right well that was a bad idea
And this is why I probably shouldn't go reading other people's reactions, because it sparks off all my own thoughts and feelings
Question: is nobody disturbed by the fact that the time lapse of five years means that there are a lot of people who have moved on and half the population who think that things are exactly the same as at the moment they were dusted?
So, you get dusted, your husband doesn’t. He finds someone else in those five years that have passed, they have a kid, and then suddenly you turn up and he’s married to someone else and living with her and now you have a whole new set of trauma to process because he’s lived through that grief and you haven’t.
It’s like HALF A WORLD OF STEVE ROGERS staring at the world and thinking, “I had a date on Saturday and I’m never going to get there...
This is why the solution in my story involved pulling everything back to the moment when it changed, with only a year passing and a kind of ‘it will feel like a dream’ feel to the memories. What was it Dean Koontz asserted in the novel ‘Lightning’? “Destiny struggles to assert the pattern that is meant to be.” Which, of course, requires a certain amount of narrative certainty that the pattern they are setting down is ‘meant to be’. I’m sure the architects and leaders of the Third Reich thought it was meant to be. Luckily for many of us, it wasn’t.
But at least Koontz ascertained the issue with Time Travel: that the time traveller can change their future, which may include the past of everyone in that future - the terrible paradox of time travel.
It’s the paradoxes of time travel that mean 2014 Thanos is now missing from the MCU cosmos. He and his armies were dispatched by Tony’s snapture in Endgame 2019) which means he will never come to be in Infinity War 2018 snapturing the universe which means there is no need for Tony’s snapture in Endgame 2019… Returning the stones won’t do anything - they got the stones from the past, they need to get them back there so they can be there when the timeline they lived through needs them. Which presents an interesting problem with the Tesseract, since Loki took it and vanished with it in 2012, but obviously was brought back to that point very shortly afterwards with the Tesseract so Thor can take Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard at the end of Avengers 2012....
Also, Rumlow, Rollins, and the STRIKE team. Obviously the sceptre (and what did they do with that, Steve just took the stones, not the scepter and it would have gotten destroyed when Thanos blasted the facility) and the mind stone got back to Strucker for him to create Wanda and Pietro, and so that Vision could be created for 2018Thanos to recreate and kill in taking the Mind Stone...but then there's the issue that 2012Steve doesn't have the foggiest idea that HYDRA is happening but the STRIKE team think he's on their side, and when they talk to Pierce who says 'no, actually, Cap isn't on our side' then what do they think? Also, pre-2014 Steve now he knows that 'Bucky Is Alive' so...maybe he's shocked in 2014, but he should be prepared for 2016 Rumlow in Civil War trying to distract him and...
See? It's a REALLY COOL CONCEPT but if you think it through it FALLS APART. SHEESH.
And that's not even questioning whether Steve Rogers could actually, as the character he's been presented, sit back and do nothing for the better part of 70 years. Like, maybe the five year gap is supposed to show that he's changed? He's learned helplessness, just like the rest of us.
I admit: it's easier to be angry at plotholes you could pilot a freaking Kree Destroyer through than fans who are just trying to scrape what enjoyment they can out of this.
I really do miss when I could just enjoy these movies. I think I lost that later than most people - after Age of Ultron when the news for Civil War came out, tbh. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed Dr. Strange and GotG2: because they didn’t make my head hurt. (While Civil War made my heart hurt with the sheer lack of Maria in the storyline that introduced her in the comics, even as an antagonist over the Accords or something.)
I don't know if it will be the panacea for all ills, per se; you're probably wanting your favourite rather than mine, and the fixits will be coming thick and fast, but seriously, imma point you at the other side of infinity for something that yes, made my head hurt while writing, but which I'm pretty sure for which I closed all the really huge plotholes...
Oh, and (nearly) everyone lives. Swear to God.
Question: is nobody disturbed by the fact that the time lapse of five years means that there are a lot of people who have moved on and half the population who think that things are exactly the same as at the moment they were dusted?
So, you get dusted, your husband doesn’t. He finds someone else in those five years that have passed, they have a kid, and then suddenly you turn up and he’s married to someone else and living with her and now you have a whole new set of trauma to process because he’s lived through that grief and you haven’t.
It’s like HALF A WORLD OF STEVE ROGERS staring at the world and thinking, “I had a date on Saturday and I’m never going to get there...
This is why the solution in my story involved pulling everything back to the moment when it changed, with only a year passing and a kind of ‘it will feel like a dream’ feel to the memories. What was it Dean Koontz asserted in the novel ‘Lightning’? “Destiny struggles to assert the pattern that is meant to be.” Which, of course, requires a certain amount of narrative certainty that the pattern they are setting down is ‘meant to be’. I’m sure the architects and leaders of the Third Reich thought it was meant to be. Luckily for many of us, it wasn’t.
But at least Koontz ascertained the issue with Time Travel: that the time traveller can change their future, which may include the past of everyone in that future - the terrible paradox of time travel.
It’s the paradoxes of time travel that mean 2014 Thanos is now missing from the MCU cosmos. He and his armies were dispatched by Tony’s snapture in Endgame 2019) which means he will never come to be in Infinity War 2018 snapturing the universe which means there is no need for Tony’s snapture in Endgame 2019… Returning the stones won’t do anything - they got the stones from the past, they need to get them back there so they can be there when the timeline they lived through needs them. Which presents an interesting problem with the Tesseract, since Loki took it and vanished with it in 2012, but obviously was brought back to that point very shortly afterwards with the Tesseract so Thor can take Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard at the end of Avengers 2012....
Also, Rumlow, Rollins, and the STRIKE team. Obviously the sceptre (and what did they do with that, Steve just took the stones, not the scepter and it would have gotten destroyed when Thanos blasted the facility) and the mind stone got back to Strucker for him to create Wanda and Pietro, and so that Vision could be created for 2018Thanos to recreate and kill in taking the Mind Stone...but then there's the issue that 2012Steve doesn't have the foggiest idea that HYDRA is happening but the STRIKE team think he's on their side, and when they talk to Pierce who says 'no, actually, Cap isn't on our side' then what do they think? Also, pre-2014 Steve now he knows that 'Bucky Is Alive' so...maybe he's shocked in 2014, but he should be prepared for 2016 Rumlow in Civil War trying to distract him and...
See? It's a REALLY COOL CONCEPT but if you think it through it FALLS APART. SHEESH.
And that's not even questioning whether Steve Rogers could actually, as the character he's been presented, sit back and do nothing for the better part of 70 years. Like, maybe the five year gap is supposed to show that he's changed? He's learned helplessness, just like the rest of us.
I admit: it's easier to be angry at plotholes you could pilot a freaking Kree Destroyer through than fans who are just trying to scrape what enjoyment they can out of this.
I really do miss when I could just enjoy these movies. I think I lost that later than most people - after Age of Ultron when the news for Civil War came out, tbh. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed Dr. Strange and GotG2: because they didn’t make my head hurt. (While Civil War made my heart hurt with the sheer lack of Maria in the storyline that introduced her in the comics, even as an antagonist over the Accords or something.)
I don't know if it will be the panacea for all ills, per se; you're probably wanting your favourite rather than mine, and the fixits will be coming thick and fast, but seriously, imma point you at the other side of infinity for something that yes, made my head hurt while writing, but which I'm pretty sure for which I closed all the really huge plotholes...
Oh, and (nearly) everyone lives. Swear to God.