#anti endgame steve rogers

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Re: Endgame. Oh, boy do I loathe Steve’s “resolution.” I read a quote where one of the Russos said that the hyper-patriotism of Captain America “belonged in the past,” so that was part of their thinking there.

And I just…that’s when it was confirmed for me that they never understood Captain America. Since his creation, Cap has been what the United States SHOULD BE, not what it is. And what could our country need more now than a guy who socks Nazis in the face?! He could not possibly be more timely.

Of all the things that the Russos have said about Steve (and yes, this includes all that whining they did about how COOL it would have been to have Thanos bowl 2014 Steve's head into the feet of his 2023 self and how LAME it was that the studio was rightfully horrified by that version of the script) that bit about him being the kind of "White, Patriotic American Male" that doesn't have a place in the present anymore...

That is the one that perpetually fills me (Emily) with rage.

Because HOW could you possibly look at Steve "I don't like bullies, I don't care where they're from/SHIELD, Hydra, it all goes/If I see a situation pointed south I can't just ignore it" Rogers and equate him with the red hat-wearing 'Merica Fuck Yeahs marching around saying "We're Number One!"

How could you do it? Just be honest. Just say "We're uncreative schmucks who couldn't figure out how to sunset Evans out of the franchise after his contract was up." Just say that! Don't burn his whole character to the ground and salt the earth with the WORST ENDING EVER.

[levelofyoureye]

lmao so i was just going through my camera roll and clearing some photos out, when i stumbled across this screenshot i took in january of 2020 and…

i’m in shock. i literally don’t know how i forgot this happened, like i was actually astounded when i found this. NEVER forget when steve rogers’ ending was so horrifically out-of character that SEBASTIAN STAN HIMSELF posted a screenshot to instagram of a tweet dogging on his ending. it’s been years and i still haven’t forgiven marvel. i don’t think i ever will.

[lavenderpanic]

There is no universe in which Steve went back in time and, instead of freeing Bucky or Isaiah or exposing HYDRA, he chose to marry Peggy and live a quiet life and ignore everything he found out about in the 21st century

[luna-rainbow]

On Steve Rogers, loss, and loneliness

Unlike some of the other characters, Steve's hurt isn't as plain to the eye. His demeanour is usually one of stoicism and optimism, and it is easy to forget that his story is steeped in loss and loneliness.

Steve's introduction highlighted how alone he was - an orphan, armed with a list of ailments, and hiding behind a newspaper to avoid small chat with other recruits. When rejected by the recruitment centre, Steve shrugs and heads to watch a movie - alone.

Steve is a loner, we are shown, and then just as abruptly - perhaps just like the way it had happened many years ago - Bucky crashes into Steve's world and hooks an arm around his shoulders and noisily talks about an expo and dispels all of Steve's melancholic air. Steve is a loner, except for Bucky.

But Bucky is now leaving to go to war.

Steve is used to being stoic, because there were no adults around him to spoil him. He is used to being buoyant, because Sarah taught him how to pick himself up and carry on. Steve is used facing the empty house and lonely silence -- except for Bucky, who filled his room with chatter, "We can put the couch cushions on the floor, like when we were kids."

So when we hear the anxious strain in his voice as he is informed by Bucky that he is leaving -- it also becomes plain that Steve is also used to loss, or the threat of loss shadowing him, everyday.

In his short life, he has already lost so much. He has lost his health (my thought is he was probably healthier in his early childhood until he caught scarlet fever, and then his health got a lot worse after that). He has lost his father, and all the security of having a family breadwinner. He has lost his mother - to long hours of work and eventually to the disease she was battling against.

What he dreads would happen, does happen. Life seems to have a way of chasing him down like that. Sarah gets sick, and his fear of coming home to find her gone...one day inevitably comes true.

At his darkest moment, Bucky squeezes his shoulder and promises, "You don't have to do it (alone). I'm with you to the end of the line."

It's just enough for Steve to square his shoulders and push on, as Sarah had always taught him to do. Deep inside - possibly buried so deep that he can barely put it into words, he knows that he pulled through because "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

I'm going to pause here and emphasise how deeply lonely (and young) Steve was, and how, naturally, the only stable presence — ie Bucky — in his life, through periods of terrible grief and uncertainty, is going to be such a deep-rooted emotional foundation for him (regardless of how you ship).

