#anti fatws

[gay-jewish-bucky]

swinging wildly at the hornets nest by rbing posts abt why i fucking despise fa/tws and how it mutilated both sam and bucky and horrifically failed to address every single vital issue they were tackling

[rosie-dear-rosie]

Reminiscing about the time when Wandavision was first coming out, man those were the days . . .

[mwagneto]

fascinated by just how much marvel movies (and shows) managed to perfect the formula of making 2 male characters Just gay enough that the fans who want that will go UMMM IT'S NOT BAIT THEY'RE LITERALLY GAY LOOK!!!! but not too gay that homophobes even pick up on there being any subtext let alone get mad. extremely insidious form of bait. obvious examples being fatws and loki and more recently deadpool 3 and now venom 3

[florida3exclamationpoints]

I know my value. Anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter. -> The Carter name has always been synonymous with service and trust.

Peggy worked so incredibly hard for so long and she accomplished so much. She started so far down at the bottom that she had to do it completely alone, not expecting or even wanting backup from anyone because she knew she wouldn't get it. And then she was the founder of Shield. And then she was the director of Shield. She was the definition of a trailblazer. But then Shield was Hydra. Which was not her fault. But too many people in the fandom use that to discredit everything she ever did. That made me worry that people in the mcu would do the same. That after so many years of so much hard work, the end result would overshadow everything good she did and the government would lose its respect for her. But that didn't happen. In the mcu, a US senator said in the year 2024 "the Carter name has always been synonymous with service and trust." Do you understand how big of a deal that is? Peggy did that. By herself. In this main timeline no one could even try to paint her as "Captain America's Wife" to downplay her work. She did that by herself. She made her name synonymous with service and trust. Her legacy is still that her name is synonymous with service and trust! That's everything she ever worked for! She was proud of her accomplishments, but she would be absolutely over the moon to hear those words said about her. And what makes me really dislike Sharon is that she weaved her way back into the CIA by using Peggy's name and Peggy's legacy and now she's gonna use that position to do everything Peggy did not believe in. If Hydra couldn't discredit Peggy then neither will Sharon, but she's trying. And I LOVE women's wrongs. Supporting women's wrongs is one of my favorite hobbies. But not when they directly attack all of Peggy Carter's rights.

[autumnrory]

it's so wild how much people think steve is a man out of time but bucky isn't. like oh steve had reason to go back bc it's where he truly belonged (yet remember his letter to tony in cacw that he never really fit in anywhere? that includes the past y'all!) and no the friends and teammates he has in the present definitely don't matter. but bucky who had a family he had left behind and a hell of a lot more reason to want to alter the timeline if possible? nope none of that is relevant to his character and it doesn't matter that he doesn't have many connections in the future outside of steve, he definitely would stay and also every time things are slightly okay he goes right back to suffering bc the mcu is insane

[siancore]

hi!

i was wondering if you could recommend your fav sambucky fics you’ve written?

hope you’re well x

Hey there. Of course. I've loved everything I've written for them, but these ones are close to my heart for different reasons. A couple are current works in progress, the rest are complete. There's a bit of everything here. Thanks for asking!

First Time

Untitled

War Stories - 12/13 - M

A/N: This story begins with Sam and Bucky meeting again in Wakanda circa Infinity War right up to where we see them in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Stemming from my headcanon that Sam and Bucky had something going on between them before FATWS which is why there is tension between them in the show.

Summary: Sam stole another glance at Bucky as he used the bottom of his shirt to wipe sweat from his brow. Sam’s gaze fell on his toned, muscular body before he felt his own skin flush warm. He swallowed hard and reminded himself that he was there to help and time of was of the essence, not to ogle Steve’s old ass friend.

Bucky noticed Sam right away as the vehicles arrived. He wasn’t surprised that Steve’s friend would be out helping. He seemed like the type of man that would. He was a lot like their mutual friend in that way. He intrigued Bucky, just from the few but interesting interactions that had had. If Steve liked he guy and trusted him, Bucky could, too.

Ashes & Dreams - 5/6 - M

A/N: SamBucky time travel AU

Summary: It was a bad idea. Sam knew as much. His mission directive was clear: Travel back in time, go to the Stark Expo, and retrieve the stolen Wakandan artefact as a promise of goodwill and a way to make amends with a valued ally. He had finished the first half of his mission and secured the artefact, but he had not activated the Temporal Shift Device to return him to his own time. Curiosity had gotten the better of Sam. Curiosity and a yearning deep inside. He knew that there was a chance that he would see this other Bucky. He knew that if he set the Device to pick-up Bucky’s corporeal frequency, he would find him in the sea of people. The fact of the matter was, Sam missed Bucky. He missed his Bucky.

