#Maybe CA was the wrong one to choose because there are a lot of het ships I love | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

knockedupstream · 3 years

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We talk about how people often prefer the gay ship because the emotional heart of the story often revolves around two men and the female character often just exists to be the love interest. Sometimes I’ll change the sex of one of the characters to see if we would get a good het ship or if the studio would have likely made those two end game. I also look and see if I make a het ship a gay ship if it is something I would like. I do this to see if I’m just hating on the het ships or if it is just the writing of them I can’t get into.

Gonna only do the Captain America Crew in this post. Putting in the cut because this is long and will not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Stucky is probably the most popular ship in the MCU. Make Steve a woman, Stevie I guess. You’d have to basically rework the plot of The First Avenger because the military isn’t giving super soldier serum to a woman much less a sickly one and we have to find another reason for her to get the serum. I also dont’ think they’d make her the Star Spangled Woman with a plan unless it was to recruit woman to go to work or the Woman’s Army corps, but that’s a very different AU to write. But anyway, we get the woman saving the man. But yeah tomboyish sickly Stevie who wants to be a tough girl, is constantly picking fights, and Bucky having to go put a stop to it? Yeah its cute. Winter Soldier would probably get a lot of complaints if they went to romance route in a later movie because Bucky spends the movie brainwashed and trying to kill her. But as someone that loves angsty ships where the hero and villain (Even though Bucky was brainwashed) fall in love... yeah my emo at heart soul loves this whole thing.

Change Bucky to a woman. (Jamie?) Again some rewriting, but Bucky can be a tomboyish girl who has to always bail her sickly friend Steve out of fights. Joins the women’s army corps and is captured along with many male soldiers. Now this one does become a very bizaar damsel in distress story line and I could see complaints that a badass woman was reduced as such. But I kind of dig this. Maybe it’s all the female Bucky cosplayers out there but I’d be into this one. Hollywood would love it too because they can have their badass woman and the male still gets to ultimately be the hero and save her.

Bring in Sam. Yeah Stevie jogging in the morning and saying “On your left” is totally flirting with him. Sam flirts back and suddenly he’s pulled into this crazy adventure. I think Sam would be far more concerned with her wanting to save Bucky because this is a man trying to murder her. But this is a good ship. Would Hollywood do it? I really want to say yes but I could see the hesitancy because it is an interracial couple. We’d probably need petitions and lots of fan support.

I don’t have to change Sam’s name at all if he were the woman. But same as above, Steve is flirting with her on the jog, roping her into this adventure and the two becoming partners. I mean their interactions at the end fight of Winter Soldier would feel very much like a couple. (Same as above with genders reversed, hell these two would just feel like a super hero couple) Fucking Disney would probably not go for it in the earlier 2010s though.

Stevie and Peggy. Oh hell yes. I’m all for the vintage f/f couple. But I also do love Steve and Peggy in The First Avenger.

Stevie and Sharon. I could never get into these two and even if it was an f/f couple, I’d prefer her with one of the men, which is rare for me to say.

Make Sharon a man (Sean?) and he just gets over shadowed by both Bucky and Sam.

Well move on to Sambucky. If Sam were the woman, is Bucky undermining her too much in Falcon and Winter Soldier? I’m not really sure how I feel about this one. It would really depend on their interactions in Civil War. I think it would have to be reframed as Bucky wanting to protect her and get that shield back and not so much him being mad at her for giving it up? Can someone else give a better perspective than me?

Now, Bucky as the woman, this ship is hilarious and also pretty sexy. Anthony Mackie would be the perfect actor for this and could probably ablib a lot of Sam’s dialogue. First of all, its sweet that Sam would be checking up on her and I think he would do it more in this scenario. I also think he would be a bit more playful with her in Civil War and not as snarky? Sam has this former brainwashed 106 year old murderous assassin insisting on going on his mission with him, jumping out of airplanes and falling on her face, wanting to break out a criminal, insisting on wanting to take the shield from Nu Captain America, being the muscle. Later showing up in Louisana and doing all the heaving lifting while fixing the boat. And then add all the sexual tension between them. This one would be the most fun. Would Marvel make them a couple? I really really hope so. Falcon and the Winter Soldier would become a RomCom.

Bucky and Ayo. Uh yes? Do we even need to ask about this one?

