#movie: catfa

[lordzannis-blog]

Steve here after getting shot at by Peggy : on second thought bucky is the best partner.

Ok, but you guys do realize what this means right? So Steve gets this frankly less than platonic  100% heterosexual comment from Bucky, and then, knowing full well how Bucky feels about the uniform, proceeds to spend an indeterminate amount of time personally sketching out a revised uniform that retains most stylistic aspects of the old outfit. Now, I’m not saying it was all for Bucky, I’m just saying, it was all for Bucky.

[stevenrogered]

CHRIS EVANS AND SEBASTIAN STAN Captain America: The First Avenger | 2011 Ghosted | 2023

[parkour-and-coffee]

Found this review and I am dying

[dailybuckybarnes]

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

[lordzannis-blog]

See hoard of good spy “i didn’t know whoopsy”girl Peggy in stucky fics or worse romanticize the shooting scene in a very it’s just a prank bro*

S̷̟̣͎̃́̈́̇̿Ȕ̷̧̠̎́̀R̸͈̂͒͊̌͜Ẽ̶̮̜̗̃͛͝L̴̦̒͑Ẏ̵̳͐̽̍

[stuckysimp]

Made my own version of the CATFA poster. Why? Why not lol.

[amarriageoftrueminds]

I ended up doing a long old rant on this other post, about the problems with the Steve/Bucky characterisation in CATFA, how it fails to make them mutual in their support / fails to properly show Steve's struggles and independence, before serum.

And I was thinking...

what would you have to do, if you wanted to write a CATFA or pre-war Stucky fic and wanted to fix all those problems?

So I figured I'd make a list!

Pardon me while I rip CATFA a new one...

.

Problem 1) Pre-serum Steve acts as if he's independent and self-reliant without Bucky... when the opposite is shown.

A) He doesn't have a job.

(He isn't shown working, doesn't mention working, or taking time off to do the things we see him doing etc. Bucky is framed as paying for things.)

If the fic is set during CATFA you could fix that by mentioning Steve does have a job but has been given time off to go enlist. Or has just been fired from his job. Basically anything to show that Steve has had a job, has been working. Perhaps even had multiple simultaneous jobs!

Probably cut out the part where Steve scoffs at working in a factory or collecting scrap metal (more likely he'd admire and/or understand why both of those are viable options; maybe they're jobs he has done in the past and is biased against now, for some experiential-related reason.)

Or, if he still does not want to work in a factory... well, at the time, with most men being overseas, factory work would've been women's work. So perhaps Steve was reluctant because it feels emasculating. Or maybe even dysphoric, to be relegated to otherwise female-only spaces, instead of welcomed into (then) male-only spaces like the Army? 🤔

(This would especially ring true if you were doing a trans!Steve story, or emphasising the disability aspect of his life. And it would cycle back when he gets stuck in the USO, doing women's work again.)

B) It would also be better characterisation if pre-serum Steve was actually already good at fighting, but just happened to be outclassed by heavier weight opponents, and/or handicapped by sudden disability flare ups mid-fight.

(In the tie-in comic, Bucky taught him how to box. Why not keep this? It really makes sense!)

The ability to fight and win should be a matter of Steve's spirit, not his physical body or his training. It shouldn't arrive with serum.

(To put it in His Dark Materials terms; Will Parry has a warrior's daemon, even when he's a 12 year old boy; he can win a contest against a grown man or even an armoured polar bear! Likewise, Steve Rogers is supposed to be the David who can win against a Goliath - yes, even when he's the little guy.)

I know it's easy to have Bucky swoop in to save Steve from a fight he's losing disastrously. But it would be more gripping (and make Bucky's value shine more), if Steve was actually winning the fight, despite being the underdog, and then something completely out of his control happened that tipped the tide against him, and then Bucky arrived to save him!

And also it would make more sense if Steve's health at the time of CATFA was in a lifetime high point, (possibly because of Bucky's long term support).

Then it would be less nonsensical to be trying to lie his way into the Army. There has to be some actual common sense logic behind his choice, so that he's not essentially snapping 'Bucky why won't you support me committing suicide, gdi??'