Feels Like Home - G

A/N: Written for SamBucky Summer Bingo. Square Fill: Coming Out

Summary: It was funny how belonging, and home was not necessarily linked to a place, but a person. As if home was linked more to the family you had instead of a house you all resided in. Bucky had not had a home in so long – in a whole lifetime, actually, but he wanted that. He yearned for it. Dreamed of it. So, he had packed up his belongings to leave the city that used to be his home so that he could be with his new family. He was ready to take that leap, to put one foot in front of the other on that journey, but there was one more thing he needed to do.

Fuck Valentine's Day - M

A/N: For @sambuckylibrary's SamBucky Valentine's Day Bingo

Summary: Sam and Bucky have an annual Anti-Valentine’s Day Movie Night where they eat junk food and watch crappy movies because Valentine’s Day is for suckers and schmucks and best spent with your friend doing the least-romantic shit possible. Too bad they’re both in love with one another...

Fireplace - T

A/N: Written for the @sambuckylibrary SamBucky Festive Season Bingo 2022

Summary: Sam Wilson is on a mission to find Bucky Barnes AKA The Winter Soldier. But it's cold and he is second guessing his own choices.

Afraid - E

Summary: Sam is so good for him, all breathless and beautiful. Sam is too good for him. He doesn’t want to hurt Sam. He doesn’t want to. But he might. He just might. If he keeps this up. If he keeps on giving Sam what he is begging for. What he wants. He might go too far. He might grasp onto Sam too tightly. Crushingly. He might not be able to let go. How can he? How can he relinquish this gift that Sam is giving him? How can he surrender? How?

Not Afraid - E

Summary: An intensity flames behind Bucky’s eyes and Sam knows he is holding back. That he is handling Sam with care. That his deft strokes, though sinking himself deeper, are measured. Careful. His blunt head strikes against Sam’s spot. Makes Sam’s limbs feel weightless. His weight, pressing against Sam. His hand, clenching tightly. Sam secretly wishes that Bucky will leave a mark, with teeth or nails or something else. A swift blow from his palm; a squeezing hand at his throat.

Strictly Professional - 4/4 - E

A/N: Wrote this because I need SamBucky porn stars in my life. Heads up, there's a Stucky sex scene, but it's professional and they're just pals - no romantic feelings etc. etc.

Summary: Bucky Barnes is an adult film star. He has booked a job with his sometime-scene partner, Steve Rogers’ friend as a favour to Steve. He checks out some of Sam Wilson’s work and finds himself attracted to the other man. Will he be able to keep it strictly professional when they begin to film together?

The Boys of Summer - 23/23 - M

Summary: Sam Wilson returns home to the small town he grew up in to complete his med school residency. He hasn’t been back for an extended amount of time since he left for college. While he only consistently kept in touch with childhood friend, Steve Rogers, he was keen to see the people he had grown up with. With the exception of Bucky Barnes. They had a falling out the summer before Sam left for college. What happened between them? Can they move past it now that they’re adults?

Deception - 22/22 - E

A/N: SamBucky DarkFic

Summary: That’s when he saw him, standing by the fucking ice sculpture: The most beautiful man he had ever laid eyes on.

Kisses Like Balm - T

Summary: Sam has a cold and Bucky takes care of him.

Happy SamBucky Reading!

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Ever since they put Sam as Cap both in 2014 comics & setting it up in phase 3 MCU to now Marvel's been pushing really hard to "correct" Steve's legacy in only being Cap in name & being more of an anti-government rebel. With Sam as Cap they push hard to make Sam's Captain America a blaring patriotic jingoism ad with neoliberal representation... You'd never have seen Steve be the bodyguard of the president of the USA as a premise of a story 🙄

It's annoying in its own right because along with the America patriot propaganda it logically follows ofc for characters like Sabra & her terrorist actor to easily appear in these stories with some Zionist propaganda.

