#cacw meta

[musclesandhammering]

Saw a team cap fan complaining that Tony fans don’t get that The Accords & the concept of oversight are not mutually exclusive & you can be against The Accords while still admitting that the avengers need accountability…. and that would be a perfectly valid point if they didn’t fail to acknowledge that Steve was openly against any kind of oversight at all.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

I dispute that it's indisputable! 😁

What we've got here (apart from shoddy retcon writing, typical MCU 🙄) is a problem of synecdoche.*

Shoddy writing/retcons:

Bucky in CATWS:

A) doesn't remember the Winter Soldier's mission earlier on the same week because he has been wiped.

(He goes back to his handlers to ask them where he knows Steve from. Pierce lies and says he's recognising him from earlier on in the week. And Bucky is like 'that sounds wrong but I don't know enough about my own memories to dispute it.')

B) post-wipe, Bucky doesn't remember this or Steve, again.

Bucky in CACW:

A) Wakes up after Zemo trigger-worded him and doesn't remember what the Winter Soldier just did, that same day (has to ask Sam and Steve what he did.)

Even though he hasn't been wiped!

But... he has received a head wound, thanks to accidentally knocking himself out ogling Steve's biceps Bucky you useless bisexual.

So it could be wipe/head-trauma = memory loss of last 'mission.'

B) Tells Tony he remembers 'them all'

but: i) it's Tony, he's trying to kill Bucky at the time, obviously he's not gunna be honest with that guy!  and: ii) we know Bucky is lying. 

(Because of the above 👆 and also because -- as @fearlessinger pointed out -- it's consistent with Bucky's pattern of behaviour of flat-out lying or eliding the truth about his own memories, turning his weakness into a strength, in order to get them to do XYZ.

And there is nothing wrong with him doing this. He doesn't owe anyone the details of his mind, not even Steve.)

Also note: Tony is someone who has already proven he doesn’t give a shit about Bucky’s innocence, he’s going to kill him even though he knows he’s innocent, as he says he doesn’t care. 

There’s no point Bucky wasting his breath telling the truth to this guy!

So whereas Bucky lies to Tony when Tony is trying to kill him, Bucky doesn’t lie to T’Challa when T’Challa is trying to kill him (’I didn’t kill your father’). 

Because, unlike Tony, T’Challa might be honourable enough to stop if he finds out Bucky is innocent, or reasonable enough to believe him. 

(Sadly, it doesn’t work. But the fact that T’Challa didn’t go on to kill Zemo, when he found out he had killed T’Chaka, bears out Bucky’s gut instinct that this is a man who could be reasoned with... Unlike short king.)

C) Bucky has shot Natasha twice, on missions as the Winter Soldier, but shows zero signs of remembering her -- and thus no signs of recognising her (which Nat comments on with exasperation, while the Winter Soldier is strangling her.)

.

Bucky didn't give Zemo a mission report on December 1991.

What Zemo asked Bucky about was where Bucky was kept in 1991.

He wanted to know that, because that's where the records of Bucky's missions are kept. On file. Not in Bucky's Swiss cheese head (sorry bb! 😭)

Zemo didn't need a mission report, as he already knew what happened. That's why he knew that that particular mission would be useful in his plot.

With Zemo canon seems to contradicts itself a little, because when Steve asks Bucky about what Zemo wanted, Bucky can't remember what he just did as the Winter Soldier... but with effort he can recall what Zemo was asking him about just prior.

During this sequence, we keep cutting back and fore between Zemo and Steve n' Co. So it's possible that Zemo asked Bucky about where he was kept in Siberia, before he was trigger-worded (ergo: not occluded by the Winter Soldier altered mind state), and this was while we were cutting away to Steve n' Co, and that's why Bucky is able to remember it later on.

The interesting implication is that, on top of erasing his memory of himself, Hydra's mind-wipes ONLY erase memories gained during periods of mind-control (ie. during missions). Not what was happening to Bucky immediately prior to being mind-controlled.

(IE. So after a wipe he might remember ...being taken out of cryo, being thawed, put in the chair, and the handler beginning to read the trigger words, etc... but then his memory is a blank for his whole mission, the period of actual mind-control. 🤔 Hmm... )

The headwound Bucky received probably doesn't block out memories as comprehensively as Hydra's mind-wiping technique.

(Sidenote: I wonder if Zemo ordered the Winter Soldier to take that roof helicopter and fly to Siberia, expecting the Avengers to follow him / not expecting the Avengers to fail to stop him, go there, find the record of the Starks deaths which would eventually cause a schism when they got round to viewing it, etc etc? If so, Steve catching Bucky would've thrown a wrench in those works. Maybe Zemo going to Siberia himself, shooting the other Soldiers and pulling the video out, might've been his Plan B? 🤔 )

Anyway, back on topic:

Bucky giving mission reports immediately post-op doesn't indicate that he is allowed to keep memories of his past missions, because he's delivering those reports before he is mind-wiped.

