#btw WWII was my special interest back then

[candy-ac3]

Remembering how I’m 5th grade our history teacher let us do a PowerPoint presentation on literally any historical person (when I say any I mean any) and so I decided to do mine on Mr didn’t get into art school and hated Jews, and younger me explaining how he was an awful person and what his history was like, and when I was done my teacher made a small joke that was like “well they better let you into art school”

Tbh I don’t know what was worst, a 5th grader explaining the guy behind WWII to a bunch of other 5th graders, the fact that the teacher was cool with it, or that the teacher even made a joke

[soulnottainted]

23 for the many f/os ask game! —@celestialship

Send in a number 1-58 and I'll tell you about that fo that number is randomly assigned to!

@celestialship

Well damn! You got my newest romantic f/o! Good for you! thank you for sending this in btw!!! <3

The Sp//ine is an automaton that was created in 1896 alongside many others. He was originally built with a spine that resembled titanium alloy smokestacks, similar to ones found on a locomotive, which gave him his name. These were upgraded his trademark dorsal protrusions or "stegosaurus fins" later on. He is powered by a magical power source called Blue Matter, in which all the robots built by Col. Walter, have the matter stored in a core in their chest. Also his head can detatch with a snake like end, detaching from his body. He can actually slither around like that. Don't...don't think too hard about that please. Originally him and his fellow automaton siblings were built to entertain to woo their inventor's love interest. But a weekend war broke out between their inventor and his rival, and Spine along with the others were outfitted with weaponry and sent into battle, tearing apart giant weaponized mechanical elephants. Spine from what I've gathered from numerous inferences from sources, was the one that led his robot siblings into battle, always keeping an eye on them and leading the charge. The Spine was equipped with giant laser guns on his hands, a giant saw hand, explosives, drills, flamethrowers, any weapony you could think of.

After the weekend war, the bots returned to their original purpose: playing music. They kept this up until it was decided Spine and his siblings would be sent as aid in many human wars, including WWI, WWII and Vietnam, although they would not use their weapons. They would instead aid humans and help them to safety from the front lines. The Sp//ine was no exception, as in the 1950s he was given upgrades by the US government to appear more human-like to go on special op missions to recover soldiers. If you see the band's older youtube videos where he is completely silver, THAT is his human like upgrade. In 2013 Spine reverted to how he "originally" looked like, getting rid of that solid silver look and exposing his v-shaped neck vents and face panels. Spine has always been the bot that has tried to be the most human, trying to fit in with human society. He does have pain receptors (evident when he gets slapped around sometimes by his siblings) and he constantly says he doesn't have any emotions despite questioning and displaying them ALL the time.

After Vietnam, the bots all took a vow of peace, and went back to their performing routes. The Sp//ine is the straight-man of the group for the majority of the time, but a lot of times can't contain his dorkiness much like the others. He loves westerns! Even though his siblings can slightly annoy him sometimes, he still loves them. Also he has the most love songs sung in the band compared to the other members. Speaking of music, he has a VERY impressive vocal range. He also plays the guitar!

[seirei-bh]

Yes, I still love Eren

Ok, I didn't want to write this whole post because I don't like to discuss with other people and I always try to be patient, be quiet and just ignore this kind of stuff and keep moving foward with my life, but this is getting on my nerves.

Sometimes I wonder if some people on this fandom are a bunch of kids or teenagers who never have read/watch cruel and complex fiction stories before, like Berserk, Game of thrones, Evangelion, The last of us, etc, or just people so dumb they can't differ ficction from reality...

Repeat with me: people can love villains, people can love drama and horror in ficction and that doesn't mean those people are bad :)

It's frustating being an Eren's fan, because some people just can't understand that you can love villains and characters who are assasins or a bad person IN FICTION without being pro genocide in real life. Seriously, people SHOULD know the difference between fiction and reallity.

I love Eren Jaeger, because he's complex, well written and one of the most interesting MC I've seen in my life. I love the "hero-to-villain" arcs (like Anakin Skywalker). I love a lot of characters who are not good people because of their complex backstories, personnality or conflicted development. Ex: Joel of TLOU murdered a lot of innocent people at the ending only to save ONE person, but you can understand why he's doing that, despite you don't like his actions.

Besides, you know what? "White and perfect" heroes are boring.

