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amarriageoftrueminds · 3 months

Text

How long did Steve actually know Peggy?

(with pictures!)

[ post with just the images here ]

Short Answer:

626 days total / 20 months, 15 days, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

Long Answer:

Steve got his last 4F / first 1A on 14th of June, 1943.

When Steve arrived at Camp Lehigh, Peggy introduced herself and the SSR.

Directly afterwards, Col. Phillips introduced himself and explained that they would be there for a week only before choosing someone to be given serum:

If they had any common sense, they would’ve said Steve was at Basic Training for a while before being drafted into Project Rebirth.

This being Marvel, however...

[ full 7K meta under cut ]

What If...?, Marvel’s Instagram, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline book gave the ‘official’ date of Steve’s serum as June 22, 1943.

This means:

Steve was enlisted June 14th 1943,

shipped out to Camp Lehigh June 15th 1943,

was there for just a week (til June 21st 1943),

Had a conversation with Erskine about why he was chosen on evening of June 21st.

and was back in Brooklyn and receiving serum on June 22nd 1943.

Poor lad barely had any time to pack and unpack! 😲

Sidenote:

The first date shown in the movie is March 1942:

When Red Skull acquired the Tesseract.

This implies (but does not conclusively prove) that Dr Erskine must have been captured by the Allies before March 1942, because:

when he has his conversation with Steve, he merely said Red Skull believed “that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the gods.” IE. he wasn’t aware that Red Skull had successfully seized that power (the Tesseract).

Stark is flummoxed by Tesseract-related tech when he sees it, which he surely wouldn’t be if Erskine had known about Red Skull having the Tesseract because Erskine could’ve just told him.

Anyway, back to the present and Steve was already in the local newspapers by Wednesday, 23rd June 1943:

Anyway, he and Peggy only spoke for 1-2 days during that time: June 22nd, the day he received serum, and (what was probably) June 23rd, the day after.

IMO it seems like it’s just the day after because:

everyone who was at the blown-up Brooklyn base is there 👆 (wherever ‘there’ is) as if no time has passed at all...

...but we know that time must have passed, because Senator Brandt shows Steve a paper dated the 23rd [see above.] 👆 So enough time has passed for the newspapers to hear about Steve, for a journalist to write about it, print it, and for the Senator to get a hold of a copy.

Enough time has passed for the SSR to get the saboteur’s Hydra sub out of the water at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in order for Howard Stark to be flummoxed by it, as he is in this scene. (And he is still in the pit with it; he hasn’t had long enough to look at it already. Ergo, not much time has passed.)

You could say that it’s a later date, and Brandt just happens to have a newspaper from the 23rd. Except...

...Phillips mentions having talked to the president that morning... which makes more sense as something he would do immediately after the whole Hydra-saboteur bomb kerfuffle, not later. That’s not a phone call he could put off for days. That’s a call you make straight away.

Although that doesn’t automatically mean that that-morning’s phone call is the first or only phone call Phillips has made to the President, since the Hydra-saboteur-kerfuffle, meaning this could be a date later than June 23rd.

But the fact that:

everyone who was at the bomb site is still there,

Howard is still in the pit looking at the Hydra sub and admitting he’s clueless about it, as if that is new information he’s announcing,

they’re taking Steve’s blood, also not something to delay on,

and Brandt is asking basic questions about Hydra. If more than a day had passed, he would already know the answers to these questions, even if he had been distracted by the Press.

Suggesting it is very soon after.

The lack of delay in Phillips’s actions also supports this idea. Earlier on in the movie he moaned to Erskine about having had to talk to senators multiple times before he could get the ball rolling on Project Rebirth. But now he’s cheerful and decisive. Which to me suggests he’s had one decisive phone call with the President, where they exchanged all the information they needed, and that’s it. (He doesn’t say “I spoke to the President again this morning,” for example.)

Brandt asks Phillips what he’s going to do about Hydra. Phillips smirks and answers that the SSR is being re-tasked to go after them. As if he anticipated the question and got the President to sign off on that just prior; close enough to this moment that Phillips is only acting on those orders just now.

"This morning" implies that this scene is taking place later on in the day of June 23rd 1943; after the morning, so that Phillips isn’t saying he called the president just now, for example.

There’s strong sunlight coming in from the window behind Steve 👆, so I’d say we can place this scene at afternoon, June 23rd.

And we can infer that it isn’t evening yet, because Phillips refers to flying out “tonight,” as if if the night of June 23rd has not yet arrived.

(Another maddening possibility: it’s all happening on the same day, a day that Phillips just happened to have spoken to the President on the phone in the morning already, but either the prop makers got the date wrong on the newspaper or the official Marvel instagram got the date of Steve’s serum wrong. 🤦‍♀️)

So, timeline:

June 22nd, 1943: serum, bomb/saboteur, Erskine’s death.

(possibly but not definitively) June 23rd, 1943: morning, newspapers reporting on Steve are printed (Senator Brandt sees them), the Hydra sub is shipped to dry dock for Howard to look at, and the President tells Phillips via the phone that the SSR is being retasked “as of today.”

afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Phillips relays the President’s orders to him, Brandt, Peggy and Stark. Steve objects. Brandt recruits Steve for the USO.

night, Phillips, Peggy and Howard fly out.

Unless it’s all the same day, in which case the events go:

June 22nd or 23rd:

morning, Phillips talks to the President who officially re-tasks the SSR, Steve gets serum, blown up, Erskine killed.

afternoon, the Hydra sub put in dry dock for Howard to examine, newspapers rushed out an edition about Steve, Brandt recruited Steve for the USO using said paper.

night, Peggy, Phillips and Howard flew out to London.

So Peggy was flown out to London that night, being (probably but not conclusively) the night of either June 22nd or June 23rd, 1943.

And then Steve was on tour with the USO for 4 months (from July 1943).

Probably starting mid/late July / early August, to give them enough time to find 20+ chorus girls, create and fit costumes, build sets, book venues, choreograph and plan a show, and do some rehearsals... though apparently not enough for Steve to have learned his lines. 🤦‍♀️

During this period, as the USO shows grow ever more elaborate (up to 40 showgirls, bigger sets, a fake Hitler, a military band, and harley davidson motorcycles) Steve also films multiple propaganda reels, signs autographs, takes photos with the public (and Senator Brandt), appears in his own comics, sneaks into the cinema to watch himself on screen, and travels to Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York! 😵

Senator Brandt’s smooth patter in recruiting Steve for the USO, how he acts during it, and the fact that there was a cameraman there to take photos of Steve just before he got serum, to me suggests that Brandt was planning to do this USO show with whoever the serum worked on.

So it’s possible a lot of the show logistics and planning were already underway before Steve was even chosen for serum. That would mean the USO show kicked off much sooner after Steve got serum (which might account for why he’s so nervous on stage...)

And it would explain how they were able to cram so much activity into four short months.

Meanwhile, in October 1943, in Azzano, Italy...

And then Steve goes to Italy, five miles from the front

on the 3rd of November, 1943:

We can see that Steve and Peggy were not in contact in between these times / while he was on USO Tour, because:

no reference to any such contact is ever shown or implied (and Kevin Feige said Steve was sleeping with someone else while on tour).

Steve looks surprised to see her when she shows up. He hasn’t invited her to come -- which he could, by letter -- and asks her what she’s doing there.

She’s cagey about why she’s there/what she’s been up to; so she’s not someone who even can carry on a correspondence, given the classified nature of her work.

If they had somehow been corresponding anyway, she would already have told Steve by now that she can’t talk about her being there/why. So he wouldn’t need to ask.

As well as Steve not knowing basic things about her, she also still doesn’t know basic things about Steve, that a casual correspondent of four months would know by now [see below].

We know the rescue of the 107 was on the night of November 3rd, 1943.

Because Phillips cites that date when he’s typing up Steve’s official KIA letter:

The sequence before Steve’s rescue of the 107 also implies that Bucky et al were only captured very recently at Azzano, because:

the rest of the 107 are still there (haven’t been deployed elsewhere),

wounded are still being brought in,

Col. Phillips is still engaged in writing up condolence letters about the lost soldiers when Steve barges into his tent.

(Why is the head of the SSR in Italy, writing condolence letters about the 107 when he specifically said he and his agents were flying out to London, where his HQ is? Here’s a clue from wikipedia: “Alsos personnel followed close behind the front lines in Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally crossing into enemy-held territory to secure valuable resources before they could be destroyed or scientists escape or fall into rival hands.”

