#how many mcu women are they going to show dead like this

[lokiinmediasideblog]

I Intentionally Start Shit in the Loki Tag

If you complain about Sylvie being "harmful queer rep" BUT want "Lady Loki" in the MCU, which was Loki possessing Sif's body just to torment Sif, I need you to sit down and shut up. a. Genderfluid people don't go by "Lady " when they're femme or women. b. If you don't see the transphobic dogwhistles in the comics possession subplot, I don't know what to tell you... But let's say that hag that wrote those crappy books would love it. c. If you weren't aware about this, maybe you should read the wiki at least before giving uninformed opinions.

I definitely agree that they should not have led people on with the promise of genderfluid rep during the promotion of the series. But get mad at Disney/Marvel for that. Not at the writers or Sophia Di Martino that had to cave in to Feige's demands. That's literally what they have to do.

I really don't give a damn about the "autogynephilia" allegations, which again, is ALSO PRESENT IN CIS WOMEN. Like why the fuck should I care about someone finding themselves hot? There's fascists out there. AGP even if it was a trans-specific thing harms no one. The only harm said to come from it is DUE TO FASCISM because it plays into RESPECTABILITY POLITICS.

If you use AI to create a "proper" Lady Loki or love interest for Loki, you can't complain about the blatant product placement in S2. I am not a fan of product placement either and won't defend it, but those are the rules. Show some integrity. And before you ask, I have not given a cent to Disney since they pissed me off with attempts to trademark Dia de los Muertos for Coco.

If you complain about how being a "Loki" is not a role (unlike Spiderman) and how it should have been all 100% Tom Hiddleston, you don't get to call it selfcest as a gotcha, because you're already differentiating between the variants with different DNA. Like do y'all hate selfcest or not? Make up your mind. The series treats a Loki as an archetype of sorts, so it can be a role. Also, having the same name does not make you related because we don't know what Sylvie's parents are? And we don't even know if Sylvie is also a Jotun, a prop claims she isn't.

If you say you want Sylvie dead but claim to not be misogynistic, because you'd love if a specific love interest from the comics or mythology replaced her, STFU. You only like those because you can project whatever the fuck you want onto them.

If you claim Sylvie is a misogynistic depiction of women but salivate over characters written by cishet white men in the 1960s-1980s that made wanting to fuck Thor or being in a monogamous marriage with Loki their entire personality (there's so MANY OF THESE), STFU. Do you hear yourself? And no, it's not misogynistic of me, a woman, to criticize offensive depictions of women by cishet white men. They're not real.

Our MCU!Loki is not the young adult Ikol reincarnation currently. Of course 20-something Verity is not going to be there! The Loki show should be praise for having multiple female cast members around the same age as the protagonist and pragmatic clothing choices that allowed SdM to nurse her baby.

Selfcest isn't real and I cry tears of boredom whenever someone clutches their pearls over it.

The comics aren't perfect. As much as I loved the recent Dan Watters run (and German Peralta's art), the comics art has some very questionable tendencies, especially regarding Loki's nose when she's femme. It's associated with how some kinds of facial features are considered masculine or feminine (and racialized). Noses have no gender, ffs! Women with nose bumps exist! For some reason Loki always has a tiny button nose when she's a woman or femme. There's also the BLATANT physiognomy that has ALWAYS PLAGUED Thor comics since their inception, and Loki's facial features as they've become more "grey" and less evil is an interesting study. Peralta's far from being the only artist with this problem, and is far from being the most problematic. For comparison from Loki (2023) run:

Loki from ye olden days:

[aegonsbrittlecrown]

in addition to the female rage post i just came across i want to talk about powerful women and how their narrative punishes them for "overreaching".

i don't care if you hate daenerys but what they did to her in season 8 (what d&d did to many characters in s7-8) was atrocious and absolutely undeserving. first they stripped cersei of any semblance of sanity or power and then it was dany who had to succumb to madness because a female character with more military prowess than all male characters and also a biological nuke has to be torn down. there was a post the other day about how executing people for treason, betrayal, honor, duty is allowed for male characters but if daenerys does it, it's madness. she doesn't take pleasure in killing as the hound does, yet she is viewed as insane (it's another thing that what the narrative framed as girlboss righteous killing, in astapor and meereen, frames as targaryen madness in westeros and they expect us to flip over just like that but i digress). too much power has to be broken down if it's in the hands of a woman, that's what i was getting from that last season.

similarly, when i was watching dr strange and the multiverse of madness, i was exceedingly disappointed by the story and the direction they set for wanda. she's the most powerful in the avengers, yet she never really let it show (that's another narrative loophole but marvel puts swiss cheese to shame when it comes to those) and now they give her the dumbest villain arc of the whole mcu just to get rid of her because the other heroes's powers pale in comparison to hers. the whole movie is a shitshow, it's not just wanda who was done dirty, but she turned insane in her grief, where other heroes didn't. it's like saying that oh women? they go crazy when they're sad. we can't let them have powers, who knows what they'll do if they break a nail or something. thor's whole planet was destroyed, his whole family is dead along with half of his people but he's just really fucking sad. iron man has paranoia and anxiety and he has a fight with his best friend but he doesn't go on a murderous rampage. even hawkeye, who does go on a murderous rampage is forgiven because he just was really really sad you know? not wanda. she has too much power and she should be destroyed for that.

i feel like writers build up these incredibly powerful female characters and then they wake up from some stupor and are scared shitless of what they created and they quickly burn the whole thing down. with cersei, daenerys and wanda i felt the same: their downfall wasn't an organic evolution of their stories, but a divine intervention that only makes sense in the heads of those who wrote them. i can feel the panic from behind those narrative decisions and it makes me angry.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Sometimes I wonder why peggy Stan's get mad when people have a valid criticism. Especially with Jewish or poc fans of marvel when they point out the problems with peggy carter.

And when they point it out they call them misogynistic . Like that and " but she it's a nazi " is their only argument and it makes me sooo mad like who are you to speak up over a Jewish or poc when they have valid criticism.

The mcu and its fans have a history of issues that they refuse to accept and quit frankly I can't wait until the mcu is over with and done influencing comics.

*😩 I already typed this out and then stupid tumblr deleted it*

I’m afraid I don’t have to wonder why! You can’t criticise White Feminism to a White Feminist without them taking it (correctly) as you criticising their whole worldview. 

And since they don’t like to think of themselves as White Feminists, it’s a nasty wake up call; and nobody likes being woken up early!  

I had an Anon recently asking me to detail exactly how/how many times Pggy’s org has been ““infiltrated”” by Nazis. 

Altogether I found SEVEN separate occasions where she is either: knowingly and cheerfully colluding with Nazis, and/or aiding them in becoming immortal (in three universes, just that we’ve seen so far), and/or allowing Nazis to flourish by gross incompetence, and/or being shown recruiting bad guys and Nazis for SHIELD off her own bat, and/or admitting that she would “consider” making deals with them because Nazis science is “valuable” to her (in her own words).

Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me... seven times? 

Add in the fact that she was based on a Nazi, which in the process wiped out the characterisation based on a real life Antifa WWII heroine. 

And the worrying similarities between her onscreen behaviour and that of characters like Red Skull and John Walker. 

And that the only named Jewish woman in the MCU is sterilised by GSW on her show but WASPy Pggy is literally impaled and just walks it off? And that there are no speaking non-white women at all, in a show half set in New York? 

Then the character’s physical and sexual assaults on Steve in CATFA (when Pvt. Lorraine does it it’s a sexual assault, but not when she does it? yeah, that’s not how that works!) and on poor Cevans (repeated again IRL by HA, on stage, in front of an audience, as if it’s a joke!) 

These things should’ve been enough on their own, for any decent person!  

But on top of that you also have HA’s horrible behaviour; IRL to her fellow actress, the way she endlessly praises her character and how great her own performance is (seriously, who does that?! the ego on this woman!) and that her idea of addressing lack of rep for POC in her precious show was to... tell people to wait their turn? 

This character is just One Big Yikes from conception through to execution and even behind the scenes. 

(And, from a purely feminist POV; she fails everything she attempts to do, meaning she is so unimportant to every plot that she fails the ‘Sexy Lamp with a Post-It Note Stuck To It’ Test, her own ‘empowerment’ only comes from men, she is only treated as having said something important if she’s quoting a man and/or pretending she was in a powerful dead man’s confidence, and men in every single appearance are so determined to 100% ignore everything she says and do the opposite that Steve will even pause screaming in agony from inside the vitaray tube to tell them not to do what Pggy says. 

But the writers and actress think Steve listens to her! 

Only so he knows exactly what he’s NOT going to do...)

Honestly, I’m at the point now where if a woman tells me they’re a Pggy Stan, the only charitable excuse for them I can come up with is that they must just be a casual fan who hasn’t paid enough attention to notice how messed up the whole thing is. 

(Or, for the other kind of fan, the toxic dudebros who transparently only like Pggy for one reason but will pretend it’s for any other reason. Yeah right! 🙄 They’re the sort who think EG was a masterpiece and totally in-character.)

But with that creepy dead-eyed fuck Feige, who’s just like them, now in control of her and Cap’s trajectory in the comics? 

Heart-breaking. 

That man is so stupid he thinks the MCU is Earth-616. 

In terms of rep for POC and Jews, the Disney buy out of Marvel was the worst possible thing that could have happened. I can only imagine Kirby & Simon are spinning in their graves. 

And, I watched a vid essay the other day about the queer-coding (via effeminacy and/or predatoriness) of Disney villains, because Walt Disney was homophobic (real shocker). 

Holy shit, even though I knew, I didn’t really realise how many there were! The Evil Queen, Maleficent, Captain Hook, King John, Ratigan, Gaston, Scar, Jafar, Governor Ratcliffe, Ursula, Hades, Cruella de Ville, Loki...? Disney only stopped making villains gay (debatable) so they could make them black instead.  🤦‍♀️  And that’s where we are right now... 

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

I really like your meta about Wanda. So this isn't a criticism, more a question. When you talk about emotional and irrational female leads, I wonder if the reason it doesn't bother me as much is that when infinity war came out, Quill and Thor (not killing Thanos straight away at Wakanda) kind of both did a similar thing. I don't see that being attributed to them being men. Hope that makes sense. Or is it you are more concerned that this will be attributed to them being women?

It’s not so much that as...well, it’s partly that. But it’s mostly about numbers and patterns, the things that turn one-off plotlines into tropes and trends. In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with this type of storyline going to a female character, where grief and power combine to make her increasingly and dangerously unstable to the point where she either becomes a villain or can only find redemption through sacrificing herself. But nothing exists in a vacuum, and the actual context is that I’m having a hard time thinking of any male characters who get this type of storyline. Instead it tends to be a thing that’s written for female characters, the implication—whether it’s deliberate or not—being that women are too emotional to handle power past a certain point. Off the top of my head, comics Wanda, MCU Wanda, comics Dark Phoenix, definitely the first Dark Phoenix film (as I understand it, the more recent one was somewhat better this way), and Aida in Agents of SHIELD fit into this trope, and then you have even dumber stuff like Oz the Great and Powerful where the Wicked Witch of the West used to be good actually until she had her heart broken by a dude and then she just...kinda...turned evil?

In the context of the MCU specifically, it’s...kind of worse, although not quite as much as it would have been a few years ago, but—well, I mentioned numbers. In MCU canon at this point, only looking at what’s actually been released so far or will be released within the next month or so (and assuming I’m counting and adding right), we have:

22 movies named after one or two title characters

7 movies named after an ensemble and therefore not relevant to this discussion

6 Disney+ shows named for 1-2 title characters

What If, which I’m counting as an ensemble show, so it’s also not relevant

7 non-Disney+ shows with 1-2 title characters, and

4 non-Disney+ shows named after an ensemble.

Again assuming I'm counting right (although if I'm not, I don't think I'm off by enough to change my point), that leaves us with 39 movies or shows named after 1-2 characters each. (I’m only counting “the Winter Soldier” as a title character in his show, not in Cap 2, and I’m not counting Ultron at all.) Because a disproportionate number of those movies are about the same handful of dudes, I think it actually ends up being 30 different title characters, even if they shared billing with someone else. Of those title characters, only 8 or maybe 9 are female: Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Wanda, Wasp, Agent Carter, Dagger, Jessica Jones, Ms. Marvel, and arguably Hawkeye, although Kate’s kind of a stretch. (It’s also fair to note that only half of these characters get to be title characters by themselves rather than sharing the title with a guy, but since I’m trying to be fair, I will also note that only Ant-Man has been a title character by himself, and the others seem to have equal billing in their respective pairings. But honestly, that doesn’t make it much better.)

Want to guess how many other title characters get a storyline like Wanda’s, where they maybe start out with the bad guys (although for understandable reasons, if you’re not dead set on hating them from the jump), firmly establish themselves as good guys for multiple entries, and then spiral so far into villainy that apparently they just have to go the redemption = death route to finish things off, with absolutely no guarantees they're coming back from it?

