Good Listening Skills

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“Dobby and Draco are being released tomorrow!”

(Source)

Captain America, drawn in PS.

911 ships tier list 2.0!! cause it’s been like a year and my opinions™️ have changed

While I do think there are some inherent similarities between mcu!Sam and Steve, I also think there are some big, key differences that is going to make Sam!cap so interesting. Sam is actually a soldier. He’s been a part of the military. He’s seen the not just the horrors of war, the idealistic kids being killed or turned into killers, BUT he’s also seen just how bad the military complex is. He’s seen how poorly the VA is funded, how many vets are left behind. He saw people who joined the military simply to murder foreigners, or had misplaced and racist ideas of the war in the middle east. His experience and perspective on it is, I believe, a lot more nuanced than Steve’s is, and a lot more realistic. A bit of a side note on this, but I was just thinking about Sam’s perspective on Bucky in winter soldier - he’s seen how war transforms men, he’s seen the aftermath in a way Steve hasn’t, and knows that sometimes people can’t come back from it. He’s not wrong to point out the dangers and disagree with Steve on how to approach the situation (this is the point! Sam has different reasoning + opinions than Steve! regularly! They share a lot of similar morality and characteristics, but they’re also very different!).

I think Sam, while still headstrong and even a bit reckless at times, is more conscious of his decisions (and the potential consequences of them), mainly because he has to be. He’s a black man living in America, he doesn’t have the luxury of just doing whatever the fuck he wants, whether he’s cap or not.  Plus he actually understands the experience of being marginalized (and specifically a black person) in modern america in a way Steve just can’t. He has more patience, and has more to consider when making decisions about his actions as cap. Moreover, he likely feels more responsibility, and every decision bears more weight. He is absolutely carrying the mantle as his own, but there is a legacy before him that people will compare him to no matter what. He’ll also face far more criticism for each mistake, and every decision will be picked apart in a different way than Steve’s ever were. That’s got to impact on his character development and his story as a whole, and thats going to be interesting to watch unfold. 

This doesn’t mean though that he holds back, or that he won’t step in when there’s something wrong going on. He still has his own moral code and set of values that he sticks to strongly, even in the face of danger/ostracization (exhibit A being him adamant against the accords, and being the first member of the avengers to argue against them). I think it’s more that he has to be diplomatic about certain things, or at least that he’s aware of how his actions will be perceived differently than Steve’s would, and that influences his decisions. 

There’s also some obvious differences too, like Sam has a far different family dynamic than Steve did/does (pls can we see this @ Marvel), and of course different personality traits, life experience, and so on. We haven’t seen nearly enough of Sam as an entity on his own, and I hope we get to experience that more in TFATWS. There is still definitely strong parallels between Steve and Sam’s ethos, but they’re still distinct characters and I want to see Sam Wilson explored!

Anyways I was just having some thoughts (and honestly I’m barely scratching the surface on this topic) and wanted to write them out so feel free to tell me i’m wrong and why, and honestly pls discuss your opinions (and what you want or are looking forward to with Sam as cap)!

SEBASTIAN STAN as Bucky Barnes in THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER — 1.06 “One World, One People”

say it george!!

… they were mean to me. they were mean to you?

Able-bodied leftists NEED to change the way they talk about service labor.

They'll talk over and over again about treating workers with respect and shit but then treat service work as inherently humiliating or exploitative, as if that inherently reduced those workers to feudal servants or some shit who need to be freed not of capitalist abuses, but of service itself.

"Who would want to service others?!" Well, bitches, if I had the physical capacity for it and the conditions under which service labor exists in a capitalist society weren't so deplorable, I would!

I already do a lot of things for my also physically disabled family that, if I wasn't related to them and they were paying me, would absolutely count as care and service work. I like it! I enjoy servicing others when I'm treated by them with respect and a minimum of reciprocity.

There will ALWAYS be people who'll need service labor from others, no matter how utopic of a communist society. Children, the sick and injured, elderly people, and disabled people will always exist. Even if you try to breed disabled people out, we will keep reappearing over and over again, no matter how many fetal genetic testings you develop and how many of us you sterilize and murder.

What are you gonna do about us in a communist society? Are we supposed to magically become able-bodied and not need accommodations once the revolution arrives? Are you going to kill us so we don't demand Awful labor that you deem too low for anybody to perform? Why do you see service as inherently humiliating and exploitative?

If you feel perfectly ok using devices made with child labor and wearing clothes made by sweatshop workers because "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism", why is that different when disabled people pay for service labor in a capitalist society?

Why are WE different? Why is your need to tweet on a device made with child labor and wear cute clothes made in sweatshops more ethically justifiable than, I don't know... A person who can't leave their house getting FOOD delivered to them? FUCKING FOOD. An actual vital necessity. Why is it that when able-bodied leftists can't escape the unethical nature of capitalism that's ok, but when disabled people can't escape it EVEN HARDER because we LITERALLY HAVE NO CHOICE then we're the enemies of the working class?

Get a fucking grip. Service labor and care labor aren't inherently exploitative, they turn exploitative under exploitative systems, and some people will always need that from others TO SURVIVE. Not to be whimsical lazy parasites, TO SURVIVE.

Service labor is just as noble and beautiful as producing needed material goods or working the land, it's NECESSARY for any and all societies, and just like disabled people have a right to complain when healthcare workers fail us, we have a right to complain when service workers fail us because it's not a fucking whim to us, IT'S JUST AS VITAL AS MEDICAL CARE.