#Catws meta
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CATWS and its building of stakes
Part of the reason why CATWS was so memorable in its appeal was the way it built the stakes throughout the story. Each of the major characters had something(s) at stake by the final act, and that was pivotal for the plot to sustain its tension and for the satisfaction in its final payoff.
The overarching conflict was the global, existential threat of Hydra getting their mass murder machine up in the air, and the ideological question of what the middle ground between freedom and security should be. But what made the final act so moving was the intimately personal stakes for many of our characters.
There was, obviously, the very personal stake Steve had to surmount in having to physically get through Bucky in order to protect the freedom he was advocating for. But apart from Steve, every other major character was challenged with a personal sacrifice in the final showdown. Nat was faced with having all her covers blown and her past - that she had tried so hard to hide - revealed to the world. Sam was confronted with going back into the field after losing his partner so traumatically that he changed careers. Fury was grappling with dismantling the organisation that he had devoted his life to build. And on the other side, Pierce and Rumlow had invested decades of their lives in an ideology which if successful would install them at the top of the food chain.
There was a great meta from years back talking about how well the movie established the competencies of the characters before introducing threats -- and how we were then able to quickly understand the threat because of how competent we have seen our protagonists be. Every action sequence served a purpose and built upon the previous one.
The Lumerian Star sequence was fantastic in how effectively it established the competence of not just Steve and Nat, but the entire Strike team. Rumlow and Rollins were good at their job; they're not super soldiers or super spies, sure, but they were skilled enough to keep pace with Steve and Nat.
This was an important foreword for the elevator fight, which itself was a pre-requisite for the Causeway fight. We have seen both Steve and the Strike team capable of taking down multiple pirates swiftly, so when the elevator fight started, there was a genuine sense of threat to Steve, even if he would make a quick job of disabling them. Then, after seeing Steve's skills against a very capable Strike team, it became all the more terrifying when the Winter Soldier almost nailed him to a van about 2 minutes into their fight.
On the other side, the Winter Soldier's introduction was an assemblage of horror story tropes -- of unexpected manifestations and impossible disappearances, and urban myths stretching back through half a century. The two characters used to introduce him were extremely competent from what we had seen of them. There's Fury, normally prescient and wily, scraping by a very determined assassination attempt, only to be stopped by the Winter Soldier materialising in the middle of the road...which he escaped, only to be later shot through the wall. There's Nat, normally cunning and cautious, telling Steve of how the Winter Soldier successfully ambushed her, of how his kills spanned 50 years, a logical improbability.
Not only was Steve about to meet the Winter Soldier with the weight of these legends behind him, from the vantage point of Hydra, they were sending out the Asset to meet Captain America with his historical legends behind him (oh look, another narrative parallel). All of this build-up culminated in the Causeway fight. The technical impressiveness of the stunts aside, part of why that fight worked so well was because we have had all these story beats that showed us how capable Steve and the Winter Soldier were, then we see them both genuinely struggle to overcome the other.
We can't talk about the final fight without talking about the emotional stakes, and we can't talk about the emotional stakes without discussing what Bucky means to Steve. We already had the "not without you" and the "I'm following the little guy from Brooklyn"; we've also had the "I don't want to kill anyone" turn into "I'm not going to stop until all of Hydra is dead" and the "I'm just a kid from Brooklyn" callback. This movie added the "even when I had nothing I had Bucky" and the "I knew him" and the "he will (know me)" and of course the "end of the line" exchanges.
But there were also more subtle cues -- that came from Steve's frequent rebuff of Nat's suggestions for companionship, the string of betrayals Steve had to grapple with, and Steve's lamentations of guilt and regret and uncertainty. Steve could not deny that he was lonely, but he had 101 excuses for why he could not make new connections. Steve did not know what he's looking for or why he's fighting or how long he wanted to continue, until he found out what was behind SHIELD and, specifically, what Hydra had done with Bucky.
Even removing the shipping angle, the final showdown between Steve and Bucky was unique in superhero movies, even for a friend-turned-enemy battle. It was not like the fight between Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane, or Peter Parker and Harry Osborne, or even Thor and Loki or Charles and Erik -- because there was no ideological divide between Steve and Bucky. Bucky did not and could not believe in the cause he's fighting for - he simply did not have that capacity for choice. The ideological battle was carried by the other characters - between Fury and Nat vs Pierce, between Sam vs Rumlow, and between the rest of SHIELD vs Hydra.
For Steve, his fight was much purer, dearer, and more heart-rending. The final battle held such emotional significance, not just because he's fighting his best friend, but also because his best friend was an unwilling participant in the circumstances. Bucky was Steve's physical equal, but he's also Steve's shared life experience, his tragically failed mission, his unfulfilled childhood promise, his betrayed faith in SHIELD, and the price that was paid for Hydra to grow under SHIELD's nose. This fight offered closure for all of these narrative and emotional threads.
He was also, once again, Hydra's asking price in exchange for the freedom Steve wanted for the world...and Steve so desperately wanted, this time, for that world to include Bucky.
