And Just Like That.. I’m Back On My Bucky Barnes Bullshit.

Banish the idea that all antisemites look like Nazis.

Antisemitism is pervasive in every culture and people aware of Jewish people's existence.

Yes, some antisemites look like white European neo-Nazis, but...

A lot of antisemites look like an atheist influencer who mocks Judaism as a "gotcha" to Christianity.

A lot of antisemites look like a lady at Church who talks about how much she "loves Jews" because "Jesus was Jewish."

A lot of antisemites look like a political commentator talking about the "globalists" and the "secret cabal controlling the government and Hollywood."

A lot of antisemites look like your gay friend who says he can't be antisemitic because he's gay and "the Nazis killed gay people too."

A lot of antisemites look like social justice advocates who will advocate for every marginalized community but will stay silent as soon as they are confronted with the antisemitism in their own circles.

A lot of antisemites look like fandom bloggers who think it's funny and original to call Jewish features "feral" or "sleepy" or "sneaky" or "rat-like" or "creepy".

People who want to deny their own antisemitism will push the idea that only Nazis are antisemites.

fanfic writing culture isn’t “oh dang! I wanted to write about this prompt with this character but someone else already wrote it, so now I can’t”.

fanfic writing culture is always “two cakes is better than one. the more the merrier. there can ever be enough fics of this character with this prompt!”

chapter 2/8 now available on AO3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), captain america: the first avenger

→ bucky x steve, bucky x peggy

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ gore, faked relationship, canon-typical violence

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He aimed and fired at the soldiers as he ducked behind the shelves at the side of the room, unfortunately cornered but thankful for a shield regardless. He was more than able to hold his own, and he was sure of that -

His fucking gun jammed.

“Stop him!”

He knew that voice.

The fear settled over him like a blanket. Every single worry he had for this mission, it layered in his head as Zola’s voice pinged around.

You'll fail your mission.

Zola will have you again - he'll - the new fist of Hydra -

He gasped, his breath shuddering in his lungs.

Steve will get out alive, no one else can stop him but you - ain't that a fucking tragedy -

Would he save you from Zola twice?

chapter 1/8 now available on AO3 <3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), captain america: the first avenger

→ bucky x steve, bucky x peggy

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ gore, faked relationship, canon-typical violence

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Bucky thought he understood rage.

Steve was his primary example. He saw it all over Joseph Rogers before he had passed. He saw the marks and bruises on Sarah Rogers’s face, her wrists. Both of Steve's parents had been fierce in their own ways, two sides of the same coin.

Steve had always been an angry son of a bitch. Shake a bag of wet cats, that was what it was like to handle him. He lied when he didn’t have to. He gave one word answers to piss people off. He took every little thing as a challenge, as something personal, so convinced that he needed to prove something about himself.

But now? It was entirely different.

Bucky had known Steve all his life. He knew all his tells; when he lied, when he was about to go into an asthma attack, when he was simmering in rage and about to blow a fuse. He knew how to read his expressions like a book. He knew something was wrong with Steve, just as he knew there was something wrong with himself. His near-dead delirious ass was able to notice it in Azzano, as soon as Steve pulled him off that table. His eyes were - empty? Mostly? He looked like nothing phased him, like nothing made him feel anything - the only emotion he had seen on Steve’s face up until they returned to camp was rage as he faced Johann Schmidt on that catwalk.

It was in himself. He’d felt rage before, he knew it well, but - to his core - he wouldn’t consider himself an angry person. But watching Steve walk around like he was, with the little context Bucky had, god's gift? He just got out of experimentation. Pulled off that death bed by the man who walked like he was the baddest soldier on Earth, like he was chosen by Divine Right when all he did was sign up for a dangerous experiment - it was a slap in the face.

