everyday this meme i made in 2021 becomes more real, thanks rogers the musical

"Bucky was happy for Steve!"

Yeah, totally.

Bucky: God I hate that trope where a character chooses a love interest over their best friends.

Tony: Yeah tell me about it.

Bucky: ...

Bucky: So do you wanna beat me up again or

I'm having so many angry Bucky thoughts but like. I'm gonna be real it was fucking weird for Marvel to insinuate that Bucky was SA'd as the Winter Soldier in TFATWS and then never fucking address it again. Like? It was so obvious how that scene was meant to be taken. From Sam's concern and confusion to Selby's instant understanding and delight to Bucky's painful embarrassment to the way Zemo touches his face and speaks so knowingly it's just. Ugh oh my god. They never should have had that scene if they couldn't address it properly.

Gay ships getting screwed over by homophobic producers/writers as soon as they get wind of it is nothing new, but what has been done to stucky really is uniquely cruel. 

I’ve never heard of a gay ship having one member’s importance to the other simply... written out of the show/film? (Has this been done?) 

Never heard of a gay ship having decades of important source material about them deliberately sabotaged just to spite a  gay ship (that wasn’t even canonically gay or ever going to be so, anyway?) 

Or having the (heterosexual-ising) female character literally put into the male character’s canon place, using his gay-inspiring scenes, with any other ship. 

I’ve never heard of an actor’s brilliant performance, which made certain lines iconic; whose skill as an actor is the very reason they’re iconic...  simply being taken away from him and credited to an untalented actress who never said them. 

Just to damage an un-canon gay ship?! 

Imagine they brought out new Trek shows with Kirk and Spock and said ‘anyway, Spock never meant anything to Kirk, every Spirk thing he said was actually said to/about his new wife Spacky (Woman who joined the Hating-Vulcans Society and hired guys to torture Spock) and here’s a flashback to Spacky as Kirk’s Chief Science Officer all those years. Also we will be buying up other media and editing all tie-ins to reflect that they are nOT GAY.’ 

It’s unprecedentedly monstrous.

you know what’s really fucked up? the mcu skipped over bucky’s entire character arc and sidelined any representation of not just his healing but all personality because no homo so he would be lucid and battle ready in like one freaking day to fight steve’s civil war uwu!!!!

because they passed over what should have been a gradual and natural reunion between him and steve, it got shoved into the civil war plot out of necessity but had to happen really fast. so all the REALLY good accords arguments steve has about violation of privacy and big government agendas and power structures becoming corrupted and dictating what the avengers do or dont do get completely ignored in favor of blaming steve’s actions on “infatuation” and “nostalgia.” and it’s played off as totally irrational????

Rather than it being him putting the needs of the people first and foremost AGAIN like he IS DOING!!!!so many viewers see his challenge of the accords and tony as a petty feud over a friend they view as not worth enough to even fight for. the absolute value of bucky aside, this puts him and steve in a position of not just selfishness but immaturity: steve acts like a child on the playground or a lovesick puppy. this could be personal platonic love, but imagine if bucky were steve’s long lost girlfriend instead (like if hydra took peggy). people would blast steve for being a fool in love much like they did wanda with vision in iw but they wouldn’t say he was as irrational for it! without that, bucky still gets the same treatment plus thinly veiled homophobia

some anti-woke fans literally mocked steve’s “weakness” with implications that they attribute it to him being gay for bucky. i mean looking back at some of steves lines theyre SO relevant and SO right!!! and so antifacism!!!! but they get ignored beause they force fed us surprise bucky!!!! and its almost like the film wants us to side with tony because the entire time steve’s resistance is played off as stupid and selfish FOR SOME GUY. it puts steve in a super negative light, objectifies bucky, and creates dislike for him because now hes nothing more than a catalyst and then erased for the rest of the mcu narrative????? just consider how the film would have been if it was completely absent of bucky? if all we heard were steve’s speeches on corruption and people using means to their own gain? of reading the fine print? of only being able to trust themselves and each other? 

td;lr: bucky’s development was twisted into a plot device that erased him of all personality because they didn’t want to devote the proper time and care to his storyline and they did that to fit it into the civil war plot line but it wasn’t even worth it because all it did was put bucky and steve in a negative light and as such steve’s entire argument in civil war becomes a big joke which sucks because he makes some top notch points

