#catws gave us many things.
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There's something that has been gnawing at me since I saw some comments on the look-how-they-massacred-them poll for Daniel Sousa -with which I didn't want to engage then and there because I really didn't want to pick up a fight with another Daniel fan, there's few enough of us, but also because the argument was very difficult to articulate.
It is difficult to explain how Daniel Sousa is screwed over by Endgame without making it look like either "he deserved Peggy as a prize" or "he was the perfect prize for Peggy", because it all begins by understanding the experience of WWII and the building of the morale of WWII. Something that Markus and McFeely seemed to perfectly understand in Agent Carter, which inclines me to believe it was specific insistence of the Russos, whose concept of narrative and storytelling is at the level of a belligerent and not very bright 4 year old, that gave us that mindblowingly stupid "happy ending" for Cap and Peggy. Or maybe Markus and McFeely are just arcane creatures, at times intelligent and at times really dumb. Anyways.
Point is that both CATFA and Agent Carter understand that for these characters, fighting WWII is a matter of "each doing their bit", of, as Steve put it in The Avengers, to lay on the barbed wire so the one that comes after you can pass on. And in the process of doing that, you have great loses and suffer great grief. The price of war is immense, and for these people the price of war is the price of freedom (yes, that celebrated Steve speech from CATWS is also sharing in that same spirit. It's kind of impressive how until that awful mess of Endgame, the perspective of Steve as a character from movie to movie is one that addresses how some 1940s things are outdated, but how many others are still relevant and inspiring. It is a surprisingly nuanced take on History, that of course the Russo "Cap is an outdated relic that belongs in the past and should stay there" brothers don't seem to have what's needed to grasp).
In that context, the most coherent tone for Steggy is tragedy. Because that is what happened to many, many, many people during the war. You meet, you fall in love fast, because there is no time. And then suddenly the other is gone, never to come back. And all the promises of youth and life and future the other person represented, are gone with them. People who lived through 2020-2022 have some idea of what it is like for projects, opportunities, and years of your life to just vanish. Now you make that five years, eight months, and to mention "just" the British, 1 out every 100 people live in 1939, dead, and over 350.000 permanently disabled. If you were 20 in 1939, your life would be practically on hold till you were 26. It's a whole lot of grief, and an intense grief, that you don't solve the way you solve a random missing connection in a romcom like Serendipity or The Lake House. Doing so is cheapening and bastardizing the grief and trauma of a whole generation of people in different countries.
So, Agent Carter. Here we have a story focused on a group of people, spies, who, in different fronts and with different outcomes, made it through the war and are now facing this new world they are living in, and all the grief of their respective losses. The focus of the story is Peggy, a woman who, like many others, was allowed a wide range of action during the war, and is now subconsiously perceived as a threat by many of her male coworkers. It's a desperate bid to "go back to the way things were before", and her presence is a constant reminder that they can't.
Sousa occupies a very similar position to Peggy's: he's also a reminder that the war happened and that there is no way back, no magic solution, no pretending. And that's why both are ignored, and displaced, and why both struggle to prove themselves in a subconscious way while living by the continued principle that they are doing their bit. That is their lifeline that keeps them sane and working all throughout s1 of Agent Carter.
That's what we mean when we say Peggy and Sousa are equals, and that Sousa is contented with letting her have the spot; not because he's her inferior or her dependant, but because he's her equal -in intelligence, in ideals, in resourcefulness, in loyalty, but also in their relative positions in the power ladder- and does not feel threatened by her because of it.
(It is in this context, btw, that Peggy's rebuke of Daniel's "rescue" of her in the first episode must be understood. Because she was once treated like any other officer/agent of her same rank, she has knee jerk reactions to both being demeaned and being protected. It's also an important theme of that beginning of the series that Peggy needs to learn to let her friends in, and that she needs their help, and that that doesn't make her too weak to protect and defend them.)
But also, in another way, when we talk about Sousa becoming Peggy's husband, it has to do with the sentiment Krezminsky expresses in the series:
The ship of Steggy had sailed and was gone forever since the moment Steve became the legend in the ice and Peggy "Cap's Girl", this embodiment of the ridiculous damsel in distress we hear in the radio drama that plays on one of the episodes: Peggy fell in love with Steve when he was a scrawny, sickly lad, because she loved the man he was inside, but now forever for the world she is just another superficial, weak girl lusting after the handsome godlike rescuer, the picture of the eugenic dream of the übermensch. In Daniel Peggy loves and finds all the same things she found and loved in Steve, but in a different light, because Sousa is a different person, with a different life story, plus something else: they have both gone through war and its loss and grief, and come to the other side in need of rebuilding and finding new meaning in life and hope for the future.
In a world where the Dark, Tall and Handsome Hero of the Six Pack, Alpha Dominance and Endless Stamina reigns supreme, Sousa as a love interest is a remarkable and -sadly- bold statement about the things that truly matter in finding one's life partner.
So I think here is a reasonable point to start talking about Sousa in Agents of SHIELD. Because here's where someone would rationally say "well, but you see, there he's also chosen as a love interest!", and the reasons why context in AoS changes everything are multiple, so let's go there.
But before that, let me make clear that I do wholeheartedly believe the writers of AoS meant to honor Sousa, and sincerely tried to do their best with what they were given. That doesn't change what the end product ended up doing and saying about him.
Like Peggy is the main character of Agent Carter, so Daisy is the main character of Agents of SHIELD. As much as you can say all the team characters are important and get the focus, Daisy is the one which the narrative insists on making the focal point, as the arcs of several seasons hinge on her, and we are expected to sympathize with her first and foremost in any situation in which she is personally involved. But unlike Peggy, Daisy is a superpowered individual. She's more like Steve than Peggy; she's practically a demigod. She is capable of ripping Earth apart with just her hands. Where Peggy and Sousa were equals in the power ladder in-universe, in AoS the distance between Daisy and Sousa is abysmal. That imbalance is the first thing that leads to Sousa being put in the position of Daisy's Boy. The fact that he ends up in space with Daisy's last minute sister who is ALSO an inhuman does not help things.
As a side note, there's something to be said about futuristic prosthetics in AoS and how they interesect with disability. But I'd rather not get into it because it is a thorny subject and I don't feel qualified to speak of it.
In a different way, Daniel being Peggy's love interest in Agent Carter is balanced out by his having a life of his own and many interactions with other characters throughout the series. He pursues his own lines of investigation, he conducts interrogations of his own, he comes up with plans, he teams up with Krezminsky and with Thompson and in s2 he has downright made a life for himself as chief in California with a fiancé and all. There is a clear sense that he exists as a character outside of pining for Peggy.
In AoS, the opposite happens. Part of it is owed to the writers writing themselves into a corner: to take Sousa out of his timeline, they have to do it in such a way that his disappearance is inconspicuous, which means killing him. They do it the best way they can think of, honoring his alertness and intelligence, by making him realize HYDRA is infiltrated in SHIELD decades before anyone else does. But as a consequence, Sousa becomes the man out of time: there's no future for him, because he has died, and unlike Steve, he's not being brought back because he himself is required. They just save him because they take pity on him and the tragedy of his life. So he has no mission and no significant previous connection with anyone on the team. One of the concrete things in which this is evidenced the most is with the switch from being addressed as chief Sousa to Agent Sousa. He was chief, but between that SHIELD and this SHIELD there's not such a connection by which he can claim that title. There's no subordinates to manage. So he's sort of default-called agent without really being a proper agent.
So the writers choose the fish-out-of-water concept for him. Which is far fetched. This guy lived through wwii in a high spy setting where intelligence has knowledge of powerful interstellar aliens. He's most definitely not bewildered by phone cameras, guys. He would quickly adapt... if, again, you know, he was brought back for a mission. But the reality is that from a Doylist POV, he was brought in to be Daisy's love interest, and the only thing he can offer to her, in this huge power imbalance I have pointed out, is chivalrous manners and quaint WWII style references like when he tells her "Agent Johnson, we are going home"; both can be very charming to a modern woman, but they are things that highlight the cultural and psychological distances that separate them, and make it glaringly obvious that they have barely anything in common.
The series tries desperately to give them common ground in the time-loop episode, with this idea that Daisy is like Peggy because she sacrifices herself for others and to protect others all the time. Which is laughable because, again, in Daisy's condition of beloved main character that embodies the tortured, quasi byronic heroine that we understand to be the hallmark of about one half of the contemporary superhero type, the narrative and the characters in it bend all sorts of ways to accommodate her, not the other way around. Peggy's type is different because it is rooted in that WWII morale/frame I was talking about at the beginning of the post.
