Stocking: starvels

[stevetony_elf]

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



Username: starvels || discord: dinostarus#2785

AO3 Username: starvels

Comics Steve/Tony:

• 616 (early canon, civil war, infinity, avengers vol 4, empyre)
• Ults
• 1872
• 3490
• Noir
• Multiverse in general

Other Fandoms/Ships/Characters:

• Marvel: Carol/Jess Drew, Carol/Jess Drew/Rhodey, Billy/Teddy, America/Kate, any queer combo of Young Avengers, Bucky/Natasha, Bucky/Sam, Danny/Jessica Jones/Luke, Doom/Tony, MCU Annie/Dan/Eddie/Venom, Eddie/Venom
• Other Comics: DC - Koriand'r/Raven Roth. Image Comics: The Old Guard - Nicolo/Yusuf (Nicky/Joe), Andy/Noriko(Quynh)
• Inception: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne/Arthur/Eames
• Other Fandoms: The Locked Tomb Series (Gen/any ships), Avatar: the Last Airbender (Gen), Fullmetal Alchemist (any ship but Ed/Winry), The Witcher Games and TV (any combo of Eskel/Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer). & more as i love to branch out and read fandoms i'm not in!

Likes: superhero realism, established relationships, queer/trans/gender explorations, disability/addiction focus, hurt/comfort, character studies, travel/heavy worldbuilding including detailed AUs, open/poly relationships, BDSM/RACK, consent play, nonlinear/atypical narrative structure, transhumanism, sci-fi or speculative fiction,

some prompts that have been swirling around my harddrive!
• strange holiday traditions and times at the mansion/tower/town/whitehouse/etc - hectic and heart-filled
• sometimes, tony and steve's unhealthy relationship reminds tony too much of addiction
• AI tony somehow in civil warrior steve's suit
• tony fucking his way through space w the gotg, steve back home getting a rundown of all the fun times and maybe having some of his own
• the intergalactic house of pancakes and a week of avengers multiverse brunches
• for what it's worth, steve would like to say he didn't know the handkerchiefs were a code
• tony choosing/coding what ID verification to use for the avengers, especially why he chooses a skrull detector for steve(new avengers vol 4, issue 10)

Dislikes: a/b/o, bdsm au, kid!fic, deaging, underage, cheating, mpreg, high school/college AU, prolongued or psychological torture without hope or healing, characters that are treated as children, natasha stark as a cis woman, racism/transphobia/sexism etc. treated as jokes/non-critically. homophobia unless its the sexy internalized religious guilt kind wink wink.

Non-fandom related requests/anything else?: any queer media/speculative fiction recs are always appreciated. i am an enthusiastic audience for any and all of your houseplants/succulents/trees/fungi photos or gushing! recently delved into gaming a bit more so i always love recs for that or people sharing playthroughs/essays, etc on what they love. obscure knowledge learning recs are beloved (videos or books or podcasts).
i love collabs and doing fic/art/playlist exchanges (original and fandom) and i'm always up for an impromptu book club.

Comments

[rowantreewrites]

