#ugh still not a fan of that shipname but it seems to be the one used the most so fine

[arcticwaters]

so i normally don’t share my in depth thoughts on movies (idk why, i just prefer to be like, “i saw it, i liked it!”) but since the avengers have been a pretty big part of my life the past seven years i thought i would write out my feelings and views of endgame, this being the end of the era and all. especially since this movie hugely affected the three characters i cared about the most: tony, steve, and my beloved natasha.

it should go without saying but spoilers under the cut, i’ll be going pretty extensively into the ending.

the good

everything about rhodey. don cheadle has amazing comedic timing

carol’s new hair

“who here hasn’t been to space?”

hey a gay/bi man! that’s pretty cool

natasha appears to be the quasi leader, i love that

sob she and steve are so soft. soul mates

ant man is?? so funny??

everyone finally reunited and appear to have made up. it’s great to see them all on screen together.

it’s always nice to see pepper

the scenes where they’re trying to figure out time travel and then trying to remember where all the stones are. (tony and natasha laying next to each other, legs almost touching, is my most blessed moment of 2019.)

nat saying “see you in a minute” then laughing at her own joke. remember when everyone assumed she was a joyless robot?

look i hATE time travel but all those call backs and visits to previous movies, i can’t hate that.

always good to see peggy

the part where the guardian’s opening scene music is playing, and then it cuts to rhodey judging peter.

mjolnir!!

steve is worthy !!

that climax is amazing, absolutely amazing. i was cheering, people around me were cheering, my younger sister was wailing.

girl team up !!

i think i liked carol here more than in her movie?? i came out of captain marvel liking her fine, but there was something about bri larson’s acting (or maybe it was the directing) that was kind of lacking. maybe it was cause i was already familiar with her, but i felt a little more character for her here. which is really odd cause she did this before captain marvel apparently.

queen valkyrie

sam is cap my LAD SAM SAM SAM

bucky was barely in it

hulkwidow appears to be entirely platonic, the evil has been defeated.

plenty of other things that i’m just not remembering right now

the bad

did five years really need to pass???? it didn’t really do much for the story. you could’ve gotten away with just one. now far from home is gonna be weird. (pretty sure they only did this time skip to give tony a child who wasn’t a baby and could actually speak but like... i wouldn’t have been upset if she was a baby?)

a lot of jokes went on too long. this movie was 3 hours long because ant man and thor sometimes talked too much. pretty much anytime thor was on screen i was saying “ok go away, get him out of here.” i wasn’t really upset at what they’d done with his character, they just needed to really reel in some of his rambling. you know something's gone wrong when thor isn’t being extremely charming. editing guys, just a touch more editing. snappy dialogue is always better than overly long.

so bruce’s struggle with hulk, a major plot line from the beginning, something that came to a head in just your last movie, is solved.... off screen. ok.

are bruce and valkyire not friends? :c i loved them, they were so cute in thor 3

carol and okoye were not in it enough. i actually forgot about carol until she showed up for the fight.

as i said, i am not a fan of time travel. it ultimately just makes everything confusing and convoluted. i get that like... ok, so it’s not really time travel, it’s more universe hopping, but the idea of 2014 thanos, gamora, and nebula coming through to the future.... it’s dumb. it’s just.... i was not on board. it just opened up too many questions and also was just too bombastic. the big grand finale should've been something else.

also.... what happened to 2014 gamora? did she disappear? is she just... out there??? what a cop out, that’s not our gamora. that gamora never said “i don’t know what cheers is!”

i’m not mad at tony’s death. i get it. i think it was extremely well done. he made the big sacrifice play, and we all knew tony or steve would be the ones most likely to die. i get it. but i’m putting it under bad because i didn’t want anyone to die. sPEAKING-

the how dare you

natasha deserved better. this is the character who has kept me invested in these movies and now she’s just gone. the first true superheroine of this franchise, who’s been in more movies than anyone else, and they just throw her off a cliff... for clint? who’s barely been here?? look i get it, they’re best friends (i’ve never been a clintasha, actively dislike it actually, but i do enjoy their scenes when they get them.) but what a slap in the face. she deserved to be in that girl team up. i couldn’t even fully enjoy it.

and worst to me personally, they killed her off just because he has a family. i’m sorry?? that makes his life more valuable then her’s??? i get that losing him would be extremely rough on his family, but i do NOT like the message that that makes her more expendable than him. what about natasha’s found family, the lives she touched? the good she could’ve continued to do? that doesn’t matter? and i really can’t stress how much more screentime she’s had them him; from an out of universe character standpoint, she is absolutely more valuable than him.

