Friday Fics Fix

Hello! And welcome to my first ever Friday Fics Fix!

This is where I trail through reams of fanfiction so you don't have to! Because fanfics are a really, really strange portion of the internet - yet weirdly addictive!

I plan to highlight about five fics every Friday, pointing out the weird and wonderful. I want to say now that if I give a warning I mean it. Seriously, I'm not responsible if you ignore it. Nor am I responsible for the general disturbing-ness and bonkers-osity that occurs in a helluva lotta fics!  I'll try to give an age range as well, because let's face it, a lot of fics are porn - or whatever your preferred word: slash, smut, lemon, citrus, PWP... I'm wise to you erotica peddlers! I will mark M (mature) anything that's not suitable for under 18s. Although you'll probably just ignore me; but I'll have tried.

But why fics? Because it's reading! Plus, some of them are actually quite good, and some...just have to be seen to be believed. And I love anything that explores the characters and stories I enjoy. I'm going to try to keep as fandom-neutral as possible, but obviously I'll be able to understand and evaluate fics from my own fandoms far more easily.

Ooh! And before I forget, there are very few heterosexual (straight) pairings in fanfiction. So if you have any issues with homosexuality then a) love will still win, and b) fanfiction isn't going to be for you.

Without further ado - here is your Fics Fix!

The Talk - by Starkers.

Rated M (by author.) This is a superfamily one-shot (one chapter) fic. Supefamily is non-canon (non-official plots and aspects) Marvel fiction where Steve Rogers and Tony Stark are married (usually this pairing is referred to as Stony) and raising Peter Parker - who they've adopted. Yep, Captain America and Iron Man are Spidey's fathers. It's actually usually ridiculously cute, and this is no exception.

At first, this seems really really awkward - Steve makes Tony have a 'talk' with Peter about certain...biological urges...that may lead to him spending a long time in his bedroom alone; the awkwardness is part of what makes it endearing, and the ending just makes it really adorable! I actually really enjoyed this fic, and the fluff (i.e. lovey-dovey non-sexual stuff) between Steve and Tony is done really well.

The Lightning Strike - by Batsutousai.

Rated M (by author and probably pretty much anybody who has ever read it.) This is an Omegaverse fic for the Marvel universe. If you're naïve and/or new to fics I'm so, so sorry I'm about to tell you about this. Move on to the next one if you want. OK, the Omegaverse is where people are born with the sexuality and social structure inherent in wolf packs. Again, feel free to skip. So the Alpha is the dominant one, the Beta is like a second (not always included in these fics) and the Omega is the subservient one (often very bad things happen to them.) People also go into heat when they're ready to mate, and in some fics there's 'knotting' as part of sex. Generally, in this genre, heats are painful and lead to hormones and pheromones taking almost complete control.

There were aspects of this fic that what really interesting - particularly in terms of Loki. This fic has Loki as Omega, who suddenly goes into heat in a battle, leading Alpha Tony's protective instincts to set off a rather unusual set of events. Basically it's a FrostIron (Tony and Loki pairing) Omegaverse fic.

Warnings for this I would say are: implied/desired dub/non-con sex; threesome; repressed sexuality; sex toys; much and various sexual things; mate-bonding; a bunch of prejudice; a bunch of physical and emotional distress.

Sherlock' Secrete - by The Posh Pancake.

Rated K+ (older kids) (by author) - I would say this is for age 16+ or possibly even older. I assume that the author means Sherlock's Secret, as they use secrete for secret throughout. This is JohnLock for the Sherlock fandom (John Watson and Sherlock Holmes pairings.)

It's quite fun and a light-hearted, but there's a bit of adult themes here - particularly at the end. Still, it's wonderfully wacky.

Goodbye's the Saddest Word - by roelliej.

This is a Harry Potter fic - it's a very short fic about Draco and Harry as married fathers. It's OK, not my cup of tea, but something that shows the imagination of fans. It's cute fluff really, and is quick and readable - if a little random.

Stucky - by Gonardo.

