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Fandom: Star Trek TOS Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock Rating: G Length: 1 min 41 sec Creator Links:indeedcaptain Theme: Working together, outsider POV
Summary: the flagship may not be all it's cracked up to be
Reccer's Notes: Have you ever wondered what it's like to work with a commanding officer who has zero judgment when it comes to the captain and who does shit like almost kill him while under the influence of Vulcan mating hormones? Or how about working under a captain who has zero judgment when it comes to his first, and is always doing shit like risking his life and the ship to save his first's life? This short song captures what that must be like. It's the little things like trying to get your damn performance review submitted to Starfleet.
I'm not super into filk, but this one is well-written, with fun rhymes and nice progression from beginning to end. It'll put a smile on your face.
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Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Characters/Pairings: Genfic. John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Elizabeth Weir, Rodney McKay, Aiden Ford, Steven Caldwell, Jack O'Neill, Cowen Rating: G Length: 27,574 Content Notes: Major character death. John has no special relationship with Atlantis and dislikes the city's voice in his head. Dossier's original Notes are here. Creator Links:dossier on AO3 Themes: Working together, Character development, Teamwork, Action/adventure, Genfic
Summary: I had set the galaxy afire because she had given me her loyalty and trust.
Reccer's Notes: Yes, it's MCD, but hear me out. Dossier creates an AU story of Sheppard as Laurence of Arabia, eventually saving Pegasus from the Wraith. Like Laurence, he dies in a motor vehicle accident, which happens right at the start so you know what you're in for. The structure works well - a 3rd person account of his death, then the story itself from the expedition's arrival in Atlantis, told in John's first person POV like T. E. Laurence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", then a last 3rd person section about his death and the birth of his legend. Sheppard doesn't mercy-kill Sumner in this - he remains ostracised and mistrusted by the mainstream military and carves out a role for himself by "going native" and working together with Teyla and the Athosians, and eventually other Pegasus peoples, finally masterminding an alliance that destroys the Wraith, but being wounded himself and losing 20 or so years from a Wraith feeding. As with Laurence, he's ultimately tormented by the deaths he feels responsible for along the way, especially the massive genocide of the Wraith, and he dies on Earth, alone and largely unrecognised. But in Pegasus, it's a very different story. Not a comfort read, but a powerful and well-told story that fits Sheppard's character.
I debated writing this post, because I tend to assume everyone knows Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics - but then again, it’s not often cited as a classic fan studies text, though it absolutely is, and a key. Not only is it a fantastic theoretical and practical explainer of the art form of comics in general - and so is a crucial text to comics fandom, as well as all kind of fan art - but I think it is useful for fandom broadly because of its description of storytelling technique and, even more specifically, its understanding of identification.
McCloud argues (for example on the page below the cut) that readers identify more strongly with a more roughly-sketched face - in its most basic form, a smiley face - than with a fully-fleshed out, realistic or photorealistic portrait. In other words, we all see ourselves in a smiley face - or, for example - in somebody simply drawn like Charlie Brown - whereas if we see a very specifically drawn person, McCloud says we see the other–another, one who is not-me.
I believe this and I think it has a couple of interesting implications for fandom.
Interesting Implication the First: There is a way in which fan art tends to create a kind of quick, cartoonish iconography for popular fannish characters that can–not rival, it’s not a competition!–but provide a very different kind of fannish pleasure than a very realistically drawn image. To be an old, and draw on an old fannish frames of reference like Stargate Atlantis, there is a way in which John Sheppard is represented by a particular flip of upswept messy black hair that makes him - (hear me out!) - look different from actor Joe Flanagan; similarly, Rodney McKay is characterized by his sandy brown hair, heart shaped <strike>ass</strike> face, and slash of a mouth. See chkc’s wonderful chibi McShep below:
Chibi Mcshep - 2010-05-02 - Uniform (0 words) by chkc Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay Additional Tags: Fanart, Chibi Summary: John smooches Rodney while in uniform.
