#tfatws critical

[luna-rainbow]

One of the tragedies of Steve’s character assassination is that neither Sam nor Bucky were allowed to mourn his absence. Unlike with Nat, where Yelena and Clint were able to lay bare their grief during Hawkeye. Nominally, Steve went to lead “the life he wanted”, and the narrative was afraid to open the can of worms around how uncharacteristically irresponsible that was. Hence neither Sam nor Bucky could discuss his loss, nor could they voice their own negative emotions around his absence. Not only were they not allowed anger, but they were also deprived of grief and bewilderment and regret. There was a Steve-shaped hole in TFATWS, and as much as the narrative tried to pretend it didn’t exist, the story was warped by its unshakeable presence.

#tfatws critical #anti endgame

[amarriageoftrueminds]

*points originally in a tag-dump under another post about* Bucky's goodness + Steve's belief in him 

+ the fact that the superserum worked on Bucky is empirical proof of his goodness:

+ this is also why the serum worked on Isaiah Bradley. + imagine if Isaiah had been made the Winter Soldier instead

Seriously it's a pretty eye-opening thought exercise to put any other character in Bucky's place and see just how poorly he's treated.

Do people really think Steve would hear about a man who had the same magic ‘only works on good people’ juice as him, tortured and enslaved by Hydra for decades… and then just NOT help him?

imagine if you had Sam saying 'Steve this 'Isaiah' guy he's not someone you save he's someone you stop.'

Nat saying 'Steve I know this matters to you but let the police handle Isaiah someone will arrest you if you interfere, it will inconvenience us all.' (LOL Nat have you met Steve who wrote this)

Sam agreeing, 'maybe Nat's right maybe we shouldn't bother helping Isaiah against the police in case they shoot at us,' and dismissing the fact that Isaiah could do good: ‘1945, maybe.’ 

When Isaiah was the guy that pulled Steve out of the river?

(And meanwhile the CIA have given police, that Nat and Sam are telling Steve not to interfere with, orders to shoot Isaiah dead on sight? quelle surprise)

Steve would still be arguing that it should be him to bring Isaiah in, since he's least likely to die trying. 

He would still have put taking down the Insight helicarriers first, and been reluctant (but willing) to dislocate his arm for that very important reason. 

He would still have lifted up the steel beam pinning Isaiah down

(and probably still tried to talk him out of his mind-control, even if he failed.)

imagine if everyone (Sam, Nat, Steve, Sharon, etc.) saw Isaiah -- when mind-controlled -- suddenly demonstrating a drastically different personality

and imagine if Steve and Sam saw Isaiah waking up with amnesia.. then proving his memory of his good, non-WS personality... but Sam was still rude/hostile to Isaiah anyway, insisting he and Steve should not be ‘cool' with him (then telling Isaiah he hates him). 

Tony saying 'I don’t care that Isaiah was mind-controlled he killed my mom imma murder him just to spite you for not trusting me not to murder people.'

imagine if you had the therapist telling Isaiah he needs to be monitored by the state to prove he’s not giving into his innate violence, giving him rules to follow like a child, (and he’s pardoned, not exonerated, meaning he had to admit to crimes he wasn’t responsible for in order to get a modicum of freedom) and that it’s bullshit to suggest Isaiah just wants some peace

Ayo telling Isaiah 'you are free' 😌 as he finally escapes his bondage, watching him cry with relief, then: ‘SIKE! we put a booby-trap in ur limb the trust was a lie.’

Sam cracking jokes about Isaiah's trauma, dehumanizing him as a killing machine 

taking part in a plot where Isaiah has to pretend to be WS, be sold to another human being, and have rape jokes cracked about him, 

but then still being like 'listen Isaiah if you really want to apologise f̶o̶r̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶  you should just do the work.' 😔

*event horizon voice* DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE?? 😬

#long post #tfatws critical #antisambucky #antitfatws #antitony #bucky meta #bucky's serum meta #mcu meta #dat's me #gunna tag this as anti-[those things] #cuz I don't imagine eg. sambucca fans wanna see this on their dash... 🤐 #meta #steve meta #stucky meta #steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky #the writing of sam and bucky #f/ws writers room: LOL dehumanizing the disabled is HILARIOUS! #why would we write a black-lead show empathising w/ a former slave who gets profiled by the police and molested by white women?? 🤔 #a mystery for the ages #also I have been recced The Truth limited run of cap comics which feat isaiah... #tho warning: the differences between it + fatws may cause rage palpitations #yet each man queues the thing he loves

[gay-jewish-bucky]

Why does everyone at Marvel studios (besides Seb) hate MCU Bucky and say he's never done anything heroic? Why do they constantly force him to suffer as if he was responsible for his victimization? Why do they turn the reveal of his sexual abuse into a joke? Why can they sympathize with Ultron and Thanos, but not Bucky?

Sexism!

The nature of lot of the abuse and exploitation he's faced is, in western media, mainly carried out against women, sometimes queer men (like Arnie Roth). Conversations around his female coding within the MCU have largely stopped but it's very important to remember. The patriarchy punishes all men who step out of line, and this is a very good example of that phenomenon.

To them, because of this, he is a failure of a man. He is weak. He is complicit because men can't be victims and still be men. he is not worthy of respect or accolades.

His fans as a whole tend to be people who are frequent targets of overt misogyny, they generally aren't those who believe in and participate in enforcing the expectations of white, western manhood.

You know who does believe in and patriciate in that? The people who have actual control over his character's arc and treatment in the MCU. The one person with power who actually understood Bucky (Stan Lee) died and since then they've been saying the quiet part out loud.

They've also robbed him of the female coding and anything that could be read as contrary to their oppressive standards of masculinity from his character (this includes cutting his hair and robbing him of the softness he had even after everything he'd been through, not letting him have a cat because yes I've heard people outright state he's "too manly" to own a cat) in an effort to force him to be a "real man".