However, those personnel would not include the head honcho (Phillips), the entire Army’s number one weapons contractor (Stark), or a desk jockey whose opinion is neither sought nor valued (Peggy).

And the rest of the movie shows them back in London (and therefore not featuring in field footage of the Commandos), while Steve & Co. destroy Hydra weapons factories (not sweep them for intell.)

And they stay in London, until the entire army hits a very important base at the very end of the movie. And even then, Stark isn’t shown attending!

So maybe he was just in Italy for the chorus girls...? 🤷‍♀️

Steve and the Howlies had to have to covered 35 miles as the crow flies (30 miles behind enemy lines + 5 miles to the Army base), with wounded soldiers, and through what Phillips describes as “some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe” which was also mountainous. They would’ve had to seek a flat route to get the jeeps through. And this with no resources -- like food, medicine, specialised clothing, etc.

Covering 5 miles a day under those extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, it takes them a week to get back to Camp.

(Sidenote, I looked up a modern estimate of hikers on the Swiss Alps, and it said they’d traverse a 105 mile trail over 7-10 days. Viz. potentially 10.5 miles a day!)

Making the day of Steve’s return 👆 at least, November 10th, 1943.

Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline confirms this:

Afterwards, it seems they went straight to London.

(No contact with Peggy in transit is shown or implied).

Sidenote: although no other locations and no other interaction is shown in November, between the 107 returning and Steve being in London, it seems as if some time has passed.

And once again, we can tell that because of Senator Brandt and newspapers.

There has been enough time for more than one newspaper (The Daily Mail, and Stars and Stripes), to publish stories about Steve. 👆

For Senator Brandt to announce that he’ll be giving Steve a medal for valour, and for that news to have travelled back to the UK.

And, at the very least, enough time has elapsed since the 10th of November for the Senator to believe that Steve could feasibly travel back to America in time to receive his medal in person.

(Which he declines to do. LOLOL.)

So, say:

11th: newspapers report (Steve & Co travelling back to London).

12th: news reaches America / Brandt decides / announces the medal.

13th: Brandt expecting Steve to fly from Europe to America (which would’ve taken over 17 hours, then.) Doesn’t necessarily have to be the very next day, but based on past behaviour Brandt expects action to be taken the very same day as the press reporting on Steve! So...

14th: for the actual medal ceremony? (so that Steve isn’t travelling for 17 hours and then immediately appearing in public) Which seems like it’s happening simultaneously with Steve being in London; I don’t think he’d delay on relating his intell about Hydra.

(And that last day would also account for how the news has travelled back to the UK from the US in order to appear in The Daily Mail.)

We know that this day Steve is in London is supposed to be the day he’s receiving his medal, in person, because of this CATFA deleted scene:

So IMO we’re looking at this date being 14th November, 1943 at a very strict minimum.

NB: All this pre-supposes that it takes 4 days to move the Howlies from the Continent back to London, which it feasibly might if they had Stark and his plane, still in Italy. Stark’s deleted-scene surprise at seeing Steve in London suggests either he was not the pilot / his was not the plane responsible for flying Steve to London, or that he was / his was the plane but he expected Steve to move straight on back to the US. We know the SSR had at least one plane in the US Army base in Italy, because someone was flying multiple reconnaissance flights, trying to spot the 107 -- the last of which returned Nov 10th.

In London, Steve and Peggy are shown talking on 2 separate days, total:

1) In the London HQ, relaying the intell about Hydra weapons-parts factories, gathered from the Krausberg weapons-parts factory and from Bucky, when Steve tells Phillips he has got his own team together.

And in the pub, on the evening of that same night, when Steve goes to Assemble the Howling Commandos for the first time.

(No time passing between these conversations is implied or stated, not via montage or any other means. It’s a straight cut. And assembling his team is not something Steve could delay on, after telling his CO he already had one. In fact it’s kinda nuts Steve didn’t think to do this before telling Phillips he had a team already. What would he have done if they’d just said no?? 😂)

2) in the London HQ, the morning of the day after (8am) when Peggy shoots at him.

(Won’t dignify either of those scenes with triggery screencaps!)

So Steve and the Howlies are officially a team from let’s say 14th November, 1943.

(We know there must’ve been a bit of a time delay before the Howlies were deployed, to give Stark time to build Steve the version of the Cap suit he requested -- since Bucky was the one who suggested him keeping it, I’ll bet Bucky had some input on that -- as well as supplying him with those Harley Davidsons WLA ‘Liberators.’

Could be the Howlies weren’t out on the Continent, kickin’ Nazi ass, ‘til December ‘43 or January '44.)

For the next 15.5 months there is no direct contact shown between Steve and Peggy, while Steve is on the continent and she is in London.

At first glance it looks like we can deduce roughly the dates of when Bucky died and Steve returned to London.

Because after capturing him Phillips tells Zola he sent a telegram about him*

*a prop which is not shown directly on screen

...on the morning of February 3rd, 1945:

Soon followed by a tight 24-hour turnaround for them to go and attack the Valkyrie base in Austria, which we know from this 👇 piece of dialogue between Col. Phillips and Gabe Jones:

But.

We don’t know:

1) that the date on the telegram is accurate. This prop is not directly shown in the movie. And, in the scene, Phillips hints at this telegram being intercepted by Hydra and this being bad news for Zola (because it says he is working for SSR. The Foreshadowing is INSANE). So Phillips might have lied on that telegram -- back-dated it to make it look to Schmidt like Zola had betrayed him and been working for the SSR since before the Howlies ‘captured’ him. Making the day of his interrogation... later than the Feb 3rd on the telegram.

2) that Zola Therefore told Phillips ‘you have 24 hours’ on February 3rd. The telegram date could be false. Even if it wasn’t, Zola could’ve said this to Phillips on a subsequent day. He could’ve just told him when the date Red Skull was planning to do something was, and not necessarily 24 hours before that date.

Meaning we can’t tell by the telegram what date the HQ briefing about the Valkyrie mission, and therefore what date the Valkyrie mission (and Steve’s ‘death’) is, for certain. You could interpret it either way.

Steve might have ‘died’ on February 4th, 1945 or on some other date in February / early March, so long as it was 24 hours after Zola told Phillips he only had 24 hours to act, whenever that was. 😵

However, together, Agents of Shield 2.01: Shadows, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline tie in book, put Steve’s only possible death date as:

Thursday, the 1st of March, 1945.

(Since Morita and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt on 2nd of March, 1945, and Reinhardt remarks that Red Skull is dead. That leaves the 1st as physically the only date in March, before this point, that the Valkyrie mission could possibly have been.)

And we know (from CATWS canon) that Steve’s death was only reported (as a disappearance) on

Monday, 5th March, 1945:

So I think we can definitively say that MCU intends for Steve to have ‘died’ on Thursday, 1st March, 1945. 😥

And the KGB opened a file on Bucky on Friday the 23rd of March, 1945.

It is not categorically stated that the mission where Bucky ‘died’ happened immediately before these late-February scenes in London.👆

He could, theoretically, have died in late 1944, as his exhibit in the Smithsonian in CATWS claims:

However, that exhibit makes multiple other errors...

(Such as: listing two different dates of birth on the same display, saying Bucky enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbour (when nothing in CATFA shows this), and his dog-tag number suggests he was instead drafted; saying he shipped out to Italy and was captured ‘that fall’ of 1942, when that year was definitely shown as 1943, and the Marvel Timeline tie-in book also shows Azzano as happening in October ‘43, etc.)

...So I think we can safely rule this out 👆 as a prop-maker’s mistake!

Plus, Steve’s grief in the pub feels very raw, very immediate, which to me suggest a very-recent bereavement, not something he’s had a couple weeks or months to weep over already. Steve’s a pretty stoic guy.

The only canon suggestion of time passing between Bucky’s ‘death’ and the pub scene is Steve having already had a chance to get back to London and write a report about it, in order to mention said report to Peggy and feasibly expect her to have read it.

As a soldier with a CO to answer to, that report is not something Steve could not delay on delivering. If Steve drinking in the pub is afternoon/evening, say this was the day he delivered his report (probably in the morning, this being the military).

That’s enough time to reasonably expect Peggy to have read the report, and for Steve to be drinking after delivering it, but still neatly groomed in his immaculate uniform, having just gone off-duty (not, eg. dressed down as if this is another, later day, a day off).

On the surface of it, it looks like we can’t say for certain that Steve’s drinking day is the day before Phillips interrogates Zola. Because it’s framed as if the stoicism he exhibits at the end of that sequence is the signal that he is now galvanised to act ASAP, ie. the very next day. One scene leading to / causing another.