I would argue that a fanartist working in a mode like this makes Sheppard more rather than less real–in a way, the further Sheppard gets from Flanagan, the realer he is, and the closer he is to the John Sheppard who took up a lot of real estate in my mind for a while there. Who is NOT Joe Flanigan, and who can disappear for me if he looks too much LIKE Joe Flanigan. (Similarly: Han Solo is not Harrison Ford! Misha is not Cas! Etc. ) YMMV of course, and certainly there is wonderful realistic art, but I think that fan art serves a lot of different purposes, and there’s something wonderful about more iconographic art…
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Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot) Pairings/Characters: Kirk/inappropriateness, hints of Kirk/Spock Rating: Teen + Length: 3,235 for the fic, 23 minutes for the podfic Creator Links:insaneidiotreena_jenkins Theme: Working Together
Summary: The crew of the Enterprise is subjected to a compulsory seminar on Inappropriate Workplace Behavior, and Jim Kirk finds this to be particularly challenging.
Content notes: In addition to Kirk being inappropriate in the ways one might expect from canon, the seminar leader is stereotyped in a way that might be considered offensive.
Reccer's Notes: I'm reccing both the story and the podfic here because the story is only on LJ, and the writer does not seem to be active anymore. The podficcer, however, is still around, and the pod is hosted on AO3, which may be more accessible for some. It is also the way I first encountered this story.
Now that we have all that out of the way, I can gush about how hilarious this story is because Jim Kirk + Starfleet bullshit is fertile territory, and I always laugh really loudly when listening to the podfic. Jim is so deeply wounded by any attempt to rein in his obnoxiousness, inappropriateness, and mouthiness. The best thing about this fic, though, is Jim's relationship with his crew. Throughout the seminar, we see the dynamics play out, and it becomes clear that the seminar was put together for a very different kind of workplace and a very different kind of crew. As Jim puts it: "All the team unity and 'synergy' exercises in the universe aren’t going to build real trust or strong relationships amongst a crew."
As you might expect, Jim gets kicked down a couple notches by the seminar leader, but the tables turn in an unexpected way by the end of the seminar.
Reena, as usual, does a wonderful job with the podfic.
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Fandom: DC Universe; Sandman Pairings/Characters: Gen; Morpheus, Alan Scott, Tomar-Re, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, OCs by the billions (including Reader?) Rating: General Audiences Length: 297 Content Notes: Nothing icky happens, but the story references Neil Gaiman’s Endless mythos;(1) dream transcript. Creator Links: (Website): https://leighwoosey.co.uk/; (Instagram) leighwoosey; (LiveJournal) woogledesigns; (Twitter) Leighwoosey
Theme: Working Together, Action/Adventure, Gen, Just Plain Fun, Non-AO3 Fics
Summary:One for Sandman fans: I had a dream of Morpheus, who saw an invasion of earth that would go through the dreaming to reach target. Morpheus, who foresaw the plan even as it was being dreamt up by the aliens, was obligated to mount a defense. He recruited two sleeping Green Lanterns, one of Alan Scott of Earth and one Tomar-Re.
Author’s Notes:People are always telling me to keep a dream diary, this is a concession.
Reccer's Notes: Raw dream content notoriously tends to be some-assembly-required narrative material, but in a 29 August 2010 LiveJournal post(2), Woosey described this downright jackpot he received from Dreamland: a cool premise complete with plot, grand spectacle, a firm grounding in the canon lore (note the smooth incorporation of the various Elseworlds Batman scenarios), implicit invitation to the audience (what would you have been doing during the Big Event?) and a clear if haunting resolution. The title is my own metaquotes header.
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Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is.
Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret.
Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!
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Fandom: Star Trek Reboot (AOS) Pairings/Characters: Gen Rating: Teen Length: 1390 words Creator Links:lazulisong Theme: Working together
Summary: Winona is called to fix the cock-up of the Yorktown's engines. She uses one of the science-bitches to help her do it.
