Currently Thinking About How Self Isolation And Quarantine Will Unfortunately Lead To More Domestic Abuse

He’s ready to do some shopping. 🔊

Endgame Spoilers:

If Endgame was for fans who have seen all the movies and know all the characters (and with all the callbacks and cameos, this really is indisputable), then why does the movie keep having to remind the audience about who Peggy is, what she means to Steve, and how Steve never got over her?  Shouldn’t the audience already know this?  Why keep emphasizing it?   

Going from memory alone here, the Peggy references were: - Steve in the ship on the way to Titan, looking at Peggy’s picture inside the compass. - Steve at the group therapy session referring to Peggy as the love of his life. - Steve fighting the 2012 version of himself and revealing the picture in the compass again. - Steve seeing the picture of himself on Peggy’s desk. - Steve not being able to help himself from watching Peggy through the window in her office.

This is… really excessive foreshadowing.  Did the fans really need to be bashed over the head this much?  If they’ve seen the movies and are fans of the character, shouldn’t they already know what Endgame keeps telling us over and over again?  That Peggy, even after her death, is still the most important person in Steve’s life, that Steve is full of regrets about her, that nothing in the modern world, not even after Thanos is defeated and everyone is un-snapped, could possibly be more dear to Steve than Peggy, and that he would do anything to finally have that dance with her, even give up being Captain America?  Because this is precisely what the audience MUST believe in order for Steve’s ending to feel right and satisfying.  

But if instead, you went into Endgame believing that the living, breathing Avengers were the most important people in Steve’s life, that Steve more or less made peace with his regrets at some point between Peggy telling Steve to move on and start over in 2014, and Steve kissing Sharon in 2016, that the dearest thing to Steve in the modern world is his best friend Bucky Barnes, for whom Steve would do anything to protect, including storming a Hydra base single-handedly with little more than a costume prop, let a confused and volatile WS!Bucky beat him almost to death rather than continue to fight him even in self defense, defy his nation rather than hand over Bucky, brutally fight a good friend so violently that he feared you would literally decapitate him, give up being Captain America, become an international fugitive, and live in hiding/on the run for two years?  If you believed that, then Steve’s ending was at best confusingly out of character and at worst, premeditated character assassination.

I think the filmmakers knew very well that Steve’s ending would not work unless the audience believed Peggy was everything to Steve, and in order for the audience to believe that, they were going to need to establish it in Endgame.  Because the prior movies featuring Steve sure as hell didn’t.  And thus, we get Endgame “reminding” us of things that directly contradict everything we’ve seen from Steve Rogers in prior movies.

Something I want to keep as I keep pronouncing it wrong myself.

you know. sometimes i think. in the face of tony’s obvious trauma and ptsd. in the face of the more obvious pain that bucky has suffered. we forget that steve’s motivation in the film isn’t just his tendency to hold stubbornly fast to his ideals, to do what he feels is right and damn the rest. 

steve’s hurting too.

like. guys. we are so ready to give weight to tony’s emotional boiling over point at the end of the film, to say “this is why he tried to kill bucky, and it’s not right but it’s understandable.” we are so ready to acknowledge the fact that bucky was a victim and motivated to run by his fear of further persecution and hurt from nefarious forces. what about steve, though? when do we acknowledge that steve’s not just acting with righteous arrogance, but a deep anger, isolation, fear, loneliness, sadness, and hope?

steve died. like, his last memory before waking up seventy years in the future is a few days after watching his best friend fall from a train and he was unable to stop it he willingly flies a plane into the fucking Arctic, ostensibly to his death.

guys. guys. tony was fucked up for years because of untreated ptsd after falling from space and thinking he was dead. why is it so hard to remember that steve probably is fucked up, too? 

this dude, he wakes up seventy years in the future and he has to make his way without really anyone or anything familiar, and the only person who is familiar is suffering from memory loss, and he’s now operating under the thumb of shadowy organization that he’s not 100 percent does good things and that continuously lies to him. there’s no war to fight, but that’s all this body is good for. it’s all he knows. 

he doesn’t know what makes him happy. guys.

and so he goes through another trauma when he discovers this villain who is trying to kill him is in fact the dead best friend who—surprise!—was actually captured after falling and losing an arm and his brains were scrambled to turn him into a murder assassin. we know for a fact steve feels tremendous guilt over this. but imagine beyond guilt, the sorrow, the nightmarish possibilities, that are turning over in steve’s head. the idea of what his friend suffered. remember when rhodey fell from the sky and tony blasted sam in the chest? imagine the anger in steve’s heart at the idea of what bucky’s suffered and the unwillingness to let that go unchecked and unsaved.

oh, plus. that shadowy organization he’s been fighting for? the people he’s been taking orders from? the top dog in the neat little hierarchy that’s arranged his world? yeah. hydra. everything steve has known turns upside down. he can’t trust anything. imagine the paranoia. the suspicion. imagine the fear that must take seed at that betrayal.

