14 Valentines Day 9 - Recs: Erica Albright
My conflicted feelings on my enthusiasm for The Social Network fandom, let me show you them. On the one hand, the fen involved in this fandom are AWESOMELY talented and the fanworks are AMAZING. On the other, I, er, really disliked the movie for many different reasons and usually wind up pretending that I'm reading RPF about the actualfax Facebook people instead of fic about this movie, because the movie left me THAT conflicted. For me then, one of my favorite bits of TSN fandom is the bit that works to give us a better characterization of Erica Albright than Aaron Sorkin did. (Aaron, bb, I love you, your work was so formative to much of me and my personality, but GOD DAMN son. I can't actually unsee the fact that your misogynist views color EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER DONE and it means that I'm pretty much never again going to get to enjoy something new by you.) So today I bring to you my one-woman recs manifesto of Why Erica Albright was the Best Character in The Social Network and Why You Should Love Her Too. :D? (And this one of the few times I'm going to break my personal rule of not reccing more than two works by the same creator in a single post, because OMFG, antistar-e is just SO RESPONSIBLE for my personal canon on Erica I kind of can't separate it out anymore.)
to the photographic pads of fingertips by summerstorm (Erica/Tyler, Erica/Cameron)
The only thing they know they have in common is Mark Zuckerberg, and she regrets setting herself up for a conversation about him-as if she didn't get enough of that this morning, and that was only prep-until Tyler asks her how she's liking the hotel. It's not the liveliest of topics, but at least it's not uncomfortable.
It's only when the conversation lags that she asks, "So how pissed at Mark are you guys, exactly?"
"On a scale of one to ten?" he says. Erica shrugs dismissively. She doesn't have any particular interest in receiving an accurate answer. "On a scale of one to ten, I'd say we're pretty pissed."
"Both of you?" she asks. "Same amount of anger?"
"Roughly," Tyler says. "I'd be inclined to think Cameron's slightly more incensed."
watch the lights go wild by oflights (Mark/Eduardo)
It snowballs, after that. Chatting and emails and then texting; Erica lives in Sacramento, and it’s a while before she says, “Look, I’ll be in San Francisco this weekend, can we just-” and he makes hurried plans to meet her, feeling slightly giddy and accomplished about it.
The night before she comes down, Erica calls him again and says, “Okay, wait, just so we’re clear, you’re not-this is a friend thing, right?”
And Mark, who had been planning to drag Sean along just to watch Erica chew him up and spit him out on a San Francisco dance floor, grins to himself and then schools his voice into careful, morose disappointment. “Oh, wow. I see. Um, never mind then, I’ll cancel the dinner reservations I made and-gosh, this is embarrassing…”
“Oh my God, you’re joking,” Erica says, her voice high with some surprise and then mirthful, happy laughter. “You make non-offensive jokes now! This is going to be fabulous.”
throw dirt on me and grow a wildflower by pirateyes (gen)
He turns to her then and they stop in the street where they’ve just been meandering with seemingly no idea where either is going. “Why is this so difficult?” he blurts out.
Erica looks affronted and then laughs with relief and the weight of the world lifts off them all at once. “Mark,” she says, derisively. “Mark makes things so difficult.”
“I’m not supposed to talk about him,” Eduardo says. “Because of the lawsuit.” It’s true, but his stomach aches, burns, from living with it.
“I’ve already given my deposition,” Erica says and she smiles at him as she sips from her cup.
the finish line by vinylroad (Erica/Tyler, Erica/Cameron, sort of Erica/Tyler/Cameron)
Winklevoss (she'll default to this trick later, pulling out their last name when she can't remember if it's Tyler's hand at the small of her back or Cameron passing her the glass of wine) finally looks back up at her face, and she lifts her eyebrows, bringing the bottle of beer gone warm to her lips. The smile he cracks is instantly recognizable from a photo she saw in The Crimson, two identical faces looming over an article about some ridiculous website they are fighting with Mark about.
She doesn't know which one this is, but she remembers the first thing he says. "Mark Zuckerberg is a little fucking prick."
Love Takes Hostages by antistar-e (Mark/Erica, AU)
"Can't we adopt you instead?" she asks, as they settle into the cushions and wait for the start screen to load. "I mean, you're over here all the time anyway."
Mark scrunches his nose up. "Yeah, but I don't want you to be my sister," he tells her, because 'sister' is synonymous with 'responsibility' in his head. Sisters are important, and brothers are important, and you're always supposed to look out for them, Mark, and teach them how to be good kids, and make sure nothing happens to them, because you're the oldest and you're supposed to set an example. They're a lot more work than they are fun, that's for sure, and don't tell anyone, but Mark is terrified of messing it up.
Cousins are different, and he likes Erica much better as a cousin than he ever would as a sister, because cousins aren't quite so exhausting. They're more like friends than family, and Mark and Erica do everything together.
the ghost writer by antistar-e (Mark/Eduardo)
They grow older, and Erica gets better at it; they won't read out anything they don't want to get caught with, like pirates or dragons, and what they do read out become more solid, more believable, and they stay longer. When they're six and eight, respectively, and Mark's reasonably confident he's got the letters thing down, he binds together a book made out of construction paper and staples and glue, and asks Erica to read it. The cake she reads out lasts them six days of careful rationing, and with every bite they take, sugary icing and increasingly stale cake made of ink and voice, they quiver with possibilities.