A lot of people is saying now "I hate Eren, uuuhhh, you're a bad person if you love him uhhhh, Eren is the worst, he's the baddest of all the characters, the members of Alliance are the only good ones, Eren must die" only because in the last chapter we've seen the collosals trampling babies... seriously?? Yeah, I was shocked too and I feel sick and sad the first time I read it, but I can deal with it because SnK was ALWAYS cruel.

I guess people just conveniently decided to forget a lot of details of the first arcs and seasons.

Heeey, remember when Annie killed a lot of soldiers, all the Levi's squad and a lot of innocent people in the Central district while she was fighting agains Eren and the Survey Corps? She even played to yo-yo with one the the soldiers hahah :D Do you remember that Eren DIDN'T want to fight agains her and only did it because his comrades Armin Mikasa, Jean, Connie, Levi and others FORCED HIM to fight? oh, and innocent children suffered and died too in the middle of that fight. But of course, people just don't talk about it, because now Annie is now one of the cute wifeys of the "group of good heroes" :) (I love Annie and aruani, btw, but I just hate when some people are so hypocrytes to love Annie, Reiner and Bert, and also the members of Alliance and just sentence Eren for do something he was obligated to do to save his people, same as the Warriors tried to do to before to save people of Marley)

Eren tried to find a pacific way to resolves the problems during 4 years. He infiltrated in Marley alone, cutted his leg and hurt his eye, and talked with Reiner, only to try to understand his actions. But while he was forgiving his enemy and old comrade, he was listening a lot of people of the world clapping and smiling when Willy Tybur declared the war and extermination of Paradis. And in that moment Eren got a sad expression on his face, because he understood the entire world was their enemy so he was forced to become in a mass murdered and the devil of the world to save his people.

People of this fandom no longer talk about all the innocent people who were eaten by the titans that Marley dumped on the island. They don't talk of the number of Eldians that nations elsewhere have locked up in concentration camps, who are tortured and humiliated every day, simply for being Eldians, just like Jews in WWII, as we saw in Zeke's and Grisha's flashbacks. People forget Erwin, Carla, Armin's granpa, thousands of innocent people who lived inside wall Maria, and hundreds of soldiers died without even know the real reason why.

People in this fandom don't talk enough about Armin was the one who told Eren "to defeat your enemies, you have to become a monster", that Levi was the one who told Eren that he will have to take difficult choices if he wanted to survive, and that other people might die but he should be prepared to deal with it. That it was Mikasa who fought without hesitation against Annie and urged Eren to fight vs their enemies, along with Armin, Jean and Connie. That Hange and Levi tortured, killed and manipulated other soldiers in season three to archieve their purposes, that Reiner admitted in front of Eren that he destroyed the wall not because they forced him, but because he wanted to be a hero, so his parents could be together and be proud of him.

No. Because it's much easy only to throw shit at Eren because he's killing babies of background characters who were totally fine with the idea to exterminate the eldians of Paradise, and yes, that includes inocent eldian children, Historia's baby and all the kids she saved at the orphanage. But I guess people is not ready to talk about this.

People don't talk about the fact Armin, Jean, Connie and the rest of the cast admited in ch 133 that they are sinners too. That they forced Eren to do this, that despite they wanted to stop him, they couldn't give him a realistic and a good alternative solution. That the Alliance killed their own comrades and ignored Eren's depression for four years. Now they regret ir but it's too late.

Btw, Armin is my favourite character of snk, and I LOVE Jean with all my heart and I like the rest of the cast. But all these things are true. Eren is the one who is commiting a global genocide, but the rest of the cast are not heroes, they're guilty about this as well. So stop picture them as heroes and Eren as the only villain of the world. This story is much more complex than that.

 If you can't deal with characters with complex moratily and cruel actions, perhaps you should go to read Fairy Tail, Bleach or Naruto, where things are solved because the perfect and heroic main character is a saint who can solves all the problems of the world with the power of friendship and/or is able to change the mind of everybody just using the "talk-no-jutsu". And I'm not saying this like a bad thing, Naruto is one of my faves mangas and I like B and FT too.

and about the ending, I see a lot of people expecting some kind of cliché and easy ending, like the typicals about heroes-vs-villains stories of most Marvel's movies and mainstream animes, despite of Isayama himself has said in lot of interviews he wanted to hurt his readers and he loves controversial stories of murderers and monsters.

