lalunanova

[lalunanova]

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.

[lalunanova]

[lalunanova]

[lalunanova]

Matt Damon explains why they don’t make movies like they used to. Pls watch.

[lalunanova]

It kinda feels personal: Rumlow, Hydra, and SteveBucky

Rumlow is interesting because he has such a specific moral code. he joined Hydra for the greater good, he was a true believer, yet he also canonly admired Steve, he made sure to let Steve know the fight wasn't personal, he ordered Rollins to not point the gun at him in public, he sympathized with Bucky.

it made so much sense that he went solo afterwards. 'there're no prisoners in Hydra, only order.' but if not Bucky then himself is proof that there WERE prisoners, perhaps most of them were. Hydra was just another death cult, no matter how they branded it.

how does this affect how we interpret the your Bucky scene? the strategy hinges on his assumption of Steve's devotion to Bucky. how could he have known? through Bucky. Rumlow knew then Hydra brainwashed Bucky frequently. still, Bucky remembered him, their bond must've been incredibly strong.

that's when it became personal. Rumlow was alone, hurt, he almost died for a cult for nothing, he was humiliated and betrayed. and here was Steve, a hero, surrounded by pals and most importantly, was so loved even Hydra's brainwashing couldn't eradicate that from Bucky. yeah so fuck Captain America and his 'friendship'. you love him as much as he loves you? well then, that's gonna be your demise just as it was his.

[lalunanova]

"he is willing to die for everyone": life and death for stevebucky

I wrote this because I saw a post that said something like "'A's willing to die for B'. A is willing to die for everyone, what's the big deal about the ship." it's not about stucky or any ship, but this has always been on my mind.

throughout the trilogy, they have quite different attitudes towards life.

steve to some extent has always been ready to die, partly because he has had brushes with death multiple times since he was a kid. as rebellious as steve, he probably feels like being afraid of death is a sign of weakness, so he stands up to it and dares death to finally take him. that sentiment evolved to full blown passive suicidal tendency after bucky's death. another reason is that since he became cap, he understands that he's meant for something larger than life and certainly larger than himself, he's accepted that he'd one day die for the greater good.

bucky is the opposite, he clearly wants to live. in the cut scene in catfa he ordered the unit to surrender bc they'd have a better chance of surviving that way than going up against hydra alien weapon. after caws, he was trying to find a reason to live when many people in the same situation would've just ended it (and bucky thought about it too).

which brings me to my point. for someone who's so ready to sacrifice himself, bucky is steve's reason to live, while the love for steve always trumps bucky's will to live.

like I pointed out in a previous post, even when he had no idea what he was capable of, steve jumped through fire for bucky. whereas when it was peggy who pleaded, begging him to find a way to survive the plane crush, he didn't even try.

in the same scene, bucky, who just survived weeks of torture and had a clear way out of there, refused to leave without steve, knowing full well that they could both end up dying.

sebastian made it clear that bucky only stayed because of steve. in a way, bucky knew that if he died it'd be for steve, not for the country or the greater good, just steve. and that's the only acceptable way to die in a war that he'd grown sick of.

yes, steve was willing to die at bucky's hands in that helicarrier, but alternatively, he was also leaving the choice to live completely up to bucky. the scene can be interpreted as steve telling bucky "if you remember me, save me. save us." there was only one way steve would survive, there was only one reason steve would be willing to live and that was bucky. remember that steve was so ready to die with bucky when he told maria to "fire now". bucky was the only reason he even tried to survive this.

in civil war, bucky had been trying so hard not to kill himself and build a normal life. he must've wanted to go back to steve at some point and rebuild their relationship together. but as soon as he realized not everyone was going to get out of siberia alive, he told tony "I remember all of them" so tony would go after him instead of steve. he was trading his life for steve's.

one thing about superhero ships is that, yes, they are totally willing to die for anyone. steve would totally be willing to die saving a single person from a collapsing building, but bucky is his reason to find a way to not die saving that person.

bucky is as much as hero as steve, he continued to fight when he could've just butted out and no one would've said a thing. for bucky, he wants to go home after the fights, but as long as steve is still out there risking his stupid ass, bucky will make peace with death and follow steve anywhere.

[lalunanova]

audhd steve who flies under the radar when he's a kid. whose one-friendedness is assumed to be a side effect of the isolation that comes from his various illnesses. whose hours spent sitting and sketching is seen as proof he was suited for the desk job a sickly boy like him would have to work one day. whose restlessness is chalked up to the fact that he can't run around and play like other children. whose stubborn ways were somewhat appreciated because it has pulled him through fevers, clearly. who turns his deaf ear to loud sounds and doesn't ever much mind the gentle yellows and blues his eyes are capable of seeing.

audhd steve who flies under the radar when he's in the army. whose single-minded quest to gain entry is seen as the model of every young man of the time. whose simple black and white inability to tolerate injustice makes him a hero, and to top it off, the tendency to recklessly risk his very life at every turn means he is brave. whose intense attention to detail must be "increased iq" from the serum, as well as a good soldier's vigilance. who flourishes under orders he agrees with and rigid routines. whose completely incoherent coordination is an embarrassing little side effect of having a new body– even after a few years.

audhd steve who flies under the radar when he's in the future. because why would he understand any of their phrases. it's to be expected that he prefers to stay away from the overstimulating lights and sounds of the city– he's not used to their fast-paced world. it's why he makes so many faux pas– why he's so overly formal. he skirts to bland food? tastelessness is a taste of home. he hasn't even figured out fashion– that's why he makes due with just the t-shirts given to him by shield, even if they barely fit. it's all because he's so maladjusted to the 21st century.

audhd steve who suddenly doesn't fly under the radar anymore when he moves into avengers tower, and... they see him with bucky. suddenly, it's a little odd that he gags more often eating new dishes than a guy who couldn't remember eating a normal meal before. suddenly, there are questions as to why he can throw his shield with perfect accuracy, but can't... really tie his shoes in a way that stays. suddenly, his eyes squinting, and the aborted gesture of his hands fluttering toward his ears at the raising volume of music, and laughter, and car engines, can no longer be compared to the far away look he gets at violent movies, the toaster going off, and the breaking of glass. steve– who's suddenly very on the radar.

[lalunanova]

hey char, mind to share your fave stevebucky headcanons? 👀

Oh I LOVE that you asked me this :’)  Thank you!

