Yeah. McCain Understands

*adjusts glasses* I’m sorry, Mr. Evans, but it appears that your request to conclude your run as Steve Rogers has been denied due to *highlights portion of document* the lack of a legitimate Captain America 3 film. Please re-submit your request when said movie has been filmed and completed, thank you 👍🏻

I currently own 15 Tumblcoins, the future of meme currency.

The Vengeful  Orc of the North.

Awww I don't want to be an orc. Should have hurry. A week earlier and I'd be a princess

I, “The Vengeful King of the Seas”, made this myself because I was bored.

The thing about "Steve stuck in the past re: Bucky/Peggy/life in general" is that, by itself, I think it's a valid writing choice. There are scenes that could support that interpretation, and it's a plausible way to add depth to Steve's character and create some conflict. But it's so often done in a "Steve should just get over himself" kind of way, rather than a "Steve is understandably struggling here" kind of way, which sucks.

Point. It’s presented as this unhealthy thing…almost a character flaw that Steve is ‘stuck in the past’. As if he’s an old man whining about the good old days and not someone who is grieving the destruction of his entire world. And it’s not just done in a way where “Steve should just get over himself” but also in a way that Steve being stuck in the past makes him toxic to Bucky/Tony/the team/ and he needs to get over himself because he’s hurting someone else. It’s never about what that grief is doing to him.

Sometimes I think the magnitude of Steve’s loss is what makes his trauma so completely incomprehensible to fandom while they sit and churn out overused childhood abuse tropes for Tony or Loki. Or it could just be the fact that Steve is a stoic character because Bucky’s trauma should also be absolutely incomprehensible but fandom sure manages to give a tonne of shits about it. 

you know. sometimes i think. in the face of tony’s obvious trauma and ptsd. in the face of the more obvious pain that bucky has suffered. we forget that steve’s motivation in the film isn’t just his tendency to hold stubbornly fast to his ideals, to do what he feels is right and damn the rest. 

steve’s hurting too.

like. guys. we are so ready to give weight to tony’s emotional boiling over point at the end of the film, to say “this is why he tried to kill bucky, and it’s not right but it’s understandable.” we are so ready to acknowledge the fact that bucky was a victim and motivated to run by his fear of further persecution and hurt from nefarious forces. what about steve, though? when do we acknowledge that steve’s not just acting with righteous arrogance, but a deep anger, isolation, fear, loneliness, sadness, and hope?

steve died. like, his last memory before waking up seventy years in the future is a few days after watching his best friend fall from a train and he was unable to stop it he willingly flies a plane into the fucking Arctic, ostensibly to his death.

guys. guys. tony was fucked up for years because of untreated ptsd after falling from space and thinking he was dead. why is it so hard to remember that steve probably is fucked up, too? 

this dude, he wakes up seventy years in the future and he has to make his way without really anyone or anything familiar, and the only person who is familiar is suffering from memory loss, and he’s now operating under the thumb of shadowy organization that he’s not 100 percent does good things and that continuously lies to him. there’s no war to fight, but that’s all this body is good for. it’s all he knows. 

he doesn’t know what makes him happy. guys.

and so he goes through another trauma when he discovers this villain who is trying to kill him is in fact the dead best friend who—surprise!—was actually captured after falling and losing an arm and his brains were scrambled to turn him into a murder assassin. we know for a fact steve feels tremendous guilt over this. but imagine beyond guilt, the sorrow, the nightmarish possibilities, that are turning over in steve’s head. the idea of what his friend suffered. remember when rhodey fell from the sky and tony blasted sam in the chest? imagine the anger in steve’s heart at the idea of what bucky’s suffered and the unwillingness to let that go unchecked and unsaved.

oh, plus. that shadowy organization he’s been fighting for? the people he’s been taking orders from? the top dog in the neat little hierarchy that’s arranged his world? yeah. hydra. everything steve has known turns upside down. he can’t trust anything. imagine the paranoia. the suspicion. imagine the fear that must take seed at that betrayal.