Change Sarah to a male because right now I’m Buckysarah trash. We’ll call him Soren. Hot single dad who immediately smiles when Bucky says hi to him? Sign me up. This is adorable. I think Sam might also have a different reaction. He’d be more accepting because he’d be worry about his brother’s safety but knows he’d be safe with the Winter Soldier. I think it really helps that, even with her limited screen time, Sarah herself is a very interesting character. Single mother supporting her family, knowing how to fix a boat, dealing with bullshit racism, she manages to be far more interesting than other women in the MCU who had bigger roles. It helps that they wrote her as a character.

So Captain America actually has a lot of canon het ships I like. I like Steve and Peggy, Bucky and Sarah, I even liked Steve and Nat, it made more sense than Nat and Hulk. The only one I really wasn’t into was Steve and Sharon and I think that’s a combination of Sharon being Peggy’s niece and Marvel doing Sharon wrong pre TFAWS. But CA also had some good M/M ships that I would also be very much into if they were het ships.

#Stucky #Steve x Sam #Sambucky #samxbucky #Steve x Peggy #I know this post won't be everyone cup of tea #But it's something I do to see if I'm just hating het ships #or if it is just the writing of them I don't like #Maybe CA was the wrong one to choose because there are a lot of het ships I love #Maybe thor was a better choice?#I couldn't get into Thor x Jane but Thor x Valkarie in any combination of gender and yes please give that to me #FemThor and Valkarie might be my favorite thing ever.#The MCU does have a lot of good canon m/f ships. I like Pepper and Tony but I also like Tony and Rhodey.

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dimples-of-discontent · 5 years

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“Absence, darkness, death: things which are not”: 14x18 watching notes

“What’s Deal with Catharsis?”

Let’s talk about catharsis. 13x04 has been haunting me since it aired. I couldn’t get over Dean sitting on a therapist’s sofa asking “So what’s the deal with catharsis?”. I know it’s obvious but it is also a dramatic term and we are hardcore missing some catharsis in this show. Essentially, it’s the purging of negative emotions that are typically repressed which, in drama, enables renewal or restoration. One of SPN’s narrative problems, for me, is that it gives us precious little in the way of catharsis. There are notable exceptions (12x22 when Dean confronts Mary in his dream, for instance) but for the most part negative emotions are repressed, sublimated, and remain unaddressed.

This is especially (haha, autocorrect turned that to “epically,” which is also true) for Dean and Cas. And it’s not sustainable. We need some purgation of their negative emotions, we NEED them to know crucial bits of information that reveal their true feelings instead of repressing them: Cas killed a million Deans but Dean doesn’t know! Dean was nihilistically depressed when Cas died but Cas doesn’t know! Cas sacrificed his soul (and happiness) to save Jack and Dean doesn’t know! The layering of dramatic irony is all very well and good, but we need to stop it at some point.

“A quintessence even from nothingness”: Absence and Negative Space

Do I actually think that will happen soon? No. I was interested in “Absence” being the title of this episode since absence is defined by the things it is not. Cas explains it in terms of Jack--not bad but the absence of good. And that’s kind of where we are with DeanCas too. It’s not definitively one thing (romance) but it’s the absence of any other convincing explanation. If they aren’t these other things--brothers, friends, war buddies--then what are they? “Absence” also refers to Mary, of course, who was absent from their lives once and now is again to be experienced not as a person but a lack. Their whole maternal relationship is defined by feelings of loss and absence so in a sad and terrible way it’s returned to normal. SPN is full of things that are not definitively one thing but which are NOT a bunch of other things and, in all cases, the slipperiness of the definition is itself the narrative problem.

SHAMELESS RENAISSANCE POETRY PLUG please go read this poem by John Donne on the winter solstice, which is all about death and renewal:

Study me then, you who shall lovers be At the next world, that is, at the next spring; For I am every dead thing, In whom Love wrought new alchemy. For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness; He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

It’s called, “A Noctournal upon St. Lucy’s Day, being the shortest day” and I adore it. Also...it (along with a lot of Donne) seems so SPN-appropriate that I think he would have been a fan. (Donne is the preacher who wrote the “no man is an island” sermon and asked “not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”. He had a massive command of rhetoric, yo.)

Anyway, “absence, darkness, death: things which are not” is what the title immediately made me think of. Jack promised a new beginning, forged from the darkness that was Lucifer, and part of me is still convinced that this is what he’ll bring, despite appearances. We all predicted early on that he’d have a moment to go darkside and, yeah, this is it! His choices would also matter--because this is Team Free Will--but it would then be his choice to act evilly. Even if that happens, though, he can choose not to and part of me thinks he will. We don’t have other Big Bads on deck for the end of this season/start of S15 so I’m assuming episodes 19 and 20 will focus on the Jack problem until it reaches a crisis that carries us through to the summer. But how they will resolve it, I hope, has more to do with the power Jack holds to create as well as destroy. Or maybe Chuck’s reappearance will set this balance off? We’ll see.

