#steve rogers meta

[rainbowsuitcase]

I know the "I understood that reference" moment is played for laughs and like Steve is being stupid but he just. He looks so fucking proud of himself. He's such a dork and it's so sad.

He's living in a world that feels familiar sometimes, that he recognizes sometimes, but that is also so different. The architecture, the fashion, the technology, the food and the drinks, and the way people talk.

The language must have evolved some, there are words we use that we don't even realize are references, that we think must have always been there but they weren't.

The pop culture is different, the movies and the music and the arts in general.

Maybe Steve feels like he's living in another dimension, in a mere shadow of the world he came from, and here's fucking Wizard of Oz.

That movie came out in 1939, he probably saw it when it was brand new, he might have read the book.

And finally, there's something he recognizes. Something from his world, something he knows and understands.

He's a lost puppy jumping at everything that looks vaguely like home. He's desperate for it. And he's played for laughs for it, by the movie and the characters around him.

[dueseaworthiness]

Something I noticed ever since that trailer (among many, many other things) is this discourse about what Steve would have actually wanted out of a "Happily Ever After", what that would look like/consist of, how it definitely wouldn't be 1950s Americana Nostalgia......

....but another thing I've been pondering is......would he necessarily want kids?

I've noticed, even if people don't see him in a heterosexual relationship, a lot see him with a baby. Maybe it's with Bucky or Sam, maybe the kid is biologically Peggy's (somehow), but they definitely see Steve as a dad (and to put a fine point on it, a bio dad). I've already seen a few posts ret-conning the Doomsday Baby to Bucky and Steve's.

But I want to question this assumption that Steve craves parenthood specifically.

Age of Ultron (Whedon, 2015) gives us this insight to Steve's feelings and thoughts about having a traditional family. There's something about the way Steve phrases it: "The guy who wanted all that went into the ice 75 years ago." He speaks about it like it may have been something he wanted in the past, but has changed over time. I think this tracks. In the early 20th century, it was presumed most people would go on to marry, settle, have kids and families of their own. Outliers excluded, it was basically expected. Even as Steve dealt with his disabilities and lack of traditional romantic prospects, it's probably something he still envisioned, if only because that's what everyone else around him was doing. Once he got the serum, its possible that he assumed, if he survived the war, he would actually have a better shot at following that path.

(I know I haven't mentioned Bucky, hang on, we're getting there)

ANYWAY, fate had different plans. Steve goes into the ice, and comes out nearly three quarters of a century later. Times have changed. Norms have changed. In many ways, the definition of "family" has changed.

If my understanding of Steve's character is right, he's always supposed to have been a "man out of time", even in his own time. The comic Captain America: Man Out of Time (Waid, 2011) shows that Steve's overall attitudes about people are far more egalitarian than those of his 1940s counterparts. Given this fact, he should be much more comfortable in the 21st century, where the idea that everyone doesn't need to follow the same life plan to have purpose or to find meaning and happiness is more accepted.

As we see in the MCU, he eventually does get a family: with Sam, with Natasha, with Bucky once they get him back. And he's shown to be close with Thor, Wanda, Maria, T'Challa, Scott, etc. The man has found companionship in this new century, even if it isn't the prescribed one that the 1940s and 1950s would have approved of.

Which brings me back to the idea of kids.

On the one hand, I can see why some could see him as a father. He's clearly the caring, nurturing type, who's super protective of not just his loved ones, but of people in general. Good qualities in a dad.

But, I do think his inability to "look away when a situation is going south" would make that very difficult for him to be a present father. Being a parent is largely about putting your kid first above all else, even other people. And I don't know. I see Steve as the kind of guy who, if he did have a child, wanting to genuinely be present for his kids and being a genuinely good father. And, given his own history with his father (depending on the continuity canon of his dad, either dying in war and never knowing the man, or having him being present, but an abusive drunk), I think he would want to do better for his own kids. But then that would mean giving up fighting the good fight on the scale he does. And so far, the MCU (I don't know about the comics, I haven't read all of them) has not given us a satisfactory compromise of how Steve can continue to fight the good fight AND not be Captain America full time. At this point in Steve's character development, fatherhood just doesn't seem to believably fit in anywhere.

And going back to the idea that the 21st century is more open to other options, Steve might see that not everyone did or wants to "settle down", and embrace that for himself. As described above, Steve definitely wants to work for the common good, and seems more comfortable operating like that. It's possible to interpret him finding more fulfillment in a community service role over a nuclear family one. His caring nature is spread over a whole neighborhood or other community (I haven't read it, but I've seen panels from I think one of the more recent runs...Sentinel of Liberty? I think that's it).

I've only ever seen, like, two posts here exploring the idea of Steve not really wanting kids of his own, but functioning more as an auxiliary adult to "the kids", like Morgan, Peter, Wanda ("Uncle Steve" if you will).

Maybe it's just me, but I think that character angle would be much more interesting to explore. Especially since Steve is already so unconventional by so many other standards.

