Till there were no more wolves in the West by dharmashark @dharmasharks
This is one of my favorite fics. Which. Y'all. I have read a lot of fics. It's so beautiful, and the Western/1800s setting is so cinematic. Books in that era had so many beautiful details, and I really enjoyed finding vintage designs to work into this.
As I was typesetting and folding, I found myself getting lost again and again in the words of the text, something I don't normally have an issue with. I just love this story so much.
I didn't use a fraction of the images I had pulled as a maybe, because at the end of the day, I wanted the text to speak for itself.
The fabric on the cover is the same vintage satin as a few books back, but with a different filling treatment, which is what it is called when you paint a product onto the cloth to make it last better. (This just has plain acrylic fabric medium).
I'm finishing a lot of books this week, because I make books in the same room that family stays in when they come visit, and family is coming to visit this week.
Last but not least, here is a process photo. Note all the arrows pointing up so I don't case it in upside down.
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I don’t know how I’m meant to choose from such an enticing list of WIPs, “but we kick each other into gear (and off buildings)” is calling my name! Please tell me more!
Hi hi, thank you for dropping in! <3
Okay, so this is the first fic I ever started writing way back during quarantine as a sort of Endgame fix-it, and it's pretty much been dormant for years now because real life got in the way before I could develop all that much connecting plot. Funnily enough, I did also start with Sam refusing the shield (albeit under slightly different circumstances and with Steve not having committed complete character suicide), but for the most part it's just disconnected episodes of Sam and Bucky work-roadtripping around Europe and Asia, slowly figuring each other out and processing their own respective issues and grief + a healthy helping of random local color, OCs, and humor thrown in on the side.
Looking back on it there's so much I'd want to rework there but it's still dear to my heart, so I might eventually go back to it - especially because TFATWS left a lot to be desired, imho, and I'm still mad about it.
One of the more crack-adjacent partial episodes under the cut if you're interested:
More and more, he unexpectedly finds himself having to explain to people that hanging around the guy is not a very dangerous affair these days, strictly speaking, unless you count the occasional collateral damage to Sam’s nerves.
It's all a bit unsettling, trying to justify a former international terrorist in the eyes of others like he’s a particularly snappy pitbull with a history of dogfighting: Yeah, he did almost throw that fan to the ground the other day, but they snuck up on us. No, he doesn’t like crowds, but a family get together is okay and he’s surprisingly good with kids. No, no, he doesn’t do that anymore, we’re trying to get him accustomed to more well-adjusted activities, like going for runs and sleeping more than 45 minutes a time. Yes, he’s actually a sweetheart, looking for his forever home.
Sam briefly entertains the idea of putting that last one on Bucky’s Tinder profile while he’s sleeping.
To be fair, he wouldn’t necessarily call whatever relationship they’ve managed to develop smooth sailing, either, or particularly sanity affirming. But neither is being constantly on the move chasing an unsubstantial lead and yet here they both are, essentially backpacking their asses all around Europe like the world’s most traumatized spring breakers.
Here they fucking are.
"Where are we, again?" Sam says, squinting down at his phone where the maps app is once again blanking out to a dull grey grid as if to personally spite him.
"Poland," Bucky deadpans from the driver's seat but his expression's distracted, fingers tapping out an offbeat pattern on the wheel that clashes with the folky tune crackling in over the faint radio signal.
"Hilarious. I meant which town are we about to pass through, I wanna try to look up a place to buy a charger for this thing," he says, sighing when his phone takes that as a blessing and finally gives out with a sad chirp.
He casts a look out the window, the rows and rows of tall pine trees blurring together into near-impenetrable greens and maroons as the sun goes down. He hopes they find a place to crash soon — he's about ready to pass out himself, and his back is way past the days it could withstand sleeping in the car.
Next to him, Bucky's very quiet save for the soft tap-tap-tap of his hands against the leather.
"Barnes."
"Hm?"
"You have no clue where we are, do you."
