#probably because I don’t have a lot of mcu stuff to complain about

[lornrocks]

I mean all of this rant means nothing because I’m still going to watch but like. Mando has become what Boba was in the original trilogy. He’s an action figure. He doesn’t get to emote, he doesn’t get to change as a character and actually show growth, he doesn’t get to really do anything besides look cool.

Because he as a character can never change and grow and actually have meaningful relationships with others and show us, the audience, anything because they have to keep writing the show to justify why we never get to see Mando do anything like have a romantic relationship, have a drink with friends, or even just be face to face with his kid because Pedro is too busy to be on set.

And they know it’s getting grating to have the main character be an emotionless piece of armor in which a PUPPET is more expressive and loveable so they keep writing in all sorts of random shit this season: Mandos who remove their armor, recurring human characters, random gleep glops played by prosthetics and animatronics, and CGI characters or creatures who get to be animated and have personalities. We spent like 40 minutes watching several characters completely divorced from the main storyline only to have one be possibly brain dead and the rest never be seen again.

What IS the main storyline of this season? Reunite Mandalore? Deal with Moff Gideon come back? We have two episodes left and by the point last season we already had the rest of the season laid out: Grogu kidnapped, ship destroyed, Mando had to go with Boba and co to get him back somehow. This season is ??? Does Mando even know Moff Gideon has been sprung out of jail? Like??

I know I’m being obstinate for no reason. I love Pedro, ever since I saw him in Kingsman 2, everything I see him in that’s not Mando I love. He’s an amazing actor and yet his most famous role is basically a glorified voice over. At this point I’d rather they recast or do a full CGI render of him as Mando than watching a show about a tin can that doesn’t speak much and exists mostly to punch people and fly spaceship. Jar Jar got to emote more than this guy.

I guess after Andor (and heck, even playing fallen order again, which is all motion capture computer graphics) I’m less tolerant of this. Superhero movies find ways to justify their actors taking their helmets off to act. And in Andor we get to see every single character (almost all of whom are humans) be an actual character.

But I guess I’m expecting a lot from a show that is basically the tv equivalent of almost all the Star Wars movies. They’re for 8 year olds. They feature action scenes and fun aliens and robots and not a lot of deep character work.

I mean. Unless you count (parts of) rogue one, all of Andor, and to some extent the Cal Kestis content (the games and also the book) because here we are writing for older teens and adults, we are acknowledging our characters do things like swear, have sexual relationships, and commit violence. The actions these characters take are morally gray but they are doing what they have to to stop a fascist, genocidal force.

One of my bigger grips about the Skywalker saga and parts of Mando is how much they try and both sides the good and bad guys. No, I don’t give a shit about Anakin and Kylo’s sad backstory. I don’t give a shit about Dr Pershing. It is good storytelling to show that they are essentially the same as the good guys but made the choice to do really bad things. But trying to all of them heel turn before dying is like…too little too late, buddy. Sorry I don’t feel like the person helping do genocide deserves “redemption” because they half assed something. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In Andor we rightfully feel disgust and discomfort when we see characters like Syril Karn and Dedra Meero try to justify their bullshit. Even characters like Luthen can make you feel icky because they’re having to give up their humanity to fight back. Which is interesting!

I’m off topic (as always) but my point is: I personally need to stop taking Star Wars so seriously, except the stuff that is obviously serious and clearly written for adults. Which I am. And I will continue to watch Mando and mostly just enjoy the scenery and aliens and robots. Because hoping our main man actually gets to grow and change is…as pointless as waiting for rain in this drought.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 made me cry three times.

Hey, that’s one per movie...Yeah, this movie’s awesome.

If you couldn’t tell, this is a very emotional film for sure, and a part of why that works so well is because it’s these characters. The Guardians are some of the most likable characters in the MCU, so seeing them go through a lot of hard stuff in this movie hits ya where it hurts because of how much you care about them. Especially Rocket, who I might not see the same way again after this movie due to his crazy tragic backstory.

Speaking of which, shit gets DARK with Volume 3! Do you like animals? Then maybe don’t watch this one, because there are scenes where animals get tortured, mutilated, mutated, and even killed throughout the film. You don’t see the REAL brutal stuff, but the implications that James Gunn puts in might actually be worse than SHOWING us. But don’t let that make you think we DON’T see any gruesome stuff in this. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 is one of the few MCU projects that EARNS its PG-13 rating, having some VIOLENT imagery and deaths. For example, there’s a moment where you see what a character really looks like, and it might just be the goriest thing the MCU has ever had, which is the biggest compliment I can give.

But despite all that, it’s still funny! Like, REALLY funny! And the jokes don’t spoil and dramatic or serious moment in the film, either...Well, except for maybe one or two scenes, but that’s NOTHING compared to films where the jokes completely harm the final product like Thor: Love and Thunder. Here, the jokes are perfectly placed, are rarely forced in, and are ACTUALLY funny. Me and everyone in the theater were cackling with laughter a LOT throughout the movie. I could barely restrain myself from belting out a laugh or two half the time.

And the action. Holy SHIT, the action! These “trilogies” in the MCU really know how to save the cool stuff for the third movies. Iron Man 3, Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and now THIS FILM all feature some of the most epic, creative, and fun action scenes and set-pieces in the MCU. There’s a hallway fight that might just top Daredevil’s due to how violent and creative it is with these characters, their powers, and how they kill people. It really does feel like James Gunn wanted to give the fans a few final cool battles before leaving the MCU forever.

Which brings me to another thing about what makes this movie awesome: It is a clear send-off for James Gunn and the Guardians. The movie makes it VERY clear that this will be the last time all these characters will be together. Hell, the credits features pictures of the Guardians throughout their journies and adventures in the MCU. The most we’ll PROBABLY get are cameos, but other than that, this is the end for most of these characters. And WHAT an end it was.

If there’s anything to complain about, there’s two problems.

#1, Adam Warlock. The character isn’t...bad and Will Poulter nails the voice I always pictured this character having. But he doesn’t really nail who Warlock is in the comics and, overall, he’s kind of...pointless. You can easily write him out of the movie and make a few extra tweaks NOTHING would be missing. Honestly, it feels like the only reason why he’s here is because Volume 2 teased his appearance and James Gunn had no choice but to...bring him in for this last ride. Also, Warlock has the worst costume in the MCU. I mean, look at this:

What even is this?

Which brings me to #2--Which is my most nitpickiest complaint: Star Lord doesn’t wear his mask. Ever. Throughout all two hours and a half hours of this film. It’s part of a bigger complain I have where characters don’t mask up as much as they should in these movies, but it doesn’t stop how distracting it is. I don’t want see Chrisp Ratt’s stupid face in this. I want to see STAR LORD.

THIS! I want to see THIS! And the crazy thing is that Volume 3 finally gives the Guardians their comic accurate uniforms, but don’t go all the way in giving us Star Lord’s mask. Not even the original one they made for these movies. Part of the fun of superheroes are their cool and iconic costumes so it sucks that we don’t get to see enough of that. Imagine if Spider-Man: No Way Home or Captain America: Civil War didn’t have Peter and Steve wear their masks for the big and epic fights, including the finale battles. It wouldn’t be great, would it? Seeing Tom Holland and Chris Evans fight instead of Spider-Man and Captain America.

LET YOUR HEROES WEAR MASKS, YOU COWARDS!

...But other than that, this movie’s a near perfect 9/10 for me.

Now, does this mean Marvel’s back on their game and they’ll be making good movies again?

...We’ll see.

For now, I’ll remain hopeful. Because while the MCU is going through a bit of a rough patch with its films and recent shows, there’s still some fun to be had. I’ll always keep an eye out for what they have next, even if it’s not always as good as it could be, it’ll always lead me to seeing...

A fun, nostalgic thrill-ride that honors Spider-Man and what makes him so awesome.

A touching tribute to Chadwick Boseman and how much he and the character he portrayed meant to others.

And this final ride that’s fun, tragic, and complete in all the right ways.

[somewhat-exhausted]

Hey tumblr.

My name’s Elliot, and I’m not exactly new here, but this is a new account and blog. There’s not that much to know about me, so I’ll just spit anything important right here.

I’m very, very tired.

School is shit. I’ll probably complain about it.

They/Them

Still figuring out the sexuality and gender stuff, all I know is my current pronouns and that I am definitely somewhere on the aroace spectrum.

I love art. I love to find it and look at it and cherish it.

I like drawing things myself, but it’s been months since I’ve had the motivation to. If I draw anything worthwhile I’ll post it on here, I guess.

Reading is the best.

I like writing, too. Demotivation plagues that too, but I love writing. Original pieces, fanfiction, anything.

