thinking about how Steve can see Nat having an angsty moment and sit down beside her to comfort her

and see Wanda having an angsty moment and sit down beside her to comfort her

but if he sees BUCKY having an angsty moment and goes to comfort him...

they cut it from the movie 🤷‍♀️

I need to talk about how utterly incandescent with rage thr MCU's handing of Zemo makes me. Because in all media I had seen before Civil War do you know what Baron Zemo was? A Nazi. Motherfucker was a fucking Nazi. He was Hydra to his god damned core. What did the MCU do? They made an entirely different and utterly mediocre and uninteresting villain (as they usually do) and just slapped the name Zemo on him cos 'cool comic reference I guess!' With no fucking regard for what that would do. I don't even have the right words to explain why taking a nazi character and trying to make them 'sympathetic' is fucking gross, and frankly i shouldn't need to! That should be a perfectly understandable fact of existence! I wonder why Disney and Marvel are so reluctant to portray nazi and right wing characters on screen as evil now? I wonder why they shy away from that? Oh hello US military propaganda contract, I didn't see you there! Almost like showing nazis as they are would maybe look too similar to other things! So now! I get to see some dumb fuck straight white girl woobifying their precious little blorbo Zemo and shipping themselves with the Red Skull's successor. Or! Shipping Bucky fucking Barnes with him. You know. One of Hydra's best known victims in the MCU??? A man who damn near gave his life fighting nazis??? Yeah we should ship him with the sanitised nazi dude that's a good idea! Don't. Get me started. On the fucking flag smashers. I will never know Peace.

On Narrative Bias

I keep saying it annoys me how Wanda has done so many evil ass things and is never held accountable for her actions, and it never fails that someone tries to respond with “but aren’t you a loki stan? He’s done evil shit too! So you have a double standard and are a misogynist!!!!” Yeah, no. The difference is that you can clearly tell who the writers have predetermined as a hero vs a villain. You can tell who they want you to root for. Loki’s actions are given narrative consequences as harsh as possible, while Wanda’s are narratively excused and softened and sympathised. Let me show you what I mean.

* Loki commits treasons, tries to kill his brother & attempts genocide -> Loki’s father rejects him while he attempts suicide

* Loki tries to conquer earth -> Loki is sentenced to life in prison

* Loki incapacitates the king and secretly takes the throne -> Loki is threatened with a hammer to the face, we’re reminded how awful he is by all the other characters for the rest of the movie & he would’ve faced more consequences if the apocalypse hadn’t interrupted

* Loki steals the tesseract from the vault -> Loki watches his brother be tortured & then has his neck snapped

Now compare that to…

* Wanda willingly signs up to work for a nazi organisation, tries to help an evil robot murder the avengers, intentionally sets the hulk loose on a town of innocent people, & helps destroy Sokovia for a lil while -> Wanda gets a fatherly pep talk from Clint & is immediately accepted as an Avenger

* Wanda accidentally murders a bunch of people while on a mission -> Wanda is put on temporary house arrest in a giant mansion with her boyfriend

* Wanda buries her boyfriend/teammate under like 10 floors of concrete, breaks out of house arrest, & goes against a government order -> the leader of the superhero team defends her, a grown ass woman, by saying “She’s just a kid!”, she’s detained in a government prison for like a week maybe (?) during which she’s shown as a sad helpless victim to encourage sympathy from viewers, & then she gets busted out by the ex-team leader & eventually gets to run off to Scotland with her boyfriend

* Wanda holds an entire town hostage & tortures them just to fulfil her own grief-fuelled fantasy -> one of the women Wanda attacked reassures her that she’s the actual victim in all this and that the people she tortured just have no idea what she’s sacrificed for them & she escapes to an isolated location to read a forbidden demon book and make herself more powerful without anyone interfering

* Wanda goes on a serial killing spree across the multiverse, kidnaps a child, holds her hostage, tortures her, & attempts to take her powers all so she can steal another Wanda’s children because she misses her children that were never actually real in the first place -> Wanda gets some badass power sequences and #girlboss one liners, is the one that destroys the demon book, essentially saving the multiverse from future corruption, & is allowed to die a hero’s death (which we all know isn’t permanent)

See the difference?

