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i understand that ragnarock is the funniest thor movie just because,,,,,, it has the most jokes and all of them are hilarious but some of you are ignoring the absolute comedic genius that is thor 1. the entire movie is set off by loki essentially performing a prank on his brother because he thinks he's dumb and doesn't deserve to be king but it backfires so horribly and awfully that loki finds out he's adopted from a race of people he was taught to hate and his brother is straight up exiled. and when he tries to talk to his father about this he doesn't want to talk to loki SO much that he falls into a coma and loki becomes king. i cannot stress enough how loki just accidentally performed a coup. he literally just played a prank on his brother and ended up on the throne of asgard

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get to know me: three/ten male characters ❤ Sam Wilson “I made breakfast. If you guys eat that sorta thing.“

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Steve Rogers in Avengers - Part 1 - What We Lost

I get very perplexed by people who look at The Avengers and mostly see Steve as a duck out of water and punchline of jokes. I can’t help but wonder why they don’t see the ball of grief and rage and severe PTSD, especially given his first scene.

He’s a man who is struggling to find himself under the weight of the legend and iconography of Captain America, the perfect, all-American hero soldier. He’s a man who has lost absolutely everything. Also, he continues to be the sarcastic mofo that he always was. Everyone is surprised by the sarcasm. No one expects wholesome Captain America to be sassy. Even Fury, who is paid to never be surprised, is surprised by the sarcasm.

I was intending just to do a little essay re. his character in the film. And then my brain happened, so instead, it’ll be a series of short essays regarding Steve’s behaviour and characterisation within the plot of Avengers. Bear in mind that this is only my interpretation, and I tend to go big :)

But to start at the beginning in this analysis, the first scene we have with Steve, he is in a gym, taking out his emotions on punchbags. Not just a gym, but an absolutely empty gym. He’s there in the dead of night when no one else is. He’s isolating himself as he did once before - anyone remember a bombed-out pub in London? Anyone? - because Steve Rogers does not like to share when he is falling apart.

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listen people are starting to realize tumblr isn’t dead we all need to be as cringe as possible for the next few months, it’s vital to our survival

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ROGERS: The Musical

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“The revelation of Loki’s lineage that he was adopted… you see this extraordinary vulnerability in him, which gives way to anger, and rage, and self-disgust, and confusion. And then all of those things harden to what becomes his malevolence.” — Tom Hiddleston

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Well… 🤷🏻‍♀️

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reminder that this blog, while not politically focused, supports BLM. bootlickers and racists aren’t welcome here, and never will be.

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Ross: you need acountability

Ross: has a history of overseeing illegal experimentation on unwilling subjects

Ross: orders the extrajudicial killing of a man who turns out to be innocent of the crime he was accused of

Ross: Can imprison any enhanced human at any point with no access to due process, lawyers, or any kind of oversight whatsoever

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The Marvel Juggernaut: With Great Power Comes Zero Responsibility by Megan White

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the first avenger: dr. erskine said that the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells. create a protective system of regeneration and healing.

age of ultron: thor establishes that steve is not mortal.

endgame: we’re just gonna ignore all of that, and make steve old af to shock the audience, even though it doesn’t make sense that steve would age at all, let alone at the same rate as a non-enhanced human, because what happened in previous movies is meaningless.

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this fandom still out here falling over all these military mcu heroes but still acting like Rhodey don’t outrank most if not all of them outside of Nick Fury. 

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You mention that Steve's got social anxiety in some of your posts. That's super interesting to me bc he seems so independent and confident otherwise like he'll tell you exactly what he thinks of your moral stance. and do you think any of his isolation comes from that anxiety or is it simply just one of his coping mechanisms for his ptsd?

Oh, Steve’s anxiety has been there from day one, especially when he’s in a situation where he is very uncomfortable. He fidgets, he fake-laughs, he - when tiny - has a habit of smoothing his fringe, he babbles around women he likes (that whole “I got beat up there, there, there” conversation. Oh Steve, sweetie, no).

In many cases, anxiety can be triggered by your surroundings and the way people treat you. First big trigger is the fact that Steve would have grown up during the Great Depression, in a time when the poorest got poorer and were shafted time and time again. They would be struggling for work, for money, even for food, especially in New York with such a huge population, which is bound to be a high-pressure environment.

