okay but imagine that james wasn’t in the house that halloween. he was talking to dumbledore or out to get groceries or anything that has him out of the house. so lily is home alone but she still sacrifices herself for her son, so the curse still rebounds and hits voldemort and “kills” him. so harry is still the boy who lived, but james is alive.
and of course it’s awful. it’s a terrible moment, burying lily. james is devestated and has no idea how he’s going to raise harry alone. he has to testify that peter betrayed the order, because he’s alive to pass on the knowledge that peter was his secret keeper, not sirius. sirius doesn’t go to prison because he’s too busy helping james cope with lily’s death to go after peter, and peter’s already faked his death by the time he can leave james.
remus and sirius move in with james to help take care of harry, because he swears he can’t do it on his own. remus doesn’t have to focus on rent and food money because james tells him he’s family, so he can focus on a job he actually enjoys such as editing or writing, something freelance so he can take full moons off and no one will wonder why.
sirius refuses to get any job beside full time babysitter, curls up as padfoot and keeps harry warm and safe, especially when the boy gets older and starts having nightmares about what happened to his mom.
harry is raised in the wizarding world, with the most protective family of anyone he’s ever met, and invites ron and hermione over to his house during the summer and somehow padfoot always gets them into some sort of trouble.
when harry goes through hardships at hogwarts, he always has his dad to turn to. james would stroke his hair back from his forehead and kiss his son’s scar and remind him, “your mother was the most brilliant witch there ever was and she’s watching over you, so you’ll never have to worry.”
even when pettigrew comes back and revives voldemort, james is on the quidditch pitch the minute harry comes back with the cup and cedric’s dead body, remus and sirius right behind him and swearing he’ll destroy anyone who doesn’t take his son seriously.
the fight at the ministry harry’s fifth year, james would remind sirius to keep focused, remind him not to get overwhelmed with adrenaline and to focus, and would watch not just harry’s back but his best friends’ too. when he sees sirius too focused on making fun to notice bellatrix amazing a curse straight at him, he dives in front of it to push sirius out of the way and ends up in St. Mungo’s after the fight, a little bruised and battered but with promises that he’ll heal and a sheepish apology from Padfoot in the former of an old, drool covered chew toy.
when harry disappears seventh year, he and james keep in contact with the magical mirrors that belonged to sirius and james paces the kitchen every evening, listening to potterwatch and shrugging off Sirius’ shoulder on his hand telling him that their boy will be okay because he’s incredibly smart and incredibly brave and honestly mate how’d you make such an amazing boy?
and then the fight at hogwarts happens. remus and sirius have each other’s backs and james just wants to find harry. he does, a little too late, being carried out of the woods in hagrid’s arms. he breaks down and drops to his knees and remus and sirius look at each other and think, “there is no way we can fix him after this.”
but then harry is back and voldemort is dead and james’ face is tear stained and they’re all worn out and bruised but their family is alive and sirius, a little hesitantly, offers, “…so who wants ice cream?”
My friends, let me tell you a thing. If you open a fic to read and you don’t like it? You are under no obligation to read it.
If you’ve read all that author’s other fic and liked/loved it, but you open another and it’s just… bad for whatever reason? Love yourself and hit the backbutton.
You do not have to waste your precious minutes/hours reading a thing you cannot stand. Just exit stage left. No one is watching/no one is judging.
We’ve all been there!
Maybe it’s a highly recced fic, a fandom classic. Maybe it’s a new thing that sounded great in theory. Maybe you opened it up, giddy and excited only to plummet in despair because it just wasn’t good.
Jane Austen: The slowburn writer to end all slowburn writers. Has a mild case of purple prose syndrome. Sets you up to think she’s using a really lame trope or cliche, but then pulls the old BITCH U THOUGHT. Gets in fights with commenters who completely miss the point of her work.
William Shakespeare: Where dick jokes meet feels. Recycles old plots that have been in the fandom for years, but always manages to put a new spin on it. That said, he’s better known for good character writing than good plots. Kind of problematic, but people love him anyway. Laughs at and encourages commenters who completely miss the point of his work.
