I'll enjoy the ride as much as I can!

6: Brett Loudermilk. Markiplier called, he wants his hair back! Next to Cristina Rae, this is probably the act we saw the most of in the promos...On the surface, he seemed like just another sideshow act, and to be fair, he kinda was...But contrary to some opinions I've made before, this is one type of act where personality is everything, and this guy has it by the bucketloads! Honestly, he is probably one of the funniest comedians we've seen in recent seasons, without even doing stand-up! And Sofia was almost as funny working off of him! I've no doubt the extra segments of the performance were a set-up (and how interesting that we had two acts with midway cliffhangers in a row...and I still loved this audition as much as I did!) That being said, I look forward to seeing him again! ...Though I guarantee you his throat hurt like a motherf***er the next morning! (And that makes TWO dudes in one show abusing the hell out of their throats!)

5: Nolan Neal. Vying for the gold medal in the Sob Story Olympics, and yet I'm willing to look past that because this man is just THAT talented! It's like if Chris Klafford's voice (and beard) came together with Marcin Patrzalek's guitar skills, with the songwriting complexity of We Three! Interesting how his audition came right after the Golden Buzzer, since this guy looked fitting enough for it (especially from Simon), and I honestly wouldn't have complained (though I'll get to the REAL pick soon...) But as it is, this guy looks like a prime GB pick for the Judge Cuts, and I have no doubt that he will go far! Hands down my favorite singer so far this season!

4: Feng E. Speaking of the passing down of Marcin Patrzalek's skills, here's a mini Marcin right here! Grace VanderWaal is watching this kid and going “Why didn't I do THAT with my ukelele!?” From what little we saw of him (not so much the performance as the boy himself), I wouldn't doubt that he will probably be eliminated in the next round...Real shame...But we have another talented preteen to potentially step in for him...

3: Noah Epps. It was actually a close one between the two kids, but I ultimately picked Noah because we saw more of his dancing than Feng's electric ukelele playing...(It's actually a close one between all of the Top 7...) It looks like they finally built a more advanced model of the Merrick Hanna droid, now with more creepy Pinocchio schtick! (Ultron, eat your mechanical heart out!) I really hope this kid does well in this game; No reason to cut his strings so early...

2: The Spyros Bros. So THIS is what Mochi's act was missing! Well, where he failed, this may be the act to succeed in making diabolo a talent to be taken seriously on this show! What they have already displayed here was mindblowing, and from what they've said, it sounds like this is only the beginning! Between the awesomeness we are (possibly) about to witness, the bullying backstory, and the AGT fanboyism, this act does have the potential to go far! When I watched the preview video on Youtube a few days ago, I was expecting this to be another awesome act in an otherwise humdrum show, but not only were almost every act tonight top-notch, but one other act just barely edged them out from the top spot of this list...

1: W.A.F.F.L.E. Crew. In Season 13, we got the epically named Pancakes! And now this year we have met their superior brethren in the dancing breakfast pastry category! (Can't wait to see French Toast Crew in Season 17 and Da Crepez in Season 19!) Okay, onto the most important point...I never thought I'd say this...But I think I'll be rooting for Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer to win this season! It's hard to compare them with the more gimmicky dance acts like V.Unbeatable, Light Balance and Zurcaroh, but as far as straight-up hip-hop dance goes, this is the cream of the crop! It's also hard to compare them with the other GBs; They probably won't get as many Youtube views as Roberta or Cristina (though we'll just see), but they definitely stand out more, and Simon is sure to push them as far as possible! So far none of the acts are safe bets for the win...But maybe it's time a dance crew finally got it (again, not counting V.Unbeatable at Champions earlier this year...) These guys have all of the necessary materials to go all the way: The skills, the style, the story, the Golden Buzzer, the fans' blessing, Simon's blessing...and MY blessing!

WHERE WERE ALL THESE ACTS BEFORE!? It's like they saved almost all of the really exciting ones for one show (though Malik and maybe a few others would have fit in quite well). This reminds me of that audition episode last year that had Marcin, Berywam and ADEM all in the same show (as well as that goofball who did the Andy Kaufman thing), but if almost the entire show was at their level! Hands down the best audition of the season so far, with several acts I could see making it all the way to the Finals!

So next week should be interesting...We already saw what it's like with a vacant judges' seat (giving the Spyros plenty of space to toss the diabolo over), but we'll see how Sofia's “Modern Family” co-star Eric Stonestreet handles filling in for Heidi...

