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dragonnan · 4 years ago

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This is faaaar from a complete list and will be spotty at best but I’ve been pondering MCU characters a lot as I’ve been getting slowly back to work on my mega-fic. I LOVE minor head canons. Simple stuff like favorite foods or what music they listen to or were they ever a smoker or whatever whatever. So I’m gonna give myself the challenge of crafting some head canon and anyone else is very welcome to dive in! (some things are already established via canon)

~ Ethnicity ~ Faith ~ Smoker ~ Alcohol ~ Favorite food ~ Favorite cookie ~ Favorite animal(s) ~ Favorite music ~

Tony Stark: Ethnicity: Mixed European-American-Jewish (he refers to himself as a “mutt”) Faith: “No thanks” being the initial answer but if he feels like opening up he’ll admit to believing there’s likely “something” out there but at the same time figures that “something” stopped caring about humanity a long long time ago. Smoker? Never liked cigarettes but smoked a few cigars when he was younger due to Obie’s influence. He never was a big fan but wanted to fit in with his mentor. Alcohol: Influenced both by his father and Obie, Tony started drinking hard liquor semi-regularly as young as 14 (his Dad let him try his first sip at the age of 6). He pretty much sticks with Scotch or Bourbon but is not opposed to cheap beer at a ball game. In fact the cheaper the better - a requirement for any self-respecting American. Favorite food: hot dogs. Neither one of his parents cooked. Breakfast and lunch were whatever whenever for all three of them but dinner? You better be sure you were at that table before the plates were set down or you could go without (and Tony got a slap from his father when he’d observed that rule only seemed to apply to him). But on the nights he was sent to his room, Jarvis would slip upstairs, later, with a sandwich or, on really rough nights, a couple of hotdogs. Favorite cookie: Those Christmas wreath ones made with cereal and marshmallow with the cinnamon candies. Favorite animal(s): he likes all animals but if he had to pick one for a pet he’d get an iguana. Favorite music: well duh lolol.

Stephen Strange: Ethnicity: Mixed European-American (borrowed from Benedict Cumberbatch’s ethnicity and adding the American) Faith: Originally atheist but now closer to Buddhist. Smoker: Never. Even prior to becoming a sorcerer he has always been conscious of what he takes into his body; especially given the history of cancer on his mother’s side of the family. Alcohol: Wine, occasionally, though he isn’t really a social drinker per-say. Favorite food: The spicy shrimp and pork dumplings from a Thai place in Midtown. Favorite cookie: Hmmm.... not a big sweets guy but he won’t turn away a few ginger-pecan cookies with coffee. Favorite animal(s): dogs - unequivocally. He had a border collie growing up on his family farm in Nebraska. Favorite music: please don’t make this poor man actually have to choose.

Steve Rogers: Ethnicity: Irish (as per comics) Faith? Irish-Catholic (as per the comics). Smoker? Prior to the serum there was no way he could safely do so with his health issues. After he started traveling with the performers all of the girls in the group smoked and he tried it out a few times but never developed a taste for it. Alcohol: he drank A LOT - easy enough to do as it never had any real effect on him. He enjoys scotch and bourbon (a taste he picked up from hanging around Howard Stark). Steve seems to low-key always have the munchies (like most enhanced) and once Tony picked up on that there are always a variety of snacks scattered here and there throughout the compound (also of benefit for Bruce, Peter, Thor, and, later, Bucky). Steve’s favorite foods typically remind him of his mother’s cooking. While they’d never had much (especially after his father died) his mom could do a lot with limited supplies. She used to make a fantastic meat pie with ground beef or tongue. He hates SPAM. They ate it in the Army, constantly, and just the smell will occasionally send him back to those days and not in a good way. Favorite cookie? Oreos. He can clean up a family sized pack in like 10 minutes. Steve loves animals but is especially fond of horses and dogs. There was a dog in his unit in WW2 and Steve, like most of the other men, would share bites of his rations with it. Steve is nostalgic about music from the 40s but finds that 70s rock really resonates with him.

Bucky Barnes: Ethnicity: Romanian-American (borrowing a little from Sebastian Stan’s ethnicity) Faith? Possibly agnostic. Smoker? Heck yes - both cigarettes and cigars. Like Steve, the serum he received (via Hydra’s experimentation) means he gets to dodge the detrimental side effects of smoking. Alcohol: He likes to drink but is almost exclusively a beer drinker. He has a big appetite but refuses to eat around others if he can at all help it. His favorite food is corned beef with cabbage. Steve’s grandmother was an Irish immigrant and would make it every Sunday before the war impacted rations. Since both Bucky’s parents were dead he’d often have dinner with his best friend. Also, unlike Steve, he actually likes SPAM. But then, arguably, he isn’t terribly picky about food in general. Favorite cookie: molasses. Favorite animal(s): birds - eagles in particular - though he doesn’t look too deeply at the psychology of their ability to just fly away. Needless to say a crafty observer might spot a former Winter Soldier tossing seeds towards the pigeons. Favorite music: He’s pretty eclectic though he shies away from anything too loud like death metal. He finds classical very soothing.

Peter Parker: Ethnicity: Mixed American-Scandinavian-German-ish Faith: Protestant upbringing but unsure where he currently stands. If pressed he’d say he’s “leaving his options open” Smoker? “Oh gross!” Alcohol: “Um, too young to drink, thanks! But if I WERE to... you know, try it just to taste it there was this mudslide at one of Flash’s parties that was super good...” Favorite food: spaghetti and meatballs. Lots of meatballs. Favorite cookie: chocolate chocolate chip with chunks. Favorite animal(s): NOT spiders. And NOT birds given how many rooftops he’s traversed layered in pigeon ick. He’d probably say cats. Favorite music: The B side of techno rock - especially Depeche Mode.

Peter Quill: Ethnicity: Half mixed American and half celestial. Faith: His Dad was a god and he killed him so he figures he probably isn’t on the best terms with the Big G God should He... or She... or Them... be out there. Look he just wants to do his thing and cause a little trouble without mixing it up with any other celestial types but if they DO wanna throw down he’d like to point out that he’s 1 for 1 and willing to rumble. Smoker: He would not say no to a really good cigar and may have possibly lifted a case from Yondu’s stash when he struck out on his own. Alcohol: Anywhere any time and in large quantities. Favorite food: A thick steakhouse bacon burger with potato chips right on the patty. Extra cheese please! Favorite cookie: He’s a simple guy with simple tastes. classic chocolate chip no frills no fuss and fresh from the oven. Favorite animal(s): He likes dogs - who doesn’t like dogs? But he really likes cows. Just maybe don’t mention the burger thing. Favorite music:

Thor: He’s a Norse god of legend so I figure we can forego the ethnicity/faith questions lol. Smoker: He has never understood this human custom nor has he felt any inclination to try it himself Alcohol: Beer, mead, and anything capable of knocking him on his ass. Favorite food: chili with ghost peppers. Though nowhere near as hot as the fire chilies of Muspelheim (which would be instantly fatal for humans so its just as well). Favorite cookie: strawberry cheesecake with macadamia nuts. Favorite animal(s): It’s a tossup between bilgesnipe and whales. Favorite music: The mighty horns of battle! He also enjoys old school country, much to Tony’s disgust. The story aspect of that music is what appeals to him.

Bruce Banner: Ethnicity: Italian-American Faith: Catholic in his childhood; currently Atheist or maybe agnostic. Smoker: He tends to avoid any substances for, you know, obvious reasons. Alcohol: See previous. Favorite food: Waffles with sliced mango. Favorite cookie: Oatmeal. Favorite animal(s): Mantis shrimp - “did you know they can generate so much power in their attacks that they can briefly super-heat the water up to 7,700 °C??” Favorite music: Indian- especially Krishna Bhajan.

Clint Barton: Ethnicity: Mixed European-American and Panamanian. Faith: His parents were both Protestant but he’s never latched on to any specific faith and hasn’t really devoted a lot of thought on the matter. He has a sorta loose idea of “maybe something out there” but that’s all the further he’s gotten on the subject. What he tells anyone who asks it’s that his religion is coffee. Smoker: Briefly when he was a teen. Alcohol: Beer - he’s a fan of dark lager. Favorite food: Coney Island dogs, Pizza, and pickle flavored potato chips. Favorite cookie: Monster cookies with the mini M&Ms. Favorite animal(s): Dogs Favorite music: 80s rock and some country.

Natasha Romanoff: Ethnicity: Russian. Faith: She was not given much choice when younger and was raised as “state atheist” (per comics). In the years since escaping that life, however, she has tried to discover more about herself. Her parents were both Russian Jewish and there has been a pull to discover more about that faith - especially since meeting Wanda - who is Jewish. Smoker: No. Alcohol: Some vodka - that’s a given. But she actually prefers wine; and honestly her favorites are wine spritzers. Favorite food: Favorite cookie: Krumkake filled with creme and berries. Favorite animal(s): Favorite music: Overall she listens to a pile of little-known bands and whomever is playing at whatever bar in whatever city she happens to be in. She also is a huge fan of old school Spice Girls.

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cruger2984 · 4 years ago

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Twisted Wonderland and its Saints - Diasomnia

The last part of this series is with the horned guys from Diasomnia Looks like I need to re-watch Sleeping Beauty again.

January 18 - Malleus Draconia

St. Margaret of Hungary: Croatian virgin and nun from the Dominican order who is the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and Maria Laskarina. She was the younger sister of Kinga of Poland (Kunegunda) and Yolanda of Poland and, through her father, the niece of the famed Elizabeth of Hungary. In art, Margaret is usually depicted in a Dominican nun's religious habit, holding a white lily and a book.

January 1 - Lilia Vanrouge

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: One of the most important Marian feasts days to start the New Year. It is to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary under the aspect of her motherhood of Jesus Christ, whom Christians see as the Lord, Son of God, and it is celebrated by the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church on 1 January, the Octave (8th) day of Christmastide.

May 15 - Silver

St. Isidore the Laborer: Spanish confessor known for his piety toward the poor and animals. In the morning before going to work, Isidore would usually attend Mass at one of the churches in Madrid. One day, his fellow farm workers complained to their master that Isidore was always late for work in the morning. Upon investigation the master found Isidore at prayer while an angel was doing the ploughing for him. Beatified by Pope Paul V in 1619 and canonized as a saint three years later by Pope Gregory XV, Isidore is widely venerated as the patron saint of farmers, peasants, day laborers and agriculture in general, as well as brick layers.

March 17 - Sebek Zigvolt

St. Patrick: Irish missionary and bishop who is known as the 'Apostle of Ireland', who credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. When he was about sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates from his home in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland, looking after animals; he lived there for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After becoming a cleric, he returned to northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. It is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and cultural holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation; it is also a celebration of Ireland itself. Patrick is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints being Brigid of Kildare and Columba.

#random stuff #catholic #catholic saints #twisted wonderland #diasomnia #malleus draconia #lilia vanrouge #silver (twisted wonderland)#sebek zigvolt

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motherhenna · 4 years ago

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16 24 25 37 43 for both Simon + Tulsi? (i just started reading your story on wattpad and im in love with your work!!!)

Ah thanks so much I love u ╥﹏╥

16. What makes their stomach turn?

Simon despises anything bitter: he spent his whole childhood swallowing spoonfulls of medicine, chalky vitamin supplements, pills, etc. so anything remotely evocative of those dates disgusts him.

Tulsi hates the taste of most beers as well as rum, and refuses to eat any fish not deep-fried. She can’t even look at calamari or oysters.

24. Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom?

Nope, not really either of them. Simon was brought up mostly by his stern Irish-Catholic immigrant grandmother, so sex was never really an open subject at the dinner table. Tulsi, in modern terminology, would probably identify as asexual, and is generally disinterested in and even put off by it as a concept.

25. What are their thoughts on marriage?

Simon comes from a...complicated family situation, so his views can’t be as cut-and-dry as a typical Irish Catholic tends to be. His gran fled from an abusive husband back in County Cork with her baby girl in tow in the late 30s. Even Simon’s mother herself has no clue who his dad is, as Simon was inadvertently conceived while she was in a drug-fueled haze in the 60s. Thus, Simon doesn’t really know what to think of marriage, though likes the thought of it as a concept, seeing as he has a tendency to romanticize everything. For much of his life, he never considered it a likely option, as medical professionals were convinced he’d die before he hit his teens. However, he does dream of settling down with someone and adopting and raising children with them.

