#SpringFling2024

[accidental-spice]

@monthly-challenge 2024 | Day #11: Bunny

"Remember: don't chase the rabbit. Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers. Memories."

[queen-daya]

Zendaya as Anne Wheeler in The Greatest Showman (2017) @monthly-challenge | Day Twenty One: “Free Day”

[kanerallels]

My first contribution to Spring Fling, run by @monthly-challenge!

Day 2: Green

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Pairing: Kanan Jarrus x Hera Syndulla

Had it been any other person, any other encounter, any other voice, Kanan probably would have just brushed it off and moved on.

Bumping into some stranger in the hall of the VA? That was normal enough. Getting around with about 75 percent of his vision gone was something he was still getting used to, and the building was pretty full on an average day.

So when he bumped into someone while leaving a meeting he’d been at, Kanan caught himself quickly. “Sorry,” he said, stepping back to let whoever it was by.

“No worries,” they said— she said. It was a woman’s voice, and the very sound of it rooted Kanan to the ground, speechless.

He’d been alive for 25 years, fought in a war, lost people he loved, and made a variety of highly questionable decisions. And in that time, Kanan had seen and heard a lot, both ugly and beautiful.

This voice? It blew all of them away. Both gentle and firm, with a musical quality that sent warmth through his bones and made his heart skip a beat. It was absolutely exquisite, and Kanan knew, without a doubt, that he absolutely had to know the woman it came from.

She was already walking away, towards the elevator, by the time Kanan recovered enough to come to this conclusion. And by the time he’d started to move or speak or do anything, the elevator door was already sliding shut.

All he’d seen, with what was left of his vision, was a bright, vibrant flash of green.

From a shirt or a scarf, or something else entirely? Kanan didn’t know. All he knew was that the color was burned indelibly into his memory, and that he definitely needed to find out who that woman was.

He took the stairs, but when he made it to the lobby a floor below, the woman was long gone, leaving behind the memory of her voice. Kanan bit back a frustrated growl. Don’t worry, he told himself. If she was at the VA, it was for a reason. Which means I might bump into her again.

So he stayed calm, and headed out. Unfortunately, he was late for lunch with his friend Zeb thanks to his searching. The burly man was waiting in the usual booth at their favorite diner when Kanan made it.

“Oh, thanks for bothering to show up,” he said as Kanan slid into the seat across from him.

“Sorry,” Kanan said with a grimace. “I didn’t think I was going to be that late. But I— got distracted, and then the cab had to take a detour thanks to some accident. Did you order already?”

“I waited like ten minutes, but then I got bored,” Zeb said with a good-natured snort. He wasn’t the type to hold a grudge over one being late. “What exactly distracted you so much you forgot about lunch with your best mate?”

“I didn’t forget,” Kanan corrected. “I just got distracted, like I said.” The waitress approached, and Kanan ordered. He and Zeb had been coming to the diner since long before he’d lost his vision, and the menu was ingrained in his memory.

As were the staff, for that matter, and Kanan frowned as the waitress walked away. “We don’t know her, do we?”

“Nope,” Zeb said, slurping from his drink. “Some Russian kid Quinlan picked up. Now, are you being evasive, or am I going nuts?”

Kanan hesitated, then admitted, “You’re not going nuts. I was distracted by… someone I met. She and I bumped into each other in the hall—”

“Ohhh,” Zeb said, and Kanan didn’t need to see him to know a smirk was stretching across his face. “She?”

“It’s not like that!” Kanan protested, then paused. “Well… it is a little. But it’s not like I had enough time for anything to happen.”

He recapped the incident for Zeb, lingering just a little on what he remembered of the woman. Especially her voice— he probably lingered a little too long on that.

“Right,” Zeb said as the waitress reappeared, carrying both of their meals. “So you fell head over heels for this girl you met one time, and you’re gonna do what about it?”

Kanan shrugged. “Find her, I guess? Thanks,” he added as the waitress set his sandwich in front of him, along with his drink. “How hard could it be? I just need to talk to all the women in Lothal City until I find one that sounds—”

“Like an angel from your dreams?” Zeb said, snickering as he took a bite from his burger.

