What if…yeah, the soul stone didn’t require killing love. What if Nat lived instead of sacrificing herself for the straight “nuclear family” (which rang heavily of “family values” like a silent dog whistle from the ‘90s).
What if, as @finntasticmxfinn said, Nat was celebrated as a survivor of trauma who’s incredible dedication to overcoming her past defined her. I’m tempted to pull the “should been Clint card”, and yup, here it is. The way he handled his grief was so stereotypical for straight cis white men - go out and kill strangers. And yet he gets to go back to his family without repenting. Without making any effort to overcome his past…which was last week. She didn’t chose to be an assassin, she was programmed. He chose to go out and kill. And yet he got to go back to his family. She, unmarried, without children, made efforts to become a better person was the one who died.
What if there had been more Maria Hill screen time and more Maria interacting with Nat about something. Anything.
What if queerness wasn’t absent.
What if Hill and Romanoff got to flirt WITH EACH OTHER on camera, comms, and text. What if they were a couple. A rock solid, funny, whip smart, loving, tender-for-eachother, tough-aa-nails couple who were there and queer looking dashing in their outfits.
What if Carol Danvers and Maria Rambeau were acknowledged as a badass, beautiful, solid, interracial, couple with a child instead of treated with the same awkwardness queer families experienced in the 90s. Kinda exist and sort of tolerated but also at risk of losing everything including their jobs if that’s made explicit. (Yes, I know it was set in the 90s but maybe it didn’t have to be like the 90s because those “good old days” weren’t.)
What if there were more women in general, and they weren’t all coded as straight right off the bat. Same thing for men. And add a whole bunch of gender variant peeps because we exist too. Didn’t shield recruit from DADT dischargees? That’d produce a nice batch of queer soup to choose from. Tactical planning expert enbys? We got em! Intelligence expert pansexual? Got those too! Straight-acting but super not straight weapons experts? We definitely got those.
And my beautiful, wonderful, smart, funny wife added, “I’d love to see a vignette of “a day in the life of Maria Hill”. 100% yes. It’d start at 0430 with Hill in the gym, wrapping up her workout just as Cap comes in to start his. She eats breakfast at her apartment with news on the TV in the background while eating her avocado toast. And it continues.
baratheonpilled
blakekathryn
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