I don't know how Isayama will finish this. I wish it could be a peaceafull ending where eldians and humans can solve all their problems, but snk was never so positive. If Alliance wins and kills Eren and Isayama still is able to do a realistic and logical ending, giving the world convincent reasons to forgive the eldians of Paradis after that, I will be satisficed. But if Eren wins and kill all the people of the world because that's really the only way to save eldians... I won't blame Isayama. I love bittersweet, different and controversial endings.

I don't want the Alliance to die, specially my babies Armin and Jean, I love them too much, but  whatever if is either Eren who wins or either the Alliance, I would like to see an ending where Eren's survives, because I think that would be very interesting, to see him dealing with the guilt of his crimes during the rest of his life, with some kind of PTSD and trying to keep moving foward with his life despite of that. That would be a million times more interesting than "just kill him because he's bad". No, he deserves to suffers the burden of his actions, same as Reiner did after he back to Marley. The scene when Reiner tried to suicided but didn't it because Falco and Gabi were his reasons to keep living made me felt a lot of emotions, I know a lot of people considered that scene like a meme now, but the emotional impact was amazing. So, if I could choose, I prefer to see a scene of Eren like that, instead ot just being murdered.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Sci-Fi And The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

I know many of you prefer “science fiction” or “science fantasy” or “speculative fiction” or “sf” or even “stf” for short, but I ain’t that guy…

I’m a sci-fi kinda guy.

I prefer sci-fi because to me it evokes the nerdy playfulness the genre should embrace at some level (and, no we’re not gonna debate geek vs nerd as a descriptor; “geeky” implies biting heads off chickens no matter how benign and respectable the root has become).

. . .

A brief history of sci-fi films -- a very brief history.

Georges Melies’ 1898 short A Trip to The Moon is one of the earliest examples of the genre, and it arrived full blown at the dawn of cinema via its literary predecessors in Verne and Wells.

There were a lot of bona fide sci-fi films before WWII -- the Danes made a surprisingly large number in the silent era, Fritz Lang gave us Metropolis and Frau Im Mond, we saw the goofiness of Just Imagine and the spectacle of Things To Come and the space opera appeal of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

And that’s not counting hundreds of other productions -- comedies and contemporary thrillers and westerns -- where a super-science mcguffin played a key part.

That came to a screeching halt in WWII primarily due to budget considerations and real world science easily overtaking screen fantasy.  Still, there were a few bona fide sci-fi films and serials during the war and immediately thereafter, but it wasn’t until the flying saucer scare of the late forties that sci-fi became a popular movie genre again (and on TV as well).

Ground zero for 1950s sci-fi was George Pal’s Destination Moon, which was an attempt to show a plausible flight to the moon (it was actually beaten to the screens by a couple of other low budget movies that rushed into production to catch Pal’s PR wave for his film).

This led to the first 1950s sci-fi boom that lasted from 1949 to 1954, followed by a brief fallow period, then a larger but far less innovative second boom in the late 1950s to early 1960s.

BTW, let me heartily recommend the late Bill Warren’s magnificent overview of sci-fi films of that era, Keep Watching The Skies, a must have in any sci-fi film fan’s library.

Seriously, go get it.

Bill and I frequently discussed films of that and subsequent eras, and Bill agreed with my assessment of the difference between 1950s sci-fi and 1960s sci-fi:  1950s sci-fi most typically ends with the old order restored, while 1960s sci-fi typically ends with the realization things have changed irrevocably.

In other words, “What now, puny human?”

I judge the 1960s sci-fi boom to have started in 1963 (at least for the US and western Europe; behind the Iron Curtain they were already ahead of us) with the Outer Limits TV show, followed in 1964 by the films The Last Man On Earth (based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend), Robinson Crusoe On Mars, and The Time Travelers.

But what really triggered the 1960s sci-fi boom was Planet Of The Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The former was shopped around every major Hollywood studio starting in 1963 until it finally found a home at 20th Century Fox (whose market research indicated there was an audience for well-made serious sci-fi film and hence put Fantastic Voyage into production).  Kubrick, fresh off Lolita and Dr. Srangelove (another sci-fi film tho not presented as such), carried an enormous cache in Hollywood of that era, and if MGM was going to bankroll his big budget space movie, hey, maybe there was something to this genre after all.

From 1965 forward, the cinematic space race was on, with 1968 being a banner year for groundbreaking sci-fi movies:  2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbarella, Charly, Planet Of The Apes, The Power, Project X, and Wild In The Streets.  (Star Trek premiering on TV in 1967 didn’t hurt, either.)

And, yeah, there were a number of duds and more than a few old school throwbacks during this era, but the point is the most interesting films were the most innovative ones.