“I was going to say familiar,” Kanan said, scowling at him.

The man chuckled. “Sure, mate. Well, you’ve got the VA to start with. Maybe ask Piett. He and Veers know everyone around there, and if they don’t know her, they’ll know someone who does.”

“Good point,” Kanan said, his heart lightening a little. Veers was his former CO, and between him and his best friend Piett, they had a handle on pretty much everything that went on in both the VA and Lothal City. (Although it helped that Piett’s sister in law was a state senator.) After their meal, Kanan headed home planning to speak to them the next day.

He didn’t have to wait that long.

While he knew it made him something of a stereotype, Kanan liked to stop at the same diner every morning before work. He’d been going there for years, and the owner, Quinlan Vos, had been close with his mother. So he could usually count on cheap— or free, depending on if Vos’s wife was there— coffee, and a decent breakfast.

What he hadn’t counted on, however, when he stepped inside, was finding someone in his usual booth. In fact, Kanan had been expecting it so little that he’d sat down before he realized someone was sitting across from him.

“Oh— sorry,” he said, starting to slide out of his seat.

“No apologies necessary.”

Kanan froze. That was the voice— warm, slightly amused and curious, and stunningly gorgeous. And, as he gave her a proper look, there was the green. Her hair, by the looks of things. It was unexpected, and fit her well. Really well, he thought.

“Do we know each other?” she asked, her voice thoughtful. “You look familiar.”

For a moment, Kanan couldn’t speak. A long moment, as it turned out, because she asked, “You speak English?”

“Words fail me.”

There was no mistaking her smile, gentle and wry, as she said, “So they do.”

Recover, Jarrus. Pull yourself together. “Um.” Not a strong start. “We, uh, we actually met the other day,” he told her. “Bumped into each other at the VA— literally.”

“That’s right,” she said. “Which is why you sat down next to me?”

Kanan couldn’t help himself— he laughed. “Believe it or not, this is a complete coincidence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it happened. But this is my favorite spot, at my favorite diner.” 

It’s almost like fate, the unhelpfully romantic side of his brain whispered.

He elected not to say that part out loud.

“Well, you may as well stay, then,” she told him serenely. “I’m Hera.”

“Kanan.”

“Nice to meet you, Kanan.”

A smile crossing his face, Kanan said, “Trust me, the pleasure is all mine.”

[choicesholidays]

Spring Fling 2024

Welcome to the Choices Holidays Spring Prompt Event!!

Rules:

Use one of the prompts below in a story or create a piece of art based on one.

Tag @choicesholidays

Use hashtags #choicesholidays #springfling2024

In the header, tell us which prompts you're using and which fandom you're writing for.

Submit work before the Deadline: May 31st, 2024 11:59 p.m. CST

Note: Anyone is welcome to use the prompts, but only Choices works will be reblogged and added to the master list.

Prompts:

They had just settled down at the spring picnic in the town square when....

She'd spent the most beautiful spring day hiking when suddenly she froze on the trail…

All he'd planned was to dig out the plot of land behind his house for his garden, but…

They were halfway into their spring break road trip when…

They'd pooled all their fun money to rent the beach house only to discover…

She'd once looked forward to spring break, but now…

His mother had called him home, but…

They hid in the yard, waiting for…

The May Day spring festival had been nearly perfect until…

No one went there anymore, but we decided to…

The April Fool's prank had gone horribly awry....

It was the year that spring forgot.....

I blamed spring fever for the predicament I currently found myself in.....

Spring is a time of new beginnings, how appropriate....

It was supposed to be just a little bit of spring cleaning, but I was in for the shock of my life when I opened the.....

The spring break trip that changed my life.....

Oh, I haven't seen you since that awkward hookup last spring....

This is the worst/best St. Patrick's Day ever!

We're doing what for Earth Day? You can't be serious....

I just wanted some Easter eggs.....