I will probably expect the last Golden Buzzer of the round (Howie's) to be saved for the final audition the week after (I wonder if it will be that “at home” show I saw on Youtube, and they left out Howie's GB in those videos). Either way, we'll wait and see...

Until then...

[iron--spider]

Worried that Tony Stark is going to die in Avengers: Endgame? Do you want proof that he logically shouldn’t and the citations needed to die on that hill in the event that the powers that be do the unthinkable? Well step right up, fans and friends, because @whimsicalethnographies and I have compiled everything you might need, from canon quotes to future promotional appearances, that prove Tony Stark is not destined to die, and if they do kill him, they are ignoring the path that they laid out themselves and are thus causing his character arc to fail.

Here we go:

Canon evidence

“Don’t waste your life, Stark”

“A man with everything and nothing”

Both of these quotes are referencing family. Yinsen was referring to his own loving family, and Tony revealed that he didn’t have one (of course it’s hinted that this is Pepper—she’s supposedly his frantic text when they’re first attacked—but he doesn’t explicitly have it or her yet). Yinsen’s sacrifice was not for Tony to become Iron Man. It was for Tony to have a life, to have a family. What he didn’t have in the beginning and what he wanted to stay alive for. Tony ultimately fulfilling Yinsen’s true wish for him to stop isolating himself and make a family would be the most satisfying way for Tony’s story to end.

Yinsen is able to die peacefully because he has family that has already passed, and he wants to see them again. There is no way Marvel can properly parallel this because Tony’s family (the ones he genuinely loves anyway, other than his mother) are still alive, or still in the future (his children). If he dies he will leave everyone behind. The love of his life will still be here, and he’ll never be able to have children. If Pepper is pregnant, this is even worse. He will have a child, as he wanted to do, as he was looking forward to doing, but he will never meet it. This is especially cruel.

This would be a gross subversion of Yinsen, and ruin any meaning the character actually had in Tony’s life. He wanted him to be more, to have more, and to Yinsen, more was a family who was waiting for him.

In IM3, a little boy in a restaurant ominously whispers, “How did you get out of the wormhole?” It’s heavily implied that that line is entirely in Tony’s head as he’s descending into a panic attack and represents his fear of the unknown, and his fear of how he’ll handle the unknown, essentially finding the man behind the Mandarin mask who is coming after the people he loves AND fear of what he’ll do if he doesn’t have his armor to protect him. He obsessively spent a year(ish) building suits (of questionable quality) to keep that unknown away. By the end, he’s faced *that* fear, the fear of who he is without the suits. His anxiety/PTSD shifts from that point to Thanos himself, but he doesn’t yet have a face or an actual explanation until Infinity War, even though the magnitude of it is ramped up in Ultron by Scarlet Witch using the power of the Mind Stone. This is the start of facing an unknown, and if it follows the narrative comparison, coming out on the other side victorious, better, and stronger as a person.  Rising above and moving on, not dying in the process, continuing to carry the self-inflicted weight of the entire universe.

“A famous man once said, ‘we create our own demons.’”  Dying when he comes into contact with and defeats his true demon—“my only curse is you”—is not giving Tony his good ending.

An article on Iron Man 3, arguably the most important movie in Tony’s arc https://filmschoolrejects.com/finding-the-place-of-iron-man-3-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/

“Tony is defined by his desire to set arms down and leave war behind; Steve is defined by his inability to do the same”

“If Marvel really wants to give Tony the ending he deserves, they’ll let him live. Fans will continue to push their predictions down the pipleline until they eventually come true, but the arc laid out for Tony, starting in Iron Man 3, is clear. He needs to let go, but he can’t. The conclusion of Tony Stark’s arc isn’t death; it’s learning to pass responsibility on not to an army of robots, but to the people he trusts. After ten years, Tony Stark deserves his time in the sun.”

Tony’s PTSD - it would be a punch in the face to those of us with anxiety/PTSD/OCD who identify with him. He's got one of the most realistic portrayals of mental illness in film, and the powers that be acknowledge that, and it would SUCK for a company like Marvel to rip it all away when he's almost to the point of letting go of the responsibility he's carried—rightly or wrongly, because Thanos would still be collecting those stones even if Tony had never been in that cave—since the beginning of his story. Dying? That's not letting go. That's saying "sorry you went through all this, it sucks and then you die, because it really was all YOUR responsibility and you have to suffer to fix it."

