A Certain Slant of Light

Day 2: Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.

once there was this girl who, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Morgan/Audrey. I may have recced this one before, but it’s great: I’m just in awe of its completely perfect Morgan voice. I can absolutely see Kate McKinnon doing this entire fic.

we’re so fancy & hella good hair, two fics (by different authors!) in the same universe Daredevil/Bad Blood music video crossover. My particular favorite part of these fics is the voice of the character Catastrophe (Taylor Swift in the music video), the most stable and evolved assassin ever, as she earnestly urges Matt to try a therapy cat. (Matt, meanwhile, tries to contain his jealousy about the fact that Catastrophe and her cohort are even better at destroying things than he is. They can punch their way through brick walls! Why can’t he punch his way through brick walls??)

Vincent van Gogh fanart. This one is something a little different. A couple of people watched Loving Vincent (a movie about Vincent Van Gogh animated with oil painting - the first movie of its kind) and it inspired them to try to copy one of Van Gogh’s paintings. The end result is pretty good, and the photos of the process make it look like such a fun project - it would be a fun thing to get together with friends to do.

I was going to make a longer recs post, but then I realized that I am not going to make it the rest of the archive, so here we go.


First, a drabble. I must confess, under normal circumstances I am kind of prejudiced against drabbles: it's a lot easier to write a bad drabble than a good one. But this A Little Princess drabble actually manages to put an entire story in one hundred words, and it is so very Sara: Beyond Story's End


Second, a Ghost Soup Infidel Blue fic. I must confess, I am also kind of prejudiced against GSIB because obviously Orange is better and you will never convince me otherwise!, because fic for a fandom that doesn't actually have a canon can be, well, not very good.

But when people use Ghost Soup as a way to examine fandom itself, it can be pretty awesome, as with The Very Secret Diaries of Mary_Suep – Ghost Soup BNF (and grade-A cowbag). This is a beautiful satire of some of fandom's worse behavior patterns: Mary_Suep constantly creates drama, but lacks the self-awareness to realize that she's an instigator, not just the innocent victim of other people's unkindness.

I am in awe of how much work the author put into this. She created a Ghost Soup anonmeme, which is a pitch-perfect recreation of anonmeme style!! She wrote Mary_Suep's Yuletide letter, which is truly a masterpiece of an awful Yuletide letter. (I think my favorite part of the letter is this:

Sherlock RPF
(Benedict/Martin)

I think Benedict Cumberbatch is HOTT. But I’m not so big on RPF, all things being told. So for this fandom, I would love to see Benedict and Martin transformed into their roles as John and Sherlock. Maybe they’re transported aboard the Ghost Soup ship! Or maybe Captain Luke and his crew crash land in 221B! Go crazy. As long as no real people are involved, I know I’ll love it.)

And the fic comments are golden, too, because so many of the commenters reply in character as Ghost Soup fans.


And last, an utterly hilarious fic that draws loosely on Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: Time Traveller's Guide: Important Additional Information.

Therefore, regardless of your feelings that William Pitt the Younger as leader of the Conservative Party might improve the 1980s, or that a 21st Century Lib-Con coalition would be more interesting if headed by Benjamin Disraeli and W E Gladstone, you are required to be nothing more than an observer on your forays back in time. (No one will need reminding of the disaster and near complete destruction of the vortex and the planet itself that followed the attempt to bring Elizabeth I, Henry V, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill together in the 22nd Century.)

It is glorious.

Happy Halloween! It’s the end of October, and as such, these are the last of my recs, carefully chosen for maximum Halloween appropriateness.

Title: One Minute, Counting
Author: Kaneko
Fandom: Pushing Daisies
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: short
Warnings: character death, but this is Pushing Daisies. Death is a negotiable condition.
Summary: Ned brings Emerson back from the dead.

Excerpt: “Oh hell no,” Emerson said, which wasn’t part of the speech he’d prepared in case this ever happened, but he’d allowed himself a certain latitude. (Improvised preamble. Cussing.)

Ned opened his mouth, no doubt to say something self-evident and time-wasteful, like: “I have some bad news” or “You had a pretty bad fall there, Emerson.”

Emerson held up his hand. “My death. My minute. You can wait for your own.”


Why I loved it: It’s hard to get Pushing Daisies fic to work - I should know; I tried repeatedly - but this one gets not only the voices but the character interactions just right. If Emerson had died on the show, I’m pretty sure that when Ned brought him back it would have gone just like this. Although it might not have managed to be quite this funny.


