December Daily: stories that never will be

[resonant]

Still a day behind and catching up. muccamukk asked, "Describe a long fic you always wanted to write, but never have and likely never will."

This question sent me to my writing folder. I found a document from back when I thought Bucky was really dead, which contains the bones of a long Steve/Tony story called "Super."

There were two parts. The first involved a kidnapper getting hold of Steve before Fury did and trying to use his blood to reverse-engineer the super soldier serum, but only succeeding in somehow knocking him back into Skinny Steve, and then kidnapping Tony to force him to do the sciency stuff with Steve's blood. (When I look at this now, it would have made more sense for it to be Bruce. I can only assume that when I wrote it I hadn't met Bruce yet.) Of course they Endured Hardship, Fell In Love, and Triumphed Over Their Foes.

The second part picked up where the epilogue of "The First Avenger" started, with Fury placing Steve with the rest of the Avengers. Tony has gone full Playboy Billionaire and refuses to talk to him, for reasons that basically boil down to "You're out of my league now."

As always, I had imagined the romance/sex part in a lot of detail, while only having the vaguest idea of how the plot would work; as I describe it here, I can see that it's badly out of balance, with lots of adventure in Part 1 and nothing but feeeeeelings in Part 2.

And I could probably have fixed that, except that it turned out that Bucky wasn't dead. And if Bucky was alive, then I couldn't make myself believe that Steve could love anyone else.

It's a pity. It started with Steve waking up in the middle of an asthma attack, and it was fun and somewhat therapeutic to write Steve getting a chance to get used to modern days by fighting his way out of a makeshift hospital with Tony rather than by being flung into Times Square without help. It allowed me to write what it felt like to be transformed back into Captain America from Steve's POV (Then the pain went away all at once and he was panting, drenched in sweat, and Tony was saying, "Mother of *god.*"). It allowed me to write one sex scene with Skinny Steve and another one with Still Virginal Like It's 1942 Steve.

Closed canons are a lot easier to write than ones that keep changing.







