2023 Stocking: nostalgicatsea

[stevetony_elf]

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Username: nostalgicatsea

AO3 Username: nostalgicatsea

Comics Steve/Tony: 616, Civil Warrior, MA:A, Noir, Ultimates

Other Fandoms/Ships/Characters:
MCU:
- Ships: mainly Steve/Tony, but also Bucky/Nat, Sam/Bucky, Tony/Wenwu
- Gen: Rhodey & Tony, Nebula & Tony, Natasha & Tony, Steve & Natasha, Steve & Thor, Tony & Thor, Steve & Tony & Thor, Steve & Peggy, Tony & Wenwu, Natasha & Yelena, Carol & Nick Fury, anything Kamala-related

AvAC:
- Ship: Steve/Tony
- Gen: Tony & Jan

EMH:
- Ship: Steve/Tony

Succession any gen focused on the Roy siblings, Kendall/Stewy

Mob Psycho 100 any gen

Samurai Champloo Fuu/Jin/Mugen

Likes: I’ll throw a whole list out there because I’m very open to a lot of things!

- AUs (gangster, magic, sports non-powered, high school or college, supernatural, horror, sci-fi, etc. You name it! I love AUs)
- canon divergence
- character studies
- parallels/similarities between characters
- angstttttttttttt (if it's a longer fic, preferably a happy ending, but I like bittersweet and sad endings too)
- soulmates
- found family
- outsiders finding companionship with each other
- family issues/difficult family relationships
- war-forged bonds
- disillusionment in a belief system
- grudging respect turning into something more
- slow burn
- mutual or one-sided pining
- multiverse
- telepathy
- self-sacrifice
- amnesia
- time travel
- reincarnation
- fake relationship
- relationship of convenience
- hurt/comfort
- de-aging
- dream world
- presumed dead
- temporary or permanent death
- post-breakup
- getting together or getting back together
- miscommunication or bad communication
- explorations of emotional/physical trauma and substance abuse/recovery
- grief/mourning
- parental/child relationships
- dark Steve
- the weight of the Captain America mantle and Steve's relationship to it
- road trips
- love/hate relationships
- enemies/friends-to-lovers
- identity porn
- betrayal and forgiveness
- protectiveness/possessiveness
- legacy
- witty humor
- truth serum
- repression
- hiding injuries
- Skrullsssss
- any horror tropes or prompts on this list or this one

Dislikes: Partner abuse, infidelity, or sexual assault between characters in the same ship (unless you’re referencing a canon plot point. I’m also fine with infidelity and abuse involving a villain as long as it’s not OOC); PWP; Hydra Steve; OOC (crack is fine as long as the characters retain their personalities); pregnancy; incest; adult/minor romantic relationships; Avengers fics with Darcy in them.

Non-fandom related requests/anything else?:
- Anything cute, interesting, or funny related to animals
- Fic recs of any of the ships, characters, or fandoms mentioned above (also open to Naruto because I feel like those are very hard to find. I’m in the mood for good worldbuilding or relationship studies, something with good emotional beats, or something very plotty)
- Fanart, fanvids, graphics, fanmixes, edits, gifsets of my ships, favorite characters, Chris Evans, or RDJ
- Your favorite recipes or easy, healthy recipes and any cooking/baking tips
- The most useful tools or life hacks you would recommend to everyone
- Links to favorite non-fandom or fandom shops on Etsy, Society6, etc.
- Things that comforted or distracted you in a good way this year
- Really cool/niche cultural or scientific facts, discoveries
- Best longform articles you read this year
- Computer and Nintendo Switch game recs for casual gamers
- Book recs (all-time favorites or your favorites of the year)
- Poetry recs
- Movie and TV recs (I'm open to a LOT of genres and topics so I'm not picky. I like non-English stuff too so if you have any to rec, please do)
- Cool/unusual/"hidden gem" places (landscapes, favorite spots in your hometown or place you've traveled to, restaurants, shops, architecture)
- Self-learning language tips and resources
- Resources to learn more about film, writing, photography, interior design, art

Comments

[lomku]

Happy New Year!
I still think back fondly to the horror exchange event you organized. I also greatly respect your endless work and effort you put into the LOPA prompts. I keep telling myself to write or draw something for them, but I always forget. Maybe that can be my New Year's resolution. Anyhow: love to hear your juicy characterization thoughts about the MCU.

