#but I wanted to say this from a nonshipping pov

[buttertheflame]

Approving Thoughts on TFATWS (and Criticism of the “fandom”):

With only six eps and half the vocal viewers devouring each other, can it be called a fandom? Idk. My real question is: what in the text of the script is there to cry and complain over? Approached with a level head, the creators do a great job of expanding on the movies’ foundation. 

I’m black (and female) so I have real experience about these things in this make-believe world of the MCU. *dry laugh*

Here are my five reasons to be satisfied with the first half of TFATWS season one, as far as a TV show can satisfy the human heart (which it cannot): 

1. The superheroes invite greater threats against their powers. Some superheroes turn out to be frauds. The superheroes too are people and are still subject to being mistreated by their fellow humanity. Personally, I think sweet and precious Sam Wilson gave up the shield for fear of what would happen to him as a black man. I didn’t think TFATWS would be that honest about human frailty, but it looks like they will. Is it too much to say Sam can overcome the fear and become his own Cap regardless of what other people say or how they treat him? It’s not too much; it’s an awesome lesson for the kids and adults watching. Now, Steve wasn’t dumb or racist; he gave Sam the shield, knowing that would be the challenge, and he had expected Sam to succeed in it, in his own time. Adjacently, the X-Men series deals with superheroes being mistreated a lot more flawlessly than most other major Marvel comics. I did hear that in a comic in the 90s, Black Panther and Storm got married and when Isaiah Bradley arrived, that’s how most of the white superheroes (including James “Bucky” Barnes, Steve Rogers and Wolverine) found out about his history and fame in the black community. Hilarious! And interesting. And sad. 

2. They’re gonna choose what kinds of wrongdoing they want to show in TFATWS. It’s up to us to be self-reflective on our values. I MEAN...they were at a criminal outpost, yet we only saw drug trafficking and weapon trafficking. It’s not as if there is not prostitution (“I look like a pimp in this thing!”) and sex trafficking and other worse kinds of human trafficking acting as the lifeblood of Madripoor, Indonesia. Yet viewers will whine that the creators chose a South Asian Pacific location to show it. You’re focusing on the wrong things, folks. What about Sharon Carter deciding to do the morally bankrupt “hustler thing” and push stolen artwork, the administration of which, is funded by...the above? Yet people will laugh and say Sharon called Bucky Steve’s whore—when no, she called him Steve’s wife, an infinitely more respectable title. 

What about Zemo putting on an act of “his old self before incarceration at JCTC” and groping Bucky’s face in front of those other criminals? What about the shoulders that got crunched in the battle on the cargo ship? Sharon’s awesome, a total badass. But working with Zemo sucks. And Walker is worse.

What about when Tony Stark made Ultron which made other dumb robots that plotted to destroy the “human threat” to earth, a plot which radicalized Sokovian deathsquad commander, Baron Helmut Zemo, who planted and pinned the bombing of Wakanda’s King T’Chaka on Bucky, who had spent 50 years as the world’s most lethal and most mind-controlled assassin—and remembered everything--at the signing of the superhuman-regulating Sokovian Accords? What about when Bucky told Steve he didn’t think he was worth it? And when Sam told Steve that perhaps Bucky wasn’t the same person he knew anymore? But Sam and the other half of the Avengers were sent to the Raft (superhuman max pennitenarary floating in the Atlantic Ocean) so Bucky could flee for his life which they thought he deserved to keep after seeing evil Zemo turn “on” the Winter Soldier? What about when Sam went with Steve to Peggy Carter’s funeral because Bucky was on the run and later found refuge in Wakanda and got his mind back? What about when Tony Stark sacrificed himself to Blip everyone back and Steve went back in time, became Peggy’s longtime husband, then returned, retired and gave the shield to Sam? And when Bucky looked on proudly?

3. Seems to me we need Sam and Bucky together for their own sake and for the sake of their world’s hope and future. There is also a lot between them to resolve as 1 and 1/2 Avenger. Insightful people say Thanos got an edge on the Avengers because they were still split up after the Civil War. Meanwhile, the Sokovian Accords are still active after the Blip. This has huge implications for MCU. I don’t know why we’re trying so hard to pull Sam and Bucky apart. They’ll do that just fine on their own. We need to hope they stay together! 

4. There are not many comic readers here on Tumblr. That’s good. I am not one, I just have comic-reading friends. They’re very hard to please...which is why it’s so funny that the people who only watch MCU are even harder to please, given that they have even less of an idea of what’s going on. It’s called hubris. For example, in the comics, Isaiah Bradley never fought against the Winter Soldier in Goyang, South Korea in 1951. Never happened. Yet some people want to call MCU Bucky a racist who is 100% blind to his own white privilege? Smh. 

5. What’s the point of watching a silly TV show that is not reductively hateful (unlike HBO’s GoT), if you’ll just complain about it, complain about other people’s responses and what they think or not think, and rant at each other over what should be? What do you know? It’s just big-budget play-pretend. Sit back and remember it’s a buddy cop show, too: a very unique installment compared to what’s to come in the MCU. 

Now, I look forward to seeing Captain America’s future resolved in Sam Wilson, and Captain America’s past resolved in James “Bucky” Barnes. That’s as imaginative as buddy cop shows come, these days.