#antipeggy

One of the many insane cringey things the PC show did was putting Peggy with Dum-dum and Morita (as shorthand for 'all the Howlies') and acting as if she had always been one of them during the war (no mention of Bucky! Mysterious.)

They were working alongside SHIELD, in Russia. They're even there when she hires the guy who invented the WS mind-control. Of course, this is also the show that pretends SHIELD isn't Hydra and Steve and Peggy weren't not-dating. The Howlies are demonstrably only there to lick her ass and put her in Bucky's place.

But in the main timeline, Nazis being hired by SHIELD wasn't a secret; it's quite literally front page news.

Zola is even pictured, and the Howlies would've known what he looks like better than anyone.

(Which not only tells you that Peggy was okay with hiring Nazis, but that she was okay with the public knowing she would hire Nazis. Think about what sort of a person you'd have to be, to be so blatant in your right-wing politics that you don't even mind everyone knowing what you've done.)

In fact, at the time Zola and other Nazis were hired, the Howlies would've still been fighting Nazis in Europe as the war wound down (deployment is for 'term of the war + a certain number of months.' So they wouldn't even have gone home yet!)

There's no way they didn't know.

And Zola isn't just 'some Nazi' to them, either.

He's the specific Nazi who ran the basically-deathcamp they were all incarcerated in together, the one who took their friends and colleagues away and tortured them to death in his laboratory.

People including their sergeant, a personal friend, who's the whole reason they even got free in the first place. And that's before Zola 'killed' Bucky and devastated Steve, who killed himself shortly afterwards.

Are we really supposed to think they would be fine with people who weren't even fucking Howlies using Steve's shield as eponym to fund an organisation parasite-ing off their accomplishments, with that Nazi on-staff?

I mean, they also fought Nazis themselves before all that! Surely they would not be on board just in general terms, even without the deep personal reasons to not be okay with it!

So, yeah, I think there is a reason (outside of Doylist 'didn't want to pay the actors') why the Howlies don't appear in the 'founders of SHIELD' photos.

Why they're never named as early SHIELD agents (when foreign nationality wouldn't have precluded them from it).

Why it's only people who didn't spend much time with Steve who chose to get involved with SHIELD.

Why they're all dead of old age so that Steve can never visit them and get their opinion of Designated Sexy Lamp and her employees.

Why we don't get to hear the POV's of the guys who actually knew and spent actual time with Steve, in the Smithsonian exhibition that is literally about them.

Weird, right?

So, after years of him JUST NOT GETTING IT when it comes to me not watching MCU after Endgame because of how they butchered the character of Steve Rogers, finally tonight my hubby paused and thought about it and finally GOT IT!

I love my husband dearly but he very much clung to the well Steve loved Peggy and so why wouldn’t he go back to her if he had the chance? Hubby doesn’t read fan fiction and isn’t a “shipper” in any real sense so I mostly forgave him this. It wasn’t that important to him either way.

But even so, I swear it’s the closest we’ve come to divorce and we have been together 33 years.

But anyway - tonight he listened as I pointed out all the actual canon stuff that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that MCU Peggy was very obviously a Nazi or else ridiculously stupid and thus not any real love interest of Steve “the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi” Rogers, he finally got it.

Don’t stop trying guys - The MCU have not been shy in showing us who Peggy actually was and once it’s pointed out - every single bit of it - then it’s impossible to ignore.

Now as a quick aside - People can ship who they want. Just ignore bits you don’t like and throw in your own head canons. There are a lot of ships I don’t get and that’s irrelevant. People get to create their own little fictional worlds and that’s great. Even Steggy. Go for it - none of my business.

But Steve’s ending was completely out of character and made zero sense, no matter who you ship him with. Even if Bucky was his best friend and nothing more and even if Steve was in love with Peggy - the ending still doesn’t make sense!

Like my own hubby, right. I mean 33 years. He’s my soulmate and a wonderful man and I love him to death. But if I found out he was a secret Nazi and was partly responsible for the torture of my best friend, I would drop him like a hot potato tomorrow. I struggle to think of anyone who could just proceed in a normal domestic life with this knowledge.

This seems terrible from an MCU canon perspective.

The songs give strong 'Zero to Hero' and 'I Can Go the Distance' from Hercules vibes.

Get this: Bucky appears on stage once! Has about three lines when he gets conscripted and is never seen again. You don't see his rescue or 'death'. And Steve's 'I'm with you till the end of the line' line is used for Peggy. Because of course it is. 🙄

Sam is never mentioned nor a character. You see a projection of Sam as Cap briefly before Steve goes back in time. But there's zero context.

