Arctic Light

Over at recthething, I posted a few recs for diagetic_exchange (Babylon 5, Murderbot, Megamind). Diagetic Exchange is for in-universe fic/RPF/etc; I did not participate in this one, although I enjoyed the results!

Meanwhile in exchanges I did participate in, whumpex author reveals happened tonight. I wrote two things:

Mission of Mercy (Biggles, gen, 5800 words, Flies East AU)
My assignment! Rather than just letting it go, Biggles becomes determined to find EvS's crashed Bristol fighter. Is this really just an excuse to write EvS suffering the effects of a crash and heatstroke? Mmmmaybe.

A few ending-spoilery author's notes on the story

My biggest problem, once I'd started writing it, was figuring out a way for EvS to get away given how I had set up the situation. I had trouble with Biggles just letting him go, at this point in time, but no ending that involved him being taken back to be tried and interrogated or shot felt good either. Eventually, I came up with the eventual sort-of compromise that involves Biggles finding a way to justify (to himself) letting EvS plausibly-deniably escape. (For certain values of plausible.) It is really interesting to write them when they're so young!

High G Maneuver (Babylon 5, Londo & Vir, 1700 words)
This was a treat for a recipient who had requested (among other things) a "Dust to Dust" tag in which Vir stays on the station longer so they can deal with the events of the episode.

A few notes

I've been wanting to write more about aftermath from that episode, so I immediately jumped on that prompt. But I realized when I started writing it that this is actually a really difficult time in canon to write emotional h/c for, because Londo is so closed off, and really doesn't start opening up to people, including Vir, until a season or so later. And he's going to be even more shut down in the wake of being physically and mentally hurt as badly as he is in the episode. I ended up wrapping it in a metaphor about Centauri fighter pilots, as a way of getting at the emotions that they won't talk about.

Cleaning out tabs here ...

Fanfic

Any Other Day by Amand_r (Torchwood, team with Gwen/Jack & canon pairings, 84K)
Gwen and Jack bodyswap fic. This is from 2011 and there is a scattering of gender stuff that feels dated now (not ill-intentioned, just ... things you'd see in a 2011 fic with a man and woman swapping bodies that you probably wouldn't see now), as well as some perhaps mildly questionable consent, but, I mean, it's Torchwood. Anyway, I really loved it otherwise; the plot is excellent (and very Torchwood) and there's lots of great character stuff, including some surprisingly sweet Owen & Ianto friendship in the background, and just some good Owen bits, generally. Everyone is very sympathetic and gets a lot to do. I really enjoyed it.

Too Good to Be True by BricklingGhost (Torchwood, team, Gwen POV, 3200 wds)
Gwen gets her team back, or does she? A painful-sweet post-canon fic focused on Gwen's reactions to getting back her dead teammates as part of an alien plot.

A Reaction, a Repudiation, a True Act of Self-Creation by Secret_Pizza_Party (Hell's Library, team, 3800 wds)
There is exactly one fic for these books on AO3 but ... it's so good! Set after book 2, with abundant spoilers, and great character voices and insights as everyone settles into their new normal. The details are so well-drawn that I keep slipping up and forgetting that some of this isn't from the actual books.

Non-Fandom

How to Make a Horse a Friend (youtube video)
Cowboy dude teaching a young horse to be ridden. This is almost magical, with no animal cruelty, at least as far as I can see. It was very soothing to watch.

A really interesting article on the late 1800s/early 1900s tamale fad, which I didn't even know about. It's specifically about Alaska but there's a lot of general historical context too. Might be paywalled.

The Chicken House by Jenny Fried (on Strange Horizons). Lovely, bloody, horror-tinted fairy-tale-esque short story. It's about gender dysphoria, in an emotionally messy way that really worked for me, though obviously YMMV.

A very brief recs post for tab-closing purposes!

Fanvid:

Odds Are by nestra (Schitt's Creek)
A fun and delightful vid with lots of show feelings!

Fanfic:

Anaander Mianaai Bites The Dust: Reaction Compilation (Imperial Radch, various, 4200 wds)
Less cracky and more insightful than the title suggests, it's a series of outside POV reactions to footage of Anaander Mianaai's death from various extremely-minor side characters. These range from hilarious (terrible machine-translated dialogue of the very serious climax!) to heartbreaking (descendant relatives of Breq's body recognizing her from pictures of their ancestors), and all are really well-done slices of future sci-fi life.