"No, of course I do. It's, uh." He shrugs, forcibly casual. Sam's going to strangle him. "It's a Polish, y'know. Municipality."
"Can you just—"
"Old. Probably been invaded a couple of times."
"Bucky."
"Lotsa consonants in the name."
"You said you knew this area," Sam accuses. "That you've been here recently."
"I do," he insists, glaring through the windshield at the idyllic scenery like it spat at him and called his mother something untoward. "I did, at least, but then they had to go and change all the fucking signs, and the roads don't look the same, and the trees are all—" he waves a hand vaguely instead of finishing, like that's supposed to be sufficient explanation or at all helpful to Sam's growling stomach and their equally dead, equally useless phones.
"Oh, it's the trees' fault? The trees are different from when you—" He cuts off, a niggling gear turning loud and loose somewhere in the back of his brain all of a sudden. The compounded sleep deprivation's really not helping in giving it a name and a meaning, scattering his thoughts in ten different directions.
Something he read once, about trumpets, or— no, the archangel. Why that? They passed a church about an hour ago, but he hasn't been in so long his poppy's probably turning over in his grave, and anyway what does that have to do with—
He blinks once, twice. Bucky resettles in the driver's seat, shifty-eyed as anything. The gear rattles, and turns, and turns, and then clicks.
Not church. Not trumpets. Junior year of high school, AP History. His presentation on Gabriel Jones, PFC, and his role in running comms with local resistance members during an action, which got him a grudging pat on the back from the brass and shrapnel permanently lodged in the upper thigh. He managed to get himself and two members of his team, including his CO who got shot in the neck, out of the line of fire long enough to get medical treatment. He saved Captain America's life.
It was an act of bravery, Sam'd told the class as his teacher nodded along gravely. It was a miracle any of them survived. They were down on supplies, and in the middle of the woods.
In fucking Poland.
"Oh, you didn't. Tell me you didn't."
"What?" Bucky says, a little too defensive, in Sam's opinion, for someone who managed to get them lost in the Polish countryside by virtue of sheer hubris alone.
"Tell me you didn't think you could navigate us through Poland," Sam says, slowly so it really sinks in, "with a bunch of jumbled memories of some damn woods from ninteen-forty-fucking-four."
And then in the next scene they talk about parental death, so. *massive shrugging emoji* Consistent tone, who?
Hi hi hi! I’d love to hear more about your SteveBucky WIP if you’d care to share! (I can understand how they’d drive you to write fic in the first place, they are very powerful.)
Or if you’ve already shared that one I’d love to see any art or edit peeks! 👀👀
hi DS!! I did already ramble about my one and only fic wip here 🥰 I'll share my two most recent art wips below; syd from the bear and a few eddie from 911 warmup sketches ❤️ ty for asking!!
thank you very much for stopping by, friend! <33 one bouquet comin right up ;)
Steve pushed at him, and then Bucky had an armful and a half of juiced up angel, a blanket of feathers, and a freezing pair of feet nudging at his own.
“Your toes are still ice cubes,” he said a little wonderingly, the warmth of Steve’s wings immediately making him relaxed and drowsy. Maybe that had been Steve’s intent all along. “Can’t change perfection.”
“Perfection, yeah, that’s a good one,” Steve grumbled, but Bucky could tell from the shape of his vowels that he was smiling into Bucky’s shirt. “Thank god you’re always so warm.”
I am hammering at your door until you write more of your novel! (It sounds so great!)
thank you so much for the motivation, friend!! <3 for you:
“What’s that on your hand?” Angela asked, handing him a water glass and touching his wrist. The phone number Jacob left behind in damning black ink stared back at them.
Well, shit, Michael thought. He said, “Phone number.”
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Can you tell me more about your non linear idea from your WIPs? (I love non linear ideas!) 💙💙💙
Thank you for the ask, friend! I raved a bit about this WIP over here, if you'd like to check that out, and I would love to share another snippet with you!