#marvel #mcu #bucky #bucky barnes #james buchanan bucky barnes #james bucky barnes #marvel meta #bucky meta #sexism #men are hurt by misogyny too #sa mention #tw sa #sa tw #fatws critical #tfatws critical #anti marvel #anti mcu #marvel critical #mcu critical

[captainwidowspring]

🤨🤨🤨

I definitely agree, it really is wild that some people actually think that Nico was some meek innocent victim, or that John's reaction was unreasonable. I guess it's a testament to how effective the show's anti-John-Walker propaganda is, for it is hard to see how else so many people could become convinced of such a clear untruth. Indeed, it's similar to how in Civil War, another propaganda-heavy film, some people actually think Steve was the one who attacked Tony in Siberia, despite the fact that Tony was the sole aggressor. And heck, the efficacy of the anti-John-Walker propaganda is further demonstrated shortly after Nico's death; many people think for some reason that John started the fight for the shield, when it was clearly Bucky, and John literally said "You don't want to do this," when it became clear a fight was imminent. Propaganda is really no joke.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about people acting like Nico was an innocent victim is the fact that he is particularly guilty. From the way many people talk about Nico, one would think he was a random civilian—indeed, the person cited above actually implies that he was a "defenseless noncombatant"—but he was literally a hostile enemy attacker. Now, @captainpikeachu nicely explained why all the Flagsmashers are blameworthy: "if a group of people lured you and your loved ones to a location just so they could kill you and instead got your loved ones killed, does it really matter who physically did the killing when they’re all there to help?" But Nico was much more involved in what happened than most of the other Flagsmashers were.

First of all, Nico played a very active role in the attempted murder of John. Minutes before the tables were turned, Nico had caught John and held him helpless specifically so that Karli could stab him to death. Nico knew full well what he was doing, and he did it deliberately. So it's not like Nico was just standing around chilling, he was actively trying to cause harm.

And this supposed innocent victim very nearly succeeded in taking John's life. It's a really good thing that John ended up deciding to take the serum—he had been agonizing over whether to do it—because this allowed him to confront the Flagsmashers on a somewhat more even playing field. Otherwise, Nico would have been able to murder John himself; he wouldn't have even needed Karli's help. It was only because John was able to so effectively fight back that Nico had to focus his attention on subduing John instead of being able to immediately go for the kill.

And indeed, the fact that the serum helped make it possible for John to hold out against the Flagsmashers for so long is the only reason that Lemar was able to rescue him, as Lemar saved John at literally the last possible second. It really looked for a moment there like John was a goner; that is why Karli got so mad when she was thwarted. If Lemar had been any slower, or John had been imperiled any sooner, Lemar wouldn't have reached John in time: and John's blood would then have been on Nico's hands, probably literally as well as figuratively. So the serum is a major reason why Nico's attempt to get John killed was unsuccessful, but even with that and the presence of Sam and Bucky, John barely survived the attempt on his life.

And second of all, Nico is also directly responsible for Lemar's death. Many people take Nico's cry of "It wasn't me!" at face value, and accept it as the truth, but it is quite thoroughly false. Nico might not have been the one to strike the killing blow against Lemar, but the fact remains that Lemar would not have been murdered without Nico's contributions. Indeed, Nico's attack on John is the reason why the murder attempt bore any fruit at all, because John had been doing a pretty good job of frustrating the Flagsmashers' assassination attempts before Nico assaulted him. But Nico's assault made John vulnerable, and was instrumental in creating the situation that got Lemar killed: for this was the reason that Lemar was forced to throw himself in harm's way, as well as the reason why John was unable to defend Lemar from Karli's subsequent wrath.

It would have been pretty clear that Nico was culpable in John's murder if Karli had successfully killed him, so it is unclear why people cannot see that Nico is culpable in Lemar's murder simply because the victim changed. While the person who ended up dead wasn't the one Nico had been aiming for, the death still happened as a direct result of his actions.

Thus, it's quite frustrating when people try to demonize John for what he did while absolving Nico, completely ignoring the fact that minutes before the incident Nico had been quite determinedly trying to kill John, and was only narrowly kept from succeeding. And those efforts directly led to Lemar getting killed, which is why Nico's claim of innocence would have been particularly galling. Nico simply received a taste of his own medicine.

So, unsurprisingly, that take which adopts the usual tired view that John is a villain while Nico is innocent is quite thoroughly untrue. For not only was Nico neither defenseless nor surrendering, but also, John did actually have jurisdiction in the situation.

First of all, Nico was far from defenseless. It's really quite maddening when people act like Nico was powerless just because he didn't have a weapon on him, for this is not even close to the case. Again, minutes before, Nico had been able to render John completely helpless—which he accomplished without the aid of any sort of weapon—and Lemar had just been killed, also without a weapon. A video nicely summarized why Nico was not defenseless:

"[W]hy do people act like this is Walker killing someone who’s unarmed?. . .We all saw what Steve and Bucky can do throughout the MCU. They can smash through walls, rip doors off their hinges, hold a helicopter in place, throw people around like ragdolls, and as we saw with Lemar’s death, can literally kill people with a single punch. How can you possibly claim that someone is unarmed when [they can do these things]? What’s to stop [Nico] from breaking out when he has the chance to do so, and continuing to help Karli? Which is exactly what he would do, because as we’ve already discussed, he is surrendering [not really but I'll get to that] because he has literally no other choice, not because he stopped because he felt guilty."

In fact, come to think of it, there is absolutely no reason why Nico could not have just grabbed onto John's shield and held it, instead of simply lying there and getting killed. As we saw, he's just as strong as John, so he would certainly have the strength to keep the shield off his chest: and there was nothing to prevent him from doing this, as he was completely uninjured (unlike John) and his arms and hands were not restricted at all. But of course, if Nico had put up such resistance to John, the show would have a much harder time demonizing John and acting like Nico was harmless. Therefore, they got around this by not showing Nico during the incident.