Steve towered over him, and that certainly wasn’t the issue. He acted like he had to be better than him. Bucky’s training didn’t matter, because Steve thought he was better than all the men he’d pulled from Azzano combined. The old Steve had never acted like that. But despite the belief, the narcissistic pride that stained the ground he walked on, he seemed to think he still had something to prove. To the world. To himself. To Bucky. He’d never needed to prove himself to Bucky - he had always been the one person who saw Steve more than anyone else, that knew him as well as he knew himself; from childish friendship to learning how to kiss to leaning on each other after both their families were gone, they had been through it nearly every step of the way. Three years they had been torn apart, longer than they had ever been separated before, and that whole time Bucky was hoping Steve had been blocked enough by the system that he’d keep getting deferred and - Bucky didn’t care how much it tore at Steve to see it - declared unfit. He’d stay safe at home, he’d keep going to art school, Bucky would get back to him and his world would go back to what it was -

But the fucker willingly let an an entity running on agendas pump chemicals in him, because he had something to prove, and now Bucky had to work with a man he couldn’t recognize.

chapter 3/8 now available on AO3 <3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), avengers (2012)

→ bucky x steve

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ canon-typical violence

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Bucky’s mind swelled with panic at the implication - Peggy, Monty - people he loved were dead all at once - but he had to take it in stride. He had to. There was no purpose to dwell on it. If he thought about it all too hard, he wouldn't be able to get through it.

What happened, happened.

He'd process it later. He had to accept it.

“Captain Rogers woke up about an hour and a half ago.” Agent Barton shared. If he noticed Bucky's barely buried alarm, he didn't say. “Director Fury handled him. He broke out and ran into Times Square.”

“Sounds like him,” he said, monotone.

“He's in a conference room. Fury's asked me to bring you once you're ready, so he can speak to you both.”

That made him come to mostly full attention. “He's not detained?”

Clint's head cocked to the side. “Neither of you are detained, Sergeant.”

Bucky opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. They didn't know? How could they not know?

filtering down ao3 results from 14000 to 6 based on a single tag is foul. im sorry none of you are as enlightened as me ig.

kudos to jorge for continually making the release of the ithaca saga an immersive experience by going to ithaca itself, missing the ferry, getting caught in a storm, and having the livestream delayed. can’t wait to see everyone in ten years for the final album!

JORGE IS THINKING ABOUT MAKING AN ILIAD MUSICAL IN THE FUTURE HELLOOOO??????

I need my Hector & Apollo songs please please please Jay I'm begging you please

chapter 5/8 now available on AO3 <3

→ marvel (mcu/comic), post-avengers 2012

→ bucky x steve, bucky x peggy

→ flawed super soldier serum, dark!steve rogers, mcu compliant with comic influences

→ gore, canon-typical violence, bucky makes friends in the 21st century

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He eventually found himself in front of his own memorial wall. An entire wall, painted with collaged portraits of himself, even displaying a few pictures and a lit-up video, dedicated just to him. Best friends from childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield - excelled as an athlete and in the classroom - became an officer straight out of Basic - isolation, deprivation, torture - Captain America’s best friend - Peggy Carter’s lost love - was given a version of the serum due to experimentation - kept his super soldier abilities a secret until the final battle, to take down the Red Skull once and for all - died tragically alongside his best friend as they saved New York City from Hydra’s bombs.

He stayed in front of that wall even longer to watch all the videos on loop. He and the Howlies from the reels that were recorded right after Azzano, displaying Captain America’s heroism before they went right back out to fight Hydra; an exhibition of his sharpshooting skills; a video of he and Steve, where Steve wasn't smiling but he was looking at him while he was awkwardly laughing, where he looked like himself -

“You alright, man?”

Bucky glanced to the side to find a man looking at him. His shoulders tightened when he realized he was being addressed - he was supposed to be dead, why did he come here -

“Hey - I'm sorry. You got that thousand yard stare. I counsel veterans down at the VA. I look at a face like that every day, I-I just -”

“It's okay,” he interrupted, speaking softly so his voice didn't sound like one in any recordings.

The man looked back up at the gigantic portrait looming in front of them. It was Bucky in the iconic blue coat, gun in hand as he stood in the snow. The corner of his mouth threatened to turn up, Bucky noticed the twitch, but the man pursed his lips to force it back down. “You bear a mighty resemblance. Must be related or something, right?”

That Captain America Healing Factor is all well and good until someone on the team has to pin Steve down and re-break his arm because they didn’t splint it in time and it healed wrong. Until they have to dig a knife into his face and pull out glass fragments that his skin healed over in five minutes flat. Until he has to have surgery wide awake because no anaesthetic works and the only other option is a leather belt between his teeth and useless platitudes like its going to be okay Steve, I promise, it’ll be over soon.