Tulsi rarely thinks of it: she’s a thoroughly unromantic person, most of the time, though sees it as a practical decision as far as insurance and finance go. She found out her father wasn’t faithful to her mother a few years after she passed away, which put a huge dent in what Tulsi had thought was a happy, functioning marriage.

37. Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

Simon has an uncannily vivid memory, so he rarely has to struggle to remember things: facts and phone numbers and addresses just lie dormant in the back of his brain, waiting to be dug up at will.

Tulsi, however, is very forgetful, and covers her workspace and fills her purse with post-it-notes and notebooks. She has to put them in really obvious places, but often forgets and overlooks them anyway. Frequently used anagrams while studying for medical school.

43. If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

Simon I’d call “straight but not narrow”--while almost exclusively attracted to women, he’s fully willing to admit when a man is attractive, and would probably kiss James Dean if given the option of time travel.

I’ve based much of Tulsi’s sexuality on my own: she’s bisexual, but also ace as well. These terms are more modern, of course, so she probably wouldn’t know to define herself as such in the 80s canon of the story. Her childhood best friend, Sara, was kind of her “one that got away” in that sense.

#ask #anon #anonymous #I gotta go to bed but if there are any more after this I'll answer them in the morning!#OCs #Anonymous

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qqueenofhades · 6 years ago

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Women and “medieval cruelty and ignorance”

Okay. So. We could probably have guessed that this tweet was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, but here we are anyway.

(Tagging @artielu because I know she enjoys my history smackdowns and this is right in her wheelhouse of interest.)

First: nobody denies that the Alabama bill and similar efforts are absolutely heinous, are designed to be test cases to get Roe v. Wade overturned, and are deliberately gratuitous in their constitutional overreach and general horrible Handmaid’s Tale nature. But for well-meaning liberals, such as above, calling them representative of “medieval cruelty and ignorance” is a) not accurate and b) counterproductive. If we insist on using “the medieval” as a conceptual category inferior to “the modern,” these recent bills bear a complicated, at best, resemblance to medieval canon law and social practice. And there was never, I promise you, any law that prescribed a 99-year jail term for abortionists. So if we want to point out how the modern Republican party is actually much worse than their medieval counterparts, we can do that, but also: trust me, this is thoroughly modern cruelty and ignorance, and we should insist on that distinction.

First, obviously, women’s bodies have always been subject to a social discourse of power, control, gendered anxiety, and attendant responses. This was certainly the case in the medieval era, but our modern interpretations of that discourse can be... iffy, at best. In discussing the feminization of witchcraft in the late 15th century, M.D. Bailey critiques how scholars have tended to take the Malleus Maleficarum, the famous witch-hunting handbook, as representative of a self-evident and endemic medieval and clerical misogyny. In fact, the Malleus was the equivalent of the extreme right wing today, was relatively quickly condemned even by the church itself, and was largely reworked from earlier ecclesiastical anti-sodomy polemics, because the idea of “disordered gender” was certainly one that occupied medieval moralists and theorists. I have discussed the Malleus in other posts, but while it certainly is virulently and systematically misogynist, it also was a work of rhetoric rather than a reflection of historical reality. Medieval misogyny absolutely and obviously existed, and it impacted women’s lives, but we also really need to get rid of The Medieval Era Was Bad For Women, (tm), Therefore Everything Was Worse Back Then.

The possibility of magic being used to cause impotence/loss of fertility was another concern, and one of the main anxieties about the practice of witchcraft was that it would bring “sterility” and irregular sexual activity (usually with the devil). However, an extensive corpus of contraceptive and abortifacient knowledge has existed since antiquity, and in tracing the representation of unborn children in medieval theological thought, Danuta Shanzer notes:

My findings suggest that it is overstatement to claim that from the start Christianity considered the fetus a living being from conception. Augustine is a major agonized and agnostic counter-example.

Hence, contrary to right-wing claims that the church has “always” thought that life began at conception (spoiler alert: the church has never once “always” thought the same thing on anything), it was almost never the case in medieval legal or theoretical practice. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval theologians argued that “ensoulment” or the separation of the fetus into a living being happened at quickening, when the baby could move on its own (which medieval medical treatises had various standards for measuring, but it would be the equivalent of about 20 weeks of pregnancy). Monica Green, a leading medieval medical and gender historian, has examined a vast corpus of obstetric and gynecological Middle English texts, and in “Making Motherhood,” argues:

Texts on women’s medicine might also be concerned to “unmake” or prevent motherhood, either by preventing conception in the first place or expelling a dead foetus that would not emerge spontaneously. Abortion per se was almost never mentioned.

In other words: abortion was not paid attention to in nearly the same way we do today, and while canon law, in theory, prescribed penalties for contraception and abortion, historians have consistently (surprise!) discovered a disconnect between this and secular law and everyday practice. And while some twelfth-century (male) jurists did attempt to equate miscarriage with homicide, and to install it in canon law, these laws were almost never practically used or prosecuted. In Divisions of Labor: Gender, Power, and Later Medieval Childbirth, c. 1200-1500, Rebecca Wynne Jones surveys the extant literature and notes:

In his 2012 book The Criminalization of Abortion in the West, Wolfgang Müller documents how 12th‐century jurists' increasing tendency to equate violence resulting in miscarriage with homicide was institutionalized in canon law. Though this development led to the widespread criminalization of abortion in ecclesiastical jurisdictions, Müller has little to say about gender relations on the ground. Rather, by highlighting local communities' reluctance to prosecute, he presents laws that might once have been seen as proof of a medieval “war on women” as legislative enactments whose practical power remained limited.

Once again: medieval ecclesiastical proscriptions against abortion were, at best, sporadically enforced, communities were reluctant to actually prosecute women or to criminalize early-term pregnancy loss, and church law was not identical with secular law, which was the standard ordinary people used and were subject to. This concords with what Fiona Harris-Stoertz has found in her survey of pregnancy and childbirth in twelfth and thirteenth-century French and English law:

It is striking that in these thirteenth-century English texts, no penalty was assigned for the loss of less developed fetuses. This absence flew in the face of high medieval church legislation, which, in theory at least, took all contraception and abortion seriously. John Riddle finds that the idea that early-term abortion is less serious than late-term abortion occurred in the work of Aristotle and appeared occasionally throughout the early Middle Ages, particularly in church penitentials, although it also appeared in the early medieval Visigothic code.

While late-term abortion of potentially viable fetuses was still a crime, secular law still essentially held to quickening as the moment at which a pregnancy could not be terminated. Before that, however -- anywhere in the first 4-5 months of pregnancy -- it could often be dealt with, if desired, without any penalty. Anne L. McClanan has investigated the material culture of abortion and contraception in the early Byzantine period. And Ireland, which as recently as last year remained one of the last European countries to outlaw abortion, had a medieval hagiography that actively canonized abortionist saints:

Medieval hagiographers told of Irish Catholics par excellence, the saints themselves, performing abortions as well as of “bastards” becoming bishops and saints. In hagiography and the penitentials, virginal status depended more on a woman’s relationship with the church than with a man. To my knowledge, no other country in Christendom, medieval or modern, produced abortionist saints or restored virgins, apart from the nun of Watton. Why Ireland is among the few European countries to maintain severely restrictive policies on reproduction remains an unanswered question, but it clearly cannot be attributed to its medieval Catholicism.

Last part bolded because important. Modern bans on abortion don’t relate to how these notions were conceptualized or used in the past, and they are not holdovers from The Medieval Era (tm). They don’t represent medieval concerns or medieval ideas of gender, or at least certainly not in a direct genealogy. Even as late as the seventeenth century, when ideas of childbirth, marriage, and reproduction were more strictly controlled, the period prior to quickening, or the movement of the baby, was still generally not penalized or subject to legal control or coercion. So in sum: while religious moralists and canonical lawyers absolutely did object to abortion (aka right-wing men, the same ones who object to it today, funnily enough), in secular law and daily practice, a pregnancy that was terminated prior to quickening was not subject to practical prosecution or legal punishment, and medieval women had access to a vast corpus of gynecological texts, medical practices, herbal recipes, rituals, and charms intended to accomplish a wide range of fertility goals: conception, contraception, abortion, a healthy pregnancy and delivery, and so forth. I also answered an ask a while ago that discussed all this in detail.

Also: abortion was explicitly mobilized as a wedge issue in the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the religious right in American politics, and that happened not because of abortion, but in resistance to the IRS penalizing them for refusing to racially integrate evangelical schools and colleges. Randall Balmer has written about the history of the “abortion myth”; do yourself a favor and read it. The Southern Baptist Convention campaigned in 1971 for the liberalization of American abortion laws, and hailed the 1973 Roe decision as a win for the rights of the mother. (Oh how the mighty have fallen?) The right wing came together as a political force to resist racial integration, exemplified by their loss in the 1983 Supreme Court case Bob Jones University v. United States. But since it was not a winning political strategy (yet, at least) to fly the flag of “let us be racist in peace,” they, as Balmer discusses, created the “abortion myth” to make themselves look better and to present a narrative of holy/moral concern for the lives of the unborn. The reason abortion is as huge as it is in the present American political landscape owes to modern religious conservatism and extremism, resistance to racial equality, ideological control over women, and other bigotry, and (again) not to medievalism or medieval practices.

So, yes. Let us call the Alabama bill and other heinousness exactly what it is: a modern effort by a lot of terrible modern people to do terrible things to modern women. We don’t need to qualify it by fallacious equivalences to so-called “medieval cruelty” -- especially, again, when medieval practice and perspective on these issues was nowhere near the stereotype, and certainly nowhere near this “99 years in prison for performing an abortion” dystopian nightmare. If we want to shame the GOP, by all means, do so. But we should not resort to distorting and simplifying history to do it, and using the imagined “bad medieval” as a straw man to club them with. There’s plenty on its own. The modern world needs to take responsibility for its own misogyny, and stop trying to frame it as a historical issue that only existed in the past, and that any manifestations of it must be medieval in nature. Because it’s not.

#history #medieval history #women in history #history of sexuality #history of medicine #cw abortion #long post

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morethanonepage · 6 years ago

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thoughts on Keanu Reeves Constantine?

y’know this is an interesting question bc i actually have a lot of….if not affection for the movie, at least respect for some of the adaptation choices made. Like the most common line in re: film!Constantine is that it’s a good movie but it’s not a good Hellblazer movie and in a sense that’s right, it’s not – but it’s interesting. A noble failure, definitely.

What I think it hinges on is that it’s an American setting so they went full blown American with it – which is a mistake in my mind bc the point of Hellblazer is that it’s a quintessentially English story, and that’s why every run with an American writer in the comics is meh for me – but in the sense of “American AU Constantine” I think there were some really interesting/clever choices made.

Like starting with their John – Keanu is all wrong for original brand Constantine. His John is broody, he’s brunet, he’s Good At Magic. And comics!John is the opposite of all those things. And while comics!John can be broody, the important thing is the comics themselves tend to undercut that – there’s a lot of kind of snarky takes about John being in a sulk for whatever reason, some of it even from John himself. You get very little of that in the movie, and the movie itself is very TAKE THIS MAN’S PAIN SERIOUSLY about it, so. BUT in a sense that loner self flagellating thing is an American Male Archetype the way comic John has a very English & self deprecating sense of humor, so: ok, I can kinda see it, more as a translation (to American audiences) than an adaptation.

[READ MORE BC OMG WHY DID I CARE SO MUCH???]

They make John Catholic in the movie, which is another kind of interesting choice – in the comics he’s not anything specifically though I would imagine he would’ve been raised Church of England as likely as anything else. But they kind of commit to John’s Catholicism in the movie, most likely because it has more ~mysticism~ (and the association with exorcism in general) behind it. But it also kind of sets John up as An Other, because it’s the religion of a lot of the second class immigrants (like, the Irish initially, then Latinx Americans, etc). White Catholics have a bit of a different rep, but given that the film is set in LA in the late 20th century, for me it set up more of those associations than anything else. It’s also so much more about the SUFFERING and the MARTYRDOM and the REDEMPTION NARRATIVE, which is not so much a thing in the comics (where John often does/tries to do good things but usually NOT for the explicit purpose of ~cleansing his soul~, so it’s kind of notable/interesting that both American-based adaptations [TV and Movie] focus on that a lot more. It’s may also make more sense as an arc for the medium but y’know) but IS notably a big thing in the movie.

