Friday Fics Fix - What If Zemo Was In the Zombie Apocalypse (With Bucky)?

 

'...he smiled, apparently amused. “The apocalypse seems to make for strange bedfellows. A Sokovian Baron and a Winter Soldier walk into a bar.”'

Due to the current vastness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU - the Marvel movies) sometimes it can be difficult to explain where, within the sprawling fandom and its sub-fandoms, fan-created content fits in.

This week's fic is mostly based on the Marvel's What If..? zombies episode, but also reaches into the main continuity, and hoiks out Zemo, dropping him into the zombie-ness so that he can play too.

While Zemo was present in Captain America: Civil War, he really came into his own in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (TFATWS.) Civil War has happened in this universe (or at least, the fic author presumes,) but TFATWS hasn't.

Friday Fics Fix - Loving Losers

 

'..."Uh, yup." Richie shrugged. "Just all reconnected this weekend for some good old fashioned sewer clown fighting and murder."'

I love the IT movies.

- That's the modern, 2010s, IT parts 1 & 2. 

(Technically the films are IT, and IT: Chapter 2, but you all know what I mean, so expect me just to call them parts 1 & 2 throughout this post.)

I haven't seen the Tim Curry adaptation - though I might get around to it one of these days, purely because Tim Curry. 

I also haven't actually read the Stephen King novel because it's one of those 1000+ page behemoths that you have to kind of psych yourself up to tackle, and I'm yet to summon the sufficient energy and desire to do so.

Again, I might get around to it at some point, since I'm a general Stephen King fan.

Nerd Church - Why Doesn't the Brahms Doll In 'The Boy' (2016) Freak Me Out?!

(Warning: this post references domestic violence, and discusses elements of horror movies)

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The Boy (2016)* is a horror film -

not to be confused with any other films called ‘The Boy’ or ‘Boy’, including, because the world is like this sometimes, The Boy (2015)

- about Greta (played by Lauren Cohan)  – an American chick who escapes her abusive ex by literally fleeing the continent, and taking a job as a nanny in the UK.




Only, when she’s introduced to Brahms, her charge while Mr and Mrs Heelshire -

(that name screams ‘I don’t know what to name these characters, call them something posh,’ doesn’t it?)

- head off on holidays, she’s more than a little weirded-out.




Because the kid she’s supposed to take of? The Boy, Brahms? – Is a porcelain doll.

Cue odd goings on, all alone with Brahms in a secluded mansion, with no mobile phone service and no Internet.

Friday Fics Fix - A Queer Horror Fanfic Rec List

 

Since it's October, and therefore a time for all things spooky and gothic (woohoo!) I thought I'd give you all a little taste of some horror fics.

Some of these are horror in that the specific piece of fanfiction is horror-based, and some of them are actually based on horror media/fandoms. OK? OK.

Oh, and they're all Queer af.

As I’ve mentioned before, Queer people love horror.

(Not all of us, obviously, that would be a sweeping generalisation, and everyone’s different, but a lot of Queer people do love horror. And I mean LOVE it.)

So, horror's Queer, fanfiction's Queer, let's pull some monsters outta the closet! 😉😎😅

Friday Fics Fix - An Umbrella Novella

 

'Klaus claps his hands together. “Yay, sibling bonding time!”

Diego levels a stare at the medium. “We’re hunting a serial killer.”'

We return to The Umbrella Academy (TUA) dearest nerdlets!

It turns out that there's a tiny corner of my brain which isn't entirely absorbed by Marvel superheroes, and the Hargreeves siblings from Netflix's adaptation of TUA have reclaimed their residence.

(As they should.)

Nerd Church - Witch-Hunts and Fear: The Emotional Maturity of ParaNorman

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I love the movie ParaNorman*. It’s hugely underappreciated.

This beautiful, weird, stop-motion mash-up of classic horror and kids’ adventure tale is surprisingly emotionally mature.

It explores the way that fear creates hatred, which in turn creates fear and hatred. And that adults can sometimes act out when they’re scared, in ways that can hurt the people – the children – around them.

Warning: this post contains SPOILERS for the film ParaNorman, and discusses: persecution (including religious-based persecution,) Ableism, Transphobia, Homophobia, horror elements, executions, death

I’ve seen ParaNorman quite a few times now – it always strikes me like it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

I think I forget, in between watches, just how good this film is.

