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dtissagirl · 5 years

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I fought the war but the war won

Warning: all the spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.

OF COURSE I have no doubt Natasha would sacrifice herself for the world in a heartbeat.

And between her and Clint, it's obvious her thinking is he can have a future with his ~family~, and she's obviously been insanely isolated these last five years, and filled with regret, and sacrificing herself for her found family [and saving the universe in the process] is worth it for her.

But my problem is I don't acknowledge the existence of Clint's family because that's a dumbass story idea from the worst movie ever GO AWAY LINDA CARDELLINI.

And watching Nat and Clint back together made my heart ache because those two belong together -- romantically if you prefer it so, but mainly together as in partners that work insanely well together in a fictional narrative. They have had this lived-in chemistry from the first Avengers, and I didn't realize how much I had missed it until this movie.

[Fuck Joss Whedon with a cactus forever.]

[Someone make me that Black Widow movie and show me Budapest. I DESERVE IT.]

...

And then the scene with all the dudes in the lake angry-mourning Nat looks REALLY REALLY BAD because the only thing that emotionally rings out of that scene is HOLY SHIT THEY FUCKING KILLED THE ONLY WOMAN OH MY GOD PLEASE END ALL MEN WRITING SUPERHERO STORIES BECAUSE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW HORRIBLE THE OPTICS ARE WHEN THEY FUCKING KILL THE ONLY ORIGINAL WOMAN AVENGER IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE MOVIE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO CELEBRATE THEIR LEGACY. HOLY FUCK.

...

Holy motherfucking shitballs what they did to Thor was a supreme case of extreme fatphobia. So fucking embarrassing. And they could have done the exact same depression/PTSD shit without a fat suit. Fatness is NOT a character flaw, and for this movie to think it's okay to portray it as such, and for most people in the audience to not even realize how horrible this is... well, that's the fatphobic world we live in everyday wherein thin people don't realize how fucking horrible they are about fatness ALL THE TIME. Ugh.

And hey, I think Hemsworth is a comedic genius at this point, and I'm super glad Hollywood at large has realized he can run circles of funny and comic timing around everybody else [THANKS, GHOSTBUSTERS!], but the fat suit soured it forever in this movie.

...

Look, I know at this point Goop is a hazardous danger to women's health at large, and call me a hypocrite for separating actor and character this particular time when I usually don't, but I love and adore and cherish Pepper Potts with all my heart.

SHE is the reason I'm so connected to the MCU. My hook wasn't any of the superheroes, it was Pepper in the first Iron Man movie. She's the glue that has made me engage with this universe so deeply for the last ten years. All the fanart, all the fic, all the fanworks ever I've created or consumed in the last decade, it has been all about how much I adore Pepper.

And to see her in the Rescue armor in the final battle, I just. I wasn't expecting it. I hadn't even thought it was ever gonna happen, but THIS was the true culmination of the past ten years for me. From now on, I can say it without a doubt every single time someone asks me who's my favorite Avenger. It's Pepper Potts.

[I also kept thinking about my friend S. She would have been so fucking ecstatic about this. It hit me right in the face when Pepper showed up in battle -- I so dearly wish S were here to see this.]

...

Okay, so, disclaimer: I don't have a horse in the Steve Rogers 'shipping infinity wars. I crack 'ship Steve with Maria Hill forever and ever because they would make the prettiest babies on the planet and I don't even like babies. The only part of Ultron that I acknowledge is Maria wearing Steve's jacket at the party. It's the ONLY thing that happened in that movie, NOTHING ELSE DID.

And I don't even blame Steve in any of this mess, to be honest.

The problem here is structural. The narrative went OUT OF THIS WAY to establish HOW time-travel works in this universe. They even got all gloat-y about how every movie ever made was wrong about the ~quantum physics~ of it. They even had bald Tilda Swinton MAKE A POWER POINT PRESENTATION about the rules of time travel.

They set up ONE very specific rule -- changing the past doesn't alter one's own future, it creates a separate timeline of events. O-kay. Pretty simple rule.

