Sink Your Teeth Right Through My Bones, Baby

It's Hurt/Comfort Bingo (hc_bingo) time again!

Last year's card is here, and I murdered that sucker. It was awesome. :D I don't know if I'll get as many squares this year, but I certainly aim to try (and if I hit, there will be injuries).

Here is my painfully beautiful card for this year:

crucifixion	arena	Betrayal	strapped to a moving vehicle	Amnesia
isolation	surgery	loss of hearing	Humiliation	Loss of Identity
nausea	confession in desperate situation	WILD CARD	Accept Injury to Protect Someone	Self-Harm
eating disorders	sex pollen	headaches / migraines	destruction / natural disasters	minor illness or injury
serial killers	assault	phobias	learning to be loved	Combat

As you can see, I've already filled a square. Misery for the win. :D

Written for the prompt Temperance at wordsinthebrain.

( There wasn’t much blood on it, but it wasn’t the sort of stain one could explain to the cleaners. )

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This story also fills the Dub-Con square of my hc_bingo card, though more in its absence than presence. And hey, it's happy! Happyish! Not terrible!

Today, I am pleased to inform all and sundry, is the Beautiful brumeier's birthday! In honor of this auspicious event, I have forced cajoled bribed threatened been lucky enough to elicit Rodney McKay's help in creating a music mix for her. You can see how thrilled he is.



Happy birthday, sweetheart! I hope you have a great day!

So, Empire Online posted this thing about how Captain America: Civil War is a love story but Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are not boyfriends (Which I found out via this Tumblr post originally by YouNeedToStrut). For those of you who aren't into links, the Empire post by Phil De Semlyen talks about how director Joe Russo refers to Civil War as a brotherly love story, saying:

"These are two guys who grew up together, and so they have that same emotional connection to each other as brothers would, and even more so because Bucky was all Steve had growing up."

Now, I made my own post about that whole 'Brotherly' thing back in February, generally going on the assumption that the Russos were madly trying to avoid a mass homosexual freakout. And then Sebastian Stan said this:

"I think it’s easy and generalising [sic] it to say that they’re lovers, when you’re forgetting that one has a lot of guilt because he swore to be the protector of the other, the father figure or older brother so to speak, and then left him behind." Adds the actor: "I have no qualms with it but I think people like to see it much more as a love story than it actually is. It's brotherhood to me."

Here's the thing. He's not wrong, and the Tumblr post I mentioned above has some thoughtful discussions on that fact. I know for myself that even way back in my Star Trek: Enterprise fandom days, I would occasionally wonder if we slashers were devaluing male friendship by interpreting the male characters' chemistry as romantic so much of the time. And I'm certainly aware that friends can love each other platonically.

And yet, I'm just so freaking disappointed.

It doesn't matter to me that the Russos' Word of God is that Bucket and Steeb are only friends. I'm used to creators overlooking or blindly ignoring aspects of their own work, especially when it veers towards territory they're uncomfortable with. Given what I've seen of Disney properties, it seems reasonable that even if the Russos were all over the Stucky like Red on Johann Schmidt, the mouse paying them would never, ever go for it.

But this is Sebastian Stan, who has played gay characters before and is actually playing Steve's long-lost whatever now. And if the actual actor who made Bucky Barnes live for us says Bucky and Steve are bros, not lovers, then...Then it's true. Then my wanting to see their relationship as anything other than that feels wrong. Illegitimate. Not a reinterpretation of canon, but a desperate scrabbling for something that never existed.

It's weird. I shipped Danny Williams and Steve McGarrett even when Hawaii 5-0 kept throwing women at Steve like spaghetti at a wall. In Stargate: Atlantis, I happily wrote around the cannon Rodney McKay/Jennifer Keller relationship to keep him with John Sheppard. I love Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton shacking up even though they were both with other people in Age of Ultron (then again, I ignore a lot of things about Age of Ultron). But Sebastian Stan calls No Homo and suddenly I feel like a kid sneaking porn.

I wanted his approval, damn it. Not for me or my fic, because that's pathetic and creepy. But for the possibility that went into the fic. I wanted him to say, 'sure, that's cool,' and instead I got condemnation.

Maybe it is overly facile to see romance where there's only deep affection. Maybe we (female) writers are just picking out nonexistent subtext for all the same varied reasons we enjoy slash in general. Maybe we're just seeing what's not intended to be there, because we've been trained to (I urge you to read this brilliant essay on that subject). Maybe an actor's opinion about the character he plays shouldn't carry more weight than my own, but it feels heavier all the same.

