An explanation for the ending of Endgame.

For those whose rage is spilling over everywhere and for the brains that are melting down regarding the mechanics of time travel.

STOP BEGRUDGING STEVE OF HIS HAPPY ENDING JUST BECAUSE IT DIDN’T FIT WITH YOUR EXPECTATIONS. ALSO STOP IMPOSING AN IDENTITY (WHETHER IT BE SEXUAL IDENTITY OR MORAL IDENTITY) ON A PERSON EVEN IF IT’S FICTIONAL.

You see that with the original 6:

Many argue that it erases the character’s arc. How it ain’t a happy ending. Hunny, that’s real life. It ain’t realistic if you don’t got any loss. If you didn’t have any failures.

It didn’t erase who they are. They just grew.

Nuff’ said. Uninformed haters are exhausting.

EDIT: To be honest, I understood Steve created an alternate timeline at first and then people were complaining around the time I made this post and saw this article which made me more ecstatic and be down for Steve really being Peggy’s husband all along. Since there’s the matter of the writers and directors disagreeing on what really happened, whether it’s one or the other doesn’t matter to me. Alternate timeline or not, Steve and Peggy deserved their own slice of happiness and you can’t change my mind.

Lol watching the first episode of Loki and my theory/understanding might be looking right to a certain degree.

The alternate timelines healed itself. Mostly. (We wouldn’t have a Loki show if they did and definitely no Phase 4 for Dr. Strange etc.). Thus, whatever was done in Endgame is taken care of. All alternate timelines are cut off.

The TVA took care of that one timeline Loki got away.

For me, the only thing missing is the mechanics of how Steve traveled back in the timeline without messing it up because I believe he truly is in the main timeline. He now has an even higher chance to be Peggy’s husband in the main timeline (Before, I thought it was a 60% chance as opposed to 50/50 of them being in an alternate timeline. The 10% is because it’s much more satisfying that way)

Alternate Timeline is definitely out of the question now. (Cause Sacred Timeline i.e Main MCU Timeline) 😂 oof… some people be mad and in denial about that

Anyway some possibilities:

1. Time stone as an infinity stone, he can go back in time but be bound to the rule that no matter what he does he won’t be able to change things and that what he does might actually contribute to the very things he is trying to prevent (e.g. bucky as the winter soldier/ hydra)

It will always be a closed loop.

2. The TVA rewarded him for healing the timelines literally saving them manpower and paperwork. (Likely 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣)

His reward? He was put back in his right time. He is the man out of time (Loki himself said so in Avengers). Makes sense that he be put back in the time that he was really supposed to be in -the early/mid 1900s.

Also, they do overlook it if people travel in time for something petty/non-cataclysmic like when they thought it was just someone digging oil to be rich. Or in Steve’s case, being able to retire with the love of his life (his own words) after he literally help save the universe many times over.

What’s so selfish about that? He was probably offered the choice AFTER he put the stones back like he said.

But sure let’s shit on him again and again because you didn’t like his endgame. Ugh, haters.

P.S.

People are already grumbling why Steve wasn’t arrested by the TVA. Sorry. I’ll just laugh. It’s really hard when you are so desperate for an ending different to the one that made it to the big screen. I can’t with you people.

Just see how the story unfolds. It’s so fun to make theories and see it pan out but accept it if doesn’t go the way we expect. Cause that whining is like the 4 year old I babysit because when he doesn’t get his way. Now, that’s selfish.

Agree definitely sick of the Steggy hate. (There were other things I didn’t like about Endgame but guess what people...that’s what fanfic is for)

Salty Ask List

*several of these questions are taken from a list that was not rebloggable

please guys send me asks and give me a chance to spread salt instead of committing murder

Why not? Sounds like this could be fun

another way fandom tried to twist steve's canon characterisation into something less sympathetic was by turning "steve was bullied and routinely suffered violence because he was disabled" into "preserum steve liked picking fights and went looking for trouble". thereby making even his own clear cut victimization by his tormentors his fault

This is so incredibly true that'll add this:

Steve had asthma, which was classified as an imagined product of mental illness, meaning they deemed him mentally ill. He also had heart palpitations, scoliosis, bone/joint/other deformities, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, sinusitis, "nervous troubles" (likely anxiety) and more.

