#Mcu salt

[amarriageoftrueminds]

ITA that Bucky was never intended to be a protagonist in this show!

On top of doing damage-control to mitigate the resented attention which SebStan's fan fave draws -- to what I suspect the creators think should only be a black story, and I agree... we should be getting characters in Sam's story because they make sense being there, not because Mackie and Stan get along IRL.

...I also think part of the reason why they wrote Bucky as an asshole butt-monkey is because they think it's the Worf Effect way to make Sam look good.

(You see the same idiotic writing in CATFA, where they introduce only one named, non-Designated Love Interest female character, and make them a generic, sexy-baby-voice dumb blonde slut, who sexually molests Steve and is never heard from again.

There are likewise 40+ chorus girls in Steve's USO show whose names we never learn -- because if they were named, and nice, and competent... well that would upstage the DLI. Same reason we never get to see Steve's mother, or Bucky's family, and why the fatws show shits on Bucky's time / close connections in Wakanda, just to copy them with a new set of black people swapped into T'Challa, Shuri-and-the-village-kid's places. As if black people are interchangeable or only 'count' if they're American!)

The problem with this Worf Effect approach is that 'better than a shitty clumsy ex-Hydra dudebro' would make Sam average, not great.

And this is transparently also why they nerf Bucky -- to make unenhanced Sam's skill level look better by comparison.

Then they reverse it by making their generic ex-Hydra dudebro suddenly kiss ass (as if that's a compliment) but only after he has been 'redeemed.'

Bucky is designated butt-monkey and Ignorant White Guy... until they need someone Good to compliment Sam, when suddenly Bucky is a 'hero for the first time.' 🙄 I wouldn't be shocked if certain bits in BNW followed the same pattern.

(Meanwhile, thinly-veiled-Nazi Zemo gets to mansplain supremacy and racism and how much he loves Marvin Gaye, to prove how cool he is… to a black man. My jaw dropped, my flabber was gasted..)

It also struck me that there was a kind of 'what happened to us isn't bad if it happens to a white guy, right?' power fantasy about the way Bucky is treated in tfatws. (Again, parallels with how the DLI is written in CATFA).

Think about how closely Bucky's life before & in tfatws mirrors a historically black experience:

his history, memory, ties to his family, even his very name, erased by those who abducted him into slavery;

(an experience for which he is punished and blamed in perpetuity, instead of the people who did that to him);

universally profiled as innately dangerous and violent (when he's innocent and has been living in blameless quiet for years);

monitored by the state / made to jump through hoops just to prove his right to exist in peace because of this (yet simultaneously told his desire for peace is bullshit);

arrested off the street by racist cops, when he hasn't done anything wrong except raise his voice;

'sold' into sexual slavery to a rich white woman in a foreign country

(followed up by other-race colleague bemoaning the suffering of... another rich white woman in that foreign country?? who has also been a twat to Bucky?)

stared at with bewildered suspicion when he shows up... to help;

'jokingly' warned off dating woman-of-other-race by her brother. 😬

In another 'verse, where it was Gabriel Jones who got serum, fell from the train, and was made into the WS, if you included all these beats in his story, people would be like 'wow, they're really driving home the black experience, huh?' They would read as the generic things that you'd almost expect to see in a historic black character's life story.

(And if Gabriel Jones was framed as having undergone all this willingly, and told he needs to make reparations to Hydra's victims... I mean, could you fucking believe that??)

So it feels like someone writing TFATWS subconsciously thought, 'I wish I could see a white character suffer the same shitty treatment black guys have had.'

And Bucky is the designated douchebag white guy because... him being too good would upstage Sam, and Walker can't be bad because he has a fridged black friend! (Bucky's black friends don't count because they're not American, not Sam, and/or because the writers couldn't be bothered to learn they existed). So this falls on Bucky.

And sadly, that approach to a token white guy in a black-centered story could potentially be super interesting in a Noughts & Crosses way, if the people writing it: a) were actually aware that that is what they were doing, b) had written the person it's happening to as a decent guy, to make their historically-black suffering sympathetic, and have the black characters recall when the same thing happened to them or their family because of their race, and the thus two characters be drawn closer together by their similar experiences.

