w00t w00t booyah

Oh you poor thing. You poor, dear creature. And I mean that literally. I am probably going to ruin you this year.

I sign up for Yuletide every year I can, for the same reason. I like being dragged out of my normal routines for some serious out-of-the-comfort-zone time.

Feel free to indulge yourself.

Keep in mind - anything degrading, harmful, without consent or injurious isn't going to be entertaining, and who has time for that?

So no, don't kill 'em. Don't rape 'em. Don't humiliate them.

Love them, inspire them, comfort them, teach them.

What exactly, is up to you.

See you on the other side. Happy Yuletide!

(Why no, I am NOT going to tell you what story to write. That drives me nuts, seriously. You want that story, write it yourself! This is a GIFT - and this is not an Amazon wish list. Make me art. YOUR art. I'll be thrilled to pieces to get it.)

Hope you like it -

No Captain Left Behind (7793 words) by kyburg
Chapters: 1/10
Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Bruce Banner, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Thor - Relationship, Nick Fury - Relationship, Happy Hogan - Relationship, Pepper Potts & Natasha Romanov
Characters: Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Nick Fury, Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Thor, Happy Hogan
Additional Tags: Iron Man Three Compliant, PTSD, Science Bros, filling in the blanks, what spackle won't patch, moving forward, wicked girls saving themselves, Deep Breath Before Winter Soldier, Deep Breath beforer Dark World, Steve is a BAMF, So is Bruce, Tony the facilitator, Pepper is a BAMF, and a den mother, Clint is An Asshole, Some days Natasha IS Stark Industries, Tony Stark Has Issues, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Clint Barton has more Issues than the Library of Congress, Stark Tower has a Starbucks, Tony Stark Does Not Have to Put Up with Your Shit, Romance is more than Sex Done Well, Love comes in many flavors, So do anxiety disorders, Natasha is not a robot, Grieving, Pepperony, Clintasha
Summary:

Post IM3. Returning to New York after settling the second Stark Tower in Eureka, Tony Stark is called to an informal conference, an 'information exchange' at an office near the UN, that also includes Nick Fury, Steve Rogers and Dr. Bruce Banner.

What he finds going into the meeting (he's fashionably late, of course - contractor!) leaves him wondering just what has been going on in New York in his absence; Steve Rogers is dismissed as incompetent, Dr. Bruce Banner unsafe without specific escorts (and he keeps falling asleep), Clint Barton is at the Tower but still on the off duty roster (crazy doesn't begin to describe it) and Natasha Romanov is even scarier (and harder to read) than usual. Nick Fury isn't saying much, except fix it - to which Bruce says - sure! It sounds like a reasonable plan - tutor Steve Rogers into the 21st Century, and who better to do it than the 'science twins?' It'll be fun!

Team building, anxiety disorders, homework and field trips. Welcome to Stark Tower, New York. Welcome home.

I've signed up for yuletide.

Fear, y'all.

I've signed up for yuletide.

Fear, y'all.

I don't want to admit how little time I spent on this. If it's any good, it's sheer chance.

There was a lot of thinking time, but when it came down to putting the words to paper...less than four hours.

But it approaches three thousand words in length. That's right. I can put down nearly a thousand words an hour, interrupted and distracted to hell and breakfast.

I was really looking forward to sitting down and writing. What I discovered is that I can do it without thinking much about it, and not hating everything that came out.

Less than four hours, carved out of my schedule with a sharp knife. BUT I DID IT.

(With less than ten hours to spare. Meep.)

People apologize when they have peculiar eating habits. No, I've seen it too many times. Particularly when there is an allergy involved or something about this or that generates a serious auto-reject incident.

I do listen to this carefully - while it is likely hubris that allows me to claim I can cook to any requirement, I have staffed enough conventions in hospitality where I had to come up with meatless, wheatless, sugarless and 'what's in this?' meals, let alone over 15 years of feeding a type I who then went on two kinds of renal diets (yes, that exists) and that ain't hay.

Tasty? Baby, I know how to WORK IT. (I'll also show you my bookcase of nothing but cookbooks in my kitchen. It's 6' tall, five shelves and three books deep right now.)