[belovedspector]

Day 1: Rain

Fandom: Moon Knight (MCU)

Pairing: Marc Spector x gn!reader

Word Count: ~200

Summary: A rainy day throws a wrench in your plans for the day.

Content: Fluff! Reader can sit cross-legged on the floor.

A/N: Part of @monthly-challenge's #SpringFling2024! Enjoy! :)

Masterlist

“But we’ve been planning this for weeks!”

“Hey, hey, it’ll be okay.” Marc’s soothing voice brings you back down to Earth a bit.

“I know,” you sniffle, “but I just wanted today to be perfect.”

You look out the window, where rain is coming down in buckets and the clouds are an angry, dark gray. It’s definitely not picnic weather, which is unfortunate, considering that’s what was on the agenda for today.

“We’ll still have a good day,” Marc assures you, crossing the living room to grab a blanket off the back of the couch. You watch as he shakes it out and spreads it across the floor.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Well, if we can’t go outside, we’ll just have our picnic in here,” he says, briefly walking into the kitchen to grab the already-packed picnic basket off the table. He returns to the living room, setting the basket down in the middle of the blanket, then sits down next to it. He pats the empty spot beside him. “C’mon.”

You can’t help but smile as you join him on the floor, mirroring his criss-cross-apple-sauce sitting position.

Maybe it’s not exactly how you pictured today would go, but, you have to admit, it’s still a pretty damn good afternoon. You have your favorite person to keep you company, after all.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to let me know what you think! :)

[endlesstwanted]

To See Your Photo When I Wake Up

I’ve been thinking of my fav three lately and I wanted to give them some fluff. This was inspired by @queer-it-up-bingo — OTP and @monthly-challenge — Sunshine. You can read it under the cut and on Ao3 here.

Fandom: Chicago Fire

Rating: General Audiences

Pairing: Sylvie Brett/Joe Cruz/Brian "Otis" Zvonecek

Tags: Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, pDomestic Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, Polyamory

Summary: Joe and Brian wake Sylvie up early on their free day to show her something very special.

Wordcount: 1.1k

Also created for: @fandombingo | Sylvie Brett + Reverse: 1999 Edition | It’s Coming / @multifandom-flash, r2 #2003 | Bunnies for Cuteness + r2 #2005 | Piggyback Cute / @eclipsingbingo | Huddling For Warmth

Hugging her bunny plushie tightly so as not to lose it between the sheets, Sylvie rolled over herself to change her position with the idea to enjoy her free day staying in bed for as long as her body let her.

That usually worked on the second free-day between shifts, but on the first one her working clock told her it was time to wake up, and made sure her partners were also awakened before leaving for the firehouse, around seven am.

Not today, she thought to herself, relaxing again and trying to focus back on what she was dreaming about before she had brightened up. And then came the whispering at the other side of her door.

It was weird that Brian and Joe were up before her, so Sylvie opened an eye and reached her phone, wanting to check what time it was. Minutes past seven in the morning was what the numbers on the screen told her, so her only wish quickly turned to be that nothing terrible had happened to have her partners up that early.

She stayed alert out of curiosity, trying to figure out what they were talking about until she heard her name. And then she knew they were up to no good.

If this was happening a few months back, her fear would have been that her boyfriends were having another disagreement about their relationship and dynamics, since living the three altogether and being co-workers didn’t make it any easier for any of them. Sylvie knew that the two best friends held feelings for one another since the first time she met them, and it had taken both men some time to come together and make peace with that. None of them confessed a thing, of course, until she came into the picture and became the glue into their peculiar love triangle, bringing them closer than they’d been now that they didn’t hide anything that their hearts felt. For this reason, Sylvie was afraid of being the focus of any argument and being a threat for that friendship they treasured so kindly.

As the low voices continued, she thought of getting up but didn’t as she heard the door to her room being silently open.

“Sylvie,” Joe whispered as he approached her bed. She pretended to be asleep, testing the waters to see what it all was about. “You think it’s a good idea to wake her up?” Joe then said over her; Sylvie figured out Brian was at the other side.

