Fanwork Recs - July 22, 2014
Jul. 22nd, 2014 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladybusinessFanwork is awesome and sharing fanwork is even more awesome. Join us as we keymash and squee over our favorite fanwork, from fic (both written and podfic) to art to vids and meta and back again.
Recommendations included:
- Captain America — fic (3), art (2)
- Borgen — vid (1)
- Merlin — gifsets (2)
- Teen Wolf — art (1)
I have now started the process of keeping all my fanwork recced via this project on pinboard under ✭ because I kept forgetting what I had recced and what I still wanted to gush about. THERE'S SO MUCH STUFF, it's amazing. I love fandom. Anyway, if you are on pinboard, too, you should let me follow you so I can find all the things you love and love them with you. ♥
[FIC] [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] Out of the Dead Land by
alasen: SECRET ROBOTS.)This story, which I started reading on LJ as a WIP, is finally done and on AO3. Not that it being a work in progress kept me from recommending it to everyone regardless, whether or not they were in the fandom (Ana and Jodie, this means I need you to watch these films and then read this and then come talk about MEMORY AND ROBOTS with me). Everyone is tired of hearing me talk about this story. THAT'S TOO BAD, because I'm never going to be over how much I love everything about this.
When I was reading it in pieces, especially the tough parts where Bucky is struggling, with his past, his memories, and with his existence as a weapon, the tension was so horrible that I repeatedly would have to stop reading and go look at cute kitten pictures. I have a Bucky Barnes in pain problem, which is troublesome because I like the comfort parts but to get the comfort parts you have to go through all the other crap. And Bucky goes through some crap in this story.
And I am just realizing the last few years that I love robots, and AI, and all the inevitable discussions of of what makes us human. These conversations and the media that carries these dialogues aren't new. As per usual I'm late to the party by about six decades. I have so much to catch up on! But this story seriously scratched an itch. I admit to watching and reading a lot of SF with robots and not caring so much until recently, but now I am probably going to go find all the stuff I can find about robots and AI (especially evil robots and AI).
I am really into the idea that Zola is not dead. The internet is forever, just like Tony says (PS Tony is great here, just the right amount of sass)! And as long as Zola is not dead, the possibility that Bucky Barnes will need lots of comforting hugs and lazy days on the couch reminiscing about the past is totally in my grasp.
Also, I think this story is great to read if you love FRIENDSHIPS because honesty this story is stuffed full of so much friendship that by the end scenes I was biting my hand about how fucking adorable and heartwarming sharing knives could be. I really, really want so many stories with Bucky, Natasha, and Sam on adventures saving Steve's ass because he constantly gets into (morally justified, and also righteous) trouble.
Bucky fucking Barnes, friends. I got sideswiped. I never saw it coming.
[FIC] [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] it's a strange courage by
Okay, there are stories that generally I don't read, because I spend a lot of my original reading life getting hammered in the face with them when I least expect it and fics tend not to do this (yay warning culture!). I was dubious about this story! But then I read it, and I finished, and I turned around and read it again, and then it wouldn't leave my brain. This story is seriously hard to read, going from adorable meet-cutes and secretive dating to horrific rape backstory quick enough that it's like getting a surprise fist to the softest part of your midsection five or six times.
Obviously, rape/non-con warning for the story, but also for this recommendation. When I was a kid I read a lot of terrible, super nonconsensual romance novels. There was so much of it and it was all awful and I kept reading it! It was everywhere in the libraries and the used bookshops I visited that let me throw as many books as I could into a bag for a $1. It was on the shelves of the carousel of different babysitters I had while my mom was working. I thought that shit was normal because I didn't have any other context (besides movies, and I was even limited there until DVD in the late 90s. Driving 40 minutes to rent a tape and then another 40 to return it wasn't high on the list of family priorities). If you had asked 14 year old me about sexual consent I can't even imagine what I would say. DEFINITELY SOMETHING HORRIFIC like how if someone wants to fuck you, to lie back and let them if they use the right convincing words.
I didn't dig into consent until fandom, after reading, if I remember correctly, a Sailor Moon story where Rei was raped by Mamoru (seriously) and the narrative ripped Mamoru apart. That was the exact opposite of what I expected to happen because I was all, "Well, you WENT ON A DATE with him! He asked nicely!". I was on the side of the rapist in that story and it was so weird and the dissonance was so alarming once I realized that I basically searched out fic like that for more context. What I found led me directly to understanding sexual consent and rape and my own experiences as a teenage girl (FUBAR), and led me happily into consent culture and wow, friends, it is nice here. Poor teenage me.
