There are two stories behind this entry. The first is that I was going to make it yesterday, because I think there should be something different for the Ides of March. Then we were ridiculously busy at work, and I didn't want to do anything but wallow in reading fic when I got home. The other story is that when I can't get my shit together (and this is the first week of 2012 where I have gotten my shit together), I pick a fandom I don't care about and read a lot of fic. So here are some recs from three previously-unread fandoms.
AvengersI have now read a lot of Avengers fic, and I feel like a terrible fangirl for saying this, but I don't really get it. Maybe if I'd seen more of the movies than just
Thor. There are two stories I've liked:
Safeword by melannen. The author's summary for this is, "Tony Stark doesn't need to be safe, sane, and consensual. He has JARVIS instead. (Then he gets Steve.)" JARVIS is the pov character, which makes it a particularly interesting story.
The next time Tony specifically requested that JARVIS observe one of his encounters, the other participant was a man who did not yet appear in any of JARVIS's databases. He was tall, burly, had a few days' beard stubble and a leather jacket, and smelled of distilled alcohol and engine exhaust. He must have been someone Tony met in a bar or other location where casual encounters were commonly negotiated.
He was, at several points, rather rough with Tony, and notably demanding. However, he never seemed to have any air of malice about him, and in fact appeared to be quite carefully monitoring and reacting to Tony's level of enjoyment. And Tony never offered any signs of distress; entirely the contrary, in fact. There were several points at which JARVIS considered the possibility that he was expected to interfere, but in the end, he simply let the encounter play out.
The next morning he asked Tony if his lack of action had been appropriate.
"Oh, yeah, don't worry about it," Tony said through his smoothie. "He was considerate all the way. Guess that shows me not to judge people by appearance, huh? Thanks for caring, though, you're great."
Thor is the one movie I saw, and Darcy was my favorite character in it. I discovered, as I read Avengers fic, that I will read any and all Clint/Darcy.
Gift of Asylum by carleton97 and Sister_Wolf is my absolute favorite. Clint and Darcy have really hot sex in a bar bathroom, and years later meet again as part of the Avengers Initiative.
Sleep is just about winning when bar stool girl drops two tequila shots in front of him and says, "Drink up. I'm at least two drinks ahead and you look like you can hold your liquor."
Clint jerks back, surprised again that a civilian girl managed to get so far into his personal space. "Excuse me?"
She gestures impatiently at the drinks. "You seem like you would hesitate to take advantage of a drunken me. I'm trying to fix that."
"Are you kidding?"
She gives him a flat, unimpressed look. "Do I look like I'm kidding? Listen, the math is simple: a few drinks plus you plus me equals sex. If you're not into it, let me know now and I'll stop wasting my time."
Clint isn't used to girls being so blunt about it. Normally a bar hook-up is flirting, a little kissing and "do you want to go back to my place for some coffee?" But hey, she's cute, she's a little weird but not in a bad way, and she wants to have sex with him. Clint is not an idiot.
Clint gives her one of his best charming grins and tips both of the shots back, one after the other.
X-Men: First ClassAs you may remember,
I loathed the movie with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but a couple of weeks ago,
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brown_betty made
a post of recs for AUs where Erik is in a position to mentor people. I did read all four stories (although not the sequel to one of them) before I had to stop because it was just making my rant about the movie loop in my head. The best of the stories she recced is
If You Liked The Book, You'll Hate The Movie by paperclipbitch. Erik is a high school guidance counselor, Alex and Hank are both in mandated therapy with him, Hank and Emma are best friends, Raven tries out everything, Sean is the lead singer of a band, and Erik refuses to sleep with Charles.
Mr Lehnsherr had a smile with too many teeth in and a bare office with no inspirational posters about mental health or life in general or anything in it, and the thin, mean look of a guy with bodies under concrete in his basement. He watched Alex’s glare and calculated silence for five minutes without saying anything, and then said: “I’m Erik.”
Alex had had his fair share of call-me-by-my-first-name-and-now-we’re-friends psychiatrists, and while he didn’t say it aloud, he let his scorn curl across his face.
Erik grinned. “Oh,” he said, “I’m not trying to be your friend here. I have no interest in being your friend because I’ve read your file and you’re an asshole. But I think we can let formality slide since we’re basically here to keep you from killing anyone else.
Hockey RPFI originally started reading Hockey RPF because I wanted something to read and I was promised soulbonding, but I have to admit it's totally my fandom now. I have no interest in hockey as a sport, but hockey fic? Yes, please. Three reasons hockey fandom is awesome:
- It takes place in our real world - no pesky canon to learn!
- Most of the fic is about people living together/hooking up/otherwise making a life together while being oblivious to/dumb about the fact that they're in love, but in an adorable way.
- No one in hockey fandom can quite believe they're in hockey fandom, so everyone who talks about it is hilarious about it.
The first rec is
the Kane and Toews primer by
totheviktor. Even if you have no interest in these people or this fandom, you should read the primer (you don't have to watch the videos; I've only watched a few, and that was well after I read the primer the first time). I laughed all the way through it.
