August/early September fic roundup

[sholio]

Various fic I've posted in the last month or so, mostly for exchanges.


For Writing Rainbow: Purple:

Lonely Purple Nights (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko & Azula, 800 wds)
Zuko can't sleep. And he's not the only one. Kidfic fluff, or at least as fluffy as these two get.

Purple Haze (Stranger Things, Kali/Nancy, 1900 wds)
Kali swept into Hawkins in the spring of 1986. Featuring bonus dinosaurs.


For the Daredevil & Defenders Exchange:

Serenity (Iron Fist, Danny & Ward, 6700 wds)
If you were in trouble, the survival manual said, you should stay where you are rather than wandering around and getting lost.

"Thanks a lot," Ward muttered darkly. "We've got the staying-put part covered, thanks."

(Or: Ward and Danny fall down a sinkhole, and Danny breaks his other leg.)


For Het Swap:

Screwball Love Story (Ant-Man, Scott/Paxton/Maggie, 2700 wds)
Scott is definitely not Cary Grant but he's probably also not Jimmy Stewart and ... yeah, even he's not entirely sure where he's going with this.


For Just Married Exchange:

Brides of the Iron Fist (Iron Fist, Ward/Misty & Danny/Colleen, 15K)
"And they definitely won't execute me if I have dependents," Danny said, and waved his hands vigorously at Ward and Misty, while they stared at him.

"We're not your dependents," Ward said, managing to pack a truly impressive amount of horror into his tone without actually raising his voice. "We're your accidentally married kung fu spouses or ... something."

"I want this day to not have happened," Colleen said, pressing her forehead against the bars.

Yes, somehow this is the longest thing I've written in the fandom so far. Though before that it was the cactus fic, so I see that I'm staying true to form.


And for a tumblr prompt:

Bluff and Call (Iron Fist, Danny & Ward, 2600 wds)
They didn't fight -- really fight -- all that often these days. But every once in a while, Danny's prickly places -- and he did have them -- ran headlong into Ward's prickly places (which was most of him; Ward sometimes felt like a human porcupine) and they ended up verbally tearing strips off each other at 2 a.m.

Comments

[kore]

Arrrgh I missed that Defenders exchange (wasn't there another one with Defenders in it....Netflix MCU?).

[sholio]

Netflix Originals! Which I decided to skip; it was pretty sparse in signups, and I figured I'd be better off putting my energy into the bigger exchanges.

The Daredevil/Defenders exchange is run through Tumblr, so the rules are ... different. It's kind of fun participating in an exchange that doesn't use the same set of agreed-upon rules as most exchanges do nowadays, but it's also making it clear why so many exchanges use Yuletide rules, because they WORK. Like, say, having a grace period between the deadline and reveals to ensure that everyone has a gift before going live with it.

[kore]

Oh, I thought it was Tumblr/DW! I guess the DW was just as a backup. Yeah I don't think I have participated in any Tumblr exchanges ever....some Stucky ones looked appealing, but I also had friends who had terrible experiences with them.

[sholio]

Yeah, I think the DW is just a backup. They do have an AO3 collection, but it's not required to participate.

And, to be fair, my experience overall with this one has been great! The mod is nice, and quick to respond to queries, and I love my gift and had fun creating one. But it's also a very different setup from the thing with AO3 exchanges where you choose/offer characters or pairings and fandoms. In this one, you don't. You give some fairly generic prompts (a song, a quote, plus a freeform prompt or two) and say what you don't want, and then they make you something - could be gifs, could be a fic, etc. You are also encouraged to contact your recip anonymously throughout the creation process to ask them questions. It's just very, very different, and took me some getting used to.

[kore]

You give some fairly generic prompts (a song, a quote, plus a freeform prompt or two) and say what you don't want, and then they make you something - could be gifs, could be a fic, etc. You are also encouraged to contact your recip anonymously throughout the creation process to ask them questions

That is very different! That sounds more like Fandom Stocking, and I think I used to see some stuff like that ages ago on LJ -- like for a birthday, people would say "feel free to write me fic/make icons/a mix about my fandoms," and it was nice because it was a way to give stuff without having to spend $$$. But it would probably be mostly that person's flist participating, or sometimes it was secretly organized by a friend.

There are some Tumblr trends I wish were more widespread here -- like the whole fandom/pairing/character week thing, or mini-fests, and I have seen people pick up stuff like Sunday Six. A lot of the fun fannish stuff seems to have gone there, altho I'm really happy snickfic is dedicated to keeping Thursday Recs going here. Instagram has a lot of those. One friend of mine has her own book blog, and there are TONS of reading challenges and "wordless Wednesday" or read-a-thons or whatever. But keeping that kind of casual participation going on LJ was always a problem too. (People are like, "The comms are so dead on DW," and I'm just all OMFG let me tell you how many DOZENS of comms I saw people start on LJ that died within a month, and that was when engagement with that site was very high.)

[kore]

(And I just had to drop out of iddyiddybangbang, AGAIN. ARGH. Maybe I should just quit trying exchanges until I am not sick. Which would be....WHEN?)

[naye]

"We're not your dependents," Ward said, managing to pack a truly impressive amount of horror into his tone without actually raising his voice. "We're your accidentally married kung fu spouses or ... something."

"I want this day to not have happened," Colleen said, pressing her forehead against the bars.

I have NO CONTEXT for anything but this made me cackle as I scrolled through. Amazing snippet - makes me want to read the full 15k!

(Your writing is so good it just makes me happy to see it, really.)

Off subject, but pertaining to writing...

[starwatcher]

.
Came across this article a week or so back. I figure you already know all this stuff, but the link might be handy if anyone asks you about writing professionally.

I Can't Believe My Publisher Doesn't...
.