This is M. No question about it. This is porn. This is a Marvel, Stucky, fic (Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes) and includes much graphic gay sex. To be honest, the whole thing is graphic gay sex. I thought I'd highlight this one because it's just such a definitive example of so much 18+ rated fanfiction (and is PWP - plot what plot? as far as I'm concerned.) (Still, those of you who like Stucky smut/citrus/lemon will love it.)

Well, that was my first Friday Fics Fix - providing your Fix of Fics to stop reading and fandom withdrawal! :)

I hope I haven't disturbed you too badly with all this! Feel free to comment and let me know what you think, and tell me about any fics you think I should feature (please not too disturbing!!!! There's some f****d up s**t out there!) And please attempt to go by my ratings/warnings. Although I do wonder why I bother.

Reviewing the Evidence - Bloody Valentine

Title: Bloody Valentine (US Link)
Author: James Patterson
Genre: crime
Series: Quick Reads

A few starting notes:

Having previously read James Patterson books, and found his books entertaining if sometimes a little devoid of depth, and being a sucker for the excellent and always commendable Quick Reads series, I decided to pick this up in my last library haul.

Premise:

It's Valentine's day. But something is wrong in the Barnes apartments - the block of flats shared by entrepreneur Jack Barnes and his extended family. An awful and gory crime has been committed...could it have been by one of their own?

Best bits:

The locked-room style aspects of the mystery at the heart of this book is always interesting - and for the most part Patterson does justice to the concept.

The other thing that really stands out about this book is the sense of secrets, hidden deep within a well-off family, bubbling beneath the surface until they spill forward. The interplay of the tension is well-used, and the view of rich families as somehow hiding sin and betrayal, though a well-trodden path, is also used to good effect.

Patterson's main appeal is his sheer readability - and there is no difference here. The chapters are short and draw you onwards through the tale, and the whole book is also short - this being the Quick Reads series - so it is handy for those in-between moments, and for the busy reader.

Not so great bits:

The ending feels a little rushed, as if we're sprinting at the finish, and I think it would've benefited from a little more detail at the end. The prose is sometimes clumsy and a little bewildering, though largely it remains clear and readable.

The characters too could have done with a little more development - the standout perhaps being Leila and Ted, who both stand out more than Zee, Jack, or any of the detectives.

Verdict:

This is a quick and entertaining mystery. Yes, it's a little rough around the edges in more than a few places, but it's still pretty readable, and you'll want to read to the end, if only to reach the final answer to the whodunit? question.

Quick Note: I forgot to mention before but there is a scene or two in this book that is very gory - might not be to everyone's taste.

We're All Stories in the End

image courtesy of jannoon028 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I got to thinking recently that we essentially tell the same stories over and over, since the beginning of time.
This isn't to say that we are repetitive idiots who are unable to come up with anything original. Not at all. What my point is, is that clearly there are things in these stories that we need to hear. There are things that we have recognised as fundamental since the very beginning, and we feel the need to repeat it - to get the message through again and again. But why? Are we still not hearing it?!?! Well, given the state the world seems to be in as of late, that's a distinct possibility. But I think it's more to do with it speaking to something inherently human in us.

We never abandoned the old Gods - Thor and Loki are still with us (literally if you're a Marvel fan,) but the rest are still here too. Does no one else see the Robin Hood parallels with The Green Arrow or Hawkeye? Or older still, the Eros/Cupid and Apollo associations with archery etc?

We have literally clung on to all of the old traditions, the myths, the stories, we just give them a new cape and a mask, and set them to it. But it's not just comics and their associated media (i.e. movies) that are affected by this phenomena. We litter the pages of our novels with the things that go bump in the night - vampires, werewolves, angels and demons haunt our pages. But, more subtly than that, the same stories play out in front of our eyes again and again. Even the dreaded Twilight owes so much to Romeo and Juliet, which in turn is a retelling of Pyramus and Thisbe. 'Fallen' by Lauren Kate leans heavily on Biblical tales and the legends of fallen angels. Hell, The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen bears more than a passing resemblance to Artemis. And I won't mention the obvious Percy Jackson parallels - I think you can figure that one out by yourselves.

