#and because she definitely was the brains of Howlies

[beautifulwhensarcastic]

Modern Howling Commandos

[whindsor]

@universalfanfic so summer knows sign language...and so does sutton...and this is what happens when my brain does the thing i hope you don’t mind!

Any time Steve woke up in the middle of the night, it usually meant something was wrong. And of course, since they’d come to the understanding of if you’re up, I’m up, then FRIDAY would call out to Sutton in her own apartment. “Miss Regan, you should know that Captain Rogers is awake.”

���Huh, what?” Sutton said, trying to shake the sleep from her eyes. It had been a long time since Steve had a nightmare, but they were getting close to the holidays. That always seemed to change things. 

“He’s heading to the medical bay.” FRIDAY relayed. 

“He’s what?” she said, now fully awake. She exchanged her pajama pants for the first pair of jeans she could find and slipped a hoodie that she may or may not have stolen from his closet at some point over her tank top before stuffing her feet into her shoes and walking out the door. As much as she wanted to run down the stairs, she knew the elevator would be faster, though she still tapped her foot impatiently as it flew down the shaft. She nearly tripped over the doors trying to get out; he wasn’t supposed to be on a mission, why would he be in the med bay?

There was some sort of commotion in the back, and she followed the sound to find Steve and two other men wrestling a blonde woman into a chair. Her eyes were sharp and slightly feral in a way that Sutton had seen before, just not in a long time. She stayed back, knowing this was not her job, and waited until they had her in a chair with restraints. Her chest was heaving with exertion, and now that she was still, she seemed more scared than anything. 

“You okay?” Sutton asked once Steve had backed up. He glanced her way for just a moment, long enough to know where to reach to grab her hand.

“Yea, yea I’m okay. Did FRIDAY wake you?” he asked, his eyes still on the blonde. Despite the odd situation, Sutton couldn’t help but huff with vague annoyance.

“Yes. Next time, FRIDAY, could you tell me that he’s not the injured one?” she asked the air.

“Yes, Miss Regan.” FRIDAY said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.

“Who’s that?” Sutton asked, quieter this time. She still had the weird sense that she’d met this person before, though she couldn’t quite place her. Something about the way she looked at the world was familiar.

“Lu Peters. She…” he paused, as if trying to figure out the most efficient way to relay the information. “She was with us, the Howlies. Back in the day. And she was with Bucky when…” he hesitated again before continuing. “They called her Summer.”

“Oh my gosh.” Sutton said, for lack of anything else to say. It was bad enough to know that Hydra had made the Winter Soldier; they had a Summer Soldier too? “Is she...how did you find her?”

“I’ve been looking for her since the Snap. She dropped off the map, went underground.” he said. His voice still carried some of its captain-ness, probably left over from trying to get Lu to listen. “Finally found her in an old bunker in Siberia. She’s okay physically, but she hasn’t said anything, which is unusual.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to talk.” Sutton offered, remembering struggling herself whenever she first came back to this universe. And if someone had undergone the same unspeakable horrors as Bucky...well, Sutton didn’t think she’d want to talk much either. But then she noticed Lu’s left hand, the fingers tucked into a fist but her thumb still out. She moved her hand in as much of a circle as the restraints allowed, pulling it towards her chest. “Did she know sign language?”

“Some, yea. Why?” he asked, his own eyes going to her hands. He saw the motions now too. “What does that mean?”

“Help me.” Sutton translated. Lu’s eyes brightened, and she realized that she recognized the expression because it was the one Bucky wore, before they were able to knock the Hydra out of him. “You need help?”

A closed fist, a bending wrist. Yes. 

“Tell me what you need.” Sutton said. Lu didn’t answer right away, then carefully brought her fingertips together, gesturing twice towards her mouth. “Food?” Another yes, then three fingers held up, gesturing towards her mouth again. “Water?” Another yes.

“I’m on it.” Steve said, giving Lu a nod and going back to where the medical personnel were trying to figure out how to run tests on the super soldier. She didn’t look at him, she kept her green eyes on Sutton.