And the thing about John, even in the comics, is that he’s an Other but Normal Passing – with comics he presents in a very Proper English Man (which is why it’s SO IMPORTANT for me that he starts off on his adventures with his shirt properly done up and his tie right, and then as the day/his bullshit unfurls he gets sloppier) way, he’s white, he’s blond, he’s handsome etc, but he’s also a bisexual mess/working class disaster mage with a progressive bent, and in the movie he’s kind of a traditional American anti hero but also has his own stuff going on. It’s not as well executed as it could be – there’s not a lot of subversion in the film version, which is kind of the point of John – but at least you get hints of his potential sexuality and they go into his mental health issues (suicide attempt, etc) and his smoking, etc.

So John is an interesting translation – not perfect, but interesting. I would even argue that he’s the weakest point in the movie as a translation-not-adaptation (tho lol baby bear Chas Kramer is up there), bc he’s very basic supernatural protagonist with no flourish. Which is not the case for the rest of the film, which COMMITS to the genre it is and does it honestly very well.

For instance I love their conception of Ravenscar, the mental hospital John has A Bad History with – in the comics it’s got an old, spooky, mad house aesthetic from the 19th century, which fits the comics and John’s history and vibe really well. The movie version goes what I feel is a very modern American direction with it: one of the 20th century industrial monsters, a huge grey building, with the fear of mental health coming from that very specific post-war fear of anything ABNORMAL (including sexuality but y’know).

The setting of LA is great – a couple of (American) comic writers have given John’s arcs there, probably for the irony of CITY OF ANGELS etc, but I think it’s a really interesting choice/contrast to everything London (where John’s mostly based in comics, tho he does sometimes roam the countryside fucking things up) represents: superficial, modern, bright days, beauty, opulence vs the grey gritty grunginess of John’s London life, etc. So for that to be movie!John’s homebase is kinda neat, frankly, esp because of the cases John gets to work on there. The set design is also great – very colorful, very willing to pull in the florescent glare of a modern city, with the Latinx Catholic touches on the streets (look the votive candles and shrines are SUCH an easy go to for ~creepy urban flavor~ and it’s probably at least a little problematic for this film featuring some other really questionable racial choices I will get to later, but) in general it LOOKS great. Their conception of hell is also fascinating and very well executed imo.

I also think there’s ONE (1) thing I think the movie does better than the tv show: the setting is WAY more dug into the working class/legit poverty of LA behind the shiny surface Hollywood stuff. The show really only hit that point in the New Orleans ep and even then….didn’t fully commit to it, but it’s SUCH a key part of the comic universe. Like Chas himself (in the show) is pitch perfect but in the ep about his family they’re LIVING IN A BROOKLYN BROWNSTONE which, real talk, is worth millions of dollars. Literally millions. On a cab driver’s salary???? Ridic. Still mad about it w/e w/e. Baby Bear Chas Kramer with his shitty cab and probably shitty apartment, following John around like a stunned duckling, is way more comics canon accurate, probably.

Rachel Weiz’s character has a lot of potential – they make her Catholic too, to have some sort of connection with John, which is eh, and they also make her a twin, whose sister kills herself at Ravenscar. Given how much John’s early backstory issue are focused around HIM being a twin (whose birth killed both his mother and his (theoretically stronger) brother) that could’ve been a cool thing to allude to, but they don’t touch on it. And Angela (ANOTHER ANGEL THING) is p cool as a character – she’s unconvinced about the ~spooky shit~ stuff until she sees evidence of it, and then believes it, as a normal average human likely would. She’s brave, she asks questions, etc. She’s not just Love Interest tho there’s a bit of that. And anyway I love Rachel Weiz generally, she’s great, could’ve had more to do though.

Tilda Swinton shows up a lot in the gifs and it was a cool choice to cast her as Gabriel – they play up the androgyny and make her less obvious of a dick than comics Gabriel is (though she ends up being…probably more of one, or at least more effective). I think their Lucifer is good too – oily and weird and creepily gentle at times. He also doesn’t get a lot to do, but he doesn’t need to – he doesn’t in the comics, usually, either.

BUT the racial stuff – the supernatural macguffin that’s supposed to bring about the end of the world is found IN A MEXICAN DESERT and then SMUGGLED OVER THE BORDER to LA to bring about the end of the world, like, who wrote this, Donald J. Trump?? – is generally #bad. But this is something it shares with the show (GOD THOSE MEXICO EPS, I LEGIT ALMOST QUIT THE SHOW BC OF IT), tho at least they had an actual Mexican actress to temper that nonsense. NO SUCH LUCK from the movie – just lots of creepy zombish brown people trying to bring around an apocalypse, super cool.

And not only is meh as a metaphor, to impute such a conservative metaphor into a the Hellblazer Verse, with its infamous/classic DEMON YUPPIES FROM HELL and in general tips toward the progressive/pro immigrant ethos, is BAFFLING to me. I mean maybe more in tune with American sentiments about everything, which I have argued above is an interesting choice, but still, boooo.

Also the fact that John quits smoking at the end of the movie is such Hollywood garbage it almost outweighs the positives. I mostly imagine he and Angela date for like a month, he’s such a bitch when going through withdrawal that she dumps his ass, and then he goes back to smoking/sulking around LA doing bad exorcisms. That’s the real John Constantine, babey!!!

#oh god i scrolled up and saw much i wrote this is nonsense #more than you or anyone else should ever know about my feelings about constantine (2005)#constantine #hellblazer #waverly-earp

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sextonsharpwinhalstead · 6 years ago

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Chicago Med Review 4x03 Heavy Is the Head

It looks like Chicago Med is back to following it’s every other episode pattern. Last episode was the crossover, and, in my opinion, it was weaker than the premiere. This episode did NOT disappoint.

On One Chicago Day Brian Tee hinted that this was his favorite episode for Ethan to date and honestly, I can understand why. I wasn’t sure how they were going to play out the gun/dad hostage situation and truthfully, I was worried Med was entering bootleg John Q territory but the climax to that resolution was shocking! Like Med WENT there. They showed that guy blowing his brains out to save his son’s life, because profits matter more than patients (I’ll get back to that a minute). Every step, every decision, Ethan made he had to wonder if he was making the right call, handling things the only way he knows how. And he wasn’t without his critics.

April did not want him to immediately call the police and I can understand why. But he did, and the situation unfolded in a way he didn’t count on. To add insult to injury for whatever reason the writers have decided to make Emily mentally challenged cause some how she has no idea how to work a microwave and burned something which cause Ethan to fly-off the handle and yell at her. A move April caught and judged him on too. (Real quick are these two together? On a break? Or broken up?) I’m confused and so is Ethan. He snapped on her and to be honest, it was a valid assessment of the situation. April clams up when she is angry and frustrated instead of voicing her feelings about why she feels the way she does. But to be fair; that’s the writers’ fault. April has lacked agency since this show began. We don’t really know who she is. We know she’s stubborn, soft hearted, naturally nurturing, and bends over backwards for others but that’s not personality. Not really, it robs her of intellect, so we never get a rebuttal to Choi and we won’t; because they have no idea why April does what April does. Their inconsistencies don’t lend her to be a woman with nuanced thought who understands that every situation does not require the same response. That could be an answer to Choi. But like I said; it won’t.

In the end we got the same tired ass dynamics of her comforting him and us not knowing her motives or feelings about ALSO witnessing someone blow his brains out in front of them. Med do better by your women!

Let’s talk about the women in this episode because this was a heavily feminized episode if you didn’t notice. (Not necessarily executed in respect but women outnumbered the men 2:1).

First let’s start with Sharon and Gwen.

Did anyone else wonder when Stohl’s contract was up? He was gone two episodes later and in a sad new way that Med’s been doing lately his departure wasn’t even announced. In steps Dr. Lanik and out steps all protocol and common decency. I get the Lanik is Gwen’s “man” but when the hell does the COO start making the decisions she was making? The whole situation reeked and in my opinion a hospital would start asking why they needed Sharon’s position at all when nothing was put through her. Gwen is shaping up to be the Robert Haywood shaped hole in my canonical villain life. Cause she’s going to bounce out of this tragedy like it’s any other day and keep her on agenda. Watch. Lanik…I don’t know. He was shook. And to be honest he doesn’t come across nearly villainous enough to continue fostering the current climate in the ED.

Natalie, Elsa, and Daniel.

First things first. I was raised Christian for the first twenty years of my life. I don’t practice the faith anymore but when I did I never met any Christians as disillusioned as the ones Med writes. To be honest it’s ridiculous. There are few modern women, who are trying to have babies, who aren’t privy to what an ectopic pregnancy is. They are always fatal to the baby and almost always fatal to the mother if left untreated. There is no new way to be re-planted into the uterus and thus the pregnancy is not viable. I know Catholics who know and honor this too. So why they felt the need to go all the way there was lazy and took away from what could’ve been an even more impactful and frankly frightening story. Did Elsa misuse the machine, so she could fudge the test results and save the mother’s life? I’m leaning towards probably. Does Daniel have a fucking leg to stand when it comes to being manipulative when trying to control the outcome of situation? Y’all already know the answer to that question. The fact is that she didn’t bow down to the sage knowledge of Daniel Charles when he approached her in the dining hall. He assessed she was an intelligent woman who really didn’t care about patient medicine and already had her future mapped out. What Med still won’t do is allow her to be truly aloof about it. Elsa wouldn’t care if the patient decided to basically die instead of getting the surgery, she would’ve pulled an Okafor, shrugged her shoulders and walked out to find the next case. Natalie was there to play up the narrative of why what Elsa was doing and HOW she was doing it was wrong but, in all honesty, when the fuck has anyone on this show gave the patients the respect of their autonomy? Especially Natalie, but maybe she’s learned from past? If she had than they should have had her mention it (like with the orthorexic mom).

But this isn’t about that; this is about making sure that no woman on Med dares to be the smartest one in the room and it will punish any of them that attempts to own it too. The men on the show play God all the time and aside from Will none of them have gotten the jilting or stern wake-up call to cool it like the women have. Too many of the women’s arcs on this show prove they are either frauds, or indecisive. I don’t think Elsa is either, and it’ll be hard for Dr. Charles to find mistakes she’s made because her personality type is A, and those types don’t make mistakes.

The last woman I’m going to mention is Ava. Oh, how the mighty have been dragged to the ground. Did anyone else catch the way her eyes slightly watered with rage when she talked about advocating for Connor for the hybrid surgery room. Yeah…I’m calling it, she fucked his dad. All so he could kick her out of the OR. This is not what I wanted out of this character and it’s a disservice if they want her to be a fully-fleshed out lead (which they don’t). Ava is a prop for Connor and it’s an unfair and sexist storyline I’m frankly tired of. Also, how is going from an OR scrub nurse to a Charge nurse a demotion? I did appreciate the little Maggie tidbit of history. Maybe that’s how she and Sharon became close. Anyway, this story was secondary only to the growing size of Connor’s ego. Boy I miss season one Connor. This douchebag is the worst.

Finally, was the Halsteads story. I enjoyed it for several reasons; mainly leaving the hospital. I loved all the little Irish bits of history and culture weaved into the memorial. That saying “May you be in heaven a half-hour before the devil knows your dead” still runs a chill down by my spine. But they brought a light-heartedness to it that I appreciated. I personally do not see Will giving up the venue for the wedding and it’ll end up being some messy crossover event that’ll split the Halstead brothers further…only time will tell.

I will say this; the episode was good but I’m not sure who is wearing the crown that holds the weight.

#chicago med #chicago med review #4x03 #heavy is the head

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selfwrittenstars · 7 years ago

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Larry fanfiction masterpost

Some of my favourite long fics that I’ve come across during the many hours that I’ve spent reading (if I’m not mistaken they all are at least 90k words long).🌈💝💛💚💜💙

1) Dress you up in my love.

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6135802/chapters/14060698

Summary: Harry is single, and more than anything wants to find love. Agreeing to sign up to a dating website was a bad, bad idea. Niall’s bad, bad idea. Louis is single, but has no interest in relationships. Or so he tells himself.   Harry is a lawyer whose boss, Nick, happens to give him a bonus, which he decides to splurge on a new work wardrobe. Louis is a frustrated designer, working as a personal shopper at Selfridges. Louis happens to be working on the day a very beautiful, but out of his depth, new customer ambles into their department in need of advice. Louis might have just found the muse he never knew he was looking for.

