#MCU meta

[velvet4510]

If it weren’t for Billy creating the Road, Sharon would’ve died completely alone, never again having a taste of sisterhood or adventure.

If it weren’t for Billy creating the Road, Jen would never have unbound herself or regained her power.

If it weren’t for Billy creating the Road, Alice would never have known what her mother did for her or broken the curse, achieving what her ancestors could not.

If it weren’t for Billy creating the Road, Lilia would never have achieved closure within herself or understood her own purpose in life.

If it weren’t for Billy creating the Road, Agatha would never have learned to love a child again or realized that she could still be more than just a killer.

Every member of the coven, whether they physically survived in the end or not, was given something immeasurably valuable by Billy through his Hex of the Road.

He may have “killed” some of them.

But in truth, in one way or another, he saved all of them.

[mischievous-thunder]

Did Wade really think that Logan was going to let him do this? All alone?

This was the very moment when realisation came crashing down on both of them that they wouldn't be able to live without each other. So, they saved the world together and in turn saved their souls.

[reallyunluckyrunaway]

You have to earn that title damnit.

[tumblingghosts]

john walker might be my current fav, but sam IS captain america <3

psa just because i am in love with john walker does not and never will mean that i think he's a better captain america than my beloved sam wilson

[jessmalia]

This has been said before by people better at articulating their opinions than me, but the bad reception Black Widow got from male MCU fans is about so much more than just the simple concept that it's a superhero movie starring a woman, but the fact that it's so clearly a film by women for women. It's in all the little things, like all the amazing braids sported by the female characters instead of having them constantly fight with their hair down, Yelena and Natasha being excited about the vest and all its pockets, zero sexualisation of any of the Widows, the forced hysterectomy being discussed matter-of-factly, and the women getting to wear minimal to no make-up in settings where that makes sense. But it's also in the big things, like the story centred around the epidemic of girls being subjected to human trafficking with a theme of reclaiming your anatomy and freeing other female victims, both others’ and your own.

Obviously this doesn't mean that every single woman on earth is automatically gonna identify with and like the movie, that's an impossible achievement. But it is a movie that's so much more than pandering, and these geeks are just completely incapable of inserting themselves into a point of view different from their own.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

thing I've realised which alters how I see the howling commandos:

if the actors' ages reflect the characters’ ages, then all of the Howlies are considerably older than Steve.

The youngest Howlie (after Bucky & Steve) would be eight years older than Steve (that's Monty). The oldest is eighteen years older.

So they're a bunch of guys in their 30s and 40s who voluntarily put themselves under the command of a clueless 25 year old whippersnapper who's never even been in the field before. 

Or, another way to put it: 

Bucky was asked to pick a team to put under Steve's command and he chose a bunch of much older, seasoned soldiers, because clearly a bunch of kids in their twenties couldn't be trusted to cope with this idiot.

[bromcommie]

tbh I still think Brock Rumlow was an interesting character and upon further examination way more unsettling a villain than most to me because like. Let’s be real, the second you lay eyes on Robert Redford as Pierce monologuing in his pristine suit and glass office high up in the sky he just screams Evil Politician! at you. You can see it coming a mile away. Meanwhile Rumlow is….Just Some Guy. On the surface, he’s just some side dude. He’s not enhanced, he’s not in some major position of power, he’s just someone who’s really good at what he does and seems dedicated enough to the work and functions well with his team. He respects Steve, might admire him even, but not so much that he gets starry eyed like everybody else. He’s lighthearted but focused, he’s no nonsense, he’s the everyman Steve can relate to way more than spooks like Natasha or Fury.

And okay, maybe what Rumlow does for a living is beat intimidate and kill people, but it’s not like that’s the primary objective, right, because SHIELD are the good guys and this is what Steve does now, too, anyway; except that Steve doesn’t really use any weapons other than the shield, he holds back, he doesn’t carry a gun anymore which is usually fine since he’s dangerous enough without it. But when that leaves him vulnerable, he’s covered: Rumlow’s got his six, and he does it well, and he earns some of his trust. This is familiar to Steve.

And maybe Rumlow’s a little too good, fine, maybe he shoots a guy in the head within the first fifteen minutes of the movie when he doesn’t necessarily have to and then cracks jokes immediately after but that’s alright too, because that guy had Steve at gunpoint and that guy was Bad whereas Rumlow is One of the Good Guys just doing his job, right. Rumlow’s joking around because he’s used to the violence, they’re all used to it, and this is just how it works. They’re just soldiers doing the grunt work and following orders, and this is familiar, too.

Except that they’re not soldiers and this isn’t a war, except that the work is for an intelligence agency whose job it is to hoard and steal information and monitor civilians and orchestrate and sabotage and meddle in internal and external state affairs. Except that the Good Guys, in reality, are extremely grey at best. Except that many of the Good Guys turn out to be Nazis on top of everything else, and it’s not that far of a stretch.

