Benedict Wong really went “gotta catch them all” with them Marvel paychecks 🙌🏽 the new Samuel L Jackson

hi! just wanted u to know that i was so inspired by ur post saying dsmom should have been wanda and america mother-daughter relationship and i wrote a fic about it; it's works/38936589 on ao3! you don't have to read it or anything but just konw your thoughts are influential hahaha

Oh my god…I’m so sorry this took so long to answer, but I was too busy losing my mind! Your fic was so good, I can’t even believe it! And the fact that a silly post I made inspired you to write something this awesome…holy shit you made my whole week! I know you didn’t write it specifically for me, but thank you so much regardless!

What’s especially awesome is how you went in a completely different direction that what I had imagined when I initially wrote the post!!! It’s so wonderful to see people interpret the same prompt in widely different ways. And oh my god, all the little attentions to detail, the fun little world building you did in such a short amount of words…I fucking love it.

Again, thank you so much!

So I definitely need to make this post, based on how a couple of my other posts have been interpreted: I am in fact a Wanda stan. Just because I am dissatisfied with her character arc does not mean I think she’s the devil, or evil, or any flavor of character that does not involve sympathetic qualities. I am able to criticize a thing and still enjoy it. Quite frankly, I think it’s extremely telling that she gets shit on but Thanos and Loki all get let off the hook. No one is allowed to complain to me about Wanda until I stop hearing takes about Thanos being right in wiping out half of the universe, or takes about how we should sympathize with Loki blowing up New York because he didn’t have the best father in the world.

Also, coming into an MCU tag, taking a post from an MCU oriented blog, and reblogging it to call MCU fans idiots and babies is the lamest of moves. Go touch grass and stay out of a side of Tumblr you clearly want no part in, because we have enough shit going on.

Wow, I can’t believe I made this post and completely forgot about the shipping discourse. Either way, I was still right xD

So now that Lady Loki/possibly Sylvie is here, I hope everyone buckles up and straps in for the discourse. If she’s evil, then there’s gonna be posts about how they had to make the evil version of Loki female in order to make the male one look good and how female Loki is the TRUE deviant. If she’s secretly good, then it’s gonna be like the Mistress all over again, where they had to make an evil character a woman because women are inherently good or whatever. If it turns out she’s actually Sylvie, then there’s gonna be posts about how we were queerbaited again and Disney couldn’t actually commit to having a gender fluid Loki. 

Obviously you’re allowed to have one, all, or none of these opinions. Just…be prepared for arguing.

Hi I’m a system, and I have some gripes with your marcsteven post. I’m coming to you with the assumption you didn’t intend for the post to come off the way it did.

Intersystem relationships are not selfcest because alters are not the same person. Like. In real life. We have intersystem relationships, and like nearly every other system I’ve met has them.

To conflate alters as just the same person is uncomfortable and I understand it likely came from a place of not knowing but it’s rooted in ableist ideas. Not saying YOU are ableist, not at all. I just really really encourage you to do your own research on this stuff and talk to systems. If you need info feel free to ask. Moon knight did something a little strange in my opinion and made all the alters look alike when in my experience that’s not really a thing? So I guess that confuses people.

My point with that post was not that Marc and Steven are the same person. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Loki and Sylvie are not the same person. They have separate lives, separate experiences, separate bodies, separate consciousnesses. Depending on whether Sylvie was born a woman or just chose to be later on, they might also have different genetic makeups. To say that Loki and Sylvie are the same person but Marc and Steven are not is hypocritical, at least in my opinion. I was not saying at all that shipping Marc and Steven was wrong, or that alters are the same person, or that alters can’t be in relationships with each other.

And quite frankly, that post was not even meant to cast moral judgment on either side of the aisle. I really don’t care whether people like Loki and Sylvie together or if they think it’s weird, and same goes for Marc and Steven. Me personally, I think the Loki/Sylvie stuff was rushed and underdeveloped, and I don’t ship Marc and Steven because they seem more like brothers to me than romantically charged, but my opinion is not the end all be all. I was only trying to highlight that there is a weird double standard here, and that MCU fandom on Tumblr likes to pull that double standard when things dont go their way shipping wise.

Agreed, the book was established very unclearly. The Darkhold was in Agents of Shield but that series is not canon to the MCU (I think), so it’s only been brought up in WandaVision, and in that show it was never mentioned as being a book of ancient evil. Even the witch coven who tried to take Agatha out only said the magic within it was “beyond her station”, implying that it’s just too powerful for her. But Sam Raimi did the Evil Dead movies and Evil Dead has the Necrnomicon so he’s just doing what he knows.

My bigger issue is that it’s never clearly established what “corrupted by the Darkhold” actually means. I think Raimi was going for “dark powers just make your soul evil and drive you crazy”, but there’s a ton of stuff that comes with the Darkhold. In the comics, the Darkhold was born from the rage of the interdimensional demon Chthon, and Chthon also possessed Wanda at the moment of her birth (in the current continuity, long story, it’s not important). I wouldn’t bring it up since it’s all comic continuity, except Chthon is directly mentioned in this movie and it’s also implied that the Scarlet Witch is maybe a piece of him? Or something? Wanda has her reality warping powers before she uses the Darkhold, but I guess they amplified under its use? Honestly Wanda’s continuity and how her powers work have always been terrible and they can never seem to fix it without making stuff stupider, and the MCU is no exception.

