#mcu critical

[underwhelmingalchemist]

The MCU is so special because what other media makes you see your favorite specialest blorbo trend on tumblr and your initial reaction is "Oh shit. Oh no. Oh god what did they do to their character now"

[musette22]

Sorry for my rambling but the resurgence of ppl who hate Steve’s ending on TikTok got me thinking again.

Why do people insist Steve was still a man out of time 10 years into the MCU and he didn’t adapt to the future? Why do they keep pretending like Steve loved living in the past bc “it was the past society he was missing” and not bf he woke up all alone and confused, PTSD’d to hell 70 years in the future, ALONE.

Chris said it himself when he said Steve finds his found family in the future. He has Sam, Natasha, treats Wanda as a lil sister. Then he does everything, including defying all governments and becoming a criminal to get his best friend back. Steve is very much adapted and he doesn’t long for the past. Sure, he misses people. The commandos all died and he never got to see the . Peggy aged and got sick (and let’s be real, he pretty much says goodbye to her in tws and she tells him to move on and live his own life and then suddenly in endgame BAM he’s not over her again? When he’s been just fine the past few movies?? Like sure her death was sad for him but hes not longing after her? All he is focused on is *checks notes* saving Bucky and defying the government.

It’s just such a superficial and lazy read of Steve’s initial “man out of time” schtick to keep reducing him to someone who could never adapt to the progressive future when he is in fact the most progressive avenger. Steve does not long for the past because he thinks it was a better time but bc he was abruptly ripped out of it. But not once do we ever see him struggle to adapt again. He does not even long after Peggy and is happy she got to live her own happy life. Where does this “Steve needs to live in the past to be happy” trope come from, and why did the Russo brothers fall for it too? How is Steve not a man out of time again in the 50s when he’s already used to the future?

Steve “the past is for fossils” Rogers’s final ending is to retract all his progress and fuck off to the past and ditch his found family, sure

First of all, people on tiktok are talking about how terrible Steve's ending was? That's great, gives me back some hope for that app lol.

And second of all, PREACH. All of this, a thousand times over. You're absolutely correct and you should say it, thank you very much. I genuinely agree with all of this so much, and I could go on and on about it, but I don't want to spend more of my precious energy dwelling on that dumb movie anymore than I already have.

Just about this bit, though:

"How is Steve not a man out of time again in the 50s when he’s already used to the future?" - THIS, plus he never actually lived through the 50s because he was in the ice from 1945 onwards, and he spent the years before that at war in Europe, so that would just another time jump/displacement for him?? He'd just be DOUBLY out of time: displaced both from the future which had very much become his present and his home, and also his past, which he never would've actually wanted to go back to anyway, LEAST of all without Bucky (and his friends/new family), and definitely not for Peggy, who he'd already said goodbye to and knew to have lived a good life. Jesus Christ. Literally the stupidest fucking ending anyone could've come up with for Steve, congratulations you marvel numbnuts.

ANYWAY. I'll always be angry about this, but I should probably also mind my blood pressure lmao so I'm just going to forget about this whole fiasco again now and think about how happy Steve and Bucky currently are together 🥰

[agent13ronnie]

Alexei being a father figure for Natasha in the mcu 🤝 Bane and Talia being partnered together in the Nolan movies

Keep these women away from their abusers

[gay-jewish-bucky]

every time there's a new, and always worse, bucky project and seb looks/sounds like he wants to be there less and less...

[amarriageoftrueminds]

#we’ll keep in mind that the MCU hands out their PhD’s to their characters like candy #in A1 her resume said that she dropped out of school at 15 and became a nurse #her high social standing got her into Bletchley #her brother got her into being a spy #and suddenly in the flashback scene in 1970 she had a PhD #in what? idk #and are we expected to believe that she took years out of her career to finish her education #when she’d already been given the lead role by Howard? #this is the thing about Peggy and why she appeals to her demographic #she gets all the results of someone who has worked hard #without actually having worked hard #it’s easy enough to tell us that Peggy deserves these things but they never show us why or how she earned it #because she didn’t #after EG a bunch of people discussed that this was an honorary PhD because of her lack of education #but they displayed a plaque on purpose #and it was to get the girlboss cred #that’s why this character is so frustrating #when she’s not vacuous she’s positively evil #anti peggy carter #+.+

(tags via)

I always wonder why the mcu keeps trying to push their peggy carter oc,like I understand characters aren't always going to be comic accurate and can be changed for better or worse. But what the mcu did with peggy is so weird to me

Staring off with the fact that she takes inspiration from a nazi spy , they even said so themselves she just doesn't take inspiration form Cynthia tho most of he likable traits are from other characters as well.