Okay so none of that relates specifically to this fic except this story gave me that same feeling of realization, albeit in a different way. Because the two heroic gestures of this story (one by a man and one by a woman) reminded me of the ways we want culture to treat people who are raped and sexually abused, even while the story itself argues that it won't be systems that change first, but the individuals that react to the system not changing, and that it has to be the individuals because we built the systems that allow these things to happen. We can write stories that let us live in a world that will step up into the face of rape culture and go, "you are accountable." I have a lot of complicated feelings about this story, obviously, but I really loved it, and the ways that fandom creates worlds that aren't perfect but are still more palatable than the one we're currently living in.
[FIC] [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] My Ghosts are Six Feet Under by
SOMETHING UPBEAT because things are getting heavy.
I know zilch about Marvel comics (I didn't know Captain America was even a character until 2010). I am assuming that Bucky having a sister comes from the comics, as I can't recall her being mentioned at all in MCU. If she's like this in the comics, though, way to go comics, Rebecca is awesome (probably she's not developed at all and all the awesome here is
If Marvel ever needs a short for a film release, I have a suggestion, and it's absolutely this entire fic. I grinned all the way through this story. The beautiful sibling bickering, even when it hurts, is hilarious. My favorite thing about this is that I have been that kid who gets distracted during the summer and then shows up at an older relative's door, shame-faced. It's amazing. I know the accent is different, but it's still the same feeling. "I got chores." indeed. CHILDHOOD FLASHBACKS and afternoons shelling peas, wow.
[ART] [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] Steve and Bucky by
Okay, so I am pretty sure I have a giant crush on
[ART] [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] Bucky by
Hello. I have a Bucky Barnes problem. It is often exacerbated because I have a thing for him keeping his hair long, and putting it up in buns/ponytails, and generally being a super adorable, heartbreaking assassin wearing ouchless hair ties (that he borrows from Natasha). *lies down on floor*
[ART] [Teen Wolf] Derek/Stiles by
Suddenly Teen Wolf. This stupid show. I keep watching it for reasons beyond me. Why do I keep coming back? Why do I do this to myself? And the answer, as much as I lecture myself about letting a show insult my intelligence every week, is these two assholes and the fans who keep creating gorgeous fanart and other awesome fanwork that I cannot quit. It's not a big secret I am into boys kissing in the rain. My only Teen Wolf fic features that pretty heavily in a pivotal scene, and my next Teen Wolf vic features something similar. Making out in a water is awesome, although strangely I don't care much for having sex in water, because to be able to do that is some kind of fucking sex wizardry that seems like it would take a lot of oil based lube. HOW? Why? That seems like so much work. I'll stick to romantic rain kissing like this. IT'S RAINING AND THEY'RE SOAKED AND CLINGING TO EACH OTHER. *happy sigh*
[VID] [Borgen] Damned If She Do by chaila (04:00) (Birgitte Borgen)
A fantastic Birgitte appreciation vid from one of my favourite vidders. I love the material that's picked out for use, particularly Birgitte's hate face, the debate from series one and the footage used for the section that accompanies 'there's been a perception of sweethearts passing through'. And the growing presence of Katrine towards the end of the vid makes me wonder if there might be a Katrine video coming in the future?
I also thought it was interesting how this video experimented with colour; linking colours through various scenes (most apparent in the footage that cuts from Birgitte's hospital scan to her green high heels). I think I'll probably watch it again to see just how much of this there is.
[GIFSET] [Merlin] Untitled by
This colour focused gifset recolours shots of each character, and then includes a description of that colour which shows why that character's personality prompted a particular re-colouring. It also mixes in lyrics from "No Church in the Wild", which provide a running gif commentary on the relationships between the characters. I'm having a hard time describing it in parts, because it's the total effect that makes it, and it's probably the most multi-layered, experimental gifset I've seen in a while. Just click through
Also, 'Black is misunderstood and elegant.' Yeah it is!
[GIFSET] [Merlin] Untitled by
And since I've started on the "Merlin" recs, you may as well have this great but depressing gifset that uses Drake lyrics to achieve maximum feels punch.