2) Shake me down

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3331958/chapters/7285322

Summary: Harry’s new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

3) Fading

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/629683/chapters/1138549

Summary: Louis knows about beauty; the combination of qualities that pleases the aesthetic senses. He creates that combination every day in the garments he designs while studying fashion at uni. The cut of the design, the color of the fabric, the intricacy of the stitching; it all comes together to create something beautiful. When the science student with the long legs and dimpled smile agrees to model for him, Louis decides he’s found beauty personified. Harry just thinks Louis needs someone to show him how beautiful he is.

4) And then a bit

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1415272/chapters/2972746

Summary: “We’d like to give the fans what they want.” Magee states, placing his hand on the table in front of him and leaning forward. “We want to give them Larry Stylinson.” Or, take a parallel universe where Louis and Harry were never together, mix in a two year hiatus and an impending comeback, pour in a dash of lost fans, two tablespoons of strong friendship and a Modest! employee with a good idea. Add a squeeze of pretending to be a couple, lots of kisses and a tattoo or two. Stir. Serve: the mother of all publicity stunts. (aka Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.)

5) Young & beautiful

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/838537/chapters/1597776

Summary: Louis, to his horror, attends an elitist university in which the name Zayn Malik means something, Niall Horan doesn’t stop talking, there are pianos everywhere, and Harry Styles, only son of a drug-addled, clinically insane ex-rocker, has a perfect smile and empty eyes.

6) You are in love

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5299295/chapters/12594848?view_adult=true

Summary: The one to cry your eyeballs out. Harry is first with Xander Ritz. Larry go from friends, to something more than friends, to lovers, to something more than friends, to nothing, to lovers again. Uni AU.

7) Nobody shines the way that you do

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3374579/chapters/7381043

Summary: “We might as well just date.”Harry froze in his arms, his body stilled as he slowly lifted his head up at Louis to give him the most confused expression he’d ever worn. Louis literally wanted to fuck him into the next century. “What?” Harry asked. “Are you–.”“No,” Louis said, shaking his head before Harry could go far with that idea and trap Louis into confessing his own feelings. “I mean…like I think I have a plan?”“A plan?” Harry said slowly. “A plan other than me going to Peter’s tomorrow and groveling for hours; maybe even days?”The thought of Harry doing that made Louis’ skin burn, but he schooled his expression well and nodded swiftly. “There will be no groveling. Well, there will be, but not on your end.”orLouis pretends to be Harry’s boyfriend to help him win back his douchebag ex-boyfriend, but things don’t go according to plan.

8) Empty skies

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1261096/chapters/2599474

Summary: For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream – making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He’s still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?Featuring Perrie as Harry’s adorable flatmate, Niall as his manager, and Liam and Zayn as Louis’ bandmates. ESCAPADE

9) In circles of you and me

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12266679

Summary: Louis pulls Harry closer by the belt loops. Harry could feel his breath warm against his neck as he brushes his lips against his skin. “You know… I don’t care if you kiss other people.” Harry smiles as he feels Louis’ stubble scratch against his neck. “I know you don’t, but-”He stifles a moan as Louis bites down gently on the soft surface of his skin. “You can kiss other people too-” Louis pauses to look at him pointedly. “I know I can.”“Well, have you?” Harry asks, his brows furrowed. “What’s it to you?” Louis retorts with a smirk. “You’re the one I’m kissing now.”–Or, Louis and Harry keep running into each other at parties. It doesn’t mean anything, until it does.

10) Relief next to me

Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1117942/chapters/2251923

Summary: AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more.

11) Play the odds

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8948758

Summary: Harry and Louis are best friends since childhood who, after a night of drinking, find themselves locked in a bet: first one to kiss the other a thousand times wins. Wins what? They don’t know. Glory, Harry supposes. Bragging rights, though those don’t do much in this economy. All Harry knows is that this is one bet he can finally win. What he doesn’t expect, though, is what happens when he starts kissing his best friend on a daily basis. Namely, he doesn’t expect falling head over heels in love with his best friend. Now all he has to do is make sure the bet never ends, so he never has to stop kissing Louis.

12) Time bomb

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3641511/chapters/8044863

Summary: “Why exactly are you here?” Louis asked, feigning annoyance and failing pathetically at it. “My publicist told me I can’t go anywhere near you.” Harry said, eyes still smudged with last night’s eye liner. “That makes you my favorite person in the world.” Or the one where Louis has everything: a lead role in a giant Hollywood franchise, a glittering new house with an entertaining Irish neighbor, and a steady, normal boyfriend who he probably loves. Louis never expected to become a household name among young Hollywood overnight. He also never expected to find something endearing about the enigmatic rockstar who keeps showing up on his back porch.

13) Hiding place

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4858376/chapters/11133491

Summary: Louis never wanted a soulmate, didn’t really care for the whole Bonding thing at all, really. Enter Harry Styles, who’s wanted to be Bonded for as long as he could remember. With one fateful meeting in an X Factor bathroom, Louis gets a dagger on his arm and the realization that just because Harry is his soulmate doesn’t mean it’s mutual.From the X Factor house to Madison Square Garden, from the Fountain Studios stage to stadiums across the world, Louis has to learn to love without losing himself completely, because someday his best friend will Bond to someone and replace Louis as the center of his universe. Meanwhile, Harry begins to think that maybe fate doesn’t actually know what it’s doing after all, because his other half has clearly been right in front of him the whole time. All he has to do now is convince Louis to give them a chance. Or, the canon compliant Harry and Louis love story from the very beginning, where the only difference is that the love between them is literally written on their skin, and there’s only so much they can hide.

14) You You You

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846690/chapters/1617212

Summary: “Infamous boybander leaves club together with unknown,” read the headline. Underneath were pictures of a boy with dark curls, green eyes and very tight pants. They both studied the article for a moment, reading it through quickly. “Is that…?” Louis frowned. That guy almost looked exactly like… “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” “Louis,” Niall said, looking absolutely fucked over. “You just fucked the most wanted guy on earth. You just fucked Harry Styles of One Direction."Or, the one where Harry and Louis meet at a club and Louis takes Harry home, only for him to realize that the boy who just made him breakfast half naked is Harry Styles from One Direction.

15) Never Be

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318785/chapters/19050769

Summary: Monica: You’ve got to see her again. Ross: And why do you care so much? Monica: Because! You could get to live out my fantasy! Ross: You had fantasies about Emily? Monica: No! Y’know, the fantasy! Meet someone from a strange land, fall madly in love, and spend the rest of your lives together. The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

16) Unbelievers

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592992/chapters/7924602

Summary: It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

17) Into The Blue

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035822/chapters/2065499

Summary: AU. In which Louis is Harry’s scuba instructor and quite happy to provide the requested special treatment, pun fully intended. It can’t be all that difficult to convince Harry that they’re on the same page, right? Also, Niall and Liam may or may not be dating, and Zayn is surrounded by emotionally stunted idiots. He bears it with dignity.

18) We’re okay

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635292/chapters/1150082

Summary: It’s funny, really, that their lives hadn’t intercepted before that point. That all it took was one little thing that set off a chain reaction of circumstances which led them all to each other. But it was for the best, really, because in the end, with each other, they were all okay.And if you asked them, the whole thing could be blamed on Liam sleeping in, for once in his life.

19) Don’t Look Down

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738944/chapters/1375483

Summary: AU. In which Louis is a solicitor at one of London’s most prestigious law firms and Harry happens to apply for the position as his trainee. And everyone else is around, too.

20) got the sunshine on my shoulders

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10785375/chapters/23922933

Summary: five years ago, harry styles left his tiny home town to make it big as a recording artist. he didn’t have much regard for what he left behind - a life, a family, and a husband, who woke up one morning to find him gone.now, harry has everything he could possibly want: he’s rich, famous, and adored by everyone he meets, including his boyfriend. but when said boyfriend proposes to him, he’s forced to face the uncomfortable facts of his past - and louis, who’s spent the last five years returning every set of divorce papers harry sent him.(or, an au based on the movie sweet home alabama.)

21) Love is a Rebellious Bird

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162438/chapters/2362331

Summary: AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again” according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too. Don’t hum Bolero.

22) Wear it like a crown

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816771/chapters/3900322

Summary: AU. As part of a team of fixers hired to handle a gay scandal in Buckingham Palace, Louis expects Prince Harry to be a lot of things—most notably a royally spoilt brat. Never mind that the very same Prince Harry used to star in quite a number of Louis' teenage fantasies.

23) Lonesome when you go

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11032023/chapters/24588318

Summary: Harry, Louis, Niall, and Liam are surgeons-in-training at the most prestigious program in the United States.More than that, Harry and Louis have a history unknown to the others, a history that involves dogs and God, anatomy lessons, food fights, vinyl jazz records, and one hell of an oyster tour. A story of trust and friendship, of poetry and rock and roll, pink-tinged dawns and the darkest nights. A tale of portraits, tattoos, and everlasting love.

24) You watched me sink

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6896620

Summary: They've discussed it a few times - the boyfriend thing. It's not like it's some forbidden, horrific, abandon hope all ye who talk about furthering the relationship sort of subject. They're mature adults. They're in tune with their feelings, their hearts' desires, the way those butterflies swoop in their bellies whenever they so much as hold each other's hands. They like each other. A lot. It's mutual, they know. But for now, they're just content to enjoy the simplicity of what they have, and what they have is great. When dating in secret stops being enough, then they'll discuss that too. Or, the one where Harry teaches Sex Ed and sneaks around with the drama teacher, and doesn't realize how out of tune he is with his true feelings until everyone else figures it out for him.

25) we’re not friends, we could be anything

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7873252/chapters/17980723

Summary: The next second, Harry is firing back, “If I wanted to kill you I could have just poisoned your fajitas.”Louis rolls his eyes. “Clever boy.”Harry feels his skin start to prickle with irritation. The way Louis talks to him, so condescending... Like he’s smarter than Harry… Fuck that.“I don’t have time for this,” Harry says. “Some of us have schoolwork to do. And jobs to get to. So if you’ll excuse me.”Harry doesn’t wait for a reply before he pushes past Louis, hoisting his bag further up his shoulder and rushing towards the door. No, not rushing. That would imply Louis is chasing him out. He walks to the door hastily.He’s not sure, but he thinks he hears Louis mutter “Fucking wanker” before the door to the flat clicks shut behind him. ...Or, the one where Harry and Louis are unlikely uni flatmates who definitely don't like each other and definitely won't fall in love (even if Liam and Niall think otherwise).

26) Nameless night

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467966/chapters/7611533

Summary: For their 18th birthday, every person receives a letter that reads a simple date. That is the date you'll meet your soulmate. Harry and Louis have different beliefs, live in different worlds and have different dreams, hopes and fears. Yet, they're not so different from each other when it comes to love. When their paths cross, there is no doubt they belong together. Except for that one, essential difference: they didn't receive the same date. Or, a fic about differences that make no difference at all: Harry and Louis are soulmates. In every way possible. Featuring Niall as a role model, and Liam and Zayn as a different kind of role models.

Happy reading!!

#larry stylinson #larry #larry fanfic #larry fic #larry fanfiction #ao3 #masterpost

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lorenfangor · 3 years ago

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I’m going to politely disagree here - I think it’s definitely possible, and the reason why it’s possible is because of California’s climate and demographics at the time. It was significantly more racially diverse than popular culture reflects, and black Americans, Asian immigrants, white settlers, indigenous people, Mexican immigrants, and Mexican-Americans whose families had been here since before it was California all lived together. The social order was nowhere near as strict as it was in other places, and the centralized government you saw on the East Coast just wasn’t there - it was literally the Wild West, after all, and brimming with potential and diversity.

so. if the Animorphs were alive in the 1800s, what would they look like?

(Let’s say just for the sake of convenience that this is taking place in San Francisco in 1896; as per usual a heartfelt thank you to @nikosheba - in this case because she grew up in California and I did not)

Jacob Berenson is the son of Stephen Berenson, a doctor, and Jeanne Berenson (née Fonsèque; her family immigrated from France in the early 1800s), who has written some novels under a pen name and is something of an unwilling socialite. His family is relatively wealthy but not so wealthy they can be the idle rich. He’s attending school, and it’s expected that he’ll follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, probably going to medical school at the University of the Pacific. His older brother Thomas is attending the same school, studying law.

