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buckydeservesthebest · 1 month ago

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I'm going to write my own general response since some Sam Stans have started with absurd posts about how in their distorted version of reality Bucky "has been a bad friend and betrayed every black person he has ever met"... *sight* this could not be more stupid, untrue and unfair.... 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

On the subject of Bucky and the rest of the New Avengers "working for Valentina", I already wrote a long rant explaining that there is NOT a single shred of proof of this. And that at the end of it all, the OG Avengers literally were formed by a government organization (SHIELD), Sam was going to form his own team of Avengers at Ross's instruction and was going to work alongside him had the Red Hulk scandal not happened and Ross not ended up in prison. THE AVENGERS WORKING TOGETHER WITH THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT SOMETHING NEW. BECAUSE WORKING WITH THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T MEAN BEING SUBSERVIENT TO IT.

Bucky having his own team literally does NOT in any way in the remotest way affect Sam, because literally nothing detracts from him or minimizes him as Captain America or in any other way, nor does it somehow prevent him from being able to form his own Avengers team and operate as he sees fit.

So this description of "traitor" to refer to Bucky COULD NOT BE MORE STUPIDLY FALSE AND BE FARTHER AWAY FROM REALITY.

And for those who complain that one of Bucky's team members is John Walker, does everyone forget that they already worked together briefly at the end of TFATWS to capture the FS and there was no problem??? Bucky does NOT hate John, literally the only disagreement from Bucky and Sam towards Walker was over the possession of the shield, and that problem is over, so don't come whining that Bucky can now be his ally, because there is literally no moral impediment of any kind for them to be part of the same team.

And do people forget that, again, Sam was going to work alongside Ross?? The same guy who ordered the extrajudicial execution order (which is literally illegal) against Bucky, convicted him as guilty for the UN bombing without a fair trial, which is literally also a violation of his human rights, and on top of it all lamented that the SWAT team couldn't kill Bucky. Ross is a horrible person (no better than Valentina) and literally ordered Bucky's murder, and I don't see anyone calling Sam a traitor because he was going to form an Avengers team under his instructions and was going to work in conjunction with his government.

So don't come with your shitty double standards calling Bucky a "traitor" either, when no one called Sam a "traitor" for allying himself with the one who ordered the murder of his friend.

It's almost funny how no Sam Stan has ever wanted to acknowledge the ableist and victim-blaming attitudes Sam directed at Bucky. All those horrible jokes and tasteless comments like "cyborg brain", "bionic looking machine that killed almost everyone he met", "we're not assassins" "you're going back to your frozen rat diet of your time as the Winter Soldier", that only in the mind of imbecile could be funny. All of this disgusting shit is ableist.

Sam literally held Bucky responsible for what he was forced to do as the Winter Soldier ("you were stopping all the wrongdoers *you* enabled as the Winter Soldier" ep. 5) and gave him "advice" that is exactly the same as Dr. Raynor's, and is nothing more than re-victimization.

There is absolutely nothing healthy about telling a victim of abuse that they should "make amends" for something they were a VICTIM of. Let alone showing up with the other victims of the same abuser and apologizing as if Bucky was the victimizer and not another victim. This is extremely dangerous and damaging to both parties. Already a real life therapist created a Twitter thread where she explains absolutely everything that is wrong with this.

Sam is NOT a victim of abuse or mind control, nor is he a therapist trained to talk to people who are victims of this situation, so he can NOT go around pretending to give advice on something he knows absolutely nothing about. That is unethical.

If you think that telling this truth is "racist", let me tell you that there are people in the black community who think exactly the same thing. Are they racist too??

...