Not only was Nico not helpless, however, getting mad at John for killing an adversary that he had a momentary advantage over is quite hypocritical, for Sam did something similar earlier in the show. In the middle of the fight at the beginning, Sam blew up a helicopter that still had several unconscious bad guys in it. These people actually were defenseless, as they were out cold, and they no longer posed an immediate threat to Sam. So anyone who is angry at John should be angry at Sam too. But the people who bash John rarely bring this up: for because heroic music was playing, and because the bad guys were unconscious and so unable to scream or beg Sam to spare them, Sam killing enemies who were temporarily disabled is not seen as a bad thing. It's only a problem when John does it, apparently. Such blatant double standards really help demonstrate how influential framing can be.

Second of all, not only was Nico not helpless, but he was also not surrendering. For one thing, while Nico was running, he paused to hurl a concrete trash can at John: so it's not even like he was just fleeing, he was still attacking John as he ran. For another, when John managed to knock Nico over—which took several tries—Nico attempted to get back up not once but twice: once after John initially knocked him over, and then a second time which prompted John to put his foot on Nico's chest in order to keep him down. If Nico was actually interested in surrendering, he would have stayed down the first time, as repeatedly getting back up strongly indicates a desire to keep fighting.

And for yet another, Nico yelling "It wasn't me!" is not in any way indicative of surrender (nor is it even true). That was not an attempt to yield, it was an attempt to convince John that he was attacking the wrong person. (Even though he wasn't, for again, Nico was heavily involved in the attempt on John's life that ended up taking Lemar's, and was in fact the reason it was even possible; he is just as responsible for what happened as Karli.) The only thing that could possibly be considered an effort to surrender is Nico having his hands up: but since prior to that point he staunchly refused to stop fighting—throwing the trash can at John and not staying down—and the words he spoke as he made the gesture were trying to divert John's attention rather than actually surrendering, having his hands up was not enough to cancel out the all the other indications that he didn't want to surrender, especially since it wasn't even clear whether he was trying to surrender or just gesticulating. That is why people who want to surrender often put their hands behind their head, to avoid confusion. Considering how stubbornly Nico was fighting before, if he was yielding he needed to make that abundantly clear, and he didn't, not even close.

Third of all, John did actually have jurisdiction in the scenario; he was literally on a government-sanctioned mission to deal with the Flagsmashers. Handling the Flagsmashers was actually his responsibility, and the reason why he was fighting them in the first place. Indeed, it's not even like the government was mad at John for killing Nico, as that meant one less Flagsmasher for them to deal with; they were mad at him for giving them bad press. That is why they chose to give John an other than honorable discharge, for this meant that they would not have to go through the trial that would be required if they gave him a dishonorable discharge, and risk having unfavorable information come out. Thus, John got no chance to stand up for himself, and instead got quickly swept under the rug. Now, John tried to point out the injustice of the situation—"I only ever did what you asked of me, what you told me to be and trained me to do, and I did it. And I did it well," he said—but of course, the show wasn't done demonizing him, so it just ignored him and cut him off so that he would not get in the way of the attempt to discredit him. But in any case, saying that John didn't have jurisdiction in that scenario is completely untrue, because he absolutely did. Sam and Bucky were the ones who didn't have jurisdiction, and in fact they should have been wanted criminals for breaking Zemo out.

So yeah. The rebuttal to the ridiculous framing of Nico's demise that is shown above is quite accurate. John did not kill "a defenseless guy who was surrendering"; John killed a supersoldier who had just willingly and knowingly attempted to murder him (and succeeded but with the wrong person), and who showed no remorse for what he did, just panic that he didn't have the upper hand anymore. It really is insane how completely the propaganda has twisted many people's views of the situation.

#john walker #pro john walker #john walker defense squad #john walker meta #tfatws critical #fandom wank #answering asks

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

When people say all series have treated the characters the same I can't help but laugh

Where we had Steven tell Marc he was just a kid and...

and WandaVision had a whole damn episode explaining Wanda's past so that we could understand why she did what she did

and Hawkeye gave us this speech from Kate

and Clint got to burn the Ronin suit and forget about what he did

BUT

Bucky was told he had to make amends for things he had been forced to do by Hydra while under their control

and Loki, well...

They were all treated the same?

NOT EVEN CLOSE.

#mcu salt #mcu critical #Loki critical #anti tfatws #tfatws critical

[ifandomus]

Some people: “Do you ever think about how sad it is that Bucky can't make amends to Tony? So there is one name on his amends list that he can't ever cross off. But maybe he can try to make amends to Tony’s family?”

Me:

#this is a horrible take that should die as soon as possible #mcu #anti tony stans #although its not just tony stans who are saying this #which horrifies me #anti tony stark #anti ironman #anti tfatws #tfatws critical #although the idea that bucky should make amends to tony or his family didn't start because of the ‘amends’ crap in tfatws #it it did really intensify it #and made it popular in parts of the fandom where it hadnt even been before #pro bucky barnes #bucky deserves better #bucky barnes

[asteral-feileacan]

"I know 😔I recall coming across an interview from a showrunner who basically denied Bucky's lack of agency, called him the bad guy, said he needed to be punished for what he's done and then had the gall to say that they hoped trauma survivors felt represented by "what we did for Bucky's trauma".

Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Bucky was literally captured, experimented on, tortured via electrocution, brainwashed to the point he had no memories and did not even know who he was.... as well as incarcerated against his will for 7 decades and they deny his lack of agency?

Yeah- on some level he does perhaps deserve to be punished but I blame the rich and powerful people who did that to him- and the powerful people who commissioned him to carry out those "missions" far more than I blame Bucky himself.

THEY deserve to be punished more than he does. How do people not get that? Or do the makers of the MCU just love the US government so much they don't understand how messed up it is to blame the person who was lliterally tortured until he couldn't remember who he was more than than the people who tortured and exploited him for their own ends? Sorry if that's too political for you.

Apologies, I've now written a very long post, all because I went back to find the screenshots and got angry about seeing them again XD

I think this is just really problematic for a number of reasons.

First, it's not an "excuse". One of the best things I've ever read anyone say in response to this topic is in this post. Pasted the quotes here:

The analogy is not “if you lost control of your car and killed someone you still need to be responsible for what your car caused”. It is not “if you’re a soldier who followed orders you still need to be responsible for the life you took”. Bucky was not distracted or indoctrinated. He was induced into a state where he had no idea who he was, could barely recall what he did, and where “he will do anything you tell him to”.