Going back to the Cynthia glass thing it's also uncomfortable that this peggy is also an alternate version of captain america even though they call her captain carter you can't escape the fact that she's supposed to be an alternate version of captain america.

I can understand wanting to make an alternate version of cap but why would you use the character that you've stated has taken inspiration from a nazi spy to represent a Jewish symbol who was made to fight nazis and for the oppressed it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Thanks for the ask and sorry for the late reply!

I think the superhero genre, much like the Japanese equivalent of the shounen genre, is about power fantasies. That doesn't necessarily make them inherently trite or egocentric, though. A sensitive and knowledgeable writer can construct a power fantasy for marginalised folks, even those they are not a part of, and that's what people are asking for when they talk about "representation". People from all walks of life deserve an inspirational story and a power fantasy to project onto, to say that despite the barriers placed by society, it is still possible to fight against the restrictions and carve out a special identity for yourself. In a lot of the better written superhero stories, their powers are presented as something that is both a blessing and a curse/threat, and the story is about them accepting that difference and turning that into something good - as opposed to, often, their villains, who turn that into something used for bad.

And I think that's the key difference. Comics/manga are written for kids/adults who feel like they don't fit in (maybe manga especially, because of how suffocating Japanese society can be about fitting the norm). The fantasy lies in social odd-balls embracing their own uniqueness and doing good in spite of the world shunning them.

Once super-powered concepts hit Hollywood, the meaning changes. The writers are now (in general) people in positions of influence and affluence. They are confident in who they are, and in fact, they yearn to stand above the ilk. The power fantasy completely changes flavour - instead of an outcast learning to be happy with who they are, it is now about how a "normal" person gains something special that elevates them above the boring average folk.

The problem is - the former is usually sensitive to the struggles of marginalised folk ("we are different but we can be amazing"), while the latter is ignorant and self-serving ("I am amazing because I am not like other girls"). And because of the type of fantasy it is, it is not interested in exploring power as a potential flaw or a burden, it is simply about the celebration of strength.

This is all a long-winded way of saying, yes, PC is a power fantasy for a particular group of women - the middle-classed, primarily White, well-educated women, who do not want to be like other girls. She had to be made special at all costs - the private school/college education, the brother in MI6, the Howlies, the boxing champion, the directorship, and now finally the serum and the shield.

The implications didn't matter because the writers didn't care. She's their hero, this is a fantasy, and who cares if she recruited Nazis on her way to the top or that she wears a colonial symbol on her chest. Who knows, they (the writers) may even think of that as representation of her strength.

Remember how I said earlier how the heroes take their powers and make it into something good, while the villains use their strength and use it to do something bad? Welp.

[ijustreallylikecaptainamericaok]

So, about those TB spoilers, I'm calling it now:

Whatever else happens in D**msday, the teams aren't gonna be able to get it together and D00m's gonna win as a result and then whoever's left in SW will have to fix it all.

And I know what you're thinking, "Isn't that just IW/EG all over again?" Uh-yep.

Because, seriously, what else is the endgame of creating this forced ass rift between Sam and B*cky and their respective teams? It's just CW all over again, but somehow even worse. It's so lazy and unnecessary. Of all the storylines they could've had going into D**msday, why this?

Everything about D**msday just reeks of desperation to get back into the good graces of every asshole who's spent the last six years whining and for fucking what? It's a train wreck and a half and it's hard to maintain any kind of positivity for it at all.

[wolvierinez]

"im so excited for avengers doomsday bc it has the xmen in it" you know what also has the xmen in it

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Having seen the alleged plot leak off Thunderbolts...we ain't surprised with a certian thing happening in it to a certain character, we just annoyed MCU keeps trying to appeal to whiny mcu fans instead of just keeping what they had and trying to fix it/develop it.

[tonkysexist]

Magneto is JEWISH. He is a Jewish character. The original version of the story the new X-Men 97 season is trying to tell relied on him being snapped out his plan by a young Jewish girl being hurt (I actually posted about how much I love this story beat last year). A young Jewish girl he later attends a meeting of Holocaust survivors with. Telling this story without using the word “Holocaust” or “Jewish” is so very telling. And it’s not a one off with this show— Roberto is an Afro-Brazilian character who manifested his powers because of a hate crime and they changed his origin completely.

Disney will ALWAYS shy away from these issues. They will ALWAYS want the kudos from having minority characters while sanitizing their stories. Really think about what it means for them to do this to characters like Sunspot and Magneto, but stand their ground when it comes to keeping the Israeli propaganda character in upcoming Cap movie.

[sourpatchgrapes]

Is the mcu allergic to Romani people???

Updated + p.s MCU WANDA FANS DON'T FUCKING INTERACT, I DON'T LIKE YOU.