So…I saw a Blu-ray featurette on Bilibili where the writers and directors talk about Bucky, with key quotes like:

Cap 1 and Cap 2 both show that Cap’s allegiance, more than anything, is to Bucky Barnes, his best friends since when he was Steve Rogers, the 100 pound weakling. (Nate Moore)

The Winter Soldier has such a complicated history. We wanted that to have a real presence to it, to see the harshness with which he was treated. He’s both good and bad, hero and villain. (Joe Russo)

That’s the most heartbreaking scenario in his life, Bucky was the guy who’s always been there. Those are the scenes that make the action scenes worth it. What are you willing to compromise and sacrifice and forfeit for the greater good? And that is close to home for Steve. (Chris Evans)

Here’s Bucky Barnes, who’s been the Winter Soldier for 80 years, who in his own way was a Prisoner of War (Nate Moore)

Members of Hydra in Russia secreted him away to a missile facility in Siberia. He was treated with the same level of security as a nuclear weapon. (Joe Russo)

Suddenly, the main guy you have to defeat is your best link to the most pleasant memories you have of your childhood and of your past. (Kevin Feige)

We all know what happened between “Bucky is Steve’s strongest allegiance,” “his biggest sacrifice,” “his best link to his most pleasant memories” and Steve needs to retire into another timeline.

But what exactly happened between “Bucky Barnes was a prisoner of war and treated very harshly by Hydra” to “he needs to make amends for what he did under Hydra”?

Woman: stark should really date someone his age, those two are far to young for him

Bucky: *holds a hand out* I am capping in on 100 plus years old

Steve,: I am hitting 100 quite soon myself, good evening *holds his hand out*

Woman: *embarrassed hurrying away*

Tony: stop. Intimidating. People. *holds their arms* but you both are getting a big fat dinner tomorrow

Bucky: yesss *kisses his cheek*

Steve: *kisses his other cheek*

The Big Dude-Bro aka Marvel keeps watching and erasing Steve and Bucky's relationship, their history, moments... and even Bucky himself.

Don't let them win and SPEAK STUCKY: Create content, reblog content, read fic, read meta, look at old interviews, or show creators some love... but don't let them think we're not here till the end of the line. We are.

The Expendable Disabled Heroes of Marvel’s Infinity War

BY JOHN WISWELL 

(UNCANNY MAGAZINE | 2018)

"It’s the middle of the big Wakanda fight scene. Thor and Captain America banter about haircuts, M’Baku and Okoye crack skulls, and for a moment, Rocket Raccoon meets James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. The audience is ready to laugh the second the raccoon eyes up the veteran. They know what’s coming.

"Rocket compliments Bucky’s prosthetic arm, asks to buy it, and the audience tenses up.

"Bucky says it’s not for sale and returns to battle.

"Rocket mutters that he’ll steal that arm.

"And the audience laughs. I don’t."

-

Begging y'all to read this article.

friendly reminder that steve rogers was a victim of bad writing and weird self insert coming from creepy writers, he would never chose to abandon bucky and his found family, he would never chose to live in the past for no woman.

When you only fall in love with fictional characters:

It's so insane bc I watched Endgame in theaters right when it came out, I have had yearssss to get over Steve leaving Bucky. Getting into the fandom and getting more into sambucky has been like. A good way to find people who feel the same way about Endgame and also engage with happier stucky or sambucky narratives so I've kinda gotten past it but like. This bullshit "if stucky was het it would be canon" thing that Marvel is doing is soooo frustrating because it really has become so obvious in retrospect that the people who wrote and produced Endgame were so horrified, so petrified that people might think Steve could be queer that they needed to shoehorn in the most out of character ending for a beloved character and absolutely ruin the arc that was started in CATFA and continued in every one of his appearances since.

