#anyway fascinating show i thought when people said it was shocking for the 70s they meant they said they had sex instead of implied it but

[radicalposture]

i started watching i, claudius and for some reason someone had episode ten labeled as episode one so i watched the whole episode thinking damn what a gutsy artistic move to throw us right into the center of things as claudius reluctantly ascends the throne, it’s a bit confusing as you’re introduced to all these characters but you figure things out quickly enough, it was brave of them to trust the audience to pick things up on their own

[beyondspaceandstars]

While You Sleep

Chapter 1

Relationship: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: angst, mention of violence Summary: Soulmate!AU - Throughout life, you're given glimpses of your soulmate through dreams. As you sleep, memories flash in your mind showing you the life your soulmate has lived. Everyone around you raves about how their soulmate reads great books or volunteers in their spare time. But you can't relate as your dreams end up being more like nightmares. Through initial images of death and violence, you come to learn your soulmate is the Winter Soldier. A/N: I had this idea one day and initially it was just gonna be a one shot but then i said screw it. i’ve never really done a full chapter story/series so...? Here I go? I’ve written most in advanced so I know I actually have some sense of where this is going and tbh i think it’s gonna be interesting but i love soulmate!au anyways :)

masterlist | taglist | read on ao3

The nightmares always felt the same. 

In your mind, clear glimpses revealed him - the brooding, long-haired man. He typically wore a mask and that same unforgiving yet disconnected look in his eyes. A metal arm would glimmer every now and then and you’d quickly find him wielding guns or twirling knives. The most uncomfortable acts were those of when he’d use just his hands. 

You didn’t really know the people he was affecting. Some looked important, some seemed like casualties to whatever bigger fight was being played at, but they all came in quick glimpses. Part of you felt that he didn’t care enough to remember them. He had no connection, just a goal. There was always more of a focus on what he was doing and making sure it was done. You could tell that was what he was feeling, what he was seeing, and frankly, it was of the disturbing kind. 

You had grown up hearing friends and family gush about all the wonderful, fascinating soulmate dreams -- because that was what they were supposed to be: dreams. Lovely, lullaby dreams showing one the life their soulmate was living. Giving the other a glimpse at their feelings, their adventures. Hopefully making you want your person.

Your parents loved reminiscing about how they saw each other playing with friends as kids or volunteering at shelters in college. Your friends had been equally fascinated, constantly gossiping about what books their soulmates had read or how their eyes would light up when they played with their dogs.

But you weren’t getting that. Instead of seeing your soulmate read their favorite book, you watched him take down what felt like an army of people. You saw him marching on command as if just a machine.

Part of you thought you were broken. Why were you only getting to see the bad things? Was there nothing good about your person? Had they lived for nothing other than these missions?

It was a weird combination, what you felt towards him. To say you weren’t at least intrigued would be a lie because, at the end of the day, this man was your soulmate. No matter how unnerving or confusing it was, you two were paired. While you didn’t know if he actually knew it, you felt it. You felt the pull in every knife flip. In every stab. In every mission. In every accomplishment.

Even time he was forced to go dormant -- because, yes, you could see the ice. You could see the shocks. 

Your soulmate dreams were nightmares. And they ached and pulled at you. 

***

You were already awake when sunlight began seeping into your room. This wasn’t a new occurrence -- the sun and you seemed to like to play a game to see who would rise first... You, it was always you lately.

The dreams were distorted memories last night. You didn’t see it all like it was interrupted, but you could tell it appeared to be a past memory. There was just something about the intensity visually this time that was weaker. It was less fresh than previous ones but still held feelings, strength. It was a confusing phenomenon, an old thought transmitting between the soulmate lines, but wasn’t unusual for you by any means.

Sometimes you received memories from your soulmate that dated back to the 70s, sometimes 60s. Things he had seen that weren't even from your decade which raised so many more alarms. It prevented you from getting any sort of age range. Sometimes people received memories their soulmates had learned of, like hearing a story of a wedding and depicting it, but they never lasted. Usually they were one-off casualties but these you had persisted. They had to be from him.

While confusing beyond all means, something you never could think about discussing with others, it gave you a little hope that maybe, just maybe, things had…stopped. Whatever rampage or mission your soulmate was on (had been put on?) was finished. Especially being a memory that came from just a few years ago. For once, maybe there weren't new nightmares for your soulmate to produce. 

But you couldn’t get your hopes up. They could be right back at it tonight so you couldn’t allow yourself to ponder it no matter how much it all bugged you. You force yourself to get up and on with the day. Rising as you had watched the sun do so. 

You pulled yourself out of bed choosing to ignore the sleep-deprived headache threatening to creep up. Shuffling around your bedroom, you collected your work uniform wherever you had really tossed it throughout the space. 

Once dressed for the day, you moved on to making yourself presentable to actually get on with work. While you only just worked in a coffee shop -- not exactly the epitome of luxury -- tips were key and people liked their barista to actually look alive.

You finally got out of the door just moments later, homemade bagel sandwich in tow, all complemented by the fakest, brightest smile you could muster as you made your way down the city sidewalk. 

You quite enjoyed the work commute, being able to weave in and out of the people, your mind instinctively wondering if he was here. Was he milling around? Hiding in the shadows? Planning something here or there? What to do next? 

You figured most likely not, but you still looked even if the idea of him was enough to make you shake in your boots. Besides, you didn’t even totally know what you were looking for. The eyes and hair only revealed so much. The glimmer of his hand, though, that sure was unique. You could still see it in flashes throughout your mind. 

So, you harmlessly let your eyes wander on the street. Checking over the faces, the posture, the appearances of them all but none of them could tug on that part of your heart. Granted, it was sort of ridiculous. Your soulmate had been proven to maybe not be the kindest person in the universe but something had to happen if the two of you were paired. And you were just the right amount of daring to see it through.

You finally made it to the coffee shop after your leisure browsing of the city people all bustling, brain set on getting one place or another. They were just exhausting to even look at.

The bell above the door jingled as you entered. The shop was mere minutes from opening and your coworker was already setting up, nearly ready to bring in the morning rush. She greeted you with a weak, tired smile. You responded with one of your own. Seamlessly, you two fell into it all, moving in silence. Prepping, brewing, cleaning.

Work was going much smoother than normal for the day. You seemed to fall into your tasks with ease as you served the morning crowd. You had your normals’ orders memorized and the new customers wooed at your speediness. Tips were coming in nicely as well, you noted. You and your coworker worked together, as if in a tango behind the counter. 

The day seemed that it would continue on just as smoothly as the morning had. Things started to taper off nicely around the afternoon. The shop was mostly filled with college students in between their lectures. They nursed their coffees as they typed away so determined with their homework. 

You and your coworker took the brief moment to lull around. She was aimlessly sweeping by the sugars while you cleaned the same spot over and over again on the counter as you watched the television in the corner. 

The owner had put in the TV a while ago citing it drummed up service but you never actually found proof of that. Instead, it sat high up on the wall, above the windows, muted at all hours. He at least allowed the closed captioning to be on which was what you were reading as you pretended to clean. 

Some midday news program was on. A graphic flashed signaling that they were going into one of their “investigative reports.” You stopped your movements with the rag as you watched the news graphic transition to a portrait picture of a man from the waist up. He...

Something made your stomach drop. Your heart twisted in familiarity while your brain sounded the alarm. Those eyes. That arm. You could feel all of it practically radiating from the television. Letting go of the towel, you let out a gasp at the true shock when it suddenly clicked in your head. 

Everything slowed down around you. Customers began staring, concerned. Your coworker was calling your name, asking what was wrong. But you couldn’t do anything. Your eyes were glued to the television. Something crushed in you as it began adding up. 

Eyes. Arm. Feelings. Emotions. Eyes. Arm. Feelings. Missions. Scene after scene, you went over everything that had been stored -- forced -- unconventionally in your head.

You read the name on the closed captioning followed by his title. Who he was, what he was. 

It fell into place. All of it. It was him, yes. The dreams -- no, no. The nightmares. Your word repeated it over and over again. Him. All him. James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier.

[kacxa-fan]

Costume Party

Request from @rorylum about Kacxa dressed as Big Barda and Mr. Miracle for a costume party!

___

Summary: Typically the two weren't ones for parties, especially those considered loud and flashy, but for the sake of pleasing their friends who kept insisting them to "take a break", they did so.

___

"But you have to! C'mon Acxa, it's just for one night! It'll be a good chance to clear your mind, then you can go back to stressing yourself out." Whined the pleading voice from across the line.

"Hmm, alright. Inform me of the whereabouts and time it would be most appropriate to visit."

"Wow, really? Awesome! Okay, so the party's at James's place around uh 9 p.m., got it?"

"Got it." Acxa responded, quickly jotting it down just in case she forgets due to all the clutter kept in her busy mind.

"Oh- How could I forget? It's also a costume party! So be sure to prep yourself up, k? Can't wait to see you~!"

"Wait. What is a-" the phone call ended "Oh Veronica..." she groaned.

Acxa avoided recalling her friend, deciding it be best to ask her significant other. She walked down the stairs and met him sitting on the couch, Kosmo lazily splayed about his lap. She took whatever was left of space on the furniture.

"Hey, got your work done yet?" Keith glanced over at her before returning his gaze to the TV as he switched through the channels.

"Not quite. I've decided to put work aside for a bit since Veronica asked me to come join her to a 'costume party'... Whatever that is."

"Huh? That's a surprise, but hey, it's nice to get out and destress. Also, a costume party?" He paused and tilted his head over to fully face her.

"If you will, please explain to me what the customs of this type of party are?"

Keith muted the TV, turning his full attention to her.

"Well, a costume party is basically a party where the guests dress up as whatever they'd like. Examples say being uhhh a monster or character from a show. Stuff like that."

"Like a disguise?"

"Yeah, like a disguise, but you don't really gotta fool anyone."

Acxa nodded, her hand reaching it's way over to Kosmo's ear.

"Very well, but what should we dress up as?"

"We?"

"Oh, I forgot to ask. It's just that I thought you'd like to join..."

"Or you'd feel a lot more comfortable if I joined you, huh?"

"Perhaps, that too..."

Keith chuckled, scooting closer to Acxa. He wrapped his arm around her waist and placed a kiss on her blushing cheek.

"I'm in!"

"Thank you, Keith."

"Mhm. Okay so costumes, uh we could be hmmm... Oh! I grew up really liking Batman, and I guess you could say Catwoman was his girlfriend? You'd rock a Catwoman, not gonna lie."

He pulled out his phone to search the duo up.

"Here, look. See?"

"Ah, how um interesting. As much as I'd like to say that she looks quite flattering, I can't help but notice how uncomfortable her outfit seems. Leather, is it?" She looked down the image "And high heeled boots?"

Acxa unconsciously took his phone from his hand, scrolling through the various images of the peculiar lady.

"Oh my, this is... suggestive?"

"Hahaaa, yeaaah." Keith muttered in slight embarrassment, scratching the back of his neck.

"Is that a whip? Her weapon?"

"Okayyy! That's enough lookin' her up. Let's say we think of another couple, if you're not sure about this one, k?"

The two huddled closer as Keith offered various other options. Somehow Acxa always seemed to pick at one or the other, more so fascinated and weirded out by the outfit. Time ticked by as Keith grew tired. They ended up with few ideas.

He blew out a puff of air, "Uhm welp here's these two. Superheroes. Named Big Barda and Mr. Miracle?"

Acxa, again, took the phone. Her eyes dilating at the bright colors.

"Guess it's a no too?"

She shook her head, "No, I actually find it suitable. Considering that I am the tallest out of us both. Also, we are running out of time, no?"

Keith rolled his eyes playfully, although their height difference was never much of a bother for them.

"My only complaint is the bold colors. Other than that, it looks to be comfortable enough. Don't you think?"

"As long as you're sure, I'll settle for it."

What Acxa wasn't aware of is that Keith was not necessarily looking forward to wearing such a thing, as it was not his sort of style. In fact, this duo's fit was nothing of their style, but nonetheless they agreed to it.

---

"Here we are. Ready to show off?"

"Just a moment. I think my cape got tangled."

Keith and Acxa exited their car, pinkies hooking and having nervous talk about their suits. They entered the apartment complex, scanning the numbers of each door.

"Here it is! Ready?"

"What other choice is there..."

Keith knocked, and low and behold, James answered.

"HEY! ACXA AND... KEITH? NO WAY! THAT'S PRETTY FUNNY SEEING YOU TWO HERE. ESPECIALLY WEARING THOSE!" He shouted as the commotion of the dark yet colorfully lit room dazed the visitors viewing it. The brunette took his time looking the deadpanned couple up, incapable of holding his growing amusement.

"WELL, COME ON IN! THE GANG'S JUST RIGHT OVER AT THE POOL TABLE."

Keith took the lead, holding a hand out for Acxa to follow. Acxa examined the area, taking notice to the strange figures, assuming that some were not human at all, but actual aliens to Earth such as herself. She heard the booming and perked her ears, worried that a fight involving weaponry was taking place. Hesitantly, she took his hand and stepped foot into the strange presence. They walked behind James as cautiously as they could, with the few bumps here and there from strangers in all sorts of display.

"KEITH, IS THIS WHAT ALL PARTIES ARE LIKE? GOODNESS WH- OH, FORGIVE ME!" Acxa hollered.

"NOT ALL, BUT WHEN IT'S RUN BY PEOPLE LIKE JAMES, THEN YEAH. PRETTY MUCH."

