wynnesome

Edited panels from Iron Man #182. In the climactic comic of the "Iron Man Second Drinking arc," Tony is at rock bottom with his alcoholism, huddling up with his pregnant, fellow alcoholic friend, trying to survive both her labor and the terrible blizzard about to hit that night.

In the original page, the upper left is a different panel. I substituted this one from the previous page to make the sequence more concise for purposes of the edit. Instead of saying "a little," he offers her a "Taste?" from the bottle of liquor he pawned his coat to buy. She declines, because there's no time like the present to quit drinking for the sake of your about-to-be-born child. The next two panels are unedited until the final, bottom right speech bubble. In the original, instead of having his mind on what Steve would think of him in his current circumstances, Tony is thinking about "Armor. Armor I used to wear that I thought made me invincible."

Sorry, Armor, had to toss you aside in favor of Steve this time, for the sake of Games points!
 

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www.dm-gremlin.com/stuff/imagespace/200730-IM182-Huddling-Emerson.jpg

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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Edit
Bingo Prompt: Huddling for Warmth (opposite day)
Content Warning: None
Extra Prompts: Non-Square Images, Quotes
Main Universe: 616

Even though I thought the plot point around it was pretty weak, I love the visual and the art in the panel from Tony Stark: Iron Man #12 where Tony is wearing his newly invented behavior-modifying crown.

I did some editing on the panel -- removing speech bubbles and extending the background where the top of Tony's head had overlapped into another panel -- to use it in the last part of my King of Pain trilogy of edits. And as I worked on that, I realized I wanted to do another, separate edit using just this panel to create a royalty/mind-control AU. So then I lettered and edited some speech bubbles --- well, thought bubbles, anyway -- right back in...

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www.dm-gremlin.com/stuff/imagespace/200728-MindControl-TonyCrown-TheRoyalWe.jpg




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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Edit
Bingo Prompt: Mind Control
Content Warning: None
Extra Prompts: Non-Square Images, AU Creation, Soulmates, Royalty
Main Universe: 616 (AU)

I had this cool little brain flash about doing an edit to the Police song "King of Pain," with Steve's and Tony's endless cycle of angst as a time loop to fill that bingo square, and using the song title as an unconventional conception of a "royalty" trope,

It turned into three nights of editing and laying out panels, and three separate collage-style edits to move through the progression that I'd had in mind. Each of the three stands on its own, and together they function as a trilogy, covering the parts of the song that I wanted to illustrate.

I mean, I guess for the three nights' worth of work, I'm at least ending up with three fills out of it...

The full-size files are large, and even the sized-down versions are pretty big. Click to zoom, for best ease reading the text and seeing some of the details of the panels.

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www.dm-gremlin.com/stuff/imagespace/200728-KingofPain2-LittleBlackSpot.jpg




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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Edit
Bingo Prompt: Betrayal
Content Warning: None
Extra Prompts: Non-Square Images, Song Lyrics, Soulmates
Main Universe: 616

A kind of trash fill for the "Growing Old Together" square. Canon compliant-ish vs canon-divergent takes on Steve and Tony Talking It Out on the subject.

 

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MCU, Take One:
"Tony, no, please... We were supposed to grow old together..."
"We were supposed to do a lot of things together, Steve. It was always you saying it, and always you dropping the ball."

MCU, Take Two:
"What the fuck, Steve? We were supposed to grow old together..."
"What was I supposed to do, Tony? When you skipped straight over "get old," went directly to "die," and never bothered to let anyone know you had "come back from the dead" already lined up?"

616, Take One:
"I always thought we'd grow old together, Tony, and just look at me now..."
"No, Steve, that's not it either. You were never supposed to get old at all."

616, Take Two:
"Do you know what I would have done differently now, Steve? NOTHING!"
"Once I had the dream that we'd grow old together, Tony, but you smashed that, you and your secrets and lies. So now? We can die together, instead."

Ults:
"It's not like we were ever going to grow old together, Steve, I knew that... But it was supposed to be me, going first... It was supposed to be me..."

There was no answer. Steve had sold his time to buy Tony's.

 

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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Fic
Bingo Prompt: Growing Old Together (opposite day)
Content Warning: MCD
Extra Prompts: None
Main Universe: Ults

I knew how I wanted to edit these panels, and what lyrics I wanted to use, but had no idea of layout. I messed around with it a lot and this is what I could come up with. I think it might be the LKBV version of an edit, but I had a lot of fun playing with fonts and text effects anyway.

Anyway, the Director of SHIELD/Haunted angst, plus some Make It Worse, is what matters.

Haunted Edit: "Kiss Me, Kill Me," with lyrics from U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me."