Archive-locked, so you'll need to be logged in to read it.

vay-gay-tion (Torchwood, Martha/Tosh plus team, 2800 wds)
Also better than the title suggests, a sweet post-Exit-Wounds Everybody Lives fixit with extra bonus Martha, in which the team gets a well-earned vacation to a resort planet where no one is trying to kill them for a change.

For sovay (and other interested parties): Owen Harper being beautiful in a black tank top.

fixedthatforyou_fest is now open for posting fills. (Link goes to a post at fandomcalendar that has links to their prompt list and AO3 collection.)

Two Tumblr-based holiday exchanges taking signups: Torchwood exchange (closes Nov. 16) and Daredevil & Defenders Exchange (closes Nov. 22).

A few recs from ficinabox:

clean slate (Dark Matter, Three/Six, 23K)
This isn't a pairing I normally read, but I'm a sucker for a good amnesia fic and this is an excellent amnesia fic/casefic/fake-married fic, and an especially catnippy canon for it, since the characters have already been through this once.

HEY GUYS, TREASURE HERE (original, 2400 wds, archive-locked so you'll need to be logged in to view it)
Based on the long-term nuclear storage waste warning problem, i.e. how do we signal to future civilizations that something dangerous is buried here? The answer is, not very effectively, but very entertainingly. Contains some echoes of current political events.

I also enjoyed a few things in the collection that were completely outside my usual fandoms. These were fun even though I don't really know the source:

• Glitter and Gold (a His Dark Materials TV vid)
• Three of Cups (a Magnus Archives fic)
• Matrix Indeterminants (a Murderbot Diaries choose-your-own-adventure interactive fic)

Yuletide! I am having a wonderful Yuletide! I got treats, and everything I received was completely and utterly wonderful.

Ghost of a Problem (Defenders, Danny & Jessica gen, 1100 wds)
Jessica is being haunted by a ghost kitten and needs Danny's help. This fic is quite simply the world's cutest thing. It is glorious.

Nobody Ever Made You a Monster (Wiseguy, gen, 5700 wds)
I asked for the Wiseguy characters having to deal with supernatural shenanigans, and this is SO GOOD; it's perfectly and exactly what I wanted, very true to their gritty 1980s mafia world with the supernatural elements seamlessly woven in. LOVE. ♥

Paz (Wiseguy, gen, 2K wds)
It's the season 4 fixit I've been craving since I was 14 and massively blindsided by the catastrophe that was canonical S4! This is how it should have gone instead. PERSONAL HEADCANON AHOY.

I also got something for Happy Belated Treatmas:

Kiss and Tell (Agent Carter, OT3, 2600 wds)
Get-together fic for my OT3! Absolutely lovely.


I haven't read much in Yuletide yet that wasn't for me, but I loved this one:

convalescent (Ben January, canon pairings, 3100 wds)
Shaw gets shot and has to recuperate at Ben and Rose's (mad)house. This is everything you might want from that particular premise and then some. I feel as if a representative quote would convey the general tone better than anything else could:

[Shaw] had nothing to do but sleep and think all the day, such that when Ben returned home, late in the afternoon, to inspect his wound, he told him, "I'm going to teach your boys to shoot."

His proposal was, of course, strictly illegal, but neither of them gave that any more consideration than it deserved, which was to say, none.

Benjamin did say, however, "They're a bit young for it."

"Well, you've got to start 'em young, if you want 'em to be any good at it." Shaw considered the general size of the January children, who had spent part of the afternoon playing on the floor under the watchful eye of Zizi-Marie, who had been multitasking mending laundry, babysitting, and being Shaw's jailer, and he conceded, "Maybe not quite that young." They had to get big enough to hold the gun, at least. Maybe he should start them with knives first.

The full Yuletide archive by fandom is here.

Tonight I finished reading a webcomic, Zebra Girl, that I started reading in probably about 2001 or so. Back in those days, it was part of a mixed bag of turn-of-the-century webcomics in the medium's early days, and it was very similar to most of what else was out there at that time: a series of strips roughly drawn in ink, joke-based and fourth-wall-breaking; it often had strips in which the cartoonist showed up to talk to the reader, scribble days or completely blank strips in which the joke was that the cartoonist couldn't bother to draw a strip that day. There are jokes about guys perving on girls and characters being mentally deficient. One of the characters is a talking rabbit. It is, in a word, not very good.

But even back then, what kept me reading it was that it really had its moments. A lot of the jokes are genuinely funny, the characters are appealing and quickly start to show at least a little bit of growth, and also, every once in awhile it would gut-punch you in the emotions in a really unexpected way.

