#I do think debates around ethical breeding are missing the mark

[wandering-wolf23]

Gonna say that I really don't get the kneejerk doodle hate. Are most of them well bred? No, not really (health testing, people. We can do that now). But neither are the vast majority of Golden Retrievers or Labs.

Is it possible to get a healthy doodle? Yeah. I know two of them. They are 12 y/o Cavapoos who belong to a person who wanted traits from both breeds, but not those two dogs. She's happy with what she got. They have fewer health issues at 12 than my Golden Retriever (registered, from solid lines, but still has health problems) and her (registered, from health tested parents) Italian Greyhound. Did she have to train her dogs? Yes. Are they a pain in the ass to groom? Also yes.

But so is my Golden. So was the German Shepherd my aunt had before. My sister has a Shih Tzu/Chihuahua mix that's basically a Shih Tzu with a much shorter coat. Also a nice dog. Did she need to be trained? Yes. Does she have a bit of a PITA coat? Also yes.

I actually wonder how much of the doodle stuff comes from stupid people owning dogs. The same person who has a fat husky with a matted coat and untrimmed nails is going to do the same with a doodle. Their issue right now is that they're a trendy mix and bad breeders are going for quantity over quality.

I will say that I'm not impressed with my purebred, registered Golden. She's allergic to both grain and chicken, along with other issues, and that makes caring for her hard. I can read a pedigree and I got her from a good breeder who has supported me through the struggle with my dog. She's a good dog, but I don't know if I'm going down the purebred route again. It just may not be right for me.

[enkelimagnus]

HaMakom

Bucky Barnes Gen, 2146 words, rated T

Jewish Bucky Barnes, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Episode 3 Power Broker

In the plane to Riga, once Sam has fallen asleep, Bucky and Zemo find themselves in an atypical conversation: what is it like, to fight beside a god when you are yourself a believer?

Read on AO3

Part 25 of Making a Home - the Jewish Bucky series

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“I wonder, James, what is it like, to fight beside a god when you are yourself a believer?”

Bucky looks up from where he was staring, a fine wrinkle on Sam’s skin, at the corner of his right eye, a mark of laughter and joy.

He meets Zemo’s eyes then. Zemo still looks tired, but he also looks awake, interested, ready to talk. Bucky sighs. Of course he is. There’s no getting any peace and quiet with a man like Zemo around, desperate to open you up and play with the inside of your brain like you’re nothing but a science experiment.

The question itself is too pointed and specific for a time like this, but it’s not surprising.

“Who says I’m a believer in anything?” He asks, voice sharp, with a hint of threat. He doesn’t like talking about religion, not with people like Zemo, not with anyone. How would Zemo know he’s Jewish anyway?

“Your files,” Zemo replies smoothly, undisturbed. “They report you called out for three people as you were tortured. The good Captain, Steve Rogers. Your mother. And God.”

Bucky shudders. Of course they would have recorded that. It’s the kind of leverage that could have proven useful if he took even longer to break than expected. And of course Zemo would know. This might actually be another attempt to show off.

Hasn’t he done enough already? Proven that he knew Bucky in the same way his Hydra handlers did? Is he that desperate to make sure Bucky’s aware that he has too much control over him, that he can make Bucky fold back into the role and space of the Asset?

“A lot of people call for God when they die, Zemo.”

The man hums. “You would know, wouldn’t you?”

It’s a sharp needle of a rhetorical question. After all, Bucky’s made his own number of hurtful pointed remarks. He guesses he can take that one. It doesn’t sound like an insult, though. They’re both aware of what he’s done, and Zemo doesn’t seem to be that disgusted by it. After all, he’s a killer himself. Commander of a paramilitary death squad…

Bucky saw those skills at Buccaneer Bay, he saw the ease with which Zemo killed those bounty hunters. And that was after eight years in prison. Zemo is nothing if not competent, and Bucky can appreciate that. When you can look past the murder, it’s a beautiful, skillful display.

The Soldier would still have torn him apart, had they met in the field. There is no doubt in Bucky’s mind.

“So, what is it like, to meet the God of Thunder?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. So it’s about Thor.

“Thor’s not a God,” Bucky replies. “He’s just a man. A strong, powerful one. But a man nonetheless. He bleeds.”

