Stocking: Welcoming_Disaster || Lena (not Lena)

[stevetony_elf]

Please leave stocking stuffers for Lena here as a comment. Comments will be screened until reveals date!



Username: Welcoming_Disaster/ Lena (not Lena)#4743 on Discord.
AO3 Username: Welcoming_Disaster
Comics Steve/Tony: 616! Ults! 1872! Multiversal collision! I love them all.
Other Fandoms/Ships/Characters: Good Omens (A/C), The Good Place (Eleanor/Tahani), Umbrella Academy. Clint/Nat, Clint/Bucky, Carol/Wanda, Carol/Jess. Carol in general. Clint in general. Wanda in general.
Likes: Fun and unusual situations. Dimension hopping and time travel. Steve's time during the war. Outsider point of view. Teamfic and friendship. Soulmates, reincarnation, etc, especially in well-explored or realistic worlds. Fusions. Genderswaps; explorations of gender and sexuality. Banter. Angst with a happy ending, or angst where good things still happen. Fluff with notes of bittersweet underneath. Places where mundanity meets the superhero world. Early canon and identity porn. Steve centric fic. High aesthetic concepts. Kidnapping. Magic (truth spells etc). Extremis!Tony.
Dislikes: a/b/o, arranged marriage, mundane AUs, non-canonical dark!characters, completely unequal relationships, underage. I like imperfect endings, but I don't like hopeless ones; I'd prefer to be able to imagine that things could get better eventually. Fluff that's overwhelmingly nothing but sweet (ie, characters feel nothing but love for each other and make many declarations of this fact).
Non-fandom related requests/anything else?: Recs! I'd love recs for lighter funnier works in the Good Omens fandom especially. Vegetarian recipes. Your favorite song of the year. I've love recommendations for lesbian books/movies specifically, and for historical novels in general.

Comments

you gave me a stocking 2020

[jetblackfeeling]

hi!! i hope you like this stocking stuffer. wishing you're safe and having a fantastic day :) if there's anything wrong in this, pls don't hesitate to let me know and i'll try to fix it. thank you!!

"extremis tony" by jetblackfeeling (dw) / wingheads (ao3)

Re: you gave me a stocking 2020

[welcoming_disaster]

Oh my goodness!! This is gorgeous and I adore it. Your use of color is, as always, amazing, and I love the strong way you line. The forehead touch is so sweet. Thank you for this!!!!

[ironmanwithaplan]

[welcoming_disaster]

Cass these are gorgeous holy shit the composition!!! The way the colors play off each other... their expressions.... it has almost a renaissance vibe with how they're positioned and man I am WEAK for the way you draw Wanda. The gentle REACH too there's so much storytelling in this. Thank you so much!!!

[lomku]

Happy New year and Happy Valentine, Lena! It's always a pleasure talking with you, be it about fandoms or dogs. I enjoy your insight and your opinions about Steve and Tony, it's always fun to chat on discord. You're an amazing creator for the fandom, writing fics with incredible prose. Your sentences, they're so good. I drew two things for you:

A little ults iron man bc I know you love that universe :)

(I have a header version, if you by any chance would like to have it)


And a happy 1872 Steve! Imagine he's looking at Tony.


Much love <3

[welcoming_disaster]

Lu!!! These are so gorgeous -- I love your choices of light and color. The softness of the cowboy!Steve is really really sweet, and I honestly think I'll drive down to the print store and print ults!Tony out to hang on my wall; it's my favorite suit, and the colors/composition are so ridiculously pleasant here. Thank you so much!!

[resurrectedhippo]

Hi Lena, I offer you some stevetony angst, post-brain delete. I hope you enjoy this Steve POV drabble!

“Were we lovers?” Tony asks.

“I’m not sure I’d call us that.” Steve pauses, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He wants to pinch the bridge of his nose, but once, Tony teased him that it’s impolite and unbecoming for a man of his ranking to do so. Steve does it anyway, pinches at the top, right at his glabella.

Tony doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything.

“No,” Steve finally responds, “not lovers, I don’t think we knew what being lovers meant.” He pauses, the words taste bitter on his tongue. “Friends, Tony. We were friends. Are friends.”

Steve wants to say, why lovers, why would you think lovers, why would you think that, out of all things, after everything else.

“Huh.” Tony tilts his head, shakes it, like he used to do. “Alright then.”

This isn’t his Tony. This Tony isn’t tainted by the burden of the memory of Steve looming over him, ready to kill him. He doesn’t remember, Finish it, or Was it worth it? Or Steve screaming bloody murder while stuck in a cell. He doesn’t remember meeting in the Mansion and the handshake that turned into—

Maybe this is better.

[welcoming_disaster]

Well!! This was a gut punch in the best way. "We didn't know what being lovers was" was a line that hit me particularly hard, and the emotion of the last paragraph -- what does being Steve's Tony mean?-- is really really emotionally effective. Thank you so much for this wonderful little piece, Hippo!!

[dirigibleplumbing]

Hi Lena! I have some links and things for you.

I have a lot of favorite songs I heard for the first time in 2020, but I’m going to pick “This Is My Hand” by My Brightest Diamond. In addition to being a great song in general, I think it’s also a really good shippy song. (For me it’s Kirk/Spock, because hand touching, but it works for most ships, I think!)