The Brontë Sisters: Their fics get lots of comments but they never reply. They never leave author notes, either. They share an account, and there are talks of a collab fic coming soon. Write fics for OTPs of questionable healthiness and consent. Only ever write darkfic. Like, REALLY dark. …People are getting kind of worried about them.
Edgar Allan Poe: Also only ever writes darkfic, but at this point, people have moved past being worried about him and have just accepted that he’s weird, he’s morbid, and we love him. Channels his feelings about his ex into his writing. It results in really good stories but everyone’s sort of like, “…Dude.”
Charles Dickens: Trying to set the record for highest wordcount on ao3, and it shows.
Victor Hugo: Currently holds the record for highest wordcount on ao3.
Oscar Wilde: Only ever writes M/M. Has a BAD case of purple prose, but it’s worth it if you manage to get through. His stories are either hilarious or soul-crushing. Or somehow both. People love him but know better than to disagree with him publicly, lest he destroy you with one of his infamous subtweets.
L. Frank Baum: Wrote one really well-loved story that’s among the most famous in the fandom, and it’s literally all he’s known for, and it pisses him off. His popular story became a multichap against his will because it’s the only one of his stories anyone actually reads. He keeps trying to end it so he can work on other things, but always ends up coming back.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Feels L. Frank Baum’s pain. SO much.
James Joyce: Has fascinating ideas, but takes forEVER to get to the point in his stories. Also a stoner, and it shows.
Lousia May Alcott: Writes stories for her unpopular OTP (that’s a NOTP for most of the fandom) and breaks up everyone’s favorite ships, mainly out of spite. Also kills everyone’s favorite characters, less so out of spite.
Mary Shelley: Writes incredible stories, but publishes under her boyfriend’s account because she’s banned from ao3. …Again.
i will tell you a story friends, and probably you will regret asking me to do so, because its not really a very restful story. i….dont really have any of those.
this is the story of how steve and a horse almost gave me a heart attack.
back when i was a kid, cars were a thing that existed but were mostly really really expensive, so horses were still a common sight on the streets of brooklyn. most of these horses were exceedingly large, calm animals; they hauled around big carts of stuff on crowded streets. back then, milk was delivered to your doorstep by a milkman. the milkman who worked our block was mr. davies, and he was this very nice older black gentleman. i mention that he’s black because racism was Very Much A Thing (oh how times have changed). but mr davies always had peppermint candies in his pockets to give to thunderhead, his horse, and he would always give one to stevie and i if he saw us. so stevie loved mr davies, and if anyone was being disrespectful towards him because he was black, stevie would pretty much blow his top. mr davies loved steve for it, of course. but since mr daives didnt want to get steve in trouble, he’d usually whistle me over (if i wasnt already there) to haul steve off before he did something drastic. mr davies was great like that.
anyway, mr davies was around every morning dropping off milk with thunderhead. thunderhead was this huge dapple grey horse, i think a percheron?? a big draft horse, with hooves about the size of a dinner plate. aside from her size, her name was probably the most intimidating thing about her, because she was the most mild-mannered horse ive ever met. she would let all the little neighborhood kids climb all over her, and mr davies would usually let two or three of us ride on her back down the street. she never really noticed the extra weight. i think that if mr davies ever slept in, thunderhead would go walk his route without him. she loved stevie too–but for very different reasons. steve’s hair apparently looked exactly like hay to her, so she’d wander over and start lipping the top of his head. she never nipped or anything, but steve always got amusingly flaily when she did it, and i always suspected she thought it was funny.
one boiling hot summer morning, steve and i were sitting on the front steps of our building, just wasting time. it was early, but already awfully hot out, so when mr davies rounded the corner, steve decided to go meet him, but i stayed on the steps. it was hot. i didnt wanna move.
anyway, steve went trotting down the block, said hi to old mrs mckinnon, who was on her way to get groceries, and was about a hundred feet away from mr davies and thunderhead when the wind picked up. it was a very nice refreshingly cool breeze, which picked up some of the debris–old newspapers and leaves and such–hanging around and tossed it across the road.
