I genuinely hadn't noticed until you said anything, but I was wondering why Chim was so familiar! Holy shit!
Look at baby Kenneth over there as Jim, though. Mr. "I'm from Fresno, Ace."
Oh. Wow. 2011 is over a decade ago now. Kenneth was 40 when he played that role. He's 53 now. Excuse me for a moment while I sit in my corner of falling for men that are 20 years older than me.
At least Sebastian is only 6 years older than me. At least he's not fucking... me as a teenager being attracted to Richard Dean Anderson...
Anyway. I knew I couldn't be as excited with gifs and images in a reply as I could in a post, so I had to respond this way. But yeah.
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2 and 11 for the fanfic ask, if you feel so inclined
Ooh, those are fun ones. I feel like it's easier to answer the second one first, so:
What makes a fic 'successful' in your opinion?
Largely, to me, a successful fic is one that I can say has reached a fulfilling conclusion within my own mind. If I can see all the ends tied up and in a satisfying way, then it's finished and that makes it successful. Even if it doesn't get traction on a site I publish it on, it's finished, and that's a joy in and of itself for me. The fact that others read and enjoy it is just icing on the cake when/if it does happen.
Now, moving on to that first question...
Which of your fics is your pride and joy?
This one is so so so hard, because you're asking me to pick one baby over the... 131 I've published. And that's 131 out of the 400-something I've written over the years (and that's ONLY Marvel; don't get me started on my years writing for Psych, Red vs. Blue, and various others). I can't exactly narrow this down to just one.
What I can give you is three. And I'll tell you why for each one.
One of them is Finding His Peace, which is one of my more recent WinterIron pieces, and hits up there for me because it takes Tony's reaction to learning about Bucky's involvement with his parents' death and gives Tony some fucking sense.
Yes, he gets frustrated and hurt and he takes some time to heal, but he also takes some time to get to know the man behind the programming that took his parents away and he bonds with Bucky in ways that could have been so beautiful, had the MCU let us have it.
I had so much fun writing this one because it was filled with so much heart. Bucky and Tony got to grow and learn a lot about themselves and each other. They became a unit together in ways I actually hadn't been planning as I wrote, and I got to experience Tony surviving the snap, which is always something I enjoy.
Another of my favorites, a story I hold near and dear to my heart, is Where Do We Go From Here? This one was an alternate universe jumping off point for Bucky, Steve, Tony, and Peter, and created a stronger alliance for z Tony and Steve because it started them off as close to childhood friends. It was set in modern times and still gave is the Winter Soldier programming for Bucky, along with his torture and the serum.
It also gave us Steve and his serum, Tony becoming Iron Man, and Peter becoming Spider-Man, but in a way that brought the team together to save Bucky. The bond between them all was stronger, it felt to me, than the MCU managed. There was no chance for squabbling to break them up, and the connections between Tony, Steve, and Bucky were something I was very proud of in my writing. Bringing them together with Tony and Bucky as a couple and Bucky and Steve close as brothers, Tony and Steve as best friends, and all of them protective over Peter. It was something that I felt I needed at the time, and it resonated to be able to write.
And finally, though it's not yet finished, my baby of all babies, the series that's going to be my downfall and I will go down smiling... Hydra Horror.
If I absolutely had to pick one, it would be this monstrosity. This beautiful behemoth. This wild, twisting maze of terror that's spanned so much and broken up the MCU's storyline to hell and back.
I'm currently writing more scenes as we speak. We left off with Rumlow starting they needed to get Captain America on their side, after all. But Cap is dealing with the downfall of SHIELD and Hydra, isn't he? So... there's some fun to be had still.
And Jasmine. Oh, Jasmine. The plans she had for these boys. The plans she has for someone she hasn't even MET yet, but when she does meet him, she's going to torture the fuck out of him. Because you see...
The others have heard her. Even felt her. They've maybe caught glimpses of a woman in the distance. Out of the corner of their vision.
But the person coming in next? He can see her. Fully. And she's going to eat that up.
So, yeah. That's, uh... that's where I'm at with that. Thanks for asking!
