Farewell, friends, Romans, countrymen! This is a general fic I wanted to write about the nature and weirdness of any scale of fame. One very specific part of it is dedicated, totally unironically, to this post. You’ll know when you see it. Thank you, radialarch, from the bottom of my heart, for being fanatical enough in your hatred to give me the inspiration to have the last word. Literally.
It reads:
CAP WANTS YOU — and that dumb photo of him pointing — TO GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
—
Captain Steve Rogers @SGR
Take this down. My mother was an immigrant.—
“You mean I— what?” Steve asked, baffled. “I don’t understand.”
“You have to take it down.”
“I’m not f— Miss Potts,” Steve said, and forced himself to sit back down again, very abruptly. “I’m not taking it down. And pardon me, but you’re not my manager. Or my agent. Or my secretary.”
“No, you’re right,” said Miss Potts. “I am none of those. But as a favor — as a friend, Steve, I’m asking you to take it down.”
“Miss Potts, please do not take this the wrong way—”
“I feel, somehow, that what you’re about to say to me is going to be offensive.“
“Miss Potts, ma’am, you’re a lovely woman, and I mean that.”
“Well, thank you,” she said.
“But I’ve known you for less than a week. We’re not friends, though I’d very much like us to be. And I’m not going to let prejudiced bigots put my face on their racist horseshit, pardon me, because it’ll make your life in this tower above the clouds easier.”
Miss Potts looked at him for so long that Steve was reminded in a visceral way of Colonel Phillips. He noticed after a moment the incredibly fine smile lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and where her deep red lipstick had bled just a bit into her foundation. “Captain Rogers,” she said, and sighed. She waved her hand. “Okay, fine,” she muttered, and sat down across him in the plush office, and kicked her heels off. Her toes were painted a deeply undignified neon pink.
“Steve,” Miss Potts said. “It’s not to make my life easier. It’s because they’re ready to go to court.”
“What?”
“Tony caught whispers. The rights to that image are protected under a common copyright law. Technically, legally, they can use your face wherever they want.”
“It’s my face!”
“No, it’s Captain America’s face. Steve,” said Miss Potts, gently: “Captain America doesn’t belong to you.”
Steve sat staring at her in mute, blank hurt; stricken, childishly, by the undiluted unfairness of his life.
“Oh,” said Steve. He looked at his hands for a moment, and appreciated that Miss Potts didn’t say anything. Then he said, “It’s been awfully nice of you two to let me stay while I was a little down and out. I’ll be moved out tonight.”
“Where will you go?” asked Miss Potts.
Steve shrugged. It was something Buck used to say to him, very grandly, out on the front: What do you want for dinner tonight? And Steve would sprawl in their tent, and in the same grand voice he would suggest the restaurant at— “The Plaza Hotel. They’re still here, aren’t they?”
“That’s one of the most expensive places in Manhattan.”
“Well, I’m one of the most expensive men in Manhattan.”
Miss Potts’ burgundy mouth tipped up. “Tony might have something to say to that.”
Steve stood. He held out his hand, and Miss Potts shook it with a strong grip that had nothing to prove. “Please at least think about removing it.”
“They’re not the first motherfuckers who have ever been after me,” Steve told her. “And they sure as shit won’t be the last. You start running…”
“A lawsuit of that magnitude could drain your accounts.”
Steve shrugged. “Wasn’t doing much with them anyway.”
Miss Potts smiled at him. Then, with her small hand still in his, she reached up and squeezed the roll of his shoulder.
—
“It’s catastrophizing the tiniest issue —“
Sitting in the middle of an unreasonably huge white bed, Steve frowned at his own picture on the television. He craned his neck to see his reflection in the mirror above the desk across the room. “My nose doesn’t look like that,” he muttered.
“That image is protected under common copyright law. Steve Rogers cannot force anyone to recall it.”
“Wolf,” said the young woman on the screen, “This country has spent the last sixty years putting Captain Rogers’ face on its legislation, its foreign and domestic policy, its anti-drug campaigns, you name it. Then — what I think happened is that then the man came back, and suddenly America has had to grapple with Captain Rogers being an actual individual. This shouldn’t be a legal issue. This should be an issue of treating a human being with basic respect and dignity.”