Here is a shigeo for you :)

some recs for you <3

[lets_call_me_lily]

Sea!! Another year of stockings, and hopefully some more things for you to enjoy in the coming year :) (I hope that you have gotten to some of the ones I left last time, and liked them - I'm always happy to have you in my DMs btw so if you feel the urge to come say what you enjoyed - or what you didn't!! - I'm always keen)

So, this time, I am reccing you:

2 anthologies of short stories:

- The Djin Falls in Love and other stories
- The Mythic Dream


2 graphic novels

Verse Book One: The Broken Half by Sam Beck (written and illustrated!) - fantasy world. Caveat - I haven't finished it because the library only had it in e-book and I just CAN'T read graphic novels on my phone. But what I read was good and the art was gorgeous.

Sentient by Jeff Lemire, illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez. This one's a darker scifi - when a separatist attack kills every adult on board a colony ship in deep space, it is up to VALARIE, the on-board A.I., to help the ship's children survive.


Some books!

The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams. Space war shenanigans including children with special abilities and a courier who gets them to base safely after searching them out. post-apocalyptic that had tech iimplications, space-faring races.

Chris Wooding's Poison - twisted fairy tale fantasy about a changeling - and also his Tales of the Ketty Jay series, which is about spacefaring pirates! getting up to shenanigans in space!

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher was a pretty cosy fantasy read (if you are okay with the ~14 yr old gotta save the city trope, which T Kingfisher very much acknowledges, and this one has a MUCH better support system than most of the teen saviours you read about). If you like that one, then Minor Mage (farming village and wild forest setting) and Illuminations (olden days could-be-magical-Italy) should also be just your cuppa, too. If you like her style but want more romance, then try her Paladin series (including Swordheart and the Clocktaur Wars duology, which don't follow the Paladin's X title convention that the rest do, but are part of the same universe). Fantasy setting with brooding paladins, the books have different main characters rather than being a continuation of one story.

I know I've mentioned them both before, but:

Martha Wells; her new book Witch King was excellent (found family! loyalty! awesome worldbuilding with different systems of magic!), plus the newest and last in the Murdurbot series also came out this year.

And, if you want some cosy hopepunk, Becky Chambers Monk and Robot duology (so far) do a great job of that, with mostly tech-free self-sufficient communities spread out across the place and a tea-making monk travelling by solar-caravan and bike between them to give solace to people. Till they go on a trip and meet a robot. Also the novella both have gorgeous covers.

___

May 2024 bring good tidings and fulfillment and some restfulness to you. Also if you ever decide to visit Aotearoa NZ hit me up, but otherwise it's so far there's not much point reccing you places to visit haha.

[msermesth]

Hey! You're a really great presence in fandom and I appreciate all the things you contribute. Here's a little thing about Tony and Steve being exes but beginning the process of making up.

Wishing you a great soon-to-be spring!

[dirigibleplumbing]

Happy stocking day!
I made you a Civil Warrior collage. Better quality is on my tumblr (or will be within the next couple of days).

[sineala]

Hey, sea!

I feel like everything I want to rec to you is something I have recced to you, so apologies if this is a repeat:

• The video game that I have put the most hours into in the past couple years is Vampire Survivors, which is on all the platforms, including Switch. It's the originator of the "bullet heaven" genre of shooters (a variant of bullet hell in which you are the bullet hell) and basically you don't have to aim anything and you walk around just absolutely wrecking things and it's very satisfying. It costs like $6 and I have played it for 150 hours.
  
• For longform articles, I signed up for the email newsletter from Tedium, which is one guy who does deep-dive articles a couple times a week into the absolute most niche trivial facts you can imagine, usually technology but not always. It's hard to describe but I think it's fascinating.
  
• Book recs. Hmm. Ever read Always Coming Home by Ursula LeGuin? It's one of the ones that doesn't get recced as much because it's basically just worldbuilding, but I love it.
  
• In the same vein of "books that are definitely someone's favorite book but probably not most people's" I rec anything by John M. Ford, but you should start with The Dragon Waiting, which is a fantasy AU of the Wars of the Roses where Byzantium never fell and vampires exist but people mostly become vampires for political reasons, like, so they can rule most of Italy forever. It is strange and I love it.
  
• i also rec Graydon Saunders' Commonweal series, which is a fantasy series about being a more enlightened civilization in the wake of a massive disaster. The first book is fairly military. It has war sheep. The second and third (I think?) books are about wizardry school except wizardry school is sort of like training to be a civil engineer but you might also die.
  
• I have language-learning resources but really only for specific languages, but let me know if those languages are Latin, Greek, or Old English, because I have you covered. :D
  

[sadisticsparkle]

Hi, Sea! I always enjoy reading you because what you say makes me think a lot.

So in the spirit of that, first is a question that I swear is not paid promotion lol: do you have mubi? It's a streaming service with a more off-beat, arthouse style. It's really helped me get back in the groove about film.

Also if you haven't read her yet and you want some litficcy horror, Mariana Enriquez is an Argentinian author that's been translated to English and she's excellent.