i do not think it was out of character for her to give her life (and god at least it was her choice, unlike poor gamora,) i see the idea of the beauty in this character “redeeming” herself by giving her life to get one of the stones in the only way possible. they couldn’t have saved the world without her. but why was death her only way to wipe out her red? why couldn’t she have lived to continue on being a hero? maybe be the new fury, connect her to agents of shield.

i’m particularly mad at how little steve seemed to mourn. they shared more movies together than anyone else, making them her best relationship; they’re inseparable in iw. all that on screen, multiple movie long build up, and all we get is some tears. and these are the same people who wrote the majority of that relationship, there’s no excuse.

she doesn’t even get a funeral!! just one last mention from clint. what about fury and maria? did they care? at least give her more respect than that. tony died with his team, wife, and a whole battleground beside him, kind words easing him off. nat died painfully and suddenly, cold and nearly alone. she deserved a better goodbye than that. let the whole world know that two avengers give themselves for the them. 

my one solace is that at least she’s with tony in whatever the marvel heaven is and they aren’t alone. brotp to the very end.

(it should’ve been clint. sorry, but i’m mad and that’s how i feel. it would’ve been sad but.... he was always my least favorite anyway. or maybe they could’ve found a way so neither of them had to, i dunno. i’m sure the writers could’ve thought of something. also i don’t buy that hulk’s snap couldn’t’ve have brought her back. would that really have upset anyone? no. it should’ve happened.)

but after thinking about it for a few days now, i think what makes me even more upset, more insulting than natsha’s death, is steve’s ending. i have way more attachment to my beloved widow, but at least, at least i can say that as much as i hated it, her last scene was beautiful in it’s own way, true to her character, brave, extremely well acted, and meaningful. she chose to die thinking about her best friend, his family who was also her own, her team, and the world. while i don’t think it was the culmination of her character arc, it was at least an end that i can believe to some degree. steve? they ruined steve.

steve’s arc from day one was about moving on, looking forward, and making the most in what he had. that he had to let go of the past and accept his new life. this is clearly set up in this very movie when he tells a group of people to move on, but then to natasha claims the two of them don’t. they decided that the climax of this arc was to make it so....he never actually moves on? he just gave up and never tried? look i’m not a film writer, but i’m pretty sure when you set up a conflict like that, you have them subvert it. like first act “we don’t move on” last act “we learned to finally move on.” that’s what character growth is. by making steve run all the way to the 40′s, you undo all the progress he’s been making since 2012.

and not only that but this requires me to believe that the over 10 years he was out of the ice never changed him. he never ever grew to accept his new life? sorry, i don’t buy that. he had sam, nat, the other avengers, even bucky came back to him. he says it himself in aou, a different person came out of the ice than the one who went in, one that didn’t really need the family and dream house and all that. where did that guy go? (plus is this dude really gonna go back to the past knowing all the shit that’s going to go down, both supervillain wise but also real history? does he just ignore everything?? what happens in that universe.)

look i like peggy. she’s amazing. she deserved more seasons for her show. but i just do not believe she was the love of his life. ya’ll are giving marvel wayyy to much credit with that. they knew each other for like two-ish years and had one kiss. never even went on a date. out of universe, we have not seen them romantically since 2011. it’s just not realistic to me that he would still be holding a candle for her, ten years later. a few years? sure, but over ten? nah man. he claims he wants someone with “shared life experience” and i guess we’re supposed to believe that’s peggy. but that’s not true anymore because he’s now had WAY more shared experiences with natasha, sam, and of course bucky, his lifelong friend. you really want me to believe he’s still madly in love with a woman he barely knew (in the long run) and not natasha?? who was by his side for like six years straight, some of the worse years of their lives?? yeah i don’t believe that, no matter how much i like peg. but way to send the message “if you get a first crush, that’s it! that’s all you get! you’ll never move on.”