And then there’s the fact that Steve was disabled. He had so many illnesses that would have marked him out as different. He was used to being considered weak and helpless. Look at all the times he tells Bucky he can fend for himself and that he doesn’t need help, something he has clearly said over and over again. He doesn’t want to be the burden that he considers himself. There’s a lot of self-loathing wrapped up in it. He doesn’t feel like he’s worth anything unless he can be useful and do something.

It was much clearer when he was skinny!Steve, the stubborn little mook from Brooklyn, before he ended up a superhero. Watch the scene before he goes out on the stage as Cap for the first time, his uncertainty and expressing his nervousness and looking fearful. Watch his expression when he gets on the stage for the first time.

That’s where the change happened: Cap is a role for him. Cap is big and strong and no-nonsense. Cap punched Hitler. Cap is a hero. Cap will call you out when he thinks your morals are in question.

The trouble is that while Cap has some of Steve’s traits, Cap isn’t Steve. Cap is the idealised version. Cap is what Steve aspires to be and he wears the name like his mask. Cap is how he thinks he should be and what he wanted to be. Cap will never be treated like he’s fragile. Cap can survive anything you can throw at him. Cap can get smashed off buildings and get up and keep going without complaint (even if he’s probably bleeding internally). Cap can stand up to anyone and not end up bleeding in a back alley.

Steve, on the other hand, is the man who goes and hides in a bombed out pub to cry about his dead friend, so no one can see him being weak. Steve is the man who, when confronted with someone asking about the ice, retreats behind his mask again.  He does it time and again and he only lets people see the real him when he trusts them. Peggy and Bucky could see right through him, but they knew him before the serum and they knew exactly where his issues stemmed from. Sam and Nat definitely got there in CA:TWS, along with Wanda in CA:CW.

Tony, though… I feel bad for Tony, because he’s friends with Cap, but he just doesn’t get Steve at all. He doesn’t see that so many of Steve’s issues come down to his past, who he was, what he lived through before the serum. There’s a degree of privilege going on there (Manhattan millionaire versus a poorly sick Irish son of the Great Depression), plus there’s probably the fact Howard Stark never bothered to mention much about Steve’s backstory aside from “small and skinny and I made him sexy”.

But back to Steve: it all stems from the fact that Steve remembers when he was considered (and more specifically considered himself) useless and worthless and no matter that he’s now a superhero, that’s not something he can forget. He holds onto the Cap mantle so fiercely because it let him feel worthwhile and useful. Steve isolates himself by hiding himself and his many, many issues. The PTSD definitely doesn’t help, because of his tendency to hide when he’s hurting because of that whole “don’t need help” self-loathing issue he’s had since day one.

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This isn't a specific theme but how about something to do with Civil War, how Steve's choices could only be made because him and his crew had superpowers/ had skills. I'm comparison to Tony who made the real world choice and it seems the movie narrative punished him for it.

Sorry it’s taken a while for me to get back to you on this one.

The power element is a tricky one, because without Steve having any of these powers, none of these problems would have occurred. Causality and all that. If Steve didn’t have powers, he and Bucky would both be long dead.It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario. 

I don’t think the choices he makes could only be made because he has powers/skills. It’s because he has the powers and skills that the conflict happens. Before Bucky even shows up, there is conflict because of the Accords and even if it wasn’t really handled that well as the running thread of conflict (supplemented by “robot-armed assassin who kills peoples’ parents”), that’s what I want to look at because it’s the heart of everything in this film.

I’ve made an argument before that the difference between Tony’s powers and Steve or Wanda’s is that Tony has the ability to take them off. He can remove his suit and step back from everything. He can put down the thing that makes him a weapon - a nuclear deterrent as he called himself back in Iron Man 2. He can lock them up, put them away, and be a normal human being.

Steve and Wanda don’t have that luxury. They have these powers but they can’t just toss them in the basement. Steve will always be the powerful super-soldier. Wanda is infused with these powers and as Steve said “she’s just a kid” but the whole world sees her as this living weapon and no matter what she does, she can’t stop being that weapon.

Tony is making the pragmatic choice as a weapons designer and creator. He is seeing the repercussions of his actions and his creations. It’s the sensible choice and for him, it is certainly the right one. He knows he needs to have limits put on him and that’s fine for him. The trouble is that the accords is that they treat people like weapons. Ross describes Thor and Banner as “a couple of 30 megaton nukes…” and Tony describes Wanda as a “weapon of mass destruction”.

For Steve and Wanda, the accords mean that they will be treated as a commodity rather than a person, and worse than that, they’ll be weapons who have no say in who/what/where they are allocated: “we surrender our right to choose”. There could be conflicts they could help in, but if they tried, they would be considered criminals. They outright say that if the non-normals don’t comply, “they will come for me”.