And I can tell you after the event is over what we didn't cover for very well. (1994 - Red Lion Inn, San Jose. Anime America convention - we served the sauce cube curry over rice. We had to keep peanut butter and jelly sammies on hand because that was the only thing I could truly guarantee was vegan. What did we miss entirely? Everything was too high in sodium for any kind of renal diet, or a hypertensive/cardiac diet. For example.)

Oh crap, that's 15 years ago.

Me? Oh, I eat anything. I have an allergy to mango, and I despise bell peppers. Jalapeno peppers get an eyeroll because they taste like your lawn and bite YOU for your trouble. Some of the more - esoteric - things you eat as sushi, I leave for Jim. They're expensive anyway.

Past that - we're good. No, seriously. Matter of fact, in accommodating other people who have more things they won't eat on their list - I find I'm missing some things more and more. (Jim won't eat anything hotter than a light sprinkling of black pepper on something. So - no Mexican, no Indian food. At all. Ever.)

Can not say the same for my tastes in reading material.

Keep in mind, I've been writing - and writing to spec - since I was in 5th grade? I've been on every student newspaper there was from elementary school on - and ran the entire show (with a co-editor) in high school. Wrote, laid it out, got it printed, distributed and paid for the entire ball of wax with advertising. Then went to college, was on that staff for a year...and then had to start paying for my education by working full time as well as going to school full time. The writing kind of dried up - when you only have four hours to sleep in more than thirty, the best you can manage is notes to yourself when you get some time. I have some killer fan fiction notes from when I was driving airport shuttle - stuff you only come up with at 3:00 AM with no sleep, just eaten square meatballs with really awful brown gravy at the layover stop at LAX and have to wait two hours for your pickup to go back to Ontario. I can still show you where I parked the van and slept in it. (These days, there's a layover LOT for all the shuttles to wait their turn. Back then, not so much.)

I met Jim through his writing on his website. First thing I did was show him my mad editing skills - and then my pretty mind. (I got to see his priorities first, and I liked the way his mind worked. Did I tell you I had no idea he was my age and male the first time I contacted him by email?)

I do this so innately now, it tends to trip me up.

And I write what I like to read. When I can't write? I still want something to read.

When I'm asked to read something (*gets book handed to her*), I've got to be able to actually READ the silly thing, without being aware that I'm being sold. I want to read your story without reading YOU. No shortcuts, no fluff, no obvious grammar issues - and typos make me roll my eyes and if I do that, I'm not reading your book, amirite?

And oh yes, I throw books across the room often. That's the simplest way to put it. Stories so grim, they make Babi Yar look cheerful. And it's fiction. WTF. What's the point, too. I can read the paper and get depressed, asshole. *covers mouth* Oops.

I don't need sweetness and light, but damn. What are you trying to tell me, anyway?

I love a good mystery. But I don't read mysteries as a rule because? You have to kill someone to do it, and most of the time? The dead guy is the most interesting person in the book, including the detective. (I love Nero Wolfe books. I generally only read or re-read two of them at a time. I get bored, otherwise. What changes betwen them? Victim. Right. Moving on.) The best mystery doesn't involve killt people. Tuck that away and write to that spec. I'll love you forever for it.

I re-read the Joy Luck Club at least twelve times between when I picked it up in the airport and when I left it at the vacation house in Switzerland and didn't need another book that entire two week 'we got stranded in Greece during a transportation strike' trip. Plenty of story, very little intrusion by the author.

Ditto the 'Kushiel' series of books. Plenty of people die in those - sure, sure - but what keeps you turning the pages? You wanna know what happened! (The fact the language is lush, concrete and evocative? So smooth you never trip. Total win.)

I can read Mercedes Lackey's books - if I can keep my tongue in cheek long enough. I love the things she writes about, but there are days and months when I am certain I am reading her opinions more than her stories. (Good thing I agree with her.)

Emma Boll writes so well, I wish she had a dozen clones, all writing books. I have only a handful and I grinch often over it. Subject matter and style just total win.