My favorite books: The Book Thief, Code Name Verity, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, The Queen’s Thief series, the original Sherlock Holmes canon, and probably I’m missing some but it’s okay.

Favorite movies: The Imitation Game, Return of the King, Interstellar and Inception.

Favorite tv shows: BBC Sherlock, Granada’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Heartstopper.

(I have a lot of favorites.)

Main fandoms are anything Sherlock Holmes and the Tolkien universe (including all movies (but not RoP because it’s barely even Tolkien)).

Other fandoms that I still enjoy but am not as involved in include (but are not limited to): Star Trek, the Marauders, and the MCU? Also Star Wars every once in a while.

Some favorite ships for any of these (in no particular order) are: Bagginshield, Samfro, Gigolas, Johnlock, Mystrade, Jegulus, Wolfstar, Spirk, and once again there’s others too that I’m leaving out.

I fucking love music so much.

I play the piano quite nicely and I play the violin not even half as well (but I play it anyway).

My two favorite video games are Portal (and Portal 2) and Hollow Knight.

GAH I feel like there’s more I should add but I’m useless so I don’t know what the “more” is.

Anyway, yeah. That’s a little bit about me.

I’m also intensely lonely and I like tumblr friends, so don’t hesitate to message me if something in here catches your eye.

This message will be updated periodically as I see fit.

<last update: 08.09.23>

[doreyg]

I posted 7,912 times in 2022

That's 4,679 more posts than 2021!

24 posts created (0%)

7,888 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spockvarietyhour

@s-nnoh

@drawingpkmneveryday

@billdecker

@pleasantpokemon

I tagged 7,129 of my posts in 2022

Only 10% of my posts had no tags

#pokemon (game) - 1,276 posts

#spoilers - 953 posts

#doctor who - 883 posts

#mcu - 581 posts

#bridgerton - 458 posts

#animal crossing - 301 posts

#moon knight (tv) - 293 posts

#actors and actresses - 238 posts

#taskmaster - 217 posts

#obi wan kenobi (tv) - 159 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#because a lot of what happened with moffat was that people would disagree with certain things he did (sometimes with merit sometimes not)

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Suren for character bingo

2 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

#4

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Blake & Avery Series - M. J. Carter Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: William Avery/Jeremiah Blake, Helen Larkbridge/Matty Horner, Henry Mayhew/Douglas Jerrold, Past William Avery/Helen Larkbridge Characters: William Avery, Jeremiah Blake, Helen Larkbridge, Matty Horner, Henry Mayhew, Douglas Jerrold Additional Tags: Anonymous Sex, Masks, First Time, First time with a man, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Getting Together Summary:

Another rejection from Blake sends Avery to an anonymous club to drown his sorrows, and their relationship rather unravels from there.

3 notes - Posted May 23, 2022

#3

An Awful Fucking Time

So. I’ve been trying to write something for roughly three days at this point, and this is probably the best that I’m able to manage.

Things that happened over the past three days:

-My grandma got diagnosed with cancer

--Probably Ovarian (which potentially means that I’ll have to look into getting a hysterectomy semi-soon, not that that’s the most important thing at ALL)

--It’s probably spread. Which is... Not great.

-My Grandma had abnormal bloods this evening, which means that she’s been rushed to A&e to get an ecg.

I don’t really know how to convey my emotions beyond a bald recital of the facts. I’m still feeling a bit numb, because my emotions are all over the place. Basically the only bright spot at the moment is my husband, who has been an utter star. <333

I know that misery is the price we pay for happiness, sorrow the price we pay for joy, grief the price we pay for love. But if things could stop being So Much that would be really goddamn great.

5 notes - Posted November 1, 2022

#2

hey! Just wanted to say I really enjoyed your Malcolm/Ollie fic series. The Rise in particular is such a beautiful work.

First, the dialogue. It is quite possibly the most in-character dialogue I've read in this fandom. Honestly, your stories in some way feel like an extension of the series, a spin-off Iannucci and the team wrote, but for some reason decided not to film.

Second, the details. Glenn doing home renovations and complaining about life. Malcolm telling Jamie about his relationship with Ollie (and, of course, Jamie's reaction). Malcolm and Ollie discussing their safe words (bloody hilarious). All this stuff adds more depth to the story. And it's absolutely believable. It's something you'd expect of the characters.

Third, the character arcs. To me, this is probably the most beautiful part of the story. It's always a hard task for writers, making characters canonic and yet allowing them to change. Not to mention making this change believable.

We're used to thinking of Ollie as someone rather spineless. For a larger part of the series, Ollie sort of adapts and mimics, and most attempts to voice his dissatisfaction with how he is treated fail. This is not a ground to build a healthy relationship on. I mean, how can you build a healthy relationship with someone who threatens to dismember you and then sends you on a cheese run at 5am?

But in your story, Ollie is finally shown as someone who can set boundaries. Even though he has a lot of doubts and fears. Even though the very act of setting boundaries is still sometimes so hard for him. And somehow, in my view, this brings more honesty to his relationship with Malcolm. Because being able to stand up for yourself and being able to show your vulnerability are two interconnected things, I guess. If you are able to protect yourself, you know that being vulnerable will not destroy you.

(btw, that fantastic scene after Malcolm and Ollie finally have sex for the first time in five years. You're so great at creating conflict in dialogue. That was some Marriage Story-level stuff)

Malcolm's arc is also extremely interesting. I mean, it would probably come across as obvious, Malcolm using his typical behaviour to protect himself. If he bullies people into submission, he doesn't have to express his feelings, doesn't have to acknowledge his vulnerability, let alone show it. He can simply pretend he doesn't have it.

And it's so exciting to finally see Malcolm trying to deal with it. He learns to be open with Ollie, to trust him, and this brings their relationship to a completely different level.

The ending was simply brilliant. I was really curious about how they were going to navigate the impending public scandal. And not only did I find this absolutely believable as a journalist, it was also very canonic. It was a clever move not to make them admit to everything. Ollie's press conference scene seemed like a great culmination. And it also showed the readers how much he had changed as a person.

Sorry for that behemoth of a comment. I really enjoyed reading your fics and would be very happy to read more.

Wishing you lots of inspiration :)

Oh my god this was the loveliest thing to receive in my inbox ever. ;; I have been having an absolutely awful time that does not look likely to resolve any time soon, and this absolutely made my day. I'm so, so glad that you liked it! Especially the character development. But also especially the scene after they have sex for the first time in a while (I LOVED writing them screaming at each other). But also ESPECIALLY the ending (I was a little worried about pulling that off, because it is very sleight of hand, but I hoped it was in keeping with the tone of canon and I'm SO glad that you thought it worked). Just... This was so lovely in general. Thank you so, so much! <33

6 notes - Posted November 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

My fic meme for 2021!

6 notes - Posted January 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

Stuckys, we need to talk. Like, seriously.

I understand you're upset that Stucky is not canon in the MCU, but you have got to stop yourselves from using that fact to shit all over Black characters just because of their newfound proximity to Bucky Barnes. Seriously. No, seriously. I'm going to call a bunch of you out, now, but I hope you listen and take heed.

1) This isn't about queer representation for you. It's about Chris and Sebastian being hot white men and you wanting to see them make out on screen. And that's literally fine, who doesn't want to see that? But you need to start admitting that's what it is. Because if it wasn't about that, and it was really about queer representation, so many of you wouldn't be calling Sam Wilson "sloppy seconds", and y'all wouldn't treat both Sam and Anthony like an afterthought. Even with a lot of y'all becoming Sambucky shippers, you're doing it under the guise of Sam being some sort of consolation prize because Bucky can't have Steve. Sam has no agency, and also is treated like he isn't as good. Literally, I saw a TikTok with some girl pretending to be Bucky and Sam, and having Bucky literally tell Sam he's sloppy seconds because he can't have Steve. Literally yikes, guys.

Also, it's always girl fans who do this. I'm not saying there aren't any, but I never see gay men who are MCU fans shipping in this toxic way. And I definitely have seen gay men ship Stucky, but I swear to God there seems to be a clear difference in the way they ship vs the white girls who clearly just want to watch Chris and Sebastian make out. Literally every toxic Stucky I've ever seen who does stuff like this is a white girl. I'm not going to say no gay men are toxic fans, because there probably are some, but the amount of fans I see shitting on Sam who are white girls far outweighs any toxic Stucky gay man. Like I always say on here, Stucky is an obvious ship and I understand why people ship it, but it never had to be canon and treating it like it's the end all be all, and especially shitting on other ships like Sambucky, is really weird and, again, makes it obvious that it's not really about queer representation for you.