Title: if this was the cold war (we could keep each other warm)
Author: oflights
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Rating: R
Word Count: ~11,400
Warnings: language, serious medical condition, too much Sean Parker?
Summary: Mark is haunting Eduardo, in an annoyingly literal way.

Excerpt:He shuffles into his kitchen the next morning and fumbles blindly into his fridge, aiming for some orange juice that he can knock back a few aspirin with. He pours some into a glass, shuts the refrigerator door, and turns to see Mark sitting at his kitchen table, dressed exactly the same as the night before, typing on the same laptop.

Eduardo drops the glass of orange juice; it spills all over his counter and onto his socks, and he ignores it. “Oh my God, I’m going insane.”

“You spilled your juice,” Mark says without looking up, but when Eduardo simply stares at him some more, mouth slightly open, he glances up and squints. “Aren’t you going to clean it? It’s getting everywhere.” He looks down at where a stream of juice is snaking down by his flip-flop-covered feet, and winces and puts them up on another chair.

Why I loved it: Because it’s by oflights, who writes all the best TSN fic. Also because it features Mark suffering, which, let’s face it, I think suspect most TSN viewers have a burning desire to see. (And by “most TSN viewers” I of course mean “me.”)

But there’s far more to it than just Mark suffering. oflights writes such great TSN fic because she has an excellent handle on the characters: how they talk, what makes them tick, and what would make them freak right out. She’s also very good at creating an organic emotional progression, so that when the characters go from hatred or at least intense antipathy to love, the change feels real and not like an authorial manipulation. Death fics in particular have a lot of potential for emotional manipulation, but this story - although it is angsty - never feels like its toying with the readers for the sake of angst.

( Spoilers )

I don’t usually read long fics. Actually, let me rephrase this, I rarely read any fics over 10,000 words long, which I’m pretty sure isn’t even long yet. But The Social Network fic is the exception. Mark and Eduardo’s friendship is so thoroughly busted by the end of the movie, fic really needs to be thousands of words long to put it back together believably.

Title: Mulligan
Author: oflights
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo. Mark and Eduardo with various others, but that’s not very important.
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~11,000
Warnings: None
Summary: Eduardo discovers he's kind of an asshole, breaks his own heart a few times, breaks Mark's heart, and then has to fix it.

Excerpt: He calls Chris, who is not on this coast this week, who he wishes dearly he could go to right now and maybe cry with his head in his lap for a little while. “Chris,” Eduardo says hoarsely. “I am Sean Parker.”

“Oh Jesus,” Chris says. “Hold on a sec, let me put the iron down for this.”

Why I loved it: I really enjoy watching Mark Zuckerberg suffer. Wait, that wasn’t what I meant to say. But it is one of the pleasures of this fic: it’s one of the few stories where Eduardo manages to screw Mark over in a way that feels at all commensurate to Mark’s betrayal of him.

Almost all TSN fics make Mark and Eduardo’s reconciliation way too easy; I find it hard to believe hat they might achieve any relationship closer than “chilly civility when they are forced in proximity.” But this fic sold me on the idea that they wouldn’t just become friends again, but that they could actually build up enough trust to make a romantic relationship work.


Title: Drive All Night
Author: fairy_tale_echo on AO3
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~10,000
Warnings: No archive warnings apply
Summary: Of course Dustin has probably the only car in the world that reads you your Facebook newsfeed. Of course he does. (and when Mark and Eduardo get stuck in it together, they end up saying a lot without ever speaking a word.)

Excerpt: There is still total silence in the car. Though he has let go of the steering wheel and resorted to pushing buttons on Dustin's overly elaborate console (Mark thinks he's trying to turn the heat up, but he could be trying to get some AM weather radio reception.) Wardo still refuses to meet Mark's eyes or even acknowledge his presence.

Well, fine.

If only there was some form of self-selected, instant communication and connection with the outside world that was there for you to get easily lost in so you could avoid awkward, lonely moments just like this.

Oh, wait. There was. It was called Facebook and Mark invented it. So there.

Why I loved it: Mark totally tells off Sean Parker. HA, it is beautiful! And the author did excellent work with the device of the car that reads you your Facebook newsfeed: Mark and Eduardo have what feels like a private conversation (because they’re in a car together) without having to actually speak - and without being able to control who else sees it, which leads to complications. Like Sean Parker getting a smackdown.

Plus, having them together and communicating without actually speaking it a great way to ratchet up the tension. When they finally speak to each other in their own voices, there’s a sense as if you’ve been holding your breath, and can finally let it out.