@exbex sent me a couple prompts for that writing ask game, so here's the answers
List one or two favorite lines you've written and explain why they're your favorite:
So this is is genuinely difficult for me. I frequently go back to old fic and read it for help with current pieces only to stop and go, "No way I wrote that?" because I stumble across a little one-liner or section that I thoroughly enjoy.
One that I always come back to is from the first story in the Surviving Winter series, right as Rumlow is being told that he's going to take over as the Soldier's handler. He's reflecting on how much he hates Pierce while sitting directly across from him in his office and there's a single paragraph that brings me great literary joy to this day.
"The Director chuckles at him, all secrets and sleaze and dripping with the essence of everything wrong in this world. He's all that Rumlow hates and everything that he sees hateful in himself. It makes him want to jump up and crash through that expensive fucking window to his left, catapult the 27 stories to the ground below, and say his final prayers before his head becomes one with the pavement."
The absolute distaste Brock has for the man that is supposed to be his boss is tangible, and intertwined with how closely his hate for Pierce mirrors his hate for himself, it becomes a hinge-point at the beginning of it all for the character. Right at the beginning of the series, we come to this man who loathes his boss, who he's become through his job, and the lack of morals it's instilled in him. He hates it all so much, he's considering ending his life right in front of his boss, because there's nothing more abhorrent to him than becoming the man he works for, and he feels like he already is. He's one fancy gold-plated office away from being everything he hates in this world.
And then he meets the Soldier. He sees the hidden fear and desperation in a pair of eyes that are meant to show nothing. An emotionless monster designed to kill, and the man trapped inside for decades. Suddenly, Brock has something to live for. Even if only for the amount of time it takes to do right by Bucky. Because throughout the series, he's resigned himself with the fact that he might not make it out alive, but the real hero will. Bucky Barnes will get to live again, even if Brock Rumlow plummets back to the earth after getting Bucky to the stars.
And while I could probably offer so many more, I'll only give one:
"His memory is still Swiss cheese on the best days and he tries not to let that get the best of him, but sometimes it hurts so bad to not be able to remember his mother's face."
This is Bucky Barnes, and while to some reading this that may seem obvious, I still wanted to clarify since it's out of context. There's something so tragic about this single sentence. In a story about Bucky remembering feelings he had, and still has, for Steve during the war. Feelings for a man who's no longer living in the world he's in. There's a moment of pause and sorrow because, through all of those memories, he doesn't remember his mother's face. He remembers some things. He remembers Becca. He vaguely remembers life back in the 30s and 40s. But when he thinks of his mom, she is a faceless shape in the middle of the memory. Her voice is gone. Her smile no longer fills his heart with joy. What little he can recall of her recipes doesn't uplift him as much as her very presence did and he can't even remember what color her eyes were.
It's heartbreaking, honestly. And I live for heartbreak.
2. Say something nice about your writing.
There used to be a time when I couldn't do this. But now I can look back at what I've written and find joy between the words. I can see my own passion for the written word on the screen and I know that I've regained something I lost so many years ago. I don't know if others see it, but I see my work come to life because it's filled with my passion and determination to tell a story. I can see my work light up. I can feel the characters. I can hear them. I couldn't when I was younger, and I think that's what stopped me from writing for such a long time. But now, it's like I can't stop. The amount of things that never make it to the public eye because I'll start and then realize that wasn't the story I wanted to tell, but I'll immediately start writing the one I did want to? God, I love writing, and I can tell that I love writing when I read my work. That's what I've always wanted.
Oh wow. Funny enough, for me? I think the best part is what some might consider the worst part. The whole, if I can't find a certain vibe of fic for the pairing that I wanna read, I can just write it. Like, fuck it, I'll populate the tag my own damn self, lol.
It makes for a lot of fun in getting to write whatever the hell I want. It also feels a lot more like self-indulgence than with other pairs. There's so few people who are going to actually give a shit about my WinterIron stories, for example (though they are a bit more popular now than I realized), so I can just write it for me. Larger pairings, sometimes I'll find myself sitting there wondering what other people might think of a scene I'm putting together.
Usually, that still turns around to me saying, "Fuck it, I'm putting it in anyway."
