Marvel Cinematic Universe

I hate shipping and romance in general, and AlleyOop's analyses of MCU shipping, while informative, just reinforce my hatred.

Personally, the most most recent romance that I don't care for in the MCU is Loki and Sylvie. I don't hate either character, and I'm not going to scream at the writers/director about it because I'm not one of those childish stans. Really, I just felt like it was an obligatory "let's make these two an item just because we should", thus making it felt very rushed and reeking of Strangled by the Red String for me.

I sometimes like to ship casually, but save it as a fannish activity, and still prefer Gen Fic on the whole (or at least, stories where the official couples are mostly interacting in a way that would also work just as well on platonic friends and companions too).

Being a bi person who is not super into romance though, it is very frustrating that while yes, most popular mainstream media is terrible at or actively allergic to queer representation, at the same time a lot of the indie works that do allow for it tend to go overboard and be all about the romance (or it's full of erotica, when I'm a sex-averse asexual), with not much left that strikes a balance between visible and prominent representation, while also saving its focus for things that appeal more to me. I get to an extent why, as sex and romance are a big component of queer attraction, but the overemphasis is still frustrating and could really use some Gaussian normalization.

Shipping fanfic based on action-oriented properties that attempts to remain somewhat canon compliant and Original Flavour or Pseudo-Canonical Fic, but with the Ho Yay-heavy relationships being allowed to get upgraded to actual couples, is my main recourse for that. At least video games seem to be doing a somewhat better job of it relative to more passive forms of media.

I see what they were trying to get at it, and I quite like Sylvie as a character, but the execution was pretty darn poor. Really, I still think Steve/Peggy is (well, was) the only really well-executed canonical romance of the things that I've watched, and everything else runs the gamut of inoffensive at best. Which is a problem because that was ten years ago.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 20th 2021 at 1:46:10 PM

I find the still focus on T’Challa/Storm interesting cause again the 2 are divorced and they divorced badly at that. During Avengers vs X-Men they tried to kill each other and Storm divorced him in the middle of a fight because at that point they realized their interests would never align. Storm could never have that Wakanda—first mindset that everyone expected of her, Mutants would always be her primary focus in her heart.

Plus honestly T’Challa is a horrible husband. He is manipulative and constantly lying so she can’t really trust him since he’s always in kind mode.

And yet they are still together because it feels like neither character is allowed to date anyone else despite the relationships end.

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 18th 2021 at 9:20:06 AM

I think they were annulled.

Wait weren’t they married a decent amount of time, how would an annulment work?

Because annulment laws vary wildly from government to government and religion to religion. Given that Marvel is a place of fictional governments and religions, all bets are off.

In any case, this has nothing to do with the MCU and is best left to the comics forums.

To nudge it back on track, T'Challa and Ororo also always felt like they were together for Token Minority Couple purposes (the two most powerful African people) — the page itself claims this, although I can't really verify that Word of God statement.

Which is something I believe the movies may have been able to turn into something more genuinely empowering/non-contrived had Chadwick not passed. People are speculating Michaela Coel was cast as Ororo in BP 2, which I would believe if he were still alive; without him I don't think there's a good reason to bring in Storm.

(Sidenote: I am watching What If now, and of all things, episode 2 reminded me of Boseman's SNL Black Jeopardy sketch. :()

On the topic of Nebula having romances: Kraglin talking to her about "the type of gifts a girl likes" in Vol.2 and being amiable with her generally made me instantly think that's the type of chat that would lead to the forging of a Ship.

What is your most wanted marvel character to be added to mcu that hasn't been confirmed yet?

Mad Jim Jaspers.

Imagine his fight against The Fury in live action.

Some news regarding Shang-Chi, a Variety article is reporting that the CCP is potentially set to ban the film in Mainland China over Simu Liu's comments in 2017 and praising Hong Kong lemon tea drink maker Vitasoy, which has been labelled as "anti-China". On the other hand, Chinese viewers that have been able to see the film actually like it more than Mulan (2020) although there are some that don't enjoy it.

I’d love to bring in Hobgoblin and his whole supervillain identity business.

It’s a fantastic concept and it make him a great bigger bad whose story continues through multiple movies.

Yea, that was mentioned a few pages ago but all discussion of it got subsumed by the other Simu Liu social media drama of the day.

IMO it's an "eh, what can you do though" kind of thing at this point. The benefit (?) to the mouse house is that they can take the L and afford to not take in as many millions as they wanted.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 18th 2021 at 12:18:00 PM

I just remembered...weren't the Deadpool movies both banned in China?

Yes.

Or, 1.5 yes. Deadpool 2 got a parodic PG-13 recut, which was allowed.

The Variety link in question, should note that it is purely speculative and making assumptions based off previous incidents more than anything else. Basically a synopsis of a bunch of things that have already been brought up and discussed in this thread and the YMMV page regarding its rocky relationship to China, without any real new insight or information.

Amazing. Absolutely hilarious. A movie made by Asian Americans to be a good movie first, is being better received than a movie that actively attempts to be Pandering to the Base but was created by uninformed idiots? Color me surprised.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 18th 2021 at 1:33:32 PM

Are they intending on making Deadpool 3 an R-rated film or PG-13?

They said that their Blade movie was gonna be R-rated so I'm hoping that they will keep deadpool R-rated

They've promised Deadpool will still be rated R. They actually haven't said anything regarding Blade's rating.

Edited by lbssb on Sep 18th 2021 at 10:38:41 AM

So, most likely, Deadpool 3 would not be released in China if it's made with an R-rating, correct?

Some R-rated films show in China with recuts. Fellow R-rated X-Men film Logan lost 14 minutes of screentime to Chinese censors. James Wan's new movie, Malignant, lost 4. But it would depend on Disney being willing to go to bat for the mature content. :P

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 18th 2021 at 12:50:19 PM

Fuck I feel bad for the Chinese not getting the full movies.

Fucking censorship’s.

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 18th 2021 at 10:51:00 AM

Quite frankly Shang-Chi and Eternals are going to end up being Banned in China due to key people on those projects expressing their dislike of the CCP. Of course, Shang-Chi did surprisingly well at the box office but it remains to be seen if Eternals will even be successful. As noted by a Comicbook.com article, the lack of brand awareness or hype (unlike other MCU movies), the rise in COVID cases and Chloé Zhao not being a big draw among audiences are the biggest obstacles for Eternals and it doesn't have the advantage of being targeted towards one group/demographic like Shang-Chi or Black Panther. It may or may not succeed at the box office depending on how well it does in previews and/or if it can hold up after the first weekend.

Edited by Chrononaut70 on Sep 18th 2021 at 10:59:16 AM

Haven't you brought this up multiple times already...