Oh yea! Sorry I completely forgot. Since I forgot I’ll break my hiatus but after that I’m still out

*coughs*

*rolls over to her wall of newspaper clippings and red string*

*takes a deep breath*

IT WAS ALL A FUCKING CONSPIRACY BY GENERAL ROSS TO GAIN POWER OVER THE AVENGERS IN THE WAKE OF NICK FURY’S DISAPPEARANCE.

That’s a whole lot of lead in to say that specifically, Ross waited until Tony stark was in his most emotionally compromised state to release the information about the Sokovia Accords to Tony.

If you followed my blog at all you know that I’m not a TS fan like, at all. That said, his motives are pretty clear and predictable, to a point where anyone who has the wherewithal to try can pretty easily direct his actions. You know like Ross.

OK Crow we fucking get it. Tell us how it happened though?

Evidence Figure A: The Teleprompter

Any project/event manager worth their salt checks, double checks, triple checks, and quadruple checks the attendee list, especially when someone as high profile as Tony Stark & Pepper Potts, CEO of mother-fucking STARK INDUSTRIES is showing up to the shindig.

There’s also this little thing called a contingency plan? If a homegrown convention with a big name actor showing up has a contingency in place should something happen, then one would assume that a fucking top-of-the-line school would have protocols for this, especially since Tony is definitely not the only or the biggest name-brand-celeb to show up at MIT. I just googled, Matt Damon was just there for commencement IRL. So like, this isn’t their first goddamn rodeo!

Lasty, it’s 2016. Teleprompters have had the ability to switch feeds midstream for YEARS. Literally every ‘this just in!’ update your local news personality does when live covering something is precisely what’s happening. The teleprompter is the information and the earpiece is the producer giving them any alternate queues. So, when Tony’s 45 minutes through his speech and immersing into his demo and it’s pretty fucking clear that the Big Pot has not entered the kitchem, maybe it’s time for some midstream reprompting?!

No.

So we have Tony Stark who’s in his patented Mental Self Flagellation Machine 4000 ™ and is already feeling down. While he’s trying to climb the endorphin high he gets from throwing money at people, the teleprompter shuts that right down.

Now we know Tony is feeling bad. He just wants to go curl up on his private jet and have FRIDAY play Adele while he stares at pictures of Pepper on his phone. And that would be nice-

Evidence Figure B: “I work for the State Department”

So now Tony has been kicked twice in the nuts by his emotional anguish. He’s down and if we know anything about this dude is that he’s emotionally driven. You grab those heartstrings and you can pull him any which way. The grand orchestrator here (Ross) now has a good hold, but he’s going to lock it in.

Enter your average ‘State Department’ admin. There’s no real answer as to which branch of the state department she’s in, or what she does or who she really works for. She could be in accounting, weapons acquisition, any number of deep-confidential branches (Spies have paperwork too), or Ross’ goddamn secretary. It doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s very strange that her lead in was a delineation of where she worked, as if it mattered. Taken out of context it’s as innocuous as saying ‘I work in real-estate’ or ‘I work in healthcare’. The story would have panned out either way.

But no, she works for the state department. She probably has a work email that ends in .gov.us. She’s probably searchable in the inter-office directory, and potentially she’s got access to grief counseling and other psychiatric services provided through her workplace.

Now we know that shit’s supposed to be confidential but I don’t think a man who’s going to make an extrajudicial underwater superhuman prison is a man with scruples about patient confidentiality.

How easy would it be for Ross or one of his lackeys to approach this and other grieving workers until they find the one with a perfect hook to drag Tony by the nose?

How did your average State Department admin manage to find her way into an isolated walk path obviously made for personnel only, in a private building on a private campus with no one trying to stop her?

Now, we know that college campuses unfortunately don’t have the best security in non-event situations. But Tony Stark well known trouble magnet and billionaire was showing up. Sure a police detail and private security can’t really do shit about another alien invasion but they can stop people from waiting around in isolated hallways for celebrities. (Why was he alone anyway? This is 100% against celebrity escort protocol. Beyonce doesn’t even go to the bathroom without a security detail, and for good fucking reason!)

How did she get down there?

At just the right place and at just the right time to deliver a printed picture of her handsome, selfless, philanthropic, and dead-too-soon son to Tony Stark.

Not to mention the very pointed speech.

Evidence Figure C: “I blame YOU Mr. Stark”

Well. Fuck.

Rule Number 1 of maintaining world peace, do NOT make Tony Stark feel guilty.

What happened the last time Tony felt guilt?

Oh There ain’t no strings on me~

Whenever Tony feels even the slightest hint of guilt he essentially breaks out his screwdriver and tries to fix it all by himself in the world’s most expensive display of bad coping mechanisms ever witnessed.

Historically Pepper (AKA his lovely red headed chill button) was there and he was able to channel his angst into like, 87 new suits or something else constructive.

or like 8000 idfk

But Pepper’s gone, Nicky Fury (AKA the backup chill button) is MIA, and MCU Tony doesn’t actually listen to Rhodey.

Had there been no Sokovia Accords they probably would have to have fought a sentient protection robot that’s only goal was to lock all of humanity in a bubble where they couldn’t ever get hurt ever again or something.

But… suspiciously… There was a way for Tony to lift some of that guilt off his arc reactor.