Steve shouldn't be getting his first real win by knocking down a flagpole; he should've been showing this capability in his pre-war / pre-Army time, too.

Possible Example:

You could emphasise the idea of Steve entering a fight he knows he's going to lose, in order to accomplish a secondary goal that the enemy doesn't recognise.

IE. Steve fighting the bully in the alleyway -- he loses the fight, but succeeds in stopping the bully from making a scene in the cinema, which was his original goal. So mention it!

(Steve could be like 'winning this fight wasn't the point.' And Bucky could be like 'ah, so what were you distracting him from?')

Perhaps Steve's secret goal in joining the war isn't to win the fight against Nazis, but to distract Nazis from Bucky?

.

Problem 2) The support is imbalanced; Bucky's doing all the emotional, financial, and physical labour in the relationship.

You could fix that by showing how pre-serum Steve was not only mutually financially supportive of Bucky (in the sense of having a job), but was also supporting Bucky emotionally and physically, just as much as Bucky supported him. He could be doing at least 2 of the 3!

Possible Examples:

Bucky going through an emotionally hard time that pre-serum Steve pulls him through (just as Bucky did with Steve's Ma).

Steve treating Bucky's wounds after a fight, just as Bucky treats his. (If Bucky's a boxer, like the tie-in comic, then Steve could be his cut man when he's in the ring!)

Steve paying for some of their expenses, or finding places to take Bucky that are free when it's his turn to plan a day out, etc.

.

Problem 3: Sarah & problem 2.

If this is CATFA / post-death setting, show flashbacks or make references to Steve visiting her in hospital, or doing the work of nursing her himself / sitting by her bedside if she died at home, paying for her medicine, etc.

So that it's not just another example of Bucky wholly carrying Steve; show the balance. Maybe Bucky was temporarily footing the bill so that Steve could afford to quit his job and do the nursing at home. Both putting the work in, in different ways.

(This would be a perfect example of one way Bucky's experience of looking after sick Steve would pay off, and make him able to teach Steve how to do it when the roles are reversed.)

Better yet, a show-don't-tell of Sarah instilling Steve's moral compass and tenacity; maybe even some Bucky POV to show her impact isn't just relegated to Steve.

Her absence could also be shown in present day with Steve, eg. packing up his things to go to basic and having to leave behind some keepsake of hers. In the comics Steve carried her photo. Perfect candidate to put in his compass!

.

Problem 4: The relationship is framed as transactional.

Less of 'I'll do X for Bucky now because he did Y for me back then'

and more of 'helping Bucky is the right thing to do because he's innocent, so I'm going to do it regardless of outside whining, and he would still do the same thing for me, or anyone else, because he's a good person too.'

There has to be more to it than just convenience, needing each other around to help; there has to be an actual desire to be together for pure enjoyment, too.

IMO you'd need at least one scene where Steve and Bucky aren't benefiting in some way from spending energy on eachother. They're just... happy being together.

And perhaps Bucky isn't the only friend pre-serum Steve could have had, just the one Steve most wanted to stick with. (His options should amount to more than 'Bucky or no one.')

Perhaps Steve's health absences and strong principles drove other friendship prospects away? Perhaps Steve even lost other disabled friends to their poor health, poverty, etc?

.

Problem 5: A's problems are framed as B's.

No more 'Steve getting attacked' being framed as a problem for Bucky.

No more 'Bucky being drafted to die' framed as a problem for Steve.

Better characterisation would show these bad things affect the victim first and foremost, and only/also the other one, secondarily.

Steve shouldn't be seeing Bucky's shipping-out uniform (skipping right over thank yous and congratulations) and talking about how that's sad for... himself.

Steve shouldn't be sabotaging Bucky's last night of freedom in NYC to spend it on... his own goals.