...And then Old!Cap who looks scarily like Joe Biden broke that one rule.

Because he did. He went back in time and put all the stones in their proper place in the timeline[1]... and *after that* he went back to the 40s to live happily ever after with Peggy[2], THUS ***CHANGING THE PAST*** and *****CREATING AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE*****.

So there's no. fucking. possible. way. he could have grown old in the original timeline.

And like. They could have fixed that by having Joe Biden Old!Cap legit come back IN THE TIME TRAVEL SUIT IN THE QUANTUM PLATFORM. THAT WOULD HAVE FIXED THIS PROBLEM. But they didn't, so they broke their own story.

And the consequence of this fuck up is... Steve a horrible person. [And even writing that makes me sad because he isn't? He wouldn't ever?] But by breaking their story and their own time-travel rules, it fucks up Steve so badly I wanna cry. So what, he lived a whole life in this same timeline, and did nothing to change anything? Did he marry the future DIRECTOR OF SHIELD and never told her about Hydra? About Bucky? Did he open a newspaper one day and read that Howard and Maria Stark died in a car accident and went, oops? Did he pretend he was sick when his wife told him she was going to the funeral of her lifelong friend?

Do you see how badly it looks? It's bad. The Steve I know and love doesn't deserve this. Please go punch the Russos in the face, Cap.

Notes:

[1] HOW did Steve even put the stones in jewel form back in their proper places in the timeline when they stole the Tesseract in cube form, the mind stone with the scepter, the whatever stone that was they got from Star Lord that was inside an orb... HOW do you even put the soul stone back, like, does Cap go to Vormir and goes, oh hey, RED SKULL MY OLD BUDDY, MY OLE TIME FELLA, here's your soul stone back? Does he get Natasha back for the stone? Isn't it a soul for a soul? Does it work in reverse too?

[2] Hey, so if Steve lived happily ever after with Peggy in this timeline did he erase her future kids? This is Barry Allen levels of fuckupdness, Steve. Gah. And also -- I would pay actual monies to watch time-traveler Steve explain to Peggy that after he went to her funeral he kissed her niece. This is why I 'ship Steve with Maria Hill, man. No complications. Only pretty.

Also: STEVE ROGERS ERASED THE ENTIRETY OF THE AGENT CARTER TV SHOW. That's pretty unforgivable, man. They even had TV show Jarvis right there in this movie driving Tony's dad around in the 70s to make THIS BETRAYAL hurt more.

...

Four hours after I watched the movie I remembered Tony died and started ugly crying again. I'm glad he had those five years of a good life, I'm so glad he had a kid -- that kid, so obviously HIS kid it hurt, I'm so glad Pepper and Rhodey and Peter were there with him in his last moments. I'm glad he got the proper hero death. It still hurts like a son of a bitch.

...

Professor Hulk is a forever delight and he and I need to become besties so we can talk about quantum physics and eat hulkish amounts of breakfast foods every day.

...

I find Thanos to be a complete bore, so every time he sat and started monologuing I stopped paying attention because I DESERVE TO NOT have to listen to giant purple incels pretending they ~know best~ about anything.

But I did appreciate that there was a difference in tone. This was 2014 Thanos, before he went full on cray cray with the monologuing, so he spoke less [bless], and he went full nihilist I AM GOING TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE instead of only half of it ~for balance~ or whatever. Because Infinity Wars tried to make it like Thanos wanting to kill 50% of the universe had some sort of ~logic~ behind it, and that was way too close to ~both sides~ shit, and, no, son. Him wanting to destroy EVERYTHING put him in the right proper category of batshit crazy bananapants deranged, and that's where he should have been ALL ALONG, no ~he has a point~ arguments ever valid, he doesn't, he never did, shut the fuck up.

...

I actually really really enjoyed the pacing of this movie. Granted, I'm not stupid and I took a muscle relaxant beforehand so that I could sit still for one hundred and eighty two fucking minutes, but I honestly didn't feel it drag at all at any time [and I felt all the other Avengers movies drag at some point or another].

