#MCU Critical
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Lotta good points!
1) My issue with 'Bucky does everything' is... why the fuck would he want to be friends with Steve, in that case? And why would Steve go to such lengths for someone he couldn't be bothered to support properly before?
It makes being Steve's friend a quite-literally-thankless job, and Steve's 'friendship' amounts to the chance to serve him in return for nothing - no gratitude, no apology, no happiness to see him, no emotional, financial, physical support in return. It makes Steve selfish and self-absorbed, which are antithetical to his defining traits of selflessness and thinking of the little guy.
He can't vaunt those traits in everyone except Bucky, but then turn around and act as if he valued them all along by, eg. saving Bucky, avenging him, etc!
Plus it makes Steve's claims of independence a joke too, which in turn makes it annoying when he turns up in Basic Training and suddenly is able to do things, so that Token Love Interest can look like the first person to recognise his capabilities, when... no, those traits just weren't there, before, on purpose.
CATFA deliberately avoided showing us anything by the way of Steve's abilities, for Bucky to believe in, just to make it look like Bucky is unfairly undervaluing him (nonsense, since he's known Steve his whole life) and that someone else is a better judge. How the fuck is Bucky supposed to know Steve is capable of throwing himself on a grenade?! It's not like they have those lying around in Brooklyn!
5) Bucky using women to disguise his closet is true to the spirit of Arnie Roth, on whom he was partly based. But I still think it's a step too far to suggest he'd chose strangers over friends and family for his last night; even a lesbian couple.
(Or that Steve wouldn't likewise insist on having Bucky's last night in America for just them, even if they weren't a couple).
Unless Bucky's relationship with his family was bad... But we've never seen/heard any suggestion of that? 🤔
Again my thought process is 'why would A be friends with B if B was like this??' (ie. if A was selfish enough to spend their last night with strangers rather than with B).
8) Re: Steve the incel.
You could also play it as Steve having benevolent misogyny values without realising it, putting women up on a pedestal (explaining why he doesn't clock when he has been molested, or assaulted; is shocked when a woman lies to him; maybe thinks the reason he isn't being sexually attracted to women is because they are Too Perfect to sully with sex, etc.)
The only problem with idealising women is that it surely could not survive contact with a troop of foul-mouthed show girls, unless Steve absolutely went out of his way to avoid them??
But if he did have benevolent misogyny, this could maybe manifest in pre-serum Steve delivering long mopey monologues about how whoever he's been set up with is probably too good for him, probably isn't even interested, he's so poor, and sick all the time *cough cough*, unlike her, she would be embarrassed to be seen with him, probably, he's sorry Bucky set her up with him of all people, etc etc ...delivered during the date.
So that by the time Bucky circles back around to their table, no matter how attracted to Steve the girl was initially, she'd be like '🙂 please get me away from here.'
I could also see a queer Steve self-sabotaging by doing this, as a kind of inverse of ladykiller!Bucky.
Either so deeply in the closet that he doesn't even realise he's doing it, is unaware he's not helping his 'passing for straight' problem, thinks he's just looking out for the poor perfect woman, etc. (perhaps even kinda likes that guilt makes Bucky be extra-nice to him for a while after?)
Or, not closeted Steve having a bloody-minded determination not to date because he thinks it's dishonest to the lady; determined to publically crash and burn, so no one ever questions why he hasn't got married yet. And maybe seething and annoyed about having to do this, because he feels bad for wasting the girl's time.
And, yeah, open-book baby gay Steve absolutely glaring at whoever Bucky's dancing with and his own date either clocking him or being like 'woah he really seems obsessed with his friend's girlfriend?'
(I could also see a closeted himbo Steve being like 'yeah Bucky took me to this secret gay bar he knows about for some reason, but it's just because he knows I always fail with women and wanted to give me a night off from that, that's all!' Poor Bucky dropping absolute anvil hints and Steve's not getting it. 😂)
I ended up doing a long old rant on this other post, about the problems with the Steve/Bucky characterisation in CATFA, how it fails to make them mutual in their support / fails to properly show Steve's struggles and independence, before serum.
And I was thinking...
what would you have to do, if you wanted to write a CATFA or pre-war Stucky fic and wanted to fix all those problems?
So I figured I'd make a list!
Pardon me while I rip CATFA a new one...
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Problem 1) Pre-serum Steve acts as if he's independent and self-reliant without Bucky... when the opposite is shown.
A) He doesn't have a job.
(He isn't shown working, doesn't mention working, or taking time off to do the things we see him doing etc. Bucky is framed as paying for things.)