Finally straying away from the crowd and their noise, the trio were reintroduced to their friends.

"Aw Acxa, and Keith~! Glad you actually came. I was beginning to think you'd bail out on us and this fun!" Veronica hugged her confused friend.

"Why yes, I would never do such a thing. Although, I would have to disagree with you on how this could be 'fun'." Acxa responded, massaging her ears.

"Oh there you go again blurting out your opinion without a care. Typical Acxa-"

"Our Acxa!" Veronica consoled James by patting his back playfully.

The rest of the MFE group exchanged their greetings.

"So, Acxa. You think this ain't at all fun? I'll make it my mission to prove ya wrong!" Nadia spun back to the others, "Right guys? Everyone come on and join us!"

"Sure, sounds fine by me." Said Veronica.

"I mean, I'm kinda busy on keeping check who's at the door cause this is my place-"

"Don't worry about it, Jamesy! Someone else can take care of that stuff. Spend time with us and quit looking around for a girl to dance with and hopefully date~"

Veronica and Nadia shared a smug smirk towards the now heated boy. Ina simply shook her head in shame.

"If you'd like, may I offer you all to a game of cards?" Ina asked.

"Cards?" Acxa tilted her head.

"What kind of ga-"" Keith was cut off.

"CARDS?! Inaaa sweetie, again?" The blue haired, hyper girl whined.

"Shush Nadia, there's nothing wrong with playing some more. Plus, I think it's a great way to show Acxa how a party can be fun!" Veronica stated, pulling Acxa and Keith to the table as the rest soon followed in.

After this "boring" and time consuming game, Nadia was sure to introduce her alien friend to a whole variety of other party activities.

Some not so appropriate to her friend's taste, that is.

___

Hours passed, around four. At least, that's what Acxa assumed. It was quite dark afterall.

Clumsily, she walked, or rather stumbled, her way back to the snack table. Her eyes dilating as her gaze lingered from item to item, looking for that deliciously red-colored juice. To be honest, she didn't really think it to be that good, terrible actually, but nonetheless she had the urge to engulf her system with some more. This beverage was making her feel... happy anyways.

"Acxa? Acxa-" Keith trotted to his girlfriend. He rested his hand on the small of her back, looking over to see her pouting face. How cute.

"...Ac-?"

"No, nooo, nooooo! There's no more *hiccup* juiceee!" Acxa aimed to pound her hand onto the table, but instead missed and hit Keith's stomach area. She turned around at the sudden sound.

"Ow. Acxa are you-"

He felt her cold finger poke his lips. She giggled childishly. Her toothy smile making the man blush almost uncomfortably. She looked so happy, and he knew well that it was not exactly in her control.

"You're... I think you look very handsome~! Do I *hiccup* know you... from somewhere?"

"Yes, yes you do. I'm your boyfriend, remember? Keith." He couldn't help but chuckle.

She looked up and stared at nothing in particular, thinking.

"Keith. Oh yes! I remember you, I think."

"I sure hope so. It'll suck if you don't and I lose my beautiful girlfriend."

"Aw, you're too kind, sir." Acxa bashfully covered part of her smiley face with her hand. So cute.

"Really looks like Nadia did her job, huh? How much did you drink?"

"Hmmm, I estimate around 57 *hiccup* cups? No wait, maybe it was 70..."

Keith was shocked. Then again, he was dating a 6 foot something to 7 foot girl from another planet. He should've been surprised more at the fact that Earth alcohol even had an affect on her.

"Wow, ahaha! That's enough for you then. Let's say we go back home and go to sleep. I'm beat and this party is getting crazier by the minute." He took her hand and tugged her to, again, follow him.

"Waaait~! Not yet! I wanna say bye to my *hiccup* friendsss!" Acxa protested and limped herself back.

Keith sighed, "Ina told me to say goodbye for her to you a while ago. Veronica went out earlier too. Nadia's passed out black on the couch. And James is... eh whatever who gives a damn."

"Nadia? Passed out! Is she okay? She's not okay! I need to help her- Let me go help!"

Great.

"Woah woah calm down, baby. Nadia's okay. She's with a few other girls watching over her. Trust me?" Keith wrapped his arms around her frantic self.

"Always have, always will." She puffed.

"Good. Thanks for that. Now, ready to go?"

"M'kayyy~!"

___

AN: Gee, look who's back. 🤡

[jlf23tumble]

This one’s for @homosociallyyours and @silverfoxlouis, the former because she’s not going to listen and the latter because they’re listening as we speak! I saw a post earlier that low-key annoyed me because it either misrepresented today’s Stern interview or it skipped right over the fascinating bits, so here are the parts I enjoyed (I won’t waste my time on the shit I hated, lol):

Shrooms and the song-writing process are related to Harry’s anxiety about fucking shit up and needing to get out of his own head; related: coming from a band, if there's something you don't like, you can tell yourself that it wasn’t your choice.

The Rob Stringer talk made me SIDE EYE w/r/t the delay, like, okay, you’re a label boss who’s gonna drop a ton of money, but you’re cool with telling the artist to just relax and take all the time they need, you’ll just pick up the thread when hs2 is completely finished, lolz (I have my own theories about allllll of that, but okay!).

I love Stevie and her coven of nocturnal witches, too, but tell me more about how she hated Harry’s choice of first single (in my heart, she wanted “Golden”) and the song that she thought should have been on the album but isn’t, god, she’s such a yoda, and this entire bit was so much bigger than the coven.

I live in Harry’s soft, breathy “thank you” whenever Howard praises SOTT.

I feel like all the White Eskimo talk is a fic waiting to happen, the whole battle of the bands and them winning studio time and how Harry talks to maybe one of them and there’s a guy who IS STILL IN WHITE ESKIMO I GUESS???? WHAT?

Howard Stern hatesssssssssssss Simon Cowell, so his attempts to get Harry to talk shit were both wonderful and expertly dodged, lmao. 

My only positive comment about the discussion around Harry “putting on some timber” during his bakery (cashier at a baker) years was how much it echoed Louis’s comment about “having extra timber” during one of his recent BTS specials.

Were the guys in One Direction REALLY saying that Matt Cardle was “so fucking good” back in the day? This junior statesman!

Ralph pointed this out when we were talking about the interview, but a lot of the time, Howard just makes statements (as per usual), and Harry says, “Right,” which is a great response because it isn’t really an answer, yet it’s still participatory.

Howard is obsessed with coronavirus, so it was hella interesting to hear Harry’s thoughts about it affecting his tour, when his tour is still so far away (yet another tour is so much closer and in the direct line of fire).

Howard (like me) was pleased that Harry’s band is a mix of women and men and not just dudes (I should take a drink every time Bowie is mentioned, like around Harry’s clothes, how Harry is starting his tour in Philadelphia, the entirety of that convo making me want to see Harry’s face as much as all the xarries want to).

One of the things I hated seeing earlier today was this notion that Howard “forced” Harry to talk about the robbery because he absolutely did not, Harry went into CRAZY levels of detail about it when Howard asked, “When did this happen to you?” (and the way Harry talked about it wasn’t full of trauma or sadness, it bordered on humorous in spots but still serious; it clearly shook him up, but he wasn’t about to let it change his life of feeling free to walk around at night). 

I wanted to hear a lot more about all the musicians hanging out in the ‘70s and being competitive in terms of who was writing the best songs about a particular party vs. the competitiveness of banging out the best single today. Harry’s focus was that if you say you like a song, people think you should collaborate…if two musicians hang out, they're dating or recording (like with Adele, and case in point, Howard immediately asked if they were working on something).

I also loved the bit about acting and how nervous Harry used to be about EVERYTHING because he’s waiting three hours to do three minutes, and he focuses so much on his voice or hands shaking, but this last SNL really helped (in my heart, his “little tweaks” were on the Sara Lee sketch).

I live in the guffaw from Harry whenever Howard unexpectedly hit his funny bone (like Harry saying Anne gave him some money to buy clothes when he first moved to London, and Howard saying it was good return on investment for her, what with the house Harry eventually bought her, etc.).

I absolutely LOVED the entire bit about Ben Winston’s attic (and Ralph’s related takes on it), the fine line of the plausibility yet the doubling down; the word “cocaine” coming out of Harry’s mouth; the parts about dating and keeping your relationship normal/secret, etc., GOLD, ALL OF IT. 

Harry, like Phoenix Mendoza, writes every day, which is part of why he wasn’t really into giving up his phone to muggers because that’s his writing zone of choice for lyrics and poems (the whole robbery clapback here: “for the purposes of not getting mugged again, no, they’re on a different device”).

MITCH SPEAKS!! He was into his Nick Drake phase when Harry met him, but apparently everyone is into the open D (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) chord, so he was a shoe-in. Also, Harry met Adam in 2010??? I’d like more information.

We move back into 1D territory with Zayn’s departure, which is still shittily handled but somewhat more maturedly discussed, and yet another attempt to get Harry to talk shit about Simon, which is getting us closer to what we want/need (Harry’s very real answer to Simon being pissed that Harry didn’t consult him about going solo: “I’m in a band since I was 16, there were five of us, we had a lot of managers, lots of people at the label, and all of these decisions affect your life in a massive way, every decision I made was a group call. I didn't know who I was as an adult,” and a lot of that is paraphrased in spite of the quote marks, but just know that I am screaming LIAM).

There’s a lot of weird downspeak to Sarah and Ny (Adam and Mitch were talked at earlier), but everyone’s very much into Sarah, and rightfully so. I loved the slip up where Howard is trying to figure out if there’s anything romantic going on between Harry and the female band members, and someone says, “Mitch!” so you can hear Howard process Harry and Mitch for a hot sec, cracking the Hitch dream, before we get clarification and Harry gleefully taking us into the story of their love. (Me as the speech Howard gives Sarah and Mitch about how dangerous it is to be in a band together and to have a relationship because if you fuck it up, it’ll be terrible.)

SLEDGEHAMMER NICE.

We get a bit into the “Adore You” video because Howard’s an animal softie, and he loves it (it’s downplayed, but Howard also mentions how fans have put a lot of “thoughts” into the fish), but then we get into talk about how this song is about the girl Harry’s banging (HIS SNICKER HERE) and how the common denominator in all of Harry’s failed relationships is him, huh. All of this relationship talk here makes me want to DIE with how much I love it.

Everyone focuses on the gross talk from Howard about Harry having a lady therapist (this is a long-standing Howard trope), but some good shit disappears between those cracks, like how Harry decided to go into therapy, how he’s keeping his LA therapist instead of having two in different countries, etc., and it’s actually Robin who asks Harry about seeming weak or vulnerable in front of a female therapist, but clearly, he’s not bothered.

I’m so interested in how the shrooms tongue-biting incident cured a speech impediment I wasn’t fully aware of but that is still so impossibly endearing.

Harry himself picks out his opening acts, which we already knew but is always nice to hear confirmed. 

The drug convo in text from earlier today makes it sound like he doesn’t smoke cigs, but to me, it seems like he doesn’t like to smoke weed (an edible king, relatable).

Harry says, “you’ve said it all,” which just makes me think he’s a long-time (or recent) Stern listener, because that’s what Howard says when he’s done/interview’s over.

We think it’s all done but the shouting, and then Robin gets into Harry’s clothing, which is where it gets dicey. Howard (of course) mentions that Bowie wore a skirt and how he himself did full drag on TV (“legs shaved and everything, you should see how gorgeous I am as a woman”), but Harry keeps it very much in the realm of what he wears is what he wears because it’s fun for him, he’s not wearing a school uniform or trying to look cool for his friends, he’s a lot more comfortable with himself: “At shows, I tell people to be who they want to be, I plan on telling my kids that, so I don’t want to be a hypocrite, I’m not wearing it for shock value.” 

Howard says people will assume he’s gay or bi (like Bowie, YEAH, SIGH), but Harry says it’s not performative. This whole bit is fascinating on so many levels, he touches (without saying) on the entire queer-baiting issue, and it’s cringe-y, with Howard saying “I’m not criticizing, wear what you want, I’m a big mess, etc.”

Anyway, they pivot out of that with Howard moving beyond into asking Harry who he wants to badmouth: “Simon?” Harry: “This has been great!” and this entire bit about how Howard wants to know if Harry considers Simon a friend, and Harry saying he doesn’t talk to him gives me life. There’s a lot of gross talk about who Harry has his eye on for his next girlfriend, but I will tell you that I never in my life expected to hear the words SUSAN BOYLE thrown into this convo. 

The interview closes out with Harry getting progressively more silent about the women he should date, saying that he doesn’t talk in interviews about his love life, he talks in music (oh?????), so Taylor Swift comes up, and Harry says it’s flattering to think you’re in a Taylor song because she’s such a great songwriter, which, true, I guess?

Harry hasn’t used a dating app (duh), but Howard thinks he should create one, and…scene. 

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 6x19 Seeing Red

aka dick move joss

Welcome to this dailyish (weekly? bi-weekly?) text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And after today’s episode, who’s ready to get drunk and do some math? *points to self* It me. I’m drunk.

Seeing Red has not one, but TWO of the show’s most controversial scenes in the entire series, so that’s a distinction I guess. One that I should probably be talking about, but… you know. Turns out that when you drink the rest of your apple liquor in one sitting, your ability to form critical thought exponentially deteriorates with each and every second.