—the music of #SAMSTEVE 🎶 ▶️ listen on spotify

Society if Tony Stark wasn’t in Cap 3

hiii I hope you're having a great day! I'm not kidding when I say that it took several read throughs before I sent this 😭 I was just wondering if you'd mind linking any marvel meta and critiques pertaining to civil war and the accords, endgame, tfatws, tony, peggy, and the way steve and bucky's characters were treated.

context: I'm trying to explain some things to a friend of mine, but I just know there's posts that explain it better than I can. I spent over an hour scrolling through various tags and I really struggled to find my favourites.

I hope this doesn't sound too demanding, and feel free to ignore it if you're busy or you don't want to do it. I'm honestly just hoping you have some kind of folder where you keep them all! if you do, though, I would love if you included your own posts, because yours are some of the best ones I've read.

anyway, wishing you the best 💖

I admit this makes me super happy because, it's like even the internet friends know I'm a folder person! I do have a lot CACW and Endgame meta even offline folder saved lol.

I don't know if there is any specific arguments or points you and your friend are discussing to direct at? Let me know!

Here's what I have that applies in my current bookmarks, except LewtonBus which I think are articles for self examine and not to bring to discuss in rebuttals with friends, because there is really good stuff in them to ponder but, they are thesis' I'm not 100% subscribed too.

Also I can't rec enough the blogs of @thehollowprince, @robotmango, @monardarmmm, @fearlessinger, @chirping_tiger, @kateis_cakeis, @laporcurina, @cosmicmechanism, @keire-ke. I've scoured there tags and takes and loved so much if it.

STUCKY & Endgame

https://bamsmackpow.com/2019/04/30/avengers-endgame-lack-of-closure/

This is my defining WTF Endgame article. I don't see how anyone can argue against it. There is no explanation or reasoning to give out to the obvious and intentional erasure of Steve and Bucky out of Endgame's story narrative and why it doesn't fucking matter if you like the ship or the characters at all, erasing them, denying it, failed the set up of the story structure and the basics of arc complete writing.

The Stucky Essay - bilittlebarnes - Captain America (Movies) [Archive of Our Own]

This essay is so good. I was drawn in by it's argument on the "Bucky is alive!" moment of Endgame critic, because it highlights that the movie itself knows Stucky makes more narrative sense and importance and therefore uses it, but of course won’t let it be acknowledged. America’s ass is on display, just not the one they think.

The Silence of Peggy Carter. Peggy Carter was founder and Director… | by Summer Barbeau | Medium

I'm being really critical of Peggy's character being so beloved lately, examining my past defense of, but I think this article is the bomb on why Endgame's Steggy is dismissive of the pairing and characters whether you like them or not. An ending that devalues and silences your partner for romance is a fail.

For CACW

Exorcism, Burial, and Analysis: Representing Trauma in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ – Ceci n'est pas un discours (wordpress.com)

CA:CW, the reaction - cute but prickly (tumblr.com)

TFATWS

‘Falcon & The Winter Soldier’ & The Myth of Nonviolence | by Alex Mell-Taylor | An Injustice! (aninjusticemag.com)

I know it might not run in pop circles to my friends list but I'll say I agree with most if not all of the Mooler's breakdown of TFATWS.

https://youtu.be/N0Tu6pCvjQ4

In that Karli read more villain than John Walker to me, despite show intent, and it needs massive overhaul, because it's message sucked in many many ways. And I thought Sam and Bucky did come of as morally wrong and kinda massive jerks in comparison to Walker, as did the ethics of the Flagsmashers, the Dora.

That doesn't mean I've any love or interest in the John Walker character independently, as Jessica Jones season 1 did that style story better...it's a story meh in comparison to what I want which is a focused Sam story...and I certainly have no love or respect for Zemo's addition likewise. Where to go with the Captain America stories and ethics of the characters is so f'ed right now.

One of the main criticisms of Tom Hollands Peter Parker is that he is not a stand alone character. He is supported by another hero, or the legacy of another hero, throughout his entire arc. This criticism is understandable, but that’s the entire point of his character. Tom Hollands Peter Parker is not removable from the character of Tony Stark because the characters represent each others motivations, and they learn so much from each other that telling a story about one requires mentioning the other as a motivation (as seen when Tony decides to give time travel a chance, and when Peter considers his future in front of the Iron Man mural.) The characters are the physical embodiment of the others major motivator.

Tony is motivated by regret, by the desire to return to morality that he feels he had before his father died, before the weapons of his company were put into his hands. He recognizes that he had power from a young age, the way Peter does. However, he regrets misusing that power in a way that harmed people. Peter is so careful to only help, which is the opposite of what Tony did at that age. Tony is motivated by regret, and in Peter, he sees what he could have been. Peter Parker represents the morality that Tony Stark wished he had.