Rachel Berenson is the son of Daniel Berenson, a newspaper editor, and Naomi Berenson, the socialite daughter of a magistrate. (It’s an open secret she used to help him on most of his cases, but her wit and energy are put to use throwing many famed parties.) She is attending an academy for young ladies and is destined for Mills College, per her mother, who wants her to get an education. She’s incredibly popular at school, but has a bit of a cruel and bitter edge and a nasty temper.

Tobias, who doesn’t know his last name, lives with his uncle in a room rented in downtown San Francisco. His uncle is an alcoholic who berates Tobias for being born and being a burden. His mother is in an asylum and has been there ever since she gave birth to him out of wedlock - she was trampled by a horse and as she recovered she insisted she’d seen fantastical creatures like something out of an L. Frank Baum story or a Jules Verne novel. He does odd jobs to bring in money; he’s the main breadwinner. He can read, but only a little; he’s never been to school.

Cassandra Walker is the daughter of Walter Walker, a homesteader and farmer who lives outside of town. His father (I’m calling him George) brought the family out West for the gold rush, made good money selling gear to hopeful prospectors, set up a few general stores, got very rich, sold the stores, and took the money and put it into a farm. Walter was sent back East to the Institute for Colored Youth (America’s first HBCU, now called Cheyney University of Pennsylvania) to study agriculture. He brought home his wife Michelle, the daughter of one of the faculty there; they had Cassie on the farm.

Mark Gallagher, whose mother calls him Marco, is the son of Eva “Eve” Gallagher and Peter Gallagher. Eva is a Mexican girl whose family has lived in California since before it was American, and Peter works for the railroads as an engineer and designer. The two of them attend the same church - Peter is an Irish Catholic who came West to look for work. Mark, like Jake and Rachel, is well off but not incredibly wealthy, shielded from much of the racism aimed at Mexicans by his father’s career and the neighborhood they live in.

Unlike in canon, the five kids don’t really have a common ground of public school to bind them together. I’m going to say that Mark probably knows Jacob because they grew up together, though, so they’re still best friends. Rachel knows Mark because she and Jacob are neighbors, but doesn’t spend much time with the boys beyond what’s socially appropriate. I’m going to say that Tobias does either domestic work of some kind or deliveries to the kitchen of the school that Rachel attends; she’s familiar with him and might even have snuck a few conversations with him if she felt particularly rebellious. Cassandra knows Rachel and Jacob, but not Mark or Tobias - Walter is nicknamed “Doc” for his talent at treating horses, and when one of Stephen Berenson’s carriage horses was lame, Walter was called in to help treat the animal. Cassandra came along, and that’s how she and Jacob met. Rachel knows Cassandra the same way - Walter’s done work for her family, and Cassandra’s a very good vet tech.

I’m going to say that the series starts in basically the same way.

(long post, more below the cut, as always)

Mark and Jacob are in town at a gaming parlor - they’re old enough, even if they’re not old enough for serious drinking and carousing. Jacob is frustrated because since starting this semester of university Thomas has seemed different - he’s joined a society on campus that seems strange, and he’s become secretive and moody. Mark is still grieving the death of his mother, who went out for a swim one night and never returned - it’s nearing two years since her loss, and Jacob intended to try and cheer him up with a few rounds of cards and some music hall songs. They go home, and run into Rachel, Cassandra, and Tobias. Cassandra came to help a horse in a stable where Tobias sometimes sleeps deliver a difficult foal, and Rachel has been sneaking around with this boy her mother would disapprove of.

Jacob and Mark offer to walk Rachel home through an in-progress railroad construction site, Rachel lightly mocks them for assuming she can’t take care of herself, and Tobias offers to help Cassandra carry the bags she brought to help the horse. All five of them are going the same way at first, so all five of them are together when strange lights descend out of the sky and a metal vessel unlike anything they’ve ever seen crashes into unused steel railroad ties. The door opens, Elfangor stumbles out, and the adventure begins.

The biggest challenge isn’t “would all these people realistically exist in the same space and be on speaking terms” - they would, it’s very possible. What’s different is that there are very real barriers that make hanging out difficult. The kids in canon make a point of talking about how they’re not real friends, but that doesn’t really pan out? In #1, they all walk home together like friends, and by #29 they’re goofing off together at a school dance. Here, though, there are genuine social obstacles - Rachel’s expected to be a proper lady, Jacob’s being groomed for college in a couple of years when he’s fifteen and so is Mark, Tobias is a practically homeless orphan, and Cassandra has a community of her own that’s disconnected from the others. They’re going to become friends as they fight this war, in a way that’s much more obvious than in canon.

Jacob and Cassandra are probably still going to fall in love. There were antiracist activists who weren’t black in the 1800s, and abolitionists and civil rights progressives existed in California. They would have to be more subtle about it, and there would be conversations about their own biases (both internalized and otherwise) as well as the risks they’d be taking in going public, but I don’t think it’s impossible at all, and I don’t think it’s a guaranteed fact that Jacob and Rachel and their families would be racists in a way that stopped Cassandra from real friendship and intimacy with them.

The biggest morality change here is that I’m pretty confident Cassandra would acquire a Frolis maneuvered human morph for espionage purposes - a ‘whitesona’, if you will. I could see her and Jacob going on dates like that, but demorphing in a powder room would be significantly more risky. You’d also have the added dynamics of who the Yeerks infested and where and why - Cassie being black and Marco being Mexican would mean they might have an in with social underclasses, to see what’s going on from the POV of the household staff if 1890s Joseph Robert Fenestre shows up, something like that.

Rachel and Tobias are the ones with history here, rather than Jacob and Cassandra - Rachel’s been sneaking around with a hot guy to spite her mother and rebel a little bit, and she knows it’s scandalous and she doesn’t care. Mark is, as always, regrettably single.

there’s also a lot to consider when it comes to the Yeerks’ attempts to invade - there’s not a mass media machine the way there is in the 90s, and the government is not nearly as omnipresent here. They’d probably target industry rather than media and government, as a result - the focus would be on the oil barons and the steel magnates, the Carnegies and DuPonts of the world. I’d say what brings them to San Francisco is the railroads and the chance to build this city in their own image, more than anything else. They could test run the invasion on a small scale.

y'know i see all these different time periods for animorph AUs but here me out: what about an even older era, like say the victorian era? how would things go if it happened in the 1800s?

Hate to say it, but I think 1800s U.S. is too racist for a team like the Animorphs to get off the ground. Anyone who has lived in non-U.S. countries long-term wanna take a stab at this one in their own (hopefully less racist) country?

#animorphs meta #animorphs aus #replies #long post

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hallsp · 6 years ago

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The Case against the Catholic Church

In his recent address to Pope Francis in Dublin Castle, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar stated that:

Magdalene Laundries, mother and baby homes, industrial schools, illegal adoptions, and clerical child abuse, are stains on our state, our society and also the church.

Ultimately, though, it must be viewed primarily as a stain on the church.

The Church in Ireland gradually gained in power after emancipation in 1829, becoming almost omnipotent in its control of social policy after independence in 1922. If not genuinely pious themselves, such was the extent of Church power among the people, politicians were careful to show, at least outwardly, a subservient devotion to the Church.

The old unionist concern that Home Rule meant Rome Rule was not entirely unfounded. Our constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, which was written in 1937, defined the state as explicitly secular, and, quite remarkably, provided recognition to the “Jewish congregations,” then under increasing attack in Europe. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church had inordinate influence on social policy.

This was the case from the foundation of the Free State, and would drive a wedge into the midst of the nation, to paraphrase W. B. Yeats. A 1925 prohibition on divorce prompted Yeats, then a senator in Seanad Éireann, to give an impressive speech:

I think it is tragic that within three years of this country gaining its independence we should be discussing a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly oppressive.

The Church’s teachings on sexual morality, contraception, homosexuality, censorship, and divorce were woven directly into law, and at the urging of the Church.

When the inter-party government came to power in 1948, Taoiseach John A. Costello sent a telegram to Pope Pius XII:

On the occasion of our assumption of office, and of the first Cabinet meeting, my colleagues and myself desire to repose at the feet of Your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and our devotion to your August Person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ, and to strive for the attainment of social order in Ireland based on Christian principles.

He was obstinate on this issue. In 1949, for example, Costello and all the Catholic members of government, except Dr. Noel Browne, remained outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin during the funeral of President Douglas Hyde. Catholics at this time were not permitted to enter Protestant houses of worship.

In the 1950s, when the government attempted to introduce a basic form of “socialised” medicine for mothers and their children up to sixteen years, the “controversial” Mother and Child Scheme, it led directly to the collapse of government. The Catholic Church viewed the scheme as contrary to Catholic social teaching. The lesson here was that, even when the state did try to wrestle back some control over social services, it was going to be blocked.

In the wake of this scandal, which witnessed overt interference from the Catholic Church in the affairs of a supposedly secular state, and following the resignation of the courageous Dr. Noel Browne, then Minister of Health, Taoiseach John A. Costello was bold enough to state:

I am an Irishman second, I am Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong.

This is quite shocking now, but perfectly in keeping with being a Catholic at this period of time.

Indeed, Martin Luther King Sr., a Baptist pastor and the father of the great civil rights leader, could not bring himself to support John F. Kennedy in the presidential race of 1960 solely because he was a Catholic.

Kennedy eventually settled this matter once and for all in a brilliant speech to an antagonistic audience, all members of the Protestant Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He gave, in essence, a complete repudiation of the position taken by John A. Costello.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

He continued:

I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views -- in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

This attitude was quite contrary to Catholic teaching, however. Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J., probably America’s foremost Catholic political thinker wrote: “To make religion merely a private matter was idiocy.”

Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, which had been published in 1869, officially rejected the concept of church and state separation, condemned modern liberal civilization, and the idea that human reason ought to be applied in searching for the truths of religion.

The attitude of the Church to lay people, including government leaders, is best understood by reference to Vehementer Nos, the 1906 encyclical response of Pope Pius X to the declaration of separation of church and state in France:

The Scripture teaches us, and the tradition of the Fathers confirms the teaching, that the Church is the mystical body of Christ, ruled by the Pastors and Doctors - a society of men containing within its own fold chiefs who have full and perfect powers for ruling, teaching and judging. It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of persons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.

Like a docile flock, follow the Pastors! Roma locuta est, causa finita est. That is what was demanded of a faithful Catholic.

Remember also that it was because of disobedience that sin entered into the world in the first place, and the whole edifice of Catholic teaching rests on the coming of the Son of God to atone for that original sin.

Children ought to be obedient to their parents, wives to their husbands (”Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord”). Lay people ought to be obedient to Church, priests to Bishops, and all looking to Rome. What mattered was obedience. Obedience to authority. Obedience to Church hierarchy. Obedience, obedience, obedience.

Who, ultimately, then, was to blame for the guilt associated with human sexuality, and the stigma of sex outside of marriage? Who was it that deemed birth control anathema? Indeed, who was to blame for unmarried mothers being put into homes? Who was to blame for forced adoptions, immoral and often illegal, to good Catholic homes in the US? Who was to blame for Magdalene Laundries? Who was to blame for scandalous attitudes towards divorce? Who was to blame for the institutional cover-up, if not the perpetration, of child rape and torture?

I ask you: where did Irish people source their moral framework if not entirely from Holy Mother Church? It’s only now, when we’ve thrown off the yoke of Catholic morality, that we can truly see the error of our ways.

Certainly, the people and the state share in some portion of the blame, but the lion’s share ought to go to the Catholic Church, its social teachings, its doctrines, and its demand for unquestioning obedience.

Lastly, and this is an important point, when it came time to acknowledge all of these faults, the state did so. It set up multiple commissions of investigation. It established redress schemes. It passed laws, including mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.

The Church, and other religious institutions, on the other hand, refuse to fully come to terms with what has happened, have hindered investigations, have sought indemnity from prosecution, have negotiated reduced compensation deals which have yet to be paid in full, and have not yet implemented changes to canon law to protect children’s safety worldwide.

Yes, the Catholic Church has much to answer for in this mess.

#catholic #church #abuse #scandal #adoption #mother #baby #ireland

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end-o-the-line · 7 years ago

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A Captain America: the First Avenger Timeline for Fic Writers

(I’m so sorry I erased the original post I’M SO SORRY! You can read this without the visual aids on AO3.)

