Natasha Deserved Better

[cuntylestat]

being obsessed with captain america: the winter soldier in 2014 is something that will always be inside of you

[bundibird]

Iron Man 1 really said "the actual bad guy is the white capitalist who is selling arms under the table to both sides in order to extend the war and make as much money from it as possible," and Iron Man 2 really said "the white capitalist who gives a platform to people with bad intentions in order to make a buck is the reason the bad intentions have the opportunity to prosper and cause untold damage," and Iron Man 3 really said "the real terrorist is the white capitalist who will create and use fear to manipulate governments and the public in order to sell a product," and I really don't think enough people recognise this.

[bundibird]

Some people saw Aldrich Killian say "by this time tomorrow, I'll have the West's most powerful leader in one hand, and the world's most feared terrorist in the other. I'll own the war on terror. Create supply and demand," and they still managed to miss the whole entire message of the movie.

[suet-raptor]

to be fair, it does spend a lot of screentime with Tony's problems, and I can see how that particular messaging can be lost when you spend half the movie worrying about the personal problems of a

white male billionaire

who seems basically just to sit playing with toys while his wife does all the work of making his company profitable

who inherited an arms dealing fortune

whose signature power is the ability to be better than the bad guys at making tools of violence

like I'm not saying there's nothing it has to say, but you can see why people might be distracted

[bundibird]

I mean. He is the main character. So of course the movie is focussed on him and his problems. Because... he's... the main character. If the films were focussed on someone else, then they wouldnt have been called the Iron Man movies, would they?

Also Pepper isnt made CEO til early in the second film, and isnt his partner til the end of that movie -- and even once she's both, she certainly doesnt seem to mind being the CEO of her partner's multi billion dollar company (and in fact appears to thrive in the role).

And re dotpoint three: he rather famously shut down the weapons manufacturing of his inherited company in the first movie; a choice which caused considerable conflict with literally every single person who knew him both personally and professionally, and yet he stuck doggedly to that decision and never reversed it, entirely shifting the company to producing things other than weapons in spite of staunch opposition coming from every angle. Tony Stark is actively a weapons manufacturer/distributor for... the first ten minutes of the first film. And for the remaining 370 minutes of his films (not even including his screentime in the avengers/spidey films) he is actively NOT a weapons manufacturer/distributor.

And re your last dotpoint -- i mean. Yeah? But again: he's the main character, and the central aspect of his character is that he's iron man. So... of course a considerable part of his character is about creating better tools than his enemies and ultimately coming out the victor. Because he is the main character in a superhero movie, and thats how superhero movies work. Spiderman movies rely on Peter Parker being better at taking down badguys than the badguys are at taking down Spidey. Cap storylines are the same. So are the Thor films. So are..... most films centred on an action protagonist. So.......... yeah? But also: thats sorta the point of action movies?

And i mean. Its completely fine to dislike the IM movies or the character. If the films or character arent your cup of tea, then alrighty. But lets not pretend that having a main character that the story focuses on is somehow a story-telling flaw or that having that main character ultimately outwit/outlast/outplay his opponents is any kind of uncommon action story trajectory.

[imposterogers]

btw in a sane world where endgame wasn’t literal trash MCU peggy carter would never be compatible with steve rogers longterm because her morals are too fucked up. she and howard recruited hundreds of hydra (aka nzi) scientists to work for the organization they named in steve’s honor including the one that tortured steve’s best friend. but #girlboss I guess

[imposterogers]

and this is the reality that endgame created — peggy recruits nzis to work at shield, steve lets her knowing full well they’re going to infiltrate the entire american government, and they both sleep easy knowing bucky barnes is the winter soldier and actively being tortured #powercouple

[hotniatheron]

tumblr users aged 25-35 when you bring up bucky barnes:

[potofsoup]

Because I’m tired of the “Steve sucks at modern technology” trope.  He was picking up and using HYDRA tech that was powered by the tesseract in WWII. And user interfaces were pretty un-intuitive back then — knobs labeled in German or French, most likely.  And think about the number of dials and thingamabobs on an airplane control panel!  Yes, he’s a man out of time, but it’s probably the social stuff that’s much harder to adjust to.  (You can tell he’s recently-thawed because he still insists on wearing at least a button-down shirt and suspenders when out in public.)

