penny.

[anti-tony-god]

"My opinion has not changed, I still hate him" an opinion you definitely had prior to 2016 and the release of captain america civil war, lol

this blog would straight up not exist if CACW wasn't a thing, be honest with yourself here

recession indicator

[ze-alt]

nah i'm not lol

i just find the continued existence of these kinds of blogs to be embarrassing and annoying.

[suchusoid]

I bring a certain "iron man is a character made originally as capitalist propaganda that has since become and iverrated, annoying, and overly favored character that has done many terribke things that he has yet to truly answer for" enrergy to the party that mcu fans din't like.

[ze-alt]

Okay, let me ask you a series of questions here --

Did you watch Iron Man 3

How many Iron Man comics have you read?

In what way do you think he's been favored? Can you list them? Maybe point them out???

[bundibird]

Iron Man 1 really said "the actual bad guy is the white capitalist who is selling arms under the table to both sides in order to extend the war and make as much money from it as possible," and Iron Man 2 really said "the white capitalist who gives a platform to people with bad intentions in order to make a buck is the reason the bad intentions have the opportunity to prosper and cause untold damage," and Iron Man 3 really said "the real terrorist is the white capitalist who will create and use fear to manipulate governments and the public in order to sell a product," and I really don't think enough people recognise this.

[bundibird]

Some people saw Aldrich Killian say "by this time tomorrow, I'll have the West's most powerful leader in one hand, and the world's most feared terrorist in the other. I'll own the war on terror. Create supply and demand," and they still managed to miss the whole entire message of the movie.

[keeper-of-the-flames]

I feel like these themes are also compounded, maybe unintentionally, by the first two Spider-Man MCU movies by showing how Tony, as a white capitalist, still causes great harm by his abuse of workers, his or others, and drives them to desperation.

[bundibird]

Verrrry interesting take, because I've always seen it very much as those two movies (and the characters within them) using Tony as a scapegoat for other people's bad choices.

Toomes, for example. He absolutely got shafted re the chitauri tech cleanup operation, sure - no question. But was it Tony who shafted him?

Nope. It was the US government. It was the government who set up a department to deal with all the alien tech, and it was a government representative who told Toomes to go fuck himself when he raised his very valid argument of outlaid expenditures. It was under her direction that all the visible tech was taken off Toomes and it was her who refused to entertain the notion of compensating him for any of it or refunding any of the business purchases he'd already made.

And yeah, Tony was working in conjunction with the government agency in helping organise the clean up. Tony was the face of the clean up. Maybe he even funded some of it. But that's all he was. The donor of his name, time, and (possible) funds.

He wasnt the one who made the policies; who decided that no civilian should handle any of the tech. That was the government. And the woman who told Toomes to go fuck himself wasnt a Stark employee, she was a government employee. So it wasn't Tony's actions that fucked Toomes over, it was the government's actions - and more specifically the actions of one single unyielding government employee who couldn't give less of a shit. But because Tony was the face of the clean up, he's the one that Toomes blames.

Toomes then goes on to say "fine, fuck you, I'll make super illegal alien-tech weaponry and then sell those weapons in the city in which my wife and daughter live," and he blames Tony for that choice, but like...... he's the one who decided to create dangerous weapons, AND he's the one who KEPT selling them long past the point where his initial outlays had been well-paid back. Is that really Tony's fault? Or is it Toomes' fault, for choosing to create and sell weapons in order to get rich?

And Spidey 2.... Beck and his allies all blamed Tony for their misfortune, too, but were any of their misfortunes really Tony's fault?

Beck was fired from SI because he repeatedly tried to take BARF in a weaponised direction, against orders, even though the company who was employing him to work on BARF had a very well-known we-don't-make-weapons policy. His own behaviour got him fired after multiple warnings, but he blames Tony for it.

He also claims that Tony "stole" BARF, but it was clearly stated that BARF was created by SI employees, for SI. Which means that SI owned it.

If Beck were the sole creative mind behind the tech in question, he could have approached another company (such as one that actually did make weapons) and said to them, "hey, I have this great idea for a weapon." The fact that he didn't take the idea to another company tells us that it wasn't HIS idea. It wasn't his intellectual property, so he couldn't sell it.