now, if you know horses, you know that sometimes they get terrified by utterly ridiculous things. im told many horses nowadays think plastic bags are the minions of evil, and horses back then were much the same. id never seen thunderhead scared before, but i guess a bit of newspaper whipped in front of her and was the spitting image of Pony Satan himself, because her eyes went white around the edges and she took off running. mr davies was around back of the cart, getting milk out, so there was nobody at the reins to stop her. she went tearing down the block, the cart bouncing along behind, like there was a pack of slavering borzoi chasing after. and of course she was headed right at steve and old mrs mckinnon.
steve, being the brave little idiot he was, didnt run; old mrs mckinnon wouldnt be able to get out of the way in time, so he stood his ground, flung his arms out, and waited to get trampled by a rogue milk cart. all of us there thought we were gonna be scraping tiny blonde guy off the pavement, because thunderhead just kept going.
but about ten feet away from steve, thunderhead must have recognized him, because she went to a screeching stop. four feet down, all her knees locked, skiddin on the cobblestones. normally, she’d probably have been able to stop in that distance, but she was still harnessed to that heavy milk cart, so instead she plowed right into stevie, chest first.
he went flying. he mustve gone about six feet through the air, and he hit the ground and just laid there like a sack of really dead potatoes. i thought he must have broken his little toothpick spine. poor thunderhead looked just as scared as i was, because she got her feet back under her and crept up on him like the cart wasnt jangling right behind her. she dropped her nose down and started whuffing and lipping at his hair, and he popped up like a damn weasel. little moron was fine. he nearly gave me and mr davies and old mrs mckinnon and thunderhead all a heart attack, but he was fine.
and mr davies gave him his whole bag of peppermints, and mrs mckinnon gave him a chocolate, so he didnt even learn to not do stupid shit like that.
A mix of Avengers and Leverage fic, for your perusal.
Avengers Collected Bones of All Kinds by hansbekhart
There was a reason that he ran, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He was on his way to the extraction – waiting for night to fall so that he could travel inconspicuously – crouched in a hollow on the roof of an old brick building – a warehouse, maybe – and the fading light – the light caught – on a blond head down below on the street. Laughter, and a cadence to the man’s speech that sounded familiar, misplaced R’s and blurry Th’s, quarter, water, this, that, the other one.
Love Stories for Tedious People by kristophine
The emergency departments of hospitals are all alike. Some are small, just a couple of rooms, a bathroom, a harried nurse who greets the frequent fliers by name, and some are huge, with dozens of rooms and a team of people who don’t even know each other’s names, let alone the patients.
What They Asked For by kristophine
Bucky raises his eyebrows at that, leers. “What, you don’t think I could be convincing?”
Theoretical Physicist by kristophine
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the airline representative behind her slick gray desk. “There just isn’t anything I can book you on instead. It’s shutting down the whole airport. It could just be a couple of hours, but we don’t know.”
She seemed like a nice enough woman, and Bruce fought down the welling rage in his throat. Not her fault. He smiled and said, “Thank you for letting me know,” and then went to find a drink.
You’ve Got (My) Mail by kristophine
Papers littered the floor in front of the stuffed-full mailbox as soon as he managed to get the little key to turn.
Bruce swore under his breath while he bent down to get them; his bag swung off his shoulder and smacked him in the leg, and he swore again. Physics journals—two of them—and junk mail, great, and a huge swirling crest announced the letter from the alumni association trying to convince him to fork over some money.
Curtains by kristophine
“Pepper, you can’t be serious,” said Bruce.
“Of course I can,” she said, and smiled at him serenely, crossing her legs under her glass desk. She looked like Sheryl Sandberg’s wet dream.
“Did Nick sign off on this? Tell me Nick didn’t sign off on this.”
Fine and Fierce by kristophine
Los Angeles was eighteen million degrees, weeks too early for it. Tony was sweating. It was good, it was his city, he loved it, he was basically part of it, but—on days like this, if he couldn’t be positioned directly in front of, and behind, and to the side of, air conditioning units, or at least fans, then there just wasn’t much point, was there, in existing in a corporeal three-dimensional form. The sun was beating down without mercy on the concrete and Tony folded his arms.