But when it’s all starting to unravel, you’re still thinking well maybe some of these guys didn’t know. Maybe they didn’t do it out of individual belief, and if faced with the right choice, they can be redeemed.

That is until you realize that Rumlow maybe didn’t respect Steve and what he did so much as what Steve could do if only Steve weren’t “weak” in other ways, if Steve had chosen the right side. That it not being personal is less a cop out and more a taunt the same way just following orders has always been, for Rumlow and many many men that came before him and will continue to come after. Until the vault when, by the most charitable of interpretations, Rumlow looks at the Winter Soldier letting himself be smacked around and crying and getting shocked like he’s maybe a little unnerved (if not just downright fascinated) by the whole thing, but not enough that it really changes anything for him, because the end justifies the means and it’s not really his problem, anyway.

Until Sam shows up and Rumlow looks at him like a bird of prey and says This is gonna hurt with a fucking smile on his face, and then you think: shit, man, obviously. How was it not clear from the start.

To me, what makes someone like Rumlow a good villain, even a side one, is not that he’s straight up Insane & Evil™️ or suffering from Tragic Backstory Syndrome or all hopped up on magic superstrength juice or whatever, but precisely the fact that he’s Just Some Guy with a cockroach survival mentality who operates well within the established system and just so happens to be really good at his job - a job that he might’ve even joined thinking it was for a good cause, or because he had something to prove, or simply because it gave him one hell of an excuse to be a bully. Because he either wholeheartedly believes in HYDRA or he just doesn’t give much of a shit either way so long as he gets his due in the end, and both are just as bad.

Because when you strip away all the grand scale superhero theatrics, you’ve seen this before. You’ve seen Rumlows in your school and in your neighborhood and in the military and the cop car patrolling your street. They’re the ones who sometimes say or do somewhat offputting shit but you figure it’s fine because they’re otherwise real nice or charismatic or normal looking, or maybe they work a job that’s framed as helpful or protective or inherently good despite the power dynamics at play, or they share your background and interests and you chat about the weather being crap this time of year.

And every time one of them turns out to be a violent, hateful piece of shit, you’re still somehow surprised then, too, when you really shouldn’t be.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

This makes it seem as if 'scary flourishes' are part of the Hydra methodology, because they want to wage psychological warfare on their targets. (Or... did someone who trained the WS feel intimidated by him, and so come in with big scary flourishes to try and counter that?)

But... trying to make yourself look bigger, and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake/leave a vulnerable opening before attacking in response? really seems more like something Bucky would've taught pre-serum Steve.

So maybe this didn't begin with Hydra, maybe that was part of Bucky's teaching-fighting style - tailored to fit a smaller Steve? After all, that is what Bucky did in the alleyway in CATFA -- he waited until the bully took a swing at him first, and then fought back.

The most glaring similarity between two fighters though is actually between TWS and Peggy. Her 'standing in the road shooting at an oncoming vehicle' move in CATFA is exactly how TWS is introduced in CATWS. But Bucky wasn't present for her doing that. So the only way he could've picked that habit up - if it was indeed from her - is if she was involved in TWS's training under Hydra!

I seem to recall there was some talk once of how they copied some of Steve's fight style with Peggy's in AC, to imply a connection between the two. But since that was set after CATFA, it could just as easily imply that Peggy modelled her fight-style after Steve, not that she taught him.

(Which is physically impossible anyway, since they were only in the same place for 1 week and they never spoke. Vs the 15.5 solid months he was with the Howlies, all older veteran soldiers, and of course the however-many-years he knew Bucky, who can throw a punch.)

Peggy has always been much more of a blunt force bludgeoner, a 'snatch the nearest heavy object up in anger and smash someone's head in with it' type, versus Steve's balletic grace and defensive/protective zippy shield. She doesn't move like him because quite frankly she can't. She's much more like the Terminator-TWS than Steve.

Canonically, if the films can’t show everything, then wouldn’t it have made more sense to make the inference that the Howling Commandos, including Bucky, “taught” Steve additional ways to fight? In the films, he’s shown fist fighting even before the serum, he goes to basic training (even for a short time) where he displays mental and physical dexterity (even if he’s not the strongest), then he goes on the USO tour where it’s clearly implied there’s no fighting or learning to fight really happening including with Peggy, then the dude goes and spends a couple of years leading a spec ops team of fighters - and it’s THAT group with Steve that is depicted fighting together the most consistently.