[ym4yum1]

Worst ending? Avengers: Endgame.

Steve Rogers abandoning his team, his closest friends, and especially Bucky to return to a woman he knew for roughly two years during World War II never made sense to me. They barely had time to build a relationship, shared only one kiss, and after years living in the future, he was no longer the same man Peggy originally knew. How is that fair to her?

What makes it worse is everything he would have to ignore by choosing to remain in the past. He knows another version of himself is frozen in the Arctic. He knows Bucky is being tortured. Natasha and countless other girls are trapped in the Red Room. Howard and Maria Stark will be murdered. Tony will be kidnapped. Bruce will become the Hulk. Hydra is growing inside SHIELD. Future wars, attacks, and disasters will cost thousands of lives.

The Steve Rogers I know and admire would never quietly live alongside that suffering. His entire character is built around running toward danger, not away from it. He fights for the present, not the past. He does not abandon people who still need him.

Endgame asks the audience to believe that Steve suddenly stops acting like Steve Rogers, and that never felt emotionally truthful to me.

What made the ending even more frustrating was the way Steve’s relationship with Peggy became retroactively treated as the singular emotional truth of his life.

And. The idea of Steve as an “eternal virgin” never appealed to me. It feels less like a historically grounded interpretation and more like a modern romantic ideal projected backward onto a man raised in another era. I also dislike the implication that someone’s worth or moral purity is tied to chastity. Steve’s character was never built on sexual innocence. It was built on empathy, courage, restraint, loyalty, and respect for others.

Historically, the idea also does not really fit the social reality of the period Steve came from. Men of that era were not universally “saving themselves” for marriage. What existed was a strong culture of discretion and a very unequal social divide between women considered suitable for marriage and women considered suitable only for casual encounters. Since the Golden Age comics, Steve was always portrayed as respectful toward women, chivalrous, but never naive about them.

Peggy gained importance gradually through reinterpretations and retcons. Originally and chronologically, she was part of Steve’s wartime past, not the defining center of his entire emotional life. Sharon Carter was his most recurring romantic relationship, and over time Steve also had other relationships, affairs, and even a fiancée, Bernie Rosenthal. Rachel Leighton (Diamondback) was one of the few women he openly dated without hiding his identity as Captain America. Across eight decades of stories, Steve was consistently portrayed as emotionally capable of moving forward and forming new attachments.

The MCU gave Peggy much greater narrative importance, but even there Steve’s characterization is more complicated than “a man frozen in time waiting for one woman.”

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Steve explicitly says: “The guy who wanted all that went in the ice seventy-five years ago. I think someone else came out.”

In The Winter Soldier Civil War, he kisses Sharon. (thanks @speromint )

The emotional constant throughout Steve’s life was arguably Bucky, the one relationship he never truly let go of. Personally, I suspect Endgame redirected Steve’s ending toward Peggy partly because Marvel became uncomfortable with how emotionally central that friendship had become in audience interpretation.

As for changing the past, I do not think comparisons to stories like Flash really apply. The moment Steve returned to the 1940s, the timeline was already altered by his presence alone. He had spent years living in a different century, shaped by experiences, wars, technology, and social changes that did not exist in 1945. He was no longer the same man who originally went into the ice.

That tension is explored directly in the comics Captain America: Man Out of Time, where Steve struggles with aspects of the past he can no longer accept, including segregation and other social norms of the era. Steve would never assassinate people or become some reckless timeline manipulator, but I also cannot imagine him quietly living through decades of injustice without speaking up or defending ordinary people.

Steve Rogers' entire character is built around moral action. Even if he never threw a punch, his influence, his voice, and his values would inevitably change the world around him.

[16woodsequ]

Sometimes in fics, Steve is shown to be really struggling with Bucky's memory loss and pushing him to remember things, or just being visibly sad and disappointed when he doesn't.

But I was just thinking that we have seen Steve react to someone who doesn't remember him. When Peggy, at the time the only person who know him in the past, forgets he had survived and she knew him in modern day, he reacts really well.

Of course, you can tell his heart is breaking. But to Peggy he is kind, gentle, and reassuring. He doesn't try to drag her into memories she doesn't have. He doesn't say he's been alive for two years. He just sits with her and comforts her as she grieves what to her is a heartbreaking reunion.

(X)

Anyway, I think Steve would be understanding and move at Bucky’s pace. Of course there would be grief on both sides, amd Bucky might feel bad about that. But Steve would never want him to feel bad about it, and he would be doing his best to manage that for Bucky's benefit.

[luna-rainbow]

I finally finished listening to the entire thing. It’s long (1 hr 46min), but it’s worth it. Rather than just fans gushing about their favourite franchise, they set out to do a thematic analysis of the story and why it worked so well.

I felt so validated about some of the random stuff we’ve discussed before 😂 Such as how the central theme in the story is about trust, how the Winter Soldier is a horror story monster, and most importantly, Bucky is both the emotional and thematic core of the movie.

