amethystkrystal

April 2020

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I wrote some words!! 1,032 of them in fact! I've also decided to make it a goal of mine to write 10,000 words of this fic for Camp NaNoWriMo this month. You can track my progress and add me as a buddy here if you want.

What I accomplished this week:

Wrote over 1000 words

Goals for this coming week:

Write 2000 words

This will be kind of a short post because, unfortunately, I don't have any fun Black Panther or neuroscience related tidbits to share. I've just been working on outlining, and I'm very happy to say that I have a complete (but very rough!) outline. That is, I know where the main beats of the story are going to be. It really was quite a challenge to take the vague semi-connected concepts for this that I've had bouncing around in my head and somehow transform them into a cohesive narrative. Like for example, it's very easy to think "I want women in science to be a theme" but then I have to actually, you know, figure out a story where that theme can be explored. But overall, I'm satisfied with the broad strokes I've come up with and now it's a matter of fine tuning it and then actually... writing.

What I accomplished this week:

Made a rough outline

Goals for this coming week:

Fine tune the outline
Perhaps maybe write some words??

Tags:

So this week was actually... pretty productive. I realized that Twitter had sort of turned into a source of anxiety with the constant news about Coronavirus, so I've had to figure out other ways to spend my time and apparently that made me super motivated to work on this project. Silver lining I guess.

The biggest thing this week is that I read the Shuri comics series by Nnedi Okorafor, and I LOVED it. The plot was great and well-paced, and I love Shuri's character and all the awesome crossovers that happened. This series also highlighted themes and concepts like the important roles women have in Wakandan society and politics and also Shuri's existence as somebody who enjoys making connections and working with people outside of Wakanda. These ideas are also present in the Black Panther film, and I think are ripe for exploring in a fic set after Shuri has been put in charge of a worldwide outreach program.

I also read this academic article by Bibi Burger and Laura Engels discussing the Coates Black Panther comic series. It was a really helpful primer on Afrofuturism and the history of the Black Panther character and does a really good job breaking down the socio-political conflict that happens in the series.

On the neuroscience/psychology side of things, my research this week was focused primarily on PTSD symptoms and current treatment options, and also I did some reading on current technologies for prostheses. For both of these topics, I was mostly reading review articles as a starting point because these areas are not my specialty. I also looked at some articles presenting models of describing mental health conditions dimensionally rather than categorically. That is, putting more focus on the presence and severity of particular symptoms, rather than giving it a specific label. The mental health care field is shifting more and more to this type of model, and it's something I imagine Wakanda would already be doing.

I'm sure I'll still be researching as I plan and write, but as of now, I feel like I have a solid foundation to start outlining the story, so I'm very excited!

What I accomplished this week:

Read the Shuri comics run
Read Burger & Engels article about Coates run
Read PTSD symptoms and treatment
Read on current prostheses technology

Goals for this coming week:

Outline at least the first half of the fic

Tags:

Guys, I'm not gonna lie, this week was... rough. Usual grad school stressed coupled with the near-constant underlying COVID-19 anxiety made it really hard for me to devote a whole lot of mental energy to this project this week. But! I was able to mostly accomplish the goals I set out, so that's something.

Though I did get lots of research done on the topic of memory storage in the brain, figuring out a scientifically plausible way for how HYDRA removed Bucky's memories continues to be A Struggle. Mainly, because our only canonical knowledge of the process is that they shock his whole head, but uhhh the thing with memory -- particularly really complicated memories that have multiple sensory or emotional components -- is that they aren't just stored in one consolidated area that HYDRA could just zap; they're stored throughout the brain. Which leads to the question I've been pondering for months: how they hell did HYDRA shock Bucky's brain so badly that he forgot who Steve is but bad enough to turn him into a vegetable? I'm still trying to work though it. But oh man, the lack of any kind of detail in canon about what HYDRA did to Bucky is my villain origin story.

I also did a little comics reading this week! I read the first volume of Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet. My main goal with doing some comics reading is for Wakanda worldbuilding inspiration, beyond what's already been established as canon in the movie. It's definitely interesting seeing characterizations and Wakandan cultural things that are different from the movie and which things clearly inspired events in the movie. A major theme in this story is how T'Challa contends with some of his people being unhappy with his rule and choices he's made. I think that type of conflict is definitely something to be explored in a story set after Civil War and Black Panther -- how the Wakanda people respond to T'Challa's decision to open to the world. And more specifically, since this is Shuri's POV in my planned story, how the Wakandan scientific community responds to their innovations becoming known to the rest of the world.