Sidenote: Bucky wanting to spend his last night of freedom with strangers is such idiotic writing anyway, when he has both Steve and a living family with whom he could be spending those last precious moments! And dragging Steve on a double blind date he clearly doesn't want to go on is counter-productive. It undermines the mutually-supportive / mutually communicative relationship Steve and Bucky should logically have, as lifelong inseparable best friends (viz. a Bucky who's known Steve this long should be able to tell he's not into it.) And it shifts the blame for Steve's singlehood off of him and onto Bucky, and women generally.

Steve shouldn't be detailing why he's so keen to fight, and focusing on random men he doesn't know, not directly/unequivocally mentioning Bucky at all.

(Indirectly, he wants to be like the men laying down their lives -- so... like Bucky? But this is still nonsense. He should want to be there to support Bucky, not to copy!)

It's likewise nonsense for Bucky, who has known Steve since he was a child, to ask Steve why he's keen to fight.

Bucky doesn't need to ask. Bucky already knows!

Lazy clumsy exposition.

And the narrative should be showing us why Steve wants to fight Nazis, rather than having Steve infodump some vague reason without anything to back it up.

Speaking of which...

.

Problem 6: Lack of explicit politics.

Like in the comics, Steve's reasons for fighting Nazis should be explicitly left wing and political, as well as passionately personal.

(Wanting to be like able-bodied men who get girlfriends is complete cringe incel bullshit as a motivation and not true to the comics, or CEvans's performance!)

Proper Steve characterisation should have him behaving in a way that shows he's a man ahead of his time in terms of Antifa politics, and that's why he wants to fight.

IE. happily sharing housing and schooling with people of other races, ethnicities, and religions. (Especially so when he has been in the same SEC as them / been in multiple different schools and lived in various neighbourhoods as a poor kid. Would also establish why both Steve and Bucky are fine having Gabe and Jim on their team!)

Not judging and mistreating disabled people the way he is.

Not judging unmarried mothers, belittling working women, expecting his mother to do all the housework, etc.

Not freaking out about the existence of queer people in public (even in an AU where he isn't one) defending gay men from attack as he does in the comics,

protesting and/or sabotaging public Nazi meetings in NYC, fighting with homegrown Nazi bullies especially,

ditto corrupt business owners / mafia union-runners as he does in the comics, etc.

(Sidenote: as a congenitally disabled person, Steve is also a target of Nazi rhetoric himself. So he would be personally concerned with fighting Fascism, and perhaps this was his philosophical springboard to recognising and combating all the other bullshit in its thinking, even when it's entrenched in American society.)

Basically, the Hydra saboteur should not be the first Nazi Steve ever got his hands on!

And Bucky should be an addendum when it comes to his reasoning. The heart of Steve's motive, where politics are the guts.

.

Problem 7: No disability rep.

A) Steve should not be saying that he, a disabled man, shouldn't have the 'right' to do less than able-bodied men, even though it is literally physically impossible...

...UNLESS, this internalized ableism is addressed in-story, rather than treated as if it's normal and even noble.

Other characters can be ableist; Steve should not (not only is he disabled himself, but he's supposed to know better!) ....unless it's part of an arc that shows him learning the error of his ways.

And that's a slippery slope when you consider that Project Rebirth, started by Nazis, really is a Eugenics project.

Instead of this suicidal ideation, it could be shown that Steve's health has recently become good enough for him to survive and succeed in the Army. And/or that Steve is passionate about fighting fascism, personally, because he belongs to a class of people whom Nazis believe shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Without Steve arguing that he should throw his disabled life away, just because able-bodied men are taking a significantly lesser risk of dying than him.

B) There should be actual details of Steve's disabilities, what they are and how they affect him. (Him - not Bucky.) In a way that has concrete negative consequences, beyond just not getting into the Army.

Possible Examples:

Kid!Steve being held back a year at school because of missing days due to sickness. (Kids can be cruel and parents can be ignorant; he might've been bullied and ostracised for being sick and believed contagious. And that's before the consider the amount of isolation necessary for recovery periods.)

Kid!Steve having to move around a lot (which would also affect which school he'd have to attend; always the new boy!) because losing money to medicine affects what his mother can afford, affects her work schedule when she has to look after him. Living in a worse place would then exacerbate his pre-existing symptoms, and so on.