In fact, the STRIKE teams in later movies are a callback to the Howling Commandos and meant to echo what Steve has lost. In Avengers, he’s using battlefield strategy that to Steve, he was just using a couple of weeks back; he’s using the shield to fight soldiers (the aliens are even referred to as a battalion or something similar). In TWS, he’s shown using knife skills to directly mirror the Winter Soldier.

When he’s in the elevator fighting the STRIKE team, they fight like Steve. That’s why they thought they ever had a chance of winning. Brock in particular uses a fighting style very close to Steve’s, aka very similar to what is taught to spec ops soldiers (again, mirrored by WS, the ultimate spec ops soldier). Look at the fight between WS and Steve and how evenly it’s matched, and they use similar moves (another example, Steve kicks the guy off the boat, the way Natasha kicks Sitwell off the building, the way WS kicks people off the helicarriers, etc.). By CATWS, Steve displays fighting styles that weren’t even introduced, let alone popular, in the US until after he was frozen, so he wouldn’t have even have had a chance to learn them until he was taught after he was defrosted.

All that to say - Steve fights like a (modern) trained special forces soldier, aka the people he spent most of his time fighting with in WW2, then SHIELD in modern age. Also, Why wouldn’t he have wanted Bucky to teach him how to shoot, when Bucky was considered a highly elite sniper and adept at hand-to-hand combat and boxing, if he needed to learn? “No, thanks, Bucky, I know you and the Howling Commandos are a group of expertly trained, highly-skilled operatives, but someone I know who has never been in actual combat taught me how to throw a punch (even tho I already knew how to do that, since I was shown doing it about an hour before in this film) and she shot straight at me once and I learned how to shoot, so I’m all set!”

Unless the argument is Peggy taught all of the Howling Commandos lol. Also in no way would anyone consider Steve’s fighting style to be *defensive* or like that of an opponent who doesn’t know his own strength or considers himself weaker?? The ONLY time he does that is when he’s fighting the Winter Soldier when he knows it’s Bucky. (Compare: when he doesn’t know it’s Bucky, he goes running full tilt at him.)

Anyway I know that’s an older post, but I just saw it again for the first time in a while and it just doesn’t make sense that Peggy fans argued that she taught Steve.

Thanks for the rant XD Yeah when I saw the Peggy + Steve fighting style post I was like what?? Bucky's fighting style clearly mirrors Steve a lot more, even though they are also very different.

I wish we got more of the stunts actors talking about Steve and Bucky's choreography. I remember watching some videos a long time ago. Steve's fighting style is very different in CATWS compared to the previous movies (A1 and CATFA), which to be fair didn't really showcase his fighting prowess beyond shield throwing. I think one of the stunt actors said they incorporated various Asian martial arts styles for Steve in CATWS, and made him a lot more acrobatic in his movements. Personally I think the brute force of the strike team is more similar to Bucky than Steve, who's far more agile -- but also from a practical perspective, the guys in the elevator are the stunts people/choreographers so of course their movements are similar to Steve and Bucky's styles. (The Asian dude in the corner is the stunts guy for Black Panther in Civil War, very cool!)

Steve's new fighting style is extremely efficient. I don't think it comes from a "used to be weak" background (like the Steggy meta said), because it's so different from his "in the back alley" fighting, which was just punching and shielding until he got knocked down. In CATWS he's trained his body to take advantage of his new physique -- sure it's bigger, but it's also faster, more agile, stronger, better endurance, and better coordinated. There are scenes he gets by with brute force (e.g. running through the walls) but where he can, he uses jumps, rolls and spins to increase the impact on his opponent while taking less blunt force on himself. I'm not sure if the stunts actors were riffing off Chris's own dance background, and Chris is a big guy, but Steve looks very light-footed and nimble in this movie. It might also be because his centre of gravity changes a lot in this new fighting style -- he'll make high leaps and spins, but he'll often also hug the ground with his shield, so it gives a sense of incredible agility.

Bucky on the other hand - we never see him in hand to hand combat in CATFA except maybe when he (literally) kicked the guy's ass in the alley, so the Winter Soldier's fighting style is also completely new. It's a very distinct way of movement, and I remember a TFATWS interview where someone said Sebastian was being very particular with the stunts team about how Bucky moves (Sebastian doing the heavy lifting when it comes to Bucky's characterisation again...)

The Winter Soldier - and even Bucky, in later movies/series, makes big flourishing movements with his arms and get into wide-based stances (and very big kicks) that make him look bigger than he actually is. Which is interesting because why would a sniper/stealth assassin need to have a threat display? Predators who are on the hunt don't do this because it would startle their prey. Threat displays are defensive (or territorial, which is kinda still defensive).

The Soldier is perfectly capable of sneaking up on his prey when he tries, e.g. him stalking after Nat on the Causeway. But when he's in melee mode, his movements are (coming from an untrained eye) a lot less economical than Steve's because of these extra flourishes, and it makes the Winter Soldier look like a creature of brute force rather than stealth.