1 -- goss, "VENOM! Why do you think it's been such an instant hit with Fandom, and what are some of your favourite fanworks so far?" and nestra, "Any Venom recs?"
2 -- anitac588, "How do you relate to different fandoms? Do you revisit them? Sometimes I find it difficult to go back to reading stories in 'old' fandoms after discovering new OTP."
3 -- marginaliana, "what is your favorite physical non-living thing? Not a person or a pet, but it could be something you own or a piece of art, etc."
4 -- cesperanza, "I'll ask an HP question, actually, because I wasn't really ever in it and I'm interested in the reactions of people who were. It seems to me from the outside so spectacularly meh now; like, it was the fictional equiv of Lost (which I also didn't watch) where it was fascinating as a piece of serialized fiction but where the execution simply couldn't live up to the collective imagination. Am I wrong?"
5 -- teigh_corvus, "Your thoughts on James Joyce and Ulysses."
6 -- kass, "If the you of 10 years ago could see you now, what would surprise her most?"
7 -- jjhunter, "What do you carry with you?"
8 -- mific, "Sounds like you commute to and fro still. How do you pass the time traveling? Music? Audiobooks? Something else? Any reccs? :)"
9 -- torch, "favorite advent songs!"
10 -- princessofgeeks, "How did you go about changing fandoms? Was it, historically, something you did or something that just happened? Did friends lure you? Did you find new shows to watch?"
11 -- reginagiraffe, "(It's MrGiraffe's birthday so...) Have you ever written a birthday themed story? If not, what couple would have the best/funnest/easiest birthday story to write and why?"
12 -- laurenthemself, "What are your thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok? I know ya boy Steve wasn't in it but did you have any shippy feelings?"
13 -- allheadybooks, "13. What's your least favorite thing about splitting your time between two houses? (My wife and I are also in a commuter marriage at the moment, and I get so frustrated every weekend when I have to go grocery shopping AGAIN because I thought I had eggs but that was at the other apartment!"
14 -- schneefink, "how about your field of study/work/specialization/hobby and how a book/movie/series/canon got it terribly/hilariously wrong?"
15 -- china_shop, "What hooks you into a fanfic? Is it banter, characterisation, tropes, or...? Is it different from what hooks you into original fic?"
16 -- muccamukk, "Describe a long fic you always wanted to write, but never have and likely never will."
17 -- ride_4ever, "rec two due South fanworks: a favorite that you created and a favorite that someone else created. (Anything! Triggers and squicks not a concern for me.)"
18 -- kass, "What have you read recently that you've enjoyed?
19 -- jjhunter, "What are five words you like or find especially meaningful + 1 word you despise? Why?"
20 -- terminally_underwhelmed, "do you have fandom/character/relationship "types" that you find all your fannish energy going towards? Like, Gryffinpuff/Slytherclaw (and more simply hot/cold) relationships grab me, and so do characters that are both super popular and super ooc in fanworks.'
21 --
22 -- mekare, What would Ben Fraser do in 2018?
23 -- marina, "What was the last book you read that wasn't fanfic and that you intensely loved, and why."
24 -- wychwood, "Something about SGA! What's the one fic you're sorry you never wrote? What was your favourite episode? Do you still love John/Rodney? How gay WAS John Sheppard? Where in Atlantis would you live if you could pick any room you liked? Pick one or a topic of your choice."
25 -- isabellerecs, "What was your most favorite Christmas present that you ever received as a kid?" and/or "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?"
26 --
27 --destina, "how has your relationship to fandom changed over the years? By which I mean not just participation in it, but your level of tolerance/interest for the cyclical things about it, the way old arguments never really stop or die, etc, but also the ways fandom changes and new ways of doing fandom evolve. (And old ways evolve out, and terms evolve, etc.)"
28 -- kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 --
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"
17 -- ride_4ever, "rec two due South fanworks: a favorite that you created and a favorite that someone else created. (Anything! Triggers and squicks not a concern for me.)"
18 -- kass, "What have you read recently that you've enjoyed?
19 -- jjhunter, "What are five words you like or find especially meaningful + 1 word you despise? Why?"
20 -- terminally_underwhelmed, "do you have fandom/character/relationship "types" that you find all your fannish energy going towards? Like, Gryffinpuff/Slytherclaw (and more simply hot/cold) relationships grab me, and so do characters that are both super popular and super ooc in fanworks.'
21 --
22 -- mekare, What would Ben Fraser do in 2018?
23 -- marina, "What was the last book you read that wasn't fanfic and that you intensely loved, and why."
24 -- wychwood, "Something about SGA! What's the one fic you're sorry you never wrote? What was your favourite episode? Do you still love John/Rodney? How gay WAS John Sheppard? Where in Atlantis would you live if you could pick any room you liked? Pick one or a topic of your choice."
25 -- isabellerecs, "What was your most favorite Christmas present that you ever received as a kid?" and/or "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?"
26 --
27 --destina, "how has your relationship to fandom changed over the years? By which I mean not just participation in it, but your level of tolerance/interest for the cyclical things about it, the way old arguments never really stop or die, etc, but also the ways fandom changes and new ways of doing fandom evolve. (And old ways evolve out, and terms evolve, etc.)"
28 -- kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 --
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"

Comments

[muccamukk]

That sounds like a really interesting story. MCU Stony never really clicked for me the way comics did (nor Stucky), but I can see how TWS would have sent that one for a loop!

[resonant]

You're always a lot more knowledgeable about comics canon than I am. Though I'm pleased to say that due to reading the Rivers of London comics, I'm finally beginning to break my tendency to read the words and ignore the pictures.

[lunabee34]

That sounds like a fabulous AU. Would read.

[resonant]

Wish I'd been fast enough to actually write it!

[mekare]

Thank you for sharing!

[resonant]

:)

[sineala]

Ooh. That would have been great. But I do see how Bucky being alive would have been a problem there.

[resonant]

Don't get me wrong -- I really like Tony. But Steve really likes Bucky.

[norsellie]

Now I kind of want that fic as a Steve/Bruce, with a Steve/Bruce/Bucky endgame.