#bucky barnes#steve rogers#stucky#stucky meta#catws meta#should i have a tag for good script writing?#this is an example of a script that worked#long post
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Current mad meta exercise I am indulging for no reason: trying to work out exactly where the Winter Soldier shot Steve in CATWS. 😭
#see reblogs for update on this!#catws#catws meta#medical stuff#dat's me#steve rogers#mcu meta#meta#stucky#steve meta#bucky meta#stucky meta#bucky barnes#is anyone interested??#cannot decide if nicked liver (which would explain all the blood) or upper intestine (OUCH)#if the former it looked like it would gone right through the left kidney too#if the latter probably missed the kidney
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Nick Fury (& Pierce) Parallels with Steve Rogers (&Peggy) in Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Ok so I’ve recently rewatched CATWS and, I’ve always found the use of photos in the Captain America movies really interesting, but I noticed something that I hadn't before -
There are a lot of photos shown in different places and contexts of people Steve knew from the past (photos he looks at of them and/or photos of them shown together), most notably of Bucky and Peggy. But that also happens for two other characters.
The obvious parallel - Sam with Riley – his close friend who served with him until he fell and ‘died’ young.
But the other set are Fury with Pierce - his old friend that is still alive and on his side (he thinks).
And from there - there are just so many parallels between Steve and Peggy, and Fury and Pierce (with one set just further along the greyscale).
First we see Peggy-Pierce telling others (the video in the exhibit & talking to Steve) a story about Steve-Fury saving a group of people that included their family member (future husband & daughter).
Peggy-Pierce both held positions of power, that they used to attach Steve-Fury to SHEILD in some visual way.
Peggy with naming it SHEILD and Pierce with:
Peggy-Pierce are the ones Steve-Fury confide in when they are having doubts about SHIELD.
Because they believe in them and see them as trustworthy.
But then its revealed they both knowingly had a connection to Hydra taking over, with an added element of personal betrayal
One who worked with (recruited?) the exact Hydra member who Steve had lost a friend capturing (that led to her promise he would not be alone in making sure they were all dead or captured)
And one as one of their leaders (who tries to have Fury killed immediately after he went to him for help)
and then these two guys, the only ones shown having doubts about SHIELD (and who everyone thinks are dead at some point), both agree to destroy Hydra AND SHIELD before heading off on their own missions
But before that Steve got to hear two motivating talks about starting over:
and maybe this is just a random monkey with a typewriter situation and that's all just a random coincidence (because they did nothing with it), but they did do it, and it does seems like they were building to something other than what we got
#CATWS#Nick fury#Anti p*ggy carter#Anti st*ggy#Anti endgame#< may as well#Antisteggy#Steve rogers#Alexander pierce#Catws meta#Anti steggy
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this is all, at the core, @lake-shark ‘s fault and all criticism should be directed at her
we were doing our catws10 rewatch and i said that in the highway scene, I had heard that sebastian’s pronunciation of russian is quite bad and instead of saying “i have her, find him”, he’s saying something about a brick. i am trying to be humorous.
misha shoots back “yeah almost like the language got brute-forced into his head.”
i don’t know why it never occurred to me how stressful bucky learning russian probably was, probably because he already speaks it in the comics, but now i’m running through everything regarding language and it’s through a whole new filter. holy shit. he’s got to learn it from torturers and abusers.
first, how fucking isolating. how embarrassing and degrading in a real way. people talk to him like he’s stupid. he doesn’t fully understand why he has this other language in his head that he wants to use, but is almost certainly not allowed to. his internal language is severed from his external language. the words he does say feel unwieldy in his mouth and harsh to his own ears. he can’t practice it, and no one is gonna sit down and teach him.
second, to quote dialect quoting james baldwin, “people evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances, in order to not be submerged by a reality they cannot articulate”. if you don’t have the right language, you cannot describe what is happening to you. you can’t call for help. you can’t beg for mercy. you don’t have the words to picture your future as different from your present.
third, no wonder bucky takes to pierce better than karpov. no wonder karpov needed specific words and pierce has many to control him. much has been said about how pierce tries to manipulate bucky with his words, like what weak points he presses on to try to keep bucky on track, how he uses language as weapon, and to top it all off, pierce literally speaks his language.
i am chewing on glass.
#pyro talks#bucky barnes#ca:tws#catws10#catws anniversary#meta#someone please help me#not you misha you’ve helped enough#marvel#mcu
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Rumlow & Bucky threatening people with a custom SIG Sauer P226 SCT
At first glance Bucky's gun in TFATWS may not look particularly special or appear to have any narrative significance, but I’m here to tell you that’s almost certainly not the case, whether intentional or not.
I already thought the parallel was fascinating when I first noticed these guns looked similar, but the deeper I dug the more compelling the story got. They aren’t just similar, they’re the exact same gun. Which ordinarily wouldn't be that all that special either, since many people use the same type of gun, but this isn’t some generic off-the-shelf model. In fact, I now think this custom P226 SCT is so unique as to be intrinsically linked to Rumlow, and I’m going to make the case that its reappearance in TFATWS is so remarkable that the gun (and therefore likely Rumlow himself) must hold some sort of significance for Bucky.
Buckle up, I’m about to overanalyze the shit out of this gun.
First, let’s look at the facts:
Out of the dozens of guns seen and used in CATWS, the only person to use a P226 is Rumlow. Even after he loses his customized SCT in the scene above, he's seen with another standard P226 in the next scene, which suggests he heavily favors this model. Side note: Knowing this, my new headcanon is that Rumlow is a former Navy SEAL since P226′s are famous for being beloved and carried by SEALs. Plus, everything we know about him lines up perfectly with that background.
