Arctic Light

Putting the Pieces Together by Anonymous (Luke Cage/Iron Fist, mainly Misty + some Ward, 2400 wds)
Great Misty POV, with Misty being awesome, solving puzzles, plus (extra bonus!) rescuing Ward. I really loved this.

Mustelidae Morning by engagemythrusters (Torchwood, team gen + canon pairings, 5400 wds)
The Torchwood team gets turned into different kinds of weasels mustelids (by aliens, of course). Words cannot express how adorable this is. If Ianto making a grumpy tea-towel nest with a weasel-shaped hole in the middle + various descriptions of the team lolloping around and fisher!Jack climbing up on high things sounds like your cup of tea, please enjoy.

"Rhys?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"Dropping off my wife," Rhys said crossly. Sure enough, there sat sable-Gwen on Rhys's shoulder, wearing a miniature black leather jacket and a somewhat mopey expression. She was clearly not pleased about the situation, either. "In case you haven't noticed, she's a bloody stoat now."

End of the World News by Andraste (Torchwood, season one fanvid)
Really enjoyable, melancholy fanvid with season one clips.

My Marvel Trumps Hate fic from scioscribe is up on AO3, and I don't have enough words for how much I loved it. ♥

Maybe This Time (Iron Fist, gen, Ward & Danny + the season one ensemble, 37K)
Harold had a magical safety net: anyone who kills him is automatically trapped in a time loop. If they die before they get out of it, that reality overwrites the first one.
Ward just found this out the hard way.

37K(!!) of gloriously characterized time loop fic, in which Ward keeps looping back to his first meeting with Danny, and getting various opportunities for do-overs, all while trying to figure out how to get out of the loop and back to his real life. It's heartbreaking and charming and funny and insightful, featuring spot-on characterization for Ward and Danny, and also really great Jeri and Colleen and Joy, even though they're not in it as much - plus Harold at his truly awful worst/best, and lots of fascinating plot complications. It's just really, really good.

wingficex has had the authors revealed! I was gifted with a late treat AND I LOVE IT - eeeee. ♥

in the Himalayas by Lake (Iron Fist, 1000 wds, Danny + Ward)
It's just their luck that Ward got cursed with bat-wings and they had to camp out on the side of a mountain all on the same day.

WARD HAS SOFT WARM BAT WINGS and I am weirdly fascinated with them.

And I wrote this:

Things With Feathers (5605 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Iron Fist (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ward Meachum/Danny Rand
Characters: Ward Meachum, Danny Rand, Harold Meachum
Additional Tags: Wingfic, Alternate Universe - Wings, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Season/Series 01, Getting Together, Cuddling & Snuggling, Wing Grooming
Summary: It was the last straw, really, when Ward's dead childhood frenemy Danny Rand came back not just grown up, not merely with magic kung fu powers, but with wings.

idproquo released this week - find the AO3 collection here - and I got THREE gifts and they're SO SO GOOD. ♥ ♥ ♥

Dragonfire (Iron Fist, 3K words, Ward & Danny)
Gloriously feelsy presumed-dead fic. SO MANY FEELS. This broke my heart and put it back together in the best way, and they're both so them and it's just so AAAHHHH.

got a cannon ball in my stomach, got a desert in my mouth (Iron Fist, 1400 words, Ward & Danny)
Ward is rescued from being tortured and can't quite deal with Danny not being there to help in the first place. There's so much going on between the lines here; it's like 10K of fic in under 2K. So much lovely hurty-feelsy relationship building, and a great sarcastic Ward voice; I would read 50K of this. ♥

Panacea (Torchwood, 3K, Owen/Ianto, explicit)
When I showed up as a last-minute pinch hit, I decided to add Torchwood to make me more matchable, and I got this lovely and iddy gift! Sex pollen and rough sex in a cave, with messy awkward feelings and just generally a very "yep, this is Torchwood" kind of feel to the whole thing. I LUV.

Flash in the Pan, a food-themed flash exchange, was this weekend, and I am utterly delighted with my gifts.

Birthday Dinner (Iron Fist, Ward & Colleen, 600 wds) - Ward and Colleen cook birthday dinner for Danny. It's warm and darling and funny, and everything I could have wanted from that premise. <3

stir it with a peppermint stick (Stranger Things, Steve/Nancy/Jonathan, 2300 wds) - Mutual pining and adorableness while working a seasonal job at a Christmas Tree farm. This is sweet and hilarious, with a perfect oblivious Steve POV.

I've really enjoyed everything I've read so far! It's all excellent! Before I go to bed, besides my PERFECT gifts, one other rec:

It's Not a Competition (Iron Fist, Ward & Danny, 3500 wds) - just in case Ward getting poisoned sounds like your hurt/comforty cup of tea. It was definitely mine.

I got an absolutely ADORABLE Iron Fist fic in Kidfic Exchange:

when I was an astronaut - in which Danny and Colleen are accidentally kid-ified by magic gone wrong, and there is also a baby dragon and (not baby) ninjas, a light Misty/Ward pairing, and Luke being extremely WTF about it all. It's completely darling without being cloying, and everything I hoped for from this exchange. <3

I meant to do this on Reccing Thursday but, uh, didn't.

So basically justmarriedexchange happened this week, and my gift was AMAZING!

blood in blood and hand in hand (Captain Marvel, Carol/Yon-Rogg, 13K wds)
This is the weird, vaguely guilt-inducing disaster pairing that no one was supposed to come out of the movie shipping but I totally did and this fic NAILS IT. This is the slow burn redemption-arc soulbonding fic of my dreams. It's all I want from a fic about this pairing; the characterization is fantastic all around (in particular, I think the author really nails Carol's mix of soft places and hard edges, and the ensemble is well handled as well - there's a strong sense of community with the other people in the fic, which I always love), the emotions are beautifully done, there's h/c and gradual bonding and a nuanced look at the Kree that doesn't devolve into apologia for their crimes. This fic is a complete delight and I could not possibly love it more. If you're at all interested in the pairing or even willing to give it a try, it's totally worth your time.