Um…none! None characters! Bucky kind of does something similar, but I really don’t think that counts because it wasn’t his choice at all, and Loki’s arc is more the reverse of that than anything. I never watched The Punisher but I’m pretty sure Frank was an antihero from his introduction so I don’t think that counts either. Supreme Strange in What If is also sort of similar, except he gets a chance to redeem himself after his episode despite destroying—I’m pretty sure—a lot more than Wanda did. Come to think of it, Vision in the zombies What If episode is also pretty similar in that he’s a card-carrying Good Guy who ends up doing some awful, selfish things out of love and eventually sacrifices himself in an attempt to make things right, which is honestly kind of funny in terms of any WandaVision discourse about how she didn’t deserve him or whatever, but just like with Supreme Strange, that’s not the main-timeline version of the character…and it was in a one-off episode that didn’t matter that much because a lot of people didn’t even see it. Plus there’s nothing ickily gendered about it with Vision, because you’re not presented with a multiverse of possibilities where the only sane, stable version of the character is—just as a random example—the relatively low-powered suburban one who’s perfectly content having not come into his full power. Probably the closest any of our many male title characters came to Wanda’s arc was just…the glimpses of alternate-timeline Stranges in Multiverse of Madness. Which, again, were not the main-timeline version of the character like Wanda is.

The MCU has had so few female title characters to begin with. One of them was already dead before she ever got her movie, for fuck's sake. Making Wanda a major character, letting her be so incredibly powerful, and then doing this with her is just—

Again, in a vacuum, it wouldn't be such a huge deal. In a vacuum, or in a world where we've had a roughly equal number of male and female title characters in the MCU, with comparable levels of agency, it could be a compelling storyline, at least if you find a way to do it without sacrificing existing characterization. In a world where the MCU has at least experimented more with morally gray protagonists outside of Netflix, it would still bug me but it wouldn't be so bad, because there would be precedent, and there would probably be more of an attempt from the editing and directing--rather than just from Elizabeth Olsen's acting, by all accounts--to make sure the character stays sympathetic. In the context of the numbers and storylines we actually have so far, it’s...really kind of gross!

And actually if you consider a handful of additional major characters who haven’t been title characters, it gets a little worse, because still the only marginally relevant dudes I can think of were relatively minor SHIELD agents (well, and Ward) that we assumed were good guys who were later revealed to be HYDRA, and...Sharon Carter making herself the Power Broker because of reasons, which isn’t really relevant to the whole “women are too emotional for power” trope but is pretty weird in terms of “all the card-carrying Good Guys in this franchise who kinda decide to switch sides have something in common”. So there's that, too.

[praphit]

Guardians Vol 3: A fatty, salty gift.

(No Spoilers)

May I be honest be with you? I’ve been thinking about letting my PMB card (Proud Marvel Bitch) expire.  I know. I KNOW. Perish the thought, right??

I've been defending Marvel throughout all of the recent tough times. 

While errbody out there was talkin smack, I defended you, Marvel!

When people said "Thor 4" was too goofy & had tone problems, 

I said "LOOK, this dude just got his body back, his lady back, and his hammer back. Let him have some fun! Quit being a grump!"

When people said that "The Multiverse of Madness" suffered from too much CGI. 

I said "LOOK, it's called THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS! It's about a fight between a Magical Doctor of Strangeness and a Super Witch! Give me ALL of the effects & colors! There can't be enough CGI! How were y'all expecting anything other than an overload of all of that?! You just want them to duke it out in one room, throwing Skittles and glitter at each other??!"

When people said that She-Hulk didn't have no business twerkin with Megan Thee Stallion.

I supported that badly CG'd booty! "If ya got it, shake it!" is what I said.

And then, "Ant-Man 3 happened.... 

THEN, J.Majors had his... alleged... issue...

THEN, I saw that "The Marvels" trailer... a movie that no one is asking for... 

I wouldn't say that my faith in Marvel is broken, but doubt has certainly crept in.

Can these Guardians of Vol 3 restore my faith? - maybe, but it ain't gonna be easy.

They're kind of a mess right now. Rocket is playing what I call "The Secret Sadness Game". 

Have you ever played that game? -  I bet you have. It's when something is wrong with you; you're very sad, but you're not letting anyone know about it. It's a horrible game. Nobody wins in that game, but it's apparently popular these days, with social media making us all pretend to be happy, dignified, and pretty all of the time. So, popular that Mantis is playing that game a lil bit as well.

Drax is too simple-minded to play that game 

(side note: Dave Bautista [Drax]  said that Marvel dropped the ball concerning Drax's story. And I couldn't agree more. There's a lot to explore with his back story, but... I'm hoping that they'll either reboot the Guardians cartoon series or give Drax a "What If... " story. That show really likes depressing people; here's a golden opportunity.)

Groot is... 

well, Groot.

And Nebula (whom I LOVE!) 

is grumpier than a lot of us Marvel fans have become. To be fair she has to keep all of these bozos together while Peter aka Starlord is getting drunk and dropping F-Bombs. 

He still hasn't gotten over Gamora.

I was going to be a jerk and say that he should have gotten over her by now, BUT I forgot that she’s kinda dead, but kinda not... (#ComicbookUniverseProblems)

It's hard to move on when your lover IS dead, but... still around, kinda, you know?? (If you actually don’t know, then... wow, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do)

I know (in the Christmas Special) they brought Peter the gift of Kevin Bacon to cheer him up, but maybe they should have brought him a woman. A good 80's star like he likes... maybe Heather Locklear 

or Kathy Ireland. Remember her?

Not the best message though, I guess - "If you're depressed, then simply drown yourself in booze and pretty women (whom only exist to make you happy :)." But, he's kinda there anyway.

Like I said, they're a mess.

But, if one thing can bring family together it's tragedy.

Something bad happens to one of The Guardians, they sober-up the Starlord, wash his mouth out with soap, and they're off on an adventure!

Mostly a typical Guardians jam. I know some have complained about too many laughs while serious things are going on, but they kinda started all of that in the MCU. And to be fair, if you have survived as much as they have, perhaps you'd be laughing more in the face of danger as well. I loved the comedy duo of Mantis & Drax. And the... unromantic comedy duo/toxic partnership of Peter & Gamora.

  And with Nebula (WHOM I LOVE!) in the middle of it all... PERFECTION.

The colorful new worlds and creatures we meet are cool. And the CGI is excellent. I don't know where those artists were when She-Hulk and MODOK were being created, 

but whatever:) The action is excellent!  A lot of murdering going on here for a PG-13 rating, when you stop and think about it, but I loved every non-drop of mostly non-existent blood.

The stuff that's different is the darker tones in here. There's some serious drama happening in this film. Of course we have more of Peter’s brokenhearted ass, but there are a lot of family dynamic stuff here as well. There's plenty of funny bickering between them, but it's also covering up some pain that the movie gets into.

Plus, we learn about Rocket's origin. That's when things get really dark and cruel. His past sucked. You WILL get emotional.  Especially when in his story we meet our villain

THE HIGH EVOLUTIONARY.

He brings new meaning to the word "Narcissist", and you will hate him. There's a lot to hate. He's pretty much getting his Dr. Frankenstein on, using parts from animals, humanoid creatures, and robotics. His victims suffer much and he don't give a SHIT!

Bradley Cooper (Rocket) is good! I always forget that he's part of the Marvel Universe. I was kinda hoping that Rocket's origin included being Bradley Cooper, but had his brain removed and put in a raccoon. And maybe something similar with Groot

Some dark stuff, but also a lot of LOL moments. I think they maneuvered the tones well.

I do wish that we got more of my main woman Debicki!

  And like many, I had hoped for more Adam Warlock, but I know time was tight in that regard. 

That's prob my main complaint about the film - TIME. It's 2hrs and 30 mins ----- TOO LONG, and yet the endings for these characters seemed rushed. Like... where they end up, individually, makes sense, but it feels like we skipped some emotional steps.

This is Rocket's story, and it's full of laughs, feels, and bad ass action! I really enjoyed this movie! PMB card renewed!

Grade: B+

What made this movie extra enjoyable for me was the news that someone dies in this movie (NOT a spoiler. I already told you about all of the murder. Murder always begats more murder, kids.

Any explosion near The Guardians --- NOOOO! One of them gets shot --- NOOOOO! Any time one of them was alone --- NOOOO! Eating a delicious, fatty, salt encrusted meal---- Heart Disease, NOOOOOO! On the toilet ---- isn't that how Elvis died? or is that a myth? People die that way though.

. What an interesting way for a Marvel character to die. “We'll all remember when Mantis crapped herself to death.” :)

NOOOOOOO!

Although, anxiety-inducing, it was certainly a more exciting way to watch. It was a kind of a gift. A gift which I now leave with you.

[ragnell]

So we learn a bit more about MCU Gods in Thor: Love and Thunder. Spoilers in the cut, where I go into my thoughts on it.

Gorr's encounter at the beginning establishes that yes, there are way bigger assholes than the Egyptian Gods out there. The Ennead at least had "They abandoned us" as a response. Khonshu never abandoned his followers. But this sun-hat dude was like, the absolute worst god we've seen and that includes all the antagonistic deities like Hela and Ammit. If sun-hat dude had had the smallest bit of tact and compassion, this whole thing could be averted.

The blue people that Thor and the Guardians are defending are an example of the big deal with what Gorr is doing: Some gods have jobs. This pantheon was a set of gods that were actually protecting this people and this planet, and Gorr just tore through them willy-nilly.

Which brings me to my thing about Gorr. I find him extremely self-centered. Like many religious people, he sees faith as a barter system. You put faith and glory in, you get an eternal reward out. This leads to a morality system that is set by following rules from a deity not because they are the right thing to do, but because of what it will get you if you do or to avoid the punishment if you won't. Gorr's problem is his god didn't uphold the bargain, because his god was a lazy dick, but really... a good life should not be such a bargain. You're supposed to do what's right because it's right, not for some eternal reward.

Now, you may ask how do gods come in to a secular-humanist-sounding philosophy like that? Or am I an atheist? No, I'm a polytheist. I think gods exist as the personification of their domains, meaning they are generally beneficial divine being but are capable of causing great harm because they embody their domains. And since they embody their domains so readily, you should avoid depending on them to set morality or set things right without doing some work yourself, or to take care of you after death unless they are specifically a god of the dead.

If gods are a thing that exists, that the universe needs, then the universe must need them for something other than to take care of humans like their favorite pets. Gods would necessarily have jobs, and those jobs would be bigger than me.

The idea that some gods have jobs but not all gods have jobs seems to work in the MCU. We see at least one pantheon keeping invasions off of a planet. Were they a colonial power like Asgard, guarding realms they had conquered? Maybe, but going in and slaughtering them and leaving a power void doesn't really help does it.

We do have one pure example of a working god from Moon Knight, Taweret, who is also potentially an example of the trouble you get when you take out a working god. In the comics we see Anubis sailing that boat, and Taweret is using his scales. It's likely Taweret is a fill-in because this is one of those necessary positions for gods.

In the Omnipotent City we see a council of gods from different pantheons sitting around with Zeus as the leader. This is our example of not all gods having jobs. Zeus is of course, planning an orgy. In the comics, this council of gods is led by Odin, who uses this platform to raise an army and plan to kill the Celestials. I would gather that Odin had been on about that a lot in the MCU, given how Zeus responds to the Asgardians showing up with "I thought we didn't have to deal with you since Odin died."

The women on the dais with Zeus are credited as the "Zeusettes", so they are not Hera, Aphrodite, Artemis or Athena. Athena's existence is still up for debate. Artemis is in the crowd. Minerva is in the crowd, in armor, and I think she is the only "wisdom" deity in the room. There is an idea that Minerva is more associated with pure intelligence than wisdom, which is interesting when you consider the continued absence of Khonshu's bestie Thoth, Egyptian god of wisdom and a moon god, and the fact that wisdom deities Odin and Frigga are dead in the MCU. (Hermes is also not present, and he's sometimes connected to Thoth by later and modern worshippers so that's kinda of interesting too.)

Khonshu, of course, was not present nor was anyone on the Ennead. There was a kitty goddess credited as "Bast God", but I'm not sure that was The Bast. Could have been a daughter of hers. In the comics Bast, Thoth and Ptah go south to Wakanda and join that Pantheon and that is why they aren't around.

I think the Othervoid is not the same ream as Omnipotent City, but is still not a place where Khonshu is welcome. (Because he'd be yelling. A lot.)

Really, using Gorr as a villain basically makes this whole thing "Khonshu Was Right: The Movie." Because Gorr was not right to start slaughtering every god he sees because of one asshole, but Khonshu is right that they shouldn't be hanging out in paradise while the people they said they'd protect are struggling and suffering.

I didn't believe for a second Thor had killed Zeus, but it's kinda funny he thinks he did. They would have come home to a bunch of angry offspring of Zeus if they actually had. Still, they know there's consequences coming and those consequences are going to be hilarious.

"Oh, are you here because I killed your father?"

"What? Fuck no. He's fucking fine. He's fucking Zeus. What kind of horseshit do you have for brains that you think you could kill fucking Zeus with his own fucking thunderbolt, you stupid fuckity fuckface."