In Ultron, Helen Cho says Tony’s “bulky metal suits will be left in the dust”. Tony says that’s “exactly the plan”. He wants to retire. He wants to be able to stop being Iron Man so he can live his life.

“Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?” Tony in Ultron. None of this has ever been continuous for Tony. He’s consistently been heading towards his future goals and fighting when he has to—he gets derailed because he feels it’s his duty to step back in. He does not seek out the fights, and he doesn’t necessarily want to be a part of them. He wants to make his life and that’s where his narrative is heading. If it doesn’t make it there, it fails. He fails.  

“Maybe I should take a page out of Barton’s book. Build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up.”  “The simple life.”  “You’ll get there one day.  “I don’t know. Family, stability...the guy who wanted all that went into the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out.”  End of Ultron conversation with Steve. Tony wants to settle down, buy a farm for Pepper (representing retirement and the start of his family). He is the one, out of himself and Steve, that is actively seeking to “tap out” of the fighting life so he can be with Pepper, and start a family. Steve says “I’m home” when he hears the soldiers chanting.

Wedding conversations in Civil War, Homecoming and Infinity War. The amount of mentions this has is huge. It would be a major hanging thread if it never happens.

The original plan was for Pepper to be pregnant during CW, however this was changed to put Tony in a darker place. They are going for Dad-Tony eventually, and that wasn’t conducive with where he was in CW. Yet.

Happy has been carrying “that thing” since 2008. Would they really do that to Happy/Jon Favreau, perhaps the other father of the MCU as he directed Iron Man—have him carry the ring for 10 goddamn years just to cut that storyline off with no resolution? Happy deserves to see this man-child he’s chased around forever get married and settle down.

Specifically, “Wong, you’re invited to my wedding.” It would be a terrible subversion if instead he goes to his funeral.  

And per the writers (who also wrote the CA movies),

Markus: Things always shift in the writing, but I think we all knew where it was going and it was a matter of how best to get there so that it feels most satisfying or most earned.   What was that adjustment process like? How much did the script have to change from when you were breaking it in 2015 to when they went to film it? Were there big things that you had to account for that you just hadn't had any idea about? Markus: Because of the other movies? No. I don't think there was anything massive that we had to change gears for. There were things that became better because of the value that the other movie had acquired. https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477 That would be an absolutely collosal shift to wipe it away entirely

The baby conversation in Infinity War. Why set all this up so blatantly if they weren’t going to use it?  For a cheap emotional rug pull? Tony wants children, not just another set of his genes in the world.

And Pepper’s response; she doesn’t want children if he’s still Iron Man, for fear that he’ll be distracted, or something worse. If she’s going to have a kid with him, she wants him there. If the point was simply a baby, not a baby AND Tony, this is pointless exposition. Also, Pepper has thought Tony was dead at least four times: IM1, Avengers, IM3 and IW. Would they really make her watch it happen for real after that? Rob her of her family and make her worst fear come true, right in front of her eyes?

Tony as Odysseus - A lot of us—who've watched and identified with this character—realize that this is an Odyssey, not a Tragedy. Odysseus makes all kinds of mistakes while trying to get home, but he gets there, after 10 years. And then,

“As for yourself, death shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people shall bless you. All that I have said will come true.” He makes it home. He got super lucky a lot of times, but he made it home, to his family. He found his everything.

“You’re a hard man, Odysseus. Your fighting spirit’s stronger than ours, your stamina never fails. You must be made if iron head to foot.”

Alternate translation- “You’re a hard man, Odysseus, stronger/ Than other men, and you never wear out, / A real iron-man.” (both quotes taken from starkravinghazelnuts, http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/181064173168/so-i-did-more-research-about-tony-steve-and-thor)

Promotional

https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201812/6461/ Tony Stark is heading up a new rollout in Disneyland parks. Speaks for itself, they’re making Tony have a very strong presence in the parks. Disney is for kids, kids love Iron Man, and they will be aware of his death and reminded of it when they see him and Stark Industries everywhere on their family vacation. Longtime fans will also have to deal with this. If they were actually going to kill him, why would they make his presence in the future of these parks so big?

