Arctic Light

Fic I wrote lately:

Fear and Hope (Defenders, Danny & Jessica, 4300 wds)
Jessica is forced to enlist Danny's ... ugh don't make her say it ... HELP with her latest case, trying to find out who or what is terrorizing a little girl. This was for the current round of Daredevil & Defenders Exchange on Tumblr. Collection on AO3 here.

Ciphers (Turn: Washington's Spies, post-show, 3000 wds, gen)
Once a spy, always a spy. It's hard to stop playing the game once you get used to it. Two former enemies write coded messages to each other across an ocean in the post-war era.

For all the issues I had with it early on and occasionally throughout its run, I really ended up liking Turn a lot, and I need to write it up properly. I think Edmund Hewlett might have unseated Owen Harper as my all-time favorite Burn Gorman character; he just has such a lovely character arc in this and is also Peak 1700s hotness. Now I'm eyeing Jamestown, a possibly-questionable BBC show set in 1619, also co-starring Burn Gorman, also as an antagonist, this time apparently a much evil-er one. Help me, I have a problem.

Other things happening around fandom, mostly Halloween and October-themed:

- trickortreatex is currently open for tagset nominations and has also announced their 2020 game theme, fic/art inspired by songs, which is not my thing in the slightest but might be relevant for some of you!
- shipoween is also open for nominations.
- hurtcomfortex has an October h/c challenge, Comfortween, with a list of prompts!
- And Whumptober is running again - here is their list of prompts.
- I recently ran across this absolutely amazing list of AI-generated art prompts for Inktober or general prompting purposes. I am 100% using these.

Yuletide reveals are out! I am incredibly predictable this year. I also didn't manage very many treats, but hey, more than zero! I was pretty burned out from a busy exchange season + Whumptober + trying to finish up year-end prompts plus releasing 2 books in December; that sure was a thing, so Yuletide suffered a bit. (Next year: plan better.)

Trouble In My Town (Alliance-Union, Graf & Hellburners + Bet Yeager, 1600 wds)
Graff has an errand. He's not the only one.

My assignment! I had this request marked for treating, and then realized only when it landed in my inbox and I actually HAD to write it that I had misread "bar crawl" as "bar brawl." Well, one can easily turn into the other, right? Also, putting Bet and the Norway crew in the same place was a lot of fun. I've written the Hellburners quite a bit, but I've never written Bet, and I figured my recipient would appreciate some Graf POV. <3

there's an art to it (Claire + Matt, 1500 wds, Defenders missing scene)
It's been months since Claire last saw Matt Murdock, and so of course this is her first sight of him, battered and bloody and unconscious in the precinct's squad room. Because he can't just call her up and say "Hi, how are you Claire, want to get lunch?" like a normal person.

This was a treat for one of the pinch hitters, who (among other things) wanted Matt and Claire getting more interaction during the police precinct scenes. I really love writing Claire and I also love writing treats for pinch hitters - two great tastes that taste great together!

Green for Renewal (Defenders, Jessica + the rest, 1700 wds)
There is a plant on Jessica's desk. And she definitely didn't put it there.

And I really wanted to treat some of the others Defenders people, especially the people I knew, so some Jessica fluff (well, fluff Jessica style - snarky fluff!) snuck in there. I would have liked to have written more Defenders treats, but ah well, there's always the 2020 exchange season for that.

Authors are revealed for Trick or Treat Exchange! I ended up writing the following:

Wolves of Ice (MCU, Thor & Loki gen, 2700 wds)
It walks the dark halls of the ship, they say. It is larger than a bilgesnipe, but it is not a bilgesnipe. It is cold as ice. Its claws clatter on the metal decking and leave frost in their wake. Its eyes glow in the dark.

Hey Pumpkin (Defenders, team gen, 1400 wds)
Halloween is not Jessica's favorite time of year, and it's especially not her favorite time of year when haunted fall festivals are involved.

Bright Side (Defenders, Jessica & Ward, 2300 wds)
Jessica gets a Halloween job. She may or may not regret this.

Night Wares (Luke Cage, Misty & Tilda, 700 wds)
Misty drops by Tilda's shop on Halloween.

Lost on the Night Shift (Defenders, Claire gen, 2600 wds)
Claire spends Halloween night playing hide and seek with a little runaway in the ER.

Blood in the Ambient (Punisher/Finisterre fusion, 11K wds)
There's a strange nighthorse on the mountainside, with an injured rider.

This was a fun batch of stories! I didn't end up writing anything that was really outside my usual wheelhouse except the Thor one, but I got to explore a bunch of characters in the Defenders universe that I don't write much. There were some delightful requests.

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)

Not Prime Time revealed today, and I got TWO absolutely delightful Iron Fist fics that left me full of warm nice feelings. The exchange gods have smiled upon me. <3

birds of a feather (1100 wds, Ward & Colleen & Danny)
Three scenes with games: Before, during, and after the Snap. Ward and Colleen get closer through playing board games. Bantery and delightful.

more intact (1100 wds, Danny & Ward)
Danny's a little worse for wear. Ward patches him up. Sweet fluffy h/c.

I also wrote two things for this exchange, my assignment and a last-minute treat. Happy hunting. :D


And fics were revealed over at MCU Exchange, in which I wrote two things:

Breakfast in Bed (Agent Carter, 2200 wds, Peggy/Daniel and Peggy/Jack/Daniel)
A series of vignettes of the three of them, in various combinations, bringing each other breakfast.

Tangle (Defenders, 1600 wds, OT4)
Hypothermia and near-drowning and naked cuddling.

Authors are now revealed, and here is what I wrote for Chocolate Box - assignments, pinch hits, and treats. Spectacularly unsurprising in all cases, I suspect. XD

Stranger Things

Night Patrol (6000 wds, Steve/Nancy/Jonathan)
By March or so, the patrols were getting pretty well organized. There was an actual, honest-to-God signup sheet, stuck to Mrs. Byers' fridge with a smiley rainbow magnet and decorated with stickers by the kids. (Or: Monsters are hunted, and Steve starts figuring some things out.)

Iron Fist

Steady Gun Hand (6600 wds, Danny & Ward)
Infected bullet wounds and heart to heart talks while hiding out from gangsters in Indonesia: just another day on the Rand-Meachum road trip of self-discovery.

Challenge Accepted (770 wds, Misty/Colleen)
Misty doesn't have THE Iron Fist, but she has AN iron fist. (LOL, I feel as if I should mention that despite the summary, no actual fisting occurs. It's about arm wrestling.)

Defenders

Three Times Lucky (1100 wds, Defenders team gen)
There is no such thing as luck, no such thing as magic fish, and Jessica wants a refund for this day.

Sweetest Thing (600 wds, Defenders team gen)
It's Jessica who accidentally introduces Danny to the concept of half-off post-holiday chocolate sales.

Agent Carter

Apple of His Eye (950 wds, Peggy/Daniel)
A little snippet of post-canon life in L.A.

The Punisher

Tech Support (800 wds, Frank & David)
David is the Punisher's tech support. That's okay. It's fine.

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.)