As a consequence of all of this, Sousa barely interacts with anyone that isn't Daisy (he has of personal scenes, what? one or two with Coulson, the scene where Jemma gives him a new prosthetic, and then he's given an idea to give to Mac in the finale. I don't remember any other non-Daisy ones), has no unique role to fulfill in the mission (specially because so much of the plan is entwined in Fitz and Jemma's rescue plan that was NOT counting with Sousa) and no personal goal to achieve, which weakens his standing as a character outside the romance plot, and when it comes to the romance plot, he has nothing in common with Daisy, and he brings nothing to the partnership other than... narratively forced love, and chivalrousness.
In the end, Daniel, who was a character and a person of relevance in Agent Carter, is nerfed and turned into a prop for the rushed happily ever after of the main character of AoS. And that, in my books, is being screwed over. That's what makes his becoming Peggy's husband and building a life and a future with her a much better and more preferable outcome for Daniel; he gets to build a life of meaning by his own significant work and significant connections, in his own time and place, with a wife who is his equal and with other people that have lived through the same collective experiences of trauma and grief he did.
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For the very first time - Chapter 4
[or 5 times the Cap Quartet slept with each other and 1 time they slept all together]
AN: As promised, two for the price of one today to make up for the gap in posting. If you're seeing this, make sure you have checked out Chapter 3 first. This is also set during the events of CA:TWS @catws-anniversary.
Once again, many thanks to @kingofsorrow20 for beta-ing
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Master list
Chapter Summary: Getting blown up at Camp Lehigh was unexpected and so was Steve’s reaction to it. Nat can’t say she’s mad about it, in fact she’s pleasantly surprised.
Chapter Relationship: Nat x Steve
Chapter Word count: 1.6k
CW: Teasing, Danger kink, Friends to lovers, Rough Sex, Vaginal sex, Quickie, Captain Kink
Nat and Steve - May 2014
Getting blown up at Camp Lehigh was not what Nat had thought would happen today, but then again she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when she and Steve decided to go down this rabbit hole. A cache of data, to be sure? But a cache of data stored within the computerised mind of a Nazi/Hydra genius brought to the US as part of Operation Paperclip? That had definitely not been one of the things she had anticipated.
However, somehow, she was still alive, which was all thanks to Steve, his shield and his cute - but also annoying - saviour complex.
She coughed as the dust settled around them, her body protected by Steve and his disc of Vibranium. He was laid on top of her, and despite her own strength, Steve was still a big man and Nat was starting to feel a little crushed.
“Umm, Steve. Can you get up?”
She could hear him breathing, so he was alive, but he didn’t respond. Maybe he was knocked out? It took a lot for that to happen, but it wasn’t impossible. She tried a tentative wriggle, to see if she could get out from under him, but two things brought her to a halt. The first was Steve’s voice, ragged and deep.
“Nat, for the love of god, just stay still for a moment.”
The second was the sensation of something pressed against her buttocks. Something that was apparently the reason for Steve wanting her to stay still.
Nat couldn’t help it. She started to giggle.
“Steve? Are you turned on by being pressed against me, or is it the danger that’s got you all fired up?”
She couldn’t see his face, but could imagine the blush that was making its way up his neck.
“I plead the fifth,” was his mumbled response, and the imp on Nat’s shoulder took control.
“Is that why you turned down all those dates I tried to set you up on? Not enough danger for you? Who knew America’s golden boy was so kinky?” She gave a tentative shimmy of her hips.
“Nat…” Steve ground out, one of his hands curling harder into her hip and Nat grinned to herself.
It was the most ridiculous thing. They were in the ruins of a Hydra bunker, surrounded by rubble and dust and god knows what else, and here she was teasing her friend about the erection that was digging into her butt. She had started to wonder if Steve had no interest in women at all, although the kiss they’d shared on the escalator - and Steve’s reaction afterwards - had all but disabused her of that notion.
Also, she wasn’t blind - she could see what a cute and good-looking guy he was - she just hadn’t thought he was interested in her like that, hence both her interlude, and then further conversation, with Sam those few days ago. But what if…
She wiggled again, in a way that couldn’t be considered either accidental or an attempt to get out from under him.
“Stop!” Steve barked, and a shiver went through Nat’s body at the authority in his voice.
“Or what, Captain? You gonna take out your battle lust on me?” Yeah, she was being a teasing brat, but if that was what it took for Steve to lose his composure, then so be it.
“For fuck’s sake, Nat. Just stay still. It’ll go away in a minute and then we can never talk about this again.”
“But that’s boring, Steve. And what if I’m not adverse to you taking out your battle lust on me? What if the idea of you just fucking me and taking what you want excites me? You know I can take it.”
She heard his heavy gulp and the sharp indrawn breath. Felt the infinitesimal twitch of his hips.
“Stop joking with me. Y-you don’t know what you’re saying,” he all but stuttered.
“I’m not joking and I think I do. I’m a big girl, Captain. When was the last time you just let yourself go? When did you last just fuck? Have you ever?” She ground her hips back in a slow circle against his crotch and listened to him groan. “Think how good it would be? Just to sink inside and rut into me until I’m overflowing and crying out your name?”
“Fuck. Fuck! If I start, I won’t be able to stop, Nat. I won’t.”
“Then don’t. Let it out, Steve. Fuck me. Fuck me here in the rubble like the animals we are.”
With a sound akin to a roar, Steve pushed up from the ground and back onto his knees, pulling Nat up with him, his right arm looped around her narrow waist. She turned her head over her shoulder and Steve crashed his lips to hers.
She’d been in charge of that first kiss, but this one was definitely being run by Steve. Nat didn’t know why she’d thought he couldn’t kiss, because this - this - was mind blowing. This wasn’t Steve Rogers, this was the Captain, and he was doing what she’s said he could - taking what he needed.
His tongue pushed into her mouth and his teeth nipped at her lower lip. His left hand palmed her breast through her top and his right had dropped down to work on the fastening of her pants. With the zipper dealt with, Steve pushed them roughly down to her knees, along with her underwear. His large fingers wasted no time zero-ing in on her core, pushing between her folds and deftly finding her clit. Fuck, she hadn’t expected this either - hadn’t expected Steve to be so self-assured and well, good at this. However, he definitely knew what he was doing, as sparks of pleasure shot through her.
Nat moaned into the kiss, her own right hand covering Steve’s as he teased her and spread her slick over her sex. “Remember that you asked for this, Nat. I’m not gonna go easy on you,” Steve warned, his voice dark and menacing, and Nat shuddered again, filled with a dark want.
“Give it your best shot, Captain.”
Steve suddenly pressed two of his fingers inside her, and Nat groaned at the stretch, her head falling back against Steve’s shoulder and her legs spreading as far as they could with her pants still wrapped around her knees.
“You’re so tiny, Nat. Gotta get you ready for me,” Steve purred in her ear, his thrusting fingers creating lewd, wet sounds. “Think you can take a third one yet?”
“Yeah,” she breathed out. “I can take it.” Steve took her at her word, easing his index finger in alongside the others. “Oh, god!” Nat’s moan echoed around the collapsed building and she bucked her hips into Steve’s hand. She raised her left hand, threading it into Steve’s hair and harshly clutching a fistful. “Fuck me, Steve. Come on! Just do it!”
Steve dipped his head, lips trailing over her neck as he let go of her breast to free himself from his slacks. “Never let it be said that my mother didn’t raise a gentleman. Gonna give you everything you’ve asked for.” He pulled his fingers from Nat’s pussy with a wet squelch and before she could even take a breath, he’d replaced them with his cock, pushing inside her with one firm thrust.
Nat swore she saw the back of her own head with how hard her eyes rolled. Steve’s slick soaked hand went back to her clit, rubbing rough circles as his hips snapped, fucking into her as deep as he could manage in this position, his cock rubbing against the inside of her channel in just the right way.
Nat didn’t even try to hold back her cries. There was no-one around for miles, and even if there had been, she wouldn’t have even cared. In all of her teasing of Steve, she hadn’t realised how much she also needed this.
This was fucking. There was nothing gentle or tender about it. It was raw and animalistic. A way to release the tension and make use of the adrenaline rushing through both their veins and she fucking loved it.
“You gonna come, Nat? Are you going to be a good girl for your Captain?”
Where the fuck had Steve’s dirty mouth come from, Nat thought. It was a good thing he wasn’t like this most of the time or she’d be walking around SHIELD with permanently wet panties. Although if she had known that Steve had this within him, she would’ve jumped his bones long ago. All that fantastic sex wasted. Fingers crossed Steve would be up for an encore some time soon.
“Yes,” she breathed out. “I’m gonna come, Captain. Oh, fuck. Gonna…”
Her whole body went taut, and then the coil snapped inside her, pleasure fanning out in waves reaching the ends of her hair and the tips of her toes simultaneously. She was aware of Steve reaching his own peak with a roar, his cum flooding her insides and leaking back out to run down her legs. She sagged into his hold, trusting in his ability to hold her upright until they were both ready to move again.