A banging on the door: Steve stood and crossed the white and gold suite and opened it to the bellboy, who rolled in the rest of Steve’s luggage. It wasn’t very much. “Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?” he asked.
Steve pulled a few hundreds out of his wallet and gave them to the man. “No,” he said, and then — “Actually, wait. There is something.”
The man stood for a moment, expectant.
“Two steaks, medium rare, and a bottle of — of something that goes good with two steaks, medium rare.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Do you have french fries?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fries. Two orders of fries.”
“I’ll have that up as soon as I can.”
“One more thing, sorry,” Steve said.
“Of course,” replied the man, but Steve didn’t know what else to ask for. He realized that by ordering two of everything it would seem as though he was waiting on someone, when really he wasn’t, and couldn’t be. “No, never mind,” he said, and added, “Thanks again.”
He shut and chained the door after the bellhop left. He turned back to CNN, but Wolf Blitzer had already moved on.
—
“Who’s that?”
“Wow,” said Stark, which was somewhere in the vicinity of the exact opposite of what Steve wanted to hear.
“I should know her,” Steve surmised, and mumbled: “Well, great.”
“Didn’t Pep give you a binder with names and faces? Did you not get prepped?”
“I got prepped, but it was — no, thank you —“ the waiter stared when Steve waved away the champagne, so he corrected, “Never mind, yeah, I’ll — thank you. Sorry.”
Stark looked at Steve very intently. Fuck it, Steve thought, and downed the drink in one gulp; then he put it back on the befuddled waiter’s tray, tipping an imaginary hat.
“Wow,” Stark repeated.
“You going to tell me her name or am I getting thrown to the wolves?” Steve asked.
“Look, I don’t ask this very often of — well, anyone, but I need to know; Cap,” Stark said, and tipped his red sunglasses down with one finger, squinting: “Are you okay?”
Steve almost laughed out loud. “Hey, Stark,” he said instead, “What’s the year?”
With epic slowness, Stark replied, “2011.”
Steve smiled.
“Stupid question gets a stupid answer,” Stark agreed, tipping his glasses back up. “Alright. I get it. Kim Kardashian.”
“What?”
“The girl. Kim Kardashian.”
“She’s awful pretty,” Steve said. Steve didn’t feel an particular lust for her, not even in that plunging gown: in light the last six months alone Steve felt like he had seen so many impossible things that nothing could surprise him anymore. The only real surprise he ever had was waking up each morning to an empty, luscious hotel room, and no Barnes to bother him. That would never stop being a surprise, Steve thought, for however long he happened to live.
Stark was scandalized, anyway.
“Is she an actress?” Steve asked.
“Hah, sort of,” Stark said. “Didn’t know you had it in you,” he added, in a way he probably thought was sly. But Steve knew that tone; Howard had one just like it.
Stark was starting to bore Steve now. Surprising himself, he wished for Romanoff to show up and steal the show in some low-backed dress to divert eyes off of Steve. Romanoff didn’t do those sorts of things outside of work, though, and she only saved him from press conferences, not benefits. And it was only once, anyway. Only once for Steve’s only almost-friend.
“See you, Stark,” Steve said.
“Well, if you’re going to insist,” Stark replied, but Steve had already pushed away from the wall.
There were photographers at the benefit tonight, paps dressed up in monkey suits, and Steve felt a couple zoom in and track him with their eyes while he made his way across the spacious hall to Kim Kardashian, who was probably some kind of movie star. Everyone here was a movie star. Hell, Steve thought — Aren’t I a movie star too?
“Hello, ma’am,” he said, and Kim Kardashian turned to face him, her mouth dropping open briefly in surprise. “Could I get you a drink?”
“Captain Rogers,” said Kim Kardashian. She had maybe the strangest voice Steve had ever heard, a nasally, sickish drawl. She offered out a hand. Her palm felt smooth and almost powdered. “Oh my God, it’s literally such an honor to meet you.”
