#steve fucking rogers

[zenaidamacrouras1]

i think pre-war!bucky would also have a steve-clinginess anxiety scale, if he didn't have to constantly be aware of steve's prickliness. a modern pre-serum!steve would be significantly less prickly about everything, as he would encounter significantly less overt eugenics. more ability to be openly queer and having more ability to define his own masculinity would help too

post-serum doesn't have to be so guarded or guard his independence, and he's not constantly on the verge of being labelled queer, so he would have more leeway with initiating physical contant. and the buckies you write with a post-serum steve don't have anxiety disorders, lol. so i believe they would be a cuddly couple, and bucky's anxiety wouldn't express itself so clearly in steve-clinging

Hi friend! 👋 Interesting! You know what, I actually read pre-war Canon Steve as less prickly than many fans seem to.

I don't mind him being characterized as prickly and sometimes I absolutely adore it, but I don't necessarily see it as accurate in my little brain.

In CATFA we are seeing him on one of the worst weeks of his life. His best friend and maybe only friend and likely sole source of economic stability is about to go get maybe killed in war. So. Woof. I think he is absolutely at his worst. I can imagine him actually being pretty cuddly on a regular sort of day before Bucky got drafted.

Steve is not prickly, per se, post serum. He's tough. He's sarcastic. He doesn't like to be underestimated, but he's usually correct when he assumes people are underestimating him. He frequently forgets to value his own life. He's also very, very kind and very polite to people who aren't unmitigated dicks. I feel like these character traits would be consistent pre/post serum.

And the other thing we forget is that men used to be allowed to hug and even kiss tenderly (esp in some cultures). In Lord of the Rings which was written around WWII the men were allowed to be affectionate in a way that people today joke "ended toxic masculinity" but it's decades old. The toxic masculinity that the affection and devotion in LOTR "ended" didn't precisely exist when the LOTR was written.

Which is not to say things weren't bad. Just that men were allowed to be more affectionate with each other and have it be read as platonic (in part because women were seen as less then men).(Look I'm not an actual historian so this probably is not 100% accurate but I do touch on some of these themes in my Shakespeare fic -- it talks about historic concepts of marriage and same-sex affection that I researched extensively)

That being said, yes agreed, Steve would have had many awful pressures due to eugenics and anti-queer bias, but my thought is, he might have been comfortable cuddling up to Bucky platonically or otherwise...

Anyway, re my own writing, my earlier stuff has less consistent characterization. Don't trust anything I said back then. Just kidding. Mostly :)

Finally, in summary, hell yes cuddly couple. I'm all in on the Stucky cuddling head canon.

[inhonoredglory]

Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality

Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.

I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.

Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,

We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.

I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.

Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)

That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.

Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.

But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.

And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.

I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)

But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.

Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).

Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.

(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)

At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.

“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.

Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.” That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.

Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.

But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.

Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)

Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.

Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”

____

In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.

Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.

Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.

And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.

And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.

[lefthandarm-man]

COUNTDOWN TO STEVE'S 106TH BIRTHDAY posting my favorite steve things to celebrate

day 1: his fighting style includes flipping around and being dramatic and destroying motorcycles for no reason

[potofsoup]

Happy July 4th, everyone, and good luck to the UK voters out there!

Wow it's Year 11 of doing these!! Here's the AO3 link to the past 10 years, and here's the tumblr link.

Reminder that this is a long game -- some of the judges making decisions were appointed back in the 80s. Many of the cases that were decided this round were from Trump's term. So it's going to take long-term, consistent voting over a decade to start tipping things in the other direction. (Which I talked about in 2018 re: Trump shenanigans and 2022 re: Dobbs).

A lot has been done by the Biden administration (I'm assuming most folks have seen this post by boreal-sea with their very helpful sources), and much of that will be overturned by Trump, especially if he gets the Senate, and especially now that he would have a blank check for anything "official". So let's make sure that doesn't happen.

And even if Trump does get elected, your decisions down-ballot might effect control of the House or Senate, or might make it easier to vote next time, plus the whole plethora of state and local issues. It's Republican state attorney generals who are challenging climate regulations, for example.