This isn't made up by fandom. Steve wasn't a short, otherwise healthy man. The first time we can read it on screen is on his enlistment form in TFA, the second time is in the museum exhibit in TWS.

The Eugenics movement was a big thing around that time, in Steve's own neighborhood. Thousands of people (disabled and of color) had been forcibly sterilized by the state because they were unfit for society and didn't fit into the ideal. A lot of them were killed. Steve was considered a burden, mooching off of resources, spreading sickness, causing hysteria, and he was at risk of violence every day.

And on top of that? He's the child of immigrants. Irish-Catholic immigrants. Steve was at risk of violence for his belief alone.

The Americans believed that Irish immigrants were all poor, disease-ridden, brought crime, practiced an alien religion, threatened to take jobs away, would sexually assault American children and women, and strained welfare budgets. There was a lot of hatred against them, and since Steve is also disabled, he had a giant target on his back.

Steve being white and male might have been the only thing that kept him somewhat safe from harm. It's possible Sarah didn't teach Steve to speak their own language because speaking Irish or with an Irish accent would put him at risk.

He was bullied because he was disabled, because he was poor, because his father was dead and his family not American. Picking a fight could very well be a dead sentence.

And last thing: when Steve picked a fight with that guy in the movie theater, it was because the guy was incredibly insensitive to the war and its victims, and people around Steve were crying. We get to see a clear shot of a woman who's in tears, and Steve saw that.

You can see other people look up too, disturbed. But most important is the woman, who looks like this

The only thing Steve said was to show respect and shut up. He didn't jump that guy. He wasn't looking for a fight.

Later, when Steve's at boot camp, he was bullied by Hudge multiple times, and what did he do? Nothing. He clenched his jaw and continued his training. He didn't take the bait. Steve knows what he's doing.

He's not an "angry chihuahua". He's not an idiot who needs someone (like Bucky) to "keep him back" at all times. He's the one who knows his limits best, and what he's capable of. He knows when to keep quiet.

People who purposely erase this part of Steve to make him look unsympathetic should really check their biases. It's wrong to erase his disabilities to fit your own narrative. If you have to pretend Steve wasn't disabled to prove a point, then your point is already invalid.

Steve only “picked fights” in that he didn’t let his physical weakness stop him from standing up for other vulnerable people.

He was (is) a very angry man, yes, but he had a LOT of good reasons for that and, frankly, a pretty good sense of who it was okay to turn his anger on.

"very angry man" really isn't a very good description of Steve lol. He rarely, if ever, acts out of anger. And he almost never shows it. So a reading of him as a very angry man isn't really based in what we see of him on screen

This is an excellent analysis...kudos to my fellow tumblr users for these observations:-)

What happened in the MCU is that they made Bucky unquestionably a victim and then did not know how to handle it. 