(Rather than what we got, which is these eerily similar traumas happening to Bucky in front of black characters, who then either dismiss them or completely ignore them as if nothing bad or unfair has happened. It's downright bizarre!)

Just saw some people talking about how tfatws was crafted to make Bucky seem like more of a villain and unlikable for the fans and I think that another important factor of this is not only that it'll turn fans against his character, but it also means that these fans will go after other people who see through this bs and still like/defend Bucky's character. By convincing these fans that Bucky willingly worked for white supremacists and was culpable in the assassinations he carried out as WS, these fans now have a lot of ammunition to not only use against his character but any remaining fans of his. It sucks cause it's really gonna accomplish nothing except fracturing the fandom further (which let's face it, the mcu fandom is already one of the most fractured and toxic fandoms out there).

I see where you’re coming from but I’m going to counter with the fact that this is giving Spellman’s writing chops more credit than it deserves.

(Watch out, the salt is strong with this one, bring a glass of water)

I don’t think he set out intentionally to make Bucky fans into fandom outcasts. That requires a level of subtlety, guile and flair I just don’t see in the script - you only have to look to Sam’s two important speeches to know how grievously his writing falls short.

What I see is a very immature and (as others have pointed out) unprofessional approach to writing, where he has not watched the first 3 Cap movies - or if he has, not bothered to take notes. It’s clear he has no idea that Bucky was fighting against the Nazis before he became a POW. Sebastian had to remind the writers that Bucky was an assassin (did they think he was literally just a soldier?). It’s also poignant to note that his belief about Bucky needing to make amends partially hinges on the fact that Bucky killed the Starks - so we already have problem #1 here when a Team IM scriptwriter is signed on to write for the new Captain America. They are already biased against what Steve and Sam stood for.

So his planning process is really this:

1) Bucky was an assassin for Hydra. He must feel guilty, so let’s make him redeem himself by making amends. The reason I don’t think Spellman intentionally set out to make Bucky indefensible is his genuine pride when he proclaims Bucky redeemed himself at the end by saving a van and being “ironically” adopted by a Black family. Bucky the Howling Commando who died fighting Nazis adopted “ironically” by a Black family. Bucky the guy who’s been saving Steve’s ass since the playground “first time being a hero”.

Let me pause here and scream at the wall.

2) Bucky, as the character neither the director nor the writer likes, had to be the one to do all the shitty things.

I seriously mean it on this one, and I’ve been wanting to say it for a while.

Skogland said “everyone likes Walker”. This is why - incoherently - Bucky had to play the privileged white male trope, because Walker needed a redeeming quality and that was his relationship with Lemar.

Let me pause again to go scream at the wall.

Never mind that this story should be about Sam and Bucky, and that it really should have shown us the affection and kindness between our leads, they couldn’t bear to let Walker actually be a full villain so instead, they gave the privileged white male role to Bucky while Walker and Lemar actually have a functional friendship. ARGH.

Then we have the issue of needing to bring in Zemo, and redeem Zemo into an anti-villain. Zemo had to be likeable, more likeable than Bucky. So instead of allowing Zemo to just break out on his own (WHICH HE DID ANYWAY), they made Bucky go and get him out in order to break off his relationship with Wakanda.

And because they’ve given BUCKY the role of the ignorant white male within a story that addresses systemic racism, of course his actions become indefensible, never mind that all of this is completely inconsistent with his character.

Sorry this got long but the more I look at TFATWS from a writing standpoint, the more this series enrages me. It’s not even that they cared enough about Bucky to systemically ruin him - it’s because they really DGAF about Bucky so they just made him do all the wrong actions in the plot, in order to preserve their other precious characters.

[legalandnotease]

You know what annoys me most about Endgame (well a lot of things do), but most of all?

The way that it completely ignores what Natasha did. How crucial her actions were to the ultimate victory. Instead they tried to make Endgame into Iron Man 4, and pretend Tony saved everyone singlehandedly. Yet the truth is the plan to reverse the snap would *never have worked* without Natasha's sacrifice.

They had to have all of the stones to snap everybody back- and they also had to have all the Stones to snap Thanos away. Even one missing, and not only would the Snapped have stayed dead, but Thanos would have won a second time.

In truth, it was Natasha who saved the universe and Natasha who ensured ultimate victory against Thanos. Anybody could have snapped Thanos away (it didn't have to be Tony), but few could have paid the ultimate price for the Soul Stone.