Still, I drifted away around 2005-ish when I stopped reading comics in general for a few years. I came back because I ran across a mention a little while back that it kept going for over a decade(!) and had finally wrapped up in 2018. So I decided to reread some of it for old time's sake. It's available in print books now, so I ordered one. And then the next one. And tonight I got the last one and devoured it and oh, it got good.

At its core it's about three housemates -- level-headed Sandra, her ditzy best friend Crystal, and Crystal's lecherous brother Jack -- who find an ancient tome of magic in the attic of their house (as you do) and start messing around with it. Jack accidentally turns Sandra into a demon and then can't turn her back. Initially, it's just a series of gags about Sandra trying to adjust to having three eyes and hooves for feet and sudden cravings for violence, while her not-very-bright friends try haplessly to get her back to normal. ("Wow, I can't believe we found a specialist in radical demonology in the phone book!") But then it starts to grow a plot, and depth, and the art gets way better, and somewhere along the way it turns into a mythic epic about friendship and love and family, about community and responsibility, about change and growth and making hard choices, about being a monster and becoming better and growing up.

It stays fanservicey to the end, off and on -- there's an entire subplot at one point in which all the female characters' breasts are magically growing; it's that kind of comic -- and there's one possibly-kind-of-transphobic plot twist at one point that I can expand on in the comments if anyone wants to know more (basically a magical sexswap of a minor character), but if you can get past that and the roughness of the beginning, I really think for a male writer (and especially given how the comic started out) he does a really excellent job of writing about women: there are female friendships and women falling in love with each other, motherhood and sisterhood, monster girls growing into their personhood and women learning to grow out of the bounds of what society demanded of them, or what life made them. The male characters are really well done too, don't get me wrong -- I honestly adore them; one of them in particular gets a really lovely growth/redemption arc -- but some of the comic's themes are about being a woman in a way that I wouldn't normally expect from a male writer, and in a way that really landed for me. Even the worst characters are sympathetically treated, and it's one of those narratives in which life isn't fair but you can make it better, and sometimes getting a happy ending (or the closest possible thing) is about taking the set of bummer cards you were dealt and playing the absolute hell out of that lousy hand.

Basically I really, really liked it. If you enjoy monster girls, or just female protagonists who get to be messy and angry, Sandra is a wonderful protagonist -- broken and funny and furious and messed up, kind and vicious and loving and hard, all the things a monster girl should be.

It's all online for free, and you can also buy the entire thing as print volumes from the site:

http://www.zebragirl.thecomicseries.com/

It starts here: http://www.zebragirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/

If you want a glimpse of what it looks like once the art gets better: http://www.zebragirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/566

Other random enticements: one of the endgame pairings is F/F, and another is strongly suggested to be asexual/aromantic, though the words aren't used (and community/family also plays more of a role in the series than romance, really). Two of the three central protagonists -- the brother-sister pair -- are canonically Jewish, though it's a very background element and not a main part of the story.

And the last page (well, next-to-last page) made me cry, in the best way.

And I actually remembered it this time!

The Darkest Night darkfic exchange just released. I haven't read much yet, but I really liked what I've read!

Both the Imperial Radch stories are good; both are Breq/Seivarden. For your romantic needs, understanding is a lightly angsty fic with a happy ending; and Rewind is a time loop story that really blew me away - it's heartbreaking and bittersweet and twisty and very well done, including a uniquely Breq-ian POV on time loops. It's labeled Unhappy Ending but I think it's really less what I'd call an unhappy ending and more ( ending spoiler for the fic )

I also really liked Hungry, a very creepy Doctor Strange fic in which accidental baby acquisition gets a Lovecraftian makeover.

I've also recently enjoyed:

let the winter pass on by by glorious_spoon (Agent Carter, Peggy & Jack)
Written for a prompt of mine, in which I requested huddling for warmth, and got an absolutely delicious and satisfying take on it.

New York, by Knight by Prochytes (Defenders/MCU, Misty & Colleen + Doctor Strange)
Misty and Colleen have a night out on the town that takes a decidedly weird turn. Funny and warm and slightly bananas, very much in keeping with the tone of both canons.

Call "Uncle" by JaggedCliffs (Avatar the Last Airbender, post-canon gen)
As the summary puts it, "how the Fire Nation officials gave up on calling Iroh anything other than "Uncle"." This is THE ABSOLUTE CUTEST.