“In California and Paris, Tony Stark is retrofitting two of his father’s Stark Industries sites into new hubs for training and innovation. Through partnerships with S.H.I.E.L.D., Pym Technologies, Masters of the Mystic Arts and the new Worldwide Engineering Brigade, The Avengers and their allies will forge new global campuses to champion the next generation of heroes.” We know Hank Pym hates the Starks because he feels Howard betrayed him by trying to replicate the Pym Particle.  As Scott says, “Hank Pym always said you could never trust a Stark.”  How does this work, unless there is something forward that allows them to establish a better relationship? This can’t be retrofitted to anything before a potential Endgame end.

https://youtu.be/0tW77VFKQC0 https://youtu.be/EVIu43xSeYY In the Ant-Man and the Wasp ride, they collaborate with Tony/Iron Man in their ride mission. You see him, they speak to him, and it seems like a new storyline. It connects to the Iron Man Experience’s storyline, the ride they already had there in Hong Kong.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/marvels-iron-man-vr-ps4/ upcoming Iron Man VR game. It would be very morbid playing this game, from Tony’s POV, if Tony is dead.

That giant Iron Man statue for Endgame in Hong Kong (https://www.timeout.com/hong-kong/news/a-giant-4-5m-iron-man-installation-and-life-sized-avengers-have-taken-over-hysan-place-041219). Imagine coming across that thing if you just saw him die. It’s staying up until May 13th. Do they want it looking like a place of mourning? A monument with flowers and notes? Shit, that’s a spoiler in itself that I don’t think they want. It would also be incredibly depressing.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/01/12/avengers-4-wrap-party-cake-drops-clues/ Endgame wrap party cake. If Tony died, he would be on this thing. It wouldn’t even be considered a spoiler because Iron Man is literally the face of the MCU, so people wouldn’t look twice at it. But his absence does say something—that they didn’t think they needed to pay tribute to him here, because he is still around to pay tribute to later, if need be. This cake is implying different characters are in peril, with certain hands shooting up out of the ground. But Iron Man is only represented with his logo on the bottom, as are all the rest of the heroes. If he died, he’d be the centerpiece. More on this theory by starkravinghazelnuts http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/180160474003/the-cake-theory-proposes-that-cap-nat-and-bruce

Cast quotes regarding Endgame

Gwyneth - (on a picture of her and RDJ) “you know I will be this guy’s Pepper any time he needs me” why would she say this if he’s dead? If he was dead and she didn’t want to spoil, she didn’t need to say anything at all.

And this wasn’t a one-off referring to playing opposite him, she was referring to Tony/Pepper, after an interview in which she said she was probably done, but would come back for a day if they wanted her.

Gwyneth again - https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477 “Pepper and Tony have had a real long journey together. She obviously starts as his dutiful assistant, and then the relationship evolves, and now this decade later they're married, and they have a child. Their relationship has evolved in all of the ways that great romances evolve.” Now, I always saw this as—Gwyneth was done filming when this quote was given. She was aware of the end of her character’s journey, so this is obviously something that happens at the END chronologically. Why would she reference something smack dab in the middle of the film, especially if it was just going to be erased by time travel/quantum realm shenanigans? She’s also wearing an engagement ring and a wedding band in some interview photos where she’s in costume. Plus, possible/probable spoilers…….Pepper is going to be suiting up as Rescue, which really knocks off the possibility of a mid-movie child for Pepper and Tony. It would be completely against her character to suit up and leave a kid behind, considering how much flack she gave Tony for his suits before, and how her hesitation to have a child hinged on Tony re-inserting his arc reactor. Plus, on a more emotional note, Gwyneth refers to Tony/Pepper as a great romance, and it is. But I feel like she and Robert combined would not be happy at all if the writers were to destroy this great romance by killing one of its members. That way it falls flat, it never finishes, it doesn’t get its rightful end. I feel like she and RDJ (who has significant sway over what happens to Tony) would argue against this happening. This is a great romance, and those end in happily ever afters. This isn’t West Side Story. This is a Disney movie.

Evans -  https://youtu.be/bH0frwdtmXM (when asked to describe the movie in one word on GMA) “Satisfying. It’s like TV shows, the final finale—how many times do they stick the landing? How many times do you walk away saying that went exactly how I wanted it to go? This movie—I think they deliver, I think they really do stick the landing in terms of, you know—addressing the arcs and really finding a completion.” I think this definitely speaks for itself. The arcs are important and we know what they are. One of our main concerns is them tossing out the true endings to these arcs for cheap, cruel emotional shocks. If Chris says specifically that the arcs are addressed, then we know what that SHOULD mean for each character. Plus, saying “that went exactly how I wanted it to go”? I don’t believe any genuine fans want deaths. Especially fans with children. People who genuinely care about these characters want to see them succeed and live to reap the rewards. So saying it went “exactly as I wanted it to go” and that they “stick the landing” bodes well for things ending up nicely for our heroes. Nothing in his speech here screams death.