James Michener, I had to read for high school classes - both history and english, ironically - I finished them. I was bored silly half-way through, but I finished them. I learned how to scan every tenth page and not lose track of stuff. Yay Michener. I made points because I was always - ALWAYS - the only one in the class to finish those door-stoppers. Uh, three of them in one year of high school. Yes, really.

James Clavell wrote my favorite book of all time (that Shogun thing I keep referring to) and then never wrote a thing I could finish after that. Asshole. Oops.

There are books where it is clear I'm supposed to turn my critical brain off and just get silly. There are books when I'm asked to do that (*wink wink nod nod*) and MAN - no, I'm not - this SUCKS. You're cheating. Quit writing the same story and changing the name of the characters. FEH. *tosses*

My good memory (photographic, maybe not so much, but close) is also not my friend here. I can also polish off a book the size of Shogun in an afternoon with room to spare - I DO read that fast. Give me the books, and I will go through them. These days, the amount of time I have to actually READ is limited. And I'll talk about actually being able to see well enough another day. (Yes, I'm nearly 50. I'm also nearsighted from birth, which means my glasses are often taken OFF to read a book. Do that with a 4 year old in the room, I dare you. With my glasses off, I can see *checks* less than 6" in front of me.)

I buy a lot of books. I want to buy a whole lot more books. I would like to finish some more books, but when I throw them across the room instead?

OH. And then there are some things I am weary to death of.

I don't do vampires. Ask anyone. Even when I did larps, I didn't vamp. They bore me witless. Yes, you are talking to someone who never watched Buffy. At all. EVER. You have no idea how much I really worked to get through Twilight without tossing it across the room, and even then I mailed it away the day after I finished it. So do not like vampires - like some people hate broccoli.

I also do not read horror, thriller or slasher fic. Do not read Stephen King at all. No, I don't. No, I didn't. No, I won't. I think he's a very nice man, full stop. Horror stuff tends to repeat on me like bad pizza, and I don't need the nightmares thanks. I also know my anxiety levels and what feeds it. I don't do that genre - it does not agree with me and my wa.

I am nearly certain I like Neil Gaiman more than Neil Gaiman books. He's still got books to write in him, so the jury is still out on the matter.

Do you write this stuff, and I bought it? I love you dearly. That's how you know.

I then gave it to someone who loves reading your kind of stuff. Yes, I did.

Onward.

Please don't write an urban fantasy and set it at Renfaire. Again. PLEASE. Be original. Set it in Hawaii. Or Fresno. Someplace that needs a little magic and hope.

True crime just dirties my mind and gives me sleepless nights and mopey days. I don't work in that industry for a reason - so why am I reading this stuff again? I read cookbooks to know how to make things - why do I need to understand the inner workings of Charles Manson's mind again? Right. *tosses*

Someone is going to write the Jon and Kate book. WHY.

My favorite Tom Clancy novel is Patriot Games, second is Hunt for Red October. After that, it's all downhill.

I'd read more romance novels, but I get as bored of the formula as I do mysteries. Show me a truly awful one, I'll thank you for it, read it, throw it across the room and Bookcross it.

I love me some spy stuff, but make it relevant to me as well - Pico Iyer does this so well just telling a story you can't help but love him to bits. He doesn't write spy stuff, BTW - just about places and events that most people use as backdrops for the spy stuff. Pico's stuff is more interesting, and I've mentioned the 'too grim for any useful purpose' clause.

Fussy, fussy, fussy.

And past that, I'll read anything. So far, my NPR junket books have been complete successes and I haven't gotten a choice on them yet.

I'm also reminded it's time to start thinking about yuletide again too.

Oh, I deserve what I get at that time. Because I'm silly enough to volunteer to write anything. ANYTHING.

Unlike what I'm willing to read.

People apologize when they have peculiar eating habits. No, I've seen it too many times. Particularly when there is an allergy involved or something about this or that generates a serious auto-reject incident.

I do listen to this carefully - while it is likely hubris that allows me to claim I can cook to any requirement, I have staffed enough conventions in hospitality where I had to come up with meatless, wheatless, sugarless and 'what's in this?' meals, let alone over 15 years of feeding a type I who then went on two kinds of renal diets (yes, that exists) and that ain't hay.