“I don’t know what we’re even doing here,” he whined to Pepper, who smiled at him with the arch patience of a saint. She was wearing linen. It was uncreased. Unwrinkled. She wasn’t sweating through it—or at all. It was uncanny.
“You’ll live, Tony,” she said.
The Way Out Is The Way Down by Speranza
“We’re alive in defiance of the law, now,” Natasha said bitterly.
“Well,” Steve said, and pushed his plate away. “We’ll just have to break in and get them.”
“Right, let’s take it from the top,” Natasha said wearily. “The Raft is a fully submersible supermax prison—“
“We can do it,” Steve said.
–The Way Out by alby_mangroves
The words died as Natasha unzipped the top of her uniform and, grinning, yanked out a book.
Down Into The Golden Lands by Speranza and alby_mangroves
"Did he leave a forwarding address, the emigrating bastard? Steve Rogers, 50 Main Street, Valhalla?”
Our Lingering Frost by eyres
When S.H.I.E.L.D. finally locates the plane Captain America drove into the ocean, Colonel James Barnes drops everything to go bring Steve’s body home at long last. He finds more than he was expecting.
American Joe by jenjo93
Twitter returned five million, seven hundred thousand, six hundred and five accounts claiming to be ‘Captain America’, ‘Steve Rogers’, and variations of. An algorithm quickly proved all accounts to be fake.
Complications by flawedamythyst
Clint’s got a plan to retire and go find himself a simple life at his family’s old farm. Simple is good, right? Easy to remember. Simple is why he doesn’t really mind that his soul-print has never activated, because a soulmate could only add another layer of complexity to his life.
And then the Winter Soldier turns up at his archery range on the Avengers base, and simple slips through Clint’s fingers.
Featured Rec – back seat drive by silentwalrus
Bucky wants a car. Bucky gets a car. Now Bucky wants to blow Steve while he’s driving the car.
It’s awful, how Steve just keeps giving him what he wants. Oh my God, it’s like someone put all my kinks in a bag and shook it up and out tumbled this fic. Relationships/sex while in recovery. Aftercare. Gentle, super hot power dynamics. Getting off on giving something they want, just because it’s what they want. Making it fucking work, because hell, you are going to make it work this time. And incredibly, for something with honest recovery treatment, this is free of tragedy and full of so much sass and banter as foreplay. If it was twenty times as long, it would be amazing, but as it is, I will happily read it twenty times and be glad it exists.
Leverage The Two Weddings Job by HugeAlienPie
A year later, Sophie and Nate finally remember to get married. Looks like Eliot beat them to the punch.
Eliot’s Achilles’ Heel by rayvanfox
It took Eliot forever to pinpoint the problem.
Or maybe not problem so much as pitfall.
Or something.
Whatever it was, the fact that he’d never been so close to people in his own line of work meant that he was becoming spoiled for companionship.
Or, the one where Eliot really needs cuddles and finally gets them. just how he likes them, too.
only ever ruin someone like you mean it by beautifullies
Parker loves getting her way, Eliot’s the world’s subbiest sub, and Hardison’s baffled and delighted by how his life worked out.
Guard Your Eggshell Heart by letsgostealafandom
Parker had a theory, and her theory was this: it made Eliot really happy when they noticed the things he did for them. It made Eliot happy when they made sure he knew they noticed the things he did for them. And when Eliot thought they didn’t notice, it made him- not unhappy, but something worse, something like he knew that was all he could expect from anyone and he’d resigned himself to it a while back. Once she’d noticed it, she couldn’t stop, and the realization of how often they took Eliot for granted made her stomach twist uncomfortably.
something good can work (and it can work for you) by queenklu
“When you say ‘we’re making dinner,‘” Eliot finally says, “do you really mean ‘Hey you should come over and cook dinner for us so we don’t burn down the apartment?’”
Odd One Out by thingswithwings
“We should talk about Eliot,” Alec says, at the same time Parker says, “We should have sex in a hammock.”