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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Edit
Bingo Prompt: Hallucinations
Content Warning: Major Character Death (canonical)
Extra Prompts: Non-Square Images, Song Lyrics
Main Universe: 616

The "Fourth Wall Breaking" fic bonus prompt has been elusive for Team Angst, seeming much easier to conceptualize as crack or humor. I finally realized that I could directly connect the premise of "aware of being a fictional character" to a heaping portion of my Tony Stark: Iron Man salt, and that put a certain author square in the audience seat as the "real world" personage for Tony to bespeak.

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Steve is tall and handsome and golden, and his warm, sure grip on Tony's elbow would be all it took to anchor him -- in any domain but this.

"Tony, I know I've given you grief about Extremis, and your "new body," but this idea in your head that you're not you anymore--" He shakes his head in exasperation, but the fondness is firmly evident. "The fact is, you can rebuild or modify or "improve" any part of yourself you like, and all that does is make you more you, not less, because that's what Tony Stark does. It's a part of who you are and have always been..."

It feels like that same strong, gentle grip reaches into Tony's artificial chest and softly squeezes his artificial heart.

"...and I hope that never changes about you."

He'd give anything not to have to tell Steve that it already has.

"I'm grateful to have your faith, Steve. More than you know. If there's anything in the world that could convince me I'm wrong... But this isn't where fairies are real as long as you believe in them. I'm not real. I'm a character in a work of fiction. I even know who's writing it. I found the signature in the code in my cells."

"Your Tony -- I... I'm sorry, He's gone. He died. He's not coming back. There's only this now--" He gestures up and down along the height of his frame. "--and I'm not him. I'm just a story based upon that man you knew and..."

Tony looks down and swallows thickly. "...loved. I-I'm a fictional character," he repeats, "being written by a guy named Dan Slott."

"Tony, no, that's not true," Steve protests, but Tony tunes it out, and wrests his arm free of the hold. Steve is wrong, no matter how well-intentioned. Tony doesn't merit that faith, and he doesn't deserve the comfort. He's just a figment, a stand-in, in Steve's world, and the less interaction he has here, the better. Until it's over. The less reason he can give any of them to continue believing the lie.

He thumps himself on the forehead. "Pull yourself together, Stark-- habit, fuck! I don't even know what to call myself. Doesn't matter so much, anyway." He laughs, bitterly. "How about this one, as fitting as ever: Get it together, 'Ol' Shellhead.' You know what you have to do."

Man as much metaphor as the thousand-yard stare, he looks off into the middle-distance, miserable and pleading.

"You, writer -- Slott -- if you can hear me, please. Put an end to this. What you're doing -- it does nothing but tarnish the memory of the man you modeled me from. Keeping him 'alive' like this isn't doing any good for anyone. Not for Tony Stark's friends and the people who loved him. Not for me -- and not for your readers, either. I know you have to tell your story, but please... this is no kind of life. if I can beg anything of you, this one thing is all I would ask. For all our sakes. Please. We've had a good run, but it's time to let go. Close the book."

"Don't drag out the ending."


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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Fic
Bingo Prompt: Free Space
Content Warning: Salinity Levels High Today
Extra Prompts: Fourth Wall Breaking
Main Universe: 616

The intertwined dialogue of "False Promise, False Spring" is kind of a layout nightmare, and I wanted to do a version that showed Steve's and Tony's sides of the conversation each as a separate, complete and continuous thread.

I created some backgrounds in MS Paint: A warm summery scene, reflecting Steve's happiness with the outcome, and a bleak wintry scene, reflecting Tony's despair. Then I overlaid their respective texts, "facing" one other.

I did make a few changes to line breaks and punctuation where it felt like those should fall differently than where I wanted the lines "interrupting" each other in the original.




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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Edit
Bingo Prompt: Team as Family (opposite day)
Content Warning: None
Extra Prompts: Non-Square Images, Quotes
Main Universe: 616

Years ago, Tony had given him a home. Days ago, Tony had driven him from it.

Now, instead of a mansion full of rooms, rooms full of teammates, teammates full of spirit and spit, Steve came home to this. A tiny studio apartment that felt like it barely left room for his bulk between its walls.

Where there had been many, now there was only one.

Only one room.
Only one chair.
Only one plate.

Only one thing remained the same.
There was only one bed.

It was half the size. It was infinitely more empty.
It held only one occupant, dampening only one pillow, while silently sobbing himself to sleep.

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Username: wynnesome, steward of subversion
Work Type: Fic
Bingo Prompt: Only One Bed (opposite day)
Content Warning: None
Extra Prompts: You Gave Me A Home
Main Universe: 616