[msjarvis]

THIS IS AMAZING!!!!

[digitalillumination]

Steve Rogers understands technology better than you

[be-compromised]

SHIELD: now let’s introduce the defrosted time traveller to things slowly…

Steve ‘I smashed through the wall’ Rogers: I already looked that up online and I’m mad about it

[theironman]

[attolirene-deactivated20160522]

#can we take a moment to discuss natasha’s willingness to lay down her life at a moment’s notice#the fandom LOVEs to go on and on about steve’s depression and self-hatred#but GOD natasha’s is so deep and consuming and you can see how unworthy she feels to even just exist in this world#she doesn’t see herself as a hero - that there’s no worth to her after all she’s done#dying for a cause is the best she could ever do#GIVE ME ALL THE REDEMPTION-SEEKING GUILT-RIDDEN WOMEN WHO WOULD LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR OTHERS IN A HEARTBEAT

[ivvyela]

nothing on this god's green earth can convince me that peter parker doesn't have an ao3 account where he is elbows deep in a 'rise of skywalker' fix-it fic. like, fully invested in it, been writing it pre-spider bite with ned, who is just as enthusiastic about it. but the thing is, it's really hard to do updates when you are literally spider-man.

every three months he'll post and in the author's note there's some shit like "sorry this took a while, i got shot seven times :/" or "i know it's been a minute, i literally got hit by a bus and then stabbed in the leg, but i'm all good!" or sometimes ned would log in and post with a note "hey i'm a friend posting on the author's behalf, they're healing from severe hypothermia but promised an update, so here it is!"

and the fic just gets increasingly more popular for the author notes alone. a good handful of the comments are something along the lines of "i'm not even in the star wars fandom, i'm just here to see if the author is good" or "every update i cheer for another day the author gets to live at this point"

and any reader who is a native new yorker kind of pieces together that holy shit the author might be spider-man because the timeline adds up, and they just fully embrace it. spider-man will stop a robbery and the guy behind the counter will ask when the next chapter will be up. spider-man returns a stolen backpack to a girl and she'll tell him that he "really got poe's voice down so well, it's really impressive."

ned thinks it is hilarious. mj finds out about the fic from twitter, to peter's absolute horror, and changes peter's contact name to "friendly neighborhood ao3 author". but the worst thing to happen is after an avengers battle where peter took a pretty big hit and ends up in med-bay. and during a press conference, when someone asks how spider-man is healing, tony just drops "spidey won't be down for too long. the star wars fic will be updated within the week, probably."

ao3 goes down for two days.

[portraitofemmy]

occasionally i will be going about my life and then I will remember how good Captain America: The Winter Soldier was, and how much the fandom made of it, genuinely healing and thought provoking works that informed a lot of my own ability to think about trauma and empathize— then I remember everything that happened in canon after and just. wow. Wow. they really flushed all that potential down the toilet.

[userachilles]

why does the mcu hate steve so much what did he do

[userachilles]

#they accidentally made him gay and now he’s being punished for it

[hey-rissyroo]

Absolutely True!

[possibleplatypus]

@cosmicmechanism I see no lies

[headspace-hotel]

corporations can't be trusted with storytelling

[magewardensurana]

The problem with the winterwidow fandom on tumblr being small is we all follow each other so I see the same post multiple times in a row.

The good thing is I see the same post multiple times in a row!

[sidekick-syndrome]

One of the things that interests me the most about the original Winter Soldier arc is just how personal the intention behind Project: Winter Soldier was.