2) Bucky is allowed to flirt with Sarah Wilson. The same girl I saw saying Sam was "sloppy seconds" also said Bucky was only flirting with Sarah because she's an "extension of Sam", and because Kevin Feige won't let Sambucky happen so Sarah is the stand in. How insulting and sexist to insinuate that a woman is simply an extension of her male family member. No matter how you meant it, that's a really sexist notion. I've seen people make funnier jokes, like Bucky can't decide which Wilson sibling he likes, or he's going to become a Wilson one way or another. Neither of those jokes takes autonomy and humanity away from Sarah. ALSO, Sarah is a dark skinned Black woman being portrayed as desirable to the white boy fave on a major TV show that is part of the biggest film franchise in the world. I'm not sure if y'all know how much colorism effects Black women, especially dark skinned Black women. Hollywood almost never casts dark skinned Black women as desirable love interests. Especially one that isn't super modelesque with basically European features and bone straight hair. This is a positive thing for representation of dark skinned Black women, and I KNOW you've seen how happy Black girls were just seeing that 2 second interaction. How dare you reduce it to being there because Marvel stole your Stucky, and especially not because she's simply "an extension of Sam." At this point, there's no clear indication that Sarah and Bucky will literally happen, but goddamn, you can't let Black girls be a love interest for just one second? Even if you like "queer Bucky", bisexual men exist, damn. Sticking Bucky with Sharon for no reason, like they did with Steve, would have been weird and bad and you would have been more valid for questioning Marvel's motives for doing it, but letting Bucky be himself and flirt with a cute girl on a boat for 2 seconds isn't a bad thing. And if Sarah does actually become his girlfriend, it's an absolute win, and you need to let Black girls have this.

Like, I get Stucky, and I also understand wishing Marvel would just finally let any main character be actually queer. I seriously understand. But can you complain about that without shitting on the Black characters and the fans who are happy about them, right now?

I never was a fan of Stucky, because I don't think you have to have romantic feelings for someone to care about them that deeply, so I don't understand the Stucky shipper assertion that Marvel somehow stole something owed to them... but I also do understand why you ship it, and it's honestly not a bad ship. You guys just take it too far and make things uncomfortable for everyone else. And, as I've been saying for years, sometimes you make it lowkey racist. People have been shipping Stevesam since CA:TWS and you guys have downplayed it the entire time, and even used Sam as Steve's stand-in for Bucky in your fics and all of that. I remember reading fics tagged Stevesam where Steve would be having sex with Sam and then reminiscing about how it was with Bucky and wishing he were still with him, and y'all literally never saw how gross that was. Using Sam like a consolation prize. Now Steve is gone and you're still treating him like that.

And Sam and Bucky have never once treated each other like a stand-in for Steve. They treat each other like individuals with autonomy, and they even care for each other on the level that the other person needs it. It's actually really fucking good, the canon version of their relationship that's unfolded with the show. If y'all could let go of Steve for a second, literally, you would see how great Sambucky's dynamic is and that neither of them would ever see the other as "sloppy seconds" or some kind of consolation prize. It's gross.

Also, I hope Sarah gets that super soldier dick just to piss y'all off.

I'm done.

[system-of-a-feather]

Moon Knight Episode 3 and 4 Review

I watched these back to back with my boy this time and I don’t really have any specific things to comment on other than that I am just going to submit my opinionated vote as a diagnosed DID system that's been in treatment for 4-6 years, that I approve and accept this representation.

If you watch Split or Danganronpa or any of those other big “DID character” shows, I do think you should feel guilty for supporting such a horrible stigmatizing appearance of a mentally ill group, but I think I will actually go and say Moon Knight does its due diligence.

There really isn’t too much I have to pin point to complain or anything and there are probably a lot of really good places where I could comment on, but like, I spent most of the show just laughing and being like “lol mood” “lol me and [alter]” “lol yeah bet thats relatable to you huh [fiance]” “lol yeah” “LOL YEAH HIPPO IN THE BRAIN FELT” and shit like that

I like it, that’s all I gotta say for both these episodes.

I do however - as a viewer and moderate MCU fan - find it disappointing that this is going to be part of the MCU solely because I think this stands on it’s own so nicely and the idea of integrating all of this into the overall MCU chaos is just... seems to water the story telling and significance down. I don’t think the atmosphere this show gives matches the world that MCU has set up and I don’t really know how they would tie the existing MCU into this cohesively without it sounding forced.

Particularly since the pre-existing MCU has really become very desensitized to “weird shit and god shit” and the ideas of Gods existing has already been established to be “yeah thats a thing” with the Nordic Gods, so it just seems a bit off for any of this to be anything unique? I dunno it undermines the whole story when I remember that Stephen Strange could drop down and comment about I dunno, Peter 5 slipping through a worm hole while Loki from Asgard resets the universe for the 90th time.

I’m not a comic book person or anything, so I’m assuming the comics managed to integrate the Moon Knight stuff into the other stuff alright but I’m currently forgetting that this show takes place in the MCU and so I’m like “Uh huh..... yes, sure.... uh huh..... where again???”

-Riku (Host)

[cblgblog]

I know I’m probably beating a dead horse at this point but I feel like it isn’t talked about enough how the accord do not and will never affect Tony the same way they’ll affect those like Steve & Wanda. Tony can always just blow up all of his suits again & go back to a fully normal life if he wants to. He doesn’t have to wear a tracking bracelet, or submit dna samples, or fear getting shoved into a straight jacket or electroshock collar if he gets arrested. I’ll I just don’t think it’s addressed enough how blatantly privileged Tony & other normal humans like rhodey & nat would be under the accords compared to their other teammates. No wonder they were so supportive of them from the beginning.

Ah, but what is fandom for if not the beating of dead horses?

I agree with you. I generally prefer the film over the comic event (granted I haven’t read it in a few years now), but I do like that the Civil War comic had more time to discuss those civil liberties issues. Like, the damn thing, as with most comics events, is annoyingly massive. Not if you just read the core 6 books of the main CW storyline, but the tie-ins, oh my God the tie-ins. Comic events and their damn tie-ins…

For the sake of telling a fuller story though, I do like that the comics had so damn much. There was much more room for side content, for lesser characters who aren’t in the MCU, or weren’t, at the time. There’s a fuller picture of why various people are taking the sides they do. Some of those reasons make more sense than others, but yeah.

There’s a bit from the comics that I’ve posted before where Tony and Peter (mid 20’s, his own hero Peter, not Frankenstein, Tonky Jesus fanboy Peter) are arguing about the Registration Act—as it’s called in the comics—and talking about the civil liberties being violated. Being a 2006 book, it’s got a very post 9/ll, Guantanamo Bay theme going. The lack of trial, of legal representation, the prison that’s even worse than The Raft. There are several scenes like this as I recall, and yeah, the film is sorely missing them in places. You kind of see it with Team Cap in The Raft, but it’s very much a quick thing in the larger narrative of the film, and that’s annoying.

I’m not exactly advocating for this, because the film version with it’s smaller focus works a lot better in many respects, but I do sometimes think of the alternate reality where Disney Plus existed sooner, and Civil War was turned into a series instead of a film. Say six episodes, match the number of installments in the main comic event, eight eps if you wanted to push it. Then we could get something that delved deeper into what these documents actually say, what the public’s reaction to them is, how they would affect people besides our core Avengers group.

Show some kid like Peter who has abilities but doesn’t want to go out and fight bad guys, just wants to live a normal life. Show someone who can’t reveal their Enhanced nature to friends or family because it wouldn’t be safe for that person. Show the every day or every day-ish people (ala the Netflix shows) and where they stand on this. Wanda talks about people being scared of her after the Lagos incident and you kind of see that, but not really. Actually show that. Show the fears that people have of these Enhanced people, the legit and less legit ones, and show the other side too, the regular, every day people who still look at this and say hey, no, hang on, this is wrong.

Again, not necessarily saying I’d want this over the film, but if the Mouse overlords ever wanted to revisit that storyline and expand on it, I wouldn’t complain.

And yeah, people have talked about this too, but it kind of sucks the way the film handled everyone and their reasons for siding how they did. Steve is all about choice and keeping the government from abusing its citizens ala Hydra, Tony’s got his whole, we need to be kept in check thing, but very few of our other players land where they land because of the actual Accords. Nat doesn’t want her Avengers family to fall apart, and wants to maintain some control over the situation rather than none. Rhodey’s the career military man who (generally) follows orders and hey, if this is what most people want, we don’t get to just decide eh, no thanks. Panther doesn’t care about any of this, dude just picks the team that’s going after Bucky. Peter doesn’t know what the fuck he is actually fighting for, Tony didn’t tell him, Scott and Clint are there because Cap asked, and also, presumably, because of the danger the Accords would put their family in, but that second point is never explicitly stated.