The correct analogy is “if someone hijacked your car, tied you up and locked you in the trunk, then drove your car into people, you are not held responsible for what happened to the victims because you were as much a victim as they are”.

I disagree that Bucky deserves to be punished in any capacity for his time as the Winter Soldier, and the quote I pulled from that post explains exactly why in a clearer and more concise manner than I'm about to from a storytelling/character perspective.

So, starting from the end of the first screenshot and moving backwards because I noticed something aggravating:

"I remember every kill. And that means that a part of me was there for one of those."

This is such a POWERFUL sentence. This is a GREAT sentence. This is Bucky admitting his misbelief, which he completely believes, which is not the truth he thinks it is. The misbelief in a character is a device that can elevate the story so much if done well. I mean, this is a man who has suffered one unimaginable cruelty after another, who was tortured and brainwashed to the point that he couldn't remember who he was, to the point that he was controlled into killing people, targets, whomever his handlers wished him to get rid of. And he remembers the faces of every person that the Winter Soldier killed.

That's a hell in and of itself. He's been freed from Hydra, he's recovering himself, he's relearning who Bucky Barnes is, he's trying to figure out who he himself is now in the wake of it all, and in the middle of everything, the world hates and fears him. He hates and fears himself. So the seeds of doubt get planted: why didn't I do more? I could have tried harder. It's my fault.

So he's stuck in a negative feedback loop - no one, not even his own therapist, is helping him to get out of it, and is only perpetuating it. So that's a deeply internalised untruth he can't let go of. He feels guilty.

(Thanks for bearing with me through that) And my point? Spellman in this interview undermines that, intentionally or not.

Stan Lee himself talked to Sebastian Stan about how Bucky is one of the good guys. I'm watching some interviews now, and it's genuinely confusing to me how he has this same point about how it's what Bucky feels about himself, but then in the previous lines he's painting Bucky in this light where it's "an excuse" that Hydra manipulated him. And then I remember the show - again, Bucky is treated so badly by the other characters in this series. That could have been another good storytelling device, but it's the fact that the narrative itself wants Bucky to BE guilty, not FEEL guilty. It's that fact that other characters are put in a good light for dismissing Bucky, and Bucky is put in a bad light for existing. Don't get me started on that therapist.

It's just. UGH. The series had so much potential, and Spellman, despite odd remarks, DOES understand Bucky's psyche in these interviews to some extent. So how did the show end up being such a mess in regards to his trauma, only just managing to scrape together an end note for him there that would have been much more effective if the show had been committed to Bucky, ONE OF ITS MAIN CHARACTERS?

Sebastian Stan, from what I've seen, is pretty much our only saving grace, as I remember reading comments from him that were such a breath of fresh air in the heat of all this.

And you're completely right - Hydra is completely to blame. The government treated Bucky horribly as well, just casting him off while still thinking of him as a threat and doing virtually nothing to help him.

Anyway - I'm so sorry for this lengthy rant. On the upside, now I'm remembering the exact reason that, about a year or two ago, compelled me to start preparing to re-write TFATWS. Maybe I'll go dig out those notes again and give it another shot. That post I linked is brilliant and covers all my gripes in extremely well-composed arguments, and it was worth scrolling through all my posts to find it again XD

TL;DR: The show was nice, but not only could it have been WAY better, it also handled trauma very poorly. As both an avid Bucky fan and a writer, I was and am extremely disappointed. For what it was, it was passable, and I liked it, but it started out on so many deep thoughts about the characters and basically gave up halfway through pretty much all of them.

#bucky barnes #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws critical

[breckstonevailskier]

Honestly, if anyone was out of line here, it's the Dora Milaje for trying to kill Walker and Lemar because Walker touched one of them.

#anti tfatws #tfatws critical #anti dora milaje #john walker #pro john walker #Youtube

[pigtailedgirl]

hiii I hope you're having a great day! I'm not kidding when I say that it took several read throughs before I sent this 😭 I was just wondering if you'd mind linking any marvel meta and critiques pertaining to civil war and the accords, endgame, tfatws, tony, peggy, and the way steve and bucky's characters were treated.

context: I'm trying to explain some things to a friend of mine, but I just know there's posts that explain it better than I can. I spent over an hour scrolling through various tags and I really struggled to find my favourites.

I hope this doesn't sound too demanding, and feel free to ignore it if you're busy or you don't want to do it. I'm honestly just hoping you have some kind of folder where you keep them all! if you do, though, I would love if you included your own posts, because yours are some of the best ones I've read.

anyway, wishing you the best 💖

I admit this makes me super happy because, it's like even the internet friends know I'm a folder person! I do have a lot CACW and Endgame meta even offline folder saved lol.

I don't know if there is any specific arguments or points you and your friend are discussing to direct at? Let me know!

Here's what I have that applies in my current bookmarks, except LewtonBus which I think are articles for self examine and not to bring to discuss in rebuttals with friends, because there is really good stuff in them to ponder but, they are thesis' I'm not 100% subscribed too.

Also I can't rec enough the blogs of @thehollowprince, @robotmango, @monardarmmm, @fearlessinger, @chirping_tiger, @kateis_cakeis, @laporcurina, @cosmicmechanism, @keire-ke. I've scoured there tags and takes and loved so much if it.

STUCKY & Endgame

https://bamsmackpow.com/2019/04/30/avengers-endgame-lack-of-closure/

This is my defining WTF Endgame article. I don't see how anyone can argue against it. There is no explanation or reasoning to give out to the obvious and intentional erasure of Steve and Bucky out of Endgame's story narrative and why it doesn't fucking matter if you like the ship or the characters at all, erasing them, denying it, failed the set up of the story structure and the basics of arc complete writing.

The Stucky Essay - bilittlebarnes - Captain America (Movies) [Archive of Our Own]

This essay is so good. I was drawn in by it's argument on the "Bucky is alive!" moment of Endgame critic, because it highlights that the movie itself knows Stucky makes more narrative sense and importance and therefore uses it, but of course won’t let it be acknowledged. America’s ass is on display, just not the one they think.