But it's just really annoying to put it lightly how much Marvel - ever since first putting Sam Cap to page in 2014 - worked overtime to undermine Steve's character making CW a de facto IM movie & painting Steve as in the wrong  for being against the US gov authority & overall stripping back & removing Steve's righteous anger at the US State for what they did with Shieldra, or how FATWS compares its enthusiastically patriotic protagonist to make Steve look retroactively worse

& likewise precluded Bucky's post-WS character arc entirely & retroactively demonized his character as the insufficiently patriotic & therefore untrustworthy one. His whole backstory setup in CATWS painted the US gov in a bad light & culpable via Shieldra, so ofc Bucky gets villainized in phase 3 & likewise FATWS paints Buck at fault for being a target of continuous state violence & institutionalization while Sam- an agent of the state, part of the literal USAF -is presented as moral center while telling Buck he deserves to be at the whim of the US state and blamed for WS crimes the gov funded via Shieldra. Bucky gets surveilled & arrested & monitored by the same US State which funded the supersoldier mindcontrolled assassin program they blame him for while Correctly Patriotic Uncle Sam is shown as a Good US Soldier by contrast while Bucky's story gets retconned & swept under the rug for being to inconvenient to the Patriotic direction they went in.

The propaganda really ramped up with the ink and pages of Sam Cap drying off & becoming their new brand, but marvel's audience who tbh enjoy lapping at the Mouse 's propaganda pool refuse to see beyond the superficial aesthetics which is WHY US media frequently & purposefully chooses these aesthetics & act like neoliberal representation in oppressive structures is radical or progressive.

Which makes all the performative shock over Sabra in BNW fall flat since Sam Cap as a Marvel rebrand is defined by doubling down on Cap as a patriotic literal agent & defender of the US government. Sabra's inclusion is entirely ideologically consistent with what Sam Cap is about FFS, in FATWS the only other character besides Bucky who was exploited by the US gov is Isaiah who CORRECTLY outlines the relationship btwn America & Black ppl & Sam wholly dismisses him as crazy! THAT is was SamCap is about: telling Black ppl to STFU & be patriotic Obama style, but ppl are acting like Sabra is "ruining" Sam's otherwise totally not at all propagandistic stint as a now more patriotic 🇺🇸flag laden hero while America funds multiple genocides as the USA has always done since it's inception.

I haven't watched the trailer (and tbh don't intend to... too depressing) so I can't really comment on specifics of this.

But I will say that I was thinking the other day how MCU's complete refusal to do any Cap character properly, but especially Steve, had the knock-on effect of making it impossible to do a SamCap well too.

Steve was supposed to be impoverished / multiply disabled / ideologically Antifa / feminist / pro-union / New Deal Democrat / Irish-Catholic / urban underdog, etc. And it would make perfect sense for a modern black man to accept the legacy of all that, if Steve had been adapted properly.

In deleting all that and assigning to the mantel what America represents instead, they've turned the shield from an honour into an albatross.

But it's still contradicting their own canon to do so.

Because even the de-yassified MCU Steve never embodied America; he merely set an example to America.

Isaiah should not plausibly believe Steve's shield represents something bad -- as someone who knows nothing about Captain America would -- as if MCU canon!Steve never did any of the good things he did with it.

(This could've been a beat addressed in the main Cap movies; eg. someone assumes Steve is a Republican and his baffled response is 'huh??!')

Following canon, Sam's logical response to that should've been 'wtf it doesn't mean any of that where did you get that from??' not 'yeah but I want to represent that anyway.'

Isaiah correctly lampooned what America's legacy is... but no one bothered to point out that's not what Steve and his shield have represented. Not even the landlord-white version of him we have in the MCU.

That failure makes a nonsense of Sam's entire friendship with Steve.

Why would Sam be friends with the willing bearer of America's bad legacy?

Why would a decent Steve be friends with someone who wants to represent a bad legacy (maybe EG Steve would!) and so on and so on.

Though I guess it's no dumber than Steve not killing Peggy on sight for colluding with Nazis for decades, huh? 😕

I'm looking forward to all the jokes Sam is going to make about Isaiah being a brainless killing machine (y'know, to show what bros they are?)

And when he comes out at the end of it and tells Isaiah he needs to "do the work" to apologise properly for what he did while controlled.

Or perhaps he will suddenly magically understand the concept of innocence, now? 🤔

Sam siding with the authorities might be sadly consistent with the spirit they've taken him in (I've pointed it out before, but it is IC for him to be, eg. a dick to Bucky. Yer man's been doing that since day one).

But it at the very least it contradicts Sam's canon to willingly guard Ross, a man who threw him in enhanced-people-Gitmo like a "common criminal," to paraphrase Sam himself.