But math? Math is easy. You can do math drunk while walking on your hands. So let’s do math.

So, did you guys know that Amber Benson appeared in the most Buffy episodes per season while not being in the credits? It’s true. I made a very detailed excel sheet.

(Yes, these are all the actors who appeared at least 14 episodes of the show. I didn’t really need to include all of them to prove my point, but I did it anyway.)

Those purple highlights you see? Those are for actors who appeared at least 70% of the episodes while not being part of the main cast in a season. Apart from a few special cases where someone has been promoted to the main cast during a season (like Michelle Trachtenberg after one episode in season 5 or Marc Blucas following the first 10 episodes of season 4), the only ones this applies for is Kristine Sutherland and Amber Benson. And the latter’s 18 appearance during season 5 (aka 82% of the season) is our biggest outlier among those even.

Now, to be fair, actors who are part of the main cast never actually go below 83% in their own respective season appearances on Buffy (see the blue highlights that show the two instances that goes below 90% even), but like… Appearing in 16-18 episodes of at least two 22-episode seasons in a major capacity is still a fucking lot by any TV standards.

So the fact that neither of these actors have been promoted to regular status during their run is kind of weird. Maybe Joyce was often forced into the background, but Kristine Sutherland was a huge presence in season 5 in particular. Up until Joyce’s death in The Body, she appeared in all episodes, and had a cameo later in The Weight of the World. She should’ve been in the credits for that period, imo.

Similarly, if you look at other characters who occupied a comparable role to Tara – so, basically characters who were introduced as love interests to one of the Scoobies –, each and every one of them have been promoted to the main cast by their 3rd year at the very least. And Emma Caulfield, who was one of those third year joiners, only appeared in 5 episodes in her first season. Seth Green, who with his 10/22 appearance is much closer to Amber Benson’s 12/22 in their respective debut seasons, was part of the credits by his second year on the show.

In conclusion what I’m saying is that fuck you Joss for pulling that opening credits shit on us. No. This should’ve happened two seasons ago, and now you’re using it to play on the audience’s attachment to this character, dangling that promise of having more of her on the show just to take it away.

Not cool, my dude. So very not cool.

In other bad news, making that excel sheet sobered me up a bit (damn you, math), and now I’m just kinda tired and sad. It’s starting to dawn on me that this is the last I’ll see of Tara during this rewatch.

Maybe I should just start over from Hush? There’s an idea…

There’s also a reason why this episode is cited as such an egregious example of the Bury Your Gays trope even after almost two decades. With the show having been limited on what they can show of Willow and Tara’s relationship early on, the inclusion of the many sexual moments in this episode especially jumps out. Having that precede Tara’s death somehow manages to maximize the negative impact of it even more, reinforcing pre-existing harmful associations in the audience.

But then again, would it have been better to not have these moments at all? I don’t know the answer to that.

In any case, when I talked about character deaths earlier on this show, I mentioned that there are two criteria that I judge those: story impact and social impact. Meaning on one hand, that when you kill off a character, you want that to have a meaningful impact on your story and characters. It needs to have a purpose and long-lasting effects for it to satisfy your audience’s emotional needs. And on the other hand, there’s also the bigger media and societal landscape to consider. Especially when you’re killing off a character, who’s already part of an underrepresented group.

I think I probably already alluded to how I consider Tara’s death to be well-executed story-wise, despite being extremely poorly done in the latter regard. There are arguments to be made of course about how maybe the show could’ve killed a different character to achieve the same effect in the story, etc. – but I find the following arc captivating as it is regardless.

Then again, I also love Tara, and definitely wouldn’t have complained if the show just randomly brought her back from the death, story be damned. Unbury your gays, you cowards.

I guess I’ll also need to touch on the other controversial scene in the episode, huh? Well, I don’t want to.

But fine.

Hot take, but I just don’t connect to Spike. Not during this rewatch. And looking back at my feelings on it, I think that part of that is the very association that’s textualized here.

See, vampires are giant rape metaphors. Well, they can be metaphors for a lot of things, this is Buffy after all, but that’s definitely a big part of them. And the show’s been playing up this aspect with Spike in the past – usually it’s just been done for comedy.

Think about his scenes with Willow in Lovers Walk or The Initiative. The latter is especially chilling with the way he attacks Willow on her bed and turns up the music, right before we cut to black… and then we find out that Spike’s “impotent” and can’t bite her, and suddenly she’s comforting him? And it’s a comedy?

That scene is super weird. And uncomfortable. And that was probably part of its purpose, but it also means that I’m just not shocked by what he almost does here.

Spike’s a romantic, but he’s also a soulless vampire who can’t differentiate between love, death, sex and violence. He tells Buffy in a previous episode that he wouldn’t hurt her, but while he may believe that, it’s not true exactly. He doesn’t understand what Buffy needs. They share an understanding, but in this, he’s unable to empathize with Buffy beyond a certain level.

Afterwards though, he does seem to understand what he’s done, and given what we know of vampires, that’s pretty fascinating. He finally realizes that he can’t love Buffy without that empathy. And he can’t be the monster he used to be with these conflicts. So he’s off to rectify that.

Meanwhile Buffy’s out there, fighting superpowered nerds right after that fucking traumatic experience. Which… don’t get me wrong, I can definitely see how beating up Warren can be therapeutic, but there is also something to be said about the show not giving Buffy enough space to process certain traumas, and focusing more on Spike’s development instead.

Again though, it’s not that I don’t get it. Spike’s an intriguing character, and I can definitely see how a lot of people connect with him. His more negative traits are balanced out by his vulnerability, and his ability to self-reflect and grow. Just because I have a hard time relating to him, doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t enjoy his character. God knows that I have plenty of problematic faves...

Oh yeah, and Xander and Buffy share a nice scene by the end of the episode. Still, I guess I wanted a bit more out of it? Like Xander acknowledging how putting Buffy on a pedestal leads to him judging her more harshly, and how it’s something he should be working on in order to be a better friend to Buffy? Maybe I just want too much.

A character who was just perfect in this episode though? Dawn. Actual picture of Dawn Summers looking at Tara and Willow.

Same, Dawn. Same.

The last three minutes of Seeing Red? I don’t know her.

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Imagine that Bucky gets flung across universes after a magical accident of some kind (exact details up to you) and winds up in a world where he and Tony are mer people (species your choice, but I am partial to octobucky). Anyway, MCU Bucky 'lands' in this world over the open ocean and this is bad because he has a metal arm dragging him down anytime he tries to swim. But Mer Tony and Mer Bucky save him, and keep him alive until MCU Tony can haul him home.

Instant Capture

A/N: also for @the-flightoficarus for her 3 word prompt Bucky, Picture, Italy that got me out of a rut, and the winteriron discord server (18+ only) for their encouragement and sprinting with me -- Tisfan

“Back up, just a little,” the man said, holding up the oldfashioned camera. A Kodak relic from the 70s, the device was one of those withthe card of disposable flash bulbs that popped and sparked and were good forone roll of film. Bucky could smell the chemicals as the flash went off; hegrinned wide for the camera.

Tony wasn’t with him; Pepper had called earlier, despite promisingnot to bother them on their vacation, and Tony had kissed Bucky’s cheekapologetically and sent Bucky out to get them breakfast from one of the nearbycafes.

The old man with his camera had implored Bucky -- an Americantourist, even if he’d been to Italy more than a dozen times in the last fewdecades, practically lived there for most of 1952, honestly -- to let him takea photo to remember everything by.

Bucky thought Tony might get a kick out of the ancient camera,might like a photo of their vacation to remember things by. Also, Tony’d givenBucky way more money than they needed to pay for breakfast -- nothing new --and Bucky tended to give the change out to panhandlers and streetentertainment.

“Say addio,” the man said, and while Bucky’s eyebrowwent up -- say goodbye? What? -- he did as he was told. The flash went off. Theman laughed, delighted. Malicious. “Goodbye, Soldat.”

Everything went white.

(more under the cut)

When Bucky didn’t come back, with breakfast, Tony wasn’t entirelyworried. He and Pepper had been video conferencing since ridiculously earlyabout the breakthrough that Wallace had in R&D and the implicationsthereof. It was exciting for him, for SI, but it scarcely fascinating forsomeone outside the company.

But Tony was hungry, and he hadn’t had caffeine, and when hechecked the clock, Bucky had been gone for over four hours, and that wasn’tright. Bucky wasn’t like Tony, not apt to wander off, distracted by the nextshiny object. If nothing else, he’d have texted (Tony checked, he hadn’t) or atleast come back with Tony’s breakfast.

Tony didn’t like feeling like he was taking his boyfriend forgranted -- and he really, really tried not to, but sometimes he still gotdistracted -- but Bucky was still struggling with his Hydra training. The manchecked in. Always.

The fact that he hadn’t sent a wriggle of dismay threading its waythrough Tony’s gut. He snatched up his gauntlet-watch and strapped it on.

“Hey boss,” Friday said in his ear as soon as the wirelessconnection did its handshake.

“Fri, where’s Bucky?”

Stalker 101 or not, Tony was already headed for the door whenFriday reported back.

“Boss, I’m not picking up any signs of him. His phone’s notonline, and there are no energy signatures emanating from the prosthetic.

“Check street cams, footage, back it up, he went out forbreakfast--”

Tony pushed through the door and a manilla envelope fluttered tothe hall of their hotel and lay there on the floor, his name scrawled in blackmarker across the front.

Tony scowled. “Scan it.”

“Not detecting any harmful chemicals, boss,” Friday said, andthrough Tony’s sunglasses, she projected an xray of the contents, a singlesheet of paper and a photograph. Primitive.

“Alert the Avengers,” Tony snapped, scooping up what was,undoubtedly, some sort of ransom demand. “We’ve got an Amber Alert.”

Funny calling the Amber Alert on someone else -- usually Tony wasthe one damselled. Funny, suspicious, not funny ha-ha.

What he wanted to know waswho the hell had their hands on his boyfriend.

There were hands on him. Bucky struggled and something ropy andthick coiled around his wrist, pulling his arm back, keeping him from lashingout. It was enormously strong. Another coil wrapped around his waist, a thirdover his mouth and nose. He couldn’t breathe.

Panic took over and he thrashed. It was wet. He was… wet.Underwater? He forced his eyes open, they stung. Salt water?

A hand touched his face, cold, but gentle. He could barely see,eyes slitted almost shut. He couldn’t breathe. Blue eyes, glowing and kind andweirdly familiar, met his gaze.

“Mmmmph!”

The face was as familiar as his own. Tony, and yet… not. This Tonyhad blue eyes that glowed like the arc-reactor. The light didn’t show much morethan not-Tony’s face. He smiled, revealing disturbingly sharp teeth. Slits inhis throat moved with each breath, showing pale pink flesh underneath. He movedcloser and the thing covering Bucky’s mouth slid aside.

The Not-Tony wrapped cold arms around Bucky’s neck, pulled himselfin, turned his head and slotted their mouths together.

Bucky would never have allowed it, but he was dizzy with lack ofair, he was confused, cold, scared. The Not-Tony kissed him, and pushed…breathing into Bucky’s mouth. Air.

Oh, sweet christ, air. Bucky gulped at it, and the Not-Tonykept opening and closing those slits at his throat. Gills, Bucky suddenlyrealized, and he almost spit out the Not-Tony’s precious gift in his shock andpanic.

Able to breathe, even if it tasted cold and somewhat of fish, andBucky’s tongue cringed away from the sharp teeth, his head cleared a little. Herealized the thing holding him was a cephalopod of some sort -- squid oroctopus, and not attached to the Not-Tony, who had a brilliant red fish tail.

Mermaid?

How the fuck did any of this make sense? Normal people, when theygot robbed while on vacation, lost some money and their passports; they didn’tget flung into some alternate dimension.

Bucky pulled his mouth free, tried to demand answers, got as faras “who--” in a rush of bubbles. The Tony-mer gave him an elaborate eyeroll anda condescending smirk that was so familiar that Bucky missed his Tony with aprofound ache. The Tony-mer held one hand to his ear and then shook his head. Ican’t hear you. I don’t understand.

Bucky struggled to orient himself. The water around them was dark,heavy. He pointed up -- or at least, he thought it was up. For all he knew,they could be upside down. Gravity didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, thisfar down. However far it was. Wherever the hell he was.

The Tony-mer leaned in and shared his air again.

Mimicked Bucky’s gesture, up. Pointed to his own throat, thenshook his head again. I can’t go up.

Well, this was a fancy pickle. How long until Tony-mer got boredwith this?

Bucky twisted, trying to see the other creature and almostpanicked again.

The monster holding him… was himself.

Only not. The Bucky holding him was some sort of alien, half-man,half-squid. Tentacles, Bucky thought, wildly. Poor Tony’s missing this.He knew it was a squid, two of the long limbs hanging below theBucky-creature’s waist ended in flat, rounded spades, and there were… Buckytried to count, but it looked like Bucky-creature had met with an accident,himself. One of the creature’s arms was missing from the shoulder down, endingin a scarred stump, and two of the ropey arms were quite a bit shorter thantheir fellows.

No Hydra to give him a prosthetic, Bucky thought.

Tony-mer kissed him again, shared air. Despite his solicitous, theentire operation was tedious. How long before even Tony-mer got tired of this?Bucky couldn’t stay down here. The mers couldn’t go up. Two of theBucky-creature’s arms slid around Bucky and the Tony-mer, squeezing and lockingthem together, which was a lot less sexy than when he and Tony had fantasizedabout tentacle porn.