Which is...interesting. From a Doylist perspective, maybe they wanted the Terminator vibes to make him look like an unstoppable "cyborg" as they called him.

From a Watsonian perspective, two thoughts: 1) Hydra turned an instrument of finesse (sniper) into a blunt force weapon, and 2) despite his proficiency, Bucky/the Winter Soldier does not feel at ease with hand to hand combat, hence the extra threat displays that's meant to scare his opponents into submission...which when your opponent is in any way trained, is just going to trigger their fight response.

Even when you look at this fight, yeah Steve was pushed onto the defensive quite a few times by the Winter Soldier, but he didn't come in on the defensive, he was very much on the offensive. And as you say, Steve's entire fighting style is that of someone who is very self-aware of his superhuman strengths and uses it for maximum attack damage despite using a defensive weapon (shield). Similarly Bucky's moves are also that of someone who's been force-trained to push that body to the limit of his strength and speed.

If we're really talking about someone whose style is based on defensive strategies, that's Nat. Her moves are far more characteristic of someone of a smaller stature taking on bigger stronger opponents, hence her abundance of stun weapons and her reliance on stealth and surprise.

[legalandnotease]

One claim I often see Tony fans making is that Steve was being selfish for not "considering children born during the Snap" in the team's desire to bring everybody back.

This is obviously a form of emotional blackmail After all- how could *anybody* want to erase *billions* of children?

Well, this claim is wrong for a number of reasons

1: There is no evidence of large-scale births or an increasing birth rate during the Snap. Tony fans often say that there must have been millions and milions of children born during the Snap, but this makes no sense because, as a general rule humans do not simply "get over" losing their entire family an "move on".

Even losing one child can be an emotional blow that person never recovers from. Clint Barton lost all 3 of his children, and we know he did not simply "move on" and start a new family.

People do not simply recover from such things in a few years and create new families. It almost never happens.

Furthermore, population dynamics come to play: some planets lost as much as 3/4 of their population due to Thanos pre-Snap genocides.

Even for those who lost "only" half though this would mean half of all birthing females and existing children snapped.

Fewer birthing females means..... a lower birth rate. Also take account of things like infertility and the fact that some women who lost thier children would have been beyond childbearing age: notable case - Queen Ramonda.

Even assuming people were interested in relationships and reproduction (and most were not) the birth rate during the Snap would have been expontentially lower then it was before.

Real life disasters and catastrophes also reveal that it takes a long time for the population to recover. The Black Death killed 1/3 to 1/2 of the population of Europe in the Middle Ages- and it took something along the lines of 3 to 4 centuries for the population to reach the level that it had been before the plague struck.

Literally: it can take HUNDREDS of years for the population to recover. The idea that the world would have returned to normal after only 5 years is ludicrous.

2: The children killed by the Snap.

Half of the human race were snapped. This would have included children. Potentially hundeds of millions of children were killed by the Snap. This is far more than the number who who have been born during the Snap.

There's another issue however: many children would have died after the Snap.

Sick children whose parents or doctors were snapped and were unable to get the medical treatment they needed

Young children whose parents were snapped would have died within a few days if nobody found them.

Children in poorer countries would have been the first to succumb to things like famines and food shortages caused by the Snap.

However, children in rich countries would have followed. Food shortages and the breakdown of intractructure would have caused problems witht the availability of food and medical supplies. Diseases would have become more common without the medicines to keep them in check, and poor sanitation.

In other words, potentiallly hundreds of millions more children would have died after the Snap in addition to those who had been Snappped.

None of those children would have been bought back by Bruce's Snap in Endgame. They would have stayed dead. All because of Tony's selfish insistence that he "didn't change anything from the last 5 years".

So, no matter how Tony fans want to try and twist things: Tony Stark was quite prepared to sacrifice *hundreds of millions* if not billions of children for the sake of his desire to preserve his personal paradise.

He did not, in fact, "save everybody" at all. He saved only those bought back after the Snap and ... not really even them as they had to contend with years of social and economic problems.

You know what the most interesting irony of it all is though? Tony fucked over all those people for nothing. Pepper was already pregnant before the Snap, so reversing it would not have erased Morgan anyway.

[portraitofadyke]

Steve rogers is NOT the man who’s obliged to help everyone and never turn his back on those who need him. Steve Rogers is not obliged to hold people’s hands and be responsible for them. Steve rogers is the man who will do it either way, because it’s in his nature. Steve Rogers is not a hero because he has obligations and fulfils them, but because he’s naturally selfless and choosing to help people is not a sacrifice for him, it’s who he is. That’s what endgame writers couldn’t understand and why they thought him turning his back on his best friends and found family to disappear to the past (after saying goodbye to it years ago) to put his feet up and ‘retire’ while terrible things happen around him doesn’t make sense

[mimir-anoshe]

"Why do we fall?"