“Is that the sum of a god to you?” Zemo asks, sharp eyes still on Bucky. “A person that doesn’t bleed?”

Oh, he wants to talk, he wants to have a conversation. He’s trying so hard to get Bucky to talk to him. A desperate, lonely man. Eight years in solitary confinement must have been torture to someone like Zemo, who obviously is no loner.

Bucky decides to humor him. “That’s actually it,” he starts. “God can’t have a body. Because God is everywhere at once, all the time. If he had a body he’d have to be in one single place at one single time. And God is omnipresent, and omnipotent. Unlimited, by definition.”

The words come easy. They’re words he pulls from the back of his mind, from the unsullied memories of his childhood, from Hebrew school and its Torah commentary lessons on Thursdays at 4pm. He’d run from his secular school to the little room at the back of the synagogue, where only the Romanian kids ever came, and they’d lovelingly insult each other in Yiddish until the class started.

Zemo leans forward, a bright light of interest in his eyes, resting his chin on his hand, watching him intently. “Yesodei haTorah also says that if there were many gods, they would have body and form, like entities are separated from each other only through the circumstances associated with body and form,” he replies and Bucky can’t help but stare at him.

The Hebrew words sound off on his tongue, but he sounds like the kids from down the street who went to the German synagogue, too, the annoying ones whose mom didn’t like Bucky’s.

“Thor could be a god. Because if he is the god of something as specific as thunder, he would have a body,” Zemo continues.

Bucky just keeps staring, for a long moment. He didn’t think Zemo would know this. He didn’t think Zemo would know this and be able to answer, to debate it properly, using the quote and the name of the text. He didn’t think Zemo actually wanted a complex conversation with him. But if he wants it… Bucky’s gonna give it to him.

“He could also just be a prophet. A prophet given the opportunity to show God’s miracles on Earth, through his physical form. A mouthpiece, of sorts,” Bucky replies to that. “But there is a whole species of Thor’s kind out there. There is no such thing as a species of prophets.”

Fucking hell, he hasn’t felt this steady, this self-assured in decades. This is something he remembers, something he knows. Something Hydra never got to touch. Something they never got to twist against him like they did everything else. He’s missed being certain, he’s missed being an authority on something, even if he’s far from an authority on the works of Rambam.

“Doesn’t the Talmud say there were hundreds of thousands of prophets?”

Bucky shakes his head. He was expecting that answer. “Maybe, but it still doesn’t make it a species. Being a prophet isn’t an innate biological property. It’s a result of specific personal spiritual and ethical achievements. The Shechinah doesn’t rest upon you because you are of a specific genetic makeup, or of a specific people. There were gentile prophets too. You can’t breed a race of prophets.”

Zemo nods after a moment, holding up his hands. “You know more about this than I do,” he admits and Bucky rolls his eyes. It’s unlike the man to admit defeat in a verbal debate.

“Says the guy who quoted the Mishneh Torah to me.”

He hasn’t pulled from his childhood lessons from Hebrew school in forever. It feels strange, but good. No one has asked something like that of him in years.

Zemo shrugs. “I have an interest. I dabble, you might say. Knowing what people believe in is interesting to me. It gives me an excellent window into their psyche. We are shaped by what we believe.”

“You don’t seem like the type who believes.”

Zemo has a slow, low chuckle. Bucky’s skin erupts in goosebumps at the sound. “I believe in human ingenuity. I believe in science.”

Bucky snorts at that. “Of course you do,” he mutters. “You’re that sort of guy.”

Zemo raises an eyebrow at him, sharp brown eyes trained on Bucky, the corner of his mouth turned upwards slightly. He’s enjoying this. Unsurprising. Metaphysical debates seem perfect for Zemo’s spank bank. Bucky would be lying if he didn’t admit he was enjoying it as well.

“And what sort of guy is that, James?”

He’s one of the few who know his identity, who have met him while fighting alongside Steve in the 21st century that call him that. He admits he appreciates it. Zemo doesn’t force him into familiarity.

Once upon a time, he’d told him to call him Bucky and not James. Now he’s thankful Zemo has decided that request had an expiration date.