After he is wiped, canon shows (never mind tells!) he doesn't remember the mission.

(If TFATWS is allowed to ignore canon, frankly so are we!)

.

It's self-contradictory to posit that Bucky is somehow both a living database of past Hydra missions and cannot trust if his memories are real or reliable.

It's either one or the other; it can't be both. Hydra can't be relying on Bucky for accurate mission reports if he can't say whether or not what he remembers is accurate.

While it's a common headcanon, nothing in canon (tie-in books don't count) suggests that Bucky is unsure of the reality of the memories he has, post escape from Hydra.

Bucky knows what he remembers is real; it's the not-remembering that's the problem. The absence of memories, not the quality of memories.

(Frankly, they haven't given him enough screen time to establish something as complex as extant-but-unreliable memories!)

The idea he has no emotional attachment to his memories is, likewise, directly contradicted by canon where it's this very emotional attachment to his returning memories that breaks Bucky out of mind-control in CATWS.

In CACW, it's been two years since Bucky was last mind-controlled and brain-damaged, and has been free to heal his mind and write down everything he recalls.

He knows he didn't plant that bomb, he knows that he doesn't do things like that any more, and he doesn't hesitate to protest his innocence to Steve, or even to strangers.

This is not the behaviour of a man who is unsure about who he is or what he has done. 

This is the behaviour of a man who is certain of the content of his memories. He knows who he is.

Look at him talking to the fruit stall holder, too. That's Bucky. That's not someone confused about who they are or lacking an identity.

So Bucky's personality is not absent before he gets a headwound...

(Neither was Clint's under Loki's control -- deleted scenes prove this -- Clint and Erik Selvig were themselves under Loki's control, they were just.... controlled. The Mind Stone’s subtle mind-control is not comparable to Hydra’s blunt ‘erase his entire personality’ mind-control; and in any case, Bucky is not under the influence of that erasing mind-control, while recovering his personality. Also, Bruce; waking up after Hulk gets a head wound doesn't mean Bruce's personality didn't exist properly until Hulk got a head wound.)

...It's just that, coincidentally prior to the head wound, Bucky was surrounded by people he couldn't trust so much. 

(Because they were, variously, trying to kill him, Warmachine, CIA agents, a creepy shrink, Captain America who was there to arrest him, etc.) 

IMO, Bucky loosened up after the headwound because it coincided with him finding out he really could trust Steve (see below 👇), and because of relief that he still had his memories when he awoke -- that the headwound hadn't taken them.

Thinking about it... this must be Bucky's first ever experience of waking up after mind-control and brain-damage to discover that he is still himself, he still has his memories, even the ones from long before! 🤔

Compared to everything else he suffered in the movie thus far, no wonder he was cheerful!

He didn't suddenly develop his personality again. He already had it, he was just Going Through It, before. 😤

.

Prior to that...

He is not tense because he's still the Winter Soldier. He is tense because he is Bucky Barnes (as he tells Zemo), and Bucky Barnes has PTSD, of which hypervigilance is a symptom. 

And when Steve shows up in full Captain America regalia and says 'do you know me?'

...Well, who is he asking about?

Captain America, or Steve?

Bucky's answer is ambiguous because the question itself is ambiguous, not because the content of his memories is ambiguous, or his sense of self.

He is only nervous (as Steve notes) because he doesn't know whether he is facing his friend Steve or Captain America, Here In his Official Capacity.

(And he's right to be nervous because, technically, it's the latter -- good instincts, Buck!)

So Bucky is facing what looks like Captain America, and nervously disclaiming. Calling him Steve to try and switch Cap from Official Mode back into safe mode (his friend, Steve). Kind of like the inversion of Steve asking ‘which Bucky am I talking to?’ (Nonsense question, writers, there’s only one!) 

But Steve -- perhaps flustered by Sam's voice in his ear -- doesn't realise this.

He thinks what Bucky is seeing is plain old Steve Rogers, standing in front of him, asking 'do you know who I am?' (Just a boy, standing in front of another boy, asking him to love him)

Whereas in fact he is dressed in full Cap gear, complete with shield and cowl, and asking in a grim voice. So it's actually Captain America standing in front of The Winter Soldier, asking The Winter Soldier in a grim a voice if he knows who Captain America is.

So that's the question Bucky answers. 