Excluding the Winter Soldier’s P220, no one else in CATWS is seen carrying any SIG handgun model. All other SHIELD and HYDRA agents pretty much exclusively use Glocks, which further confirms this custom P226 SCT is undoubtably meant to be Rumlow’s personal handgun (he’s also seen with this same gun in the scene where they’re hunting Steve down at the mall).
Out of the dozens of guns seen and used in TFATWS, the only person to use a P226 is Bucky. Yet again, no one else in the show carries any SIG handgun model with Glocks by far the most common.
This is the only gun Bucky uses in the entire show. The only other gun Bucky even briefly holds is the submachine gun he takes from one of Selby's goons before dropping it seconds later. Additionally, the fact that Bucky has this gun in two completely different scenes, set days apart in different locations, confirms this isn’t just some random gun he borrowed temporarily in Madripoor, but his own personal gun that he purposefully chooses to carry.
Not only are Rumlow and Bucky’s guns the same basic model, they’re specifically the Super Capacity Tactical (SCT) variant, which is already fairly uncommon, but on top of that and more importantly both guns appear to have the same very specific, very unique customizations to the point where I’m almost certain it’s the exact same prop. While the standard P226 SCT is pure black, multiple parts on both of these guns (hammer, takedown lever, magazine release, decocker, etc) have a silvery finish instead, which you may be able to see a bit more clearly here and here. Some of the parts are reminiscent of the Equinox version of the P226, but it’s not a perfect match and notably the SCT doesn’t seem to have ever been made in an Equinox variation anyway. The most interesting features to me though are the bare-metal front and rear cocking serrations, which again are reminiscent of the Equinox except the rest of the slide is still all black. In all of my research that’s not something I’ve been able to find on any other P226 and is not just a part you could potentially buy and swap out. To achieve that look the slide would have to be very deliberately hand-sanded or machined. This detail, combined with the other custom parts, undoubtably makes this gun one-of-a-kind.
Now some may try to argue that if we look at other Marvel movies we might find that this particular prop has been reused before and this gun is not as unique in-universe as it might seem. Don’t worry, I’ve looked into this too. At least according to IMFDB’s current records, not a single P226 SCT, much less one with these customizations, has ever been identified in another Marvel property. Rumlow’s gun in CATWS and Bucky’s gun in TFATWS are the only instances this gun, or anything like it, has shown up.
Maybe the reappearance of this gun was just meant to be a cool Easter egg for eagle-eyed gun enthusiasts. Maybe it’s meant to be something more. I don’t know and I honestly don’t care. Because here’s the thing, regardless of what was originally intended (death of the author and all that), the facts remain and they paint an undeniably compelling picture of something that has actual narrative weight.
Whatever Doylist reasons this gun may’ve been chosen for Bucky out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of potential options, if we just look at the facts and try to make sense of them in-universe one thing is clear: there’s no way Rumlow and Bucky would both have this exact gun by pure coincidence. It’s not standard issue for SHIELD or HYDRA and it’s not some run-of-the-mill, off-the-shelf weapon Bucky could’ve easily picked up somewhere on a whim. He made a deliberate choice to acquire and carry this gun. And given this custom P226’s extreme uniqueness paired with Rumlow and Bucky’s likely history, there are really only two possible scenarios that I can see:
Bucky sought out and somehow recovered Rumlow’s gun from the wreckage of the Triskelion at some point, making it quite literally the exact same gun.
Bucky tracked down the same already uncommon model and specifically customized it to match Rumlow’s favorite gun (which he would’ve had to have been very familiar with to get all of the details just right).
Either option is intriguing, to say the least. It certainly brings up more questions than answers, namely: What is the significance of Rumlow and/or his gun to Bucky/the Winter Soldier, and why does Bucky care about it so much that he took the considerable time and effort to either recover the original or recreate an exact copy?
[Disclaimer: By no means am I a gun expert, but I did try to be thorough in my research. A lot of my conclusions are based on info pulled from IMFDB, though not all of it. While IMFDB isn’t perfect, as it’s just a publicly run database and not an official source, I’ve found it to be quite comprehensive when it comes to popular shows and movies and its contributors are generally very skilled at identifying weapons. However, if any gun experts think I’ve made a significant error, let me know!]
#bucky barnes#brock rumlow#winterbones#catws#tfatws#catwsedit#tfatwsedit#marveledit#my edit#my words#my meta#marvel meta#[insert always sunny pepe silvia meme]#I'm not saying this is canon evidence of winterbones#but I'm not NOT saying it either#it's been a year and a half since it aired but TFATWS is still somehow the HTP gift that keeps on giving#The Gun
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I love the dichotomy between Steve's wardrobe in CA:TWS vs. A1
In Avengers (2012), every aspect of his life, right down to his haircut and the clothing on his back, is controlled by Shield.
They dress him like an old man, forcing him into a narrow box, in an attempt to force him to fit the image of the myth of Captain America.
His hair is styled as if he's just stepped out of the 1940s. His clothes are similarly out of style, dressed in poorly fitting and dated clothes as if he's an elderly man holding tightly to his youth as he inches closer to the grave.
There is no moment where it's even considered that he's a person with his own likes or dislikes, not simply a title and mythology burdened with a million expectations no one could ever live up to.