"Oh, then we're cool?"

"No, I'm here to rip your face off by the beard and stick it up your arse because you put a hole through my dad's chest and took his thunderbolt."

This movie introduces Eternity, who is the God of the Gods of the Gods. He's above the Celestials and every pantheon and he embodies the multiverse itself. He is the root and the top of the tree. And he looked BEAUTIFUL in this. They talk about him like he's some sort of wishing well, like he'll just give you what you want and hell, maybe he IS so freaking high up the ladder that the effects of killing every god in the universe wouldn't really concern him. Maybe. Bringing one person back to life certainly doesn't sweat him. What's one more little lifeform that exists in one of his freaking cells, after all? I don't think he'd have granted Gorr's wish for destruction, though. The stakes were the kids in this one.

Speaking of this, very happy with Axl Heimdallson and even happier to see Valhalla in the credits. Lovely.

Now, as for whether this makes the gods in the MCU more confusing... Well, yes it does. We can't just write them all off as weird aliens that were mistaken for gods, they genuinely have some divinity here. And there's no Source Wall in Marvel to explain that shit, you just have to accept there are various different races of gods who have various rules and various cultures.

That's the big thing, though. Each Pantheon is a different culture and people. The Heliopolitans/Egyptian Gods are not going to go by the same limitations as the Asgardians/Aesir, and the Olympians are gonna be different from them and different from some alien race's gods. The Avatar thing seems to be a Heliopolitan thing, but it doesn't look like anyone else needs to deal with that. Other gods make divine weapons and use them to empower people. We see more of Thor's inheritance of the Odinpower here when he does that. Other pantheons don't have a "Keep a low profile" rule either, that seems to just be an Osiris thing.

The main thing here that we can learn about gods in the MCU across the board is that there are some shared rules (The Necrosword is a Death-by-sword), but there's a lot more specific things. (Everyone has their own afterlife, everyone has their own treasures and relics, everyone has their own pantheon.)

There is an AGREEMENT that they don't mess with each other's followers, which is interpreted by some to mean you don't need to help other gods or their followers. Every pantheon's got their softies and their renegades, though, but this is a good explanation for why the ancient gods of the western world are pretty hands off. Monotheism is very widespread in western culture, to the point some of the gods' names are lost to history. They don't see it as their responsibility anymore.

[travllingbunny]

Who was the poster who talked about how "Draco in leather pants" is rooted in misogyny and crossed out the girl in fangirls and basically accused all the tropers who posted if being "nice guys" who thought all women wanted to be with jerks? In my experience it's not misogyny, it usually is female fans who often take conventionally attractive male villains and either woobify them or make them into perfect prince charming's. Even villains who have commited horrible crimes like rape or genocide

(pt 2) I typically see this done with characters like Draco Malfoy, Professor Snape, Anakin Skywalker, Billy Hargrove, Loki Laufeyson, Voldemort, Kylo Ren, Michael Langdon. Almost all of the characters on this list have said and done truly horrific things yet it is mostly women I see treating these characters these way. Most male viewers/readers don't really have an interest either way in these villains male or female and don't really go out of their way to defend them in this manner.

This anon sent an ask in 4 parts, and since there's a lot to unpack here, and this will be a long answer, I'll answer the first two in this post, and then the second two (which address a different issue) in another.

Anon, I'll start with the sentence here, because what you're saying is blatantly inaccurate.

Or rather, it's possible that most men, for all I know, don't have that kind of attitude to these specific characters you listed. But it's definitely not true that male fans typically don't idolize and whitewash villains.

In fact, it's equally well known and has been for years that there are many villains, or anti-heroes of the very morally dark variety, who are idolized mostly by men, particularly straight men, including many who don't just enjoy them as villains or anti-heroes but idolize them as cool "badasses" and heroes who in fact, never did anything wrong ; even their crimes were fully justified, and/or their ideology and worldview is in fact completely correct (even when the narrative is going out of its way to show it really isn't).

This has happened. for instance, with villains like The Joker from The Dark Knight, Tyler Durden (...yes, I know - and this only makes it eveb funnier), Negan on The Walking Dead (way before the show gave him a redemption arc, at the time when he was unquestionably the main villain), and even MCU Thanos (which I find particularly mind-boggling - I could understand it with villains like Vulture or Killmonger, but Thanos' ideological motivations are incredibly stupid and nonsensical). I will never forget how Negan fanboys during season 7 argued that he was really so against rape and therefore a good guy, and not a rapist himself - and that his "wives" were not sex slaves but "golddiggers" in consensual relationships with him, ignoring not just Negan's power over the entire community but the fact that the show explicitly showed that at least some of the women were directly blackmailed by the threat of harm or death of their loved ones, and at least one escaped the community so she wouldn't be forced to become his sex slave.

Tywin Lannister is a great example: this is someone who's, among other crimes, guilty of ordering child murders (including that of an infant), mass murder (including an eradication of an entire extended family), gang rape of a 14 year old girl, of sending the worst monsters he could possibly find to commit countless other murders, rapes and torture, who's also a terrible, abusive father to all his children, a major hypocrite, blatantly classist to the point he barely considers common people human, and his overriding motive isn't anything noble but his own arrogance and easily hurt pride. But even when the author goes out of his way to show that his legacy turns to sh1t the moment he dies, you'll still find a ton of fanboys who buy into Tywin's own rationalizations for his actions and will argue that he was in fact the best, smartest political and military leader in the series, and that every crime he committed was justified. Those fanboys even included the GoT showrunners David Benioff and D.B.Weiss, who, oddly enough, included most (if not all) of Tywin's crimes and awful behavior in the show, but still described him as "Lawful Neutral" (?! Funnily enough, he is neither lawful, nor neutral) and parroted the character's own hypocritical justification for the Red Wedding as something they thought the audience should take as gospel truth.

It's also something that commonly happens with villain protagonists, or morally dark antiheroes who are protagonists of their stories. In those cases, one of the main reasons is the fact that a lot of people always expect the protagonist to be the Hero of the story, the Good Guy - especially if the characters starts off sympathetic. Walter White is a very well known example of a villain protagonist that many viewers, and I'be be surprised if most of them were not straight men, identified with and idolized to the point they heaped an incredible amount of hate on the character of his wife Skyler for simply disagreeing with his actions, and even to the point that the actress got harassed and threatened. Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey got similar treatment from many fans, and Don Draper, a pathetic man with a ton of personal issues, somehow became the epitome of Coolness that straight men wanted to emulate.

But in spite of all that, fandoms and TV Tropes have been going on for years only about how bad and stupid and awful it is that certain villains get whitewashed or idolized by female fans, supposedly mostly for being attractive. Cue the "Draco in Leather Pants" trope and similar monikers. I dunno, I'd say that's kind of sexist (and also heteronormative), don't you think so?

Even with the well-known fact that one dude back in the 1980s shot a president not for any political reason but because he watched Taxi Driver and overidentified with Travis Bickle, I haven't seen the fact that many men idolize male villains brought up as an issue - until a few years ago with the panic around Joaquin Phoenix's Joker (which is a bit odd, that this one got so much criticism and not the earlier ones, but maybe that's a sign of the changing tides of the Western society and pop culture). Before this, people would sometimes mention tropes like "Misaimed Fandom", but no one came up with a trope called something like, say, Tywin Sh1tting Gold, to complain specifically about men idolizing villains and dark anti-heroes and justifying all their actions. Instead we got a lot of hang-ringing about oh those airheaded women and the way their minds just don't work when they see a hot dude!

But maybe I'm wrong? Maybe the "Draco in Leather Pants" trope is in fact meant to be an all-accompassing one about people of any gender and sexual orientation whitewashing villains, or just generally whitewashing the flaws and defending the morally wrong actions of their favorite characters? Let's take a look at the Television Trope Draco in Leather Pants page. On top of it, there's a quote that's supposed to summarize what it's about:

"I guarantee you Satan's going to have no problems on this planet because all the women are gonna go 'What a cute butt!' He's Satan! 'You don't know him like I do.' He's the prince of darkness! 'I can change him.'"

— Bill Hicks, Pussywhipped Satan

...Oh.

And now to answer your question: it was @dinamitelove who answered my old post where I criticized this Television Trope, and said, among other things, this about the origins of the trope: "God knows I wasted too much of my time on TV Tropes, and there are a few things I have to say about it. Most members, at least back when I was around during 2009-10 were male, and its sexism was pretty evident on the example pages. Draco in Lether Pants was one of the most egregious examples of this. (...) There was that horrible sexist assumtion that has been around since fiction became massive about the dangers of women consuming it, because their “highly sensitive minds could not distinguish fiction from reality” and that could be dangerous for society (see Madame Bovary). That idea got married with the “Nice guys finish last” idea to create this trope. Althought I have to say that recently, I’ve been seeing it around here amongst female bloggers to attack other fangirls. I guess this idea became an easy way to attack other fangirls for liking stuff I don’t like."

And considering all I pointed out above, I think they were probably right. (Also, in that old conversation, it's been pointed out that fangirls later started throwing the same accusations/mocking each other the same way. But that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't misogynistic assumptions involved.)

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't many fangirls who are really very annoying in how much they're willing to whitewash and justify crimes and awful actions of their favorite male characters who they find appealing in a romantic and/or sexual way. That's certainly true. But it's not unique to female fans, it's not always moticated by romantic or sexual desire, it's not unique to male characters either (as you also pointed out in your asks 3 and 4, which I'll answer in another post).

Plus, sexism isn't the only issue I have with the Draco in Leather Pants trope and its trope page. I got so annoyed with that page that I wrote this post sarcastically tearing it apart. Because that page is a huge mess, from the quote above and the description of the trope, to the various examples people have added to it. As I've already pointed out in that post, the description is incredibly imprecise and full of incorrect assumptions (”A form of Misaimed Fandom, when a fandom takes a controversial or downright villainous character and downplays his/her flaws, often turning him/her into an object of desire and/or a victim in the process. This can cause conflicts if the writers are not willing to retool the character to fit this demand.”) - For starters, it's not like villains, let alone controversial characters who aren't necessarily villains, aren't often 1) deliberately presented as sexy and desirable in canon, and/or 2) given sympathetic qualities and tragic backstories or even are actual victims (of rape, abuse etc.) in canon, and/or 3) shown to have some good qualities and a potential to be better people or get redemption. And with the imprecise wording like "villains or controversial characters", you can apply that to almost every character.

No surprise that the examples people added are an even bigger mess. Examples include canonical villains, heroes turned villains, villains turned redeemed heroes, anti-heroes or even flawed heroes. Many of the characters mentioned were definitely deliberately portrayed as sexy in canon (and a few even literally wore leather in canon) and promoted as such, and/or were love interests of the heroes. Many of them were abuse or rape victims in canon, had PTSD, are shown crying and having emotional breakdowns, etc. So, basically, the people who added them to the page were complaining that the fans were "woobifying" chararacters that were already "woobified" by the creators, or putting characters in "leather pants" who were in leather pants to begin with.

(I haven't read or seen much of Harry Potter, but a few people also pointed out that even Draco Malfoy doesn't fit this - since he was, a child, and more of a school bully antagonist and not some Big Bad monster.)

It would make a lot more sense if the trope was simply about fans defending their faves at any cost and whitewashing them or justifying their actions, which often happens. However, that's tricky too - because while that happens a lot, you know what else often happens in fandom debates? Haters portraying the characters they hate in the worst light possible, even making up things that are not in canon, but more often insisting on the worst possible intepretations, or denying even the obvious good qualities the character has, or even denying or downplaying the character's victimization or disability, because those don't fit with the the idea of them as 100% mousache-twirling evil monsters.

Both of these things come from a similar place: the tendency to see things as black and white, and it gets worse when fandoms try to make liking fictional characters into a morality contest. Fandom debates are often terrible because people on opposing sides start ignoring nuance and get more entrenched in their views because it's all about defending their fave or attacking the characters they hate (or pointing out the hypocrisy of the opposing side of the fandom).

Then you get debates that sound like this:

A: How dare you say that [my favorite character] is a ____!

B: Err, they did this horrible thing, which means they are.

A: But in their society, this thing is not considered bad as it is in ours, because [mental gymnastics and really messed up arguments]

but you may also get this:

A: This character (X) is disgusting and evil and anyone who likes them is immoral, bad and an idiot!

B (fan of said character): How is X worse than your fave, Y? Y is also a murderer and a terrorist and war criminal, same as X...

A: Oh yeah, well X is worse because... [throws some random accusation that makes no sense]

B: WTF? That's not true.

A: X"s fans are so annoying! You can't realize that X is a villain! You think X is perfect and you keep whitewashing X!

Or, how about this:

Fan 1: writes a post about a character focused on their disability, which is 100% just about the real life medical facts of how having this particular condition would affectthem.

The post angers a whole bunch of fans who hate said character, who mock it and rant in quotes, saying things like "Now you are babying war criminals!" "How dare you compare X to real canon disabled characters! Missing a body part doesn't make him disabled!"

Bizarre? I didn't make up this example. It's almost word by word what happened on Twitter a couple of months ago.