Oh and regarding the Wakandans issue...I've talked about this a lot before, but in light of some Sam Stans wanting to revive this ridiculous issue as an excuse to try to vilify Bucky.. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

*sigh* first of all the reason T'Challa offered Bucky assistance in removing the Winter Soldier's programming from his brain, was not because of how magnanimous T'Challa is in wanting to help a poor man who had suffered too much, but rather that that assistance was given in the form of an apology for having spent it trying to kill him without being sure if Bucky was the one truly responsible for his father's death, and also in the form of thanks because thanks to him and Steve, T'Challa was able to get to the one truly responsible. The canonical comic Avengers Infinity War Prelude literally said so:

So while Bucky is grateful for the assistance Wakanda offered him, he does NOT owe them lifelong loyalty nor is he limited to only doing what feels right to them and did not represent a damage to their pride, because that is a stance worthy of an abuser.

So NO. In absolutely no way did Bucky betray Wakanda because Zemo's temporary freedom does NOT affect them in the slightest. Literally Bucky always intended to send him back to prison and literally Ayo understood this and that's why he gave him the 8 hour deadline to come back for Zemo, and literally Bucky NEVER objected to this.

Regarding Zemo. Literally the plot gives Bucky the reason to enlist his help and assist him in his escape, because as "the foremost expert on Hydra and the super soldier program" his knowledge was needed to figure out how the serum was recreated to get to Karli. This is what canon book The Art of TFATWS says, and it literally also says that Sam knew this and agreed.

People deliberately and conveniently forget that Zemo is NOT only responsible for the death of T'Chaka and the other dozen people from the UN bombing. Zemo was also an ABUSER of Bucky and one of the people who hurt him the most in his life. Zemo framed him for the UN bombing causing everyone to try to kill him, put him in the crosshairs of any Hydra member that still existed, had him imprisoned in cell that was electrocuting him all the time, subjected him to mind control and forced him to kill people and fight his friends which caused more charges to be added against him, etc, etc, etc. Now it turns out Wakandans know more about their own abuser than Bucky himself?? This is bullshit.

In just world part of Zemo's sentence should have been for all the damage he caused Bucky.

And the point is, again, Ayo understood and agreed with Bucky's plan and that was why he gave him an 8 hour deadline to come back for it. Ayo was NOT upset about that. Ayo didn't handicap and dehumanize Bucky because she felt "betrayed" but because she was upset that he had stopped her from committing unjustified murder against Walker. Bucky tried to reason with her and only defend himself with non-violent techniques, Ayo disconnected his arm in a low and dishonorable move, and now it turns out that Bucky is to blame?? 🤡

"Bucky betrayed the Wakandans" say the same people who always planned to betray him by putting a kill-safe (on a prosthetic that he didn't even request to have in the first place, but was given to him by T'Challa himself for him to fight for his nation) behind his back whose unawareness could have proved fatal to him, in case by sheer bad luck something could activate it when Bucky was hanging on to it for his life...

IT IS NOT JUSTIFIED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TO REMOVE DISABILITY ASSISTANCE FROM A DISABLED PERSON.

BEING A BLACK PERSON DOES NOT GIVE YOU A FREE PASS TO HAVE ABLEIST AND VICTIM-BLAMING ATTITUDES TOWARD ANOTHER PERSON.

And yes, people in the black community also think Ayo's attitude was unjustifiable.

Are they "racist" for daring to say this?? Of course they are NOT.

#sam stans believe in their distorted view of reality that “bucky has 'bEtRaYeD' every black person he met”#when NONE of his actions have in any way harmed sam or the wakandans #but the sam atans conveniently forget that Sam was ableist victim-blamer towards Bucky #& that the wakandans truly betrayed him by concealing from him the existence of a kill-safe in his disability aid #one that he didn't even ask to have in the first place #and on top of that the eakandans think they have the right to remove a disabled person's disability aid #because this person dared to stop one of them from unnecessarily killing a guy #but for the sam stans bucky is the one who “has caused the most damage”#when he is the one who has been the victim of ableism and victim-blaming by them #sam atans use the double standards as much as tony stans do #🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️#bucky barnes #sam wilson #ayo #john walker #anti sam stans #anti toxic fandom #anti ableism #anti victim blaming #anti double standard #thunderbolts*#tfatws critical #the falcon and the victim blaming #mcu salt

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autumnwhistles · 6 months ago

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On c!Martyn and Caring

Martyn and loyalty are two words that, in discussions, tend to go hand-in-hand. Whether it's praising his devotion to Ren or analysing his betrayals, he can never escape that contradiction. Is he loyal, or not?