He's not lying, precisely. He's just... not answering the question Steve thinks he's asking. 

He's not confused.

On that note:

"It always ends in a fight."

This is a statement from a man who knows something from experience. Not a man who is unsure of what his experience actually is.

(If Seb had delivered this line nervously, as if he was unsure? That would be different. But he didn't...)

.

*Synecdoche: (ie. in this case, one dream being taken as a flashback and one flashback being taken as evidence of the existence of multiple flashbacks, multiple memories.)

The idea that TFATWS proves Bucky remembers them all...

...does it tho??

IIRC, in canon we only see one dream Bucky has about a mission.

But that doesn't prove:

a) that he remembers all of them,

b) that that dream is a memory.

The show doesn't explicitly say that that nightmare is a memory. Even in therapy, when his 'therapist' discusses his nightmares, neither she nor Bucky describes them as memories or flashbacks.

Plus, we know that Bucky must have looked up the details of 'his' crimes in an external source.

Nothing in the nightmare we saw would explain how Bucky knows who that kid he shot was, who the kid's dad was, where his dad (Yori) currently lives, etc etc.

Bucky could not have plucked any of that information out of the nightmare we saw. And the kid wasn't important, he was just a bystander / collateral damage, so his name wouldn't have been part of an original mission Hydra briefing, for example. 

So we know Bucky got intel on these missions from somewhere else.

To this end... Bucky having a List of all the 'Winter Soldier's victims' doesn't prove he remembers them. It only proves he has a List. 

But because we don't know where the names on the List came from, we can't say they came from his memories. 

We do know that it's part of the conditions imposed upon Bucky in order for him to receive a pardon.

(Rule Number 3: he has to 'Make Amends' to those on the List. He even has to do it in a particular way (Rules 1 & 2), trot out an Official Catchphrase while doing so, and give them a customer service smile. 😬 Poor guy!)

The whole thing is officially sanctioned.

So if anything it looks like the government has said to Bucky 'in order to get a pardon you need to make a List of who your victims were, and who benefited from your missions, and then make amends to/about everybody on that List -- without doing anything illegal or hurting anyone, which we won't really bother to supervise, if y’know what I mean -- and keep us up to date until it's done.'

It could be that he has been getting case files (he must have, to know what he knows), to decide who should go on the List, and find their deets, and that revisiting these case files has been giving Bucky nightmares. 😥

But that doesn't prove the List came from Bucky's memories! 

The nightmares only get mentioned in therapy because they're talking about the Amends, which are apparently not helping with the nightmares. This seems like a weak attempt to imply a connection -- as if the List was established from/for the nightmares (which may or may not be memories), and the Amends are meant to make Bucky feel better about them to reduce his nightmares (bullshit!).

But that can't be... because the pardon (of which the List/Amends are a condition) predates the nightmares. It’s a bit of a chicken/egg scenario.

We never saw Bucky having nightmares, in canon, prior to the existence of this Pardon/List -- even though we saw him sleep (also note no sign of nightmares when he’s in Louisiana, not thinking about the List!) 

To me it seems like cause and effect: that researching for the pardon/List is exposing Bucky to new explicit details of the Winter Soldier’s missions, which is giving Bucky nightmares and making him feel worse. 😕

“That line was an interesting moment. At the time, the choice I was making is that [Bucky] had realized there was no way he was getting out of there, and someone was gonna die, whether it was gonna be him, Steve or Tony. When he says that line, to me, it was a turning point — he was, like, ‘Okay, I know what you want me to say, and I’m just gonna say it.’ When someone comes at you over and over again, and they can’t hear you, they can’t see you’re pleading with them, you’re trying to figure out how to get through to them and they just won’t accept it, at some point you just give in, and you go, ‘that’s right, that’s what you want.’ Of course [Bucky] didn’t remember them all.” —  Sebastian Stan

[musclesandhammering]

On Narrative Bias

I keep saying it annoys me how Wanda has done so many evil ass things and is never held accountable for her actions, and it never fails that someone tries to respond with “but aren’t you a loki stan? He’s done evil shit too! So you have a double standard and are a misogynist!!!!” Yeah, no. The difference is that you can clearly tell who the writers have predetermined as a hero vs a villain. You can tell who they want you to root for. Loki’s actions are given narrative consequences as harsh as possible, while Wanda’s are narratively excused and softened and sympathised. Let me show you what I mean.