They put it more effectively than I did, which is Bucky is symbolic for “the bad ending” of Hydra winning. He is the ultimate product of Hydra’s plan to remove freedom and choice, functioning only in a prescribed role under Hydra’s command, person-less and thoughtless. Therefore, thematically, Steve had to give choice back to him, and any scenario in which Steve unilaterally makes a decision for him, e.g. kills him or abandons him because he didn’t believe in the human side of Bucky, would be against what Steve stood for and render his whole fight against Hydra hypocritical and pointless.

Steve saving Bucky was narratively inevitable and necessary, because he was the first and biggest victim of Hydra’s machinations to remove free will. Destroying the Helicarriers was meaningless unless he got Bucky back at the end 🥹

They also make a good point that CATWS was the last movie we see different Avengers being a team that was stronger when they were together as opposed to one that’s always got internal conflict that made them volatile and distrusting of each other. Less explicitly, they also pointed out that this is the last movie that the Avengers fought against an external threat that was relevant and topical, as opposed to later movies being mostly the Avengers trying to patch up messes that they themselves made.

And as this essay pointed out, the hooks they threw at the end of CATWS were so exciting. There was an ideological enemy, one which most of the audience could identify as wrong and evil, they were widespread and dangerous and took advantage of people’s yearning for stability. This was relatable and very relevant, and could have led to so many interesting stories. There was, of course, Steve (and Bucky’s) personal stories still left unresolved, and the ending promised us more interesting things down the track.

Only for them to gloss over the entire Hydra defeat as a prologue in AoU and never mention it again….

Captain America is inherently political — and CATWS was the last time they were brave enough to let Steve take a stance. And Bucky, thematically written to be the victim of Hydra's creation as a warning against what would happen to the rest of humanity if Hydra succeeded, was never treated like the victim he was again...nor was he allowed to be as integral to Steve's story again.

[what-the-cap-dude]

As much as I know the "golden boy, grandfather-ication" of Steve Rogers in this fandom is technically out of character, I still love soft Steve who tiptoes on the line of fatherly. I think Steve can be punk and also gentle. I think it's a misconception that punk badass people can't also be gentle. That their compassion, apparent or not, is why they are punk in the first place.

I love a Steve Rogers who's hard exterior is worn down like the yellowed edges of an old letter. And all that's left behind is a regular guy who's sad himself, but he cares. He cares so much. I love Steve Rogers. That's honestly the point of this post I could have just said that.

[67yearsgoneby]

Stucky and money

So the narrative for steve and bucky when it comes to money is that they were struggling and such. That since steve was disabled he couldn't work much and bucky had a hard time getting money for the both of them. I decided I wanted to do some research to see if that was true.

First off, income. What were they making? So if bucky working as a general dock laborer, he would be making 88c an hour and as a full time worker he would be earning about $140.80 a month. I know that a few people headcanon that steve drew 8 pagers for money and according to a guy who was propositioned by the mob to draw these comics, they payed $3 per page. If steve made 2 a month he would have been earning $48 a month. This means their total household income was $188.80. That's a lot for two single men back then!

Ok so now onto expenditures. According to bucky's dog tags they lived somewhere in this general area.

So their rent could have been anywhere from $20-$100. I personally think that $30 is a reasonable price so I'll go with that. Utilities were about $3 a month and food was about $22 a month for the average household. Now for steve's medical stuff. His asthma cigarettes would be about 70c a pack. I can't find the actual price of the cigarettes themselves but I think 5c more then just the powder sounds reasonable. All of his other ailments wouldn't have had medicated treatment. That would all be solved by a very specific diet at the time. So I think adding about $4 for things like liver and a lot of it seems reasonable. All this together is about $59.70 a month

So in the month to month basis, they are making a total of $129.10 after expenditures a month. Even if steve isn't working, that's still a total of $81.10 left over.

Edit: forgot about taxes lol. With taxes, they earn $102.35. Bucky's federal tax rate would have been 19% with an annual income under $2,000. I'm not sure what their state tax would have been. And since steve is technically working for the mob, he's not paying taxes lol

TLDR; they probably weren't as poor as everyone makes them seem

[jooniely]

I haven't been in the stucky fandom that much but I've noticed that in fics, not a lot of writers write steve as intelligent? Like, the second cap movie shows that he is intelligent! The elevator scene! He saw 3 signs and immediately knew what was going on. He thinks super quick on his feet, and is the technically the avengers' leader who makes the plans of attack (their tactician when it comes to fights). He also knows French? He listens to batroc talk to him in French, understands him, and responds back in French! And also I know it's movie comic book science but the way he uses his shield quite literally shows that he has great understanding of (comic science) physics! He spends his time reading military strategy and history.

He doesn't have spy type intelligence but he's still very smart. The mcu sucks at sticking to their own characterization cuz past the second cap movie and the first (and maybe 2nd) avengers movie, I don't recognize steve. They just focus on his fighting but miss his intelligence and empathy(!!!!) (And let's never talk about endgame steve cuz that wasn't steve at all)