This issue is that, as a writer who also writes fanfic, I'm always fighting the sense that my hobby is illicit; that I'm furtively dabbling where I don't belong. Allowing myself to do what I do is hard enough, without the knowledge that one of the actors who inspired it wouldn't accept my perception of his work. The fancy of tacit approval, no matter how spurious, is far more liberating than the certainty of its opposite. And honestly, I was expecting the guy who made his career playing troubled, gay sons to not reject the thought of a gay romance out of hand. Maybe seeing a romance in every love story is generalizing and easy, but that didn't mean he had to make it difficult.

I'm not apologizing to Demi Lovato, because I'm linking to the really cool video I stole the chorus from.

Let me say, O best-beloveds, that there is nothing at all wrong with giving compliments. I used to not do it very often, because it felt safer to keep things to myself than to court the potential embarrassment of engaging in a possibly unwelcome interaction. But then I got older and I decided that life is too short not to tell someone that you like their shirt or that they have beautiful eyes.

Last night I sent a message to someone I know on Tumblr just to say I really liked their posts, and I made them really, really happy. That made me happy too. Being nice is almost always a win-win.

I've mentioned before about how I leave kudos on AO3 for fics if I read them the entire way through, because someone went to the effort of writing the story. A kudo is a quick way of complimenting them for that effort. Clicking it says 'hey, I liked this. You did good.' Nice comments are even better, but a kudo is so easy it astonishes me that so many people don't leave them.

The last time I posted about leaving kudos (the link above), someone replied that they only give a kudo when something really moved them. Otherwise they thought that the hits alone were enough acknowledgement of the writer's effort.

I've honestly been thinking about that on and off for two years, and I still have a problem with it. While I can understand the principal--be happy anyone bothered looking at your fic--all that hits actually show you is that someone went to that page. Maybe they noped out after reading the tags. Maybe they got three paragraphs in and hit the back button in a panic. It's impossible to tell. But a kudo means that they both read the story and thought it was good, or good enough. And seriously, we're writing this stuff for free, here. Isn't a story that keeps you reading until the end automatically good enough for a lousy click on a burgundy button?

I know that some people like certain stories so much they read them several times, and unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose) you can only leave kudos once. But there are loads of readers out there who don't bother leaving them in the first place. Not one little compliment saying that they appreciate your time and effort.

And that, honestly, is just mean. Sure, no one forces a writer to put their stuff out there, just as no one pays us. But that's also the point. We don't have to do it. That fic you rolled your eyes at but still gave you ten minute's worth of entertainment is completely, totally free. Our only expectation as writers is that people will read our work, and our only hope is that they'll let us know they did.

So, why should anyone think they deserve a masterpiece before leaving a kudo? It's one click. One tiny, easy little click. But I can tell you as both a writer and reader that one tiny, easy little click can actually mean the world.

And life is too short not to say something nice.

I'm just going to say it: this post has no redeeming social value whatsoever, and is entirely AmyCat's and foxfireflamequeen's fault. Because blaming people is fun.

It's their fault because FoxFire said I should watch the 2015 Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie, which I'd wanted to do anyway. But still. And AmyCat asked me if it was any good.

Yes, AmyCat, it was good. Not going to lie, though. The best part of the movie is this guy:

Plus, he's tall enough to see space.

Meet Illya Kuryakin, as played by Armie Hammer with those big, soulful eyes. He has an admirable work ethic and breathtaking anger management issues, as perfectly illustrated in his and Napoleon Solo's (played by Henry Cavill) first conversation.

In short, he is an absolute, giant bae. This is almost literally the conversation I had with my husband while watching that scene in the cafe:

Me: I had no idea Henry Cavill was that hot.

Husband: That's Armie Hammer. Henry Cavill's the other one.

Me: The hot one is Armie Hammer?

It was a reasonable error, because Henry Cavill is blandly good looking and I'd only seen Armie Hammer when he was blandly good looking in The Lone Ranger, where he was upstaged by Johnny Depp and a horse. Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger was fine. Pleasant. I'd go so far as to say not unattractive. But definitely nothing to write home about. Pretty much like the entire Lone Ranger movie.

Illya, however, has an accent, painful backstory and mental health concerns. And he doesn't lose fights. Ever. He's perfect.


