"Is fuck bad plan!"

Iron Lung/Project Hail Mary fandom blog. Assume spoilers for both movies and PHM book. Created so I can flail around in this section of fandom while I write a very long and angsty gen Ryland x Rocky x Simon crossover fic on AO3. ********** My IL/PHM Fics: Shed Light Project Red Void (unposted, in progress) **********

[wendyllwins]

Based on the latest chapter of Shed Light. Who could choose, honestly?

[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 14 | 3.6k

———————————

Excerpt:

Fuck, Simon thought. Fuck. Fuck me. Fucking…fuck!

It was all red. The red was fucking everywhere.

It was pulsing, warping, seeming to drip down the walls around them. It wasn’t the consistency or physics or even really quite the right color to make it match the exact look of blood, but unfortunately, Simon’s head wasn’t checked in enough at that moment to appreciate the discrepancy. All he could feel was the enormity of how screwed they all were sinking its claws deeper into him and clutching viciously at his lungs.

The only way to fight those things off was to let them attack him and have the immune defense of his freak of a body handle them. But they’d replicated into an army in the time he’d spent getting coddled in the Tree Dome, and their massive numbers were constantly looking for anything they could consume to multiply. It just so happened that at the moment, they’d prefer Simon. It was keeping them distracted.

“Oh God,” Ryland was saying, his voice muffled like he’d clamped his hand over his mouth. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” His voice came out clearer, pitching high. “Uh, Rocky?”

The chords of Rocky’s voice chimed just as high behind his translator. “Rocky almost done!”

The bravado Simon had felt when they’d been planning their strategy had been sucked from him like oxygen from an airlock. What the fuck had he been thinking? How many of those things would it take for his body to overload into mind-flaying agony before it forced him back into a shape where he didn’t even know what he was? If he turned into the fucking Tree, would those things stop trying to get to him and turn around and breach the bigger dome? Would they multiply too fast, back to their previous numbers? More?

Stopping them as soon as possible was more important than taking the time to figure out how they worked. But could they even be stopped at that point?

And even if his plan worked, how long would it take? How many times would he need to be exposed? Would it take weeks? Months? Longer?

“How many times are you gonna use me before you let me go?!”

“Blood Taumoeba everywhere!” Rocky suddenly cried.

Yeah, Simon thought, his hand shaking. No fucking shit.

———————————

Read on AO3.

[wendyllwins]

Back at it (the writing) after a long workweek! Hope to have this chapter of Shed Light posted tomorrow evening or Tuesday.

[wendyllwins]

Two days of work down, two more to go before I can get back to bloodying all of my mary.

[wendyllwins]

The (placeholder name) Project Red Void chapter dedicated to various characters trying to drag a very unwilling Dr. Ryland Grace into the plot of this Bad Timeline Post-PHM BloodyMary AU fic has been rough drafted out. The other players have been set, now I can get into the meat of things with gleeful hands. Hoping to start posting it some time in the second week of August, after I get a few more chapters under my belt.

[wendyllwins]

Between the wide range of interpretation possibilities of Iron Lung’s story/character motivations and the book vs movie PHM stories I am fully enjoying picking and choosing which details to involve in my fic, even if it’s just for the sake of a self-indulgent joke.

[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 13 | 4.4k

———————————

Excerpt:

Yeah, so. Simon was fucked.

This time it wasn’t so much fucked like in the way he’d risked surrendering to the COI while knowing full well all it would take was some soldier grunt’s single bad day to change all of their minds on using their resources to keep him alive. Or the way he’d let them drop him down to face imminent death by fire and suffocation while welded into a rusted submarine.

It wasn’t even the new thing where he experienced excruciating pain coupled with an uncontrollable endless spewing of blood or his involuntary transitions into a mindless tree freak. And it wasn’t because he was worried about being handed back over to the COI or otherwise losing what little favor he had with Ryland the Grace.

No, Simon was completely, utterly fucked, because Rocky had offered him the chance to pick how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He’d told Simon he would keep him alive as he’d offered Simon a choice.

He’d offered freedom. 

Simon believed him. 

Simon believed him, hope rising jagged and broken from the depths of his mind and washing over him, almost sending him shaking for daring to even think of the possibility of an after for the first time since he’d woken.

———————————

Read on AO3.

[wendyllwins]

every 5 seconds on the (placeholder name) Project Red Void aka my in-progress Earth-based Grace Wasn’t Sent Into Space Bloodymary AU fic I come up with a new idea for the plot/angst/hurt/comfort to type into my outline notes

The process has basically been like

Me, getting an idea for Grace’s POV arc: oh you poor thing

Me, getting an idea for Carl’s POV arc: oh you poor thing

Me, getting an idea for Eva’s POV arc: oh you poor thing

Me, getting an idea for Ava’s POV arc: oh you poor thing

Me, getting an idea for Rocky’s POV arc: oh you POOR THING

Me, getting an idea for Simon’s POV arc: OH YOU POOR-

[wendyllwins]

Okay, have an actual excerpt of the upcoming chapter of Shed Light before I’m back to my workweek, featuring Rocky’s 0-100 naming skills. (Just don’t bring him any chairs.)