And sure, yeah, he worked on it. He was one of the team that developed it. But he was employed to do that. If I'm employed by a company to do a painting, then I am the artist of the piece, but i'm not the owner. Especially if I'm just one of a team of painters. The company that hired me/us to do the piece is the owner. They commissioned it; they own it. Same with this. They employed Beck to do a job, and the job was to develop BARF. The fact that he was one of a team who worked on it doesn't give him ownership over the product or the idea, and it's blatantly unreliable narrating that he claims it does.

And all the others who also hated Tony in Spidey 2? were fired from SI because they worked with Stane in selling black market weapons to America's enemies.

they're pissed about losing their jobs, sure, but like..... are we really going to blame Tony for firing them, when the reason they got fired is that they were literally helping run an illegal black market arms dealing ring??? Call me a Tony apologist if you will, but I think firing them MIGHT have been the correct course of action.

In my opinion, the spidey movies don't showcase the impact that a careless richboy has on people below his notice. They showcase how some people will make bad decisions on their own merit and they will blame everyone but themselves for the consequences of those bad decisions.

Beck was a piece of shit, and he got fired for trying to weaponise tech that didn't belong to him, and instead of being like "hm maybe I shouldn't have repeatedly tried to weaponise tech at the No Weapons Allowed Company," he instead blames everyone but himself for the loss of his job.

The others all chose to help sell black market arms, but THATS not the reason they got fired, according to them; it's just because Tony Stark is a dickhead, or something.

Toomes could have pursued other avenues to get his money back; could have formed a class action with other affected contractors in New York, could have gone to the media and been like "hey, look what the government did to me, it's shit and I think they should reimburse me." Could have taken the alien tech and turned it into any number of things; personal vehicles or energy sources or something useful but non-damaging ---- but instead he decided to become a weapons inventor and dealer, and he blames Tony for this.

It's verrryyy different to the messaging in the IM movies, in which white capitalists deliberately and knowingly exploit whoever they can in order to make a buck, and are thus correctly shown as being the true villain of the film.

Had the spidey movies wanted to parallel this but make it about the unintended/unknown consequences of a richboy's exploitative ways (and: that WOULD be a great theme to explore, especially if it's a well-meaning richboy who nonetheless still causes damage that he's unaware of) then they should have chosen characters who were actually exploited by Tony, instead of characters who are either shit people or shit decision-makers, who blame everyone but themselves for the consequences of their own actions.

[therese-lokidottir]

Even though it might not be personally Tony's fault, the shift in who the villain is is still something to be noted. We go from powerful men who not only don't care that they're hurting people but actively cause harm so they can increase their own profit to people who have been screwed over by the system striking out against but their actions are so extreme and harm bystanders that their grievances are dismissed and the system goes on unchanged.

 EDITH is bordering on unconstitutional and is dangerous, it's insane that Tony would make such a thing after Ultron. Apparently, what learned after CW is he should make a personal surveillance state. Instead of ever questioning the implications of EDITH, the thing given to Beck gives the implication that it's only bad if it's wrong hands.

The former employees in FFH are portrayed to be wrong for being mad at Tony and are basically written to be sociopaths. Beck especially is written to be a delusional egotist. The audience is not meant to question Tony, the narrative absolutely wants us to see the people as being unreasonable and wrong.  

Again, MCU went from war profiteers to working-class civilians who wanted their do as the villains. Spider-Man has plenty of villains that didn't have to have any connection to Stark industries at all. They could have written bad guy that was selfish and greedy, but they had to add the element of disgruntled worker.

And with Spider-Man especially when traditionally corporations like OsCorp and Alchemax are portrayed as these insidious heartless things that produce supervillains is a notable shift in who is portrayed as in the wrong. 

[ze-alt]

"Again, MCU went from war profiteers to working-class civilians who wanted their do as the villains. Spider-Man has plenty of villains that didn't have to have any connection to Stark industries at all. They could have written bad guy that was selfish and greedy, but they had to add the element of disgruntled worker."

... But Toomes is selfish and greedy -- the guy is selling alien weapons of mass destruction on the black market without any concern of who it may or may not hurt in the future, while he sits in the suburbs collecting checks.

