Down to the Wire

[scribblemyname]

I need to write a ficlet of 369+ words before the end of the month to reach my monthly word count. Or 4 drabbles.

Due to clock ticking pressure, I am suddenly devoid of non-epic ideas, even for the prompts I got.

Any quick 1K or less requests? Please?

ETA: You are all awesome! Thank you! I hit my word count and can work on long fic and betas again with a clean conscience.

---

MASTERLIST

1. The Wind Who Knows My Name (Original: Kingdoms and Thorn, Whisper): LJ


2. On the Appropriate and Inappropriate Uses for Hair Care Products (MCU, Clint/Natasha):LJ


3. Stay With Me Now (MCU, Bobbi/Clint): LJ

Comments

ummmmm

[morbane.livejournal.com]

Victoria Hand: impressions of Skye, Jemma, Coulson. Any conversation with any of them?

Maya Hansen: thoughts on Extremis.

An original character of yours and a childhood memory or their view of a place that is important to them, even a street or similar that they travel often.

[scribblemyname]

I really do need to catch up on Hand and Hansen, neither of which I've bumped into at all. Goes to work on original.

THANK YOU!!!

Kingdoms and Thorn fill: The Wind Who Knows My Name

[scribblemyname]

She used to have another name here. The wind seemed to whisper it through the whimsical hinged gate with its wrought vines and leaves. It seemed to rustle in the stiff, white curtains hanging in the window, through the roses trailing up the lattice, and over the uncut grass and barely tended flowers of the front yard.

Sierra.

Her father never called her Whisper nor taught her to stand motionless near a house to listen to its silence.

Whisper let herself make a sound as she stepped over the first fallen leaves and admired the blooms that remained. She could see the child that she used to be shouting in play and bounding through great heaps of yellow and orange. Her father never stopped or chided her. He'd drop his rake and snatch her up to fly her around and around in the air…

She let her memory drift, her gaze wander. It was so still now, so silent, the silence of abandonment, the hush of neglect.

She ran one hand over the peeling wood of the front door frame, bent, and made short work of the lock.

Inside, the neglect became more obvious, the dust thicker. The sounds playing through memory were not so happy and full of tears. She had been a child curled up behind the couch as mother and father fought and a baby cried in the background. She had been a very small girl when her father left and her mother drowned her tears in alcohol. She had not even been to school when she was taken from this home and brought into the program.

The program that made her Whisper. That taught her to fight. That made her one of the best operatives they had.

She stood and listened to the dead, still silence.

Sierra, whispered the breeze through the curtain. Sierra, creaked the floorboards no one had tread in years. Sierra, noticed the abandoned detritus of an unhappy family.

She made her way to her old room and dug under the frame of the cramped, wood slat bed. She tossed aside sock, picture book, and flashlight, then stopped to smooth out a crumpled photograph of a man swinging his little girl around in the air in autumn.

Daddy.

She studied the picture, tucked it away in her things, and stood silent in the forgotten house. For a long moment, she let the memories wash over her, good and bad. They had made her who she was. Then she turned and picked her way noiselessly through the front room again, let herself out, and replaced the lock.

She had what she came for.

"Goodbye, Sierra," she whispered.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn fill: The Wind Who Knows My Name

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting look at Whisper.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn fill: The Wind Who Knows My Name

[scribblemyname]

She's an interesting study of layers. She's also one of those people who has truly accepted the things she cannot change.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn fill: The Wind Who Knows My Name

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

That is something that it is very hard to do.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn fill: The Wind Who Knows My Name

[scribblemyname]

Very. It's not something I do well at all.

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn fill: The Wind Who Knows My Name

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

Me, either.

[inkvoices]

Any particular kind of prompts required?

[scribblemyname]

Small in scope! Write and finish by end of tomorrow.

[inkvoices]

Okay, off the top of my head have a bunch of prompts (because I can always prompt lol):



"Courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says I will try again tomorrow" - quote approximated from Mary Anne Radmacher according to google

it never rains but it pours

Douglas Adams: 'I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.' Dare you to interpret in the context of SHIELD, or any other beauracratic agency.

Just read this post about Steve's fighting style being similiar to Peggy's because she taught him, and she taught him to fight as a small opponent. What might Clint and Natasha's fighting styles have picked up from each other? Or any other mix of people who spar/train together?

the best laid plans...

banned books weeks/the idea of books being banned

hair care products (and the misuse of)

a character with an uncoventional career (and career history) contemplates what their CV might look like, or attempts to write a CV. (Possibly for amusement purposes. Or for something amusings-sweet ie Clint 'applies' to be Natasha's parntner in SHIELD. CV submitted to Natasha or Fury or...?)


Any use/need any more?

[scribblemyname]

Oooh! I can work with these.

[inkvoices]

Glad i could help :)

MCU Fill: On the Appropriate and Inappropriate Uses for Hair Care Products

[scribblemyname]

"Clint." Natasha was giving him that look again that was all in her eyes, the longsuffering one that said she was disappointed in her attempts to civilize him. She plucked the bottle out of his hands and said firmly, "Hand and body lotion is not a hair care product."

He leaned back and sighed, not bothering to tell her it had served him fine as conditioner for years and saved the expense of buying both.

"And hair spray—"

He winced at the bite in her voice. Here she had a valid complaint.

"My hair spray is not to be used to kill spiders."

"It's powerful stuff," he said with as serious an expression as he could muster.

Natasha glared at him. "Use your boot."