What I accomplished this week:

Read on long term memory storage and retrieval in the brain
Read the first volume of Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet

Goals for this coming week:

Read up on PTSD symptoms, neural mechanisms, and recovery
Read the Shuri comics run by Nnedi Okorafor

Tags:

I'm genuinely impressed with how much research progress I was able to make this week when I had an exam, a presentation in front of my entire department, and a busier-than-usual social calendar. I feel like it's a testament to how much I'm genuinely enjoying and am invested in this project.

So on the Shuri characterization/Wakanda worldbuilding research front, I watched Black Panther with audio commentary from Ryan Coogler (director & co-writer) and Hannah Beachler (production designer), and holy crap. I knew BP was a phenomenal film since I first saw it, but the audio commentary gave me a whole new appreciation for the amount of genius and passion that went into this movie. I also watched some one-on-one interviews with Ryan Coogler, and it's just so awe-inspiring the way he has so clearly put so much careful, deliberate thought to everything from characters to costumes to setting. Listening to him speak was extremely refreshing after all these months of infuriating flippancy from the filmmakers behind Avengers: Endgame, and as someone who's trying to play around in the sandbox he built, I'm really grateful for his eloquence and clarity when he talks about his creative choices and vision for the story.

I also watched some Letitia Wright (the actress who plays Shuri) interviews, and she is such a delight to listen to. She is so obviously aware of Shuri's importance to young girls (especially young Black girls) who are interested in science and might feel embarrassed by their love for learning. And that aspect of Shuri -- being someone who has been inquisitive since she was a young girl -- is something that really resonates with me and that I want to express in my fic.

On the neuroscience side of things, I was able to dedicate some time this week to reading some papers on the neural correlates of hypnosis. In order to come up with a plausible procedure for Shuri to fix Bucky, I first need to flesh out exactly what HYDRA did to him in the first place. So I'm looking into the neuroscience of hypnosis because that's the phenomenon that most resembles the whole trigger words thing. Turns out, the research that's out there so far is extremely mixed, with different experimenters finding different things depending on methodology. Nobody knows exactly which brain regions are involved in hypnosis, and even for the regions that everyone can agree are involved, it's still not clear exactly what said regions are doing. If I had to do serious academic work in this area, I'd be tearing my hair out. However, because this is fan fiction, I don't have to make complete sense of it all, I just need to draw on the info that is out there and come up with something plausible.

So, I've basically got the trigger words aspect of things squared away, but there's also the issues of the memory wipes and PTSD to tackle so that's where my research is going next. I'm also planning to do some Black Panther comics reading for worldbuilding inspiration.

What I accomplished this week:

Watched Black Panther with audio commentary
Watched Ryan Coogler interviews
Watched Letitia Wright interviews
Read up on the neuroscience of hypnosis
Formulated my ideas on what HYDRA did re: the triggers words and how Shuri removed them

Goals for this coming week:

Read up on the neural correlates of memory and formulate Shuri's plan for that aspect of Bucky's recovery
Read the Ta-Nehisi Coates run of Black Panther

Tags:

Hello everyone!

So it's been a little while since I've updated on this account, but I want to start using blog again, mainly to keep track of my goals and progress for this new fic project I'm starting. As some of you who follow me on Twitter might already know, it's a been a desire of mine for a while to write a fic set post-Captain America: Civil War that depicts how Shuri fixes Bucky's brain using actual neuroscience. IRL, I'm halfway through getting my PhD in Psychology and am part of a lab that uses MRI to study memory in the brain, so being able to bridge my love for MCU characters and my passion for my field is something I'm really excited about. I'm tentatively titling this story "Fire Together, Wire Together" which is a common phrase in neuroscience referring to how learning happens at the neuronal level.

Half of this story will be in Bucky's POV, depicting his recovery, his reclamation of a sense of purpose, and the development of his relationship with Steve. With Bucky at last recovering in peace and safety and Steve grappling with the loss of his team and abandoning the Captain American mantle, I think post-CW is a time rich with possibilities to explore both Steve and Bucky's characters and also the status of their relationship now that they actually have the chance to get to know each other in the 21st century.

The other half of this story will be in Shuri's POV, and this is something I'm really excited to dive into. After the events of Black Panther, Shuri has a lot to contend with (the loss of her father, the fallout of N'Djaka's usurpation, building the international outreach centers) and I think it's important, in addition to showcasing her wit and brilliance, to also depict the way she struggles emotionally with these major changes. Additionally, science doesn't happen in a bubble, and the innovations in neuropsychology she accomplishes while fixing Bucky have huge implications for basic science and public health and I want to address that aspect of things as well, bridging Shuri and Bucky's narratives together to tell a humanistic story of science.