Hemsworth - https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a27110673/avengers-endgame-chris-hemsworth-interview/ also uses the word cathartic. Nothing about Tony dying would be cathartic. It would be sickening and depressing and we wouldn’t get anything out of it.

Taika Waititi https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1082838/Avengers-Endgame-Korg-Taika-Waititi-Thor-Ragnarok-Avengers-Infinity-War-MCU-Marvel “They keep their cards so close to their chests, but from what I’ve heard, it wraps up everything in a really great way." “It feels like the fans are getting rewarded for hanging around for 10 years and watching all these films.” “Because the more you know about the characters and the stories and stuff, the more satisfying this film will be.” These feel particularly important. A reward would not be killing the biggest character in the MCU. And he mentions the fact that really knowing the characters makes everything more satisfying. We all know where Tony is heading, and what he wants. These quotes particularly point to Tony surviving, and maybe everyone surviving.

Scarlett - https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/scarlett-johansson-calls-avengers-endgame-beautiful-valentine-decade-madness/ “a beautiful valentine to a decade of madness” Not ‘my bloody valentine’. A gift full of love for the people that have been here for ten years watching these characters grow.

RDJ - https://twitter.com/our_rdj/status/1118891286763798528?s=21 https://twitter.com/caplovesfondue/status/1118764023397249024?s=21 https://twitter.com/MCU_Direct/status/1119043210553249792 “I guarantee you that this will pay off. This Avengers Endgame, I’ve said it before, is our finest hour.” “The last eight minutes of that movie are maybe the best eight minutes in the entire history of the whole run of them, in a way. Because everyone’s involved. So I was delighted.” Both of these quotes, from the man himself, the man who loves Tony Stark with his entire being, do not feel like a Tony death at all. Because if we know Tony, we know what a payoff for him is. It’s getting the life, the family he’s been fighting for since the beginning. And as for the second one, logically, eight minutes does not feel like enough time to send Tony off in an out-of-left-field death. And I think our final battle will be longer than eight minutes. So I personally believe he’s referring to the wedding. He loves Tony/Pepper enough to hold their wedding in extremely high regard. He’s always delighted with Tony’s happiness and Tony advancing in his journey, especially with Pepper by his side.

“Cathartic” - https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-avengers-endgame-press-conference-20190407-story.html said by the Russos at the press conference

“Satisfying” - https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a27110673/avengers-endgame-chris-hemsworth-interview/ , https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477

“Earned” https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477 When you think about Tony, you do not think his death is earned at this stage, because so much is left hanging that his story has been calling for since moment one. What would be “earned” for Tony is him marrying Pepper. He has more than earned that. She has earned this wedding, too.

Misc (POTENTIAL SPOILERS)

Tony has sacrificed over and over and over again, in almost every movie we see him in. Doing it in Endgame would be a rehash of the same storyline, and sacrifice is not something Tony has to learn. He already knows how, he’s already willing. He needs to learn how to live. Bringing him to that realization at the end of it all would be the most appropriate route to take.

Iron Man 1 - he implores Pepper to hit the button, even though she tells him, “but you’ll die.”

Iron Man 2 - while it could be said he would be killed by the presence of the reactor itself, JARVIS explicitly says the use of the suit is accelerating the palladium poisoning that is killing him. Tony doesn’t stop. Part of this could be attributed to his reckless end-of-life attitude, but it’s clear from the Senate hearing—he wouldn’t have stopped

The new element is obviously something in itself. While the IM2 novel called it vibranium, this was retconned in CA, and then set up for more in Captain Marvel when it was revealed the project involving the Tesseract was called Project Pegasus, first called that when Fury dropped off Howard’s things at Tony’s mansion. Tony withstood the power of the Mind stone in A1 with the arc reactor, and then again in IW when Thanos unleashed the power of the Power stone on him and the suit merely blocked it. The suit is literally powered by the Space stone, much like Carol is, and for IM2-IM3, the Space stone literally powers Tony, which is more than you can say for a Mad Titan. Even Hulk doesn’t have the power of the Space stone behind him. You don’t hang a gun on the wall unless you plan on firing it later.