What's normal defense of a character and what's whitewashing often depends on whether you're a fan or a hater of said character. The line isn't always clear. And tropes like "Draco in a Leather Pants" are often just used by people who want to complain and rant about the fact that, shock horror, some fans dare like the characters they hate, orr prefer them to their own (obviously superior) fave. Most of the examples on that page read exactly like that.

[spaceorphan18]

Did you see the new slate of upcoming MCU movies/shows?? Thoughts? Anything you’re excited about?

I was tuned in last weekend when they announced all of the new things coming up. Plenty of thoughts!

A couple of broad stroke things, though...

I don't think there's anything that I'm like -- omg, I need that /now/. The MCU has gotten big enough now that it really does feel like the comic landscape - only movie form. But unlike the comics, most of my favorite characters in the MCU are dead, taking a backseat these days, or are unfortunately tied to Sony and their stupid attempt at a Spidey-verse.

After Endgame happened, I was concerned that the MCU might suffer a bit. Stories are meant to have an endpoint - and Endgame was a natural conclusion of everything that had come before it. But - also like comics - the show is going to go on indefinitely, and also like comics, you're going to have high points and low points. The MCU doesn't seem to know what it wants to be now -- which kind of makes the multiverse aspect of it work, in that it can go all over the place.

That said - I have to wonder if there's just so many things going on now, the center won't hold. It's okay if some of these superheroes aren't connected to everything else that's going on.

A lot of people are concerned about quality, but I mean, the first ten years of the MCU was hit and miss, too. The older movies, though, had the benefit of being much better constructed than the dreck that happened in the early 2000s.

I'm really ready for the return of mutants - the X-Men have always been my favorite. I'm super curious as to how they're going to bring them in. And yes, I'm excited for the X-Men 97 animated series. But I'm really waiting to see all of this live. I'd really love for a really, really good X-Men movie -- something I don't think we've ever really had.

There were a lot of open spots among phase six -- while I think a lot of them will end up being sequels of things already announced (i'm sure Shang Chi 2 will be there), I'm interested to see if they'll bring anyone new in.

I'm curious as to what's going to happen to Spidey -- and just dread what Sony's end of the bargain calls for.

Okay, so out of everything they announced, some quick thoughts...

The Movies

Wakanda Forever - This looks like it's going to be a beautiful film. I think it's going to be very women heavy, and I'm excited about that. It's also going to introduce Namor, and omg, I hope he's as bitchy in the films as he is in the comics. Maybe not, since this film looks as though it'll be serious, but Namor is a great character, and I think it'll be fun to finally see him on screen.

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantum Realm - This film is going to be bonkers. I'm interested in seeing it, but like all the Ant-Man films, I'm not rushing out to buy tickers.

GOTG 3 - To be honest, I like the Guardians, but I'm not all that attached to them, or their stories. I'm honestly okay that this seems to be the end of the line with them.

The Marvels - I am curious as to where this goes. I've heard very little about this project, and am sort of concerned sometimes with the character because I'm not so sure MCU knows what to do with her.

Blade - I really don't care about vampire hunting, but if the original trio wasn't that bad (and those were not good films) I could appreciate a good version.

Captain America New World Order - I think I'll need to have more info before I have much of an opinion. I do think Sam will be a fine Cap. I'd also like more Bucky!

Thunderbolts - So this is the MCU's version of Suicide Squad. It could be really awesome. Or it could be just too much The Eternals. Curious to see who the characters will be.

Fantastic Four - *sigh* I just don't care about the F4. I just hope it's a good film. Whatever it is.

Avengers Kang Dynasty - I'm calling it now, this film is going to be a lot like Infinity War -- Kang will win at the end of this film.

Avengers Secret Wars - I really can't believe they're going here. (Actually I can) The Secret Wars comics were a gigantic mess. The story was stupid, and the whole point of it was to show a lot of characters beating each other up in order to sell toys. Unless they sell me on a very good story - the Avengers Season Two finale is going to be a mess.

The TV Shows

She Hulk - You know what, the trailers have sold me. I had no interest in it before that. But I am here for it being a comedy, and I am here to see the legal side of the MCU, cause it's going to be nuts.

Secret Invasion - Idk, it's going to be about the skrulls poising as people. I'm not a huge fan of the idea, so we'll see.

Loki S2 - I am looking forward to this! I loved Loki Season 1, and I enjoy time travel stories, so I hope the second season is just as good.

Ironheart - I am super curious, and maybe a little weary, of what they'll do here. Ironheart is from the Iron Man part of the comics universe. I kind of wonder if this will be a bit like Ms. Marvel, and aimed at a younger audience.

Echo - I'm not all that interested in this one, though I did like Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, so I'm happy to see the character back again.

Agatha: Coven of Chaos - I don't fully understand why this is a thing. I think Katherine Hahn will be a delight, but I honestly don't care about the project.

Daredevil - I'm super curious about how this will play out! I did like the Netflix Daredevil, and I think Charlie Cox is great in the role. 18 episodes seems looong though.

Spidey Freshman Year - Tom Holland isn't voicing it, and I have a feeling it's going to be aimed at a younger audience, so I'm not as interested in it as you might expect.

What If S2 - I didn't really like the first season all that much -- it's just too dark. We'll see.

[newshirtonlines-blog]

Kindness casper vintage comic shirt

Marvel Studios Kindness casper vintage comic shirt . delivered another round of intriguing and layered villains in the MCU's second Disney+ show of 2022, Iman Vellani's Ms. Marvel, which completed its run in July. The series ended with an all-out battle against the Department of Damage Control, with Kamala Khan fully realizing her potential as she showed her classic embiggening powers from the comics. But before that, she had to get back to her own time after helping to save her grandmother, all while taking on a powerful group of interdimensional travelers in the Clandestines.Kindness casper vintage comic shirt, hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

Classic Women's

Long Sleeved

Unisex Sweatshirt

Unisex Hoodie

Classic Men's That fight ended with the Clandestines seemingly meeting their end, as they turned completely to skin and bones in trying to get back to their own world through the Veil in Episode 5 Kindness casper vintage comic shirt . There was initially some confusion about the villains' fate after that moment though, with fans wondering whether there was the slightest chance of a Clandestine return in some form and some of the Ms. Marvel team even worrying about how the episode would land. One of the show's leading VFX artists has now made it definitively clear what happened to Najma and her followers. In an exclusive interview with The Direct's Richard Nebens, Ms. Marvel VFX Supervisor Kevin Yuille confirmed whether there was a chance the Clandestines could return after their supposed deaths in Episode 5. While discussing the crystallizing effect that came through in the Veil scene, he confirmed that the team didn't want the shot to look like the Clandestines "were going back to their world" as they interacted with the Veil. After going through a few different versions of visuals for the scene, Yuille confirmed that the effect was meant to confirm that the villains "absolutely...did not make it:" "As far as the crystalizing, that’s another thing that had gone through so many versions. There was this decision that, for storytelling, they didn’t want them to look like they were going back to their world. So, if we broke them up like hard light and they break up and they turn into these pretty little dots, it almost looks like ‘They made it! Oh, they’re home!’ So they’re like ‘No! We gotta make sure they look dead!’ It’s tough to do a shot like that, and you worry about looking cartoon-y, but that was for storytelling, to say absolutely, 100%, they did not make it." You Can See More Product: https://newshirtonline.com/product-category/trending/ Read the full article

[silkiemae]

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare My rating: 3 of 5 stars I want to start this review by saying that strengthening beef tea sounds AWFUL. This is an incredibly scatterbrained review; I’m sorry. I took random notes as I read, and it’s going to make not a lick of sense but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have some questions about werewolves in this universe. So they believe lycanthropy is some demon disease or something, and you must be bitten to become a werewolf. But it also seems like they can control their shifts and do half changes after some time. So here’s my question. What happens if a werewolf is half shifted and bites someone or claws someone like Woolsey clawed Will? Can that person get infected? Or can they only be infected on a full moon or when the werewolf is entirely shifted? Also, can werewolves have werewolf babies???? It is quite possible that this was answered back in City of Bones, but that was like six books ago. Sorry but I love that Isabelle’s demon-sensing ruby pendant was passed down through the family as a gift from Magnus to Will. And now he’s dating Alec. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy this whole universe. I think it’s cool to see how things interconnect, but I wish I would’ve kept up to date on this when I first read it because there are so MANY of them. It’s like watching the Arrowverse shows in chronological order, which is something I have done—twice. Why, you ask? Because I like to torture myself. Don’t even ask me how many times I’ve watched the MCU chronologically. OH, TESSA, YESSSSS. “I have come to realize something about novels. That they are not true.” You have no idea how much joy this brings me because it annoyed the living shit out of me when Tessa would correct people based on what she’d read out of fictional novels. I am so proud of you, girl. You’ve come so far. Woolsey Scott can get run over repeatedly by a horse-drawn carriage, that is all. He doesn’t understand the point of women…PAH. You would not exist without women, you ugly little troll. Tessa can correct him all day long; I’m not even a little bit mad about it. I’d do it too. She also ended his whole life with the sickest burn ever. I like Tessa way more in this book. MELIORN, NAME DROPPP ISABELLE. YOUR FAERIE BF WAS OLD AF GROSS. Ugh, Tessa gets kidnapped by Mrs Dark, who cannot stay dead. Forever mad about how Jessamine’s character was handled. I feel like she was just thrown to the dust and killed for no reason. The fact that she returns with her hair shorn and all weak and immediately dies is so sad. And then she becomes a ghost doomed to haunt the Institute she hated forever. Also, the fact that Will gave her the Shadowhunter farewell when she was so against being a Shadowhunter. Like I know she betrayed everyone, but I feel for her. Idk. My confusion about the mechanics of the iratze continues. It could not entirely heal Gideon’s injured leg—it’s not clear exactly how it’s injured, but it was able to heal Jace’s broken arm completely?? HUH? Also, are blood replacement runes dangerous or not? They’re mentioned as dangerous when they’re thinking of giving them to Jem, but Gideon has two of them for his injured leg? I feel like the relationship between Mortmain and Will’s family was super underutilized. Cecily barely mentions it and only brings it up when it’s prudent to the plot—when she’s telling Will he’s in Cadair Idris. I want to know precisely how Will’s family connected with Mortmain. Were they old pals? Did his dad have afternoon tea with Mortmain? Did Cecily like him? Did their mom? Gideon is a himbo. He’s an awkward little himbo, and I ship and Sophie so hard. LOL, forever that the Lake Llyn in Idris is called Lake Lake The Consul randomly shifting into this sexist shit heel is super weird and incredibly frustrating to read. I can’t remember if he dies in this book, but I sincerely hope he does. Like the fact that he won’t listen to anything, Charlotte has to say, because why? Is it just because she’s a woman who’s better at things than him? This book is supposed to be third-person limited, but sometimes I think CC forgets and tells us things that the POV shouldn’t know. Like Charlotte’s POV, somehow knowing that Sophie would have smiled if her ‘heart hadn’t been pounding with the knowledge that she might have done something dreadful’ but also like this is Charlotte’s POV, so how did she know that? There are a few more instances like this towards the end, which throws me off. Sorry, this bothers me. So Jessamine told us in CP that Tessa’s parents were a shadow hunter and a demon. Okay, we don’t know the specifics, but we know this as fact. Then when Tessa finds out her father was a demon, she’s super shocked. And when Aloysius conveniently overcomes his senile mind to tell Charlotte all the missing answers, she’s shocked that Tessa’s mom was a Shadowhunter rather than Tessa being distantly related to Aloysius. Like Charlotte, you already know that Tessa’s mom is a Shadowhunter! That’s why she doesn’t have a warlock mark, my god. These people are idiots. And then Tessa acts shocked AGAIN when Mortmain tells her. Like why can no one put things together lmao? Like when Hyacinth tells Tessa the story about changelings and then shortly after Jessamine tells her what her parents were, I immediately figured it out. All the pieces were there, dammit. Like Tessa, stop being shocked that you’re half demonnnnn. You’ve known it for three books. Be more upset that a demon raped your mother! Also, why does she show no shock at the fact that she can bear children? She acted so slighted when Will made that jab at her. What is this trend of Tessa listing things she knows about people? Like girl, why are you like this? Damn, Ithuriel has had a horrible life. First imprisoned in Tessa’s clockwork Angel and then imprisoned by valentine. Poor guy. Oooh! Okay, Mortmain says Tessa can do magic, but like, WHERE?! DO SOME MAGIC, TESSA. Like dammit, I wish she had been learning to do magic from Magnus while learning how to fight. Imagine how cool she would’ve been at the end of this. I’m angry. Also, Mortmain made Tessa specifically so she could bear his babies like GROSSSSS FOREVER. Also, forever curious about Tessa’s kids now. If they have both shadow hunter blood and her warlock blood….can their kids do magic? Can they shapeshift? Can they bear runes? I have so many questions. Hi, question. How does Tessa know that Charlotte wept over Jessamine’s death when she wasn’t even there to see Jessamine die??? So Will finds Tessa, and they cry over Jem and then bone immediately afterwards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, I imagine that when the Silent Brother saves Cecily and it’s revealed to be Jem, he was like