And ALSO like??? The message it sends about trauma survivors?? Genuinely, the message of Steve leaving Bucky for Peggy was "even if you think you can be loved and redeemed despite your trauma, the people who love you more than anything in the world might (will?) leave you for someone easier" like??? How devastating. It is so abundantly clear that Marvel doesn't know how to deal with characters like Natasha or Bucky who have done bad things in the past. Their answer for Natasha was "have her kill herself to make up for the shit she did in her past" and I'm 90% sure that's gonna be the MCU ending to Bucky's character arc as well.

one of the morons responsible for writing What If:

so there's no mention of hiring Nazis at all when Peggy wasn't there to do it? 

gotcha 👍

Personal review regarding what if…? season 2 episode 8 (spoilers)

No ok, I must admit, the episode was good in some aspects.

Wanda was majestic. Loki and Scott were hilarious and I loved every single moment with them.

Thor was amazing, dark and serious out of loss but still enjoyable, and the crumbs of his relationship with Hela were very nice.

I’ve actually liked Tony for the very first time in my life, probably because I tend to like him a lot more in AUs and fanfictions than I do in the normal timeline.

And then… there were those two.

I will never comprehend why marvel wants Steve to be so dependent on Peggy. And I will never comprehend why, to make him interact with her, they have to destroy or sideline every other relationship he has built, or make his character flat.

Bucky being friends with Scott was amazing, but the fact that him and Steve interacted like two times was extremely disappointing. You’d expect “best friends in every universe”, if you dislike the romantic pairing so much, to acknowledge themselves for more than a few scenes, in only one of which they’re in frame together (Bucky was literally 😐 while his best friend disappeared, come on now).

And the storyline about Peggy coming from another world to save the universe was just… Mbah. It could’ve been executed in another way without including her and it still would have made sense. It really feels like a Y/N insert.

Seeing literally any other character was so good, so fun, and they had to ruin it this way, making Peggy once again the self insert and girlboss she didn’t need to be.

Plus, forgive my constant complaining, but it’s extremely infuriating how all of Steve’s friends were eliminated to put the focus solely on Peggy. Where’s Sam? Where’s Nat? Where’s Clint? It’s not an underrated friendship we’re talking about, a big chunk of the fandom loves the cap quartet or team cap, and after civil war it would have been nice to see them interact, especially after its popularity and popular demand. Outlaw team cap would have been glorious, a good chance to bring back many characters who aren’t here anymore in the right way, and involve characters that are rarely involved in What if in the storyline, for a change.

The treatment of Sam in this series particularly angers me, and even more so in this episode. I understand not involving him in other storylines, but Sam was a big part of CATWS and he wasn’t even in the episode centered on that film. What, because Steve met him while running he can’t be introduced in any other way? And oh, there’s no excuse for this episode. If there was one episode they could have placed Sam in, it was this one. Sam was there in infinity war, where the mess happened, and he should have been with the other avengers in this one.

If marvel wanted to involve someone from another universe so bad, it should have been a Captain America Sam from another universe. Can you imagine the poetry of seeing Steve and Nat again after endgame? Can you imagine having closure with them both, and having fun in the process? It would have been so great.

Another great storyline without involving characters from other universes would have been one where Steve, who touched the time stone, accidentally brought everyone in the past, and he was the only one to remember it. And to go back and prevent everyone’s distraction, he had to recruit the avengers, who don’t know him and don’t trust him but that in the end become his friends and companions. It would have been so interesting to see the original avengers involved in something different from being some side characters or extras in the one woman show that seems to be What if, constantly centered around the same bland, one dimensional reimagined side character. Peggy’s blandness is so obvious in these episodes (aside for some random remarks that made me smile) that literally everyone who’s involved directly with her must be bland like her, otherwise risking to overshadow her.

I don’t think I was supposed to cringe and look away as much as I did during Steggy’s forced scenes, but I did. If they had to force Steggy and Peggy down our throats, at least they could have done something different from the same bland and boring storyline as always. I wouldn’t be as mad as I am now if Peggy and Steve’s relationship wasn’t as bland. I would have preferred an enemies to lovers type of twist or change, where Steve doesn’t trust Peggy and struggles with her because he sees in her a different version of the Peggy that died in that universe. But noooo, god forbid, let’s go with the same old song.

An episode five or ten minutes longer with a better, avengers-centric or Steve-centric storyline would have been much better than what we got.

And given that this was my most anticipated episode, I was very disappointed by it. I hope for the next seasons, if there’s other ones, Marvel will listen to the general complaint regarding Peggy and will give her a break. I don’t think any of the original avengers or relevant MCU characters made as much appearances as Peggy, and being a main focus in four episodes out of nine is ridiculous.