Adult!Steve losing a job because of sick days, losing savings to pay for medicine, getting sick again because he chose heating and groceries over medicine, or vice versa, etc.

(This / the moving-around might be mitigated if he and Bucky are living together, meaning Bucky could make up the shortfall.)

Steve could lose friendships, job opportunities, or romantic partners due to sickness repeatedly taking him out of social circulation. He might also have disabled friends who lost the fight / weren't as lucky as him.

You could also play into the Nazi eugenics then endemic to the USA and have medical professionals telling Steve he shouldn't be alive; 'well-meaning' people offering to pray for him, saying they'd have just 'given up' if they were born like him, etc. (Or even saying these things to his mother!)

And Steve should, maybe, mention once or twice that he feels better after serum, and truly couldn't be doing what he's doing in Europe, if superserum hadn't also cured all his ailments?

If he's much more peppy afterwards, it should be because for the first time in his life he can actually breathe and spring out of bed!

.

Problem 8) The Incelery.

Pre-serum Steve should not be framed as undateable because he's short and disabled.

If Steve hasn't had a girlfriend, it should be because he didn't want one, not because he's incapable; not because evil women are repulsed by invisible health issues or Bucky is too dreamy for a disabled man to possibly compete with, be so fr. 🙄

You could fix this by making Steve: gay,

ace,

demi,

coincidentally surrounded by lesbians,

by women who have horrible unattractive politics,

too sick or busy with work to date,

getting attention but it's the wrong kind (ie. women who want to fetishize or nanny him),

and/or being very attractive to women even before serum but oblivious and/or simply not interested. 😂

/more than one of the above.

.

[cloudbells]

One thing about me, Imma cry at the end of CATFA when Steve stands in the middle of the streets surrounded by all the billboards, ads, cars, ect because that must be SO fucking confusing and jarring :( I'm crying rn even though I tried not to, but I feel so bad for Steve ☹

And the last lines of this movie being "I had a date" TALK ABOUT DEPRESSING!!!

[strangeunknownarbiter]

Hey so by the way the entire script for CA:TFA is available for free viewing online. It’s hardly a literary masterpiece, in my opinion, but the most important thing is WE CAN SEE EXTRA DETAILS ABOUT THE HOWLIES THAT WERE NOT FILMED.

^ HELLO?! WE COULD HAVE SEEN JONES SHOOT DOWN A PLANE?!

^AND DUGAN WITH THAT DAMN HAT OF HIS

Also, originally Dernier was the one to respond to Steve in the cage at Azzano:

Just thought you all would like to know. 😁

[lnsfawwi]

Bucky was second in command for the Commandos therefore should've planned strategy with SSR as much as Steve. yet there's zero indication that the SSR personales knew Bucky well enough to even call him by his name??

Peggy has never addressed Bucky directly, even after his death Peggy used 'your friend' in her conversation with Steve. that's, if not avoidance out of jealousy of his relationship with Steve, detachment. there's no personal relationship between Bucky and her. plus Howard Stark calling him 'sergeant Barnes' which literally couldn't have been more impersonal.

the only logical conclusion is that the Commandos never spent time socializing with Peggy and Stark, they probably didn't even meet all that often cuz they were going around Europe fighting Hydra while SSR stayed behind doing their own stuff. Then how can Peggy possibly be the person Steve couldn't get over with, let along have any long lasting impact on him when they've barely spent time together?

popcorn movies are thoughtless and get criticized for this precise reason. the plot doesn't have to be properly developed bc audiences are conditioned to think certain ways and they complete the story in their head for the movie. 'oh that's a classic setup for romance, of course the hero falls in love with her.'

the thing is, it doesn't make sense, and when it doesn't, it shouldn't.

steggy is what happens when you let this thoughtlessness dictates how you percee a trope in a movie.

she never should've been the 'love of my life' for Steve. she simply couldn't have been. THEY BARELY KNEW EACH OTHER ffs.