Title: Precious Little Space Dumplings of Love
Author: shaggydogstales
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Doctor/Master
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: longish?
Warnings: Psychic orgasms, dirty talk. Miscellaneous silliness.
Summary: ‘If I’m going to pose as your overly-demonstrative homosexual love-bunny, I ought to get something out of it myself.’ Post Last of the Time Lords AU.

Excerpt:There are several things wrong with having an evil scheme foiled, being taken prisoner, and kept captive on the TARDIS. The lack of supreme power, with all its attendant capacity for spreading awe and terror, and commanding hot and cold running minions, is a bit of a blow. The indignity of all it – being beaten by a girl, again, rankles pretty hard as well. Putting up with the Doctor’s unnatural levels of sanctimony would drive a lesser Time Lord to distraction. But that’s not the worst of it.

The worst part is that he’s so bloody bored.

Why I loved it: This is full of banter and increasingly hilarious pet names as the Doctor and the Master try to convince the court that their psychic bond is a result of the fact that they’re totally in love, not the Doctor's way of keeping the Master from trying to take over the universe again. You know, like you do.

It’s clear that the author is having a blast with the world-building details - all of shaggydogstales Doctor Who fic is brilliant for this - and the psychic sex is super hot.

I’ve just stumbled on the most adorable little comic! On the Importance of Space Travel, which kicks off when young Jeannie tells her classmates during Show and Tell that she’s a Princess of Pluto.

Is she a Princess of Pluto? The evidence is such that you could decide either way. But it’s a lovely story. I particularly love Jeannie’s verve and enthusiasm, and the kindness of her father. Plus the comic illustrations are cute, and it’s a really quick read.

Sometimes, you just need some adorable in your life. And I am here to help with that! I come bearing not one, but two flufftastic fics with amazing adorable illustrations.

Title: The Markly Duckling
Author: aredblush
Fandom: The Social Network
Rating: G
Word Count: short, with lots of pictures
Warnings: MASSIVE CUTENESS
Summary: Once upon a Spring Break Mark squawked, Chris was otherwise occupied, Wardo came to the rescue, and Dustin was right all along.

Why I loved it: I’ve copied the author’s summary above, but the gist of this fic is: Mark turns into a duckling. Why? Who knows! Who cares! It is an excuse to draw adorable sulky duckling pictures!

I think my favorite picture is the one where duckling!Mark confronts a rubber ducky. He is totally unimpressed.


Title: COMFORT ME
Author: reseda_ptah
Fandom: Fake News (Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert)
Rating: G
Word Count: Also short.
Warnings: No one turns into an animal in this one, so it is not quite as adorable as the above.
Summary: Jon and “Stephen” react to the 2008 election. (Yes, this fic is an oldie. But a goodie!)

Why I loved it: Normally I feel doubtful about first-person fics for a canon that isn’t in first person, but reseda_ptah’s work is so excellent that I would read it if she wrote a zombie apocalypse. She has such a good handle on “Stephen” (that is, the character Stephen Colbert plays on The Colbert Report) that even her first-person version of him is spot-on.

Plus, this one comes with pictures! “Stephen,” true to the fic title, is telling Jon Stewart to comfort him about the election results.

Excerpt: "I'm distraught," I growled. This was maybe not the manliest of emotions, but right now, with that big stupid map all splattered with blue, I had an excuse!

"I couldn't tell," said Jon.

Jon is a bit of an idiot sometimes. He's all right, though. You just have to tell him, in clear, firm tones, what to do.

So I said: "COMFORT ME."

(It helps if you're loud.)

fic_corner stories! I have found time to read, and now I must share my glee in my stories!

First, my main gift, The Very Long Letter Bran Left on His Desk. An epistolary fic! Well, a single epistle, which Bran forgets to send his poor sister, oh Bran. (Maybe I should add “epistolary fic” to my list of things I like for Yuletide.)

The fic covers Bran’s months at Athanarel just after Galdran’s deposition, and I love how it captures the atmosphere of court - the leftover anxiety from Galdran’s reign (we get a few details about Galdran’s court that are quietly hair-raising), slowly fading away as uncertainty about the new court gives way to the sense that things will be better.

The fic also offers an interesting interpretation of Tamara: that her flighty fickleness as at least in part a front that she put on for Galdran, and that court mask has perhaps grown attached to her face and she doesn't know how to (or perhaps doesn't want to) take it off. It’s a thought-provoking take.