(Hey, why would the man who threw Sam in prison later trust Sam to guard him? Is it just a set up to screw Sam over again? Okay, but why would Sam fall for something so openly implausible? Are they giving him the idiot ball?)

The MCU are masters of 'we don't understand what this action we've assigned the character actually shows about them.' Or when they are assigning character actions that contradict past actions.

And they sure as fuck don't know what made CATWS a good movie.

[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".

[asteral-feileacan]

Thanks for your answer to my ask the other day about Bucky Barnes.

I watched both those movies and then Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Oh my goodness that series--- you're right, it had some issues but I loved the ending so much! Bucky had nobody left, but bow Sam has adopted him as a member of his family/community.

I'm actuallly more worried about the Thunderbolts movie: they seem to be treating him as an anti-hero again and have forgotten about his story arc in FaTWS. I just hope they do him justice.. I think he's one of my new favourite characters.

Hi again anon! I'm so glad you liked them! ❤ Bucky being surrounded by friends was probably one of the only good ways the show began to deal with his trauma, honestly. I'm not very hopeful that they'll continue his healing process in a good way, given the way he was treated as a character, but at least it's something.

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". Fingers crossed that Thunderbolts will do our boy justice 🤞

Thank you for your asks, it's been a while since I've interacted with Marvel beyond my fics, and I'm so glad I could help you out.

[phoenixyfriend]

#rly good points #but I also think there's another important part of this essay #that mainstream hollywood uses these 'leftist' villains as examples of what ACTUAL leftism is #as a way to villainize ideas that would have been fine in not-villain hands #which makes it rly frustrating to discuss the genuine pitfalls of these villains #bc it feels like I'm just buying into the often anti-socialist rhetoric #villains (via @dragimal)

See, I feel like that's a separate, but related phenomenon. For the MCU in particular, I think there's a really, really stark difference between the conscious usage of leftist rhetoric in conjunction with authoritarianism etc. in Black Panther and the poor handling of the far-left groups in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Thanos aside, the Batman and Black Panther examples I initially provided feel like very deliberate choices about co-opted rhetoric as propaganda, especially BP, given the people who were involved in writing the script. I actually considered bringing in the no-borders groups from FatWS as another example, but ultimately decided that they just do not fit, since they are much more 'vilify the left' than 'use the left as cover.'

Somewhere out there is an essay about superhero movies where villains co-opt, misuse, or even just misunderstand the language of the left to push methods and goals that are incompatible with the actual theory of the left, but that sound Right And Good to viewers who aren't thinking it through entirely. And the essay is not just about how they compare to each other, but how they are a litmus test for viewers to know how susceptible they are to propaganda.

Co-opt: Most obvious example and the inspiration for this post is the Riddler in Batman (2020, the one with RPatt). The Riddler recites leftist rhetoric about corruption, wealth hoarding, and redistribution, but his actual actions and goals are unrelated. He's an accelerationist who's more interested in tearing down a system that didn't benefit HIM than in actually rectifying the problems, and who cares if a few kids get traumatized or even killed along the way?

Misuse: Easy mode, this one's Thanos. He talks about ensuring there's enough for everyone to eat, but like. Bro.

Misunderstand: Erik Killmonger, who has the benefit of both some incredibly legitimate grievances and a pretty face, but also kind of fails at the idea of intersectionality, proportionality, or Start With Words Before You Escalate. He's the easiest to sympathize with, because he has some really good points and ultimately does appear to be legitimately pursuing those goals... but he's also a misogynist, jumped to international terrorism before "call up my cousin who doesn't know I exist," and there's something in there about the role played by his time in the US military, which gave him emotional trauma, head trauma, and a sincere belief in the validity of US-style insurgency operations based on hostile takeovers of inconvenient countries. He's charming and pretty and sincere... he's just also, in many ways, wrong. And the parts where he's right makes it easy to try to ignore the bits where he's wrong if you're predisposed to like him and prefer some absolutism.

Anyway, yeah, there are definitely other examples, but the ones that were suggested to me didn't quite vibe with the base idea (Mysterio and Vulture both had disgruntled union moments in the MCU, but they left those roots so quickly that I don't think the concept of using leftist rhetoric as cover/justification for the crimes really applies since, they very quickly shift gears into revenge and greed respectively).

Someone's probably done this better orz.