March 10, 1917 - James Buchanan Barnes is born, and we were all officially fucked.

July 4, 1918 - Steven Grant Rogers is born, and somewhere in Brooklyn Bucky's mother wept . . .

June, 1924 - Steve's mother is bedridden from illness associated with Tuberculosis.

September, 1930 - 12-year old Steve and 13-year old Bucky meet for the first time in Hell's Kitchen, where Bucky scares off bullies trying to steal Steve's money. What were they doing in Hell's Kitchen? No one knows. Steve tells Bucky he's been living in the orphanage 'on 8th' since his mother's death. Which is odd since Bucky was apparently at her funeral when they're both legal adults in a flashback scene from the Winter Soldier. For the purpose of this timeline, info from the movies will take precedent over info from the various tie-ins. Meaning Sarah Rogers is basically Schrödinger's Ma for the next 6 years.

1936 - Shrodinger's Ma finally actually dies fo sho of Tuberculosis. Bucky breaks everyone and their mother's heart with his 'til the end of the line' line. (Also, per MCU canon, Bucky's 'folks' are still alive . . . and own a car.)

February ish, 1940 - Colonel Phillips first approaches Howard Stark, in Los Angeles, about working for the SSR. (Stark Industries was formed in 1939, and 'a year later' Howard is at a nightclub in West Hollywood called Ciro's, demonstrating the properties of Vibranium. Ciro's opened in January of 1940. So keeping in line with the MCU canon and with real world history, as you do, January 1940 is the absolute earliest that Howard could have been recruited.) They're pursued and Stark deploys rockets from the ass-end of his car to escape them because Howard Stark.

Agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter, aka Agent 13 is already in deep cover working for Schmidt as a maid in his personal mansion.

November, 1940 - Peggy rescues Dr. Erskine from Schmidt's mansion two days after Johann Schmidt forces him to inject the experimental serum, proving that we all could have saved a lot of time if Peggy had done that three fucking days earlier, Jesus.

May 25, 1941 - Steve goes to the Dodgers-Phillies game at Ebbets Field. Was Bucky with him? We don't fucking know. It was a Sunday, so maybe. It’s not like Steve knew other people . . .

December 7, 1941 - Steve and Bucky are in an art class - like . . . how can anyone write these two as dirt poor when they're fucking around on their Sundays at baseball games and art classes? By this point the economy was booming as the work force was being drafted left and right, these two would not have been in need of jobs. And two Irish-Catholics (honestly, Bucky is probably Scottish, lbr) skipping church? tsk tsk - when the class is informed by a runner that Pearl Harbor has been attacked.

Okay real talk here, for a second. The draft officially started in 1940, pulling men 21 years of age and older. In 1940, Bucky was 23. He was single, no kids. He absolutely could not have given conscientious objector status as a way to avoid it because if he had, when he was drafted later on he never would have seen combat. He should have been drafted in '40 or '41. The only reasons he wouldn't have been was if he was a student, or if both his parents and/or his siblings were considered his dependents. Since some sources say both Bucky and Steve were orphans, then it is entirely plausible that both Bucky's parents died close to the time Bucky turned 19 or 20, in which case he could have become the legal guardian of his younger siblings.

PS: Bucky is not an orphan in the MCU (nor is he poor in that suit, jfc):

So either Bucky was working like a damn dog supporting his family, in which case the fuck are you doing in an art class, kiddo? Or he was actually a student at a college or university.

.....he could also have, during the years the US was gearing up in case they were forced into the conflict, held a job that was considered vital to the coming war effort. This sort of deferment was limited to jobs in war production, and jobs that involved national 'health, safety, or interest'. Literally the only job I can think of without actually like . . . researching it, that Bucky could have been in where he would have been skipped the first few times but taken in '42, is if he had been a police officer. That would fit very well with his ability with a gun, plus explain why he made sergeant so fucking fast, with prior training other inductees would not have had.

Considering what a golden child Bucky was in Brooklyn, all three of those scenarios would be a perfectly valid reason for Bucky to have avoided the first several waves of conscription. Just thought that was interesting.

Anyway! Steve wants to enlist right away, so Bucky (a three-time YMCA welterweight boxing champion, suck it) trains him for two whole weeks because Bucky is apparently of the opinion that Steve is an idiot who won't get in anyway so why fucking bother going hard.

*at the time, under the regulations of the New York State Athletic Commission, welterweight was a weight class of 147 to >160 pounds. Meaning post-war Bucky gained about 40 pounds of pure muscle after getting the serum....dude.

December 24, 1941 - Bucky is right and Steve's first attempt to enlist fails so hard. Go to Midnight Mass, Steven.

March, 1942 - Red Skull fucks shit up in Tønsberg, Norway and finds the Tesseract.

September 21, 1942 - Bucky receives his draft card, and takes it to an intake facility and enlists in the US Army. The following dates are literally nowhere in canon, but I have research to back up what is essentially pure speculation on my part. His serial number is 32557038. There is a real world counterpart who actually had this particular serial number, and he was enlisted on this date. So, in order for Bucky to have gotten to the number before this guy, Bucky probably woke up early Monday morning to get shit done.

Desperate Historian's Note: I always assumed that since he was a Sergeant when he first shipped out, Bucky had been in service for at least a year and a half, which is still pushing it within the constraints of the timeline. Most NCO's at the start of US involvement in the War, Corporals and Sergeants, already had years of Army service under their belts. But no. 9 months. So. Bucky basically kicked ass and took names to become a Sergeant in 9 months of non-combat training (which took place at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin btw). That, or every NCO in his regiment came down with a sudden case of the Deads and he got promoted.....Bucky would have needed a special recommendation from the company commander - TWICE in 9 months - to reach that rank. Jesus. It is canon fact that Bucky was indeed an absolutely phenomenal soldier (and leader) . . .

He would have been sent to basic training and been gone for ten weeks, meaning it would have been over by the 1st of December, 1942, or thereabouts.

December 1, 1942 - Give or take a week or two, maybe, depending on how quickly he was whisked away after enlistment, Bucky would have been given a week's furlough after training at Camp McCoy ended.

December 8, 1942 - Since he is a designated marksman (not a sniper, the US Army didn't have those in WWII. A designated marksman was just a guy in a regiment who was an excellent shot and stuck with their regiment at all times and was used situationally, never went off alone to shoot people in the head and stuff), he absolutely would not have been sent to any sort of sniper training because, again, the US did not have those in WWII. He wouldn't have stayed in NYC, though.

He would have been on an Army base somewhere, with the occasional week-long furlough to return home. There were 114 mobilization camps by 1942, and only three of those in New York state; Madison Barracks, Camp Upton, and Pine Camp, with three more in New Jersey; Fort Dix, Fort Monmouth, and Camp Shanks. 17 were in California, 14 in Texas. Anyway. So, before Bucky leaves for war, he and Steve wouldn't have seen a whole lot of each other for the year before that, either.

June 7, 1943 - Bucky probably arrives in NYC on a final week's furlough before being sent to War. With the way Steve looks at him when he sees the uniform later on, and Bucky's cocky little head tilt, it's probably safe to say Bucky received his sergeant's chevrons not long before this furlough. (Honestly . . . I have never understood this part. Bucky damn well knew he was 107th from the moment he reported, and Steve should have as well. Also, ‘getting his orders’ had nothing to do with his uniform, soldiers were required to wear that shit everywhere they went. Unless Steve knew he’d gotten his orders simply because he was there and shouldn’t have been....whatever, movie exposition, blah blah)

June 14, 1943 - Steve's fifth attempt to enlist fails spectacularly because he had to claim to be from New Jersey. He then goes to get the shit kicked out of him in an alley behind a movie theater, that's what you get for saying you're from Jersey, Steven. He and Bucky attend the Stark Expo that evening, where Steve ghosts like an asshole - even though for all he knows this is literally the last time he will ever see Bucky alive!! - and is chosen by Dr. Erskine as a candidate for Project: Rebirth.

June 15, 1943 - Bucky and the 107th ship out for 'England'. Now, the troop transport Queen Mary left NYC on June 1, 1943, heading for Gourock, Scotland and carrying the 1077th Signal Company Service Group. It took 5 days; they arrived on June 6, 1943. On July 16, 1943, the Edmund B. Alexander carried 5,000 replacement troops to Liverpool, England. That journey took ten days; they made land on July 26, 1943. Maybe. The records are full of literal question marks, so I dunno. That's the closest thing I can find to Bucky's stated journey. Most of the troops leaving from NYC at this period were actually heading for Africa, landing in Casablanca, Morocco.

I know Bucky says he's shipping out for England in the morning, but it makes so much more sense that the 107th would have been sent to Africa and then swept up into Italy in the next four months of fighting, where Steve finds them later. It would be easy to deal with this by either saying Bucky's an idiot, or (my recommendation) that Bucky knew exactly where he was heading and he just wasn't telling Steve that he was being sent into the heart of the brutal African and Italian campaigns rather than a nice balmy Liverpool in the summer. The journey from NYC to Casablanca, Morocco would have been anywhere from 11-15 days.

June 20-25, 1943 - Bucky would have hit Liverpool, England right around this time, if that's the way he was sent.

June 25-30, 1943 - Bucky would have docked in Casablanca, Morocco, if this is the way it went instead. So I guess you could safely say he made landfall in the European Theater on June 25, 1943? Haha right in time for Mussolini to get his ass arrested and the Italian Fascist government to fall.

June 22, 1943 - Steve is injected with the super-soldier serum, right Steven? (Meaning he only had a week of basic training, at most, and everything else he knows about being a soldier he taught himself with all those books he brought to Camp Lehigh with him.)

September, 1943 - Ugh, okay, history nerds cover your ears, because there is just no way to make the real invasion of Italy match up with the MCU invasion of Italy. Unless the 107th just said fuck those guys and marched right into German territory past the . . . bombs and stuff. On September 9, there were Allied landings at Salerno and Taranto, Italy, and they didn’t enter Naples until October 1. I mean, is it really all that shocking that they got their asses kicked in Azzano? NO. But having a fucking USO show that deep into Italy means the MCU said fuck it, so you too can say fuck it when it comes to the real WW2 timeline in Italy, idfc. This is apparently what the MCU lines looked like at this point in time, and let me just tell you, see that bulge there, right under the Hydra flag? Those fuckers would have been surrounded and cut off so fast, so fast, just like in Bastogne. Assholes....anyway.

October, 1943 - The Battle of Azzano results in Hydra declaring war on anything that moves, including Nazis, and takes prisoners from various different regiments that historically were either still in training or in the Pacific Theater at this point, but that's fine. Prisoners are taken over 120 km away to a Hydra weapons factory in Kreischberg, Austria, where their Hydra captors separate the men into cages according to their nationality and other factors. The purpose of this is for the bickering hodgepodge of Allied soldiers to keep each other busy with in-fighting so the Hydra guards can forget to train and get beat up by Captain America in a month or so.

Dum Dum Dugan almost immediately makes a joke while Cage Team Howling Commando is introducing themselves, and a brawl breaks out. As you do.

In Bucky's cage are the following:

Jacques "Frenchie" Dernier, French Resistance, born January 2, 1911 (32). The fuck was your French ass doing in northwestern Italy, son? To my knowledge the French Resistance kind of worked mainly . . . in France. The Italian Resistance was very active in this period, so they could have been collaborating, but that's not what the Resistance did, mostly. So the only logical conclusion we can come to with Frenchie is that he was captured somewhere in France by Hydra and transported to the factory as labor. He lived in Marseilles before the War, and likely would have stayed close to it.

Major James Montgomery "Monty" Falsworth, born January 2, 1914 (29), of the British 3rd Independent Parachute Brigade, which historically first saw action in June of 1944, ha. Anyway, Monty was from Birmingham, England and was known in the comics as Union Jack, and the pin on his beret is a nod to that. Teeeechnically? Monty outranks Steve, but since they're not even part of the same Army, that's kind of a moot point. He winds up with the rank of Brigadier, which wtf, that means he outranked Colonel Phillips when the war ended . . . four for you, Monty.

Private Gabe Jones, born August 14, 1918 (25), was 92nd Infantry Division, a segregated unit that historically first saw action in September of 1944, haha. Gabe was from Macon, Georgia and was fluent in French and German thanks to pre-war studies at Howard University. Just as proficient in hand-to-hand as the others, he was often part of the team’s frontal assaults, as well as handling the radios . . . and he boned Peggy Carter in the comics.