He knows why they haven't. It's all about Steve. He and Bucky have talked about Steve a few times. How possessive the man can be, and how dense. Tony's talked about how his heart still hurts over being lied to. He tells Bucky it's not what Steve kept from him, but that Steve thought keeping things from him was the answer. Bucky tells Tony Steve's bullheaded and doesn't think things through fully, and that sounds just about right.
So, this is from That's Something You Don't Forget, the story where we all find out Tony's eaten people before (not by choice). I had just watched Fresh for the first time and wanted to put a Marvel spin on it, so... I wrote this. Due to the length of my response, I'm putting it under a read more.
This is after a reveal that Tony and Bucky are having a mostly secret relationship with each other and that Tony actually wouldn't mind it if the team knew about them. He's happy to be with Bucky and proud of their relationship. He truly loves the other man and wants to proclaim it to the world.
Bucky, however, is scared. That's why they haven't said anything yet. Bucky is scared Steve will take it the wrong way. And Steve is the last link to his old life Bucky has. He's getting better with the here and now, but he's afraid to lose that last bit of his childhood. If Steve doesn't approve of Bucky and Tony together?
Well, Bucky will choose Tony. Because he's just as in love as Tony is. He doesn't want to face that decision, even though he knows they're going to have to be there soon.
Tony, on the other hand, doesn't think Steve won't approve of them together, but he's still hurting over Siberia. He's forgiven Bucky for the death of his parents. He knows it wasn't Bucky's fault. It was Bucky's hands, but not his mind. He sat up for hours listening to Bucky gush about that damn hover car and even Tony started to like his dad again (and that's saying something, because in my headcanon, Howard wasn't the "trying his best, misguided guy" that the MCU tried to paint him as; he was abusive).
When Tony thinks about Steve, he hurts because he remembers Steve's letter. The letter that said Steve felt like he was protecting Tony by not talking him. And it hurts because that's Tony's life all over. Outsiders trying to make decisions for him. His father deciding he wasn't good enough and he had to be better at everything. Obie deciding he didn't deserve to live or run the company. Pepper deciding he needed to destroy his suits and give up so much to be with her (and that's largely why they aren't together anymore in my stories). To have yet another person he trusted like family to sit there making decisions for him instead of just trusting him to be an adult and handle things properly... that's the part that pisses him off the most.
Except lately it's more just hurt. And he doesn't know how to broach the subject with Steve. He talks to Bucky about it, and Bucky knows. Bucky knows Steve's habit of thinking he knows best for everyone he cares about. He's experienced it firsthand. Back in grade school, Steve tried to get Bucky extra credit work to help him with his grades and ended up just piling more work onto Bucky that he couldn't handle. He knows Steve thinks he's trying to help, to do what's good for his friends and family, but he doesn't think through his plans in that regard. He just throws himself into it. Bullheaded, as Bucky says.
I love that this segment blends so weirdly into the team talking about eating people, too. Like, Tony is sitting there, thinking about his relationship with Bucky and how they're going to have to eventually tell the team, and that includes Steve, and then it's all, "Cannibal party!" And he's thrown into one of the worst non-Iron Man related memories he's got.
I'm also particularly proud of the phrase just a little further down in this fic, "their ear that they personally Van Got-Rid-Of." It felt very Clint to me. Comic Clint.
I also love how, as soon as Tony starts getting vulnerable with the team and panicking over the memory, all worry about what Steve would say is gone from Bucky's head. He's calling Tony doll and getting closer and just trying to comfort him in the best way he can in that moment. He cares so much about Tony, that he'd rather just give up the act and let everyone know what they've been up to of it means he can offer Tony even a fraction of a nugget of comfort.
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You’re under no obligation to answer, but did you remove some fics from AO3? I went to re-read some and hit a dead end. I guess I’m really asking if they’ll be put back up, but again, you’re under no obligation to answer.
I did take a few down, for personal reasons. Some of the subject matter in them didn't feel so comfortable to have up, so I took them down.
Maybe I'll repost them someday, or maybe I'll file them here at some point.
exbex replied to your post: My son just stomped a rabid squirrel to death,...
If my memory serves me correctly, your son is aptly named. Only Atticus could be more appropriate of a name, perhaps.
Taking on Goliath, or am I missing a reference? XD I think he has a bit of Atticus in him, too, really. He's got a lot of heart, and I've always tried hard to protect that.
