Arctic Light

Two exchanges released in July, and I loved my gifts for both of them!

For Eat Drink Make Merry:

Ice by edonohana (Torchwood, Owen/Tosh, 1200 wds)
Lovely and sweet canon divergence with Owen taking care of a hurt Tosh after the season two finale. Oh, my heart.

Down a Dark Well by scioscribe (Torchwood, team, 6600 wds)
An alien poison takes out the entire team except Owen; now he has to get them back. Wrenching and teamy and fantastic.

For Just Married:

To Have and To Hold by primeideal (Stranger Things, 1800 wds, Robin & Steve & ensemble)
Robin has to fake-marry Steve to get him out of the Upside Down, and everyone else is along for the ride. Sweet and funny and delightful with a perfect feeling of Hawkins weirdness.

I haven't had a chance to read much in either collection yet, but I've loved what I've read:

A Lifetime of Pomegranates by scioscribe (Torchwood, team, 6100 wds)
The team gets their hands on an alien device capable of feeding the dead. Thoroughly adorable teamfic with some incredibly appealing descriptions of made-up food that sounds so amazing I want to try it.

Handfasting by Leonor (A:TLA, Aang/Zuko/Katara, art)
Beautiful art, full of detail.

Steady as the Lake, Ever-Changing as the River by frozensea (Black Panther, Nakia/T'Challa, 3600 wds)
A Wakandan wedding, in which T'Challa is an adorable dork and Nakia is a workaholic who practically has to be dragged to her own wedding and they are both very much in love with each other. Funny and sweet and excellent.

The Very Best People by scioscribe (Stranger Things, Steve & Robin, 18K)
Steve and Robin undercover in evil suburbia. Amazing.

I've been reading this one slowly because it's a very intense read and also LONG, but it's also really fantastic, probably one of the best fics I've read in this fandom:

In A Strange Land by MrsEvadneCake (Stranger Things, 180K, all characters + canon pairings + very light Steve/Nancy/Jonathan)

It was written between seasons 2 & 3, so it doesn't take S3 canon into account and basically functions as an alternate season 3. And man, does the writer ever nail the horror vibe of the first two seasons. It's not particularly gory, but parts of it are definitely straight-up horror in the Stephen King mold; it's excellent mood reading for this time of year. I loved how well the cast was handled - all the characters get their own moments to shine, even minor ones like Mr. Clarke and Kali's bunch and Dr. Owens, there are excellent feels for The Party and Steve/Nancy/Jonathan (mostly gen, but with vague hints at the pairing), and the character voices are really well done. It's one of those stories that you can sink into, especially at a time of year when the horror vibe is particularly welcome.

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.

I participated in two different fic exchanges this Valentine's Day, and I feel like I totally won the exchange lottery this year. :D Sometimes you get something and have to scrape up enthusiasm for it. This time, I absolutely loved every single gift I got, and they were all really different from each other while still being things I really wanted.

First up, Agent Carter Valentines doesn't have an anon period, and there are 24 different fics and artworks with a variety of pairings (and gen!).

My gift was:
found a calling sweet as a lover by WhiteLadyoftheRing (1100 words, Peggy/Daniel/Jack)
It's a beautifully written little Valentine's slice-of-life with the SSR OT3 that I simply adored.

And Chocolate Box released early this morning and is still anon. I got treats!! And I really loved everything.

without a center in space (Dark Matter, 1100 words, sex pollen)
One of my perennial requests in Dark Matter is for sex pollen fic, and someone filled it (!!) ... PERFECTLY. You know how sometimes there's something you want from a trope, and it's almost never actually written that way, and then you stumble across a fic that does it exactly how you want it? THIS IS THAT FIC. It is the (non)platonic ideal of what I want from a sex pollen fic in general, and from these characters specifically. Also including possibly the best description of the actual sex that I've ever read in a sex pollen fic: ( Cut because running across this line in context is even better ) Which probably makes the story sound much crackier than it actually is. It really isn't cracky at all. It's just that this is SO FAR from the weirdest thing that's ever happened to them ...

And then I got two Stranger Things fics featuring my two (different) favorite character relationships from the series, both sweet and well written and 100% in character.

Emergency (1000 words, Steve & Dustin)
In which Dustin has a problem that only Steve can help with. In the middle of the night. Not involving monsters from another dimension, this time. Sweet, bantery, and perfect.

on the run tonight (1900 words, Steve/Nancy/Jonathan)
And then I got 1900 words of monster hunting and cuddling and Steve h/c!! RIGHT AFTER I had been commiserating with someone else (on Tumblr) that there's not enough monster-of-the-week fic in STh fandom. AND SOMEONE WROTE ME ONE!

Seriously, there are times when you get one great gift and that's wonderful, but any single one of these would've been a perfect gift and they're ALL great and ALL different and I truly couldn't pick which one is my favorite!

So yeah. It's a good Valentine's Day.