Tasty? Baby, I know how to WORK IT. (I'll also show you my bookcase of nothing but cookbooks in my kitchen. It's 6' tall, five shelves and three books deep right now.)

And I can tell you after the event is over what we didn't cover for very well. (1994 - Red Lion Inn, San Jose. Anime America convention - we served the sauce cube curry over rice. We had to keep peanut butter and jelly sammies on hand because that was the only thing I could truly guarantee was vegan. What did we miss entirely? Everything was too high in sodium for any kind of renal diet, or a hypertensive/cardiac diet. For example.)

Oh crap, that's 15 years ago.

Me? Oh, I eat anything. I have an allergy to mango, and I despise bell peppers. Jalapeno peppers get an eyeroll because they taste like your lawn and bite YOU for your trouble. Some of the more - esoteric - things you eat as sushi, I leave for Jim. They're expensive anyway.

Past that - we're good. No, seriously. Matter of fact, in accommodating other people who have more things they won't eat on their list - I find I'm missing some things more and more. (Jim won't eat anything hotter than a light sprinkling of black pepper on something. So - no Mexican, no Indian food. At all. Ever.)

Can not say the same for my tastes in reading material.

Keep in mind, I've been writing - and writing to spec - since I was in 5th grade? I've been on every student newspaper there was from elementary school on - and ran the entire show (with a co-editor) in high school. Wrote, laid it out, got it printed, distributed and paid for the entire ball of wax with advertising. Then went to college, was on that staff for a year...and then had to start paying for my education by working full time as well as going to school full time. The writing kind of dried up - when you only have four hours to sleep in more than thirty, the best you can manage is notes to yourself when you get some time. I have some killer fan fiction notes from when I was driving airport shuttle - stuff you only come up with at 3:00 AM with no sleep, just eaten square meatballs with really awful brown gravy at the layover stop at LAX and have to wait two hours for your pickup to go back to Ontario. I can still show you where I parked the van and slept in it. (These days, there's a layover LOT for all the shuttles to wait their turn. Back then, not so much.)

I met Jim through his writing on his website. First thing I did was show him my mad editing skills - and then my pretty mind. (I got to see his priorities first, and I liked the way his mind worked. Did I tell you I had no idea he was my age and male the first time I contacted him by email?)

I do this so innately now, it tends to trip me up.

And I write what I like to read. When I can't write? I still want something to read.

When I'm asked to read something (*gets book handed to her*), I've got to be able to actually READ the silly thing, without being aware that I'm being sold. I want to read your story without reading YOU. No shortcuts, no fluff, no obvious grammar issues - and typos make me roll my eyes and if I do that, I'm not reading your book, amirite?

And oh yes, I throw books across the room often. That's the simplest way to put it. Stories so grim, they make Babi Yar look cheerful. And it's fiction. WTF. What's the point, too. I can read the paper and get depressed, asshole. *covers mouth* Oops.

I don't need sweetness and light, but damn. What are you trying to tell me, anyway?

I love a good mystery. But I don't read mysteries as a rule because? You have to kill someone to do it, and most of the time? The dead guy is the most interesting person in the book, including the detective. (I love Nero Wolfe books. I generally only read or re-read two of them at a time. I get bored, otherwise. What changes betwen them? Victim. Right. Moving on.) The best mystery doesn't involve killt people. Tuck that away and write to that spec. I'll love you forever for it.

I re-read the Joy Luck Club at least twelve times between when I picked it up in the airport and when I left it at the vacation house in Switzerland and didn't need another book that entire two week 'we got stranded in Greece during a transportation strike' trip. Plenty of story, very little intrusion by the author.

Ditto the 'Kushiel' series of books. Plenty of people die in those - sure, sure - but what keeps you turning the pages? You wanna know what happened! (The fact the language is lush, concrete and evocative? So smooth you never trip. Total win.)

I can read Mercedes Lackey's books - if I can keep my tongue in cheek long enough. I love the things she writes about, but there are days and months when I am certain I am reading her opinions more than her stories. (Good thing I agree with her.)