In fact: let's talk about the Soul Stone. It was the most difficult and costly of all the Stones to obtain. I read that some theories that the souls of the Snapped were contained in the Stone, and so it was the key to bringing everyne back.

Meaning that Stone was also the one which allowed Thanos and his army to be Snapped away.

So again, it all comes back to Natasha, and her choice on Vormir.

Yet she didn't even get a funeral. The movie just completely ignores her to give Tony all the credit and all the fuss when he actually did very little.

And had to be emotionally blackmailed and tricked to do even that. Natasha was willing every step of the way.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

🤨🤦‍♂️

🤨

Yep, it's utterly pathetic (x):

Elizabeth Olsen: "This time, they actually decided not to give us scripts," she continued with a laugh. "They gave me my pages, then they explained other things that are happening." When she actually sees the completed film, Olsen admitted, "I'll be so shocked and surprised." "I'll be like, 'Oh, I see!" she said. "That's what was happening to the world at that time."

It reminds me of what Brie Larson said about EG (x):

“I had no idea what I was shooting, what the movie was. I didn’t know if anybody else was in a scene with me. I didn’t know anything. And it’s not until you show up that you get your pages for the day. But you only get your part. So it was like a scene that was completely black redacted, and then just my one line.”

They did that to an Oscar-winning actress. Go figure.

They keep claiming it's about spoilers but there must be something else going on here. I have no idea what, but after the actors' strike maybe this behaviour will stop and Disney/Marvel will start treating them with respect? Or maybe I'm too idealistic...

[thatsolacegirl]

I don't know if someone has already written in this regard but wtf is that Dr Doom casting. Can't Marvel Studios divorce themselves with RDJ already?

I'm angry as they would probably make Dr Doom a title for Iron Man who went rogue & ended up as a villain. But my point is when are we going to leave the ghost of Tony Stark & move ahead.

We have a great villain in Doom as a standalone in comics, he's a politician, a scientist & a sorcerer. He has a history with the Fantastic Four. He's an interesting character who could've been the main villain of the MCU for the next decade. And we could've had anybody else. There are so many great actors out there who could play him. But Marvel literally said no we want hype so we will go with RDJ.

[legalandnotease]

Dude, I'm fine for Sam to have his own movie. You're talking to a person who doesn't think Bucky should have been in it *at all* and doesn't do shipping full stop. Although I don't care who you want to pair romantically with whom: you do you.

I just dislike characters existing entirely as cheerleader for another. Also whoever the heck thought it was a good idea to turn Bucky into an *ex-Nazi* needs to be yeeted into a river. As if Sam would even associate with somebody who worked for HYDRA wiliingly: give him some credit.

Glad to hear that Bucky Barnes continues his tradition of talking to and looking at Sam Wilson like he’s hung the stars and moon.

Bucky supporting Sam? You love to see it.

[catlady48]

The scrapped Avengers 5 script that was cowritten by Waldron was seemingly posted online and he was not done ruining Loki (at least the show version). Not sure if it's actually the real script or a hoax, but I still wanted to inform people about it, because it's bad. The entire thing is a mess. It's basically a copy of Infinity War as in the main villains (several versions of Kang) need the plotdevices to do catastrophic damage and basically everybody dies. Really, almost everybody gets killed off. He also involves almost every character that's currently alive in the MCU in this script, so they each barely get any screentime and no personality whatsoever. I haven't actually read the thing so I can't say how much time he had to ruin the characters, but it's Waldron so I'm assuming he still managed to do that somehow.

As for what he did to Loki specifically, apparently one of the Kangs drains him of his powers and presumably killed him (again). This is going to disappoint a lot of people who, despite the ways Loki as a character has been ruined by the show, still hoped that the ending would lead to them doing something cool with his new position and powers and/or would lead to him reuniting with Thor. Neither of this happens and I think even the show fans would be disappointed by them ruining the so-called "perfect ending to his character arc." Guess it was just a new way to kill him off and rub it in our faces after all. It's Infinity War all over again. He would've gotten ruined for nothing.