In the comics, Bucky’s brainwashing leaves him with enough agency that his past as the Winter Soldier is absolutely comparable to Natasha’s. Both were used and abused and manipulated, but they maintained enough control over their own actions that it is reasonable to question whether it mattered that they didn’t know who they truly were because they were still people.  In the MCU, they specifically wrote Bucky Barnes as a character whose agency was not just compromised but actually removed. It’s not just torture and coercion, though there are 70 years’ worth of explicit torture and coercion, it’s that for him to act as the Winter Soldier they have to cauterize out what makes him a person. In the MCU Hydra/the Soviets have not one but two ways to do it: the chair and the activation words. The Winter Soldier does not comply without them. This is not a question of a prisoner breaking after years of enslavement. This is explicitly shown as a mechanical way of erasing Bucky’s consciousness and capacity for consent. And it was a choice by the MCU to characterize his captivity like that, much like it was a (subtle) choice to make Bucky a man who was drafted rather than a man who enlisted.  And up to Phase 4 that had played out alright; the characters who see him as culpable are also shown to not be objective (Tony, for example, or Bucky himself). The audience knows better, though, because we are privy to all of the flashbacks and the medical torture and the him being bodily dragged out of cryo to be activated. But then the MCU actually had to confront its choices in TFATWS and they did it in the worse possible manner because they both chose to reinforce the narrative that Bucky was a powerless victim during his enslavement while making his recovery conditional on accepting responsibility for it. They pretend to sell Bucky along with the activation codes. There’s a whole pivotal scene by the firelight where Bucky finally does not respond to the activation codes and Ayo tells him he’s free and that’s because he was not free beforehand. In a storyline which places explicit moral value on refusing the serum, never once was it mentioned that Bucky did not consent to being injected with it in the first place. His situation obviously parallels Isaiah’s, not Steve’s.

But now the audience is being asked to see Bucky as someone who needs to make amends, not just because his therapist says so but because the moral compass of the series, Sam, makes it explicitly clear that what Bucky needs to do is “do the work”.  And this is INSANE. It’s insane. To have Bucky weep when the trigger words wash over him and still, still, try to have the audience buy into the narrative of his recovery as one where he needs to admit wrongdoing is absurd. It would be normal and expected of Bucky to feel wretched guilt over his past but the recovery is overcoming that, not reinforcing it. Bucky admits, word for word, that he had no choice and that would be bad enough, but the Winter Soldier was made to not even conceive of the possibility of choice. 

There can be no culpability without agency and guilt is not a measure of responsibility.

Bucky Barnes has, for ten years of MCU canon, been written as a man who was powerless to stop the abuse that was inflicted on him and now that they have to cash that check the MCU cannot handle it. I don’t even know if it’s because they, like society in general, cannot abide the concept of men - masculine men, especially masculine leading men - as victims but the end result is that TFATWS is an explicit exercise in victim blaming. 

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

I don’t have anything to lose.

Reblogging bc I need some luck...

anybody still super annoyed tfatws's season ended with the cheap "deeply traumatized person just needs to have a heart-to-heart with one kind person and they're magically healed" thing instead of bucky acknowledging he needs a lot more help/going back to therapy? i get him not going back to that particular therapist, but i am super uncomfy with the way his story was wrapped up in a way that felt almost scared of confronting the ugly reality of what was done to him (as opposed to what the winter soldier did to others, which is an easier plot point to hammer home... hence why we've already had an entire movie & conflict that hinged on it) and what it might mean to move forward.

“But aside from saying some pretty unhealthy stuff about recovery, which may not deliver the best messages to male survivors of trauma watching at home, it does seem a shame that what’s unique and interesting about Bucky in the world of male superheroes has been stripped away, the challenging of normative male roles, all the real darkness of having to climb out of what he’s gone through, reduced down to a boring, irrelevant commandment to “do the work”, take charge. In this show, Bucky’s just another dude being a dude.”

My fav bit.

I need to do some thinking about this post because I did love the show so very much, and I think the writing was among the best in the MCU. And there are some points here I outright disagree with (but that as a white British person I do not have the knowledge or experience to comment on, beyond the fact that I would most definitely not call the politics in the show “silly”, and the post author seems to have missed the fact that the writers’ room was - rightly - mostly Black). Also I think the bit comparing Bucky’s trauma with real-world slavery was… inept, to put it mildly. :-/

But the point about masculinity and Bucky’s trauma is really damn thought-provoking, and it’s absolutely the case that at no point has the MCU as a whole confronted the full horror of what Bucky has been through, as opposed to just what he was forced to do to others. The focus of tfatws was elsewhere, which is extremely fucking valid and necessary, and white disabled trauma survivors like me need to think reeeeally damn hard before criticising the weighting of the character arcs and emphases of the show. But I do so hope that there will be future properties that actually follow up on Bucky’s trauma/?Complex PTSD in a way that does him and it full justice. And especially which addresses his tendencies towards him victim-blaming himself.