“What else do you need?” she asked, stepping closer. She wasn’t afraid of the woman; she’d dealt with much worse than rogue super soldiers. Lu’s hand formed a B, then she made an odd swooping motion. Sutton wondered how much trouble she’d get in if she loosened just the one restraint, then decided it was probably in her best interest to keep it tied. Lu looked sad now, and repeated the sign slowly. Sutton tried to sound it out. “Buh...Bones? Bread? Buh…” those signs didn’t match, she was just thinking of the first B words. She remembered what Steve said, that she’d been with Bucky, and her stomach dropped to her shoes as she realized the swoop was a mix of a salute and the shape of a house. “Barnes.” she said quietly. Lu looked hopeful for a moment, and if Sutton had a functioning heart it would have broken a little. “I’m sorry. I can’t bring you Bucky.” 

Lu didn’t seem surprised by this, her jaw clenching as she tried to choke down whatever emotions or sounds were threatening to spill from her. Steve returned then, bearing some toast and a bottle of water. He looked between the two of them, and if he noticed the change in the air, he didn’t comment on it. He knew Sutton would tell him later. He let Lu take a long drink and helped her eat the toast, but Sutton could definitely tell that he was questioning the restraints as well. She’d be free again, just as soon as they could stabilize her. Sutton sighed and got comfortable in one of the nearby chairs, knowing that there was no way Steve was going to be going back to his apartment tonight. 

When she finished eating, Lu simply laid her palm out towards them. Thank you. “You’re welcome.” Sutton said. 

She was calm now, and Steve asked, “If we unlock you, will you be okay?” A closed fist, another movement. Yes. 

[perplexinglyparadoxialperson]

Steve’s Shield

This is part of a series I’m writing on AO3, and a transcription of a YouTube video in the marvel universe, so if it doesn’t make sense, please tell me! The first part is the video, and the second part is the authors note I wrote. I didn’t have the patience to write this whole thing over again without the story aspect, when this explains things just fine. Find me on AO3 at PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson

+-+

Brian clicked the video on his YouTube feed, titled, ‘Captain America’s shield and the science behind it’, it’s thumbnail being a close up picture of the shield.

The video started with a woman with long brown hair in a ponytail against a blue background, talking. “Captain America, sentinel of liberty, hero of the free world, recent saviour of New York, and... the owner of the most famous shield in history.”

The screen faded out, replaced with a blue room with two chairs, one of them seating the brown haired woman, and Captain America in the other seat.

“Today we’re being joined by the man himself” she said. “Welcome to the show Captain America!”

“It’s my pleasure” he said, shaking her hand “but please call me Steve.”

“Now we’ve been watching some of the videos from the battle of New York,” she said. “And I think we’re all curious about that shield. It’s properties are like no metal we’ve ever seen, reflecting energy blasts from a lightning generating hammer, and bouncing off walls like a ping pong ball! What is this shield made of?”

“It’s kind of complicated” he said. “And most of the information I do know about it, is from what I’ve found out in the field, or from half understood rambling science talk from Howard Stark. Don’t expect a clear or completely accurate explanation!”

“That’s perfectly understandable Steve,” she said. “Most of what science is in the first place is observing, and making educated guesses. You definitely know more than us, that’s for sure!”

“All right” he said. “The shield is made of what Howard called vibranium, which absorbs vibrations.”

“But if it absorbs vibrations,” the host said curiously, “then it wouldn’t be able to bounce off walls, it would hit one wall and drop to the floor.”

“I know,” Captain America said. “I was confused too, but apparently that is only a property of pure vibranium. See, vibranium is a very rare metal, and very expensive. Howard used up all that he could scrounge when he made the shield, so parts of it are made of an alloy of vibranium and an unknown metal. He had found out before making the shield that when vibranium is alloyed with another metal, it reacts completely oppositely than when it’s pure.