The Silence of Peggy Carter. Peggy Carter was founder and Director… | by Summer Barbeau | Medium

I'm being really critical of Peggy's character being so beloved lately, examining my past defense of, but I think this article is the bomb on why Endgame's Steggy is dismissive of the pairing and characters whether you like them or not. An ending that devalues and silences your partner for romance is a fail.

For CACW

Exorcism, Burial, and Analysis: Representing Trauma in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ – Ceci n'est pas un discours (wordpress.com)

CA:CW, the reaction - cute but prickly (tumblr.com)

TFATWS

‘Falcon & The Winter Soldier’ & The Myth of Nonviolence | by Alex Mell-Taylor | An Injustice! (aninjusticemag.com)

I know it might not run in pop circles to my friends list but I'll say I agree with most if not all of the Mooler's breakdown of TFATWS.

https://youtu.be/N0Tu6pCvjQ4

In that Karli read more villain than John Walker to me, despite show intent, and it needs massive overhaul, because it's message sucked in many many ways. And I thought Sam and Bucky did come of as morally wrong and kinda massive jerks in comparison to Walker, as did the ethics of the Flagsmashers, the Dora.

That doesn't mean I've any love or interest in the John Walker character independently, as Jessica Jones season 1 did that style story better...it's a story meh in comparison to what I want which is a focused Sam story...and I certainly have no love or respect for Zemo's addition likewise. Where to go with the Captain America stories and ethics of the characters is so f'ed right now.

#good meta #recs #captain america #steve rogers #anti endgame #anti tony stark #cacw meta #steve rogers meta #anti steggy #stucky meta #tfatws critical

[vivelarevolution13]

not to be all bitter old man shaking his fist at the sky three years later but they really went “we’re gonna chop off all of bucky’s actual backstory along with his hair” in tfatws. something something distancing the character from previously established canon and the overwhelmingly strong fanlore that stemmed from it something something

#i could write a whole post on why that decision mattered along with the rest of the costuming/design in the greater scheme of things #and i probably will just not today #the more i think about that show the more bitter i get about the treatment of every single character #esp the sam karli and sam isaiah resolutions like. those storylines deserved so much better #im sure the writing took a hit bc of the covid rewrites but also it would have helped if the writers idk. #read or watched any of the previously established fucking material #tfatws critical #tfatws #anti-mcu #i guess??? this whole blog is anti-mcu tbh #despite it being about 95% just the mcu lol

[sneakyneighboururchin]

I need to talk about how utterly incandescent with rage thr MCU's handing of Zemo makes me. Because in all media I had seen before Civil War do you know what Baron Zemo was? A Nazi. Motherfucker was a fucking Nazi. He was Hydra to his god damned core. What did the MCU do? They made an entirely different and utterly mediocre and uninteresting villain (as they usually do) and just slapped the name Zemo on him cos 'cool comic reference I guess!' With no fucking regard for what that would do. I don't even have the right words to explain why taking a nazi character and trying to make them 'sympathetic' is fucking gross, and frankly i shouldn't need to! That should be a perfectly understandable fact of existence! I wonder why Disney and Marvel are so reluctant to portray nazi and right wing characters on screen as evil now? I wonder why they shy away from that? Oh hello US military propaganda contract, I didn't see you there! Almost like showing nazis as they are would maybe look too similar to other things! So now! I get to see some dumb fuck straight white girl woobifying their precious little blorbo Zemo and shipping themselves with the Red Skull's successor. Or! Shipping Bucky fucking Barnes with him. You know. One of Hydra's best known victims in the MCU??? A man who damn near gave his life fighting nazis??? Yeah we should ship him with the sanitised nazi dude that's a good idea! Don't. Get me started. On the fucking flag smashers. I will never know Peace.

#anti mcu #mcu critical #anti zemo #anti tfatws #tfatws critical #anti cacw #cacw critical

[luna-rainbow]

So…I saw a Blu-ray featurette on Bilibili where the writers and directors talk about Bucky, with key quotes like:

Cap 1 and Cap 2 both show that Cap’s allegiance, more than anything, is to Bucky Barnes, his best friends since when he was Steve Rogers, the 100 pound weakling. (Nate Moore)

The Winter Soldier has such a complicated history. We wanted that to have a real presence to it, to see the harshness with which he was treated. He’s both good and bad, hero and villain. (Joe Russo)

That’s the most heartbreaking scenario in his life, Bucky was the guy who’s always been there. Those are the scenes that make the action scenes worth it. What are you willing to compromise and sacrifice and forfeit for the greater good? And that is close to home for Steve. (Chris Evans)

Here’s Bucky Barnes, who’s been the Winter Soldier for 80 years, who in his own way was a Prisoner of War (Nate Moore)

Members of Hydra in Russia secreted him away to a missile facility in Siberia. He was treated with the same level of security as a nuclear weapon. (Joe Russo)

Suddenly, the main guy you have to defeat is your best link to the most pleasant memories you have of your childhood and of your past. (Kevin Feige)

We all know what happened between “Bucky is Steve’s strongest allegiance,” “his biggest sacrifice,” “his best link to his most pleasant memories” and Steve needs to retire into another timeline.

But what exactly happened between “Bucky Barnes was a prisoner of war and treated very harshly by Hydra” to “he needs to make amends for what he did under Hydra”?

#bucky barnes #steve rogers #anti endgame #tfatws critical #stucky

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Something I've always wondered, do you think Bucky had a moment after being rescued and before he fell where he realised that Zola did something actually tangible to him, and changed him?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yes, but...

.

I have a long meta on Bucky's serum here, but toAyourQ:

Here's the thing:

We don't actually know how much serum Bucky was given during the war, whether it was full blown finished serum, or a partial version, or what.

We do know Zola absolutely had the skill and knowledge to have secretly created a full blown serum, we just don't know if he did.