However, as wrung out as she was, she couldn’t help but tease him a bit more.
“So, what about Sam? Would you go on a date with him?”
She almost heard Steve roll his eyes.
“Will you quit it, Nat?”
Chapter 5
Tag list: @km-ffluv, @wheezy-stucky, @kmc1989, @kombatfather1796, @christywrites, @doasyoudesireandlive, @sonatabee-blog, @endlesstwanted
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So I'm actually very glad you came back, among many others I'm sure :D Esepecially because I recently saw a post by Sineala stating the difference between 616 vs MCU Steve and Tony, and she said people should ask someone else if they wanted to know about the MCU. So, I really wanted to ask you from your perspective what you think the difference is, because you seem to like MCU the most! This is the post.
sineala(.)tumblr(.)com/post/172540509139/whats-the-difference-between-tony-and-steve-from
Thank you and welcome back :DDD
oohh i know that post and i love that post 🤗 i learn so much about 616 from sineala, her fic and meta are more sacred to me than comic canon i'm so serious about that
i feel like i read the comics very chaotically and so most of my limited firsthand knowledge is very.. incidental. but if you're looking for someone who has spent too much of her time obsessing about every stevetony related detail in the mcu i am your girl <3
mcu steve makes me go *heart eyes* because even though he's very fighty and very stubborn (the core steve rogers traits across the multiverse), i think as a generalisation mcu steve is sadder and 616 steve tends to be angrier?? in my opinion he's gentler, quieter, more reserved and measured and forgiving than his 616 counterpart and that's one of the reasons he's so attractive to me because i think he's actually so soft!!
also- mcu steve did the best with the hand he was dealt but he did not at all have the support system that 616 steve when he came out of the ice :'( in the comics the avengers are the ones who find steve, but in the movies it's a group of shield agents who get a call from an oil team. the first thing that happens to mcu steve when he wakes up is that he gets lied to (shield puts him in that fake hospital room and tries to convince him it's still the 1940s to ""ease him in""), and then between waking up in 2011 and meeting the avengers in 2012, he's completely alone. there's an amazing deleted scene from a1 that shows steve wandering around new york by himself and his loneliness is palpable
i think this also relates to their ideas of home in the 21st century. 616 steve seems very sure about the fact that tony gave him a home, his home is with tony and the avengers, but mcu steve spends a long time searching for a place to call home. even in catws, when he's been in the 21st century for 3 years, he still has books stacked on the floor of his apartment and paintings he hasn't hung up yet. a year later in aou, sam asks if he's found a place in brooklyn yet, and steve says he doesn't think he could afford a place in brooklyn, and sam says "home is home" and steve sort of just stops smiling and goes quiet and looks away. the only place he calls home in the movies is avengers compound, once in aou when tony asks if he's alright and steve says "i'm home" and once in infinity war when sam asks where they're going and steve says "home" (referring again to the compound). and when the compound gets blown to bits in endgame, even that's gone
on the other hand mcu tony seems more well adjusted than 616 tony and that felt like a deliberate choice based on the scenes that didn't make it into the movie. for example ,there's a deleted scene from im1 where pepper finds tony on the floor the morning after a party, drinking in his iron man suit and he's bleeding and there's a wisp of smoke coming from his armour and he is clearly not doing well, and an alternative opening scene for im2 that they didn't use where tony is vomiting and altogether freaking out a little bit before the stark expo
tony's alcoholism and sobriety is an important part of his 616 character, and there's the birthday party scene in im2 where tony gets drunk to cope with the fact that he's dying, but other than that and mysterio casually calling tony a "boozy man-child" in spiderman ffh, it's not really part of his mcu character
there's also the childhood trauma he has from howard, 616 howard was horribly abusive!!!!! a lot of people dislike mcu howard for not showing tony affection growing up etc, but the mcu portrays that father-son relationship in a more complicated light so you do see people split over tony forgiving him in the end. for example tony invents the new element in im2 with the help of howard's old tapes and notes and goes "dead for almost 20 years and still taking me to school," tony tells steve "my father made that shield" "he made it for you," and there's the full on reconciliation scene tony has with howard in endgame (also we get to see young howard stark in catfa and agent carter and he is honestly so likeable there, which still confuses me to this day but anyway)
and in the comics tony sees himself as more separate from iron man, hence the secret identity, and it feels like he sees iron man as his repentance and as having only his good qualities, someone he wishes he could be? but they tossed that right out at the end of im1 when tony literally says "i am iron man," which was a very clear rejection of the identity-crisis component of his 616 character, and they drive it home again when it's his last line in endgame. i think mcu tony sees iron man as an almost inextricable part of himself which i really love about him, and it makes sense because 616 tony hates himself so much more than mcu tony does ;_;
in terms of steve and tony's relationship, they have such a long history of friendship in the comics which makes the civil war arc hurt more but i feel like they always have that friendship as a bedrock to keep building and rebuilding their relationship on, whereas in the mcu they get off on the wrong foot and tiptoe around a very fragile relationship/disproportionately deep feelings for a few years but don't trust each other enough for a long time and that's the reason their civil war happens, and it's only at the end of their canon that they resolve it and really come together
there's also the romantic relationships- they both have several significant love interests in the comics but just one true love in the movies, it's always been peggy for steve and pepper for tony, but i think that's more due to the nature of the mcu being one movie canon and 616 spanning so many more years and going through so many more writers
now i'm just rambling but they shifted a lot of the characters around in steve's life as well, like the role sharon plays in the comics is diluted in the movies and peggy and natasha are the two most important women in his life instead because they're the ones who give him that support and guidance. also mcu stevebucky doesn't really exist in the same way in the comics because they didn't grow up childhood friends with bucky being protective over steve, they met in the military and bucky is a few years younger than steve in the comics, so steve was a mentor to him
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Steve Rogers: A Brief Character Analysis
I have seen way too many posts over the past year that hate on or attribute incorrect character traits to Stevie Boy, so this is in response to those misconceptions and baseless grievances, of which I will be addressing four: that Steve is egotistic, impulsive, entitled, and selfish.
First, Steve Rogers is not an impulsive person when it comes to making important ethical decisions. He has made a habit of acting upon his principles to the best of his ability in specific circumstances. CACW emphasizes this aspect of Steve’s personality. He is the only one to actually read through the Accords; Tony certainly doesn’t and Vision only looks at things from a vague general perspective and not the actual policies that are being implemented. Steve isn’t against rules; when he is being held in the office in Germany he tells Tony that if there were changes to the Accords— changes that would make them actually useful— he would sign them and be a willing participant. (I have addressed related issues with the Accords here, if anyone is interested. )
The whole presentation that Ross gives is a clear sign to Steve— and, arguably, Sam— that this is the objective of the Accords: it’s a power play. (Why the other avengers don’t see this— especially Rhodey and Natasha— I have no fucking clue. Chalk it up to the Russo brothers not being capable of staying true to their characters. *cough* endgame *cough* anyway…) They use the four incidences of mass destruction that the avengers partook in to guilt them into signing and it partially works. (Ahem, Tony) But the reality of who is culpable in these instances is most definitely not as Secretary Shithead Ross makes it out to be.
The battle of New York was largely instigated by SHIELD (surprise, surprise: a government sanctioned organization) who took it upon themselves to create weapons from alien technology. That situation was further exacerbated by the world security council sending a nuke which Tony had to get rid of, a task which caused him to have major PTSD.
Washington D.C. was to stop Hydra, another power hungry organization, which had taken over SHIELD (again, a government sanctioned organization), and if they hadn’t taken down those helicarriers millions of people would have died. The deaths that resulted from their destruction were an accident and an unfortunate consequence.
Lagos was a mission to stop some of the remaining aforementioned Hydra assholes from attacking innocent people with biological weapons. Brock Rumlow is to blame for the explosion which Wanda tried to maintain. Again, an unfortunate accident.
Even Sokovia, to a certain degree was out of the avengers hands. Tony created Ultron to serve as a protector of earth; a shield, not a weapon. However, the mind stone, upon giving Ultron a consciousness, altered his programming. Tony, nor Bruce, are to blame for the actions of Ultron who acted apart from them and the programming that they gave him, just as a parent is not responsible for their grown child, who was raised to understand that killing people is wrong, murdering people. Though the two geniuses are to blame for ultron’s creation, and it is most definitely problematic that they would try to implement it without the consent of the rest of the planet (though I’m not 100% positive that that’s what happened), they are not morally culpable for the actions of an independent agent which diverted from the given programming. More than that, they did the right thing by trying to stop the vibranium-stealing metal fucker from killing everyone.