Will post this chapter next Sunday. Toodles for now. <3

[wendyllwins]

Chapter 13 of Shed Light in progress, planning on it being posted next Sunday eve

Simon Iron Lung istg you get hugged by a friendly pentapedal alien once

[wendyllwins]

Me: Okay I’ve got this fic all outlined and am excited to start the various POVs and angst so here we go! Grace angst chapter, and now Carl angst chapter, I’ll bookend them with vague Simon heavy whump POVs and pepper in the worldbuilding so things slowly get more and more unveiled. Everything is going according to plan and nothing has derailed this 5k in, this is great-

Fic: give Carl a dog

Me: Who said that? That’s not how this chapter is supposed to go!

Fic: Carl needs a dog

Me: There’s literally no dog character planned for this fic and there never has been

Fic: Dog is here now

Me: OH MY GOD

[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 12 | 3.8k

———————————

Excerpt:

Rocky shifted his thorax side to side and flexed his sore limb in his xenonite suit, testing the repairs and the returning hearing of his nearly regrown auricles as he sent long distance communication messages to Adrian of Simon’s idea for Blood Taumoeba racing and the supplies Rocky would need to engineer a system to support it. The communication device raised its surface into the textures of the Eridian written language as Adrian responded to the affirmative and also sent that the suits for detection of the predator-parasite Blood Taumoeba were nearly complete and would be utilized soon in attempted safe gifting of supplies into the biodome.

Even a single delivery carried a very great risk of Blood Taumoeba breach into Erid, but they needed many outside resources to help the plan to eradicate it. Astrophage created stable and limitless energy for nearly every system on Erid, including their volcanic suppression and control systems for the many mountains that covered the surface. Blood Taumoeba infecting the planet, breaking xenonite and consuming Astrophage would cause widespread calamity.

After it caused the death of Grace from the biodome failure.

Rocky would not let that happen.

———————————

Read on AO3.

[wendyllwins]

Heads up, I got my power turned off for a day so a bit behind intended fic schedule! Takihg a day trip to a river in a place without wifi or cell service and going to try to knock out the rest of this chapter and start on Project Red Void in earnest. Will do my damndest to get the Shed Light chapter up tonight tho, even if I have to split Rocky’s POV up a bit.

[wendyllwins]

Chapter 12 of Shed Light will be back to Rocky POV as we have a little downtime for the trio to get to know each other a little more before the wild Blood Taumoeba plot shenanigans move forward again. I’m hoping to maybe post on Monday, but if not it will definitely be up Wednesday.

It will also be back to Grace & Simon's QR and Flat-Earther argument they've been having for the last two chapters. XD

[wendyllwins]

Inside me there are two wolves.

One is very excited about my currently-running Rocky & Grace & Simon fic where the trio are going to be further entering their worsening touch-starved arcs while quarantined together on Erid and the relationships will remain strictly platonic in nature despite their individually growing Longing for contact.

The other is currently writing a heavily angsty hurt/comfort with a few Dead Doves post-PHM post-IL Bad Timeline universe taking place on Earth with Carl-Grace-Rocky-Simon-Ava-Eva and has decided absolutely all of these characters are Yearning for at least one of the others in a romantic and/or physical sense. And, honestly, who cares about monogamy when there’s a universe-breaking eldritch horror god knocking at your planet’s door.

[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 11 | 4.6k

———————————

Excerpt:

Simon’s shitty memories might have been filled with echoes swimming in black chasms of nothingness, but at the forefront of his mind as he argued with Ryland the Grace about reality itself was one thing he remembered: how frustration could feel burrowing through your skin and meat and bones and organs when you were saying what you knew what was absolutely true and the people you were talking to were so fucking convinced that they were going to tell you what was right. 

Whether or not they actually thought it was right was a toss up, because there was always the chance they were lying for whatever insane benefit to themselves they thought they could get from it. Or that they thought Simon was lying, because he was him, and that fact would inform every decision they made about how worth it things really were to let him keep breathing.

It seemed fucking unfair that others could make those kind of judgments when Simon didn’t have enough grasp of himself to make one.

Ryland the Grace had been mostly understanding about things, but his assertion about Earth’s status was a steel wall. He asked questions like he was interested in Simon’s side, but Simon could see it in his eyes: he didn’t believe him. He thought Simon was crazy. And maybe he was right. 

Rocky had been easier to handle in that respect; at least he’d let Simon know clearly when he was pissed at the shit he was doing. Simon was never confused about where he stood with him.

Maybe Ryland’s strategy came from a place of politeness, but that didn’t stop the response of continued disbelief from making Simon increasingly nervous. 

What really didn’t help things was the fact that he was realizing more and more at that moment that he absolutely hated being on his knees. 

There was something particularly grating about doing all of their conversation from that angle. He was arguing and trying to keep track of the things Ryland was saying all the while his mind plunked connected memories down in flashes so sudden they sent a chill twisting down his spine. He kept on talking through it as much as he could, but he couldn’t afford to ignore them completely. They were further trickles into insight to who he was and what had happened to him.

And who he was had apparently knelt a metric fuckton his life.

———————————

Read on AO3.

[wendyllwins]

Had to give some love to my MCU fandom fics on my other account and so delayed a little on the Shed Light posting. Should have it up sometime this evening.