And Sam…I feel like we really got fucking robbed with Sam, especially in light of what we’ve learned about his character in Falcon and WS. The film doesn’t much go into his reasoning, beyond the fact he believes in Cap, he’s Cap’s ride or die, etc. But given the history he has in Falcon and WS, again, we were robbed. Dude is all about making sure minorities aren’t oppressed, aren’t punished for existing. Dude is very much aware of the double-standards in this country. I know that stuff was written in later, but my God did we miss out on a Sam monologue about this in CW. Sam, who’s like Nat and Tony in that he can theoretically hang up the wings and be free of the Accords, but still takes the other side. Would’ve been hella interesting to see Sam and Rhodey’s little argument they have about it be an actual scene, an actual debate. Sam who knows of the US government and it’s unjust laws and abuse of power, knows it long before he hears of Isiah Bradley. Who has those nephews that will have to grow up in a post-Accords world. It just would’ve been super interesting to see Rhodey and Sam, both Black men who joined the military, one who left, one who didn’t, have an actual discussion on why they feel what they feel. Even discounting the finer details of the Sam stuff, the stuff that wasn’t written yet, it would’ve been cool.

And, of course it would’ve been awesome to see Tony and the non-powered on Team Iron Man (but mostly Tony) get called out on their privilege with this issue, but that of course couldn’t happen, because Tony has plot immunity. Let fire and lightning pour forth and destroy all who dare to question the wisdom of Tonky Jesus, praise be to Tonky and all he has given us.

[idontmakelaugh]

With all due respect Marvel, what the fuck are you doing

Look, I’m sick and I have a lot to say about the hints at bisexual Bucky and the way this links to the way Marvel decided to reduce the Stevebucky screen time. I don’t know if it makes sense, but I just wanted to write this somewhere.

Tl;dr: I want Bucky to be canonically bisexual with all my heart, I just want to complain since Marvel went full no homo with Stevebucky 

What prompted all of this is that I’ve just watched this interview. I think at this point we’ve all seen this article and Malcom Spellman’s answer (also, the interviewer is my hero because I couldn’t believe someone actually had the guts to ask about the tigers), but still

“I’m not diving down rabbit holes, but just keep watching...”

these can’t be the words of a man who’s queerbaiting, also because he explicitly told the interviewer this is spoiler territory. If something it’s a spoiler, it means it’s going to get addressed in one way or another. I know that maybe he wanted to say that they’re going to give him a super straight storyline later in the show, but I think if that’s was the case he would have answered like the Russos did (basically “yeah I support the fans but I’m not gonna make anything explicit”). 

Plus, he mentioned the writing room having members of the LGBT community in it, and even if he isn’t part of it or the other writers can’t take responsibility for what he says, I can’t believe he hasn’t some degree of knowledge about queerbaiting or the kind of implications the whole tigers thing has. 

Now, if I had to watch Steve getting random love interests just to remind the audience he is absolutely hetero (I love Sharon and Peggy, but even if you ship Steve with them you have to admit the way they used them as love interests in Civil War and Endgame was terrible), while he wasn’t even allowed to have a reunion with Bucky in Endgame, presumably because Marvel didn’t like the way the audience reacted to the Stevebucky ship, why are they making Bucky bisexual now? Do they have any idea of the implications it would have?

(( Yes, I believe that what caused the writers not to acknowledge Steve and Bucky’s relationship in Endgame (not in a ‘make it canon’ way, in a ‘hey maybe not having Steve mourning his best friend and not giving them any kind of reunion on screen is bad writing’ way) was the way the ship was covered by popular media: it’s a thing that big companies do, James McAvoy even admitted Fox did the same thing in the last two X-Men movies because of the way Cherik as a ship was received. ))

Is it fine now because this is not a movie but a TV show, so they don’t expect it to have the same resonance? Is it because they are fine with people shipping Sam and Bucky, but not Bucky and Steve, since Captain America is probably the most famous hero of the MCU along with Iron Man? So as long as “minor�� characters are involved in a m/m ship it’s fine?

You could argue that if Bucky is made bisexual now, there’s no risk people will ship him with Steve since the man has become Joe Biden, and maybe it would have been fine if the show didn’t mention the consequences of Steve leaving Bucky in the present (like I honestly thought it would), but we’ve seen episode 2. We’ve seen Bucky breaking down because it was Steve who made him believe he was “worth all of this” and now that Steve is gone, he’s not so sure anymore. The implications that line has are BIG, no matter if you ship them or not. 

Also, there’s the matter of Sebastian’s old instagram story. Yep, this one

I still think about this a lot because it just doesn’t make sense. Look, I think neither him nor Chris Evans liked the ending because of stuff they said when talking about it and their body language while doing so (maybe something I’ll talk about more in depth one day), but posting this is on another level. That man has a contract, a serious one, he can’t just go around saying he doesn’t like what Marvel does. 

If you consider this and the fact that at the time he was filming the show, I’m afraid he was allowed to post that because the show is going to mention this matter more than it already did. But seriously, putting a bisexual Bucky in the show with a mention of Steve leaving him is going to break the internet. And don’t get me even started on the queerbaiting they’re doing with Sam and Bucky and the implications that would have (I think it’s a “light” one so far, but still).

I’m not saying that it’s bad writing making him bisexual now and not previously, I just want to know why now it’s fine while in the previous movies their screentime together was cut to the bare minimum. 

[wenellyb]

I have a general comment to make about the whole Sebastian thing, not on the Instagram picture, because it is not my place to comment, but a general comment about dealing with racism in the fandom, and some of the behavior I have seen on Tumblr.

I have a story to share first and it's not really related to fandoms, or shipping Sambucky or even Sebastian Stan directly but it's about how White people see racism, so I hope some people will read this and think about it.

I just want to say one thing... if you want to comment this, please read until the end before you do.

And please bear in mind that I'm not talking for anybody else but only my own experience and my opinion.

I see a lot of people get defensive when racism is called out in the fandom,whether it is them or a celebrity they love, and a lot of them try to deny it, or try to find excuses.

I understand why they do it, but it's really not the right way. The correct way is to sit down, listen, think about it and THEN only then can you deny or accept the accusations.

Here’s the story:

I was once with my group of friends and I don't know what prompted the question but they asked me if I thought all White people were racist. And you can guess it, I'm the only Black woman in my group of friends. We're all French and 5 of my friends have Asian orgins (Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos) and 3 of my Friends are White. Just planting the decor, lol.

I don't know why they asked, but we're always having debates like these on different topics so i just answered...

I told them that yes, that I thought all White people are racists, and that racism is not just hating all Black people, or all non-White people, but also includes a multitude of other aspects that enables racism to prosper.

It can be some unconscious feeling that you or White people in general are a tiny/ a lot better than Black people, it can be making or laughing at racists jokes, it can be denying racism even exists anymore: " But it's 2021, those kind of things don't exist anymore" this is also harmful, because then when your friends come talking to you complain about an encounter that was racist.... you will minimize it because "racism doesn't exist anymore so it can't be racist" so even though your intentions may not be bad... You are protecting the racists, intentionally or not etc...

There are so many more aspects to racism than just being a far right extemist who hates all foreigners. Racists don't only look like that.

I won't expand on this, but there are many more aspects, I mean I could expand, but it's not the point of my posts, the point of my post is that they asked me and I made a mini essay to explain that the way I see it, there are "levels" of racism (for lack of a better word), and that in that aspect, all White people were racist. People think that you need to be a far right white supremacist, to be racist, you really don’t.

And I told my White female friend, let's call her Alice, that she was the only White person I knew who wasn't racist (implying that my other two friends were racist).

To be honest, I don't think that all White people are racist, my uncle is White and he's the furthest from racist you'll ever find, but I said it anyway because otherwise some people would never question themselves. If I say this people will either get defensive and deny it, or reflect on it and try to assess if they have some internalized stuff they didn't explore and didn't know. But if I say that not all White people are racists, my friends would have directly thought they were off the hook.

What I do believe is that a lot of people are racist and just don’t realize it because they only think about the "extreme" cases of racism.

So I said to my friends that I thought all white poeple were racist and two things happened, and I wasn't expecting any of it:

- My White male friend, let's call him Pierre, listened carefully, and said that in what I had described, he admitted that he was indeed racist, he acknowledged that he did have some prejudice if he was being honest, and also that he had made some racists jokes so that even though he never considered himself racist, hearing what I was saying he said that on some levels, he was indeed racist.

Bear in mind that this is the friend whose favorite character in Black Panther was Martin Freeman, and had already argued in other conversations that positive discrimination made it difficult for White straight Men to find a job (When by the way he has never struggled to find a job a day in his life so go figure, besides there is no postive discrimination policies in France or anything, so I don't even know why he said that).

So knowing my friend, I knew he had some kind of prejudice, obviously, I just didn't think he would really think about what I was saying and admit it.

