9-1-1 LONE STAR | 1.05 “Studs”

MY BADASS BOY

Thor and his godly awesomeness

THIS. So much. Thank you

Characters seen in the Captain America “trilogy”

Iron Man’s dad.

Black Panther’s dad.

Iron Man’s dad, again.

Iron Man’s mom.

Spider-Man’s aunt.

Never seen in said trilogy”:

Sarah Rogers

We don’t trade lives

Jesus.

Just like people willfully misinterpreted Cap’s edict that “Every time someone tries to WIN a war before it starts, innocent people die” as being the same as ‘people trying to STOP a war before it starts’ now everyone is doing the same thing with “We don’t trade lives.”

That doesn’t mean people never die fighting evil.  It doesn’t mean we don’t sacrifice ourselves for the greater good.  It means we don’t let one of our teammates give up their life until we’ve exhausted all other options.

Bruce even spelled it out when Vision tried to make a parallel with Steve’s sacrifice. He points out that Steve didn’t have a CHOICE at that point in time.

Cap wanted to make sure before they killed the person Wanda loved that they exhausted all other options.  What a monster and hypocrite that makes him!

I’m sure if Steve had let Vision die there in Scotland, now everyone would be pointing out that he didn’t even try, that Shuri or Bruce could have helped.

SIGH.

I just had a thought on Steve’s initial argument against the Accords.

What if they send us somewhere we don’t wanna go?

What if they don’t send us somewhere we think we should be?

He already had a point in his life when he knew he could be helping the people who needed it, but was limited to a star-spangled costume and jaunty theme tune. He’s been put on the bench before, and he’s seen people he cared about suffer because of it. If they’d let him out sooner, maybe Bucky and his unit would never have been captured. Maybe Bucky would never have been tortured and hurt and made into Zola’s plaything.

Given the war that Steve fought in, and given that he saw how America hung back until Pearl Harbour happened, I don’t imagine he’s ignorant about how they could end up being put on the shelf while conflicts raged, until they were absolutely necessary. On top of that, he has watched his identity as Cap be used for politicking, to sell war bonds, to encourage patriotism and all that jazz, even after his death.

And here’s a thought: Tony was the one who created and unleashed his weapons on the world. Steve was one of those weapons. It’s the difference between being the seller and being the product. Tony sees it as a quality control. Steve sees it as losing his autonomy and becoming that dancing monkey again.

First World cup I won’t watch.

2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ - OFFICIAL TV Opening

He needed to be pretty. What if Tony watches security tapes???

Avengers: Infinity War Prelude #1

This is your friendly reminde that Steve Rogers is a gift in this earth and we should protect and appreciate him.

Exactly!

Because I’m sick to death of anyone making Team Cap’s intention during the airport battle about anything other than Cap and company trying to get to Siberia to stop five other Winter Soldiers, here’s some dialogue from the movie for ya…

STEVE: Hear me out, Tony. That doctor, the psychiatrist, he’s behind all this.

TONY: Anyway. Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in. That was 24 hours ago. Can you help a brother out?

STEVE: You’re after the wrong guy!

TONY: Your judgment is askew. Your old war buddy killed innocent people yesterday.

STEVE: And there are five more super soldiers just like him. I can’t let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can’t.

Then, later…

BUCKY: We gotta go. That guy is probably in Siberia by now.

STEVE: We gotta draw out the flyers. I’ll take Vision, you get to the jet.

SAM: No, *you* get to the jet! Both of you! The rest of us aren’t getting out of here.

CLINT: As much as I hate to admit it… if we’re going to win this one some of us might have to lose it.

SAM: This isn’t the real fight, Steve.

So anyone saying that Team Cap had any drive other than stopping five enhanced Hydra agents from being awakened by Zemo and wreaking havoc, or so they were led to believe, should probably get their ears checked.

Say it with me, folks. The airport battle was not about the Accords. At least not from Team Cap’s perspective.

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.