If the fic is set during CATFA you could fix that by mentioning Steve does have a job but has been given time off to go enlist. Or has just been fired from his job. Basically anything to show that Steve has had a job, has been working. Perhaps even had multiple simultaneous jobs!
Probably cut out the part where Steve scoffs at working in a factory or collecting scrap metal (more likely he'd admire and/or understand why both of those are viable options; maybe they're jobs he has done in the past and is biased against now, for some experiential-related reason.)
Or, if he still does not want to work in a factory... well, at the time, with most men being overseas, factory work would've been women's work. So perhaps Steve was reluctant because it feels emasculating. Or maybe even dysphoric, to be relegated to otherwise female-only spaces, instead of welcomed into (then) male-only spaces like the Army? 🤔
(This would especially ring true if you were doing a trans!Steve story, or emphasising the disability aspect of his life. And it would cycle back when he gets stuck in the USO, doing women's work again.)
B) It would also be better characterisation if pre-serum Steve was already good at fighting, but just happened to be outclassed by heavier weight opponents, and/or hindered sudden disability flare ups mid-fight. (In the tie-in comic, Bucky taught him how to box. Why not keep this?)
And also if his health was in a lifetime high point, then it would be less nonsensical to be trying to lie his way into the Army. There has to be some actual common sense and logic behind his choice, so that he's not essentially snapping 'Bucky why won't you support me committing suicide, gdi?'
Steve shouldn't be getting his first real win by knocking down a flagpole; he should've been showing this capability in his pre-war / pre-Army time, too.
You could emphasise the idea of Steve entering a fight he knows he's going to lose, in order to accomplish a secondary goal that the enemy doesn't recognise. IE. Steve fighting the bully in the alleyway -- he loses the fight, but succeeds in stopping the bully from making a scene in the cinema, which was his original goal. So mention it!
(Steve could be like 'winning this fight wasn't the point.' And Bucky could be like 'ah, so what were you distracting him from?')
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Problem 2) The support is imbalanced; Bucky's doing all the emotional, financial, and physical labour in the relationship.
You could fix that by showing how pre-serum Steve was not only mutually financially supportive (in the sense of having a job), but was also supporting Bucky emotionally and physically, just as much as Bucky supported him. He could be doing at least 2 of the 3!
Possible Examples:
Bucky going through an emotionally hard time that pre-serum Steve pulls him through (just as Bucky did with Steve's Ma).
Steve treating Bucky's wounds after a fight, just as Bucky treats his. (If Bucky's a boxer, like the tie-in comic, then Steve could be his cut man when he's in the ring!)
Steve paying for some of their expenses, or finding places to take Bucky that are free when it's his turn to plan a day out, etc.
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Problem 3: Sarah & problem 2.
If this is CATFA / post-death setting, show flashbacks or make references to Steve visiting her in hospital, or doing the work of nursing her himself / sitting by her bedside if she died at home, paying for her medicine, etc.
So that it's not just another example of Bucky wholly carrying Steve; show the balance. Maybe Bucky was temporarily footing the bill so that Steve could afford to quit his job and do the nursing at home. Both putting the work in, in different ways.
(This would be a perfect example of one way Bucky's experience of looking after sick Steve would pay off, and make him able to teach Steve how to do it when the roles are reversed.)
Better yet, a show-don't-tell of Sarah instilling Steve's moral compass and tenacity; maybe even some Bucky POV to show her impact isn't just relegated to Steve.
Her absence could also be shown in present day with Steve, eg. packing up his things to go to basic and having to leave behind some keepsake of hers.
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Problem 4: The relationship is framed as transactional.
Less 'I'll do X for Bucky now because he did Y for me back then' and more 'helping Bucky is the right thing to do because he's innocent so I'm going to do it regardless of outside whining, and he would still do the same thing for me, or anyone else, because he's a good person.'
There has to be more to it than just convenience, needing each other around to help; there has to be an actual desire to be together for pure enjoyment, too.
IMO you'd need at least one scene where Steve and Bucky aren't benefiting in some way from spending energy on eachother. They're just... happy being together.
And perhaps Bucky isn't the only friend pre-serum Steve could have had, just the one Steve most wanted to stick with. (His options should amount to more than 'Bucky or no one.') Perhaps Steve's health absences and strong principles drove other friendship prospects away?
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Problem 5: A's problems are framed as B's.
No more 'Steve getting attacked' being framed as a problem for Bucky.
No more 'Bucky being drafted to die' framed as a problem for Steve.
Better characterisation would show these bad things affect the victim first and foremost, and only/also the other one, secondarily.