Toomes' whole monologue in the warehouse is just him communicating his ideology –– he's (rightfully) pissed at Tony, sure, but he's got shitty "fuck you i got mine" philosophy, he's a massive fucking hypocrite. The guy isn't Bernie Sanders, he's Tony Soprano.

I feel the overemphasis on the Osborns and Oscorp in most adaptations have really made people think Spider-Man is some anti-capitalist text when like ... it's really not? I would like to be! But it's not. The only Spider-Man story that even comes close to communicating that kind of theme is Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man run –– but a great majority of Peter's villains tend to be on the same class status as he is, they're all working class joe schmoes but they're also kind of dicks too! Peter has more joe schmoe villains than he does Cigar Chomping Capitalist™ ones -- even in the films this is the case, Norman was a one and done in villain in Raimi's Spider-Man 1 but Peter spends the next two films fighting a mad scientist, a small time criminal who gets turned into sand, and an Incel who gets possessed by alien goo.

[tonystarkoffenselegion]

page is from 2004 but feels very prescient to some current political happenings

[ze-alt]

this post is like 8 years old. but. man. people on tumblr could really just post a panel out of context and a dozen people will lap it up like cattle out of a sense of faux-activism, lol

this panel is from avengers disassembled aka "the one where wanda goes crazy" –– for the context of this scene itself is that wanda manipulating members of the avengers and making them go crazy. In this particular instance, Wanda uses chaos magic to make Tony believe he was drunk.

[ze-alt]

well, captain america: civil war turns 10. which means it’s been 10 years since the MCU fandom’s brain completely broke and lost the ability to talk about fictional characters normally forever.

media literacy? nuance? good faith arguments and discussions about characters? nope, sorry, megan — you like the fictional character of Tony Stark/Steve Rogers which now means you support [INSERT RIGHT-WING POLITICAL CAUSE] and you’re now Literally Hitler forever. /s

[c-m-li]

What I thought I'd get for Captain America 3: Steve and Bucky revenge tour against remnants of Hydra and Bucky healing and reclaiming himself.

What I ended up getting for Captain America 3: Tony Stark's guilt complex having international consequences for millions who weren't at fault, and Bucky being re-victimized.

[legalandnotease]

Blame RDJ. No seriously.

What reportedly happened is the writer was threatening to cut him entirely until he complained to Keven Feige. Who by turn forced them to give Tony a bigger role.

He ended up having more screentime then Steve.

[ze-alt]

yeah, man and Charlie Brown had hoes.

I have no idea why people keep spreading this myth around, and I have no idea where they keep getting it from but that’s not what happened.

From Producer Nate Moore:

“… So we were developing Captain America 3 and we were [doing] really good. Winter Soldier worked, people were back in, they’re interested, and we were talking about a movie, and we knew we had to resolve, obviously, the Winter Soldier storyline. We wanted Cap and Bucky to ultimately reunite. And the plot that we… And we knew we wanted to use Zemo. What a great character. You know, he’s obviously a classic Cap villain. And we were building the movie around a MacGuffin around the Madbomb, which, the Madbomb goes off and causes normal people to start fighting each other. It’s honestly a little similar to what I think they did in Kingsman.”

“And it was cool, and it was grounded, and it was political, and whatever, and [Feige] was like, ‘That’s not a big enough idea, guys.’ And we’re like, ‘Let us write a draft, we’ll prove it to you.’ [Feige:] ‘Okay, prove it to me.’ As we’re getting done with it… he pulls me into his office and he said, ‘You know, I think we should try to do Civil War.’ And I was like, ‘Kevin, we don’t have half the stuff that’s in Civil War. We don’t have the New Warriors, we don’t have… Here’s all the reasons why we can’t do it.’ And he’s like, ‘Go home, read it, let’s talk about it.’ So I went home that night, read it… I re-read it, ’cause I had read it before and I was like, ‘Yeah, look we don’t have the Negative Zone prison…’ There were so many things that we didn’t have.”