I say 'secretly' because Zola appears to have done all his evil human torture experiments in secret, without his boss's orders; Red Skull doesn't know about them and didn't order them. On the surface of it, this would appear to be important. If Red Skull is dropping by for inconvenient inspections a lot, and if Zola is trying to hide something, that affects how much serum-related materiel Zola can order before his boss starts asking awkward questions. However, Red Skull has such a one-track mind that he is completely indifferent to the prisoners -- ordering Zola to work them to death and replace them... That suggests that Zola could probably get away with a whole lot in Red Skull's absence, in terms of fucking up prisoners and ordering materiel relating to serum (which he shouldn't need, given that he's running a tesseract-weapon factory death camp). Red Skull was simply too self-absorbed to notice.

.

And we do know that, by the time Steve met the Winter Soldier in the future, Bucky had the same strength, speed, healing, and endurance as Steve (who has serum and vitaradiation), the later Winter Soldiers, and T'Challa. Eg. he had full blown serum.

We know his physical attributes are the equal of theirs because these other enhanced people are shown as struggling to catch him (speed) or beat him in a fight (strength, endurance, etc.)

In fact the very plot depends on this equality.

*I'm ignoring serum-havers from FATWS cuz that show is a pile o shit and ignores all the previous serum rules (lazy moronic writers? who knows!) .

But there has been a huge time lapse in between those two periods, in which Zola had ample time to finish and perfect the serum, (if it wasn't finished in the war) and had Bucky back in captivity to re-administer it.

So it's possible Bucky got a partial serum in WWII, and full blown serum after.

Which would increase the likelihood of him not noticing the difference during WWII.

.

Just the full serum on its own is supposed to drastically and visibly change the subject (see: Red Skull and the other Winter Soldiers).

One possible interpretation is that, since Bucky isn't visibly drastically altered, therefore the serum must have been a partial, and its only attributes are the healing ones.

So that's why Bucky survived Krausberg and the Fall (and how Zola knew to look for him) without his friends noticing any difference.

There was supposed to have been a moment where Bucky is approached by a nurse, after Krausberg -- and he has an open slash in his henley, but no visible wound underneath.

Perhaps implying Bucky was supposed to notice his newfound healing, during the war?

. Sidenote: Apparently that nurse is Beardette, the girl Bucky took to the Stark Expo. As well as (possibly) expositing Bucky's strange healing, she's there to -- once again -- prevent any heartwarming queer-readable embrace occurring between Bucky and Steve, and to intercept and no-homo the loving eye contact he is having with Steve. (This is also why they rammed Piggy in as a wedge in between them, as usual. She's there to prove Steve is a Nice Puritan Straight Boy. Because if someone of the opposite sex thrusts themselves into your personal space without asking, that means you must have wanted it, obviously!) 🤢

.

On the other hand, if you wanted to believe that Bucky did get full blown serum in WWII...

Well, since they cut out all Bucky's war scenes prior to rescue, we don't actually know what Bucky looked like immediately before serum.

So it's possible he did drastically alter, and that the serum was a full blown one, but we (and Steve and the Howlies) just can't perceive it because we didn't see the immediate before and after.

Add in the excuse of malnutrition, starvation and exhaustion, undercutting its visual effects, and you could easily argue that the serum was full blown but struggling.

Personally, whether Bucky got a partial serum or full, given what was done to Steve I find it extremely unlikely that Bucky wouldn't perceive a difference in himself.

It's just too unlikely that he would not connect the dots between his change and what was done to Steve.

(Especially if he, for example, asked Steve what the serum looked like, before injection, and Steve said it was blue, and Bucky knew he had been injected with something blue).

On a darker note, there's an aura of wild self-destructiveness about Bucky, immediately after Krausberg. His looks mingle horror with misery.

For a man with obvious untreated mental health problems, and a protective-self-destructive streak a mile wide, there are too many opportunities to (deliberately?) get hurt. I think it's just not possible for Bucky not to have noticed that he is healing faster than he should. He would know exactly what a man in a warzone can survive.

So, yes, I think he noticed.

And if you're looking for a possible reason as to why he would keep that secret, some possibilities:

He can't reveal his healing without also revealing his self-destructiveness, which he would not want to do because his friends would be upset and interfere to stop him.

If he tells Steve serum was used on him Steve might feel guilty and blame himself for being part of the serum experiments which obviously motivated Hydra to continue theirs, and Bucky wouldn't want Steve to feel bad or worry about him.

If Steve found out, it might provoke one of his protective justice rampages, which Bucky would also not want because it would further endanger Steve.

He might be afraid of the Army finding out he's enhanced and making him a guinea pig in a lab, as they threatened to do to Steve.

He might be afraid of the Army finding out he's self-destructive and sending him home, where he can't protect Steve, which would also probably humiliate him.

He might be afraid of the Army finding out he's enhanced and never letting him go home at all, as Steve appears not to have realised will happen to him.

Given Bucky's other symptoms of PTSD he might have noticed XYZ symptoms of serum and yet dismissed them as not real, thinking he's delusional.

Given the stigma surrounding mental health, if he thought he was delusional he would conceal it from his friends because he wouldn't want them to know he's 'crazy.'

Given the times, he might also conflate PTSD symptoms with malingering and cowardice and want to conceal his symptoms from his friends for fear of appearing cowardly and disloyal in front of them (eg. malingering to get a medical discharge).

He might conceal or downplay any problems he is having because he doesn't want to seem inferior next to suddenly-perfect Steve.

all of the above ^

Holy shit he has so many reasons... 😯

#long post #toAyourQ #hey nonny #bucky barnes #bucky meta #antipeggy #tfatws critical #catfa meta #stucky meta #historically accurate stucky tag #meta #mcu meta #stucky #antisteggy #steve meta #steve rogers #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #yet each man queues the thing he loves #dat's me #can I do a bucky meta ask and NOT accidentally make myself sad??? 😩 #me: yes #anon: thanks #me: yes BUT.... #anon: oh for shits sake

[gay-jewish-bucky]

@fghtinus i accidentally sent the ask too early but yes they did, very poorly (bc this is the mcu and they are incapable of compassionate representation), but yeah it's canon

here are some posts that talk about it x and x

(major trigger warning for graphic and frank discussions of sexual abuse)

#marvel #mcu #marvel critical #mcu critical #anti mcu #anti marvel #tfatws critical #anti tfatws #sa #tw sa #sa tw

[captainwidowspring]

Those were some amazing points you made about Walker being needlessly framed as a bad guy by The Falcon and The Winter Soldier's narrative. It definitely is not unlike Wanda and other members of Team Cap being vilified in Civil War. Morally speaking, I'd say the whole act of Walker bludgeoning Nico is similar to Cap using the shield to disable Tony's suit, right down to the fact that they were using force against someone who still very much posed an active threat (Tony being just a bit more obvious an active threat given how he was actively trying to murder Bucky).