Thanks for your answer for the last ask.

What is wrong with the writers of the new MCU material? Do they just hate Bucky, especially the writer of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier (he's NOT the Winter Soldier anymore!)? Did Bucky kick their cat or something? This hatred and victim blaming is not justified! "Oh Bucky's just a cray-cray psycho killing machine with cool metal arm but probably belongs in a padded cell. Lol he says he had no choice such a lame excuse..."

Soo…I don’t know if people still remember the rumours from back in 2021 and I don’t know how much of it is true, but my guess at it is this: there were supposed to be two main writers on the series. Spellman was supposed to take Sam’s story, while the other guy wrote Bucky’s story. For whatever reason, the other guy quit before he finished, and didn’t give the writing team enough time to put things together.

From a story craft point of view, Bucky’s story in TFATWS reeks of first-draft-ism. It’s a scattered plot of events that don’t quite string together, and a self-contradictory characterisation that hasn’t yet been smoothed over (but was made a little more believable by Sebastian’s efforts). You can tell some central character themes had been planted in the first draft — the PTSD, the guilt, the messy way he’s trying to relearn how to interact with people (Yori, Sam and later the Wakandans), the struggle with breaking free of his past. These were all strong, interesting character beats for Bucky to work through, and it honestly could have been a good story. And I think that’s when the original writer bailed.

When Spellman picked up this draft, he was pressed for time, he hadn’t watched CATWS and he never thought he’d needed to know about Bucky’s story, so he reads TheMovieSpoiler summary of the movie and tries to piece the rest of the story together. But Bucky’s not his priority nor his interest. There’s already beats of the story that were planned and have to be there for IP reasons. So beyond what was already in the first draft as mentioned above, Bucky is made to be the fall guy to make the rest of the plot happen. Zemo’s release — well we can’t make Sam help break out the criminal that killed an African king so we’ll make Bucky do it, who cares if it makes no sense for his character. The counselling session — the show’s few moments of levity, doesn’t matter that it makes no sense but hey, forced homoeroticism is hilarious, isn’t it? The Wakandan three-way fight — I may be remembering this wrong but I think Skogland said it was one of the first scenes that she had planned for. That fight had to happen, and again Bucky was made to provoke the Wakandans to the point Seb had to step in and say, almost literally, “he would not fucking say that” to make them wind back the animosity between Bucky and Ayo. Sam’s suit — oh no we can’t have Sam asking for it himself that would be too egocentric, we also can’t have Wakandans offering because well, not like the plot actually made Sam a strong ally for Wakanda, so we get Bucky asking for Sam’s suit to be made minutes after he fixes his mistake of releasing Zemo. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense if it’s Bucky doing it, cos I really think by this stage Spellman didn’t give a shit about a character that wasn’t supposed to be his responsibility in the first place. It’s like when you’re doing group project and your teammate bails on you, you’re gonna do just enough to get that pass but you ain’t putting in the effort for a distinction cos just looking at the unfinished work is pissing you off. So then Bucky also becomes the token white male who pushes all the wrong buttons during the few token racism scenes cos we gotta make Walker have some redeemable qualities and he’s already a dick so we can’t make him racist too.

So instead of having a thoughtful story about a veteran trying to grapple with his guilt and PTSD and lack of agency and making some mistakes along the way, you get a weird disjointed plot of some guy…with some bad dreams…who randomly does things for no good personal reason…who gets made the butt of the joke for the stuff he’s experienced cos he’s got a metal arm and super soldier serum how hard could it have been he just needs to go and apologise for killing people while simultaneously having multiple poignant scenes portraying his lack of agency.

Every writer who tells you “a hero is only as interesting as the villain” just secretly wants to write a simpable villain. And when that writer isn’t very skilled, you get the disaster of TFATWS where a lot of effort is spent on making Zemo funny and personable, and Walker nuanced and sympathetic, instead of making either of the titular heroes funny or personable or nuanced or sympathetic. And yeah, I really don’t think Spellman ever cared enough about Bucky to want to make him sympathetic…or a hero. Remember when he said Bucky pulling open the van door was the first time Bucky has ever been a hero? Fuck right off with that.