Rain on the Just by NLRummi (Megamind, canon pairings, 114K)
So, after rewatching Megamind this past week, I went looking for fic for it, and stumbled across this 100K+ post-canon continuation that I really enjoyed. It deals with a number of issues that were unresolved in the movie (e.g. a certain character choosing not to help out at the climax) in a way I found satisfying, and builds very pleasingly on the character relationships from the movie.

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 ...

A new DW tradition along the lines of Reading Wednesday and FF Friday! Which I am going to keep trying to do because it's delightful and I like reccing things; it's also helpful for keeping track of things I've read and enjoyed lately. ♥ See also my recs for my lovely h/c exchange gifts!


pulling me out of the grave by mjolnirbreaker (Stranger Things, 3800 words, Nancy-POV gen)
Nancy isn’t great at just letting things be. Especially when those things are potentially harming one of the members of their very exclusive club of monster fighters who also happen to be Nancy’s favorite people in the world.

Lovely post-canon friendship fic with Nancy and Steve (and Jonathan) becoming friends again, and some nice h/c. There's not much gen for Nancy and Steve that isn't a prelude to OT3 ship, and while I also like the ship, I really enjoyed this. The Nancy POV is really good too.


dawn's early light by anonymous (Thor movies, 2600 wds, Thor + ensemble)
As the Statesman journeys towards Earth, the Revengers face another sort of problem Or, Thor is reckless with himself and Loki worries.

I am always up for post-Ragnarok Thor overworking himself, and this delivered nicely.


The Itsy-Bitsy Spider Climbed Up the Water Spout; Down Came the Rain (And Washed the Spider Out) by honeyandsunshine (Into the Spiderverse, 2800 wds, gen)
Peter B. goes for an impromptu swim, in January, with a concussion, and Miles and Gwen panic. (Or: Rio taught Miles CPR so that he'd know it, not because he'd have to use it.)

Nice post-movie friendship h/c, just the way I like it.

Some things I have enjoyed from the Chocolate Box collection:

Fic:

One Thing Leads To Another (Stranger Things, 6700 wds, Steve/Nancy/Jonathan)
Excellent OT3 get-together fic with a nice solid monster-hunting plot and great h/c.

5 Letters didn't address to Jonathan Byers (+ 1 Steve did sign) (Stranger Things, 1600 wds, Steve/Nancy/Jonathan)
Really lovely little epistolary fic with a great Steve voice. Another cool thing is that, in 20+ years of reading fanfic, this is the first one I can remember in which the summary is actually a necessary part of the fic.

What Remains (Gattaca, 1000 wds, gen, Irene & Jerome)
I am always here for Gattaca fixits and this is great. I love the sardonic Jerome voice.

Dear Dad... I'm Seeing Green, He's Seeing Red (MASH, 2800 wds, gen)
St. Patrick's Day at the 4077th. This is great; it reads just like an episode.

Couples (Person of Interest, 660 wds, Reese/Shaw)
This isn't a fandom I read much and it's REALLY not a pairing I would normally read, but I clicked on it because of the intriguing "Platonic Sex" tag to find out what that was all about, and I really liked it. Excellent use of the undercover-as-a-couple trope!

Sisters (Shadows of the Apt, 700 wds, Che & Tynisa)
Sweet pre-series fic with a great sense of canon worldbuilding and sisterhood.

June in Paris (White Collar, 3700 wds, Neal & June)
Post-canon, Neal runs into June in Paris. This is really lovely.

Shoe Size (White Collar, 500 wds, Peter & Neal)
Adorable season-one-era friendship fic; this could totally be a missing scene for canon.

sky blues (One Piece, 2300 wds, Luffy & Vivi)
Sense8 AU for One Piece, with Luffy & Vivi as children. This is unbearably cute. <3

Art:

Waiting for Rescue (DS9, Jadzia/Kira)
This is really pretty and also h/c-riffic.

it's all been done (Good Omens, Crowley/Aziraphale)
I can't believe the amount of detail in this. It's gorgeous.

A Lesson in the Folly Library (Rivers of London, Abigail & Varvara)
I love how this suggests a larger story and is full of interesting details.

Mixed:

Humans of New York Series - Spider-Man (MCU, gen, Spider-Man)
I wasn't sure whether to put this under fic or art because it's essentially both. The author absolutely nailed the HONY style, and it's full of little in-jokes I don't want to spoil because they're so hilarious and cute. (If you're an SGA fan, check out some of the names on the posts ...)