Thank you!

You are definitely right that John using the shield on Nico and Steve using the shield on Tony are both similar in that the shield was being used to subdue an active threat. And funnily enough, another similarity between those two moments is that the shots of Steve and John bringing the shield down on someone below them both served the same purpose: they were both intended to turn the audience against the shield-bearer even though the shield-bearer was not acting unreasonably. This was done by playing up the apparent helplessness of the person who the shield was being used on, despite the fact that both people had come very close to killing their respective shield-bearer, and were still a significant danger to them at the time of the shield's use. Though obviously this manipulation was done with more intensity in John's case, and so was more successful.

Now, due to the fact that Steve and John used the shield in such a similar way, people love to compare the Siberia fight and Nico's death scene: and all too often, people who like Steve but hate John will point to Siberia as an example of why John is not as good a Captain America as Steve. However, the problem with this is that while the actions taken by Steve and John are similar, the circumstances surrounding them are not. Despite the surface-level similarities of the two situations, there are also major differences, so comparing them is really not fair. There are two main reasons why the situations are not directly comparable.

(1) Tony hadn't killed Bucky. He may have blasted Bucky's arm off and then kicked him in the head, but Bucky was still alive, and could recover from this. Thus, while Steve was certainly very angry, he was not filled with the blinding rage and anguish that Bucky's death would have caused.

And we saw how clearly furious Steve was at Tony just injuring Bucky, how it gave him great strength despite his exhaustion and serious injuries: so it's like, if Tony had actually managed to kill Bucky, would Steve have been able to stop at just disabling the suit? If Tony had murdered Bucky and robbed Steve of his best friend, of his longest-running relationship, of the person who had been a heimat (home-place) for as long as he could remember, of the last remaining person who knew Steve before he became Captain America, of the last remaining person who had been with him in the 1940s, after he had literally just gotten all of this back—all while Tony knew full well that Bucky was not to blame for the supposed reason that he had been trying to murder him—would Steve really have been able to control himself enough to spare Tony?

Meanwhile, John had just lost Lemar; Lemar who was his friend who fought beside him, who he trusted with his life, who he probably couldn't imagine his life without, who was one of the few people with whom he could just be John and not Captain America. Unlike Bucky, Lemar wasn't just badly injured, he was completely dead. And Nico might not have been the one to strike the killing blow against Lemar, but he played an active role in the murder, as he is the reason that Lemar had to save John in the first place, and he prevented John from being able to defend Lemar from Karli. So he was definitely not innocent.

Then to add insult to injury, Nico yelled at John, "It wasn't me!" even though he played a major role in Lemar's murder. And Nico being the one to say that would have been particularly insulting to John because he is the one who prevented John from being able to do anything other than watch while Lemar was killed. This is what causes John to lose it and kill him, as if you watch the scene it's clear that John made no move to harm Nico until after he said that. It would be like if Tony killed Bucky and then had the audacity to say, "I didn't mean to!" even though such a claim would be demonstrably not true.

Thus, Steve when he got the upper hand over Tony was not forced to deal with as much emotion as John had to when he got the upper hand over Nico. Tony had merely injured Bucky, not played a part in his murder like Nico had with Lemar, and Tony also did not go on to say something that would salt Steve's wounds, the way Nico did to John when he sought to minimize his role in the incident. So Steve already had a huge advantage over John in that respect.

(2) There was also the fact that Tony is just a normal human. This meant that all Steve had to do was disable the Iron Man suit in order to decisively end the fight. That was obviously not the case for Nico, as since he was a supersoldier, he was just as strong as John and could not so easily be rendered harmless. Indeed, people often seem to conveniently forget that just a few minutes before Nico had been holding John completely helpless, and would have been complicit in his murder had Lemar not stepped in, so Nico was by no means outmatched by John. Perhaps John could have tried to knock Nico out, but if the helicarrier battle in The Winter Soldier is anything to go by, supersoldiers don't remain unconscious for very long. So unlike Tony after his suit had been disabled, even though John had Nico on the ground, Nico was still very much capable of threatening John, and hard to safely neutralize. Despite John's advantageous position, there was no easy way for him to quickly and decisively subdue Nico. And indeed, if Tony was a supersoldier and so disabling the suit did not remove the threat he posed, Siberia would have been a very different story.

What also gave Steve an advantage in the situation was the fact that Tony was wearing a metal suit. This way, Steve had ample opportunity take out his anger on the armor without hurting Tony. Indeed, while Tony and Friday were discussing Steve's fight pattern, Steve appeared to be blindly pummeling Tony rather than actually trying to defeat him. And after Tony kicked Bucky in the head, Steve furiously punched Tony's armor three times before he used his shield to disable it. Considering that his goals at that point were to take off Tony's helmet and break the arc reactor, neither of which could be effectively accomplished by punches, this appears to be a calculated effort by him to release enough of his built-up fury that he could restrain himself enough to spare Tony.

However, there was obviously no equivalent conveniently available way that John could harmlessly take out his rage toward Nico. And it's definitely worth wondering whether Steve would have been able to control his anger as well as he did had he not gotten the chance to let some of it out first.

Therefore, Steve had much less to deal with than John did, as well as a safe way to release some of his anger. This is why trying to use Siberia as an example of why Steve is better than John is disingenuous, because Steve was dealing with much kinder circumstances.