(The point about Sam’s and Bucky’s character arcs and traumas being in different universes - Sam’s grounded in the real world trauma of racism, combat trauma, and bereavement; Bucky’s more operatic and fantastical) is interesting. I think that that’s a gap that could be bridged in future though, especially with actors like Mackie and Stan in the mix - they’re both so damn amazing. And their friendship/relationship in the show goes waaaay being buddy movie for me. It’s moving and profound. That doesn’t mean I’m not extremely keen to see more open and emotional, gender-roles-defying mutual support the next time they appear together.)

So, yeah, sharing this as an article I both disagree with profoundly and agree with in parts. And I’m still working out how much of each. ;-) But it made me think, which is good. Content warnings in the article for discussion of trauma, mental illness, toxic masculinity, racism (very variably handled), sexual assault, enslavement, child soldiers. It’s also, in my opinion, unreasonably critical of Sam, even though some of the points around what he says to Bucky are valid.

Okay I’ve been rambling on my notes for a while so I’m definitely warning right now that this is about to get negative, but this article and your added commentaries (and @pigtailedgirl tags: they really want to man up Bucky and his character suffers for it as does the show’s understanding of accountability and trauma and injustices, their point about isaiah, sam’s therapist knowledge and general compassion, conflict with the man it up, get over it) really helped me to start getting some things out of my chest. Alright :)

I do think that some of the problems I had in regards to how Bucky was positioned narratively in regards to his guilt and his (lack of) agency are on one hand, similar to the criticisms I have on how they handled Sam on an emotional level in earlier episodes, but basically on an inverse timeline, plus basically how they spent no time whatsoever talking about his trauma (they didn’t need to for Sam’s plot to go to the next plotpoint, but Bucky’s arc was fully based on his much more explicit an already shown trauma so they obviously did mention it+it goes to show how they view the characters masculinity and value in general, but that’s another subject entirely and it really isn’t fair to compare Sam and Bucky’s arc about this, so I’ll shut up). On the other hand, my issues about this are very similar to the ones I had about Civil War. There are a lot of similarities about the writing of the two (specifically, the pacing problems and how it fails to balance so many plots at once) but most importantly, about the aspects of Bucky’s storyline they choose to put the focus on (I’ve definitely reblogged some better worded meta about it in the past, but basically, Civil War asks the audience and spends a lot to time on whether or not Bucky is guilty of what he’s done but that’s kind of an empty question, we know he isn’t, instead of focusing on the most interesting and complex part of his arc, which is how it affects HIM moving forward). 

Obviously the show does put more emphasis on that, but again, the text itself is really focused, plotwise, on how Bucky needs to Fix Things in order to Redeem Himself instead of focusing on how he comes to terms with what was done to him and what he was made to do. There are some moments where you can extrapolate and read between the lines, the subtext is all there if you want to read into it, but it’s definitely not given as much impact as it should have been given (I thought Bucky himself finally being the one to say out loud that he didn’t have a choice was a pivotal moment on his character arc but the scene with Yori moves on so quickly you don’t get any time to dwell on it, it’s just muddled with the rest of the epilogue and… there goes the opportunity of addressing his tendencies to blame himself, and making a meaningful commentary on his trauma… again).

I do think that character wise it makes sense for Bucky to try to make ammends to the people he hurt while being controlled by Hydra, it isn’t unrealistic per se, but, Marvel being Marvel and simplifying as much as they can, it’s much easier to show that than to put any thought on ways of making any explicit commentary on his healing on an emotional level and basically the therapy he needs to process everything. Even when it came to Bucky’s therapist, it was handled really bizarrely to the point the audience knew the way she was behaving and the things she was saying were fucked up but the show seemed to think that it was actually Great, considering the last scene in which she appears. It can be excused with the way the show played with genre tropes but, if you put it next to the other issues, it’s awful and even more so since this is the first time we’ve seen a character actually going to therapy as something overall positive.