I honestly have so many if I really think about it because I love them so much and I think about their dynamic so much that I have so many favorite things... but here is what I think of off the top of my head:

• Steve was color blind before the serum, according to canon. I have a headcanon that Bucky used to try to describe colors to him. I wrote a mini fic about that here.

• Bucky was drafted for the war, but didn’t tell Steve. Steve sort of assumed that Bucky enlisted, and Bucky never wanted to correct him. How could he? Steve wanted to enlist so badly, and Bucky didn’t ever feel like he could admit that he didn’t have the same drive to want to ~fight for the country~ like Steve did. He didn’t want to disappoint him and he was afraid Steve would think he was a coward. So Bucky just... never told him that he was forced into war. It was never his choice to fight for the country. If it was up to him, they would’ve stayed home together and stayed safe and never fought at all.

• They were always physically rough with each other, in the sense that they'd wrestle as boys all the time, and Steve loved that Bucky never treated him as fragile. Buck knew he could take it. Even after the serum, they'd still scuffle a bit like kids, finding a bright spot in a war-torn world. They’d be awake in the trenches on lookout, having soft conversations in the night, and shoving each other after one says something stupid or makes a bad joke.

• Steve is bi, and Bucky is gay. Bucky was consciously aware of his feelings for Steve way, way before Steve was aware of his for Bucky. In the 30s, Bucky has a bit of a reputation for ~dating around,~ but not in a rude ladies’ man kind of way but rather his reputation is “Bucky Barnes is a real charmer. He’ll show you a good time and he’s really sweet, but he never pushes your boundaries.” Some women wishes he’d push their boundaries, but he doesn’t. He’s taken so many women out on dates because he never lets it get super serious, since they’re not who he wants and it’s mostly for appearances’ sake, especially since he and Steve live together. He definitely enjoys hanging out with women, and treating them nice, but most of the time his motivation is to try to set up double dates–half because Steve deserves to find a great girl to date, and half because a double date means Bucky can selfishly do a date activity “with” Steve and not have it mean anything. Meanwhile though, Steve gets jealous as hell and testy about Bucky dating all the time, but he’s oblivious to the fact that it’s because Steve wishes Bucky would be with him instead.

• Their first kiss was when Steve was 16 and Bucky was 17. I’m not necessarily saying that’s when they actually got together, but something significant happened between them at those ages... maybe they kissed because they were drunk, or it was so Steve’s “first kiss” would be someone he knew and it was for “practice.” And then they both never talked about it again, because they’re idiots and were afraid to ~ruin things~ between each other. That’s why Steve says “Rumlow said ‘Bucky’ and all of a sudden I was a 16-year-old kid again, in Brooklyn.” That’s why “seventeen” is one of Bucky’s trigger words as the Winter Soldier. It checks out, because Bucky is a little bit older than Steve.

• Steve doesn’t fully admit the depth of his own feelings for Bucky to himself until he finds out Bucky’s been captured by HYDRA. And then he tears Europe apart to get him back. He’d have done that anyway, obviously, but... the prospect of losing Bucky forever is really what makes him realize how much he can’t handle that concept. Because he’s in love with him.

• After Bucky “dies,” Steve gets more reckless, and that’s part of the reason he put the plane in the ice and didn’t try to survive: he didn’t want to live in a world without Bucky in it. This is supported by canon. And so I headcanon that, after Steve finds out about the Winter Soldier, one day he abruptly realizes that he could’ve died in that plane crash and never known Bucky was alive and brainwashed and suffering. He thought Bucky was dead and he wanted to follow him, and he could’ve left Bucky even more alone in the world without knowing it. When Steve realizes how close he came to leaving Bucky behind like that, he throws up. It horrifies him to think about it.

• They each have a pair of dog tags where one says “Steve Rogers” and one says “Bucky Barnes.” They swapped one tag each, so that they’d have a matching set, because while they couldn’t list each other as “next of kin,” they wanted tangible evidence that would show other people how important they are to each other. So people would know: tell him if something happens to me.

• Their Brooklyn accents come out / get heavier around each other, especially if they’re bitching about things or arguing.

• Bucky is a complete sci-fi and fantasy nerd–which is now confirmed canon, and I love it. In particular, I like to headcanon that he loves to read paperback sci-fi novels, and discount romance novels. He unironically enjoys them, and he leaves them allllll over the place. One of the things they love to do is Bucky will sit around and read while Steve will sit around and draw/paint, and half the time Steve gets distracted sketching Bucky’s facial expression he makes while he’s reading.

• Bucky is also a pop culture gremlin. He will try and often get interested in pretty much anything and everything, without rhyme or reason. In modern day, he and Nat will watch trashy reality TV together–sometimes to make fun of it, sometimes to get invested. Steve thinks they’re insane for that. And sometimes Bucky will like one niche thing but then for very specific reasons he dislikes another similar thing. It makes sense to him, even if Steve doesn’t get it.

• Steve tends to be pickier with the kind of stuff he enjoys. He’s always had Strong Opinions™️ on everything, including and especially art. Put him in a museum and he’ll have a lot of thoughts on all of it. He doesn’t judge things or hate on other people for liking things he doesn’t like at all, but he won’t get hooked on a movie/show quite as easily. The one exception is animation, which he absolutely adores, and he goes on a wild binge of all kinds of animated content for awhile–shows and movies–because the various art styles and uses of the medium to tell crazy stories just fascinates him.

• Easy access to so much music is one of their mutual favorite things about the 21st century. Bucky often gets into individual artists’ entire discographies and becomes a fan, whereas Steve often gets into a handful of specific songs from a wide range of various people. Like... Bucky will often love an entire album, and Steve will often love 2 songs specifically more than others. But even with that, Steve loves collecting vinyl records–both old and new ones.

• Bucky has a fantastic singing voice even though he’s shy about it, and he tends to hum along to music when distracted or working on something else–especially while making something in the kitchen. 

• Bucky likes technology more than Steve; Steve likes physical stuff more than Bucky. Bucky loves to take photos and videos of things all the time, hoarding digital memories in a way that’s precious to him, knowing that they’re “safe” and accessible anywhere. They lost so much of the objects that they loved a century ago, and photos were scarce, but now... there are endless ways to have pictures. When Bucky was recovering in Wakanda and Steve was on the run, Bucky would often text Steve photos–sometimes without captions–to wordlessly share bits of his days with him. He’s got a good eye for photography, except for when he takes the photo equivalent of shitposts to make Steve laugh. Regardless, Steve gets his favorites printed–some of Bucky’s photos, some of his, some of their selfies–so they also always have something tangible to hold onto.