Emma Boll writes so well, I wish she had a dozen clones, all writing books. I have only a handful and I grinch often over it. Subject matter and style just total win.

James Michener, I had to read for high school classes - both history and english, ironically - I finished them. I was bored silly half-way through, but I finished them. I learned how to scan every tenth page and not lose track of stuff. Yay Michener. I made points because I was always - ALWAYS - the only one in the class to finish those door-stoppers. Uh, three of them in one year of high school. Yes, really.

James Clavell wrote my favorite book of all time (that Shogun thing I keep referring to) and then never wrote a thing I could finish after that. Asshole. Oops.

There are books where it is clear I'm supposed to turn my critical brain off and just get silly. There are books when I'm asked to do that (*wink wink nod nod*) and MAN - no, I'm not - this SUCKS. You're cheating. Quit writing the same story and changing the name of the characters. FEH. *tosses*

My good memory (photographic, maybe not so much, but close) is also not my friend here. I can also polish off a book the size of Shogun in an afternoon with room to spare - I DO read that fast. Give me the books, and I will go through them. These days, the amount of time I have to actually READ is limited. And I'll talk about actually being able to see well enough another day. (Yes, I'm nearly 50. I'm also nearsighted from birth, which means my glasses are often taken OFF to read a book. Do that with a 4 year old in the room, I dare you. With my glasses off, I can see *checks* less than 6" in front of me.)

I buy a lot of books. I want to buy a whole lot more books. I would like to finish some more books, but when I throw them across the room instead?

OH. And then there are some things I am weary to death of.

I don't do vampires. Ask anyone. Even when I did larps, I didn't vamp. They bore me witless. Yes, you are talking to someone who never watched Buffy. At all. EVER. You have no idea how much I really worked to get through Twilight without tossing it across the room, and even then I mailed it away the day after I finished it. So do not like vampires - like some people hate broccoli.

I also do not read horror, thriller or slasher fic. Do not read Stephen King at all. No, I don't. No, I didn't. No, I won't. I think he's a very nice man, full stop. Horror stuff tends to repeat on me like bad pizza, and I don't need the nightmares thanks. I also know my anxiety levels and what feeds it. I don't do that genre - it does not agree with me and my wa.

I am nearly certain I like Neil Gaiman more than Neil Gaiman books. He's still got books to write in him, so the jury is still out on the matter.

Do you write this stuff, and I bought it? I love you dearly. That's how you know.

I then gave it to someone who loves reading your kind of stuff. Yes, I did.

Onward.

Please don't write an urban fantasy and set it at Renfaire. Again. PLEASE. Be original. Set it in Hawaii. Or Fresno. Someplace that needs a little magic and hope.

True crime just dirties my mind and gives me sleepless nights and mopey days. I don't work in that industry for a reason - so why am I reading this stuff again? I read cookbooks to know how to make things - why do I need to understand the inner workings of Charles Manson's mind again? Right. *tosses*

Someone is going to write the Jon and Kate book. WHY.

My favorite Tom Clancy novel is Patriot Games, second is Hunt for Red October. After that, it's all downhill.

I'd read more romance novels, but I get as bored of the formula as I do mysteries. Show me a truly awful one, I'll thank you for it, read it, throw it across the room and Bookcross it.

I love me some spy stuff, but make it relevant to me as well - Pico Iyer does this so well just telling a story you can't help but love him to bits. He doesn't write spy stuff, BTW - just about places and events that most people use as backdrops for the spy stuff. Pico's stuff is more interesting, and I've mentioned the 'too grim for any useful purpose' clause.

Fussy, fussy, fussy.

And past that, I'll read anything. So far, my NPR junket books have been complete successes and I haven't gotten a choice on them yet.

I'm also reminded it's time to start thinking about yuletide again too.

Oh, I deserve what I get at that time. Because I'm silly enough to volunteer to write anything. ANYTHING.

Unlike what I'm willing to read.

Oh daaayim....

My yuletide offering is in today's Stories of the Day post.