God, Tessa gets kidnapped AGAIN. Ugly tears at Will and Jem’s reunion. JUST KISS YOU TWO. CC really does have a habit of repeating themes in books. Aloysius, Tessa’s last remaining relative, gets killed before she finds out the truth about herself. Imogen, Jace’s last remaining relative, gets killed before he finds out the truth about herself. Also, how she killed the Inquisitor in TMI disappointed me just as much as Consul Wayland was killed in this book. I wanted him to survive so he could see Charlotte was right and have to be all bitter and resentful as she replaced him as Consul. Instead, he gets his head chopped off in the middle of his misogynistic rant. I was so underwhelmed. The villain was once again turned into jelly because an Angel killed him…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “How could I say farewell to you?” *sobs forever* Am I wrong for thinking that Jem and Will are in love? I’m sorry, I ship them far more than anyone else in this series. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD LINE, MAN. Did Charlotte mean to change Sophie’s name to Sophia randomly? Okay, so I will admit I 100% teared up at Jem’s goodbyes to Tessa and Will, and I teared up at Will’s death. She got me in the feels there, and I don’t even like Will that much. So kudos to you there, Cassandra. Now, here’s what I’ve got to say about the ending. What is CC’s aversion to killing off people? Like she killed Max off, yes, I know, but like he was barely a character in the books. Is it like she doesn’t want to kill off any of her mains or something? Like some throwaway Silent Brothers die in the final battle. Aloysius dies, but like that, was mimicking a previous plot in her last trilogy. The Consul dies, but again it is much like the Inquisitor’s death in the City of Glass. None of the mains die or even get hurt save for Henry, but honestly, it’s probably better for him anyway because now no one can ever ask him to leave his lab. I bet he’s pumped about all the potential inventing he can get done uninterrupted. And also, everyone gets paired off in like a perfect little happy bubble. Cecily and Gabriel get married. Sophie becomes a Shadowhunter and marries Gideon. Charlotte and Henry have a baby, and she gets to be Consul and stay in the Institute. Tessa gets to marry Will, the guy she wanted the most (don’t argue, it’s true), while Jem lives forever as a Silent Brother, then gets a Deus ex machina cure in the next trilogy, and now he and Tessa get to live happily ever after. Like….I’m surprised Brigette and Cyrus didn’t also get married. Some of my favorite lines in the book, aka the lines that are CC trying way too hard to sound old-timesy. * “But…we quarreled!” * “Is it not I.” * SHE SMILED INTO HIS EYES????!?!?!?!? View all my reviews

[ellestra]

Home for Christmas

Not all resolutions were given the depth I hoped for (it felt like to much of it was cut and come on Disney nothing was stopping you from making it longer) but I was very satisfied that Tomas made up with his girlfriend. Even if it meant they went to Maroon 5 concert instead of Imagine Dragons. And it was nice of him to thank Kate.

And I suppose many of the theory channels were disappointed but I loved that Jack turned out to be nothing more than comic relief. And almost a hero (maybe even joining all the LARPers). The real villain in the family clearly is Armand the VII. The MCU's next big bad.

I was also glad none of the LARPers got killed. I loved that people only listened to them when they put on costumes. After decade and a half the civilians in the MCU know now that costumed people are the ones in charge in emergency and you should listen to them.

I was pretty sure that Maya’s story resolution will end up with her just cutting ties with the criminal world so this ending was fine with me. I didn’t expect her to kill both her main anchor points - Kazi and Uncle - but I suspected she would ask Kazi to leave with her (but he was way too much 2014 Nebula). This is what her father wanted so it had to end there before her own series.

Still, I suspect Fisk is not dead. We didn’t see the body and Echo series still needs a villain. Whether managed to block the shot or survived it he is going to be pissed and that conflict would be nice starting point of Maya’s trajectory of becoming a hero. But that Christmas Eve should teach him not to underestimate women.

However, his turn in this was a little disappointing.  The way he was so easily left unguarded and vulnerable. The way you can't really feel how big a threat he is without watching Daredevil. The way he is basically on the run from the police anyway because Yelena managed to get him and Eleanor on tape. All this ending with him being taken down with so little effort makes Hawkeye being all worried about him getting involved feel disappointing. He's only scary because I watched Daredevil on Netflix. But there was not enough of that intensity here to really feel the danger (and him using Tracksuit Mafia as henchmen doesn't help as they are to inept to ever succeed). It needed more time to at least properly set up him being there in person. Although the way Vincent D'Onofrio just threw Hailee Steinfield aground looked awesome and properly Kingpin.

Although it wasn't as fun as the fight where Yelena is trying not to hurt Kate too much but also gets more and more annoyed but finally respectful was really well done. It is a start of a beautiful friendship for the next generation of Black Widow and Hawkeye.

I was also certain Yelena thing would be resolved by talking. Yelena’s interactions with both Kate and Clint were great. Of course Clint knew about Yelena and the whistle. Natasha would've told him who else (besides Laura and the she was hoping to get back and why it mattered so much. She already regained family that seemed irrevocably lot once (and saw that love isn't just for children) so she kept the hope it could happen again when Clint lost it. Of course she told him why. She kept Avengers going through the Blip all the way to getting means to reverse it even if it meant never seeing people she lost again. The important part was that they will be alive even if they had to deal with her loss afterwards. That they didn't get enough time together breaks my heart but I appreciate show taking the time to show us how much she mattered when Endgame didn't.

And I loved how in the end Clint admitted he and Kate are partners. Even if every time he says "Kate - no" she says "Kate - yes" they work really well together. It was great he took her in along with the dog (who got his proper name Lucky off screen - one more proof this episode left too much on cutting floor). Adopting new family members is a Burton family thing. Especially ones with really messed up family (although I was a little disappointed Yelena didn't come too). And now that he burnt the Ronin suit and got Laura's SHIELD watch too (he did marry Agent 19) he can properly retired (despite that great new outfit) and pass the name (Lady Hawk is a good movie but bad code name).

I just wish that Clint's time as Ronin didn't got swept under the carpet again like it never happened (yes, I'm complaining about lack of consequences). Kate sends her mother to jail for doing bad things but she doesn't even bat an eye when she learns about Clint. Yelena was right - just being one of Avenger is not a reason to ignore the bad shit they do. And yet, in the MCU, they never suffer any consequences (I suppose it's true to life but this is supposed to be a fantasy).

Still, I loved how Kate explains why Hawkeye mattered to her so much as a hero. The way he showed that you can still matter without superpowers or a suit. Just a guy with sticks and string fighting aliens and helping save the day and making her believe she could be a hero too. New Hawkeye even.

[spaceocean9]

I am back on my Wandavision bullshit! I am rewatching the show and there is so much that us bothering me with the framing of Wanda and her actions. It would be something if this was a phenomenon that was unique to this show, but I dont think it is. It is a small reflection of society and how we treat white women in relation to depression.

I am going to compare Wanda and Tony again. I am comparing Wanda and Tony so heavily because they both have well defined canon depictions of mental illness. Hell, Tony is even featured a psychology textbook as an example of PTSD in media. While Bruce and Thor also have mental illnesses (depression, suicidal ideation)they are not focused on as heavily or as seriously(which is a shame).

The treatment Wanda and Tony get in the narrative of the mcu are pretty different. Tony is constantly reprimanded for his behavior. He faces some sort of consequence in almost every movie, even if he has a mental health issue. And while his progress is shaky at times he always tries to do better. A big part of Tony's character is redemption. Even if you personality think that Tony should be punished more harshly, the point still stands that he is criticized in the narrative. The intention is there.

I would go so far as to say that sometimes the mcu is harsh to Tony when talking about his PTSD. His mental illness being outright ignored by teammates or the people around him for a long time. I totally remember in Iron man 3 when Tony tried to talk with Bruce about his issues and he was sleeping. It was supposed to be funny that he was highly disinterested. A lot of people are annoyed with Tony's PTSD rather than concerned. It doesn't matter if Tony is likable or not, that is not okay. And even though Tony saved the world and is hailed as a hero at the end of his story, it is important to remember that he is dead and his death was kind of framed like it saved him. Pepper says that he can rest now. That is clearly a reference to his mental health struggles. And I dont love that. Not at all, especially with the rates of suicide for people with PTSD. I have PTSD and that is a thought that haunts me constantly. That death is the only way my mind will relax. I am sure that the writers didn't intend for his death to come off that way, but I dont know. It feels squicky to me.

Wanda on the other hand isn't held responsible for her actions. She is downright coddled. She is presented as younger than she actually is in civil war. POC characters that she has tried to actively kill make a thousand of excuses for her, and even say that they would do the same. The POC people that she has killed( Johannesburg and Wakandan citizens)are pushed aside and ignored. She abuses Vision and it is not addressed. When he walks down in his retro outfit and she all fucking gleeful that he is going along with her whims, and then he states that it was the only thing in the closet; absolute chills.  Wanda knew what she was doing to the poor people of Westview. She might have not known at first but she caught on pretty quickly. Wanda is the villian Wandavision, even if the narrative doesn't want her to be and tries to distract you with Agnes. Agnes was just piggybacking off of Wanda's creation. She didn't create this nightmare. Agnes is only the big villian because she is opposing Wanda. Wanda is framed as the absolute victim so much, especially in this show. God, when Monica says to Wanda" they will never know what you did for them" I wanted to chuck my remote. WHAT?! She tortured them. Made them her dolls to play house with. She did nothing for them except give them trauma and uprooted their lives. The people of Westview are even presented as threatening and unreasonable at the end of the show, with them looking at Wanda and she looking small in her hood. Ugh, it so nauseating. I'm sorry, but the accords never looked so good right now.

There could be many reasons for this difference in treatment. I think one of the big ones is because Wanda is a white, skinny, traditionally pretty woman; and they are the face of idealized sympathetic media depression. I would even say that Wandas depression is treated with more care than Thor's and Bruce's. And PTSD is not understood very well. It flip flops back in forth between the" scary" illnesses( bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders), which leaves it in this realm of misunderstanding. There are actually a lot of people who don't even know its an anxiety disorder.

[rachelbethhines]

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways. 

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.  

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize. 

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it? 

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.  

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.  

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965) 

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.   

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day) 

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American. 

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways. 

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision. 

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season. 

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?     

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit. 

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters. 

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange. 

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets. 

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.  

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway. 

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within. 

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year. 

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off. 

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny. 

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet. 

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.  

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time. 

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways. 

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades. 

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope. 

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars. 

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965) 

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series. 

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967) 

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here. 

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday. 

[9worldstales]

MCU What if Ep 1-2-3: My two cents

So, I’ve been watching the “What if” series. I won’t beat it around the bush, I’m enjoying it but at the same time I get the feeling this series is aimed at younger audience, younger audience which isn’t deeply familiar with the movies and needs to be feed a simpler storyline.

In fact from the way they present it in each episode 1 single change should be the one which gives life to a parallel universe in a sort of domino effect… only, from what I could see in those 3 episodes, there are actually multiple unconnected changes, 1 presented more markedly as if it were the one starting everything and the others… just there for unknown reasons but they aren’t remarked and might easily be missed by who doesn’t remember well the movies.

Characterizations are also simplified, with heroes more black and white than grey, and a general toning down of the drama. This isn’t necessarily tied to the short time, 30 minutes in the hand of a good storyteller are plenty of time to construct a complicate, adult, emotionally engaging story… but a complicate story requires an audience willing to put its mind to understand it, or capable to handle a more morally nuanced plot or that wouldn’t be too distressed by a more emotionally engaging one.

This kind of audience is clearly not what those stories are aiming at.

This isn’t meant to say they’re bad, they’re perfect for young audience, passing on a good message, being overall funny and giving them the chance to enjoy the heroes they love in a different setting.

Dialogues are nice, their voice actors so far delivered good performance, the art isn’t bad and the stories can feel still intriguing enough.

However, if you think too hard at them, especially in comparison to the original movie, the story tends to crumble or feel morally poor or mess up the characterization or some other thing.

Overall I think the “What if” so far are more enjoyable if you don’t really remember well the movies and, anyway, judge them as stand-alone more than “What if” based on how a single divergence from the plot could create a new timeline.

Some examples?

Pick “What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?”

The divergence supposedly happens when Peggy decides to stay in the room.

Erskine: Agent Carter, wouldn't you be more comfortable in the booth? Peggy: No, I'd prefer to stay. Watcher: There. That's the moment that created a new universe. When asked to leave the room, Margaret "Peggy" Carter chose to stay. But soon it would be her venturing into the unknown and creating a new world.

Only, in truth, it’s not just Peggy who was meant to go to the booth and didn’t.

EVERYONE was meant to go to the booth… only they all stay and Kruger, the spy from Hydra, who was seated in the booth BEHIND Peggy in “Captain America”, in the “What if” episode attacks the lab during Erskine’s explanation and not, as he did in “Captain America”, after the experiment took place, using as a distraction a bomb he left in the booth, and not on the floor of near to where the experiment was taking place so that it can kill Erskine.