When I read issue 5 of Brubaker's run for the first time, it seemed almost like it was just a filler issue to pad out the arc and introduce some exposition about the new, shadowy villain. One of those many war flashbacks, because the run had been focusing pretty heavily on events of the past. Then, later issues completely recontextualized it. Not to say it's not complete exposition, because it is, but there's a lot more weight to it on a reread.

For as much as a tragedy this is in-universe, the reckless loss of life, it sort of just seems like a typical villain backstory/motivation. Then you get a few issues further in the arc, and you finally learn who the Winter Soldier is.

Honestly, I find it a little strange that Karpov only appears/is named a handful of times, because issue 11 very firmly establishes him as the Winter Soldier's primary architect. It also very firmly establishes that, while there is a lot of value that the KGB/Department X got out of the Winter Soldier, one of the most pressing reasons that they even turned him into their assassin was because Karpov had a grudge against Captain America. Not in the broader "people got killed because of your intervention/the intervention of superhumans like you" sense, but specifically because Captain America "shamed" him and made him feel inferior.

Essentially, Codename: Winter Soldier exists as a means for Karpov to heal/put right his wounded pride. Forcing this American icon to serve and kill for those who were offended by him (those who later became his nation's enemy), was a more symbolic gesture than it was a practical one. On top of that, one of Karpov's final orders before his death was that the Winter Soldier be decommissioned, turning him into nothing more than an "abandoned experiment."

Bucky is, of course, a talented assassin as the Winter Soldier, but because he's artificially loyal to Department X and not naturally, he is not an efficient agent for them by any means. Ensuring that he stayed stable was a constant concern for those who wanted to use him as their weapon. They only started putting him in cryogenic stasis around 1958 (or 1957 depending on the source, but 1958 is the more recent citation), and it's approximately the same for the frequent memory wipes & implementation.

But frankly, no matter how talented the Winter Soldier is with espionage and murder, the only thing that made him a truly valuable investment to the KGB was Karpov's grudge. I suspect that if Karpov hadn't ordered him decommissioned, Department X and the KGB would have stopped reviving him and sending him out to do their work anyways; realistically, the constant memory wipes to curb his "instability" must have been expensive (time-wise and resources-wise), as would have been the cryogenic stasis and maintenance. At some point, the cost to keep him serviceable to the KGB would have outweighed his value as their operative.

(And that is, of course, not even touching on the political state of the Soviet Union in the late 80s.)

Even later on, when Aleksander Lukin revives Bucky to retrieve the Cosmic Cube from the Red Skull, it is both because he was Karpov's protege (following his will), and because he is making an enemy of Captain America and SHIELD with his mission. It all returns to that same old grudge and the symbolism it allows for. Lukin sends the Winter Soldier to go out and kill Jack Monroe/Nomad (because he had been one of the people to take up the role of Captain America's Bucky when Steve and James were presumed KIA). Using the Comic Cube, he plagues Cap with visions of the day that he and Bucky died/went into the ice. He has the Winter Soldier kidnap Sharon Carter, who would- and did- recognize him as Bucky, and who would tell Steve about it.

(Do note how one of Lukin's intentions involve having Steve "suffer" for a little while longer, and how he assumes that the Winter Soldier's "personal feelings" are the reason he suggests killing Steve, when, to a brainwashed Bucky, it's actually just a matter of practicality.)

With the Winter Soldier, his greatest value to his superiors is consistently in the fact that he was affiliated with Captain America. Of course, he offers them value in the sense of being a tremendously talented assassin and covert agent, but that's not a resource they were exactly hurting for (the Red Room, for example). Arguably, he was a valuable lab rat too, with Project: Winter Soldier partially being a prototype for the Red Room and Wolf Spider programs, but *that* was done to take his undying loyalty and turn it into something malleable.

[uncontinuous]

I want to talk about Melinda May since I barely see much about her.

I want to talk about how she’s not a young soldier, but one nearing 50, past what should be her prime. How she’s a tiny Chinese-American woman in a very white male dominated organisation.

