scrubjayspeaks

Day 2

Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I had originally planned to do a nostalgia rec set, but that rather came apart on me. So here: have an assortment of things I have liked with commentary.

Apocalyptic, by Grable424 & djcprod (fanvid, multifandom): the apocalypse should probably not make me feel so pumped up, but this one does it. By the time it gets to the line of "we go forward," I feel like I have rediscovered a reason to live. (Even "Live. Breathe. Suffer." feels like a motivational moto.) I have a deep, badly scarred-up place in my heart for anything that can be described as "teeth-gritted determination." I hum the song to myself at work sometimes, thinking of this, when the bullshit level is particularly elevated and I need to keep my head above it.

Lights for the Emperor, by tend (fic, Yu Yu Hakusho, Kurama/Hiei): I need to reread this, but I'm sort of saving it for some misty spring day. That feels like the right sort of time to get cozy with this story again. (I mention all this to excuse my inability to give any kind of detailed synopsis.) I found this when doing an "I wonder if anything interesting is happening in my ur-fandom" search. And it was particularly lovely, with its nuance and its quiet and its difficulties, as a reintroduction as an adult to something I loved as a teen. Also, the world building aspect of Kurama performing traditions intended to cast out evil spirits--traditions that actually activate against him--was brilliant.

The last bit does have two fic recs, but it's actually a...concept that I'm recommending. The stories OK Computer by Speranza and Transfigurations by Resonant both have a DVD commentary version, here and here respectively. These are both solid nostalgia stories for me, this time more from the college years, I think. They both do fascinating things with world building, and story arcs, and identity, and the passage of time. I love even more the commentary versions, which is something I don't seem to see done anymore?

For OK Computer, the commentary is some great literary analysis, including some really interesting commentary on queerness in media. For Transfigurations, you have an author and a beta in conversation about the writing process, which--you have no idea how endlessly fascinating that is to me. When I reread either story, I prefer to read the commentary version. What one loses in immersion is, I find, made up for in complexity of engagement.

As I said, I don't really see this happening any more (the lj challenge community for it has long since died), but maybe I'm in the wrong fandoms for it these days? If anyone knows of individual fic or fandoms where this is being done, I would totally be willing to leap into a new fandom for this. Hell, even rec me old stuff with commentary versions that you find particularly satisfying--I won't turn my nose up at it.