• Bucky calls Steve “sweetheart” sometimes, just to be a little shit–and he means it. It makes Steve turn red every time, without fail, but he secretly doesn’t mind it.

Okay I’ll stop hahaha. Those are the main ones that come to mind for me all the time when I think of them! 

Thank you again for asking :D  This was so fun to write all in one place!

[lalunanova]

Iron Man doesn't exist because of Tony Stark and a box of scraps, he exists because James Rhodes loves that little MIT dweeb.

Tony was lost in the desert for THREE MONTHS. Rhodey was still using up military resources against his superior's judgement and risking his job, just for the slight chance Tony Stark was still alive and needed him

Humans can only live about 3 days without water, that's if heat stroke didn't get him first, or hypothermia at night. Tony Stark would have died in Afghanistan if he didn't have a best friend who loved him, believed in him, and was a little stupid with grief

[lalunanova]

The Bar Scene

okay okay, I know every Stucky shipper is familiar with this scene, but I’ve decided to investigate in furthur detail.

So the singing stops as Peggy walks in, looking as gorgeous as ever, eyes only for Steve

Bucky’s immediate reaction is a clenched jaw

and a balled fist.

I’m not saying he’s jealous or anything but of course he’s fucking jealous.

At first glance, people may think that Bucky is jealous that Peggy isn’t paying attention to him, but I don’t think so.

Peggy proceeds to talk to Steve and

need I say any more about this?

At the end of the scene, Bucky makes a “joke” which I think was meant to disguise what he was really feeling. When Steve turns away, he makes this face:

And to finish up, I’d like to talk about the song that was playing right before Peggy walked in: “There is a Tavern in the Town” (thanks to brxkenbucky​ I was able to look into this). Now I know it’s difficult to hear the song in the scene, but if you look up the lyrics you’ll see that some of them are:

“He left me for a damsel dark, damsel dark // each Friday night they used to spark, used to spark // and now my love who once was true to me // takes this dark damsel on his knee”

Very fitting, right? And remember that songs played in movies are chosen specifically to suit the scene. Everything is intentional, just like every reaction and facial expression.

I’m just going to leave this here, take from it what you will.

[lalunanova]

#I still think that the only logical way that the compass makes sense#is if Peggy pasted her own picture and sent it with the ammo and rations to the front#and Steve opened up his new compass when the camera happened to be on him#and his 😐 face was because he had no idea how to react to this#but Peggy’s smug face tells you that she’s not smart#because she exposed her face to everyone who was going to see those war reels#including Hydra#so yeah they were weak to downplay the relationships that really affected Steve#and the people he spent years with#for a cheap display of heterosexuality that didn’t even make sense#and also at the end when he opens his compass it’s supposed to show he’s thinking about her#and not that he was looking at which direction he was going to put the plane in the water 🤪#the cheap assholery of the MCU persists and I hope that’s what gets them in the end#+.+ @cosmicmechanism

(I didn’t want to intrude on op’s post so I thought I’d make my own) See that compass scene has puzzled me for a while. How much of it was staged/planned? Were they even allowed to show candid footage of Captain America planning his troop movements?? Steve looks so uncomfortable. Was it shown in movie theaters throughout America, or was it just for military brass (and the Hydra spies in their midst)?

For me, it just seemed too convenient to not be staged. Let’s film Captain America strategizing with the guys, and oh, who’s this? *zooms in so viewers can see Peggy’s face perfectly before Steve closes the compass*

I can see it being filmed for propaganda– give Captain America a girlfriend! Spin a romance, people will go wild!– but this doesn’t totally make sense because why would they use Peggy’s face if she’s supposed to be a spy? If this was used for propaganda, now the whole world knows what she looks like, and Hydra will have her in its sights. Unless SHIELD was already in the works and they were planning on using her as a figurehead?

(The photo in the compass also looks like it was poorly ripped out of an official photo that Steve got from somewhere, not carefully cut out of a personal photo that Peggy gifted to him 🙄 So imagine if they told Steve to have a picture of a random girl in his compass so they could film it, but Steve hastily tore out a photo of Peggy because he knows what will happen if she sees another woman in his compass 😂)

If Peggy was the one to send him the photo of her in the compass knowing it would be recorded for posterity, it just means she’s a terrible spy, OR she’s banking on her subsequent fame outweighing any cons that might occur after exposing her face to the world. The video is actually great publicity for Peggy and her ambitions– if she’s known as Cap’s girl, wouldn’t people think twice about crossing her? Wouldn’t people vie for her attention and approval? (Still need to watch out for Hydra though, and any enemy spy worth their salt)

I know the “canon” interpretation is that it wasn’t staged and that Steve put her photo in the compass because he wanted to show that he was sorry (???for what though, he did nothing wrong???) and committed to Peggy for reals, but it still doesn’t look great since this only happens after she shoots him. Like “don’t hurt me, see how my heart is yours only?”

Actually that reminds me of this meta by @amarriageoftrueminds: 

That domestic abuse means Steve carrying Peggy’s photo after it should not be treated as genuine and unambiguous.

If he’s acting as if he’s ‘taken’ by Peggy after receiving a violent punishment for not doing so, that doesn’t mean it’s true. It could easily be read as self-defense. The compass’s odd inclusion in a propaganda reel (where you’d think an allegedly professional spy would not want to feature) supports this.

And imagine the genders flipped:

Nobody would believe a battered woman was carrying her boyfriend’s photo around of her own free will, unless it was meant in a sad, gaslighted this-is-true-love ‘he showed me he’d hit me if I didn’t’ kind of way.)

[lalunanova]

Something I've always wondered, do you think Bucky had a moment after being rescued and before he fell where he realised that Zola did something actually tangible to him, and changed him?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yes, but...

.

I have a long meta on Bucky's serum here, but toAyourQ:

Here's the thing:

We don't actually know how much serum Bucky was given during the war, whether it was full blown finished serum, or a partial version, or what.

We do know Zola absolutely had the skill and knowledge to have secretly created a full blown serum, we just don't know if he did.