I appreciated it so much that the set up for the final battle took waaaaay longer than the final battle. [I know people go ga-ga for battle scenes, but eh. I prefer my superheroes as pretty people who talk really fast, and battles make them stop talking.]

My favorite sequence was the revisiting of the previous movies. I loved every single piece of it, and I know in my heart that I'm gonna rewatch those sequences over and over and over again for the rest of forever. THE CAP 2 ELEVATOR SCENE REENACTMENT BUT NOT REALLY OH MY GOD THAT WAS GLORIOUS.

Also Loki stealing the Tesseract [again!] was aces. Sure it was to set up extra time-travel shenanigans, but still. Loki and the Tesseract belong together. Please let this be the premise of the Disney+ series.

...

Even though battle sequences aren't really my thing, I would like to express my DEEP ABIDING LOVE for the part when all the women got together to help Peter move the Big Glove of Kitsch towards the van. My packed theater clapped so hard. I cried.

...

HOW DOES PETER PARKER GO BACK TO SCHOOL FIVE YEARS LATER AND HIS BUDDY IS STILL THERE DID HIS BUDDY FLUNK HIGH SCHOOL FIVE YEARS IN A ROW? WHAT?

...

Also Cap and the Hammer, the actual true love story of this movie. Thor's little "I knew it". I knew it too, buddy.

...

I'm gonna need Marvel to release the behind the scenes footage of the filming of Tony's funeral. I hope the cast had an actual party right there, all somberly dressed in black and everything.

...

After a full season of 22 episodes of television in a movie screen, this was a pretty great finale. Congrats on making the most expensive tv show of all time, Marvel. Excelsior!

#mcu #marvel cinematic universe #avengers #avengers endgame #endgame #movie #spoilers

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dtissagirl · 9 years

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So You Wanna Watch The X-Files

Before the new episodes arrive. But you wanna skip the duds. And the sucky ones. All you wanna do is watch Mulder and Scully being awesome. And pretty. And flirty. And behave like idiots who say their last names a lot [A LOT] while they're the only two people in the room.

So this is the list for you.

The super short list:

- Look up every episode written by Darin Morgan. Watch. - Look up every episode Vince Gilligan wrote solo. Watch. - Run away and STAY THERE every time John Shiban has solo writing credits. - Watch Post-Modern Prometheus.

The End.

[But, uh, don't watch the episode called The End. That one's a dud.]

The season by season list:

SEASON ONE

101: Pilot Duh. Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.

102: Deep Throat Conspiracy arc set up shenanigans.

103: Squeeze First super creepy Monster of the Week. Donal Logue is a douche. But not the MotW.

108: Ice Felicity Huffman! Xander Berkeley! The Arctic. Legit grossness. Sexy shoulders!

111: Fire Doctor Tina McGee from the '90s Flash and the current Flash is Mulder's girlfriend. Mark Sheppard is the MotW because this was the start of Vancooooouver.

112: Beyond the Sea First VERILY Scully-centric episode.

117: E.B.E. Aliens! First Lone Gunmen appearance.

121: Tooms Sequel to Squeeze; the one time they did a MotW follow-up that didn't suck.

124: The Erlenmeyer Flask Conspiracy mytharc season finale!

...And then Gillian Anderson got pregnant and to hide that fact, they changed the entire premise of the show from Mulder's conspiracy shenanigans story to the Mulder/Scully OTP story. THANKS FOR GETTING BORN, PIPER!

Noromos to the right!

SEASON TWO

201: Little Green Men Conspiracy mytharc season premiere!

205: Duane Barry KRYCEK KRYCEK KRYCEK KRYCEK KRYCEK. Also, this is where the MSR shifts into the main focus of the show. Yes, it was that early in the run. The Noromos were in denial for five years, it was hilarious.

206: Ascension [part 1 of 2] Conspiracy mytharc, now with 'SHIIIP.