Also tied into IM2 - “if you could make a god bleed” … Tony is the only one to actually injure Thanos.  

Avengers - Tony lays down on the wire. The arc set up by Steve’s comment is fulfilled when he flies the nuke through the wormhole. He knew it would probably kill him, which is why he tried to call Pepper.

Iron Man 3 - he sends his suit to Pepper first, when the “Mandarin” comes for him. Then in a deleted scene, he removes his arc reactor to save Harley’s bully, and nearly dies before Harley puts it back

Age of Ultron - Tony, despite wishing to go home and buy Pepper her farm, is willing to stay with Thor on the flying rock, even though he knows he could die, it’s his responsibility to fix this.

Civil War - this is a bit of subversion, as Tony is in a dark place and never needs to sacrifice his life. But as we saw in IM3, Tony IS Iron Man. And he’s willing to turn over power of Iron Man, which he wasn’t in IM2, to a higher power. He’s willing to give up his autonomy to keep the rest of the team out of jail and assuage his guilt (he’s starting to see the repercussions of bearing it all on his own). We can have discussions about who was right about which part, but Tony was willing to sacrifice a big part of himself.

Infinity War - duh. He got on that spaceship. He was planning on it being a one way trip (which incidentally, is why Pepper wasn’t keen on a kid). And then he took Thanos on one-on-one. And then, the look of despair when Strange gave up the stone to save him? He was more than willing to die.

Endgame - eventually, he will be willing to try, even if it means his death, because he’s always been willing to sacrifice himself. Remove that burden from his shoulders.

(It is interesting to note that the one time Tony is not in the position to sacrifice his life is in Spider-Man: Homecoming. When he is in the overseeing/mentor position, which could be his role in the MCU after Endgame, and when he’s starting to take up the role of “father figure”, which he should also be after Endgame, but to his own biological children as well.  He is however, appalled and terrified at the thought of someone else, this crazy Spider-child who’s just a bit too much like him, being reckless and willing to sacrifice himself.  Maybe Tony needs to take a bit of his own advice.)

The endings of the Iron Man movies are all tonally upbeat and to end Tony’s story for good on a “downer” note does not go along with his storyline --from starkravinghazelnuts http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/181110494893/avengers-endgame-is-said-to-be-the-end-of-many-of

The Infinity Saga is Tony Stark’s arc. Every other character, including Cap, is ancillary. Every character is where they are because of a Stark. What happens to him will be the defining characteristic of the Saga, and it isn’t set up to be a Tragedy.  

RDJ says the last eight minutes of Endgame has “everybody” involved, which would obviously include Natasha, who is extremely important. Which contradicts the reddit “leaks.”

https://twitter.com/stevcrogvrs/status/1118853707280601088?s=21 Chris Evans says if Steve had a choice, he would go back in time to be with Peggy. Since he was able to say this, there’s no doubt that it doesn’t happen, as the Marvel spoiler snipers would have switched from Mark to Chris and put five holes in his head before he hit the ground. This contradicts the reddit “leaks.”

https://comicbook.com/marvel/2019/04/19/avengers-endgame-hawkeye-black-widow-relationship-jeremy-renner/ Jeremy Renner also says Clint and Natasha’s relationship will last “forever”, which seems to underline their closeness and how much they mean to each other. All of this contradicts the reddit “leaks”, which describe a horrible thing happening to the two of them that wouldn’t ever actually happen if they were to stay in character. Plus, Chris Evans apparently called these dudebros out and straight up denied their “leaks”, so these “leaks” have no veracity either way.

When asked to draw their favorite characters, Anthony Russo drew Iron Man and Joe drew Spider-Man. The Iron Dad relationship is obviously going to be important in the movie, and it would bode well for these characters to get a good ending in the movie if they’re the very favorites of both directors.

RDJ is screening Endgame at his house for family and friends on Easter Sunday. Would he really ruin a holiday with a movie in which his character dies an unwarranted death?

There has not been a wedding in the MCU yet. What would be a better way to end the MCU’s first romance than with the MCU’s first wedding? We’ve had a funeral already, for a side character, and that was bad enough. Imagine how horrible it would be to witness Tony Stark’s funeral as the ending for Endgame. That does not seem like the kind of feeling the Russos want to leave us with. The wedding seems far more appropriate for a movie of this scale and importance.