You see the different sections on the shield? Their the reason that it’s painted in rings. Each section has a different direction of reflection, the circle in the centre is pure vibranium and only absorbs vibrations, for example, if you shot a bullet into the centre the bullet would drop to the floor, flattened. The rings are easiest to see as a child’s drawing of a sun. The reflection angle of the inner red ring is about 22.5 degrees, the white circle is 22.5 degrees off of that, and the outer red circle is 22.5 degrees of from that. The rim of the shield is of course 90 degrees, which means that it easily bounces off walls, and conserves momentum really well.”

“How did you get this shield Steve,” she asked. “It seems like an item like that would be expensive!”

“Howard gave it to me” Captain America said. “When I was on the USO circuit, selling war bonds, I had a steel shield, brought it with me when I rescued the prisoners from Azzano, and well, Howard was a bit of a showboat. When I got back, he designed a whole bunch of shields for me, and I chose this one.”

“That’s quite the story!” The host said, “now I have a totally hypothetical question for you, do you think that you would have been able to use the shield before you got the serum?”

“That’s quite the question,” Captain America said. “First of all, most people seem to think that the shield is heavy, but it’s actually pretty light. Pure vibranium is about a third of the weight of steel, so I definitely would have been able to lift it before the serum. Do you want to hold it to see?”

“Of course,” she said, grabbing the shield. “Wow that is really light! But back to the topic at hand, you may have been able to lift it back then, but could you have used it?”

“Definitely not,” he said. “For one it takes a decent amount of strength to be able to throw it accurately, not super strength, but quite a bit nonetheless. Another reason I wouldn’t have been able to, is because throwing the shield accurately, with multiple bounces, needs a lot of quick thinking, calculating angles, and figuring out possible areas to rebound it off of to get to as many targets as possible, etc. The serum enhanced the speed, and memory retention of my brain, so the calculations I need to make are a lot easier and faster to do. I can also bring up memories of previous throws, to use in similar situations. I was pretty good at geometry before the serum, I wasn’t usually good at most math and science, that was Bucky’s job, but geometry just clicked for me. I had always been good at pool too.”

“So you just extrapolated on those skills?” She asked.

“Yeah” he said “but catching it is a challenge as well, I broke a couple of fingers the first time I caught it, I was sure was lucky to have enhanced healing! I did get used to it eventually, but no one I’ve met has been able to catch it, I did try to teach the Howlies in the beginning, but it never worked. I did make sure that they could all throw it back to me though, just in case I made a mistake on a throw.

“That’s one of the big advantages of a unique weapon though, if you lose it, you aren’t giving the enemy a weapon as well.”

“Can you elaborate on that Steve,” the host asked.

“Of course” he replied. “For example, for the most part guns are just point and shoot, and knives are quite common, and pretty simple as well. If you drop one of those, chances are that your enemy can use them as well, and you both lose a weapon, and give the enemy one. But with unique weapons, like Hawkeyes bow for example, not only is the draw weight immense for those who haven’t trained for it, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s nearly impossible to hit what your aiming at. It’s the same with the shield, while they can use the shield as a shield, they usually can’t use it for anything offensive.”

“That’s fascinating,” she said. “But why don’t we experiment with it a bit, I would love to see it in action in person!”

The next scene opened in a large concrete room, with a few concrete supports, Captain America and the woman standing in the middle.

“Fair warning,” Captain America said. “There is a large possibility that the shield will damage the supports and the walls in this room. If you don’t want any damage, please stop me before I start throwing the shield around.”

“It’s fine” she said. “This room is a worthy sacrifice for seeing this in person.”

“If your sure,” Captain America said.

The rest of the video was a long series of experimental ricocheting. Trying to get as many ricochets as possible, hitting specific targets, and using BB guns to test the reflection angles. It was fascinating, seeing increasingly elaborate chains of rebounds, almost all of them hitting their targets, and not one of them coming close to hitting the host.

The video ended with the host and Captain America standing in the middle of the now slightly battered room.

The host said, “this has been Captain America, showing us the shield and the science behind it. Thanks for the assist, and have a great day!”

“I will” Captain America said.

The host turned to the camera and said, “please like and subscribe, and see you all next time!”

The video ended, the screen going black.