SPOILERS for Thunderbolts* and Theorising for Doomsday. If you don't want either don't read. Contains discussion on suicidal themes TW.

So guys what if... And it's a big IF 'cause ducking hell there's so many characters in this damn Doomsday movie, but GOD would it be poetically beautiful storytelling...

I think, in Doomsday at some point Yelena is going to fall to her death.

Yikes, right?

Either trying to stop something and accidentally getting thrown off a cliff/building/space ship or more likely... in some sacrificial play. Just like Nat, because what are their stories if not poetically entangled tragedies? The rise and fall of mythical heroes with human hearts and broken souls, like two ships passing in the night. They miss each other, separated paragraphs on a page, but the rhyme remains the same. One epic poem. The same story, though I'm hoping Yelena's has a different ending.

And it's going to play into the crux of Bobs story in Doomsday, or atleast the "False Victory" in his heroes journey and Yelena's symbolic death and rebirth (or very literal), which will lead into Secret Wars.

Why do I think this other than the character angst of it all? Well...

Theory?? A poetic wish?

(Fanfiction? A hope... somebody please write this, I would but I don't have a lot of time. This fandom already feeds me so well).

Yelena is as stubborn as Nat, if not more. Whatever reason - I think it has to do with the anchor being of 616 but that's a different theory for another time - she believes she has to do it alone. She has to jump. She has to fall. Because at that point everyone else has failed. Nobody else is coming to save the day. Its on her, or at least she thinks it is. This is the last shot, and she doesn't have super strength or speed or the ability to fly. But she has this. She can do this. She can give this.

She has to be the hero, just like her sister. Choose the fall so everyone else can rise back up and win the day. Even if she loses. Even if it means her life is the cost.

That's what a goalie does right? Falls in order to stop the team from losing. Leaps. Makes the sacrifice. When everyone else fails, they're the one everyone falls back onto. Either they hold that line, or all is lost... Dooms day. And in her mind, what's her life compared to that of the multiverse. What's her life compared to the lives of her new family?

Nat did it, made the ultimate sacrifice. Scored the goal, or stopped one from going in. Not only to save everyone, but especially to save her found family. The people she loves. And heartbreakingly, to save Yelena.

Yelena is painfully aware of that, and Nat never gave her the option to do the same in return. I do wonder if a part of Yelena was angry or bitter at that. Grief can feel like that, especially when it comes to suicide. Like the person made their choice, but in doing so, took others choices away. Even if that's illogical, and unfair, even if thaty person saved the Universe, those feelings are still real.

Part of Thunderbolts* themes - if subtle - is Yelena living in the shadow of her sister's sacrifice. The legend of her heroism. Like Bob lives in the shadow of his own Void and his fear of unleashing it again. A big theme, it seems, going into Doomsday.

She's trying to follow in her footsteps. Trying to do better. Be the hero. To fill that emptiness with purpose, the same as her sister. Bob is afraid of being a hero because of the Void, Yelena is afraid of not being any kind of hero at all. Because of Natasha.

In Thunderbolts* she falls off that building into a "void" at the beginning of the movie, foreshadowing her stepping into the actual Void near the end.

Foreshadow is a very ironic verb in this case for both of them.

She stepped forward, knowing that there was a very real chance she was never coming back. It was actually incredibly reckless, with no regard for her own safety. It was not unreasonable to say she could've died right there. Even Bucky calls it out in the text "What if she's dead?"

She bets it all based off of one small moment earlier where Bob saw her past in the void and Yelena experienced a shame room for the first time... (I could talk for days about her void room being THE ONLY ONE WHERE BOB IS PHYSICALLY PRESENT but I'll save it for another midnight meta fest). But she does it, because she wanted to save him, to bring him home, in the way she wanted to bring Natasha home but never could.

Those scenes do several things for the story and work on a few different levels in terms of symbolism, character and theme.

It harkens back to her sacrificing herself in Black Widow to kill Dreykov, exploding and falling to what she thinks is her death. Both that and her falling in Thunderbolts* were meant to be visual and thematic parallels to Nat sacrificing herself in Endgame by committing suicide. Falling to her death. Nat gets to save Yelena in Black Widow, but Yelena didn't get to save Nat in Endgame. Like Clint said, she was better, and so she got to make the choice. Clint couldn't save her from her own choice, and neither could Yelena. And they both have to find a way to live with that.