“And he’s like, ‘Okay, okay.’ And so I went to the writer’s room with Markus, McFeely, and Joe, and Anthony, and Kevin peeked his head in and he goes, ‘So, stop with the Madbomb, you guys are doing Civil War.’ And I was like, ‘Ah, fuck.’ And Joe was like, ‘Yes! Civil War? Awesome!’ And then we had to figure out how to do Civil War. But he was like, ’There wasn’t a big enough idea that would get audiences excited and we did it. Look, It was scary and when you’re throwing out a whole thing and starting new, it’s always a bit weird, but he was right. He was right. We were still able to pay off the Bucky storyline. We still figured out how to use Zemo. But the central conceit of the movie was something that audiences would gravitate towards and they did.”

The decision for Cap 3 to be a Civil War adaptation was decided entirely by Feige — there was never any plans for any HYDRA comeback story, Zemo was always the main antagonist — I don’t like CACW either, but at least do your research or at least cite your sources properly, lol

[ze-alt]

when will the loony libs at city hall put a stop to this "Spider-Man" menacing our streets?

(credits all go to quoproquid over on bluesky)

[dep-yo-tee]

Dispatch is SO funny to me bc it went from hihi I'm having so much fun to bro, this fucking game genuinely fucking SUCKS

[dep-yo-tee]

Like wow, it really just took telltale nostalgia and most of the costs of the production into Critical Role cast and Aaron Paul AND LET'S NOT FORGET throwing you into a romance with someone you might not even like damn you might even hate bro like ☠️☠️☠️

[ze-alt]

i'm sorry that the game wasn't a dating sim. ig???

At some point you can’t really blame the game anymore when it’s obvious that it’s Going For Something with its story and characters and you as the player just refuse to go along with it over some bad faith arbitrary reason

[dep-yo-tee]

Oh no, that's my problem; Dispatch its a dating sim where your only two options are woman with TERRIBLE boundaries that REALLY shouldn't be a manager if that's the case or literal walking HR violation, which mind you, Invisigal feels the most PUSHED towards YOU making her entire arc be the be all, end all when it comes to redemption.

I wish we didn't have romance AT ALL.

[ze-alt]

hoo boy that’s a whole lotta tags that I don’t feel like answering one by one but. like.

Dislike for Visi, yeah sure I can understand — but Blazer? Really? Mandy’s worst crime is being socially awkward and being unable to read proper social cues, lol

But I digress. You don’t necessarily HAVE to romance Visi for her to be redeemed, lol — I was able to romance Blazer without having indulge Visi romantically, like that’s an option. The prevailing narrative that the game forces you into anything is eyerolling to say the least.

"the writers couldn’t get Joss Wheadon's dick out of their mouths"

Look I don’t like Whedonesque dialogue either but it’s important for me that you realize Whedon did not invent snarky dialogue and/or characters, lol — literally every writer was doing it during and before the 90s lmao

I highly doubt that anybody at AdHoc are big Whedon fans, I might be wrong — but still, that feels like a massive assumption brought on by an intentional bad faith reading than, like, a concrete assumption

"dispatch is a bunch of sexual fantasies string together by the pretense that its a story about redemption"

[dep-yo-tee]

You don't need to answer the tags one by one because you're treating a vent post (that was left untagged from the main fandom for a reason btw,) and treating it like a debate. 💀💀💀

Anyways, good for you! Or bad, I guess. Because I still think Dispatch sucks BALLS. Specially Invisigal.

[ze-alt]

[dep-yo-tee]

Dispatch is SO funny to me bc it went from hihi I'm having so much fun to bro, this fucking game genuinely fucking SUCKS

[dep-yo-tee]

Like wow, it really just took telltale nostalgia and most of the costs of the production into Critical Role cast and Aaron Paul AND LET'S NOT FORGET throwing you into a romance with someone you might not even like damn you might even hate bro like ☠️☠️☠️

[ze-alt]

i'm sorry that the game wasn't a dating sim. ig???

At some point you can’t really blame the game anymore when it’s obvious that it’s Going For Something with its story and characters and you as the player just refuse to go along with it over some bad faith arbitrary reason

[dep-yo-tee]

Oh no, that's my problem; Dispatch its a dating sim where your only two options are woman with TERRIBLE boundaries that REALLY shouldn't be a manager if that's the case or literal walking HR violation, which mind you, Invisigal feels the most PUSHED towards YOU making her entire arc be the be all, end all when it comes to redemption.