This was kind of a big deal, and I would never have thought that he would have admitted it, I thought he was the one I would have to argue with, but nope, he listened.

- Then my friend Alice, the one I had told was the only White Person I knew who wasn't racist, got mad and got defensive, even though she was the only one I hadn't called racist to her face. I said specifically she was the one White person I knew who wasn't racist because from previous discussions she was the most open when it came to discuss issues on racism.

However, she's the one who wouldn't really listen and said that I should not generalize about all White poeple, all that kind of stuff, so eventually I had to apologize to her and told her "It's not because all White People I know are racist that all White people are". I had to rephrase this way.

A few months later, I received a message from my friend Pierre, he's Alice's boyfriend by the way. He texted me that they were having Sunday lunch with her family, and someone asked Alice about a Black woman she knew, and Alice answered " She's pretty for a Black girl"...

So many things to unpack, the violence of those words thrown around so casually, those words being said by someone who doesn't consider herself racist, and also, the fact that I would have never known this if her own boyfriend hadn't texted me this.

"She is pretty for a Black girl" is one of the most disgusting and White Supremacist thing she could have said: All Black people/women are ugly by default but that girl is a little bit over that standard?" I don't know any context where that sentence isn't awful.

And also, I'm her friend, am I supposed to be relieved that maybe I'm in the basket of the "pretty ones" or should I consider myself as a member of the other crowd?

There's no way around it, what she said was so f*cked up.

This is why your " I can't be racist I have a Black friend" doesn't mean anything by the way. It doesn't mean anything. She's one of my closest friends.. we had a group trip together for my birthday. So she's not a casual friend, she was in my close group of friends.

The only silver lining is that by doing this, she exactly proved my point.

So according to you, who's the "ally"?

A White guy who recognizes he has prejudice and works on his racism and will call it out when he sees it, even if it's coming from his own girlfriend?

Or a White woman who considers herself an "ally" and doesn't think she is racist, but in the safety of her home doesn't hesitate to say racist stuff when she is surrounded by her White relatives?

It's no use being an "ally" if you're going to be defensive and deny everything or forget you're an ally the minute it is your favorite celebrity being called out.

Getting defensive whenever people start talking about racism is suspicious. If you feel called out, think about it, work on yourself and find out if what you’re being called out for is legitimate or not. And you know what maybe it isn’t? Maybe you Tumblr user X are not racist or you don't have prejudice, but you will never know if you don’t ask yourself and shut down the discussion from the beginning.

Just after the picture was posted a lot of people had already chosen their camp.

Even if you first reaction is defensiveness and wanting to deny it all, the first step should always be to sit back and think about it, and it's not only about racism, you listen first, think about it, and THEN and only then do you deny it or confirm it. Nobody is perfect, but the people who choose to stay obtuse in certain situations are really not helping and are by far the worst.

Stop finding excuses for Sebastian, of course don't go on his Instagram, don't harrass him, don't insult him... But also stop finding him excuses before you have taken the step to listen to the people who have something to say about it. Listen first, you’ll find the excuses later.

Also, most probably the people who are calling him out here on Tumblr are not the ones going on his Instagram to harass him (well at least I hope not) so why can't we have the conversation here?

We can have the conversations here on Tumblr, and discuss it... But the discussions will go nowhere if everybody just gets defensive.

Same thing when we call out racism in the fandom... Your first reaction shouldn't be to get defensive but to listen, I’m taking the example of the MCU but if we say there was racism in the Stucky fandom, don’t try to make it seem like there’s a Sambucky VS Stucky “ship war”, listen to why people are saying this, and then you can draw you own conclusions.

Here, for the Sebastian story, let's listen to what Buddhist people have to say, first. Maybe they will say the post was problematic maybe not... And we'll learn something.

My first thought is also to get defensive when I read a post and feel called out, but that's not the correct way, you may have some prejudice and not even realize it, or realize it and be in denial...

This might be contreversial but it is my opinion that most people are not hardcore racists. But their unwillingness to acknowledge their racist tendencies, working on it... or even staying silent when blatant racism is on display is what enables racism to live long and prosper.

On Twitter or other Social Media people will be openly racist without a problem, but Tumblr prides itself in being open and tolerant, but when it comes to really calling out racism, then it’s crickets-

If you don't want to do anything about racism... It's ok, I really mean it... It is ok.

If it doesn't disturb you when the non-White characters are treated differently in your fandoms it is ok, I'm serious... If you want to enjoy your Tumblr life without thinking about racism it is more than fine, you really have no obligation... It’s ok to stay away from some conversations. 

But please... please, please don't stand in the way of people who are trying to do something about it. 

And most importantly don't say you want to fight racism or that you are an "ally" but when you are called out or someone else is called out, you try to minimize everythin with "Not everything had to be about race"

Yes, not everything has to do with racism but you'll never know if you don't sit down and think about it first. Maybe Seb’s post wasn’t offensive, I don’t know. But how will we know if it was or not if we don’t listen to the people who are affected by that post?

This isn't even really about Seb himself but about the way some people in the fandom behave... How people just go to extremes without even trying to discuss first.

I love Seb as an actor, but I don’t know him and I’ll probably never meet him, I won’t spend the next days trying to defend him or accuse him, he and I live different lives that will never intersect, and it's fine like that, but I will listen to people who have been affected by his post and have something to say about it.

Seb will be fine, his career will be fine, he probably even has someone handling his social media... But the people on Tumblr who have to accept racism in silence and have had to do it for years will not be fine, if the coversations keep getting shut down before they even start. 

Everyone skipped the listening part and jumped to the defending or condemning part. And also a lot of things from the past re-surfaced (take a knee post, some instagram likes I guees) which makes it even more difficult if people skip the listening part.

To me, there are 2 groups of people, people who have prejudice and want to do something about it and people who have prejudice but don't want to do anýthing about it...

I don't know in which group Seb is and I don't know him so I won't be spending days trying to figure it out... 

But from what I've seen, at least in the MCU and Star Wars fandoms, I know in which group a lot of people in Tumblr users are and if some of them want to switch groups, it’s never too late.

[constellaj]

16

Please talk more about your reboot!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

okay so how i would re-do CANON is completely different from how i would talk abt a reboot so im gonna touch on a couple things in both contexts! the reason for the difference is canon rewrites imply i can go back in time and introduce dp fresh and new, before anyone knows what it is; but for a reboot, id be working with an audience that has a better understanding of the source material, so i dont need to spend as much time explaining, but i also need to keep everything recognizable

Valerie

REWRITE: i would def make it more danny's fault that her dad lost his job, like danny was intentionally being reckless and shattered some security stuff, and he has a whole mini lesson about learning to not just run in guns blazing. i would probably remove the dating stuff with her and danny (and tuckers crush) too, I think them wanting to be good friends is good enough for freshman year

REBOOT: the fandom already knows valerie exists, so i would actually skip the whole shades-of-gray introductory episode and have her be present as the huntress from day 1-- probably even before danny got his powers. cujo is also HER dog, and her backstory-- we'd find out in like, season 1, that a natural ghost portal (maybe one wulf opened) ripped open on her dog and killed him, and since then shes had a vendetta against ghosts cause of how reckless they are and their disregard for life-- of course, cujo isnt actually dead. cujo is a halfa. a puby halfa. anyway instead of a hoverboard she actually rides cujo around cause he can fly and its big and epic. valerie has BEEN amity parks ghost-eradicating superhero for at least a year (tho shes been in the shadows abt it) and her hatred towards danny actually just becomes really petty, like them flying next to each other chasing skulker just going "I got this. no I got this. no I got this" and they just get in each others' way and its a mutual grudge.

BOTH: i am NOT keeping in vlad giving her the suit to watch danny under any circumstances. it was only utilized half assedly in canon (when vlad couldve just had an invisible duplicate watching him instead) anyway, and I dont have any reason to keep it in a reboot either. instead i want her tech to be a combination of half-stolen and half-gerryrigged stuff and she slowly slowly learns how to build her own.

I also dont want anyone knowing her secret identity, except maybe her dad, and sam or tucker. i think it works better if danny isnt privy to this magic info

Freakshow

REWRITE: i would honestly just remove him. the episodes hes in arent particularly interesting, theyre just generic "we need a plot about x" filler and he's not compelling enough a character (at least in writing) to carry a better plot that another antagonist couldnt. i'm serious

REBOOT: unfortunately in a reboot he's gonna have to pop up somewhere or else ppl will be like "where IS HE" so I'm going to stick with running some kind of ghost circus, maybe a few occult things, but cut out a lot of the spooky magical knowledge and mcguffin stuff. maybe i could make him like, someone from vlad/jack/maddies college who always felt pushed around by them and so he has a vendetta? and theyd be the only reason he even learned abt ghosts in the first place. idk in either way I want to force him into being irredeemable but also include LYDIA (the tattoo girl ghost) way more-- I want to give her an arc that ends in her tossing freakshow aside and running off to be a ghost vigilante.