Right now, I'm currently in the research stages of this project, which are twofold. Firstly, I'm reading up on cognitive neuroscience topics to flesh out both what HYDRA did to Bucky in the first place and how Shuri is going to fix it. Canon is suuuuuuper hand-wavy when it comes to the actual process of turning Bucky into the Winter Soldier, and I'm really trying to come up with an actual process for what they did, and then I can use that to figure out how Shuri undoes it. The other part of my research is reading/listening to interviews from people involved in creating Black Panther because, as a non-Black person writing this story set in Wakanda and featuring Shuri's POV, I think it's important to understand the intentions of those who created MCU-Wakanda and it's characters in the first place, so that I can be respectful of those intentions while playing in this sandbox. (Also definitely planning on having a sensitivity reader as well.)

If you couldn't already tell, this the most enthused about a project I've been in a while, and I guess my aim for this blog is to just have a place to share cool research tidbits, give writing updates etc., mostly to keep myself on track but also in case any of my followers about to care about this super niche project. I'm planning to do weekly updates, consisting of some overall comments about what I've been working on and then end with a summary of what I accomplished and my goals for next week.

What I accomplished this week:

Made this post laying out my goals for this project and intentions for weekly updates
Finished my list of papers to read, interviews to watch, etc.

Goals for this coming week:

Watch Black Panther with director's commentary
Read neuro papers on reading list and flesh out processes for what Hydra did and how Shuri fixed it

Tags:

Alright so it's been a couple weeks since I've really been able to get a lot of writing done (though I did finish a short Endgame fix-it!) and now as it's getting close to time for me to wrap of my RBB fic and start thinking about the CABB I figured it would be good to update my tentative schedule for things.

Captain America Reverse Big Bang

Finish full draft and send to beta by May 19
Post first chapter ~May 26 and then post 3 chapters per week until ~June 20

Captain American Big Bang

Start outline after May 19 and finish by June 1
Start fic June 1 and finish by October 12

Tags:

writing updates

Time On My Hands Could Be Time Spent With You
by amethystkrystal

Words: 2000
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, Bucky Barnes Feels, Hurt feelings, Apologies, Forgiveness, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending

Summary:

"The man I loved my entire life stepped onto that platform and disappeared. And then ten seconds later, you show up sitting on this bench after living an entire lifetime without me. I don't know what the hell to do or how to feel."

"I'm still the same guy, Buck. I'm still your Steve."

Read on AO3

Tags:

Posted:

Nothing

To be posted soon:

Nothing for a while as I'm working on my RBB fic. Honestly there might not be anything new from me until after Endgame comes out.

New Accomplishments:

Finished chapters 5 and 6
Edited first half and sent to Beta

Goals:

Make edits according to beta comments
Make changes to the outline according to beta comments
Write chapter 7

Tags:

writing updates

Posted:

Nothing

To be posted soon:

Nothing for a while as I'm working on my RBB fic. Honestly there might not be anything new from me until after Endgame comes out.

New Accomplishments:

Finished chapters 4 and part of 5

Goals:

Finish chapters 5 and 6
Edit this first half of RBB and send to Beta

Yeah my ambitious week last week didn't pan out, but let's see how this goes now.

Tags:

writing updates

Posted:

Nothing

To be posted soon:

Nothing for a while as I'm working on my RBB fic. Honestly there might not be anything new from me until after Endgame comes out.

New Accomplishments:

Finished chapters 2 and 3 of RBB

Goals:

Finish chapters 4, 5, 2, and 7.
Edit this first half of RBB and send to Beta

We're being real ambitious this week...let's see how it goes.

Posted:

Nothing

To be posted soon:

Nothing for a while as I'm working on my RBB fic. Honestly there might not be anything new from me until after Endgame comes out.

New Accomplishments:

Finished the second part of chapter 1 of RBB (it was originally it's own chapter but I decided to incorporate it into chapter 1)
Started some of chapter 2

Goals:

Finish chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5. We're being really ambitious this week because last week I was in a mental funk and didn't write as much as I hoped. But this week, I'm feeling better!

Tags:

writing updates

Posted:

It's All Fun and Games - MCU KinkBang fic about Steve and Bucky's adventures with handcuffs

To be posted soon:

Nothing for a while as I'm working on my RBB fic. Honestly there might not be anything new from me until after Endgame comes out.