I think it goes deeper than that. While c!Martyn is full of contradictions, it isn't only loyalty that's at the core. Rather, it's the wider subject of how he interacts with players at all, how close he gets to them, and how he reacts to caring.

It's both a question of how much, and how deeply, and contradictions are found in both aspects. On one hand, Martyn is a very solitary player. CC!Martyn says as much – that he tends to play a solo game, despite having a "person of interest" each time he'll check in on (whose back he has "until [he doesn't], until [his] sword goes in it"). On the other, he's extremely sociable – though he rarely gets close to others, he spends almost all of his time talking to others, joking with them, heading from group to group. On one hand, he's completely focused on self-preservation, willing to backstab and betray at a moment's notice if it suits his game. On the other, he has a capacity for honour and loyalty, and – crucially – losses do affect him deeply. Again, CC!Martyn describes this contradiction very well.

There are always these two conflicting wishes within him – for self-protection (whether from physical or emotional harm), but also despite himself, for care. And two quotes represent the contradiction. One in-universe:

I learned there was nothing in this world for me – nothing but walls, corners, edges. And you know what, you showed me life. As much as I’ve taken it from you, you gave it back to me in buckets’ fulls. - Shortly after Ren's beheading, 3rd LIfe

And one from CC!Martyn:

[Ren's final death in 3rd Life] was the moment that kind of broke character!Martyn and made him more selfish moving forward. - Martyn's post-Limited Life lore stream

A wish, and the consequences of indulging in it. It's a balance he'll have to walk for as long as the games continue.

So, let's explore it.

Pre-Win

It's pretty clear that walls, corners and edges are the only thing Martyn has seen for a long time now. After so many games, so much bloodshed without ever an end in sight – even after winning, nothing changes – it's hard to search for anything else. But back, back before the Red King's rise, seeing the world that way wasn't enough.

3rd Life

Martyn starts, as he always does, as a wanderer. He's a bit of an outsider from the beginning – he's not a Hermit, he was never a member of X-Life or any of Scott's other series, and though he has been in one MCC team with Scott and another with Joel, the people he's truly familiar with (the EVO crew) are by far in the minority. It's only really BigB and Skizz in the same boat.

It's no surprise, then, that he takes the first chance to form an alliance he gets (with members he's all familiar with) – the Blue Sword boys. But though he does think about the alliance far longer than the others do, it's not so much of an emotional commitment. We're still at the stage where he thinks there's "nothing in this world for [him]", after all.

There's another similarity between early game Martyn and the Martyn we're more familiar with: he's focused on survival from the start. He's always worried about Ren being too kind, about Ren spilling secrets. He hides his own resources (eg the Ender chest), he spends most of his time away from Dogwarts, he's ready to leave if Ren doesn't toughen up. In many ways, pre-Red Winter Martyn isn't all too different from post-3rd Life Martyn. He's always been worried about the impacts of others on his game.

What he's not worried about yet is the emotional impact on himself of others dying.

So he indulges in that life Ren has shown him gladly. He gladly takes up the mantle of Hand, of protector, taking no effort to hide his loyalties or to emotionally distance himself, and leaving no contingencies in case things go wrong.

Then, Ren dies.

Only a few metres away from Martyn, but out of his line of sight.

C!Martyn breaks. He'll live with the knowledge of the consequences of caring forever.

And we see this in...

Last Life

Is it better to have loved and lost, or to never have loved at all? For C!Martyn, it's cleary the latter. And there's one clear change in his alliances this time round that shows this: contingency plans.