Steve shouldn't be seeing Bucky's shipping-out uniform (skipping right over thank yous and congratulations) and talking about how that's sad for... himself.
Steve shouldn't be sabotaging Bucky's last night of freedom in NYC to spend it on... his own goals.
Sidenote: Bucky wanting to spend his last night of freedom with strangers is such idiotic writing anyway, when he has both Steve and a living family with whom he could be spending those last precious moments! And dragging Steve on a double blind date he clearly doesn't want to go on is counter-productive. It undermines the mutually-supportive / mutually communicative relationship Steve and Bucky should logically have, as lifelong inseparable best friends, and shifts the blame for Steve's singlehood off of him and onto Bucky and women generally.
Steve shouldn't be detailing why he's so keen to fight, and focusing on random men he doesn't know, not directly/unequivocally mentioning Bucky at all (indirectly, he wants to be like the men laying down their lives -- so... like Bucky? But this is still nonsense. He should want to be there to support Bucky, not to copy!)
It's likewise nonsense for Bucky, who has known Steve since he was a child, to ask Steve why he's keen to fight. Bucky doesn't need to ask. Bucky already knows. Lazy clumsy exposition.
And the narrative should be showing us why, rather than having Steve infodump it without anything to back it up.
Speaking of which...
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Problem 6: Lack of explicit politics.
Like in the comics, Steve's reasons for fighting Nazis should be explicitly left wing and political, as well as personal.
(Wanting to be like able-bodied men who get girlfriends is complete cringe incel bullshit as a motivation and not true to the comics, or CEvans's performance!)
Proper Steve characterisation should have him behaving in a way that shows he's a man ahead of his time in terms of Antifa politics, and that's why he wants to fight.
IE. happily sharing housing and schooling with people of other races, ethnicities, and religions. (Especially so when he has been in the same SEC as them / been in multiple different schools and lived in various neighbourhoods as a poor kid.)
Not judging and mistreating disabled people the way he is.
Not judging unmarried mothers, belittling working women, expecting his mother to do all the housework, etc.
Not freaking out about the existence of queer people in public (even in an AU where he isn't one) defending gay men from attack as he does in the comics,
protesting and/or sabotaging public Nazi meetings in NYC, fighting with homegrown Nazi bullies especially, ditto corrupt business owners / mafia union-runners as he does in the comics, etc.
The Hydra saboteur should not be the first Nazi Steve ever got his hands on!
And Bucky should be an addendum when it comes to his reasoning. The heart of Steve's motive, where politics are the guts.
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Problem 7: No disability rep.
A) Steve should not be saying that he, a disabled man, shouldn't have the 'right' to do less than able-bodied men, even though it is literally physically impossible...
...UNLESS, this internalized ableism is addressed in-story, rather than treated as if it's normal and even noble.
Other characters can be ableist; Steve should not (not only is he disabled himself, but he's supposed to know better!) unless it's part of an arc that shows that this trait is weird in him, and he learns the error of his ways.
Instead it could be shown that his health has recently become good enough for him to survive and succeed in the Army. Without Steve arguing that he should throw his disabled life away, just because able-bodied men are taking a significantly lesser risk of dying than him.
B) There should be actual details of Steve's disabilities, what they are and how they affect him. (Him - not Bucky.) In a way that has concrete negative consequences, beyond just not getting into the Army.
Possible Examples:
Steve being held back a year at school because of missing days due to sickness. Kids can be cruel and parents can be ignorant; he might've been bullied and ostracised for being sick and believed contagious.
Kid Steve having to move around a lot (which would also affect which school he'd have to attend) because losing money to medicine affects what his mother can afford, affects her work schedule when she has to look after him. Living in a worse place would then exacerbate his pre-existing symptoms, and so on.
Adult!Steve losing a job because of sick days, losing savings to pay for medicine, getting sick again because he either chose heating and groceries over medicine or vice versa, etc.
(This / the moving-around might be mitigated if he and Bucky are living together, meaning Bucky could make up the shortfall.)
Steve could lose friendships or romantic partners due to sickness taking him out of social circulation.
You could also play into the Nazi eugenics then endemic to the USA and have medical professionals telling Steve he shouldn't be alive; 'well-meaning' people offering to pray for him, saying they'd have 'given up' if they were born like him, etc.
And Steve should, maybe, mention once or twice that he feels better after serum and truly couldn't be doing what he's doing in Europe, if superserum hadn't also cured all his ailments?
If he's much more peppy afterwards, it should be because for the first time in his life he can actually breathe and spring out of bed!