I want to talk about how she’s obviously very straightforwardly no-nonsense, but how not once is she “cold”. No she has heart. She is loyal. She is loving. She is giving. just in her own way.

I want to talk about she constantly straddles the line of duty and loyalty to the system and what is innately right, and how no matter what she picks, she’s constantly questioned about it in the show. And yet, not fucking once, does she stop doing what she knows is the right thing. Not once does she let the obvious lack of appreciation for her let her loyalty waver.

I want to talk about her implied past of bloodshed and loss. I want to talk about she’s suffered as much as anyone else in SHIELD and the MCU has. She has her own tragic origin story. And I want to talk about how despite how much it has affected her, not once does she display the manpain we’d see in white dudes with the same history.

I want to talk about how healthily she approaches things. How she’s learned to channel all that negativity, to use it as fuel to keep her going, towards something positive, instead of “wasting it on a tantrum”. How many heroes do we see who blow up stuff to let out their anger? I want to talk about how she can pick up an Asguardian weapon that brings forth all her rage by channeling her worst memories, and yet not once does she let it break her, because she’s learned to tame it years ago. I want to talk about how she offers to teach others that skill.

I want to talk about how despite all of this she’s still not obviously healed fully, but she’s also made her peace with it. How she’s been on the brink of starting to heal for all this time. Because she is the most realest approach to grief of loss years prior, that I’ve seen in any media. It’s not this stupid huge ache that media always portrays it as. It’s a dull ache, a knowledge that something in you is shifted, but you have to keep going with your life, even though you aren’t ready to move on yet or can’t. That even though it happened years ago, there’s still this absence.

I want to talk about how she’s a human soldier in the MCU’s world of supersoldiers and genuises with supersuits, and aliens and heroes, and how she’s carved her own place in there.

I want to talk about in this world, of gods and monsters, despite her humaness, she too is a legend, in the shadows of SHIELD. That her moniker is “The Cavalry”. I want to talk about how important that is because The Cavalry is what you expect, what you hope for, when everything is gone to shit and you need to be saved. That in SHIELD, this tiny no-nonsense woman is what agents probably pray to come for them when things go FUBAR.

Avengers are for when things are lost, when they’re already gone. To paraphrase Tony Stark “we may not save the world, but we sure as hell will avenge it.”

But the Cavalry signifies hope. Right when things are at it’s worst, the Cavalry will come for you, and turn the tide around.

I want to talk about how Melinda May represents the epitome of humanity: strength, courage, loyalty, duty, compassion, and hope.

Steve Rogers may represent the idealist good in all people, of being good in an ever growing cynical world. But you know what? The narrative is constantly on Steve’s side. We are constantly told Steve is right.

But Melinda May represents the sheer strength and beauty of humanity in her character, without the narrative backing her up. She represents humanity’s “keep on going” attitude even when the world and narrative is against her actions. And I want to talk about how fucking important that is, and how important she is.

[witha-boxofscraps]

It’s very very important to me that Tony Stark literally wears his heart on the outside. His heart is the most vulnerable part of him. And at least in IM1, it is actually the only real part of him that is visible through the suit. His heart is his biggest vulnerability in the suit. His heart powers the entire suit. His heart is the reason behind Iron Man.

Furthermore, his heart is disguised as just another piece of tech. It blends in with the suit. Anyone looking at him from the outside just sees it as part of the suit. In reality, his heart is the most human thing there and people will never see past those plates of hot red metal.

[jacks-the-flower]

@bundibird with another line of great tony stark tags i see:

[witha-boxofscraps]

@bundibird and @jacks-the-flower!!! You guys!!!! Tell me you understood the assignment without telling me you understood the assignment WOW. thank you for blessing me with these tags.

