our subject isn't cool, but he fakes it anyway
Отличный инсайт на тему травм Стива Роджерса от автора гениального фика Ain't no Grave archiveofourown.org/works/5094785/chapters/1171...
Размышления Сэма.
"See, here's the thing. If Steve was a regular guy pining for his junkie boyfriend Sam would be telling him to set some boundaries and try and get on with his life, you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, blah, blah, blah. But Steve is a whole other situation. Sometimes when people find out that Cap's all buddy-buddy with a VA counselor they have this lightbulb moment, like "oh, right, maybe stars-and-stripes has a little speck of the ol' PTSD!" But really, Steve's issues aren't familiar from the VA so much as they are from a part-time job Sam had a few years back, with an organization that worked with Somali refugees.
He's tried to explain this a couple of times to a few of his buddies after about five beers. Like listen, listen. Imagine you live in this country, right? And there's a brutal war, and you witness and maybe participate in a horrific amount of violence, and you lose absolutely everyone you care about. Then you end up in this other country, where the culture and ways of doing things are completely foreign to you, and random assholes make fun of you for how you dress and act and talk while you're still coming to grips with the fact that everyone you love is gone and you can never go home again. Meanwhile, everyone around you is like "smile, motherfucker, you're in the Land of Plenty now, where there's a Starbucks on every corner and 500 channels on TV. You should be grateful! Why aren't you acting more grateful?" So you have to pretend to be grateful while you're dying inside. Sound like an traumatized, orphaned Somali refugee? Also sounds like Steve fucking Rogers, Captain Goddamn America. Except that the Somalis Sam worked with at least had a community of other people who were going through the same thing. Steve is all alone, the last damn unicorn, if the last unicorn had horrible screaming nightmares about the time when it helped to liberate Buchenwald.
Usually this explanation yields a "huh." People don't want Sad Somali Steve: they want Captain America, Indestructible Defender of Freedom. But that doesn't mean that Sam isn't right, because he is right, goddamnit. So yeah, Sam's a little protective of Steve. And if the last unicorn finds out that its best damn unicorn friend in the whole world is actually alive, then damn straight, Sam's heading out with a tranq gun and bringing that damn unicorn in and starting a goddamn unicorn wildlife refuge in his backyard. Or something like that: at a certain point the metaphor kind of gets away from him."
Размышления Сэма.
"See, here's the thing. If Steve was a regular guy pining for his junkie boyfriend Sam would be telling him to set some boundaries and try and get on with his life, you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, blah, blah, blah. But Steve is a whole other situation. Sometimes when people find out that Cap's all buddy-buddy with a VA counselor they have this lightbulb moment, like "oh, right, maybe stars-and-stripes has a little speck of the ol' PTSD!" But really, Steve's issues aren't familiar from the VA so much as they are from a part-time job Sam had a few years back, with an organization that worked with Somali refugees.
He's tried to explain this a couple of times to a few of his buddies after about five beers. Like listen, listen. Imagine you live in this country, right? And there's a brutal war, and you witness and maybe participate in a horrific amount of violence, and you lose absolutely everyone you care about. Then you end up in this other country, where the culture and ways of doing things are completely foreign to you, and random assholes make fun of you for how you dress and act and talk while you're still coming to grips with the fact that everyone you love is gone and you can never go home again. Meanwhile, everyone around you is like "smile, motherfucker, you're in the Land of Plenty now, where there's a Starbucks on every corner and 500 channels on TV. You should be grateful! Why aren't you acting more grateful?" So you have to pretend to be grateful while you're dying inside. Sound like an traumatized, orphaned Somali refugee? Also sounds like Steve fucking Rogers, Captain Goddamn America. Except that the Somalis Sam worked with at least had a community of other people who were going through the same thing. Steve is all alone, the last damn unicorn, if the last unicorn had horrible screaming nightmares about the time when it helped to liberate Buchenwald.
Usually this explanation yields a "huh." People don't want Sad Somali Steve: they want Captain America, Indestructible Defender of Freedom. But that doesn't mean that Sam isn't right, because he is right, goddamnit. So yeah, Sam's a little protective of Steve. And if the last unicorn finds out that its best damn unicorn friend in the whole world is actually alive, then damn straight, Sam's heading out with a tranq gun and bringing that damn unicorn in and starting a goddamn unicorn wildlife refuge in his backyard. Or something like that: at a certain point the metaphor kind of gets away from him."