Peter is motivated by confidence (or lack thereof). Peter begins his vigilantism (before CACW) confident in each of his personas separately, but entirely insecure when Peter Parker and Spider-Man are combined. He tells nobody of his double life, he only reveals his secret when forced to, or by accident. Tony Stark, who openly admitted to his vigilantism in front of the whole world, who encourages the idea that him and his vigilante persona are one and the same, would seem incredibly impressive to Peter’s insecurity in his double life. Tony Stark represents a confidence that Peter wished he had.

They represent each other’s motivation and what they wish they were. They come up in each others stories so often because they changed each other in a way that cannot be overlooked or unmentioned.

In Home, how does Steve feel about Howard as person/friend? What I get from your writing is that Howard clearly has a lot of affection and respect for Steve but when I read scenes that they have together Steve just seems very neutral(?) towards Howard. Or am I misinterpreting it?

I don’t mean this as a criticism or anything though I’m just genuinely wondering where Steve’s headspace is at with him. I’m loving your snippets for this upcoming chapter btw 👀

Steve loves Howard and thinks of Howard as a very close friend (and knows that Howard is in love with him and has been for years), but he's extremely aware of what happened to Howard in the future (getting murdered by the Winter Soldier for the serum*) and that he (Steve) is hiding that from Howard. A lot of Steve's interactions with Howard are also colored by his (at this point completely failed) relationship with Tony. Steve's also spent most of the past six years with Tony and knows Tony's mixed-to-negative feelings about Howard, so that's affecting his interactions with Howard. It does mess up a relationship when you know the other guy was in love-slash-obsessed with you and he ended up making it everyone else's problem for the next forty-six years and change because it didn't actually stop when he died. Also definitely his own problem, not just everyone else's. Howard never really accepted that Steve had died in 1945 and it fucked up him and everyone around him for the next forty-six years of his life, and all of Tony's life to the present day. That's a lot for Steve to deal with, even though none of that has happened to 1945 Howard yet.

(Steve and Tony's handful of interactions where Howard comes up are really interesting, because it's very, very clear that they essentially knew two different people -- I could talk about that one scene in CACW for hours.)

Not to mention the last time Steve saw Tony, Tony threw Howard's murder and the shield in his face, both while trying to kill him, so that's also a factor -- and because this is straight-from-the-Battle-of-Wakanda Steve, Steve is also convinced that Tony was killed by Thanos approximately five minutes before Steve landed in 1945, which is information that he really doesn't want to accidentally pass on to Howard. Steve knows that Tony went after Ebony Maw and Stephen Strange in New York and assumes that Tony would have died before giving up the Time Stone; since Thanos arrived in Wakanda with the Time Stone, ergo, Tony is dead. He has no way to know any of the details of the fight on Titan.

Steve's pretty distant from everyone (except Natasha) in 1945, because he still thinks that he's going to have to leave again; the moment he and Natasha have a way back to 2018, they're going to take it. He's terrified of getting too comfortable, too attached, again, because that will make it that much worse when/if he has to go. That goes for Peggy and Howling Commandos as well as for Howard; it's just that none of the others have "your kid tried to kill me about your murder two years ago" hanging between them. And that's a pretty heavy thing to conceal. By this point Howard and Peggy and the Commandos know that Tony hates Steve and tried to kill him, since it's come up a few times, but the absolute last thing that Steve wants Howard to find out is the circumstances of that particular event. (Especially because Bucky's survival has not been revealed.) Howard won't push Steve to have a deeply emotional conversation the way Peggy has done on several occasions, so Steve hasn't had to explain any of it to him yet. Which in a way is something of a relief to Steve because he doesn't want to have deeply emotional conversations, but it does mean that there's a wall between them. Howard is too purely relieved to have him back to push at all.

None of this is explicitly stated, because Steve's just not going to think it explicitly or say it out loud to anyone without some very specific prompting that hasn't happened yet, but that's the logic behind Steve's interactions with Howard. The closest he comes to thinking about it is probably in Chapter 6, during the scenes about the shield.

* I can't remember if it's come up explicitly in Home -- I'm guessing not because I don't think Steve or Natasha would have any reason to know -- but the circumstances of Howard's murder in Home are the same as in Horizon, i.e. he found out that SI and the U.S. Army were working on a super soldier serum, threw a fit, and was taking it to SHIELD when Alexander Pierce had him and Maria killed. It's not relevant here, but like with most of my backstories, this one is the same between the two universes.