But the thing that gets me is how this is the 'show' that exists in Hawkeye. So there's a BUNCH of classified information about the Avengers that I guess is just public knowledge?

I guess the world knows that Steve went back in time? So why the theory that he's on the Moon? The Avengers actually told the world that TIME TRAVEL exists? Nobody sees a problem with that?

(Also, for my girl Sharon. I'm sorry, babe, but if the world created a musical about how my ex went back in time to hook up with my aunt, I'd absolutely turn villain 100%. You deserve better 😘)

Okay so the musical is only 30 minutes long. But it still seems pretty terrible, story-wise. And is clearly a cash grab. BUT THE WORLD KNOWS STEVE WENT BACK IN TIME???

I can't get over that.

Oh, and justice for Bucky. (I guess since the 'musical' is 'produced' by Stark Industries, Pepper is holding a grudge against him, so cut him out of history? Harsh.)

A Captain America musical without (really) either of Cap's best friends. Wild.

Genuinely, think of how much more powerful CATFA's ending would've been if you could actually feel the loss of an ensemble of guys you've come to love, that Steve spent over a year with (and then Bucky of course, even if you just mean platonically.)

Like if the ending of The Fellowship of the Ring was Sam Gamgee dying protecting Frodo, and then everyone else but Frodo dies within one minute. And Frodo only got to say goodbye remotely?! Absolutely devastating!

And then Bucky'd come back in the sequel?! 😭😱 Imagine!

CATFA should've been visually inspired by Spielberg's war movies (ie. what it needs to be), instead of being a po-faced Indiana Jones or limp-wristed attempt at Casablanca.

And the most infuriating thing is you absolutely could cut Peggy out of the movies as-is and it wouldn't damage any storyline.

(Except that it was she who hired the Nazis & Red Room personnel that made Bucky into the WS; so you would just have to change that to, eg. Stark doing it instead. But that's all.)

Cutting her out of the movie would also create a space for Bucky to be in her place early on, which is much more accurate to the comics, and would give a deeper impression of Steve's prewar life; it's a much more elegant use of character.

Eg. Picture Bucky deliberately taking Steve to the Expo because, despite his fear, he supports Steve's desire to join the war, and he knows there's one last recruitment station there that Steve hasn't tried yet.

Being shocked to find Steve has successfully enlisted and now they're both being deployed to Camp Lehigh.

(Steve following Bucky to the train station and Bucky thinking they're going to have a tearful goodbye on the platform but instead Steve climbs aboard too. Maybe even sneaks aboard and when Bucky sees him he doesn't realise what it means and he's like 'Stevie you can't 'stowaway' into the Army.')

Bucky (obviously!) as the hard ass sergeant who's training Steve and the others through basic.

Maybe Gabe, Morita and Dum Dum among those training with them, to strengthen their emotional impact too (also to show Steve and Bucky's complimentary talents for command from early on, and how close the Howlies are with Bucky.)

An aside of Phillips complaining that non-white privates have been allowed into the potential-serum pool and bamf-jew Erskine being like 'we must consider there are more important qualities than race' or sth.

Steve throwing himself on a grenade because his oldest friend is standing nearby.

The guys growing to admire Steve so that when bully!Hodge gives him a hard time, it gradually becomes both Bucky and the other future-Howlies defending Steve.

Both Steve and Bucky successfully retrieving the flag, but in different ways to showcase their different mindsets.

(Future-sniper-with-murder-thighs Bucky can literally just climb that shit, whereas future-Cap!Steve does a Speech that inspires all the other guys to help him form a human pyramid so they can all get the flag Together. 😭

(Side-shot of Bucky watching him, smiling in warm admiration and you have an 'oh... that's what he sees in him' realisation.)

Asides of Dum-dum and Morita just trying to fight everyone for the flag, devolving (of course) into fighting each other, while Gabe's just standing off to the side pinching the bridge of his nose going 'guys... guys... the pole can be taken down... fellas...')

Bucky being offered the superserum first and telling Erskine to give it to Steve instead.

(Erskine exchanging smug eye-contact with Phillips, because neither of them were Phillips' first choice, but Bucky has just vindicated Erskine's certainty that Steve should be the one, and that Bucky is great also. Like maybe Steve is going to be patient zero but Bucky will patient 2, if Steve's serum is a success -- which doesn't happen after Erskine is killed. Or so they think.)

Aside about good-candidate Gabe being passed over for serum as a nod to the mores of the time, instead of acting like racism just doesn't exist. (Maybe there's also a scrappy black kid called 'Bradley' whom no one takes seriously?)

Bucky being there with Steve in their hometown (!) when Steve takes the serum, attacking him in a hug when he comes out of the vitaray in one piece, bursting into tears because for the first time in their lives Steve isn't in any pain.