currently i do not have any houseplants but over the summer/fall i had a great balcony herb garden with a strawberry and i was so proud of it and i do have pictures of that. also had basil and tomatos and i DID make foccocia with those and it was truly divine. also: fungi my beloved. FUNGI MY BELOVED go u funky lil guys,,,,,,,, did you know that theres a species of cicadia that is symbiotic with cordyceps? theres a bug that has decided to befriend the fungus that is notorious for mind controlling and then murdering bugs it infects. how. why. im baffled. im amazed. u go u funky lil cicadia dudes.
also, gaming!!! don't know what kinda games you're into but here are my personal favorites: any zachtronics game, if you're into tricky programming/puzzlers. apico, which is currently only in demo but is a cute little stardew-esque game about bees. epistory/nanotale, two great typing games from the same devs. epistory is one of my fave all time games, both in story, and gameplay, and aestetic, and soundtrack. factorio, which is a factory builder/logistics game. very fun. very addicting. make the belt sphagetti of your dreams.
two games to go into knowing as little as possible about them because curiosity/exploration/discovery is so much a part of them: hollow knight, and the outer wilds (not the outer worlds. the outer wilds. they released the same year i Know it is confusing)
hollow knight is a 2d metroidvania about bugs, very pretty, great art style, amazing music, plot is something else entirely. the outer wilds is.... listen the less i say the better. its amazing. i cannot overstate how amazing it is. it's about space exploration, as you're a new pilot set to discover the secrets of your solar system. it's about exploration, in the purest sense of the world. it is about curiosity. it is about discovery. it is fucking fantastic please play it. i will yell about it for 3000000 years if neccecary. it made me cry and that is the best review i can give to a peice of media. please. if you do not want to play it please watch a playthrough. (if u do not have a youtuber you like to watch that has played this, i recommend nerdcubed's playthrough)
also, playlists! first one (here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1yoSzTTHVM6Q6f5FK3ouVm?si=433e3efcdab940c0) is one i made for an AI tony fic that i have Not finished and likely never will. second one (here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7bNlGmAsvd11zr1lnT9TOb?si=04a1ecdd40ac4c8b) is the Vibes of the astronaut vampire story i wanna write some day. its fun. i've also got a stevetony playlist (here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3TPomzklPh1jHMlGbWcJ0D?si=70c794c120744932) that is... 100% just "mcu cw but as a breakup playlist low-key from tony's pov" so take that as you will.
not a learning rec, but podcast-wise: wolf 359 is a great podcast/audiodrama that i adore. it is a workplace comedy/drama on the hephastus space station, which is orbiting the star, uh, well... wolf 359. featuring commander minkovsky whom i would follow to my death with no hesitation, doctor hilbert the bog-standard creepy russian scientest man, officer eiffle the depressed mess whom i would die for, and hera the station AI who i would take all of the bullets for. also featuring: many themes about identity and memory and what makes a person a person, betrayal, loyalty, memory, and music.
happy holidays!

[starvels]

ro!! hello!!! thank you for this lovely stocking fill and the recs!

"cicadia that is symbiotic with cordyceps" truly the ENERGY here. you could do so much with it!!

my brother's favorite game is actually factorio, hehe. i think epistory sounds so innovative and fun! i love the premise so much. a typing game! playing as a muse!!! delightful. and the outer wilds too omg. this is a BIG compliment and i will take it seriously 👀

thank THANK for these playlists. i heartily enjoy a character playlist, so i am v excited for these. i love how your jovial descriptions for everything. please know i had a big smile on my face reading this <3

[quietshade]

Happy Holidays!

Since you didn't specify genre or platform for games I'm recommending stuff that's similar-ish to the Witcher series:

God of war
Mass effect
Fallout
Divinity
Final fantasy 15
Red Redemption

Aside from those I think Final Fantasy 7 remake is an absolute must play. It's not only an excellent game, but fandom wise it's very rich. There's a lot to like in the Final Fantasy series in general.

Aah, since you mentioned FullMetal Alchemist, http://tomochingus.tumblr.com is a Royai (mostly Riza Focused) fan artist. Their art is lovely, totally worth checking if you like Roy and Riza.

[starvels]

thank you for these lovely recs !! i have gotten red redemption as a rec several times now so i think that will be my next purchase omg 👀👌 i know FF has a huge following but i've always been a little discouraged by the sheer volume of them, but if this remake is a good place to start i will check it out!

& tomochingus' trans masc riza actually made me extremely emotional the other day so this is such a good rec, yessss 🙌

[keirkieran]

I made you a fic on your holiday prompt. I hope you like it!

All That Is Merry & Bright

[starvels]

thank you so much kieran!! i'm excited to read it omg

[jetblackfeeling]

ao3

[starvels]

i replied on ao3, but just to say here, thank you so much! trans nat is so close to my heart 💕

[veryvincible]

Di, hello!!

This is both speculative and animal-based. I think you may know of the literary genre of speculative evolution-- the one that's often tied to the 1981 book After Man by Dougal Dixon. There's a speculative evolution wiki that has a lot of fan-submitted pages for speculative animals with things like evolution charts and time periods available, and they're often really, really neat! A lot of lovely art comes out of them, as well.

There's also an author named C.M. Kosemen who wrote All Tomorrows, a sci-fi/spec-evolution book, and he partnered up with the comic artist Simon Roy to work on this project, that asks "What would it look like if dinosaurs had never died out?" basically.

http://www.cmkosemen.com/dinosauroids.html

Also, I'm working on storyboarding a Noir animatic for you! Have the very, very bare bones peek at the intro, featuring everyone's favorite fanon Noir Steve.



I hope you had a good holiday season, I hope you have a great year, and CONGRATS ON GETTING MARRIEEEED AAAAA!!!!

[starvels]

CASS OMG AHHHH.