And, to be really accurate, Erskine, in “Captain America”, asked Peggy to move to the booth when Steve was already lying down for the experiment, while here we see him asking her so while the two are standing next to each other and he hadn’t started undressing yet.

And there’s a reason why in the movie things were done like that.

Of course in the movie everyone was in the booth, it was safer should something go wrong with the experiment.

Of course Kruger waited for the experiment to be carried on, if it didn’t work there was no point in stealing a vial of a serum that didn’t work.

Of course Kruger left the bomb in the booth and made it explode when he was outside of it, so that he was sure it would create distraction but not harm him.

Overall, it’s not just Peggy that acts differently, it’s Erskine, who asked her to move in advance, it’s all the people there, who didn’t move to the booth, it’s ESPECIALLY, Kruger, who originally aimed to see if the serum worked and, in this case, steal it and kill Erskine so he couldn’t produce more and instead he now doesn’t check if the serum works and kills, for unknown reasons Chester Phillips, who didn’t even have a weapon in his hand and so didn’t pose a threat.

Even the placing of the bomb is poor because, since there was plenty of mechanisms in the lab, it could have triggered a series of explosions that were to destroy the whole place, himself and all the serum included.

But how many young viewers noticed all this or worry for the risk of everything exploding or realize that causing an explosion outside of the room in which the serum was worked as a diversion so as to take people away from that place, while if the bomb were to explode there, everyone would converge in that place, with hydrants possibly as no one worries about fire spreading but they should… even if there’s magically not as much as there should be.

And tragic scenes get tamed down, we don’t see Erskine die, we might not even realize he died in the explosion, young viewers might not remember or not like Chester Phillips so when he’s shoot he doesn’t leave an impression and Kruger’s shape gets shoot down by Peggy so we don’t have him committing suicide.

It’s not a complain, it’s a logic choice to make the series more palatable to a younger target by toning down the violence and the drama in it.

And so we reach the big event of the episode.

John Flynn would want Stark to get the serum injected in himself (forgetting there were men of the MP around him who shouldn’t be all dead) but starts to complain when Peggy volunteers to take the serum herself. Peggy does anyway and again things are tamed down, as Steve ended up screaming so loud in “Captain America” Peggy feared they were killing him and they considered stopping the experiment but Peggy doesn’t scream at all.

Sure, in had been scientifically proved women are built to handle pain better, but very likely Peggy’s lack of scream isn’t because she’s tougher, it’s again to not upset young audience.

So, while Steve lies on the ground and no one comes to help him, Peggy comes out of the experiment enhanced. But here we’ve the real core of the episode, John Flynn decides the experiment is an absolute failure. Why?

Flynn: Sixty million dollars and all the hope in the world down the drain. I was promised an army. I was promised peace and salvation. Instead, I get a girl.

Basically the real core of the episode, the real theme is that Captain Carter will have to fight discrimination based on sexism.

Peggy: You have a Super Soldier. Flynn: Women aren't soldiers, and they sure as hell don't fight on the front lines. They might break a nail.

Undoubtedly this is an important matter, it’s a good topic to make an episode about, to give young girls an heroine, to show to them and to the boys what an absolute moron Flynn was in discriminating Peggy, also presenting boys being supportive of Peggy and trusting her. Howard Stark, Steve Rogers, and then Bucky and everyone else, all the men who see Peggy fighting are ultimately supportive and admiring of her. This is important. But Flynn’s sexism is better remarked if we don’t remember what happened in “Captain America”.

Steve Rogers: Sir, if you’re going after Schmidt, I want in. Col. Chester Phillips: You’re an experiment. You’re going to Alamogordo. Steve Rogers: The serum worked. Col. Chester Phillips: I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough. Senator Brandt: [to Steve] With all due respect to the Colonel, I think we may be missing the point. I’ve seen you in action, Steve. More importantly, the country’s seen it. [to his aide] Paper.[the aide shows them the news paper (‘The New York Examiner’ Vol. XCVII No. 33.634, Wednesday, June 23, 1943), headlines: "Nazis in New York - mystery man saves child"] The enlistment lines have been around the block since your picture hit the newsstands. You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab. Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war? Steve Rogers: Sir, that’s all I want. Senator Brandt: Then, congratulations. You just got promoted.

I mean, Rogers was a male and he too was judged ‘not enough’. Brandt has him tour the nation in a colorful costume as “Captain America” to promote war bonds, while scientists study him and attempt to reverse-engineer the formula.

Chester Phillips was likely killed because otherwise they would have no reason to deal with Peggy the same way he dealt with Steve ‘one is not enough’, only it wouldn’t have been a sexist problem, just math (though it could be argued Phillips never trusted Steve to begin with). This causes the message ‘sexism is dumb’ ends up feeling forced because it’s basically pasted over a previous narrative of ‘not being enough’. If you want, you can read it as always discrimination and discrimination it’s always bad, but it still cheapens the message.

All this not to say that the episode isn’t awesome if seen as a stand-alone… it’s just that when you compare it with “Captain America” it feels weaker.

And then there are the other discrepancies, like the Hydra bringing the Tesseract to Berlin and not to Azzano (a sign somehow Schmidt and Hitler didn’t have a fall out) with Stark using it to power up an “Hydra Stomper” suit that proves if he had had the right power sources and technologies he could have built “Iron Man” too.

They’re not bad points (actually I loved the “Hydra Stomper” suit and how Peggy rode it the way Tekkaman from “Uchu no Kishi Tekkaman” used to ride Pegas in my childhood memories) but again they’re divergences without a clear reason. Schmidt and Hitler shouldn’t get along better solely because Peggy got the serum.

And that’s the first episode.

“What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?” is also clearly aimed to a younger audience but with a goal different from “What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?”

Watcher: What you call destiny is just an equation, a product of variables. Right place, right time, or in some instances, the wrong place at the wrong time. As fate would have it, at that very moment, a Ravager spacecraft was arriving on Earth to abduct the spawn of the Celestial, Ego. But in this universe, Yondu outsourced the assignment to his subordinates. Yondu: You morons grabbed the wrong kid!

For start this episode doesn’t try to rewrite a single movie, but by taking pieces of assorted movies “Thor: The Dark World” (for Tivan) “Guardians of the Galaxy” (for the idea of the setting), “Black Panther” (for T’Challa), “Avengers: Infinity War” (for the Black Order), “Captain America” (Tivan has his shielf), “Thor: Ragnarok” (TIvan has and uses Hela’s headpiece, talking of her as if he knew her and we can see he also has Thor’s hammer), “Thor: The Dark World” (Tivan has Malekith’s dagger) creates a completely different timeline by changing something that happened in 1988 and then jumping straight in… 2014, I presume, where a lot is different but we aren’t meant to see the process due to which things were changed, just to accept how T’Challa, kidnapped as a kid by the Ravagers, managed to make the difference.

In fact the whole theme of this episode is that T’Challa is a hero and a role model that gets success and admiration by TALKING TO PEOPLE AND PERSUADING THEM TO DO THE RIGHT THING. He’s meant not to have a character arc but to create a world that’s the best possible for people.

In fact we’re told just by talking with Thanos he persuaded him to stop his whole plan without using violence.

Korath: How exactly did you stop Thanos, the Mad Titan, from decimating half of the universe? Oh, no. Thanos: I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong. T'Challa here showed me there was more than one way to reallocate the universe's resources. T’Challa: Sometimes the best weapon in your arsenal is just a good argument.

I mean, he doesn’t just turn the Ravagers into Robin Hood’s “merry men”, he talks with Thanos and Thanos decides to change his ways.

This is great, a wonderful message, a message against violence, a message about the power of the words and it makes T’Challa a real hero who, just by talking, saves the universe from Thanos but… but T’Challa from the movies was maybe not so good at persuading people from not doing wrong but he still had something amazing that made him very human and, at the same time a role model.

T’Challa wasn’t perfect, he made mistakes… but then he would admit them and correct them.

In “Captain America: Civil War” he wants to kill Bucky in retaliation for what happened to his father…

Natasha Romanoff: T'Challa. Task force will decide who brings in Barnes. T'Challa: [He clenches his fist.] Don't bother, Miss Romanoff. I'll kill him myself.

…but then he understands killing his father’s murder would be wrong and even stops Zemo from committing suicide.

T'Challa: Vengeance has consumed you. It's consuming them. [He blinks ruefully and retracts the claws in his gloves.] I am done letting it consume me. Justice will come soon enough. Helmut Zemo: [Holding a gun Zemo smiles thinly.] Tell that to the dead. [He tries to shoot himself but T'Challa grabs him just as he fires.] T'Challa: The living are not done with you yet.

And the same goes in “Black Panther”. At first he doesn’t want to ask Killmonger his name because he knows he is his uncle’s son and this would give him the right to compete for the throne as well as expose what his father did…

Killmonger: Oh, I ain't requesting nothing! Ask who I am? Shuri: You are Eric Steves. An American black operative. A mercenary nicknamed Killmonger. That's who you are. Killmonger: (LAUGHING) That's not my name, Princess. Ask me, King? T'Challa: No. Killmonger: Ask me. T'Challa: Take him away.

…but then he’ll acknowledges they had wronged him, will show him Wakanda’s beauty and will change things in Wakanda. T’Challa in the movies isn’t as perfect as T’Challa in the “What if” episode. He can’t solve everything and make the world perfect. He isn’t always right. He gets angry, vengeful, afraid of the truth. But then he rises above this and does the right thing.

“What if” T’Challa is a model of perfection that’s admirable… but that sits simply too high above the original T’Challa who also had to deal with Thanos but didn’t even think he could change his mind just by giving him a talk… and with good reason.

Younger kids might not realize because they might have not fully grasped how Thanos was a genocidal maniac, who massacred millions even prior to the snap, tortured his daughters and even removed body parts from Nebula. They might swallow it was just that easy to talk him into not doing the snap, and Thanos only needed someone to tell him it was wrong… and that in truth he loved Nebula… but for older viewers while beautiful, this is simply unbelievable.

And what about Yondu and the Ravagers? Just because they had T’Challa they became good and righteous. This is how Peter Quill described Yondu in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” which still gives a sympathetic portrayal of Yondu:

Quill: He wasn't my father. Yondu was the guy who abducted me. He'd beat the crap out of me so I'd learn how to fight and he kept me in terror threatening to eat me.

But T’Challa doesn’t seem to have such complains against Yondu.

Now… In Quill’s case Yondu kept Quill so as to protect him from Ego…

Yondu: Once I figured out what happened to the other kids, I wasn't gonna just hand you over.

…yet he kidnap him and tells him his home was destroyed so as to manipulate him into staying… but this is so easily forgotten by T’Challa to the point children might not even realize it was there. Yondu was a good dad for him, he kidnapped him because T’Challa was basically wasted at home.

Yondu: Sometimes you need to hear a lie to see the truth. You're just like me, T'Challa. T’Challa: I am nothing like you. Yondu: You're an explorer, Star-Lord. And for people like you, like us, the past ain't nothing but a prison. You don't belong down there with them. You belong up here with us, with your family.

Although T’Challa doesn’t seem to agree at first… in the end all is forgotten.

Yondu: Look, T'Challa, I just wanted to say... T’Challa: There's no need. I was the one who told you I wanted to see the world. All you did was show me the universe.

and

T’Chaka: (Voice shaking) My son, my son. I knew you would find your way home to us. T’Challa: I'm sorry it took me so long. Let me introduce you to the family I made along the way.

All this is to basically excuse the premise, something horrible like kidnapping a child is passed as not really something terrible so that kids wouldn’t deal with its emotional implications and can even think that it was a pity that, in the normal universe, it was Peter Quill that was kidnapped… without realizing that kidnapping is bad and that in T’Challa’s case Yondu wasn’t even doing it because he wanted to protect him. Actually it’s unexplained why, all of sudden, Yondu felt the need to keep T’Challa and completely forgot about Quill, didn’t even care about making sure Ego wouldn’t find Quill despite, thanks to T’Challa, becoming a better person. It’s another change, one that people knowing the movies is bound to notice but not kids.

So again, for who knows the movie well, the story ends up being weak and this is also because, while T’Challa could persuade Thanos off screen not to commit genocide… all of sudden his persuasive power isn’t even really tested out with Tivan. Tivan is the big evil… yet he’s somehow less fearsome than Thanos because we clearly don’t want to scare the kids.

So again, wonderful for young audience who doesn’t remember well the movies… not so solid for who’s older.

And so we move to “What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?” which is absolutely my favourite so far. This one at a first glance seems to be a “What if” of a comic named “The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week”.

The awesome thing of this story is we don’t know what changed the universe, we only discover that someone is killing off the Avengers before they could become the Avengers, starting with Tony Stark.