[suitfer]

i was commissioned by the lovely @stvenjames to draw steve/peggy/bucky cuteness in a photo booth, and it was such a joy to make!! i like to think they have a lot of fun photos like this around ;;

[amillionmagpies]

I just saw Thunderbolts, and while I'm pretty neutral on it as a whole, I'm being consumed by thoughts about the differences between how Natasha and Yelena handle their own freedom.

The thing is, their experiences as Widows have always been wildly different. Natasha was brainwashed - conditioned and manipulated by tactics that mostly exist in our world. Yelena was mind controlled, physically forced to follow orders. Which means that they also seem to have been very different types of Widow. Natasha was first and foremost a spy. She could kill people if needed, absolutely, but she was mostly taught interrogation and infiltration. Yelena, on the other hand, was first and foremost an assassin. She knows how to disappear, but the delicate manipulation that Natasha does like it's breathing is just not something Yelena was ever expected to do, probably because the mind control wasn't precise enough to make her do something that complex. And the differences in how they were controlled also affect how they handle their freedom.

Yelena is trying to figure herself out. She wants to know who she is, she wants to understand herself, she wants to figure out what she wants, she wants to be a person. One of the first things she does after getting out is buy herself a vest, purely because she likes it. But at the same time, she has absolutely no idea how to navigate the world. She can follow orders, but she doesn't understand people and she has next to no life skills, because she was never expected to operate on her own the way Natasha was.

Meanwhile, I don't think existential questions ever even occurred to Natasha. If she ever wondered who she was, the answer was immediate - she's a weapon - because psychological conditioning doesn't just break the way chemical control does. I'm really not sure she ever bought a piece of clothing just because she liked it. Clothing is part of building a cover, and she's always undercover - she doesn't know how to just be herself, and it wouldn't occur to her to try. She is whatever others need her to be, and she's satisfied with that in a way Yelena never could be. But on the other hand, she can navigate the world without too much trouble, because she understands people and was trained to be much more independent than Yelena was.

Yelena wants to be a person, but she doesn't know how to function on her own. Natasha settled much more easily into functioning on her own, but it never even occurred to her to try and be a person.

[son-justdont]

my favorite detail in ca:tws is when Sam is like "my gear is in a guarded government vault" and Steve and Natasha are like yeah that's fine. we can get that easy. and then they just retrieve it off screen. literally no scene or sequence not a single shot, within like an hour they just have his wings and that's that. like yeah why waste time showing us, they said it would be easy. Natasha shrugged. they could've just had Sam have it in his shed but no. fucking hilarious no notes 10/10 cinema and I'm not joking

[lungthief]

listen. i know it's not 2014 anymore and i know it's just a throwaway line and that the russo brothers didnt intend for marvel action blockbuster captain america the winter soldier to become the tragic gay love story that never was but man. having steve say "it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience" in a conversation about romantic relationships right before the bucky reveal is so cruel. it's not just about steve and bucky obviously having the shared experience of being "out of time," it's the fact that they've both been stripped of their humanity in opposite directions. steve is a legend, he is an american hero and a national icon before he is a human being the same way that bucky is a weapon and a killing machine before he is a human being. steve knows that anyone who falls in love with him in the 21st century fell in love with captain america first, and that's just not him. but then the one person who knew him first and knew him best and loved him (not captain america, that little guy from brooklyn) so much he died for it is alive, impossibly. and it's a miracle because he's back and it's horrific because he's back under the worst possible circumstances. but to steve, the winter soldier is worth tearing the world apart for because he's always been bucky first. they find each other and suddenly they're human again. and maybe, despite it all, being "out of time" becomes a blessing, because in this century they'd finally be allowed to love each other the way they've always wanted to. like real people do.

like. no. the captain america trilogy isn't about two queer men traumatized and alienated by war and modern life rediscovering and reclaiming their humanity through their love for each other. but. i mean. it couldve been

[bittergourdsoup-deactivated2024]

op TAGS !!

[boogiewoogiebuglegal]

👆🏻👆🏻THIS. ALL OF THIS.