#terapsina's captain marvel rambles

[terapsina]

SEND ME A SHIP (+ number) AND I WILL TELL YOU... Carol/Maria 2, 15 (Captain Marvel/The Marvels) and because I am me! Hizzie 10, 11, 20

Carol and Maria

2. ...why I do or don't ship them.

I ship them. I ship them quite a LOT. And that's because from the MOMENT we started seeing those flashbacks, it felt like I was watching a love story.

And then they had their reunion and Maria looked like the breath had been knocked right out of her chest. And Carol with this hangdog expression? And the piles of photographs that Maria had kept to remember Carol?

I'm sorry, but this isn't just friendship.

Add in amnesia during which most of the memories that were trying to break through revolved around Maria and her daughter? A kid that Carol was clearly around so much that even after YEARS of being missing she still seemed to think Carol hung the moon? I mean, COME ON, I can be expected to be only so strong here.

And The Marvels did NOT help. If anything Carol was pining after all that she had lost even MORE.

It's like a tragic fairy tale.

15. ...how I wish their story would go/would have gone.

Well first of all I wouldn't have killed Maria. Because it's stupid and I hate it.

Second of all I wouldn't have had Carol ghosting the woman she was clearly in love with and their daughter for 20 years.

Because it's stupid and I hate it.

Or if I did do that, then The Marvels would have involved a very chaotic Time Travel fix it.

Ideally she'd have remained in contact and gotten back together with Maria in the intervening years (FYI here's a fic I found where Carol does go back and it's adorable (or here's an old fic I wrote that contains a smidge of how I would have wanted Carol to have kept in touch)) and though I do think I want to have kept Monica getting dusted by the Snap (because I do enjoy SOME angst), Maria would have been snapped too.

And then Carol would have gotten the both of them BACK.

But that was ideally.

Now, my hopes rest on Carol finding a way to get back the stranded Monica (or to join her). Because if they're making this Alternate Universe Maria be kind of a mirror of Carol... then let's go all the way here and have this Maria be mourning her Carol the same way our Carol is mourning her Maria.

They can be each other's second chance.

---

Hope and Lizzie

10. ...rate the level of stupid they reach in their pining.

Can we reach levels above 10 out of 10? Because... duuude. When you have Lizzie constantly casting herself to play one half of a romcom couple and yet convinced that she's the matchmaker, or third wheel? And Hope being Lizzie's Totally Personal Hero? And Lizzie constantly pulling a Prince Charming on Hope? And Hope obsessing over Lizzie while lacking humanity all at the same time saying with her whole chest how she cares nothing about Lizzie?

AND BOTH OF THEM SOMEHOW COMPLETELY IGNORING THE BIG FLASHING LIGHT OF THE SIRE BOND AND WHAT THAT MEANS?

*voice full of saccharine condescension*: 'oh, honey'.

11. ...how quickly I started shipping them when I got into the fandom.

If memory serves me right... I started shipping them pretty early on. Wayyyyy early on, like before 1x12 even.

But where it became serious was the episode with the dress.

Like, the fact that she just went 'this family heirloom dress needs to be worn by the prettiest girl I know'? Goddammit, Lizzie.

And then of course there's the way you just have to admire the sheer gall of pulling a Klaroline parallel unintentionally?

But most of all... it might have been the way Lizzie spent the episode protectively glaring at the jealous boys. And the way she rushed over to hug Hope when she was about to have her breakdown in the middle of the dance floor.

Also. That face. Specifically.

20. ...how and when they should get/should have gotten together.

Ideally, at the end of the season 5 that never was.

I consider s4 to be the season where Lizzie realized and accepted that she's in love with Hope. Burt also accepted the idea that it was never going to happen and chose to try to move on.

S5 should have been the season where Lizzie is trying to do that while Hope is coming to accept that there's feelings there from her side too and that the idea that she might have realized that too late hurts.

Culminating in a big fight where they finally drop all the cards on the table and address all the things they'd been skirting over.

[terapsina]

17, 20, 36 for the shipping questions.