There’s no right position here. The military were correct to suggest that the Avengers needed oversight, but then they treated some of the Avengers as tools and objects to be shelved until needed instead of people who have no choice about the powers they have. They were telling a man who repeatedly defied orders and went behind enemy lines and risked a medical super trial all so he could save as many people as he could that he might be prevented from saving people. They were telling a young woman that she was too dangerous to be given her freedom.

I do want to feel bad for Tony for everything that happened to him, but his weapons and his choices are his own. Wanda, Steve, Natasha, Bucky - those people don’t have the choice anymore. They are what they are and what has been done to all of them can’t be undone by signing a bit of paper. They can’t simply be closed up - “internment” as Steve puts it - because they’re deemed inconveniently powerful.

So back to the point. Steve is already at odds with Tony because of the accords, particularly because neither of them can understand the other’s experiences and why they feel so strongly about it. If it wasn’t for the tension rising over the accords and Peggy’s death, Steve wouldn’t have been pulling back so hard. The accords exist because of his powers, ergo, the choices are only made because he has those powers.

Look at their confrontation about Wanda and the way Tony talks about her like a weapon. Steve is increasingly angry and justifiably so, because if Wanda - a genetically enhanced human being  - is a dangerous weapon in Tony’s eyes, what does that make Steve to him? Tony doesn’t see it that way - he sees the simple clean-cut world of dangerous things being controlled. He’s been trying to do it since the first film, when he saw what his weapons can do. This miscommunication is what drives the wedge more firmly between them. Steve says himself “Every time I think you see things the right way…” and Tony clearly believes he does.

Powered or non-powered, they both have different experiences, see the world in different ways and neither of them can see the others’ perspective. Tony believes he’s doing what need to be done “to stave off something worse” and Steve sees it as a form of captivity.

As for Tony being punished, I can’t really comment on that because I have bias for the poor bastard who was abducted, tortured, brainwashed, forced to murder a ton of people and had just escaped it all and found a stable life, only to have it all go boom. (There does seem to be an excess of Tony angst in a film called Captain America, though…)

(And I apologise in advance if this is rambling and makes no sense. I am very tired and it is late)

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I keep coming back to the thought that Gamora’s line “This isn’t love” in Infinity War is important in a film about multiple people being made to decide to sacrifice themselves/the people they love.

I’ve only seen it once, so my memory might be shoogly, but it’s everywhere and I can’t help lingering on it. The fact that Gamora asked Peter to kill her to save her from Thanos was only part of it. The fact that he - belatedly - tried to fulfil her wishes was an act of love.

Likewise with Vision and Wanda. Wanda and Peter both tried to find the loophole that would save them from the worst action they could see themselves taking. In the end, when there are no choices left and the world is burning, they both do what their loved ones want and it devastates them.

Then look at what Thanos does: he’s asked to sacrifice the person he loves. He doesn’t look for a loophole or say no or even hesitate. The minute he turns around, he’s willing to murder the child he professes to love. Love is fighting every step of the way to protect the person you love even at the risk of losing everything - Peter Q, Wanda, Steve, Tony, Peter P etc. Love is not going T_T and then bouncing them off a cliff.

I’m curious whether this will come back to bite Thanos in the bum because to claim that particular stone, you had to sacrifice the one you loved. The fact that the choice between killing someone you love and the struggle of trying to prevent it was such a focal point, I really don’t think it was accidental.

So here’s my thinking: Wanda actually did it. Vision died and she did it and I can’t help wondering if that’s going to be important when it comes to the gauntlet getting broken up again. After all, if someone’s going to hold onto the stone, she’s got the power and the capacity to do so and has paid the price it demands.

Of course, there’s every chance I’m anticipating more thought-out parallels than I have any right to, but hey :) It’s what I do.

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Steve Rogers in Avengers - Part 3 - Kind of Familiar

And I’m back and I’m cracking my knuckles to start in on the first the of Steve-on-helicarrier scenes. A lot of these scenes are shot and sweet, so let’s start with the first scene.

This is when Steve meets Natasha for the first time, and Natasha immediately says “let’s get rid of your groupie”. Coulson is practically going “omg Natasha! Look! It’s him! It’s him! It’s Captain Rogers! Isn’t he just a dreamboat? Good grief, I can touch him!” And Natasha immediately goes “Bridge. Now.”

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