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), when Steve finally has some degree of autonomy, there is a major shift in how he dresses.
He lives alone in Dupont Circle, D.C.'s preeminent queer neighbourhood.
He drives a more modern motorcycle.
He has a modern haircut.
He has developed a distinct style, most notably marked by the ridiculously tight shirts, that is decidedly excepted for a modern young man.
While we see sprinkles of his past, the old record player in his apartment crooning wartime music, he easily fits into the present day as he diligently works at adapting to the 21st century and building a life.
As he says in the next movie, I'm home.
#marvel#mcu#steve rogers#steven grant rogers#captain america#marvel meta#catws#ca:tws#captain america: the winter soldier#a1#avengers#avengers 1
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I was thinking about the parallels between the two times in CATWS where Steve takes off his helmet when facing an opponent, and I found them interesting.
First he feels like he needs to prove something to Batroc, the pirate he's been ordered to apprehend. At his goading, he puts away his shield and takes his helmet off 🤦
I feel like he does this out of a misplaced sense of pride, or fairness, or cockiness? Dude took a bunch of SHIELD personnel hostage and Steve agrees to play his game/indulge him. "I thought you were more than just a shield," Batroc says, so Steve puts away his shield and helmet to face him not as Captain America, but as Steve Rogers. To prove him right-- that Steve was more than a symbol, a lackey of his masters, and he didn’t need the shield to win. Which was, in my humble opinion, unnecessary in regards to finishing the mission, and also put him in danger.
Or maybe he did it partly to stick a middle finger up at SHIELD itself? The organization he joined to help people but didn’t tell him anything important and treated him like an asset instead of a person? On the books, he’s Captain America, but ultimately he will do things Steve Rogers’ way. And Batroc literally asked to meet Steve Rogers, so here he is!
And then... he does the same thing with Bucky. He takes his helmet off and flings his shield away without a second thought-- but without Bucky having to ask. Kind of like the opposite of when he faced Batroc, who asked to meet the man behind the symbol, Steve takes his mask off without prompting because he desperately needs Bucky to see his real self.
He wore his old Captain America uniform in the hopes that it would jog Bucky's memory. But it was only after he tossed the symbols aside-- the helmet and the shield-- and faced (or rather, surrendered to) Bucky with open arms as Steve Rogers, that Bucky truly recognized him, Steve won, and Hydra lost.
It was Steve Rogers who was bloody and beaten all to hell with multiple bullet wounds and still repeating Bucky's words of devotion back to him. It was Steve Rogers who Bucky swore to follow into the jaws of death, not Captain America. And it was Steve Rogers who Bucky dove after and saved from the river, even when the Winter Soldier barely remembered him.
Both times Steve took off his helmet and put away his shield to fight an opponent, he won. The first time was unnecessary-- he could have beaten Batroc as Captain America-- but it was important to him personally that he faced him as Steve.
With the Winter Soldier though, I don't think Steve would have won and gotten through to Bucky had he not thrown the trappings of Captain America aside. Sure, maybe he could have captured or knocked Bucky out had he been willing to hurt him, but he wasn't. As soon as his main mission was over (saving 750k people), his personal quest to get Bucky to remember him took precedence. It was a goal Steve Rogers would have died for, and he nearly did. (A good thing that his best friend was still there, and that Bucky waded in and pulled Steve out of trouble like he always did.)
I guess what I found interesting was, the first time Steve took his helmet off and put aside his shield, it was for pride. The second time, it was for love.
#mcu#steve rogers#steve you absolute knob#sobbing#i love him#stucky#bucky barnes#georges batroc#catws my beloved#marvel meta#their love is stronger than hydra's evil and that will always be beautiful to me#he won by refusing to fight! isn't that amazing#the steve rogers who never backed down from a fight won by surrendering and believing in bucky's love and goodness#it harkens back to the burning factory not without you scene where bucky was willing to die with steve if steve couldn't make the leap#steve was willing to die if bucky didn't remember him#the goal he gave his life for-- hydra's defeat-- was also his greatest failure and it's staring at him right in the face#and he would have died for it. STEVE!!!
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rambling about catws!Bucky because time is a flat circle
Lowkey tough being a Bucky stan (hehe) out here bc atp the mcu just doesn’t know what to do with him and it’s absolutely tragic because catws is a great movie and a huge part of that is how beautifully they presented the Winter Soldier. Like he is undeniably (personally don’t @ me) the best part of that whole movie. Last time I went this insane over analyzing actors’ facial expressions was the hunger games and that’s basically the peak of fiction for me. So, here’s me doing exactly that
warning: no beta we die like my vocal chords watching catws for the first time
Something that sits at the forefront in my mind abt Seb’s acting as the Winter Soldier is how good he is at being blank. Normally when I think of blank, no thoughts head empty acting it’s just a completely unmoveable demeanor and from what I see in fics it’s a common interpretation that the Winter Soldier is just an empty husk. And while he’s definitely a lot less sentient than he seems to be in the comics I don’t think he’s as robotic as people like to write about (and how I like to read abt so dw this isn’t me trashing on that).
I read a post on here that was either a meta or rant that I def reblogged but don’t feel like looking for that was either or about or mentioned how the Winter Soldier is def a powerhouse but that’s just a building that was made from the frame of Bucky’s own combat skills from the war.