Bucky’s ‘death’ date might have been any number of days before.

Except for one thing: Zola is a hugely valuable acquisition.

I don’t think Steve et al would’ve captured and brought Zola back to London, at extraordinary personal cost, only for Phillips to waste days before interrogating him. I think Phillips would’ve been in to interrogate Zola immediately.

That to me is the closest to ‘proof’ that Steve is back in London, delivering his report and then drinking in the pub, either on or as close to the day of Zola’s interrogation as physically possible.

(IMO this can’t all be happening on the same day. I don’t think Steve is the kind of guy to deliver a report in the morning, go off and try to get shit-faced while still on duty / in uniform, and then go back to HQ for mission-briefing, with a risk of still being inebriated. Not under normal circumstances, let alone when the mission is so important! Steve appears to know already that he can’t get drunk... but that doesn’t stop him from trying. I don’t think he’d do that if he knew he was expected back to plan the very-personally-important Bucky avenging mission on the same day. CATFA writers may disagree and say this all happened on the same day, but that idea’s kinda wild to me!)

So when was that interrogation date?

I think we can deduce that it also must’ve been as-close-as-possible to the Valkyrie mission briefing date.

The fact that Gabe is asking how long they have means that that intell was fresh information to the Howlies on the HQ mission briefing date (which was 28th of February = 24 hours before 1st March.)

Now, if Phillips knew about 1st March being significant in advance of 28th February:

it would be incredibly stupid of him to not tell anyone until only 24 hours before.

he would’ve told the Howlies already / Gabe wouldn’t need to ask.

But if Zola only revealed the date of the Valkyrie Mission Day very close to the mission briefing date... that would explain why Phillips didn’t mention it sooner. Another point: A lot of what Phillips says in the mission briefing sounds like a summary and continuation of what we see Zola telling him in the interrogation scene. As if there has been no further interrogation / no more intell to relate since that interrogation, a point in favour of it being the only time he has interrogated Zola (meaning it must be happening on 27th of February).

This scene comes before Steve is shown drinking, alone. (Implying Steve is drinking in the later pm, since it’s dinner time for Zola, just before.)

Assuming Phillips’ telegram about Zola is false (which is neater, and it being a lie is mentioned in the scene, and although we have the prop the prop is not directly shown on-screen in the movie).

Sunday, 25th February. Bucky probably 'died?’

Monday, 26th February. Howlies flying back to London, with Zola?? And since Phillips wouldn’t wait days to deal with Zola:

Tuesday, 27th of February. Morning, Steve delivers his report. Phillips reads the report, and sends a falsely-dated telegram about Zola to Washington via SHAEF HQ. Evening, Phillips interrogates Zola, tells him about the telegram, and Zola tells him about 1st March / Valkyrie Day. (This is during ‘dinner’ time.) Steve goes drinking, alone.

Wednesday, 28th February 1945, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

Thursday, 1st March 1945, Valkyrie Mission day.

NB: This pre-supposes that it only takes a day to move from the Continent back to London, which it would if they had a plane like Stark’s ready to pick them up any time -- which they well might, given how important it is to get Zola back to London, and get the Howlies out to take down the Valkyrie base.

If they didn’t have such a plane, of course, it would take them longer. However, nothing in the movie (such as, eg. a travel-montage) does show it taking longer. It seems to imply a very short timeline.

Sidenote:

Steve never does anything Peggy says or does, always does the exact opposite -- which is the moral, heroic, selfless thing -- and also never asks what she thinks he should do.

This is partly a symptom of poor / misogynist writing, whereby Token ‘Strong Female Character’ Love Interest is relegated to a Sexy Lamp with post-it note stuck to it + behaving like a generic male bully in a female skin + idiot hetero-norms that make any straight couple automatic foils, who must bicker miserably and be on the opposite sides of every argument in order to generate ‘Chemistry.’ 🙄

Ergo, Steve never does what Peggy says, because as his foil what she says it always the opposite of what he says.

Making it, defacto, the [unethical, cowardly, self-serving, tactically unsound] thing to Steve’s [moral, heroic, selfless, also tactically correct] thing.

. (disclaimer: any other aspects of Peggy being unpleasant must be put down to Atwell’s performance choices.) .

Her show erroneously claims that Steve relied heavily upon her for “courage, strategy, and moral guidance."

Passing over the outrageous, insulting, and demonstrably-untrue suggestion that Steve needed external courage, or ethical guidance, from a moral roomba...

(Metas on why this is untrue, and would actually make the plot impossible if it were true!

HERE, HERE, and HERE .👈)

...This would mean Steve is -- somehow -- relying upon a person whom he doesn’t even speak to for 467 of the 473 days when strategic input was even relevant to his life. 🤦‍♀️

The numbers don’t lie.

Steve cannot have been relying upon Peggy for anything when they weren’t even in contact. That’s not physically possible. 🤷‍♀️

This simultaneously puts the lie to the idea of Peggy following the Howlies around Europe to collate intell in the places they hit.

A) because the Howlies aren’t shown sweeping these factories for information. They’re shown reducing them to fiery rubble, which you don’t do if you’re looking for documents. They’re not looking for documents; they’re looking for Zola.

B) even if the Howlies weren’t destroying the factories and were sweeping them for ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) intell, Peggy isn’t the kind of specialist who would even know what to look for. She’s an intelligence liaison, not a scientist. Not even a linguist. That’s not her area of expertise at all. Whereas the Howlies themselves are... surprisingly well qualified? They’ve worked in a Hydra weapons factory, so they know what’s important. Monty’s a Major. Gabe is a fluent German-speaker. Frenchie handles explosives. Dum-dum can drive tanks. Morita looks like a radio expert; shown operating captured Hydra radios more than once. Bucky’s a sniper. Steve’s a tank with a perfect photographic memory. They really don’t need an eighth wheel telling them how to blow up Hydra factories (how would she know?) That’s already their forte.

C) even if Peggy was a technical expert, her opinion is repeatedly denigrated by Phillips who says she was a chancey (ie. ill-qualified) hire. He wouldn’t send someone to judge important documents who is ill-qualified to do so and whose opinion therefore doesn’t carry any weight with him.

D) The only time she’s shown taking part in a mission, it’s actually more of a full blown Army Operation, where even the old man Phillips goes along in person. This is an unusual occurrence, i.e. not something she normally does. Just like I can’t claim that Col. Phillips fought alongside the Howlies, in person, throughout the war, because that is not what is shown, I cannot claim that Peggy did, either. Because that is also not what is shown. (And also why she didn’t join Steve on the mission to rescue the 107. That’s just not her job!)

So when Peggy asks Steve if he was about to... (do something important) mid-Valkyrie mission, and he goes ‘right!’ and carries on.

That’s the closest Steve ever comes to agreeing with her or doing what she says. (Another nonsense claim from her show.)

It’s OOC for Steve, who has proven mostly indifferent to her increasingly unsubtle advances thus far (until she turned violent, whereupon he (or someone else) put her photo in his compass... which is just sad, tbh. 😥)

Whereas, her interrupting the mission at a crucial point to make it about herself (to make Steve kiss her the same way Lorraine also sexually assaulted him) is consistent with her characterisation elsewhere in CATFA (eg. interrupting Steve’s 107 rescue to make him include her in it, when she was irrelevant.)

Even then, it’s something Steve was going to do anyway, regardless of whether she told him to or not. So her input is not a deciding factor in the plot (still a Sexy Lamp). Her net moral/strategic impact on Steve is still zero.

(Another point in the ‘they didn’t spend any time together’ column.)

Conclusion...

Steve and Peggy knew OF each other for 626 days

or 20 months, 15 days / 20.5 months.

(From mid-June 1943 to the beginning of March, 1945.)

They spoke on 2 days max in June, 1943 (the 22nd and probably 23rd, the day of his serum and day after) despite being in the same place for a week prior and sharing a prior car ride!

They spoke on 4 days in November 1943.

Nov 3rd, in Italy, pre-107 rescue,

Nov 10th, in Italy, post-107 rescue,

Nov 14th(?) In London, the day Steve relayed Hydra intell and told Col. Phillips he was assembling his own team, while Brandt was expecting him to be in America receiving his medal for valour; probably the same day the Howlies were founded.

Nov 15th(?) 8am, in London, when Peggy shot him.

They spoke on 2 days in February & March, 1945:

in the pub in London (Tuesday, 27th February?)

the day of the Valkyrie raid (Thursday, 1st March.)

