"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."

Nobody was behind me in line, which seemed to be a good reason for her to treat me to a five minute retelling of the identification, rescue, and argument over initial custody of Kit Kat, who was so small they thought when they first heard him crying for help that he was a bird and not a kitten in a tree, and is now fifteen pounds of "pure, sculpted lardass".

And I didn't mind, precisely, I wasn't bored or anything, but around the time she was bringing me up to speed on Kit Kat's current status it occurred to me that this woman is a cashier in a store that primarily sells candy bars and beverages. People must buy Kit Kat bars from her multiple times a day. Does she do this every time there's nobody in line behind the purchaser? Did I just have that I Own Several Cats And Will Enjoy Your Cat Stories look about me? Was it the first time it occurred to her that she sold the brand of candy bar she named her cat after? Was she new to the job of selling Kit Kat bars?

I was in the same snack shop, which I'm in, like, once a month, recently. I only recognized her because I spent five minutes listening to this monologue in sincere wonder. But I did recognize her, so as I was buying a soda and a Milky Way bar (this time) I said, without thinking about how this would come across, "Hey, how's Kit Kat?"

She looked genuinely horrified and said, "What...how?"

"Oh fuck!" I blurted. "Sorry! You told me about him last time!"

This is still quite cryptic as responses go but she gave me a frankly frantic look of sudden recognition and said, "He's fine! You bought a Kit Kat! I was unmedicated!"

I did not inform her she is small town famous on Tumblr and instead just said, "Glad you're both doing well!" and we parted as confused and mortified friends.

AO3 has no App.

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I wrote a HAPPY merthur song! Unprompted! Who even is she??

Lyrics:

@merthurmicrofic prompt: Burn

My voice is post-gig tired so I'm cringing in moments of this voice memo, but I'm rolling with it.

I apologize in advance for the angst.

Lyrics:

A man—Merlin, presumably—beams up at him, a young white dragon perched on his shoulder. Text next to his photograph reads: “Historically, white dragons symbolised hope and renewal. Aithusa was born just this week, right as we began to introduce dragons back into Cairngorms National Park. I know not many of us believe in portents and omens anymore, but I can’t help seeing her birth as a good sign.”

A smile quirks Arthur’s lips, despite wanting to frown at the knowledge that Morgana neglected to tell him exactly who she was working with on this dragon reintroduction initiative.

“You didn’t tell me he looks like that,” Arthur says, and sets the magazine down with a flourish.

Morgana barely glances at him, despite the fact that she shoved the magazine into his hands in the first place.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested, seeing as you were far too busy with your royal hospital visits and royal derby attendances and royal Instagram posting—“

“He is of interest,” Arthur interrupts, because he has no desire to hear Morgana gripe about his schedule for the umpteenth time. “Invite him for tea.”

Morgana’s head snaps up. “Did you just give me an order?”

He winces. “Er…you should invite him. If you like.”

Morgana rolls her eyes and takes a surprisingly violent sip of coffee. “Why don’t you do it? It’s not as though he’ll turn down an invitation from the King. Not many people would.”

“But you actually know him, Morgana,” Arthur definitely-does-not-whine.

She snorts. “All this because you think he’s fit.”

“I do not—“ Arthur’s face burns. “I—respect his contributions to wildlife conservation! After all, we can’t very well be Pendragons if the country is dragon-less.”

“A ploy to keep public favour, then,” Morgana tuts. “I knew it.”

“You are my very worst relation. Well. Worst living relation,” Arthur amends.

Morgana grins, baring teeth Arthur swears are sharpened, and stands.

“He’ll be round tomorrow at four,” she says breezily. “I thought this might happen.”

Arthur’s jaw drops. Her heels click into the distance.

“George,” he says faintly, “fetch the tailor. And draw up a file on Merlin Emrys, if you have the time.”

“I always have time, sir,” George says, and vanishes.

Arthur glances at the magazine. Merlin’s eyes practically twinkle on the front page.

“Dammit.” George will also need to draw up a file on the optics of a homosexual King.

Perhaps Arthur should’ve asked him to fetch the jeweller, too.