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Problem 8) The Incelery.
Pre-serum Steve should not be framed as undateable because he's short and disabled.
If Steve hasn't had a girlfriend, it should be because he didn't want one, not because evil women are repulsed by invisible health issues or Bucky is too dreamy for a disabled man to possibly compete with, be so fr. 🙄
You could fix this by making Steve: gay,
ace,
demi,
coincidentally surrounded by lesbians,
by women who have horrible unattractive politics,
too sick or busy with work to date,
getting attention but it's the wrong kind (ie. women who want to fetishize or nanny him),
and/or being very attractive to women even before serum but oblivious and/or simply not interested. 😂
/more than one of the above.
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#lots of juicy possibilities tbh!#mcu meta#meta#stucky#steve meta#bucky meta#stucky meta#steve rogers#bucky barnes#catfa meta#mcu salt#mcu critical#catfa critical#I COULD RAMBLE ABOUT THIS ALL DAY#also thinking about the problems there were w/ antisemitism / pro-fascism in the catholics of bk at the time (italians irish and german)#if steve was genuinely tryna find nice catholic girl whose dad wouldn't want to strangle him he might've had his work cut out
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If you have a minute, this petition is mine. Please join me in telling Marvel Studios how unacceptable this is.
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Magneto is JEWISH. He is a Jewish character. The original version of the story the new X-Men 97 season is trying to tell relied on him being snapped out his plan by a young Jewish girl being hurt (I actually posted about how much I love this story beat last year). A young Jewish girl he later attends a meeting of Holocaust survivors with. Telling this story without using the word “Holocaust” or “Jewish” is so very telling. And it’s not a one off with this show— Roberto is an Afro-Brazilian character who manifested his powers because of a hate crime and they changed his origin completely.
Disney will ALWAYS shy away from these issues. They will ALWAYS want the kudos from having minority characters while sanitizing their stories. Really think about what it means for them to do this to characters like Sunspot and Magneto, but stand their ground when it comes to keeping the Israeli propaganda character in upcoming Cap movie.
#mcu critical#not technically MCU but let’s be fr about who is watching this#I did want to like this I really did#X-Men 97#roberto da costa#magneto#free palestine#<<<as usual#x men#marvel#marvel comics
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on light of the new captain america movie getting a trailer and people begging everyone to boycott it because of the character sabra (for obvious reasons), I've seen a lot of people asking "why would they do that especially now?" (with the palestine genocide happening and the whole world aware of that?) and let me tell you why. many years ago, a big discussion here on tumblr about the mcu specifically was about how the movies were obviously sponsored by the us military and the government and written in a way where you would fall for their propaganda (very well hidden btw) without even realising, example: making it seem like the military is stupid and cia etc is incompetent. when they are clearly not in real life. they are adding sabra now and not taking it back because they know their fans will consume whatever they put out even if its to record, edit and post reviews videos hating on it on youtube and getting millions of views. it's still more money for disney. and a opportunity for a 'superhero' who's whole motivation is to 'save and protect' israel in hopes of humanizing even more the people who support palestinian genocide and paint them as good guys. there's many others examples of this through their 20 somethings year of franchise. please research about it and keep an eye and open mind when engaging in media in the future, especially mcu and other big franchises from the usa.
#mcu#marvel cinematic universe#disney#captain america#captain america new world order#i mean. look at the name of this movie.....#sam wilson#chris evans#steve rogers#palestine#free palestine#free gaza#mcu critical#fuck israel#fuck isntreal#long post
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Is the mcu allergic to Romani people???
Updated + p.s MCU WANDA FANS DON'T FUCKING INTERACT, I DON'T LIKE YOU.
#anti-mcu#doctor doom#dr. doom#dr doom#victor von doom#anti mcu#mcu critical#fuck the mcu#anti-mcu wanda#anti mcu wanda#anti elizabeth olsen
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everyday this meme i made in 2021 becomes more real, thanks rogers the musical
#bucky barnes#bucky#stucky#steve rogers#captain america#stevebucky#marvel#wintershield#steve x bucky#winter soldier#anti disney#marvel critical#mcu critical#anti steggy
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no bc how the fuck did they mess up seb's hair so bad???? i remember pics from that era of him off set and he looked very babygirl???
