Be My Baby Boy

Author's note: The Snap and the Blip

This is an aside while I toil away with the next actual chapter, in many ways a pivotal one in this story and which for some reason is resisting my efforts to get written.

This aside is 100% just ranting about Endgame and the Blip. Now, I loved the double whammy of Infinity War and Endgame, but the Blip is not the happy end it's pretending to be. Warning: this will ruin Endgame for you, if you were previously happy with the Blip solution. Feel free to skip this chapter completely if you don't want me to harsh your buzz, or if you haven't actually seen Avengers Infinity War and Endgame yet.

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So, half the life in the Universe was Snapped away. Then Blipped back 5 years later. All good? Not exactly. We see in a scene in Spider-Man 2 that the ones who were Snapped away were Blipped back into exactly the same space where they crumbled to dust. Like the kids from the school where Peter Parker goes to were Blipped back into a basket ball game in the movie. What are the practical implications of that alone? Let's explore, shall we?

What happened to the ones who were Snapped while they were in an airplane? Did they Blip back in several miles high in the air only to fall into their deaths seconds later? What about people who were scuba diving during the Snap? Did they Blip back with their scuba gear or drown before they ever realised they're back? Or even if they survived the Blip, there they would be, in the middle of the ocean, with no support crew in sight.

What about the people who were killed in the immediate moments following the Snap when planes, trains, buses and cars crashed when their drivers were Snapped away? Did they come back, all the ones who died as a consequence of the Snap? And did they end up causing more traffic accidents, Blipping back into the space where they Snapped away from, in the middle of traffic or train tracks?

There would have been millions of accidental deaths after the Snap and millions more after the Blip. Not to mention all the misery that followed the Blip. Abused women who had finally had some peace only to have their abusers Blip back into their lives. Spouses who had learned to move on after the Snap only to get their Snapped spouses back, and there they are with a new spouse and possibly new children. People who couldn't take being left behind and took their own lives during those five years. How would their loved ones feel, being Blipped back and their loved ones were gone?

What about all the red tape? The people who were Snapped away would have been declared dead, wills read, property divided and sold. Bank accounts were closed, phone and electricity contracts cancelled, personal clothes, furniture and photographs given away or thrown out. Rebuilding your life after you Blip back wouldn't have been easy for a thousand bureaucratic reasons.

And then there would be the famine. In the 5 years following the Snap, food production (and medicine, along with everything else) would have been scaled down to cater to only half of humanity. When the other half Blips back, how would we feed them?

There's probably hundreds of other reasons why the Snap and the Blip would have devastated not only our planet but all other planets with sentient life. The Blip was a terrible solution, while perhaps marginally better than leaving them all ash would have been. I wonder if they will acknowledge that in any way in future movies, like they touched on the fallout from the battle with Loki in New York in the second Spider-Man movie.

Speaking of Spider-Man, Marvel got the rights back to most of the mutant characters. What wouldn't I give for a movie that teamed up Spider-Man and Deadpool! Even if they weren't Spideypool, they would be a hoot together. Plus the thought of Deadpool bugging the hell out of Tony Star—. Oh. Never mind.

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As I write this, it is Boxing Day, 26th December 2020. The Anno Horribilis is almost over (but given the glum musings in this chapter, still heavily on my mind), Christmas presents were opened and we have consumed our body weight in chocolate and wine, and at least here in the UK, another lockdown has begun.

I wish us all a better year 2021 and personal triumphs even if the world around us sucks. Live your lives boldly, love generously and enjoy the things you cherish with joy. 

Life is too short for regrets. Love you all!