First-off, of course, I appreciate anything made with stop-motion animation – stop-motion uses puppets or models, which are imaged, frame-by-frame, as they are moved incrementally by hand.

When the still images are put together (at a rate of around 24 frames per second,) it generates the illusion of movement.

In order to create smooth-looking movement, the positioning of the models from one frame to the next has to be both minute and precise.

Friday Fics Fix - Pride Fics Fest: Sandbox Love Never Dies

 

And we're here! It's the last week of my Prides Fics Fest, where for the month of June, I give Friday Fics Fix over solely to LGBTQ+ fics!

Which isn't much of a change, because fanfiction is Queer af, but this month has focus and everything! 😅

'Needy wraps her hands around the smooth wood handle and takes a deep breath. Then she raises the shovel and stabs it into the earth.'

Jennifer's Body is a, thankfully renaissance-having, staple of Sapphic culture.

For years, this Queer horror classic was maligned by A-hole, Allocishet (non-LGBTQ+,) male critics and audiences, who didn't effing get it!

Friday Fics Fix - Not Ready

 

'As good as she is at anticipating his family’s actions and decisions, everything always gets a little skewed and unpredictable once the bullets start flying'

I love quirky horror movies with kick-butt heroines - which brings us to the film this week's fic is based on: Ready or Not.

Ready or Not is a super-quirky horror film about Grace, who is marrying Alex Le Domas - a member of the rich Le Domas family, who made their money in board games.

(And yes, there is a vibe here that feels very akin to Knives Out, but that's more of a crime film than this - this is def. horror.)

Friday Fics Fix - Movie Night Is Kind Of Crowded

'For Klaus, there are – approximately – seven million people crammed into this slumber party, most of them screaming at the top of their lungs'

 

I read a lot of Umbrella Academy fanfiction, like a butt-tonne.

So yes, this week's fic rec is once again an Umbrella Academy fic.

Friday Fics Fix - My Stand-Out Fics of 2020

 

It's December in a matter of days, which means that Friday Fics Fix will be going on its annual Christmas holiday.

...So what better opportunity to look back on the fics that've really stood out to me in 2020?

(Don't answer that. It's rhetorical. I'm gonna do it anyway. 😎)

2020 has been 2020.

So, I've totally been reading a butt-tonne of fanfiction as self-care. 

Because fanfiction is excellent for all the self-care purposes - whether you need deep and angsty, or sweet and fluffy, or you want to fulfil some very um, specific, tastes: fanfiction has it all!

(I don't judge. But if I never read another pumpkin sex fic, it'll be too soon. And yes, it happened again in October - how do they keep finding me?!)

Friday Fics Fix - Lost and Found

(Warning: this post discusses Homophobia/general Queerphobia, and negative stereotypes of LGBTQ+ people.)

'Watching David watching him and not really knowing if he was only picturing David there, or if David actually was there.'

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Please do not use my links to make UK purchases.

If you've faffed around the nerd part of the Internet, or the bookish part of the Internet, or the Queer part of the Internet, (amongst others, I'm sure,) you'll know that it's spooky season, i.e. October leading up to Halloween 👻

A lot of Queer people love horror and/or all things Gothic. I mean LOVE it.

Even if, as a genre, it's always had a somewhat love/hate relationship with us, painting us as either villain or deserving victim in more shameful stereotypes than I have the energy to go into here. 

And even that was often a coding (i.e. implied,) rather than explicitly Queer characters.

Review! - Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of The Faun by Guillermo Del Toro and Cornelia Funke

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Please do not use my links to make UK purchases.

Title: Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of The Faun

Author: Guillermo Del Toro and Cornelia Funke

Genre: Media Tie-In, Horror, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Fairy Tales (-ish,) Magic Realism(-ish,) Young Adult (Maybe? Maybe just adult with YA appeal. It's kind of difficult to gage the age range here!)

Amazon USA

Friday Fics Fix - Tony And Bucky In A Horror Trope? Why Not, I Guess!

 

'“Oh, my God,” Tony hisses. “Aren’t you like the greatest assassin the world’s ever seen? Why are you struggling so much with a stupid knot?”'