Going more into speculation and i-hate-you-russos-and-co. waters, I do often wonder how aware the writers and directors (read: everyone who isn’t sebastian who usually has very on point takes about Bucky lmao, but especially the russos and markus and mcfeely who have the most outrageous takes on Bucky’s mental health) are of the subtext and the readings they are putting into the character. Again, meta wise there’s been soooo much written about it, about every single appearance that he’s had, and I try not to be cynical and just state that oh no they know exactly what they’re implying but they are lazy so they don’t address it / they are actively boycotting the character because they think he’s Weak and Unmanly. But. But… Yeah, no, I’m definitely implying that they’re lazy and they keep getting away with it! For Reasons! But also, on basically every level of the show, as much as it pains me to say it because I genuinely did enjoy it and there are a lot of things writing wise I liked, if you think about it for more than 5 seconds straight it starts falling apart really damn quick.

That’s… Probably the most comprehensive and on point criticism about Marvel and, specifically, which is the part I care about the most, how the megacorporation that it is views the characters. Literally every single character in the franchise deserves a better story, and especially a better narrative building. This is not a new issue. However, because TFATWS (and Wandavision for that matter) decided to have Bucky’s only storyline be him coming to terms with his trauma, all the issues that had been boiling for the past ten years have become more and more glaring throughout the series.

  I love these characters with all my heart. I’m still crying over the fact that the show didn’t end on a dark/inconclusive/depressive/out of character note, for both of them, that is so rare to find, especially in the Captain America franchise. However, the way we got there is sloppy to say the least, and I firmly believe that our readings, analysis, and our care and love for them are, first and foremost, what hold every single character together, even after all this years. Disney, however… treats every character as his fictional Nazi organization, Hydra, would. Make them functional, make them clean and shiny and with the bare minimum effort make them do the job to then collect the profits, all the while talking about bringing peace and freedom while they are actually perpetuating so so so so so many harmful messages and politics, that so much people will absorb and then reproduce. The characters deserve better than that and we most definitely do.

Aaah @the-littlefangirl I love you this is all so so so wise and astute, thank you! <3 I think I agree with everything you’ve said here, and all of it is thoughtful and good.

The acting (good Gods we are blessed in Sebastian and Anthony and Chris etc.) and the fandom are what hold those characters together, and even though tfatws is pretty much as good as the MCU gets, in my opinion, it still falls so badly short. Especially over this.

And I need to make a rant at some point about how much the MCU goes out of its way to ensure that we never see characters in need of or receiving long-term care, from each other or from any other, new characters. Even though several of them could really obviously do with it at various points, and more less-obviously but still validly, for reasons physical and/or mental. One for another time, but… yeah. Like you say. They deserve better, and so do we.

SPOILERS FOR FATWS EPISODE 6! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Also, long post!

I'm so sick and tired of marvel treating women the way they do. It would be one thing to make Sharon an art hustler who had to learn how to blend in in Madripoor and became disillusioned with superheroes because of her bad experiences. I loved that for her in episode 3. I loved her anger and bitterness. But I also loved that despite it, she was willing to help.

Life gave her a bad hand, and she made do with it, learnt how to survive in a harsh world where no hero is coming to save her. I get that, I really do, and I would have loved it if she was a sort of anti-hero throughout FATWS, and maybe Sam could show her the light again.

But Marvel decided to make her a straight up villain. And not a fun one, or a morally ambiguous villain, no. No, she's the Power Broker, the top dog of Madripoor, a criminal mastermind who melts people's faces off, hires a hitman to kill her friend, murders a girl to keep her dirty secrets, and sells weapons to literal terrorists. This change happened all in the span of five years. All off screen. And we're just supposed to buy that? I don't.