Evidence Figure D: “You have three days”

Mother. fucker. I have a longer grace period on my goddamn rent than this. Did you see how thick that neat piece of legislation was? It would take a fast and legally genius reader at least a week or two to drag through that piece of work.

This was extortion in it’s greatest effect, and they knew Tony would take the bait really easily once it was set up for him to see this as absolution for his guilt.

Where were the Avengers’ lawyers? How the fuck did Tony run a business where no one read over his major contracts to assure that he wasn’t getting fucked over by a line in convoluted legalese?

Steve at least cracks the thing open and gives it a glance, but three days isn’t long enough to review a ten page divorce agreement, let alone a 300 page document signing super-powered individuals under the jurisdiction of a singular but not unanimously agreed upon “ruling” body. (the UN doesn’t actually rule and is mainly a facilitator of multi lateral agreements and I could go on for days about the loopholes in that but I digress)

So general Ross chooses the day of (day after?, day before?) to present this document to Tony, giving him a very final due date with which to sign or be thrown in superhero prison.

This document that is going to be ratified by the UN.

This document that somehow no one who is actually in close contact with superheroes has apparently heard of.

-> DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES TO WRITE, REVISE, AND PRESENT A MOTION FOR RATIFICATION TO LITERALLY ANY LEGISLATIVE BODY?

Fucking FOREVER.

American children , remember this?:

It’s a long long way into the capitol city indeed

I just googled and the Average time for a bill to move through the legislative body in America last year was about 263 days. Now, that’s just America. This is the UN.

That means that the same accords have to be written, revised, translated, documented, discussed, researched and presented to the 193 constituent countries of the UN with their myriad interests and legislative processes before coming to that one document.

And Tony thinks they can just clean it up later? Of course he does.

Oh my god does he try.

So far I’ve only been putting down the facts but not the motivations.

What the actual fuCK Ross?

Well that’s simple really. Ross wants to run the world. He may not be HYDRA, he may not be a part of any organization (or maybe he’s the head of one). This man desires nothing more than power. After all, he’s a general in the goddamn US military. There’s not really anywhere else on earth you can get that level of a power high. The man knows where the nuclear codes are, for shit’s sake.

That is, unless you’ve been clued in to powers that are stronger than nuclear stockpiles and trips to the moon. You’re clued in to men who can turn green and raze cities, that can bench press 2000 lbs and puppy eye the enemy to death, Sabrina the teenage witch, an AI with a dubious color scheme who can shoot laser beams outta his noggin and like, some normal folks who can take a 3″ knife and a fucking Ford Fusion to a fight with terrorists and win.

The real superhero of this operation

Fuck nuclear warheads. How easy would it be to control everything if you could just threaten to unleash the Hulk?

Ross has the money and the power to do it. But he’s just got to wait on the right conditions.

Or, like any self respecting hard working old fashioned American warmonger, he can make them his damn self.

Tony Stark, the billionaire playboy philanthropist and strictly technology based genius bank rolls the Avengers, providing them with food, housing, paychecks, and the ability to continue doing what they do under the private sector, after SHIELD/HYDRA was dissolved. Without Tony and the whole free-market ruling that makes the US government weak to corporations.

Boy oh boy is it a good thing that Tony Stark has an Atlas-complex big enough to heft a galaxy and is easily lead to bad decisions by his emotions.

For Ross there was no way for it to go wrong. If they all signed then he’d have the full control of the Avengers through the UN. If any or some of them did not sign, then they go on a fucking all expenses paid Guantanamo-style torture Cruise already outfitted with anti superhero and anti magic technology… despite not having signed the accords and not having violated any other international laws.

Now remember this, Zemo-Bucky is not a main storyline on this. It’s a happy coincidence. The strife with the Accords would have probably occurred in a conference room instead of a goddamn Tesco-parking lot brawl. However, the consequences were exactly the same, even though by abstaining from signing, they would not have been violating any laws.

You know how if you get a speeding ticket, you aren’t compelled by law to agree that you were speeding and sign it? You can contest it in court? Now this is not a particularly safe practice in our current climate, but that’s what the little print under the ticket says.

But here Ross is stating that not signing is essentially a one-way ticket to Poseidon’s special hellhole.

What page of the Accords was that listed on?

Steve probably highlighted it.

Sticky notes and highlighters weren’t invented till the ‘60′s ya know. Steve is probably as impressed with washi tape as I am.

In summary

Ross crafted the perfect conditions to take the entire fucking UN on an emotionally compromised piggy back ride in the wake of the fall of Sokovia in order to craft a legislative document and a zero-sum totalitarian punishment game. He then waited on Tony to be emotionally compromised and then took the seed of guilt that’s already planted in Tony and just twisted it in a little harder until the kingpin of the current Avengers operation was putty in his hands. And after all that happened, even a particularly competent terrorist’s personal vendetta only helped his goals and didn’t hinder them in the slightest.

In this movie, Ross won. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Pepper would have called lawyers and Nick -it’s a stupid ass decision- Fury would have called bullshit before this ball could have even started rolling.

Now as far as we know, Tony and assorted are under the jurisdiction of the accords, while Steve and his team are ostensibly international outlaws dependent on the benevolence of Wakanda and anyone else who can keep them from being sent back to fucking sea-jail (or space jail, seeing as they broke out of sea jail)





SO uh…

yea