Especially at the start, Martyn doesn't tie himself closely to the Southlands. He has options to escape them – Ren especially is an option if things go wrong, and later down the line he forms a whole secret alliance (the Shadow Alliance) as well. Of course, this means he'd have the option to use the Southlands to escape the Shadow Alliance as well, though since the Southlands does considerably worse in every metric, this never really becomes necessary.

He isn't tied as closely to Ren this time, either. Though they are allied, he's completely fine with attacking him in the Battle Royale at the end. Of course they planned to fight if they were the final two in 3rd Life, but there are still two pairs of alliances left – Scott and Pearl, and technically Martyn and Ren – and sticking with his doesn't cross Martyn's mind. Maybe accepting Ren's going to die, helping participate in that himself, is easier than trying to protect him and failing again.

So, Martyn makes efforts. But, despite this, he does end up getting close with his allies, especially with the Southlanders (excluding Grian) he had so many plans to escape from. He makes a habit of imitating Mumbo's intro at the start of each session; he votes to keep Jimmy in the alliance even after Jimmy had betrayed them by running away with a life they were passing around as a test of loyalty (Martyn's own life, no less). Viewing the world as only walls and corners wasn't enough for him back in 3rd Life, and no matter how reluctantly he tries to always give himself an out if things go wrong, it clearly isn't enough for him here, either – he does start to genuinely involve himself with them, genuinely care for them.

This care works, yet again, to Martyn's own detriment. Though it doesn't cause his death this time, he mourns them enough to hallucinate their presence – and, importantly the 'promise' of bringing them back to life is what the Voice (a mysterious entity that's been talking to him and telling him what to do for most of the season) uses to keep him obedient.

Martyn: And what if I don't like it your way? Voice: Do as we say. Martyn: W-Why should I? Voice: We can bring them back. Martyn: I don't believe you... Voice: We tell no lies Martyn: Fi-Fine! - LL Ep 8 intro, right after the hallucinations (seriously if you haven't watched any of his POV watch these moments). They're not brought back, of course.

He cares! No matter how much he tries to stop, or pretend he doesn't, c!Martyn is someone who cares deeply. That's something often missed in him.

And that's exactly why he takes so many measures against it.

Double Life

Devotion didn't work, and contingencies didn't, either. So, what does Martyn immediately do in Double Life after finding his soulmate? Cut Pearl off, even after both have been similarly abandoned. He can't take that chance again – he's learned twice now that having close bonds with others, whether you intend to turn on them or not, only ever leads to tragedy. He's learned that the hard way.

But... there is still someone Martyn tries to get close to. Cleo. It's the only time we ever see him actively trying to make a connection with someone, and whether tactics played a role in it or not, I think this is for one main reason: as they're soulbound, their lives are linked. For once, there's no risk of your closest friend dying before your eyes. For once, you don't have to plan to betray and escape, because it's not just one person winning the games – it's both of you, together.

And, for once, this works out for him! They don't win, of course – but when it comes down to it, him and Cleo do work together in their final moments. She doesn't turn on Martyn when he attacks Scott, and she fights Pearl with him. For once, he and his ally die together. In fact, this is the only time he arguably lost because he was too distant from others – it was his rejected ally who killed him, and it was him instantly turning on Scott after they were the final four which lead to the fight starting so soon. I do think Pearl and Scott were more likely to win even if Martyn had done things differently – both of them are very good in fights, and though Martyn is too, it's not Cleo's strong suit – but it's an interesting thing to note...

...Not that it changes anything about Martyn's mindset heading into the next game.

Limited Life

Why would Martyn's mindset change? After all, he successfully avoided what hurt the most, and so he instead doubles down. Yes, he's teamed with Scott – and even then, he's alone for the entire first episode, and only goes to Scott in the second after it's clear others have already formed their groups (numbers are a tactical advantage, after all) – but it's never meant to last. He'll protect him while others are standing, but the intention was always to betray him, to kill him eventually, thinking about it at least as early as Episode 4. To Martyn, their alliance is "fleeting and fragile" (linked in the previous clip), and there's even an excitement that comes from thinking about the betrayal. So, when the time comes to do this, he doesn't hesitate – though the Watchers' amplification of emotions did play a role (also in the lore stream), he's quick to turn on him and cut him down, expressing no apparent regret or remorse. Yet again, a success for Martyn!