Look, I get it. A hero going to the dark side is an interesting story and it's in no way inherently bad. Gosh, Sharon has all the reasons to break bad. However, I refuse to believe a character who used to be kind, empathetic, righteous, and absolutely willing to do the right thing, would ever turn out so bad. Because the stuff she's doing right now is just despicable. She is doing the same thing Obadiah Stane was condemned for, people! This isn't girl boss power or whatever, this is doing a complete 180 on a character's personality, all off screen. New Sharon is ruthless. Manipulative. And she never shows any remorse. She seems smug, if anything! She isn't a good person. Not anymore.

And why is this an issue, you ask? Three reasons.

One; as everything in Marvel, fandom blames it on Steve Rogers. Not to make this about him but he didn't force Sharon to do anything. She helped out of her own volition and accepted the consequences of her actions, the same way she did in CA:TWS. The story that followed after is unclear. Steve was on the run too, as was Sam. They couldn't have helped her much if she split off, which is likely. And in Endgame, she is shown to be among the Dusted. My theory is she was just presumed dead, stuck laying low in Madripoor, with no one knowing she was alive. You know, kind of like in the comics. It would be interesting to see her come to terms with that and let go of her anger. If anyone could convince her the fight was worth it, it would be Sam.

Two; all of her nuance is gone. Sharon was a minor character, and she didn't have a lot of character, but there is nothing of the old Sharon here. Nothing. She doesn't ever have doubts about what she's doing. She has no remorse. Far as I'm concerned, she is completely evil now. And considering that she can be summed up as "superhero's disgruntled ex" it is not a good look. It enforces the idea that women become vile upon rejection. Which isn't what happened in the movies, but gosh does it imply that. I do not like it. I do not want it. She deserves better than to be reduced into a one-dimensional evil villain. Because that's what she became now. I was looking forward to her arc, but there was no arc to speak of. Boom, she's evil now! She doesn't change throughout the show at all. Which is extremely jarring when compared to Sam and Bucky. Even Zemo had more character development SHOWN than her. I'm disappointed.

And three; people are already unironically stanning her. You do you, everyone knows the Marvel fandom loves their murderers, but please consider that what Sharon is doing is not "good for her" or "what she deserves". She is actively hurting people. Acknowledge that what she's doing is WRONG and that she needs to be stopped. Because believe it or not, trauma doesn't give you the right to intentionally harm other people.

There, I had to say it. God I hope this isn't considered a hot take. I am sick of Marvel degrading its female characters like this. Sharon had so much potential, but it was all thrown aside for a twist villain. She could have had such a nice story about finding her way again, about owning her past and building from it. Her being a villain isn't wrong per say, but the way they did it rubs me the wrong way. It's the way they erased her prior character and replaced it with being evil. It's the way she abandoned all her morals. It's the way she can't possibly believe what she's doing is right; she just wants the world to burn, I guess.

Thanks Marvel, I hate it.

Feel free to drop your own thoughts, I hope this wasn't too incomprehensible or too hateful. And I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way :/

THE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT COMMENTING ON FIC

I’ve read all kinds of posts both from writers and readers lamenting about comments on fic. Authors are upset when they don’t get any, readers don’t know what kinds of comments to leave, etc. And it finally clicked in my brain why I think a lot of people don’t bother writing comments. 

And this is what it boils down to:

Writers do not want praise.  We just want to talk about our story. 

I can’t speak for everyone obviously - but I think the majority of writers don’t care so much for the “omg you’re a brilliant writer!!” comments as much as we just want to hear your thoughts on the story. Even if it’s just your thoughts as you’re reading of “oooh x happened! I can’t believe y said this! What’s going to happen now that z has happened?!” We literally just want to talk about what we’ve written like you would with a friend about a tv show. We’re not out here demanding praise like some entitled narcissist. 

While praising our writing skills or writing style is appreciated, it doesn’t need to be said on every fic and every chapter that you read. If you regularly comment on someone’s work that’s telling enough that you like our technique. Readers shouldn’t feel pressured to have to praise a writer’s abilities every time they want to comment. 

