You're my mission.

When Black Panther came out I was so disappointed when she had practically zero lines and felt more of a background character. Still, I was ecstatic to see more of her.

Next, she makes an appearance as an AMAZON in Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, still a background character.

Then she finally makes a reappearance in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and holy shit it was fabulous. It was everything I hoped for and more. It exceeded all expectations and I’m looking even more forward to the Dora Milaje series coming to Disney+.

I want more Ayo. I want more Florence Kasumba.

Of course it’s normal that Bucky feels guilty. But it doesn’t mean he is guilty. He is not. So he doesn’t *have to* do anything. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

Bucky already knows it, it’s the entire reason he’s spending time with Mr Nakisima and the entire reason he hasn’t revealed himself or apologised or offered an explanation yet. Because he’s terrified. Because he thinks be doesn’t deserve to heal or to be forgiven.

The vengeance he’s seeking isn’t just on HYDRA, it’s on himself. It’s to right wrongs he implemented.

He isn’t healing. He’s punishing himself.

Hence, the nightmares.

Sam is offering this advice to Bucky: do the thing you are afraid to do, the hard thing, the one that takes work- not physical work, emotional work. Because that is where you will find your peace.

In forgiving. In letting others forgive you. Even if it will hurt. Even if it will take pain to get there.

It’s the reinforcement Bucky needs. The support. The nudge to say, you deserve the peace but you need to push yourself into a painful place to get there.

Bucky doesn’t need to hear that Sam forgives him, or be pacified, or told he did nothing wrong. That invalidates his feelings on the matter. That ignores Bucky’s pain. He needs to dig and push and open up and learn to forgive himself.

hell this is the image on jack kirby’s wikipedia page next to the “entry into comics” section

Captain America was created in direct response to how the USA was reacting to the war at the time as a direct call to action against injustice specifically. Created by two Jewish men who were very much affected by all of this. They specifically designed him to look like he did because that was the ““Aryan Ideal”“ as part of that statement. That is why they made him blond, blue-eyed, white, tall, and muscular. They also called him ‘Captain America’ to implicitly tie the United States to this statement. This was a metaphor of ‘The USA has to stop letting others be hurt, it’s time to step up and do something’.

concept: falcon and the winter soldier but its shot like a reality show x

Look, I’m not the thought police. I can’t stop you from enjoying a tv show, and I’m not interested in trying to moralize about consuming ‘problematic’ media. I can only really tell you the same thing I’ve already said several times over-- if you understand the problems that the MCU Maximoffs represent, you should be unable to enjoy them or frankly anything about them. It’s not just the casting. It’s the development, the adapted material, and the conversations that have been had both within and without the industry. It’s also about the fact that intentional erasure of Romani history and the false conflation of the Roma population with lower-class white Europeans are real factors of structural racism.

Olsen is fully aware of these issues, as was Joss Whedon during the development of AoU, but she and several of her colleagues nevertheless continue to exploit pejorative language and racist imagery regarding her character. Much of the material that WandaVision draws on is material which references her identity and her family’s history, so the people making WV had to have known about those elements and made a conscious decision about how they wanted to address them-- and make no mistake, they did address them.

These are not actions that I am willing to make concessions for, and I am not willing to hold space for other people to do so, either. I cannot tolerate any form of engagement with the show that does not include a conversation about this, and that’s exactly what you’re doing any time you share fanart or gifs, or put up posters, or praise it uncritically on any platform.

Maybe if the last few months had gone differently for me, I would be taking a gentler stance right now, but they didn’t. Let me tell you what I’ve going through.

Every industry person I’ve reached out to* during WV’s run has either brushed me aside, or else paid me lip service while refusing to have a public dialogue about the show’s racism or even change their behavior in loudly endorsing it. My LCS has not removed their promotional material for the show, even after I disclosed my identity and had a conversation about it in person. I’ve been sent hate speech and suicide bait on this blog several times in response to my writing. Meanwhile, twitter threads rife with hate speech and misinformation erupted around Roma actress Mihaela Dragan’s statements on the show, and similar responses followed Roma writer Jessica Reidy’s article about Roma women and witchcraft.

I’m taking a hard stance because it’s been made pretty clear that playing nice and making concessions won’t achieve anything. It has been proven to me, time and time again, that people who would otherwise be progressive and anti-racist will avert their eyes and feign ignorance when they hear the words “Roma” or “gypsy.”  You are all looking for chances to pretend we don’t exist. You are all looking for chances to ignore and enable antiromanyism, even in such an immaterial arena as Marvel fandom. I’m asking for the bare minimum, and I can’t even get that. So I say, no, sorry to ruin your fun. I'm sick of it.

I wish Teyonah Parris all the best moving forward and I hope she gets the opportunity to play Monica Rambeau in the lead role unburdened by misogynoir that she deserves. I hope that the child actors have safe and enjoyable careers moving forward and that they will be able to cleanly step away from this project, and the MCU's fandom, as they get older.