(While they are shown in the same place on another intervening day, at London HQ during mission planning, and it’s possible or even plausible that they did interact, they’re not actually shown speaking to each other on that day.)

Totalling: a maximum of 8 days.

(could be as low as 6.)

And 6 months later, Peggy, Stark and Phillips founded SHIELD and had already recruited Zola into it in order for it to be front page news by

Tuesday, 14th August, 1945:

(Thus putting the lie to the ridiculous idea that they didn’t know they’d recruited Nazis or what they were up to, btw. 👆)

So of the 20.5 total months they knew each other, Steve and Peggy were only shown being in the same place and in contact during (but not for the entirety of) 4 months -- Jun and Nov ‘43, and Feb and March ‘45.

For 19.5 of the 20.5 months they knew of each other they were not even in the same place:

4 months while Steve was on one side of the Atlantic, during the late June-October USO Tour, she was in Europe.

And 15.5 months / 473 days when he was on the continent doing Hydra weapons-parts factory raids (from mid-Nov 1943 - Mar 1945) and she was in London.

And this is deliberate by the film-makers, to depict theirs as a thwarted relationship-that-never-was, a Casablanca style ‘we never dated’ situation.

Not a romance, but what could’ve been a romance, had circumstances been different.

Them not being together is literally the point.

They show zero direct or indirect contact between the two during those 15.5 months, and multiple things imply that there was none.

For example:

She doesn’t know that Steve has a friend in the 107 (a correspondent would).

Steve is surprised to see her.

Steve tells her about what he’s been up to, as if it’ll be new information to her.

(Sidenote: as per She Hulk, Bruce Banner is under the impression Steve slept with some woman during this time. SIGH.)

Despite Agent Carter show’s attempts to retcon her history (stolen valour) with Bucky’s war record (nonsensically, since he is a soldier and she’s supposed to be a spy), the film and script are clear that she isn’t in Europe with the Howlies.

(She complains about having every door shut in her face, professionally, and Phillips says she was only at a desk job because he “took a chance with” hiring her. So she’s complaining about not being in the field.)

Steve wouldn’t be carrying a photo of someone he sees for work all the time. The compass is physical evidence that she wasn’t there.

(Sidenote: He wouldn’t be dating anyone Period, since he specifically said he didn’t want to do that. And Peggy also said she wouldn’t date until after the war is over. But anyway! And, logically, if she's supposed to be a spy she also wouldn’t have her face broadcast in cinemas, making any cover useless, as Steve would know. But anyway! It just highlights how they’re not really doing their jobs of writing her as a spy properly.)

Steve wouldn’t need to take a photo out of an SSR personnel file (which is what it looks like) if he saw her regularly in person for work or if they had been corresponding by letter.

(This simultaneously rules out the possibility that she went out with the Howlies and then went back to London.)

Likewise, Peggy wouldn’t need to steal a photo of Steve out of a personnel file if they had been in regular contact, either in person or by letter.

Steve and the Howlies are shown in direct contact with each other, easily implying a long-standing relationship without having to go to a lot of film-making effort, via montage... but she is not.

Whereas she is shown in the montage, but not being in direct contact. If the film-makers had wanted to show direct contact between them during this montage, they very easily could have. But they didn’t. If she had been there with the Howlies, and it was the film-makers intention to imply that, she would be in the footage with the Howlies, not sitting in a cinema in London watching footage of a mere photo of herself in the newsreels.

By February 1945 she still isn’t on first-name terms with Bucky, Steve’s second in command.

Steve’s time in London was so minimal that when he goes drinking to grieve Bucky, Peggy is able to find him in the Whip & Fiddle, even though it’s in ruins. So either they were in London for such a short period that the pool of places he could potentially be is only one (1), AND/OR that pub is emotionally significant because of Bucky, the person he’s grieving (not her).

We are never shown the Howlies returning to that pub at all until after Steve is also ‘dead’ (ie. no proof they’ve been in London long enough that it’s a place they’ve gone multiple times.) They treat it as a special, 'one-off Solemn Event’ sort of a place to go. Not a regular haunt.

And Steve is still surprised to see her there, meaning he didn’t tell her he was going there; so the reason she finds him can’t be because Steve told her where he was going. (Could be that one of the Howlies told her.)

She still has to ask Steve whether he respected “your friend” Bucky (when even Col. Phillips knows to refer to Bucky as Steve’s oldest friend, by this point).

Steve tells her he can’t get drunk and has to ask whether she knows that already or not. Yet another example of something a close confidante or correspondent of 15+ months would know, that Steve would assume she already knew, if they had been in continuing contact.

(It’s unlikely that Steve himself didn’t know, before this moment. Soldiers who founded their unit in a pub haven’t done any drinking for 15.5 months? Not likely!)

His clever acting choice lends an air of despair and futility to the scene, too -- Steve trying to drink away his sorrows, even though he knows it won’t work. He can’t undo the past, he can’t bring Bucky back. (Had CEvans’s tone been different, it would’ve connoted something else.)

If he was in contact with Peggy, and this is canonically the very kind of thing he would complain about to her (and canonically also the very kind of thing she would tell him more about), then he would’ve complained about it, eg. via letter, too. But he didn’t, because he doesn’t know whether or not she knows. So they weren’t in contact.

It is shown that the updated intelligence of what Steve and the Howlies are accomplishing in Europe during 1944 is being relayed back to HQ in London, because Peggy and other personnel are shown taking Hydra base flags off their maps, as Steve and the Howlies take them out.

(As a consequence of Steve et al taking them out, it’s implied.)

However... it is not shown that Steve directly relayed that information to Peggy.

Peggy herself says that Phillips is in charge of devising strategy, not herself, and Steve soon disregards any strategy suggestions she makes -- in fact, he gives her orders, not the other way around, because he’s a captain.

So if Steve was telling anyone what the Howlies are up to in Europe, it would be his superior officer Phillips. Not an agent like Peggy, of no military rank.

(This is supported by the scene where Steve, having returned from rescuing the 107, goes straight to Phillips to report his successful mission. Not to Peggy, despite her being right there.)

Plus, the Howlie shown handling communications isn’t Steve...

...it’s Morita. 👆 (And guess who interrupts and shoves him out of his seat?)

So if the Howlies were in contact at all during the 15.5 months of Howling Commando Hydra weapons-factory raids:

1) it would’ve been very difficult / limited, and all shop talk. 2) it must’ve so unimportant that no trace of it shows in the film. 3) it probably wouldn’t have been Steve on the radio, anyway. 4) there were only six prospective Hydra weapons factories mentioned as targets for Steve and the Howlies, so only six more occasions when they even might’ve officially interacted:

Roughly:

And while there are more Hydra bases indicated as existing on the maps/via flags removed from the maps...

...None of these 👆 are explicitly linked to Steve and the Howlies, there’s no indication that the existence of these was discovered or relayed (or that they specifically were destroyed) by Steve and Co.

And it’s made out to be a Big Deal that they find out where the Seventh base is, (the base Bucky told Steve they were shipping weapons parts to). Because that’s where Red Skull is.

T I M E L I N E :

1943

JUNE: Mon 14th, Bucky gets his orders, Steve gets a 4F, visits the Stark Expo, meets Erskine, enlists and gets a 1A. Tues 15th, Bucky ships out, Steve arrives at Camp Lehigh. Mon 21st, Steve is chosen for serum. He and Erskine discuss it in the evening. Tues 22nd, Steve receives serum, Erskine is killed, Steve stops the Hydra saboteur, and is photographed by a NYE journalist. Wed 23rd morning, Phillips speaks to the President and the SSR is immediately re-tasked, Steve appears on the front page of The New York Examiner, the Hydra sub is moved to dry dock. afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Stark examines the Hydra sub, Phillips relays the President’s orders, Brandt recruits Steve into the USO when he objects to Phillips's orders. night, Phillips, Stark, and Peggy, fly out to London.

JULY-OCT: Steve in the USO, travelling across America.

OCT/NOV: Bucky and the Howlies are captured by Hydra at Azzano.

NOVEMBER: 3rd, afternoon, Steve does USO show in Italy, 5 miles behind enemy lines. evening, Steve rescues 107.

10th, Steve returns to base with 400 soldiers of the 107, having safely travelled 35 miles including 30 miles of mountainous heavily fortified enemy terrain, with wounded in tow.

? 11th-14th, Steve's rescue is reported in Stars and Stripes, Senator Brandt decides to give him a medal for valour, news gets back to UK and appears in The Daily Mail. Brandt expects Steve to come back to the US to receive his medal in person. Steve declines.