In the grand scheme of things, talking about the fic/chapter is actually more helpful to us writers instead of spewing praise. It’s the same with artwork. As nice as it is that people tell me “wow your art is so pretty!” it’s a LOT more useful to me to get comments like “I love their expressions!” or “the lighting on this is gorgeous!” because then I know WHAT people are liking about it. If no one ever comments on my backgrounds, I now know what to improve. If most people comment on liking the expressions, I now know the strong points of my art and can use it to my advantage to make even better art in the future. 

The same goes for fic. If multiple people tell me they liked a certain part of the story I now know that things similar to that are a hit. It’s feedback I can use to improve the story and give my readers more of what they want. Without that I have no idea what they like about the fic.

Talking with a writer about their story also gives them inspiration!! Nothing gets us more in the mood to work on a fic than to have people wanting to talk about it. A lot of times just talking about one of my fics with someone will give me that push to continue working on it. Getting a comment that just says “great chapter” or “you’re a great writer” doesn’t do much to motivate us to continue that particular fic. But if you talk about the story and the characters it gives us motivation to continue working on it, may even give us ideas for future chapters. I would hope that those of you with “comment anxiety” find this approach so much easier than trying to praise the writer every time you read.

So that fic the author hasn’t updated in forever that you’re dying to read? Talk to them about the fic and the elements of the story! It will make the writer want to talk to you about it and will get their mind thinking about it, hopefully inspiring them to continue where they left off. Fics that are left in silence are more likely to be abandoned or even deleted because nothing feels worse than putting your heart into a story to have no one say anything about it. 

TLDR; Writers do not want praise, we just want to talk with our readers about the story itself, and these are the kinds of comments that inspire us to keep writing more. 

I definitely agree with this...it’s always nice to know what people enjoy about your work

HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, PEGGY CARTER! April 9, 1921.

On a brighter note Happy Birthday Peggy!!!

There are a couple of issues with this scene and people’s reactions to it that are upsetting (especially those saying Bucky deserves this for helping Zemo escape jail). You have a guy who has been horribly abused and controlled. For over seventy years his body and mind have not been his own most especially the prosthetic arm. We’ve seen from time in Wakanda that the months/years were probably the safest he’s felt since being forced into the role of the Winter Soldier. When Ayo comes to him she makes all the objections to Bucky’s actions of helping Zemo escape prison that others have made but she listens to Bucky and gives him time to get the information he feels he needs. Also I think it’s important to remember Bucky did not help Zemo escape for a boys night. He did it because he felt they needed the information Zemo had and I imagine he fully intends to throw Zemo back in jail once all is said and done.

Right before the fight scene with the Dora Milaje when JW comes in and and orders the guys to turn Zemo over check out Sam’s response...

“Hey, slow your roll. Let’s be clear. Shield or no shield, the only thing you’re runnin’ in here is your mouth. Now I had Karli and you overstepped. He’s (Zemo) actually proven himself useful today. And we’re gonna need all hands on deck for whatever’s coming next (and remember it is SAM who says this not Bucky).

So the Dora Milaje come in and say ‘time’s up, release Zemo to us’ so interestingly JW and the DM have the same goal (putting Zemo back in prison). However John “let’s put the pointy sticks down; you don’t have jurisdiction here” Walker decides to go for the disrespectful alpha male tactic and it inevitably blows up in his face.

Now Bucky doesn’t intervene at first in this BEAUTIFUL beat down that we were all waiting for and only does so at Sam’s insistence. Even so his moves are defensive and he’s trying to get Ayo to talk/negotiate. In the pivotal moment we see Bucky trying to grab for the/deflect the spear BUT (and this important) he’s doing it with his right arm NOT the metal one. (In fact when he does use the metal arm earlier it’s only to grab the spear itself to stop Ayo from shish kebabing JW.) Bucky is holding back and not using all the deadly force he could use because he ultimately still views Ayo as an ally.

In spite of that she disables his prosthetic arm.

Now there are plenty of people making the argument that the Wakandans had the right to install this fail safe bc of Bucky’s history as the Winter Soldier etc. However there are some definite problems with this line of thinking.