When the draft does come for Bucky, it's not just Bucky who's unhappy, it's Steve who's also aghast. Suddenly, the possibility of losing his last bastion looms over him, and he remembers the fear and anxiety and the devastating grief of losing Sarah. But it is also a war that needs fighting - so he comes up with a solution: sign himself up. He can't keep Bucky from the war, but he wants to fight alongside him. Besides Bucky, what else does he have to lose?

"Men are laying down their lives, I have no right to do any less. That's what you don't understand, Bucky."

He says this angrily, because the words he can't say aloud are, "You are laying down your life, Bucky, and I might never see you again, and I can't go through all that again, not by myself."

When he hears about the 107th being captured, he has to go. He is saving Bucky, sure, but he is also saving himself, because the pillar, the lifebuoy, the harness that has kept him afloat all those years is Bucky, and he's terrified of sinking.

The serum makes him taller and more women pause to smile at him, but he is still incredibly alone. He sits alone during break, he draws alone in his book, he runs off alone and none of the USO girls even notices until it's his turn on stage.

But Bucky notices him immediately, and says, "I thought you were smaller," and, "Did it hurt?"

Steve doesn't really believe in miracles. His whole life feels like one bad luck after another, even if he forces one foot in front of another and keeps marching on. But maybe at that moment, he feels like Bucky is his miracle. Bucky, who always seems to notice when he's alone and pulls him into his social circle. Bucky, who had seen him lose his dad and Sarah and promised him the end of the line. Bucky, who he - and all the commanders - thought was dead, pulls through and gives him another promise - that he would follow the little guy back into war.

When Steve is finally thrust into the frontline, the losses keeps mounting, man after man are falling, condolence letter after letter is being written. And then towards the end of 1944, the tides seem to finally turn. German forces are waning, the Allied forces are advancing, and quietly, secretly, Steve dreams of home.

And that dream dies with Bucky.

"Honour the dignity of his choice," he is told, but he can't shake off the guilt.

He pushes himself forward, step by dragging step. Nazi Germany is falling. He is taking down Hydra with his own hands…and at the end, he buries them all in the ocean with himself.

His is sinking, but he isn’t afraid, because he is going where all the people who mattered are waiting.

And he is denied even that.

He opens his eyes to a world he doesn’t recognise. They tell him they had won the war.

But no one wants to speak with him about what was lost.

A folder of old photos, the museum of unmoving murals, the silent movies of a smile he would never see again.

He thought he had lost all there was to lose, but somehow life always seem to find something else to take.

What we see of off-duty Steve in the modern world is once again a figure of loneliness. He goes to the gym alone, he goes for a ride on the train alone, he sits at the cafe alone, he goes for runs alone, he goes to the museum alone.

Only during those solitary moments he could truly be Steve Rogers, instead of trying to meet everyone's expectations of Captain America. He is just shy of 27 years old, but suddenly, he can no longer lay claim to youth. Only a dream ago he was "just a kid from Brooklyn", and now he's an "old-fashioned" (as per Coulson) "older fellow" (as per Tony).

He's in the history books, he's on the television, he's in the classrooms; everyone knows of Captain America, but Steve Rogers is lost.

He had been willing to lose his life on the Valkyrie, but what he lost was every living connection and his own identity.

"Must have freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing," the friendly man says to him on their first meeting, but Sam only knows half of it.

The too soft bed and the too quiet room is one thing, the unshakeable nightmares another, but the worst of it is -- this isn't home.

He is marooned in a place that bears eerie resemblance to the world he knew, without being familiar.

Until the moment Bucky's mask comes off.

It's like the anchor dropping. He's now got a connection tethering him to this strange place, someone with "shared experience" that means he is no longer alone, and he is no longer a ghost forgotten by the seventy years of lost time.

"He doesn't know you."

"He will."

He has to believe that Bucky will, because Bucky is proof that Steve Rogers exists.

And once again, Bucky is his miracle. On the brink of killing them both, Bucky reels back from his brainwashing and hauls them both to safety.

Even if Bucky leaves after that, he's left behind something Steve hasn't had for a long time -- hope, and belonging.

"Family, stability. The guy who wanted all that went in the ice seventy-five years ago," he says to Tony as he prepares to meet the ragged team of enhanced people that is to become the Avengers. "I'm home."