Plus, when you really get down to it, only one of the candidates plans on pardoning himself and all his friends if he wins, and attacking the government if he loses. Maybe that guy shouldn't be the President.

If you're new to voting, remember to check voter registration deadlines! I'm a permanent vote-by-mail voter and it's so nice. :)

Transcript under the readmore

Page 1: Sam and Bucky meet up with Steve for a picnic. Steve: Thought you guys were still in Sudan? Bucky: I’m forcing Sam to take a break.

Sam collapses onto the picnic blanket. Sam: Oof, it just never stops, does it? Steve: Nope.

Bucky hands Sam an orange popsicle. Bucky: Eat and relax for a bit, Sam. Sam: Thanks.

Page 2: Bucky asks Steve: How are things state-side? Steve responds: HORRIBLE. Bucky: I thought you’ve been tentatively hopeful about what Biden has been able to achieve? Steve: I was! Student loans, child care, climate regulations, infrastructure, labor, trans rights … he’s quietly done a lot through regulatory improvements and congress bills. But now all people will talk about is how he’s OLD. And then there’s the Supreme Court’s decisions … Chevron and immunity… Steve puts his head in his hands, while Sam and Bucky look on with some concern.

Page 3: Bucky hands Steve a blue/raspberry popsicle: Steve, take a deep breath, and a popsicle. Sam: Sounds like we missed a lot. What’s going on? How bad is it? Steve: Pretty bad. The Supreme Court has made some decisions that give the Court and the President A LOT of discretionary power. Sam: Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Steve: Well, the Chevron thing means that judges with life-term appointments can override policies made by government agencies. And now it’ll be harder to hold a President accountable because he will have immunity for any “official” actions.

Page 4: Sam: So if the President tries to, say, overturn a democratic election result, he’ll be allowed to as long as it’s in his job description? Steve: I don’t think threatening state electors is “official” business, but that will be decided by federal judges. Who get their jobs by approval from both the President and the Senate. Bucky: Yeesh. No wonder you’re stressed. Any good news? Steve: Well, thanks the Biden and the razor-thin Senate majority, the newer bills don’t rely on the Chevron deference. Still not great but not catastrophic. Sam, squirting ketchup on his hot dog: So what I’m hearing is that it’s now more important than ever to have a President and a Senate who you can trust to appoint fair judges, pass bills, and not commit crimes.

Page 5: Steve: Plus all of the state level offices, now that more and more deciding power has been thrown back to the states — abortion, LGBTQ rights, voting access… Bucky: Hey, at least this is a big election year so we can actually do something! Steve, with his arms crossed, looking surly: Except that all people want to talk about is how Biden is “too old” and “not doing enough,” as if that is on par with Trump’s desire to dismantle basic rights! As if the candidate who doesn’t embody ALL their ideals is not worth voting for! Bucky interrupts with a smart and a loud “PFFT.”

Page 6: Bucky: Um, Steve. YOU were like that in 1940. Sam, nudging Bucky: “Oh, this I gotta hear. Spill, Barnes.” In sepia, Steve is pacing around their apartment while Bucky is sitting and reading a newspaper. Steve: I can’t believe he’s running for a 3rd term! we need a fresh candidate to vote for! This is hardly a choice at all! AND he refuses to engage in Europe! All of Europe under fascist control and we’re just twiddling our thumbs? He’s letting millions die through his inaction! Bucky: Most people don’t want another war, Steve. If he came out for it, he would lose. Steve, indignant: But Buck, it’s your Polish relative who are in danger! Bucky, closing his newspaper and looking at Steve: Yeah, and between FDR and Willkes, I trust FDR to help if he could.

Page 7: Steve, in sepia, looking away: Should he be encouraged to do more? Maybe I should vote for Browder. The Communists have historically be Anti-Fascist.

Sam interrupts off-screen: Waitaminute! STEVE was going to PROTEST-VOTE? Steve: We were in a Blue State, Sam! Sam: But what about the down ballot races?! Steve: RELAX, I did my due diligence down-ballot. I wanted a senate that’s more progressive than the President.Voted LaGuardia for Mayor, too. Steve hesitates: Then, when I got to the President… I realized that the Best case scenario would be that my vote did nothing, versus if it actually spoiled the election. And when I asked myself who I could trust to work with my Senator… well, FDR had a good record with Labor. (sepia shot of young Steve voting) Bucky interrupts: Hold on, Steve.