“You as well, ma’am,” Steve said, though he had no idea who she was.
The photographers were snapping their photos while Kim Kardashian said, “You know what, I would love to get a drink with you and sit and talk? But,” she continued, in a way where each word was a question, “First, I have to ask — I ask everyone this — can I get a selfie?”
Cap And Kim K Take A Selfie In NYC, Steve imagined a headline tomorrow would read, and another one something like Kim K And SGR Getting Personal! “Why not?” he said, and Miss Kardashian pulled out her phone and swiped to the front facing camera and pouted her mouth in a confusing way. Steve grinned at his own image, annoyed as usual about the way the light hit his nose.
“That is amaaaaa-aazing,” said Miss Kardashian, her voice utterly flat. She saved the photo and slipped her phone away. “I’m having a cosmo.”
“She’s having a cosmo,” Steve told the bartender a moment later, and watched him mix something red and pink in a martini glass. It looked delicious and smelled like it could knock him on his ass. He carried it back with his second glass of champagne and handed it off to her. She was a baffling thing with all that makeup on: it took Steve a second to realize, but then he knew that her eyelashes just could not be real.
“Miss Kardashian —“
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” she told him, in her flat, drawly, nasally tone. “Call me Kim.”
“Kim, I have to be honest with you,” Steve said, and coughed, and spit it out: “I don’t know what it is you’re famous for, and Mr. Stark isn’t telling me.”
Kim Kardashian’s gaze went sharp and calculating. Steve knew there was a human being under there. “You really don’t know,” she said after a minute.
“Nope,” said Steve, apologetic.
“You’re not being mean?”
Steve felt like someone had dumped him in a bucket of ice, which was saying a lot for him. “What? Ma’am, of course not. I think I’m just —“ he laughed, shrugging. “I think I’m being punished for not really looking through the binder with the names and faces that Miss Potts gave me this morning.”
Kim Kardashian took pity on him. “Come with me,” she said.
She looped her hand through his elbow and steered him through the crowd with serious professionalism, still using that same voice she did before, and then suddenly the were at two doors, and then she pushed them open, and they stood on an empty balcony in the balmy summer night air.
“So you really don’t know what I’m famous for,” Kim Kardashian said, and she said it in a deeper voice with real inflection. In the moonlight she pushed her long straight black hair behind one shoulder, leaning on the rail and looking at him.
“You’re a movie star?” Steve hazarded. “You look like a movie star. I don’t know. Everyone here seems to be a movie star.”
Kim laughed. “You’re for real?” she said, disbelieving.
Steve shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”
Kim looked out across the big green lawn for a moment, her drink in her hand. Then she looked back to him, her shoulders squared. “When I was twenty-six I made a sex tape with my boyfriend and when I dumped him he put it on the internet. My dad raised me to do business, so I turned it into a reality show and a retail store.” She looked at him. “You do know what a reality show is, right?”
“Know what it is?” Steve asked. “E! offered me three.”
Kim laughed out loud. “No fucking way,” she said.
“Yeah fuckin’ way,” Steve told her, and it made Kim laugh again.
“You’re a lot, I don’t know…” said Kim, sipping her drink, “Cooler than I thought you’d be.”
“Thanks,” said Steve dryly.
“So what’s your sob story?” Kim asked. Her brow was drawn in sympathy. “I heard about the poster thing.”
Steve looked at her for a moment and then shrugged. “My face doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
Kim’s mouth quirked up. “Sounds familiar.”
“You just — let people do this?” Steve asked. “Take your photos and put them on magazines and photoshop whatever they want onto them?”
“They already did the worst possible thing they could have done to me. Nothing will ever, ever, ever be worse than waking up to a call from my manager to hear about the sex tape, knowing that my whole family would see it, my mom, my little sisters…” she shrugged, but there was pain in her voice. “I know who I am. That’s all that matters.”
“One of my favorite people used to say that,” Steve managed.
Kim looked at him, and smiled. The summer breeze blew her hair across her face and she pushed it away with manicured hands. Then she said, in a joking way, “Do you want my official legal advice? My dad was a lawyer.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t take them to court. When you see things like that, just…tweet about it if you want, make sure people know that isn’t you, but don’t get involved in a legal battle and squander your money away. The stress just isn’t worth it.”