+-+

This is my explanation for the shields properties and the inconsistencies in them. So when I decided that I wanted to do this, I looked up the properties of vibranium on a wiki, and there are several immense inconsistencies, it’s like whoever came up with the shield just put whatever qualities that they wanted in it without any regard to logic and science! I am not very good with physics though, so if I made any unreasonable assumptions please let me know so that I can fix it!

For one, if it absorbs vibrations, it wouldn’t be able to bounce off walls, or reflect the energy of Thor’s hammer, like what happened in the Avengers movie, so I had to come up with a semi plausible reason for it to work like that, so I added in the alloy idea. Apparently in the comics, the shield is a combination of vibranium and adamantium, so I used the idea. However, this still doesn’t make much sense, because if you make an alloy out of, for example a good conductor and a bad conductor, the alloy will be somewhere in between, not a non-conductor, but... I needed some explanation!

I also needed the middle to be able to absorb vibrations, because in the First Avenger, when Peggy shoots the middle of the shield, the bullets flatten and drop to the floor, like they should. Also if it bounced like that, conserving almost all momentum, then nothing should be damaged by it, the reason is that, for example, when an axe damages a tree, is because it’s momentum is transferred to the tree, and it gets stuck in the wood. If an axe bounces of a tree, usually there is minimal damage to the tree, so by all logic the shield shouldn’t damage anything.

Note: for the bit where he said that none of the Howlies could catch it, including Bucky, but he could catch it as the Winter Soldier is because I think catching the shield requires the technique of you bouncing it off your hand, then grabbing it. With my theory that the attributes of the serum appeared in Bucky over a period of time, at the beginning of the war, he wouldn’t have been able to catch it. However, with serum enhanced reflexes and strength, he would be able to catch it as the winter soldier, and near the end of the war, he would have been able to catch it, but he believed he couldn’t, so he didn’t try. Steve didn’t mention the technique for catching it just in case an enemy saw it and used it to learn to catch it.

In short, as a very logical person, and scientist, this was frustrating, and I decided to make this so that other people could have a better idea of what the shield can and cannot do, and the reasons for it, to make fics better.

This is a diagram of the reflection angles of the shield.

[girlbookwrm]

i DO recommend these fics, but this ISN’T actually a rec list

a while ago i did a meta about Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier and Hydra and the headcanons I put in The Terror of Knowing, and I mentioned that I wanted to compile a long-ass list of fics that inspired The Hundred Year Playlist and ppl (hi @conlatio and @marveluc) asked about it SO HERE, AT LONG FUCKING LAST, IT IS.

Fanfiction, like every other art form that has ever existed in the history of ever, is all about synthesis: combining pre-existing elements to make something new. It’s the making something new thing that’s exciting. (If you’re not making something new with your found material, that’s called plaigiarism and it’s distinctly uncool.)

When I was in college and grad school, if we used material from other scholars to make a new idea, we made sure to include a bibliography. 

Now this is fic, so like. Everyone knows that we’re using found material. We put the fandom in the tags and everything. But there’s a lot of unseen inspiration, because it’s harder to tag all the fics and metas you read that gave you ideas and inspiration along the way.

I’m... making an attempt.

These are some, SOME of the fics that inspired the headcanons and characterizations and whatnot that then got incorporated into THYP. I’ve been reading MCU fic since 2014 (possibly earlier) and I didn’t even start thinking about THYP until 2017, so there’s probably a lot of stuff that went into my subconscious that I’ve forgotten about. I’m @ing the authors and sources when I know them, but if any of yall want me to like, un-@you (is that a thing??) or if any of you know of authors who have tumblrs that I DIDN’T @ but should have, pls let me knoooowwww

A (Probably Incomplete, but at least Attempted) Fanfic Bibliography for The Hundred Year Playlist

by Seriously I Don’t Have More Important Things To Do? Astonishing.

PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS IN THE FICS THEMSELVES. THYP may be rated T for Teen (and even that I debate about tbh, given all the swears and violence) but most of these fics are very emphatically not.  some of them will probably squick you out, some of them might be triggering, so take care of yourselves.