I say 'secretly' because Zola appears to have done all his evil human torture experiments in secret, without his boss's orders; Red Skull doesn't know about them and didn't order them. On the surface of it, this would appear to be important. If Red Skull is dropping by for inconvenient inspections a lot, and if Zola is trying to hide something, that affects how much serum-related materiel Zola can order before his boss starts asking awkward questions. However, Red Skull has such a one-track mind that he is completely indifferent to the prisoners -- ordering Zola to work them to death and replace them... That suggests that Zola could probably get away with a whole lot in Red Skull's absence, in terms of fucking up prisoners and ordering materiel relating to serum (which he shouldn't need, given that he's running a tesseract-weapon factory death camp). Red Skull was simply too self-absorbed to notice.

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And we do know that, by the time Steve met the Winter Soldier in the future, Bucky had the same strength, speed, healing, and endurance as Steve (who has serum and vitaradiation), the later Winter Soldiers, and T'Challa. Eg. he had full blown serum.

We know his physical attributes are the equal of theirs because these other enhanced people are shown as struggling to catch him (speed) or beat him in a fight (strength, endurance, etc.)

In fact the very plot depends on this equality.

*I'm ignoring serum-havers from FATWS cuz that show is a pile o shit and ignores all the previous serum rules (lazy moronic writers? who knows!) .

But there has been a huge time lapse in between those two periods, in which Zola had ample time to finish and perfect the serum, (if it wasn't finished in the war) and had Bucky back in captivity to re-administer it.

So it's possible Bucky got a partial serum in WWII, and full blown serum after.

Which would increase the likelihood of him not noticing the difference during WWII.

.

Just the full serum on its own is supposed to drastically and visibly change the subject (see: Red Skull and the other Winter Soldiers).

One possible interpretation is that, since Bucky isn't visibly drastically altered, therefore the serum must have been a partial, and its only attributes are the healing ones.

So that's why Bucky survived Krausberg and the Fall (and how Zola knew to look for him) without his friends noticing any difference.

There was supposed to have been a moment where Bucky is approached by a nurse, after Krausberg -- and he has an open slash in his henley, but no visible wound underneath.

Perhaps implying Bucky was supposed to notice his newfound healing, during the war?

. Sidenote: Apparently that nurse is Beardette, the girl Bucky took to the Stark Expo. As well as (possibly) expositing Bucky's strange healing, she's there to -- once again -- prevent any heartwarming queer-readable embrace occurring between Bucky and Steve, and to intercept and no-homo the loving eye contact he is having with Steve. (This is also why they rammed Piggy in as a wedge in between them, as usual. She's there to prove Steve is a Nice Puritan Straight Boy. Because if someone of the opposite sex thrusts themselves into your personal space without asking, that means you must have wanted it, obviously!) 🤢

.

On the other hand, if you wanted to believe that Bucky did get full blown serum in WWII...

Well, since they cut out all Bucky's war scenes prior to rescue, we don't actually know what Bucky looked like immediately before serum.

So it's possible he did drastically alter, and that the serum was a full blown one, but we (and Steve and the Howlies) just can't perceive it because we didn't see the immediate before and after.

Add in the excuse of malnutrition, starvation and exhaustion, undercutting its visual effects, and you could easily argue that the serum was full blown but struggling.

Personally, whether Bucky got a partial serum or full, given what was done to Steve I find it extremely unlikely that Bucky wouldn't perceive a difference in himself.

It's just too unlikely that he would not connect the dots between his change and what was done to Steve.

(Especially if he, for example, asked Steve what the serum looked like, before injection, and Steve said it was blue, and Bucky knew he had been injected with something blue).

On a darker note, there's an aura of wild self-destructiveness about Bucky, immediately after Krausberg. His looks mingle horror with misery.

For a man with obvious untreated mental health problems, and a protective-self-destructive streak a mile wide, there are too many opportunities to (deliberately?) get hurt. I think it's just not possible for Bucky not to have noticed that he is healing faster than he should. He would know exactly what a man in a warzone can survive.

So, yes, I think he noticed.

And if you're looking for a possible reason as to why he would keep that secret, some possibilities:

He can't reveal his healing without also revealing his self-destructiveness, which he would not want to do because his friends would be upset and interfere to stop him.

If he tells Steve serum was used on him Steve might feel guilty and blame himself for being part of the serum experiments which obviously motivated Hydra to continue theirs, and Bucky wouldn't want Steve to feel bad or worry about him.

If Steve found out, it might provoke one of his protective justice rampages, which Bucky would also not want because it would further endanger Steve.

He might be afraid of the Army finding out he's enhanced and making him a guinea pig in a lab, as they threatened to do to Steve.

He might be afraid of the Army finding out he's self-destructive and sending him home, where he can't protect Steve, which would also probably humiliate him.

He might be afraid of the Army finding out he's enhanced and never letting him go home at all, as Steve appears not to have realised will happen to him.

Given Bucky's other symptoms of PTSD he might have noticed XYZ symptoms of serum and yet dismissed them as not real, thinking he's delusional.

Given the stigma surrounding mental health, if he thought he was delusional he would conceal it from his friends because he wouldn't want them to know he's 'crazy.'

Given the times, he might also conflate PTSD symptoms with malingering and cowardice and want to conceal his symptoms from his friends for fear of appearing cowardly and disloyal in front of them (eg. malingering to get a medical discharge).

He might conceal or downplay any problems he is having because he doesn't want to seem inferior next to suddenly-perfect Steve.

all of the above ^

Holy shit he has so many reasons... 😯

[lalunanova]

….this is literally the concept art of ‘jealousy’ scene in the first Captain America movie. Not saying there’s a more 'correct’ way of getting assaulted but the way he’s posed makes it even clearer that this was always meant to be a scene where Steve was very visibly SA’d…. and then punished for it.

[lalunanova]

Mcu Stan's are some of the most ignorant and annoying people especially tony, Wanda and Peggy Stan's. I never understood how you could get mad at Jewish or romani people for having a problem with the way the mcu handles its characters. Countless Jewish people have pointed ot why peggy is problematic and why Wanda is to but people get so up in arms about it like a billion dollar company dosen't have the resources to research the characters they're writing.

Peggy as a character fustraits me so much because I know her problematic orgions in the mcu and so do the writers but they keep pushing her and it's starting to effect things outside the mcu.

‘Nonny, I couldn't agree more! 

They've already retconned the comics-Peggy to match MCU-Peggy/HA, to cover up that they adapted Cynthia-the-Nazi by another name.

(Sorry folks, a turd by any other name still stinks!) 

under a cut cuz you know I had to go off:

They've given this new Buff Liz Truss her own run in the comics, where she performs sudden leftwingism by- omg, guys -discovering Colonialism is bad?? Oh wow, so impressive, give her a biscuit!