I wish we didn't have romance AT ALL.

[ze-alt]

hoo boy that’s a whole lotta tags that I don’t feel like answering one by one but. like.

Dislike for Visi, yeah sure I can understand — but Blazer? Really? Mandy’s worst crime is being socially awkward and being unable to read proper social cues, lol

But I digress. You don’t necessarily HAVE to romance Visi for her to be redeemed, lol — I was able to romance Blazer without having indulge Visi romantically, like that’s an option. The prevailing narrative that the game forces you into anything is eyerolling to say the least.

"the writers couldn’t get Joss Wheadon's dick out of their mouths"

Look I don’t like Whedonesque dialogue either but it’s important for me that you realize Whedon did not invent snarky dialogue and/or characters, lol — literally every writer was doing it during and before the 90s lmao

I highly doubt that anybody at AdHoc are big Whedon fans, I might be wrong — but still, that feels like a massive assumption brought on by an intentional bad faith reading than, like, a concrete assumption

"dispatch is a bunch of sexual fantasies string together by the pretense that its a story about redemption"

[keire-ke]

Delighted to learn Stuckies are so far under Feige’s skin he needs to shell out millions for Evans to come back and loudly affirm how heterosexual Steve Rogers is

No notes, Kev, wish you a very heated hockey dreams this Christmas

[ze-alt]

look.

i did not like steve's ending in endgame either. nor do i got anything against people who ship stucky either -- i will probably not watch doomsday because it just seems extremely tedious and seems like to be shaping up to be capeshit's rise of skywalker. but.

i do not believe for a second that kevin feige cares that much what a bunch of mlm shippers on the internet that much, i doubt he even knows that stuckies EXIST, if he does -- their existence barely phases him.

but if you genuinely think that acting like evans coming back in doomsday is anything more than a sign of desperation of trying to get people's butts back in seats after the dismal reception to phases 4/5 then there's no hope for you. lol.

[dep-yo-tee]

Dispatch is SO funny to me bc it went from hihi I'm having so much fun to bro, this fucking game genuinely fucking SUCKS

[dep-yo-tee]

Like wow, it really just took telltale nostalgia and most of the costs of the production into Critical Role cast and Aaron Paul AND LET'S NOT FORGET throwing you into a romance with someone you might not even like damn you might even hate bro like ☠️☠️☠️

[ze-alt]

i'm sorry that the game wasn't a dating sim. ig???

At some point you can’t really blame the game anymore when it’s obvious that it’s Going For Something with its story and characters and you as the player just refuse to go along with it over some bad faith arbitrary reason

[ze-alt]

ion even fw dispatch like that, but i have no idea why every critique i've seen of it thus far is the most 2016 steven universe fandom discourse bullshit ever of people engaging its story and characters in bad faith and that's it.

I can understand people not liking Invisigal or Blonde Blazer –– they're fully entitled to their own opinions, what I have a problem with –– however, are people who clearly do not know what they're talking about at all and are more often than not pissy that the writing isn't what THEY think it is, that isn't characters always doing the right thing 90% of the time and are always be 100% wholesome, tension-less conflict-less blorbos like

arrrgghhh i hate it!!! i hate this website!!!

[ze-alt]

another thing that pisses me off are how inconsistent everybody is about certain characters.

Flambae is a serial arsonist whose probably indirectly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people but people treat him and Robert as like a peak yaoi relationship but Invisigal whose impulsive mess with self-worth issues and a temper means that she’s the second coming of Jeffrey Epstein because of the locker room scene — a scene that was not framed positively like at all within the game itself but the way people talk about it you’d think the Dispatch devs were all hooping and hollering over it lol

god. man. i genuinely hate what Tumblr does to fandoms because 9/10 it almost always ruins fandom discussion one way or another

[ze-alt]

ion even fw dispatch like that, but i have no idea why every critique i've seen of it thus far is the most 2016 steven universe fandom discourse bullshit ever of people engaging its story and characters in bad faith and that's it.

