Shiny Things

 Fic rec for Game of Thrones this time, which is weird because I've read maybe 5 fanfics for GoT in total ever, but I stumbled across this one and it's stuck with me, because it's absurd but fun? Cause it's basically a video game.

Game of Thrones fanfic rec:

Sew Long, Fair Well by Sanctified_Jasper

My summary: This earns the "Crack taken seriously tag". It's weird but somehow works.

Some godlike entity that wants entertainment gives adult!Sansa the chance to fix the past by sending her back in time to her child body (just before season 1) and basically letting her live as a video game protagonist in a game themed around embroidery. Which honestly? Works kind of well somehow. She gets a magic embroidery hoop that acts like a game menu, and the more quests she finishes the more powers she gets, to the point that she can actually influence world events.

It's unfinished and abandoned (at an awkward spot mid-quest, too), which is a shame, but what's there is fun to read.

Warning for suicide in the first chapter as that's the method of going back in time (via human sacrifice). For some reason. The first chapter is dark but the rest is significantly lighter. I generally forget about the first chapter when I re-read,

...huh it looks like the author's made some edits since the last time I checked. I get to re-read it now too! :D 

So far I'm sticking to this! Today's rec is:

Agent Carter fanfic rec:

A Lady of Value by Eienvine

Author's summary:
My summary: An Agent Carter Regency AU that really delivers on both the Regency/Austen-like setting and the AC-style plot.

It's a fun story, ~150K long. The two settings are blended really well, combining a Peggy/Daniel fake relationship trope with a "stop the Russian spies" plot that has the vibe of AC's season 1 plot but is well adapted for the setting (of course it's Dottie).

It's all from the POV of Daniel Sousa, ex-Navy captain, and features - besides Peggy of course - basically all the AC s1 characters in appropriate roles. As the story climax approaches the rules of acceptable behaviour (especially for the women) are bent a bit, but it's cool and I don't care. The romance plot is sweet, the setting is enjoyable to be in, and the spy story is well crafted.

I reread it at least once a year.

For this year I've decided to try an adapted version of Fandom50 / Fannish50 just to get myself posting again. The original challenge description is:

This is a challenge to make fifty posts about fandom things. They can be whatever kind of posts you’d like - movie reviews, recs, a story about meeting a fellow fan, cosplaying … anything!

As I'm historically bad at keeping up with things with a high workload, I'm going to make this very easy on myself. Goals:

• Once a week (day flexible, can do 2+ in a later week if I fall behind)
• A post about something to do with fandom, fanfic, or my fanfic
• Default / fallback to a rec for a fic I like because I've got well over 50 of them

And for this week....

Star Wars fanfic rec:

Don't Look Back (series) by acuteneurosis.

My summary: Timetravel fixit AU where Leia finds herself on Tatooine before Ep2 and sets out to save the galaxy from Palpatine - not by force, but in her arena: politics. Things like campaigning for clone citizenship, moving refugees, keeping trade routes safe to keep the economy stable, and all the million small things that can affect a war. It's a delight to watch Palpatine gnash his teeth and seethe as her quiet undermining of his power grab gets more and more traction, making bigger and bigger changes to the war.

I say politics, but this is in no way a dry fic: Leia first meets Shmi, who essentially adopts her, and their grandparent/grandchild relationship is a backbone of this story. They end up on Naboo, which leads to Leia working in Padme's office and eventually alongside her in the senate, eventually figuring out that this is her mother through a mix of the embarassing/awkward way Anakin interacts with her and Leia's own growing Force powers. Cue lots of feelings. Also watch her heart break a little whenever she has to be in a room with Bail Organa and struggle not to call him "Father", but on the flip side we get some beautiful moments of interacting with her parents and being on Alderaan again.

Also featuring Luke as a ghost in Leia's mind providing both a comfort for his stressed-out sister and a peanut gallery commentary in lighter moments.

This is seriously one of the best fics I've read for any fandom in the last ~30 years. The characterisation is spot-on, the situation is unique, and every character and plot thread is well considered and weaves back and forth into the story nicely, if sometimes fifty chapters later. Leia's struggle to see Anakin as a human separate from the Vader of her nightmares takes the time required to be believable, and her (unwitting) influence eventually leads to a much healthier, slower-paced and genuine relationship between Anakin and Padme. Shmi surviving to mother him, Leia, and half the clone troops is done well too, as is the slow-grown trust that brings Leia into working with Padme's handmaidens and eventually the Jedi.