? 14th, London, HQ, Steve relays Hydra intell to Phillips and Peggy, night, Steve recruits Bucky & the Howlies, takes Bucky's input on the suit.

? 15th, London, HQ, 8am, Steve gets sexually assaulted, Steve gets physically assaulted (Peggy shoots at him), Steve picks the shield, Steve relays Cap uniform ideas to Stark. .

1944

Howlies deployed in Europe, taking out 6 Hydra weapons factories shown in Italy, Greece, France, Czech Rep. and Poland. (Avengers 1 deleted scene also shows Steve taking part in the planning of D-Day, which would’ve put him and the Howlies in France from 6 June 1944 - August, if they took part. And I thought there was a reference to Steve taking part in the Battle of the Bulge too, somewhere, so that would be Dec-Jan ‘44-45.) .

1945

FEBRUARY: (possible) Sun 25th, Bucky ‘KIA.’ (possible) Mon 26th, Howlies & Zola travelling back to London.

(possible) Tues 27th, London am, Steve writes/delivers a report about Bucky, goes drinking to grieve. Phillips (reads Steve’s report? knows about Bucky) sends a misleading telegram about Zola, back-dated February 3rd, to Washington via SHAEF. pm, Phillips interrogates Zola and finds out 1st March is Valkyrie Day.

Wed 28th, London, HQ, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

MARCH: Thurs 1st, Atlantic. Steve and Red Skull 'KIA.' Last contact with Peggy. Fri 2nd, Moria and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt. Mon 5th, Steve reported "disappeared" in newspaper. Fri 23rd, KGB opens file on Bucky.

APRIL: Surviving Howlies are mopping up remaining Hydra personnel in Europe? MAY. Tues 8th, V-E Day. London. The Howlies reunite at the Whip & Fiddle, for the first time since they were founded there, to drink a toast in remembrance of Steve.

AUGUST: Tues 14th, Stark, Phillips and Carter have founded SHIELD and recruited Zola and more, which is reported on front page news.

TL;DR: They knew of each other for 626 days total, (from 15th June 1943 - 1st March 1945), 20.5 months; 19.5 of which they weren’t in the same place, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

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thelastharbinger · 2 years

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I’m already seeing male reactors get very verbally defensive about that scene in She-Hulk where Jennifer describes how, simply as a woman, she has more experience in suppressing rage than Banner because speaking out will get you labelled “hysterical”, “emotional”, “difficult”, “too much of a feminist”, the list goes on. And if you snap back at the wrong cat-caller, you can get murdered. So now mcu bros are rushing at the opportunity to cry out “this is just another ‘marvel throwing in another woke scene for woke’s sake’. But like...it isn’t untrue. Comic nerds are all for female superhero protagonists until she, god forbids, talks about the dynamics of what it’s like to live within the confines of patriarchy.

MCU fans are always clamoring for the social commentary to be more “subtle” and not so “in-your-face”, just so they can mindlessly enjoy a punchy fighty show and not have to confront any real-world intersections with racism, misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, all the -isms and -phobias you can imagine. Additionally, even when the social criticisms are embedded into the story, the conflicts are routinely either overlooked or watered-down and discussed at the individual-level as if these are just isolated incidents and not reflective of larger phenomena. Dudebros forget that superhero comic media, from the very beginning, has always been political. A lot of the mainstream characters we know and love today were created in response to the anti-war and peace movements during the seventies in the United States (this is also not to say that there isn’t some definite war propaganda and Red Scare-inspired comics out there either).

Comics are teaching grounds for morality, human good, and bad, power, greed, corruption. Comics have been about the social commentary from the get-go. The idea that the government (and by extent society at large) is villainizing and surveilling a specific minority group who carry varying physical and genetic traits contrasting to that of the “ideal national subject” because of a perceived inherent aggression or difference based on their physical attributes *ahem ahem mutants*...where do you think they got that from?

I literally sat through a dude being like “IN MY EXPERIENCE AS A MAN, THAT IS NEVER THE CASE! IF A WOMAN GETS UPSET AND MAKES A SCENE IN PUBLIC, THE MAN ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE THE BAD GUY BECAUSE IT IS ASSUMED HE DID SOMETHING WRONG. MEN ARE THE ONES WHO CAN NEVER BE ANGRY.” (Obviously for Black men, my argument is different because when Black men express rage, they are viewed as a threat or turned into spectacle, but the person who made this rant was not a Black man, nor was he factoring race into his argument). As if masculinity and gratuitous violence have not become nearly synonymous. When male celebrities are accused of beating their partners, fans run to their defense to say “well she shouldn’t have provoked him.” When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, the internet rooted for a televised boxing match between the actors/comedians. We all watched the Trump and Hillary debates right, where his belligerent behavior was coddled while she had to maintain composure?

We’ve collectively grown up watching male newscasters, talk show hosts, and reporters make jokes about angry women in sports, in the media or in news reports being on their periods, as a way to minimize the stressful and abusive circumstances, or people, women are subjected to. The world expects women to react to harassment with class and elegance; women’s anger, Black women especially, is never not mitigated. For male fans to come away from that scene wanting to eye roll is why the commentary is so “in-your-face” because a lot of y’all still don’t get it! Men are still finding ways to make women’s issues about them and the “loss” of their rights. In a world where Brock Turners are able to walk free, are you really trying to argue against this scene? Really? What else do you expect out of a series whose main character is AN ATTORNEY? Y’all are just not going to enjoy this series then, as per usual.

#if you're wondering who the youtuber in question is it is jaby koay from the channel #getjaby #he also has another channel but im not trying to promote his shit #he does reactions to loads of things but i literally want to beat his ass everytime he opens his mouth to make some social hot take bc #you might as well be talking to fucking ricky gervais #he gives major centrist vibes nd he's so fucking condescending nd will jump at any opportunity to mansplain things to his female co-reactor #he's like i'm woke but only to a certain point #anyways fuck dudebros #also are we gonna act like this she hulk scene is more shoe-horned in than that scene in endgame? let's be real #just say you hate hearing about any issues that affects anyone ever who isn't a white man #she hulk #she-hulk #marvel #mcu #mcu rant #tatiana maslany #jennifer walters #hulk #bruce banner #reactors

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paintingformike · 1 year

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will’s selfless and unconditional love for mike will prevail over a relationship that has only made mike feel inferior and drown in insecurity. if you even care

#it just isnt a question for me #the love interest who actually makes the person in the middle of the love triangle feel loved is getting his endgame 🤷‍♀️#byler

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eleanork-28 · 2 months

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Post s3e6 what happens now?

I am begining to write an 'after' fic which has brought up a lot of questions and speculation that I'd like to share. Yes willmon is endgame but also where do they go from here?

Class

Money (what are the Erikssons doing with their money from August?)

The rift between Wille’s elitist upbringing and Simon’s economical and political beliefs

Wille needs to learn and figure out what he wants his relationship with politics and money to be

Abdication

Wille is giving up the crown but he now has to go through that process

Official meetings

What is his new title going to be

What money does he have not has Crown Prince

The official statement of abdication and handing the duty to August

Figuring out the PR strategy for this as well

Wille isn’t free automatically he is going to price for a little while longer while they introduce August more prominently to the public so that the crown isn’t handed off to seemingly a stranger

They also have to figure out a way to make sure it is clear that this is a choice Wille made for himself rather than because of his very publicised relationship

Making sure there won’t be speculation that he is leaving voluntarily because the Swedish monarchy doesn’t want a queer monarchy because that would be a media shitstorm

School

Where is Wille going to school? And Simon?

Even with abdication he is still a part of the Swedish aristocracy would he go to another posh school?

I think not with everything that happened at Hilerska but its also the thing he knows, so how does he figure that out?

Where does Simon go? He wouldn’t want to go to another rich kid school

Will they go to school together?

If so what interest will their classmates take in them, how would they maintain their privacy

Even apart what would their privacy look like

What would their relationship look like if they do decide to not go to school together?

Same questions for Felice and Sara because they also have to go to school they are all children and education is very important lol

Familial relations

Wille and his parents need to repair their relationship

Do Simon and Sara start working on a better relationship Micke?