All that to say that Steve very much thinks through his decisions and impulsively acts upon ethical principles that he has already ingrained within his own psyche. However, He continues to be introspective, and is constantly questioning what the right and wrong thing to do is; this is evidenced by the conversation he has with Peggy in CATWS where he tells her that he’s doubting his own understanding of what is right and wrong in light of SHIELD’s building of the helicarriers. It’s not that he doesn’t know if the intended function of the helicarriers is wrong (because it most certainly is: “This isn’t freedom. This is fear.”), but whether or not working for SHIELD, a government organization, is the right thing to do if they are going to partake in such morally questionable practices. His actions are driven by this constant ethical and philosophical debate he has going on in his head. (Which is just another reason why endgame is a load of shit, but that is a rant for another time.)
Secondly, though his beef with Tony in the Avengers film (the only egotistic instance I could think of) seems to fit that egotistical billing, it could (and should) be argued that he is fresh out of the ice, and all he knows is that Peggy, the woman he loves and just lost, was the one who started the organization and he trusted her completely, so his trust of SHIELD is really just his trust of Peggy. Moreover, he and Tony butt heads because of the persona that the latter frequently puts on. Steve, as I will argue soon, is a very selfless and loyal person, and he is intolerant of people's bullshit. Was it a misjudgment of Tony on his part? Yes, but it's a misjudgment that even the people closest to Tony made early on in their relationships with him because Tony uses it as a mental shield (another analysis for another time.) Anyways, the fact that Steve was trying to instigate the physical fight with Tony is absolute bullshit writing, because all throughout CATFA Steve is NEVER the one to instigate the fight; he won't back down from it, but he won't be the first one to throw blows. The fact that his behavior is contrary to this in the Avengers can be attributed to the writers' and Joss Whedon's inability to understand Steve's character, something that happens way too frequently in the MCU. (Another excellent post about Steve Rogers not being impulsive and egotistical can be found here.)
Third, Steve Rogers is NOT entitled; he doesn’t expect people to follow him. He very much is still in the mindset of the little guy from Brooklyn who nobody would listen to and asshole “men” would beat up because he called them out on their bullshit. He grew up in a time where eugenics was a popular political stance, meaning he was ostracized and belittled because of his health issues and his physiology; he would have been deemed genetically inferior and therefore a lesser being by many and treated as such. His entire speech in the Triskelion in CATWS emphasizes that he doesn’t think people will follow him and he doesn’t ask them to. He asks them to do the right thing because he believes in the goodness of individuals (as he says in his letter to Tony in CACW). He appeals to their individual humanity, their individual principles and ethics; he’s not trying to rally them behind him, but is encouraging them to do what they know to be the right thing on their own and of their own volition. Furthermore, he doesn’t oppose people questioning his judgement, but he is not going to let Rhodey stand there with his air of self-righteousness and tell him that the accords are the right way to go when he hasn’t even fucking read them! (Something which doesn’t seem fitting with Rhodes’s character, but hey, what do I know? 🙄) He holds people to the same standards he holds himself (which is why he is constantly butting heads with Tony, who holds himself to a high standard but in some questionable ways) and he expects everyone to make an informed decision. Again, this is seen in his speech in CATWS; he gives the SHIELD agents all the facts (though he doesn’t exactly have time to give them proof) and lets them make the decision for themselves.
Lastly, but most importantly, Steve is selfless; he does the right thing despite it being the more difficult path. He could have easily submitted to the Accords, or retired and said “this is not my problem,” but he risked his own life and freedom because he knew that Bucky was innocent and that there was a greater threat on the horizon. Being on the run from one nation, as he did in CATWS (something that a lot of people forget) is difficult, let alone being on the run from 117. This is not an easy feat and he fucking knows it. This is most certainly not a decision he makes impulsively. He does what he does because he values all human life, despite the potential loss of his own. Though he is not perfect (he should have told Tony what had actually happened to his parents, and he definitely could have explained his position on the Accords better, though I’m not sure how in character either of these behaviors are), he is a true hero because he sacrifices his own life for the safety and freedom of all of humanity at the risk of losing both, himself. (This is the most important reason why endgame is a load of shit, but, again, a rant for another time.)
The other Avengers certainly have their flaws, but they are not all impulsive (Nat being a prime example of one who is not, Tony of one who is). And as much shit as I give Tony, he is a very robust character with lots of characteristics and a well developed back story and I love him. I might do a character analysis on him and others in the future, but I will save those essays for a later date.
#I meant to post this on July 4th but life happened so…#he deserves more love#I will always defend Stevie#pro steve rogers#the real steve rogers#steve rogers#marvel#mcu#violets posts#mcu rant#captain america#catfa#catws#cacw#the avengers#captain america the first avenger#captain america the winter soldier#captain america civil war#captain america: the first avenger#captain america: the winter soldier#captain america: civil war#avengers endgame#infinity war
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Bucky stans pre-EG: wow I hope my fave character shows up in more movies; Bucky stans post-EG: please for the love of G-d... leave him alone....; & it's *entirely* understandable bc CATWS BP &(maybe)IW those gave us hope, even CW which I criticized a lot when it came out and wished for SO SO many things to be done different in CW (Bucky should've been allowed to kill Zemo highkey) at least that movie at least gave us some hope. PostEG MCU doesn't have any hope in it imo
you are so right, and it's just so heartbreaking to see people who have come in from just the show eat up the narrative that's being fed to the and weaponize that against the people speaking out at their absolute inexcusable failure in handling his story. it's like slowly watching something you love die a slow excruciating death and only being able to watch the suffering. and i have no clue how we got here, how can the people who wrote his brainwashing and torture and total helplessness and lack of any agency and identity beyond his abuse (which is worlds more brutal than the comics they based it on, though closer to arnie's suffering at the hands of the likes of zola), have said the sickening things they've said about him have constantly gone all hays code on him, determined to make him suffer with no hope of ever being seen as 'redeemed'. i'm truly at a loss.
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this author talking about how civil war gave us bucky figuring things out on his own which was previously unexplored by fandom like girl what so many post catws fics had bucky avoiding steve until he feels it's safe enough to be close to him again like that is the entire set up we were given with steve planning to chase after him while bucky figures out who he is lol like i know it might seem like fandom regularly write them as v codependent but that's bc they're both canonically willing to die for the other like that doesn't mean fandom ever wanted steve to magically be able to save bucky from his demons or thought that he could like what world are you living in
#like the reason it sucked in cacw was it was TWO YEARS apart at that point#and then they don't get a proper reunion EVER#the problem is not that bucky had a solitary life for a while lol that's pretty standard in post catws fics#and even ones where he is brought in sooner he's still Going Through It#and often still keeping steve at a distance for one reason or another#like i was just like. are you seeing a different part of fandom bc that is not my experience and i read A LOT of post catws fic
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You do realize that majority of those “fans” who were “hating” on him and whatever gf aren’t actually his fans at all. There were people in the marvel and BTS fandoms that were spewing shit against whatever related to him way before. It’s just Ellie and Alejandra gave them the much needed ammunition. I’ve been a fan of his for many years since CATWS and I used to be actively in the fandom on twitter and IG and I’ve seen so much shit thrown at him when he was relatively drama-free. His “pedo” likes are still circulating even though it was stupid then and it is still stupid now. I remember quite a few tweets of those people saying that they can’t wait for the day he majorly fucks up and everyone would see him for the trash he is... then the whole I, Tonya era shit happened and then Netania and Ellie... then Ale... it just gave them more points in their shit throwing arguments. You bet if AW turns out to be a raging racist or cultural appropriator, those same people will bring up every little misstep he’s ever made and those won’t be his fans. His fans are those mashed into whatever chaos is happening that see his wrongs and try to politely explain why something’s not okay... but of course when he’s mad, he’s mad at his fans instead and the punishing is his SM boycott. That’s why the die hard fans turn so vicious at the mere negative thing being said about him, saying that’s why he left us. They suffer from his decision and think that if everybody starts kissing his ass, he’d come back. He knows it. That’s why he mashed his fans with the haters, because it gets the desired result. If he really saw those hate comments, he’d know that those weren’t from his fans at all. But then again, any criticism seems to be treated as hate. The only way is the blind worship it seems. That’s what his major fan page on IG does. She judges him for the same shit we all do, but stays silent publicly where he might see. She’s not so silent with her opinions on dms tho.
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RDJ specifically asked for more money and equal screen time in CW or he would drop out completely. As a big Cap fan I was so disappointed they dropped the original idea for Cap 3, gave him Avengers story line and gave rdj almost a bigger role then Chris. Cap 3 should have focused on Steve, Sam and Bucky and not on tony since Steve and Tony were never shown to be close. Steve fans deserved the full cap trilogy like the IM and Thor got but we were robbed because marvel does like to accommodate rdj little too much (like being paid triple the ammount of other og avengers in endgame, Tom Holland being paid less than 1mil for homecoming and RDJ getting 15mil for 10 minutes, taking over Chris's last Cap film)
I try not to speculate bad things about real people because we tend not to have the full story. Often these stories about money/screentime are leaked by nameless sources with agendas, so it's hard to interpret their veracity.