AN ANIMATIC?? FOR ME??? i'm mclosing it!!! thank you so much omggg. this looks sooo good already i am so excited GOSH. catch me in your DMs, turning into a labradoodle about this.

i LOVE too, these spec-evol recs, gosh. the dinosauroids???? the skeletal studies, the attention to detail. all of the questions about culture & intelligence and the size comparisons, etc. the dearth of exploration here warms me to my core. i LOVE the paintings SO MUCH. thank!!

and 💕s for the well wishes too, you sweetie!

[welcoming_disaster]

di hi hi hi season's greetings
i wrote you some fic!! it is not complete but one day it is going to be. :) find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37095427/chapters/92560669
you guessed what it was and i lied to you like a LIAR i am not sorry i hope you have a wonderful wonderful valentines day :)

[starvels]

I GUESSED IT! i knew it!!! please know this already holds my heart. i am very excited to curl up with it like a scone and devour it. thank you so much 💖

[sineala]

Hi hi!

If by "sharing playthroughs" you mean "linking to other people's cool Let's Plays," I am here to rec the Let's Plays of CannibalK9. He only has two -- The Void and The Talos Principle and they are both very old now but this guy just has the absolute most chill voice. It's very soothing.

Also the absolute queerest games I know of would be anything by Love Conquers All Games. So there's that.

[starvels]

i did mean that! & i started watching the void and am v compelled already. 'the charred husk of a giant delicious orange' 😂 delightful and soothing! i think i'm really gonna enjoy these, haha.

these queer games look really lovely too! the character stats for ladykiller in a bind? 👌 perf

thanks a bunch for the recs, sine!

[magicasen]

Hi starvels! I love your enthusiasm and presence on the server, and congratulations again on your nuptials!! <3

For queer media, I adore The Handmaiden movie - it's about a girl who's trying to run a con on a rich lady by becoming her handmaiden. Lots of angst and pining and also ~romance~

For speculative fiction, I'll rec 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future, a multimedia series that's entirely available on the internet. It's about the distant future (which you can tell by the title), sort of about football but more about humanity and the role of entertainment in their lives, and it's honestly just a treat to read through and discover the world. You can find it here!

Happy Valentine's Day again!!

[starvels]

thanks for the congrats again, magic! you're very sweet 🥰

i really ought to get on watching the handmaiden, i've been meaning to for so long! i'm positive i'm gonna love it.

and OOH, i am loving 17776!!! probes talking to each other...the asynchronous comm, the pacing, the newspaper clippings and the intermedia AHH. all of it is so good and so lonely and so hopeful. i love it so much, i am really enjoying reading this. thanks so much!!! 💖✨

a few recs for you!

[lets_call_me_lily]

Hello :) I hope that at least one of these is new to you and that you can enjoy it! They're not in any particular order :)

- Vorkosigan Saga / Lois McMaster Bujold (more the romantic space opera fiction genre, if that's a thing? Has a canonical queer male character; if you don't like the Miles books you can read the first couple of books and then skip directly to Gentleman Jole and the Red (the books do tend to have a handy very succinct timeline at the back which should help).
- Wayfarers series & To be taught if fortunate (novella) / Becky Chambers (queerness is here!)
- Binti / Nnedi Okorafor (Afrofuturism, spec fiction)
- The Left Hand of Darkness / Ursula Le Guin (hermaphrodite alien race! There's also a follow up short story that was written later)
- The Murderbot Diaries / Martha Wells (a series of novella, written in 1st person with a gender neutral character, I very rarely read 1st person pov but these are just superb)
- Ancillary Justice trilogy / Ann Leckie (some cool gender and personhood stuff happening, female pronouns used for most characters)

Have a great year 💜

Re: a few recs for you!

[starvels]

hi!! thanks so much for these real good recs. 🙌

i loved the left hand of darkness, have some becky chambers on my shelf, and have heard of lots of these, SO i trust your recs v much! looking forward to digging into the rest :''))

Re: a few recs for you!

[lets_call_me_lily]

Yay, so glad to hear that! I hope you enjoy whichever book you get to next.

[nostalgicatsea]

HAPPY BELATED VALENTINE'S DAY, DI! Thank you for gifting the fandom with your gorgeous stories.

I'd rec some Arthur/Eames fics because I was in the Inception fandom back in the day as a lurker, but I have a feeling you know all the ones I can think of. Mm, writing about this makes me want to go back and reread some old favorites now.