Patrick Kane is a hideous hockey-playing weirdo who is bad at every aspect of life. "An unattractive, terrible dude?" you say. "He sounds like the worst! Tell me more! Does he happen to have a somewhat attractive, bossy captain/teammate/roommate/BFF/bromeo in his life? Do they perhaps have popsicle eating contests, weep over movies, fail miserably at fighting, buy matching furniture, read Twilight, and get called married by their mothers? As men do?"
Yes.
Hockey RPF has an entire subgenre of fic where people teach Sidney Crosby about sex/feelings/having fun.
Heart in Hand (Sidney Crosby/Alexander Ovechkin) by salifiable is my favorite of them. It's very long (130,000 words), so either plan to stop in the middle or don't start reading until you can read all the way through. It is worth the time. It's fantastic. You may want to skip/skim the first sex scene; it's dub con in a way that is uncomfortable to read.
"Oh my god, stop that," he says, pulling Ovechkin away from the glass where the other player is crossing his eyes and trying to touch his tongue to his nose, apparently engaging in a silly-face contest with a kid in the front row. Sid feels like telling the kid that there's no way he can win, Ovechkin has too much of a head start in that race. "C'mon, we need to start practicing."
"Okay, great! What we practice today, Sid?" Ovechkin says, bouncing up and down.
"Well, I've been working on getting better defensively," Sid says. "But you wanted to improve your game, right? What do you think you need to work on? What criticisms of your game did you hear last year?" he asks.
"Russian, dirty player, no defense, choker, predictable, dirty hitter, no defense, show-off, not team player, choker, Russian, dirty, selfish, bad fashion, bad dancer," Ovechkin rattles off.
"Whoa, whoa," Sid says. "Wait, what?"
"I know, right? I dress great, and I'm good dancer!" Ovechkin says indignantly.
"No, I mean..." What Sid really means is that he had no idea Ovechkin had taken all the criticism aimed at him so much to heart.
"But hey, we can work on defense together!" Ovechkin says, brightening. "By end of summer, we gonna be Selke nominees, tell Datsyuk he can't have any more."
You know how
Twilight is terrible? Well, if you make it gay and humorous, then it becomes delightful.
Where the Wild Things Are (Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews) by liketheroad is such a story.
He approaches Johnny slowly, hands up in the air. “No touching, okay, I get it,” he says, using a soft, coaxing voice, but Johnny just presses his shoulders back tighter against the wall. It looks like his nails are trying to dig into the plaster.
“Don’t break the wall, man,” Patrick says. “There’s probably asbestos in there. You could die, and that would hurt.”
It’s a serious fucking concern, because Patrick is a good guy and only looking out for Johnny’s best interests, so he’s almost offended when Johnny starts to laugh.
Okay, that’s a lie. Johnny’s face cracks open with his laughter, his body unfolds, turning loose and bent double, and Patrick stands in front of him, his hands raised triumphantly in the air.
One of the things I really enjoy about hockey fandom is the commitment to stories where one dude plays hockey and the other dude used to but is now homeless/poor/a hooker. The first one of those I read was
Knocking Me Dead (Ryan Kesler/Andrew Ladd) by beatperfume. It's fluffy and delightful, and my absolute favorite variety of hooker AU.
Over the next few weeks, Andrew takes a pair of Kesler’s gloves, a Coach bag containing a present for his mom, a travel coffee mug, and his expensive sunglasses. Some of it Kesler gets back (his mom’s present, his mug) and some he doesn't (he doesn’t even bring up the gloves). But he always has to go back and ask, and every time he ends up having sex with Andrew. The fact that each time, he comes prepared with a couple hundred in cash is something he doesn't think about. He also doesn't think about the fact that he doesn't get mad anymore when he realizes something is missing.
Whatever. He's getting laid and he's playing great, so there's really no need to complain.
The other thing this fandom has a serious commitment to is babyfic.
This comment/chatfic by
shoemaster and
go_gentle is such a story. Erik Staal and Jeff Skinner have a one-night stand when Jeff is seventeen, and it results in a baby. If you are not into mpreg, this story is safe for you since it skips to Jeff showing up with the baby.
He brings their stuff inside and drops it in the hall the second he sees Jeff holding Maggie. She smiles when she sees him, and he's so glad she didn't forget him, even if it was a stupid thing to worry about.
"Hey little one," he says, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Papa missed you."
Jeff is just beaming at both of them and it just feels like home, and it feels like family, and Eric just wants to pull Jeff into his arms and hold them both.
"I missed the way she smells," Jeff admits.
"Way better than the locker rooms at Nassau," Eric agrees, stroking Maggie's cheek.
They stand there grinning at each other for few moments.
Eric finally breaks the moment. "Who's hungry? C'mon, I'll make dinner," he says, putting his hand on Jeff's back to herd him towards the kitchen.
I am semi-systematically reading my way through the hockey RPF at AO3 (there are only 632 of them, and I've already read a fair number of the really long ones), but I will take recs for fic if you are also enjoying this fandom! I am perfectly happy to read these without knowing anything about any of the characters, so team/pairing is unimportant.