...The thing is, all this comes at a cost. Those buckets' fulls of life he saw with Ren have emptied long ago, the corners and edges taking up his entire vision. Everyone is a number, a tactic, a liability, and the one who gave him those bucketfulls is fone. And in the end, being successful in his betrayal doesn't even change anything. Though part of his soul is protected from fragmenting (more info on what that means here), he can't know that. He's just thrust into another game with the same players, still missing Ren, to kill once again. He wanted so much for things to be over, to be the last one standing – "none of these niceties, this is a death match for a reason".

But... nothing changes. If surviving doesn't get you anything, and that was your only aim, that was what you gave everything for (alongside avoiding pain)... what, exactly, do you have to live for?

Post-Win

Secret Life

Now, I admit Secret Life came out at a time my interest in the Life Series was at a low, so I haven't actually watched anyone's perspective though (I did watch most of Martyn's, but the closest I got was watching nearly all of Etho's, since this was around the time of Decked Out 2. And I loved watching Etho play Decked Out 2). But there are two things to note with Martyn here. One, he's being a lot more reckless, partly because he's used to relying on hearts returning, but I think it's also because of the win being so inconsequential. Is there a point in spending all that effort surviving till the end?

Two, he's allied with... Jimmy?

If Martyn ends up hurt when his allies die before him, why ally with the player known for dying first?

Again, part of it may be tactics. Martyn nearly always spends the first episode wandering instead of immediately forming alliances, so he tends to team up with whoever's in a similar boat. But still – why pick the person known for permadying first? The person who Martyn had already been hurt by the death of once, in Last Life?

Maybe he's confident after Double Life and Limited Life. Maybe he thinks he's successfully managed to tread the line between 'useful ally' and 'friend you actually care about', and will be successful again. Maybe because Jimmy is so consistently first out, him dying early is more of an inevitability than a possibility (in Martyn's mind) – it won't come as a shock, and Martyn can be prepared. Maybe the fact that Jimmy did die that way in Last Life makes his inevitable death less impactful this time round.

Maybe it's also because he now knows winning gets you nothing, and he'd like to see those bucketfulls again.

Though it often doesn't show in the Life series itself, Jimmy is probably the closest person to him after Ren. For Martyn, the Life series is a direct continuation of EVO – a very long-running series in which his closest bond was with Jimmy, going through it all as a duo. He does express a wish to get close to him in 3rd Life because of this, but after Jimmy rejects him for Scott, Martyn stops bringing it up.

But they're close to each other, and met each other in a context other than the death games. Maybe this alliance is a way of trying to find that life again. I wish I'd followed the series closely enough at the time to see if it was successful, and I'll find out soon enough.

...Whatever the motivation, though, Martyn is there again when he dies (even after he's not the first out). And no matter how careful he might've been being, no matter how successfully he treaded the line the two times before – once again, it hurts.

"These idiots are just laughing. They have absolutely no idea … what they just unleashed. The hound of hell is coming. There will no bark. Only BITE." - Martyn internally, at the end of Episode 6.

So you'd think that after this, Martyn reverts to keeping his distance, right? He tried something and it didn't work, so he dials it all the way back?

In another world, maybe that would've happened. The thing is, there's one difference.

Ren.

Wild Life

This is the first season since Double Life where he spent the first session with someone else, and the first season ever where he goes with that person immediately and then sticks in an alliance with them until the very end. For once, it's a conscious and immediate choice to stick with one person (one not lifebound to him) – Ren's been gone too long, so die first or not, it doesn't matter.

Maybe that isn't the whole story, though. Because the recklessness, worse than ever, continues.

