gonna grow you a place safer than this

Rewatching the winter soldier for the bazillionth time and truly, what I love about it, are the “everyday” heroes who tried to do the right thing:

This movie was about every person having the same energy as Steve Rogers; every person can be a hero if they choose to.

This movie is somehow more relevant in 2019 than it was in 2014.

kept tags: #winter soldier now feels like such an outlier#partly because.... think about it. where's everyone else in infinity war or endgame? i mean *everyone else.* the public. people.#age of ultron. civil war. infinity war. endgame. they all reduce nonpowered bystanders to pure collateral damage.#at least in the first avengers film they showed cops and firefighters trying to help fight and protect#but in everything after that? all the team movies? everyone but the heroes are just there to be menaced or killed#there's no brave civilians#there are barely any civilians at all#the streets and parks were totally empty in the earth fights of infinity war#'oh but it's a cosmic struggle you can't have somebody from brooklyn throw a tire iron at thanos'#uh buddy#that's steve rogers right there#that's the essence of his character and of so many heroic characters#I don't care how cosmic the stakes are#give me an underdog's fight or fuck off basically#give me nonpowered people who just happen to give a shit about their neighborhood and or world#give me brave civilians#give me the old german guy who told loki to go fuck himself#they demonstrate that the world is more than superpowered squabbles: it's a society worth fighting for.

Duuuuuuuuude, those tags. 😍

Yesss this

#Sam Wilson: Sassy Bitch Graduate 2k14

I always kinda fixate on how Sam’s gaze lingers condescendingly on Steve after he delivers this line, and it’s produced this headcanon where after the VA scene, Sam and Steve go out on a date and hit it off really well and go back to Sam’s place and bang, but Steve wakes up while Sam is still making breakfast and is like “I’m sorry to do this, but I have to go” and is apologetic and cringe-y and Sam kinda watches him dubiously with his spatula in hand but is like “alright, man, see you around.” Whether Steve left because he got cold feet or a mission kinda varies in my head. But it makes Sam’s “if u EAT breakfast u fuckin shit” face in this scene (and the startled but slightly reserved way he initially answers the door) funnier to me.

Like I have not been able to stop thinking about this????

It… also kinda explains Steve’s little “okay I deserved that” head bob?

also explains

HEADCANON FUCKING ACCEPTED

actual footage of me trying to figure out how the exact same people who made Captain America: The Winter Soldier also made Avengers: Endgame

Okay, I’m not reblogging this from anyone in particular because it’s more than one specific person, but I just want to say, there’s a reason I phrased this “the exact same people” and not “the exact same directors” or just “the Russos”.

Winter Soldier and Endgame had the exact same creative team. The Russos were the directors, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were the writers, Kevin Feige was the executive producer.

To reiterate, the same people who wrote Winter Soldier also wrote Endgame. That means the same people who wrote, “None of us can go back,” were the same people who then wrote Steve going back to the woman who literally said those words to him!

(Also, like, the plot of Winter Soldier actually makes sense?? Like, if you “don’t understand time travel” then don’t use it as a plot device??? Or at least bring in another writer who does???? Winter Soldier is an actual movie, not just a collection of cool gifs and callbacks that doesn’t hang together if you actually think about it for more than half a second.)

The point is, I’m not just blaming the Russos here. I’m blaming the whole damn creative team. And they’re all the exact same people responsible for both movies.

That’s what I’m having trouble wrapping my head around.

the same people who wrote steve saying “this isn’t freedom; this is fear” wrote him retiring under mccarthyism.

Bucky: Tony, are you okay? You hit your head pretty hard.

Tony, squinting: Jesus? Is that you?

Bucky:

Tony is all of us

alright, hang on a fucking minute.

if bucky were a woman in the mcu, y’all would be so angry. why?

because bucky barnes, as he exists currently, is used mainly a plot device for steve rogers in the mcu.

look, i love bucky, so this isn’t coming from a place of hatred (if anything, it’s disappointment that we don’t have a bucky who’s more fleshed out and less dependent upon steve); his character is cool, but as of recent, his personal character development has been set aside for steve’s character development and Angst. 

now, back to the whole “if bucky were a different gender you’d hate him” thing i mentioned earlier:

if bucky were a woman, we’d hate the absolute reliance he has on steve. bucky relies on steve to protect him, fight for him, and clear his name (as evidenced in civil war). bucky isn’t independent, and doesn’t operate separately from steve for any meaningful amount of time. 