(”but guys and girls can just be friends!” i hear you say. “romantic capwidow would undermine that.” to which i point to nat’s friendships with: clint, rhodey, tony, thor, bruce post aou, and literally everyone else. her dating one guy she’s known for over ten years would not invalidate all the rest of her platonic m/f friendships. this idea that dating someone you’ve known for a relatively short time is ok, but if you’ve known them for years than it should stay platonic is extremely weird. especially since some of the people i’ve seen say that about capwidow ship winterwidow. who have traded one single line. ya’ll know what’s what made hulkwidow bad right???)

he met with peggy when she was older. she moved on, had a life. he buried her. civil war gave him peggy closure. by just making so they get together anyway, you rob these scenes of their power.

tony and nat both wanted families and normalcy (ugh, i loathe to acknowledge that awful scene in aou, but it is heavily implied in an unfortunately canon movie that nat would be interested in a domestic life were it possible for her. but she also counted all her teammates as her family, and that’s what she wanted most.) they both died after only getting a small taste of that, dying to save the world at the cost of never seeing their families again. steve running off to have an idealistic ol fashioned 50′s life with his wife, and i assume children, kind of spits in the face of their sacrifice imo.

also way to get your dumb bucky (you know, the dude you almost got arrested for and split your superhero family apart for?) back for like a day and then IMMEDIATELY growing old without him. cool move. not like you could’ve navigated the unknown future together.

“but arctic,” i hear you say, “steve deserved to have a normal life!” he sure did. they all did! but that didn’t need to be by going back to be with peggy, ruining his character. you know what actually would’ve made more sense? if they had found a way to bring natasha back (look all steve had to do with give the soul stone back and either 1) “a soul for a soul” counts both ways or 2) bring doctor strange with him, wait until past clint leaves with his soul stone, and then use to time stone to reserve just natasha and bring her back. we know it can revive people because it happened in strange’s movie. easy fucking peasy.) he brings nat back, hugs all around, he gives sam the shield, and then he walks off into the sunset with nat, both of them retiring, but not far away just like thor, clint, and bruce. (it doesn’t have to be romance, but nat IS his closest companion by this point, that is undeniable.) he finally puts his past to rest, and so does nat. maybe the final scene is still him dancing with peggy, but he left that universe right after, giving them both that closure. they got their dance, they can look to the future. that is a much better send off for the end of the phase.

at least i’m glad my ot3 left the franchise together.

overall, i really did like about 80% of this movie. i got so mad at the end there because i care so much about these characters. because i was having a lot of fun and then was left unsatisfied (i would not have believed this was the same team behind winter solider and civil war if i didn’t look it up myself. i know they can do better.) i could forgive the time travel, the weird as FUCK 2014/2023 crossover, if they hadn’t done nat and steve so dirty like that. was this a good movie? yes. but i probably won’t see it again until it’s out on netflix and i can stop watching it right before nat dies.

i’m always going to be a marvel person, i’ll keep watching them. i’ll see far from home. but a light has definitely dimmed. at least there’s always black panther.

[37h4n0l]

1) Don't worry, I (aka the anon who started it all) don't think your reply came off as hostile at all. It's just so tiring when you want to get some things that bother you off your chest and then the obligatory 'but not all xyz do this or that' happens. Yes, I do know that, but it's a generalization. Not all, but enough to make you think it may even be the better part of the fandom. That being said, I agree with all your points against YOI. OK, so the victuuri relationship may be a cute and

(Rest under the cut) (I also hope no one will lynch me for being lazy and putting this out without doing anything about censoring shipnames but I’ll spam it with all the possible anti tags, fear not)

fluffy one that makes you feel good and warm inside or whatever, but is there really a need to write essays analyzing every single gesture or facial expression and then feel proud of your analytical skills, as if you've just discovered a new planet? No, there is not. It's not that deep; it's actually as straightforward a show as it can be. The bashing of otayuri and pliroy is one thing and it has more to do with the general moral poilce anti trend that is spreading everywhere, so I wouldn't attribute it solely to the YOI fandom. Now on the other hand, the bashing of pliroy just because it's contradictory to otayuri, one of the holy doublet of YOI ships, is something that bothers me personally. It's almost as if shipping anything that directly contradicts victuuri/otayuri is a blasphemy in this fandom and generally looked down upon. I've actually seen someone outright ask why would anyone ship pliroy when otayuri exists/is canon/is clearly a better and more healthy option for Yuri etc. So, this and the constant victuuri/otayuri wank, while all the other characters/smaller ships are mostly a background noise to it; it really seems to me as if 5 fanarts out of 10 on my dashboard would feature victuuri, 4 would feature otayuri and there's only one left for other pairings (one-track-mindedness at its finest). And there's of course the fact that most YOI fans seriously think that victuuri is the first canon gay couple in the history of anime, that the anime itself is revolutionary and progressive, that victuuri is a prefect representation, that YOI is the actual anime of the year, because popularity doesn't lie, and if you dare to disagree with all of those, then you're clearly homophobic and whatnot. Plus, there's the invading of the tags unrelated to YOI (not even for the purpose of recommending other titles but to say something along the lines of 'if shit like xyz got a second season, then YOI deserves at least seven' - actually seen something like that with my own eyes) or hijacking of the serious topics (like the oppression of sexual minorities) and making them all about YOI. And that's just the top of the list of what the YOI fandom is guilty of. But hey, it's alright, because it's 'not all' YOI fans. Siigh. Sorry it got so long, but ugh. Sometimes I wish someone would just delete YOI from existence so that we would be spared of all this saltiness. As for 91d, you're probably right about everything but still, I'll never be able to understand why anyone would just voluntarily turn off their thought processes and comprehension skills just because of some personal biases, especially when it comes to a show such as 91d, that requires at least the bare minimum of thinking and analyzing. But whatever, I guess people nowadays are just too used to having everything spelled out to them and handed on a silver plattter (ex. they should've had it explicitly stated on-screen that Avilio and Nero didn't hate each other).