Its also an overarching visual metaphor for the mental health themes that are so important in this movie. Themes of loneliness, depression and suicide. Themes that apply to every character in the movie, but in terms of the movies thematic heart, are specifically a binary between Bob and Yelena. Those feelings of emptiness, of loneliness. Of a Void.

Yelena: "What is even the point of all this?"

Bob: "Then I remember that nothing matters..."

Both of their arcs are connected to themes of suicide, or suicidal tendencies, and finding a reason to live. To keep going, even if its for each other. Everything about Yelena's mission at the start of the movie is akin to a passive non-verbal suicidal ideation, not actively trying to kill herself but also not being careful or respectful of her own life. Same as Bob in the vault, they parallel each other in those ways. It's the "Meh. Guess I'll just bumble on but if I die, no big deal" mentality. It breaks my heart.

Though, unlike Bob who has the toxic Valentina whispering in his ear, spurring on his later manic episode (Bipolar represent). Instead, Yelena has Alexei to help her see that in the darkness, there is a light. It doesn't drive out the darkness, but it makes it lighter. Warmer. Brighter. If the Void in all of us is a dark mirror that reflects our own negative views of ourselves, our perceived mistakes, guilt, regrets, shame, then Alexei's line about "you need other people to see the good" is about the loved ones in our life being mirrors of light. Where we see the flaws in ourselves, the reason we need each other is because we can act as mirrors that reflect the good in others.

Its like what Natasha said about the avengers in Endgame.

"They made me better."

Other people can see the best versions of ourselves, and when we see it through them, it allows us to see ourselves in a more eclectic, realistic and positive way that can help us escape the illogical doubt and shame of our void.

And because Yelena sees that in herself through her Dad, and from her sister who was a light in her life - a symbol of hope and redemption - she can then be that mirror for Bob. Cue Yelena and Bob seeing each other/communicating through a mirror, because they are both deuteragonists and foils for one another. The Void is Bobs dark mirror. Yelena is Bobs mirror of light. Same in the way that Yelena has her own darkness, and Bob becomes a beacon of goodness and light in her world that she strives to protect.

Yes there's the nihilism of her walking into that void, a version in her head that her suffering, her loneliness, her "pointless" existence can end. There might even be a relief in that for her. But it's overshadowed by a hope. A hope that she can reach through that despair, those feelings of unworthiness, and save somebody. To be the sunrise to somebody else's endless night. Because she couldn't be there to save Nat, she was going to be damned sure she leaped over that edge and fell into that Void to catch Bob. And in doing so, save a part of herself she thought had died with Natasha.

Which brings me back to Doomsday.

Yelena is the Avengers "Goalie." She was in Thunderbolts* and that theme will continue into Doomsday, I'm sure of it. The one who brings everyone together, who lights up the room.

"I want to be the one everyone can rely on if they make a mistake."

-Alexei quoting 5 year old Yelena.

Its such a beautiful message for a character, and I thought I loved Yelena before this movie... Boy do I love her now. Yelena is the one everyone can rely on, who will catch everyone when they fall down. When they make a mistake. From Sam Wilson, to Carol Danvers, to the Reed Richards... To John, to Alexei, to Ava, to Bucky... to Bob. No matter what it costs her. But if she's catching everyone when they fall, who's going to catch her?

When Bob falls in this movie into the lifts "void" its Yelena who catches him. Saves him. When Bob metaphorically "falls down" and the Void begins to consume the light, she catches him. Holds him. Shows him he's not alone. And I have a feeling in those 14 months when he's had moments of darkness, when the entire worlds been against him because of the potential threat the void poses including Sam Wilsons Avengers, she's been his biggest supporter, biggest defender alongside the other Thunderbolts* (or New Avengerz lmao), and the one who catches him when he falls down. The one he relies on.

So in Doomsday, after he spends most of the movie suppressing his powers as the Sentry because of his fear of the Void, of hurting people... There will be a moment where Yelena makes a choice. Where because of that choice, she falls. And Bob as he is, hiding from his powers, can only watch as she falls into another Void. To her death. So Bob comes to the height of his arc, and has to make a choice too.

Let the girl he loves fall and save the world from the potential threat of the void and Doom using that power. Or rise above his fear, and catch her. Be a hero, even if it means potentially dooming the world and worlds beyond.

I believe this is the moment in the movie where Bob finally stops stalling and acts, whether through choice or instinct (though I hope he makes an active choice to save her). It would bring the symbolism of both Yelen and Bob falling into the void full circle, also resolving the tragedy of Clint being forced to drop Natasha and Yelena having to live with her sisters choices. This time Black Widow doesn't have to die to save everyone by falling to her death. This time, someones there to catch her, with Bob rising above his own darkness to do it.