Stoic and buoyant as he has always been, Steve sets to work building that home for himself. Gradually, we see Steve open up. He forms new connections and new friendships, he talks about his vulnerabilities with people he trusts, and he reclaims his own identity. He looks for Bucky, and waits until Bucky is ready to build that home for himself.

Until it is once again blown apart by the end of Infinity War - he loses not just Bucky, the anchor to his past, but the new family he has made apart from Natasha.

That's why it makes sense that Steve, not Tony, is the one working so hard to reverse the Snap. His family was 5 years ago, Tony's family is now. The people who rallied behind Steve and not Captain America, the people who followed him after he dropped the shield, the people with whom he no longer needed to be endlessly lonely and tirelessly stoic and who loved him for who Steve Rogers was, they all vanished in the Snap.

So even if there was only a small hope, Steve wants them back.

And that's why his decision to leave everything he had built, the sacrifices he had made to bring them back, in order to go into a life of incredibly loneliness and deception is still the dumbest narrative faux pas in the MCU.

[stuffedanimalsgalore]

I can not stand when people get mad at Steve for leaving Bucky bc no that was not Steve!!! He would never!!! That was the bad-writing man!!! Steve actually stayed ❤️

[fizz-pop-thwip]

I like to imagine that the super soldier serum enhances dreams too like it gives the affected really vivid and realistic dreams.

In Steve's case this was just overwhelming because not only was he having crazy intense dreams but in a fresh new array of colour that he'd never experienced previous. And it's extra traumatic on top of all of that when he started having nightmares about his experiences on the field.

Imagine it in Bucky's case too like, Jesus. He would wake up screaming and not even remember why due to the shock therapy he'd been receiving stunting his memory so badly. And when he's finally escaped Hydra and his mind starts healing is when these dreams would affect him the worst. Because now he actually remembers them and how horrible they are and his waking up to screaming finally starts to make sense.

But there would be a nice side to it too.

Steve will always know when Bucky's had a dream about the 30s because Bucky will be stuck to his back, hugging him from behind like they used to back then. And Bucky will know Steve has had one when he wakes up and stretches his back in an arch with a groan as if he still has scoliosis.

All it takes is for Steve to take his first deep breath of the morning, in those big lungs that he never used to have, for him to realise where he is again. Bucky just had to feel the big body in his arms.

They'll both just sit in the moment whenever it occurs because of course they miss it, before the fighting, before the war and the hell they now know. But they still have each other, so they never really lost home. They have each other so they're okay.

[buckymilf]

friendly reminder that steve rogers was a victim of bad writing and weird self insert coming from creepy writers, he would never chose to abandon bucky and his found family, he would never chose to live in the past for no woman.

[srdonix]

“So godly weapons, huh?”

“Guess so..”

[misguidedandperplexed]

Fic writers, if you're worried that the way you're writing your characters is out of character, remember that the MCU did the ultimate OOC move when they had the guy who said this:

and this:

leave his BFF — who he'd lost for five years and only just got back, and who was that someone with the most shared life experience — and other friends and found family to go back to the past to live that white picket fence life.

[imposterogers]

I know I said I was going to stop thinking about endgame steve bucky (like a liar) but its just so infuriating when people try and say that bucky was happy for steve. that if he wasn't, "why wouldn't he have tried to stop him?" when based on CANON bucky's self-worth was already abysmal, and one of the few people who had convinced him otherwise was his best friend. steve had almost died to jog bucky's memory, had went against the world govt to protect bucky, had told him 1000 times "til the end of the line" and bucky STILL had trouble trusting him. and endgame proved him right. because he woke up expecting his best friend since he was six years old to be there waiting for him, that they could finally get on with their lives together, just for steve to tell him "my happy ending doesn't include you". of course bucky wouldn't try to stop him. if someone essentially implied that you weren't worth it after all, would you? not to mention bucky has always put his feelings second to steve. steve has been his priority from day one. he wouldn't put himself between steve and his "happiness" no matter how much it hurt him. literally suffering in silence!!!!!!!!!

[hainethehero]

So I made the mistake of stumbling onto the NOT STEVE ROGERS FRIENDLY tag today and..

You have to be a special type of delusional to be this obsessed with a character you don't like!??