I've been too busy to read much else in the Just Married collection, but I did really enjoy this one a lot:

if we never see daylight (Iron Fist, Danny/Ward, 3900 wds)
I don't often read this pairing, but this story totally worked for me, I think partly because it's focused mainly on how ridiculously fond they are of each other with the pairing being kind of a side effect of that. It's really sweet and adorable, and also exactly the kind of bonkers plan that Danny would come up with. I love it.


Oh, and a few weeks ago I participated in a flashfic exchange: Writing Rainbow: Blue, in which all fic had to include the color in the title (there will be more rounds in the future for other colors). Flash exchanges have kinda become a thing in the last couple of months (Escape the Iron Triangle was another), and they're fun - low pressure, low word minimum, extremely short writing period, and stripped-down matching rules (this one just matched on fandom and freeform tags, and those are all the guidance you get - no requests and no DNWs).

With exchange rules having generally become so standardized lately, I really enjoyed doing something a bit different, and I got nice things! I had requested original fiction among other things, and got two nice pieces of original fiction based on the tags I had picked out.

Scales as Blue as the Open Sky (5300 wds) - A glorious steampunk/sci-fi mash-up with dragons. I wish this was an entire TV series with a fandom. I would be SO THERE.

Orange is the New Blue (600 wds) - A fun little slice-of-convict-life fic.

And I wrote two things for it, Blue Light Special (Doctor Strange, a bit of genfic in which Strange semi-accidentally tries his hand at gardening) and Blue Skies For Miles (GotG aftermath-of-sex-pollen fic - well, technically alien mating pheromones, but the same basic effect).

Fic for me! :D

Many Happy Returns of the Day by edenfalling for a prompt I left for any Defenders or Iron Fist character having a birthday after they meet their new friends. Delightful fic with Matt + Danny + a Special Surprise Guest. (Also on DW.)

And this goes nicely with the lovely Jessica and Danny birthday fic that kore/actonbell wrote me in the Defenders Prompt Fest! Which is still open, by the way.


MCU Exchange is open with 81 fics! (I wrote 2 things for this fest. Happy hunting.) I got What a Lovely Way to Burn, an Agent Carter OT3 get-together with abundant Jack h/c that hit aaaaaallllll my happy buttons.


And the Escape the Iron Triangle Exchange (multifandom flashfic) had both the writing period and reveals this weekend. I also wrote two (2) things in this, and I got Clouds, a sweet Bucky de-aging fic!

I've just been reading through the Iron Triangle fics (they're all pretty short and the collection isn't that big, so easy enough to go through in an evening). My favorites so far:

Shoot from the Hip - Defenders/MCU. Claire/Valkyrie, PWP. Probably my favorite thing in the collection; it's sweet and hot with A+ characterization.

Gone Away - Captain Marvel. Maria and Monica in the aftermath of Carol's disappearance in 1989.

At the End of the Rainbow - MCU, gen. Three adventures Valkyrie didn't have, and two she did. (The tagged pairings are a bit inaccurate. Maybe the author isn't familiar with Ao3's pairing tagging system ...?)

Change is as good as a holiday - Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley. A+ character voices.

The Deserter - Original F/F. There's a wealth of worldbuilding and characterization in a really short space; feels like fanfic for a canon that doesn't exist, in the best possible way.


Oh, and signups are open 'til July 14 for auexchange! I need to finish getting my signup together ...

This is a new thing that a few people are getting going - fanworks recs on Thursdays, sort of like Reading Wednesdays or FF Friday! I approve, and will try to rec things for this! Or just to rec more things in general.

Fic:

Free Time and Other Unicorns by edenfalling
Defenders/Iron Fist, Misty & Colleen gen, 1600 wds
In which Colleen is a horse person, Misty is not, and there may or may not be a unicorn in Central Park. Disclaimer: this was prompted by me (I wanted Colleen and Misty having to deal with some kind of magical creature), and it is absolutely delightful - everything I could have wanted from that prompt, with wonderful banter and a light touch of magic in the everyday.

Icons:

Some Schitt's Creek icons by winterfish.

And if none of the above things apply to you, I hope you're having a good Tuesday!

I am thrilled beyond belief by my Yuletide gifts, of which I got three!

We'll Have To Muddle Through Somehow (Iron Fist, 3500 wds, Ward & Danny & Colleen)
This is set after season 1, so no season 2 spoilers, and it is the Iron Fist Christmas fic of my DREAMS. It's wonderfully characterized, beautifully written, sweet and fun with the perfect sharp/sad undertone for Ward, and just very, very them - a fic about three people slowly feeling their way to a better tomorrow and trying to figure out what it means to be a family.

collision course (Alliance-Union, 1400 wds, Meg/Sal/Ben/Dekker)
Gorgeously written, canon-perfect futurefic in which they are on a DIPLOMATIC MISSION TO CYTEEN and it is exactly as amazing as you would expect from that summary. I want 20K of this future.

The Gang Gets Doppled (Death Gate, 3800 wds, Alfred/Haplo/Marit, post-canon)
I've asked for Death Gate before and was over the moon that someone finally wrote it for me! This is a fandom that has next to no fic that's funny and light and cracky, so this was a delightfully sweet and fun surprise! Full of playfulness, banter, and moments that made me smile.

Thank you so much to my writers for writing me such lovely gifts! GO READ THEM! Now I'm off to dive into the rest of the archive. :D