“I don’t think I was really going to take them to court anyway,” Steve confessed. “I know enough to know that libel and slander cases don’t usually get that far. And I’m…”
“Tired?”
“That obvious, huh?”
“You want some other advice? Totally not related to legal issues.”
“Go for it.”
“Fuck,” said Kim, “Everyone. Fuck everyone.”
“Fuck everyone,” said Steve. He laughed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Fuck what those haters say,” Kim added. “Fuck whatever bullshit they put your face on. They don’t know you. They’ve never even met you. You won’t ever know their names if you don’t want to. You,” said Kim, and gestured, “Are up here. They,” she gestured again, “Are way down there. They don’t matter. Tell people what you believe in, use your platform to do it, but if they don’t want to hear it —“
“Fuck ‘em.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Kim agreed, with a saccharine smile, and raised her glass and clinked it to his.
“Can I try your drink?” Steve asked.
“Swap,” Kim agreed, and they did.
“Jesus fuck.”
“It’s like, basically rubbing alcohol,” Kim admitted. “I think it might be an acquired taste.”
Steve wrinkled his nose and they traded back. “Can I ask you something?”
“Maybe.”
“Why do you talk in that godawful voice?”
Kim Kardashian shrugged. “Because that’s what they like to hear. Oh my God,” she said, in her nasally, affected drawl: “I’m just a dumb valley girl, right? I’m, like, so over it.”
Steve was laughing.
“Why do you talk in that godawful voice?” Kim asked him.
“What?” Steve said.
Kim said, in a deep and jingoistic tone, “One bond is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun.”
“How do you know that?” Steve didn’t think anyone watched those dumb films anymore.
“I took a drama class in high school and it was one of the tongue-twister warm-ups. But seriously,” she said, “You don’t know when you’re doing it?”
Steve thought about that for a moment. “Not really,” he said. “When I’m — you know, the cameras, and people start asking me questions…it’s kind of just what comes out of my mouth.”
“Here’s a secret,” Kim said. She leaned close. Here eyes glittered under her heavy false lashes. “We’re all faking it. Every single person here. We’re all just putting on a show. But the trick is knowing when it’s fake. The trick is knowing the difference between who you are in that room and who you are when nobody’s looking.”
Steve was looking at his hands. He said, “I don’t think I know who I am when nobody’s looking. Or at least I don’t anymore.”
“You’ll figure it out,” said Kim, with a surety Steve himself didn’t even possess. “Promise.” Then she tilted a smile at him. “Come on,” she said, and looped her arm through his. “You need another drink. Let’s stick together all night and then see what the headlines say tomorrow.”
They strolled back into the main hall to the sound of the jazz band, likely looking terribly handsome together. Kim caught Stark staring from across the room and winked at him; Stark made a surprised face and turned away.
“Excuse me,” said a voice, and Kim and Steve turned to see a photographer. “Can I grab just one official portrait of the two of you?”
Steve looked at Kim; she was already pulling her hair over her should and looping Steve’s arm around her waist.
“Well, sure, son,” said Steve, aware now, at least, of the voice he was using. Kim smelled sugary and false, and Steve tried not to laugh out of sheer relief: finally he knew someone who was in on the joke, too.
“Just be sure you get our good sides,” Kim tittered.
The man snapped away. Kim tilted her body into Steve’s, and Steve clenched his jaw in a heroic fashion.
“Hey,” he said lowly. “That son of a bitch who did that, your ex. He isn’t here tonight, right?”
“Here?” Kim asked, and laughed. “No. God. Nobody even remembers his name.”
—
Kim and Cap: Steamy Manhattan Nights!
(People Magazine. 2011.)
I can’t remember if I’ve reblogged this before, but it’s one of my favorite Captain America fanfics.
Tag: fanfic
“Heil Hydra,” the enemy agent shouts.
“Heil this, motherfucker,” says Captain America, shooting off a rocket.