* Loki commits treasons, tries to kill his brother & attempts genocide -> Loki’s father rejects him while he attempts suicide

* Loki tries to conquer earth -> Loki is sentenced to life in prison

* Loki incapacitates the king and secretly takes the throne -> Loki is threatened with a hammer to the face, we’re reminded how awful he is by all the other characters for the rest of the movie & he would’ve faced more consequences if the apocalypse hadn’t interrupted

* Loki steals the tesseract from the vault -> Loki watches his brother be tortured & then has his neck snapped

Now compare that to…

* Wanda willingly signs up to work for a nazi organisation, tries to help an evil robot murder the avengers, intentionally sets the hulk loose on a town of innocent people, & helps destroy Sokovia for a lil while -> Wanda gets a fatherly pep talk from Clint & is immediately accepted as an Avenger

* Wanda accidentally murders a bunch of people while on a mission -> Wanda is put on temporary house arrest in a giant mansion with her boyfriend

* Wanda buries her boyfriend/teammate under like 10 floors of concrete, breaks out of house arrest, & goes against a government order -> the leader of the superhero team defends her, a grown ass woman, by saying “She’s just a kid!”, she’s detained in a government prison for like a week maybe (?) during which she’s shown as a sad helpless victim to encourage sympathy from viewers, & then she gets busted out by the ex-team leader & eventually gets to run off to Scotland with her boyfriend

* Wanda holds an entire town hostage & tortures them just to fulfil her own grief-fuelled fantasy -> one of the women Wanda attacked reassures her that she’s the actual victim in all this and that the people she tortured just have no idea what she’s sacrificed for them & she escapes to an isolated location to read a forbidden demon book and make herself more powerful without anyone interfering

* Wanda goes on a serial killing spree across the multiverse, kidnaps a child, holds her hostage, tortures her, & attempts to take her powers all so she can steal another Wanda’s children because she misses her children that were never actually real in the first place -> Wanda gets some badass power sequences and #girlboss one liners, is the one that destroys the demon book, essentially saving the multiverse from future corruption, & is allowed to die a hero’s death (which we all know isn’t permanent)

See the difference?

[amarriageoftrueminds]

quick question because ive been thinking about this a lot recently, but do you have that post that talks about how steve almost signed the accords because tony told him he'd get bucky into expert care, but immediately backed down when tony called wanda a weapon of mass destruction?

Oh yes I remember that it's right here!

[countessravengrey]

Happy Birthday, Bucky!!

And Happy Stucky Resurrection/ Reignition/ Renaissance Day 2024!

Okay y'all, today's the day. Whatever you want to call it, we are bringing Stucky back (or acknowledging it never left) and celebrating it on Bucky Barnes's birthday.

Why not celebrate on Steve's? So glad you didn't ask. I have no idea how we got here except that Bucky's birthday came first in the original ask?:

Besides, Steve's birthday is all tied up with that whole "national holiday" thing, so let's give some love to our favorite misunderstood amputee brainwashed/wiped veteran on his birthday, yeah? Yeah.

Me personally? I'm doing the double (and a half) feature:

CATFA

CATWS

1st half of CACW (because the second half is just more Avengers focused)

I've been holding off watching all three of these movies for months in preparation. I didn't think it would be that hard not to watch CATWS (one of my top comfort movies) for this long, but here we are. I'm hoping I'll see something new. Even if I don't, it's still my favorite.

And yeah, I really plan to start at 7:04p EST lol. I like to think two supersoldiers would appreciate such a specific and fan-focused mission start time.

(get it? 7:04, 7/4, July 4th? ...my hyperfixation is showing)

I'm going to try to live-post reactions. And if that's not enough, I'll be posting as many metas and memes as I can find, so send some my way if you think I'll like them.

And, as promised, I got my first chapter up for a new long-form Omegaverse fic I've been working on and posted. Feel free to reblog!:

However you choose to celebrate, my dear fellow fans, make it epic.

[bedlamsbard]

This is actually 3 things because ongoing breakup situation fried my brain so I kept forgetting. 1. That Peggy meta was a thing of beauty and I love that you managed to make her imperfect without ever falling into "this British aristocrat is a Relatable Underdog." 2. I kinda want to write my "alt!Loki hitting both his own and Thor's avengers beats" theory, but I don't want to make you feel like I'm trying to get you to go back to morning when I like Home a lot, your call? 3. Talk about Howard?

Aww, I'm sorry to hear you're not having a good time. <33333

I CANNOT get over the fact that the MCU tried to (a) make Peggy's and Whitney Frost's situations equivalent to each other in AC S2 when the flashbacks themselves made it clear that Peggy had every advantage Whitney didn't and (b) make Peggy's and Steve's situations equivalent to each other in CATFA and What If. I can actually see Peggy assuming growing up privileged but expected to fit into a certain role is equivalent to growing up poor, second gen, sickly, and with a single parent, but the narrative itself seemed to feel like those were identical, which is seriously uncomfortable.