“She can’t miss it!” Brian responded but not in a quiet tone.

Curiosity was taking the best of her, so she made herself be noticed. “Miss what?”

“Okay, how long have you been awake?” Brian asked with a smirk, she got to see thanks to the light in the living room coming through the door when she rolled over to be on her back. 

“Since you started whispering on my door five minutes ago,” Sylvie told them.

“Sorry about that,” Joe said with a closed smile, and then threw a deadly glare to their boyfriend, who just rolled his eyes.

“I’m not apologizing, you started it! But I’m doing something better.” He sat down on her bed, leaning to kiss her still sleepy face. “Let me carry you to the living room.”

“Can Geogie come?” she questioned, raising a teasing eyebrow as she asked about her bunny plushie.

“Georgie is always welcome to join us,” Joe nodded, bowing with his arms folded to serve as support for Georgie.

Sylvie got out of the sheets, handing her beloved friend to Joe and then climbed on Brian’s back. His hands were warm where he kept her secured over him, leaning forward as not to lose his balance with the new added weight. They walked outside her room, and Sylvie realised she didn’t get to find out what the discussion was about and only knew where they were heading. “What’s in the living room?”

“The first sunrise of spring!” Joe explained with a huge smile, rushing to be the first one to reach the couch that was not in the place it was usually at.

She frowned, confused because from their apartment’s level they usually couldn’t see the sun coming out, but perhaps that was the reason why her boyfriends were that excited about it (and up so early, too).

Brian left her in the middle of the couch, which was turned to face one specific window of their living room, and had the coffee table accommodated around it as well.

“We’ve made coffee, and hot chocolate for you,” Brian told her.

“It’s early, so make sure you don’t get cold,” Joe warned. He gave her Georgie back and picked up one of the blankets that were over one of the arms of the couch.

Sylvie hugged her bunny while she let Joe lay out the blanket over the both of them. Brian served two big cups of coffee, one for Joe and the other for himself. After passing Sylvie her favourite mug, that was shaped like a koala, with the steamy drink that welcomed a great day she was looking forward to spending with her partners.

She snuggled with Joe, getting under his arm to keep the warmth between them, and then opened her own for Brian, after some sips of his coffee, to get comfortable over her.

The sun came up in the horizon, as slow as Joe played with Brian’s hair, who was more relaxed than Sylvie had lately seen him. She held him tightly with one arm, watching the sun rays hit their window and light up the scene at the other side of the glass while she enjoyed the hot chocolate. It was Joe’s secret family recipe that he only made for special occasions, so that had to be one of them.

It wasn’t long that she had moved to Chicago, but time had started really counting for her when she moved in with ‘Crotis’, as Joe and Brian called themselves. The first sunrise of spring was something she hadn’t paid attention to in the past, due to having been living alone when it occurred. Now, in the quiet of the home she had built with the man she was in love with, Sylvie welcomed the experience of sitting front row for the nature show her partners had been kind to share with her.

She would thank them for insisting on renting that place in particular, reasoning that the views were incomparable, later; when they woke up from having dozed off between caresses and soft kisses.

[ooctosquid]

Rain

@monthly-challenge

[tenthousandtangles]

ZIA 527 (plus a couple of digital collages) from a “Honey I Blew Up the Tangles” class taught by Ting Su at TangleOn Spring Fling 2024.

[hikayefandoms]

Day 4 of SpringFling2024

Prompt courtesy of @monthly-challenge

Prompt: flowers

A platonic sorta fluffy very short ficlet featuring c!MumboJumbo and c!Grian prank each other during early S8

I had forgotten to post it here lmao I'm so bad at keeping tabs on things

Enjoy!