The rest of the Bucky-squids limbs drew in, then pushed off with apowerful stroke, sending them speeding through the water. Bucky tried to relax;they didn’t mean him harm. It would have been easy to just… let him drown. TheTony-mer petted his cheek a few times, one hand behind Bucky’s neck to keeptheir mouths together.

It’s not cheatin’ if I’m kissin’ you, doll, Bucky thought, and wondered if he’d ever see his Tony again.

“This is some next-level Hogwarts shit right here,” Tony said. Hetossed the photograph down on the table, where it shifted and moved like abadly filmed movie. One of those old nature documentaries from the 70s.

Steve picked it up, gingerly. There was no sound, just the movingcreatures in it, what appeared to be a mermaid and a gruesome squid-man hybrid.It was hard to see details, there wasn’t a lot of light wherever they were.

Tony might have dismissed the entire thing, except when themermaid moved, Tony got a glimpse of Bucky’s face, lit strangely from someblueish bioluminescence. Whatever this was, Bucky was in danger. He was wrappedup by the squid-thing, and, what little Tony could detect, the mer-creature waseither kissing him, or biting him.

When Tony could see Bucky’s face, he didn’t look in pain, althoughhe was, justifiably, terrified.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Someone left it outside my hotel,” Tony said. He gripped thetable with both hands, barely able to keep from screaming with rage,frustration, fear.

“He’s not drowning,” Steve pointed out, even as his own voiceshook. Steve had powerful feelings about drowning that might have even beatenout Tony’s own trauma.

“But where is he?”

“May I?” Wanda was always very, very careful whenever she spokewith Tony. They’d come to some sort of peace, but issues of consent were stilla touchy area.

Tony jerked his chin up and down, not even able to talk.

She twisted her fingers over the picture, red smoke and glitterfalling from her fingertips as she worked her magic.

Magic, Tony sneered mentally,then stopped himself. If Wanda could find out anything, any way to bring Buckyback, he’d give the whole magicphobia a rest. Probably.

Maybe.

“Oh,” she said. “Um… the man who did this had a personal grudgeagainst the Winter Soldier. This film is absolutely saturated by his hatred andglee. His… father? A defecting… oh. A sorcerer. Like Strange, but not asstrong. He passed down… artifacts, to his son. The Winter Soldier killed theman. But the boy grew up and learned to use them.”

“So?” Steve said, and Tony was grateful, because he didn’t knowhow to ask. “What do we do?”

“We get the artifact,” Wanda said. “Something like this? We shouldbe able to just reverse it, once we have the… it’s probably a camera.”

Bucky didn’t know where they were taking him, but he wasexhausted. He couldn’t rest, couldn’t think. There was Tony-mer’s mouth on him,the cold water around them. The movement of the Bucky-monster.

Another thing was moving in the water, a glitter of reddish skinand a swish of water.

Wanda’s face appeared in the darkness. Her dark hair surroundedher like a stormcloud, and she moved her hands, forming streams of red waterand bubbles, and then she reached for him and touched his throat.

The Tony-mer backed off and made an encouraging gesture. Goahead.

Bucky didn’t know what they wanted of him.

The Wanda-creature was… a starfish? Her thick legs hung below herwaist like a skirt. She was naked from the waist up, they all were, but ithadn’t occurred to Bucky that it was an issue, until he was presented withWanda’s full breasts. He blushed, or would have, if his blood had been warmer,but he was so cold, and he couldn’t breathe and the Tony-mer wasn’t moving toshare his air, and Bucky…

...gasped.

There was a splitting agony in his throat, and then water flowedinto his mouth, but it was sweet,  not bitter with salt, not cold, butcool.

“There you are,” Tony-mer said, and Bucky understood him. “That’sbetter, right?

“Where’d you get this?” the Bucky creature demanded, wrapping onelimb around the metal wrist.

“My…” Bucky marvelled. His voice didn’t exactly come from histhroat, it was as if just thinking about the words put them out there. “My Tonymade it for me.” He didn’t bother to mention that it was after his Tony hadripped the old one off him, either, or that the original one had come from anenemy the likes of which he couldn’t possibly explain. No need to share thattrauma with his doppleganger.

“Get on that, fishtail,” Bucky-creature said to the Tony-mer.“Tired of bein’ lopsided.”

Tony-mer made a gesture that Bucky both did not understand, andintimately understood at the same time; whatever the sea creature equivalent offuck you was, a pinch of thumb and two fingers and then violently spreadingthem.

“What happened to… you?” Bucky asked.

Tony-mer looked sober, almost sad. “I might have led him under arockslide. We had to cut the limbs off, to get him free.”

“We’ve been over this, seashell,”the Bucky-creature said. “I forgive you. An’ I deserved it.” He gave Bucky aconspiratorial glance. “Mighta been tryin’ to eat him, but can you blame me?”

“My Tony’s pretty tasty, too,” Bucky said, grinning back athimself, which was sooo weird.

“Obviously, you don’t belong here,” Wanda-star said, breakingthings up with a swish of one hand and two of her arms. “How do we get you backwhere you’re supposed to be?”

“I don’t even know where here is,” Bucky protested. “I wasgettin’ my picture taken, and then I was here.”

“I don’t understand this word. What’s… picture? And how doessomeone take it from you?”

“He’s teaching art class to fish,” Tony said, raising an eyebrow.“Tell me you got something.”

“What? Lemme see that,” Steve said, grabbing for the picture. Sureenough, there was Bucky, using one rock to scrape patterns on the wall on anundersea cavern. Drawing stick figures. He was bad at it, Steve had always beenthe artist of the two of them.

The mer-people had taken him to some sort of cavern, they’dobviously adopted him as some sort of mascot, which wasn’t unusual, Tonysupposed. If a Bucky-doppleganger had shown up unexpectedly around a group ofAvengers, they’d have some sort of centaur-Bucky and making do until they couldfigure out how to get him home, so it was only fair.

Wanda, Strange, Clint, even Scott, had joined in the search forthe wizard with the camera. Tony was on standby, in case they needed thefirepower, but he was too distracted to be away from the photograph for long,so for the last week or so, he’d been watching Bucky get better, down where itwas wetter.

Bucky-squid was almost always with him, a tentacle or arm wrappedaround one of Bucky’s legs, so he didn’t float or drift away. Their version ofWanda had made it so Bucky could breathe.

What they were having problems with, and Tony was gettingdesperately worried about it, was that Bucky couldn’t seem to eat much of theirfood, and salt water wasn’t hydrating him. He was getting weaker, every day.Super soldiers needed a hell of a lot of calories.

“We got it,” Wanda reported. “Clint and Sam are taking turnsintimidating our wizard, so we can reverse the spell, but hopefully they’ll gethim to tell us, soon. Stephen is looking it over, as well. He might be able toreverse engineer it.”

“I refuse to allow the word engineer to be in the samesentence as magicking anything,” Tony said. He was still watching Bucky,who was leaning heavily on his counterpart as he silently explained things tothe various sea-life surrounding him.

“All right,” Strange said, at that moment, striding into the room,his cloak sweeping along behind him. “I believe I have got it.”

“Have you?”

“He exists inside the picture, in their world,” Strange explained,and then Tony lost him because Strange started using words like aethericaltranslocation, and positively charged chakra and Tony was certain those wordsmeant something to Strange, and maybe to Wanda, but they didn’t mean anythingto Tony, and what’s more, he seldom wanted them to.

“Twelve centers of focus?” Wanda burst out, “are you insane?”

“Do you want the ocean to come flooding in? If so, carry onwinging it. I like a little stability in my transdimensional portals, thankyou.”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hate both of you.”

“Look, there’s no reason why a Tyrean pattern won’t work,” Wandasaid. “They’re far more stable than you’re giving them credit for.”

“Perhaps, but if we do twelve, then I know at least my six areworking,” Strange retorted.

Wanda huffed. “I can hold up my end, old man, if you can hold upyours.”

“I’m thirty seven,” Strange pointed out.

“What?”

“Thirty seven. That’s hardly old.”

“Did you just… make a joke?” Tony burst in. “You make jokes? Whydid I not know that? Enough, enough, can you do it?”

“Of course,” Strange said. He held out one hand to Wanda. “Anchoryour essence, if you please.”

“Just because you had to do things the hard way,” Wanda said, butshe threw one hand gesture behind her, sending a shimmer of red energy thatgrabbed onto the ground like one of Peter’s sticky-webs.

“Together, on three,” Strange said. “One…”

“Two.”

“Three.” Tony crossed his fingers, hating himself for doing it anddoing it anyway. Tony didn’t believe in luck.

Of course, on his better days, Tony didn’t much believe in magiceither, and look how that was working out for him.

He stared down at the enchanted photograph while Strange and Wandafocused on the magic camera (Tony hated every word in that sentence.)

In the photograph, Bucky’s head jerked up, he turned and for thefirst time, Tony thought maybe he was, somehow, aware of the photograph. Helooked right at Tony. His mouth moved soundlessly, and then he was hugging thesquid-version of himself, then the Tony-mer, and then he swam toward the photograph.

“We’ve got him,” Strange reported, and then-- with a wet splash,the photograph tore in half and Bucky, dripping wet and shivering, was gaspingfor air in the middle of the floor.

“Oh, god, Bucky, honey,” Tony cried, and then he was there, hisarms around his shivering, soaked boyfriend, as Bucky coughed and spluttered.

“I’m okay,” he said, finally, tucking his face against Tony’sthroat. “I’m okay, baby. I’m here, I’m home, oh, god.” And then Bucky was sobbing,clutching Tony tight. “Didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. They didn’t knowhow t’ get me back. Oh, Tony.”

“Honey,” Tony said, seriously, “I will never stop looking for you.Never. Promise.”

Bucky was nodding, and Steve threw a blanket down over him, whichTony used to start rubbing him dry and warm.

“I tell ya, babe,” Bucky said, after a while, “I never, ever wantto go deep-sea divin’ again.”

“Yeah? Under the sea’s not for you?”

“Well, you had a real cute tail, down there,” Bucky mentioned,“but I think legs are to be preferred.”

[minrazinc]

Remembering another night involving Bill

I don't know what to say. On my way back, I thought a lot, but when actually putting them into words I find myself once again wordless. After all, what words can be used to describe such a human being.

Since 2016 September the first time I saw Star Trek and quickly fell in love, I've been to five of his theater events, cons not included, plus two tickets bought but unable to attend. I love him for he's an actor, nothing less, so my most desired way of seeing him is to see him on stage. And up till now, five times, five cities, across half of America. I travelled through them without a driving license and car. Itself is almost like a spiritual journey, a boldly going. Every time seeing him, being in a city, besides the joy of seeing him, the adventurous spirit that emerges because of a new place is another reason I love doing this. And every time, no matter how I feel grudges before the event because I hate myself for being craycray again, for not having a life, for having a disconformity between my ideology and my behavior, I always feel so gratifying to a almost spiritual level (why this word so avoidable ) after the event.

And this time is no different.

My first impression: PLEASE DON'T DO ALL THOSE EXACT SAME STORIES ALL OVER AGAIN... ugh here it goes... However, the weird thing that I don't understand is, even though my mind telling me those stories that I heard countless of times aren't funny as they used to be anymore, my body still can't resist laughing. And yes it's my body that laughs, not just faces, along with thousands of people in the theater. And that just feels sooooo good. This is something that I couldn't get from any other actors or theater events. This is something that he alone can bring upon, the ability to make people laugh so hard. It's like all the grudges, anxiety, depression I've had over the whole month went away instantly. I lost in pure happiness...

Second impression: there are still many parts of his talk that impresses me, whether I've heard it or not. For example, when he talked about the "unknown", about his experience interviewing all those scientists when he's making "The Truth is in the Stars", he talked about the true reason science fiction is loved and welcomed is because of its unknownness, that you can bring the reality into any direction. I probably heard him talked this for more than once, but this time is the first time I feel like I suddenly understand it. From the first moment when I watched Mind Meld while I hadn't watched a small part of Star Trek, I was instantly attracted to some of his ideology, I think. I always consider myself a far different person compared to him, but there's some unique ideology that he always likes to hold unto that really interest me, like the unknownness. I think of life itself as a constant transformable entity as well. There's nothing that's fixed, unchangeable. This more or less makes me a person who don't believe in an idea too firmly, because there's always alternative. As in Chinese it would be 中庸 moderation, but that's something that needs far more length to talk about......

Anyway, tonight when I heard his talk, it's the first time that I don't pay much attention on facts and details of his stories anymore, but trying to perceive it, understand it to another level. I didn't want to admit that there are times I don't understand him before, because I've watched a large parts of his works, read all of his books, watched countless of his talks, what's not to understand? But this time I've realized it that I don't always understand him, not stories, but the experience that lies behind that four times of my age years. This is just another part of him that fascinate me a lot, besides the aura comes from his name that sometimes scares me.

Also, the first question that comes from the audience tonight is "space force, are you in?" He laughed for like a couple of minutes just by himself, that kind of "ahhh you peeps want to get me into trouble" laugh with very high pitch. He said he'd deal with it at the end, cleverly avoided it, but of course at the end he didn't answer it still.

He talked about Ubantu again, during which perhaps is the only time I had an illusion he's starring at me, and this is perhaps the only time when I feel like he's starring at me but I wish this is an illusion lol. My poor eyesight...