My understanding is that RDJ's contract was finished after IM3 (or was it AoU?), which opens up negotiations for new contracts for CACW, Homecoming and the later Avengers movies. This already puts the MCU at RDJ's mercy because Tony's character is well-established and commonly identified with RDJ, making him hard to replace. A couple of things that made it easier for RDJ to push for a bigger pay cheque:
At that point IM 3 is the top grossing solo movie in the MCU. IM 3 grossed $174 million in opening weekend, while CATWS only grossed $95 million. Meanwhile, all the Avengers team-ups have grossed higher than the solo movies. From a business point of view, CACW makes sense (and this is why we're getting Dr Strange 2: MultiAvengersVerse rather than his solo).
RDJ has also made Sherlock by this time, which helped show that he was a box office draw.
Prior to RDJ's fall from grace, the guy has garnered critical acclaim and popularity, and has had two Oscar nominations (corrected). All of these put him at an advantage compared to many of his costars
Feige wanted him, more than RDJ needed them. I tend to believe that RDJ would have bowed out of the MCU after IM3 if they didn't want to keep him onboard for CACW and Spider-Man.
RDJ was instrumental in recruiting Chris Evans and Mark Ruffalo (that I know of) to the franchise, which I don't doubt was also used as a bargaining chip. Not so much in the sense that "these guys will leave if I leave" but more "I have connections and my Oscar nominations bring a sense of prestige to these popcorn films if you want to attract other serious actors to the franchise".
As for the screentime...is it a chicken and egg situation? Did RDJ specifically push to be a deuteragonist in Cap's movie, or did Disney look at how much money they're spending on hiring him and say, "Well we gotta make him worth his gold"?
The sad fact is the MCU is a commercial product, not an art piece, and that comes with all the disappointing features of something made to maximise uptake and profit margins, and minimise investment and controversy.
As an aside, if you ever work in a contract job -- never let your prospective employer guilt-trip you out of asking for what you're worth because your coworkers might be earning less. That's often a tactic employers use to get out of paying people what they deserve.
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The Falcon and The Winter Soldier
There are some things I think we should talk about and clarify about the show that I see so many people getting it wrong or taking away/reducing the meaning of things. Of course, this is just my take on things (and if you don’t agree be kind or go home, no rudeness will be allowed here!) but here are some thoughts:
- Bucky is not jealous that Steve gave the shield to Sam, and he’s not upset thinking Sam didn’t respect Steve’s legacy. He is not stupid guys, he knows Sam loved and respected Steve and wasn’t like “I don’t care about this so I’m just gonna throw it away like trash”. He knew that when Sam gave the shield to the government it wasn’t like that, but because Sam wanted the legacy to be preserved, and Bucky is frustrated that because of that someone else now took it, but he is not angry because he thinks Sam doesn’t care about Steve’s choice, he knows Sam values that.
I know that in episode 2 Bucky asked if Sam knew this was gonna happen, but I think this was one of those moments you’re so frustrated and angry with something that even if you know the answer you ask anyway, but Bucky definitely is aware that Sam understood the importance of the shield, so when he said Sam threw it away he is not saying Sam didn’t care and treated it like trash, he means more like throwing away an opportunity, not literally throwing something away.
Also, “if he was wrong about you then he was wrong about me” shows that this is beyond Sam, like Bucky said, loud and clear, if Steve was wrong about Sam’s character then he was wrong about Bucky deserving to be saved and redeemed, which is something Bucky had already been dealing with since he got his mind back. This internal battle didn’t start with the show, it’s not like Endgame ended and Bucky was like ‘oh wait I have psychological issues to deal with’, even thought we haven’t gotten to see a lot of Bucky’s side in the movies cause they don’t have time for this (one of the many reasons I was excited for this show, I wanted to go deeper in Bucky’s mental state) but this psychological hell Bucky is navigating started the second he got his mind back, it’s even addressed in Civil War when he tells Steve he’s not sure he deserves all the trouble he was going through to help him.
I mean, if you had gone through all that would you be like us fans thinking ‘obviously you deserve redemption, it wasn’t you’ or would you also be conflicted and think you deserve bad things because of all the bad things you did? I mean, if we have trouble getting over something we said in an argument or a bad decision we made, and then make unhealthy decisions, even unconsciously, because we think we deserve it, imagine how Bucky is feeling... which brings me to my next point.
- Bucky’s apartment and him sleeping on the floor is much more than ‘Bucky not having money or resources to have a nice place’, that’s the PTSD, the anxiety and the trauma. He can’t sleep in a nice bed and doesn’t think he deserves even the most basic things for his apartment because he is still punishing himself. Sam talked to Steve about that in catws, the “your bed it’s too soft” scene. We even saw that in the Punisher season 2, with the ex-soldier that dug a hole in the backyard to stay cause he felt safer there, or the girl that when trying to sleep went under her bed cause she felt safer/hidden there due to a past horrible experience. It’s not just “damn Bucky buy a bed”, he’s wearing his dog tags guys, his mind is still at war, never at peace.
- I will always defend Sam’s choice. For anyone it would be a lot to take on the mantle, it’s easy to judge Sam for not accepting it when you’re looking from the outside, but it’s a lot of pressure and completely understandable why he didn’t take it.
- I think Bucky not trusting Red Wing was because he felt something was off. Maybe he wasn’t fully aware and thinking “it could be hacked”, but I think he had a feeling, probably because he must have done that as the Winter Soldier, similar to what we saw with the woman in ep 1. So I think it goes beyond Bucky not trusting Sam’s gear but Bucky knowing technology can’t really be trusted cause he was on the other side of things for a long time.
- We all hate new cap and I understand people being like “well he seems ok so far” but let me say this: a person doesn’t have to be directly an asshole to be an asshole. So far he hasn’t been a total jerk explicitly but guys... In 10 seconds he took Bucky’s therapy away, called him an asset and told the therapist to send him over to him. I mean...... and the wingman comment to Sam? I don’t think so, get outta here man.
- I like the therapist, I think she is exactly what Bucky needs, someone that won’t just say he needs to forgive himself and be gentle and calm all the time. We are all different and not everyone could have a therapist like that, but I think Bucky needs someone like her that will call him out on not having contacts in his phone and going along with the notebook joke and handling his sarcasm. Is she evil? I don’t think so but we’ll see, the theories are out there. Personally, I wouldn’t like that, yes it’s a good opportunity for the plot but I would prefer to not have the therapist being the person we couldn’t trust all along, that’s a bad message.
Anyway this was hella long so here’s SamBucky being gay as fuck
#the falcon and the winter soldier#bucky barnes#sam wilson#sambucky#episode 1#episode 2#bucky x sam#mine#my thoughts#review#tfatws#sebastian stan#anthony mackie#marvel#show#series
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honestly idec about sharon and bucky together. let her be happy. st*cky and st*ggy stans trashed her and emily so badly that I actually WANT to see sharon in a relationship w someone just to piss people off. as long as her character is developed well idc who she sleeps with.
no they need to give sharon the characterization that they robbed from her and gave to natasha in catws bc scarlet johansson wanted a bigger part and robbed from her comic counter part to make peggy interesting. a romantic subplot with no development AGAIN?? is just gonna solidify her character as nothing but a love interest with no other relevance. while they use her true characterization to build up other characters that they couldnt make interesting on their own
i know people like to hate on sharon bc she’s an easy target and she Was given nothing. but if you look at the facts of how her entire character was handled. she would’ve been That bitch if they didn’t constantly tear her apart to lift everyone ELSE up. natashas best characterization to date was in catws. that is STILL the only movie that gave natasha some actual substance beyond ~badass sexy spy lady~. while the avengers movies consistently did absolutely nothing for her. and it was all off what was supposed to be sharon’s original characterization in catws
like it’s messed up how many characters they built up from sharon’s character. and at the very LEAST she deserves to have her moment too after being used to make everyone else interesting
and if they wanna entertain romantic subplots After that. that’s fine. but the Last thing her character needs to be thrown into coming straight off cap civil war is another rushed underdeveloped romance
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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 12 of 26
Title: A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle #1) (1968)
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Third-Person
Rating: 8/10
Date Began: 5/6/2021
Date Finished: 5/12/2021
Ged is a talented young magician with incredible potential-- possibly greater than any before him. He sets off to join the wizarding School of Roke, and quickly surpasses all of his peers. But in an act of arrogance, Ged tries to bring back the dead to impress a rival student. He unleashes a malevolent shadow upon the world, leaving him traumatized and permanently scarred.