The following would be a much more directly comparable situation. At the beginning of the Siberia fight, when Tony tries to missile Bucky in the face and Bucky turns it aside, the redirected missile causes a section of the building to collapse. Now, a few moments before this, Tony had produced some ankle-cuffs from his suit and put them on Steve. Steve managed to get out of them, though, which was very lucky because he had been in the section of the building that was collapsing.

However, imagine that Steve hadn't in fact been able to get out of the cuffs, and so had been crushed to death by the falling debris. Now, imagine that shortly after this, Bucky managed to get into a position where he had the upper hand over Tony (and for the sake of direct comparison, suppose that his suit was still somewhat functional, so he was still a threat). If Tony then panicked and yelled, "I didn't mean to!" and Bucky then lost it and killed him, would Bucky subsequently be demonized for it?

Honestly, probably, but there are plenty of people who would be able to forgive Bucky for being off-balance from his best friend's death, especially since it would be easy to see why Tony yelling what he did would have caused Bucky to lose it. It would also probably be easy for many people to see that Tony said "I didn't mean to!" because he was afraid of what Bucky would do to him, and not because he wanted to surrender, was actually remorseful about Steve's death, or had even lost his desire to kill Bucky. In addition, while people might be able to extend sympathy toward Tony due to the fact that he most likely didn’t actually mean to kill Steve, this would not obscure his responsibility for Steve’s death. While he might not have intentionally or directly killed Steve, he would still be responsible for the fact that he had been trying to kill Bucky, and this would undermine the sincerity of his claim because he had been aiming to kill, it was just that the wrong person ended up dead.

It is therefore quite frustrating that many people cannot extend the same compassion to John, when that is pretty much the situation he was in. He was just as off-balance as Bucky would have been after his best friend's death—while subsequently being further unbalanced by an insulting half-truth that his adversary uttered—and Nico was just as guilty as Tony would have been. While Nico saying “It wasn’t me!” might have been true in that he wasn’t the one who personally ended Lemar’s life, it was still the case that his attempt to murder John directly contributed to Lemar’s death. And it is clear that Nico was only upset because the person who ended up being killed was not the one he had intended—he would have been quite fine with it if John had perished—and the person he had actually been aiming for had regained the ability to fight back.

And Nico yelling, “It wasn’t me!” was no more an attempt to surrender than Tony’s words would have been. It was just him trying to absolve himself of responsibility for the situation he had helped cause. And his lack of intention to surrender is further demonstrated by the fact that he tries to get back up multiple times. The second time John hits Nico with the shield, he falls over. Nico then tries to get back up, so John hits him with the shield again. He tries to get back up yet again, so finally John puts his foot on Nico's chest to keep him down. It is only then that Nico yells, "It wasn't me!" This is not the behavior of someone who is interested in surrendering, this is the behavior of someone who is terrified that they don't have the upper hand anymore. If Nico had wanted to surrender, he would have stayed down the first time.

If we're looking for an analogous scenario that involves Steve, though, a much more closely comparable situation would be to see how he reacted after he thought Bucky had been killed. And even just a surface-level look at the situations reveals the fandom's hypocrisy. When, after Bucky had supposedly been killed by a member of the terrorist organization he and Steve were fighting, Steve vowed not to stop "until all of Hydra is dead or captured", people had no problem with it, even though only the one Hydra agent was involved in Bucky's apparent death. So Steve doubtlessly killed plenty of Hydra agents who were not even present at Bucky's fall to avenge him, but this was not seen as troublesome. Yet, after Lemar is killed by a member of the terrorist organization he and John were fighting, when John kills one Flagsmasher, who played an active role in Lemar's murder, minutes after he had been forced to watch the murder while being restrained by that same person, he is suddenly completely evil?

In fact, reflecting on Bucky's fall further reveals the fandom hypocrisy, for the Hydra agent is exactly as responsible for Bucky's death as Nico is for Lemar's death. After all, all the Hydra agent did was knock Bucky from the train, which Bucky initially survived because he managed to grab a handlebar. His "death" came when the handlebar gave out before Steve was able to grab him, which is not at all the Hydra agent's fault.

However, if Steve was subsequently shown killing that Hydra agent, even if the Hydra agent tried to deflect the blame and cried out, "I didn't mean for that to happen! I was just following orders!" it is not likely that people would then be all like "Steve is such a monster!!! He killed someone who is not entirely responsible for Bucky's death!!!!!" For while the Hydra agent might not have been the only one responsible for Bucky's "death", he clearly played a major role, and had still been previously been trying to kill Steve.

Indeed, it is pretty obvious how ridiculous trying to defend the Hydra agent would be, so it's baffling that people cannot see how ridiculous it is to try to apply that same argument to Nico. Just as Bucky's fall from the train could not have happened without the Hydra agent, Lemar's murder could not have happened without Nico's contributions. And just like the Hydra agent was previously trying to kill Steve, Nico had previously been engaged in trying to kill John.

Of course, people's lack of willingness to forgive John might be partly caused by the fact that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was hating on John from the beginning, while neither The First Avenger nor The Winter Soldier (nor The Avengers (2012) or Age of Ultron) extensively hated on Steve. This way, even though there was significant hatred directed toward Steve in Civil War, it was somewhat tempered by the previously balanced portrayals. John unfortunately had no such advantage.

Thus, while it is not hard to see why people are tempted to compare the Siberia scene to Nico's death scene, acting like one is worse than the other is misleading, for they are too different to provide an accurate comparison. More comparable examples can be thought up, and these are very revealing.

#john walker #pro john walker #john walker defense squad #john walker meta #tfatws critical #anti captain america civil war #anti ca:cw #steve rogers #steve rogers meta #anti tony stark #fandom wank #answering asks

[heres-the-marvel-tea]

All character analyses using The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are incorrect. That show Does Not Exist™️ in the Marvel Chrissy Universe. The only relevant commentary is about the horrific ableism showcased in the show. All character representation is invalid.

#I said what I said #tfatws critical #marvel #mcu #Bucky #Sam #Bucky deserved better #isaiah deserved better #sam deserved better #like did you all forget he was a counselor? #ableism #ableism in the mcu