Near the end of his talk, my illusion gets stronger (the obvious reason is my poor eyesight of course). I remember the words that the authors of Where No Man describe him when attending his talks during 70s, that his face is transformed. I actually felt it tonight! I think this word for one describes his essence as an actor, that he's always alive on stage, or performing, or just actualize his role as an actor (those theater critics who said his performance were wooden are pure fools). For another it probably comes from the subjective feeling of us audience when seeing him on stage. He's so pure, alive, full of life, and artistically canning, which makes him almost out of a physical form itself but an existence that purely belongs to art and a wild energy galloping in the field. It's such an extraordinary thing to see him when he's "out there", on stage, on camera, or even on horseback.

wow did I forget to mention my little encounter with him and Liz just before the show. It's just simply...wow... I decided to go to this restaurant to have dinner in the morning when I saw it on map, because I assumed it's a Chinese restaurant based on its name. But nothing weird came to my mind at this moment... At 4:30, when I finally went there to have my dinner, I was surprised by the inside decoration because it looks a lot like Cafe Firenze... at that moment I thought if he decided to have dinner near the theater this must be the place, even though on the other hand he obviously can choose to have dinner in LA and then drive here. So I was having my grilled Salmon, happily and gratifying, but that thought comes stronger and stronger without knowing why. I even peek at the door a couple of times since I was sitting right in front of it. I was finishing, and was considering whether I shall have a desert or not. Right at that moment here came that man's silhouette which I didn't realize right away but Elizabeth's handsomeness amazed me more. I was so shocked, and couldn't help myself. How many times could you experience such thing? Hope something to happen and boom it happens. I waved to them "Hello Mr. & Mrs. Shatner! "Liz waved back to me first and said hi. Bill acknowledge it and then came to the waiter. After he's done with waiter, he waved to me a bit as well. I was guessing Liz made him do it 'cause it's such a funny scene. I wanted so hard to take pictures, twisting my body back and forth on my seat, but eventually I decided love is best expressed in form of respect (but also because I was scared ah hhh)

I never believed in so called celebrity encounter, not to say "encounter" your fav. But this happened, and became the biggest bonus of this event to me. After I got out of the restaurant I quickly ran to the box office, hoping to upgrade my ticket to VIP (I deliberately chose not to when I purchased ). There's only one VIP seat left at that moment. The staff was helping me. But while they're processing my card, that seat was taken. I was somewhat disappointed, but also not quite. You've got to lose something when you gain.

what a memorable place lol 

this is to memorize those two tickets I bought but unable to attend 

[feufollets]

Remember Me (Bucky x Female!Reader)

Summary: Unbeknownst to the world, James Buchanan Barnes had a wife before the war. A war nurse called to duty before he enlisted, captured with others by Hydra and is given experimental super serums. When she is finally rescued and goes back to Brooklyn, she comes home to an empty apartment with Bucky and Steve both gone. With extraordinary healing, she goes into hiding. 70 years later, two familiar faces show back up in her life. The reunion isn’t what she imagined it be. 

Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 6k

A/N; First fic!

Bucky’s eyes followed Y/N as she walked around the room checking if everything was ready for her departure tonight. Already dressed in her nurse uniform, she is ready to help those fighting for the country. Bucky, not so much. When she looks back at Bucky sitting on the couch, Bucky is looking up at her with his big blue eyes and a somber look on his face. When she reaches to touch the side of his face, he immediately gets up and wraps his arms around her tight, burying his face into her neck. She can hear that he’s sniffing her perfume, probably trying to remember it. Mmm, gardenias.

“Do you have to go?”

“There are men fighting for this country being taken apart and they need nurses to heal them.” She says.

“Ya know, they’re bringing nurses closer and closer to the front line, ya sure ya ready for that doll?”

With a determined look Y/N says, “As sure as ever.”

Bucky shakes his head, but smiles, “Always been a little crazy.”

She smiles at him and declares “Who else is gonna take care of Stevie when I’m gone?”

“Stevie can take care of himself!”, Steve shouts from behind Bucky on the couch,”besides, I’m jealous of ya Y/N, you’re gonna be fighting the war that they won’t let me.”

She peeks behind Bucky and says “Well who else is gonna take care of the dames while all the other men are away Stevie?” she winks at him. He looks down and blushes. Bucky gives him a small smirk and look back at Y/N.

“You come back to me, okay, you come back.” His face as serious as she has ever seen.

“Till the end of the line.” Stealing what she hears Steve and Bucky say all the time.

--------------------------------------------

Later the night; Steve and Bucky watch as the ship disappears into the night. Steve looks up at Bucky and says “You’re gonna enlist aren’t you?”

“Damn right.”

-------------------------------------------

The next couple of years Y/N will relive in her nightmares for the rest of her eternal life. All the blood, all the deafening sounds, all the lives lost at her own hands. But, worse of all, the capture of her and the other nurses in her unit by Hydra. Strapped to metal tables being injected with some kind of blue liquid. She saw her fellow nurses die beside her until she was the only one left. She would make herself zone out to block out the pain of the torture they were putting her through. With this she did not realize that although they were hurting her, she was healing at a superhuman rate.

One faithful night, an explosion could be heard outside the room. “This is the end.” Y/N thought and she was okay with that if it meant an end to all of this.

As men burst into the room with American uniforms, she would be lying if she said she wasn’t relieved. The men carried her out and they made their way to camp.

“How much more of this war we gotta fight?” She asks weakly from where she is laying down in the truck.

One the soldiers smiles down at her and says, “Haven’t you heard miss? The wars over, we’re going home.”

Y/N can’t help cry tears of joy at the thought of seeing her two boys soon enough.

But as soon as she gets home, something was wrong. She picked up a brown box on her doorstep and opened the door. It looked like no one had been there in years.

“This isn’t right.” She said to herself.

When she remembered the box that was left in front of her house, she took a better look at it and saw it was from the U.S. government.

Tears were already streaming down her face and she shook her head and muttered “No, no, no.”

As she opened the box, two uniforms were folded neatly on top of each other with a file of top stating James Buchanan Barnes and Steven Grant Rogers were MIA. She immediately fell to the ground with these overwhelming thoughts. She didn’t even know that her boys had enlisted to fight the war, and the Stevie looking back at her in the picture didn’t look like the Stevie she left behind. Sobs filled the room as she came to the realization that she was alone.

Years went by, Y/N tried to date others, but the dog tags she wore under her dress weighed heavy on her heart. One of the only meaningful things she had left of them. She didn’t even have a wedding ring because of how poor they were. Years went by when she came across her wedding picture. Tears started to blur her vision and her nose was already running. Oh how badly she wished they were both here by her side today, how badly she wished that she could be as happy was she was in the picture. Something caught her eye. She ran up to a mirror and compared herself to the picture. She hadn’t aged a day.

It had almost been 10 years since her and Bucky gotten married, they gotten married so young, they were just kids, she had gone to war and back and not a single wrinkle on her face to show that.

She started to breathe heavily, then tried to calm herself down. She tried to bring up memories of her imprisonment that she was burying down. She started to remember the serum and the torture. Then also started to remember how the pain did not last as long as she thought.

She grabbed a knife from the kitchen and went to the bathroom. She looked herself in the mirror and turned to the side and proceeded to slice her arm. It hurt, but just seconds after the wound started to close itself. She could not believe her eyes. She must have sliced herself 50 times before she stopped. She threw the knife across the room once she realized what this meant. As far as she knows, she’s going to live forever.

No one could know this. She packed up her things and bought the first bus ticket shown. She didn’t know where she was going and she didn’t care. She didn’t have any family, any husband, any friends, no one was going to miss her and that was what made this so much easier.

She was working as a nurse for a small Midwestern town no one has heard of. One day she noticed a tall woman following her around. She didn’t look like she was from the town and Y/N had never seen her before. All day Y/N tried her best to lose this woman. Just as she got home to her quaint little house after she thought she lost this mysterious woman, a light turned on in her house and the woman was standing just a few feet in front of her.

“Please don’t be alarmed,” an English accent escaped from her lips, “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to recruit you.” Y/N gave her a perplexed look.

“My name is Peggy Carter, and I know about your special abilities and would like to recruit you for this agency I started called S.H.I.E.L.D..”

That’s how Y/N became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and one of the best she might add. But it was Y/N’s deal to be an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D., to be kept in the shadows. Just a select few would know about Y/N and even less would know about her super healing. She arranged with Peggy that her death be faked for public records. Peggy was confused by this, but argued it was for the best, no one would notice anyway. The people at S.H.I.E.L.D. were the closest thing she had to family. Until they all got families of their own. She was forgotten again. The pain was too much. She worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. as long as she could, but all the fighting and the missions were taking a toll on her even if she had infinite healing. She notified Peggy that she would be retiring. Peggy started to protest, but Y/N argued that she was not happy, and in truth she never was going to be. But she had no choice, but to live. Peggy didn’t put up a fight anymore and told her if she needed anything, anything, that she would be a phone call away.

Y/N traveled the country, the world. A different name each place, a new look every year. She wasn’t traceable and that is how she liked it. She made sure to update Peggy as often as she could.

More years had passed, she was in the 21st century, just a few years from being a century herself. She was currently in Norway looking up at the Northern Lights. One of the few times in her life, she felt at peace. Like she wasn’t running from something, like she hadn’t left so many people behind, that if she was going to live forever, she was going to be okay.

She decided she needed some sun, so she headed back the U.S., previous passport, I.D.’s, documents burned before she left her hotel and a new identity in her back pocket.

It was fascinating to see the change in the America over the years. Now in an age of technology, everything digital around her. But call her old fashioned, she just could not keep up with all the new tech. A book in one hand and a latte in the other and jazz in her ears as she listened on headphones to a new album she had just downloaded on this iPod device she had just bought. It was a good day, until she saw everyone gathered in front of the T.V. in the café. They were making too much noise and ruining her mood. She packed up her stuff and grabbed her latte and started to head out. But when she passed the T.V., the sight made her drop her cup. Tears in her eyes and her hand covered her shocked mouth and she saw her Stevie fighting on screen. Bigger than what she remembered, but she couldn’t forget that face. That was her Stevie. But she couldn’t accept it. Her need to run away was stronger than ever. So she did. But this time she was running back home. Brooklyn.

It had changed drastically in the 60 some years she was last here, but it still felt like home. She got an apartment and immediately boarded herself up. How badly she wanted to see Stevie with her own eyes, but she couldn’t do that to him. She’s heard the stories, gone to the museums, read the comics, Captain America was a hero. She was some scraggly figure from his past. But without realizing it, she started to prepare a potential meeting with Mr. America himself. She dyed her hair back to the original color, bought clothes that fit the century and finally changed her name back to Y/N Barnes.

A couple years had gone by and she still couldn’t bring herself to meet him face to face. She still kept tabs on him though. Printing every article, watching every video and recording any news reports on him. She was proud of little Stevie.

One-day news sites were filled with reports of how the current S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury had been assassinated by the “Winter Soldier”. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The Winter Soldier was real. She used to tell new recruits about the Winter Soldier to scare them. He was just a bedtime story. Not anymore, she guessed.

All week she kept herself updated on the fight. When she came across a video that made her heart stop. A huge fight had broken out on the street, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Sam Wilson against the Winter Soldier. The video had been taken by a civilian hiding on the side of the street. It wasn’t the best, but she could see without a doubt, the unmasked Winter Soldier was her late husband James Buchanan Barnes.

Her lungs constricted, her eyes watered, and her hands shook as she saw her husband on screen. From what she could see in the video, Steve had the same reaction.

She screamed “NO!” at her phone screen as something exploded near Barnes and he disappeared. She dropped to her knees as she clutched her phone to her chest, right on top of Bucky and Steve’s dog tags she had kept all these years. She sobbed harder as it felt like she missed her chance to see her husband again. She must have watched the video hundreds of times. For just a glimpse of his face. But then she didn’t need to watch that video anymore as his face was plastered everywhere. “Captain America’s Best Friend Turned Hydra Villain” was everywhere she looked. Old pictures, new pictures surfaced. Some with her in them, but fortunately no one knew who she was.

So many times she would dress in her old S.H.I.E.L.D. combat suit and had every intention of finding Stevie and helping him find Bucky, but she chickened out hundreds of times. A couple more years have passed, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been disbanded as it was harboring Hydra in it the entire time, which she 100% saw that coming after they hired that Zola guy. Which is why she had her files burned after she left S.H.I.E.L.D.. Things were so much easier when everything was paper.

Y/N still kept tabs on every Captain America story that got released. She couldn’t help herself, at this point she was kind of a fan. Y/N also got in contact with Howard and Maria’s son and was surprised when he knew exactly who she was. Said something about how she was in his father’s special encrypted files. Dammit Howard. He obviously knew how to bypass all the security measures and got right to learning everything about her. Luckily he didn’t know about her past with Steve and Bucky. She was in talks with him of how get herself back into the game. She knew about the little fight he and Cap had, but decided not to bring it up. It took a lot of convincing on his part and a lot resisting on her part. But it was time, she was ready.

With the help of Tony, she was on her way to Wakanda. She had known the now king, then prince T’Challa since he was a boy. She was part of a team of nurses that were sent to help Wakanda after a natural disaster had hit then, sworn to secrecy about the hidden country. She had good word that both Steve and Bucky were hiding there.