This goes for all the ‘not all’ arguments; the important thing is, as you said, how widespread a behaviour is statistically within a community, but also whether the other members acknowledge that it’s happening or not. I know it’s easy to take it personally when you hear someone complain about a fandom you’re in, but at that point it really only depends on wording (which is deliberately harsh when someone is just venting, it’s just the way it is). 

About meta; yeah, I find a lot of it superfluous as well, as I’ve said before. And by this I don’t mean it should be eliminated from the face of the planet, just that I don’t personally put the 2934892348th detailed explanation on why vn and yk love each other so much in the same ‘tier’ as, say, speculations about the second season or character parallelisms and stuff like that. It’s shipperwankery in the end and I don’t think me making fun of it harms anyone? The only thing I worry about is that it’s hard to separate banter from an actual serious opinion from time to time (could be about how I express myself? Probably yes). No, for the record, I don’t want to exterminate anyone who makes extensive posts about vn’s lustful glare. It’s just... There’s too much of it. Way too much. By the way, the ring controversy and the reaches made there will never not be funny, sorry not sorry.

A bit of a tangent on the otayuri-pliroy conflict; it always seemed so weird to me how similar the two ships are aesthetically? (Considering people keep confusing the two on fanart, I’d say that’s a major fuckup in terms of JJ’s and Otabek’s character design, but that might just be me). I keep getting the impression that they wanted the pliroy bait to go somewhere but then changed their mind for whatever reason and created otayuri as kind of a ‘tamer substitute’. But this is besides the point; it all brings me back to my personal beef with this tendency of positing ‘sugary sweet’ as the only acceptable standard for a relationship because... people are more sensitive nowadays? I can only guess. Viktuuri and otayuri got tied together for some reason, it’s like they come in a package and everyone who ships one has to run with the other as well. 

I grieve for the background characters and smaller ships as well, anon. Just imagine the sheer crack potential; and instead, everything gets pushed in the back in favour of the same things over and over. The things that could’ve been: victurio (the underage ship that tumblr will fucking lynch me for), emil/michele, sara/mila, georgi/yurio (yes I do love my crack), chris/victor, chris/that guy we saw in his room, yuuri’s sister/literally anyone (because I like her) and the list could go on and on. But this is not even always about the ship itself; it’s the dynamics, those are what popularizes things. Even when there are ships in other fandoms that have been popular for a longer time, there’s a tendency on tumblr to make them very mild and fluffy. I’m not saying there’s anything we can do about this, nor that something should be done about it, all I’m in opposition to is people who claim it’s the ‘right’ way to do shipping because it’s ‘healthier’ or something, as you put it.

Because popularity doesn’t lie

Thank you, this is exactly how I’d word it as well. The crux of this issue isn’t yoi being objectively good or bad, it’s whether popularity implies that something is good, or not. Or what ‘good’ even means in this context. My personal (salty) opinion is that there are anime that could be enjoyed just as much as (if not more than) yoi if only they got more exposure. I’m not talking about 91d either because I’ve already explained in detail what the problem with advertising it was in the previous post. And yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re talking about that certain addition to the Chechnya post. I can see it was well-intentioned but it was... well... a little bit out of place, to put it in euphemisms? ‘Too soon’, as they say? But, in the end, I’m sort of glad that yoi exists because if not anything else, it can be considered a massive social experiment, an example of fandom behaviour. And if it made some people happy, then I wish them all the best. The fixation with it will go away with time too, eventually.