[florida3exclamationpoints]

Sam: we need to get you to a hospital

Bucky (experienced in dealing with Carter women): she's not gonna listen

Sharon: not the worst thing that's happened to me all week

Bucky (literal war flashbacks): told you 🥴

[joshriku]

I guess CB fans already talk abt this a lot— or do they? tbh i dont rlly see much Cap comic talk from CB fans.. but tbh that's prob for the best b/c they are...... so bad, esp w/ this topic. they only had one decent story that had potential w/ WS in the aughts + the shieldra plot before going into their American BS —but nyways mayve its a good thing no one talks abt them bc Captain America comics were already not very good with the hydra-nazi thing but omg why am I finding out that the latest run dilutes/copsout the hydra origins even more....

It's rlly pmo b/c the hydra thing hasn't been treated well/properly ever but they retconned Hydra to be the original "big bad" and just a front for a group that precedes the nazis by decades 🙃🙃 and the amount of dogwhistles and poorly thought out historical references in the names/setup... ihate it!

Things like this r y this is the few times where i say the mcu version is better— up until like civil war or definitely afterwards —b/c at least they— until later on with Z3m0 —kept in mind that the villains are nazis 🙃 The amount of Cold War politics the Cap franchise— and tbh in the Black Widow side too once they started to retcon them together —throws in to make hydra some generic "anti USA" villain and sidestep the whole "hydra being nazis + part of the US government and keeping a major character as an enslaved WW2 POW as a major foundation of Cap mythos" thing. Now they obscure the origins of the hydra stuff even more and its so...... i guess theyre trying to make the whole Captain America schtick seem less bad if the nazi villains the story keeps downplaying/ignoring the impact of just keep getting made to be "less bad" over and over, but I hate it. And i hate even more how these types of stories littered all over the Cap mythos are seen as "not political" by a certain crowd, but theyre very political.it's just that the politics are so trash and distort serious historical references in service to American jingoist conception of history.

i have no idea how you ended up here. nonetheless iagree because captain america runs are just... so.. so... [vaguely gestures] and i hate the crowd surrounding it! i really like characters from the cap universe (sam/bucky/misty/nat) but it's literally impossible to read because it's so. so. so .. WEIRD! i think you're right bc back in the actual cap bucky run these topics were somewhat better handled? than the way they are now? and i don't want to blame everything on nick spencer's 2015 hydra cap thing but i will blame it all on it because oh my god the disservice that did to the way hydra is treated in these comics lmao. like you said they keep being like 'weeelll the nazis are *nooot so bad*'. like the red skull treatment they give the comics are so?? what?? hes a nazi?? why are you trying to get me to sympathize with the nazi?? I GET SUPER WEIRDED OUT WHENEVER I TRY TO READ AXIS FOR EVENT REASONS BC OF.. THE RED SKULL BEING WRITTEN SO SYMPATHETICALLY.. IM LIKE EWW I DONT LIKE THAT GET IT AWAY FROM MEEE. likewise i did try to read the other 2015 cap america run with sam but it also suffers of this same exact problem and it's SOOOOO HARD.

i read sentinel of liberty and symbol of truth recently and i swear to god i did not pay any attention other than the scenes were bucky was in AND EVEN THAT I HAVE SOME ISSUES WITH I THOUGHT SOME OF IT WAS A LITTLE WEIRD but. (SIGHS) . i also agree the mcu was.. fairly fine with this til fatws and everyone became a zemo loverweiogoudsigSDG IM GLAD I WASNT THE ONLY ONE WEIRDED OUT BY THAT?!?! dont even get me started on the subsection of mcu fans that make found family out of hydra members its very fucking weird. anyway. i think you might have gotten the wrong blog but nonetheless ive had these thoughts in my head for a few years now so thank u for this little bonding moment

[rogueninja]

literally WHO is writing the dialogue for winter and the soldier falcon

[jasetodd]

why the fuck are people so obsessed with zemo he’s literally a nazi

[steveandbucky]

i would personally prefer if they didn't use a female character they've pushed to the side for 7 fucking years - after she fullfilled her purpose of serving as a love interest to specifically undo slash shipping talks - as a pawn for their plot progression without giving us any background or insight on what made her go from who she was - one of the good guys - to a completely different person - a villain, and a vile one at that - complete with a 180° personality change too. i mean, does anyone care about this woman as a character or is she just there to look badass™ and prop up male characters stories, while getting nothing for herself?

but that's just me 😌

[gay-jewish-bucky]

"they better not ruin Bucky Barnes"

my bestie in fandom, that ship sailed with the first episode of fatws