I would be delighted to hear your alt!Loki theory! I don't get bothered about Morning the way I do with my Star Wars fic; I know exactly what's going to happen and how this story is going to end, I just haven't felt like working on it lately. So I would love to hear your theory!

Howard is a freak, which I say quite often and with affection. I don't think the MCU in any way intended him to be; it's a consequence of Howard mostly appearing in other people's memories, more as a plot device than a character, which is what he is in Tony's narrative. (And Tony says as much in his first scene in CACW.) We only see Howard as a non-constructed character on very few occasions and the only really extended occasion is CATFA, which is a much younger Howard than we see in Ant-Man or Endgame, or even his very brief flashback appearance in CACW. (I count IM2 as a constructed Howard because he's on camera and he knows he's on camera, he's just constructing himself here rather than being created by other people's memories/needs/etc.) Because Howard plays this wide variety of roles -- distant father, industrialist, inspirational father, casus belli, domineering boss, etc. -- it's easy to overlook what we see of Howard which isn't filtered through other people. I mean, literally, our introduction to Howard in IM1 is in newspaper articles about him. In IM2, it's Tony's memory of him, it's Fury using him to manipulate Tony, it's recorded videos -- and then CATFA we actually meet Howard, who is already at this point living the double life that Fury tells Tony about in IM2. Nobody knows he's involved with the SSR, just like for seventy years no one knew he was a member of SHIELD -- twenty years after his death! -- no one outside of SHIELD knew he was a member of SHIELD, including his own family. And the fact that Howard is the kind of person who not only could keep that secret, but actually did is such a major characterization note that should be the first thing anyone thinks of when it comes to him. Because everything else he does should be filtered through "this man is keeping a huge chunk of his life a secret." (and, I mean, one could definitely look at that as a metaphor for "Howard Stark was in love with a man for fifty years," but also it's...not a metaphor, he literally did that.)

[cloudbells]

Okay....tbh....possible long post, possible temp post. Rmablings that don't make sense the longer it goes on lol.

When it comes to being a pro-Steve, anti-Accords, Tony lover, stony OTP, I feel like I'm often put in a weird spot. Like, if people were ao3 fics and those were my tags, there would nawt be many people available to meet by the time you finished filtering.

People who are pro Steve and also anti-Accords usually aren't stony shippers and likely couldn't give a fuck about Tony (or outright hate him and I'm too weak to handle Tony bashing #sawry), or they completely left the fandom - People who are Tony loving, Stony OTPers are a usually a miss the second we start talking about Steve - People who are anti-Accords Stony shippers have left the fandom in droves and/or started writing for a different Steve ship and people who are anti-Accords, Tony lovers are literal unicorns or they hate Steve anyways. And there are even more combinations that I'm not gonna mention right now. Too many.

I'm not even saying I've never ran into anyone that has the same "tags" as me. That would be a lie since I frequently speak with.....about two others.

But my grievance is that there isn't more? I think. I actually don't know my point, I'm just venting.

I guess - Like, you'll see my in a lot of stony spaces but I don't really particpate or interact with others because of the whole....Steve thing (and slight tangent - the Tony thing too because I've come to the realization that my view and characterization of Tony doesn't align as well with a lot of people and maybe it's the canon bootlicker in me giving me a different or extra perpspective but omg?). You won't find me in spaces dedicated to hating Tony even if they are super pro-Steve, anti-Accords because I actually, wholeheartedly love Tony a lot lol. I think he's wrong to do what he does often, but that's why I'm great at looking into his character and making excuses for him if I'm prompted to do so by people who hate Tony.

And I just feel like so many amazing fandom contributers were pushed out the fandom and got so exhausted (after CACW mainly) and it makes me sad lol. It also makes me how much more of an asshole I would be if I were around when CACW. Cause I've said this before, but I came out of that movie as a Steve stan. I liked him before, but that movie soldified it for me, so imagine the whiplash I got when everyone aparently thought he was evil or something. I think I'd be the biggest B.I.T.C.H around actually if I was a Steve fan and a Stony shipper during that time. God's strongest soldiers.

Also this is not a "woe is me, I fit nowhere in fandom" post because one, I don't believe that and two, I don't aim to get too close to fandom anyways. I'm just venting because I do feel awkward at times. It's the main reason I don't give Tony metas out anymore. I have so many thoughts about him, but my position as a Stony shipper is awkward to me.

I have more to say, but I'm not the best at detangling my thoughts and making something coherent out of them, so I'll leave this here! <3 Thanks for reading if you got this far.