Soon Ged finds himself hunted by the shadow wherever he goes. None of his magic seems to work on it. Worse, he lives in fear that if the dark creature overtakes him, it will use his body as a weapon to harm others. Ged journeys from island to island in an attempt to find the solution and banish the shadow once and for all.
Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk’s flight
on the empty sky.
Content warnings and some spoilers below the cut.
Content warnings for the book: Violence and death, including child death and animal death. Traumatic injury.
As a fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin is best known for her Earthsea series, but I haven’t read them until now. She had a big impact on my childhood via a series of picture books called Catwings (they're... about a family of cats who can fly). As an adult, I’ve grown more intrigued as I've learned about Le Guin’s philosophies, especially anticapitalism. I read her famous horror story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas last year and found it unsettling and thought-provoking. So I decided to read some of her longer works! And, of course, speculative fiction is always the way to my heart. My wonderful sister gave me the first four books of Earthsea for the holidays last year, and I’m finally getting the chance to read them.
Overall I had a good time with A Wizard of Earthsea. It’s structured differently than a lot of fantasy novels I’ve read. While there is a big overarching plot, the individual chapters usually have their own complete story arc. It’s the type of book where you can read one chapter before bed and feel like you got a whole story; each part advances the main narrative while also providing a complete side adventure.
There’s a lot of travel in A Wizard of Earthsea due to the setting. Earthsea is a giant, possibly world-spanning archipelago, meaning there’s a ton of islands, each of which has its own way of life. The conflict naturally has Ged travel from island to island and interact with various peoples and creatures. The closest comparison I can think of is The Odyssey, and I’d be shocked if Le Guin didn’t draw inspiration from that. Both stories involve the protagonist traveling by sea and meeting a variety of characters and mythological creatures through smaller, discrete conflicts and interactions. Usually I find long travel sequences boring, but in this case they were one of my favorite parts of the book. There’s always a sense of anticipation on where Ged’s journey will take him next.
The magic system is also is pretty cool. The idea is that all parts of nature, from humans to goats to oceans, have hidden “true” names. Knowing something (or someone’s) true name gives one power over it (or them). Thus wizards use true names to manipulate nature; giving another person your true name is an act of absolute trust and devotion. However, a big theme of the book is equilibrium. One must always be aware of potential consequences when using magic. Changing the wind in one part of the world could cause a devastating storm one island over. Sort of a butterfly effect type thing.
Even though violence is one of my content warnings, I’m impressed that Le Guin largely circumvents it in the story. In many fantasy stories, a wizard/mage character uses their magic to fight and crush their foes. Not so much in this novel. While Ged clashes with various entities through the story, he usually just outsmarts them. Thus his showdown with a big, fuck-off dragon boils down to Ged guessing its true name and telling it to leave. Antagonists are usually the ones instigating violence.
One thing I found odd about the pacing of the book is it slowed down a lot in the last few chapters. There’s a big action sequence with serious consequences around the novel’s midpoint, but everything after that is slower and more reflective. On a surface reading level, I’m not sure I liked this. I’m used to stories ramping up the tension more and more until the end. However, I did like the climax itself, when Ged reveals the shadow’s true name. The central moral of the novel is that one needs to accept everything about themselves, including their past mistakes. Everyone has a dark side, which ties into the central theme of balance, and even the opening poem of the novel (which I used as the excerpt for this review). It’s a pretty universal idea, but Le Guin presents it in a thematically satisfying way.
I tagged this as a Young Adult novel because Le Guin wrote it for a teenage audience. YA didn’t exist as its own genre at the time, but A Wizard of Earthsea is a coming of age story (a staple of YA), and even has a moral message of sorts at the end. However, sometimes it’s really obvious that it’s intended for a younger audience. As I get older, I’ve noticed that YA tends to be pretty blunt about its meaning and symbolism in a way adult novels aren’t. For example, while pursuing the shadow, Ged gets lost in a mysterious fogbank. To me this was a clear callback to the first chapter, where Ged outsmarts a band of barbarians by trapping them in a fog. But Le Guin also made sure to tell me several pages later, in case I missed the parallel. I’m torn on this when reading YA. While I’m not the intended audience, I feel this approach underestimates teenagers’ ability to critically examine a text. But YA teaches many how to view things that way, so I see why authors do it. Teens aren’t a monolith, but it is interesting to see this tendency to over-explain in a novel from 50+ years ago.
A Wizard of Earthsea is surprisingly progressive in many respects. Perhaps the most obvious is race. Ged and most of the main cast are explicitly nonwhite and described as such in the text. This isn’t a huge revelation in 2021, but it’s amazing to see something like that in a mainstream fantasy novel from 1968. Apparently Le Guin struggled with publishers for a long time, as many early covers whitewashed Ged for the sake of “sales” until she gained more creative control. And the (shitty) film/TV adaptations of Earthsea are just as guilty. I went through a LOT of covers while researching this book, and even newer editions often opt for heavily stylized art, nonhuman subjects, etc. The cover I chose is from 1984, when Le Guin presumably had more influence on Ged’s portrayal. I’m interested to see how past book covers stack up when I deep dive on the other books.
However, I found the book to be not so progressive when it came to gender roles (I know, I wasn’t expecting that either). Le Guin makes it very clear that all the famous and powerful wizards/mages in Earthsea are dudes. The wizard school toward the beginning is all dudes. All the adventurers and sailors in the story are dudes. Ged himself makes some pretty sexist comments (though to be fair, that was pre-character development). There are relatively few female characters in the story, and many are either bit parts or (in one case) a seductive, power-hungry villain. Portraying sexism in a fantasy setting isn’t an inherently bad thing. Jemisin’s Dreamblood duology, which I read earlier this year, introduced stringent gender roles in order to explore the insidious nature of misogyny. But A Wizard of Earthsea doesn’t really go beneath the surface level. Yarrow is probably the most well-written female character in the story, and she only shows up in the last few chapters. Again, I’m interested to see how Le Guin handles this in later entries; the next book stars a female protagonist and Ged’s the deuteragonist.
I liked A Wizard of Earthsea overall, and I think it serves as a good introduction to both the series and a central recurring character. While I have some criticisms of the first book, I do realize it’s a relatively early work of Le Guin’s. The last novel in this series was published in 2001, so I’m interested to see how the characters and writing changed over 30+ years.
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Hi again 😆👋 so, as a fresh newbie in those pieces of media and universe thingy, did you went back to compare Bucky vs John and Winter Soldier vs Steve? As they're all super soldiers and 1 has the shield, any big difference or change? AND with Sam (because holy crap I love how intelligent he is during fights, pragmatic as heck) uh, to compare Steve and Bucky vs IronMecha dude, because it's back to 1 vs 2 but I don't know much about the iron armor powers... What did you think of the overall TFATWS fight and how it was handled/choreographed? (I will go back searching for names)
HI okay, so you want me to make a gifset comparing the fight scenes? Hmm, I can try to do that, it’ll be amazing if you gave me specific scenes to work with.
Okay, this is gonna sound so strange right, but I genuinely hate most of the fight scenes in TFATWS. They’re very inconsistent? Actually, that’s MCU all around, because I felt like, in terms of fighting -- Sam took a backseat? Which makes no sense, because we’ve seen that Sam is capable as fuck? Like remember endgame? There’s a scene where Sam digs his wings inside the alien and rips them in half like he’s nothing. Where is <i>that</i> Sam? Like there’s a huge inconsistency here.
And they’re saying he can’t take on Super Soldiers, but he’s taken on so much worse in the past? So IDK that inconsistency doesn’t make sense to me at all.
For most of the show it’s been making me cringe to see Sam get beat up or sidelined so many times, to where they start actively showing Bucky as protecting Sam. Don’t get me wrong, I love the trope, but let Sam do some ass kicking by himself without others.
As far Bucky goes -- his strength has been all over the place. He’s toe to toe with Steve in CATWS, then completely takes a backseat with guns and firepower in IW/ENDGAME.
I also think that the Bucky thing could relate more to his character than anything else? Like sometimes he feels like fighting, other times he’s just tired, and I think we’ve had more tired Bucky as of late.
As far as the choreography, if you gif -- you see each frame, each shot, so us gifmakers tend to notice things like the stunt doubles in the scene, how punches don’t line up, how kicks don’t hand -- and TFATWS has had a lot of that and I don’t know how I feel about it.
It’s good, but it can be better. Hopefully season two fixes these inconsistencies.