The mystery is, at a first glance, cool, the idea original, Natasha gets a big role as she investigates and even fights things along with Fury and, again, children will likely not really realize how the “What if” is actually changing the settings even when they’re supposedly not related to the change that caused this parallel reality, the death of Hope van Dyne. I mean, we can start our list of changes with the random funny things that has no reason to happen because Hope’s death shouldn’t have made Coulson and Barton to be so appreciative of Thor’s hair, something they never bring up in the movie…

Coulson: Whoa. I got visual on the intruder. He's a Caucasian male, mid-twenties with... really great hair. Fury: Excuse me? Coulson: It's an accurate description. Sir, he's gorgeous. Fury: I need eyes in the sky. Barton. Barton: Already on it. He's making a move on the hammer. One shot, one kill, sir. Just say the word. Fury: Hold your fire. I wanna see this. Barton: Whoa. Coulson wasn't lying about the hair. That's nice.

…to continue with more plot related matters like how Betty should have known Banner had intruded in her lab dressed up as a delivery boy and was now hiding in a wardrobe… but if we want we can forgive them. Maybe Hope’s death really changed some things in weird ways we couldn’t predict… but the place with the biggest revolution seems to be Asgard… which actually shouldn’t have been affected by by Hope’s death AT ALL and instead the situation is completely different from how it were in “Thor” to the point I could write a 20 pages meta on the changes. But, if we assume this episode is aimed at children, it works because the “Thor” situation was complicate and here instead they show solely some random and confuse elements that children might have picked up from talks about the movies… but that weren’t like that in “Thor”.

And again we have messages that can be good for children, how a father will love his little girl, how Nick Fury will save the day even without the Avengers, how:

Fury: S.H.I.E.L.D. is people, people willing to give their lives for something greater than themselves to save the world from men like you.

…and how in the darkest time new heroes will always come to save Earth as when Loki take over because it seems there are no more Avengers, Fury can still count on Carol Danvers and Steve Rogers.

Coulson: The Avengers fell before they had a chance to rise. May they rest in peace. Fury: They can, but we won't. The Avengers were always meant to be more than a team. They were an idea, the affirmation of humanity's need to believe that in our darkest hour, we will find our heroes. Watcher: I believe that in this universe, as in every other, hope never dies. As long as someone keeps their good eye on the bigger picture.

It’s a good message about hope… but again, it’s something for children. We’re meant to believe Earth could be conquered in one day time without struggle whatsoever… and that only the heroes could save it. Children might not remember it but in “The Avengers” humans tried to nuke New York to stop Loki… the idea they would just sit and say ‘whatever’ to Loki’s domination makes it look as if they actually agree with him to an adult… but, of course, the battle of New York is something we might not want to show to a little child.

And now… something else that’s relevant.

I said the “What ifs” are good stories for children… but we’re talking of young children here because if the child is a little older they can end up passing a completely wrong message.

Remember "What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?" and how it tackled sexism as an absurd behavior to keep? How Captain Carter overcomes it? By using her supersoldier powers to beat the Nazi. She shows as a supersoldier she works.

Does she turns over the concept that ‘Women aren't soldiers, and they sure as hell don't fight on the front lines. They might break a nail’?

At most she proves she can be a soldier. She doesn’t fight using the fact she’s a woman as her strongest point, she fights using her super strength as her strongest point… where Steve Roger’s strongest point wasn’t his enhanced strength but his moral values. Peggy proves as a super soldier she’s equal to Steve… but Steve as a super soldier proved he was better than Red Skull. Peggy’s actions in the story doesn’t cause people to revalue women in general, just her. People either aren’t sexist and accept her regardless of her genre (Howard, Steve) or they’re sexist but accept her because she is strong.

It’s meaningful that when she thinks Steve is dead Flynn goes back to his old mindset…

Flynn: She should never have been in the field in the first place.

… because the truth is he never changed it. Peggy had only yelled at them to stop calling Steve “Hydra Stomper” as his name was “Steve Roger” and Flynn decides she, not Steve who actually died, should have never been in the field.

They don’t show how Peggy got information from Zola, which seems to imply all she did to get them was to beat him up. Chester Phillips in “Captain America” manipulated him into talking with his intelligence only.

Do you know which were Peggy’s abilities in the universe in which she isn’t a super soldier? She’s a Master Martial Artist, an Expert Marksman, a Master Spy, an Expert Tactician, a Thief and can speak and read English, Russian and German fluently as well as use a convincing American accent.

This is hardly noticeable though in her own story.

Howard: Should we not have a plan? Peggy: Who needs a plan? I have a shield. Howard: A shield is not a plan. Oh, Carter...

She was a tactician!

Now… she has a shield. But whatever girl wants to be like her won’t have a shield, nor a super serum. To be a real role model for girls who aren’t anymore children Peggy needed to have qualities they too could have that would empower her. The only good moment is when she understands what Howard plans to do:

Howard: If I can get to the controls, I can transpose the ingress and do science stuff. Peggy: You mean transpose the polarity and reverse the suction? Howard: Being the genius is my thing.

But again, the irony here is that this is no genius plan, middle school students had probably seen him being done in movies and cartoons already. It might seem genius idea to kids, but when you’re older it hardly sounds like one… and when Howard complains all in the machine is written in German they don’t have Peggy show her knowledge of it, and translate the words as she fight, she just fight and he’s supposed to figure things out.

“Captain America” is a role model for what he has inside. I’m sure Peggy Carter has plenty of things inside her as well… but “What if” makes it more about the super strength she has gained.

Where Steve gains Phillips’ respect, Flynn’s respect is more a façade due to her successes thanks to her super strength, and that respect gets pulled back as soon as she gets upset by his behavior. Sure, Flynn is a worse person than Phillips in this black and white world but this too is part of the narrative. If Peggy can’t permanently win over sexism in one person, it’s not real victory at all. If what’s remarkable about her is how she fights (due to the serum) then who didn’t have it, will never have a hope. Peggy Carter was more of a female model when she wasn’t supersoldier, she felt more of a role model in “Captain America”, when she got to do this with her own strength:

Peggy Carter: Put your right foot forward. Gilmore Hodge: Mmm… We gonna wrassle? Cause I got a few moves I know you’ll like. [suddenly Peggy punches him hard in the face. Col.Phillips drives up] Col. Chester Phillips: Agent Carter. Peggy Carter: Colonel Phillips. Col. Chester Phillips: I see you’re breaking in the candidates. That’s good!

…than when she punched Nazis thanks to being a super soldier. Peggy has never been a fragile Fräulein, but this episode seems to remark she’s not one merely because she has taken the serum.

As a result… she sets an impossible role model for girls. If the key to be (partially) respected and accepted by males is to get the super soldier serum and/or the shiled… well, that serum doesn’t exist, not does the shield.

And a similar problem exists in “What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?”

Teaching a small child he can solve problems by talking and not by hitting is important… but passing the message that you can stop bullies or worse just by talking to them is again setting an impossible role model. People like Thanos can’t be stopped with just words. People like Yondu and the Ravagers wouldn’t become Robin Hood and his merry men merely because they have with themselves a young boy who tells them the right things… and what Yondu does to T’Challa is worse than what he did to Quill and having been kidnapped as a child shouldn’t be waved off so easily. We’re not talking of Yondu finding an orphaned T’Challa and raising him, if he had picked up N’Jadaka after he lost his father it would have been different, but here, he just ripped a child from a loving family, a family he loved back. And it’s almost presented as a good thing because this causes the universe to be saved by Thanos, Yondu’s lie giving T’Challa the motivation to try to to make the universe a better place.

Nebula: You lost your home, and now you save everyone else's.

And problems continue with “What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?” because there, the solution, the hope, is presented solely by the superheroes. No one opposes to Loki, the whole Earth is expected to be saved by Captain America and Carol Danvers. The one who refuses to kneel to Loki is Fury, who’s considered special. We don’t have in this story a lone old man who’s standing stubbornly despite the threat.

LOKI: Kneel before me. [The crowd ignores him. Three more Loki's appear, surrounding and blocking the crowd from escaping.] I said KNEEL! [While the crowd quietly kneels, Loki embraces out his arms with a wide smile] Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel. ELDER GERMAN MAN: [As the words resonate to the kneeling crowd, an elder German man refuses to kneel and stands, heroic.] Not to men like you. LOKI: There are no men like me. ELDER GERMAN MAN: There are always men like you. LOKI: Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example. [As Loki is about to execute the man with his scepter as the light glows blue. Right as the energy beam shoots out, Captain America arrives, diving in just in time to block the blast with his shield, and knocking down Loki]

So basically in this series heroes set impossible standards… and are the only ones who can save the day. It can be fun for an adult, as he doesn’t need role models… but for a boy who’s no more a small child but not yet old enough to do without viewing heroes are role models, the heroes presents a standard that is something unattainable. And this is bad because he too might enjoy watching the show, but the show gives him no hope… where ironically, Marvel movies were about giving positive role models in which you could identify.

Overall I stay my case, the “What if” series is definitely enjoyable… but the bar for the target audience is set to a very young age, they don’t really follow the idea that one small change can realistically change everything because they actually intrude plenty of small changes for their setting to work, and might end up not giving the right message if you’re in between a age between a small child and an adult. Of course future “What if” episodes might change, and I will probably still love them because I adore what if… but I would love them even more if they had aimed to a target audience a little older… making their heroes, more realistic role models which can be emulated and if they had respected their own premise, that ONE SINGLE CHANGE can create a completely different new reality.

What changed in the Peggy episode wasn’t just Peggy not sitting on the booth. What changed in the T’Challa episode wasn’t just Yondu sending his subordinates to pick up a kid. What changed in the mightiest heroes episode wasn’t just Hope dying.

The fact you need more changes in order to make the difference makes the initial point that one change can make the difference void. You destroy your own premise… and this is not really a great idea.

But whatever, I guess if the idea is that the audience is really young, they didn’t expect the audience to pick this up but just to swallow their idea that ‘a moment created a new universe’.

MEDIA MENTIONED:

Movies: “Iron Man 2” (2010), “The Incredible Hulk" (2008), “Thor” (2011), “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011), “The Avengers” (2012), “Thor: The Dark World” (2013), “Captain America: The Civil War” (2016), “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (2017), “Thor – Ragnark” (2017), “Black Panther” (2018), "Avengers: Infinity War” (2018), “Captain Marvel” (2019)

Comics: “The Avengers Prelude Fury's Big Week” (2012)

[alloftheblackwidowfeelings]

Almost every reviewer on YouTube wasn’t satisfied with this movie IMO they said it was just Marvel combined some elements from other marvel movies so they could throw fans a BW movie so we could stfu, it didn’t do justice to the the character ,what do you think, is it really that bad.

To be honest, I've been working on this one for a while but I keep writing and deleting my response. Because all the things I want to say sound gatekeeper-y, in one of several ways.

I think you can be a Nat fan and not read the comics. I think you can be a Nat fan and never talk about her. I don't think you need to know everything about canon and be an "expert" to be a fan. I'm not interested in a locked-gate version of fandom. I don't think this movie should just be for die-hard Nat fans. And I don't think that all Nat fans will like this movie, for a variety of reasons.

Despite all of that, a lot of the comic book/movie expert reviews I've seen feel, to me, like they were evaluating a movie that isn't the one this movie was ever trying to be, and missing some of what the movie explicitly says it is because that doesn't fit what they want from it.

A bit more spoilery and a lot longer under the cut. I am so sorry I'm like this.

This movie felt tailor-made for me. Not because I loved every answer they gave, but because the questions they asked are ones I've been waiting to hear since 2012, when I first saw Avengers and then immediately went back to see the rest of phase 1. I think people disliking the answers is a legitimate opinion, and I'm looking forward to detangling that with people. What surprised me in reviews was not reviewers disliking the answers, which is legit, but not even seeming to realize the questions had been asked.

Most prominently, what felt like the huge thematic arc of the movie to me has been nonexistent in so many reviews that I've started to feel like I made it up, even though I took notes of exact quotes so I could reference them. The movie isn't a Nat origin story, and it's not about her as a cool edgy villain, so not seeing either of those didn't bother me. It's a movie about Natasha's trauma and how that manifests, and how her attempts to break free of it have harmed others in the past, and how she can move forward from that. We never get the key that unlocks the history of Natasha's past, so if you approach this as a puzzle box, it's going to fail.

THIS INDENTED PARAGRAPH IS THE CLOSEST I GET TO DIRECT PLOT POINTS, FEEL FREE TO SKIP

Specifically most of the reviews seem to view Nat's motivating guilt as over how she escaped the Red Room, particularly one casualty she deemed an acceptable sacrifice. But as I interpreted it, Nat's guilt in this movie came from a much closer place: the other Widows were all she'd had, and Nat being able to escape the Red Room made the Red Room hold on to the other Widows that much tighter. She thought she'd taken it down, but she was wrong. So her freedom, essentially, came at their expense. Natasha working to take down the Red Room this time is personal both to avenge her own trauma and to make up for her guilt in the Red Room still existing and creating more trauma for her peers. Without this context (and to be clear, I have gone back over the quotes several times to see if I'm misinterpreting and I really don't think I am), the idea that all of her guilt is over what she did to a single person makes more sense, but it also makes the movie a lot less interesting. If Natasha is justified in blaming Alexei and Melina for condemning her back to the Red Room, how could the other Widows not blame Nat? To me the entire story swings from that, and by not acknowledging Nat's (inadvertent but still very real) responsibility for continuing the cycle, the movie would feel hollow.