[justakidfromfandom]

So how ‘bout this broke me. Again.

So after @possibleplatypus casual mention I just had a thought - part of the reason Bucky can so easily sneak up on Steve (e.g. in the apartment in Civil War, in the facility in Germany after Zemo triggers the Winter Soldier, or even in CATWS when Bucky rushes Steve from behind crates) without Steve noticing is because he’s so used to Bucky always being at his back. His presence doesn’t trip Steve’s danger wires at all, so he’s always a step late in reacting when Bucky does attack. If you think about it, Bucky is the only one who gets into Steve’s personal space more than any other of Steve’s opponents during their fights.

Cos their usual configuration is these 🤣

He subconsciously lets Bucky close cos that presence had always meant safety for him.

[luna-rainbow]

Hey, I don't know if you've already answered this (and this may be a weird question lol) but why did Hydra just let Bucky's hair grow long? Why didn't they just cut it? I've seen you do other metas and stuff like that (which I love, you're a great writer!) So do you have any ideas?

Aww thanks for enjoying the other metas 💕

That is a very interesting question that I’ve never thought much of 😅

From a Doylist perspective, the Winter Soldier arc was published in 2005-6. Ed Brubaker was born 1966. Men having long hair became more acceptable and even fashionable from about the 1970s (ie Brubaker’s formative years), and that style carried over to the late 1990s (or, if you’re like me who was in the JPop fandom, it was still popular for most of the 2000s). Longer hair in men was generally seen as subversive and cool, or untamed and unkempt, which were descriptors that would have fit Bucky’s reappearance in his new persona. It was also a good way of indicating that time has passed and his character has changed significantly. One other thing is, when it comes to 2D art, long hair flows, ie it’s easier to express dynamism, which is why so many superheroes wear capes. I believe (not having read the actual comics) Bucky’s role changed in The Winter Soldier run from a pure sidekick to something closer to an antagonist and partner, so the more distinctive character design reflects that too.

From a Watsonian perspective…I guess men’s short hair can be somewhat high maintenance in that you kind of have to trim it once a month at least. Who knows if the serum affects the speed of hair growth as well, because if it does then maybe he needs more frequent trims and it just gets long if they miss any. Presumably, given his history, he’s also not an easy customer to approach with a sharp implement, especially not that close to his face. And they’re always in such a hurry to pack him back in the cryo tube or to get him prepped for his mission that it just gets missed until it really gets in the way.

The other possibility is that the longer hair also changes his face shape substantially speaking as someone who didn’t recognise Bucky when the mask came off. It makes his face more angular and the shadows deeper. It probably stops his memories triggering as easily when he sees his own reflection. It serves to erase his original identity, along with his new “name” (although we have no evidence that he knew he was called the Winter Soldier while he was still brainwashed), new uniform and the bionic arm.

The third reason is that the long unkempt hair could be used as a psychological tactic. It’s emasculating and demeaning, especially for someone born in the 1910s and normally known to be well-groomed and tidy. It’s an element of control over his bodily autonomy that he cannot change without them allowing it or at least giving him access to implements to cut it. It contrasts him with the other soldiers, including the other “Winter Soldiers” we see in CACW, who are allowed to sport typical masculine haircuts, and serves as a continual reminder that he is “other”, if not considered somewhat subhuman.

So that’s my two boring cents. I wonder if anyone else has other ideas.

[yusuke-of-valla]

Hadn’t*. I reblogged one meta arguing for team cap with valid points and no name calling and got “Team Iron Man asshole.” I told them they were really really bad at persuasion. Also annoying ex- ironcap shippers getting really petty and vindictive about it and it bleeding into ironstrange and making him act so , so out of character. (Not a shipper myself but I was friends with some and all of them were annoyed by it.)

I learned to curate my fandom experience on the battlefield (CACW fandom being really annoying)

(Even as someone who does ship ironcap lol some people were uh. Extreme on all sides)

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Hi!! Today I was wondering about the overwhelming prevalence of "shipping fics", particularly when those two characters are portrayed as close friends in canon (or at least they are said to be close friends in the narrative).

Close friends? No, they are romantically (and sexually) involved. Without fail. Because clearly that's the only way two people can be that close, or be so determined to help each other. (rolls eyes)

It bothers me that close friendships are never "just" friendships, whether it's male-female or between men or women. It also bothers me that two characters who share even a little or a lot of screentime are lumped together romantically. I'm thinking of ships like Stucky, SamxBucky, IronStrange, even Stony (before the whole CACW thing).

Why is shipping so prevalent?? What am I missing? (Sorry that it feels so very vent-y...)