I want Wille to get to meet Micke I think that interaction would be great

Public relations

Yes they are free but sadly the public doesn’t entirely care

Luckily on an international scale the Swedish monarchy doesn’t hold much attention but maybe that has changed since Wille’s scandals and then open queer relationship? This is never addressed in the show

But amongst Swedes especially after abdication people will have a vested interest

Think Harry and Megan (obvs the UK royals are a much bigger scale but the point stands)

Like people still really care what they're up to, and Megan and Simon have those similar experiences of being a poc partner of a european royal family member, the harassment doesn’t suddenly stop once you've left the direct limelight of royal life

Platonic relationships

What is Wille’s relationship with Rosh and Ayub?

They have witnessed every thing that Simon has gone through because of his relationship with Wille and now they are back together again

They do respect him because of his choice to leave the monarchy, they are maybe not even surprised because they did witness the “I could be free with you” speech

But do they trust him?

On that note does Linda? She definitely cares for Wille but she also knows how this has affected her son.

Does Wille have to prove his intentions and himself?

Can he Rosh and Ayub truly form a friendship? How will that happen

Simon, Wille, Sara, and Felice have forged their own kind of found family through shared traumas and love for one another, how to Rosh and Ayub fit into that new dynamic? Will there be conflict because of this?

What does a friend group consisting of all of them look like?

Other than mega gay

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alwayshinny · 15 days

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Hinny ✨

AU, where Hinny grew up together so when the diary begins to write back to her, she confides in Harry, and they take down Tom together.

#au where hinny destroys tom together #their bff who know their each others endgame #in this au ginny knows harry adores her and no one is allowed to question that especially a stupid diary #the love hinny have for each other is a force to be reckoned with #there’s no rescuing ginny in this au it’s hinny teaming up and taking down anyone who tries to mess with either of them #they have each others backs #i need someone to write this #harry x ginny #ginny x harry #hinny #harry potter #ginny weasley #harry potter ai #ai generated

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raayllum · 4 months

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so Aaravos really hates the other Startouch elves. And presumably a lot of his current plan ("when everything they've built lies shattered") will devastate and infuriate them (although what he hopes to shatter is unclear, since most seem pretty indifferent to humans / other Xadians). But either way, it will, presumably, get their attention if not their ire, and they may not be as 'merciful' a second time to just 'let' him be exiled but otherwise left alone. What's Aaravos' plan for past that point?

Well, it seems he's pleased the prison was 1) found by the Dragang and 2) is being brought to the Starscraper. Where the Nova Blade is.

The thing that can kill other Startouch elves. Something that would be very useful for Aaravos to have and incentive to wield.

Impending heavenly bloodbath then?

#tdp theory #tdp aaravos #s6 speculation #mine #like idk if i think it's going to be a literal sword or what precisely it can do but #but if it is a singular sword it begs the question of who's going to wield it #rayla is the swordfighter but callum needs to defeat aaravos to metaphorically/literally gain endgame narrative control #but ez doesn't have a weapon he has some foreshadowing and chessmaster ezran y'know?#tag ramble

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angelwithnightmares · 1 year

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60 questions to ask the Duffers if Byler isn’t endgame

Thank you @merth-or-nothin for the help!

1. Why emphasize so much on the strong “Friends don’t lie” in the very first episode of the show, showing Will couldn’t even lie to Mike, only for him to lie to Mike for the first time in the second to last episode of the second to last season?

2. Why did Mike and El such a short build up before getting together? If they were meant to be endgame, why not build them slowly, so the audience could be invested in the development of the relationship?

3. Why were Mike and El separated every single season?

4. Why do Mike and El fight so much when they’re together? They barely have any cute scenes at all when they’re dating.

5. Why did El refer to Mike as "her first boyfriend?"

6. If she was meant to only date (then marry) Mike, why draw attention to the fact that he's the only boy she's dated?

7. What was the purpose of El asking Mike if he'd be like her brother in s1? Why give them a familial association?

8. In season 4, why is it revealed that Will is in love with Mike as Mike's relationship with El is eroding?

9. Why make a point to show the audience Will loves Mike the way he wants to be loved, while El makes him feel like a random nerd?

10. Why have Will in the background of every single Mileven scene (except for their bedroom fight) in the entire S4, making the audience to root for Will?

11. Why have Will love Mike at all?

12. Why bring Will into Mike and El's relationship? If Mike doesn't feel the same way, it's a waste narratively and it's anticlimactic.

13. Why did Mike change so much between seasons 2-3 without any perticular reason? And no, it wasn’t just puberty. That change made Mike go from being one of the most loved characters to one of the most hated ones.

14. Why frame Mike and Eleven’s relationship in S3 as unserious and unhealthy?

15. Why make everyone go against their relationship and why break them up as early as in the beginning of the second episode of S3?

16. Why empathize so much on El in EP3 and her independence, making us (the audience) feel genuinely happy when she breaks up with Mike and frame the breakup scene with light-hearted humor and comedy?

17. Why make Will and Mike’s first fight scene in the show dark and angsty? And making it a huge contrast to Mike and El’s comedic breakup scene.

18. Why make Max say “he’ll come crawling in no time begging for forgiveness” to El, which was true, but he didn’t come crawling back to El. He went to Will’s house, begging for forgiveness.

19. Why spend SO MUCH time on the Byler scenes and putting so much effort in them so they’ll look intimate? It’s such a contrast to Steve and Dustin’s scenes for example which is almost always comedic.

20. Why have so MANY Byler scenes at all?

21. Why have “tender emotional music” in almost all of the Byler scenes in S4?

22. Why make Will even confess behind El’s name instead of just confess himself and having Mike rejecting him right away? Why drag it out all the way to the very final season?

23. Why spend an entire day filming the van scene if it wasn’t that important anyway? If Will is just ending up getting rejected anyway?

24. Why the whole painting plot?

25. Why so many parallels with Jopper, Jancy and Lumax?

26. Why the very same soundtrack when they became friends again as when Lucas and Max became friends “On the bus”?

27. Why is Finn describing Mike’s story arc for both season 3 and season 4 as “Mike is trying to be a normal teenager”, “Mike is trying to be as normal as possible” and “He’s trying to keep on a normal path” why so much focus on Mike trying to be normal?

28. Why spending two seasons on Mike trying to say the word “love” to his girlfriend? Isn’t that a kinda boring arc for someone who’s just having bad self esteem because of his parents loveless marriage?

29. Why does the whole cast and even the Duffers always so secretive and giddy and smiley every time Byler gets brought up if it’s just another sad tragic unrequited love story?

30. Why having Will say “I’m not gonna fall in love” with such a heartbreaking tone and then end up making him not get the boy he’s in love with and has been since the very beginning?

31. Why put so much effort in the set design to queer code Mike (as in rainbows, shirtless men, monsters with muscles, the word BOY in the bg, multiple closet imagery, even a big sign towards the closet saying “One way” if it meant nothing or was just weird coincidence’s?

32. Why the triple take? What was the point of that?

33. Why filming and editing the last scene of S3 emphasizing that Mike is going to miss Will more than El? (Him looking back at Will’s house, then it cuts to Will, then it cuts back to Mike who walks up to his mom and hugs her with a heartbroken look on his face)

34. Why make El say in the letter “I think there’s someone Will likes, cause he has been acting weird” but all we see in s4 is Mike acting weird?

35. Why make Mike being able to hug everyone except for Will, when he could hug him just perfectly in s3?

36. Why make Mike treat Will differently than his other friends?

37. Why make Mike and Dustin have the same look on their faces as they watch Will and Max dance with other people and then after that Mike looks upset until El shows up?

38. Why is The Duffers so “hushy hushy” about Byler at all? If it was obvious it’s unrequited why not just clear that shit up because they KNOW they’ll get a lot of backlash if it turns out it was a big queer bait all along.

39. Why start to build up and hint at Will’s love for Mike from the very first episode and make it canon in the second to last season?

40. Why so many coded talks which easily could be interpreted differently? Like Karen’s “I want you to know you can talk to me, I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide anything from me”, Ted’s “See what happens?” About Will’s disappearance (as in see what happens if you’re queer? You get abducted, killed etc) and Ted’s “our son with a girl?”

41. Why make Mike NOD in the scene when Will talks about how difficult it can be to open up about something the other person may not like to hear?

42. Why make Will having to remind Mike of the painting and his coded speech before Mike can say it? Why could he only say it the moment El was about to die?

43. Why make it look like Mike doesn’t want to kiss El by removing her hands away from him (3.01) and not reciprocating, not kissing back with eyes wide open looking confused in 3.08? Why frame him like he isn’t interested in girls at all? (Princess Daphne, Phoebe Cates, Max etc.)