Bucky being the one on the street who shoots a car driving right at him and then gets tackled out of the way by Steve, so that it can become a cool foreshadowing call back in CATWS when 'the WS' shoots Fury's car and then coolly pivots aside, just like Bucky planned to do in WWII!! (And also the second time Steve almost saves Bucky from certain death, only it's as beefy!Steve this time and Bucky is gobsmacked?)

Cut from Steve's newspaper front page to Steve and Bucky at Bucky's family's for one last home dinner, and all Bucky's sisters just sitting there mute with their jaws dropped, staring at their annoying little adopted-kid-brother Stevie looking like an absolute beefcake. (Maybe Bucky's Mom staring too and Bucky being like 'Mamina!' 😫)

And then Steve's devastation because he assumed he'd be deployed along with Bucky and the boys, but instead he's shunted off into the USO tour.

Steve coming to rescue Bucky and the guys in the cells recognise him and cheer and are delighted by his costume.

Bucky knowing already that he has serum, like he should've done in CATFA anyway (because Steve was front-page news and of frickin course he would've been writing to Bucky the whole time?)

Steve and Bucky discussing how they're going to stop Phillips vetoing their choice in team-mates, given segregation and all, and savvy-Bucky being like 'I might have an idea about that.'

(Smashcut to Phillips yelling at Steve and slamming down a newspaper with a front page photo of Steve and the Howlies -- because Steve already leaked to the press and now the Army can't stop him.)

And that's just off the top of my head!

So you can see how neatly and organically it would all fit together, using Steve's arc in a way which coincidentally also gives you time to fall in love with Bucky &Co. so that their 'deaths' hit you as hard as they hit Steve.

I think most of you know I am very anti Peggy Carter and I shared a few times the head canon another Stucky person on here has which is that CATFA in the mcu is how Peggy perceived things. I think that works really well cause I do feel there is a disconnect between the movie and its theme to the scenes she is in. So in reality Steve didn’t really give a shit about her and thought she was ok at best, a loose cannon at worst (I’ll never get over the scene where she shot at him not knowing if the shield was even bullet proof and with Howard standing right beside him - turns out Howard had good reflexes. What if he hadn’t?)

So anyway I just had a thought - that conversation when Steve is going down on the Valkerie. What if some of that convo actually happened but it was Steve trying to speak in code?

Like I do have in my mind the idea that Steve didn’t want to be saved cause he lost Bucky. So that is a head canon I love.

But what if he thought that there might be others listening in who would want to find the tesseract or shield or him for nefarious means. It’s not that hard to believe that at that moment there was still some Hydra remnants who might try and find whatever the red skull was up to and use it to rebuild Hydra.

So Steve is trying to give Peggy clues to pass on to Howard who would work out (or so he hoped) that he was in fact giving his position or as close to it as he could.

So he’s saying these things about dancing and left feet and blah blah and he’s getting tetchy cause she’s NOT GETTING IT.

She’s thinking oh yes my great love wants to dance with me even though he knows he’s dying. He’s like no bitch listen the fuck up but can’t actually say that.

So because she’s been so stupid she doesn’t tell Howard what his last words were. But one day in the future - Howard finds a recording and thinks oh shit … but then dies before he can tell anyone and go and find him …

I just love this idea that she’s making a date and he’s like just listen the fuck up … you think Bucky hasn’t already taught me to dance since I got the serum??? It took me less than half and hour and I was dipping him … just listen …

It is a bit morbid I know. But then so is believing he went down because he couldn’t bear the thought of life without Bucky. We do love giving our boys heartache ..

So you know multiverse - there’s a universe out there where Steve wanted to be saved if only because he didn’t want the bad guys getting their hands on the tesseract and such and of all people on the radio it’s Peggy who has convinced herself they are a couple and thinks he is actually making a date with her as a way of saying goodbye and she wouldn’t get Howard or anyone with half a brain to listen to what he was saying and the words he was putting emphasis on.

I also head canon that the photo of Peggy in his compass was put there by her and Bucky finds it and they have a huge domestic about it and Gabe has to referee and Morita gets the first aid kit ready and Dum Dum is about to go get Phillips cause he’s never seen them like this … and it’s either Howard or Falsworth who save the day by saying oh that’s what she was doing with your pack, Rogers! You can trust your men around your shit but do not trust her!!

The part where steve is getting the serum and they show peggy in the booth with the senator, the colonel and that hydra spy, why the fuck do they keep focusing on peggys reaction, when a literal hydra spy is right there? Like how is her reaction to the serum so important but the guy who was sent by the leader of hydra’s was not?