Some vegetarian recipes:
- Vegan buffalo wings recipe. I make this all the time! If I want to turn it into a more complete meal, I make extra sauce, some spicy rice, and then make a bowl stacked with rice, greens (I usually do baby spinach), the tofu, and then pour the sauce over all of it. If the tofu and sauce are hot enough, they'll wilt the greens.
- Sweet potato soup with miso and ginger
- Caprese grilled cheese
- Lentils with Garden Vegetables, Avocado, Walnuts, and Hummus This is one of those online recipes that has the person's life story before they get to the food. Keep scrolling and you'll get to a hearty hippie meal.
- Kale and Apple Salad
- Roasted Broccolini with Tahini Yogurt and Charred Lemons
- Spinach Orzo Soup
- Red Lentil Soup

My favorite vegetarian cookbook authors:
- Deborah Madison (Warning: some of her recipes are overly, unnecessarily complicated; some of her vegan substitutions are fucking terrible; and her ingredients lists are best suited to someone living in walking distance of a northern California farmers' market with an unusually large section of fresh herbs)
- Kathy Patalsky (All her stuff is vegan. Very California vibes.)
- Celine Steen (Also all vegan. She's one of my all time fave cookbook authors. She does a lot with muffins and whole grain breads and cake, which I basically never, ever do, and there are still tons of her recipes that I love and make over and over again. My favorite books of hers are 500 Vegan Recipes and Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites.)

A few romance wlw book recs:
- Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole. This is a novella that’s basically book 2.5 of a romance trilogy. The main novels are m/f, contemporary, and have an Afrofuturism vibe. It’s been awhile since I read this series, but I think this book should make sense without reading the others.
- How to Find a Princess, also by Alyssa Cole, hasn’t been released yet but I’m really excited about it! This one is a full-length romance novel billed as a “queer Anastasia retelling.” Alyssa Cole is one of my all-time fave romance writers and I’m really excited she’s writing more wlw.
- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (who wrote Red, White, and Royal Blue) hasn’t been released yet either, but a couple of my friends got advanced reader copies and absolutely adored it. Also, TIME TRAVEL.
- Citywide by Santino Hassell. I haven’t read this one yet either, but I’ve read other books by this author, which I adored, and my bff (who I get all my romance recs from) really liked this one. It’s 3 (I think novella-length?) romance stories collected in one book, and only one of them is wlw.
- Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan is another novella that’s part of a longer series (the main novels are m/f, and there’s a m/m novella too).

[welcoming_disaster]

OOOHH!! Thank you so much, these are amazing. I know what I'm cooking tonight (it's soup! So many good soups here!). I've heard good things about Courtney Milan & am especially excited for One Last Stop (time travel lesbians!!! yes!!!). These are so, so in depth!!

I hope you had a great holiday seasons (Hanukkah, right? Happy Hanukkah if you celebrate!) and a wonder Valentines Day.

[dirigibleplumbing]

Yay! I hope you enjoy the recipes.

Courtney Milan is one of my favorite m/f authors, especially her Victorian stuff (and she's expanding into more queer stories, which I'm really excited about). That said, the Worth series, of which Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure is a part, is not her strongest series in my opinion. It's still great! I wouldn't have recommended it otherwise. I just want to add a little disclaimer that it's not The Thing that I'd pick to introduce someone to Courtney Milan. I haven't looked it up recently but I think this series is from when she was still with Harlequin, which she ended up leaving because of the constraints they put on what she could include in her novels.

I had a wonderful Hannukah, thank you! My Valentine's day has been lovely so far, very chill. I hope yours is going well too!

[sineala]

For lesbian books, my go-to rec is anything by Nicola Griffith -- everything she writes has a lesbian main character, pretty much. She's written a lot of SF and thrillers, and my favorite books of hers are the SF novels Ammonite (planet of women!) and Slow River, but if you're looking for historical fiction she has also written one of those, and it is Hild, about the life of St. Hilda, and there are of course a whole lot of lesbians in it.

[welcoming_disaster]

Oooh!! Thank you!! I will look into these -- all three you've mentioned sound right up my alley. Thank you for being a wonderful server mod and fandom presence!

[magicasen]

Happy Valentine's, Lena! I've really enjoyed getting to know you more over the past year and I hope to see you hanging out even more for this year!! :)

[nostalgicatsea]

Happy belated Valentine's Day, Lena! I've tried all of these vegetarian recipes and they're so good:

- brussel sprouts with walnuts and pomegranate
- almond butter tofu stir-fry
- foolproof pan pizza
- sweet potato fries
- tzatziki
- sour cream coffee cake
- baked oatmeal

Lesbian movies:
- The Handmaiden by Park Chanwook (dark, sensual, and opulent)
- Booksmart by Olivia Wilde (hilarious, energetic, and youthful)
- The Half of It by Alice Wu (quiet, heartwarming, and soft)

Lesbian book rec:
- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (hands down my favorite book I read last year, tied in first place with another book that isn't WLW. The prose is so sharp and exacting, and the format is very inventive. Just a warning that this is a memoir about an abusive WLW relationship)