This is from a 2014 scene with our brave players setting out on the beginnings of a chasing-bucky-road-trip :)
“Just a little longer,” Steve said, and turned on the ignition. At the start of the engine, the backdoor opened and Natasha slid into the backseat, sunglasses pushed back into her hair.
“Anyone want a yogurt?” she asked, holding a small cup of strawberry aloft. “They had a sale.”
Steve peeled out of the parking lot before Sam could peel off his yogurt wrapper. Sam grabbed ahold of the handle above his head and shot Steve a look. Steve said sorry and got on the highway.
“Why do cheap things taste better because you got a deal?” Natasha wondered aloud, licking at her spoon like a very pleased cat.
Hiii, tysm for the ask! <3
🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?
Oh god, this is such a fun and insanely difficult question. I truly apologize in advance for how long this is about to get because I'm blanking and also can't pick a single thing to save my life.
I feel like I'm still in the beginning of trying to figure style out so inspirations keep changing, but right off the bat Richard Siken was a big one that's recently made a comeback. Pretty revelatory to little me at 15 and still very much an influence many, many years later, especially when it comes to poetry. There's just something to how he weaves his wording from tender to violent + that dream-like, stream of consciousness structure, striking visuals about relatively mundane things and a consistent thread of hope and wonder despite the darkness throughout that I find just lovely.
Kurt Vonnegut is also a big nostalgic classic from those formative years. Still very much love the tongue-in-cheek humor and the roundabout storytelling of an eccentric old uncle used to address very real and often grim topics in a very human, grounded way.
Just about anything that deals with non-linear time, dreams and memory, too. Everything by Tarkovsky, even though I feel like an absolute asshole bringing his genius up while talking about my writing hobby, let alone my silly little fics, but listen, I was a film major. What can you do. Forever enamored with that man's work.
(Dialing it back a little: I'm also rewatching Russian Doll which does memories and trauma reconciliation and the surreal really well while also juggling humor. It's still somewhat painful, but at least it's also very fresh and funny and very full of life. Would love to be able to write a script with that combo one day.)
In terms of some of the general stuff that extends to fanfic-inspiring as well, I'll always have a soft spot for Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for many, many reasons. It's beautiful, it's sharp, it's creative! It's a (very) sprawling love letter to the Golden Age of comics and the very ongoingly relevant origins of Captain America! To New York in the 30s-50s! To youth and ideas and intersecting identities and illusions of escape and found family! To coming of age and hope and grief in the face of a rapidly complicating world! To meticulous, meticulous historical research! Michael Chabon, I'm in your goddamn walls.
Throw in some basic staples of the WWII mini-series genre, + Babylon Berlin and Chernobyl and a bunch of MKUltra paranoia thrillers for fun times with WS-centered darker undertones and political elements re: the '30s and Cold War era, and there you have it.
So that is... way too many things off the top of my head and none of them are necessarily all that reflected in my writing yet, however! They do inspire me.
🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them
yes I do! They’re dumbasses in two completely different ways (can you tell?) and the absolute bane of my existence. And I would die for them, I really would.
wish I had some better photos but I cleared out my phone recently :(
How could I possibly choose from so many intriguing titles?? I’d love to hear more about “Farm therapy, ws style” please!
thanks so much for the ask, @dharmasharks! this one is a new idea about clint and natasha taking a look at steve after the events of winter soldier, and saying "yeah, nah, get that guy some yardwork to do" and dragging the city boy out to clint's farm.
it's going to be a delve into steve's relationship with both of them, and also just another post ws finding bucky fic :) snippet for you!
“How are you feeling?” she tries again.
Steve shrugs. He feels how he always feels. He feels fine.
“I know men of your generation didn’t talk about how they feel,” Natasha says, and she’s nearly tripping over her words, would’ve been, if she’d been anyone else. Men of Steve’s generation aren’t the only people around who don’t know how to talk about feelings. “But I want you to know you can share whatever you want to, Steve. Even if it’s not with me.”