[femaleboysblog]

on light of the new captain america movie getting a trailer and people begging everyone to boycott it because of the character sabra (for obvious reasons), I've seen a lot of people asking "why would they do that especially now?" (with the palestine genocide happening and the whole world aware of that?) and let me tell you why. many years ago, a big discussion here on tumblr about the mcu specifically was about how the movies were obviously sponsored by the us military and the government and written in a way where you would fall for their propaganda (very well hidden btw) without even realising, example: making it seem like the military is stupid and cia etc is incompetent. when they are clearly not in real life. they are adding sabra now and not taking it back because they know their fans will consume whatever they put out even if its to record, edit and post reviews videos hating on it on youtube and getting millions of views. it's still more money for disney. and a opportunity for a 'superhero' who's whole motivation is to 'save and protect' israel in hopes of humanizing even more the people who support palestinian genocide and paint them as good guys. there's many others examples of this through their 20 somethings year of franchise. please research about it and keep an eye and open mind when engaging in media in the future, especially mcu and other big franchises from the usa.

[i-love-tony-stark]

Y’know the truth is I don’t think Tony Stark would bother me nearly as much if his fans were just even slightly normal about him. Like antis get this reputation for being crazy obsessive hateful people, but in my experience they’re just frustrated fans that want a place to vent about an otherwise very popular character. It’s the stans who will cross tag and send death threats to blogs that dare disparage their precious baby. It’s the stans that clamor for unfair amounts of screen time and encourage the co-opting of other characters to surround Tony Stark. I don’t see antis writing a thousand 10k fanfics about Team Iron Man getting tortured and groveling to Steve. Idk maybe this is an unfortunately common fandom behavior?? It just seems so unnecessary to me

[whereserpentswalk]

The reason why that joss whedon/mcu style "he's right behind me" humor is so unpleasant is because it's written with contempt for the worldbuilding most of the time.

Basically a lot of that quippy joss whedon style humor is written by people who are uncomfortable with the concept of genre fiction, but who are writing it any way, so they basically end up having their characters voice their opinion on the setting. Something like the "a cannibal named Hannibal isn't that a little on the nose" from that what if other movies were written by joss whedon meme doesn't work, not just because it's humor in an otherwise serious thing (tons of serious movies have comic relief) but because it's a comment someone would only make if they're reacting to the the name as if it's something written, and not like it's a real name they encountered.

It's terrible writing, but it's not about tone like how most people think, it's about characterization. Good character writing tends to rely on thinking about who the character is and what they'd do in the situation they're in. This type of humor does the exact opposite, it ignores crucial elements of who a character is so they can say something that the writer wants desperately to be said.

To use a more concrete example, there's an exchange in Firefly, a series joss whedon wrote before his worst writing quirks infected all of Hollywood like a locust plague. The exchange surrounds the characters reacting to one of the characters being revealed to have gained psychic powers via lobotomy. One character says skeptically "psychic powers, what kind of scifi nonsense is this" and another character replies "we live on a spaceship."

Now, this exchange has bothered me since I was a child. Spaceships are a normal thing in the firefly universe, every single character has lived their entire life with them being mundane vehicles, while psychic powers have just been revealed to be a thing to the audience. There's no reason why it would make sense for any character to see those two things as equivalent. The only people who that line makes sense to are the writers. It's like a perfectly constructed attack on suspension of disbelief, actively making fun of an audience who gets invested in the characters and their lives.

And the worst part about it, is that if it was just the first line, (the, "what type of scifi nonsense is this") without the reply, (the, "We live in a spaceship"). It would have worked better, both as a joke and as a peice of character writing.

It would have worked better as a joke without the reply, because it would have been actually subtle about the irony of a character in a spaceship complaining about something in his life seeming too scifi. The reply is basically just explaining the joke. It would have worked better as a worldbuilding line. Because what's weird for characters in a setting vs what's normal for them is a really hard thing to get across, and the first line gets it across pretty elegantly. And then the reply takes that elegant peice of writing and completely destroys it because of the writers insecurities about writing a story that takes place in space.

Anyway. Joss whedon is a badish writer and his worst tendencies should not have become Hollywood standard. All of this came from me re-watching old episodes of adventure time yesterday and wondering why the humor works there and why other media's humor doesn't work.

[oreolesbian]

YOU’RE GIVING THE RUSSO BROTHERS MAGNETO????? OH GOD NOOOOOOOOO 😵‍💫😭🤢

[burn-4u]

How the fuck marvel studios has developed 6.5 whole avengers movies without founding member of the team the wasp in a notable role in any of them is fucking beyond me

[buckymilf]

everyday this meme i made in 2021 becomes more real, thanks rogers the musical