Arctic Light

Here's a little grab bag of some extra stuff that goes with the fic I just posted.

First of all, for the last chapter I was trying to figure out what the generator room of a secret underground HYDRA base would actually look like (seriously, I swear THE big source of delays on the last couple of chapters was trying to figure out how a secret underground bad guy base would be constructed, probably in more detail than actual TV show/movie show writers generally do) and I came across this really cool page on the power station at the Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole. At least, I thought it was interesting! I started out patterning the HYDRA power plant after this one, although as you'll notice if you read the story, it ended up taking a somewhat different turn.

Second - the fic actually started out very different. I started writing it for a prompt at avengersgen last May, for Sam getting Bucky out of trouble. Originally I had imagined it as some kind of "5 Times Sam Saved Bucky" fic, or something along those lines, but I wrote this little tossed-off bit about Sam catching Bucky after he fell out of a plane, and then I thought "OKAY ACTUALLY I WANT TO WRITE THAT FIC", and then 32K words of fic happened. XD But I did actually start writing the other one. So here's about 800 words of the fic it almost was, but didn't turn out to be. It's still tempting to turn this into an actual fic, but I don't really have a plot, so mainly it's just some plotless speculating on how Sam and Bucky would work together in the field.

( The unwritten Sam and Bucky fic from last May )

And that's as far as I ever got with that.

The other thing I wanted to post is something I just pasted into a comment over on the fic at AO3, and I thought, why not repost it here as well? I tend to write out of order, and one of the early scenes I wrote was a reunion scene that got cut because the plot went a different way. Deets under the cut so I don't spoil my own fic.

( The cut reunion scene, with context - this would've been near the end of Chapter 4 )

I also have some thoughts about how this story was or wasn't jossed by Age of Ultron, but I'll put those in a separate post so people who are avoiding spoilers won't be spoiled.

The Fandom Stockings are revealed! Mine is here and I got lots of lovely stuff -- pictures and ficlets and recs and greetings. I'm delighted with it. :D

I did not manage to get to all the stockings I wanted to fill this year, but I ended up writing a fair amount of stuff, though it's mostly unfinished snippets. Here's what I wrote this year:

White Collar:
A scene from an AU in which Peter is a criminal and Neal is an agent for veleda_k
Post-finale reunion ficlet for leesa_perrie
A different post-finale reunion ficlet for pipilj
A little more of the Iceland fic I posted in comments awhile back for aqwt101 (here's the other piece)
A little more of the White Collar/October Daye fusion Frith and I share for frith_in_thorns (following on directly from the snippet she wrote for me last fandom stocking)
Snippets from a post-finale Christmas story for sheron
Werewolf Peter playing in the snow for kanarek13
Diana is afflicted with Theo's uncles for sheenianni
(the latter two written as snippets in my own comments as thank-yous to people who gave me something when I hadn't given them anything!)

MCU:
Scene from a fic in which Bucky never gets his memories back but becomes friends with Steve anyway for trobadora

btw, it is perfectly fine with me if people who aren't the recipient comment on these; I think it's perfectly fine, although you might wait 'til the recipient has a chance to comment first if they haven't yet. :D I would have posted some of them on AO3, but none are really finished enough to do that (and the only one which actually is a complete story, Veleda's story, has a major plot hole that needs to be fixed >_>).

I've written some fanfic lately that I haven't posted over here ... mostly due to laziness ... so I'll just link to it on AO3.

Blanket Fort (2698 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: Friendship, Seizures, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Brotherly Bonding, Fluff and Angst
Summary: Lots of things change. But for Steve and Bucky, some things don't. (for my h/c bingo "family" square)


And I tried my hand at writing comicsverse fic for the first time. After getting used to writing the MCU versions of Steve and Bucky, it's downright weird to take a shot at channeling the comics versions; their dynamic is so different!

see you on the night side (2085 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winter Soldier (Comics), Captain America (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Daisy Johnson
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Heart-to-Heart
Summary: Missing scene for the new Winter Soldier comic; also spoilery for Captain America #25 (the latest one). This is for my "skeletons in the closet" h/c bingo square.