I think his sentience is somewhat similar to that in how he isn’t so much as an empty bodyguard and more like a tunnel-visioned fighter. His mind isn’t a blank slate in a body that’s blindly committing violence but a constantly calculating fighter (a trait I also think was just built off of Bucky’s own violent skills derived from the war) whose mind is occupied only by whatever violence he’s committing.
Seb’s facial expressions as the winter soldier present this well. Again, when you think of the empty husk the Winter Soldier is you’d expect little personality and emotion to be acted out as that character. The thing is, he’s not an empty husk. Seb does a good job at having existent and moving facial expressions without any real human emotion being shown by them. When the Winter Soldier furrows his brows as he fights or thoughtfully looks offscreen when he pulls off his goggles(?) in the lead up to the reveal he’s only expressing the slightest bit of acknowledgement to whatever is happening. Particularly, usually in fight scenes when people do the former it’s to make the character look mad or determined. When the Winter Soldier does it it’s just there. Sebastian manages to move his face in ways that should indicate fully-felt emotions but still only add up to a blank face.
Perhaps in that way the Winter Soldier is somewhat robotic not in the way of an emotionless android but rather an intelligent algorithm.
so, blah blah blah Sebastian is really good at acting blank. But what about when the Winter Soldier does show emotion. Disclaimer that in my rewatch I only saw the highway fight/reveal and the helicarrier, not when Fury and Steve get attacked in his apartment. With this, the first time I believe we see the Winter Soldier breaking out of the emotionless mask is the cute little bout of panic he has shortly after the mask/muzzle comes off, when his eyes get big and be looks off in a way unlike before where instead of it being the slightest indication of thought and strategy it’s a genuine feeling of panic and confusion. This is very much in contrast to moment before after he asks who the hell Bucky is and shoots at Steve. He says the words, but that’s it. His face doesn’t move to accommodate any sort of emotion any normal person would be feeling when they said that sentence. His mouth simply moves as he asks (though the blankness is still broken by then because I have doubts the 100% Winter Soldier would ever take the time or express the confusion that’d come with asking that question). Immediately after he clicks back into reality and the mission at hand when he shoots at Steve he doesn’t return to his before blankness. His eyebrows furrow and this time it’s not simply an unconscious physical result of being focused or whatever but he’s genuinely confused and desperately trying to follow what he’s being made to do. Up until that point, not once does the Winter Soldier bother to halt anything he’s doing in a fight if not necessary. This is the first time he personally hesitates.
And then the helicarrier scene. Oh lord almighty the blessed helicarrier scene. By here the Winter Soldier is back to Winter Soldier-ing, blank and emotionless no matter what movement his face makes. And he stays like that for the entire pre-fight pleading Steve’s doing in that bridge(?) thing. UNTIL Steve says “please don’t make me do this”
Now I noticed this in my rewatch yesterday and then while I was rewatching the scene on yt to write this I fought for my life trying to figure out which cut to Bucky in that convo in which he does it, so I damn-near thought i hallucinated it. But I swear to god his head tilts down and his eyebrows go up. It’s similar to the facial movements he does before when he’s full Winter Soldier where his face moves but it doesn’t indicate any actual emotion being felt. This time however it just somehow does. He’s pleading, for what I literally cannot think of but his face moves only slightly and it somehow spreads the full feeling throughout his entirety. In the next cut after that he doesn’t have that same emotion, but it was there.
From then on the curtain is ripped. Now Bucky fights and he scrunches up his face and all of the sort and he’s not only expressing emotion but he’s doing it so blatantly. So blatantly in fact that I can tell he seems to feel almost desperate.
Remember earlier when I mentioned that not once does the Winter Soldier bother to halt himself unless necessary to survey the situation or something the sort. Yeah, none of that is here. He’s unbelievably sloppy, not as fast and hit-for-hit with Steve as he was during the highway/reveal. And throughout the fight he only gets slower and slower, his face scrunches and moves more and more., and he wastes more and more time talking and trying to make Steve suffer and feel how he’s getting hit as if to prove to something or someone that he’s not succumbing to the memories bubbling up inside him and straying from his mission.
Until finally Steve says “I’m with you til the end of the line” and fandom was never the same
and neither was Bucky, because despite the fact that his luscious locks are blowing all over the damn place, all over his face, we see down to the atom what he’s feeling. It’s the Winter Soldier’s end of the line, and now Bucky is here to get fucked over by the mcu’s writing.
Again, catws is my favorite mcu movie in terms of acting and writing and the reason why is because they did so well at writing such a horribly tragic victim. I stay saying that Seb is one of the best actors in the mcu and the reason why is because of how agonizing his performance of the winter soldier’s mental turmoil is. So why on God’s green Earth is the mcu so intent on making some bullshit atonement plotline (or a poor attempt at showcasing Bucky’s internal guilt that comes off as an atonement plotline, depends on who you ask) and throwing him in with anti-heroes/villains when it really doesn’t fit what his arc should be AT ALL???