Oml i have so many complaints about this movie 😭

YES, you can really see how comphet is the main priority! Also how they've forgotten to make Peggy competent by having her, eg. notice both the spy, or the spies hanging around outside that should've clued her in too. Too busy thirsting over power to notice. Typical! 🙄

(And how egregious that What If...? treated the moment prior, when Erskine told the non-scientist, non-medical, non-engineering person to get out the way, as if this was somehow misogynist and exclusionary of him... Conveniently forgetting all the unnamed female nurses he allowed to stay 'in the room,' because they're actually of some use, and supposed to be there, doing their jobs! I guess centring female characters is only important enough to do if they're dating a man?)

I think I've mentioned elsewhere my headcanon that CATFA is the events of Steve's life as told from Peggy's POV; that it's like a propagandised 1950s version of events, to whitewash all the interesting stuff (all Steve's politics, the uncomfy relationship with his male bestie, all his missions with the Howlies, all his time in the USO with unsuitable-because-non-Peggy women) ...to really drive home that the only message you should be thinking about is that Captain America is definitely straight and taken, okay??

If you've ever seen the show Frasier, you might remember an episode where Diane, a deeply obnoxious ex of Frasier's, shows up with a play she's written about their past life. She shows him the play and it's a horrific Mary Sue-lead warping of events, made to frame her as this beloved figure whom everyone adored (in actual fact they couldn't stand her).

That play... that's CATFA all over. It's the Play What Peggy Wrote. Her memoir would probably be titled something like 'The Woman Who Made Captain America.'

I remember this one Wakandan stucky fic where the boys were trying to navigate a relationship after everything and one night where they were hanging out they were suddenly like 'hey remember how awesome peggy was? she was amazing and special and talented and she'll be so missed' then she wasn't mentioned again. There's ones where Bucky will barely remember any of his life with Steve, but he remembers Peggy and how much both of them loved her. I swear I've seen more fics where Steve and Bucky more her and even Howard more than they do Sarah or Bucky's family or the Howlies. Steve never misses his mother or wishes he could get guidance/support from her - but he does from Peggy. I even remember this one fic where Bucky when to get support from Peggy after catws and bonded with her over losing memories.

And god so many stucky fics have steggy as a past romance so Steve is always like 'Peggy was the perfect girl for me and I'll always love her and carry her in my heart . . . but now I have Bucky so now I'll be okay.' Like Bucky is always presented as second best or something that'll have to do, cause he can't be with Peggy (implying that given the choice, he'd choose her over Bucky).

One of the worst ones I've read though was this Howlies fic where there was a scene that took place after Peggy shot at Steve. He was whining to Bucky about how terrible he felt that he screwed things up with her, he really liked her and made her mad, and then Bucky gave him advice on how to make it up to her. I clicked out of it so fast let me tell you. (It's definitely tricky to find a good Howlies fic without Peggy. It's really common to find one where there's shooting competitions where she's as good as if not better than Bucky, stuff like push up competitions where she can keep up with Steve. You'll even find the guys, including Bucky, thinking Steve is a joke but they'll cower before Peggy because they know better. A lot of 'Peggy is the only competent one with any braincells who has to sort the boys out' 🤢. I also remember one where Steve was smiling and joking with Peggy a few hours after Bucky fell off the train.)

Even Buck will be raving about how great she was. All 'She loved Steve as much as I did and I'm glad she could be there for him when I wasn't'. Even if he's with Steve in the future he'll still be like 'She was so good for you, you could put you in your place, you would've been happy with her.' It makes me wonder why the author didn't just write a steggy fic.

Anyway sorry this got longer than I meant it to. Obviously needed to get all this off my chest 😂

OMG yes, even a fic I've just recced has this in it!

I almost end up doing a Mystery Science Theater thing in my head where I'm finishing every her-related line

like: fic-Steve: gee Buck Peggy sure was great me: ...at hiring Nazis!

fic-Peggy: boys I am so great I will officiate your wedding me: ...as a cover for shooting Steve in a jealous rage for rejecting me like I did in canon!

fic-Bucky: Steve you really shoulda married her I'd be fine with that me: ...and totally wouldn't cockblock you like I did in canon honest!

Genuinely the depth of delusion fic authors have about her to the point of assigning her actions that are literally 100% opposite to what her canon characterisation is, and warping other characters' personalities to praise her too, is actually like..... like they have an RFK Jr brainworm chomping away and cannot think sensibly when it comes to this one character. Like they've been possessed by an MCU writer parasite.

And the way it's invariably inserted into the middle of a stucky scene, too? Like you can almost feel the author's fear of the stans, and thinking 'I better insert a quick comphetero disclaimer so as not to Insult Her Majesty by implying someone else is just as good or even better!!' 😨