Yes, in the second one you saw him push a motorcycle frame off himself, then carry it down a hill and throw it at someone. That's not his only super power either. In the beginning of the movie, Illya dodges bullets (as you do), runs down Solo's car on foot and then rips the trunk hood off with his bare hands. But it was the motorcycle-toss that got me thinking. Specifically about this guy:

And especially this one:

Here's the thing--it never made sense for me that the KGB/Red Room/Hydra would only create one Winter Soldier, or stop trying to perfect their version of the Super Soldier serum after it worked on Bucky Barnes. Even if you go with Bucky having global amnesia when the Russians find him (as in the comics), they go to a hell of a lot of trouble with building a memory erasing machine just for one guy. And we know from season two of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that there's more than one way to skin a cat make someone happy to comply via brainwashing.

So I've decided that Illya Kuryakin is another Winter Soldier.

Oh, for sure he's not in the same league. He's not about to walk off bridges or kick guys into jet engines. But unlike the original, Illya can act like an ordinary human, albeit one with extraordinary talents, because he has memories. The Winter Soldier is the ruthless, unstoppable stuff of nightmares because he's more a weapon than a man. Illya Kuryakin is one of the best spies the Soviet Union ever produced, because he's still a person. He can work in a team; he can have emotional ties; he doesn't have to stay in the shadows like a ghost. And if he risks falling out of his programming, all his handlers have to do is kindle a reset via psychotic episode, by reminding him of his shameful family history. A family history that of course never actually happened.

And if that doesn't work, there's always the chair.

The canon fits beautifully, as far as I'm concerned. Illya and Bucky are even around the same age, give or take one of them being frozen for a few years. I can easily imagine the Winter Soldier training Illya. I can certainly imagine the two of the becoming friends. That is, as long as they could remember each other. Because there is no part of the Winter Soldier's history that isn't tragic. Then again, even without Hydra and the Red Room, Illya's story is pretty tragic too. And fandom can't ever have too many tragic super powered Russians, am I right?

I'm totally right.

Back in September, the YouTube Channel Honest Trailers did an 'honest trailer' for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I didn't know about it because I never really know about anything until it appears on my Tumblr dash (yes, I have a Tumblr account! Come be my friend!), but I saw the fake trailer and read the nifty Daily Dot article that went with it.



The nifty part is how the Russo bros are not only fans of Honest Trailers, but specifically made sure the movie wouldn't have any plot holes for Screen Junkies (who run the channel) to make fun of. Now, HT found a couple anyway, because that's what they do. But mostly, because of the Russo's diligence and paying attention to their own goddamn script, the parody actually praises the film.

For comparison, Age of Ultron didn't come off nearly so well, though the Screen Junkies were admittedly sympathetic with all the different threads Joss Whedon had been forced to pull on when he made it.

The thing is, though, why don't more producers and directors (and studios, for that matter, since they all ostensibly work together) do this? Making sure your film doesn't have enough plot holes to give a parody channel much to work with seems like a no-brainer. Hell, I try like hell to avoid plot holes whenever I write anything, and I'd love to be famous enough for my work to be parodied to thousands of viewers.

Well, okay, maybe not. But the point is that one of the big things I worry about with my own plots is what I call 'internal logic', which is just making sure that all the elements in the story make sense. I know that some films have that harder than others, especially when, say, setting up three different future plots at the same time the way AoU had to (Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, though I still could've done with less Hulk fighting Iron Man and more justification for his out of the blue relationship with Black Widow).

But that's Age of Ultron. I don't think, for example, that Green Lantern necessarily had that issue. But it's internal logic was so poor, it ended up with a lot of other issues.



A lot of other issues.

Whoop! There it is!



Available (as of early this morning, actually--blame my spending most of the afternoon fighting uselessly with Adobe about Photoshop Elements 14 on why I'm only putting this up now) at these following fine online retailers:

Dreamspinner
Amazon
Apple iBooks
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
Google Play
All Romance eBooks

I'm also running a contest over at Tumblr, for those who may be interested. :D

Thank you kindly for your time and attention. I'm going to go back to making quiet dolphin noises now.

Here at the Dreamspinner website. And my nifty post about it with the back cover info is here. Because I am comprehensive and thorough.

It's also $3.00 (USD), Just like Aiden's Angel. :D

Blood for Magic will be released on November 23 and is available for pre-order at Dreamspinner Press. It's on sale right now too. :D

( Very large cover image and more cool stuff under here. )