So yeah, I have no idea if the Darkhold is forcing her to do this stuff, whether it has an agenda or if dark magic just makes you lose your conscious, or if Chthon is involved at all. Unfortunately, since it was never fully explained in the movie, and we don’t ever get to see Wanda after she removes the Darkhold from existence, we’ll never know how much of “the Scarlet Witch” was actually her (even though like I said, she got her reality warping witch powers before this movie, which just makes things more confusing). Since it was never defined, people are gonna argue about whether she deserves redemption and how evil she may or may not be until the end of time, even if another writer comes in and tries to fix it.

That moment you realize Wanda and America could have both resolved their issues by working together to find their missing family (and maybe become family themselves in the process), but that’s too smart so MoM had to make the girl from a planet of all women gain a father figure

“nothing much happened plot-wise in MoM and barely any questions were answered” is it not enough to see milf wanda doing her bad(ass) dark magic thing in a very creepy way?? with incredible cinematography, campy style and awesome fun fight scenes as the cherry on top?

I just need to come right out and say it: Multiverse of Madness should have been set before No Way Home. It would go such a long way to explain why Doctor Strange seems so weird in that movie.

Why is he willing to listen to go against protocol to try and do something nice for Peter? Well he just went on this whole adventure with another plucky teenager and he learned to loosen up a little and not be such a control freak. This would also explain why he got so angry at Peter and blamed him so much for messing up the spell even though the spell was his idea; he tried to go against his instincts and now he transferring his anger to someone else.

Why is Doctor Strange so casual about the multiverse in NWH but in this movie he doesn't even mention that he shattered the multiverse like a month ago? Well in this version the order is in reverse, and Stephen's arrogance about thinking he can handle the multiverse so easily could make for an interesting "oh shit" moment. Can't fix this mistake by puppeteering a dead version of yourself in this one, huh Stephen?

Why is he not willing to give the Spidey villains a chance to change their ways? Because every time he tried to be reasonable with Wanda in MoM, she escalated the threat and killed people.

Why does Peter's final sacrifice hit so hard for him? Because one of the themes of Multiverse of Madness is about the pursuit of happiness and how, while making the tough calls and pushing everyone away doesn't make you a happy person, sometimes its necessary and you have to move on and try to find satisfaction in other ways.

And here's the big one: why is Doctor Strange so blase about mind wiping the entire world when Peter initially only came to him to try and get his friends into MIT. There are so many other ways Strange could have gone about doing this, and even if he settled on mind wiping, why did he have to do the entire planet? Well...he's being corrupted by the Darkhold. Imagine seeing the final shot of MoM where Stephen grows the evil third eye if this took place before No Way Home, and realizing that he had that THE ENTIRE TIME HE WAS WITH PETER.

Doing this could also fix one of my issues I had with the post credits scene. It seems like ten minutes after Strange learns this lesson about letting go, and five minutes after realizing his tryst with the Darkhold might have lasting consequences on him, the MCU just puts all that into a box and chucks it into the garbage. He gets to meet Clea, his in-comic wife for several years, and he's whisked off to fix the incursion that he apparently caused (because Strange's incursions can be fixed but Wanda's can't I GUESS, unless this is a trap set by Dormamu or something).

Doing this definitely wouldn't fix all the issues I have with this movie, but it would keep all the stuff I like, and it would smooth out Strange's character arc. IW and Endgame had him be the guy willing to make any kind of sacrifice necessary, so this could have been the point where he starts trying to work his way around that (I realize that means he would learn that he can bend the rules despite all evidence pointing to him turning evil when he tries to do that, but the actual MoM movie said he can do pretty much whatever he wants anyway so oh well).

And yes, I do know that this movie WAS originally supposed to come out first but COVID wrecked the release timeline. I'm just saying that the movies as released would play better if they had set MoM before No Way Home still, despite release order.

Oh I agree, the emotions are all completely off. The movie keeps trying to make us sympathize with Wanda, even though she’s also meant to be a terrifying Terminator-esque villain. Raimi doesn’t even clarify what he means when he says the Darkhold “corrupts” it’s user. Is it in a “historically people have gone mad with power” kind of way? Does the Darkhold have a will of it’s own? Is it Chthon’s influence seeping out of the book? Is it just dimensional madness? The Chthon mention is especially frustrating because in the comics he’s been with her since she was born (according to the latest retcon), so is that canon in the movies?

