nxvigation

[bedlamsbard]

read a bunch of Endgame criticism and now I just feel feral, but not in the way where it actually helps with my IW/Endgame AU

look, since I came back to marvel last year Endgame is arguably the most influential of the films in terms of what it made me write (Yonder/Horizon/Reaches, Morning), but that’s mostly because it’s the full “makes no damn sense, compels me though” of a movie where it’s a very specific kind of 5d chess where I’m like “I can work with this.”

for Yonderverse I made a lot of assumptions rolling it back to the original IW AU (Loki lives, Thor dies) about why things go differently in this ‘verse than in canon, because in the back of my head at all times I’m aware that the canon ‘verse still played out on a different branch of the Cosmos Tree (in a different timeline if, as Loki would say, we’re going to be pedestrian about it), so the reasons things happen differently have to somehow go back to that original divergence point. well, the Snap’s random, right? well, Loki surviving and Thor (not actually dying and) getting snapped is going to have knock-on randomization effects (also, like, because Loki and Thor have different fighting styles there were probably different casualty rates in Wakanda on both Thanos’s side and Earth’s side). because of that, Yelena doesn’t get snapped, but the other two Widows there do. Loki has a completely different fight with the UN over the founding of New Asgard than Thor did in the main timeline, which is why it doesn’t look anything like main timeline New Asgard; because it’s Loki instead of Thor, Steve, Nat, and Bruce are all there rather than staying in the U.S. the way they presumably did in canon.  I don’t think the whole plot of Horizon happened in canon, because unless proven otherwise, I’m going to assume the main bad guys in Horizon got snapped in the main timeline but didn’t in this one, which means that Yonderverse Steve had a very different five years than main timeline Steve (as did, like, everyone else, but specifically Steve).

and that’s partially because the hypothetical sequel to Yonder actually does involve the main timeline Endgame characters (or some of them, anyway), but also because I like being able to logic stuff out for reasons other than “I hated thing and I wanted it to not happen.” like, that’s a totally valid way to approach fanworks, but not enough for my brain specifically because I focus a lot on cause-and-effect.

(I came very close to having what would end up being Reaches!Thor have TVA!Loki’s role in the show and decided against it, partially because the way I work TVA!Loki is out there already and that may be why this ‘verse exists at all, and I didn’t want to hobble myself by having a separate TVA. so like. it’s not come up and it may never come up, but it’s in the back of my head.)  (even though as you may or may not be aware I actually...really dislike...the way that the MCU has done the multiverse. single point divergence or gtfo, but you know, like, whatever.)