anyway god bless Sebastian for being damn-good at acting out agony
#Bucky barnes#winter soldier#the winter soldier#catws#Captain America the winter soldier#steve rogers#gets a tag#Bc why not#i saw the greatest minds of my generation fall victim to catws#And this is why#This may or may not be incoherent#I barely look over my essays what makes you think I’m doing it for this#Sebastian stan#baby’s first meta#I have more thoughts abt this but I’d never be able to write them coherently so here’s the rough draft#Which’ll never get revised into the actual essay I could very well write about this man#Also obligatory#Fuck hydra
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in catws, the scene where steve, natasha and hill are watching fury get operated on, steve has a reflection in the mirror but nat doesn’t. is this to show that steve is being two-faced here? he’s worried for fury while also hiding what he knows which leaves nat in the dark
then when hill steps into frame, her face and her reflection are visible while you only see steve and nat’s reflection. she’s also shown to be two-faced but bc steve’s face disappears, it means she’s hiding something different to steve (fury being alive)
we only see nat’s reflection when she asks about ballistics which is when she holds back her realisation that it was the winter soldier; she wasn’t lying but she wasn’t being clear with them, hence her reflection
#is this legit?#bc if it is… fuck i love movies#coming out of my cage and ive been doing just fine.txt#talk meta to me#marvelous#catws#captain america the winter soldier#marvel#meta#steve rogers#natasha romanoff#maria hill
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So I know the event is @catws-anniversary but this is actually one of my favourite Steve-Bucky scenes.
There's been a lot spoken about their seamless teamwork here -- Steve doesn't even look in Bucky's direction when he tosses the shield at Bucky -- but there is just...so much packed into this fluid cooperation?
Bucky as far as we know in CATFA was a sniper (although in the supporting material it does say Bucky learned boxing before he joined the army). It's only when we get to CATWS we see him being a strong melee fighter. A lot of Bucky's new fighting style takes into account his metal arm -- he favours it for blocking and forceful striking to spare his flesh arm. He's also spent most of his recent decades doing mostly solo work. He had backup support during CATWS to get him into position, but actually on task? He's by himself chasing down his targets.
This is the first time Bucky fights on Steve's side after his time as the Winter Soldier. Depending on how you headcanon Bucky receiving his serum, this would also be the first time Steve treats Bucky as an equally strong super soldier. Bucky's experience, fighting style, physical constitution have all significantly changed since the last time they were on the field together, not to mention Steve's own style and experience have evolved.
Yet they slotted straight back into each other's space, like they had never spent a minute apart in the last 70 years. Apart from the "end of the line" spell-break, nothing else speaks such volumes about their bond.
(Also goddamn CEvans with that beautiful pirouette. No wonder the stuntspeople say they can't replicate his footwork)
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in CAWS Steve made 2 very important personal connections. one with Sam another with Nat. Sam does share life experience with Steve while Nat doesn't. Therefor, the whole unsuccessful matchmaking subplot is not about unable to find someone with similar life experience because there are evidences that 1. there are people who share life experience with Steve but he just doesn't want a relationship 2. he doesn't need that similarity to bond with people. He didn't date not because he can't find someone with similar background or connect with someone, he just never actually tried. It's about 'THE right partner'. and we all know who that is. (Bucky, who simultaneously shares so much with him but also in some ways so little, is like the combination of Nat(brainwashed soviet spy)&Sam(loyal soldier)&peggy(the past). it's almost like it meant something🙂)
Well now see what you're describing isn't
1) shared
2) life experience.
1) 'shared' in this sense doesn't mean similar, or identical, it means experienced together, communally.
(This is not the sense of the word in, for example, the idiom 'shared interest', where it does mean the same thing. A 'shared interest' in the MCU doesn't mean you shared becoming interested in the MCU together).
2) 'life experience' doesn't just mean something you've experienced during your life, it means the seminal experiences that have changed and/or shaped your life (and/or, the seasoned knowledge you've acquired as a result of going through that).
Example:
While Bucky has undergone supersoldier serum, just like Steve, nobody has 'shared' Steve's life experience of undergoing serum, because he was the only person who received serum at the time he got it. (Or so he thought). And they also haven't shared the 'life experience' (experiential wisdom) he gained from it, because Steve underwent it alone.
(Whereas, if they had known that Bucky had got serum at the same time as Steve, and gained the same knowledge of life through it -- that would've been sharing life experience.)
Bucky and Steve have the shared life experiences of growing up poor in Brooklyn, going to war in Europe against Nazis, confronting Zola and Schmidt, founding the Howling Commandos, etc. (and, unbeknownst to them, having serum while doing it.)
You can tell they were trying to force 'shared' to mean 'similar' so that that could apply it to Peggy, as if she has experienced, for example, the same kind of discrimination as Steve.
Only problem being, they skip over Steve's poverty, erase his Irish Catholicism altogether, and ignored his disabilities in every scene but two -- so he practically doesn't have that discrimination they're trying to cash in on. And they insist Peggy is so perfect she had Bucky's war record and was the boss of everything and everyone so she didn't get discriminated against, either?
(Even if she had, it would be a completely generic trait she had in common with almost literally every woman. Boils down to saying she's the only one compatible with Steve because she's female? Embarrassing...)
Even if you stretched the definition to include, like, overlapping life experiences... that still leaves Bucky as the one person who overwhelmingly meets Steve's criteria.
Only now they'd both have superserum in common, being made into a figurehead against their will, being frozen, being displaced in time, experiencing disability, becoming global fugitives because of modern Hydra, AND growing up poor in Depression-era Brooklyn AND joining the US Army to fight Nazis in WWII Europe while having superserum. (And that's not even counting things like fighting Tony, living in Wakanda, and the Thanos battle as life experiences!)
