it’s either that or nothing

Hello dears, the mods are very excited to introduce our first official Mermay Week! Mermay gives us all a great opportunity to explode some unique omegaverses and I'm sure we all love seeing the variety of stories that come out every year, eggpreg, mpreg, fpreg, all the fun! Love is the key, right? So let's share some. We, your mod team, can't wait to see what you create! Your imagination is the only limit. We welcome anything you can think of - Art, stories, AI creations, moodboards, gifs, videos.... anything at all. So let's have fun!

Please share your works to our collection Mermay Week 2024 (Mermay_Week_2024). Tag your works with #ito_mermay2024.

If you'd like to join us on discord, we'd love to have you!

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @thepiper0fhameln 🩶

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 10

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 44,662

3. What fandoms do you write for? anything with chris evans x sebastian stan characters

4. Top five fics by kudos:

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? this might qualify: hoping these roses dull the pain, cover the scars and turn the page

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? maybe we’re just born with stardust in our blood

8. Do you get hate on fics? No

9. Do you write smut? Do I ever... yes

10. Craziest crossover: Fresh x Gray Man

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Don't think so 😮‍💨🙏🏾

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No

14. All time favorite ship? There's too many versions of my boys for me to write down lol

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I truly hope to finish all of them!

16. What are your writing strengths? One of them is writing characters through their transformations [at least that's what teach said]

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Writing anything without paranormal elements

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? As long as I can get a translation somewhere, it's cool. I like throwing different languages around for spells *wink wink, nudge nudge*

19. First fandom you wrote in? Fresh x Gray Man

20. Favorite fics you've written? in his house beneath the sea, he waits dreaming of you & hoping these roses dull the pain, cover the scars and turn the page so far!

No pressure tags: @late-to-the-party-81, @capsicle13, @ellethespaceunicorn, @readmymindao3, @kingofsorrow20, @endlesstwanted, @greekgeek24, and anyone that wants to play!

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 41

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 466,479

3. What fandoms do you write for? Queen, Marvel, Stranger Things, and one day, Avatar the Last Airbender and Harry Potter

4. Top five fics by kudos:

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Break Free by @ravenclawwitch18 and me

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Over the Rainbow maybe

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really

9. Do you write smut? I don't, but a friend writes it for me

10. Craziest crossover: Stucky meets 70s serial killer meets Slavic mythology

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Hopefully not

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes with @ravenclawwitch18

14. All time favorite ship? Probably Stucky

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? When I first started writing fanfiction, I promised that I'd finished my stories. It'll just take me some time.

16. What are your writing strengths? I guess that I'm a perfectionist. I hyper fixate on things, and I edit insanely.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? That I'm a perfectionist who overthinks everything I do XD

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I like it. I usually add the translation in parentheses because I'll forget the phrase by the time I reach the end of the chapter.

19. First fandom you wrote in? Stucky

20. Favorite fics you've written? Coney Island, Carousel, and Father and Daughter

No pressure tags: @ravenclawwitch18 @kleenexwoman @buckybarnesdeservestobehappy @monster-cock69

Catch Up Game

tagged by @moodymelanist 🩶

Last song I listened to: Lose It x Sebastian Mikael

Last thing I read: What Happens on Asgard - stucky

Last movie I watched: Dune 2

Last tv show: Citadel

Last thing I googled: Princess Irulan's opening monologue 😅

Last thing I ate: a double cheeseburger w/ grilled onions & fries

Sweet, salty, or savory: salty & savory

Sleep: 100/10 would reccommend

Currently reading: Burning Oranges - narusasu

no pressure tags: @ellethespaceunicorn, @gyokujyn, @capsicle13, @kingofsorrow20, @katie-delaney, and any others that would like to play!

Catch Up Game

tagged by @blackwood4stucky

Last song I listened to: Mine x Maya Suzukaze

Last thing I read: Call of the Moon x @blackwood4stucky

Last movie I watched: Stick It

Last tv show: Shogun

Last thing I googled: Kapok Hotel

Last thing I ate: Coconut dumplings with stewed chicken.