Walking down the halls of his palace with the king himself she was always amazed by the beauty of the architecture. While walking down the hallway another pair of footsteps had joined us. She could see two huge figures making their way down the hall opposite of her and T’Challa. This was it. The moment she only dreamed of. She was finally going to be reunited with her boys.

She was about 10 feet in front of them when everyone stopped. Steve and Bucky finally got a good look to see who was with the king. She saw Steve’s eyes light up with recognition. A small smile couldn’t help emerge from her face. But Bucky’s eyes told a different story. Intrigued but not the same look Steve was giving.

“Ah Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, looks like she will be joined by another Barnes. This is Nurse Barnes, I have known her since I was a little boy, and she will be staying with us to help us fight this unworldly villain that has seemed to surface.” T’Challa stated.

As she looked at Steve to see tears were starting to form in his eyes while looking right at her and she couldn’t stop that it was happening to her as well. But Bucky just looked confused at the whole interaction.

T’Challa continued, “I was actually hoping she would be Mr. Barnes personal nurse while we are not fighting as he has just come out of cryogenic stasis and may need some medical help.”

“Yes, yes of course.” She said not really paying attention, but staring at the men in front of her. T’Challa knew about her whole history, he was someone she could trust, so he knew how important this meeting was to her. “How about I leave you three alone, to acquaint yourselves with each other.” He said with a small smile and brings his guards with him.

Steve is the first to move, with two giant hands on her cheeks bringing herself close to his face to see for himself.

“Is that really you?” Steve said with disbelief.

“Yeah, Stevie, it’s really me. Look at you, looks like you finally hit your growth spurt.” She both laugh.

“Even with this super serum running through my veins I still got this scar of my side from trying to save she getting beat up by the punk who felt me up on the street.” Y/N says tearful as she lifts up her shirt to show him the scar. He takes a look for himself and hugs her off the ground of spins her in the air. A cough from the side makes she guys stop.

This is it. The moment.

Steve sets her on the ground and she turns so she is facing Bucky. She takes in how he looks now 70 years since she last saw him. Longer hair, lines around his face that weren’t before, but still the same piercing blue eyes she fell in love with. The biggest addition, his metal arm. She can see some deep scars near the collar of his shirt and her heart clenches as she wishes she could have been there to help get through his torturous time at Hydra.

They both just stare at each before he raises his hand and says

“Hi, my names Bucky, nice to meet you.”

She pulls back her head in disbelief, her jaw drops and she can’t find her voice. He doesn’t remember who she is.

Bucky stands there awkwardly as he puts his hand down, obvious she isn’t going to shake it as she stands there in disbelief. She starts breathing heavily as it sets in that all this time she has been waiting to meet him, all the years she imagined this moment, the man that meant the most to her, doesn’t even recognize her.

Somewhere behind her Stevie says, “Buck, are you serious?”

She isn’t listening any more, she doesn’t want to start crying in front of him. She makes up some bullshit excuse that she needed to call someone to let them know she landed safely. She ran away from both them, aimlessly trying to find somewhere to collect her thoughts. She finds a random hallway that isn’t too lit up and throws herself against the wall and just starts sobbing. Harder than when she found out Bucky was dead, harder than when she found out he was alive. It felt like she couldn’t breathe, she feels like she’s about to pass out. She spends several minutes there trying to calm herself down to be presentable again.

Little did she know, Bucky had followed her and was silently listening to her just around the corner. He stood there for a few minutes before quietly walking away not wanting to be caught. His heart clenched the farther he walked, not knowing why he did not want to leave her alone and wanting to comfort her even though they had just met.

Later that night she was looking out a ceiling to floor window watching the night sky. Back during the war, she used to look up and wonder if her and Bucky were looking at the same collection of stars.

She heard faint footsteps and looked to her right. She was surprised to see Bucky standing there in a shirt and some sweatpants. She turned back looking at the sky, trying to keep a neutral face, willing the tears down to stay at bay.

As Bucky walks closer he tries to start a conversation. Softly, he says,

“Couldn’t sleep, huh?” he chuckles after.

“Must be the time zone difference.” She says quite curtly.

“I couldn’t really sleep either.” Bucky says as he walks closer to her.

“Try a little lavender oil under the nose, it helps me.” She says not looking away from the window.

He nods, “You found my secret place.” She looks at him questioningly.

“This palace is huge, but there is one place that has the best view of stars, and you’re standing in it.” He points to her feet.

“Sorry, I’ll go back to my room,” she starts to say and turns to walk.

“No!” he says quite suddenly and it startles her a little bit.

“Sorry,” he says timidly “I wasn’t telling she to leave, I just, um, it doesn’t mean two people can’t be here.” He stumbles over his words as she stares at him. She silently nods and turns back toward the window.

It is silent for the next few minutes as they both stare at the stars. She tries not to dwell on the fact that she is standing next to her dead husband. She takes her eyes off the stars for a quick second to glance at Bucky and she see him stealing a few glances at her. Then she stares at him blatantly as he looks beautiful being illuminated by the moon. The next time he steals a glance he is surprised to see her are already staring at him. She sees him swallow before he asks,

“Umm, I didn’t get your name earlier, you kind of ran off earlier.” He avoids eye contact as he remembers following her and listening to her cry.

“Y/N.” she says simply.

“Beautiful name.”, he says turning to look at her again. She gives him a small smile and his heart warms at the sight of it. He then remembers that he wanted to ask her something,

“Oh, I was wondering if we were related somehow, you know, how we both have the last name and such.”

Her throat closes as he asks her the question, for the moments before she actually kind of forgot that he had no recollection of her at all. She turned back and looked at the stars, trying to calm down. Bucky sees her jaw clench and begins to wonder if he said anything wrong.

“No,” her voiced strained, “it was my late husband’s last name.”

“Oh.” He says softly. He catches the outline of the dog tags under her shirt.

“I hope he died a great man.” Bucky says not really knowing what to say.

She looks at him and try not to cry, looking at his eyes is quite hard, so she opts for his metal arm. Without thinking she grasps his bicep. He moves it away from her, she looks up back at him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he explains, “the arm is new and I’m still trying to get used it, it can be very strong.” He says shying away a little bit.

“It’s okay,” she says, Bucky looks perplexed, she continues “I was experimented on by Hydra when I was younger, it gave me regenerative properties.” She proceeds to pull out a knife from an ankle holster and cuts her hand. Right before their eyes her hand is healed with no mark.

She takes the same hand and returns it to its previous place on Bucky’s arm. He looks at her with shock in his face, but he doesn’t move, he’s entranced. Her hand moves along his metal arm, feeling the detailed work that went into it. She stops at the hand and grasps gently before letting go. Bucky longs for her touch again, he doesn’t remember the last time he was touched so tenderly. That touch so familiar, but he just can’t seem to remember it. When he looks at her, her arms are crossed over her chest looking at him too.

“I’m sorry you had to go through what you went through, you didn’t deserve any of it and shouldn’t be blamed for the actions you were made to do. I hope you know it will get better, with time. You have people around she who are willing to help, God knows I wish I had that when I was younger, just don’t give up James.” She says with a flat tone, little does he know if she were to open the bridges she would be on her knees, bringing him down with her sobbing apologies in his ear that she wasn’t there with him this whole time.

He’s speechless. Before he can think of anything to say, she turns and start to head back to her room. Bucky is left with his mind reeling looking up at the stars.

---------------------------------------

The next morning Steve and Bucky are trying to figure T’Challa’s computer system in the palace trying to find information on Y/N.

“Buck, Wakanda has the most advanced technology in the world, and I still have a flip phone, which I am being told is very out of date.” Steve says both he and Bucky sit in front of multiple monitors just trying to log in.

“We can figure this out Stevie, just believe in us.” Bucky has a look of determination as he tries to figure out this complicated situation. He presses one last button and says,

“I think I figured it out Stevie.” Bucky says proud of himself.

“You just turned it on Bucky.” Steve says deadpanned.

“Oh, I give up.” Bucky says defeated.

“Voice recognized. James Buchanan Barnes. Access granted.” An automated female voice fills the room and all the screens turn on.

Bucky gives a smug look to Stevie,

“Told you.” Bucky says. Steve rolls his eyes.

“Give me any information you have on Y/N Barnes.” Bucky commands the computer.

Stevie sits up, “Wait, that’s what were here for.”

He starts to panic on what Bucky might discover. Steve doesn’t think he’s ready for the truth.

“This is all the information there is on Y/N Barnes.” The computer states.

Not much pulls up on the screen. Just a few documents saying the she lives in Brooklyn and is school nurse in Queens.

“Oh look, she lives is Brooklyn.” Bucky tells Steve, but he’s too busy on trying to think of a way to destroy all the computers in the room.

“That’s so weird, T’Challa mentioned she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, shouldn’t that pop up.” Bucky inquires to himself as Steve is looking for plugs to unplug.

“Damn wireless.” Steve mutters to himself.

“What.” “Nothing.” Bucky and Steve go back and forth.

“This computer has to have face recognition.”

Bucky demands to search for pictures with her face and the results are overwhelming. Very quickly he figures out that she haw been alive a very long time. Steve cannot do anything but stand back and watch as Bucky is surrounded by pictures of her. Her school pictures pop up, pictures in her nurses uniform from WWII pop up, security camera footage of her all over world spanning over the century pop up. But front and center is the most important picture of all. The one that has Bucky out of his seat to get a closer look at it. The one that is having Steve trying to come up with an explanation, but then figuring out it is best if he just lets Bucky process all of this. It is their wedding picture. She in a simple white dress, and Bucky in his dad’s old suit and Steve right next to him with the biggest smile on his face looking at the both of you. What Bucky can’t believe is how happy he looks, how happy she looks. He didn’t think it was possible. What kills him the most is that he can’t remember any of it. He looks back at Steve, but he won’t look him in the eye. He makes his way out of the room and isn’t seen for the rest of the day. Steve isn’t worried, he can’t go far. So he spends the day with Y/N to catch up on the 70 years you guys have missed. He purposefully leaves out Bucky’s revelation that happened earlier that morning.

For the next few days, Bucky tries to work up the courage to talk to Y/N. But instead he hides in the shadows where he’s most comfortable. He watches her. He watches her cook, he watches her read, he watches her listen to music as she softly glides around the room. He just cannot believe the fact, that a woman like that is married to a man like him. He isn’t really sure if they are considered married still as he’s not really the same man he was when he was born and she was pronounced dead in ’53, but he sure hopes that they still are. Even if he can’t remember her and he tries so hard to, he wants to make it work somehow.

He is currently watching her read a book from T’Challa’s library. Sitting is a huge chair that almost swallows her up, she is sitting in it sideways so her legs dangle off the arm of the chair. He loves how cute she looks, knowing she probably has enough training to rip someone’s head off with her bare hands.

“If you want to talk to me, you can just approach me. I don’t bite, but I do stab. Hard.” Y/N says from her spot in the chair as Bucky looks away shamefully that he not only has been caught, but she has known about all the other times. He comes out of his hiding spot and sits in the matching chair positioned next to Y/N. He takes in a couple deeps breaths before speaking, but Y/N beats him to it.

“You know about our past don’t you?” She says to him as she puts the book down and is now sitting up and looking at him.

Bucky isn’t good with words, so he just nods.

“Stevie told me what happened,” she looks away and says, “I actually kind of wish you did.”

He swallows, but is still trying to figure out what to say.

When she looks back at him there are tears in her eyes. Bucky wants to reach out and wipe them away but he doesn’t know if he has the right to.

“It’s okay James. That you don’t remember me. It was stupid of me to have such high expectations. I don’t know why I even thought that we would somehow meet again. Somewhere is my heart I knew it was going to happen one day. What kind of fucked up world do we live where we’re both pronounced dead and decades later we find each other and we’ve barely aged. Somewhere in my twisted mind, it’s fate. That were both in this situation and we’ve found each other and now we get to live happily ever after. But that’s not what happened is it? No, you get brainwashed to the point where you don’t remember your own wife and I am going to have to live literally forever in my personal hell where no matter what I do I just won’t die!”

Bucky doesn’t want to think of the implications of that sentence.

“Don’t feel bad,” Y/N starts, “All of this is on me. You don’t have to worry about me or our past, and it doesn’t matter because you don’t remember it anyway.” She can’t help but sound bitter, she needs to get this all out now.

Bucky finally finds his voice.

“It doesn’t matter, none of it matters!” Bucky sounds panicked as he’s afraid Y/N has already made up her mind about not wanting to be with him.

“What flowers did you used to buy for me? What did my perfume smell like? What food do I hate, but always ate when you made it?” Y/N says through the tears and Bucky comes up blank, he can’t answer her.

“Those things matter to me Bucky! They matter!”, her voice cracks, “Our past matters, it’s what made use fall in love, why we belong together. If you can’t remember any of it, there’s no point to us. I don’t want you to fall in love with the me now, she’s a fraction of what I used to be and she doesn’t deserve your love.”

She’s made up her mind.

As Bucky tries to hold back his tears, he says, “Everyone deserved to be loved.”

Y/N just shakes her head and leaves the room and leaves Bucky alone. Neither of them sleep well that night.

------------------------------------------- Y/N wakes up the next morning, her eyes puffing and throat dry from all the crying. It is way past breakfast and she knows everyone is already awake doing their own things. So she will be all alone in the kitchen, how she wants to be.

