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RANDOM THUNDERBOLTS* HEADCANONS!!

Yelena is actually the one in the vents, because Kate Bishop mentioned that according to Clint, they were very comfortable. Speaking of Kate, they go for coffee, pastries and shopping once a month–and Kate gives her so much crap about taking up the Avengers mantle after shitting on it initially.

Ava, meanwhile, is in the walls. Thus she's heard argumentative phone calls between Bucky and Sam, or stressful phone calls between Mel and Val. This Tower is a prison.

Speaking of Sam and Bucky, they had been preparing to live together in Louisiana before Valentina ruined everything. 💔 Like the moving company was halfway doNE.

Ava, also, is like–always tired. A package deal with her chronic pain. She's an insomniac, however, with much trouble falling asleep.

It's like, a whole thing. Every night she'll be rushing through the tiwer restlessly instead of sleeping, opening the fridge for water, or generally making noise. She wakes others up and eventually it becomes a collective issue.

Like, none of them sleep well, but she's far too restless. And so they all start brainstorming to find ways for Ava to fall asleep more easily. Music, white noise, that sort of thing. Finally, it's John's idea that actually works: conversation. Apparently sleep was impossible for him too due to ptsd from Afghanistan–and apparently, the one thing that used to help was talking to Lemar until they both fell asleep.

At first Ava thinks it's stupid, but it works. She never outwardly tells him it did, she just keeps inviting him to talk about literally anything. They make a habit of it.

I like to think that each girl in this movie has her respective blorbo? Yelena & Bob, Ava & Walker, Mel & Bucky. Not romantically. Just vibes.

Yelena and Ava love texting each other/talking about whatever. Their favorite activity is obviously thinking of clever insults to throw at Walker.

In the universe where Antonia lives, Yelena becomes her big sister and Ava her gf. Just ‘cause.

Mel never called herself Mel pre-working for Valentina, or if she did, she did it in hopes of working for her. She was Melissa–then Val gave her the nickname Mel. Because Mel is hardly allowed or able to have an identity outside of Val.

Valentina is like... evil soccer mom. Via Mel. Makes all their appointments, trying to do enough PR work to make the american public conveniently forget the soviet assassins, the high level criminals, the goddamn void, the impeachment/investigation oN Val and the disgraced captain america who killed a guy in public. Photoshoots! Sponsorships! Partnerships! Advertising! Merch! Mel has never been so overworked in her life.

Yelena, John and Alexei will occasionally watch soccer/football together. There is a lot of yelling. Bob doesn't like it. Neither does Ava. The two of them get noise cancelling headphones and sit together someplace else. Bucky oftentimes joins them.

Bob does the most chores out of everyone, feeling the need to overcompensate his usefulness, since he can't be the Sentry without the Void.

Yelena and Alexei have both been desperately trying to get back in touch with Melina, but ever since Nat died, they can't find her anywhere.

Yelena makes Alexei watch, “Good Bye, Lenin!” after he says he's never even heard of it. He proceeds to think about it for days and loses sleep over it.

Ava misses her surrogate father, Dr Bill Foster. Like, desperately. Alexei's newfound bombastic dad energy sneaks its way into her heart.

Mel was a gifted kid desperate for academic validation. She also had severe mommy issues. A surprise to no-one. All in all her working for Val I'd a recipe for toxic workplace codependent disaster.

Ava is the one who starts calling Walker, “America’s ass(hole)” and at first Bucky hated it for being a Steve reference, but after everyone else began referring to him as such, he got over it.

Bob and Joaquin Torres have been unknowingly playing video games together for months. One day Bucky walks in on Bob, asks, “hey kid, what are you–” and recognizes Joaquin's username from something Sam had mentioned at one point. He loses his shit.

Valentina constantly makes really caustic and mean spirited jokes about how she would've treated Olivia, (John’s wife) better. Bucky, who technically doesn't disagree, but hates Val, tells her that he could have treated Everett Ross better. Valentina is gagged for approximately five seconds before laughing and saying, “well, obviously, your sexualities would be better aligned–” and she NEVER elaborates.

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the idea of the thunderbolts meeting the hoskins, and there are pics of a much younger john walker amidst the picture frames (lemar found them amongst various photos of john's older brother and younger sister when he helped john move out to college, all kept in a box in the walker residence. lemar only found maybe 7 pictures of john, 2 of them are family photos taken professionally)

and somewhere along the walls of the hoskins home, are two framed photos, side by side, taken separately, of john walker, whose teeth are already in braces, and lemar hoskins dressed as captain america for halloween

the thunderbolts had wanted to comment on the costume but...

john's shoulders are relaxed, the slight furrow of his brow, the tension in his jaw, is gone, and there's a certain light in his eyes...

"Damn, Walker, how busted were your teeth for them to be in braces so early!"

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I present to you, my favourite ships in all of hp, my poly threesome ot3s, haromine and jegulily

you will always be special to me!!!