Honey, you're sending this to someone who has never shipped before so... hell if I know! 😜😂

Seriously though, I think it's a combination of things. Romance has always been a huge part of the narrative so it makes sense that many fics will include that. I used to think I didn't like it but I realized eventually what I didn't enjoy was a story where the characters are not written to be anything more than each other's loved ones.

It's one of my pet peeves when it comes to Steve and Bucky, for instance. I don't ship them (although I do find Stucky super cute), but I hate it when they're paired up romantically and nothing else defines them. Everything Steve does is for Bucky, or everything Bucky does is for Steve. As if they're not fully developed, complex and wonderful characters on their own. I'm not a fan of it in fics but I despise it passionately in metas.

Then there's the amatonormativity angle that impregnates pretty much everything. All that "unless it's romantic, the relationship is not valuable" has done a lot of harm. So I'm not surprised that many people will see two characters who are friends in canon (like Steve and Natasha, Nat with Clint, Carol and Maria, Sam and Bucky) and want their bond to be stronger... so they pair them up.

PS1. Just to make this clear, I'm not saying I have an issue with people shipping or writing whatever they want. By all means, go ahead! There are tags to navigate through that and whoever doesn't like it has to curate their experience, it's not the job of the creators to do so. That is very clear.

PS2. You can vent in my inbox whenever you want, by the way. Free range, it's all yours! 😉

PS3. Don't get me started on the IronStrange or Stony ships. I might combust.

[birdieart]

what was bucky calling himself in romania? did he use the romanian variant of James (Iakob) when he talked to people and had to give them a name? how did he even learn romanian? does he have romanian heritage? did he learn it during the war? how did he pay rent? was he working in construction or as a line cook or something? did he have a little old lady as a neighbour who thought he was too skinny and lonely and forced him to eat with her at least once a week? did she make him help with cooking so he could make the food himself? did he go to the orthodox church with her? did the local kids like him? did he cut his hair himself or did he brave going to a barbers to keep it at a length he liked? did he like talking to market sellers about fruit because it was an easy conversation and a way for him to get used to socialising?

i have SO many questions about bucky in romania

[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.

[rainbowsuitcase]

This is Civil War meta/analysis; I like to think I write these objective but I know I'm biased, so Tony lovers, consider this a disclaimer

Civil War's final fight demostrated perfectly why both Tony and Steve had a point.

Tony, in the face of a crime that causes him deep personal pain, decides to deliver the punishment/revenge without being able to objectively weight whether or not it is deserved.

This is a an example of a situation where being "put in check" and not being able to act without a higher-up's permission would be good, if only so he himself would have the time to cool down and act more rationally.

On the other hand, Steve is arguably facing personal pain, or at least the risk of it, in this fight too (you cannot tell me there's not a parallel or something between the Winter Soldier killing Tony's mom, and Tony attempting to kill Steve's best friend, but that's a post for another day I guess). But he's able to keep a level head to protect an innocent man and when he gets the opportunity, he ends the fight swiftly without unnecessary casualties.

This is an example of a situation where the responder is able to keep a level head and having to wait for the "go ahead" would only slow down his reaction time and potentialy result in more casualties.

[justakidfromfandom]

I hate the writers that did this to them. It could’ve been so cool and emotional to see tony and steve at odds if they’d spent time to develop the friendship between them that would’ve existed.

Captain America: Civil War Commentary (Joe Russo, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely)

[ashdumpsterpile]

who was right in civil war enlightened one what was justified and what wasn’t

(Note: I wrote this in 40 minutes after getting out of urgentcare because I am a madlad. If there are any misspellings, discrepancies, or plot errors, I apologize in advance.)

So the biggest problem with identifying who is actually wrong in Civil War is that the script is kinda...bad.

Okay, listen.

The dialogue is pretty fantastic and everyone is in character. (For the most part.) But the conflict is mediocre at best and there are like five different storylines going at once that are supposed to parallel each other but do a really shoddy job of it.

I can't really say who was right, but I can for sure say who's side I would have been on.

Tony Stark's.

(I promise this isn't just because he's my favorite.)

So there are two main storylines that involve Tony Stark. Plot A) the Accords, and B) Bucky's whole thing. These two plotlines intertwine at certain intervals, especially the ending, but let's put a pin in that. Let's talk about the Accords first.

This is where a lot of the bad writing comes in. If you go to the MCU Wiki, it cites regulations such as wearing tracking bracelets and being thrown into prison without a trial. Here's the thing though...in CA:CW they don't mention any of these regulations even once. There is half the Avengers being thrown into the raft (which Tony breaks them out of), but the movie doesn't once cite a single regulation beyond the fact that 117 countries are trying to keep superheroes with potentially dangerous powers in check.