I’ve divided the list into sections by the story they inspired, but all of these stories inspired all the parts of THYP, this is a very very very rough categorization. Think of it as my fanfic n headcanon spice rack. some stories are going to have more or less of one spice or another.

Dreamers With Empty Hands

All the Angels and the Saints by @cesperanza

"You're a brutal person, you know that? You're always rummaging through my guts with your bare hands!" and then Bucky turned away, his long, muscled back curving as he sat on the edge of the bed, hunched and struggling for breath. Steve wanted to draw him, and he also wanted to blot the image from his memory: this picture of Bucky in despair.

Speranza’s Socialist Steve is deeply flawed in a way that people don’t usually write him and i love it so much??? He’s angry, and egotistical, and righteous in a way that’s hard on the people around him and I was like YESGOOD MORE PLS. It’s also a masterful example of how to write a story that’s ostensibly Steve-POV but still manages to make Bucky not only a main player, but a driving force. It’s about Steve, on the surface, sure. But it’s also about Bucky, because Steve is about Bucky and I just *clenches fist* love it.

cascades. 

This fic. THIS FIC. Hngh. Okay so this fic is good on so many levels, but for THYP, the takeaway was me very gently lifting the Bucky-Steve-Barnes Family dynamic and then adding more swears to get to my take on the Bucky-Steve-Barnes Family Dynamic. Namely: 

“Steve was a bit of a Barnes, too, wasn’t he,” she says.

“He was ours,” says Rebecca, shrugging. “We were his.”

i crie???

More Man Than You

“You’re very pretty,” she said, and Steve tensed up.

“I’m not a fairy.”

“No, you’re not, are you?”

this fic has a study guide. and that’s literally all I feel I need to say about it. It’s an exploration of queer culture and masculinity in the 30s and 40s, thinly veiled as stucky fanfiction. (It’s also pretty brutal so I’ll reiterate that you need to heed the goddamn warnings)

Also, lest yall think I came up with Billy Thompson in a vacuum, I didn’t. In this fic, there’s a violent mob runner called Duke, and Steve comes up with a plan to take him down, and Bucky makes sure that there’s a Different plan that Steve doesn’t know about.  It’s all executed a little differently in this fic, but the idea lodged in my brain and got reused in THYP, and kind of became a central theme.

Good Morning Heartache, What’s New?

The Night War by @praximeter

IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. This is... honestly, just one of the finest pieces of fiction i just 

HNNNNGH

I don’t know that I can point to any specific part of this fic and say “this gave me that idea” it was more the... the feel of it. The way the Normandy invasion is written and the way the trauma is handled and the way Steve is just slightly to the left of being a real soldier and especially this:

He asked me with a smile on his face what goes through my mind when I line up my shot—God and country? Pearl Harbor? Uncle Sam? —and I stared at him struck dumb from the question so long that I think he thought I was just plain stupid. The fact is that it is none of those things—not even close. It is sick, numb fear and careful, barely breathing so that I don’t miss. I must never miss. And then when I shoot, an awful thought curls up from my trigger finger to my heart “how many mothers must be praying I will miss?”

The Thirteen Letters

oh you didn’t really think that Not Easily Conquered wasn’t going to be on this list, didja? OF COURSE IT’S ON THE LIST. But possibly not for the reason you might think. That fic is legen-fucking-dary of course, and the scene where Steve gets stabbed was obviously very inspirational for that bit in GMHWN where Steve gets shot in the thigh, but the scene that really got teeth into my brain and Would Not Let Go was the one where the Howlies meet the Winged Victory of Samothrace and 

Bucky knows the truth now. It is a deep and insurmountable truth. She has no face. Like the operative whose head he beat in, like the boy who he killed one month into active duty, even like Bucky himself, Nike is faceless. Bucky feels unprepared, or like he should have brought an offering.

Beside him Steve quakes before the oldest and the only god.

look my fixation with statues didn’t come from nowhere is what i’m saying ok

Sincerely, Your Pal

This fic haunts me because i hate the ending. not because it’s not good (It IS good) or because it’s not the right ending for the story (it IS the right ending for the story) but just because i  h a t e  i t. I just like happy endings is all, and resolutions, and this fic is why THYP will have a happy ending.

