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Dec. 21st, 2013 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raincitygirlI rewatched The Social Network recently, hence the recent fic recs. It’s a really good movie, though flawed, and seems to be aware of the casual sexism of its lead characters.
I’m about to rec a story that is hard to read, the Kept Boy AU. Not hard to read because it’s bad, far from it, but just logistically. It’s from the TSN kinkmeme, and for some reason was never transplanted onto AO3. Not sure why not, because it’s a wonderful story.
It actually kind of irritates me not knowing who wrote it, because I *totally* want to read her other work in other fandoms. But, you know, authors have every right to stay anonymous if they want to. It's not all about me. It just makes life a little more inconvenient, because you end up reading the story in about 14 million parts, because each section can only be as long as an LJ reply, although it does make use of the comment threading function very efficiently, so it's not *that* difficult to read.
It’s an AU, and it makes it obvious how damn YOUNG the characters are when the crisis hits them in the movie. In the AU, they’re 4 years older when the crisis hits, and because it’s an AU, it’s a different crisis. They deal with it a little more gracefully, and I’m not sure if that’s because the author softened the characters a tad, or if it’s simply because they’re 24 and 25 rather than 20 and 21 and have grown up a little more.
The unnamed story also finishes with the loveliest anticlimax I’ve ever read. Anticlimaxes are usually disappointing, but this one is wonderful, and feels totally earned. I’m being vague on purpose here, but I think you’ll see what I mean if you get to the end of the story. Oh, and there are two Easter eggs, that I didn't spot the first time I read the story, here and also here. But read those after you've finished the main story, or they won't make any sense.
Oh, and there is a LOT of sex in the first, say, 30% of the story. It's not a total porn-fest, there's plot, and a good one, but there's also a lot of sex. If that's not your thing, be aware that there are sections coming up later which have less sex. I mean, personally I think the sex in the story is hot, but you never know, someone might not be a fan, and might *really* be in it just for the plot. But the sex does something interesting, illustrating the passage of time and the maturation of the characters. At the start of the story, Mark is 20 and Wardo 21, and neither of them is the same person sexually that they are four years down the road. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't read it, and I'm not explaining it well, but suffice it to say the sex isn't only there to be hot.
Getting away from the AU story, and back to the actual movie, I was reminded upon re-watching that (cutting for spoilers for TSN): Wardo actually fires the first shot in the Mark/Eduardo war that develops. i.e. He’s the one who closes the bank account the fledgling company is drawing cheques from, and then “forgets” to tell Mark that by the way, he pulled the plug on their funding, letting him figure it out for himself at the bank. Passive-aggressive, much?
The odd part is I’d totally forgotten about that incident. Andrew Garfield gives great cocker-spaniel-in-a-bacon-slicer (to borrow a phrase from AJ Hall) and seems so woebegone that I find it very easy to forget Wardo isn’t entirely the victim in the situation the movie presents.
I’m about to rec a story that is hard to read, the Kept Boy AU. Not hard to read because it’s bad, far from it, but just logistically. It’s from the TSN kinkmeme, and for some reason was never transplanted onto AO3. Not sure why not, because it’s a wonderful story.
It actually kind of irritates me not knowing who wrote it, because I *totally* want to read her other work in other fandoms. But, you know, authors have every right to stay anonymous if they want to. It's not all about me. It just makes life a little more inconvenient, because you end up reading the story in about 14 million parts, because each section can only be as long as an LJ reply, although it does make use of the comment threading function very efficiently, so it's not *that* difficult to read.
It’s an AU, and it makes it obvious how damn YOUNG the characters are when the crisis hits them in the movie. In the AU, they’re 4 years older when the crisis hits, and because it’s an AU, it’s a different crisis. They deal with it a little more gracefully, and I’m not sure if that’s because the author softened the characters a tad, or if it’s simply because they’re 24 and 25 rather than 20 and 21 and have grown up a little more.
The unnamed story also finishes with the loveliest anticlimax I’ve ever read. Anticlimaxes are usually disappointing, but this one is wonderful, and feels totally earned. I’m being vague on purpose here, but I think you’ll see what I mean if you get to the end of the story. Oh, and there are two Easter eggs, that I didn't spot the first time I read the story, here and also here. But read those after you've finished the main story, or they won't make any sense.
Oh, and there is a LOT of sex in the first, say, 30% of the story. It's not a total porn-fest, there's plot, and a good one, but there's also a lot of sex. If that's not your thing, be aware that there are sections coming up later which have less sex. I mean, personally I think the sex in the story is hot, but you never know, someone might not be a fan, and might *really* be in it just for the plot. But the sex does something interesting, illustrating the passage of time and the maturation of the characters. At the start of the story, Mark is 20 and Wardo 21, and neither of them is the same person sexually that they are four years down the road. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't read it, and I'm not explaining it well, but suffice it to say the sex isn't only there to be hot.
Getting away from the AU story, and back to the actual movie, I was reminded upon re-watching that (cutting for spoilers for TSN): Wardo actually fires the first shot in the Mark/Eduardo war that develops. i.e. He’s the one who closes the bank account the fledgling company is drawing cheques from, and then “forgets” to tell Mark that by the way, he pulled the plug on their funding, letting him figure it out for himself at the bank. Passive-aggressive, much?
The odd part is I’d totally forgotten about that incident. Andrew Garfield gives great cocker-spaniel-in-a-bacon-slicer (to borrow a phrase from AJ Hall) and seems so woebegone that I find it very easy to forget Wardo isn’t entirely the victim in the situation the movie presents.
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Date: 2013-12-23 05:21 am (UTC)But I'm a softie and I hate stories about ruined friendships! :P
nice icon
Date: 2013-12-25 12:42 am (UTC)You make a good point re: communication and compromise. One of the scenes I loved best in the movie (although the scene also hurt my soul) was right after Wardo closes the account. Mark has this big impassioned speech into his cell phone and Wardo literally doesn't hear it because he dropped the phone to grab the fire extinguisher. Talk about not communicating.
Wardo didn’t have to fire the first shot, but Mark also didn’t have to massively escalate in his retaliation. And they’re just BABIES, far too young to have to make these life-altering interpersonal decisions. Not saying that some people of 20 or 21 aren’t old enough to make such decisions in a non-kneejerk manner, but Mark and Wardo were definitely not unusually mature for their age. They still had a lot of growing up to do to be able to handle a situation like that without tearing bloody chunks out of each other and themselves.
I hate stories about ruined friendships too, but that's what fix-it fic is for! One of the things I like about that particular fic is that Mark still has that asshole streak a mile wide, and it still affects his interpersonal relationships in a big way, including his relationship with Wardo. He's still recognizably *Mark*. But ultimately most of Wardo's emotional damage isn't on Mark's head. The writer has Mark go close to doing something like the share dilution as a means of cutting Wardo out of his life (because Wardo is in a very bad place and is pulling Mark down with him). But ultimately Mark veers away from that, mostly I think because he's 24 and not 20 and has figured out that he has to live with the consequences of his actions. Okay, okay, i'll shut up now. I'm nattering on about a fic you haven't even read.
Merry Christmas Eve! I'm presuming you'll get a white Christmas back east, just hoping it's not too cold and icy.