17. Characters that you ship and can’t imagine to be friends .

Uhhhhh. Literally all my OTPs because I am STUBBORN, and you'll erase the romance over my dead body. But.

I guess there's a few that I ship that canon tries to tell me are 'just friends' and I have to snort and roll my eyes because I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my LIFE.

(if those two are just friends I'm a pufferfish. Myka and HG were so completely and angstily in love I needed tissues during like their every other episode)

(there's not a one single other character on that show that thought Clarke and Bellamy were platonic, and I think at least half of the entire bunch of them have actually commented on it at some point).

(yeah no they were married in every sense except the legal one and I WILL fight you on that).

20. Ship that you liked but don’t anymore.

I'm not sure? I really do tend to be very permanent about my ships? I don't really change my mind and really rarely move on.

But erm... I did once upon a time ship Richard and Kahlan. Except then of course Cara showed up and... the rest is

history.

36. Characters that you can’t decide if you prefer as ship or brotp.

No, no. I'm VERY decisive. I always know.

But the closest that KIND of qualifies is Dutch and Johnny Jaqobis. I absolutely did ship them (without a doubt) but their friendship also meant so much to me that this is the one very rare case where I also seriously friendshipped them too.

[terapsina]

Just so we're clear, I don't accept Maria being dead as canon.

She's fine, at home in Louisiana with Carol, talking on the phone (or possibly using her wife's alien holographic tech) with Monica every evening before dinner. And flying all of the planes that she's been working on for the alphabet soup of agencies, before giving them back with added invisibility and shielding and whatever else.

And anyone who tries to tell me otherwise can go watch ATLA: the movie on repeat for a year.

[terapsina]

I think I’m starting to see a pattern forming.

But is it a pattern of I have an otp type and it’s ex girlfriends who are still in love with each other.

Or

Is it female lead movies with the heart of it in the relationship between two women who are all-but-text ex girlfriends but not explicitly textually so?

Am I seeing too much in it because I wanna and they’re cute? Does it matter? Because I will think of them as ex girlfriends (who’ll get back together after the end of the movie) either way.

[terapsina]

So this might be a small detail but I really enjoyed how SMUG Carol was. She RADIATED the smug. And it was just so... refreshing? Plus I liked how they showed it not being tied to her superpowers, those flashbacks were full of smug Carol too.

And the same was true for Maria, so much SWAGGER.

AND for the daughter when she went all "I just think you should consider what kind of example you're setting for your daughter."

Basically the smuggest family in the nearest three galaxies.

[terapsina]

I love the look on Carol’s face when she turns around and looks down on Earth.

She looks like she’s looking at home. And honestly? I think she’s thinking about Maria and Monica.

Because she finally found them. I think she’s been dreaming about them for six years. In bursts and flashes of feelings that would always slip through her fingers but would also inevitably come back.

And I know that she doesn’t remember, not really but i also think that now that she’s met them again, been with them again, those flashes when they come won’t be slipping away like before. And she might never remember all of it, she probably won’t, but I think the flashes are gonna linger now.

And she has a home now. In a way that Hala wasn’t even before she found out the truth about the Kree.

I love that look because I just don’t believe that she’ll be gone for the next twenty years. I think it’s a look that says that she’ll come back as often as the universe allows her. Because her heart is on Earth in a house in Louisiana.

[terapsina]

I loved that moment when Carol shows up and Maria first sees her. She looked like all the air had been knocked right out of her. And by the time the scene changed and they were talking inside the house Maria STILL looked at Carol like she was looking at ghost, one she couldn’t look away from even as it hurt.

There was just such a complicated mix of emotions on Maria’s face all throughout the movie when she was looking at Carol. Like she was happy and heartbroken and uncertain and so full of love.

I’ve been thinking for a whole day about what must have been running through Maria’s head in those seconds between Monica calling her mom because Aunt Carol was alive and the moment when she actually saw her.

And I kinda want to go see the movie again just so that I can see that scene again. All the scenes really, but somehow especially that one.

Like... I don’t know if they were actually together or if Carol and Maria had a whole slow burn pining for years situation going on but they were DEFINITELY something. 