There's a lot of anticipation of a Big Reveal moment when someone will find out Leia's from the future, but so far (and did I mention it's 500K+ long already?), Leia has steadfastly refused to tell anyone, and I think it makes the story better. This isn't a fic that leans into tropes or stereotypes, and while we've been assured of a happy ending, I genuinely do not know what's going to happen next.

And, the author is very punctual with their posting schedule: They write in small chapters and have a dozen or so written ahead of posting, and so post pretty much on the same day every week. Three of the four(?) major arcs are posted and the next is on its way (early this year), so nothing is being posted right now, but if you jump in, by the time you get through the existing text, the rest will be incoming.

Go read, please, I want to talk about this with someone :D

(... So much for a low-effort first post, huh? lol)

Just a note to all that I use online fandom spaces like DW and tumblr as my safe spaces in which to relax and escape stressful things, so I have blocked all the words/tags I can think of and will ignore pretty much every post or comment mentioning Certain Topics for the indefinite future. It's not personal and I'm not ignoring any of you individually, but I've got to look forward to being here, not dread it.

Found at delphi 's blog:

Go to AO3 and find the following (in your tags):
( 5 questions )

Guys! I just watched Damsel (on Netflix) and I really liked it. Really, really liked it.

No spoilers below beyond what's in the trailer, brief summary under the cut if you don't feel like watching it.

( Cut for length )

So have any of you seen it? Want to see it? Thoughts?

This year's 3 Sentence Ficathon has started! I'm going to try to participate this year. Anyone who's interested is welcome to participate, just be sure to read the intro post to understand it all first.

Challenge #2: Set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

2023 was a slow year for me for fandom, so I'd like to do more this year. I'm not going to set hard or high goals because that's the fastest way to feel like I've failed, but just more in general, in little ways.

I want to:

• Interact more with people in fannish spaces, both with the people I'm already mutually following and, hopefully, making new friends.
• Write a little fic here and there, maybe nothing finished/posted, but at least put some words on 'paper' here and there. Of course, this kind of needs me to be inspired and somewhat enthusiastic about a fandom again, which leads to:
• Enjoy fandom more, get enthused about at least one of my (existing or new) fandoms again. You know that feeling when your brain just won't stop spinning on a story or character, when you sit up in bed several times a night to write something down, when you lose yourself in hours of reading people's meta and headcanons and such and diving head-first into the A03 tags until you've got a huge stack of Marked For Later fics that'll take a few months to read through? That. I had that a little last year with Jedi Survivor, so this one shouldn't be too hard.

Fingers crossed!

You ever come across a draft in your WIP folder that you'd mostly forgotten about, and it turns out it was basically done, you just overshot the ending and needed to pull it back a few lines? Yeah, I did not expect to be posting anything at all in the near or far future, partiularly for this fandom; I haven't watched new MCU stuff in years. Surprise for me I guess?

Title: One More Stray
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hawkeye (TV 2021)
Summary: Yelena loved American Christmases. She never expected to get another one, let alone with the Bartons.

Hope all of you are having a happy holiday and that you feel loved <3

Starting this rec series off with a popular fandom for which I have surprisingly few recs, but slow starts are good.

From Your Lips to God's Ears by Luthe
Summary: Aziraphale really needed to stop listening whenever he heard Crowley talking to God. (Or five times Aziraphale heard Crowley talking to God and one time Crowley heard Aziraphale)
My notes: Nice canon gapfiller that's at times a little heartbreaking but mostly just good character moments as Aziraphale and Crowley get to know each other, with the requisite funny endnotes throughout.

Blasphemous by anticyclone
Summary: Crowley probably shouldn't have accepted the invitation to dinner, but then he would have missed out on the earthly mother of the son of the Lord saying, "Between the two of us, the Archangel Gabriel's a total prick." And that would have been a real loss.
My notes: Short, funny, and a nice take on these Biblical figures as normal-as people.

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm
Summary: As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. [...] What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?
My notes: Long and at times very heavy, but clearly written by someone who knows their shit and has done a thorough dig into Crowley's psyche, with Crowley being very much Himself the whole time. The POV original character is surprisingly well-rounded and manages to carry the story well enough that I genuinely got emotional about her at the end.

A Christmas Princess by Jupiter_Ash
Summary: Sara had always known that her uncle was a narrow-minded bigoted arsehole, she just hadn’t realised he was an idiot as well. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, her uncle’s idiocy led Sara all the way to a cosy Christmas cottage in the South Downs.
My notes: Sweet Christmas fic from the outsider POV of a trans woman with a not-great family who gets treated wonderfully by our resident angel and demon. It's part of a long series about Aziraphale and Crowley settling in a small village, which I've read in full and is fine overall, but this is the one I keep coming back to, and it can be read on its own without much issue.