Steve and Bucky find out Hollywood has been busy since they went away. A historical survey, including but not limited to: one set of exploded genitals, a brief interlude in France, Mel Gibson and other masterworks of casting, eight Academy awards, several dinosaurs, and something Tony Stark has ominously dubbed “the masterpiece.”
Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film
fic by alwaysalreadyangry, eleveninches, febricant, hellotailor, and morgan-leigh; art by neenya
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR GREATEST WORK
omg
WHAT A GOOD
“Heil Hydra,” the enemy agent shouts.
“Heil this, motherfucker,” says Captain America, shooting off a rocket.
Steve and Bucky find out Hollywood has been busy since they went away. A historical survey, including but not limited to: one set of exploded genitals, a brief interlude in France, Mel Gibson and other masterworks of casting, eight Academy awards, several dinosaurs, and something Tony Stark has ominously dubbed “the masterpiece.”
Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film
fic by alwaysalreadyangry, eleveninches, febricant, hellotailor, and morgan-leigh; art by neenya
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR GREATEST WORK
omg
WHAT A GOOD
Despite being a work of fanfiction in the most literal sense of the term, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn’t quite a labor of love. The book actually originated from an editor going through a list of classic literary titles and matching them to genre buzzword characters like ninjas, zombies and pirates. This editor then called Seth Grahame-Smith to write the book, inserting zombie references into Jane Austen’s text.
It feels a little silly to criticize a zombie movie on its treatment of Jane Austen characterization, a detail that won’t matter to most viewers. But in the context of two centuries of Pride & Prejudice fandom, it’s worth mentioning.
Along with the Sherlock Holmes stories, Pride & Prejudice (and Jane Austen in general) is probably the longest-running literary fandom in the modern sense of the term. Fans have been analyzing the novel for 200 years, and there are dozens of published sequels and spinoffs. Crucially, this community of Austen fans has always been predominantly female and with a few exceptions like P.D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley, it rarely receives mainstream recognition. Meanwhile Pride and Prejudice and Zombies won immediate commercial success.
What Pride and Prejudice and Zombies tells us about fanfic and Hollywood
Despite being a work of fanfiction in the most literal sense of the term, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn’t quite a labor of love. The book actually originated from an editor going through a list of classic literary titles and matching them to genre buzzword characters like ninjas, zombies and pirates. This editor then called Seth Grahame-Smith to write the book, inserting zombie references into Jane Austen’s text.
It feels a little silly to criticize a zombie movie on its treatment of Jane Austen characterization, a detail that won’t matter to most viewers. But in the context of two centuries of Pride & Prejudice fandom, it’s worth mentioning.
Along with the Sherlock Holmes stories, Pride & Prejudice (and Jane Austen in general) is probably the longest-running literary fandom in the modern sense of the term. Fans have been analyzing the novel for 200 years, and there are dozens of published sequels and spinoffs. Crucially, this community of Austen fans has always been predominantly female and with a few exceptions like P.D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley, it rarely receives mainstream recognition. Meanwhile Pride and Prejudice and Zombies won immediate commercial success.
“Heil Hydra,” the enemy agent shouts.
“Heil this, motherfucker,” says Captain America, shooting off a rocket.
Steve and Bucky find out Hollywood has been busy since they went away. A historical survey, including but not limited to: one set of exploded genitals, a brief interlude in France, Mel Gibson and other masterworks of casting, eight Academy awards, several dinosaurs, and something Tony Stark has ominously dubbed “the masterpiece.”
Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film
fic by alwaysalreadyangry, eleveninches, febricant, hellotailor, and morgan-leigh; art by neenya
neenya’s posters for this fic are all SO AMAZING and i am shrieking at this new one in delight!!
im not saying everyone should tell me the first fic they wrote but they should im loving this
LET ME TELL U ALL AN EMBARRASSING THING. The first story I ever wrote was nine years ago. It was for THE OC and SORT OF REMIXING ANOTHER STORY but I had no concept of the idea of remixing. I just LOVED this Seth/Ryan story so so so much that I wanted to LIVE INSIDE OF IT and I wanted MORE of it so in a strange little word document on my family’s WINDOWS ME COMPUTER, I wrote the other point of view. SAME EVENTS, just told from Ryan’s POV instead of Seth’s. It DID NOT DEVIATE in dialogue or scene blocking, but I worked FEVERISHLY on this weird fanfiction-of-a-fanfiction and then when I finished I felt like I had CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN and was also Mark Twain at the same time.