Corporal Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan, born April 11, 1912 (31), was a member of the 69th Infantry Regiment, which is also known as the 165th or Fighting Irish, recruited solely from NYC, who were making landfall in the Pacific right about now. Frustrated historian's note: Had he been a real boy, Bucky Barnes would have been enlisted into the 69th Infantry as well, just like Dugan. Canon-wise it makes sense that Bucky and Dugan were from the same unit, even though canon thinks they weren't because canon made up the WWII-era 107th? Anyway, the fact that both Dugan and Bucky were in the same foxhole when the Hydra tank hits in the cut scene from First Avenger is all fucked up because you don't put your NCOs where they can be blown up together, okay. It's bad strategy. Add to that the fact that Dugan calls him Bucky like they've been buddies for a while, but the tie-in comic is still on 'Jimmy' and also states that Dugan and Barnes were in the same company after all, that cut scene is frustrating. Or I guess the comic is frustrating? Something's frustrating, anyway. I think the best way to deal with this is just to say that the 107th IS the Fighting Irish regiment because fuck it. Dugan will eventually take over leading the team when Steve goes splat, leading the Howling Commandos and being involved with SHIELD, and Nick Fury personally, well into the Cold War.

Private Jim Morita, born October 20, 1919 (24) - also, Happy Birthday here's a Hydra weapon NOW ASSEMBLE IT - wasn't in the same cage as the others, but he served in the US Army's Nisei Squadron as a Ranger, aka the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Their real fight in the European Theater began in June of 1944, so who the fuck knows how his ass wound up in Austria. And since the whole unit was made up of men of Japanese descent, it's safe to assume there's a 50/50 chance Morita was given the choice back in Fresno between enlisting and an internment camp. A lot of fics write Morita as the team medic, but I'm not entirely sure why. In WWII, medics held a rank of Private, Private First Class, or Technical Sergeant. So, the medic would either have needed to be Morita or Gabe Jones in keeping with this. But there is literally no canon mention of him being any better at triage than any of the others, and he is definitely not a medic by trade. None of them are. The more likely scenario here, because none of them wear the insignia of a combat medic, is that all of the team were equally trained and capable at the most basic of field triage, but the team itself probably flew without a safety net and used the medics from whatever regiment they were shadowing at the time.

Sergeant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (26) - who you will notice is literally the fourth James in a team of 7 men - contracted what can only be assumed to be walking pneumonia on the battlefield of Azzano, and as his condition gets progressively worse in captivity, hastened by the hard labor of the weapons facility, he eventually becomes so weak that he drops several components in front of the officer in charge of the Facility, identified only as Colonel Lohmer. Lohmer beats Bucky like a rented mule, and when he's deposited back in his cage, the other four realize that if he's made to work again the next day, he'll die. They devise a plan to kill Lohmer, which would put one of the kinder Nazi assholes in charge who would allow Bucky to remain in the cages until he was able to recover. Their plan works, crushing Lohmer under a ton of machinery and symbolism and signifying the first time the soon-to-be Howling Commandos had worked together successfully. The soldiers return everyone to their cages after the accident to keep order, and Dugan tells Bucky that he's safe from Lohmer now, with the only punishment being a reduction of the POWs food rations for a week since there was no one specific to punish. Bucky is an ungrateful dick and not only asks Dugan to stop calling him "Jimmy", but graces him with the nickname Dum Dum in the process. Bucky is saved from dying on the manufacturing floor only to be singled out by Arnim Zola and taken to the 'examination rooms'. And we all know what happens there.

August to Early November, 1943 - Steve Rogers sings and dances his way through over 200 shows and makes several badly conceived films while his best friend is slogging his way through Italy.

November 3, 1943 - Steve disappears behind enemy lines to go find his Bucky.

November 8, 1943 - The Man With A Plan dramatically re-enters the Allied base camp where Colonel Phillips is fixin' to tear Peggy Carter a new one for losing Captain America over enemy territory. If the Battle of Azzano happened on a goddamn Earth map at the real Azzano in the Province of Udine, and assuming the Allied camp was somewhat close to that area, the march from the factory back to the Allied base camp would have been well over 120 kilometers as the crow flies. Those prisoners were metal af.

I'm getting that date from the assumption that walking over 120 km back to (supposedly because in reality they'd have needed to walk to goddamn Naples) Allied territory with 400 sick and wounded men would take a few fucking days. An American unit in Sicily in WWII (30th Infantry Division) marched 54 miles in 33 hours across country. But it's safe to assume that the company Steve rescues from Kreischberg would not be moving at top speed, but rather a steady pace that would keep them moving, but not fucking kill them.

The closest thing I can get to this incident is in July of 1944, when the German armies began a forced march of POWs across Germany to delay their liberation by the approaching Red Armies. Groups of 250 to 300 men marched over bombed out roads in a meandering route because they were forced to skirt around various battles, kind of like what our POWs would have to do in enemy territory. The groups would march between 20 to 40 kilometers a day, with very little food, clothing, shelter or medical care to speak of. Using 30 km/day as our benchmark, that's at least 4 days that it would have taken to get back to the Allied encampment. If the Hydra factory went boom on the night of November 3rd, and Steve flounced into camp in daylight, November 8th is a very safe bet.

November 15, 1943 - Steve pinpoints the Hydra facilities on the map in the SSR bunker in London (which was located in the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall) and is given permission to form his own elite special ops unit. Sidenote, the Howling Commandos were never called the Howling Commandos until after the War ended, they were merely called the 107th Tactical Team. Another nickname bandied about in 'non-canon because it contradicts the movie ahahahahahah' was The Invaders, which is probably what other soldiers would have known them as when encountering them. Neither Steve nor Bucky would know what the fuck a Howling Commando even is until they read up on history, and even then neither of them would likely ever think of himself as a Howling Commando.

Now, in trying to find this date, my inner frustrated historian has begun to weep, because I just cannot find a base in Italy that makes sense for any of these damn movements to have been based out of. The Allies hadn't even gotten through the Gustav Line at this point, which ran across the boot and through the town of Cassino, south of Rome. For them to be in Northern Italy close to the Austrian border, dude. WTF were they doing there? And how did they get in and out?? I mean was anyone really surprised when their straying asses got pounded by enemy forces deep in enemy territory??

I have no idea how to judge how long it would have taken for the future Commandos to get to London and drink in a pub because there is literally no rational logic to pinpoint their starting location, and therefore no way to guess what modes of transport were even available to them so close to enemy territory. The easiest way to find this date would have been to find out what date Captain America was awarded his Medal of Honor, but . . . even I'm not that good, apparently, 'cause I can't dig up shit. The Medal of Honor ceremony that happens at the same time as this scene would have been at least a week and probably more from the action on the night of November 3rd simply because it took that long for the paperwork to travel back to Washington. It was usually months before soldiers received their Purple Hearts, for instance. But let's assume this was fast-tracked because it's Captain goddamn America. Let's also assume they didn't have Howard Stark fly them back to London in his plane and tell the other 400 POWs to go make like a leaf and fuck a tree or something.

So the trip back to London probably took at least 7-10 days. We also need enough time to have passed that they expected Steve to get from the front lines all the way back to DC for the ceremony. My first instinct is to say up to a month could have passed when this scene comes around, but a month just seems way too long when looking at the context of the scenes, from the celebratory pub crawl of the POWs to the fact that Steve is being debriefed here, which would have been literally the first concern of an agency whose job is gathering intelligence.

TL:DR version, this could be anywhere from a week to a month later, idfk.

It's safe to assume this is also the night of the pub when Bucky reveals how heterosexual he is not by asking if Steve is going to keep his stage suit for no apparent good reason.

Mostly I'm putting this date here because it is the day the Allied Expeditionary Force for the invasion of Europe is officially formed. Having the SSR gearing up for - or as a result of - that meeting seems to make a lot of sense.

November 15, 1943 to March 4, 1945 - Steve and the Invaders, often along with other military forces, plow through HYDRA factories like an enraged ex with a John Deere tractor and a bottle of Jim Beam, and also join the larger battle against the Axis Powers on the Western Front. Essentially this period is Band of Broooos: Howling Commandos Edition. This period is where you can really have your fic fun, because canon doesn't tell us fuck all about it.

Well . . . that’s not necessarily true, though. Through the (paltry imo) Howling Commando montage of the movie, we see at least 10 distinct missions, and in clips from TWS there are hints of a few more; as many as 15 total. There are 6 Hydra facilities on the board, labeled 1-6. #4 was never taken during Steve’s time. But we can assume at least 5 of their missions were blowing the rest up. One was ‘in Poland, near the Baltic’, the other was ‘30-40 miles west of the Maginot Line’, thanks Steve. That doesn’t give us shit, son. But I will try.

1. A Hydra facility raid, #2. This is the one 30-40 miles west of the Maginot Line, labeled #2 on the map. West, in fact, of Liechtenstein, and southeast of Innsbruck, in a town that begins with RES. I think this is Resia, Italy, and the Reschen Pass (Resia Pass in WW2), which would make sense, tactically. I’d like to point out that they show Bucky entering with the team, show the team running out, show Steve riding out on his motorcycle, and then the place blows up. No Bucky. Take better care of your marksman, boys . . .

2. An approach with additional military forces through a forest, in the snow. Look at those BAMF motherfuckers. I got no clue what this mission could be, though. This has the feeling of a patrol, rather than a directed attack on anything. Bucky doesn’t even have his rifle.

3. A direct attack through a forest of exploding trees . . . no snow. This is probably a frontal attack intended to push at the enemy lines. With mortars like that coming at them as they advance, there’s no way whoever they were facing wasn’t dug in on a forward line.

4. This is most likely a harassment mission. They’re shown disturbing the lines of supplies to somewhere, and taking care to be covert, which is . . . not usually how Steve rolls, lbr.

5. Another Hydra base raid, Base #5. This is shown through only film, with Steve planning an approach to somewhere and a whole shitload of troops mobilizing with them. From where they are, he’s pointing south. God help me. Looking at the map he’s pointing to, the best guess I have based on the coastline is that it shows the northern bits of Belgium, and he’s pointing toward Hydra base #5, which is somewhere in the northeast corner of France, right below the border of Luxembourg.

6. Seek and destroy mission. This was another battle, not a base. Despite the fact that they’re in rubble, but then . . . most of Europe was rubble at this point, lbr. Peggy pulls a ‘Hydra battle lines’ flag from the map after this mission, so this was about pushing the forward line back. And we know this was the Hydra line, not the Nazi line. The scene we see was likely after the battle itself was over, when the search for the wounded and intel begins; that’s when enemy snipers made their last stand, like the one seen stalking Steve’s oblivious star-spangled ass. Bucky almost kills Steve for saluting at him and giving away his carefully chosen position.

7. A pitched battle in a town, somewhere. Steve is seen kicking ass and stuff.

8. Cool guys don’t look at explosions . . . The only reason I am separating these three clips is because the middle one is obviously in a forest, where the other two are in towns. We’ll call them three separate skirmishes. I would imagine all three of these are about pushing back that forward line.

9. The mega huge tank in the middle of town. I can see the team being sent out just to take care of this thing. Historian sidenote; the Nazis did indeed cook up some monster tanks. Hitler had a size kink. The Tiger II, or as the American GIs called it, the King Tiger, was . . . I mean, you were fucked if one of these rolled up into your path. They were damn near indestructible and they carried a big fucking stick. The problem with a heavy tank is that a Europe that has been bombed back to Creation for several years is a muddy Europe . . . if that Hydra tank wasn’t stuck in 5 feet of mud it was made of aluminum or something.

10. A last Hydra base raid, Base #?. This is shown only through the resulting smoking husk of a destroyed base and Red Skull being a diva. I don’t know which one this was, other than knowing it had to be #1, or #6. I hate to tell Steve, but I’m not sure any of the flags on this map are in Poland near the Baltic Sea, my dude. It would have to be #6 that he was talking about, though. #1 is just northeast of Lübben, Germany, in what appears to now be Briesensee nature preserve.

The only other hints we get at their missions are the clips of footage from TWS.

11. Hydra Facility #3. #3 is in the south of fucking Greece, near the northwestern tip of the body of water called Maliakos Kopos. There’s a marina in that area, Agia Marina, that would make a very convenient Hydra facility if I do say so myself. Now, this looks like a water landing! And it’s not an ocean landing, so that marina at facility #3 might be the ticket.