44. Why never show us Mike’s pov?

45. Why SO MUCH effort in flashbacks during the entire S4 except for the monologue when El only remembered one single moment with Mike? Why did she had so many with Max but only one with Mike?

46. The ending scene in S4. WHY put them in couples when they could just have made them stand together all of them instead?

47. Why does it look like El isn’t talking to Mike at the end of S4? Why does she look annoyed at first and THEN sad when she finds the bottle under her bed which reminds her of Max?

48. Why SO MUCH yellow and blue coding when it comes to Will and Mike? Even their colors of their clothes are almost always blue and yellow as well.

49. Why make Mike nervous every time Will is close to him in S4 or accidentally touches him?

50. Why make Mike say “we’re friends” to Will twice when both him, Will and the audience clearly knows that already?

51. Why associate the word “crazy” with “love” and then make the “crazy together” scene?

52. Why having Mike saying “it was the best thing I’ve ever done” about meeting Will but then having him say his life didn’t start until he met El?

53. Why did Mike’s words work for Will in S2 (making him being able to communicate) but didn’t for El (not until she looked over at Max)?

54. Why write the lines for Will “We could just play DnD for the rest of our lives” and “Not possible” about him joining another party?

55. Why make Mike look at Will’s lips so much? Why the flirtiness in the bedroom scenes in S4? They could easily have remade those scenes if that wasn’t intentional.

56. Why all the classic romantic interruptions in season 4 which we’ve seen plenty of times in the show between “more than friends”-couples earlier?

57. Why make such a HUGE contrast between El’s reaction to being without Mike and Will being without Mike in S3? (El did a high five with Max while Will cried and destroyed Castle Byers)

58. Why make Mike say “Hawkins isn’t the same without you” to only WILL and not to El? Why does Mike not have any problems opening up to Will but only to El?

59. Why couldn’t Mike say the full reason why he and El had their fight in 4.03?

60. Why have so much hints and clues in the show that Byler is endgame so it’s possible to make 300+ pages slideshows, hours of long videos with proof of Mike being gay, if everything is just unintentional or “made up”?

#byler #anti milkvan #60 questions to ask the duffers #if byler isn’t endgame #byler question’s

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frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 6 months

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been thinkin about a steddie 'last holiday' au

#i love that movie sm #now the real question:#will i ever write it?#robin and chrissy would be there too and also be endgame #the last holiday #last holiday #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson

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xenon-demon · 10 months

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I... have no idea what this is. No that's a lie I know exactly what this is, it's 2.6k of a Frozen AU with Steve as Elsa and Robin as Anna that I wrote in a fugue state after seeing a friend's production of Frozen: The Musical tonight. I have several WIPs I'm supposed to be working on and this is exactly none of them. Bone apple teeth. (Also I'm genuinely unsure if my usual crew of beloved enablers would even WANT to be tagged in this so... for now I'm not doing a taglist, and if I write any more of this AU I'll do one next time 😂)

“Steve!”

At the sound of his name, the Prince — now King, and boy is Robin going to take a while to get used to that — turns his head towards her. Seeing it's Robin, Steve gives his apologies to whatever noble he was talking to and steps away from their conversation. He makes his way over to Robin in just a few short strides, but his eyes flick back and forth between Robin and her new... well. She doesn't really want to think about what Eddie now is to her. In any case, she can already see a questioning frown start to brew on Steve's face, meaning this will be a much harder sell than she expected.

“Robin!” Steve exclaims, his gaze almost immediately sliding over to Eddie and giving him a once-over. He sounds markedly more subdued when he continues, “I see you've... made a friend.”

“Well, I wouldn't say a friend exactly!” Robin laughs, shrill and stilted, and gives Eddie's arm a pointed squeeze when he doesn't immediately join in. Getting the hint, Eddie finally starts laughing along. Hopefully Steve didn't notice her hinting, since she's had her arm wrapped around Eddie's since before she even called him over.

Steve raises an eyebrow at her, and shit does she need to keep this moving.

“This,” Robin announces, using the hand that's not around Eddie's arm to do a quick flourish in the direction of his face, “is Prince Edward of the Kingdom of Forest-Upon-Hills. We met at the ball tonight.”

“It's an absolute pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty,” says Eddie, trying his best to show the proper respect and bow as he does so. Robin's death grip on his arm prevents him from getting very far.

“Likewise,” Steve replies, sounding incredibly skeptical of this whole conversation. He then shoots Robin a look, which, rude, but also entirely warranted given what she's about to ask him.

Steeling herself, Robin begins to say, “Prince Edward and I-”

“Just Eddie is fine,” Eddie interrupts her, leaning in a little bit closer to her as he whispers. He's got terrible volume control, however, so she wouldn't know it was meant to be a whisper if she hadn't spent the past two hours talking to him.

“Not one for formalities, Prince Eddie?” Steve asks, the weight of his gaze finally leaving Robin's shoulders for a moment. God, she often wishes her brother was easier to read, but never as strongly as she does right now.

Eddie, meanwhile, straightens up so quickly it's like he's been electrocuted.

“Uh, not particularly, no. They grate on me,” Eddie says. He pauses for a moment, and Robin can see the deliberation on his face before he adds, “Your Majesty.”

“I'm not one for formalities either, Prince Eddie,” Steve says. His mouth twitches into a very small smile. “I prefer Steve.”

There's a pause, then, where Steve and Eddie are locked into some strange stare-down, while Robin looks on in vague exasperation. She's pretty sure she could strip naked and swing from the chandelier in the center of the ballroom and neither of them would take any notice of her. She's about to intervene, actually, because they really do not have time for whatever this is, when Eddie miraculously breaks the spell himself. He blinks a bit, looking away from Steve and back to Robin, face significantly more flushed than it was a minute ago.

“I believe you were saying something to K- to Steve, Princess?” Eddie asks, just about tripping over Steve's new title on instinct before catching himself.

Robin just barely restrains herself from rolling her eyes. She really is the bravest, most long-suffering warrior in all of Hawkins.

Putting her brave face back on, Robin turns to her brother and says, “Yes I was, thank you Eddie, I was saying that Prince Eddie and I-” and here she falters, because Steve looks back at her and meets her gaze. She swallows, trying to be subtle, and looks very pointedly at Steve's forehead instead of his eyes. She can't do this if she's looking him in the eye.

She takes another half second to compose herself, then rips the band-aid off.

“Prince Eddie and I seek your blessing for our marriage.”

“Excuse me?” Steve says, more like demands, almost choking on nothing. Robin's never seen her brother this off-kilter in her life. He doesn't even try to compose himself at all before he says, “Robin, can I speak to you for a moment? Alone?”

Robin swallows guiltily, knowing he'll see straight through her if she agrees.

“No. Anything you want to say to me, you can say to both of us,” Robin says, and how her voice stays steady, she doesn't even know. It probably helps that she's still not looking Steve in the eye.

“Robin- I don't-” Steve interrupts himself to run his gloved hands down his face. He pauses for a moment, face completely covered by his hands, and takes a deep sigh. When he removes his hands and starts speaking again, his voice is measured. Calm. Deadly.

“Rob, you can't marry a man you just met,” Steve states. The word man falls heavy off his tongue, and Robin knew she would regret coming out as a lesbian, she just didn't think it would be like this. Squaring herself up for the best performance of her life, Robin begins her improvised speech full of bullshit to convince her brother to let her do this.

Before she can, however, Eddie chimes in with, "You can if it's true love." Steve doesn't even spare Eddie a glance, but his frown does deepen significantly. Shit.

“Steve,” Robin begins, trying very hard to stay calm, “Eddie and I have a connection unlike any I've ever felt before. I lo-love him”—shit, she could feel the bile rising in the back of her throat saying that, and judging by the almost-imperceptible twitch in Steve's eye, he knows too—“and I think it's time I start giving back to the Kingdom of Hawkins.”

“Giving back?” Steve asks, and fuck he's folding his arms across his chest now. “How exactly is this giving back to the kingdom? What you're doing is running headfirst into the first bad decision you can find.”

”I'm a bad decision?” Eddie asks. Both Robin and Steve ignore him.

“No, Steve, I'm giving back by giving the kingdom a new celebration to look forward to after your coronation,” Robin hisses. “A royal wedding is another opportunity to open the castle gates and bring the kingdom together-”

“Absolutely not,” Steve snaps, interrupting her. “We are not opening up the castle gates again for a long time.”