By that stretched definition, Sam and Nat do have some shared life experiences with Steve later on, but nowhere near as many as Bucky. And Steve's canon love interests have zero life experiences in common with him at all!
Sam doesn't have shared life experience with Steve in CATWS. He has similar life experience; things in common, not things shared. Those being: struggling to cope with peacetime living conditions, after coming back from a war (referenced in Steve's PTSD vision in AOU), and losing a 'wingman.'
Only that last one turns out not to be true in Steve's case, of course, and Sam's wingman is never mentioned again!
(That, to me, read like a clumsy/lazy plot-device, inserted to try and force Sam and Steve into closer intimacy, more quickly. The 'insight of a VA counselor' angle seemed perfectly sufficient, and a more raw and genuine way to connect them, IMO.)
Nat actually does have some shared life experience with Steve, as of Avengers No.1 (fighting an alien invasion is a pretty significant life experience, I'd say! And she and Steve were battling Chitauri down in those NYC streets together, weren't they?)
After CATWS, both Sam and Nat have a shared life experience with Steve, since they went through the life-altering events of CATWS together.
It's interesting that Steve clearly doesn't require 'shared life experience' for people to qualify as his friends -- his life story is so unusual, and so are theirs, that he has little in common with most of his friends, after all. But he specifically says that shared life experience is what he's looking for in a special someone. Which, at the point Steve says it, can really only apply to Bucky... 🤔
And then, as you say, Bucky strangely embodies all the traits of the other three who don't come up to scratch on their own -- loyalty, humour, kindness/nurturing, military background, brainwashed Soviet agent (slave?), made into a reluctant figurehead, who might be able to share in the memories of Steve's past if it weren't for that pesky amnesia. Bucky's got it all! 😂
#long post#antiendgame#endgame steve is a skrull#mcu meta#mcu#meta#stucky#steve meta#bucky meta#stucky meta#steve rogers#bucky barnes#antipeggy#antisteggy#cynthia glass#p*ggy meta#mcu critical#steggy is hydra trash party#catws#catws meta#also very odd that steve goes from using female pronouns for prospective 'dancing' partners in homophobic WW2#*when 'dancing' specifically does not mean sex because 'fondue' is the euphemism used for that instead#to using gender-neutral terms to describe dating partners in the modern era; right after a woman suggests he's bad at kissing... women#in the same movie where someone asks if he misses the good old days and he's like 'ew no'#where he also insists he's too busy for a... girlfriend... and yet HAS kissed ...somebody since 1945... while living in dupont circle...#hmm... 🤔
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tbh my biggest regret fandom wise is not getting into the stucky fandom until 2020. Like I shipped it and liked and reblogged things but my main source of fandom consumption was SOME fanvids (which, still, fucking masterpieces) and the ocasional meta. Maybe reading NEC at the ripe age of 13 would have changed me as a person but alas I got deep into the Stevebucky god tier fics in my very very late teens when it was mostly a graveyard.
#I was neck deep into spn and johnlock#We're talking weekly spn meta based on single episodes i was there#When the 11th season finale happened in the fandom#But with stucky is like feeling nostalgic for something i didn't experience#Like maybe it's better because it ended horribly in the canon#But still reading post catws meta published in 2014 and a bunch of post catws fics written in 2015 got me through quarantine#So anyway. Vote stucky in the stupid pull get a grip.#stevebucky
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This has probably been said before, but I just realized something while rewatching Captain America The First Avenger: The last thing Bucky Barnes did before he died was protect Steve Rogers, the first thing Bucky Barnes did after coming back to himself in catws was protect Steve Rogers. In other words, the first thing Bucky Barnes did when coming back to himself was the last thing he did before losing himself. It also means that Bucky died trying to save Steve and ended up saving himself by successfully saving Steve, he finished the job he didn’t get to last time.
It also means that Bucky saving Steve can work as a metaphor for Bucky saving himself. This would be in keeping with their friendship since both Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan have said on multiple occasions that they are each other’s family, they’re the closest relationship they have in the world, they are the key to their home and happiness, and, as Bucky proved, they are the only ones who can save and reach the other. This interpretation would make the shot of Bucky’s arm reaching out for Steve in the ocean another metaphor.
#I will always have alot of feelings about the relationship between steve & bucky#just as I will always have alot of feelings about what was done to Bucky in between the two times he tried to protect his best pal & brother#at least the way I interpret the relationship (platonic vs romantic) but the core of their relationship will always remain the same#whether interpreted as platonic or romantic#the core being that the above remains the same and both will go to the ends of the earth to protect the other#but what do you do when you would go to the ends of the earth to protect the other but they’re not there on earth#they’re tucked away underground in cryofreeze until they are needed to assassinate ppl against their will consent & conscious knowledge#… i still have alot to say about bucky barnes and steve rogers#as you might’ve been able to tell#bucky barnes#steve rogers#steve & bucky#captain america#captain america meta#catws#catfa#captain america the winter soldier#captain america first avenger#captain america the first avenger#brooklyn boys#marvel#mcu#marvel meta#my post
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in case anyone was wondering I’m still screaming crying throwing up over this
#I'm UNWELL#every time I think about it I LOSE MY MIND again#winterbones#bucky barnes#brock rumlow#marvel#tfatws#catws#The Gun#marvel meta#my edit
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post-catws headcanon:
obviously rumlow dropped off the radar after GETTING CRUSHED BY A BUILDING
he left the USA to hide away
took up painting, which is one of the more notable ways that helped him regulate not just his emotions (which there are a lot of pant up ones!) but also helped him regain the use of his limbs and hands and feet (even just sitting up or standing or holding a pen was taxing on his body during the long months up to a year he was in recovery)
he’s gotten really good at expression emotions on paintings. and he doesn’t necessarily have a recognizable style (as in if you look at multiples of his paintings, you might not recognize them as all having come from the same painter), and his subjects generally vary, but it’s usually of people. or what he recalls of people since he hasn’t seen anyone or gone into the public for as long as he was recovering. only saw a doctor or two, the bare necessities. does not have an online presence either.