If they really wanted me to side with Steve on this one, they would have at least thrown something in there. At most, they just bring Thaddus Ross on screen as a kind of shorthand to prove that the Accords are corrupt, but this doesn't really hold any weight for someone who hasn't seen The Hulk or read the comics.

So the only argument they've got going is government bad=Accords bad, which...fair enough. But this movie is placed literally directly after Age of Ultron (which is another nightmare of a movie script), where it is firmly established that the Avengers making decisions on their own, without input from any higher officials, is historically a bad move.

Actually, let's back up, let's talk about the Avengers.

I don't really understand why they're still a thing after S.H.I.E.L.D. was disbanded. They aren't owned by any organization, they don't work for any organization, and they're not affiliated with any official government. Which means they can be viewed as vigilantes or terrorists, depending on how badly they botch up a mission. And considering how amazingly well Age of Ultron goes, I'm honestly not surprised that the United Nations wanted to put restrictions on them.

So -much to my chagrin-I'm actually on the government's side here.

What about the Avengers as a team?

Okay, so you have a Billionaire supergenius, a soldier from WWII with superpowers, two ex-S.H.E.I.L.D. agents, an Alien who sometimes shows up, and a scientist who turns into an uncontrollable rage creature. Adding onto that, they recruit two military veterans, a sentient robot, and the ex-nazi responsible for their last fuck-up.

If we take a look at their actual team dynamics, we have a group of people who are already split down the middle. Half the team is looking to Steve Rogers for leadership and the other half is trusting Tony Stark. These two men not only do not get along, but they don't get along to the extent that it affects how they work in a crisis. On top of this, said ex-nazi hates Tony Stark so hard that it- again- destroys an entire city and they decide to put her on the same team.

The Avengers have only had one successful onscreen mission (Avengers 2012) and that was more down to sheer luck than actually being capable of working together and carrying out a mission. They mention other missions they've been on at the beginning of Age of Ultron, but it's also noted that the collateral damage they've left in their wake was what spurred the UN into creating the Accords.

Not a great team.

So when people chalk Steve's entire argument down to the safest hands are our own, are they actually right? Should the world be entrusting their lives unquestionably in a team whose members should have been in therapy 6 movies ago (except for Rhodey and Sam, they get a pass).

Yeah hard pass, to be honest, I would have retired the team and restarted from scratch even before putting the Accords on the table. Which is why I am entirely on Tony's side because he is the more accountable between him and Steve. He tried it Steve's way in Age of Ultron, and it ultimately failed (that's another meta post for a different time). So now he's trying to keep the team together within the parameters that 117 different governments are clamoring for.

So my opinion on who was right? I lean more onto Tony's side.

Now what was justified?

Steve was justified in helping Bucky. I absolutely do not condone some of the things he did to protect him, but I can understand trying to help your best friend. It's a choice that I would make. I'm not one for saying the end justifies the means, but it's clear that Bucky was in trouble and that turning him in was a bad move. This is the one choice Steve made in Civil War that I absolutely approve of.

Tony was justified in his anger at Steve and Bucky and Bucky was not at fault for the death of Tony's parents. These two statements can and should coexist. I see a lot of people flipping out over Tony's reaction, but honestly? He's 100% justified. He just watched an incredibly traumatic tape of his mother dying with her murderer standing next to him. But that ain't what it was all about.

That's what this is about. Steve was the last person Tony could have even comprehended lying to him about something like this. It wasn't about whether or not Bucky was the killer (although that had to be upsetting). It was about Steve breaking his trust. His reaction is absolutely understandable and completely justified with this in mind.

Now what wasn't justified?

Every scene with Wanda in it, Sam putting blame on Tony for the raft situation (edit: I think it actually may have been Barton who did this, but it's been a while since I've seen the film), and Steve's worst apology ever letter. I could literally write separate metas on each of these, so all I'm gonna say is the narrative used Tony as a cope out to cause problems for other people. All of Wanda's problems (sans her parents' death, which actually wasn't Tony's fault) are caused by her own doing. All of Sam's problems were caused by his own doing. And Steve's letter was the shittiest apology I've ever read and makes me turn into a rage monster every time I think about it.

None of those things we're justified and I sigh every time I think about them.

Anyway, long story short, this movie is a dumpster fire trainwreck that either needed to go through several more drafts or should've just been tossed in the bin. Tony's motivations are far more reasonable and sympathetic, and I'm still mad at them for putting him and Bucky on opposite sides.

(Please feel free to shoot me more questions or to disagree. I love talking meta/analysis with others, and would be thrilled to hear y'all's opinions.)