But also, I really liked the way this fic dealt with Bucky in Basic and lines like this really caught in my brain:

And of course I want to kill some Nazis I guess but not because they’re people. Not because I actually want people to die because I don’t.

And that sentiment definitely fed into how I write Bucky especially.

The Terror of Knowing

there must have been a moment by @redstarwhitestar (magdaliny’s marvel sideblog)

Listen, I’ve been trying to make sure that there’s a good spread of writers on this list but magdaliny is the exception. Magdaliny is the exception for a lot of things and there must have been a moment when we could have said no is always the first fic I think of when I think of a fic about Bucky’s time as the Soldier. Which is ironic, because it’s very much about his time after that, but that first chapter made uhhhhhhhhhhh an impression.

The fractured nature of the narrative, the way that the reader can piece together a coherent timeline but the main character can’t... that was very influential on TTOK. example:

“Kill him,” the officer says.

The subject says: “Why?”

☙

“Kill him,” the officer says.

The subject makes a mess.

☙

“Kill him cleanly,” the officer says. “Good! Good lad.”

I’ll build a house inside of you

Another magdaliny G I F T, an AU where Nat is much younger and Bucky is her dad, and if you think that didn’t affect the way I write Bucky and Nat’s relationship in THYP, then you are dreaming. 

Past the praises of the handlers, above the hot wet smell of cordite and blood, Natalia can hear crashing and shouting down the hall.

“—goddamn animals, they're little girls, they're just kids, you fucking—”

Her father screams in English, in Mandarin, in Russian, and then he just screams.

I know that’s a super sad excerpt but listen and hear me when I say this fic is actually really good and wholesome and it’s got A+++ OCs and All The Widows and it’s just really good ok

Memory

Bucky is hard AF to write and very few people write him half so well as magdaliny but one of those people is emilyenrose and this fic is M A S T E R F U L. Bittersweet and achingly perfect. It contains this beautiful moment that really stuck with me, where Steve is comparing the post WS “James” to the Pre War “Bucky” and realizes... 

He truly hadn't known James all that well. James hadn't let him. Hadn't wanted him to. Hadn't wanted anyone near him, ever—

—the way Bucky went, when he was miserable, when he was angry...

and that, to me, was kind of key when I went on to write the Soldier, because the Soldier IS Bucky, even when he isn’t.

Fool For Sacrifice

Dona Nobis Pacem

THIS GODDAMN FIC came to me outta FUCKING NOWHERE, I’d already written the first draft for FFS, I’d already started posting it, for crying out loud. And then all of a sudden I stumble upon THIS and i just

It’s already fading, just hours after the skirmish.  And the wounds Sam stitched will heal without a mark.  And the welts on Steve’s chest will disappear.  Like all of it never happened. 

Fuck the serum. He keeps thinking it, saying it.  Maybe if there were some goddamn scars, it’d be easier to process the damage.

This fic is heavy af, it’s like the 65k word version of That Chapter in FFS Where Steve Hits Rock Bottom. This was the fic I read when I was ramping myself up to tackle That Moment

three white horses

This is the other fic I read to ramp up for That Scene, and I think that probably shows in the way I wrote it. It is also is a Strong Contender for the title of Heavyweight Fic That Convinced Me Buck Is Jewish. Honestly I cannot praise this fic enough.

I think the thing that stuck hardest about the Steve in three white horses is the way he feels ghostly himself, like he’s only drifting through the present, and somehow most of his living happens in the past. It’s very beautifully done, and very subtly done, and it’s my go to fic if I am in Dire Need of a Good Clean Crie.

It’s getting an extra long excerpt because This Is My List And Neither God Nor Man Can Stop Me.

Steve's fingers touch metal when he reaches into the second-to-last box, and he feels the blood drain out of his face even before he's looked down. He knows the feel of it too well. He'd know it blind, a hundred years from now. It's Bucky's not-a-medal.

