Arctic Light

Authors were revealed today and I can finally talk about this!

Birdcage (23670 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson/Helmut Zemo
Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Helmut Zemo, John Walker (Marvel), T'Challa (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Wingfic, Alternate Universe - Wings, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Torture, Mutilation
Summary: The wings of the old Sokovian royalty folded down smooth and gray, streamlined against their backs. Beneath clothing tailored to hide them—loose cloaks, long coats—they vanished so completely that they were thought by some to be a legend.

This is not just one of the longest, but one of the iddiest, hurt/comfortiest, funnest things I've written in a while. Below the cut, I ramble about this fic for a while! Spoilers are throughout, so if you'd like to read unspoiled, or without the author's thoughts in mind, you may wish to return to these notes later.

( Author's meta nattering about the story )

So I basically managed not to treat anyone I intended to treat and yet I wrote SIX things, between my assignment, pinch hits, and being randomly struck by treat ideas out of the blue. All in different fandoms, too. And here they are!

Small Soft Changes (Agent Carter, Jack & Peggy, 2000 words)
Jack has a concussion. Peggy keeps an eye on him.

Quantum Theory of Magic (MCU, Thor & Loki w/Valkyrie, 2700 wds)
As they rebuild the new Asgard settlement on Earth, something is wrong with Loki. Thor just has to figure out what. Canon-divergent "everyone lives" AU with references to canon character deaths.

Hardscrabble Life (MCU, Carol/Yon-Rogg, 3800 wds)
"I thought you were supposed to be a fast study," Carol said, and shoved the Scrabble box at him. "So study." (Or: One way to teach an alien to read C-53 script.)

To Every Beloved Stranger (Magicians books, Plum + Eliot & Quentin with a little side Eliot/Quentin, 4000 wds)
There was a plague of Near Deer terrorizing some of the outlying farmsteads near the Erroneous Mountains. Post-canon reunion fic.

Drinking Games (The Expanse, Drummer & Ashford, 1100 wds)
There's nothing like good company and a good drink. (Okay, maybe a terrible drink. But the company is good.) Friendship fic set between seasons 3 & 4.

Scar Stories (Iron Fist, Danny & Ward, 2500 wds)
There was an instant when Ward could have fed the car accident story to Danny. Danny would probably have believed him. If there was one thing he knew he was good at, it was lying to people who cared about him. Post-canon sibling bonding.


I continue to be thrilled with my gifts - hahaha, I DID NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY guess that sheron wrote my wonderful Iron Fist road trip gift, and snickfic gifted me delicious Carol/Yon-Rogg; everyone should read them. *__*

auexchange reveals were today! I wrote:

Ill Met on Contraxia (MCU, 5500 wds, Nakia/Minn-Erva, explicit)
The prompt was NAKIA IN SPACE, which my brain took and ran with. I had a lot of fun working out details of what a Wakandan War Dog space mission might look like, and I think this would be a fun 'verse to write more about.

Halfway Back (Torchwood, 14K, gen, Owen + team)
My main assignment! AU in which the team run a sanctuary for magical creatures, and are at least half magical creatures themselves. This takes elements from Owen's season 2 storyline, but in a world with magic instead of magitech. Lots of teaminess and h/c. Shocking.

Cuts Deeper (Torchwood, 5K, gennish teamfic with a little Jack/Ianto, debt-slavery/public punishment AU)
An AU version of "Cyberwoman" in a universe where public flogging is a thing. This is one of those fics that is definitely centered around a particular kink, and it's either your kink or it's not - this is unabashedly wall-to-wall flogging and h/c. So yeah ... heed the warnings.

The request as well as the ficlet itself contains major Endgame spoilers, and I know we're probably past the warning point on that by now, but just in case ... I'll put all of that under the cut. Involves Gamora and Natasha.

( Day 14: Tear-Stained )

( Master List )

Aside from the Whumptober ficlets, I've had a few things revealed lately in various exchanges!

For Darkest Night:
The Light on the Harbor (Defenders, 2200, team gen)
Matt crosses a line. He thinks he can't come back. His friends think he's wrong.

For Fandom Giftbox:
Scars Beneath the Skin (MCU, 8200 wds, Tony & Nebula gen)
A pleasure cruise on Nebula's new ship turns deadly when one of Tony's old problems comes back to try to kill him.

Coffee on the Corner (White Collar, 1200 wds, Kate & Alex)
Alex has an errand in New York, pre-series.

For Kidfic Exchange (a bit older, but I don't think I linked to it here):
Big Brother Instinct (Iron Fist, 4100 wds, Danny & Ward gen)
Ward is six years old because of magical shenanigans, and Danny's going to be a good big brother if it kills him.

I also wrote a few drabble-sized treats for Marvel Femslash Drabble Exchange:

Turnabout (Defenders, Misty/Colleen)
The Same Skin (Defenders/MCU, Misty/Nebula)
Twenty Minutes (Defenders/MCU, Jeri/Pepper)

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.

For Escape the Iron Triangle - which had the writing period over this weekend, and has now revealed fics and authors:

Fire Walk (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko & Iroh & Ozai, 1500 wds, AU)
The recipient requested (among other things) deals with demons and tea, so my brain went to the worst possible place. Poor Zuko.

One Cool Cat Daddy (Luke Cage, post-S2, 1000 words, kitten!fic)
And my recip for this one wanted Luke POV and kittens. Twist my arm. XD


And I posted a couple of Iron Fist fics today for this year's h/c bingo card:

Pressure Points (Ward & Danny, 1500 wds, gen)
For my "motion sickness" square, in which Ward's life continues to find new and interesting ways to suck. Nothing graphic, basically just fluff based around the idea that motion sickness bracelets work using anti-nausea pressure points and Danny probably knows how to do that, too.