Oh no I totally agree that it is undoubtedly fair, truly warranted, to criticize the way the attempt to rewrite his victim hood into him being at fault. I less so sent that ask towards you (bc I’ve followed you for a long time and know how you feel) and more so in a response to other anons. Truly, the erasure of Bucky being a victim sends me over the edge and the whole thunderbolts thing has me raging. That wasn’t really what I was trying to get at in my first ask. And I very very much agree that the whole ‘amends’ and Sam’s (ooc) line of basically tell him to man up and work harder, etc., was all rooted in toxic masculinity from the writers. I was more so trying to say that even though TFATWS did have some major issues, I don’t think Bucky was completely off from his prior characterization, unfortunately they did seem to teeter back and forth and be contradictory with his trauma. Especially considering some of the stuff the cast and crew have said in interviews that do lean towards Bucky being a victim. But when you look at a majority of his actual behaviors and personality, it’s pretty fitting unlike some people try to argue. While the whole going to Zemo thing was wildly unlike Bucky, I do think that him being shitty to Sam doesn’t really fall into the same category. I say that because some times, just real people, characters can be assholes and they have flaws, and you know in the end he knew he was in the wrong and partially didn’t understand Sam’s reasoning. So I do think that isn’t a mistake on the writers part but that’s just my personal opinion. In all, while I do think he wasn’t done justice or utilized properly, Bucky’s primary characterization wasn’t wrong. It was more so the way the storyline tried to depict him and how some of the other characters treated him.

Ah, thanks for coming back to provide more context 😅

To be honest, I credit Seb with 90% of Bucky’s characterisation in the movies and the show. Let’s face it, Bucky’s characterisation was pretty thin if we’re going off the scripts alone (including the movies). He was a plot device for Steve, not a fully written person. Seb was the one who made Bucky give the long weighty looks to Steve during the war, the child-like confusion during the conversation with Pierce, and those sad reflective half-smiles during CACW/IW/EG. He’s a small side character with an exceptional narrative importance, and a lesser actor would have just peeled off the lines and called it a day. Seb went hard into it - he researched vets and PTSD, he made headcanons for Bucky’s relationship with Steve and even his fighting style, for a character that had 15 lines in the movie with his name in the title and only 2 emotive scenes, he’s tried very hard to make it a believable, human emotional journey.

If you look purely at Bucky’s lines in TFATWS — particularly his to-and-fro with his therapist, Zemo and even some of the ones with Sam, under a different actor they could have been aggravating, petulant and caustic. Sebastian kept it consistent with Bucky’s journey up to now — he was weary, uneasy and always a little vulnerable under the gruffness. Sebastian is very good at doing vulnerable, and that alone saved Bucky from being a flat alpha male. Under a different directorial/writer team I would have said they did a good job with the consistency, but MCU directors since Russo’s are notorious for letting their actors take the reins with their characters especially for emotional beats. By and large, because they’ve been so lucky with their casting, that’s worked, but it’s going to fray at the seams eventually.

I think one of the reasons why people say Bucky was out of character (apart from some of the decisions) was that he had a period of healing in Wakanda, and when we saw him in IW he was smiling and friendly. When we meet Bucky in TFATWS he’s raw and nervous again, and something has made his recovery go backwards. The series then avoids the giant elephant in the room for both Sam and Bucky, which was how much hurt EG!Steve’s decision caused both of them…so while we can understand the context for Bucky’s anger, that context was never acknowledged to be true…and if we ignore that context, then there’s no reason his recovery should have gone backwards.

TFATWS was full of crappy contradictions like this.

Secret Invasion Ep. 4 Spoilers

As a Rhodey stan... i have a couple words and no words at the same time.

I think a lot of people online and in online MCU communities were mystified by the idea of someone [and that someone being Rhodey] being a Skrull that they failed to consider the implications of such a decision? and that generalization is itself one i'm not too confident in making but i find it to be the case nonetheless.

still, with so many communities talking about it... the actual reveal just felt so lackluster. Rhodey is a character, however you may see him, that has already shown so much heart, love, care, soul, realness, and groundedness that in revealing that he's a Skrull just doesn't... do the phase 1-3 versions of him justice at all.

And while I could go on a million rants about why I hate this decision (most of which involving my relationship with the phase 1-3 version of him that is being disregarded for the sake of moving phase 5 forward...), the main thing i wanted to rant about right here is the when.