It'd been Bucky's grandfather's, or maybe his great-grandfather's, made of the kind of sterling silver that tarnishes if you look at it funny, so Bucky had always been polishing it; he'd traded cigarettes to the mess staff for baking soda and vinegar, during the war, but the thing was still soot-black half the time, like it is now. It'd been a fool's errand, wearing a thing like that in Axis territory, but Bucky'd worn it on his chain like the rest of the guys wore their Christophers and Michaels, and HYDRA'd ignored it. It was a subtle thing, though: nothing like wearing a Magen David, or the implacable H on Bucky's tags, just a thin slice of metal with a stylized branch and an oblique squiggle Steve only knows is the Hebrew word for life because Bucky told him so.

Bucky'd had a curious mix of reverence and irreverence about it, the same mixture that seemed to colour the whole of his religious life. He'd teased Steve sometimes, saying, “No, wait, you gotta kiss it before you enter the building, you schmuck, what are you, some kinda heathen?” with his legs around Steve's waist. Bucky hadn't complained when Steve had carried on with an inch of silver between his teeth, but Steve had offhandedly called it Bucky's good luck charm once, and Bucky'd blown up; it's not a superstition, he said, it's not a fucking amulet. He'd apologized later, and he'd explained, and said it was a touchy subject, just ingrained. Jews weren't supposed to believe in luck. Bucky'd thought maybe it was the opposite: maybe luck didn't believe in Jews.

Sparked Up Like a Book of Matches

AH YES, THE FIC THAT TAUGHT ME ABOUT LIL AUDREY JOKES. SIPPY CUPS OF SUPERBOOZE! A ROBOT CALLED SHITCAN!! WHAT MORE COULD YOU NEED IN A FIC??? I really like the way it addresses Steve being in the future is all

This one could probably also fall into the list of fics that inspired DWEH, in part because of This, which stuck with me Hard and heavily influenced the opening:

“...You ever have scarlet fever?"

Sam shakes his head.

"It starts in your throat, like an itch, and as your fever starts to climb, your tongue swells up and turns white and that's when they know, really, even before the rash, that it's scarlet fever. You can't swallow, it hurts so much. You're freezing and your joints ache and your fever keeps spiking and you start to hallucinate. I, uh, I thought things were crawling on me and there were voices that I didn't recognize whispering things that didn't make any sense. My mom had to fight me just to get me to drink broth, but I threw it up most of the time, anyway. Then I got pneumonia from being so worn down from the scarlet fever and I was so lucky, Sam. Nobody seems to understand how I lucky I was to make it through. Talking to people today, to make them understand I'd have to tell them I survived bird flu only to fall sick with Ebola."

listen. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I really wanted to read that happening so i wrote it, and this is what being a writer is All About.

Actually, on a second thought, I might be able to explain it: it’s because an experience like that is Capital F Formative, and I really wanted to explore how there’s a tiny sick kid rattling around inside Captain Beefcake’s souped up bod.

(And an additional shoutout to Steve Rogers’ American Captain, a webcomic that now exists only in the Wayback Machine, but which was L O V E L Y and I sincerely hope that the artist knows that)

No Hope for the Weary

Strays

This fic? is so fluffy?? Like literally so fluffy. But this fic (and, obviously, Infinite Coffee) were very much behind the inclusion of the God Damn Starbucks, and also the source of a lot of my headcanons about Barnes & Rogers: Secret Millennials. For Example: Bucky’s Notes on How To Be A Millennial:

- Lots of coffee. Travel mugs or paper cups from Starbucks place. Often looks guilty for drinking, obv derive pleasure from doing so. Unknown as to why. Investigate further? Why is there one every two blocks if no one wants it there? 

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail

This is another fandom classic that needs very little introduction. A+ characterization, A+ OCs, Utterly Charming from start to finish, and the originator of a very distinct way of talking that got very strongly coded in my brain as Winter Soldier Bucky.

He passes within 4 m of Barnes on his way back to his building. The mission imperative achieves a Doppler effect.

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Aw.