Page 8: Bucky, eating a cookie, arching an eyebrow: You didn’t vote for Browder? Why didn’t you tell me? Steve: And have you say “I told you so” for the next century? Bucky: Heh.

Steve, with hand on his chin: What’s weird was that, despite everything, I still felt HORRIBLE when I ticked that box. Sam: Sounds like you built up the meaning of that vote far too much in your head. Logically, we know that a single box can’t represent all of the complexity of a whole system, but the desperately WANT it to. Just look at how people have built up so much around the term “Zionis” that it’s made productive conversations difficult.

Page 9: Sam and Steve speak in the background while Bucky reaches into the cooler and pulls out a box. Steve: Sigh. And that’s something that goes beyond the election. Sam: Which is why we need to vote, AND do other things. Bucky, looking at Steve and Sam: Like how Steve works to push organizations on the local level? Or like all the work you do as Captain America? Sam: Exactly. Vote AND.

Sam looks at Bucky fondly: Like how you vote AND make me and Steve take breaks. Bucky, looking stern because he can’t handle compliments: Shush, Sam.

Bucky holds up a cake that has the number “107” on it: It’s time for cake. Happy Birthday, Steve.

[lavenderpanic]

It's so insane because every time I watch CATWS I'm like... Steve Rogers would literally prefer to die at Bucky's hands than go on living without him. Steve would rather die than admit that he really truly lost Bucky. He wants to look into Bucky's eyes as Bucky kills him because at the very least, it's Bucky. He knows for certain he's gonna spend his final moments with Bucky, whether that's a peaceful death decades from now, hand in hand, or right now, as Bucky beats him lifeless.

[kayvsdoodles]

staring contest 👁️👁️

[femaleboysblog]

on light of the new captain america movie getting a trailer and people begging everyone to boycott it because of the character sabra (for obvious reasons), I've seen a lot of people asking "why would they do that especially now?" (with the palestine genocide happening and the whole world aware of that?) and let me tell you why. many years ago, a big discussion here on tumblr about the mcu specifically was about how the movies were obviously sponsored by the us military and the government and written in a way where you would fall for their propaganda (very well hidden btw) without even realising, example: making it seem like the military is stupid and cia etc is incompetent. when they are clearly not in real life. they are adding sabra now and not taking it back because they know their fans will consume whatever they put out even if its to record, edit and post reviews videos hating on it on youtube and getting millions of views. it's still more money for disney. and a opportunity for a 'superhero' who's whole motivation is to 'save and protect' israel in hopes of humanizing even more the people who support palestinian genocide and paint them as good guys. there's many others examples of this through their 20 somethings year of franchise. please research about it and keep an eye and open mind when engaging in media in the future, especially mcu and other big franchises from the usa.

[captainwolverine]

personally, i feel we did not see enough of the howling commandos AND now that wolverine is officially in the mcu. it feels like a great time for a movie with steve, logan (james), bucky (also james) and the howling commandos fighting together in ww2

[zenaidamacrouras1]

hi zenaida! i was looking through your modern steve ailments post (which is amazing, thank you) and wanted to ask if it was ok for me to add on to it? i have mild-moderate scoliosis that impacts my daily life and thought i could provide some more insight. or if there’s anyone who’s looking for information about it, i’m willing to answer any questions! :)

Oh my gosh yes! I would love that so much! If you reply to it with your thoughts I'll bump that version up.

It's funny because I have such terrible flat feet and I think I skim over that in the post, but they really do impact my life a lot more as I get older especially but I think I was so used to living with the constant foot pain I didn't realize like not everyone has this pain?

One of the things I do as a writer is try and find a specific real life person to base writing an identity I don't have on. Because you are never going to capture a universal experiencing - there isn't one! So I was saying somewhere, that I did a ton of research into asthma but at the end of the day, the way I write asthma attacks is basically exactly how they manifest for two super close family members, and I often think of scoliosis in the way that my brother had it.

