itsadrizzit | Fandom Snowflake Challenge: Day 3

Day 3

In your own space, post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So, this is a weird thing to say, but recs are hard for me. I don't want to have to say that, but I have this weird thing where:

(1) I can't REMEMBER anything, so I have often consumed AMAZING fanworks and knew they were AMAZING fanworks and then sort of...forgotten they existed. Which is sad, but I sometimes go through my AO3 bookmarks like "what IS this?" and it turns out it was a really great work that had a lot of impact on me and I had forgotten it and I read it again and it seems vaguely familiar but it's not this instant recognition thing. Bright side, I get to enjoy it again.

(2) in many instances I can't parse things. I'm on the autism spectrum, which means I see things as sort of universally good or universally bad (or in this case "enjoyed" or "didn't enjoy") which makes it hard to assign relative rankings to works. So something that is SO AMAZINGLY IMPACTFUL often gets ranked the same as something that was pretty good, but not overly memorable.

(3) I never know how to tell people WHY I enjoyed a work or WHAT I enjoyed, I just sort of...know I enjoyed it. Like...this affected me in some way and therefore I connected to it. I don't usually ask why. I'm a highly emotional person so if something tugged at an emotion or made me connect to it in some cryptic way, it becomes "I like this thing" and I just let that be what it is.

That said, there are works I come back to from time to time, so I will share those with you here. I will probably miss some, but here are ones I know for sure impacted me in some way for some reason. Due to point 3, they are offered with minimal explanation because the only thing I will have for you consistently is "they were good and I liked them" which is unhelpful.

I encourage you to check all these out and leave feedback, especially since many of them are in smaller fandoms or are older works or are podfics and probably need your love.

1.A Song of Fire [Podfic] by originally

The Dark is Rising is a fandom I was in long before I realised I was in it or what a fandom was or any of these things. I read the books when I was a child (rather young...probably around ten years old I think) and FELL IN LOVE with them. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the urban fantasy elements (even though I had no idea that's what they were at the time). I was touched by these stories and I just wanted to go to a place where I could live in the English countryside and time travel and live in the present and the past simultaneously, etc. etc. etc. Then...we got to book four of the series which took us to Wales and I. FELL. IN. LOVE. This book had Arthurian mythology and the Welsh countryside and I vowed, even as a ten year old child, that I WOULD GO TO THE WELSH MOUNTAINS ONE DAY. In addition, book four introduced my favourite character, Bran Davies. I love him. He's perfect. He remains perfect start to finish. That's all I'll say. Another thing I didn't realise as a child is that I appreciated Bran Davies and the main character of the series Will Stanton as a pairing. That I wanted them to be together. That I loved their love. I read the books now and I see it, I know it, I feel it. As a child I viewed it as a love between boys who were fast friends, but as an adult, no....

So, this fic is about Will and Bran. It's short. The podfic is only 11 minutes. But! Originally DOES AMAZING THINGS WITH THIS PIECE. I am reccing the podfic instead of the fic because this fic has such a rhythm to the language and Originally just takes it to an amazing level. That, combined with the fact that she actually speaks Bran's dialogue in a convincing Welsh accent, which is something I never got when just reading the books or reading fic about Bran...I had to just imagine it in my head instead of hearing it. So this podfic brings the characters to life and it's poetic and has this amazing rhythm and I highly recommend it even if you're not in the fandom. It's 11 minutes of your life, so not a huge commitment, and well worth it.

2. It Takes a Lot of Time to Live in the Moment [Podfic] - by Twilight_Angel

This is a Welcome to Night Vale podfic. There is A LOT of fabulous Welcome to Night Vale podfic out there. The podfic community embraced that podcast and celebrated it because it was finally a medium that was SO TAILORED to what we do as our art form.

So...this story comes with a lot of warnings. It's a Night Vale story, so it's weird. It has canon-typical levels of horror and violence and character death. It's a groundhog day story, so it's a character stuck in a loop. The author has included a lot of warnings (which include spoilers) here, and I don't want to gloss over those because I think warnings are important.

I am recommending the podfic mostly because this is how I consumed this content. I have TONS of time to listen to audiofiction and almost no time to actually read fiction, so I tend towards podfic to get my content. I'm sure i'm missing great fics doing things this way, but it's a time issue and how I need to live my life. But! Twilight_Angel does a great job with the reading and the character voices and inflecting the right moods and levels of frustration and sort of sadness and defeat into this fic where needed. It's a long-ish podfic (1 hour 20 minutes), and the way the story goes you get Carlos going through this amazing emotional arc and they capture it so well. THEN! AT THE END! They use a song from one of the episodes of the podcast and it's PERFECT and really ties things together. Highly recommended.

3. Merlin Things

Seriously, I tried to narrow down my Merlin rec list to one and I CANNOT. I'm not going to give a lot of explanation (probably), and these are all modern AUs (because that is how I like my Merlin fanworks), and all of them are podfic (because I have never actually read a fic in the Merlin fandom because there were so many of them, but also so many great podfics, so I treated the podfics as my "Merlin fic recs list" and left it at that. So...here are some Merlin podfics I enjoy for one reason or another:

Defenders of the Realm - FayJay
Summary: Modern AU. Arthur and Morgana are Metropolitan police officers drawn into a strange case involving robbery of ancient artifacts. Merlin is a graduate student at Imperial College studying the healing plants of Ancient Britain under Gaius – or at least that's what he tells everyone. Soon they, along with Gwen, Lancelot and Uther, will be facing a battle for the future of the country. Can they defend the realm from those who would seek to destroy it?