New Accomplishments:

Finished the first chapter of RBB
Started Chapter 2 of RBB

Goals:

Finish Chapter 2
Start and maybe finish Chapter 3

Tags:

writing updates

It's All Fun and Games
by amethystkrystal and blue-reveries

Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Tony Stark
Additional Tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Top Steve Rogers, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Flavored Lube, Handcuffs, Oral Sex, Felching, Anal Sex, Hand Jobs, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Humor, Illustrated, NSFW Art

Summary:
Bucky winced. "I think I broke the key."
Steve just blinked, a little stunned from the emotional whiplash of going from aroused to panicked to incredulous in a span of seconds. "What do you mean you 'broke the key'?"

Read on AO3 with full NSFW art embedded

Tags:

Posted:

Nothing

To be posted soon:

It's All Fun and Games - MCU KinkBang fic to be posted March 13

New Accomplishments:

Finished RBB outline
Wrote 1/2 of Chapter 1 of RBB

Goals:

Finish the first chapter of RBB
Start Chapter 2

Tags:

writing updates

I've decided to update my long term planning for fics in order to better incorporate the fact that I will a) probably want to write a post-Endgame fic and b) I really want to dedicate a lot of time to my CABB fic

Upcoming Projects

~~Super Secret Special Gift Fic~~

~~Finish and post by Jan 31~~

~~MCU Kinkbang~~

~~Outline by Feb 1~~
~~At least half complete by Feb 10 (check-in deadline)~~
~~Finish by March 1 (week before final deadline and also before CARBB claims start)~~

Captain America Reverse Big Bang

Start outline after claims on March 2 and finish by March 14
Finish by April 25

Inevitable Endgame fix-it

Start after seeing Endgame (April 26)
Finish by May 15

Captain America Big Bang

Start outline after May 15 and finish by June 15 (taking a long time with this outline because my idea for this has been brewing for a while and I really want to flesh this out and do it right)
At least half done by August 17 (first check-in)
Finish by Oct 12

Tags:

writing updates

Posted:

Wash It Away - oneshot involving Stucky in a bathtub inspired by this art by Goandgetthegun

To be posted soon:

It's All Fun and Game - MCU KinkBang fic to be posted March 13

New Accomplishments:

Started, completed, and posted "Wash It Away"!
Claimed a RBB fic!

Goals:

Either finish or at least mostly complete RBB outline
Do another pass of edits for "It's All Fun and Games"

Tags:

writing updates

Wash It Away

Rating: Explicit

Ship: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

Tags: Flashbacks, Pre-War, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Bath Sex, Hand Jobs, Kissing, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Angst

Words: 2,000

Summary:

In 1941, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes share a bath.

Years later, the Winter Soldier is left in a tub after a mission, and for some reason, this makes him cry.

Inspired by this beautiful art of Bucky in a tub by Goandgetthegun

Tags:

Posted:

Nothing

To be posted soon:

It's All Fun and Game - MCU KinkBang fic to be posted March 13
A currently untitled oneshot inspired by this art by Goandgetthegun that will probably be posted in the next week or so. Let's call this BathFic

New Accomplishments:

Typed up from long hand and did the first pass of edits on KinkBang fic
More brainstorming on CABB fic
Got inspired to write a new story!

Goals:

Start and finish BathFic
Claim my RBB fic

Tags:

writing updates

Posted:

He Keeps Me Warm - short drabble of Steve and Bucky cuddling and being hella soft after Bucky comes out of cryo. Written as a thank you gift to some lovely frequent AO3 commenters

To be posted soon:

It's All Fun and Game - MCU KinkBang fic to be posted March 13

New Accomplishments:

Finished the first draft of the KinkBang fic!
More brainstorming on CABB fic

Goals:

Edit KinkBang and send a final copy to my artist collaborator
Maybe start outlining CABB

Tags:

writing updates

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April 2020

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Fire Together, Wire Together - Update 4/5/2020

Fire Together, Wire Together - Update 3/29/2020

Fire Together, Wire Together - Update 3/22/2020

Fire Together, Wire Together - Update 3/15/2020

Fire Together, Wire Together - Update 3/8/2020

Fire Together, Wire Together - Update 3/1/2020

Updating Writing Schedule for This Summer

Time On My Hands Could Be Time Spent With You

Week of 4/15/2019

Week of 4/8/2019

Week of 4/1/2019

Week of 3/25/2019

Week of 3/18/2019

It's All Fun and Games

Week of 3/11

Update to Long-Term Planning

Week of 3/4

Wash It Away

Week of 2/25/2018

Week of 2/18/2019

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