I hope that answered your question?? Or did I make it even more confusing? lmao
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yesterday i was scouring @historicallyaccuratesteve doing research for my steve/bucky fic (yes, i’m writing stucky fic 6 years after it was a thing, can you fucking believe) and the blog was--the only way i can describe it is a time capsule. in a literal sense because it’s a history blog, sure, but what i’m getting at is the way it picked me up and threw me back into 2014.
see, most of the posts on that blog are old, in the way you’d consider “anaconda” old. the winter solider came out in the spring of 2014, and agent carter in early 2015, and that was when i started to see all this commentary on the newer marvel installments. and looking at that blog, what struck me was that the takes we had back then were so different from the ones we have now about thor being a himbo, and while i love those posts, they don’t hold up a candle to how intelligent, well-researched and eagle-eyed the meta from 2014/15 was, full of innocent joy--we didn’t know agent carter would get cancelled or that they’d do steve this dirty in every movie after tws. it was genuinely a different time; fans trusted marvel to continue doing these characters justice, there was less disillusionment as a fandom participant overall, no matter which one you were in, more freedom to do what you liked without someone constantly policing your takes or what you shipped.
i was only 15 at the time, and it definitely felt like a less callous time to be online. marvel was one of those fandoms that would make my head spin, because i hadn’t watched all the movies, and i wasn’t even a bona fide marvel fan this stuff just started showing up without me asking for it. and every meta i saw about it (no, really, remember when your dash would be FULL of meta? every other post?) was so perceptive, full of enthusiasm and details. the agent carter stuff especially, we were all so THRILLED to see peggy carter kick ass and take names, and we wanted to do right by her. every day i would see posts about being a woman in the 40s and 50s in america.
i’m not sure what happened afterwards--there are so many factors. i still saw well-written metas circulating for age of ultron after it came out, especially focusing on natasha’s terrible treatment in it. but i felt an overall sense of disillusionment from the fandom, and then agent carter got cancelled, and there was disappointment over that--and then it stopped.
maybe it stopped because marvel movies just stopped being that deep. maybe it stopped because i grew tired of marvel and moved onto other fandoms. maybe it stopped because interactions here on tumblr increasingly began being reduced to who could be the most politically correct, be the bigger ally (because it’s absolutely a contest), have the most scathing takes, op is an (insert subset of bigotry here) i cannot believe y’all are reblogging their post, and so on and so forth. there was less illuminating back and forth, more biting, reactive hostility. not that this never existed in 2015, but i felt like the landscape here shifted profoundly after 2016, which is a rant for another day.
or hey, maybe this is a load of crap and i’m overgeneralizing, but going on that blog made me realize how welcoming, joyful, intelligent and stress-free fandom used to be; specifically the marvel fandom. (i’m not implying the fandom got dumber, though the movies sort of did.) i miss people noticing how bucky used to have good trigger discipline as sergeant and how he stopped when he was the winter solider and what that meant; i miss people talking about 40s fashion and how the lady steve sees after waking up from the ice was wearing her hair wrong, her tie wrong, her bra wrong, and that’s how steve knew things weren’t okay. i miss trying to make head or tail of discussions on the physics of thor’s hammer. not that these things are gone entirely... but they were the norm, back then. visiting that blog made me realizing how dear to me those years and memories are.
in any case--yes, i’m writing a stupid steve/bucky fanfic but i’m THIS CLOSE to making bucky fall in love with the entire barbershop quartet. marvel has made a complete cuck of me (and let’s be honest, of anyone sticking around post-endgame) but i watched the falcon and the winter soldier and it gave me all those stupid bucky feelings and i rewatched catws so here i am. surprisingly, the easiest character to write so far has been NATASHA--what a curve ball--and especially her interactions with bucky. bucky is the second easiest. steve and sam are hard to write. really, this is all because i watched catws (my first marvel movie) as a 15 year old and got attached to 4 characters and kept buying tickets, hoping to see them again... but each time, they fell short. ever since endgame and what they did to steve and nat i’ve avoided marvel like the plague but when tfatws came out, well, i couldn’t not watch it, not when it promised a deeper look at two of those 4 characters (and wasn’t that why i was buying all those tickets in the first place?)
#if you made it this far thank you#vaaya moodu#also yes i'm going to watch the black widow movie#god can you imagine if we got it back in 2014#there were literal petitions#then we got agent carter#still no widow#can't believe it took marvel 6 years to catch up to what fans want + completely disrespected her character while getting there#okay i spent too long writing this to NOT pin it#i just have a lot of strong feelings about this okay
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💋 #43 for catwes
Here’s the fluff for the day Kate! Please enjoy a little of the Red Brooks Bros on this lovely day.
Kiss Prompt #43: A kiss pressed to the top of the head.
“And I would walk five hundred miles! And I would walk five hundred more!” Cat sang as she kept her arms wrapped around Wes’ chest, his arms wrapped around her legs, the two walking down the empty street, “Just to be the person that walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door!”
Wes smiled, “Don’t think those are the words,” he lifted her a little adjusting his grip on her.
Cat giggled, “Woah there bronco! Don’t buck me off ya,” she rested her chin on the top of his head, “And ‘sides we’re gen’er neutral in this house. I can change to a differ’nt song if you want.”
“Hmm, what song would it be, Catnip?”
“Anything you want!” Wes flinched with her loud volume in his ear, Cat caught sight of it, her face turning red, “Sorry. Shhhh, quiet time right,” she whispered, “but anything you want I’ll serenade you.” Wes chuckled, “Oh,” she perked her head up, “I know one you could like. Wouldn’ it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn’ haf to wait so long!”
Cat continued to sing, mumbling when she wasn’t sure of the lyrics, Wes’ arms straining, “You always have to park far?”
Cat stopped looking at him, “No parking at the bar, Wessy.” She buried her face into his back, the scent of leather and cigarettes filling her nose, “‘Sides I like you carrying me like this. I miss it.”
Wes frowned, spotting her car, “You got your keys? Don’t want to have to walk back.” She nodded, the word pocket mumbled into Wes’ back. He set her down, her body swaying as she gripped the car. “Better to get sick now if you’re gonna be.” She shook her head slowly, “Alright, but I’m not cleaning it if you do.”
Wes got Cat settled into the passenger seat, her hands moving the radio as he made his way to the driver’s seat. She laughed as Wes’ knees hit his chest before sliding the seat back as far as it could go. “Tall man in a tiny car,” she giggled, “You’re like the clowns. Oh man you’d throw off the mexican clown car with your legs you know that?”
“What was that?” Wes laughed as he started the car, “Can’t hear you all the way down there.”
She glared, throwing a light punch at his arm, “You’re lucky I like you, cause that was rude.”
“Where we going then?”
Her smile returned, “Raf’s! Yeah! He needs to get in on the party!”
Wes sighed, pulling out of the parking space, “My place then.”
“Why would-?” Cat’s face fell, “Oh. Right.” She looked at the clock on the dashboard, “How many hours away is he again?”
“Too late to call him, Catnip,” he glanced her way, golden eyes sympathetic, “We can call tomorrow though.”
“Not the same you know,” she rested her head against the cool glass, “Callin’ him when I just want to lie next to him again. Jus’ miss him,'' her fingers trailed down the fog she made with her breath.
“I’ll go over and steal one of the colognes he uses tomorrow,” Cat turned slowly, brow knitted, “Spray it all over a pillow for you.”
“A body pillow?”
Wes snickered, holding back his laughter, “You want it to be?”
Cat hummed, thinking, “Be too soft you think?”
“Yeah that’s the issue.”
“Know what you could do?” She lit back up, “We wash your hair in the shampoo, and then you lay on it,” her words started to slur, eyes getting heavy, “then it's closer to him being there.”
“Think that’s going too far now.”
“You started it,” Cat mumbled as they started to pull up to Wes’ place. “What are we doing here?”
Wes shut the engine off, “Getting you to sleep.”
“Oh,” Cat opened the door, falling out as she fumbled to unbuckle herself from the seatbelt. “Help,” she whined, reaching out for Wes. He smirked, grabbing onto her hand hoisting her up to her feet. She wrapped her arms around his waist leaning against him as they walked inside. “You’re warm,” she said softly, “inside and out.”
“S’how bodies work,” Wes opened the door walking her to the bedroom, “You get the bed.”
“Couch too small,” she looked up at him with wide eyes, “I’m small. Cat small. Cats sleep on couches.” Wes shook his head, sitting her on the bed, “Shoes off?” He nodded turning to grab one of his old shirts from the drawer, hearing her grunt as she worked to kick the converse off, a breathy exclamation as she finished getting them off. Cat grabbed the hem of her shirt pulling upwards, the fabric soon getting caught on her hair, she whined, Wes tossing the shirt beside her. He averted his eyes as he helped her out of the fabric, only turning them back once she placed the old shirt on, her pants easier to pull off.
He gave a small nod seeing her drown in the fabric, “Better?”