Over 2k fics have the tag and are almost entirely Tony Stark-centered fics. I'm assuming these are the "fans" who totally buy into the MCU canon and don't know any other Captain America lore outside of what Feige and Whedon have done. Or, they're the "fans" who refuse to understand the politics behind Steve's character and how he was inherently undermined throughout the entire ten years of the MCU by the directors and writers for most of the films.

Because the arguments in most of these fics for being "not Steve rogers friendly" are really surface level shit like:

1) "Steve refused to sign the Accords and broke up the Avengers" (he was right & he didn't break them up, an overemotional Tony did when he refused to listen to Bucky's side of the story).

2) Steve fought Tony and almost killed him (yeah, like Tony didn't blast Bucky's arm off and shoot his repulsor rays directly at Steve).

3)Steve is homophobic (y'all are just making up reasons to hate this man atp)

4)Steve is racist (Steve hated racists & you'd know that if you read the comics, or you guys are just that deluded that you're making Steve racist & trying to project it as canon and therefore a "reasonable" explanation as to why you hate him)

5)Blaming Steve for Rhodey's accident (WHICH WAS TEAM TONY'S FAULT!)

6)YALL, THEY MADE STEVE THE BAD GUY IN A BROCK RUMLOW/BUCKY FIC! I stg I cannot make this shit up💀 Steve's bad for wanting Bucky to be Bucky again, but somehow Brock's the good guy for wanting Bucky to be the Soldier...

Steve left Bucky for Peggy (we'll get to this soon)

There's a hundred more irrational reasons for the Steve Rogers hate, but let me get to the WORST part.

THERE ARE BUCKY STANS WHO ARE ANTI-STEVE ROGERS.

And I'm sorry, no. I don't accept that you love Bucky Barnes but hate the one person he loves the most in the world.

They argued in a couple fics that "Bucky also went rogue after Siberia but he didn't want to associate with Steve, Nat & the rest of the team- WHO HELPED RESCUE BUCKY & EVENTUALLY EXONERATE HIM- but rather, he went off on his own & eventually Tony finds him, they hash it out and become friends to lovers."

Helppp???? Wdym Bucky isn't gonna stick with the one man he's been keeping diaries about to try and get back his memories? But he'll go to the one guy that re-traumatized him by blowing out his arm again?

Not only that, but Bucky absolutely hates Steve in some of these fics and the reason will be, "he left Bucky to go back to Peggy." Like, you cannot be a serious fan if you're still going with the Endgame canon. For a majority of us, we recognize Endgame as being nothing but terrible writing and mischaracterizations. Why are yall not analyzing and interpreting media critically? The MCU has never been on Steve's side and have always diminished his character in an attempt to make Tony the ultimate hero of the OG 6. Don't yall know the discourse? It's embarrassing atp.

And this is my stance on the entire thing: there's nothing wrong with writing fics about characters you don't necessarily like or aren't interested in. It's OKAY if you don't like Steve Rogers- but you've gotta be rational about him, instead of hateful. Most, if not all of these "anti-steve" fics are written in bad faith. Bad understanding of the character and pure, shameless mischaracterizations which just makes these types of fics fickle and weak- hilarious to read though cos that Brock one had me deadddd😭💀.

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

"As long as RDJ got jerked off with a wad of thousand dollar bills directly into Kevin Feige's face, that's all that really matters."

The Endgame episode is giving me energy to survive and THRIVE today, holy shit.

Welcome to salt miiiiiiines

Also I (Emily) would need to listen to that episode again to be sure, but I'm like...99% positive that it was me who said that.

I mean. I honestly can't imagine that combination of words coming out of V's mouth and I say things like that on a daily basis so I'm pretty sure this is an Emily quote.

Anyway, thank you for listening, for the reminder, and for sharing our salt with Endgame.

[5ummit]

Stucky used to be my comfort ship.

I used to think Steve and Bucky cared for each other so deeply and tragically that their love – even if only viewed as platonic – could not be denied by anyone. Not after Steve spent THREE whole movies, the entire Cap trilogy, proving how much Bucky meant to him over and over and over. Steve was willing to fight for him and die for him in every single movie. I used to think that even if Marvel gave Steve another love interest, even if he died in Endgame, it wouldn’t change or negate how devoted they were to each other. That they would still be friends “til the end of the line.”

Little did I know what awaited me in Endgame was a fate worse than death.