Here’s a partial list of the most innovative sci-fi films from 1969 to 1977, nine-year period with some of the most original ideas ever presented in sci-fi films.  Not all of these were box office successes, but damn, they got people’s attention in both the film making and sci-fi fandom communities.

=1969=

The Bed Sitting Room

Doppelganger (US title:  Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun)

The Gladiators

The Monitors 

Stereo 

=1970=

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes [a]

Colossus: The Forbin Project 

Crimes Of The Future 

Gas-s-s-s

The Mind Of Mr. Soames 

No Blade Of Grass 

=1971= 

The Andromeda Strain 

A Clockwork Orange 

Glen And Randa 

The Hellstrom Chronicle 

THX 1138 

=1972=

Silent Running 

Slaughterhouse Five 

Solaris [b] 

Z.P.G.

=1973=

Day Of The Dolphin

Fantastic Planet 

The Final Programme (US title: The Last Days Of Man On Earth)

Idaho Transfer 

=1974=

Dark Star 

Phase IV 

Space Is The Place 

Zardoz 

=1975= 

A Boy And His Dog 

Black Moon 

Death Race 2000

Rollerball

Shivers (a.k.a. They Came From Within and The Parasite Murders)  [c]

The Stepford Wives 

=1976= 

God Told Me To [a.k.a. Demon]

The Man Who Fell To Earth 

=1977=

Wizards

[a]  I include Beneath The Planet Of The Apes because it is the single most nihilistic major studio film released, a movie that posits Charlton Heston blowing up the entire planet is A Damn Good Idea; follow up films in the series took a far more conventional approach to the material.  While successful, neither the studio nor mainstream audiences knew what to make of this film, so 20th Century Fox re-released it in a double bill with another problematic production, Russ Meyer’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, and holy cow, if ever there was a more bugfuck double feature from a major studio I challenge you to name it.

[b]  Other than Karel Zemen’s delightful animated films, Iron Curtain sci-fi films rarely screened in the US, with the exception of special effects stock shots strip mined to add production values to cheapjack American productions (looking at you, Roger Corman).  Solaris is the exception.

[c]  David Cronenberg made several other films in this time frame, but most of them were variations on the themes he used in Shivers, including his big break out, Scanners.  Realizing he was repeating himself, Cronenberg reevaluated his goals and started making films with greater variety of theme and subject matter.

. . .

The astute reader will notice I bring my list to an end in 1977, a mere nine-year span instead of a full decade.

That’s because 1977 also saw the release of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Star Wars.

The effect was immediate, with knock-off films being released the same year.

1978 saw Dawn Of The Dead, a sequel to 1968’s Night Of The Living Dead, and Superman, the first non-campy superhero movie aimed at non-juvenile audiences.  

1979 gave us Alien, Mad Max, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

These films were not just successful, they were blockbusters.

And none of them were original.

Close Encounters served as an excuse to do a Kubrick-style light show; plot and theme are about as deep as a Dixie cup, and of all the blockbusters of that era, it’s the one with no legs.

Alien’s pedigree can be traced back to It! Terror From Beyond Space (and It’s pedigree goes back to A.E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer” and “Discord In Scarlet” in the old Astounding Stories) and Demon Planet (US title: Planet Of The Vampires) by way of Dark Star (Dan O’Bannon writing the original screenplays for that film and Alien as well).

Mad Max, like 1981’s Escape From New York, differs from earlier post-apocalypse movies only insofar as their apocalypses of a social / cultural / political nature, not nuclear or biological weapons.  Mad Max, in fact, can trace its lineage back to No Blade Of Grass, which featured it own caravan of refugees attacked by modern day visigoths on motorcycles, and the original Death Race 2000, as well as an odd little Australian non-sci-fi film, The Cars That Ate Paris.

Not only was Dawn Of The Dead a sequel, but it kickstarted a worldwide tsunami of zombie movies that continues to this day (no surprise as zombie films are easy to produce compared to other films listed here, and while there are a few big budget examples of the genre, the typical zombie movie is just actors in ragged clothes and crappy make-up).

Superman was…well…Superman.  And Star Trek was Star Trek.

And the granddaddy of them all, Star Wars, was a cinematic throwback that threw so far back it made the old seem new again.

Not begrudging any of those films their success: They were well made and entertaining.

But while there had been plenty of sequels and remakes and plain ol’ knockoffs of successful sci-fi movies in the past, after these seven there was precious little room for anything really different or innovative.