[accidental-spice]

@monthly-challenge 2024 | Day #21: Free Day

[queen-daya]

PAUL ATREIDES & CHANI KYNES IN DUNE: PART TWO @monthly-challenge | Day Nineteen: “Yellow”

[kanerallels]

I wrote today's @monthly-challenge fic as a kind of follow up to this prompt I wrote for a couple months ago for @auroramagpie. I just couldn't really get the world and the idea behind it out of my head, so I thought I'd write some more! Today's prompt from Spring Fling was garden, for context

The Dume Library was unusual for a lot of reasons. The foremost being its librarian— a blind man who was rumored to be an ex-musketeer, one of the more famous ones. It was said he’d worked alongside Hera Syndulla, who was one of the best, if not the best herself.

When asked about it, the librarian rarely gave a straight answer. Usually, he just laughed it off or made some joke, and gently turned the conversation to a different subject. So no one could be quite sure what the truth was.

(well. There was one person, but she was different. She had lived it.)

One of the other things that made the Dume Library unusual was the fact it had a garden. It was fairly large, starting at the front right side of the entrance, and curving around in a wide sweep of flower beds and vegetable patches, bracketed in the back by rose bushes, made its way to the far end of the property, where it took up a large chunk of the back yard area.

The back door of the library led out into it by a path that wound past a fountain and a bench looking out across the property, to the beds in the back. It was this path that Hera took now, down to where the figure of the librarian was hard at work.

She’d only been in this garden a few times since Kanan had finished work on it— though with a garden, one could rarely ever be truly finished— and Hera paused to admire it. It was something of a motley patchwork of beautiful flowers, glowing with colors and beauty and sweet smells, and of carrots and onions and potatoes, looking comfortably sturdy and inelegant next to the peonies nearby.

It was a strange sight, but one that was completely on brand for Kanan, and Hera couldn’t help but smile at the sight. At the memory it brought her.

“When we retire,” Kanan said thoughtfully, studying the elegantly trimmed rose bushes around them, “we should have a garden like this.”

Hera snorted in her champagne glass. “Like this?” she said, gesturing at the topiaries trimmed in strange shapes, the grass trimmed to just the right length. “Seems a little… fancy for you, dear.”

“I can be fancy,” Kanan scoffed. “But no, not exactly like this. I was thinking about the roses. They’re nice, right? And there’s a patch of lavender over there that smells amazing.”

Letting out a thoughtful noise as she scanned the crowd of the party they were at, Hera remarked, “I never took you for a gardener.”

“I’m full of surprises. Besides, nothing wrong with some good hard work. It’ll keep us busy once we retire. Assuming you ever plan to retire, that is.”

Hera rolled her eyes. “Sure, when the bad guys decide to retire.”

Kanan didn’t laugh, like she’d hoped. Instead, his face was serious as he said, “You know, the world’s never going to run out of problems for you to fix. But it is going to run out of time. You’ve got to decide what’s most important.”

Pushing down a swell of shock, Hera kept her face calm as she said, “You’re serious tonight, aren’t you?”

His smile came back. “I’m always serious about you.” Setting his glass on a nearby stone statue, he held a hand out to her. “Dance with me?”

They hadn’t danced then. Hera had spotted their target who’d been at the party when they were two steps away from the dance floor. And then there had been a chase and a duel that Kanan had joked was just as good as a dance, and another criminal was brought to justice.

Those days were long gone for Kanan. But the garden was here. And Hera could smell the roses as she approached Kanan, who was kneeling next to one of the flowerbeds, carefully pulling weeds.

“Hard at work, I see,” she said, and his head went up at the sound of her voice.

“I wasn’t expecting you today,” he said as Hera knelt next to him. She saw a smile tilt up the corner of his mouth, a smile that always sent a flutter through her chest, and made her want to smile back. “I’m glad I was wrong, though. How did the Pryce thing go down?”

“We got Sato’s son back,” Hera said. “And Pryce was taken into custody. Thank you for your help— we couldn’t have done it without you.”

Tugging up a weed and tossing it onto a pile to the side, Kanan said, “My pleasure, as always. How’s your new partner doing?”

There was no sorrow, no bitterness in the question. But Hera still felt a twinge of remorse tugging at her chest. “She’s… doing well,” she said. “Eager to fight, but she’s learning not to charge headfirst into things.”