[autumnrory]

i rmr when all the initial meta around endgame was coming out people were talking about steve being depressed and whatnot and it's like well yeah but he's BEEN depressed, like he woke up alone in this century and he kept going, now i can understand it being worse this time after finding a family and getting bucky back and losing them all except of course that's not why endgame steve was on about so like......the people writing meta were trying to connect these things that of course weren't really there on screen because that simply wasn't our steve

but i think it really could've been SO interesting to see this is the thing that finally makes steve stay down like he's lost so much and he just CAN'T keep fighting like i get some people think that's what they were going for but considering the ending......it's really not. and so i'm just thinking about a version after iw, maybe he gets some of the thor treatment except not turning his depression into a dumb fatphobic joke lol and maybe nat and others are trying to get through to him and it just doesn't work and then we get some flashbacks (which you could have done for all the original avengers actually which would be particularly important for bruce and nat and clint who did not have their own trilogies) including his mom telling him "you always stand up" and THAT being the thing to finally get him moving like it would've been such a perfect way to finally show sarah rogers some respect and ACTUALLY show steve really struggling instead of whatever they tried to do with him in that movie

[numberonestuckyshipper]

Thanks @tessabennet for tagging me in all of these things, trying to catch up on them!

rules: without naming them, post 10 gifs of your favorite films, then tag 10 people

(I’m counting it, sue me)

@kinda-sorta-weirdo @audreylovesflautas @birbsbetty @steveybucky @lavenderpanic I’m sorry I can’t think of anyone else at the top of my head but if you want to participate please go ahead!

[bedlamsbard]

What did the Russos say about CACW?

From the foreword to The Art of Captain America: Civil War

We've got to be honest: Captain America was never our favorite super hero growing up. While there was certainly something to admire in a fictional character invented to fight Hitler before his country joined the real war, the story of Steve Rogers didn't completely win us over. His strength and toughness were inspiring, but there was something about his unshakable moral certainty, his overwhelming mix of patriotism and propaganda, that left us wanting a little more complexity and a little more edge. For kids like us growing up in the '70s and '80s, the character had fallen out of sync with the times. He was a black-and-white character in a gray world. To counter that feeling, we would try to imagine him as Steve McQueen in an effort to lend him a coolness that excited us. We were kids looking for a way to love the character.

Of all the good fortune we've had in our careers, nothing tops being invited by Marvel Studios to direct Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The movie drew its inspiration from a comic run written by Ed Brubaker, and while that run missed our childhoods, it reinterpreted the character in exactly the way we had been wanting. Now we were being given the opportunity to do in a movie what we had dreamt of as fanboys: texturing and even subverting the patriot through a story that led him to question his country and break orders.

For us, Captain America: Civil War is the completion of that subversion. The film moves Steve Rogers past the flaws in his country to finally confront the flaws in himself. This is what makes him a true hero in the classical sense. Despite all the greatness he is capable of, he is flawed, and he is human. And this is a Captain America that we can love.

We couldn't have made this film without the talents and vision of our many collaborators, and we are deeply grateful to them. This book represents some of their work. We hope you enjoy it as we have.

Anthony Russo Joe Russo (signatures)

[lillianfromaccounting]

Me, thinking of Evans roles where he is shirtless: Oh Steve never has a shirtless scene...

[15 min later] seriously brain, you forgot this scene?!

Also, a few other roles just because

And of course, who could forget

Bonus, not shirtless but he might as well be

[lookforanewangle]

okay I'm suddenly desperate for an idea from my tags in the last reblog; does anyone have/know of a fic where Steve lets himself fall off the train with Bucky? maybe Steve has to care for Bucky for once, keep him alive until they can get help. maybe they get captured, maybe they both have to deal with Hydra

if anyone has something like this pleeeease send it my way!!

[stuckysimp]

They were both so young, and so scared in this movie. Bucky hides it for Steve's sake, and Steve hides it to be the strong, Captain America that he's supposed to be

Yes, they're brave, but fuck I wish the MCU had shown at least a little bit more of the horrors of war and the shit these two went through (like Bucky's deleted scene when the 107th were captured by Hydra in Italy)

Thank god for the ability to write fanfic lol