1) When it comes to people with prosthetics it’s not cool to mess with their prosthetic and it’s definitely not ok to remove it without their consent and the very fact that there are people acting like this is ok or even funny is so messed up I don’t know where to begin 2) For someone like Bucky who has a history of trauma with having his mind and body controlled against his will, it is absolutely screwed up that there was a procedure to remove the arm that he wasn’t told about. It is one more way that his body has been/can be taken out of his control which is obviously triggering. 3)For those of you still arguing about the Wakandan’s right for a fail safe why give him the arm at all?!?! Bucky was living in Wakanda without the prosthetic and managing well and was only provided with it when Thanos’ forces invaded. If the Wakandans didn’t trust him with it then they didn’t have to give it to him in the first place.

This is so, so important. TFatWS spoilers.

God yes thank you a professional put it in words. I was so uncomfortable by every scene with her but I was like I only have a bachelor in psychology I'm not a therapist so maybe that's how it is but even then she needs to chill the fuck down. God. Jesus. I'm sad.

THIS!!! All of it!!!

I hate Bucky’s therapist

I may well do a longer post on the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier but I need to say now that two days after watching it I hate Bucky’s therapist more and more as their scenes together percolate more and more in my brain.

Where’s the fricking compassion? where’s the recognition that Bucky is a victim of decades of torture and brainwashing and dehumanisation, not just a(n unwilling) perpetrator? Where is any mention of what was done to him, rather than what the Winter Soldier did? Making amends is good in principle, as is affirming his real identity (obviously), but the way in which he’s going about it (that she has at least signed off on) just seems easily retraumatising, and likely to confirm in his brain a sense of self-blame for actions that were not actually his fault.

Why is she telling him to count his blessings on one hand, and then on the other really brutally telling him how isolated and miserable his life is? Why is she criticising him for isolating himself while not doing anything to help him to recognise that he deserves a better life than the one he has right now? Where’s the patience with how alien everything is to him right now, with how completely fucking valid his struggles are?

She seems far more just a government hack trying to make sure the Winter Soldier is contained than someone actually interested in helping Bucky Barnes. It’s unclear at this point how the show wants us to see her, but at this point I’ll be livid if it starts being implied that we should think of her as doing a good job and Bucky only snarking at her out of defensiveness (rather than demonstrating that he’s got some agency and his own views now, which is fricking *good*).

A plot/character development I would like to see: given that Sam is a trained VA counsellor and so should know what decent therapy looks like, a scene or two where he gets increasingly concerned about the approach and motivations of Bucky’s therapist, especially after he meets her (which we know will happen from one of the trailers). So then Sam talking to Bucky about it, and going, “wtf, no, you are not being ornery your therapist is actually awful, come on we can find you someone better than that, I’ll ask around”. Because - and this is what really really hurts about this situation:- Bucky doesn’t actually know what good therapy looks like. He’s incredibly vulnerable without fully acknowledging his own vulnerability, and has horrifyingly low self-esteem and self-compassion. He may snark at her that doesn’t mean that he fully recognises that he really could and should be having a therapist who is, e.g. a specialist in long-term trauma, and is willing to show actual kindness to him.

One thing that’s very noticeable is that the really artificial way the amends-making works contrasts sharply with Bucky’s lovely burgeoning friendship with Yori/peacemaking in the alley. At least before that agonising reveal. (Gods, poor both of them, and Yori’s poor son. :( )

(I also note that if the show didn’t want us to hate what Steve did at the end of Endgame even more than we already did, it went a fucking funny way about it. That might be matter for another post though…)

WandaVision Spoilers and Speculations

So the more and more I think about it the more I’m convinced that so much of the drama in WandaVision ultimately goes back to Tony. Tony was the one who insisted that the Avengers not use the Stones to rewind time and stop the Snap from ever happening and he threw the world into unnecessary chaos and heartbreak as a result. And he or any of the other Avengers never even thought about bringing Vision back.