[keirkieran]

Happy Leap Day!

I don't have anything fandom related for you but I have a couple healthy recipes.

A simple one pan bake is this fennel and chicken thigh recipe. The nice thing about chicken thighs is they're a cheap cut of meat and they're very hard to over bake.
https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-roasted-chicken-thighs-with-fennel-amp-lemon-139854

I recently made a potato leek soup that I thought came out really well. The only thing I changed is I used sour cream instead of heavy cream (cus I like it). Also, if you want to portion this recipe out and freeze some for later, leave out the cream/sour cream before freezing. That bit doesn't freeze well but you can just stir in a spoonful into each portion after it's reheated. (Added tip, if leeks are expensive where you are, check whole foods. They actually had the cheapest price for me!)
https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/potato-leek-soup.html

And my favorite healthy recipe I've made recently is this squash and goat cheese galette. This IS more of a fall recipe cus of the squash it uses but if you know squash/pumpkin you should be able to swap in another kind (just be sure to peel it if it's not delicata). I made za'atar chicken thighs to go with this and it worked great.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/delicata-squash-galette-with-cheese-and-herbs-recipe

[magicasen]

HI SEA!!! Thank you so much for being one of the people to make my fandom experience so lovely. I love screaming with you and also dissecting canon. You're such a bright spot of my fandom life!

life hacks...well, for writing, I pretty much always have the OneLook Reverse Dictionary open as a tab, it is SO helpful: https://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

My favorite book I read last year was probably the Radiant Emperor duology, She Who Became the Sun and He Who Drowned the World! I described it to a friend as "everyone is a problematic queer in fantasy ancient China" so if you like. things like that. HAHAH. Last year, I also read and liked the Teixcalaan duology, too, if you like more political intrigue and lots of linguistics nerdery! The main character gave me vibes of someone who obsesses over things in a fandom-sense, but it was done really beautifully and painfully from the point of view of person from a colonized area who still loves the arts and culture of the colonizers.

But you know my real favorite book rec is Umineko <3 *gets shot*

[avengersnewb]

Hello Friend!
I first wanted to thank you for all the hard work you do for fandom including MTH, your enthusiasm that keeps us going, and all your thoughtful input into different matters fandom and otherwise; you rock!
you said you're after recs for TV, and I don't know if you're into Good Omens/Doctor Who or not (I definitely recommend Good Omens because whoa) but because of Good Omens, I went down a rabbit hole of Michael Sheen and David Tennant shows and found a few absolutely amazing shows that I guess you might like:

Masters of Sex (especially the first two seasons) is just peak television. The atmosphere, the way things are always at stake, the acting, and omg the steam...I really really recommend it.

Broadchurch is also AMAZING. It has the best David Tennant ever and his character is just a wet, sad cat that we all wanna take home and feed and keep warm. The plot keeps you on your toes and Olivia Colman's character and acting is just fantastic. (Warning for plot line of murder of a kid first two seasons and sexual assault the third one)

There She Goes just blew me away. I didn't know a show could be this heartbreaking and this funny at the same time, so human, so amazingly well-written. It approaches disability and parenthood in a unique, raw, and honest way; I don't think I've ever have seen anything like it.

[starvels]

Happy new year! I hope the world treats you kind and gives you much to explore and enjoy! For your stocking this year, I have a couple of different recs:

Naruto:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/20760530 My own fic! Fits the good worldbuilding and relationship study with plot bill, if I do say so meself. WIP but stands alone well, if I also do say so myself haha.
https://archiveofourown.org/series/525844 You might have already read it but in case you haven’t, this series really is such a juicy narrative that pulls together all of naruto’s plot
https://archiveofourown.org/series/3026433 Team minato what-if, good character deep dives with some really compelling worldbuilding choices

Some recipes I have loved in the past year:

https://thekitchengirl.com/thai-coconut-soup/#Ingredient_notes Fabulous, hearty soup with lots of veg and textures. Very adaptable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzDCuS2l_qI Especially the mushroom leek pasta. Little effort, great flavor reward
https://mattymatheson.wetransfer.com/ Matty Matheson’s college coookbook which is filled with easy budget recipes that do shy away from taste
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrpDXT1g4Az/?igsh=MWcxa3M4YjZhd2VqZw This cottage cheese and tomato pasta recipe which me and my partner can NOT stop making. simple base ingredients but you can add extra seasonings, garlic, etc. as you wish

Long form articles I have enjoyed:
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2022/how-truffles-took-root-around-world Fungi knowledge is essential and delicious!
https://catapult.co/stories/the-pain-of-losing-your-first-language-attrition-bilingualism-kristin-wong Reflections on bilingualism and cultural loss