and then! of course, then he begins fighting these battles with the avengers where the collateral damage is on such a bigger scale than it was at war. where there are aliens. aliens, you guys. and he’s tasked with leading this motley crew of superheroes in a world he’s still getting used to and people die, lots of people die, and we know that even if it doesnt visibly affect him like it affects tony (who always seems shocked when he’s confronted with loss, because it’s presented to him on a personal, individual level) it does affect him. that steve feels the guilt of lives lost. imagine that burden. imagine the weight of the shield, the mask, the responsibility. imagine the loneliness. the fear.

so then. then. in the space of a few days. steve deals with more guilt from the deaths in lagos. he shoulders that burden. then he deals with the moral quandary of signing the accords. he wrestles with that decision. peggy dies. he grieves, oh goodness does he grieve. vienna fuckin blows up and that elusive best friend is now the suspect. so steve is grieving, he is confused and conflicted, and now he feels doubly guilty—that’s the person he has been looking for, should he have already caught him? did he do it? he couldn’t have. does he bring him in? does he shoulder this responsibility too? what will they make him do when he catches up to bucky? what should he do? steve might act like he always knows what’s right, but a decision like this isn’t easy. it messes with a person. and when you’re dealing with all that mess in your head, sometimes you don’t think. sometimes…you act.

like when bucky is triggered, when steve stops a helicopter with his bare fucking hands, you can feel the desperation. that’s not ordinary heroics. that’s not steve just trying to stop bucky from escaping and possibly hurting others. it’s steve fighting for bucky. for this piece of his past. for the possibility of an end to loneliness. for the possibility of redemption for letting him fall. 

and when they go on the run, when they know they have to stop the supersoldiers, when they clash with tony’s team, can you imagine steve’s sheer frustration that no one gets what is at stake? that no one is willing to listen? and yes, he didn’t even try—but why is that, you think? is it possibly because steve is used to institutions and those in power ignoring what he thinks is right and causing disaster anyway?

when steve says, “pal, so are we.” when steve acknowledges to natasha that he’s 90 not dead, when he openly references the fact that he and bucky are 100, can you imagine knowing that? adjusting to that? being 20-something in body and memory but 100 in actuality? living in a body that people perceive as a weapon so strongly that you’ve become a weapon when you are still longing to rediscover the man you were? steve’s not just cap. steve’s steve, and he doesn’t know what makes him happy you guys. he’s a guy, he’s a human, and he’s dealing with A Lot.

i get that he makes some bad calls in the movie. so does tony. my beef is that while tony’s decisions are often supported by his very obvious trauma and emotional burden, we rarely seem to give enough weight to the very real and very similar turmoil that is going on inside of steve.

when tony is fighting him in siberia. when steve says, “he’s my friend,” so simply, so sadly, without any righteousness, just clean tired truth, that’s steve as steve. when he hid the truth from tony, that’s steve as steve. when he drops the shield, that’s steve reclaiming himself as steve. we expect cap all the time, because often, steve is cap. it’s easy to see him as the moral police that way, if reductionist.

but we forget to see steve as steve. that he is a kid, in some ways. and a grieving, lost, lonely kid with a lot of anger, sadness, confusion, and power boiling under the placid-seeming surface.

THE WORLD:

ALSO THE WORLD:

Pros of being a Fandom Old: - never have to worry about my mom finding out about my porn fic - have seen it all before and give few if any fucks

Cons of being a Fandom Old: - forced to work at actual job instead of writing fic all day - have seen it all before and get regular “ugh not again” moments

Hi there! I've been interested in paganism for a while now but every time I try to look into it, I get totally overwhelmed! I was wondering if you could give me a basic rundown of what's out there, as in what types/religions are out there and any other newbie advice. Any resources you have with info would be great too! (ps i've been noticing a pull to the ocean lately so anything related to that would be amazing!)

It isn’t unusual to feel a bit overwhelmed when starting out. Just take a deep breath and meditate of what your reading and own research has drawn out for you.

Start a binder, this binder/notebook will possibly turn into your Book of Shadows (BoS), and will be your guide/dictionary for you. Put things in it that you’ve deemed important, or find interesting. Such as you having a pull to the sea. 

Types of Paganism are Wicca, Shamanism, Druidism, Native American practices, Fae, Celtic, Egyptian, Green Witch, Magick, and any other religion that is polytheistic (typically) or heavily dealing with nature and oneness with it.

My basic advice, is take all the research that you find important and write/print it out and place it in a binder of sorts. This will help tame the overwhelming feeling of it all.

)o(

I’m in this post and I'm being called out :’(

When others talk about something you love and remember, but mention they were like 8 years old when that came out.