Let's see..I think I recommended this already in the server, but if you like sci-fi and speculative fiction, one of my favorite books last year was The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. It's a slim book so you can get through it in one sitting. I'll copy what I wrote to ki: It's about a scientist named Evelyn who finds out that her now ex-husband cheated on her with her clone, Martine, whom he made with research he stole from her and the two women having to figure out what to do with him when Martine kills him. Sharp, icy, restrained writing, with a headstrong scientist who is harsh with everyone, the satisfaction of a man who sucks being offed, and the dilemma of having to deal with not only a clone of you, but your work being misused in such a horrific way!

Queer media recs that I got over the past 12 months!

Book:
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
This is a contemporary novel, but it deals with queer/trans/gender exploration, is a really great character study-type book, and it's so dramatic, messy, and I don't know. I was sucked into the world immediately and the prose is just so good. I think there are some things that people are divided on, but hey, it might be something you're interested in!

TV shows:
- Arcane
Summary: Amidst the escalating unrest between the rich, utopian city of Piltover and the seedy, oppressed undercity of Zaun, sisters Vi and Jinx find themselves on opposing sides of a brewing war over clashing convictions and arcane technologies.

Note: This is a show based on the game, League of Legends. I don't know a single thing about LoL, but I enjoyed Arcane. The animation is BEAUTIFULLLLLL and really unique, like paintings come to life, and I really liked the world it was set in. And you have a queer female protagonist!

- Killing Eve
Summary: Eve's life as a spy is not adding up to what she had hoped it would be when she started. She is a bored, very smart, MI5 security officer who is very desk-bound. Villanelle is a very talented killer, mercurial in mood, who clings to the luxuries of her job. Eve and Villanelle go head to head in a fierce game of cat and mouse, each woman equally obsessed with the other as Eve is tasked with hunting down the psychopathic assassin.

Note: The seasons got wobblier as they went, but wow, the acting! The tension and suspense! Enemies-to-lovers???? Two sides of the same coin, two women who bring out the worst in each other and are drawn to each other like magnets because they're soulmates.

Movies:
- God's Own Country
Summary: In Yorkshire a young unhappy farmer is living with his grandmother and sickly father. He numbs his frustrations with drinking and casual sex until a Romanian migrant worker sets him on a new path.

Note: This film wasn't what I expected, but that was good because it made me think about it long after I finished watching it. I can't believe the director never went to film school and he was in his late 40s when he made this! It was his first film! Anyway, it doesn't try to romanticize anything. The countryside is brutal and miserable. The characters, at first, aren't tender with each other because their circumstances prevented them from being that way, but much like there's beauty to be found in the wilderness, both in delicate things that manage to survive their harsh settings and in the strange allure of raw, tough, uncompromising surroundings, there's beauty in their relationship too, in the prickly moments and quiet, soft ones! They learn how to love each other!

- The Handmaiden
Summary: A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her.

Note: I am OBSESSED with this movie. Obsessed. It's sumptuous, it has twists that keep you on the edge of your seat, and it's a mish-mash of genres. It's a gothic romance. It's a caper. It's a dark comedy. The romance between the two women is so breathtaking and UGUhhghUGHGhhgHG please watch it if you haven't! I will say, though, that it's very explicit as a warning so it might be something you want to watch by yourself haha.

[starvels]

thank you so much for these sweet words and recs! fwiw, you should absolutely go back and read some a/e fic. it was all so phenomenal. ✨👌

& you have a great grasp on what i like bc i loved god's own country, killing eve and arcane VERY much indeed! love how you describe them all though. especially god's own country. ugh, it's brutal and miserable! they aren't tender, but then, they learn how to love each other!!!! it's such a gritty, real, tangible story. sits on the tongue like a crispy chip. yes!

i have detransition baby on hold at my library too so hopefully i will get to consumer that as well. the others are on the list !! :''))

[nostalgicatsea]

I was so well-fed in the Inception fandom. It was like Marvel in that it felt like a huge playground/sandbox to mess around in even as a lurker! And I feel like a bunch of A/E authors jumped over to Steve/Tony in the early days of the Marvel fandom so that was nice too.

YES, I love that God's Own Country is as you described. You don't get to see that kind of love in the media imo. As much as I love Call Me By Your Name (the novel), not everyone is in an environment where they're (more) able to explore their sexuality and be equipped with the resources and support to do so safely and an understanding of what's going on. Like sometimes queer people can be two working-class dudes who do manual labor and aren't academics who know about culture or whatever! But they're just as valid and the way that they love is valid.

I hope you like Detransition, Baby. Let me know what you think of it!