And they've had her attacking, somehow beating, and victim-blaming comics-Bucky, saying it's 'insane' of him to question her motives.

(Just like She-Hulk lusting over Steve's ass, you can tell it's a nasty dig by male Disney execs at female fans; in this case at those who point out how rotten Peggy is. 

Ironically, it's super authoritarian, radfem and totally in-character of Peggy to violently attack anyone who dares to question her majesty, since that's the very first thing she ever did on screen!) 

Right before pissing away 80+ years of comics history, showing absolute devotion between Steve and Bucky, to turn comics Bucky into a full blown villain who attacks Steve (y'know, like she did?)

Cutting off comics Bucky's nose to spite MCU Bucky's face, cuz all they really want to do is further de-gay MCU Steve in order to bring his stalker Agent Brexit into the main MCU movies again, (because that's her only value! As an accessory to a man!), while they’re supposed to be raising up a black Cap they transparently Did Not Want. 🤮

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And just as it was absolutely unforgivable to take Jewish-penned Antifa Steve and pair him off with a Nazi, (I can't help feeling the Indiana Jones movies might have been an influence, there?) 

It was also unforgivable to take Romani Jewish Wanda and turn her into a Nazi. 

Her joint Jewishness and Romani heritage were important, too, because they showed the intersectionality of Fascism’s victims, since comics-Magneto (Jewish) met her Romani mother while imprisoned in Auschwitz. 

(You could also count MCU Bucky under this whitewashing heading, too, since MCU Bucky is partly based on Jewish comics character Arnie Roth. Another Jew made into a villain to serve Disney's Fascist 'don't say gay' values! 

There’s even speculation that they’re going to give WhatIf Bucky Peggy’s shitty corrupt backstory in the next season, and shift the blame off her by having Bucky co-found SHIELDra instead of her. I wouldn’t put it past these whitewashing bastards...)

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I can't fault the mere existence of Wanda's villain arc, since that is in the comics... 

Except for two things: 

1) it was transparently done too soon, just because a male creative wanted to be the one to have Cool Scarlet Witch Stuff in his movie.

(If there had been, say, a second season of WV, detailing her slow post-bereavement descent down a dark-mother path? That would've been more interesting and made MoM more organic, IMO.) 

2) The real problem, as someone on twitter I think pointed out, is that if you know about Wanda’s Jewish background in the comics... 

Well, the whole film is about an evil red-headed Jewish witch trying to kidnap and hurt a child for magic ritual purposes. 😬  

Which, if you know about the history of antisemitism, and that Wanda was originally Jewish, makes MoM ‘Blood Libel: the Movie.’ 

And it’s not like Disney would give a shit about the antisemitic vibes, if they knew. 

They’re about to undo all the good of the Captain Marvel movie by doing Secret Invasion, where evil lizard people are secretly infiltrating the earth (IYKYK). 

I saw one Jewish person on twitter pointing out: “Someone was arguing that the skrulls don't deserve their own story because they're evil infiltrators and... this is not comforting to me as a Jewish person, you know? antisemitic conspiracy theorists literally describe Jews as evil lizard people who infiltrate and disguise themselves...” 

Captain Marvel repositioned the Skrulls as innocent maligned refugees, but I guess Disney doesn’t give a fuck about standing by that. 

Mask off antisemitism for the Rat. 🤢

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In terms of Wanda’s show, while WV was a great, well-made show, which I enjoyed, while she was an interesting character in it, and Olsen gave a great performance, what I didn't like were the conservative values. 

It reminded me of the anti- second wave feminism films of the 1980s, where any woman who has a career (read: power, like Wanda has) is shown basically being driven insane by it and secretly just wanting to be a tradwife all along, even to the point of threatening her man if he interferes with it. 

In Wanda, we have a woman who never mentioned wanting the white-picket-fence life before, suddenly being desperate to give up an icky career to be a stay-at-home-mom in the suburbs, just because of the kind of 'golden age' sitcoms Disney would love to be associated with.

And it's presented as a terrible tragedy that she doesn't get to keep this sheltered 'dream' 1950s nuclear-family life and the slaves sorry, ‘prisoners with jobs’ necessary to maintain it. 

The spirit of Kevin Feige’s pathetic self-insert, aka Endgame Skrull Steve, is alive and well.

(As usual, a black woman receives the brunt of the violence, and is then made to comfort Wanda about the 'sacrifice' she has made by giving her hex-slaves sorry, ‘prisoners with jobs', their freedom at the cost of her own comfort. 😯 Holy? SHIT??)

Wanda becoming a villain coincides exactly with her turning from white tradwifism and embracing her (career-related) power. 

As usual with Disney tho, they dun fucked up and accidentally made something you can also read as kinda queer? 

Like: a couple who can't have biological children of their own together (like queer couples)? Who don't get to have that white-picket-fence life? Getting run out of town for trying to live that fantasy anyway?

And then Wanda breaks bad because she's annoyed about that??

Yeah it's no wonder she has been embraced by the gays as a diva!

And, NGL, seeing her deliver some karmic justice to MAGA Carter was SO SWEET. 😩 

(It should've been Bucky tho...)

Tony and Peggy have a lot in common because, no matter what they do, it’s never their fault.

The resemblance to Elon Musk grows stronger every day. 

TERF joke, rape joke, the mistreatment of women in the early IM movies, (ditto the slut-shaming he and Pepper engage in), industrial espionage (buying the rights or outright stealing other people’s inventions and passing them off as their own), eulogising a real Nazi (Wernher von Braun) for doing what Stark Industries did, arguing in favour of Ultron (who operated out of a Hydra base) and Hydra’s Project Insight in EG... and then in Spiderman he just re-makes Project Insight anyway (re-named EDITH)! 

I thought he was supposed to have stopped being the Merchant of Death?

He calls himself a “genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.” 

But a) he just finishes off designs his daddy stole off other people, 

b) the value of which created his inherited generational wealth (not impressive sorry bro, what else did he get? an emerald mine?) 

c) he obviously mis-characterises his interactions with women (stripper-pole air hostesses under his employ? female journalists get a scoop after sleeping with him? pepper made CEO after dating him but mysteriously immediately dumps him once she’s been empowered? saying ‘I want one’ and being reminded of lawsuits when he ogles Natasha at work? this is giving Weinstein), 

and d) what billionaires call ‘philanthropy’ is actually just using charities for tax write-offs, donating to their old alma maters, etc. 