Typical Tuesday Night (2100 wds, Ward & Danny with some background Danny/Colleen)
For "blood loss", in which Danny almost gets sacrificed by druids, because of course he does. This one is more violent and bloody than what I usually write; see warnings on fic.

Reveals are here, but since Ao3 is still having trouble, if you wrote/drew something in the collection that hasn't been revealed yet, you can force it to reveal by editing to take it out of the collection, save, and then edit again to put it back in. (If it's your actual assignment you can skip the second step because it automatically puts it back in. If you do need to edit it back in, type "trickortreatex2018" into the collection box; it won't autofill.)

Anyway, I wrote 6 things!

In Plain Sight (White Collar)
Mozzie helps Theo with his Halloween costume. This will certainly end well.

A quick treat I wrote after seeing a request for a WC Halloween story. I haven't written WC in ages and it was fun to revisit it.

Echo Echo (Defenders)
The Defenders, post-Snap.

I really wanted to treat Defendersverse requests, since I got really into it during the Trick or Treat writing period! This recipient said they liked ghosts and apocalypses, they wanted post-IW fic for Defenders, and they didn't mind if it was dark or sad. (Though really I think this is more hopeful than anything.) So this is a ghost-story version where the dusted characters stick around as ghosts. I had fun fitting the style of each section to the general style/tone of canon and the characters' canonical relationships, so Matt is like "GHOSTS DON'T EXIST, THIS ISN'T HAPPENING" while his ghosts chase him around the city trying to get him to eat a goddamn sandwich, etc. (Takes place after all current Defendersverse series and therefore contains spoilers for all of them. I wrote it before DD3 but it turns out to be compliant with it, go figure.)

All The Way Down (Alliance-Union)
Downbelow Station missing scene/tag. When the Norway pulled out of Pell at the climax, her riderships were left behind. This is what happened to one of them.

My actual assignment. I was delighted to be matched to chomiji and get to write the Hellburner characters again. This is something I've been thinking about ever since reading Downbelow Station and thinking about the Hellburner characters piloting one of its riderships and getting left behind. Canon actually contradicts this slightly, which I didn't realize 'til I'd written most of this - but oh well, I guess it's a slight AU.

Flowers for the Dead, Chocolate for the Living (Alliance-Union)
Halloween in space.

And then chomiji ended up on the treatless list, so I decided to use one of their actual prompts this time (because they give great prompts!) and write the Hellburner characters encountering Halloween (or more like an outer-space mash-up of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos).

Sanctuary (Punisher)
The Liebermans get a late-night visitor.

A not-so-anonymous-as-it-might-have-been treat for rachelmanija.

Soul Survivors (Benjamin January)
Ben still has a scar, a pale twist of flesh on the inside of his arm.

Another treat for someone on the treatless list. They listed soulmate AUs as something they like, so I thought about that in context of the Ben January books (which are set in the antebellum South) and came to what I guess is the second most depressing possible conclusion about soulmates in a world with hereditary chattel slavery. That being said, I don't think this fic itself is depressing at all, I mean, no less so than canon; I tried to get that bittersweet-hopeful tone that canon does so well. (I still wish I'd been able to come up with a less punny title for a story this serious, but that's the title that decided to stick.)

I am ONE SLEEP away from new episodes of Agent Carter!

(Well, maybe two sleeps, since iTunes tends to get the files up really late, especially when you're starting a subscription for a new series. BUT.)

Speaking of which, I wrote a fic for fan_flashworks's current challenge, "On the Outside":

Outliers (Agent Carter, 3200 words, gen ... ish)
Maybe soulmarks mean whatever you want them to mean.

As noted in the notes, I finally wrote a soulmark AU and it's the world's gennest soulmark AU ... OOPS. But there are still some pairings in it. Kinda. This one is going to be so hard to tag when I finally put it on AO3. I'll repost it properly here when the exclusive period at fan_flashworks runs out.

Also, most people have already found these via my fandom stocking post, but the other night I did something I've been meaning to do for a while, and created several files on AO3 for fics bits that are too short or incomplete to post on their own.

Agent Carter scraps - this presently contains, I think, all or at least most of the AC fic bits that have been posted in various places (from Fandom Stocking, such_heights' Kissing Fest last year, and tumblr)

MCU scraps - has this year's Fandom Stocking, the Kissing Fest one, and a bit more.

White Collar scraps - has this year's Fandom Stocking so far, and that's it. I know there's a lot more out there though.

Stargate Atlantis scraps - oh god, this is going to take FOREVER. Has this year's Fandom Stocking so far.

In conclusion: NEW AGENT CARTER TOMORROW SQUEEEEEEE.

All the Halloween ficlets are done. Thank you to everyone who prompted me! The longer ones were posted or reposted on AO3:

Winternight (MCU, 1200 wds) - Jane and Thor at an Asgardian autumn/day-of-the-dead festival (post-Thor 2).

waited long enough (MCU, 1400 wds) - Natasha-centric timestamp fic for Written in Blood and Bone.

Out of the Cold (MCU, 1600 wds) - My take on the "Steve and Bucky can't get warm after 70 years frozen" fic trope.

Wolf Run (White Collar, 2200 wds) - Another fic in the Peter-and-Diana-are-werewolves universe.

The rest of the (shorter) fics are linked from the original post.

Otherwise, 'tis a quiet night. We're too far out in the country to get trick-or-treaters (though I usually try to have candy on hand just in case, after a decade we've yet to get a single one, and this year I didn't bother). I have a glass of wine, and now I'm gonna work on this month's reward package for the Kismet Patreon backers.