Also, “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” which I’m going to keep an eye on as the season goes on.

Destiel is Pain

It’s fascinating that the promos were edited to suggest that this was an episode with MAXIMUM DEANCAS DRAMA OMG!! when it kinda...wasn’t. I know @occamshipper pointed out that they edited it just like a het romance drama, centering on the “you’re dead to me” and building up the angst and tension. And that was there, but it wasn’t everything. PR isn’t showrunning, yes, but it does mean something; it means they think the GA cares. And that’s kind of a big fucking deal at this point because what the GA cares about determines what we’ll see more of in the show. It’s not definitive at all. But it’s a trend and an important one that some fine folks have been tracking for a while.

The “you’re dead to me” was not not a big deal--and I had hoped very much that we’d get an apology along the lines of, “Cas, I’m sorry. What I said--I put the whole Jack thing on you and that’s not fair. I did the same thing. We all did. You didn’t fail us.” Let’s cross fingers and hope we hear that the next time they talk (since Sam stopped Cas from trying to give comfort in this episode...pray4Sam who was SUCH a brother-in-law/marriage counselor here). But it’s a Buckleming next so I don’t hold out hope. In any case, it’s a big deal because while Sam now knows that Dean doesn’t consider the whole thing Cas’s fault Cas doesn’t know that and will continue to go on thinking that a) he’s only good the Winchesters insofar as he’s “useful” and b) he’s a failure to Dean specifically. THAT’S TERRIBLE AND WE NEED TO CORRECT IT IMMEDIATELY!!

But we won’t correct it immediately because the show is riding DeanCas tension as basically the A plot at this point. Building angst to a breaking point surrounding Jack just emphasizes that. Jack caused our biggest DeanCas rift to date, both by Cas’s unwavering support in him that led to betraying Dean (running off with SOME WOMAN after stealing the colt from under his pillow after the mixtape scene, layering romance trope on romance trope) and by coming into existence the same day Cas died. Jack’s essential good or evil nature has been the biggest disagreement in their relationship for 3 seasons now so it makes sense to center a crisis on it.

And Dean doesn’t even KNOW about Castiel’s deal with The Empty! He doesn’t know that Cas traded his soul to return Jack’s to earth...only to have it be destroyed. True, The Empty said it would only come when Cas was happy and the thick angst we have now doesn’t suggest he’ll be happy anytime soon, but I think Dean and Sam are about to find out about the deal and Dean’s about to be pissed the fuck off at Cas for doing something SO STUPID (so like a Winchester). Maybe in the same conversation where Dean apologizes we can have Cas tell him the truth about the deal? Like, can they talk please? The real villain was miscommunication all along though, right?

Zombie Moms

Just a little sidebar to tell myself to return to 13x12, “Various and Sundry Villains” (a Yockey ep) and the two witches who were able to get Rowena the Book of the Damned (crucial in this episode, as Rowena unwittingly leaves it with Jack) try to resurrect their mom and bring her back...wrong. Because necromancy is extremely tough (and why didn’t Jack need any victim blood to bring Mary back the way that the Plum sisters did??) what they bring back is just a murderous simulacrum that was, honestly, what I was afraid they were planning to do with Mary. I’m relieved that they didn’t.

Both episodes owe a great debt to the Buffy episode “Forever” (5x17) where SPOILERS FOR BUFFY after their mother’s death her younger sister attempts to bring her back, only to realize at the last second that it’s not possible and the thing outside the door is a horror. It’s a very intense episode about grief, following “The Body” (5x16), one of the most devastating TV episodes to ever air. It was obvious to me that Yockey et al. were using that episode in 13x12, though not totally clear how. They even cast the zombie Mom like Joyce!!

In any case, in 13x12 the sisters’ refusal to let their mom go was an example of the toxic sibling codependency that Rowena used to kill them (as they beat each other to death, one using a hammer just like demon!Dean). In 14x18 Jack’s desire to bring Mary back is an example of his being unable to cope with the reality of his actions and his fear of losing the Winchesters. That’s not toxic codependency, but it is a refusal to go through the stages of grief. There’s definitely something going on here--and going on about Moms--that I can’t pick apart now but want to (or hope someone else will!!).

On which note, my chemo fatigue has found me so I’m gonna sign off. Apologies for typos or lack of clarity. I have really missed doing episode notes, though, so maybe I’ll be back to it soon. I’m psyched to see how this season wraps up, how about you?

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