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if i think about these 3 too long i start to implode i think i finally got it guys i think i can finally draw them. anyways ot3 in every universe

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stops everything to ask about his buddy <3

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five with gray hair save me pls

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so i haven't been around much in the john walker tag recently but since someone else has brought this certain tumblr post/gifset to my attention, i feel the need to talk about it because this is 2025 and i'm tired of the ways people STILL purposefully misread john walker

this is the post in question and we are gonna have a discussion of it:

let's get the most egregious claim out of the way first

"poses for pictures with the bloody shield"

excuse me?

i had no idea that being in shock and coming out of a emotional spiral caused by trauma and frozen to the moment is now "posing for pictures"? is this what happens when media literacy is shit in fandom? people will just take certain camera angles of filmmaking as "hey the character is posing for pictures"?? what is this disingenous BS?

look, this is 2025, i don't care if yall like or don't like john walker, but stop make up lies.

and as for the rest of this supposed "proof" that John isn't trying to be the best Cap he could be - i do love that we are just taking scenes out of context.

John never lied about trying to be the best Cap he could be, in fact, even the showrunners and writers and directors and actors of the show have repeatedly stated that John is genuine and earnest about his intentions. he may not have always had the best ways to do things, but his intentions have never been a lie. he was genuinely trying.

and when John said those words, he wasn't also dealing with repeated attempted murder on him and his best friend or the actual murder of his best friend. it's almost like people's decision making can be further impacted by the things that are happening around him.

yes he discreetly pocketed that super soldier serum, AFTER he was repeatedly told he wasn't strong enough or good enough, AFTER the Dora Milaje tried to kill him AND Lemar, a murder attempt that would have succeeded if Sam and Bucky didn't step in at the last minute. so yeah, a man who once said in his interview that he wanted to keep people safe, a man who feels guilt for all the lives he couldn't save during his military service, took the serum in desperation so that he could actually level the playfield at least physically so that he can keep people safe.

and mind you, even Sam in Brave New World expressed those same fears and doubts, stating that he should have taken the serum. but just because Sam didn't and he had Bucky's support to show him that he made the right decision in not needing to prove himself with the serum, doesn't somehow mean John's decision was not him trying to be the best Cap he could be. or that he was wrong in thinking that gaining a physical advantage might allow him to do his duty easier.

and let's finally talk about him killing Nico and his murder attempt on Sam in the warehouse. why do we ignore the very big obvious context of a man reacting out of an emotional breakdown? even Sam realized this when he very clearly stated to John that "this isn't you", even Sam realized that John is behaving out of character and in a wrong state. his best friend was just murdered in front of his eyes and he reacted in a moment of grief and anger and rage, a VERY HUMAN reaction. those are the actions of a man in shock and trauma, driven to see nothing but red. and yes those were wrong decisions, but how does any of that refute his geuine desire to try to be the best Cap he could be? even Steve is human, even Steve had his own troubles with violence and reining in emotions. he nearly would have killed Tony for Bucky, and the one thing that held him back was that Tony was/is his friend too, a personal connection that still reminded Steve of his opponent's humanity and the fact that Bucky wasn't dead.

but John doesn't know Nico, except as his attempted murderer and the accomplice to the murder of his best friend and a terrorist who is okay with blowing up innocent people. he doesn't really even know Sam either except as an Avenger/superhero. these are not his friends, these are effectively strangers at best, enemies at worst. AND LEMAR IS DEAD. Lemar is dead and NO ONE gave cared.

so he did what a grieving angry traumatized person backed into a corner would do, he attacked, he tried to fight, he tried to get the justice he thought he needed in his mind. no different than when T'Challa did it, Tony did it, Peter Parker did it, Peter Quill did it, Thor did it, Wanda did it, Clint did it, Ava did it, Yelena did, and even Bucky did it. why is everyone allowed their rage and anger and trauma to be met with understanding but John isn't?

John's actions don't exist in a vacuum, and they are not made by a man wanting to do evil and just go around randomly murdering people for funsies. He was honest in trying to be the best Cap he could be, and just because he didn't succeed doesn't mean he didn't try. and if anything, Thunderbolts proved that he is still trying his best, still trying to put one foot in front of the other and not give up even when he easily could.

people keep using all of John's flaws to mark how he's so different from Steve or how he's staining Steve's legacy, but the simple reality is that Steve would be the first person to show empathy to John and support him trying to do better. he would understand that underneath John's mistakes is a man trying his best, a man who genuinely does care about the world and keeping people safe.

you know how I know that? because Comics Steve Rogers has already said all that to a Comics version of John Walker who has exceedingly far more flaws and fuck ups than the MCU John Walker could even begin to imagine.

just because John was not suited to be Cap and was not the best Cap, doesn't mean he wasn't genuinely trying his best or that he didn't want to do good for the world. the moment you ignore that is the moment you completely misunderstand John Walker as a character.

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we were critiquing character designs in class today, when there was a really good one, and someone turned to the artist, holding their laptop. the screen of which just said "WOULD" in big trackpad-drawn letters

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Marcus: Go to sleep or you'll hate yourself in the morning! Umbrella!Ben: I'll hate my self in the morning regardless.

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I loved you completely. And you loved me the same. That’s all. The rest is confetti.

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Smooches!

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I wanted to draw odypen in turtlenecks

^got silly with the colors

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Honestly, in my opinion this shouldn't be a hot take...

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🥖