I wrote to the author of the original story, and told her what I had done, and somehow I thought for some reason she would be JUST AS PUMPED, like I had HELPED COMPLETE HER STORY (??????). She was EXTREMELY GRACIOUS and THANKED ME for my efforts in a way that I will ALWAYS hope to emulate should some bumbling youth make the same mistake.
I never posted it, because I had gleaned enough from her DIPLOMACY to know that it probably wasn’t a good idea, but the act of having written, even though it was the equivalent of tracing a cutout onto another sheet of paper, gave me the courage to try again and write ANOTHER horribly embarrassing story, and ANOTHER until I hit a place where I still write horribly embarrassing stories but they’re mine and I have self confidence about it.
BEHAVE WITH GRACE, TACT, AND ENCOURAGEMENT TOWARDS BUMBLING NEWBIES, YA DUMMIES. U MAY FEATURE HIGHLY IN THEIR SECRET DREAM JOURNAL TEN YEARS LATER.
in which i fangirl about fanfic
Today the lovely TJ posted a Cara Fi fic to AO3. Someone wrote fic for my first original show! I am a gif of Kermit flailing. I am a beam of pure light. I am rambling incoherently.
I am a fan of fanfic. I read so much of it that my favoured read-later app, Pocket, just informed me by email that I “made it to this year’s Top 1% of readers on Pocket!”. I read over 5 million words on my iphone in 2014, and a great portion of them were about Bucky Barnes.
I was a pre-internet fan of fanfic. I used to read X-Files fic ON PAPER, published in a FANZINE that got delivered TO MY HOUSE by A POSTMAN. Kids, back then we used to churn our own butter and use words like “fanzine”.
Once my family finally got dial-up internet, I immediately (slowly, because dial-up) sought out more X-Files fic, then Xena fic, then Buffy fic. I wrote my own, too. I never shared it, mainly because I was chicken. But also because for me, back then, the pleasure was more in the writing than the sharing. Hard to imagine now, when my professional writing is so audience-oriented. I delight in feedback. I am a glutton for good reviews. My sense of self worth is over-reliant on people digging my words. Validate me, I scream into the void.
Writing fic made me a better writer because writing regularly…makes you a better writer. But also, fic specifically trained me in all the skills I now use daily as a writer of TV. It taught me how to mimic the tone of an established show and the voices of established characters, while also making new stories my own. Writing and reading fic made me a more critical viewer of TV, teaching me why some stories worked better than others, and why some characters popped while others barely made an impact. Writing fic allowed me to make a lot of mistakes, and to learn from them, before I started showing my work to professionals. It taught me to appreciate fans, and the boundless love they bring to a show.
And it taught me that ultimately, a creator’s intentions are irrelevant; once a work is out in the world, it belongs to its viewers.
I’m delighted that Cara Fi even has viewers, let alone that one of them wanted to make the show her own for 5000 words. And excellent words they are too. Thanks TJ!
luv this:
“fic specifically trained me in all the skills I now use daily as a writer of TV. It taught me how to mimic the tone of an established show and the voices of established characters, while also making new stories my own.”
Look at it this way, Logan, you and Kamala beat out all but one of the actual pornographic fanfics!
[From Ms. Marvel #6, 2014.]
Ten fics!
Tagged by piratemoggy
Rules: In a text post, list ten FICS that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” works, or even all the same pairing or fandom, just the fics that have touched you or that stuck with you somehow. Tag ten friends, including me, so I’ll see your list. Make sure you let your friends know you’ve tagged them!
OH GOD. Ok, so the first two made me have so many feelings mainly because they are now no longer available to read on the interwebs. I should find my ereader and see if I have one or both on there.