#cant find pictures but yk what i mean#marvel#mcu#bucky#bucky barnes#james bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#thunderblots*#mcu critical#marvel critical#anti marvel#anti mcu
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Y’know the truth is I don’t think Tony Stark would bother me nearly as much if his fans were just even slightly normal about him. Like antis get this reputation for being crazy obsessive hateful people, but in my experience they’re just frustrated fans that want a place to vent about an otherwise very popular character. It’s the stans who will cross tag and send death threats to blogs that dare disparage their precious baby. It’s the stans that clamor for unfair amounts of screen time and encourage the co-opting of other characters to surround Tony Stark. I don’t see antis writing a thousand 10k fanfics about Team Iron Man getting tortured and groveling to Steve. Idk maybe this is an unfortunately common fandom behavior?? It just seems so unnecessary to me
#it doesn’t help of course that the writers also seem to be iron man stans#anti tony stark#anti tony stans#mcu critical
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....So basically, when Disney/MCU acts like they can't pay the people who help make their films a reality next time they asked to pay said people better, we know its a fucking lie, right?
#anti mcu#mcu critical#anti disney#disney critical#because you cannot claim that#when your paying this man a whole films budget basically#you just cant
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i can't be the only one who's noticed just how fucked up the concept of loki joining the tva is, right? i personally haven't seen anyone talk about this but it's one of the main things that makes me so uncomfortable about the show.
like, let me describe this without using any of the language that the series does;
a secret police dedicated to killing entire groups of people "for the greater good," one day picks up a man from one of these groups and tells him that if he doesn't help them catch the person who is trying to take them down, they will straight up kill him.
he is then given a coat to wear, branded with the secret police's logo, as well as clarification in huge red letters that he is NOT one of the secret police— he is part of the group the secret police kills.
this secret police is marketed as morally gray, and the company who makes the show releases merch for you to dress up as the secret police (or as the group that they kill) for fun because they want you to think this is cute and aesthetic.
and also the secret police uses gas chambers.
oh and also also, people draw cutesy ship art of this man and the "good cop" cuddling, while the man is clearly labeled and wearing a bland jumpsuit that the secret police forces him to wear.
#anti loki series#anti loki show#loki show negativity#loki show criticism#loki show critical#loki series criticism#loki series critical#mcu critical#anti mcu#anti lokius#antisemitism#tw antisemitism
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Genuinely in hindsight it's so funny that the mcu added the lore of thor receiving prophetic visions and dreams on the regular just to awkwardly tease the next avengers movie and then literally never mentioned it again. Truly unparalleled lack of planning on marvel studios part there
#like why is it in the middle of the movie???#thor just walks off halfway through the movie to sit in cave water#i truly dont understand why it wasnt an end credit scene#yes i know im oversimplifying yes i know theres also that random throwaway line in ragnarok too#i feel like that one doesnt even count bc you could remove it and nothing in the movie would actually change#mcu critical
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they're writing whole stories about this like it's part of some grand creative vision without realizing that I could not respect them any less if they just flat out said "because they paid us big money"
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No no no guys, you just don't see Kevin Feige's vision. RDJ's god-awful generic European accent is a match made in Heaven with Elizabeth Olsen's god-awful generic European accent!
#anti mcu#mcu critical#mcu#marvel#doctor doom#robert downey jr#elizabeth olsen#scarlet witch#dr doom x scarlet witch
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watching the thunderbolts trailer and all i can think about is the sambucky divorce
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I'm so sick of Sam being left out of What if...? (In general, and also to legitimise Peggy as cap)
Is it because they think that without Steve and the morning run meet-cute, that there's no way to recruit Sam? Be real. Ffs.
Because with the tiniest shred of imagination they could make it work.
Take Rhodey. In Iron Man 1 he's the Air Force liaison for research and development, right? He's got a background in aerospace engineering, right? So presumably he'd know about the EXO Falcon program, yeah?
So when a world crisis is underway and the good guys need a little back up, or even pararescue to help civilians, Rhodey could be the one to say 'I know a guy.. Let's call in some help'.
If these are all alternate timelines you could even bring in both Sam and Riley, cos maybe Riley never died and that's why Sam is still active and on-call. A bonus great opportunity to see more of Sam's history and wingman dynamic (which was important enough to make him quit when Riley was killed.)
Point is, if the show creators wanted to, they would.
#sam wilson#sam wilson meta#what if#honestly fuck this show i'm glad i'm not watching#i was never an outright peggy anti but this show is making me one#this is my villain origin story#(also idgaf about st*cky never have never will so that's not my motivation. i'm just angry about sam)#what if season 2#mcu critical#rhodey#james rhodes
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friendly reminder that steve rogers was a victim of bad writing and weird self insert coming from creepy writers, he would never chose to abandon bucky and his found family, he would never chose to live in the past for no woman.
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