Now it could go one of two ways, either Bob manages to catch her before she hits the ground and dies which is what I think will happen. There's also a version in my head where she falls and dies, Bob comes onto the scene or watches it happen without being able to help, and then turns into the Sentry to heal her/resurrect her. Which I believe, the more power he uses the more likely the Void is to take over, and healing/resurrection is the fastest way for that to happen. So instead of physically catching her, he metaphorically catches her falling into death, and in doing so, becomes lost in the Void (keep wanting to type Void Sauce lmao; lost in the void sauce) afterwards to the point that not even Yelena can pull him back out this time. Enter Doom and whatever bullshit he has up his sleeve to use the void and or manipulate that power/Bob, or even completely strip Bob of his powers altogether.

The gist of it is, as foreshadowed in the Thunderbolts* movie...

Yelena will fall, and Bob will catch her. Finishing off the poem of Natasha and Yelena's story not with a tragic cut off, but hope, allowing Yelena to live on and do the things Natasha never got to. The life that Natasha gave her when she was snapped back. And in the same breath Bob will finally truly accept his power and responsibility as the Sentry, overcoming his fear to save the girl who saved him.

All before it comes crashing down. Yelena may be the catalyst that saves the Avengers and also Dooms them. Enter... The madness that is my mind making up theories for secret wars...

God what has Thunderbolts*, Bob and Yelena done to me? I haven't written meta like this in yonks, or been this excited about Marvel in a long time, outside of the comics at least. I'm expecting to be disappointed, hell all of my above theories could be completely off mark, they just make sense to me because of their character arcs and what I would consider a well-written story. Amazing foreshadowing if that is the case. But honestly, the fact they gave us this gem? I will love this movie and the fandom creativity that comes out of it forever, even if Doomsday once again drags me back into my apathetic marvel era.

Here's to hoping.

"Why do we fall Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

-Thomas Wayne, the Dark Knight.

[tumblingghosts]

what if s3ep3 my beloved <3

bucky was So Done with alexei LOL

The thing, why i thank you @busyheadkeepbreathing , is i need to hype up people who write Bucky like a normal person because i don't like the way the winter soldier is portraited in most fics.

So i love it when people write him good as Bucky.

Here starts the rant:

Most fanfictions i have read so far describe the Winter soldier as a mindless puppet without emotions. Like you need to tell him everything. What to do and you have to take care of him.

But that's not the case. I'll try to make my point with some interpretations from the movie.

Yes the winter soldier doesn't talk much. Many take the scene with Pierce and the milk question. I think it's not that he can't answer. He just doesn't want to. Or he just doesn't get the joke. He's there to take his orders so the rest doesn't matter.

But he talks on the bridge and HE GIVES ORDERS! to others. He is superior and he knows it.

On the bridge we get to see something else. He shows emotions. Yeah it is mostly anger but nevertheless an emotion. Hes angry with natasha or about the fact that he didn't think about how she would trick him. Then he wastes munitions while shooting in rage.

The thing is: he probably lost his memory after the fall from the train. They probably didn't electrocuted him to break him. It is a reset mechanism. Forced memory loss. Not exactly torture to hurt him. It is torture because it hurts while doing it.

They experimented with him in Azzano. There they perhaps researched if they can reset memories. Thats not clear.

So the next thing is. He flew under the radar for 2 years. He managed to escape to Romania from the US. He fucking knows how to take care of himself. They just found him because of Zemo. If CIA and the resources of tony stark couldn't find him he did a damn well job.

The winter soldier is basically a mix of Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne with super strength.

I feel like just because Rumlow called him 'the asset' many people think of him as a weapon instead of a human. The trigger words are there to unlock unquestionable obedience. But not to make him mindless or emotionless. The one who speaks those words is the person he accepts orders from.

In the comics they didn't wipe him regularly. They didn't freeze him regularly. They turned him and gave him a place in the red room. He trained the widows, he fell in love with natasha (ill never forgive the mcu for keeing this from us). He started to question everything. They had a kill switch for him. Sputnik would make him unconscious. They froze him completely because he began to act out. Gosh he even has full conversations as the winter soldier with his handlers.

I feel like the reason, why so many people think of this mindless puppet thing, is his answer (ready to comply). I am pretty sure it is some kind of verification. That everything is in order and how it should be. That he would be obedient.

I feel like more people need to embrace the display of the winter soldier in what if..? Seaon 2 episode 2 or season 3 episode 3. That is how he is even as the winter soldier.

Sorry for the rant...

[16woodsequ]

Sometimes in fics, Steve is shown to be really struggling with Bucky's memory loss and pushing him to remember things, or just being visibly sad and disappointed when he doesn't.

But I was just thinking that we have seen Steve react to someone who doesn't remember him. When Peggy, at the time the only person who know him in the past, forgets he had survived and she knew him in modern day, he reacts really well.