[terapsina]

So I was just imagining how many times Maria must have went through Carol’s photos with Monica. Telling her (their) daughter the stories that went along with them. I mean Monica was 7 when Carol went missing right? That’s not old enough for her to remember those stories by heart the way they SHOWED us that Monica knew them when she rambled out explanation after explanation about every single picture she was showing to Carol.

Maria would have been the one telling those stories. Probably over and over again, they very well might have replaced Monica’s bedtime stories.

Just imagine Maria tucking Monica in bed, kissing her goodnight and being talked into just one more story about Carol:

“Please mom? Just five more minutes? I want to hear about how you met again.”

[terapsina]

Okay, so imagine this: canon compliant post Captain Marvel Parent Trap situation.

Lets say 6 to 12 months after the end of movie Carol comes to visit Maria and Monica. It's only supposed to be a few days, maybe a week.

But see, stuff works out in a way that Talos is free too and his daughter wants to see her friend again and things in the war are temporarily quiet for the near foreseeable future. Plus Earth is back to being a pretty safe place and he does want some bonding time with the daughter he's only just met. So he sees no reason to argue against it.

But now the thing is... Carol and Maria are still walking around each other on eggshells and they're kinda running out of time and there's no way to know when will be the next time they'll have time to return again. And Monica is worried that if left to their own devices her mom and Auntie Carol will NEVER figure it out so...

...she and her new best friend figure out the perfect plan to keep everyone around long enough to get Carol and Maria back together (with the added bonus of them getting to keep hanging out a while longer).

The young Skrull girl will take on Monica's form and neither of them will be telling anyone which one of them is which until they're happy with how things are going.

Now yes it's possible to catch the shape shifters in lies with their lack of long term memories BUT Monica's way too clever for that. Both she and her friend respond to every question about older history with "I don't know."

So that leaves Maria and Carol in a bit of a bind. Maria can't exactly allow her daughter to be accidentally sent off to the other side of the universe. But Carol can't strand Talos on Earth.

So operation Parent Trap is a go.

(Yes, Talos can easily recognise his daughter. Thing is... he's not actually in that big a hurry, has already informed his wife with a subspace message, is in contact with everyone who can call them back to the front lines if something comes up and this is actually good practice in shape shifting for his little girl... plus he's a bit of a romantic too. So he keeps his mouth shut.)

[terapsina]

I liked that moment in Carol’s flashback with Mar-Vell where she first notices ‘Lawson’ bleeding blue and how she’s so... calm about it, like there’s no sense of betrayal from Carol’s side, no moment where Carol thinks her trust has been abused. 

No, Carol trusted and respected Lawson and being confronted with the fact that this woman she admires is not human doesn’t cause either panic or anger. No, she gives Mar-Vell the benefit of the doubt, chooses to trust her because there’s no evidence that she’s lying about people’s lives being at stake (and because of that Carol kept the Tesseract out of Kree hands and kept safe the Scroll refuges).

It says a lot about Carol I think. Her trust isn’t conditional on ‘what’ someone is, only ‘who’ they are.

So Mar-Vell lying about her name and origins barely made Carol blink. While Yon-Rogg turning out to be a lying monster knowingly fighting an unjust war made her turn away from the Kree Empire as soon as she accepted it as the truth.

IDK I just liked that.

[terapsina]

You know that train fight right? Where Carol fights the shape-shifter that looks like an old lady, where the bystanders keep trying to protect the "old woman" even after all the crazy acrobatics start? I loved it. Because at first it's just a scene where the 'silly bystanders' are making the heroes job harder. But then after we learn what we do, you realise it was a GOOD thing that they were trying to stop her. I love the twist of it.

[terapsina]

...please tell me there are Carol/Maria fics.

[terapsina]

I'm like an hour and a half away from finally seeing Captain Marvel. Eeeh I'm so excited! Do you KNOW how hard it's been to be good and not let myself be spoiled? It's been TORTURE. But I've succeeded and my wait is almost over.

[terapsina]

I’ve been listening to ‘Just a Girl’ on repeat for like an hour now. I’m absolutely great. Do not send help.

(but seriously I really adore the entire soundtrack from Captain Marvel)