I'm also so behind at answering comments. SO. BEHIND.

I've been thinking lately about Steve's childhood, growing up poor in Brooklyn in the 1920s, and this happened.

Title: Unpleasant Ways to Die
Fandom: Captain America/Marvel Cinematic Universe
Word Count: 5200
Pairing: Gen
Summary: It's 1928 and Steve is dying. Again. Probably.
Notes: For "severe/life-threatening illness" on my h/c bingo card.
Crossposted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2362658
Trigger warning: discussion of suicide (as interpreted through the minds of ten-year-olds)

( Unpleasant Ways to Die )

I have been making good progress on my original novel this week, so last night I kicked back and wrote a thing for h/c bingo.

Title: Heat Wave
Fandom: Captain America/MCU
Word Count: 3400
Pairing: Gen
Summary: For my h/c bingo card square "heat stroke". Very convenient to have that square this time, because there's a brief mention in my gardening fic Oasis about Bucky having gotten heatstroke one time, and I had been wanting to write that anyway. So I did. (If you didn't read "Oasis", the only aspect of it that really matters for purposes of this fic is that there is now a garden on top of the Tower that is Bucky's pet project.)
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1783261

( Heat Wave )

Title: Little Repairs
Fandom: Captain America/MCU
Word Count: 3100
Pairing: Gen
Summary: Tony repairs Bucky's arm; Bucky tries not to freak out about it. Set in some hypothetical future time after CA2.
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1680554

( Little Repairs )

The remix reveals are out! I wasn't signed up for Remix itself, but I wrote this one for Remix Madness, a remix of a kind of grace that shades everything by musesfool.

Three Body Problem (the amazing grace remix) (3031 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Characters: Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: Remix, Threesome - F/M/M, Alzheimer's Disease
Summary: They both owe her a dance.

The original fic -- which is Bucky/Steve/Peggy in the 1940s -- provided a springboard to deal with the changes in all three of them through the years. The comments, while lovely, seem to indicate that the end result is a lot sadder than I was going for when I wrote it; I was thinking "happy and hopeful" but ... apparently I missed that boat somewhat. XD I also feel like I didn't do the best job of remixing the actual fic -- the remixes I've written in the past have engaged more directly with the actual events of the story, while this one uses it more as a launch pad; basically it let me write Steve/Bucky/Peggy as an established relationship (and deal with the emotional fallout from that) without having to set up the relationship, which is always the hard part for me. The original is lovely, though, and as it so happened I had been reading my way through musesfool's back catalogue of Steve/Bucky fic right at the point when Remix Madness opened up, which meant that remixing one of her older fics from the vantage point of the new movie seemed like the natural choice.

Also, my story By Choice or By Habit has been podficced by reena_jenkins - you can find the podfic here (along with a really wonderful rec/review of the story!).

When I solicited prompts the other day, kriadydragon and aelfgyfu_mead asked for Sam and Bucky interaction. Then the ensemble wandered in, as they do.

Title: Strawberries in Wintertime
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Spoilers: for Captain America 2
Pairing: Gen (though your choice of pairing can be read in around the edges, if you like)
Word Count: 3200
Summary: Sam wasn't sure when his apartment had turned into a hangout for superheroes, spies, and rogue assassins. They just started turning up like stray cats and he made the mistake of feeding them, so then they didn't leave.
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1551245
Other media: This fic has now been podficced by podcath: find the podfic here!

( Strawberries in Wintertime )

.... I wrote a thing. (I can't even bring myself to apologize for the title.) Thanks for the help with my questions earlier, guys!

Title: The Care and Feeding of Traumatized Ex-Assassins
Fandom: Captain America (movie 'verse)
Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 6700
Summary: Steve starts to notice someone's been in his apartment while he's not there. Set after Winter Soldier; SPOILERS.
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1485853
Now with a podfic by reena_jenkins - download it here or on AO3!

( The first time it happens is after one of Sam's VA meetings. )