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I've been largely absent here for far too long, but I've got a little burst of fannish joy I definitely want to post today.

I bid on the lovely artist pennydrdful in Marvel Trumps Hate last year, and she's now completed her illustration for my story Captain America Finds His Fella.

You can click on the image for a glorious full-sized version.



I'm an absolute sucker for stories where Bucky learned ballet while under control of the Red Room, and this story is my take on that. It's part of my Captain America Has a Fella series, where Steve reconnects in the present with one of the USO girls from the War Bonds Captain America show. Audrey is now an elderly ballet teacher who helps Bucky recover from his time as the Winter Soldier. The illo is from the scene where Audrey takes Bucky through a ballet class, while Steve watches in amazement.

You can go show pennydrdful some love on Tumblr here.

A year and five months late, I've finally finished my Fandom Trumps Hate 2019 story. I'll be putting up a chapter a day.



The Needs of the One
Chapter 1 of 8
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Shuri (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Okoye (Marvel)
Additional Tags: 1930s, Brooklyn, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Goat Herder Bucky Barnes, Wakanda (Marvel), Hurt/Comfort, double timeline

Summary:
"I hear your pal is sick again."

Kenny McMannis smirked as he passed by, and honestly it was the smirk as much as the comment that made Bucky grab the jerk's arm and glare at him.

"Who are you talking about, McMannis?" he said, squeezing his arm just a little bit harder than necessary. "Steve?"

"Of course I mean Rogers." McMannis tried to pull his arm out of Bucky's grip, then acted like he didn't care when he couldn't manage it. "You got another sickly runt roommate?"

1938 or 2018, Brooklyn or Wakanda, Bucky Barnes will always be there to look after Steve Rogers.

What with house renovations, hockey tournaments, arctic cold and snowstorms, things have been hectic Chez Zed, and I've barely been on my computer, let alone online. But I have completed fic! And it's a new instalment of Captain America Has a Fella series.

Captain America Says a Goodbye (4929 words)
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Additional Tags: Outside POV, Offscreen Canonical Character Death
Summary: When Steve first arrives in her dance studio, she and Peggy are his last surviving ties to the past. He waits nearly a month to tell her about Peggy, but then blurts out "Peggy's still alive," after dinner one Sunday, when Liz is in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes.

"That's wonderful!" Audrey says, but then she notices how tight the corners of his mouth are, notices the shadows in his eyes. "Isn't it?"

"She has Alzheimer's," Steve says, his tone blunt and flat, like it's something he's trained himself to say with absolutely no emotion.

Or how one elderly USO show girl helps two super soldiers deal with an inevitable loss.

A big thanks to halotolerant to taking a look at the story and helping make it better.

Since it's July 4th, a.k.a. Steve Rogers' birthday, I thought I'd post the link to the two Cap Reverse BB stories I wrote.



Brooklyn Runaways
(12822 words)
Art by: slaughterme_barnes
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers
Additional Tags: Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Great Depression
Summary:
"Aw, Stevie, don't be like that." Bucky's voice was muffled by the door, but even given that, it didn't sound right. "Open up."

Steve fumbled with the lock, threw open the door, and there was Bucky, standing in the hallway, a suitcase in his hand and a bruise on one side of his jaw.

"We gotta go, Stevie," he said. "We gotta go now."

When Steve and Bucky get careless, they end up having to run away. But maybe running away will find them the home they've always needed.


I lucked out on the initial claim and got one of my absolute top choices, and lovely piece of art that let me write skinny!Steve and Bucky in the '30s. The artist also did a second piece of art that inspired me to break the smut barrier in my new fandom and write Steve/Bucky sexy tiems, so that was fun.

---

That was all I was supposed to write, but then a couple of weeks before the final deadline, this lovely piece of art with the Avengers as characters from a Chinese wuxia epic went up for a pinch hit. And no one else claimed it. I hadn't put this one of my list of initial claims because I didn't think I could do it justice. But my insanely optimistic muse suddenly assured me I could get the job done in two weeks. Stupid muse, but I did it, thanks in part to a lovely artist who had lots of ideas for the background of the characters.



Wuxia Avengers: Heroes' Justice
(10355 words)
Art by: potofsoup
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death (but not the main characters)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Nick Fury, Howling Commandos
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Wuxia AU, Don't worry the Avengers don't die
Summary:
Captain Steve Rogers was a trusted member of the Emperor's Palace Guard, but then his entire company was wiped out by the Red Skull. Now Steve seeks only vengeance for the death of his sword brothers and the man he loved. He thinks his is a solitary quest, but on his journey he will find fellow avengers to help him. Bu they will all have to come together to defeat the fearsome Hydra fighter, the Winter Assassin.