bucky barnes is an interesting, captivating character, but less so in his mcu counterpart currently. (marvel feel free to take this as a challenge)

bucky barnes has been through hell, arguably worse than steve has. he’s had his brain stuck in a blender and poured back into him, and he’s still missing pieces. he’s killed people, made enemies, and probably suffers ptsd from hydra and the things he did as the winter solider. but once steve doesn’t need bucky for his plot, back on ice goes bucky. think about that. i mean, yeah, i guess icing himself is a ‘good’ idea at the end of civil war, but maybe it was because the writers don’t know how to write bucky without having him rely mainly on steve’s own plot. 

listen, bucky is a good character, but as soon as he’s anywhere next to steve rogers, he becomes a little lost puppy dog incapable of handling his own shit.  and yet, does he get to do anything about that? no, he gets himself a new arm and rejoins steve as his side hoe plot device (oh and forget letting bucky talk about his problems, let’s just shove him into another war shall we)

(I would almost argue that the winter solider has better characterization than bucky barnes does but that’s another post entirely)

I agree with all of this, and I just want to add––when Natasha was shown to be interested in Bruce and emotionally opening up to him, everyone went mad because she is a strong woman and there is no reason for her to even want Bruce’s support. Likewise, Sharon was (I think justly) disliked for being Steve’s random love interest in a weird timing in cacw.

And yet, when we so much as say “hey, Bucky deserves better than to just be glued to Steve’s side 24/7″ a lot of st/cky shippers especially get annoyed and assume that st/cky = bucky being Steve’s angst side plot.

If Bucky didn’t have such a big potential with the other characters, I would perhaps be less annoyed. But Bucky has basically spoken to no one other than Steve (and for a little bit Sam and Shuri) in all of the movies he’s been in, and I find it odd, because his story actually affected a lot of people. I mean even when Tony found out he killed his parents, the story was turned back to Steve and his lies/secrets. We didn’t get Tony & Bucky bonding over the issue, and Tony perhaps feeling guilty for even lashing out at Bucky since Bucky did not do that by choice, etc. We didn’t get Bucky speaking to like, anyone, in cacw about what he wants to do or where to go, and Steve kept making all his decisions for him.

Frankly, I think steve & bucky’s relationship in mcu is just badly handled and Harmony is right about saying how if Bucky were a woman, everyone would be angry about that stuff.

We don’t get bucky interacting with anyone else, really. 95% of the time he’s spent thus far on-screen has been either next to steve or him doing something that *surprise* benefits steve’s plot, and not bucky’s. honestly, y’all would call it like an abusive fucking relationship if bucky were a woman, simply because steve’s idea of “oh, let me just make bucky do all this shit and not, idk, talk about the past LITERAL ALMOST DECADE OF BRAINWASHING AND TORTURE but oh my angst-filled gaze into the side of the camera should suffice.”

nah, fuck that noise. steve rogers and bucky barnes are good characters, but they melt into one giant STEVE ROGERS ARC with a little bit of bucky i guess?? every time they’re both on screen.

Let’s remember that Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers was the kid who befriended a small sickly boy looked down on and picked on by everyone else without caring what anyone thought.

Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers was a smart, bright, likable young man who enjoyed going to dance halls and science fairs.

Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers earned the respect, friendship, and loyalty of his soldiers to such an extent that when a stranger in spangly tights saves their lives only to ask them to follow him back into the fray, they agree because this guy’s nuts but he’s got Sarge’s seal of approval.

Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers withstood years of unimaginable physical and psychological torture until his captors were finally forced to strip him of his memories and all sense of self in order to make him compliant, and even then had to phrase his missions as fights for the good of the world.

And then, Bucky Barnes, with no knowledge of Steve Rogers or himself, with no agency or moral compass, couldn’t be kept out of cryostasis for too long lest he regain the smallest sense of self and turn on his masters. Because even they knew that James Buchanan Barnes was the furthest thing from a bully, and feared the vengeance he would bring down on them if he realized what they were forcing him to do.

And this is just Bucky Barnes in the MCU, who’s had maybe a half hour of screen time and a handful of lines.

Yeah, the seeds of the Winter Soldier are in Bucky, insomuch as he is competent, loyal, fierce, a brilliant tactician, capable of doing the dirty work to save others the burden, and a bit ruthless when it comes to protecting innocents and those he loves. But isn’t it telling that even stripped of everything but these attributes and then turned to destruction and chaos he becomes, not a bully, but an asset of terrifying efficiency? The Winter Soldier is single-minded and brutal in carrying out his missions, but he is an effective soldier, not a bully.

James Buchanan Barnes is a hero, and nothing, not the absence of one man (even a man like Steve Rogers) or anything else, could change that.