The chess theory (courtesy of starkravinghazelnuts) — “The last piece to discuss on the chess board is the King piece. This piece is the game winner. Once your king is check-mated, the game is over, and your opponent wins, regardless of the score. The king chess piece is the piece you must protect the most and the one you cannot live without. Many experienced players may find themselves utilizing the king in an attempt to gain an advantage over an opponent, something weaker chess players are leery of doing. No matter how you choose to use your king piece, he must stay alive at all costs.” Tony and Thanos are the Kings on opposing sides. The king must be kept alive in order to win, which is why Tony should make it to the end of the film intact. Thor also literally mentions someone “playing an intricate game” and says that person “has made pawns of us” at the end of Ultron when discussing the Infinity Stones. http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/181491397743/starkravinghazelnuts-quite-frankly-this-is-the

Two very important meta pieces by starkravinghazelnuts, who has essentially been funding my positive attitude for a while now http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/182086909963/looking-back-over-everything-i-still-feel-really http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/182017989478/i-agree-with-you-the-rhodey-show-sounds-good-but-i

https://fanfest.com/2018/08/16/the-russos-reflect-on-iron-man-being-the-heart-and-soul-of-the-mcu/ “I think, in a lot of ways, he is the heart and soul of the Marvel universe,” Infinity War co-director Joe Russo said during a video interview with Wired. “He’s a fascinating character, a character that we love because he is imminently flawed and we like characters that are challenging and express their humanity and I think Tony Stark does that as well as any of the characters. He started off as a narcissistic alcoholic and grew into a hero which, I think, makes him imminently relatable and signifies what the Marvel universe stands for, which is character first and the heroes are defined through the choices that they make.” The Russos love Tony. And you cannot live without your soul, you cannot live without your heart. No matter what you say about Tony, losing him to death would leave a massive, gaping hole in the MCU. Keeping him available to return is the safer bet in almost every regard.

https://youtu.be/f0Ai05cUQoM “If there were no RDJ, there would be no MCU.” - Kevin Feige. RDJ started it all, and Tony shouldn’t die, his presence should remain. He should be able to pop in and out as he sees fit. They know his star power and how important Tony is to the MCU.

https://www.newsarama.com/39526-rdj-as-iron-man-irreplacable-but-will-eventually-leave-says-avengers-infinity-war-directors.html “One closeup from RDJ is worth another actor’s entire performance, he’s incredibly gifted and insanely talented” - Joe Russo. May be a weak reason, but would they really...make him permanently lost to them? They’ve expressed interest in coming back. Would they really banish their most talented and lucrative actor to the darkness of a character death for a cheap shock?

https://youtu.be/5ljluGA4dQU (around ten minutes in) In the Jimmy Kimmel interview, they show the clip they’ve been showing everywhere of Carol’s meeting with some of the Avengers. Jimmy points out that RDJ isn’t in the clip, and he asks if that means something bad for Tony. RDJ says “No, no, no. Not in the slightest.” He could and probably is referring to the fact that Tony is definitely alive at this point, sure, but his attitude and the way he says it points to an overall confidence about Tony that bleeds over to the viewer. In fact, Robert’s whole demeanor during this press tour has been one of pure joy. He is having the time of his life, dancing and laughing, moreso than we have seen before. It could be a man enjoying his last tour with a very special group, but, somehow, I don’t believe someone who loves Tony as much as RDJ does would be this happy if Tony died. Especially if Tony’s death was unwarranted and out-of-left-field, which it absolutely would be if it happened. And this is in contrast to Chris, who has been, while not sad, far more reserved.