Sweet, salty, or savory: sweet & savory

Sleep: Definitely.

Currently reading: A Game Of Thrones x George R. R. Martin (Rereading because I'm a mega fan)

no pressure tags: @late-to-the-party-81, @metalbvcky, @kintsugi-kisei and any others that would like to play!

Thanks King!

Last song I listened to: One of Us - Ava Max

Last thing I read: Indecent Proposal by @holylulusworld

Last movie I watched: Anyone but you

Last tv show: Great British Menu

Last thing I googled: My local bowling alley

Last thing I ate: Pizza with sundried tomatoes, bacon, pepperoni and chicken - kiddo and I do CYO pizza's on Friday nights.

Sweet, salty, or savory: Sweet.

Sleep: Please!

Currently reading: Honest by @greekgeek24, Indecent proposal as above and Pretty when you cry by @buckysburdens on their old blog @nickfowlerrr.

NPT: @nicoline1998enilocin @endlesstwanted @drabbles-mc @otpcutie

Last song I listened to: The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology

Last thing I read: Dune by Frank Hubert

Last movie I watched: The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Last tv show: The Big Bang Theory

Last thing I googled: Google Docs

Last thing I ate: Cough drops

Sweet, salty, or savory: Salty

Sleep: Desperately need

Currently reading: A Summer to Remember by @queenfanatics, And the Sun Will Rise by @lexirosewrites, A Spark of Romance by Paullett Golden

NPT: @ravenclawwitch18 @monster-cock69 @lexirosewrites @kleenexwoman

hey guys unpopular opinion but you’re not a bad person if you don’t care about every bad thing happening in the world all the time, or if you do care but you’re not constantly reblogging posts spreading awareness and information

it’s okay if you’re just on tumblr to have fun and reblog things you like or that make you happy.

humans aren’t made to process trauma and suffering on a worldwide scale without any breaks whatsoever & the internet has created an unprecedented access to bad news so please never feel guilty for scrolling past it because you can’t process it! and you’re not doing anything wrong & there’s no need to feel guilty

daily reminder

CATWS Anniversary Day 10 - Devotion

@catws-anniversary

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle Vincent van Gogh, Garden at Arles (1888)

The serums amplified Steve & Bucky's feelings for each other

I’ve been thinking about this fantastic post that discusses the scientific effects of the super-soldier serum on Steve Rogers’s brain.  It’s based on info from the Avengers exhibit in Times Square, and what it concludes is that after the serum, “Steve just feels more.” Because of the changes to his amygdala, everything Steve felt would have been amplified – joy, pain, loyalty, all of it. What this made me realize is:

The serum would have increased everything Steve felt for Bucky.

Whether you ship the idea of a romantic connection between those two or not, Steve loved Bucky. Bucky was his person, 100%, ‘til the end of the line. They’d spent most of a lifetime developing love and loyalty and friendship. Steve might have had some hero worship going on, because Bucky was everything he wanted to be: strong, able to fight for the little guys, charming, loyal. But once he got hit with Erskine’s serum, everything – every one of those feelings – would have been amped up, magnified. If Bucky was his person before the serum, afterwards, Bucky would have been everything. This is why Steve was willing to risk his life, to disobey orders, to hop in a Jeep and go chasing across Europe by himself to rescue the man. There was never a possibility he could do otherwise, because every bit of love he’d built up over a lifetime was driving him forward.

The serum amplified all of Steve’s feelings, and his love and loyalty for Bucky would have become absolute devotion.

But Bucky got Zola’s version.

Whatever Zola did to Bucky before Steve rescued him, it was already acting upon him in fundamental ways – otherwise, there’s no way Bucky could have survived the fall from the train. But what if Zola’s version tended to increase the negative feelings more? I feel like we see some of this in the bar scene, when Bucky complains, “I’m invisible.” Sure, he’s joking, but he’s being pretty hurtful and taunting about how Steve had been treated in the past.