1982’s E.T. was Spielberg’s unofficial follow-up to Close Encounters.

1984’s Terminator consciously harkened back to Harlan Elison’s Outer Limits episodes “Demon With A Glass Hand” and “Soldier” (not to mention 1966’s Cyborg 2087 which looks like a first draft of Cameron’s film)

All innovative movies are risky, and the mammoth success of the films cited above did little to encourage new ideas in sci-fi films but rather attempts to shoehorn material into one of several pre-existing genres.

Star Wars = space opera of the splashy Flash Gordon variety

Star Trek = crew on a mission (Star Trek: The Next Generation [+ 5 other series], Andromeda, Battlestar: Galactica [4 series], Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Farscape, Firefly [+ movie], The Orville, Space Academy, Space Rangers, Space: Above And Beyond, plus more anime and syndicated shows than you can shake a stick at)

Superman = superheroes (nuff’ sed!)

Close Encounters / E.T. = cute aliens

Alien = not-so-cute aliens

Terminator = robots vs humans (and, yes, The Matrix movies fall into this category)

Escape From New York = urban post-apocalypse

Mad Max = vehicular post-apocalypse 

Dawn Of The Dead = zombies

Mix and match ‘em and you’ve got a nearly limitless number of variations you know are based on proven popular concepts, none of that risky original stuff.

Small wonder that despite the huge number of new sci-fi films and programs available, little of it is memorable.

. . .

It shouldn’t be like this.

With ultra-cheap film making tools (there are theatrically released films shot on iPhones so there’s literally no barrier to entry) and copious venues for ultra-low / no-budget film makers to show their work (YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Prime, etc.), there’s no excuse for there not to be a near limitless number of innovative films in all genres.

But there isn’t.

I watch a lot of independent features and short films on various channels and streaming services.

They’re either direct knock-offs of current big budget blockbusters (because often the film makers are hoping to impress the big studios into giving them lots of money to make one of their movies), or worse still, deliberately “bad” imitations of 1950s B-movies (and I get why there’s an appeal to do a bad version of a B-movie; if you screw up you can always say you did it deliberately).

Look, I understand the appeal of fan fic, written or filmed.

And I get it that sometimes it’s easier to do a knock-off where the conventions of the genre help with the final execution.

But let’s not make deliberate crap, okay?

Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” but he was quoting somebody else, and that wasn’t the whole original quote.

Wilde was quoting Charles Caleb Colton, a dissolute English clergyman with a passion for gambling and a talent for bon mots.

Colton’s full quote:   “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

Don’t be mediocre.

Be great.

   © Buzz Dixon

[end-o-the-line]

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.)

[routes4therootless]

Jivin’ for the Red, White, & Blue: Can you be a Black Patriot in America in 2017?

Definitions according to the dynamic duo Merriam-Webster:

1) tyranny (noun): 1. oppressive power, especially when exerted by government; 2. a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force; 3. an oppressive, harsh, or unjust act: a tyrannical act.

2) patriot (noun): one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests

3) patriotism (noun): love of or devotion to one’s country

Blind Patriotism and BBQs

Just a few days ago, Americans celebrated the signing/finishing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Some call it Independence Day. Some call it the Fourth of July, or “the 4th” for short. Others call it “a day off” and a steal on meat prices so “we might as well barbecue too!” 

However, Independence Day is a day of blind patriotism. People scream God Bless America, listen to country music (which was created by black people and stolen like errthang else we made), go to the beach, have barbecues, and pool parties. People find reasons to purchase fireworks, light em up all weekend long, and wear ridiculously patriotic outfits and look like Betsy Ross (or the black woman who actually made the U.S. flag) custom made their outfits. Why though? I think it’s a tradition that helps the capitalist machine: give people a day off and they will spend their money. Give special deals on everything and they will spend their money. Promote Independence Day like a day for barbecues and fireworks so they forget how messed up this country is/was/will be, and they will spend their money. And we all did.

I personally have an issue with “celebrating” the 4th because the delusional Founding Fathers (FFs) could have sex with slaves, produce human babies, didn’t see black/Africans as human, and continued to enslaving them while crying for their own freedom. An oxymoron of sorts. My ancestors were in physical chains on purpose, NOT BY ACCIDENT, while their oppressors/owners were hyped about signing a paper that declared their revolt against their political chains. I can’t wholeheartedly get with the celebrating.