Steve left and in doing so rewrote everything we thought we knew about him and his relationship with Bucky. About who Steve is as a character entirely. It wasn’t just that he abandoned his supposed best friend, who he had been chasing and obsessing over for years. Who was there for him and looked after him ever since they were children. If Steve had left the Bucky he used to know in the 1940s for some love interest and a life without him, it would still be pretty out of character, but I would eventually get over it. 1940s!Bucky was confident, happy, and had family and friends who cared about him. Endgame!Bucky is not that Bucky.

Endgame!Bucky is broken and lost and just now learning how to be a person again. Endgame!Bucky has no friends and no family. Endgame!Bucky just spent the last 70 years of his life going from one fight to another, being brainwashed and tortured and manipulated and abused. Endgame!Bucky is clinging by a thread to the one and only thing he knows and values in this world: Steve.

This is the Bucky that Steve chose to leave.

If Steve was any kind of friend at all – if Steve was truly a hero and the morally upstanding person he’s portrayed as, a person worthy of wielding Mjolnir – he would know these things about Bucky, his best friend since childhood, and at the very least, would refuse to leave his side until Bucky had some sort of support network and seemed well-adjusted enough to handle it. But he doesn’t. Even in their farewell scene when Bucky (looking like a kicked puppy) says to him “I’m gonna miss you” Steve won’t even echo the sentiment. He just says “it’s gonna be okay,” as if he’s aware of the pain Bucky must be in and essentially tells him, “don’t worry, you’ll get over it.” And I’m not even going to get into the terrible way Steve treated his other best friend, Sam, by keeping him completely in the dark about his plans for absolutely no reason and abandoning him as well.

Marvel didn’t just make Steve act out of character in Endgame in an effort to no-homo him and create a ~surprise twist~. They didn’t just make him a bit selfish and a bad friend. They straight up made him a villain, and I will never ever forgive them for it.

[lavenderpanic]

Steve "I won't stop until all of HYDRA is dead or captured" Rogers skipping off into the sunset to marry the woman who knowingly held open the door for Nazis to infiltrate SHIELD is like. Possibly one of the worst decisions ever made ever.

[luna-rainbow]

So…I saw a Blu-ray featurette on Bilibili where the writers and directors talk about Bucky, with key quotes like:

Cap 1 and Cap 2 both show that Cap’s allegiance, more than anything, is to Bucky Barnes, his best friends since when he was Steve Rogers, the 100 pound weakling. (Nate Moore)

The Winter Soldier has such a complicated history. We wanted that to have a real presence to it, to see the harshness with which he was treated. He’s both good and bad, hero and villain. (Joe Russo)

That’s the most heartbreaking scenario in his life, Bucky was the guy who’s always been there. Those are the scenes that make the action scenes worth it. What are you willing to compromise and sacrifice and forfeit for the greater good? And that is close to home for Steve. (Chris Evans)

Here’s Bucky Barnes, who’s been the Winter Soldier for 80 years, who in his own way was a Prisoner of War (Nate Moore)

Members of Hydra in Russia secreted him away to a missile facility in Siberia. He was treated with the same level of security as a nuclear weapon. (Joe Russo)

Suddenly, the main guy you have to defeat is your best link to the most pleasant memories you have of your childhood and of your past. (Kevin Feige)

We all know what happened between “Bucky is Steve’s strongest allegiance,” “his biggest sacrifice,” “his best link to his most pleasant memories” and Steve needs to retire into another timeline.

But what exactly happened between “Bucky Barnes was a prisoner of war and treated very harshly by Hydra” to “he needs to make amends for what he did under Hydra”?

[musette22]

You know what, I'm so grateful for every single Steve Rogers lover on this site. The people who haven't let their opinion of him be influenced by bad writing, who have continued to love and support him even in the face of all the mischaracterisations and slander (worse than ever now thanks to EG), and who actively keep the true Steve Rogers alive and well in their fannish creations. Pretty much everybody loves Bucky (as they should!! Bucky is incredible and I love him just as much as I love Steve) but Steve doesn't get nearly enough love these days and it breaks my heart, and would no doubt break Bucky's heart too.

The real Steve Rogers is such a complex, wonderful, interesting, loveable and good character, who deserved so much better than he got. And I'm just really glad that despite the majority of people not being able to recognise that, there are still plenty of people out here who do know him, and who love him no matter what drivel Marvel tries to sell us about him. It's just very heartening to know he's still got all of us, so thank you all for that 💙