...Let's take a break, and remind ourselves of 3rd Life. Martyn was one of the last Greens, only dying in session seven, and was the second-last player on Green if we exclude BigB, who wasn't physically there in session 7 and so couldn't die (only Impulse outlived him). Let's remind ourselves of Last Life, which is even more impressive – he died for the first time in session 8, after half the server had been eliminated, and was the last Yellow standing. Even then, he successfully managed to hide for a long time, only dying because he got sick of knowing he was always being hunted and decided to mark his location to the Reds with lava to go out in a final stand, coming third overall. In Double Life, we have the same pattern – though he and Cleo went to Yellow after Martyn miscalculated when pushing her on a cliff, the pair were once again the last Yellows, and Martyn once again came third. He's actually the only player in Double Life who didn't die himself once (...though that's on a technicality, since he was directly behind his and Cleo's first deaths). In Limited Life, though he had a rough start, he won.

If pre-win Martyn is good at one thing, it's survival.

But after?

We've already talked about Secret Life, but Wild Life takes this newfound recklessness to the extreme. This isn't about placement – it certainly impacts it, but his last two deaths especially were caused by something else (...sort of) – but about the way his life is treated as an afterthought, completely secondary to the antics he wants to do in that moment. He comes across a wheat farm people are saying is trapped, and the first thing he does is pick a piece of wheat, stand on it and break it, to see if that's the one that explodes (none do, but he does this multiple times!). He starts a game of chicken under a ledge people are actively throwing TNT minecarts off of, involving himself in every round. He drops down to Yellow due to flicking a suspicious trapdoor in the middle of someone's base (because he was "bored")... and his immediate reaction to this is "okay, good"??? Though that may be because he can use the death to guilt trip others for resources, or to distract people so Skizz could try to get some kills (as he was trying to before), it still shows that he values his life very little. He's killed by Pearl because he turns his back to a player with a grudge against him (Martyn just blew up her entire team barring her), who'd already placed down an End Crystal (which was then destroyed by Martyn's bow) in the same interaction. He volunteers himself for a plan (by Grian) which involves him definitely dying and turning Red – Grian's pitch is "is anyone up for a massive sacrifice mission?" – due to being the distraction keeping everyone in place while Grian shoots an End Crystal at the place Martyn has gathered them. He does ask Ren if it's okay with him (clipped there tooo) before agreeing, but that's the only consideration he takes. With his first death to Scar, there wasn't much indication Martyn would be suddenly pushed off, so I'll let it slide (Scar was still Red, though). Scar attacking him the final time was similar... but it should be noted that Martyn died to his own creeper, saying "I at least thought we would both go out together" as a response (though he did die this way back in Last Life too, with an End Crystal instead). This is not someone who's okay. And Ren does pick up on this – not that it does anything in the end.

As a result, Martyn goes out before Ren – only his second time dying before an ally (BigB outplaced him in 3rd Life by one), and his first ever time dying before his closest.

And I can't help but think – was this the reason he was being so reckless? I'm sure being restless played a role as well, but if you don't care about getting to the end anymore since nothing awaits you there... the only way to escape the pain of losing an ally is being the one to die first. This way he gets to both genuinely enjoy the time he spends with someone, unafraid of what caring might cause, and to not feel the pain of losing them.

If this were the case, it would be a selfish move. But as we established at the very beginning – Martyn has always been one to protect himself.

Conclusion

What happens when you're trapped in a death game? When you know how everything will end, that those close to you will die; when you know yourself well enough to know you'll be affected? When you try not to care, but something inside you still aches for that little bit more – but also when, ultimately, you're your fist priority?

...In discussions of c!Martyn and loyalty, a thought that's often brought up is that Martyn never really cared about his allies in the first place. He was always planning to betray them to win, after all. Of course, the latter is true – at least before his win. But I think the reason behind it is a little muddled.

Martyn doesn't betray others because he doesn't care.

He betrays them because he knows he will.

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