Sidenote: I’ll slide through to the barbecue, eat up all the food, watch a lil fireworks or something, but I won’t like it.

Is it like Oil and Water? Being Black and Patriotic.

In a renown speech, Frederick Douglass asked white allies: “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” In this blog, I ask you: “What to Black/African American is the Fourth of July?” It seems like holidays of patriotism are the antithesis of the black experience and should not be celebrated. I question myself on my disdain for celebrated white lie holidays like the Fourth of July.

I believe in the African Diaspora, that through Middle Passage I am a descendant of West Africans stolen and sold into Western slavery. I do believe that somewhere on the continent of African I have a homeland, but I am also American and this is the only home that I’ve known. Yet, I don’t really mess with America or whiteness like that: So can I be a patriot?

The way I feel now is the same way that some enslaved Africans may have felt in the 1800s while the American Colonization Society (ACS) was raising money to free and return African Americans to Africa. The ACS (Abraham Lincoln was a member btw) was like: “We are somewhat abolitionists. Y’all aren’t equal to whites. You can be free, but you have to go back to Africa.” Some free and enslaved Africans saw it as an opportunity of true freedom and independence (ex. LIBERIA). Others were like: “No, my family is here. I don’t know nothing about no Africa. I’ll stay here with my family, fight in this coming Civil War for my freedom. I’ll earn my place at the table.”

In the early 1900s, Garveyism and the Back to Africa movement also received similar sentiments as the ones listed above. “If this country won’t treat us right, let’s return to our homeland - Africa - and truly be free” and people who had the funds to move actually expatriated to West Africa and other African nations. Some stayed where they were, but began appropriating African customs and traditions into their African American lifestyles. Others were like I don’t know nothing about no Africa. I’ll stay here with my family and make things better. For those that stayed, they tried to make their home the America their grandmothers and fathers dreamed of.

For most descendants of enslaved Africans in America, we are the descendants of the ones who could not leave and chose to survive AND those who chose to stay and chose to survive. Sometimes where you are is home. In this case, Black people who call America home will not be disrespected in their home and they tried to put respect on their name, families, and race. This still goes on today.

The Resistance Continues: Oppressed, But Never Complacent

Tyranny. We don’t call what the rebel colonists of 1776 fought against as tyranny anymore. Black people: our tyranny is institutionalized racism, systemic racism. 

We have been fighting against this type of tyranny for centuries. Playing dumb in the field. Sabotaging the overseers. The Underground Railroad. Slave Rebellions. The Freedman’s Bureau. Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Fighting in the white man’s wars for our Freedom: Seven Year’s War, War of 1812, American Revolution, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War. Fighting for the black man’s right to vote. Fighting for black women’s right to vote. Nonviolent protests against segregation. The Civil Rights Movement. SNCC. SCLC. The Black Power Movement. The Black Panther Party. The Free Breakfast program. Black is Beautiful. Hip Hop culture. Black Lives Matter. 

We are the truest definition of patriots. People who love their country and want to see it become better because that’s the only home they know. People who choose to stay and fight the good fight because, if we leave it up to our oppressors, we would all still be in chains. We might not support the decisions made about how our black lives are policed and politicized, but we support the possibilities of the Constitution and policies set in place to protect us (even though they don’t). You’ve got to believe that one day shit is going to change and NOTHING that we have has come easy in this fight against tyranny.

White supremacists and those with that mindset might have bombed our churches, publicly lynched our leaders, turned water hoses on us, jailed us for fighting for what we believe in, advanced towards us with military tanks in our neighborhoods, boldly called us niggers as if they wouldn’t get slapped, told us we were too loud, aggressive, or scary, but we are never complacent.

If the majority of Americans can celebrate the colonist’s declaration against tyranny and call it patriotism, then they should respect our constant fight against institutionalized racism to make our home more just for our people patriotism as well. RESISTANCE IS PATRIOTISM.

Even after writing this, I still feel some type of way about The Fourth of July festivities. Even though I just proved that Black people are patriots for resisting the systems that oppress them at every turn, I don’t feel like I should be jiving for the traditional blind American patriotism that the textbooks and commercials teach us. One thing I can celebrate is this idea of Black Patriotism in America and how Black peoples are resilient and resist. And, yes, the resistance continues.

Thought of the Rootless: I have the ability to have a home, despite not feeling at home. I guess that resisting gives us that hope and change my President Barack Obama always talked about. But is resistance enough to bring you joy?