Maybe Bucky had always been a little envious of Steve, envious of the goodness he saw in Steve that he believed he, himself, didn’t possess. And now Steve has all of that inner perfection but has the outer shell to match; he’s caught up to Bucky in the one area where Bucky ever believed he had even the slightest advantage over Steve. And Bucky’s slight twinge of envy becomes a hot streak of jealousy.

Maybe Bucky isn’t feeling jealous, but possessive. Steve has always been his, exclusively – Bucky’s the only one who ever recognized his value. To Bucky, Steve was like that secret spot you find where you can sit and watch the sunrise in perfect isolation; only suddenly the rest of the world has discovered his secret place. With his feelings amplified, Peggy’s interest in Steve might have hit Bucky like a physical blow, because he’s being forced to share his Steve with everyone, just when he desperately needs him the most. And all Bucky can do is lash out – at Steve, who brought this on by taking the serum.

Or maybe, Bucky is truly angry. Because he’s just been through hell and he’s nowhere near recovered – look at the disheveled uniform, and the fact that he’s sitting alone tossing back drinks while the rest of the Commandos party and sing in the other room. He’s survived torture, and then Captain America sits down and asks him to rejoin the fight. And because of the serum…he can’t say no. His love and loyalty for Steve have always been stronger than fear; he’d take on any challenge to protect Steve. Now, even though the fear has been increased, so have the other feelings. Maybe, with the serum running through his veins, he literally can’t say no. Maybe he tries - his first response is “Hell no,” but he can’t stick with that, because he has to protect Steve. So maybe Bucky is angry – that he can’t make himself walk away – and hurt, that Steve even asked this of him. And all he can do in that moment is try to hurt Steve, too.

But what if it’s not a negative feeling being amped up? Maybe (hello, Stucky shippers!) what we’re seeing is Bucky’s reaction to all the love he feels for Steve being amplified out of control. Because Bucky has always tucked those feelings away; buried anything but brotherly affection, not about to taint Steve with feelings that Bucky has decided are dark and wicked. With the serum, he can’t deny it anymore, can’t hide from what he feels, what he wants. He tries drinking, and it’s not enough. Maybe he’s afraid he’s given himself away, by telling Steve he’ll follow him anywhere. So he tries flirting with Peggy, but it fails, because even she can see how magnificent Steve is, and Bucky’s heart wasn’t really in it anyways. Then Bucky does the only thing that makes sense to him – he tries to be mean, to push Steve away before Steve figures out that Bucky wants so much more from him than he ought to.

It’s heartbreaking to think of Steve and Bucky’s feelings for each other being amplified by the serums they’ve been given.

Because it just makes it that much more painful that Steve has to watch Bucky fall. That Bucky falls knowing he won’t be able to protect Steve any longer. That all of their feelings for each other – love and loyalty and respect and devotion – have been increased, and their ability to feel anguish and loss has increased right along with it. The serums made Steve and Bucky more fully themselves, amplified everything that made them who they were – and at the core, what made these two was each other.

Also consider this; maybe it was because of those amped up feelings that Bucky was able to break Hydra’s conditioning. So yeah, Bucky’s been their favorite and most effective weapon up until Steve shows up to rain on their parade. More than that, I think that if this theory is true, it’s hilariously heartbreaking because Hydra may not understand that their weapon isn’t malfunctioning; he’s actually working exactly as was intended by the serum. Now it’s looking like someone didn’t do their homework and they’re currently trying to come up with bullshit excuses as to why the results aren’t fitting in and it’s because they tried to complete it during the 5 minutes before class starts by trying to memorize someone else’s results and writing them down the way they remembered them.

Everyone who follows me absolutely has to reblog this and really, I mean REALLY, take it in. @marvelouslymadmm interesting to think about what this means for our RP boys.