“The... atheist, crazy into evolutionary science and philosophy sort,” Bucky supplies. “Wealthy intellectual. Too much time on his hands.” He means it as a small poke at Zemo’s ego.

Zemo opens his hands in a sign of acceptance. “What can I say? My family was royalty, and I’ve spent the last eight years in a prison cell, all by my lonesome, except for the company of some literary treasures. I believe that qualifies me for ‘wealthy intellectual with too much time on his hands’. Besides, you seem to also enjoy evolutionary science and philosophy. Do not blame me for finding a common ground between us.”

Bucky huffs again. “It’s not exactly a niche interest.”

They fall into silence for a moment, the engine of the plane a comforting, soothing white noise.

“I don’t believe,” Bucky says after a moment. “I stopped in 1945 when the Soviets had me. I kept screaming his name out of habit,” he mutters. “I don’t think I’ll ever get that back, but I don’t think I want to.”

“Who wants to believe in a God that would make you suffer in such horrifying ways?” Zemo punctuates, nodding quietly, understandingly. “The fall of Sokovia and my family’s passing didn’t make me stop believing. I don’t think I ever really did. Perhaps, as a child… The same way one might believe in Father Christmas. I grew out of it.”

Like one grows out of shoes.

“What are you? Catholic?”

There’s another nod. Bingo. Though it wasn’t that hard of a guess. After all, Zemo’s European royalty. At this point, Bucky would have been surprised if he was anything else. Still, knowing things, being able to figure it out, feels good. He gets where Zemo’s penchant for analysis comes from.

“The Zemo line has Habsburg blood,” Zemo adds, as if Bucky asked for his pedigree. “Catholicism is nearly a genetic marker at this point.”

Bucky makes a slight face at that. “Habsburg. Those were the inbred ones.”

The man chuckles again, low and compliant. “I hear it has the tendency to happen, when people insist on reproducing with members of their own group,” he mutters, inhaling deeply. “I will not defend the stupidity of that part of my family tree, distant as it may be,” he adds on an exhale.

“Testament to your intelligence, then.” Bucky hums and looks back out of the window.

Catholicism. The only reason he was really in contact with it was Steve. Steve was Catholic. Like Zemo, it wasn’t something he actually believed in. He said grace because his mother taught him to, he went to church on Christmas and Easter and on the other important holidays. His priest must have been highly entertained by his confessions.

“For what it’s worth,” Zemo starts again, circling back. “I do agree with you that, if he exists, God isn’t a man like Thor. Or a man like Nagel.”

Bucky’s eyes snap back to the man’s face. He is serious, dark. There isn’t a hint of regret in his expression. Zemo’s eyes meet his.

Maybe he hadn’t been dead set on killing Nagel when they’d walked into his lab, but hearing him call himself a god for what he’d done, what he’d made, that had been the deciding factor. Bucky doesn’t need to ask to know. He agrees wholeheartedly.

The serum shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t have existed in the first place. It had only brought horror into this world. Without it, there would have been no Red Skull, no Zola, no Winter Soldier program, no experimenting on Isaiah Bradley.

From the second it enters your veins, your life is forever changed. First, the pain. Then, the uncontrollable senses and heightened feelings, all of it overwhelming you and making you dangerous to yourself and to others. And then, you become a weapon. Someone’s weapon, or something’s. And judging from the fact the Power Broker is racing to recreate the serum, the market for that kind of weaponry still exists.

Bucky is thankful Steve got to live a full life, free of his medical conditions. But the list of good ends there, and he’s not sure it’s worth it, even for someone he loves.

Despite it all, if someone came to him offering to cure him, to take the serum out of him, he doesn’t know what he’d say. The one thing he doesn’t hate about it is how easy it makes protecting the ones he cares about. He can take a bullet for them, and he doesn’t have to worry too much about it. He can stay awake, cut off his rations, give away his coat or his water for a while. Sacrificing his own comfort for those he loves has never been this easy.

“The serum isn’t a gift from God. It’s a human creation,” Zemo keeps going, as if he doesn’t believe Bucky gets what he means.

Bucky hums. “Horror always comes from humans. At least in my experience.” And fucking hell he has plenty of that.

There isn’t a single piece of proof of God’s existence, or Satan’s existence, he’s ever seen in his days of being the Soldier.