I kind of like it, if I'm going to be honest with you lovely people: I like the thought that our stories are such a fundamental part of us that we tell the same tales over and over, shaping and framing, adding and subtracting - and that's what really shows the strength of these ideas and stories. They still captivate and intrigue. And fan-fiction feeds into that (no, really, it does!) - it's us hearing the story and adding our interpretation, our hopes, our feelings (and lots of the feels,) taking the parts that most speak to us and zooming in on them. We're the myth-tellers, sat around the collective glow of the laptop and the tablet, instead of the fire, and telling just one more tale of love and hurt, of bravery and sorrow, to get us through one more dark night when we're tired and hungry and afraid. And isn't that beautiful.

Reading Addict vs Reality

OK, so we're currently having the bathrooms refurbished, and it feels like the ceiling is going to come down on my freaking head! It's driving me completely bugf**k! I can barely hear myself think - how's a girl s'posed to read in these conditions!

I wish I could dive into a book world for a bit to avoid all the noise - like Hogwarts. Except, Hogwarts doesn't exactly have the most calm of environments...or the best record when it comes to bathrooms...

This is my poorly drawn snake btw; he has sunglasses. Yeah. Sunglasses.

Reading Addict having a Minor Freakout!

Why the hell is Goodreads down! Now what am I supposed to do! I need to add to my challenge and faff around the new releases! How can they do this to me?!?!

Yes, I have a problem.

Yes, I'll calm down now, make a cup of coffee, and try to refresh the page later.

Happy reading everyone!

Reviewing the Evidence - Doctor Sleep

Title: Doctor Sleep (US Link)
Author: Stephen King
Genre: horror, paranormal
Series: The Shining

A few starting notes:

It's probably no great surprise to anyone by now that this is the sequel to The Shining. With that in mind, I do recommend that you read The Shining first - you'll just get so much more out of Doctor Sleep if you do. I'm going to keep this spoiler-free, with the exception of anything you can learn from reading the blurb for Doctor Sleep - because I think that's only fair.

Premise:

Daniel Torrance is all growed up. Except, the problem when you had an...unusual...childhood is that it tends to leave after-effects.

But now he has something else to think about. Or, at least, someone else. Abra Stone is a girl with one of the strongest examples of the Shining the world has ever seen - and she's attracted some attention. The True Knot aren't human anymore, and they live off steam - the thing that kids with the Shining produce, their essence. The True Knot are coming, they're coming for Abra...

Best bits:

It's an almost universal rule that the sequel will never be as good as the original. This is one of the exceptions. I hesitate to say that it's better than The Shining, but it's certainly as good as its predecessor. I personally also found it easier to relate to - but that's probably because the world in which Doctor Sleep is largely set is one I recognise, one not lost to the time after WW2 but before I was born like The Shining was.

The prose, plot, and characters are sublime. King knows what he's doing. I wonder why people still doubt his awesome mastery of the art. The writing hooks you in and carries you along on the tide. The characters are recognisably real in that they have flaws - some pretty major ones - virtues, and a good dollop of everyday life.

Also, and the amount to which I was chuffed by this is probably a testimony to just how nerdy I am, Stephen King's books have cross-contaminated with Joe Hill's. As well as references to other portions of his work (a brief mention of the ever present Castle Rock, for example,) there are references to Joe Hill's NOS4R2 (or NOS4A2, depending on which version you have,) which you may remember my previous review of. I also remember the odd reference to Stephen King works in Joe Hill books - and I love it. They need to keep this going for as long as possible because together I reckon they're damn-near unstoppable.

Not so great bits:

This is a Stephen King book - there are going to be traumatic things. You need to accept this. King is rarely if ever gratuitous however and deals with such weighty issues as alcoholism, various types of abuse, and some pretty unpleasant things happening to children, with his usual measured blend of realism and tact. There is also swearing, again, as per usual.

I personally would've liked it if certain aspects of the story - can't go into too much detail on account of spoilers - were brought more to the fore. For example, the actual 'Doctor Sleep' persona. And the cat - there should be more cats in everything as far as I'm concerned. This is a matter of personal preference though - I really can't fault Mr King for going in the direction he did with this, even if I would've liked to see other avenues expanded and explored.