I just bound what is essentially THE Merlin continuation/ fix it fic also know as 'And Like the Cycle of the Year we Begin Again' and I am so happy with how it turned out! It’s my first time trying a keyhole cutout style cover and it was a bit of a challenge with the faux leather, but I think in the end it came together. I do wish I would have seen Beth’s Binderys video on which glue to use so that your endpapers (dye ink) don’t bleed but ohh well I still love them! If anyone has any other tips on that particular issue I am all ears! 

This @merthurmicrofic prompt had me in a MOOD, so I wrote a song and had a cry about it.

Quality is a little shitty because it's just a voice memo. Someday I'll do a proper demo.

Lyrics:

Proba-3 mission captures rare solar prominence eruptions in sun's inner corona

The sun's inner corona, the hottest part of our star's atmosphere, appears faint yellow in a time-lapse made from images taken by the ASPIICS coronagraph aboard Proba-3.

The European Space Agency's Proba-3 mission consists of two spacecraft capable of flying in precisely controlled formation to create artificial solar eclipses in orbit.

This animation combines data from Proba-3's ASPIICS coronagraph (inner solar corona in yellow) and from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (solar disk in dark orange).

"The corona is extremely hot, about 200 times hotter than the sun's surface," explains Andrei Zhukov from the Royal Observatory of Belgium, Principal Investigator for ASPIICS.

"Sometimes, structures made of relatively cold plasma (charged gas) are observed near the sun—although these are still around 10,000 degrees, they are much colder than the surrounding million-degree hot corona—creating what we call a prominence."

Prominences can expand outwards from the sun and "erupt," breaking up and sending plasma in different directions.

This animation resulted from ASPIICS observing the sun during an active period on 21 September 2025, with one image taken every five minutes, capturing three prominence eruptions in five hours.

"Seeing so many prominence eruptions in such a short timeframe is rare, so I'm very happy we managed to capture them so clearly during our observation window," adds Andrei.

The ASPIICS instrument captures the solar corona with several filters, including two different 'spectral lines," each line corresponding to a different element contained in the coronal gases.

The prominence eruptions seen in this animation were captured in the spectral line emitted by helium atoms, showing the solar atmosphere similarly to how a human eye would see it during a total eclipse through a yellow ASPIICS filter. The AIA image shows the emission in another spectral line produced by helium.

The remaining faint yellow glow of the corona is a result of the scattering of visible light from the sun's surface on coronal electrons.

Morgana: typical. You have the emotional range of a donkey.

Arthur: donkey's do have-

Morgana: A dead donkey.

Gwen: So, you really have never met someone where you saw them and your heart immediately skipped a beat? Where your mind focused in only on them and your mind went like: oh?! This could be forever.

Arthur: *blinks*

Gwen: Oh... You did? Well that's love at first sight. Who is it?

Arthur: *flushing* No I'm not

*Merlin walking buy* hey girls, what's up?

Arthur: *exploding into steam*

Welcome to my Fairly Comprehensive, Ridiculously Long SteveTony Fic Recs, aka my collection of pretty much nearly everything I’ve read and loved so far over the years. This fandom is lucky enough to have some truly brilliant and dedicated authors, and I’m always discovering new fics to love, so I thought I’d share some of them with you! Fics will be sorted alphabetically tbh just because I suck at sorting stuff? Some of my personal forever-faves will be marked with ♡. This is by no means all of the fics this fandom has to offer, but if you’re new to the fandom, this should give you a good place to start, and if you’ve been a SteveTony shipper for a while, hopefully you’ll find something new! And if you do have a favorite fic that’s not on the list, please add it to the comments or rec it to me (because who doesn’t need more fics)!

Here’s just a few GREAT resources to check out if you’re looking for Even More fic recs:

@sabrecmcstonyficrecs - I mean, sabre is basically THE fandom resource? Any and all fic you’re looking for you’ll likely find here. ||| @findingstony - if you’re looking for a particular fic and don’t remember where you found it, look here first! ||| @cap-ironman - the place to go, especially for brand new fics! the fandom lives here ||| @nasaficsrecs - many good fic recs ||| @ishipallthings many wonderful rec lists ||| @sineala - the place to go if you are at all interested in 616 SteveTony or really anything in the 616 comics universe

I have lots of fics bookmarked on ao3: my bookmarks! You can also check out my other fic rec lists, and my general fic rec tag. Also while you’re at it maybe check out some of my fics?

And here are the recs! (under the cut.) Have fun reading and be sure to show your authors some love with kudos and comments!!!