---

Now I'm going to take a few days break to recover from the stress writing of 10K words in two weeks before I get back to work on my Stucky BB story.

Happy July 4th to all my American friends out there!

I have now officially written more in the last month and a half than I did in the previous two years. Cap, Bucky and the gang continue to inspire, apparently.

Captain America Finds His Happy Ending (2918 words)
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Additional Tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, civil war never happened
Series: Part 4 of Captain America Has a Fella
Summary:
Ever since Steve got big, it seems like he's been the one saving Bucky, when it used to be the other way around. Steve saved him from regular Nazis a bunch of times. He saved him from Hydra twice. He even saved him from New Jersey. (Fucking Paramus.)

Now, Bucky thinks, it's time for him to save Steve.

Or what happens when a former brainwashed assassin puts his mind to giving his boyfriend the happiness he deserves.

Another week, another Captain America fic churned out. This is nuts, but I'm just going to go with it.

Captain America Is Out and Proud (5222 words)
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Original Characters
Summary:
The truly terrible thing about waking up in the future, thinks Steve, is that everyone who looks at him sees Captain America, national icon. An icon 70 years in the making, never mind that he's really only lived 25 years. (Years don't count if you spend them in the ice, do they?)

Or what happens when Steve runs into an old friend from the USO.

A sequel to Captain America Has a Fella

The Stucky writing binge continues. I think this is officially the most I've written in a short time frame, ever. Apparently these boys have tickled my muse.

Lost and Found - The Soldier's Story (7178 words)
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Peggy Carter
Additional Tags: Captain America: The First Avenger Divergent, Captain America: The Winter Soldier divergent, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Non-Graphic Violence
Series: Part 3 of Lost and Found (MCU)
Summary:
The Soldier is kept under control with ice and fire. But what happens when echoes of the past fray the cords of control?

I don't know how it's been a month since I posted. (Okay, I do know how. BistoCon and soccer and the film fest and life, that's how.) Anyway, here's my attempt at a catch-up post.

First with the footie. We've had four games since I last posted, the last four of the season. The first two were disappointing, including a loss to the team of one of Ros' best friends. We had (cruelly) been hoping we could beat them since they were the only team below us on the standings, but they had a good night and we had a tough one. At least we could be happy for their win.

Last week's game was heartening. We played a pretty good team and managed to hold them to a tie.

This week's game was awesome. We were playing another team in the middle of the pack, but our girls seemed to really figure out how to play together. There was passing, and working together, and actually playing of their positions. Ros managed to score a goal by really sticking with the ball in front of the net. And another girl, who's always game but hasn't yet scored, got in a really nice goal as well. Add in two more goals from one of our best players, and we managed a 1 - 4 win! A nice way to end the season.

That's the regular season done, but next week we have Cup Weekend, which is our club's house league playoffs. We play four round robin games, and the top four teams play in finals a week Sunday.

Onto fans!

It's been over a week since BistoCon 2016, our little biannual Pros con in charming Romulus, MI. We had 22 people attending, and the feedback is that everyone had a fab time. I know I did! There were panels and episodes and games (provided by the brilliant Krisser) and lots of laughter. And we've agreed to do it all again in 2018!

Rejuvenated by the con and by spending time with such passionate fellow fans, I've finally started writing again. I've got over 1,000 words of a Pros story done, and a more or less complete idea of where it's going. This has all been helped by getting stuck in meetings at work that don't really concern me, thus giving me found time to scribble as I like. Very exciting!

The last thing that's taken up a good chunk of the last week, and will take up 11 days starting next week, is the Toronto International Film Fest, a.k.a. TIFF. The schedule came out last week, and we had to have our picks for tickets in this past Sunday, so I got home from BistoCon in time to spend days poring over descriptions of the nearly 400 scheduled films and narrowing them down to the 21 I want to see.

I'm hopeful it's going to be a good year. I'm most excited to see Free Fire, a '70s crime film. I saw this pic from it, with Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer rocking these '70s threads, and it shot to the top of my must see list.

This is a late birthday present for halotolerant, and one of the odder mixes of fandoms I've done. And it's gen.

Title: Eye of the Storm
Fandoms: Take That, Tennis RPF
Characters: Jason Orange, Andy Murray
Summary: When Jason tries to find a bit of calm during the Olympics closing ceremony, he runs into someone unexpected.

( Eye of the Storm )