#author: dirtybinary

Additional Comments: This is the second part of dirtybinary’s Murder Burger series. The first part, time to kill, has also been podficced, by @annapods. I suppose you can listen to each part separately but the series is such a joy that you want to listen to both parts in their chronological order. :) The premise of this fic/podfic is that Steve did not go into the ice, but married Peggy, and has been fighting/loving the Winter Soldier since 1956 when he (or rather Peggy) found out Bucky was still alive. Reichenbach is set after the events of CA:TWS. The Winter Soldier is staying in Singapore where Steve has found him. Despite the canon divergence, this fic has some of the most spot-on characterisations of both Steve and Bucky; their letters are hilariously funny and heart-wrenching at times. I love how serious this fic/podfic takes the long decades they have known each other. I love the vision of Steve and Peggy in this fic. The fic is clever, insightful and wonderfully original, and accrues’ reading does it more than justice. The ending (for now?) of the series is rather brilliant – and the Epilogue is set on January 3, 2015, which is why I had to post this tonight. :) Go check out the podfic series, it’s the best start of the new Stucky podfic year.

Additional Comments: This fic/podfic starts with the moment when Steve (and we) see the Winter Soldier’s eyes for the first time, in a universe where Steve and Bucky had never been childhood friends and don’t know each other. The fic/podfic is as short as it is powerful. It’s amazing how little the canon divergence changes the instant intensity of Steve and Bucky’s relationship. There are moments and sentences in this podfic, read by Sisi_rambles with a matter-of-factness that suits the fic perfectly, that have lodged themselves into my mind – Steve giving back the shield because he left Bucky behind; his soft “And there... is the Winter Soldier” when he discovers J.B. Barnes on a snapshot from WWII. If you want to cry and laugh within the span of 20 minutes, this is the podfic for you.

Additional Comments: This fic/podfic series has three parts; they belong to the same universe where Steve was captured while trying to free Bucky from the Red Room, and they both were used as Winter Soldiers until the events of CATWS. Part 1 is Steve and Bucky in captivity; part 2 and 3 are set after they managed to escape. As Winter Soldiers Steve and Bucky are allowed to care for each other when coming out of cryofreeze or recovering form the mind wipes. Secretly and only together, they manage to remember the fundamental facts of their existence: their names, that they can trust only each other, their plan to escape, Brooklyn. The fic/podfic feels light, almost playful, despite the harsh brutality of Steve and Bucky’s fate, part 2 and 3 even more so than part 1. Quietnight’s reading is flawless, as always – intonation, pitch, the way she brings across the intimacy of the quiet conversations of the two Winter Soldiers. This fic/podfic always leaves me with a startling sense of how close Steve and Bucky are, more so than in canon, a “matched set”, literally. 

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Additional Comments: In this fic/podfic Bucky became the assassin called the Winter Soldier but Steve never went into the ice. He keeps meeting Bucky who does not remember him but accepts the strange game they are playing, where this blond stranger tries to keep him from completing his missions and gives him food. The story is told entirely from Bucky’s pov, which is funny, full of irony and heartbreaking at the same time. There are moments in this fic with such insight into the Winter Soldier’s mind - how he sees Natasha, his relationship to Alex (Alexander Pierce), the way he plans his own death. @annapods‘ voice is unique and wonderfully suited for this fic. She reads with a French accent that is sometimes not easy to understand. Yet there is something about the way she shapes certain words differently that imbues Bucky’s voice with a sense of realness that goes beyond what words can do. I love how @annapods’ accent makes the Winter Soldier even more of a stranger, and yet in all his interactions with Steve – like when he cannot stop himself from moving food to Steve’s plate – he is so clearly Bucky Barnes. This is a beautiful, unusual reading. I have listened to it several times, and this Bucky’s voice keeps talking in my head.

Additional Comments: This fic/podfic is set in the same universe as Your Kind of Idiot – Bucky has never fallen from the train, and he and Steve went down with the Valkyrie together. When Your Kind of Idiot can be considered an AU retelling of CA:TFA, this fic/podfic is a re-telling of CA:TWS, with Bucky as Captain America because Steve is getting an art degree, and the Winter Soldier a different man. The fic/podfic comes with sharp-edged humor and a cracky premise that makes for a suspenseful and utterly engaging story. I love how this story is re-writing the CA:TWS plot in an incredibly original way. Quietnight pulls off effortlessly the task of giving voice to two different incarnations of James Buchanan Barnes, the one who never lost his arm and was never brainwashed into an assassin, the other to whom happened exactly that. It says in the fic, “Nobody would ever mistake one of them for the other” and that holds true for their voices in this podfic, as well. I’ve listened to this podfic numerous times, it’s become an instant favorite.

Additional Comments: This fic/podfic comes with such a wonderful mix of the Bucky Barnes brand of humor, laced with unexpected sweetness and heartbreak - I never thought I would be moved to tears, listening to Bucky not falling from that train. Steve crashing the Valkyrie with Bucky, read by quietnight in this brilliant podfic, is a scene that will stay with me for a long time.