She makes her way into the kitchen and gets her breakfast started. She is about to spoon eggs onto a plate when she sees a pair of legs in her periphery vision. When she looks up, she sees that Bucky standing at the end of the counter, just a few feet away from her. It looks like he hasn’t slept at all. He’s holding a journal and avoiding eye contact with her. He opens the journal and lets out a shaky breath.

“I used to get you roses from our downstairs neighbor Ms. Patt, she gave me the one that were too ugly to sell, but you loved them because they had character. You used to put them in your hair and try to get a complement out of Stevie every time, but he didn’t want to talk up a married woman.” Bucky states without looking up at the journal at all, his hands shake as he holds it up to read. Dammit, you’re crying again.

“Your perfume used to smell like gardenias and you hated green beans, but always finished your plate when I made them.” He closes the journal and finally looks up at her, he’s crying too.

“I thought I didn’t have memories of you, but I was wrong. I had dreams. I used to dream about you all the time. It’s what got me through the war, when I fell off the train, when Hydra captured me. Everything. When they put me on ice, I used to dream about you and our life before all of this. It was the only time I was at peace. And I hated, I hated, when they woke me up because they were taking my time away from you. Your face was always a bit blurry in my dreams, but I made the connection and figured out it was you.”

She cries and cries and very slowly makes her way closer to him.

Bucky looks down at his feet, his voice still shaky,

“I’m starting to remember things little by little, but I want to let you know I’m in no means the same man I was or will I ever be.”

She tries to get him to look at her, “Neither am I Bucky.”

He starts again,

“But that doesn’t mean we cannot be together, because it would be my honor to learn how to love you all over again.”

And when he finally looks up, she’s right there and she wraps her arms around his neck to hug him and never lets go. He does the same to her middle. He turns his head a little to smell her neck. Gardenias.

[nirah10]

Posts regarding AIDS

After some of the recent discussions, my inbox suddenly got a lot of messages discussing HIV/AIDS, particularly the crisis in the 80′s. I decided to compile all the posts here rather than posting them all individually.

From Anon,

United states only statistics:

Since 1981, close to 779,000 people have died from AIDS in the US and approximately 15,929 people died in 2015 alone.

As of 2014, the number of new HIV cases in the US remained stable (not spiking or dropping) with approximately 50,000 Americans diagnosed each year.

Women made up 18% of new HIV infections in 2010, bringing the number of American females that are HIV-positive to 210,802.

Gay and bisexual men are the groups most severely affected by HIV in the US. They accounted for more than 62% of all new HIV infections in the US in 2014. Although this has dropped from 70 percent in 1998.

You don’t really think of HIV anymore, but 50 thousand new people still get it every year just in the U.S, and over sixty percent of that is gay men, with an even higher percentage amoung African American gay men. And 16 thousand people still die each year just in the US.

Just in the US, with medication and education about it.

In some countries, particularly African nations, the medication and treatment is not available and so, so, so many are still dying.

Thought I would mention these stats, as I saw Queer as Folk being mentioned, and that show is 20 years old, where so many young gay men were dying.

There was a period where gay communities were so isolated as people were not exactly sure how the disease was transmitted, only that is was highly common amount gay men. So because they didn’t know how you catch it, just that gay men were getting it more, the gay community had to fend for themselves for a while in the 1980’s. Got slightly better when dictors worked out how it was transmitted, but still a stigma.

Queer as Folk had characters dying from AIDS, it had characters living with HIV, ‘what’s your status’ was a pretty common question in the show, especially between new couples.

Shows don’t really talk about stuff like that anymore.

But gay men still get HIV at a higher rate, between 60 and 70 percent of new cases, and people still die every year. The medication doesn’t work for everyone.

I have a friend, he hasn’t even come out to his parents yet, but just found out he has HIV at age 19.

Asking about your HIV status is a pretty common part of dating in the gay scene, but the media doesn’t really cover it since Queer as Folk.

I guess it doesn’t really suit the sexless, family friendly gay men that television show, mainly because they don’t want to upset their conservative network bosses.

I get HIV tests every year. I use condoms everytime, but I had a friend who used condoms all the time and for it anyway, just takes a couple of slip ups.

So Jack was living in London in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and early 2000’s. Was he aware of what was going on during that time period before it happened? Had the AIDS crisis and it’s impact on the time period and young gay men been taught in the 51st century? I’m guessing probably not.

Was Jack always safe during that time period?

Or would his body just burn the virus off if he same into contact with it? Would Jack have been able to passpit on even if he csught it?

Was Jack always safe with men? I know he wasn’t always safe with women, he got a lady pregnant.

Dear Anon,

Jack can’t get sick so I imagine that means that bacteria/viruses can’t survive in his body at all. Because of that, I suspect he doesn’t use condoms very often, especially because we know he has had children.

From Anon,

PSA: The importance of safe sex.

https://youtu.be/HvPaE6_hPTQ

I like the show Queer as Folk.

It didn’t shy away from hard subjects.

Michael (Brian’s best friend) falls in love with a man with HIV, and the show focuses on the difficulty of dating asna HIV positive man. Ben told Micheal on their first date, and Micheal was spooked away, but ended up asking Ben on another date later as he really liked him. Ben is the dude he married and had a foster kid with, the professor. Things aren’t always easy between a couple where one person is HIV positive, and the show handled the subject brilliantly. Glad Micheal dumped the boring jealous Doctor and ended up with the professor.

But a big problem amoung young gay men Justin’s age is the assumption that the crisis is over and that HIV won’t happen to them.

Justin is 18 here in 2000, while Brian is 30. So Brian lived through the AIDS crisis as a young gay man, while Justin hasn’t experienced it in the same way.

Do you think Brian’s reaction to Justin wanted Brian to fuck him without a condom was a little harsh?

Seeing they have been dating for over a year and Brian was clean and so wouldn’t have given Justin anything.

Do you think he was absuive towards Justin here? By calling him an idiot?

Or do you think it is understandable that Brian would take the issue a little more seriously because of the 11 years more experience he has had watching gay men die?

Is that an excuse to talk to someone like this though?

I DO NOT like Brian either.

I can’t believe Justin didn’t get sick of him until he was nearly 25. Seven crazy years.

While not liking how Brian handled this, I do think it is important. I finished high school in 2016, and even today you don’t really get anything about safe sex amoung men. It was all about teen pregnancy at my school.

Dear Anon,

I never think it’s okay when couples call each other names like that. It was a very serious and important point that he had to make, but it could have been done without calling him that. A lot of people call their partners names sometimes though so I guess everyone is different.

From nololmaybe,

https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/queer-as-folks-russell-t-davies-penning-new-gay-drama-about-uk-aids-crisis/#gs.tJFW9f4

Russell T Davis has a new show coming up, not released until next year I think, early 2019.

Big fan of RTD. Anyone else keen for this project?

From Anon,

First new article ever on AIDS;

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-first-major-news-article-hivaids-180963913/

Doctors, researchers and newspapers didn’t even have a name for it at first. It was referred to as a ‘gay cancer.’

It was called the gay cancer, even by medical professionals, as at the time they had no other term for it. The symptoms presented a bit like cancer, and gay men were the ones mostly getting it, so that is how the gay cancer name came about.

A huge problem within the 80’s is that it wasn’t known how it was caught.

Straight people didn’t even want to shake the hands of gay men, because they weren’t sure how it was spread.

Doctors were scared and many refused to work with the patients.

And while this was happening, more and more young gay men were getting it, as they didn’t know it came from unprotected sex.

My mum was a nurse in the 1980’s, and they were overrun with AIDS patient, some they had to put on the floor as therw were not enough beds.  but she was telling me that it was only her and one other nurse handling them all, as the other nurses were terrified of going near the men, as they didn’t want to catch it.

Lesbians played a HUGE part in supporting the gay men in their community at the time. Because so many people were terrifying of catching it, sick gay men often had no where to go. Lesbian groups opened shelters, prepared meals, and tended and nursed the dying men.

The support of gay women during that time isn’t often touched on, but it was there.

Have you ever seen the movie Philadelphia with Tom Hanks?

https://youtu.be/cl4B9AU45P4

Or Holding the Man?

My two favourite movies that deal with the HIV crisis.

From Anon,

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2016/apr/20/a-generation-of-artists-were-wiped-out-by-aids-and-we-barely-talk-about-it-robert-mapplethorpe

A generation of artists were wiped out by Aids and we barely talk about it

A new film about the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is a shocking and brilliant reminder of the devastation HIV and Aids wreaked – and still does.

There are many shocking images in the brilliant new documentary Robert Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, made by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. You probably know many of them already. Some are just seared into our culture and no longer disturb anyone. The cover of Horses with Patti Smith was as much of a statement as her music. His celebrity pics of Eurotrash and rich collectors, or actual celebs such as Debbie Harry and Bianca whispering in Mick Jagger’s ear remain fascinating. Their beauty blasted by his light into timelessness; his naked flowers, the sex organs of plants in all their glory. As he said himself, he could perfect a bowl of carnations just as well as “a fist up someone’s ass”. Then there was the documentation of his S&M activities and his fetishisation of the black body – so many of these images remain, to use the word du jour, “problematic”. Good. His life was an artwork. He would pick up guys, do drugs, have sex and then get down to work. He would photograph them.

When you see these pictures, you wonder why – with sexual imagery everywhere all the time – these pictures linger, hanging somewhere in a dark part of the collective memory. You keep looking because he kept seeing.

In this film, we have Mapplethorpe in his own words, not the rose-tinted memories that Smith gave us in Just Kids. He is openly a man of sociopathic ambition who wants sex, fame and money, and would use anyone to get them. That countercultural drive echoed what was going on in the 1980s so much that it would become indistinguishable from mainstream culture. When people talk about the end of the New York scene, that’s what they mean.

Just as he got what he wanted, he got sick. This “ruined Cupid”, this beautiful man, we see skeletal with Aids giving his final party.

“Whether it’s an orgy or a cocktail party I know how to do it.” He certainly did. It’s hard to see this vain man visibly dying. But he made his death part of his art. His 1988 self-portrait with a skull caneremains a masterpiece. I feel sorry for those who say photography is not an art. Bowie used his death in his final work too. No hiding away.

But what the film also brings home is the erasure of history – the fact that all those deaths from Aids have been somehow glossed over. Gay people can get married. Everything is lovely now!

Yet there was a time when you could walk around London or New York and see these gaunt faces, marked with sarcomas, and everyone you hung out with was dying. The official culture was in denial. Sometimes it was easier to be. I remember seeing Derek Jarman at a play. At that point he was blind. I didn’t want to see him like that. And then my friend was queer-bashed on the way home. Freddie Mercury died. Keith Haring died. Eazy- E from NWA died. Denholm Elliott died. Rock Hudson died. Fela Kuti died. And my uncle who wasn’t famous or even my actual uncle died. One of my friends lost seven people who were all under 30.

I was explaining this to my 25-year-old daughter. She understood what happened, but said, “I just can’t imagine it”. And somehow nor can I, but we lived through it. HIV, we say, is now no longer a death sentence. But, of course, it is in many parts of the world. South Africa has a 19% HIV rate. Russian is only just starting to admit the scale of its problem with an estimate of 1.5 million people with HIV. Neither homosexuality nor addiction can be spoken about in Putin’s Russia.

Mapplethorpe’s work was censored by US senator Jesse Helms who, like many Republicans, saw Aids as a punishment for homosexuality. Nancy and Ronald Reagan pretty much signed up to this line. Republicans banned needle exchanges. The Catholic church banned condoms. Mapplethorpe’s work is shot through the lens of his Catholic upbringing, the black mass and rituals of S&M – his composition, his invocation of the devil not as a metaphor, but as a living presence.

He was but one of a generation of artists, activists and athletes wiped out by Aids. Why don’t we speak about this anymore? Is it ancient history? Not for me, as it propelled a politics of queer solidarity arising from horrific circumstances.

The debate about safe spaces came to mind watching this film. Mapplethorpe’s entire oeuvre was a trigger warning. A bullwhip up his rectum, a penis lit like Mona Lisa. He died at 42.

When Paul O’Grady was asked in the Guardianabout the death of his friend Cilla Black, he said: “I’ve lost about everybody I know.” He talked about Aids wiping out all his friends, and about having to pretend to some of their families that they were dying of cancer as he nursed them. “People my age will never get over the horrors.”

Antiretrovirals may make us think it has all gone away. It hasn’t. Aids is killing people all over the world. The living death mask of Mapplethorpe disturbed me more than any pictures of fisting. Because I thought of all those we lost, and how we don’t really want to remember any more. Mapplethorpe’s unblinking need to document his life, his sex, his magic and his death reminded me why we must never forget. The battle is not won.

…..

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2016/apr/20/a-generation-of-artists-were-wiped-out-by-aids-and-we-barely-talk-about-it-robert-mapplethorpe

This article raises some good points. Sex between males is still the most common way to get HIV-  it is easier to get from just one contact that other forms of sex, such as vaginal sex. So gay men are at a higher risk.

HIV amoung gay men is a huge problem in counties where being gay is illegal, including Russia and many countries in Africa- since sex between men is illegal and people still do it, education about safe sex is often not available and the resources and tests aren’t carried out like in the west, therefore allowing the secret spread between men at a much higher rate, as no one is keeping an eye on it.

My Uncle lost eight of his close friends, all young men and is boyfriend to AIDS within two years, before he himself passed away after battling with it for four years.