She nodded pulling the blankets back, “You stay,” Cat ordered, “Stay and sleep.” She patted the bed for emphasis, eyes daring him to argue with her. He sighed, shrugging his leather jacket off and kicking his boots to their spot next to the bed. Wes hopped onto the bed, Cat’s arms wrapping around him, “I wanna be the big spoon,” she shuffled, placing her head above his, making sure his head rested against her chest, “There.”
Cat’s eyelids grew heavy as she ran her fingers through his soft hair, humming. Wes listened to her heart slow along with her breathing, waiting for the right moment to slip from between her arms to make his way to the couch. “Wes,” her voice no more than a whisper to his ears, “you’re my bestest friend. Did you know that?”
“One of them,” he replied softly.
She shook her head, “No. Number one, that’s you. I think I lost the other ones cause I was so sad. I love them still but they aren’t the tippy top one. That’s you.” She paused, letting out a yawn, “Then again, none of them felt like having you for a best friend. You’re different. Special.” Cat gave a small hum her thoughts slower than normal, “I was sad, Wes, so very sad, but you didn’t mind that. You stayed. Did I ever tell you how sad I was?”
“You’ve made mention of it.”
“Hmm. I was Wes, I wanted to try one more time,” Wes propped himself on an elbow looking down at her, eyes closed and her hands still reaching out for some part of him to hold onto, “Third time had to be the charm.”
“What changed?”
“Saw you fiddling with the beer bottle,” she grabbed onto his hand patting it, “Caught my eye somehow, but I saw you and I don’t know, feels hard to explain, we talked briefly by the jukebox. Only a few lines, just the way you said them made it hard to stop thinking about you and that bottle.” She shrugged, “Don’t know why, I didn’t even know your name, couldn’t even tell you the color of your eyes if you asked me at that point. Then I stood at the bridge looking over the ledge, when I remembered the fleeting feeling when we talked.” She opened her eyes, lying on her back, “I didn’t feel like I was alone.”
Wes tried to think back to the moment she was referring to, so small of a moment that it seemed to be a blur. Felt like any other time at the bar that night, nothing remarkable to him, to her….it meant everything. Was there a moment for him, like hers, where it all started to make sense, where it felt like there was going to be a change? Not that he could recall in this moment, what Wes did remember was all the little things, every little thing she did that culminated into the bond the two had now. How each time he pushed, she pulled him back, refusing to let go. Things he found as flaws and unforgivable, she saw as part of him and loved him because of and despite it. Cat’s love was unconditional and she made it known and showed it as much as she could….and he loved her for it.
She smiled up at him, her eyes half closed, Wes sighed pulling the blankets up around her, “I don’t feel so alone either, Cat, not with you.”
He wrapped his arms around her like she preferred in her inebriated state of mind, chin resting on the top of her head. “No. I be big spoon,” Cat muttered, hands trying to push him lower. Wes smirked, rolling his eyes, getting back into position, “Better.” Cat grew silent, her breathing having evened out, just what he needed. Wes took a moment to figure out how to untangle himself from her when he felt her lips press against the crown of his head, “Love you, Wessy.”
He stopped, inhaling slowly, “Cat you need sleep. It’s bedtime.”
“You’re my bestest friend, though,” she curled up more, Wes moving out of the way of her knees aimed for his stomach, “I’m one of your best friends right?”
“Yeah. You’re one of my best friends, Catnip.”
“Pinky promise?” Cat held up her hand with it’s extended pinky out against his chest.
“Pinky promise,” he whispered, interlocking his little finger with her even smaller one, “Now get some sleep.”
#brotp: red brooks bros#the best friendship ship there ever was for me#I love them okay and you and Wes cause he's the best#deputy hwes#drunk cat
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I know people point at the compass, and say that's proof that Steve never stopped loving her but it will always haunt me that the photo he had of her came from a newspaper. it wasn't a photo she gave him, wasn't personal. And likewise with the photo she has on her desk of him, was official army. Like I'm pretty easy when it comes to romance in film. Aragorn and Arwen's romance is the gold standard for me and they only had like 15 mins at best in a franchise that had like 10 hours of 1/?
theatrical time in theatres. If they’d given us a letter writing montage, or had her receiving some sketches from him and had her give him a photo, it would have come across as a romance. As it is we’re supposed to be happy that Steve was back for an idealised crush, and, to make matters worse the Steve who goes back is *not* the Steve she fell in love with. 1945!Steve and Peggy might have worked for a while but I don’t think they’d have lasted. But *this* Steve and Peggy? Not a chance
hope you don’t mind me publishing!! but yes oh my god, and i used to love steve/peggy as this like tragic could have been bc prior to endgame i’d never really looked critically at the relationship as i had some of the flimsier mcu romances. and people can say i’m just bitter about endgame, which is true, but i now see the ridiculousness of how the mcu AND fanfiction have both made the relationship bigger than it was you know? but even so, the mcu made it clear they both moved on so like?? where was the logic to endgame making it seem like he’s been pining this ENTIRE time. and even if he had been, it wouldn’t be an excuse to fuck off when the world literally needs someone like steve rn lmao. and he wouldn’t do that! because he’s steve rogers! and he always fights for what’s right! and endgame stans don’t care!
anyway to address your like actual points for REAL those pictures are so impersonal especially when you consider her room in catws full of pictures of herself with her family. THAT is what matters. not to mention i mean before endgame we saw it ONE time after catfa. that’s five other movies he was in between catfa and endgame and we saw it once. and sure, you can argue its importance as a symbol or whatever, but even that doesn’t really have to do with steve/peggy as a romance, but more his respect for peggy, which of course was forgotten entirely in endgame
i’ve said before i don’t like when people say they only knew each other two weeks because that’s simply not true, i think catfa covered about two years, BUT it is important to note it was a war, they still didn’t have a lot of time together, certainly not enough to fall in love, just enough to want to go on a date, WHICH they were planning as he went into the ice, both knowing it would never happen. like, that’s not a relationship, that’s just an almost.
AND YES that’s a big thing for me, he is NOT her steve, so many people are like “well it’s her choice!!” like these are fictional characters they are written into these situations, logical or not. but if he goes back to when she’s still grieving, why would she want a steve that’s lived a decade without her, surely he would have to explain HER steve is still in the ice. and of course why would steve, after twelve years, still want to be with her, still want to go back and be out of place in time, abandoning the life he’s made for himself full of loved ones? it makes no sense!
#gildinwenthekittenblog#ask#i never know if i'm responding well to things sdkjfks i just rant#steve rogers#anti steggy#anti endgame
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some of you might’ve seen that i was at ace comic con seattle with aanal @hasan-minhaj and jen @sergeant-barnes this weekend! i struggled for weeks thinking about what i’d do for this op, until jen & brooke @steverogers showed me a photo of another fan who had used mickey ears in hers. i already had my cap mickey ears, and, since we know chris is a huge disney fan, i decided i wanted him to have mickey ears in the photo & then i wanted to gift them to him, so i had these custom winnie the pooh ears made for him mid-may. (the winnie ears were customised by the same seller who made my cap ears — show julie of boutiquejulesoh some love if you can!)
when i walked in, he was wearing a red sox cap, so after i said good morning & he said how are you, i asked him, “could we exchange your red sox cap for this one?” and i held up the winne ears. you could see his face transform into the :D emoji and he said “sure, let’s do it!” and he switched caps. i pulled up the statue of walt disney & mickey mouse holding hands in front of cinderella’s castle as a reference, and he went “YES. ...am i walt or am i mickey?” and when i told him he was walt, he held his hand out to me while i put my phone away. (he has the SOFTEST hands!!) i asked him to gaze and point longingly in one direction while i look up at him and he chuckled a little dlfjdkfdkdk. ANYWAY. they took the photo, he gave me the winnie cap back & said thank you, and then i was done! aanal and jen both promptly yelled at me as i got out lmao.
i attached a small notecard before we got in line for autographs, and i was planning to ask him to write you always stand up on my catws funko, but since they were running late, they were only having him write names. once we were in the autographs booth, i gave him the winnie the pooh cap and he said “aw, thank you!”
as he was signing, i got to say thank you to him for bringing one of my favourite characters to life in the mcu. then he looked up at me and i was like, “also, i just wanted to say thank you for normalising & de-stigmatising the conversation around mental health. as someone who struggles with it, i really appreciate it,” and he leaned back in his seat & his face did that thing where it got really soft, so as he gave me back my funko, he said “thank you, sweetie” & reached for my hand, then he winked at me and then blew me a kiss before i turned to leave OOF!!!
this weekend was amazing beyond all my expectations for many many reasons, but i truly have to say that getting to thank this man in person for how much his openness & honesty about his mental health has helped me with my own is probably the biggest highlight of all. ❤️
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