I can understand people not liking Invisigal or Blonde Blazer –– they're fully entitled to their own opinions, what I have a problem with –– however, are people who clearly do not know what they're talking about at all and are more often than not pissy that the writing isn't what THEY think it is, that isn't characters always doing the right thing 90% of the time and are always be 100% wholesome, tension-less conflict-less blorbos like

arrrgghhh i hate it!!! i hate this website!!!

[tikiki05]

tbh kinda sad seeing people defend the SA gal and refusing to acknowledge the bad parts of her character

sure she could’ve been complex and all that but honestly? She’s a very simple character

edgy bitch who sexually harasses people because it helps some weirdos flick their bean

FUCKING EXACTLY THANK YOU👏👏

And your last point really got me thinking actually; we often think of how many female characters throughout the years have had character depth and quality sacrificed for the sake of the male gaze. And for that I would just like to say, women and queers and otherwise none typical cishet men are not immune for falling for this shit too!!

Dispatch (and even Arcane too, and other shows I’m sure) are both huge perpetrators of working within some kind of queer gaze, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Or maybe rather its just that modern day conventional attraction now expands to include more queer appearing people.

Idk this kinda turned into a messy unsprawled yap lol but I enjoyed exploring the ideas! Thank you for the ask!

[cringyfuckassbitch]

I saw someone talk about how people wanting more complex female characters but they couldn’t even handle invisigal

and not to throw shade or anything but she is not a complex character

she might be “morally grey” but a woman thinking with her non existent dick is not a complex woman

if anything she’s simplified for the sake of the romance options

it would be great if she WAS a complex character with multiple goals and motivations driving her such as tempering her darker side with her new found goal of redemption but nope she sexually harasses people cause funny and horny

[ze-alt]

okay. genuine question.

did you really play the game itself? or did you just watch a let's play video on youtube of someone PLAYING it.

because i'm getting a strong feeling neither of you did.

[tikiki05]

I don’t play video games like that and even if I did and wanted to I sure as hell couldn’t afford it right now. You are not gonna say I need to play a storybased game that is mostly watching to get it, dude. That doesn’t make sense. And once more to my main point, not accessible to everyone. Don’t like what me and likeminded people have to say? That’s fine, block and move on 🥱

[ze-alt]

"I don’t play video games like that and even if I did and wanted to I sure as hell couldn’t afford it right now. You are not gonna say I need to play a storybased game that is mostly watching to get it, dude"

Uh, yes, you do? That's what "engaging with art" is. You can't exactly base your critique of a game solely from seeing another person play it and that's it. You have to, like, properly engage with it and shit.

"Don’t like what me and my moot have to say? That’s fine, block and move on 🥱" I feel like you shouldn't be on a public forum like Tumblr if the concept of someone disagreeing with you + trying to engage with you in good faith bothers you.

[tikiki05]

tbh kinda sad seeing people defend the SA gal and refusing to acknowledge the bad parts of her character

sure she could’ve been complex and all that but honestly? She’s a very simple character

edgy bitch who sexually harasses people because it helps some weirdos flick their bean

FUCKING EXACTLY THANK YOU👏👏

And your last point really got me thinking actually; we often think of how many female characters throughout the years have had character depth and quality sacrificed for the sake of the male gaze. And for that I would just like to say, women and queers and otherwise none typical cishet men are not immune for falling for this shit too!!

Dispatch (and even Arcane too, and other shows I’m sure) are both huge perpetrators of working within some kind of queer gaze, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Or maybe rather its just that modern day conventional attraction now expands to include more queer appearing people.

Idk this kinda turned into a messy unsprawled yap lol but I enjoyed exploring the ideas! Thank you for the ask!

[cringyfuckassbitch]

I saw someone talk about how people wanting more complex female characters but they couldn’t even handle invisigal

and not to throw shade or anything but she is not a complex character

she might be “morally grey” but a woman thinking with her non existent dick is not a complex woman

if anything she’s simplified for the sake of the romance options

it would be great if she WAS a complex character with multiple goals and motivations driving her such as tempering her darker side with her new found goal of redemption but nope she sexually harasses people cause funny and horny

[ze-alt]

okay. genuine question.

did you really play the game itself? or did you just watch a let's play video on youtube of someone PLAYING it.

because i'm getting a strong feeling neither of you did.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

What do you think of the idea of Douglas's role within Escape being swapped out for Bear? Having Oliver, this poor engine who just had to fight his way through hordes of diesels for his survival, having to accept help from one is genuinely interesting to me, and Bear's a Western Region diesel too!