FayJay is a GREAT reader and this is a great story and they bring it to life in the best way. It's very long (5+ hours), but I felt engrossed in the storytelling the whole time.

We're A Storm in Somebody Else's Teacup - Twilight_Angel
Summary: In which Merlin and Morgana meet at a support group for people with superpowers, and accidentally start a chain of events that nearly destroys the world.

I just really love this story. Love it. A lot. Read the fic or listen to the podfic, either way. It's great. The writing is good, the characterisation is good. Everything is yes.

Drastically Redefining Protocol - Revolutionaryjo
Modern AU. Arthur is the Prince of Wales. Merlin is still magical and works in a hospital and has a huge crush on Prince Arthur. They accidentally meet in a supply closet and things escalate from there.

This is quintessential Merlin podfic/fic content. Jo's reading is fabulous and steady and lovely and brings me such joy. This story is fun and lighthearted and comedic in the best ways while still definitely being a Merlin story. Love it. There is also a version by Lunchee that I haven't listened to, but Lunchee is generally excellent so it's almost certainly worth a look. It's also like 5 hours long, because that's how I roll.

MERLIN - emptybackpack
From fanlore: This is completely fun and completely crazy. Arthur is a frat!boy (and thus somehow stupid), and Merlin is a bio-engineer. They're suppose to be writing a script for a creative writing assignement. It turns out to be MERLIN. Kind of... A lot of laughs ahead!

So this, along with Drastically Redefining Protocol, are basically THE MOST RECOMMENDED Merlin fics as far as I know. Or they were back in 2009 when Merlin was in its relevance. The fic, as far as I can tell, has been deleted and doesn't exist on AO3 (idk, it might, but I couldn't find it). That said, the podfic is GREAT. Everything is great. I'm not even usually about the University AU, but in this case YESSSSSS. Arthur is such a trash person and Gwen is THE BEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD and everything is fabulous.

But It's A Good Refrain - Striped_Bowties
Summary: Arthur doesn’t care much about the popular radio program Dragon’s Lonely Hearts until his ex-girlfriend calls in to slag him off and get advice. When he calls in and has an on-air argument with the host, it starts off more than he expected, including meddling friends, overinvolved fans, and maybe love.

Merlin has a radio show. There are FRIENDS CALLING OUT FRIENDS ON THE RADIO. It's a Lady_Ragnell fic and all their things are great. This fic is fun. It's just FUN. Plus it uses one of my favourite Regina Spektor songs. Striped_bowties is a GREAT reader and has a voice that is lovely to listen to. I have nothing else. I like it. It's good.

4. Football Things - my main fandom these days

I have a lot of recs here, but I feel strange about a lot of them since they were made FOR me, so i don't necessarily want to rec things that were created specifically so I would like them.

That said, kaixo and analise010 teamed up to make me a fic/podfic combo of my favourite rarepair (it's only for a year) and I will treasure it forever. Honestly, the story is an AU I wanted to write but couldn't because it required the right tone and the knowledge of Brighton that I didn't have but kaixo did. And analise010 EVEN THOUGH SHE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THIS FANDOM just nailed everything. There's a delivery of a particular line, which in the original fic was written in Dutch and was complicated so she chose to do it in English, THAT I HEAR IN MY HEAD EVERY TIME I'M WATCHING THE TEAM PLAY AND THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER MAKES A BAD PASS OR IS IN THE WRONG SPOT OR GENERALLY ISN'T DOING A THING CORRECTLY (which is, admittedly, a rare occurrence, but still). It was made for me, so I am obviously biased, but I think it's a great fic and a great reading. It possibly requires some context in the fandom, but honestly it's an AU so you can technically just enjoy it as is.

Loose Ends - Kaixo
This possibly also feels like cheating since I'll be reccing this again when I do the self-rec post, buuuuttttt, I love this fic. It's an AU and it makes me feel things even now after I have read it SO MANY TIMES and listened to the podfic SO MANY TIMES. All the characters are so realistic and relatable and you sort of don't like any of them but also love them and want them to be together and it's a fabulous read. There is no actual football content, so I think it's pretty accessible outside the fandom since one of them is a DJ/musician and the other is a member of the British aristo and it's just...idk it's just REAL. There are family issues on all sides and class issues and judgmental friends and relationship issues and the whole thing is just such real life and I like it a lot. I recommend it.

5. Dragon Age
I should have more recs in this fandom. It was the ONLY place I existed when I first got into fandom and I know there are things I ADORE, but I don't remember what they are anymore.

That said, here are two podfics by rscreighton that are fabulous and some fics (most of which I podficced). There are other great things. I love a lot of things. I can't think of any right now though. I'm running out of steam so they are presented here with no comment, just I recommend them and you should go look at them.

Paper and Cotton [Podfic] - RsCreighton and SomethingIncorporeal (Dragon Age II Anders/Fenris)
Between the Elevated Road and the Water - RsCreighton (Dragon Age II Fenris/M!Hawke)
Armored Series - Astolat (Dragon Age II Fenris/M!Hawke)
The Time of Your Life - Kelcat (Dragon Age: Awakening Anders/Nathaniel Howe - This is my forever OTP and it's TRAGIC and I love it)
Grey Sky Morning - bioticbootyshaker (Dragon Age: Awakening Anders/Nathaniel Howe - also my forever OTP. This was written to accompany a fanmix I made for a reverse big bang)