Daddy was a basic bitch thief, who dealt in stolen vibranium, knew about TWS, co-founded SHIELDra, had a villain business partner, and was BFFs with a Nazi torturer of POWs, and the woman who- gawd -she just can’t stop working with Nazis, bless 'er! 

Tony was blowing up people in the Middle East for decades, making a bundle and very obviously enjoying himself (sipping on champagne while the missiles fly) and only stopped doing that, when- gasp -it affected him personally? 

(The villains of IM movies are the ones just: doing what Tony did.)

Despite claiming otherwise, he hung around with black market arms traffickers often enough for Ulysses Klaue to recognise one of his catchphrases and claim “Stark used to say that to me.” 

He helped design Project Insight and saw nothing wrong with it (we know he didn’t, because he kept arguing in favour of it / recreating it.)

Even after this, he lied and sneaked around behind the Avengers’ backs to hubristically tamper with alien tech in order to create Ultron, leading directly to the endangerment of the world and further deaths in Sokovia (in another universe, this almost destroyed the entire multiverse).

He co-signed Accords which violated human rights, not affecting him since he’s rich, just to shift future blame and responsibility off himself and make him look dateable to Pepper. He admitted he knew Bucky was a brainwashed “Manchurian Candidate” but tried to murder him (to spite Steve) anyway. 

He refused to call Steve back when Thanos was coming, just out of piqued pride (if you wanted to calculate the potential consequences of that, maybe: half of all life in the multiverse?) And when asked to help undo the Snap his ego helped create, he says he “won’t, even” because, hey, it doesn’t affect him personally so who gives a shit, right?? 

But like a true billionaire none of this ever has any consequences for him!

He only sees the inside of a jail when he’s visiting!

So what with his messianic nuclear-family ending you can see why Disney haven’t felt the need to sabotage his comics incarnation. MCU Tony is right on-message!

[lalunanova]

So I wound up in the antisteggy tag rabbithole and read some of your meta (excellent use of examples, btw!) and found it odd that CAtFA!Steve is so dismissive of Peggy compared to how he is towards all the men in the film, because he IS pretty respectful of Natasha in later films. He disagrees with her like he does anyone else sometimes, but he respects her skills, experience, knowledge, etc.

So it felt off to think 1940's!Steve is sexist when 2010's!Steve isn't, since they're the same Steve just a few weeks or months apart.

I've decided to headcanon he's actually dismissive of Peggy not because of sexism, but because he's canonicly the son of Irish immigrants who would've had Opinions on posh upper class Brits exactly like Peggy.

Hey thanks Anon, glad to hear someone's getting some reading out of them, I know they're pretty whoppin' big! 😅

(Not intentional, it's just that I keep thinking of new things to add over time until they become ginormous.)

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My feeling about CATFA-Steve vs Later-Steve, re: sexism, is that-

and as a Celt it pains me to say this

-he wouldn't judge an English person pre-emptively just by their Nationality.

(In the same way he didn't hear Erskine's German accent and jump to conclusions, and doesn't appear to have a problem with posh Monty, or Morita, for example.)

In my hc he'd be dismissive of her:

A) because she keeps acting as if she has the job title, authority, experience, and right to tell him what to do when she just doesn't,

B) he judges the person as an individual not a demographic. And she personally has done so much horrible bullying in front of / to him, which he wouldn't find charming in a man.

C) she keeps being wrong about everything.

So he's not going to hold her input in high esteem.

And he's certainly not going to give her a free pass to be a horrible person and fuck up all the time, just because she's a rich woman and it's the 1940s. (If he doesn't do it for Tony, he's not going to do it for her).

Her combined class and nationality would be a black mark against her, certainly, but even then my hc is Steve would wait and see before he decides that- yeah, her class privilege and nationality have corrupted her, specifically.

But his dismissal would still be grounded in her individual personality, not her class/nationality/gender etc. as if those automatically = evil.

(And we just have to ignore that creepy SheHulk shit Feige and M&M said about 1940s Steve abusing his USO fame to bag chicks. They appear to have got him confused with Howard Stark. 🤮 )

.

(But yh Doylist reasons for his apparent dismissal of Peggy is sexist writing and boneheaded dudebro writers who think, for example, that negs are just innocent slips of the tongue by the inexperienced, rather than predatory attempts to harm the opposite sex's self esteem.

Plus:

1) no other women are allowed to be in the movie because Peggy's manufactured Specialness is too fragile for other women to be worth risking screentime on, so Steve's treatment of The Only Woman Allowed is made to stand in for his treatment of All The Women, which isn't necessarily the case.

2) Peggy is just there to recite exposition while failing the Sexy Lamp Test, so what she's saying is actually genuinely not worth Steve listening to anyway, and he can't listen because that would make her, y'know, actually have been written as important. 🙄 )

.

Further evidence for this take on Steve's politics, IMO:

Steve wakes up in 2012 and is greeted by a pretty woman (originally supposed to be Natasha!)

And he doesn't go easy on her just because she's a woman.

He also doesn't automatically trust her just because she's a woman acting all nice (which would've dovetailed nicely with that friction he had with Nat in CATWS).

He isn't distracted from his job by her thinly-veiled honeypotting *coughbecausehe'sgaycough* and he calls her bullshit out straight away. Exactly like he would to a man.

That's the opposite of misogyny; he has women neither up on a pedestal nor down in the gutter, as it were. He can see them with clear eyes.

He's also an equal-opportunity comforter -- when someone's angsting alone, he'll go comfort them and do the Concerned Dad lean in their doorway, regardless of gender (Tony, Nat, Wanda, and Bucky all come in for the same treatment. It's even hinted Steve learned this habit from Bucky.)

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Sidenote: A Thing I've noticed...

I have no solid evidence to support this, it's just a hunch, but I think Steve's un-sexism later on is mostly down to Cevans' performance choices?

The fact that like 50% of his deference to Natasha is in non-verbal beats, and those little nv-beats have tended to be Cevans' own ideas in other examples in the past, to me suggests they weren't in the script.

Which in turn suggests Cevans and Scarjo just decided between themselves to make Nat more relevant / more respected by Steve than the scripts actually do. 😕

[lalunanova]

Okay okay, now that I’ve had time to actually think about all this and get the evidence and do the math: imma give y’all a little ted talk on Bucky’s Stockholm Syndrome.