Some on-point thoughts from some of the few sane people on reddit:

“After Infinity War went out of its way to establish Thanos as a physical embodiment of Tony’s PTSD (“he’s been in my head for 6 years,” “My only curse is you”, *author’s note:  see also above with coming to face an unknown fear like in IM3*), the idea of him ultimately defeating Thanos by killing himself is like... morally reprehensible as a message. I’d like to think Markus and McFeely would know better than that, but honestly, I’ve felt since Civil War that they don’t have the best grasp on his character. Edit: someone asked me in a PM to elaborate on this, so I’m just gonna go ahead and post what I wrote just in case anyone’s interested. Ok, this is gonna be kinda long, but I’ve been sitting on this for a while. so Iron Man 3 was the beginning of Tony’s new character arc that’s gone from phase 2 up till now. In phase 1, his whole journey was learning not to be selfish, and to be willing to put himself on the line to protect others. Avengers 1 completes that arc, and Iron Man 3 sets up a new conflict, where he’s driven entirely by his trauma from the events of The Avengers. He’s obsessed with protecting the world from threats beyond his control- we see it in Iron Man 3 with the house party suits being products of his anxiety, and in Age of Ultron with the Ultron program. He feels like it’s his responsibility to be everyone’s protector, and he’s desperately clinging to any sense of control he can still have in a world that he now realizes is much bigger than him. In Infinity War, he finds out that the event that left him traumatized was orchestrated by Thanos, and for the rest of the movie is driven by a single-minded need to confront Thanos directly and put an end to him, in order to finally be free of the PTSD that’s dominated his life for 6 years. By taking on that responsibility and ambushing him on Titan instead of reaching out to his support system (Steve + the other Avengers), Tony inadvertently puts everything he cares about at risk. In the context of Tony’s story, Thanos is his trauma- and Tony’s defeat on Titan is a direct result of his compulsive need to carry the burden of that trauma alone. So to then have him sacrifice himself to defeat Thanos in Endgame essentially sends the message that “yes, it is a good thing to bear that trauma on your own, and in fact, if you can’t see any other option, killing yourself is an acceptable solution.” It sends a horrible message in the context of the ongoing story, and it doesn’t tell us anything new about Tony as a character- we already know he’s self-sacrificing, it’s been his defining character flaw for four movies already. It’s just a really poor way to end his story.” — msg53

“This. Tony’s arc has been about letting go of his ego while learning to rely on others. His first step was handing Stark Ind. over to Pepper. He tried letting go with Ultron, but it failed cuz Ultron was just an extension of himself. Then he started seeing how being a mentor/father figure could help a kid in need of both (Peter) and the eventual next step should be family and real retirement while others defend/avenge Earth, once he’s done with his Thanos curse. Aside from Thor, His death would feel the most gratuitously out of sync with his journey of all the OG Avengers.” —VictorVonDoomBots

(special shoutout to cuddlebirb over there, consistently fighting for Tony rights)

The absolute nastiness to take out their main character, their cash cow, the one that started it all, when he’s got so much still hanging simply makes no sense. They would leave people with a sick feeling in their stomachs over this movie. People would not be happy with the turn of events, they would feel cheated out of a proper ending for the main character of the whole franchise. It would not be an event movie, it would be the movie that Killed Tony Stark. It would be tainted, and I don’t think the Russos want that. I know they say they think about their own reactions when writing these films, but they’ve gotta be smart enough to realize what a mistake this would be for the die-hard, longtime fans.

Plus, this is an ending to one generation and a lead-in to another. They don’t have Stan anymore to do their cameos, and some people will be on edge about whether to continue. Having RDJ hang around to do cameos and show up here and there to help the new heroes will put people in those seats for the upcoming films. His fifteen minute presence in Homecoming made many people go see the film that wouldn’t have otherwise. They need a hero that people know and love to remain a constant, even if he’s not in a starring role, and Tony Stark is the perfect person to do this. He always helped the younger heroes in the comics, and he’s already taken the mentor mantle with Peter. It’s a natural progression.

The amount of suffering that Tony has been through in the entirety of the MCU and in Endgame in particular, should lead to him finally getting something good in the end, a retirement where he gets to relax and let someone else carry the weight of the world instead of him, for once. Endgame will begin with Tony in extreme anguish, sick, hurt, sad and alone (save for Nebula). In the end, he should be healthy and happy, surrounded by the people who love him, with his future bright, full of possibility, and free of threats because Thanos is gone. That is simply good writing and good bookending. The writers shouldn’t be in the business of torturing Tony for torture’s sake. If he begins in such a dark place, he should end somewhere promising.

Happy’s behavior in FFH trailer. Tony is Happy’s best friend. Would the man be acting so chill, flirting with May, if his BFF just died? It is confirmed that FFH takes place minutes after Endgame. Plus, in a deleted Infinity War scene that featured Happy, Tony says that he and Pepper should set him up with someone. Would that someone be May?

Pepper is literally Tony’s endgame—he says it himself, “in the end, it’s always you.”