So glad this script got scrapped, even though I have zero faith in the Russo's considering they were the ones who thought of IW in the first place. I do think they will do somewhat better than Waldron since they can at least do action scenes. Even so, this is another warning not to get your hopes up that the MCU will not ruin Loki in some way or another in the upcoming movies.

[ro994art]

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes did NOT valiantly serve in WWII, fight decades of torture and brainwashing to save his best friend's life, spend 2 years in Wakanda recovering from said brainwashing, fight against Thanos' army before AND after getting blipped, and help Captain America take down the Flag Smashers, directly saving the lives of several hostages in the process, only to be treated as a "spare" and "not a hero".

Give my man some respect.

[azural83]

It's such a shame that loki never made an appearance after the dark world:/

[stuckydrewx]

If I have to see one more person saying ‘Why did Steve leave Bucky’ I’m gonna go insaneeeee 😭😭😭😭 BAD WRITING OMFG WE’VE BEEN THROUGH THIS SO MANY TIMES HE WOULD NEVER LEAVE HIS FRIENDS THATS THE WHOLE POINT IT WAS BAD FUCKIN WRITING

[nikkoliferous]

after reading the one hundred and one millionth inane quote about how Loki is such a pRiViLeGeD pRiNcE while Sylvie is just a poor baby who had no real childhood and had to learn to fend for herself from a young age, I feel the need to point out that even the ONE thing we know about Sylvie's past, the thing that's supposed to be her mAjOr tRaUmA and set her apart from him somehow, was literally stolen from Loki.

this is how Tom described Loki's experience post-suicide attempt back in the day while doing press for Avengers:

“I think he went, like with everything else, to a sort of… it was just like, the worst place imaginable. I think he went to all of the darkest recesses of the universe. I’m sure he had a brush with—several brushes with death. I think he ran into the shadiest characters you can find in the Nine Realms. I think he had to rely on his wits to protect himself. It was really, really, really unpleasant, I think. I don’t have any frame of reference for that, except for imagining what it might be like to be kidnapped by a terrorist or something and have to survive a very, very frightening and precarious existence. But whatever it was, it was important when Loki came back for The Avengers, that whatever compassion he had left was absolutely shriveled to a minimum because of the experience that he had. Harrowing, I think, and scarring for life—in a way that Thor and Odin and Frigga find very, very difficult to understand.” [source]

and now the show pretends that Loki teamed up with Thanos completely of his own will, even though Marvel had JUST confirmed that the sceptre was influencing him throughout Avengers, and they hand that traumatic backstory that was Loki's off to their precious OC.

[breckstonevailskier]

Okay, not a fan

As I see it, a lot of good story ideas. But they planned to fridge Foggy and basically act like Karen didn't exist. And that is not something I can forgive.

(That last bit is meant to be said in my best Wilson Fisk voice.)

[therese-lokidottir]

If only (finding in Pinterest)

I've said this before, How it Should have Ended really basically said everything I could say

The more I've gone back and talk about this film the more it becomes clear that Accords are pointless. The Avengers already answer to the government. The team was formed by shield and it's a weird plotline to go with after Winter Solider after it turned out the government was full of secret nazis. Then to have a plot about how heroes need to keep in check? It's a plot that in concept is an interesting idea for a superhero story, but the mcu did not build up to it and instead ended up making every case against something like the accords before the movie even happened.

Then did it again, they made the skrulls refugees and then they decided to do Secret Invasion. Why does the MCU do this, they are so bad at planning

[captainwidowspring]

An excerpt from my Captain America music paper, for I just made a seriously disgusting discovery:

"The other appearance of the breaking-up-of-the-Avengers theme is during the Siberia fight, where it is played twice. The first time it plays is when Friday tells Tony, “You can’t beat [Steve] hand to hand,” and it continues as Tony tells Friday to analyze his fight pattern and she does it, up until Friday says, “Countermeasures ready,” and Tony grabs Steve’s shield. The second time it plays is shortly after Steve disables Tony’s suit, and shortly before Steve, exhausted and injured, slides off Tony’s suit and onto the ground; this plays until Steve helps Bucky off the ground and starts to walk away with him. Now, as the previous use of the Avengers-breakup theme helps show that Civil War was more of an Avengers movie than a Cap movie, this use actually happens to show how the film is more of an Iron Man movie than either of those other two. For considering that the theme was obviously meant to have the most impact after Steve broke the arc reactor, the fact that it first shows up a little before then is quite notable: and when exactly it shows up is very revealing. It first appears when Tony does not exactly have the upper hand (though Steve is doing no damage despite pummeling Tony’s suit), but then it stops when Friday allows Tony to get the upper hand over Steve and seriously hurt him, and then it resumes again when Steve is able to thwart Tony and disable his suit.

