In this post: Avengers fic recs, White Collar, and Terence Hill!

Fic recs! lettered has written two AMAZING Bruce Banner-centric Avengers stories you need to read. They're all at her DW/LJ/AO3, but here are some links.

A Fine Spur Uninterested in being an Avenger, Bruce goes back into hiding. Once more Natasha is sent to recruit him, but she has an agenda of her own. There's this total McGuffin action plot, and then this totally meta discussion on whether Black Widow is allowed to show emotion, cf multiple fannish discussions on the subject.

Her Bruce is tops. And her Natasha is... well, let's just say this fic explores some things amazingly well that need to be addressed.

The Hollow Men Steve goes to Uganda, ostensibly to fetch Bruce, who still doesn’t want to join the Avengers. Steve tries to figure out how to do the right thing; they both try to find their place in the world.

This story is, for me, about how the "right thing" is not always obvious and how superheroes in the real world are problematic and the beauty is that it's about lots of things we never talk about but I want to see discussed. And Steve. Oh god I love Steve.

Also, I was going to talk about how we're watching White Collar but she kind of said everything here EXCEPT for how Neal Caffrey totally reminds me of Terence Hill from the They Call Me Trinity movies. In that they're both irritatingly pretty in a way I don't tend to go for and which tends to get used to showcase how pretty they are EXCEPT in their cases, they're so goofy and allowed to look ridiculous that once I see them in action, I cannot escape. And they both have this devil-may-care, except see-what-I-did-there-aren't-I-awesome? attitude. Or maybe it's the icy blue eyes. ( Let's see if I can find some pics... )

Of course, Trinity and Terence Hill deserve a post of their own, but once I start I might not stop.

*Someone recommended this lovely fic to me and I'm passing it on, not even having finished. It's Star Trek XI, Cupcake/Chekov, and highlights the fact that what little we get of "Cupcake" in the film is that he stands up for a woman who's said no more than once already. Kirk's the hero of the film, and yeah, Cupcake's rough, but does that make him right? Very sweet, and I believe the author has gone on to write more about him. We always read about Starfleet's avowed geniuses. What about those redshirts, huh?

*This should explain itself:



*An interesting writing meme:
Is my id showing?

via snickfic: So, a couple of us got to wondering what our fics revealed about us. Hence this anonymeme. Are our ids showing?

I've just put all my stuff up on Archive of Our Own, so this got me wondering. I probably know what my primary concerns are already, but it's interesting to think about how many of them come through in my fanfiction, and which ones I'm not actually aware of. And I wonder if they're consistent through fandoms, or if my concerns are native to one or the other area. Or is there something that links my RPF and my Trek and my Phantom of the Opera? I'm not sure anyone's actually read fic in more than one of my fandoms, but if you've got any insight, let me have it!

*( My thoughts on New Who, through The Time of Angels (not v. positive) )

*lettered/tkp and I may be attending a Star Trek convention. "May be" as in "are."

Nature
*First-of-its-kind narwhal footage. I dunno, whales with horns. It's cool.

Fic
*stefanie_bean has begun a Phantom-related WIP called Kristina: A Fantasy that is sort of AU and fantastic and detailed and realistic at the same time. I like what she's done with the characters so far, because they're not quite the figures you recognize, but you know who they are.

Randomness
*Jane Austen's Wii and Wonderment. Pride and Prejudice reimagined for the Wii. I kept forgetting this wasn't real, and getting upset when I remembered. Of course tkp, being tkp, has very good thoughts about what's wrong with the scenario, with which I agree, but I still think it is very cute and would play it.

*For Seattlites, Vintage Seattle, High-Res Blog Visualizing the Emerald City's Past. Curious about the fact that the Smith Tower was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi (until 1931) and the tallest building in Seattle until the Space Needle (1962), both of which are now dwarfed by the rest of the city, I went looking for old images. (Side note: All those photos of the Space Needle you see are taken from Queen Anne hill, with the Needle in the foreground, so it looks ENORMOUS but it's really not. Ask tkp where it is! She loves that!) Anyway, I enjoyed such posts as this 1907 panorama showing a city not too different in sprawl, but yet to rise. There are a lot of old colored postcards, too.

Advice
*Does anyone know how to do something lj-cut-like on Blogger? I've tried these instructions and can't get them to work. Eh, it's a long shot; I don't expect you to figure out what I'm missing. But it means I can't post my LTROI review, without spoiling.

*Last bit of advice for today: On MLK day, a friend and I watched Jesus of Nazareth all the way through, which was very long and very stupid of us despite the awesome sight of Ian McShane as Judas. What should we watch this upcoming bank holiday? I've considered the Wilson/Stephens Jane Eyre and North and South because she hasn't seen them, but what might I not have seen I should? We're talking mini-series, in the 3-5 hour range, I think, and I've seen P&P and Anne A LOT. Let me hear 'em; I know it's hard to tell what I've seen or not, but throw it at me and see what sticks.

She's done a better job at this than I could, or at least, a good enough job that I don't have to, so anyone interested in the LJ Advisory board elections should see tkp's post about what we should do. As she says, it's for the children porn! It's outdated now, because I am slow. But still important.

In other news (speaking of) I got linked to a modern day POTO fanfic in which Erik is a professor (with apparently no problem wearing a mask in school, so far it's not addressed), married, with two kids, and receiving sexual favors from an extraordinarily slutty 17-year-old Christine in exchange for good grades. I'd have stopped but then Nadir showed up as a beat poet who tokes up with Raoul, and that was just too amazing for words. It's the only part of this morass of OOCness I almost want to be fact.

As a legit rec, I want to cite cesario's girl!Harry stories, Girl in the War and the prequel, Twelve Hundred Hours. She does stuff with a female Harry Potter that I wouldn't have imagined, but makes sense to me.

In still other (personal) news: Still indecisive.