I’ll shout this from the rooftops every day until I die

We get to see more of who Bucky is in the comics (we see more of everyone in the comics – 80 years of story telling!), but even in the MCU, Bucky is so much more than his relationship with Steve. His goodness doesn’t come from Steve. Rather, he and Steve get along because they’re both good.

FUCKING THIS

Concept: Some jackass shows Bucky how to make a blog and it becomes really popular. Not because it’s the blog of James Buchanan Barnes, American Legend, War Hero, Infamous Assassin, Alleged Terrorist. Nobody even knows it’s his blog. It gets really popular because people think it’s a really great shitpost generator or something. Because Bucky is just a Weird Fucking Person and everything he posts on his fucking personal blog comes off as somewhere between dril and Jaden Smith and people are like “this is some quality garbage right here” and thus Accidental Memelord Bucky is born.

Bucky posts things like

“What is wrong with bananas. I ate a banana today and it was Wrong. America why”

“Every time I put on my eye makeup it gets bigger. My whole face is eyeliner now.”

“Why does friendship feel so much like punching”

“When I wake up in the middle of the night I am either thinking ‘who am I? does my life have meaning?’ or “did I already eat all of the plums?’”

“Why are you so grumpy” they ask me. they do not realize this is just my Face.”

“I know i said i would give my left arm for a cup of coffee but i am more awake now and i would like my arm back please”

“I guess I must have done something horrible in a past life. I mean. I definitely did something horrible in this life, so. “

OMG I LOVEEEE

YEEESSSSSSS!

“Guy in front of me won’t move his car seat up. I think that might still be upset about all those times I tried to kill him.”

“Got lectured by a guy who had been complaining about how things were Back In The Day. I don’t understand why he got upset. I too lived through the Great Depression and was drafted for the War.”

“The economy in this century sucks. Who exactly though another Stock Market crash was a good idea?”

“Apparently, it was Rude™ of me to pitch in my two cents on a conversation I happened to overhear, despite agreeing with them. On an unrelated note, I am no longer allowed in the ceiling vents.”

“‘If you don’t behave we’ll send (mutual) after you.’ Jokes on them. I’m the one who trained them to be an assassin in the first place.”

“Tried to buy a Chicken Dinner candy bar at the supermarket today. Turns out they were discontinued 54 years ago. Super bummed.”

“Wait. People were on the moon?! We got into space? There is a way off of this rock?! Why am I only just hearing about this?!”

“'Have you been living under a rock the past 50 years?’ No I was cryogenically frozen for 70. I don’t appreciate your tone young man.”

“My friend likes convincing people that I’m the Reckless one in our friendship. As if he won’t find an alley behind a bar to pick a fight in if I take my eyes off him for two seconds.”

“Why would i want to get a haircut when instead I can look like i just returned from a 12 year jaunt in the wilderness every time i grow a beard”

“was having a hard time finding noodles in the grocery store & asked a clerk for help. she looked at me like a crazy person. lady, it’s not my fault you don’t speak russian”

“what kind of idiot thinks dancers are sissies? literally every ballerina i have ever met could kill an adult man with just her legs”

“today i discovered Conditioner. the future is a miracle and my hair like a cloud now”

“apparently just jumping on to a moving bus when you are running late is not a thing people do anymore. please stop yelling at me.”

“went to a club last night to see what the hip kids were into. apparently the latest thing is just having sex standing up with your clothes on in a room full of people.”

“on the one hand, people dressed much nicer in the 40s. on the other hand, yoga pants.”

“rode in a car with heated seats today. it is my house now. i live here.”

“i have acquired a small bear. i am putting a collar and leash on him. he is my dog. no one tell animal control”

“i am working on this whole Good Guy thing but anyone who cuts me in line at starbucks deserves to have their kneecaps shot out okay”

“why did they have to make escalators so terrifying to get on and off of? from now on I’m just jumping off the mall balconies. none of this awful moving teeth staircase”

“i don’t care if it’s a ‘priceless historical artifact,’ punk, i didn’t wanna do the dishes and it makes a pretty good spaghetti bowl”

“hoodie pockets are so great. i can fit like three sandwiches and a grenade in there and my hands are still warm”

“i really though we would have flying cars by now. the future is such a letdown.”

“changed sam’s ringtone to jesus take the wheel.”

“do you know that feeling when you go to lean on your short friend’s conveniently arm-rest-height shoulder but you forget they had a huge growth spurt and you just awkwardly lean your elbow into the middle of their bicep”

“i swear i didn’t know your girlfriend was coming over. i always ominously clean my assault weapons on the coffee table like that. it had nothing to do with you.”

“Wait when the fuck did America and Germany become buddies?”

LMAO YES