So I’m gonna preface all this by saying that this probably wasn’t an intentional choice from the writers of TFATWS. For two reasons, one cause the show overall had a ton of writing issues beyond just Bucky and was kinda a mess as a whole. And two, to actually make that claim firmly, I’d have to do a rewatch and I don’t got time for all that. That said, as a viewer, choosing to look not just TFATWS, but at all of Bucky’s appearances from the perspective of him having Stockholm Syndrome, makes a lotttt of sense. It adds a lot of depth to his actions, words, etc. Also even if it wasn’t intentional, if you chose to look at it through this lens, the narrative of TFATWS being contradictory towards him can actually be a reflection of what’s going on in his head. The way the show is sometimes sympathetic but other times judgmental can be a reflection of how he sees himself and his inner conflict regarding his past. Again, I don’t think the writers intentionally did this, but it’s cool way to look at it and repurposes their mistakes.

Now, I just wanna point out that Stockholm syndrome can develop within merely days or weeks, so it’s almost kinda silly to think that it wouldn’t occur if someone had been held hostage for decades. It’s practically undoubtable that Bucky had Stockholm Syndrome for at least some part of his captivity, but I think he’s still dealing with the remnants of it. Zemo was right when he said there’s something still in Bucky and he can’t get rid of hydra. But it’s not that he’s some evil killer at heart, it’s that he has leftovers from Stockholm Syndrome.

In a very simplified summary, Stockholm syndrome usually happens and works when captors cause immense pain to the victim and then treat them well afterwards. The captor shows them some form of kindness, flattery, mercy, etc. back to back with harm. Also a big factor in it is the victim becoming dependent on them for basic needs. Seriously, learned helplessness is a huge factor in Stockholm Syndrome. All of it causes a “bond” to form. And the more this occurs over time, the stronger it gets because the victim is constantly exposed to them, they become their only source of interactions and relationships. Stockholm syndrome is thought to be a complex trauma response, a defense mechanism for surviving during cruel and terrifying conditions.

Think of it like the victim disassociates the perpetrator from the abuse and then emotionally bonds with them, so that they can lessen their fear and feel a sense of security. Also with Stockholm Syndrome (especially within cults), not only does the victim bond with their captor, but being isolated from the rest of the world causes them to adopt their captor’s views and lifestyle. They get completely indoctrinated and start to think the same way as the captor.

Now think about what we see with the Winter Soldier. Even from the very little that we know, it’s a cycle of Hydra severely hurting him but then giving him praise, encouragement, validation, etc. All for manipulation ofc, but a broken mind isn’t going to see it that way. He would be relishing in the fact that they’re making him feel like he’s needed and wanted, like he’s done good, etc. Especially since that’s the only affirmations and positive reinforcements he receives, and is otherwise forced to suffer. Those moments of praise and “kindness”, are so so so heavily weighted against everything else.

While he was captive, while Hydra had him, he likely thought they cared about him. It probably felt close to love. Now ofc Bucky, as a free man with a clear head, knows it wasn’t love or anything at all except being viewed as a weapon. But I bet there’s still a part of him that desires that again, even if he knows it was fake, especially in the wake of becoming lonely and left with his own negative thoughts. Because like I said before, the affirmations were fucking heavy weighted. During those 70 years just the slightest bit of praise or mercy probably felt like the world’s greatest high. Especially when it was given in the midst of pain.

These manipulative affirmations also result in the victim justifying their abuse. This happens in a lot of abusive situations but especially in Stockholm Syndrome. Think about the scene where Pierce is praising the winter soldier so he can convince him to do what he’s told. What immediately follows? He slaps him. Then he electrocutes him. But the winter soldier doesn’t resist either, doesn’t complain, etc. He takes both, which is definitely a conditioned response, but it’s also likely due to the thoughts of “I’m disappointing them, I deserve this punishment for not behaving.” And to play devils advocate, let’s say he didn’t feel as if he deserved it. Even so, without speculating his thoughts, his reactions to the abuse and the fact that he’s been conditioned to deal with that at all, are still signs of Stockholm Syndrome. Because the captor’s behavior has become normalized.

Also he very well was dependent on them for his every single need. For food, water, shelter, hygiene, human interaction, and probably things he didn’t need but was manipulated into believing were necessities. And that, especially with the learned helplessness and with him likely being in constant survival mode, reinforces that feeling of dependence. The feeling that he needs them. The feeling that they’re Hydra isn’t so bad because they take care of him. The dependence also circles back into kindness thing. Providing for him could easily be seen as small acts of kindness, further making him feel like Hydra cares about him.

Another huge huge huge part of Stockholm Syndrome is that the victim shows resistance and anger towards those trying to help them or that try to oppose the captor. Look at how the Winter Soldier reacts to Steve, various times throughout the movie. With almost everyone else, he’s mostly objective, just fighting anyone who stands in the way of Hydra. He’s brainwashed but he’s not stupid, he knows Steve had another motive. He knew Steve wanted to help him in some way or separate him from Hydra. And that made him fucking livid. He wasn’t just irritated, like he was when Natasha shot his goggles. He was fighting with full on rage, because didn’t want to even think about a life outside of Hydra.

Now, I don’t think it’s full blown Stockholm syndrome anymore now that he’s a free man. That’s why in my initial post I said it’s to certain degree. In remission is maybe a way to word it. He can’t have full blown Stockholm Syndrome, because if he did, he wouldn’t acknowledge that hydra was bad at all, he’d straight up defend them. However, he clearly has some level of it since he considers himself to have been hydra, to have been one of them, rather than just their captive.

But this all plays into Bucky’s overall-mcu characterization and the way he has conflicting views on his time as the soldier. Because Bucky knows what happened to him was fucked up, that it wasn’t actually his fault, but he still feels that way because he was indoctrinated into their culture and his psyche was completely altered by them beyond just trauma. The degree of his stockholm syndrome is what makes him having stressful, conflicting, confusing feelings on it. It’s cognitive dissonance. In case anyone doesn’t know, here’s a quick definition: cognitive dissonance is when you have two conflicting thoughts/feelings at the same time or when your actions conflict with your thoughts/feelings.