Re: MCU Fill: On the Appropriate and Inappropriate Uses for Hair Care Products

[inkvoices]

Bwhahaha :D Well that was a lovely piece of amusement to kickstart my day. Oh you crazy assassin kids lol.

[scribblemyname]

I'm going to have to write up an actual resume for that one. :rubs hands gleefully: I don't even care if I make the deadline on that one.

[inkvoices]

Heehee, happy to enable!

[scribblemyname]

Ahem. Might be more helpful to add, a specific scenario, pairing, or character can also be particularly helpful. A scene. A funny line of dialogue. I can write 1000 words fairly quickly actually, so if you want something exchange size that doesn't stretch my research brain, go for it.

[inkvoices]

I did a mix of generic and more specific :) Hope something helps you reach the word count!

[scribblemyname]

Thank you!

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

Can't remember the ones I was going to post, but here are a few small things in case you might be able to use them (and because certain songs are on my brain thanks to my whole album challenge idea.)

By the rolling river is exactly where I was
There was no snake oil cure for unlucky in love
To be lonely is a habit like smoking or taking drugs
And I've quit them both, but, man, was it rough

~Jenny Lewis, "Acid Tongue"


Sometimes I wish I could find my Rosemary Hill
I'd sit there and look at the deserted lakes and I'd sing
And every once in a while I'd sing a song for you
That would rise above the mountains and the stars and the sea
And if I wanted it to it would lead you back to me
~First Aid Kit, "The Lion's Roar"



This old routine will drive you mad
It's just a mumble never spoken out loud
Sometimes you don't even know how you're still standing.
Well she looks at you now, and you see how.
Well you look at her now, and you know how.
~First Aid Kit, "This Old Routine"

I know I said I hoped you were doing better in email a few days ago, but hope that stays the same or improves and if there is anything I can do, let me know.

[scribblemyname]

Thanks. I am feeling better than yesterday. Not great, not even good, but better.

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

Well, sometimes that's all we get. :(

*hugs*

[scribblemyname]

:hugs back:

[scribblemyname]

Hmm... I think I want to Clint/Bobbi that last one. I'll tackle it tomorrow though. Gotta percolate.

ETA: Gah. Never mind. Muse came through.

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

:) Glad I could help, even if I don't read Clint/Bobbi (I barely know who she is.)

[scribblemyname]

His wife in the comics and an incredibly amazing awesome Natasha-level agent on Agents of SHIELD (though frankly, her awesomeness is built on her comics history; I'm just giving you a comparison I know you're familiar with).

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

I think she was the reason I didn't pursue comics for him. I'd liked the Clint/Natasha angle to the movies and did not want to read through decades of him with someone else.

[scribblemyname]

Yeah. That can be hard if you're not a multi-shipper. His relationship with both was different, but he also became just friends with Natasha then stayed friends with Bobbi after they finally worked out their issues post-divorce and before divorce Bobbi and Natasha were adorable together. It was actually their friendship that got me into Bobbi.

[blamesthepen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and in most cases, I'm not. It's always interesting when they adapt stuff to movies or television and decide to change the pairings and ending. It all depends on what I see first, and then I can't break myself to see the other ship. I don't even want to try even if it does seem like being a multishipper would be easier.

MCU Fill: Stay With Me Now

[scribblemyname]

WARNINGS: references to child abuse and domestic violence, deathfic


"Clint." Her voice barely breaks dimly through the fog screaming in his mind.

Same old, same old Bartons. Death and dying and bleeding out in each other's arms.

"Clint." It's a familiar warm scent, familiar warm arms pulling him up and away from...

"Barney," he whispers, voice cracking on the name.

---

She gets him out of there, gets him to Medical, hovers against the wall as Medical gets him out of shock and cuts Barney's arrows out of his uniform and shoulder. Three.

"You're lucky to be alive."

He doesn't feel lucky. He doesn't... He's thrown back to broken beer bottles and pounding fists and blood on Barney's head, blood pouring in Clint's eyes, his mother's bruises, the car accident... He shudders. Memory turns but to nothing brighter. There's Trickshot's laugh and his own bloody, broken leg and Barney walking away and leaving him to die.

"I can't—" He just can't and he shudders, and there are Bobbi's arms slipping around him, warm and familiar.

He hangs onto her and the soothing words she's whispering in his ear.

"I'm here, Clint. I love you. It's going to be okay."

It's not. Barney's dead, and it will never be okay, but Clint clings to her anyway. He holds her because she's solid and strong, and he thinks it will never be okay, but he can keep going if he doesn't have to go alone.

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

MCU, anypair, they have a really random, non-combat-related skill or talent, and suddenly EVERYONE needs them to show it for some reason (e.g. really good cook, linguist, art historian,speed-reader, floral arranger...)

[scribblemyname]

I keep trying to think of emergency needs for a whole-team flower arrangement.

Fury's birthday party? Hm... Maria's birthday party? :shakes head:

Thinking...

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

Pepper's birthday? And Tony is too afraid of repeating the Giant Bunny from IM3 to go with anything other than flowers? But the whole Billionaire Philanthropist blahdy-blah ego of his means he needs ALL the Avengers flower arranging... Dammit, now I want to write this fic! *curse you and your muses!* :P

[scribblemyname]

Doooooooo it!

I found a way in. I'm going to sequel Floral Declarations.

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

Challenge Accepted. But after physio, so I'm not in agony :)

[scribblemyname]

I forgot about this! You going to do it? :eyes my Floral Declarations fic and tries to remember what I'd planned:

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

So tempted but thesis is eating my brain right now. Maybe later as a palette cleanser, lol :D