But unfortunately all these questions, along with all the other nuances that could have come with telling a story like this, were thrown out the window. Why? Because Raimi wanted to make a campy horror movie like Evil Dead, and he’s very good at making movies the way he wants them to go

Multiverse of Madness: Wanda is the bad guy and you shouldn’t root for her because she’s putting her own happiness above the happiness of everyone else

Also Multiverse of Madness: Makes Wanda’s first scene a happy memory of her with her children then cruelly rips that away, literally dimming the color palette and taking away the score so that we are forced to live Wanda’s grief with her

That moment you realize Wanda and America could have both resolved their issues by working together to find their missing family (and maybe become family themselves in the process), but that’s too smart so MoM had to make the girl from a planet of all women gain a father figure

Honestly I’m kind of willing to cut the whole “Wanda goes crazy because she wants to be a mother again” thing some slack, for a lot of different reasons. I think the fixation on being a mother specifically is because children are something easier to control, at least in her mind, and she needs some level of control after everything that’s been taken from her. On top of that, children represent more of an unconditional love than romantic love, so it makes sense that that’s the thing she wants to grab on to.

I don’t think it’s all about control either. Wanda seems to take joy in making her children smile. All the scenes we see of the boys being normal, they’re not perfect children talking about how much they love their mother. They’re just normal kids, brothers that bicker with each other and make up nonsense songs and complain about being too old for tuck ins. Wanda does want control yes, but I think she also wants to know that she wasn’t born just to destroy, to cause suffering and pain. Wanda has shouldered a lot of blame for things in the short time she’s been in the MCU, and asked to do even worse things, and I think she craves the normalcy and pride in just being able to have a family and raise kids. It’s why her illusion of her home involved so much farming; she wants to nurture instead of destroy.

Also, the MCU was kind of hamstrung to do this plot. House of M revolves completely around Wanda going crazy because she doesn’t have her children, and I think this movie and ESPECIALLY WandaVision did a ton of work to make her a lot more nuanced than that. She at least feels like she has a lot more agency over her own story, and I’m hoping they keep it that way instead of making “the Scarlet Witch” a Dark Phoenix type of possession story.

So yeah, I’m not super thrilled that Wanda was pushed completely off the villain cliff so fast in this movie, but I don’t think the motherhood thing is the problem. I think Raimi and Waldron just wanted a Friday the 13th type of unstoppable scary bad guy (fitting cause of Pamela Vorhees) and they dumbed down the nuance of Wanda’s character as a result.

So who’s ready to form a lynch mob for when Elizabeth Olsen inevitably gets snubbed for a Best Supporting Actress nom at the Oscars?

Multiverse of Madness: Wanda is the bad guy and you shouldn’t root for her because she’s putting her own happiness above the happiness of everyone else

Also Multiverse of Madness: Makes Wanda’s first scene a happy memory of her with her children then cruelly rips that away, literally dimming the color palette and taking away the score so that we are forced to live Wanda’s grief with her

WandaVision: Wanda’s kids are imaginary because Vision is dead and also you can’t get pregnant from having sex with a robot

Multiverse of Madness: Wanda’s kids are real in literally every other universe even though Vision is nowhere to be seen and you still can’t get pregnant by having sex with a ROBOT

One more thing I need to say before I start writing analysis for this movie (spoilers incoming)

.

.

.

.

.

.

There’s no way John Krasinski is gonna be Reed Richards full time right? That was just there as a fun little nod? Cause I thought I wanted it, and then I saw it and it took me right out of the movie xD

Just got out of Multiverse of Madness, and I noticed something interesting about the negative feedback for this movie (and who’s getting blamed for it). No specific plot spoilers but vague concept spoilers, so tread with caution

.

.

.

It’s completely true that America was completely sidelined in this film for another “young woman does not trust her powers until a man believes in her” storyline, and Wanda was completely gutted into a stereotypical Dark Phoenix type, but I think laying the blame at Michael Waldron’s feet is a mistake. In my opinion Loki actually had acceptable arcs for its female characters, and the issues with it were more that Michael Waldron’s scripts are just a lot more shallow than they initially appear (something that also carries over into this film unfortunately, will probably make a post about it later). Honestly, I think a lot of it comes from Sam Raimi. Let’s take a tally:

1) The women in the Evil Dead films are kind of standard horror movie victims, and one gets r*ped by a tree for shock value

2) Mary Jane Watson in the original Spider-Man movies revolves solely around her will they/won’t they relationship with Peter Parker, and because of that she makes several questionable and very stupid decisions. She is also constantly put in danger because Raimi cannot imagine a climax without kidnapping MJ

3) The rest of the women in the Spider-Man movies are there either to die, be attacked, or scream into the camera (because Sam Raimi loves women screaming directly into the camera)

4) The main character of Drag Me To Hell is considered evil and deserving of damnation…because she wanted a promotion at work and therefore refused to extend an old lady’s mortgage for a third time. Every other character in the movie treats her like a monster for doing her job.

Like I said up top, Michael Waldron definitely has his problems, but pretending that Raimi was completely hands off on this script when EVERY OTHER aspect of this movie is all him is a little naive, imo.

Also just want to say, I don’t think this makes Raimi a bad person, or that if you like this movie you’re sexist. Unfortunately not every movie is going to be progressive, and it’s up to each person to decide whether this makes or breaks the movie.

The audacity of the MCU fandom to shit on Loki for the Loki/Sylvie kiss but then flood the Moon Knight tag with fics shipping Steven, Marc, and Jake together…it’s both baffling and not at all surprising