“Why not, Steve?” Robin snaps back. “Tonight's been great for the kingdom's morale, it's been great for you to see people and actually socialize-”

“You have no idea what's good for me, Robin,” Steve says, making her stop dead. It hurts, hearing Steve say that like it's obvious and she's stupid for not knowing it already. What hurts more is that it’s true.

Once it's clear Robin won't keep talking, Steve continues, “You asked for my blessing, and I do not give it. I don't approve of this, and if you're doing this in some misguided attempt to make me happy- quite frankly you've gone insane if you think this would make me happy.”

With that, he turns to walk away.

Okay, sure, she has no idea what Steve's whole deal is or why he's always shutting her out, but Robin is sure she knows what will help.

Sure, part of this crazy scheme is the vague idea that if Robin has a picture-perfect capable-of-bearing-children partnership, then Steve will be under less pressure himself to marry someone who can produce an heir. Maybe, with less scrutiny on his personal choices, he'll learn to relax and open up more over time. That idea falls apart pretty quickly, however, as the thought of producing an heir with a man - even one as fun to talk to as Eddie - makes her want to gouge her own eyes out. No, the real reasoning behind Robin's (admittedly insane) plan to marry someone she met two hours ago at her brother's coronation is so she has an ironclad reason for Steve to open the gates again. Sure, ideally it would've been a woman who caught her eye tonight, but she can't be picky. Robin doesn't meet anyone, especially with the castle locked up like it always is, and she has yet to think of something other than a wedding that would convince Steve to open the gates. Then Eddie came along, laughing and flirting (she thinks, at least; Robin's tried to black that part out) and professing his undying true love to her, and this was the best opportunity she was ever going to get.

And she has to convince her brother to open the gates again. Steve's been thriving tonight. He clearly loves the thrum of people, all of them dancing and laughing and enjoying themselves, and he's slowly coming out of his shell with every conversation he has with their subjects. Robin's spent more time talking to her brother tonight than she has in a long, long time. Too long for her to try to quantify it without crying.

Watching her brother turn away from her, the promise of a relationship with him going forward about to slip through her fingers, she knows she has to do something.

“Steve, wait-” Robin says, reaching out for Steve. She grabs him by the hand, feeling the soft cotton of the white gloves he always, always wears.

“Enough, Robin,” Steve says, not even looking back as he yanks his hand out of her grip. She's trying to hold on, though, so she's left holding his glove as Steve pulls his now-bare hand away from her. God, how upsetting is it that it's been years since she saw the back of her own brother's hands?

Steve swears, then, under his breath. Robin almost doesn't hear it; almost.

“Robin, give me my glove.” Steve's not asking; he's demanding. Robin can work with this.

“Not unless you talk to me about why you won't open the gates. Look at how tonight went, it's been so good for you-”

“This isn't up for debate, Robin, give me my glove,” and Steve reaches for it then, but Robin quickly holds the glove up high above her head before he can grab it.

“Why isn't it up for debate? Why do you isolate yourself all the time?” Robin's almost dancing now, twisting and turning as she tries to keep the glove away from Steve's grabbing hands. It doesn't help that he's taller than her, but she's more agile than people think, especially since Steve's in full coronation regalia right now. The material's stiff as a board at the best of times.

“You wouldn't understand, just give me the- ugh!” Steve's stopped trying to grab the glove, instead trying to restrain her and make it easier to grab.

“Maybe I would understand if you'd talk to me instead of shutting me out all the time-” Steve's almost got her in a headlock, but Robin ducks out from underneath it and quickly steps away and out of Steve's reach.

“Robin, that's enough!” Steve shouts, and then several things happen consecutively.

Steve reaches out towards Robin with his right hand, the one missing the glove.

Robin thinks she's going crazy, but- what look like snowflakes shoot out from Steve's hand where he's reached for her.

The crowd, most of whom had turned to look at Steve's shout, gasp, almost in unison.

“I- Steve-” Robin says, not quite sure where to start with the -- actually quite sizable -- pile of snow now on the ballroom floor.

“No,” Steve gasps, and Robin's never heard her brother so distraught. It makes something keen inside her, the sheer anguish in his voice. “No, no no no, this can't be happening, this can't-” Steve reaches up to pull at this hair, but more snow and ice shoots out from his hand as soon as it's pointing towards the ceiling. He flinches away from his own hand, sheer terror on his face, but with every movement Steve makes more and more snow and ice surrounds him. Within a few seconds, there's a wind picking up as well, and it's like a snowstorm is starting to form right there in the castle dining room.

The crowd, originally shocked into silence, starts to move again. Robin hears screaming, people running, shouting from the guards about an evacuation plan, but it's all faint and distorted like she's underwater. All she can focus on right now is Steve, the way his terror is only worsening by the moment.

“Steve, let me help you,” Robin calls over the roar of the crowd and the storm, taking a few steps towards him. She needs to get his attention before getting closer, the last thing she wants to do right now is startle him.

“Stay away from me!” Steve yells, holding up his hands in an instinctive 'stay back' gesture. Yet more ice shoots out towards Robin as he does so. “I’m not safe!”

“I don't care! You're my brother!” Robin shouts back, but Steve doesn't seem to hear her. He's looking down at his hands in horror, then at the waist-high line of ice between the two of them.

Robin somehow knows what he's going to do the moment before he does it.

“Steve!” Robin screams, breaking into a run. Steve's faster than her, always has been, so he makes it to the doors of the ballroom well before she can catch him. It also helps that people, even the guards posted at the doors, part to make room for him whenever he draws near. Seeing Steve push open the ballroom doors just enough to slip through them, Robin yells again, “Steve! Stop!”

“Princess Robin!” Someone crashes into Robin then, nearly sending the two of them flying. (Robin mentally thanks whatever God there may be that she wore pants and not a dress.) After regaining her footing, Robin looks at her assailant to find- oh, it's that guy. The Duke of one of their main trading partners, Tommy something. Haggard? Halfwit? Yeah, something like that.

“Princess Robin,” Tommy Hapless says, bending over with one hand on his knees and the other holding Robin's elbow as he catches his breath. God, Robin does not have time for this. “Princess, you can't- we need guidance. We need someone to... to lead us while the King is... indisposed.”

“I really don't have time for this,” Robin snaps, brushing his hand off her elbow. “Steve's my brother, I have to find him before he gets hurt!”

“I don't think... he's the one who'll be getting hurt,” Tommy Hanger-On says between gasps, quietly, but not so quiet Robin doesn't hear. She makes a point to stomp on his toes as she stalks off towards Eddie, who is doing his best to help people follow the evacuation advice. He looks faintly queasy, and very much like he would rather be literally anywhere else, but he's actually doing a pretty good job of guiding people where the guards want them.

Eddie doesn't notice her coming, so he jumps when Robin grabs him by the shoulder. She turns him around to face her, then grabs him by the other shoulder as well so she's looking him right in the eyes.

“I need to find Steve,” Robin says, not waiting for Eddie to finish whatever question he's opened his mouth to ask before continuing, “Can you take care of the kingdom until we get back?”

Eddie goes pale instantly. “What? I can't-”

“You're a prince, right? I know Forest-Upon-Hills is a pretty small kingdom, but how different can Hawkins really be?” Eddie doesn't look reassured, but Robin cares very little about that right now. She claps him on both shoulders in what she hopes is an encouraging gesture.

She grabs Eddie's hand and thrusts it up into the air, shouting, “Prince Eddie is in charge until I return!”

She then drops his hand before turning and running out into the night, ignoring the chaos behind her and the faint sounds of Eddie's confused protests.

Nothing matters to her now except for finding Steve.

#steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #platonic stobin #stranger things fic #charlie writes things #stranger things frozen au #rockie #<- vickie is not in this snippet but she's kristoff in this AU so. endgame rockie. target audience #steddie #<- yes eddie is prince hans in this. yes he ends up with steve at the end. he's not evil like hans is don't worry about it.#i have a lot more thoughts about this AU because i'm mentally ill please feel free to ask me questions #e.g. i'm thinking dustin is olaf and max is sven purely because I Think It Would Be Funny. + max deserves to be a bitchy reindeer #also olaf!dustin very much has dustin's personality and snark he is nothing like olaf. the only similarity is he is a snow golem steve made #also it should be clear enough in this but considering it's 2am and it's not proofread: robin is Mega Gay in this and ends up w/ vickie #she just needs an excuse for steve to open the gates up again so she can convince him to do it more often after the wedding goes Perfectly™#her plan was to get the marriage annulled afterwards somehow (she has not thought this through At All god bless <3)#robin's like 'steve's in trouble emotionally oh god i have to run into traffic'

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