It's amazing how well this all falls into place, haha

Oh HELL YES.

Normally I'm not much for rewriting canon, but damn.

You just blew every new scrap of an idea Christopher Awdry just gave us in his new book combined right outta the water. (And no one @ me, this blog has a long proud history of Christopher Awdry Defense and Appreciation. So all due respect. BUT.)

It's that they're both Western Region that makes this so natural... in fact, I'd counter-propose Bear helping Oliver way before Barrow. Nonononono. They travel across the country together. (Well, as much as possible. I'm imagining them separating often, Bear barrelling into a depot and causing big distractions along the way so Oliver had a chance to find a hiding spot.)

Best fugitive buddies flick never filmed.

Two further thoughts:

1. I have always, for the record, proposed that Oliver had some diesel help along the way. Whether he knows it or not. Some diesels definitely looked aside and pretended they didn't see nufink. (Toad references this in chapter 2 of Small World. I really think something like that happened, in the canon timeline... albeit, in this AU, I chose the Matlock location specifically so the reader could plausibly headcanon that the diesel Toad speaks of was BoCo or Bear, if the reader so pleases.)

2. If you have Bear coming from the Western region with Oliver, then Douglas can still play a role in the rescue over-the-bridge. I think this is great, because this story is important for Douglas's character arc — he frets and panics in at varying points at the beginning of his intro book; it's his big bro who covers for him. And when he encounters Oliver and learns his plight, for a moment he's scared — before he sort of roars to life and activates badass mode. So I'd like him to still have that.

What if it's a desperate Bear who approaches Douglas at Barrow? And Douglas's first instinct is to disbelieve, to suspect this is all some sort of evil diesel scheme to lure him into a dark hidden part of the yard and have his buddies jump him and drag him to the smelters?

So he growls and puts Bear off at first — but his conscience worries at him, as he shunts his train home, and he finds that he can't leave behind a scared wee steam engine one bridge away from safety if there's even the slightest chance that this story is true? So he doubles back, and Bear shows him Oliver-et-al, and Douglas and his crew quickly act to secure the fugitive train?

Bonus points if either Douglas thinks to ask what happens to Bear if everyone at Barrow finds out about this, or if Oliver is like "But what about Bear? 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 He's a wanted engine. The crack diesel patrol squads want him as badly as they want us 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺" and definitely Toad whispers something to Douglas about how it's true sir, Mr. Bear has saved their lives a dozen times already, and Douglas is like "[huge elaborate grumbling sigh]... Right. Fine. Ye get on the ruddy train too."

Bear: But Sodor is only for steam engines. Isn't it?

Douglas: It's for real engines. It's Family.

And so Oliver and Bear are given a rapturous welcome on Sodor and we definitively get over all this asterisking-the-diesels stuff and the Thin Clergyman prints us an even more badass storybook than the one we already got.

[ze-alt]

I feel as if there's a lot of story potential and more emotion if it's Bear doing it. You open the book up with the overlooming threat of dieselisation, scrap, and what not -- Two new diesels arrive and quickly make an arse of themselves, but one of them redeems himself by saving an engine that was propagandized to him by his creators as being outdated and useless. A minor unpopular opinion that I have is that the opening to Escape is ... very jarring? So much so that I don't think that Douglas' role is necessary -- plus it flow far much more better since it's coming right after Super Rescue and Bear becoming an established presence on the railway.

[ze-alt]

I think some movies in the MCU are military propaganda. I think some aren’t. Idk man like I think it depends.

[ze-alt]

I’ve never seen anyone successfully explain where the Guardians movies fit into the whole “the entire MCU is propaganda” thing –– or Doctor Strange too.

Can you imagine some DOD schmuck having to read through hundreds of pages explaining Dormammu and the fucking Dark Dimension??? I sure can't.