208: One Breath [part 2 of 2] Conspiracy mytharc, cont., now with extreme levels of 'SHIIIP.

213: Irresistible Creepy creepster be creeping. Think Criminal Minds/SVU creepy, and then make it worse.

216: Colony [part 1 of 2] Alien conspiracies 1 x 0 Mulder

217: End Game [part 2 of 2] Alien conspiracies 2 x 0 Mulder

220: Humbug Darin Morgan has arrived! Meta linguistics self-deprecating shenanigans that legit set the bar for the entire TV industry on how to do meta.

225: Anasazi [part 1 of 3] The greatest multi-episode mytharc they've ever done. Shit gets real. And personal. Duchovny gets story credit on this one.

SEASON THREE 301: The Blessing Way [part 2 of 3] Cont. Still great. Now with aliens!

302: Paper Clip [part 3 of 3] Cont. cont. Now with Nazis! I wanna point out here that at the time of shooting this 3-parter, Nicholas Lea and Melinda McGraw were dating. For it is amusing to know this while watching.

304: Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose Darin Morgan! From this point on, his name is enough to make the episode a must-watch.

309: Nisei [part 1 of 2] Conspiracy! Trains! Alien autopsies!

310: 731 [part 2 of 2] Conspiracy! Alien autopsies! Now with more Scully-centric shenanigans.

312: War of the Coprophages Darin Morgan. Paranoid towns are the worst. HER NAME IS BAMBI?!

313: Syzygy Stars alignment is a serious thing, okay? Ryan Reynolds in the role of the dead jock in the cold open. HATE HIM. WOULDN'T WANNA DATE HIM.

315: Piper Maru [part 1 of 2] Alien black goo! Is it biodegradable? Is it Valvoline? It also keeps changing texture because special FXs budget wildly varied episode to episode.

316: Apocrypha [part 2 of 2] Cont. Guess who's back, back again.

317: Pusher Vince. Fucking. Gilligan. Best episode ever. No, really. If anyone says otherwise, they're lying AND wrong at the same time. Also, back in the day, fandom referred to the middle of S3 as "The Rift", i.e. Mulder and Scully being at odds with each other. This episode solves The Rift.

320: Jose Chung's From Outer Space Darin Morgan. ROSWELL! ROSWELL!

Cold hard truth: this is the point where you quit if you're not hooked yet.

If you're hooked, then let's continue:

SEASON FOUR

402: Home Most disturbing hour of television ever made. Brilliant, but horrifying. It's okay to never want to re-watch this episode ever again, though.

408: Tunguska [part 1 of 2] Alien rocks and Russian spies, oh my.

409: Terma [part 2 of 2] IN SOVIET RUSSIA... alien conspiracies go exactly the same, actually.

410: Paper Hearts That time The X-Files made you want to draw hearts all over a creepy serial killer episode. Vince Gilligan, man. No wonder he owns the world now.

412: Leonard Betts This episode is pretty lame, and super gross, but it pushes forward the big Scully storyline that follows, so it makes the list.

413: Never Again Mulder's on vacation, Scully downward spirals, Jodie Foster guests as a talking tattoo.

414: Memento Mori <3 <3 <3 Scully <3 <3 <3

420: Small Potatoes Vince Gilligan is a genius, and here's how. Babies are born with tails. The H is silent. His name is Luke Skywalker, he's what is known as a Jedi knight.

424: Gethesemane [part 1 of 3] Alien conspiracies and Scully's life are now the same thing. Sadwoes. Bonus info: John Oliver is in this episode.

SEASON FIVE

501: Redux [part 2 of 3] Cont. Still sad, still woe, still alien conspiracy.

502: Redux II [part 3 of 3] Cont. cont. Even sadder. All the woes.

505: The Post-Modern Prometheus Chris Carter is kind of the worst, but every time he goes over the top whimsical, he's kind of the best? This episode is his masterpiece.