When did Rhodey become a skrull?

I fear that neither of the two theories I have in mind means anything good for the Rhodey fans that value his relationship with Tony.

He's been a Skrull since Iron Man 3 (or somewhere around that time give or take a few years). (This one i'm not sure they would actually follow through with just because as much as the MCU says they're forward-thinking, some of their decisions lead me to believe the contrary.) This is rooted in the use of extremis, a project that was experiencing issues in the film and Tony figured out how to stabilize for the sake of saving Pepper Potts's life. While SHIELD would have had this technological information as a result, there is a strong possibility that the events of Iron Man 2 may have convinced some people that Rhodey would be willing to even give up that information which was personal to Tony for a greater gain (or even something not in his control if he were coerced into such an action).

He, as a very popular theory suggests (one that i also take issue with), became a Skrull following the events of Captain America: Civil War. In this film, he was critically injured during the battle in the Leipzig-Halle Airport where Vision shot a blast through the War Machine suit, leaving Rhodey paralyzed from the waist down. My personal issue with this theory is that I've always had an issue with the way Rhodey's tone toward the Sokovia Accords shifted between CA:CW and Avengers: Infinity War (where initially expressed full support for them in CA:CW but was then extremely lax [admittedly the circumstances were what they were] during IW). However, logistically speaking, when could there have been a better time for a Skrull to take on his likeness? After Thanos' snap? After Tony's snap? Before Falcon and the Winter Soldier? It seems like the most seamless transition had to have occurred during the time that Rhodey was seriously injured in CA:CW.

All of this is merely speculation. However, one of the biggest plotholes of the entire Secret Invasion series so far has been the lack of clarity on when these prominent figures became Skrulls. Hopefully, I'm wrong with all of this. Still, this won't change the impact of the one character from the earlier phases of the MCU that actually recalls the events of IM1,2,3, A1,2 CACW, etc. being a Skrull. It won't take back the pain that comes with the knowledge that to some degree or another, the face of a close friend of Tony Stark was involved in such heinous acts (almost directly paralleling the relationship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in the mcu as well) and I fear the implications for the upcoming Armor Wars film won't be kind for the version of Rhodey that will awaken in a world where everything has changed.

tbh the worst thing about cacw is that the actual civil war arc in the comics was about civil rights, government surveillance, the individuals right to privacy, security vs liberty… you know, important issues that make a compelling story

and the movie, bc the mcu can’t actually be critical of the US government for more than 5 minutes without losing its military funding, had to frame it as if it was about steve rogers being “selfish” because he *checks notes* doesn’t want his friends to be unjustly imprisoned for things that weren’t their fault??

it’s just wild that we’re supposed to take tony’s side or see this as steve’s “showing his dark side” given the way the conflict was set up and given the fact that in the comics tony stark’s side of the conflict is portrayed as unambiguously wrong and only acting out if a misguided desire to “change the system from the inside” - something the movie brought up for about 5 seconds and then immediately dropped because, again, following that plot thread would require them to be critical of the US government in a way that can’t be blamed on fictional cartoon nazis bc yeah as much as i love catws it very definitely lets the US government off the hook for all the fascist shit bc “hydra did it!”

social and political commentary are inherent to comic books just like other sci fi and fantasy genres and the mcu is the perfect example of how tryin f to strip them of that commentary leaves you with a bland, nonsensical mess of butchered characterization

(another) Thing that annoys me about the Cap movies: 

We never got to see the scene where Steve & Co found out about the torture and mind-control used on Bucky. 

Because that should’ve been super important!

It would have vindicated Steve’s faith in him, proved Bucky’s victimhood and innocence, and turned Nat and Sam 100% around on whether or not Bucky was worth helping (whether or not it was worth them apparently wasting years of their lives helping Steve to find him). 

They’re supposed to have been: 

A) hunting down the remains of Hydra for years, 

B) familiarising themselves with all the Hydra info Nat dumped at the end of of CATWS, and 

C) hunting for Bucky-related information specifically amongst all that. 

Meaning they absolutely cannot have avoided finding, for example, all the places Bucky was tortured in, the specialised enhanced torture equipment (impossible to mistake for that used on a non-supersoldier), cells he was held in, all the specialised physical restraints, tailored for an enhanced person with a cyborg arm, documentation of his torture, witness testimony from surviving Hydra mooks at the Triskelion, etc., and seeing it firsthand. 