Shelter Me by thingswithwings
Eliot’s their hitter, and taking on any physical threats to the team is his job, but there’s something beyond professionalism – even beyond the obvious fact that Eliot relishes the fight itself – in the way he puts his body between Parker or Alec and any potential threat. Alec has a good view of Eliot’s back on a lot of jobs, and he reads something in the tight line of Eliot’s shoulder, in the slow turn of his foot as he steps into a fighting stance.
Something possessive.
It’s a Long Way to Zanzibar by facetofcathy
It seemed like a good idea at the time—a road trip to the Grand Canyon—although Eliot doesn’t actually remember agreeing to the idea. He figures it’ll be fine as long as he does most of the driving.
Triptych by Thorinsmut
Parker liked Eliot.
Hardison liked Eliot.
There was a space where Eliot could fit into their lives, closer to them. Parker could see it, like a hole in a security system. It would work.
Getting her boys to fall in line, that’s the difficult part.
Brothers by zathara001 (Crossover with The Librarians)
“Of all the brewpubs in all the world, you had to walk into mine.” While escaping from a monster out of myth, Jacob Stone runs into someone he hasn’t seen in twenty years.
The Job Interview Job by copperbadge
Unemployed librarian Bobby Dismas isn’t sure how Leverage found him or what they want with him, but apparently it has something to do with his conspiracy theory website about Roy Chappel (and Kenneth Crane, and Jacques Labert).
Featured Rec – The Food Cart Job by page_runner
She was only here for a long weekend, using this convention as an excuse to see Alice for the first time in over a year, or using Alice as an excuse to get away for a convention, or using both as a reason to finally take a vacation, because it was about damn time.
At least, that was the original plan. If you like great characterisation, a fantastic premise, plenty of Amy and Peggy, fun, food, sass and beautifully written OT3, this fic is what you’ve been missing. Dive in.
Motion Parallax by Laughsalot3412
So, apparently Amy’s boss was part of a criminal gang.
One of my ALL TIME favorite Captain America comics is “Man Out of Time” – a fantastically written miniseries by Mark Waid and GORGEOUSLY illustrated by Jorge Molina ( @jorgemolinam ) that retells the story of Cap coming out of the ice. It deals with the weight of loss of his removal from his own time, greiving over Bucky’s loss (and remembering him after the Brubaker soft retcon of being about 20 when he “died”).
One of the most striking moments to me is at one point in a flashback, Cap is talking to Bucky about what they want to do after the war is over. Bucky says that he always wanted to visit the Grand Canyon – he never saw it – and it is a part/represents of what they’re fighting the war for.
At the end of the comic, as Cap has some time to himself, he travels to the Grand Canyon for Bucky, as a way to deal with his loss, and this moment happens:
And, well, this moment always gets me. Steve going there, drawing Bucky, and “showing him” the Grand Canyon in the only way he can. It’s his way to try to start to move forward.
It was always a dream of mine to see an epilogue, of Steve being actually able to take him there in person after he finds out he’s still alive. This weekend, I was able to make that a reality.
I had the distinct privilege to be able to commission Jorge Molina himself (the original artist of Man out of Time), at Wizard World New Orleans for just that scene, and here it is:
I am BLOWN AWAY by the work he did – this is a traditional media piece, done in inks and copic markers, and the values he worked in, the expressions, the dynamic pose that conveys the awe of the location, and yet still have it be a tender, quiet moment between the two of them. in the Grand Canyon, Steve with the sketchbook, hand squeezing Bucky’s shoulder, both masks off and taking in the natural majesty of the canyon.
And God, to see Bucky looking honest-to-god /HAPPY/.
;__________;
Thank you SO much, Jorge, this is everything I could have wanted and more.
Maybe I’ll be able to (ditigally) color this some day 🙂
This is incredibly beautiful and so damn uplifting that I could cry. The amount of detail for a con commission is stunning. It’s like he always had that picture in his head, and was just waiting for an opportunity to create it.
Bucky Barnes discovers sugar, demands coffee, makes a variety of
involuntary noises, cuddles up to Steve Rogers, regrows a limb, and
fakes it ‘til he makes it at being a person.
Hey, I’ve been recced! Thank you to @hurtcomfortbucky
knitting in the dark 