506: Christmas Carol [part 1 of 2] Disclaimer: I find this 2-parter kind of awful with regards to how they deal with Scully's fertility issues, but Gillian Anderson OWNS the screen. And these episodes are important to Scully's arc, so they make the list.

507: Emily [part 2 of 2] Cont. Sadness ensues. This is when I stopped caring about the mytharc episodes. There are very few of those on this list from this point on.

510: Chinga Stephen King wrote this one. Scully's on vacation in Maine. Mulder is a lost puppy without her. They do the Hokey Pokey and turn themselves around.

512: Bad Blood VINCE GILLIGAN DOES RASHOMON. It goes fantastic. Luke Wilson stars. VAMPIRES. If it weren’t for Pusher, this would be the best episode ever.

517: All Souls A study of Scully's faith. Mulder is a jerk. He's lucky he's pretty.

519: Folie a Deux Vince Gilligan. People are going nuts, must be an X-File. You're my one in five billion.

All you need to know about the S5 season finale going into the movie is the FBI closed the X-Files again.

THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE Watch the movie, listen to the soundtrack, hate bees for the last of your life.

youtube

SEASON SIX

603: Triangle Time travel! Chris Carter doing whimsical: it works. Also, each act of this episode is a one-off long shot, which for the film geeks out there o/, makes it even more joyful.

604: Dreamland [part 1 of 2] AREA 51! Body switching! Michael McKean is a gift. Back in the day, the dudebro crowd who thought the X-Files was about conspiracy and aliens [lol], and not, you know, the greatest love story ever told, ~hated this episode~ with all their dudebro hearts for ~making a mockery~ of Area 51. That knowledge makes these episodes greater.

605: Dreamland II [part 2 of 2] Cont. I'd kiss you if you weren't so damn ugly.

606: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner haunt a mansion on Christmas Eve. Hijinks ensue.

608: The Rain King This is the first episode of television Jeffrey Bell ever wrote. It's a rom-com. It's delightful.

614: Monday Mulder does Groundhog Day. Worst case of the Mondays ever.

615: Arcadia Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple in a Stepford-y gated community. It goes exactly as expected.

619: The Unnatural Duchovny wrote and directed this ep. It's a baseball fable. Jesse L. Martin stars. Everything goes lovely.

622: Biogenesis [part 1 of 3] Alien artifact is found in Africa. Murder conspiracy happens. M&S are brought into the investigation. This episode is all set up, but the S7 openers make no sense without it.

SEASON SEVEN 701: The Sixth Extinction [part 2 of 3] Mulder's brain is going haywire, whoever can save him?!

702: The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati [part 3 of 3] Scully. Duh.

703: Hungry Cannibalism before it was the tv standard. Chad Donella owns this episode. This is like, good cop, and INSANE COP.

704: Millennium Crossover with Millennium. Octavia Spencer is in this episode. Well, the world didn't end.

706: The Goldberg Variation Willie Garson and a 13 year old Shia LeBouf guest star. It's a luckiest man alive fable. Jeff Bell wrote this one.

717: all things Gillian wrote and directed this one. Scully questions her personal and professional choices, and wonders where her life is going. It's a crazy beautiful episode.

721: Je Souhaite A genie is let out of the bottle and grant Mulder three wishes. Vince Gilligan strikes again.

722: Requiem A UFO has crashed in the forest from the Pilot episode. FULL CIRCLE, The X-Files takes on it.

There were no more seasons after season seven, la la la, don't believe the lie!

TRUSTNO1.

[AKA I didn't really watch seasons eight or nine except for MSR clips. So. Watch the MSR clips, and you're good to go.]

[Then there was the second movie in 2008, but I legit only remember the very last scene, so there's that.]

I think I’m done? Is this on? I wanna speak to the writer!

....... This post is done in commemoration of my 20th anniversary in fandom. The first time I ever got online was 1995, and the first thing I ever looked up on the internets was XF. Lordy, I’m so old.

#the x-files #x-files #x-philes #i made this #things are getting strange i'm starting to worry #this could be a case for mulder and scully

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