BOTH: dear god the infinity gauntlet is stupid that needs to GO AWAY. especially for the reboot cause it would exist in a post-mcu world and way too many people would complain about it

Vlad

REWRITE: amp him up to a far more sinister and villainous character. the crushing on maddie isnt enough, I want to show him on-screen performing experiments on ghosts and himself, dismissing everyone else cause he thinks hes smarter than them. i want him to be actively sabotaging the fentons at every turn. i would also clarify that he doesnt actually want danny as a son, but as a trophy-- a line where danny says something along the lines of "you don't want a son. you want a slave". i want to make him a character who wants to destroy the entire planet and put it in the ghost zone so he can be the true ghost king and i want to make this all evident from day one. if i'm writing a series villain you can bet i'm going to write a GOOD one. less petty drama here and more actual stakes.

REBOOT: it seems silly but sense with reboot we have the benefit of hindsight and recognizing that vlad wasn't a big series villain, theres no way i'd actually go back and write him to be such. for starters, of course, theres the fact that anything he does would really be an exaggerated part of the original, and it would bore an audience to see the same story again-- theres also the fact that it doesnt seem right to take a character who was treated as a joke half the time and suddenly make them big and important. no, instead for my reboot i want to lean into the petty gay uncle vibe. he had a crush on jack and now just casually insults him. he moves mansions every now and again by just haunting the family who lives in the one he wants, and taking over-- i mean, who is gonna believe that an actual ghost haunted you. he dislikes danny not because he has some concept of 'evil' and 'good' but bc danny is just too damn active. of course he actually does care about danny and his safety deep down, it's just on the surface they have very conflicting motivations-- not to mention that danny has been raised on legends from his parents of the villainous Wisconsin Ghost, who has to be stopped at all costs.

BOTH: i want jack and maddie to KNOW he's a half ghost and to actively be hunting him down for it, maybe bc they think hes possessed, or been a ghost tricking them this whole time, or the victim of a tragic lab accident who needs to be put to rest, etc. whatever the case it will give vlad actual tangible reason to despise them and genuinely suspect they dont have dannys best interests at heart. i think it would be neat if vlad was cynical and every time danny hit him with the "I'll expose us both. at least theyll still love ME" vlad could be like in the back of his head "oh god theyre going to kill this child"

Dani

REWRITE: cut her out. we don't need her character at all. maybe replace her with a more ominous shadow duplicate / clone that actually looks like danny himself and doesnt really have a name? you could probably combine her and dark dans characters for their arcs

REBOOT: instead of a clone from vlad, she's a guys in white creation using some of dannys dna after he was captured (and vlad broke him out bc he was like "ugh i guess i have to save this child")

BOTH: vlad actually cares abt her (duh), shes nonbinary (double duh), she gets the funny dissolve into goo powers

i had more i thought i was gonna write but this post is already very long and also im running out of coherency for this LUL

[alirhi]

Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.

[siancore]

I've seen some people complain that it's not Sam and Bucky in the tfatws trailers but Anthony and Seb in costume. I'm not familiar with the comics and I know you are so I want to ask what you think. Are Sam and Anthony alike in personality? Is it Sam in the trailers or Anthony? And same with Seb and Bucky.

Ps: hope your birthday went great

Hey. Yeah, I’ve seen this a lot over the years (especially pertaining to AM), but it’s amped up a lot with all of the FATWS content recently. Now, admittedly, I haven’t seen much of SS’s filmography - just the MCU stuff, I, Tonya, and the one with Tom Holland, so I can’t speak much about his acting outside of what I have seen. AM, however, I’m a fan of. I am a fan of 616 SamBucky, so I guess I can weigh in on this.

I think MCU fans who watch all the clips of panels and press junkets project a lot of how AM and SS are in interviews onto the characters of Sam and Bucky. One reason is because they’ve had so little screen time and fandom has attributed fanon characterisations to them. What I’m saying is, fandom has, especially in Bucky’s case, given him a fanon personality. That’s cool. We’ve all done it. But to keep saying they are playing themselves is a disservice to:

1. Their craft as thespians

2. The characters they are playing

3. The writing staff

4. Their comic book origins

Anthony said, the reason he can play different characters like Tupac; Takeshi Kovacs; Papa Doc; Dr. King; Falcon; and do Shakespeare, is because of his training as an actor and his respect for the craft.

I get it. He’s an extremely funny dude. But he is also a serious actor. He takes his roles seriously. I honestly feel like Marvel fans don’t take Anthony seriously. I also feel like fans don’t get just how much goes into playing a character and shooting a scene. How it’s all scripted and directed. I know we like to joke around about them just playing themselves (and they have, too), but it’s not the case. Marvel would not invest so much money and say, “Go ahead and do whatever.”

I know why you asked me about this, Anon. You probably feel the same way I do in that fandom doesn’t take Anthony seriously. Like I said, I get it. He is quite funny, but he is a professional as well.

Long story short, Anthony Mackie and Sam Wilson are not the same person. AM is able to play Sam because he is a highly trained actor.

Now, I might as well add this: What I have seen of Bucky’s portrayal in the teasers and trailers, it’s spot on if we’re looking at 616 Bucky. He has this funny, self-depreciating, almost dry sense of humour. He’s actually so funny. We saw a little of him in IW, but not much. I think MCU fandom will be surprised by Bucky in FATWS as more of his 616 personality comes through.

Sam and Bucky definitely have this playful banter in the comic books, but there’s also immense respect. They’re friends. They talk about how well they work together as a unit; how they fall back into a natural fighting rhythm after not working together for a while. Bucky wants to impress Sam. He flirts with Sam and wants to make him laugh. He cares about what Sam thinks. They trust each other. They are good partners. They’re funny; they bicker; they have one another’s back. They are a real treat whenever they appear together in 616. Now we get a whole series in the MCU? I am too excited! And I am eager for the general audience to get a deeper sense of these characters.

P.S. I want their individual 616 friendships with Sharon to be seen as well. She is such an important character and MCU fandom was and is awful when it comes to her.

P.P.S. I had a great birthday 💜

[scarletwitching]

I saw this one post about the last issue of X factor that was like “really upsetting that the death of a queer black boy has been overshadowed by the death of a hated white woman” and I one hundred percent agree that David’s horrifying death was the worse aspect of the issue but this has really driven home the fact that people are straight up unaware of the fact that Wanda is a woc? I was aware of it particularly from the mcu side but for comic readers do you think it comes more from ignorance of her being Romani or the fact that Romani people aren’t white?

I think it's like fucking Borat (yes, I'm complaining about Borat again). You can show someone pictures of people from Kazakhstan and explain that they are Asian, and they will acknowledge that you are correct and then immediately go back to not caring.

It's easy to look at this through the lens of US-American culture and its commitment to ignorance about other parts of the world, but it's also easy to look at X-Men fandom and note that it is Like That. And obviously, #notallxmenfans. It's a large group of people, and some of them are basic USian rubes who don't see the issue with all these racial stereotype characters and some of them are critical of the franchise and its central metaphor and some of them are literal Nazis and some of them say, "Jonathan Hickman's X-Men isn't pro-Israel, and anyone who criticizes it by saying that is willfully misinterpreting the text," and some of them say, "I am Zionist, and I love Jonathan Hickman's X-Men because it promotes Zionism."

And yeah, there are a lot of people in X-Men fandom who are probably well-meaning (in that they care about the treatment of Black LGBT characters, and that's good), but they're still ignorant about the fact that Marvel's history with the Roma is really fucking bad and Peter David still works there and they just released a movie shot partially in Hungary even though the racist Hungarian government --

It's a lot. You get the point.

Additionally, people are often unaware of the history of making minority characters "look white" in comics. Like, Colleen Wing used to look like Jean Grey, my dudes, and lots of people did not know she wasn't white until a few years ago. The whole Wanda... discourse reads very differently if you know stuff like that.

But I also think that there is a small number of people who know plenty about this and have seen these arguments many times and do not disbelieve them, but cynically ignore stuff they 100% know in order to defend whatever stance they already have. Ignorance is a thing, sure, but so is feigning it. As they say in the San Fernando Valley, "I look Russian when I'm in Russia, so I didn't know."

[alloftheblackwidowfeelings]

Consider Natasha helping Steve break their friends out of the Raft, and seeing the way Wanda was restrained and treated like a weapon more than a human, after having just dealt with all this renewed Red Room trauma.

Gee, thanks, Satan.