If They Haven’t Learned Your Name by @silentwalrus1

If I had to point to one (1) fic and say “Blame This Fic for THYP” it would be this one: the Fic that my roommate and The Gal Pal know as “The One With the USS Motherfucker.” This might seem like an odd statement, because if you’ve read them both, I don’t think you’d necessarily put them in the same class. silentwalrus is a genius of hilarity and THYP is a big pile of The Sads. ITHLYN is delightfully unassuming and I’m sometimes embarrassed by how pretentious THYP ended up being. 

I would technically put this under the list of fics that heavily influenced NHFTW on account of the way it portrays Bucky going by gradual degrees from murderbot to mostly human person, but listen I could never write Cryptid!Bucky the way Silentwalrus has. It’s magnificent. And TBH the level of Intensity in ITHLYN’s Steve has is something I aspire to, and the Sam Characterization is On Point, and both those things influenced FFS, 112%. Nat’s Chaotic Slav Energy in this fic is OFF THE GODDAMN CHARTS and I LOVE IT. Every single side character, down to the spaceship is given the kind of care, attention, and characterization that just... it cannot be beat, my dudes.

16/10 highest recommendation. I could not possibly pick a single paragraph from this behemoth but uhhhhh

Two minutes in there’s a grunt and a slippery, gritty noise somewhere to her left, and then the Soldier barrels past at breakneck speed, vanishing down another tunnel. A second later Steve careens around the corner, bounces off the opposite wall and crashes away after him, so fast he’s nearly a blur. Natasha’s brain, entirely of its own accord, provides her with the utterly unhelpful accompaniment of a Yakety Sax soundtrack.

that’s it. that’s the fic.

Also, this fic is Stoutly To Blame for the playlist aspect of the hundred year playlist? Silentwalrus really got me good with Grounds for Divorce by Elbow, one of my all time favorite songs, which was then paired with one of my all time favorite chapters. By the time Caravan Palace’s Lone Digger made an appearance, I was sunk. This fic introduced me to Lyube, and gave me a new appreciation(?) for dubstep. So many of the songs ITHLYN used ended up in my Very Long Stucky Playlist, though I think the only one that then went on to become part of the Hundred Year Playlist: Upside Down and Inside Out by OK GO.

And Finally, the Coup De What The Fuck Ever:

Ain’t No Grave by @spitandvinegar

yet another fandom classic... I wasn’t sure where to put this fic, but I couldn’t NOT include it in the list. Spitandvinegar’s Steve is charming and so? Sweet? and the ANG Bucky is a delightful foulmouthed mess of a person, and the Sam/Claire pairing is something I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED, BUT I VERY MUCH NEEDED IT and I don’t know that I can point to a single thing and be like: Ah Yes, This Bit, but this is definitely one of my faves:

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 refugee? Also sounds like Steve fucking Rogers, Captain Goddamn America. Except that most refugees were part of 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 Refugee 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.

Til The End of the Timeline

I’ve recced this so many times you’ve probably all gotten sick of hearing about it, but it’s an invaluable goddamn resource and you should all check it out. 

A Shit Ton of Metas and Blogs, some of which are tagged with THYP Research but especially @steve-rogers-new-york and @hansbekhart‘s How To Brooklyn and @historicallyaccuratesteve

and last but certainly not least

LITERALLY EVERYTHING @quietnighty READS HOLY SHIT

If you’re looking for a common thread through all the above recs, it’s that almost all of them have podfics, and the vast majority of those podfics are by Quietnight. I am, and always have been, an audio learner. I read my writing aloud when I’m editing, I listen to audiobooks when I’m commuting, and when I’m cleaning, and when I’m playing computer games, because I like stories, and I especially like listening to stories. Quietnight’s podfics are Of The Highest Quality, and her taste in fic is Impeccable.

hooooly shit this post is long wow okay. I can’t promise I won’t add more to this later, but I’m leaving it for now because goddamn. it’s as complete as I can make it at this time. I’ve added a “THYP Fanfic Bibliography” tag in my bookmarks, and incidentally I really need to make sure I’ve gone through and kudosed all of these because goddamn.