It's so important to have a breadth of context and I think first hand stories are so generous to share.

As far as questions I might have you could maybe address (no pressure) maybe

Are there mundane things about your day to day schedule that scoliosis impacts that it would be interesting or important to see portrayed in a story in a low key background way? (i.e. I have a story where Steve is in a safe house escaping bad guys and he has to do a bunch of scoliosis stretches because his back hurts)

Are there big overwhelming "worst moments" that would be interesting to see a character either navigate, or that might shape their characterization later in life if they had this happen to them?

Are there most annoying or outrageous reactions or questions you get?

Are there good aspects that you are proud of or otherwise found gratitude for?

(For the record these are the sorts of questions I would be interested in as a writer for any kind of identity/health issue/whatever if other folks want to share!).

I hope someone gets inspired to work some of your experience into a story with a modern (or otherwise non-serum) Steve Rogers or any other character!

[fandomfluffandfuck]

I feel like I just saw a meta about how Steve may or may not be unable to take baths as a result of his history of, y'know, crsshing a plane straight into arctic waters, but I can't find it now--and now I'm thinking about how his PTSD probably does interweave with water and bathing but maybe it's, on good days, at least, attached specifically to cold water.

So, he can have a nice, steaming hot bath after a mission to relax his muscles, but if he accidentally falls asleep in the tub and wakes up a few hours later with the water gone cold? Then, all bets are off and he's waking up with a surge, hyperventilating until he's dizzy while his memories of what it was like to first wake up after being thawed overlaid by his existencial nightmares of being frozen entirely in ice, unable to move, unable to scream, unable to do anything but feel ice-cold down to his bones, crushed by the weight of frozen water and by the loneliness of being imprisoned in an unmarked grave.

Oh, Steve.

[moonveilwaters]

in lieu with the recent what if episodes

[lefthandarm-man]

Steve Rogers // Captain America

and his habit of putting his hands on his belt

[vee-nyx]

to celebrate 8 years since civil war release, let’s review all the ways tony stark was an absolute loser and actually the reason thanos won in infinity war:

created an omnicidal A.I. that the rest of the team warned him against creating

decided that the entire team needed to become government puppets because he felt guilty for creating said A.I. that, once again, NO ONE SUPPORTED HIM IN MAKING

(also the reason bucky was forced back into the fight bc tony caused sokovia and thus caused zemo’s need for revenge but i digress on that pt)

when members of the team who can’t disconnect from their abilities raised concerns about how the accords dehumanized them, he had them arrested or locked them in his tower

bribed (yes, bribed) a child into fighting on his side because he knew he was outmatched

instructed vision to shoot sam out of the sky and then shot sam point-blank when he avoided the blast that would’ve left him severely injured AND LANDED TO HELP THE PERSON IT HIT

wanda on the raft. this is its own point. he let her be restrained and collared like a fucking DOG as if he hadn’t already done enough damage in her life (killing her parents & brother)

proceeded to break the accords THAT HE HELPED WRITE to chase cap across the globe because he felt left out of the action

blamed a brainwashed pow for BEING FORCED to kill the starks AGAINST HIS WILL and proceeded to BLOW HIS ARM OFF and ATTEMPT TO KILL HIM DESPITE KNOWING THAT NONE OF IT WAS HIS CHOICE

mocked natasha’s trauma because she dared to disagree with his methods (he is, in fact, incapable of letting go of his ego for one goddamn second)

even after receiving an apology, refused to contact cap for three years despite KNOWING about the threat of thanos

in conclusion,

[ironshieldchild]

the way they look at each other...

it breaks my fucking heart

[itsalmostavengers]

I just think that personally if I hero-worshipped someone from early childhood up to a rather questionably late point in my adult life and then, upon becoming a superhero myself, I met the man I’d looked up to for so long - the one who was marketed as the golden boy, America’s sweetheart, society’s moral compass - and he quite clearly disliked me from the get go I’d go incredibly insane. Personally.

[chaossmagic]

there's something bittersweet and especially heartbreaking about steve and bucky being born at the end of one war and growing up just to serve in the next one less than three decades later (and both ending up 'dying' in it)