and then! of course, then he begins fighting these battles with the avengers where the collateral damage is on such a bigger scale than it was at war. where there are aliens. aliens, you guys. and he’s tasked with leading this motley crew of superheroes in a world he’s still getting used to and people die, lots of people die, and we know that even if it doesnt visibly affect him like it affects tony (who always seems shocked when he’s confronted with loss, because it’s presented to him on a personal, individual level) it does affect him. that steve feels the guilt of lives lost. imagine that burden. imagine the weight of the shield, the mask, the responsibility. imagine the loneliness. the fear.

so then. then. in the space of a few days. steve deals with more guilt from the deaths in lagos. he shoulders that burden. then he deals with the moral quandary of signing the accords. he wrestles with that decision. peggy dies. he grieves, oh goodness does he grieve. vienna fuckin blows up and that elusive best friend is now the suspect. so steve is grieving, he is confused and conflicted, and now he feels doubly guilty—that’s the person he has been looking for, should he have already caught him? did he do it? he couldn’t have. does he bring him in? does he shoulder this responsibility too? what will they make him do when he catches up to bucky? what should he do? steve might act like he always knows what’s right, but a decision like this isn’t easy. it messes with a person. and when you’re dealing with all that mess in your head, sometimes you don’t think. sometimes…you act.

like when bucky is triggered, when steve stops a helicopter with his bare fucking hands, you can feel the desperation. that’s not ordinary heroics. that’s not steve just trying to stop bucky from escaping and possibly hurting others. it’s steve fighting for bucky. for this piece of his past. for the possibility of an end to loneliness. for the possibility of redemption for letting him fall. 

and when they go on the run, when they know they have to stop the supersoldiers, when they clash with tony’s team, can you imagine steve’s sheer frustration that no one gets what is at stake? that no one is willing to listen? and yes, he didn’t even try—but why is that, you think? is it possibly because steve is used to institutions and those in power ignoring what he thinks is right and causing disaster anyway?

when steve says, “pal, so are we.” when steve acknowledges to natasha that he’s 90 not dead, when he openly references the fact that he and bucky are 100, can you imagine knowing that? adjusting to that? being 20-something in body and memory but 100 in actuality? living in a body that people perceive as a weapon so strongly that you’ve become a weapon when you are still longing to rediscover the man you were? steve’s not just cap. steve’s steve, and he doesn’t know what makes him happy you guys. he’s a guy, he’s a human, and he’s dealing with A Lot.

i get that he makes some bad calls in the movie. so does tony. my beef is that while tony’s decisions are often supported by his very obvious trauma and emotional burden, we rarely seem to give enough weight to the very real and very similar turmoil that is going on inside of steve.

when tony is fighting him in siberia. when steve says, “he’s my friend,” so simply, so sadly, without any righteousness, just clean tired truth, that’s steve as steve. when he hid the truth from tony, that’s steve as steve. when he drops the shield, that’s steve reclaiming himself as steve. we expect cap all the time, because often, steve is cap. it’s easy to see him as the moral police that way, if reductionist.

but we forget to see steve as steve. that he is a kid, in some ways. and a grieving, lost, lonely kid with a lot of anger, sadness, confusion, and power boiling under the placid-seeming surface.

Allllllllsssssoooooooocommission

8012 new year/valentine postcards for CN stony fandom 

We’re right there with you, Scott. Right there with you.

male writers writing male characters: This Bruce Killshot. He has over 10000 confirmed kills and is the top leading spy in the Super Hard To Get In Spy Organization Of The World. He is a master of every martial art and can use virtually any weapon with ease. He’s not only a Real Gruff Man but a Ladies man who smokes cigars while Having Sex With Beautiful Women but he never gets attached. He’s a hard Whiskey Drinking Man who once killed an elephant with a toothpick and bottle of glue.

Men: this is so realistic wow such a complex character….

A woman: This is Angela she’s the chosen one of this story and has a natural knack for magic and can-

men: this fucking self insert mary sue this is fucking trash are you kidding me 

sarah rogers was the most influential person in steve’s life. she was a single mother who raised a chronically ill son in the 1920s and supported them on her own. who do you think held steve as he cried, a frail boy bullied relentlessly, and told him he would always be better than bullies if he was kind? who taught him your body didn’t matter? that its what’s inside that counts? to stand up for what’s right, even if you’re the only one standing? taught him his tolerance, his respect for women, his manners? she did. it’s an absolute injustice that we haven’t Once seen her on screen, not even steve visiting her grave.

True Blood (2008–2014) by Alan Ball