PLOT POINTS OVER.

Many critics they seem to feel like the potential this movie introduced was wasted because Nat's dead, so what's the point. First of all, the point is she's Nat and we care. It's not like we went in to Iron Man expecting that we'd have a decade of a franchise; we cared in the moment, and this movie is asking for the same thing. It delivers for over two hours of NOT murdering Natasha, which is more than I can say for Endgame.

To be clear, BW does set up other things for the MCU, and it's but if you're only watching it for what it's going to tell you about the future of the MCU (and I get it, because that's how I'm watching Loki, and it's a very different type of watching than I did for FATWS), this probably IS going to be a disappointment, because this isn't a big crossover event movie; I mean, none of Sam's "Big Three" show up at all. But again, that's about the movie someone wanted it to be, not the movie this was aiming to be.

Is this like a lot of other Marvel movies? Kinda. It's definitely taking a lot from Civil War for its set-up. Its arc felt like a close mirror of to Winter Soldier to me, to the extent that I'm planning to rewatch that on Thursday so I can see how much that's just me projecting my fave onto it. The third act is very Marvel-third-act-y, as adapted to Nat's character; the adapting to Nat's character are the parts I like and the rest is kind of what I consider the MCU price of admission.

I also kind of hate that it feels like the last few movies- Black Panther, Captain Marvel, now this and some rumblings about Shang-Chi- have all been kind of dismissed with "it's just the Marvel formula." It is, but that doesn't change the fact that different protagonists make it different. Dr Strange is pretty much just "Iron Man 1 with cool magic" and people didn't mind, but "how does this formula change when the protagonist is fundamentally different than the archetype to this point?" is apparently not different enough. I get Marvel fatigue, I really do, but for me it's tempered by how, in this case, Nat doesn't have the moral clarity Steve or Thor or even Tony or Scott has. No one in this movie lets her forget that she's a trained killer who little kids look up to.

Again: there are parts of this movie that don't work. I also don't ever ever EVER want to seem like I'm saying that if someone didn't like this movie they're not a real Nat fan or they're wrong. I know there are reasons to not love this movie, and I'm sure I'll figure out more the more I watch- it may not make me not love it, but it will at least complicate it for me, and i think we all know I live for that shit. Moreover, I intimately know how much it sucks when something you've been enthusiastic about and anticipating for ages doesn't pay off and everyone else seems to like it- it's isolating and upsetting and you just sit there wondering why no one else understands, and that's bullshit and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. People who don't like this movie are valid!

But if someone has a history of seeing Nat as just background, or considering her as a T&A deliver system more than as a character, or caring about hot women with guns but not care about the trauma that turned them into that, or saying they like movies about women but just not THIS woman for every comic book movie about a woman not there for them to ogle, or claiming to be experts in all things comics while doubling down on their theory that Yelena wouldn't appear because she was in Agent Carter (YES THAT HAPPENED, MORE THAN ONCE, THE NORTH. FUCKING. REMEMBERS. AND WISHES THEY KNEW WHERE THEY SAVED THOSE SCREENSHOTS), I don't need to weight their reviews heavier than the adrenaline rush I felt watching this movie.

So in answer to your question, I don't think the movie was really "that bad." I think this movie delivers in very specific ways, which definitely are not the flashy ones or the "every Marvel movie builds to the next great EVENT" ones or the male power fantasy ones, and if those ways aren't the ways you care about, it's going to be a disappointment. Even if those AREN'T the ones you care about, it could be a disappointment for any number of reasons, some of which I noticed during the movie and some of which I'm sure I'll be surprised to read about Friday morning.

But it wasn't one to me. For whatever it's worth, despite the movie's flaws, I loved it, I haven't stopped thinking about it in five days, I can't wait to see it again, and I hope that whether other people do or don't like it, they want to roll around in it as much as I do to pick out every single shred of canon worth overanalyzing.

If this is all we ever get for Natasha- and it is a CRIME if this is all we ever get for Natasha but that doesn't mean it's not so- I am grateful that this is what we got.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Dark Greetings this Spooky Season Ms. V. Can we get a list of your favorite Halloween movies and specials? I know you have seen *everything* and I am trying to go beyond my usual rewatches this holiday month.

V. AIMMYARROWSHIGH’S CRITERIA FOR HALLOWEEN EPISODES

Does the Halloween element combine convincingly with the usual universe of the show (ex: Lizzie McGuire 2x09 “Those Freaky McGuires” is not good as a Halloween episode because it changes the rules of the Lizzie McGuire universe, whereas Community 2x06 “Epidemiology” is a GREAT Halloween episode because it manages to logically introduce zombies to the regular Community universe)?

Does the Halloween element advance the plot of the episode/series (ex: the reason Boy Meets World 5x17 “And Then There Was Shawn” is literally the best Halloween episode ever made is that it uses the horror movie tropes it satirizes to provide a CRUCIAL turning-point to the plot of the show)?

Is the Halloween episode in the forefront enough that it’s clearly a holiday episode (ex: HAVING ONE JACK-O’LANTERN ON A DESK DOES NOT A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL MAKE, LAW & ORDER 16x03 “GHOSTS”! You gotta go ALL-IN, like Bob’s Burgers 3x02 “Full Bars”!)?

Does the Halloween theme balance well between spooky and warm-n-fuzzy (ex: Criminal Minds 11x21 “Mr. Scratch” is too fucking bleak, but Criminal Minds 12x06 “Elliott’s Pond” has a joyous/celebratory tone to the ending despite being a genuinely scary episode)?

Is it generally a well-written, acted, and designed episode of television (ex: Saved by the Bell! 3x26 “Mystery Weekend” is seriously, not exaggerating, the worst thing I’ve ever watched in my life; Psych 1x15 “Scary Sherry, Or Bianca’s Toast” is a triumph of the medium)?

THE BEST, bar none, Halloween special ever made is Boy Meets World 5x17, “And Then There Was Shawn.” Period. There can be no argument, except MAYBE Community 3x06, “Epidemiology,” but I like “And Then There Was Shawn” better because the parody and homage as less… biting? And because I think it continues and addresses the emotional core of the regular BMW season better than “Epidemiology” does for Community s3. “Epi” DOES plant the seed (…heh) for the Season 3B major plot arc of Shirley’s pregnancy and Chang Deciding To Murder, but it gets some major minus points for mocking Yvette Nicole Brown’s weight with other characters’ responses to her costume, tbh. And “And Then There Was Shawn” is just fucking iconic. It is THE Halloween episode manual, IMO, if there were to be a textbook on how to write a perfect Halloween episode for your sitcom.

HOWEVER, I also have to give major props to Bob’s Burgers and Psych, as complete series, for their CONSISTENTLY excellent Halloween episodes. A lot of series that have multiple Halloween eps really phone it in after one or two, because they don’t have any more ideas for how to incorporate Halloween pastiches while maintaining the overall feeling of the series (tbh B99, while the Halloween Heists are excellent in general, is/has been coming very close to this line, and I think that if they HADN’T had to switch out the Heist to Cinco de Mayo in s6, they would have jumped their Heist Shark [and I think they know it, too, because it was lampshaded in the episode itself]) or they just straight-up don’t have any more ideas for what or how to have the characters they’re bound to parody or pay homage to a Halloween thing after they’ve already done one or two. And let’s be real: those one or two have probably been either The Shining or Rear Window, because those are pretty much the two that every show starts with.

Bob’s manages to make every Halloween episode feel very fresh and organic to the series, which I think they do have some leeway to do because of the nature of cartoons keeping the Belchers living a kind of loop of never aging, yk, but amazingly they’ve only done the “Tina feels too old to trick or treat, maybe? Nope, she’s not 14 yet, so there’s still time!” thing in a way that felt tropey once (in 3x02 Full Bars). They’ve been able to address Tina being 13/in 8th grade, and worrying about it being almost too late for her to keep trick or treating, in ways that were in-character and added to the overall episode in 4x02 Fort Night, 5x02 Tina and the Real Ghost, and 9x04 Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street, without me rolling my eyes at the screen and going “TINA, EVERY SINGLE SHOW WITH A TWEEN IN IT HAS ALREADY DECIDED THAT THE AGE AT WHICH YOU MUST STOP TRICK OR TREATING IS FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, COME ON NOW” which… at this point, is a Feat. Because like, I’ve POSTED over a thousand Halloween episodes, right? But I’ve watched and screencapped ::checks folder:: 3,905 Halloween episodes since 2014. Which is, um, a. lot. The ACTUAL BEST Bob’s Burgers Halloween episode is 6x03, “The Hauntening,” which is just… achingly perfect television. I know I’ve posted about it before (probably a couple times tbh) but the way that it aired originally back-to-back with The Simpsons 27x04, “Halloween of Horror,” so that the evening of Sunday cartoons juxtaposed eight-year-old Louise whose family worked so hard to scare her like she wanted with nine-year-old Lisa’s family working so hard to keep her from being too scared and make sure that she felt safe… reader, I FUCKIN CRIED. Little girls being deeply loved while also Spoopy Things!!!!!! IS WHAT HALLOWEEN SPECIALS ARE!!! FUCKIN!!!!!! ABOUT!!!!!!!

Psych, though, has the benefit of not really having any, like… central tone to the series? Beyond “friendship” and “having fun with joking,” tbh? So it’s able to do what a lot of series get docked “points” for in my Foolproof Halloween Special Ratings System That Is Completely Subjective To My Tastes And Mood, which is really just run full-tilt into parody and homage without really worrying about overall tonal connection to the rest of the season or series. 1x15, “Scary Sherry, or, Bianca’s Toast,” while it DOES fall victim to the way-too-common Halloween episode trap of making mental hospitals into a Scary Thing (they are a medical normality and a necessary thing for health for many people and should not be feared), is delightful Spooky Fun AND has the benefit of having Shannon Woodward in it.* We all know by now that if an episode of any show has Shannon Woodward as the guest star, it will by default end up being one of the best, if not THE best, episodes of that series. It’s just how having Shannon Woodward as your guest star rolls. I also really like, with Psych’s Halloween episodes, that quite a few of them understand the underlying thematic scope of Horror, which is “The Monstrous Feminine Is A Thing And All Horror Tropes Are Actually About Women’s Interior Lives Because Men Can’t Write Women And Fear Women Always,” yk, in a way that is neither TOO Actual Horror, which I am too afraid of to Do, or too trite and demeaning, which is the other basic trap that Halloween stuff falls into A Lot. Like, Scary Sherry is very much about women villainizing other women, avenging other women, and being in very specifically-female pain, even though Shawn & Gus are still the lens through which we solve the mystery, and so are 4x04 The Devil Is In The Details And The Upstairs Bedroom and 6x03 This Episode Sucks. But they give their Monstrous Females dignity and breadth, which is impressive, ESPECIALLY since they’re one-off guest characters. Also, 3x15 Tuesday the 17th is just plain funny and well-done, like, just give it props for the title alone.

*(Speaking of Shannon Woodward, another amazingly good Halloween episode is Raising Hope 4x07, “Murder, She Hoped,” which is among my very favorite Rear Window homage episodes and has probably the funniest gag in ANY Rear Window ep, in Martha Plimpton floating across the screen in the Grace Kelly silk nightgown and peignoir and announcing that it was on sale at Walmart, can you believe?! and honestly, yes. Perfection.)

Also excellent:

• The Addams Family (1991) + Addams Family Values (1993) • Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School (RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU WERE GAY FOR SIBELLA AS A CHILD!) • Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost (RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU'RE GAY BECAUSE THE HEX GIRLS!) • Halloweentown + Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge • Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire! • Z•O•M•B•I•E•S (to a lesser extent, Z•O•M•B•I•E•S 2) • Clue (1985) • Coraline • Corpse Bride • 6teen 2x00 Dude of the Dead • Arthur 21x00 Arthur and the Haunted Treehouse • Lamb-Chop in the Haunted Studio • Arthur 8x04A Fern-kenstein's Monster • Arthur 10x02 The Squirrels • WandaVision 1x06 The All-New Halloween Spooktacular (I KNOW YOU, SPECIFICALLY, DEAR @plavoptice, HATE MCU!WANDA AND I DON'T BLAME YOU, YOUR REASONS ARE VERY VALID! But this is a good Halloween special so I'm putting it on my list In General.) • Boy Meets World 2x06 Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf? • Ghostbusters (2016) • Gravity Falls 1x12 Summerween • Leverage 4x02 Ten L'il Grifters Job • The Loud House 2x40 Tricked! • Mockingbird Lane 1x00 Unaired Pilot • It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! (Classic, etc.)

I'm SURE I'm forgetting some that I'll rewatch this year myself. I'm a big Halloween Baking Championship fan, tbh, which is on Discovery+ now so I recommend that if you like mostly-relaxing nice people baking cakes that look like bats and such.

I'm also IMMENSELY INTENSELY EXCITED for The Muppets' Haunted Mansion on Disney+ next week!!!