I love that we have official canon confirmation that Nat was part of the Raft breakout (although, honestly, Civil War not making that clear from the get-go was a fucking PROBLEM but I digress), but like, honestly? Let's just go through the list of pain that we now have context for.

Let's start with the whole group. Assuming they have no more information than the audience, they have no idea where Nat is.

--Oh no. They probably don't even know what side she's on, right? She helped Steve escape with Bucky but the only people who saw that were Steve and Bucky, and then the people on Team IM, who think she betrayed them. The people she put herself out there for don't even know she put herself out there for them.

And now they're in extrajudicial sea prison and- if I'm remembering the third act of CW correctly, which to be fair I may not be because I usually quit after act 2, and I assume someone will correct me if I'm wrong- while they wonder about whether Steve might come save them, no one even considers Nat would. Because they think she was on the other side? Because they think she wouldn't care? Because they know she's a regular human being and that makes it damn hard to take down governments? Because they assume she'd keep her circle small? Like every single possible reason behind that assumption is a world of pain directly contradicted by the events of BW, which they will never know about. Which hurts.

And at the beginning of the movie, she didn't seem to want to break them out! Like, she kept insisting she was better without a team. Obviously, she was denying her emotional attachments to make things hurt less- and obviously she has a lot of baggage around what it means to be a team and what it means to be family and whether any of them would look for her- but she was in fact actually kind of being the person they thought she was. Like it sucks when people have a bad view of you but it sucks in an entirely different way when their negative view of you is based in reality. It's a brutally harsh look in the mirror.

(And I think this is where the events of BW most change Natasha; I think that any belief she might have had that if she could get out of situations anyone could if they really want to got a rude awakening when it turned out her escape from the Red Room directly led to the other women not being able to, and I think that's shock to her system that she desperately needed. This movie more than anything showed me some of Nat's flaws and I love it for that.)

And then you have to consider that, at least 2 weeks before this (because the jet scene was 2 weeks after the Red Room takedown), she broke Alexei out of the gulag. Like, she did what she had to to take the Red Room down, there's absolutely no faulting her for that, but imagine seeing all your friends stuck in high-security prison and knowing that you had the capacity to break people out of those, in fact did it less than a month ago, but left them there. Again, this is not me saying that she did the wrong thing, but imagine the guilt on her end!

We have Wanda, who's about Yelena's age, the only woman on the Raft, being forcibly restrained far more than any of the men are- how does that not conjure up memories? And then on the other hand it's Wanda, who has the ability to manipulate memories and impulses, who is basically the organic version of what Dreykov did! AND she's the one who brought back Red Room memories Nat clearly didn't want to deal with during Ultron and clearly hadn't processed by this point! How fucking confused must Nat's feelings about Wanda be at this point? She's simultaneously what Nat wants to protect and what Nat wants to protect from, and she's sitting there immobilized in prison in a fucking straightjacket.

And then we have Clint and Scott, which, OKAY. I was talking to @sidewaystime about which Avengers Alexei and Melina mirror (it was an EXCELLENT conversation, it gave me a lot of feelings, but I digress), and she pointed out that Alexei considered himself trapped during the assignment with Nat and Yelena and was complaining about how terrible it was even after (we assume) over a decade in a literal Russian gulag, while we know that Steve and Nat rescued Wanda and Sam but Scott and Clint were both willing to stay behind and deal with the government because they'd rather risk jail than not see their kids again. Like repeatedly through the MCU, Clint and Scott explicitly and repeatedly choose family over everything, immediately after Nat had to confront the people who threw her and Yelena away two decades ago and also had to confront the fact that she essentially did the same thing to Yelena. And here's Scott and Clint representing exactly what she wishes had been done to her, and/or that she'd done!

And all of this, all of this, is stuff none of them know. Given that in Endgame both Steve and Clint assert her only family was the Avengers, she never let them know the foundation of her world had been this shaken and they were all embodying parts of that to her! And she was presumably just putting those feelings in the Feelings Box where we work very hard to pretend they don't exist, while she's piloting a plane and waiting for a group of superheroes to re-board it from the prison, which has to bring back feelings from both Yelena holding the plane while she gets Alexei and from when she was fucking ten years old flying to Cuba with her dad surrogate on the wing with a gun and her mom surrogate bleeding out.

Even Sam, who probably prompts the least trauma for Nat (his closest mirror is Yelena, not Alexei or Melina) and who has the best idea of how to interact with other human beings, who would probably be respectful of triggers, has no idea she even has these triggers! So it's not like anyone can protect her, because she's not giving them the necessary information to do so and so it's all just ENDLESS MINEFIELDS.

Literally everything from the end of Civil War hurts more now!

Just imagine if any of that had been intentional.

[dreaming-of-assclass]

can you do a assassination classroom actor au/headcanons?

❤

OMG YES! I have thought about this before!! And how funny that you ask this, when lately I’ve been watching a bunch of MCU cast stuff!! 😂💜

AssClass Actor AU!

First of all, there’s a very large cast haha. But the main actors would probably be Korosensei, Karma, Nagisa, Itona, Terasaka, Kayano, Isogai, and Maehara.

Actor!Koro has to dress up in the yellow octopus costume for almost all his scenes. And although it’s a hassle, he keeps a very positive attitude. Very fitting for his character.

It’s surprising how broody and dangerous he acts when he’s playing Reaper.

Karma’s actor...I don’t know why but I get kinda RDJ vibes lmao. He’s the face of the whole series. And in interviews and awards shows, he comes off slightly obnoxious but well-meaning

Kayano’s actress has great chemistry with almost everyone. She loves Kayano a lot, and does her best in suiting the role. That said, she has a lot of complaints about the treatment Kayano’s storyline gets...

And she’s very vocal about her complains in interviews. She has a reputation from fans for being honest and a badass.

Nagisa’s actor is the complete opposite of his character, and it’s hilarious. He’s kinda loud and boisterous, but very sweet. He and Sugino’s actor are a famous comedy duo.

Sugino’s actor is the Tom Holland of this AU. He has a very large fan base on his own and he’s super popular for being an attractive, young, funny, puppy-like guy. He’s just a sweetheart.

He also tends to say spoilers...a lot. Like in interviews, he can’t hold back so he needs another castmate there to filter him lmao. He’s a very talented actor, for sure though.

It’s a running joke that the actors for the background kids of 3-E are always up to some hilarious chaos during filming.

Irina’s actress acts like a total mom to all her cast mates...very different from her character haha. She’s the type who will make cookies for her entire crew, or pay for lunch, etc.

Terasaka’s actor is a himbo. A very funny and charming himbo. Unlike everyone else who sound different from their characters, he sounds exactly like Terasaka haha.

Because Itona roasts Terasaka all the time in canon, it’s a joke that the actors have beef between themselves lmao. They go along with the joke for fun. They have a cute brotherly bond that fans love.

Maehara and Isogai’s actors are another comedy duo that fans love...and ship.

This is getting long now but I swear, I have more.

[abrooklynboy]

HC + James

It's Monday Tuesday, the sun is shining, and I'm here to write another essay.

...How many comic panels is too many?

TLDR: Mutual respect, love, protectiveness. They make stupid decisions because of the other.

In MCU, there’s def. times where they’re jealous of each other, but never because of Captain America or being a hero. 

616:

The good stuff.

During the War, Cap gets assigned a 16 year old kid with incredibly specialized training to take care of what needs to be done. Things Cap can't be found doing. Steve worries about Bucky's age (especially when they first meet). Sees him as a younger brother (they're 4 years apart).

Bucky makes Steve smile. Complains about movies, makes jokes, and always bawls people out who don't show Cap respect. Last part is embarrassing. He tries to get Steve to cut loose and have fun (usually with girls or to "take the evening off, pal. All this work ain't good for you"). 

Bucky will drag a movie to hell and back or talk about how cool they look; Steve will remind him about all the lives lost during the shots. And Bucky knows this; he just has to act larger than life. Spins stories about how he’s going to be an actor, get all the parades, etc. after the War. Steve doesn’t know what he’ll be. I don’t think either really do know.

Steve sees Bucky as more impressive and the better soldier than Steve because the strength Steve has came out of a bottle. Bucky is a natural fighter but he’s still 100% unenhanced humanity.

Steve gives Bucky an older brother to look up to.

Losing Bucky causes Cap to worry about/try and discourage every other teenage superhero who comes after. Because while Bucky didn't have any powers, he was trained. He knew what he was doing. And look where it got him.

Cap's Kooky Quartet is a lot. Trio of kids around Bucky's age (he just turned 20, after all) when he got exploded? Clint gets the brunt of it because he's the most hotheaded contrary guy. Steve's still just turning 24. While Captain America's image TM and being recently defrosted makes everyone think he's old and not with it, Steve's really just a little older than those he's instructing.