“It’s a good thing she has you. You and I had to learn that lesson the hard way.”

Hera snorted. “With the amount she listens to me, she’ll be learning things the hard way, too. She’s more stubborn than either of us were.”

“Even you?” Kanan ducked as Hera swatted at him, grinning. “Alright, I got it. Well, you’ve put up with a partner far more frustrating than she is— you’ve got this. I know you do.”

“Thank you,” Hera said. She sat for a moment, watching Kanan weed around a bed of nasturtiums, somehow miraculously avoiding the flowers and only pulling up the weeds. Finally, she said softly, “I miss you.”

He paused, just for a heartbeat. Turning to face her, he quietly offered her his hand, and she took it. His fingers were smeared with dirt, but gentle as he squeezed her hand. “I miss you, too,” he told her, and Hera had to swallow back a lump in her throat.

She’d never wanted to leave her partner behind. And not just because he was the best with a rapier she’d ever met, or because his plans were crazy, but they worked. He could always pick up on what she was thinking, and fighting side by side with Kanan was almost easy. It was like a dance they both intimately knew the steps to, and they were far better together than apart.

But then, they’d gone after a mad man. They’d had backup, which they’d sorely needed. But in the end, she and Kanan had been separated. And the mad man had blinded Kanan and ran.

Things had been hard for a while after that. It had taken a long time for Kanan to heal, both physically and mentally. Hera had been by his side every step of the way, even as it became clear that his time as a musketeer was over, far too early.

She had, briefly, thought about retiring. About stepping away and staying with him as he figured out what his life would look like next. And eventually, Hera had brought it up to him.

He’d laughed. “Hera,” he’d told her, “not a chance. You have the ability to keep helping people, and I’m not going to ask you to step away from that. Not yet, anyways. Just don’t forget me.”

“I could never,” she’d told him fiercely.

And she hadn’t, even as their lives grew and changed without the other fully in it. He’d found a way to keep helping, and Hera had come to see him whenever she could. Things were different, though, and she hated that. Hated being without him.

“How long can you stay?” Kanan asked, as if he’d heard her thoughts. Sometimes, Hera really did wonder if he could. 

“At least through the night,” she replied. “Sabine’s visiting her family, so I’m all yours.”

“Good.” Rising to his feet, Kanan helped her up, not letting go of her hand. “Come on. You can help me with dinner, as long as you stay pretty far away from the stove.”

Hera laughed, and for a minute it was like nothing had changed. She held onto that feeling as they headed into the library together, and felt a little peace settle in her heart. She was with her partner, even if it wasn’t forever. It could be enough for now.

[choicesholidays]

Spring Fling 2024

Spring has sprung. Summer's here now, but here's the master list from the event.

Six Times.... @jerzwriter OH Casey x Jessica

In The Garden @jerzwriter WTD

[endlesstwanted]

The Love You Give

Drabble for @monthly-challenge — Earth and @thundershieldbingo — Public Display of Affection. You can read it under the cut and on Ao3 here ☁️

Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

Rating: General Audiences

Pairing: Steve Rogers/Thor

Tags: Developing Relationship, Domestic Avengers

Summary: Once Thor discovers the relevance of Midgard’s public displays of affection, he doesn’t want to stop.

Wordcount: 100

The first time it was a hand running down Steve’s arm, sliding inside his hand in the room illuminated by that week’s cinema night’s movie that was Bruce’s choice.

Time later Thor and Steve woke up fresh having returned in the middle of the night after a mission and prepared breakfast for everyone else; Clint saw Thor kissing Steve’s hairline when he came looking for his morning coffee.

Then Thor pulled his chair back to sit at a press conference, and the cameras caught them hugging after a hard mission, and Steve was happy everyone knew who his boyfriend was.

[ooctosquid]

Day 6. Rainbow

@monthly-challenge

[tenthousandtangles]

Creativity fodder from Wyndham Art Supplies in Guelph, Ontario. 🎨🤤❤️