Cause we know he has cognitive dissonance from his actions as the winter soldier. We know he has extreme stress, shame, and guilt from the fact that he killed people despite it not being in line with his morals. BUT if we’re talking about Stockholm Syndrome, it unravels other areas of cognitive dissonance. It’s why he struggles so much with accepting his own innocence and forgiving himself, and rarely acknowledges what was done to him. He knows he was a victim yet he was also a perpetrator. Those don’t align, they contradict each other, he can’t see how they can be simultaneous, it doesn’t neatly make sense how the perpetrator could also be the victim, especially from his perspective. A lot of times, the way people deal with cognitive dissonance is by ignoring one of the feelings/beliefs. His way of dealing with this is to put the blame on himself, because even though it still feels shitty, it’s less confusing and easier to accept that than the fact that multiple things can be true at once. Or more accurately from the outsider’s perspective: the fact that his innocence outweighs his guilt.

That’s why he shuts down anyone who points out he’s not to blame. He’s avoiding the feeling of victimhood that conflicts with his beliefs that he’s at fault. It shakes everything thing up and makes him feel even worse than just the guilt alone does. Which also is due to the fact that it’s easier to believe you’re the problem than it is to acknowledge you were helpless. And to deal with the cognitive dissonance he’s choosing the more manageable option, being at fault. But all this cognitive dissonance just completely feeds into his guilt and self esteem problems.

(Side note, no I absolutely do not think his guilt is boiled down to just this. This looking at one little piece of the puzzle, it’s wayyy bigger than this. I’m just sticking to the context of this post right now.)

He didn’t want to do anything Hydra made him do, he never wanted to be with them, yet he accepted Hydra as a home during those 70 years and some of their practices linger in his head. It’s inconsistent to have not wanted to apart of it but adopted the lifestyle anyways. The stress that inconsistency brings is not easy to resolve. Especially because he likely doesn’t understand why he felt any kind of attachment to something that caused him and others so much pain. Think about the line “Hydra was my people”. We all hate it. But….if you look at it from this perspective, it’s not necessarily wrong. He spent 70 years with them. 70 years of having nothing but Hydra, having to rely on them, having to endure all the things that cause Stockholm Syndrome to develop. He didn’t have a choice in the matter, but it really was his home in his eyes. An abusive, nazi nightmare of a home but still, sadly….his home. They were his people, because they forced themselves to be. They were his only people. Again, that’s where the cognitive dissonance comes in: he hates them, he wishes they weren’t ever his people….but the fact is that they were. And that eats at him.

And like I mentioned before, Stockholm Syndrome involves indoctrination and adopting the ideals of the captor. It would be hard to completely remove that if it’s what you spent decades living by. Hydra’s world view and practices probably still slip into his mind a lot, but they don’t align with what he truly believes is right, they’re not who he is as a person: again, more cognitive dissonance that’s causing him distress.

All of this is also probably a factor in why he wants to make amends, not only because he wants to right his wrongs and make up for his sins, but he wants to act on this cognitive dissonance. Because amending does align with his feelings of being against hydra, of not wanting to be a part of Hydra. And acting on that might help push away those other feelings of being one of them.

Also think about how he never argues or defends himself when people speak down on him and his past, he never corrects anyone when they say he’s hydra, he never has any rebuttal against negative comments about him. Which of course, is due to his low self esteem, and again, guilt. But also it goes back to the Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance that fuel those feelings. He can’t argue or defend his character to anyone else, because he can’t even convince it himself. Because for any excuse, any explanation, any proof he has of being good….he has something to contradict it with. And how can he truly say he’s still a good guy and not at fault when even he is confused about what’s true? When he still has uncomfortable, lingering attachments to Hydra that he hasn’t shaken yet?

The point is, his head is fucking mess, which we all already knew….but looking at it like this just makes you realize how much more confused and lost he is, how his thoughts are literally at war with each other all the time. And when you look at the narrative as a reflection of his feelings, it makes sense why it switches up every second. If it’s confusing for a viewer to see the seesaw go back and forth from “victim” to “criminal”, then imagine what it’s like in Bucky’s head.

Now I do feel like there’s a lot more here, you could go way deeper and I’m probably missing some stuff, but it’s a place to start. Just some fuel to get the motors running.

[lalunanova]

Hey, I don't know if you've already answered this (and this may be a weird question lol) but why did Hydra just let Bucky's hair grow long? Why didn't they just cut it? I've seen you do other metas and stuff like that (which I love, you're a great writer!) So do you have any ideas?

Aww thanks for enjoying the other metas 💕

That is a very interesting question that I’ve never thought much of 😅

From a Doylist perspective, the Winter Soldier arc was published in 2005-6. Ed Brubaker was born 1966. Men having long hair became more acceptable and even fashionable from about the 1970s (ie Brubaker’s formative years), and that style carried over to the late 1990s (or, if you’re like me who was in the JPop fandom, it was still popular for most of the 2000s). Longer hair in men was generally seen as subversive and cool, or untamed and unkempt, which were descriptors that would have fit Bucky’s reappearance in his new persona. It was also a good way of indicating that time has passed and his character has changed significantly. One other thing is, when it comes to 2D art, long hair flows, ie it’s easier to express dynamism, which is why so many superheroes wear capes. I believe (not having read the actual comics) Bucky’s role changed in The Winter Soldier run from a pure sidekick to something closer to an antagonist and partner, so the more distinctive character design reflects that too.

From a Watsonian perspective…I guess men’s short hair can be somewhat high maintenance in that you kind of have to trim it once a month at least. Who knows if the serum affects the speed of hair growth as well, because if it does then maybe he needs more frequent trims and it just gets long if they miss any. Presumably, given his history, he’s also not an easy customer to approach with a sharp implement, especially not that close to his face. And they’re always in such a hurry to pack him back in the cryo tube or to get him prepped for his mission that it just gets missed until it really gets in the way.

The other possibility is that the longer hair also changes his face shape substantially speaking as someone who didn’t recognise Bucky when the mask came off. It makes his face more angular and the shadows deeper. It probably stops his memories triggering as easily when he sees his own reflection. It serves to erase his original identity, along with his new “name” (although we have no evidence that he knew he was called the Winter Soldier while he was still brainwashed), new uniform and the bionic arm.

The third reason is that the long unkempt hair could be used as a psychological tactic. It’s emasculating and demeaning, especially for someone born in the 1910s and normally known to be well-groomed and tidy. It’s an element of control over his bodily autonomy that he cannot change without them allowing it or at least giving him access to implements to cut it. It contrasts him with the other soldiers, including the other “Winter Soldiers” we see in CACW, who are allowed to sport typical masculine haircuts, and serves as a continual reminder that he is “other”, if not considered somewhat subhuman.

So that’s my two boring cents. I wonder if anyone else has other ideas.