Such use of the music that symbolizes the Avengers team splintering seems to be the movie implying that if Tony had won the fight, whatever fracture the Avengers were experiencing would be less severe, but it is solidified now that Steve won the fight. Now, this is very much not true, as the entire Siberia fight was literally Tony trying to kill Bucky because he was upset, while Bucky tried to avoid this and Steve defended Bucky: and while Tony did some really despicable things throughout the movie, successfully killing Bucky and/or Steve while he was having a temper tantrum is something he would never be able to come back from. But considering the lengths the movie went to to try to make it seem like Tony was justified in doing this and not acting monstrously, it is not surprising that these fraudulent efforts extended to the music. And curiously, the Avengers-breakup theme does not play when Tony provokes Steve into dropping the shield, even though that is much more symbolic of the Avengers breaking up than Steve preventing Tony from killing him and Bucky. But that, too, might have painted Tony in a bad light, and the movie avoided such a thing at all costs. Civil War is seriously messed up."

Truly, the more one examines this mockery of a Captain America film, the more it becomes clear just how thoroughly rotten this movie is, and how it is most definitely not Cap 3.

[legalandnotease]

Tony Stans are just palpably mad that Bucky Barnes is still alive.

I mean it.

They like to hide their outrage behind claims that Steve was "selfish" for saving him or some such nonsense, but the real truth is they are just insanely angry that he *dared* to to not die in Civil War (despite Tony's best efforts...)

Also like their cries are funny

"Steve endangered people to save Bucky".

He didn't endanger anybody. He is in no way at fault for Ross being a trigger-happy nutter or T'Challa deciding to don his catsuit and commit some grand-theft auto in Romania.

But seriously, Tony did far, far worse to save Pepper. Only difference is the people he killed were faceless "bad guys"- and Steve didn't kill anybody.

Then there's Natasha and Clint. I mean I like them both, but Natasha was quite candid about how she and Clint had a shootout with Hungarian cops when he saved her.. and then she had to rig a bomb in a civlian building and use a child as bait to get into SHIELD.

Why do we not see anybody screaming in outrage about that? Right.... because neither Natasha nor Clint committed the unforgivable sin of being an inconvenience to Tony Stark.

Also... how dare a guy better looking, with actual PTSD and better morals than Stark exist in the world?

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Just when I thought I had seen everything and held a glimmer of hope that Marvel/Disney might learn from their mistakes, I see this:

Unbelievable...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that these executives who have known privilege their whole damn lives wouldn't know how to take criticism.

Most people have no issue with female-led movies. We have an issue with scriptwriters, directors and studios who can't be arsed to write them well and flesh them out and think that by showing them kicking ass that means they're already strong and everybody should kiss the ground they walk on.

If we didn't want female-led movies then Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel wouldn't have hit $1b. The first CM movie was wonderful but The Marvels is NOT a sequel at all. Hell, the other day I saw a Disney+ commercial on TV to promote the movie releasing on the platform and in the entire spot Carol doesn't even say a thing! It's entirely focused on Kamala and Monica.

You can't write one-dimensional characters like Sylvie or Captain Carter and expect us to fall in love with them just because you write all the characters around them drooling over them. Look at Layla, the women in Black Panther/Wakanda Forever, Wanda in WV... we love those because they're written well.

I can't even speak about what exactly Marvel has been doing lately that could be classified as "female empowerment". Do they think showing female characters is feminist? Just having them there speaking and doing things? That's feminist? The bar is that low? 🤦‍♀️

Please just stop. Have an actual meeting, learn how to take criticism and make good movies or we're out. It really is that simple.

[astrid-goes-for-a-spin]

I crossed this horizon a long time ago but. I don’t want the MCU anymore. And I’m really tired of seeing everyone talk about it like it’s still worthy of respect or hope. They’re never going to cast respectfully they’re never going to do your blorbo justice they’re never going to follow up on the plot you liked