post-recovery:
he’s covered in scars, including his face. when he was once vain and considers himself well above average on the ‘good looking’ scale, he’s not exactly ‘ashamed’ by how he looks now as he knows he’s nowhere near even remotely ‘nice looking’ enough to want to be seen uncovered unless he knows or trusts the other person. he’s more hot-headed than before, more prone to outbursts and being provoked, more prone to physically initiate a fight for something verbal, more prone to leaving a situation (unfinished) that he no longer deems as useful to him. painting helps him with all of that. (and also his sexual frustrations because *coughs* he still has needs but who’s gonna want him now)
he still has the same unwavering eyes he always had. that’s the one thing that hasn’t changed for the worse and it’s why he’s so zoned in on other people’s eyes. paints eyes of people he finds fascinating.
#;meta#;headcanon#//it's been 84 years since catws and i just now post this?#//yes#//that's how we roll in the shrine here apparently lol#//but yeah
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Ten Years of HTP: A Celebration
Hi all, I (@eatingcroutons) set up this blog with all sorts of intentions about preparation and promotion and then Life Things Happened, but I'm still hoping to go forward with the idea of encouraging some nostalgia and memory-sharing about the last ten years of the HYDRA Trash Party.
The aim here is to be more of a celebration of community rather than your typical prompt fest - if you're looking for prompts for fanworks you might want to check out the @catws-anniversary that has just kicked off and will run until the 4th of April, or of course refer back to the Trash Meme itself!
So for this blog's purposes, feel free to post informal thoughts and musings and ramblings, and to comment on each other's memories - this is all about our shared history and nostalgia, and the idea is for it to be an open dialogue and celebration of community. A few points on logistics:
Anonymous asks and submission are open on this blog if you'd prefer not to participate under a named account. We all know how hostile certain corners of fandom have become to darkfic and adjacent content.
For all the themes below self-recs are also very welcome, if you want a chance to show off something you made years ago that hasn't gotten much attention in a while!
Go ahead and tag this blog at @tenyearsoftrash for a reblog of anything you post about the below themes!
All that said, here are some suggested themes and ideas to get you thinking and reminiscing:
April 4: Rewatch CA:TWS!
Take yourself right back to where it all began! With too many people across too many timezones we're not going to even try to organise a massive synchronised groupwatch, but maybe you could get a few of your old-school HTP buddies together to do a smaller one? In any case: fire up the movie, relive all the feels, and share any HTP-related thoughts that come (back) to mind after all these years!
April 5: Fanwork Recs
Go back and dig up some links to your favourite HTP fanworks - whether big or small, well-known or niche, what are the works that have really rewritten your brain chemistry, and stuck with you all this time? What was it about them that hit just the right spot? Feel free to share your thoughts on Tumblr - and to go back and drop a nostalgic comment on anything on AO3 😉
April 7: Meta Recs
Over the years there's been a lot of meta associated with HTP, from discussions of what CA:TWS and HYDRA represent in a broader social context, to endless back-and-forth about darkfic's place in fandom. Are there any posts that really made you think, or that remain relevant even now? Is there anything that came out of those meta discussions that has turned out to be particularly prescient, in hindsight?
April 8: HTP Fanon
What are your favourite bits of shared or personal fanon around HTP and its related concepts? Are there any Original Characters you're particularly fond of? Any particular tropes regarding characters or events that you will never get tired or bored of? Any ideas that might seem cracky on the surface but which you are totally into regardless?
April 8: Other Media/Fandoms
We've all had those moments where we've come across something in a new canon and immediately been like, "Oh, this is delicious trash bait," right? What other media has had a "Bucky Barnes Obediently Accepts The Bite Block" moment for you? What other characters might your fellow HTP friends enjoy as interesting targets for Trash Party Shenanigans? In what fandoms have you found yourself running into an awful lot of familiar HTP faces?
April 9: WIP Amnesty
Do you have any HTP fanworks that you never finished, or never got around to starting, for whatever reason? Now's your excuse to talk about them! Feel free to ramble about what your plans would have been, lament why they're never going to happen, or share some of those great ideas you never quite had time to plot out. Or, if you're feeling particularly inspired, go back and actually finish something off!
April 10: HTP Community Memories
To finish off the week let's talk about the community itself! What have been the good times, the interesting times, any times that have been personally significant to you, for any reason? What things have you experienced or shared or understood with or through or because of the HTP community? What new friends have you made over the years, and what old friends do you miss?
---
Apologies again for taking some time to getting around to making this post, but hopefully people will still be interested in doing some reminiscing!
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