12. I’m going to call this a Hydra Facility Raid. Look at him go. There he go. Again, this is either #1, or #6. idfk anymore.

13. Prisoners. Cap is seen escorting surrendered German soldiers, It’s notable that they’re not Hydra, so that would be one of the ‘regular’ missions they ran with other troops. It could be part of any of the above missions, though.

14. Clearing out a town left by retreat. Those soldiers are not particularly the kind of alert that possible enemy combatants in the weeds will make you, so that town has probably been cleared.

15. Troop Transport/Advancement. This is notable because it’s a bridge, and not a little stone bridge, either, it’s a big one. In fact, this is the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine. (You can learn more about the capture of this bridge by looking up the Battle of Remagen.) Bridges were kind of a big deal at this stage when the German army was pulling out all the stops trying to prevent the Allied advance. Bridges large enough to convey heavy artillery got blown up but quick. This bridge in particular was front page news when it was captured by the Allies. Unfortunately, we can’t place Steve and his team at the Battle of Remagen, or at the Ludendorff Bridge, because this happened just days after Steve nosedived into the Arctic. So. We’ll call it an MCU bridge! This was either coming back from the front and they were deeper in Allied territory, or more likely after a battle, but on the way to the new front lines, as established by the winning of the goddamn bridge. Doubt this was a Hydra mission, either.

All in all, Bucky and Steve have 16 months of battle side-by-side. Bucky would have had 20 months total of combat service in the War.

I'm going to list some real events from the War during this time that the team might have been involved with or nearby for that could fill in some of those non-Hydra missions above, and some things they would definitely have at least talked about. You can skip these if you like, just scroll down to the next bolded bit. I am copying and pasting these because I can:

December 2, 1943: The Germans conduct a highly successful Air Raid on Bari, Italy. One of the German bombs hits an Allied cargo ship carrying mustard gas, releasing the chemical which killed 83 Allied soldiers. Over 1000 other soldiers died in the raid.

January 17, 1944: The first Battle of Monte Cassino begins when the British X Corps attacks along the Garigliano river at the western end of the German Gustav Line.

January 20, 1944: The U.S. Army 36th Infantry Division, in Italy, attempts to cross the Gari River but suffers heavy losses.

January 22, 1944: Allies begin Operation Shingle, the landing at Anzio, Italy. The Allies hope to break the stalemate in south Italy, but they are unable to break out of the beachhead and the line holds until late May.

February 15, 1944: The second Battle of Monte Cassino begins with the destruction of the historic Benedictine monastery on Monte Cassino by Allied bombing. The Allies believed the grounds were used as an observation post by the Germans

February 16, 1944: Germans launch a major counter-attack at Anzio, threatening the American beachhead.

March 15, 1944: The third Battle of Monte Cassino begins. The small town of Cassino is destroyed by Allied bombers.

April 27, 1944: The Slapton Sands tragedy: American soldiers are killed in a training exercise in preparation for D-Day at Slapton in Devon.

May 8, 1944: D-Day for Operation Overlord set for June 5.

May 11, 1944: The fourth battle of Monte Cassino begins led by general Anders of the 2nd Polish Corps.

May 18, 1944: The Battle of Monte Cassino ends in Allied victory. Polish troops of the 2nd Polish Corps led by general Władysław Anders capture Monte Cassino. German troops in west Italy have withdrawn to the Hitler Line.

June 4, 1944: Allies enter Rome, one day after the Germans declared it an open city. German troops fall back to the Trasimene Line. Meanwhile, Operation Overlord is postponed 24 hours due to high seas.

June 5, 1944: Operation Overlord commences when more than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day. And the first Allied troops land in Normandy; paratroopers are scattered from Caen southward.

June 6, 1944: D-Day begins with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The Allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

June 10, 1944: At Oradour-sur-Glane (a town near Limoges), France, 642 men, women, and children are killed in a German response to local Resistance activities.

June 13, 1944: Germany launches a V1 Flying Bomb attack on England, in retaliation for the invasion. The V-1 attacks will continue through June.

July 3, 1944: The Allies find themselves in the "battle of the hedgerows", as they are stymied by the agricultural hedges in Western France which intelligence had not properly evaluated.

July 24, 1944: Operation Cobra is now in full swing: the breakout at St. Lo in Normandy with American troops taking Coutances.

August 15, 1944: Operation Dragoon begins, marked by amphibious Allied landings in southern France. Elsewhere, the Allies reach the "Gothic Line", the last German strategic position in North Italy.

August 19, 1944: The French Resistance begins an uprising in Paris, partly inspired by the Allied approach to the Seine River.

August 25, 1944: Paris is liberated. The German military disobeys Hitler's orders to burn the city.

September 2, 1944: Allied troops enter Belgium.

September 6, 1944: The "blackout" is diminished to a "dim-out" as threat of invasion and further bombing seems an unlikely possibility.

September 9, 1944: The first V-2 rocket lands on London.

September 17, 1944: Operation Market Garden, the attempted liberation of Arnhem and turning of the German flank begins.

October 18, 1944: Hitler orders a call-up of all men from 16 to 60 for Home Guard duties.

November 1, 1944: "Operation Infatuate", an Allied attempt to free the approaches to Antwerp begins; amphibious landings take place on Walcheren Island. It would become a major supply port for the Allies by the end of the month.

November 20, 1944: Hitler leaves his wartime headquarters at Rastenberg, East Prussia, never to return; he goes to Berlin, where he will soon establish himself at the bunker.

December 16, 1944: The Battle of the Bulge begins as German forces attempt a breakthrough in the Ardennes region. The main object of Hitler's plan is the retaking of Antwerp.

January, 1945 - The only mission the MCU gives real details about comes from the Smithsonian Exhibit's interview with Peggy Carter (which you can watch in its entirety btw). The 'difficult winter, 1945' has to be January, and they were outside Stalingrad, Russia. During - or possibly in the aftermath of - a blizzard, Steve (and presumably the Commandos but fuck those guys amirite Agent Carter?) fight their way through a Hydra blockade that had been there 'for months', and saved half a battalion, over 1,000 men, who'd been penned down behind German lines. That's literally all we've got for mission details, and none of that makes any sense. Like any. At all. Why the fuck were they near Stalingrad?? How did they get to the Eastern Front, STEVEN???

February 1945 - Bucky falls from a goddamn train in the Alps. There is no resource to tell us how much time passes between Bucky's fall and Steve's supposed death in the Valkyrie. So let me get my history on for a second. On February 17, 1945, the British Special Air Service executed Operation Cold Comfort, a parachute drop raid near Verona, Italy with the objective of blocking the main rail lines through the Brenner Pass by landslide. The Brenner Pass is a mountain pass through the Alps which forms the border between Italy and Austria. Sounds familiar, right? (It's also featured on one of the Captain America covers, Captain America No. 33, 1943).

The operation would ultimately be a failure, but since Schmidt wouldn't have known that, hearing rumors of this operation, or even word that it had been attempted and fearing a second try, this could have been the inciting incident behind why he had Zola hauling his evil ass along that railway at a speed described as 'moving like the devil'. So we can safely put Bucky's fall between February 15 and February 25th. You could also stretch and say it was February 14th, if you are the reborn incarnation of Satan.

Now, by the end of February, the Red Army was sweeping through the northern regions of Poland toward the German border, moving north and west. It's a Russian soldier who finds Bucky in the Alps, so either that patrol was way the hell out of their lane, or . . . Bucky laid there for a while, folks. Seriously, the Red Army didn't even sniff the border of Austria until March 31, 1945 with the Upper Silesian Offensive. Which leads one to postulate that, a. the Russians who found Bucky were lost as fuuuuuck, b. the Russians who found Bucky were a rogue group who defected to Hydra after Hydra declared itself a separate entity from the Axis forces (doubt it), or c. neither Steve nor any of the rest of the team ever actually looked for Bucky's body, even after Steve went down in the Valkyrie, and he laid there for weeks. I honestly choose to believe one of the former, since the latter is just . . . I can't.

[No, you know what? Fuckin......frustrated historian meta addition.]

It's always bothered me that they might never have looked for Bucky's body, y'know?

I always assumed the arm got ripped off when he hit the side of the ravine. Like maybe he grabbed for or hit a ledge and the speed/height of his fall was just too great and it got ripped off. Because it's not crushed like it would be if he'd landed on it, it's a traumatic amputation. It almost had to have happened during the fall. Which could mean he'd have landed close to the edge, or maybe like hit higher up and tumbled until he was at the bottom instead of freefalling the whole way?

In his flashback, you can see he's still bleeding as the soldiers are carrying him. Bleeding a lot. If he'd been in the water or motionless in the snow for any amount of time, the bleeding would have at least become sluggish. He'd be hypothermic; his body would route blood away from his extremities to protect his vital organs, plus the blood vessels in the wound would be constricting due to the cold. But, if he'd been moving under his own power trying to get to help, it would explain why he's still bleeding; his movement kept the blood circulating where it would otherwise have clotted up.

In this gif, it looks almost like the blood trail starts just a few meters away. If we take a leap and assume that when they started moving him it jogged him awake, then this scene shows where the Russians found him. Those are trees, aren't they? Meaning he moved under his own power after he landed. Meaning he got the fuck up after falling off that train, and walked through that ravine toward help. What a fucking badass, jfc.

Two things I think we can say with certainty; one, the Russians were definitely searching for someone. He's on a stretcher, which wasn't something a normal patrol would've been carrying, especially over rough terrain. They had it with them for a reason. And two, the Russians weren't there because of Zola. Between Bucky falling and Gabe taking the control room, he had very little time to get off a communication with sitrep and location. And even if he was able to, it would have been to Hydra troops, who would have shown up wearing Hydra gear. And Russians are almost certainly not part of Hydra at that stage in the War.

Those Russian soldiers were probably an Allied search party that was sent out to find Bucky. That would tick off a lot of problem boxes, wouldn't it? It would mean someone - the SSR, the Army - did order a rescue/recovery for a damned war hero like a fallen Howling Commando, and Allied Russian troops were closest or something. It would explain why Russian soldiers were in such a remote area, with a stretcher, when they had zero other reason to be there! It would explain why Bucky is listed as KIA instead of MIA even though they obviously never found his body. It would also explain why Bucky didn't struggle as they were carrying him off; he thought they were on his side, rescuing him.

My theory after writing all this up? He lost the arm in an impact with the side of the ravine, but contacting the ravine walls also slowed his landing and put him on dry ground. He then got up like a BAMF and moved, either until he found shelter under some trees, or he simply collapsed from shock or trauma or exposure or all of the above. An Allied rescue/recovery party found him, but they were Russian, and they reported him KIA and kept him because they knew he must be enhanced to have survived that sort of fall, cold, and blood loss, and they wanted their own Captain Comrade.

March 4, 1945 - The SSR and other forces raid the secret Hydra bunker and Steve Rogers boards the Valkyrie on his way to getting fridged, literally haha, so Peggy Carter can become a hero . . . good job Captain Cannonball.

March 15-24, 1945 - The Commandos assist in Operation Undertone, which was part of the Allied invasion of Germany by the U.S. Seventh and French 1st Armies of the U.S. Sixth Army Group. It was a very real operation, so info is easy to find about it if your heart is still in your chest after watching both our boys plummet to their supposed deaths.

Some time in April probably?? 1945 - Dugan and Morita head to the last known HYDRA facility, Facility #4 bitches!, known simply as the Fortress, located some the fuck where in Austria, with Peggy Carter. They capture HYDRA General Werner Reinhardt and take possession of the first known classified 084, the Obelisk. We don't see the Obelisk again until Agents of SHIELD.

May 8th, 1945 - VE-Day. The remaining five members of the team gather in a pub to toast 'the Captain', suggesting that they did indeed just leave 'the Sergeant's' body rotting in the Alps somewhere, fuck that guy. (It is notable that one of the tie-in books for the movie states explicitly that they toast to both 'the Captain' and 'the Sergeant', so it's probable that they gave each man his own, individual farewell. We just didn't see it.)

(If you want more timeline! Trying to track the Winter Soldier through both canon and history.)

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #Howling Commandos #history nerd rants #research #fic reference #history sorta #timeline #meta maybe?#captain america #ca:tfa #MCU detail references

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