Verdict:

This is an excellent sequel to a book considered a modern classic. It doesn't fall into the trap of trying to replicate the original, neither does it strain too much under the weight of its predecessor. This is carried off with skill and power. If you've read The Shining, read this.

When you need a better strategy

Sorry if this is an honest-to-God ramble but I figured I'd get my thoughts down on (metaphorical) paper. We've heard a lot lately about extremism, and I wanted to add my stance on the smart way forward. It includes books and words, which, as we know, are the best weapons.

So, I guess most people will be aware of the events in Tunisia, France, Kuwait, etc. over the past week. Also the events in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, etc. over the past months and (in some cases) years. Those who don't know what I'm talking about - just go to any global news website and I'm sure you'll get the point.

But the way forward against IS and Boko Haram and all the other lost and lonely little boys playing at war out there (including white supremacists and their ilk)  is not guns, missiles, and bombs. These are not things that they're afraid of - in fact they actively want people to treat them to traditional warfare - to them it vindicates the role they've painted for themselves as under attack and fighting a holy war.

What they are afraid of is a lot more simple than that. Actually, it's a lot more pathetic than that, they're scared of coloured pens. After all, why else would Islamic State ban art and colour from schools?

They're also scared of learning. They're scared of words. Why else would the Taliban shoot Malala Yousefzai? They shot a girl with some books because she was a bigger threat than all of the bombs and guns put together. They're so insecure in both their beliefs and their masculinity that the idea that a woman could learn and think for herself was too frightening for them to let it happen.

The way forward then is not to shoot people - that's the way of the extremists, those lost little boys who want the world to hurt so that they don't have to address their feelings of inadequacy, their isolation from a world they feel they don't fit in to, their daddy issues and abandonment complexes. And their over-compensation for a lack of masculinity.

No, the way forward is far more subtle. Governments and world leaders need to control the narrative - words are powerful. The way to kill ideas is not with bullets (to paraphrase vol 2 (Dallas) of Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's excellent Umbrella Academy,) it's with words. At the moment, world leaders are reading the script the extremists are writing - words like 'evil' and 'martyr' just perpetuate the sense of conflict, the insistence of Mr Cameron on the importance of 'British values' just makes him look like an idiotic out-of-touch Tory. His values are not mine, I happen to value people and not hurt them out of an idealistic urge to slash funding.

Instead, governments need to focus on what Islamic State would not want them to say. A sense of patronising pity, perhaps, that these boys have been led so far astray that they'll never be able to claw their way back to the lives they could have had, and the people that they could have been.

What needs to be said, and often, are the things that jar with the macho image Islamic State want to have - influential people need to call out the lost little boys and tell them they are jumping at shadows. They are frightened of art. They are frightened of women - frightened to let them wear what they want and think for themselves. They are frightened that what they believe is wrong - and so they defend it blindly without thinking it through. They are people who are so insecure in their faith and in themselves that they feel they must become defensive - like cornered animals.

Of course, the other thing that needs to be done globally, is the better kind of cloak-and-dagger stuff. This is not the assassination, plot-foiling, and secret codes stuff. This is the stuff that opens the minds of others. In short, we have to smuggle books into Islamic State. All books and any books. We need to drop leaflets with satirical cartoons from the planes that would otherwise carry bombs. We know that free speech scares them - Charlie Hebdo showed us that - so that is the weapon we must use.

So, we need to smuggle in classical novels with heroines - Jane Eyre and Moll Flanders - books with dangerously subversive messages - 1984, The Hunger Games - books of magic and fantasy - Harry Potter, J R R Tolkien - and however many Vampire novels and cheesy romance books we can squish into our metaphorical suitcase. There will be ears forever deaf to the voice of liberty and free-thought, but we don't know if we don't try.

Let's screen movies on huge projectors against the walls of buildings, drop art prints into the towns of Syria, poetry into Boko Haram controlled areas of Nigeria. Let's remind people that they're human. Guns and bombs are weak weapons, let's bring out the WMK - weapons of mass knowledge - and bring down these pockets of stupidity from the inside.