And a treat! i give thee the ocean, stormy or tranquil, which is about Tamara and Savona’s relationship - a stormy ocean if there ever was one. Crown Duel being in Mel’s perspective, we don’t get to see Tamara and Savona’s wranglings, and I was left very curious at the end just what they saw in each other: Tamara, after all, is not a very nice person.

This story also offers an interesting exploration of Tamara. She’s still not a very nice person, in fact works at seeming even less kind than she actually is:

It rankles to think that he might dole out his love as a reward for her good deeds, or worse, that he or anyone else might suppose that it’s only his faithful adoration that carved a half-decent human being from the virago of Chamadis.

She’s turned back against herself. But Savona sees the vulnerability that she hides - because he hides his vulnerability in much the same way.

And a couple of recs:

First, Worldbuilding, Chronicles of Narnia, about Polly and Digory discussing what it would be like the build Narnia. Pitch-perfect voices, slyly funny, and interesting speculation.

And second, Mountain Ash, The Dark is Rising Sequence, a little bit Jane/Bran but not much. The focus of the story is on Will, and on the effects of the forgetting on them all - the gaps it has created in their lives.

They never could stick together, having forgotten the core of what had first united them. But apart, they were never wholly contented.

It's taken Will decades to realize what damage the series' end has done to them. There's a sense of quiet melancholy to it, and hope as well.

First week of French class: successfully completed! Here, let me share with you a poem we translated in class. (Yes, we are already translating poems. No wasting time here!)

Chanson d'automne
Paul Verlaine (1866)

The long sobs
of the violins
of the autumn
wound my heart
with a dull
lethargy.

All suffocating
and pale, when
the hour sounds
I remember
the old days
and I weep.

And I depart
on the ill wind
which carries me
hither, thither
like a
dead leaf.

Ah, nineteenth century poetry, how I love you and your wallowing in emotion. I want to name a story after this poem now. Technically it is too late for a Les Mis story, but eh, minor difficulties.

It occurs to me that, though moderns tend to criticize people of the 19th century (although perhaps not so much the 19th century French) for being repressed - the main criticism of this sort of Romantic poem is that it's too much, too over-the-top, too unrestrained.

***

We've also started reading excerpts from Le Comte de Monte Cristo. I think they must be simplified, but I'm not sure...Does Monte Cristo have ridiculously short chapters?

And what is it with nineteenth century French authors and prisons, you guys? Is there any other literary tradition quite this obsessed with prisons?

***

Have not progressed on Les Mis since we last spoke. However, I do come bearing a pair of Eponine & Cosette stories (which might also be read as Eponine/Cosette, although I kind of think they're tagged that way because pairing stories get more readers. Certainly if I can possibly tag a story as a pairing story, I always do.)

( Recs recs )

You know, I was worried that the Lizzie Bennet Diaries might get stale after a while. Sure, a modern vlog of Pride and Prejudice is a fun idea, but could they keep the gimmick fresh?

But the videos just keep getting better and better! And the vlog format doesn’t feel like a gimmick anymore: it’s a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, sure, but it’s also become its own thing, and nowhere is that more obvious than the increased attention the Dairies give to Lydia.

In Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie’s dislike of her youngest sister is presented as, if not admirable, certainly not problematic. But the Lizzie Bennet Diaries really delve into that - their fight in the most recent episodes didn’t hurt quite as sharply as Lydia’s fight with Mary, but it still ached, and I think the pain is going to hang around a lot longer this time. Recovering their relationship from this fight will be much harder than mending Lydia’s fight with Mary, or Lizzie’s rift with Charlotte - not least because neither Lizzie nor Lydia will want to meet the other halfway.

Lydia had let Lizzie’s criticisms just roll of her back, and all of a sudden she realized that Lizzie really meant them - and there’s no way Lizzie can really apologize for that, because she’s not going to (and should not) believe that Lydia’s reckless class-skipping, hard-partying ways are A-okay just because Lydia wants her to.

What I love about the Lizzie Bennet Diaries is that the fights are about real things: issues that cut to the heart of the girls’ relationships with each other. And the narrative gives them the weight they deserve: they feel hard and painful and real. It’s not only rare for a story to focus this intensely on female friendship and/or sisters - it’s rarer still for those relationships to be allowed to be this loving but at the same time so difficult and complicated.

Finally, another Yuletide rec, because it has just perfect Lydia voice, and is simultaneously an excellent character study of Lizzie. Reasons Why Lizzie Bennet is Perpetually Single: A Helpful List Compiled by her Awesomer, Sexier, Totes Adorbs and Amazing Younger Sister. An awesome, adorable, and insightful fic.