1) Agent Loki: International Man of Mayhem and 2) Small Things by Alis Dee
OK. ALIMoM was primarily a multi-part Loki series that took a different route for the ending of Avengers and then turned into this amazing sprawling epic that also addressed the idea of a trans Sigyn and gender roles in Asgard and politics and stuff on Earth and OH MY GOD it was good and super satisfying and OH MAN Loki and Sigyn were SO CUTE together and terrifying and amazing.
Small Things was a series of vignettes about Loki/Thor kind of exploring what if Loki & Thor were supposed to be like Odin and Frigga in that their relationship was a marriage to bring about peace after a long war but Odin didn’t agree with it and just adopted Loki instead. AND it has Loki being ruler of Jotunheim and changing how things were there and about magic and actually the Jotuns (since we never seem to see lady Jotuns in Thor) being a race with just the one gender. SO GOOD. Also about politics and the idea of self OH AND LOKI AND JANE FOSTER. Jane is addressed so wonderfully in it in that like… she seems to be bumped off or denigrated in some way in most Thorki fic that I have seen but here Jane and Loki have a relationship too and omg SCIENCE. yes. ANYWAY.
They are both gone now which is a bit sad but maybe one day Dee will bring them back.
3) Travelers Returned by LadyKate63 and TangoFiction
Guy of Gisborne/Lady Marian fic from BBC Robin Hoodie – this is an alternate season 3 which is well researched and makes way more sense than the actual season 3 and yeah. I love it. ALSO it doesn’t whitewash the whole WELL Guy you tried to kill Marian at the end of season 2 thing (and uh… yeah he succeeded in the actual show WHO KILLS MAID MARIAN? WHAT WHY WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TV PEOPLE?)
4) A little gritty but good when you mix it by piratemoggy
Is it cheating to put a gift fic that you received in this? NO. This one is SUPER CUTE and has Bucky and Steve SMEARING their good selves in breakfast foods. SO CUTE.
5) The Undertaker’s Children by rosepetalfall
This is about Bucky and the Winter Soldier and how Bucky’s family were undertakers and about death and family and oh it is really beautiful.
6) No Unworthy Aim by Sinope
Wendy Darling/Hook set in WW1 era England where like they are out of Neverland and stuff and it is good and not creepy like you might first imagine a fic with that pairing could be.
7) Just Close Your Eyes and Make Believe by Amy
A-Babies vs X-Babies fic and IF YOU READ JUST ONE FIC out of this list then make it this one because OH MAN even tho they are babies the characterisation is SPOT ON and BUCKY BEAR and OH I have so many feelings. NATASHA. You NEED to read this one.
8) eff-em-ell, and other quotes for the official biography by Fahye
The Taming of the Shrew was my FAVOURITE of the Shakespeare ReTolds and this fic is my FAVOURITE of the fics that are in that universe. I mean, sure it is the only one I have read BUT STILL. It is funny and has the same tone as the episode.
9) A Change in the Wind by Beatrice_Otter
Doctor Who/Mary Poppins crossover in which Mary Poppins is OBVIOUSLY a time lord and it is delightful and she is awesome and stuff.
10) Strangers in the Night by theladyscribe
If you follow me on twitter for a while you will eventually discover that I want crossovers of everything. Primarily crossovers with Scooby Doo. This is a Supernatural/Scooby Doo crossover with Velma and Dean and it is really good and stuff. Both universes totally work well together and yeah. Surprisingly touching.
Honourable mentions:
Under My Skin – Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers MCU Steve as tattoo artist AU
The Direction series – Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers (ALSO ignited my all consuming love of Jane Foster/Bruce Banner)
Baking Cookies with Batman – because for fic fridays I kept prompting Batman – cake and this spontaneously erupted in the universe UNRELATED to that
Real Isn’t How You Are Made – which is an A-Babies vs X-Babies fic but like WOT IF Bucky Bear was like the Velveteen Rabbit
Loved, Owned – AU versions of Mako Mori in Pacific Rim
Um. I tag atthelamppost openupyourhands kraken-queen innerbrat isleofapplepies voidbat and um. 4 random people of your own choosing or something. Yes.