 

I actually have no idea WTF I just read - but I kind of love it.

That's one the fab-est things about fanfiction, dearest nerdlets, it's so very, very, random. 

And it can surprise you. Even when you've read what has to amount to thousands of fics.

Friday Fics Fix - Pride Fics Fest: Queer Canon!

Welcome back to Pride Fics Fest dearest nerdlets!

This week we're gonna look at those oh-so-amazing canonically Queer characters and relationships, and fanfiction that celebrates that.

For those who don't know, canon is the official stuff that's actually in the book or TV series or film or whatever, explicitly...

...as opposed to stuff where you have to scramble around in the sub-text, or stuff which fandom picks up and Queers all on its lonesome ;)

Let's start with the horror masterpiece I will never shut up about: 2009's unapologetically Queer Megan Fox film, Jennifer's Body.

In 2009, there was a girl named Jennifer Check, and in 2019 I rec'd Big Red by spheeris1 - a fic that is essentially a love letter to this under-appreciated film.

(Seriously, I'm never gonna shut up about this film! I love it so much!)

Friday Fics Fix - Pride Fics Fest: Bringing Subtext Into The Spotlight

June is Pride Month dearest nerdlets! 

So, since a lot of events have been cancelled this year (*whispers* I've never actually been to an event and that's OK! There's no checklist for Queer validation!) and fanfiction is, generally, Queer af, I figured I'd have my own li'l Pride Fics Fest!

This week, I'm looking at fics which take that Queer subtext (which ranges from slipping under the radar to just plain Queerbaiting,) and bring it to the forefront!

Because fanfiction, as mentioned, is hella Gay!

So, I've been mining my extensive fanfiction-related blogpost archive, to bring attention to the fics which bring attention to the subtext! :)

Friday Fics Fix - The Fear of Jonathan Crane

 

(Warning: this post references child abuse and systemic child protection failings.)

 

'Jonathan held up his hands, retreating into his hood. Hide your face. It’s a monster.'

 

One of the most compelling and mature superhero shows of recent years is Gotham.

It's also one of the most under-rated, because people suck, and haters gonna hate. 

(Luckily, those of us who love this show know how goddamn awesome it is!)

Gotham is a Batman-prequel, showing the lives of many of the villains, and a few of the heroes, in the years between the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and the time baby Bruce put on the Batman cowl.

It shows bad people doing good things, and good people doing bad things. Because life - especially in Gotham - is problematic and messy.

Friday Fics Fix - Undead, Not Unreasonable

'There is a key scraping the inside of the lock, and the door was swinging open, the monster standing inside of the doorway, blocking any other view. He is smiling, his horrible fangs fully shown, in the flickering candlelight of the room.'

The established king of vampires is, and always will be, Dracula.

Since 1897, it's been adapted time and again, becoming the fundamental core of vampire fiction and media.

I Watched The Film First! *Gasps* - 5 Books That I Read Because I'd Seen The Adaptations

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Please do not use my links to make UK purchases.

You know the voice that's just like: 'you've read the book, now see the movie!'

...that voice doesn't know me at all.

I read a butt-tonne of books. 

Like, I read at the 200-per-year kind of speed.

But I watch loads of film and TV adaps. before I read the book.

Nerd Church - Hope, Politics, and the Zombie Apocalypse

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(Please do not make UK purchases with my Amazon links)

Something important happened on Thursday, dearest nerdlets!

What..? The UK election..?

Yeah, that happened too.

We now know which brand of f**ked we, as a country, are stuck with *sighs*



What I'm talking about, though, is yours truly watching a truly bizarre, but amazing, film, called Anna and the Apocalypse.

Have you ever thought, 'wouldn't High School Muscial be better if it was combined with Shaun of the Dead... and it was in Scotland... at Christmas...?'

No? Well apparently someone did!

No, really. That is what this film is.

Friday Fics Fix - Haunted

'Diego was still screaming but his voice was drowned and consumed, overtaken by the dead that hung around him, but Ben was screaming too...'

It's Umbrella Academy time!

...I think a lot of you will have guessed that I couldn't resist an Umbrella Academy fanfiction post for much longer (especially since I read a butt-tonne of Umbrella Academy fanfiction!)