Even in 2017, when I came out as gay, my father was terrified. Not because of homophobia, but because he had watched his brother lose his partner, his friends and then had to watch his own brother die in front of him. My dad became a Doctor after losing his brother to AIDS and spent years and years working with HIV patients, seeing them lose friends and lovers to the disease for years and years. My dad in the year since I came out (I’m 17) has made sure to stress that the crisis isn’t over, he still sees young men coming in with the virus- often from very religious backgrounds, from chruch schools and home schooling who were denied any media about HIV and who aren’t taught about gay health issues. Families often shelter their kids away from this stuff, and it is still a problem. I have a crazy amount of condoms from my dad, and have had so, so, so many lectures about safe sex and about making sure my gay friends and boyfriends are safe as well. We talk about sex and safety SO much more than we did before I came out. I don’t think it is homophobia, my dad is just terrified of losing me like he did his brother. He also saw his brother because he died care for and mourn the loss of his boyfriend, and doesn’t want me to have to go through any of that pain.

Gay men are at more risk of HIV, and I don’t think it helps anyone to cover that up. Some people think it is homophobic to focus on gay youth and HIV, more than straight youth and HIV, but I don’t think it is homophobic, it is just scientific, we are most likely to come into contact with it, and are more likely to get it as it is transferred much easier though anal sex that other forms of sex.

Some people don’t like to mention gay and AIDS in the same sentence, as they don’t want to offend the gay community by associating us with HIV. But I don’t think it is offensive. So many gay men have died from the virus z and that impact on the queer community shouldn’t be washed away or forgotten because it doesn’t suit a polite 21st century conversation.

From Anon,

Michael Penn watched his loved ones drop like flies during the 1980s at a time when homophobia and misunderstanding were rife.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/aids-crisis-1980-eighties-remember-gay-man-hiv-positive-funerals-partners-disease-michael-penn-a7511671.html%3famp

When Michael Penn’s partner Brian Davis began rapidly losing weight in the mid-1980s, a friend of the couple suggested he ought to visit a doctor to check he didn’t have that mysterious killer virus. It’s probably nothing, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, they thought. Five months later, Brian was dead.

Before Brian passed away, he and Michael’s calendar was filling up with more funerals than normal for two men in their late thirties. In the space of half a decade, 20 of Michael’s friends died.

“Back in the day it was very worrying. I had many friends dropping like flies,” Michael, a retired east Londoner who now lives in Woodbridge, Suffolk, recalls to The Independent. “My partner and I lost friends and no one knew why the so many people were dying.”

When doctors diagnosed Brian with AIDs, a test confirmed that Michael was also HIV positive. Now 75, and one of the longest surviving people in the UK with HIV, Michael is a spokesperson for the Terrence Higgins Trust charity to raise awareness about the condition.

But in the 1980s, the virus was little understood. Scientists were yet to pin-point why swathes of otherwise healthy people were dying from rare conditions. Misinformation and homophobia were rife. AIDs was labelled the “gay plague”, suggesting that it was spread among men who had sex with men (MSM). For a period of six months in 1982, the condition was mistakenly labelled “Gay Related Immune Deficiency”. In total, 35 million people have died of AIDs worldwide since the 1980s, including millions in Africa.

“One chap we knew very into taking poppers. He died of a lung infection and doctors said it was caused by his overuse of poppers. That was in the early 1980s.” In hindsight, the lung infection was likely triggered by AIDs, says Michael.

I watched him deteriorate  from a big strapping lad to a skeleton. - Penn

Michael believes that his partner, who was the assistant director of the British Diabetic Association, his that he was ill because he feared he would die.

“Brian and I got a suspicious that he had something wrong but he was scared to do something about it. I think he knew it was going to be a death sentence. We didn’t talk about it.”

As HIV can take several years to show symptoms, Michael’s blood counts were normal, and he was apprehensive about taking AZT – the first drug created to tread the virus. But Michael was convinced during a visit to Washington State.

“I was on holiday in US and I saw a doctor in Washington State for a sore throat. I told him I was HIV positive but that I was confused about taking AZT. He told me ‘my wife had a blood transfusion tainted with HIV and she’s lying in a hospital bed dying with AIDs. Take full advantage of what you can get’.”

Looking back, Michael recalls how the LGBT community pulled together during what was a terrifying time.

“I think the gay community changed the way they behaved in terms of sleeping around and practising safe sex. The club scene in London was pretty wild. It was a brilliant time.“

But Michael found little empathy from those outside of the community.

“People were ignorant. There was nothing known about the disease. No one knew how to treat it. The ordinary man in the street was very suspicious if he knew you were gay.”

“I remember after Brian died I went to local pub and the publican in my hearing said to someone ‘don’t let anyone drink out of that glass’. I was furious.”

However, attitudes are still blinkered. More recently, a member of his local community was spreading a rumour that Michael had AIDS, rather than treatable HIV.

In fact, doctors recently told him he is healthier than most other men his age. To control the virus, Michael take two tablets a day. "As long as you get tested and get the right treatment you carry on living like I have,” he stresses. "HIV is no longer a death sentence.“      

…

Often both people in the relationship would test positive and would get sick together, sometimes dying together in the spam in a couple of weeks, or sometimes years. The straight community were scared away and often their was not enough help, many couoles, both dying, often only had each other for support and help. I read a case about a man nursing his lover in his sickness, only to then die himself a month later.

Was Jack active with men during this period? He would have witnessed it first hand if he was.

From Anna,

Sally’s story about her Uncle had been break down in tears.

Thank you for sharing his story Sally, it is important to keep these stories alive.

I have a personal story of a good frien of mine, who was the god father of my three kids.

Researchers think that HIV and AIDs was probably around in the 60’s and 70’s, because the virus can lie in your body for years and years before killing you, you can have it for five years and not know. In the 1980’s, it was very common for couples to both have HIV, often with no idea who gave who what.

The first recorded AIDS victim died in 1981, but we think it had been around for a lot longer than that and that people were dying before than. It wasn’t until 1893 that AIDS was really on the radar.

If you’ve been together for years, even if you are faithful, one of you could have it before than and not even know it and pass it on.

Guilt was a massive thing, seeing the person you love dying in front of you and thinking you might have given it to them.

I had a very good friend who had HIV, who watched his long term partner die from it. My friend, Josh, after his boyfriend died, became obessed with finding out where it had come from, driven by guilt, he and Matt had been together for five years before Matt died, and had been faithful, so they were both shocked when they both tested positive.

Wanting to ignore his own HIV, and caught up in the grief and pain of losing the love of his life, tracing it became his obsession.

He eventually traced it back to an ex he had from seven years ago, before he was with Matt.  His Ex had died in 1980, before the first official AIDS death. At the time it has been disgnosed as an unknown disease he picked up overseas, doctors looking back said it was almost certainly a early AIDS victum, although some have been found even eairler- deaths even in the late 1970’s from unknown illnesses. It didn’t break out into a extreme amount of bodies until the 1980’d though, it couldn’t be ignored anymore.

This ex had passed away, and Josh was sure he got it from this ex, as Matt had only had a couple of boyfriend before Josh and Matt had tracked down them all and they were fine.

Josh was horrified that he passed it to Matt, he was sure it must have happened that way. He became convinced he must have. And he hated that Matt died without knowing, he wanted Matt to know, to be able to blame Josh, he thought Matt should have known. Josh blamed himself.

He loved Matt so much and believed if Matt never met him he would have been fine. We all tried to help and comfort him, but the guilt was destroying him.

Josh killed himself. I don’t know how long he would have lived with the HIV, unlike Matt, it hadn’t turned into AIDS yet. He could still be alive today. I think about the ‘what ifs all the time.’ even after it has been so long.

But he couldn’t live with himself thinking he was the reason his partner died.

Losing Matt, and then seeing how much Josh missed him and how he blames himself was one of the worst years of my life, i remember calling Josh the morning he hanged himself and knowing something was wrong when he didn’t pick up. I thought I was being paranoid. His mum rang me that night to tell me. It was beyond awful, I felt like I had been hit with a truck..

As a mother with adult children, i never, ever want my kids to have to go through something like that.

I was so heartbroken for Josh. He and Matt got together in the early 80’s, before AIDS and HIV were the agrred upon term, before they knew who the disease was transferred. It wasn’t Josh’s fault, he and Matt has no idea. Seeing him carry that guilt of feeling like he killed the man he loved was what I remember most from that time.

Seeing Sally’s story about her Uncle made me cry for an hour, it just brought back so many memories.

They were both so young, just babies themselves.

I think it is postive to talk about it though.

I think you are much younger than me, I’m guessing you can’t remember muchnof the paranoia and crisis from the 1990’s? It was pretty bad.

That is where a lot of those horrible 'God Hates Fags’ people come from. I loathe them so much.

Sorry if I have overhshared, Sally’s story just really moved me.

Dear Anna,

I’m so sorry that you went through such a terrible loss :( I was born in 1990 and we were extremely isolated/sheltered as kids, so I had no idea that AIDS was such a huge problem. I’m still catching up on my history. Thank you so much for sharing your story <3

From W,

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.hivplusmag.com/opinion/guest-voices/2014/02/19/listen-hiv-still-gay-disease%3famp

So this article says it is ‘nor politically correct.’

I always get worried when I see people proudly say they not politically correct, normally that line comes from racists.

I remember the outrage over the billboards mentuoned in this story, a LGTB+ group uni student campus group campaigned to have them taken down and they were.

Do you think this article is homophobic? They are kinda calling our the modern LGTB+ groups aren’t they?

Dear W,

I don’t think I would call this homophobic. I think it’s the kind of thing that could hurt feelings and it’s definitely a controversial topic, but I wouldn’t say it’s homophobic. The author wasn’t suggesting that being gay was bad in any way, but simply pointing out that HIV/AIDS is disproportionately found in the gay community and that pretending it’s not isn’t helping anyone. It’s definitely controversial and debatable (a debate that I definitely don’t know enough to participate in) and I’m sure it offended many people, but that’s not the same thing as being homophobic.

From Anon,

http://www.h2rc.org/news-and-events/2017/6/13/losing-a-father-and-husband-to-aids-and-finding-him-again

So in 1990 this woman’s husband died of AIDS.

She was in shock. How could that happen?

Turns out her husband had been gay and sleeping with men on the side.

She herself took a HIV test, but was negative (even when you sexually active with someone with HIV, while it is still very risky, the chances of catching HIV from vaginal sex are much, much lower than from anal sex.)

Extract from article;

‘My second child was born two days after Father’s Day in 1990. Three weeks later, my husband collapsed, disoriented and feverish, in a restaurant. Soon, he was lying in a hospital bed with full-blown AIDS.

It’s hard for people who weren’t around then to imagine what AIDS used to look like. It was an epidemic that turned young men old; murdered beauty and promise. You knew someone at work who wouldn’t feel well, you wouldn’t see him for a few days, you would never see him again.

AIDS made men ghosts.

Before he got sick, John was an attentive lover to me, a doting dad to our 2-year-old, a gracious son-in-law to my aging parents and a successful journalist. He was home for dinner every night like clockwork. He was someone it was hard to believe could get AIDS.

In the months before our son was born, John had been experiencing a string of nagging illnesses, including intestinal distress and a persistent cough. The many doctors he consulted, because he was “straight,” married and overworked, did not even consider AIDS. They diagnosed stress.

After John’s AIDS diagnosis, I was rushed in for my own test. It remains the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Back then, it could mean a death sentence.

I asked him how he happened to contract a disease largely transmitted through gay sex. He told me he’d slept with men, which, at the time, surprised me. It was the beginning of a world falling apart.

My AIDS test came back negative: The kids and I had been spared. But nine months later, John died, leaving me asking, “What just happened?”

He left me crying out for him in the night. He left me with many painfully unresolved feelings and unanswered questions. John also left me with two small children, and I was determined to raise them free from the stigma of AIDS.

I resolved that I had to keep how he died a secret. No one could know. We never talked about him. I stashed away all his pictures. When the kids were old enough, I shared the truth with them, and emphasized why they couldn’t talk about it — or their father.’

So she didn’t catch HIV from her gay husband (possible but vaginal transmission is no way neat as high) I bet other women did catch it from their husband’s on the downlow, as lots of men were still in the closest back then.

This would have hurt a lot of people, 1990 was still homophobic so I doubt this was the only guy who was married and sleeping with men on the side.

I think it would have been very scary for this woman. She just had a baby, so that means if she did have HIV, her baby could have it too, at a time where HIV was a death sentence for a lot of people. She didn’t have it though.

I bet other wives and children died from gay men being in the closest, I think that is where a lot of the anger came from, and when the babies and women started dying, that is when people acted.

Do you think men like John are more selfish than straight men who cheat on their wives? Because they risk killing them? This was in 1990! AIDS had been around for ten years at this point and people knew how it was transmitted.

I’m really sad this guy was closeted, but by 1990 they knew how HIV was transmitted right? His wife said they were still having sex!

This is more selfish than other cheating right? She was negative, but she and the baby could have been infected.

Dear Anon,

I think anyone who cheats is being selfish for putting their partners at risk. Yes, there was a crisis during that time that may have made it riskier for gay men to spread it, but that definitely does not mean that straight men men or women haven’t also always been at risk. Cheating is awful for a lot of reasons, but putting someone’s health at risk is probably the worst. Every cheater, gay or straight, regardless of the year or of what’s going around, is just as selfish as any other for willingly putting someone they’re supposed to love at that kind of risk..