Self Care Is Making Your Original Content Even If You Think You’re The Only One Who Likes It

the fact that there's some hydra guy out there in a supermarket buying some cereal and seeing the winter soldier on a cereal box

You know you're supposed to catch the bullets with your metal arm, hm?

thunderbolts* (2025)

Зимний лис и медвежонок все еще любят друг друга💐

@uniquepeachpersonashoe BEHOLD

Alexei and Bucky’s friendship in What If episode 3 was everything!

This episode of What If... was living in my head rent-free. The ending destroyed me. How can everyone live their lives oblivious to the Winter Soldier's suffering? I love this nuance of the soldier being his own entity. For me, what we see in that episode is not Bucky Barnes, it's a non-robotic and humanized version of the Winter Soldier, which is very beautiful and dark. The fact that he has no idea that he is someone and Aleksei helping him with that is worth its weight in gold. It's a shame he couldn't free himself to be the hero of Deconey Island in the end, and this is the post.

Episode mentioned: What if the Red Guardian stopped the Winter Soldier?

Alexei: We both look very handsome tonight.

Bucky: You know, if you’d just said that I looked handsome, I would have said, “So do you.”

Alexei: I couldn’t take that chance.

"You don't know me. I'm not the same person anymore."

"That's okay. I'll get to know you again."

I endlessly admire fic authors who have betas and write chapters and chapters ahead of what they post because you best believe my needy ass is slapping just-finished, mildly edited and typo-laden fics onto AO3 the moment they’re done so I can get that sweet sweet validation