Things change. Years go by. Like...10 or 15. Steve always remembers his friend but he’s firmly in the present. And then the Winter Soldier assassinates the Red Skull.

For all that Winter Soldier has Bucky's skills and snark (motormouth on this guy), his memories are out to lunch. He shoots Cap, when Cap tells him to shoot him if he doesn't remember. Cap dodges of course. It takes a Magical Artifact to restore what was lost. 

Anyway, Bucky pulls a runner. Is contact with Fury before Steve. Fury probably reaches out first. They have a history and Fury is the Super Spy rather than Cap. Safer. More familiar at this moment. Is used to the long game. Steve is a terrible spy and has all those morals and convictions. Fury gives Bucky what he needs (information, revenge, a new arm). Steve and Bucky cross paths. Fight a giant robot. Fall into old form, like no time passed. Bucky immediately runs away. Civil War happens. Steve dies. His last note to Tony says asks Tony to Save Bucky and Not Let Captain America Die with Steve. So, Tony being Tony, combines the two and we have BuckyCap.

Fighting a Bar is an Acceptable Outlet for Grief.

They never really Talk until after Steve comes back to life. From there, it's a lot of "Bucky, stop beating yourself up." "Yeah, sure. -does it anyway-"

MCU: Cory has Opinions

It’s universally acknowledged Pre-War Bucky is the older brother, Steve is the younger brother. I think they flip flop based on what’s going on. Bucky plays the role of protector, Steve plays moral compass and heart. They both admire the other for their strengths. They do fight, as siblings do. Neither are perfect. They’re both angry punks who can be assholes. 

Steve will get mad that Bucky has saved him again and lash out. Or Bucky will be salty that Steve keeps getting in fights. Just walk away. But they both know Steve can’t do that.

On top of everything else, there’s certainly a class divide. Bucky’s family has a car. He’s smart, he’s athletic, girls want him. Steve’s poor and has a laundry list of health conditions. Nobody looks at him and thinks Steve’s smart, has a heart, and good at art. They just see some stupid guy who keeps getting into fights.

My Bucky has moments of “How dare you make me care. I was fine on my own, before I met you.” That’s a lie. Steve teaches him to give a damn. That heart and moral compass rubs off on Bucky; makes him a better man.

Consistently, Steve will pull away from people. Withdrawal. This includes Bucky. This time, it’s Steve who will get by on his own. Pure stubbornness. Bucky refuses to let Steve go through losing his mom alone.

Steve doesn’t look down on Bucky for being drafted (Bucky just wants to survive yo). Steve wants to protect people, stay with Bucky, and prove that the little guy has just as much worth as the big guy. Bucky is terrified Steve’s gonna die if anyone ever picks him. They fight at Stark Expo; he snaps at Steve because they keep having this fight. After almost 2 years of being in the military, Bucky has seen a lot. He wants to have a break from the War for a damn night and Steve won’t let it rest.

There’s def. jealousy when Steve gets to the War. Post-Table, Bucky (again!) just wants to have a night and pretend like everything’s normal. But he can’t get drunk, he’s isolating himself from the fellas he just went through Hell with...probably putting the pieces together that he just got shot up with a Nazi Knock Off Serum. 

And then he can’t get the girl. I don’t think he was trying to flirt with Peggy for Steve’s sake. He’s trying to pull himself back together. Put on a show. Be Sergeant Barnes. Bucky’s not jealous of Steve being Captain America. Having all that responsibility. Proud Steve’s finally getting his moment. He’s afraid Steve’s going to ditch him now that Steve doesn’t need him to physically fight his battles. 

Course, that’s Bucky’s insecurities rather than what Steve actually feels. Steve still needs Bucky to watch his back, just in a different role. The ‘shooting Nazis and helping me run command’ type of role.

Losing Bucky guts Steve. He’s not suicidal, he’s just a guy with nothing left to lose. He wasn’t planning on going out in a blaze of glory, never coming back. The Valkyrie crash is the only choice, in that moment. It also helps him not think of all the ‘what am I going to do now, after the War? Without my brother?’ I think if Steve could, he would have swam to shore and figured all that out. At some point.

But no. He’s frozen and then wakes up in the 21st century. 

During that 2 year stretch between Avengers and CATWS, I don’t think Steve connected with people. He took a trip to the Grand Canyon and had that moment of -points above-. Great. He refuses to live in the past. But, he’s still got PTSD, grieving, and didn’t know what to do after the War in 1945, much less in 2012. So, he throws himself back into service and then he may not have to think so much about it.

For better and for worse, Winter Soldier happens 2 years after Steve is out of the ice. Steve doesn’t have to learn to move past the grief, really. He probably learns how to live with it. Grief becomes a little smaller. But 2 years vs. a decade and some change is different. Steve doesn’t really open up to people. Period. So to have the one person who he had at his lowest? Whose death he feels responsible for? 

Yes, he’s destroying HYDRA and preventing the world from winding up in a totalitarian fascist hellscape. But he’s also trying to save his friend. I headcanon that he spends more time crushing HYDRA bases than chasing the Winter Soldier across the globe. Steve’s too smart for that. Is he compromised? Oh yeah. He does keep an eye out for Bucky and wants to talk. Get him help. But understands Bucky doesn’t Want to See him.

Then Civil War - legislation that is unjust? I’d break up my team of coworkers for that. The ones he is closer to (mostly - other than Natasha) are on his side anyway. He goes to Romania only when Bucky is targeted. Knows he’s asking a lot, is bothering Bucky. Hates that he’s doing this. It’s not a decision he makes lightly. Bucky lies to him and it pisses Steve off. Bucky’s afraid Steve’s wanting Bucky before all the trauma.

Steve just wants Bucky in his life. No matter what state Bucky’s in. He’s not going to let any programming take Bucky away either.

Yes, Steve 100% screwed up by not telling Tony WS killed Howard and Maria. But honestly. Again. Your brother or your coworker-friend who you have different ideas of the world about. (No Tony, you can’t put a suit of armor around the world and call it peace. You’ve seen people trying to wreck your suits that are trying to keep them out of harm’s way. Steve just handled S.H.I.E.L.D. and Project Insight for doing something like this). Steve gets that the armor and the Ultron are PTSD and Tony’s way of dealing with problems. But, it’s something he opposes.

Suits of armor wouldn’t have stopped Thanos, c’mon.

Steve’s team never stops Avenging between Civil War and Infinity War. He and Bucky chat, but they’re never together for long stretches of time; Bucky has his own life, even before Wakanda. His own people, like Steve has his own team. Then Bucky gets Snapped. Steve doesn’t move on. Keeps helping people. 

Steve doesn’t stay in the past. It’s not his home. He gives the shield to Sam, drops off the Stones. Sometimes, he gets stuck in a time loop, but not of his own choice. He sticks around in the background as Commander Rogers. Steve, Sam, Bucky, Natasha, and Sharon can finally catch up with each other. 

My Cap Family is Quinjet Quintet.

Both:

Are there things Bucky doesn't talk about to Steve? Yes. Because while Steve will listen, Steve doesn't have a frame of reference for long-term brainwashing and mind control. He'll say the Winter Soldier years weren't Bucky but Bucky still pulled the trigger. It's still Bucky's skills.

This causes my!Bucky no end to grief. My Bucky and Steve have come to actual blows over this. Usually when Bucky is in Terrible Mental Health and Steve is Steve about it. Support/Good Buddy/Guilt. That unstoppable force hitting immovable object. Steve will always support Bucky, considers him a good man, and Bucky sometimes doesn’t know how to handle that in a healthy manner. But when the dust clears, Steve will repaint the shield star on Bucky’s arm and they’ll go grab a beer.

Neither 616 nor MCU Bucky blames Steve for his death/the Winter Soldier years. It was War. They were both out there for a reason. Bucky wishes Steve would put that behind him but Steve can’t. Just like Bucky can’t put the WS years behind him.

No matter what - brainwashed, depressed, in trouble - Steve will not give up on Bucky. His partner is a survivor.

Steve and Bucky will destroy whoever hurts the other.

[Insert page of Fury getting his ass kicked after he tells Steve ON THE DAY OF BUCKY’S FUNERAL that Bucky’s death was faked]

After All the Things Happen, it's never the same as the War (and before, in MCU). The years have changed both of them. Steve [esp. in 616] has a life. More people who understand him. Bucky has to take care of Bucky and do his atoning thing [not that anyone really thinks the WS years are on him but Bucky can’t help it]. The spotlight is for Steve; Bucky does his work best in the shadows. Both are incredibly busy men. Neither really reaches out as often as they'd like. But when they do meet up, they still fit.

They will roast each other.

They are not codependent. Things just work better when they're both walking around.

They're each other's inspiration.

/fin