Dumpster #2: ...'Cause a Hydra Trash Party don't stop

[trashmod]

Unholy hell-miracle achieved! Welcome to Bad Guys Do Bad Things To Your Faves 2: Electric Boogaloo. AKA the seamy sexual-violence-and-violent-sex underbelly of Captain America fandom, AKA the Hydra Trash Party kinkmeme. As usual, BLANKET NON-CON AND NSFW WARNINGS apply: just assume going in that everything in this landfill is unfit for human consumption.

Rules in brief: don't be a jerk except to fictional characters, warnings for particularly fucked-up garbage are nice but not required, thou shalt not judge the trashiness of thy neighbor's kinks unless thy neighbor is trying to pass off their rotting banana peels and half-eaten pizza crusts as a healthy romantic dinner for two, off-topic comments may be chucked out of the dumpster at management's discretion, management's discretion decrees that omegaverse, soulbond AUs, D/s-verse, non-superpowered AUs, and dark!good guys AUs are off-topic.

[Round 1] [Fill post] [Chatter post] [hydratrashmeme Pinboard archive (maintained by greenkirtle)] [Round 2 in flat view (comments in non-threaded chronological order, most recent last)]

Round 2 is closed; comments and fills in existing threads are still welcome, but all new prompts go to Round 3.

Comments

Re: FILL: The Only Animal (8e/8e)

[(Anonymous)]

(OP)

This was, start to finish, such a beautiful fill. It was 100% more than I could have expected from the prompt in terms of amazingness (and about twice as long as you said it would be -- it was like a surprise christmas every time you updated and the numbers had ticked up again). But if it had to end, you ended it perfectly.

Everything about the choice Bucky made is awful. You talked about chasing him to the hill he's willing to die on and then burning it down, but... somehow I still was not prepared for how thoroughly they were going to trash his sense of self. OH MY GOD. I can understand and forgive his choice; he's been raped, dehumanized, manipulated, blamed, shamed, fucked with in every way. But he's never going to be able to forgive himself. Never. Sometimes when thinking about this fic I would ponder how fucking impossible it would be for post-CATWS!Bucky to ever explain how they broke him -- but explaining the rapes would be easy as pie in comparison to admitting this.

And it's so sad because it was so pointless. They were never going to release Hanson so he could tell the world Bucky was alive; Steve wasn't even around to report to; the shame of everyone knowing would have been SO MUCH BETTER than being the Winter Soldier; and finally, I like to think that if information of his whereabouts had leaked, Peggy would have stormed in to rescue him singlehandedly. Poor Bucky. Just... poor Bucky.

The final detail that just adds shine to this burning trash heap is the change in address at the end. Throughout the fic, he has called himself Bucky, and he has been called Sergeant Barnes by others, a small nod of respect, acknowledgment of his identity, even as he endured systematic dehumanization. Mueller's efforts have culminated in a destruction of identity so total that Bucky's name is dropped, and he is just 'the soldier' now, in Mueller's address and in his own narration. Amazing -- just amazing. Bucky's growth -- well, his decay -- from the first section to this last; unbelievably well done.

Thank you so much.

P.S. "the pleasure was all mine" hAHAHA FUCK YOU KARPOV???

Re: FILL: The Only Animal (8e/8e)

[(Anonymous)]

First off, OP, really truly thank you for your lovely, encouraging comments throughout the writing process. They really helped keep me going when this snowballed into a much larger undertaking than I had anticipated! And I'm so, so glad that you enjoyed this.

You talked about chasing him to the hill he's willing to die on and then burning it down, but... I still was not prepared for how thoroughly they were going to trash his sense of self.
Sorry! Yeah, this ending was basically the very first thing I wrote, so I knew where this was going to end up, but... still... Bucky was not really prepared for how this could go wrong. I think for me, in the end, the last hill he's willing to die on, the thing he has to preserve even to the detriment of his safety, his morals, and his future, is Steve's regard for him. Like, Steve has always believed in him, and he cannot let that be destroyed, even if the alternative is death. If Steve hated him, life wouldn't be worth living, anyway. And of course, Bucky's thinking, Steve will hate him if he finds out what he's already done.

Sometimes when thinking about this fic I would ponder how fucking impossible it would be for post-CATWS!Bucky to ever explain how they broke him -- but explaining the rapes would be easy as pie in comparison to admitting this.
I.... Yes. This is very true. I am trying to imagine him explaining this to Steve (probably as part of a, "Um, yeah, Sam is right, I'm not the type you save" argument), or Steve reading reports about this and trying to puzzle out what the fuck happened. Just... uuuuugh.

And it's so sad because it was so pointless.
You asked earlier when Bucky was going to learn Captain America was dead. Yeah, probably later in the process when they can't use Cap against him anymore, and want to show him exactly how pointless this betrayal was. So, y'know, at the most painful point possible. Also, YES Peggy would totally have rescued that shit out of him.

The final detail that just adds shine to this burning trash heap is the change in address at the end.
:D :D :D I am so happy this worked for you. Müller's been purposely encouraging him to identify as Sergeant Barnes all this time, and of course Bucky now believes Sergeant Bucky Barnes is a terrible, horrible person. So how much more comfortable would it be just to be an entirely new entity, one that doesn't have to make any choices for himself? Mmm hmm.

P.S. "the pleasure was all mine" hAHAHA FUCK YOU KARPOV???
Haaaa, what a dick. Although, pretty much every Hydra-related character here is a huge asshole.

Thank you for prompting this! It took over my braaaaaaain! And I'm now working on cleaning it up and posting to AO3, so I'll drop a link back here once it's done.

Re: FILL: The Only Animal (8e/8e)

[(Anonymous)]

You are very welcome! It was a fic that demanded my tears and love. :D

I.... Yes. This is very true. I am trying to imagine him explaining this to Steve (probably as part of a, "Um, yeah, Sam is right, I'm not the type you save" argument), or Steve reading reports about this and trying to puzzle out what the fuck happened. Just... uuuuugh.

I would be all over either of these situations. Poor Steve, trying to pierce together what horror could have broken Bucky, and then later learning something from Bucky that was worse than what he'd feared. Or I'm imagining Bucky in a debrief situation, and they'd want to know all about the process by which he became the Winter Soldier. So there's Steve, behind the glass, kept from intervening as the debriefing agent draws out Bucky's tortured description of the events of this fic...

You asked earlier when Bucky was going to learn Captain America was dead. Yeah, probably later in the process when they can't use Cap against him anymore, and want to show him exactly how pointless this betrayal was.

It's good to know how much more misery is awaiting Bucky. This is one of those great Hydra-era fics that makes me sit back and think: how could he ever recover from this? How could he ever learn to like himself again? Lots of material to agonize over even now that it's finished!