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THERE’S MOOOORE

And just write the ideas down until the story starts to shape itself. Then when you’re ready, go back and delete everything before the point where the story actually starts. 

My first paragraph/section is always my notes. Who, what, when, where, how. Snippets of dialogue or the bare bones of scenes I want to include. I colour it red, then refer to it when I get stuck, and cross out bits that I’ve already done (but don’t delete, never delete your notes!)

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

Vincent & Theo Van Gogh 

“It is not immediately obvious which of Zadkine’s figures is Vincent and which is Theo. Like all who relieve the suffering of others, Theo—in a process that is the exact opposite of a blood transfusion—has taken some of Vincent’s pain into himself. Soon, however, it becomes obvious that while the sky weighs heavily on both figures, one, Vincent, feels gravity as a force so terrible it can drag men beneath the earth. From this moment on you are held by the pathos and beauty of what Zadkine depicts: despair that is inconsolable, comfort that is endless. One figure says, “I can never feel better,” the other, “I will hold you until you are better.”

And the update

Yanno, I’ve been thinking about these 2 conflicting narratives in fandom — TWS Steve is a bad liar and honest doofus, but pre-serum Steve is a lying punk.   (Like, he lied on his enlistment papers.  Multiple times.  While keeping a straight face.  Of course he’s from New Jersey.  Of course his dad was in the 107th.)

Maybe Steve just needs more time to get into character.  Maybe he’s the kind of roleplayer who needs to invent a whole complex backstory in order to lie properly, and when the Apple Store Guy approached him, he’s still like “so in my childhood, did I have 1 dog or 3 cats?  What kind of car did my dad drive?  It would be the 1980s. Shoot I don’t know what the popular cars were in the 1980s.  Maybe a Ford?  Can’t go wrong with a Ford.  But would that be in character if my persona grew up in Boston?  Wait, I’m wearing these stylish glasses.  Does this mean I care about typography?”  So he’s all flustered because he’s Not Ready Yet.

Or, it might be that he needs to be fully participating in the world in order to properly lie, and for the past two years he’s only been a soldier.  He can only think tactically — notice the exits, the weak points on a target, etc.  He can’t bring himself to care about this world.  Sure, he writes down things he should try, but what kind of person would spend 2 years living in New York / DC and *not* have tried Thai food in that time?  He can’t make up a fake persona here because he doesn’t even have a *real* persona outside of Captain America and SHIELD assignments.

I think that last one is the key there: because pre!serum Steve had spent his entire life observing the world around him — he had to, right, because when you grow up sick and asthmatic while the US is in the throes of the Better Babies/Fitter Families eugenicist movement, you’re Othered: because you’re a narrative of failed masculinity, because you’re a potential “pollutant,” because you’re a failure to your country (I don’t think enough people really appreciate how hard Bucky had Steve’s number when he questioned whether enlisting was about proving something, or just how significant it was that Erskine chose “the little guy”).  Steve tells Peggy, “if you start running, they’ll never let you stop” — that’s a realization born of experience and painful, constant, nervous observation: of someone who’s not just constantly picking fights but likely also having them hoisted on him.  Pre!serum Steve grew up in a situation where he would have had to learn to read the body language and situations around him as a coping mechanism.  I don’t think it’s an accident that pre!Serum Steve was an artist.  He was an observer: he paid attention.  He likely knew his world better than most.

In 2014 he’s in a world that makes no sense to him.  It’s not just that it’s new: it’s that he’s suddenly not invisible — not just because he’s Captain America, but because he’s broad, handsome, big and coded as a masculine ideal; it’s because he’s afforded all of those privileges in how the world sees him that he never had before.  It’s that his grief has kept his world of observation narrow (it’s why he can lie to Pierce and Rumlow — both situations where they’re superiors or equals, where he’s likely observed them over time; learned to read them) but has no idea what to do when he’s approached by a friendly stranger, why he finds the idea of Natasha’s cover — that they’d be getting married, that Steve would be marrying a woman like her — makes him giggle like he’s terrified.  It’s why he panics when Natasha tells him to kiss her, because he has plenty of bloody, first-hand experience with how the world he left behind reacts to a 5’5,’ 97-pound version of Steve Rogers, and maybe people haven’t even changed that much, but he’s never had any idea how they react to this version of him (remember how well he did confronted with female interest, or the moment with Bucky in the bar, in TFA).  

steve is a shit liar when he doesnt have a cause to defend or a reference point. this speaks to his inherent goodness (we are supposed to juxtapose this to Nat, who lies so easily she forgets herself and searches for Steve’s approval).

steve doesn’t lie for lying’s sake, instead he uses lying to manipulate assholes or unfair situations to his advantage. therefore, the act of lying becomes essentially good and is therefore secondnature to him and can come off very much like the Truth.

it’s worth noting that it’s in CATWS that steve comes off as the worst at lying - the film directly following TFA which is meant to display how utterly unmoored and overwhelmed steve is by the 21st century.

the whole movie builds up on this feeling of disorientation, this lack of personal narrative, this situation where steve discovers he is being used and played for a fool by the very country he personally saved, a country which has turned into something he does not like or recognize.

the point of CATWS is that steve learns he cant and wont tell someone else’s lies or serve anyone else’s agenda (a prelude to his CACW arc).

this theme of lies and lying and who to trust/not trust very starkly plays against the relative “everyone’s on the same side against evil” wholesomeness of TFA.

this theme of CATWS it is reflected in Natasha’s paranoia and mistrust (I only act like I know everything, Rogers", “If it were the other way around and it were up to me to save your life…”, “the truth isnt all things to all people all the time”). it is reflected in Fury’s arc which eventually leaves him dead (“Ears Everywhere”). it is reflected in Sharon’s spy role and also in Peggy herself (“Aunt Peggy kept a lot of secrets, I didn’t want her to have one from you”).

and of course, this journey of lies and secrecy and Ultimate Truth meets its emotional crux in Steve’s final altercation with bucky. steve is desperately looking for the truth in anything, and Bucky’s eyes glinting in horror and realization at the man under him as the world comes physically (and emotionally) crashing down around them?

Steve and Bucky find their truth and peace in each other, yet again. Just like Steve couldn’t lie to Bucky in TFA (“Yeah because you got nothin to prove”) he can’t lie to Bucky in the present. familiarity at last. And Bucky can’t lie to him. Even through brainwashing and pain and suffering. nothing can hide Bucky from Steve. Til the end of the line.

It is here we see one thing become very clear: Bucky becomes Steve’s truth, and vice versa. Thus the events of CACW. They keep one another close, and they won’t become unmoored again.

Steve is a great liar in CATFA, a piss poor liar in CATWS, and a bold-faced FUCK YOU ALL in Infinity War. He doesnt have to lie anymore: he has all the personal power, all the physical power. He doesn’t need to skirt by as a 95lbs disabled man in the 30s, and is no longer bamboozled by the dishonesty of the 21st century.

steve: post a lett-

peggy: yeah and have you looked at hotels for our vacation?

steve, shaken: oh no lemme just googl-

steve:

The last pages of that story have Steve writing in his journal about how living in the past is tempting but that it’s where fossils come from and that “there’ll always be something to fight for” so he decides to look ahead instead of back.

R: “Rudolph.”

M: “What’s your real name, Rudolph?”

R: “… Red-Nose.”