Reccer's Notes: This fandom has many versions of Winona Kirk. The one you get here is the engineer who does NOT fuck around and can fix anything you throw at her. She is irreverent and badass. And, in this particular story, she is wonderfully, delightfully contrasted with Spock, who is helping her fix the Yorktown engines. Yes, Spock is the science bitch.
I really can't say much more because I'm laughing too hard rereading the story in order to write this rec. Laz perfects the art of proving that swearing isn't what you do when you lack imagination. Every cuss word in this fic is a brilliant gem of hilarious, creative, and accurate speech.
Like every ridiculous fic that is very, very good, this one makes you believe that this Winona Kirk is not only possible, but is absolutely in character. It also makes you believe that this Spock is possible and will call Winona Overlord and let her call him Tiny Science-bitch.
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Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (tagged both Books and Granada) Pairings/Characters: Holmes & Watson Rating: T Length: 2743 words Creator Links: RatTale Theme: working together
Summary: After a long day of seeing patients, Doctor Watson is on his way home when he gets pulled into an alleyway to help one more patient for the night.
Reccer's Notes: When Watson has an unexpected patient, in an unexpected place, Holmes gets roped into helping. They have to work together for the benefit of the patient. It's very nice to read a story where Watson is the competent medical professional and is the one in charge instead of Holmes.
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This round is for fanworks that feature characters working together to achieve a common goal or—and this is not necessarily the same thing—fanworks set in the workplace.
The tag for this round is: theme: working together
If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.
I am always on the lookout for academic works that talk about the kinds of joy that I feel are characteristic of fandom. There are a lot of books about art, literature, music, etc. but their analysis doesn’t often take into account the pleasures of those activities (Barthes notwithstanding.)
One book that I like a lot for the way in which it conceptualizes joy in collectivity is William H. McNeill’s Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History. McNeill says something that, to me, is obviously true but rarely said: that people like to move together! The book is about the emotional bonding that happens when people move, together, in time: McNeill’s two examples are dance and drill (by which he means military drill - so Beyonce gives us a two-fer with Formation! ) Obviously this is a pleasure familiar to anyone who likes dance of any kind, or synchronised swimming, or drum circles, or marching bands, or yoga or tai chi, or participating in church services, or cheerleading, or doing the wave. I used McNeill in my Vidding book–but I also think of fandom’s love of a good power walk on any TV show! (For a great example check out the last few beats of the Clucking Belles’ Vid “A Fannish Taxonomy of Hotness”, below - power walks are the subject of the last section.)
Reflecting on my odd, surprising, and apparently visceral response to close-order drill, and recalling what little I knew about war dances and other rhythmic exercises among hunters and gatherers, I surmised that the emotional response to drill was an inheritance from prehistoric times, when our ancestors had danced around their camp fires before and after faring forth to hunt wild and dangerous animals…. (p.3)
The specifically military manifestations of this human capability are of less importance than the general enhancement of social cohesion that village dancing imparted to the majority of human beings from the time that agriculture began. Two corollaries demand attention. First, through recorded history, moving and singing together made collective tasks far more efficient. Without rhythmical coordination of the muscular effort required to haul and pry heavy stones into place, the pyramids of Egypt and many other famous monuments could nnot have been built. Second, I am convinced that long before written records allowed us to know anything precise about human behavior, keeping together in time became important for human evolution, allowing early human groups to increase their size, enhance their cohesion, and assure survival by improving their success in guarding territory, securing food, and nurturing the young. (p.4)
Our television screens show continuing pervasive manifestations of the human penchant for moving together in time. American football crowds, South African demonstrators, patriotic parades, and religious rituals of every description draw on the emotional effect of rhythmic movements and gestures. So of course do dancing, military drill, and the muscular exercises with which, it is said, workers in Japanese factories begin each day. Yet, so far as I can discover, scientific investigation of what happens to those who engage in such behavior remains scant and unsystematic. (p. 5)