And for some of that time, they know Hydra had access to a magic mind-control stick, courtesy of Loki, and an enhanced person who can control minds (Wanda). 

So even if Steve didn’t find evidence of Bucky’s mind-control early on in his search, he and Natasha definitely do know that mind-control is possible (especially Natasha, given her roots in the Red Room and the fact that her bff was mind-controlled.)

Even if you ignored Nat and Sam’s personal backstories, which preclude both of them from being dismissive of a victim (a veteran who suffered a fall, a mind-controlled Russian ‘assassin’), it doesn’t make sense for Nat and Sam to still be trying to suggest Steve step back from helping Bucky, the way they do in CW. 

They cannot still be ignorant of what was done to Bucky, when they have been specifically investigating what was done to Bucky, and all that information has to have been impossible for them to avoid! 

Instead of which, the movie just skips right over the reveal to Steve and Sam of the mind control (going straight from ‘scene of mind-control’ to ‘scene of Steve being skeptical (which he shouldn’t and wouldn’t be)’ to ‘scene of talking about trigger words already’). Casually implying that either Steve and Sam already knew about it, or that Bucky has just explained it to them... 

But only off-camera. 

And yet, Sam is still salty and scornful of Bucky’s innocence (even when they have just seen mind-control happening, Bucky is suffering amnesia of WS acts in front of him, apparently just told him about mind-control, and then proves that he has his pre-war memories). 

So they imply the content of skipped scenes but then have characters act in ways that are... irrational, given the skipped content?? 

Makes no damn sense! 

This is old news at this point but you know, it's my blog and I can say what I want. I'm also frustrated over this once again.

I got very done with Marvel because of how easily the fandom overall fell to the propaganda of Civil War. And it was propaganda, for the American government and military. It's no coincidence that it came on the heels of Winter Soldier, where the message was downright anti-government. I liked and still like Tony Stark as a character, but in Civil War, his characterization was bullshit because they turned him into a pro-government oversight mouthpiece.

And then there's the Sokovia Accords... which was another version of Marvel's Mutant Registration Act... which was another version of everyone 'undesirable' being labeled with stars or triangles during the Holocaust.

Which side supported the Accords? Tony's. Which side was pro-government? Tony's. And uh… which side was portrayed to be sympathetic during the (ostensibly a Captain America) movie? Tony's.

So yeah. If you were a Team Iron Man person during and after that movie, you're a victim of propaganda. Happens to the best of us.

Am I saying you should've been team Cap? Nope. Because that's also a time honored tradition of the American government, turning people who should be on the same side against each other for bullshit reasons.

I'm team critical thinking and "stop putting government propaganda in our movies". Imo, I think CACW should have been discounted by fandom as fandom has done for crap canon takes since fandom has existed. T'Challa was the only redeeming part of that movie aside from the cool fight choreography. And his message was essentially "Find the truth and don't make hasty decisions driven by anger." which now that I think about it... seemed to miss a lot of fandom and is kinda my entire point here.

It continues to baffle me how people think that the Accords were put forward by the US gov and that it would've let the US gov control the Avengers. It was the UN. 117 different countries signed on.

CACW is my least fave MCU movie for the fact that it doesn't clearly define...anything, really. Who put forward the Accords is one of the few things that IS clearly defined and people just like pretend that the movie said something completely different?

Granted I'm critical of the Accords from both a Watsonian and Doylist standpoint but at least I criticize them for what they were.

Ah, but don't you know, AMURICA is the only country that matters! /s

More seriously, I would blame the use of Secretary of State Ross as the emissary for the Accords and the chief visible enforcer. It colored the entire perception for casual viewers who are allergic to paying attention.

Which, IMO, was the entire reason the writers used Ross, who absolutely has no business being named Secretary of State (he is in no way a diplomat) and no business enforcing the accords since he, well, *gestures vaguely at everything he ever did*. The Russo Brothers had decided a long time ago that Cap was the one they loved above anything else, and wrote CACW to make Cap look as good as they could.

Tellingly, for so many people, they still failed, which is why they then had Infinity War and Endgame take Cap's side even harder and then kill Tony and give Cap the time-travelling but fixing nothing because reasons ending, but...

Yeah. Not the US. 117 countries. All of whom had the right to decide who enforces the laws within their own countries.

The nerve of Tony Stark to be a complete prick to Steve from the moment they met and then be shocked that Steve would choose Bucky over him.

my dad is watching cacw and i an still SO fucking angry about this movie