Of course, you can tell his heart is breaking. But to Peggy he is kind, gentle, and reassuring. He doesn't try to drag her into memories she doesn't have. He doesn't say he's been alive for two years. He just sits with her and comforts her as she grieves what to her is a heartbreaking reunion.

(X)

Anyway, I think Steve would be understanding and move at Bucky’s pace. Of course there would be grief on both sides, amd Bucky might feel bad about that. But Steve would never want him to feel bad about it, and he would be doing his best to manage that for Bucky's benefit.

[velvet4510]

We all knew Rio was Nicky’s other parent but it’s glorious to see it firmly confirmed and so no hater is able to deny it anymore.

And now we can really bask in just how deep and unique the writing is for that final episode.

From conception, Nicky was half-life, half-death.

Death isn’t supposed to create life. It’s a total paradox that explains why Nicky was meant to be stillborn. How could the child of Death live? Agatha becoming pregnant must’ve turned Rio’s world upside down.

Also Rio doesn’t see death as a tragedy. How could she when it’s her job? When it’s the natural order of things? Before meeting Agatha, it never crossed her mind that death could be seen as bad.

But it’s when she fell for a living human, a mortal, that she finally saw what death means for humans. How much pain and fear and grief it brings.

And suddenly here’s Agatha pleading and pleading for her to NOT do her job, to NOT take their child with her. If she does this, she’ll break Agatha’s heart - the antithesis of her understanding of death. Rio suddenly comprehends that as long as Agatha lives on, there’s no way for the three of them to ever be together as a family. No wonder she chokes back tears.

As for Agatha, she only has the living person’s perspective. How could Rio want THEIR child to die? It’s the antithesis of parental instincts to want or allow your child to die. Death or no Death, surely Rio can see why this would be wrong?

Agatha and Rio are looking at the situation through totally different and incompatible lenses.

So out of love for Agatha alone, Rio lets Nicky’s “life” half take over not just for a few hours or days, but SIX WHOLE YEARS.

Then when Rio can’t stretch the rules any longer and she comes for him, Nicky knows her. He does not fear her, or where they are going. How can he, when she is his mother, when she needs him home?

Then Rio pays the price, as Agatha cuts ties with her and wants nothing to do with her anymore.

I also think this explains why Rio is so determined to kill Agatha herself or to let the Salem Seven do it, during the rest of the show. Again, as Death, she doesn’t see death as bad, or a harm, or a pain. If Agatha dies, then Rio can take her to Nicky and they can finally be a family. But Agatha doesn’t want them to be a family together. She still sees what happened as a loss and betrayal that Nicky would never forgive her for - the opposite of how Rio views it.

Ultimately, Agatha makes herself into a ghost who can’t cross over to where Nicky is, and Rio’s dream of her family being together is shattered.

Truly one of the greatest and most profound tragedies in television history, let alone MCU history.

[mischievous-thunder]

Initially, the only people who didn't know how far gone Logan and Wade were for each other were Logan and Wade themselves. Neither of them knew why there was a shift in their hearts or what to do with all of the raw emotions. So, they did the only thing they thought were good at. They fought their heart out.

The exact moment Wade realised that he was madly in love with Logan and would do anything for him was the very moment Logan had the exact same realisation. The moment Wade went inside to destroy the Time Ripper alone was when Logan felt completely lost. He used all of his power to get inside and be right by Wade's side.

The urgency in their tone and expressions, the way they tried so hard to sound casual to mask their true feelings and failed miserably, the way they were instantaneously ready to sacrifice themselves to save the other one point to the fact that their love is otherworldly. At this point saving the world and saving the other person became synonymous as they'd already become each other's entire world.

They didn't just save the world. The two broken men saved each other. After that, Wade had to introduce his new boyfriend and their dog to Althea. Oddly enough, domesticity does suit them exceptionally well.

[jooniely]

I haven't been in the stucky fandom that much but I've noticed that in fics, not a lot of writers write steve as intelligent? Like, the second cap movie shows that he is intelligent! The elevator scene! He saw 3 signs and immediately knew what was going on. He thinks super quick on his feet, and is the technically the avengers' leader who makes the plans of attack (their tactician when it comes to fights). He also knows French? He listens to batroc talk to him in French, understands him, and responds back in French! And also I know it's movie comic book science but the way he uses his shield quite literally shows that he has great understanding of (comic science) physics! He spends his time reading military strategy and history.

He doesn't have spy type intelligence but he's still very smart. The mcu sucks at sticking to their own characterization cuz past the second cap movie and the first (and maybe 2nd) avengers movie, I don't recognize steve. They just focus on his fighting but miss his intelligence and empathy(!!!!) (And let's never talk about endgame steve cuz that wasn't steve at all)