Mark's pen and Erica's silver tongue.
They could create anything.
earthrise (from the surface of the moon) by antistar-e (gen)
"It's just not the way I was raised," she says finally. "Abortion, I mean."
Now that the trigger word is out there, the tech says nothing, nodding, but her eyes are the same dark blue as cornflower, and too expressive to hide what she's thinking.
"Don't," says Erica sharply, sitting forward. "Don't look at me like that. I am not brainwashed. I am not indoctrinated into an archaic belief system -- I am just as educated as you are, and I know I have a choice. I know why generations of women have fought so that I could have this choice here, today, and so I am choosing. I am exercising my right to choose, and I respect every woman who's ever made a similar choice and chose differently. I'm going to school, I'm having this baby, and that's okay, too."
The Rules of Endogamy (Or, Four Times Somebody's Daemon Surprised Erica Albright) by antistar-e (gen, AU)
No, no, no, that's a good sign, goes her eldest brother's voice in her head. He chin-stroked his way through three years of a philosophy major at BU before dropping out to do ... whatever it is he does, and to work barista at the Borders by the public library. You want to trust the people who look like their daemons.
Why? Erica had wanted to know. Her brother's daemon was a scaly, orange-and-black gila monster, and she didn't think they resembled each other much at all. (Well, in looks, anyway. They were both lazy slackers with dirty mouths, otherwise.)
Well, think about it, he had replied. Daemons are supposed to be your utter compliment, the other half of your soul, right? So it's a good sign of the inner self mirrors the outer self in looks as well as mannerisms -- it means that that person has nothing to hide. There's no deep, dark contrast that you can't see.
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to the photographic pads of fingertips by summerstorm (Erica/Tyler, Erica/Cameron)
The only thing they know they have in common is Mark Zuckerberg, and she regrets setting herself up for a conversation about him-as if she didn't get enough of that this morning, and that was only prep-until Tyler asks her how she's liking the hotel. It's not the liveliest of topics, but at least it's not uncomfortable.
It's only when the conversation lags that she asks, "So how pissed at Mark are you guys, exactly?"
"On a scale of one to ten?" he says. Erica shrugs dismissively. She doesn't have any particular interest in receiving an accurate answer. "On a scale of one to ten, I'd say we're pretty pissed."
"Both of you?" she asks. "Same amount of anger?"
"Roughly," Tyler says. "I'd be inclined to think Cameron's slightly more incensed."
watch the lights go wild by oflights (Mark/Eduardo)
It snowballs, after that. Chatting and emails and then texting; Erica lives in Sacramento, and it’s a while before she says, “Look, I’ll be in San Francisco this weekend, can we just-” and he makes hurried plans to meet her, feeling slightly giddy and accomplished about it.
The night before she comes down, Erica calls him again and says, “Okay, wait, just so we’re clear, you’re not-this is a friend thing, right?”
And Mark, who had been planning to drag Sean along just to watch Erica chew him up and spit him out on a San Francisco dance floor, grins to himself and then schools his voice into careful, morose disappointment. “Oh, wow. I see. Um, never mind then, I’ll cancel the dinner reservations I made and-gosh, this is embarrassing…”
“Oh my God, you’re joking,” Erica says, her voice high with some surprise and then mirthful, happy laughter. “You make non-offensive jokes now! This is going to be fabulous.”
throw dirt on me and grow a wildflower by pirateyes (gen)
He turns to her then and they stop in the street where they’ve just been meandering with seemingly no idea where either is going. “Why is this so difficult?” he blurts out.
Erica looks affronted and then laughs with relief and the weight of the world lifts off them all at once. “Mark,” she says, derisively. “Mark makes things so difficult.”
“I’m not supposed to talk about him,” Eduardo says. “Because of the lawsuit.” It’s true, but his stomach aches, burns, from living with it.
“I’ve already given my deposition,” Erica says and she smiles at him as she sips from her cup.
the finish line by vinylroad (Erica/Tyler, Erica/Cameron, sort of Erica/Tyler/Cameron)
Winklevoss (she'll default to this trick later, pulling out their last name when she can't remember if it's Tyler's hand at the small of her back or Cameron passing her the glass of wine) finally looks back up at her face, and she lifts her eyebrows, bringing the bottle of beer gone warm to her lips. The smile he cracks is instantly recognizable from a photo she saw in The Crimson, two identical faces looming over an article about some ridiculous website they are fighting with Mark about.
She doesn't know which one this is, but she remembers the first thing he says. "Mark Zuckerberg is a little fucking prick."
Love Takes Hostages by antistar-e (Mark/Erica, AU)
"Can't we adopt you instead?" she asks, as they settle into the cushions and wait for the start screen to load. "I mean, you're over here all the time anyway."
Mark scrunches his nose up. "Yeah, but I don't want you to be my sister," he tells her, because 'sister' is synonymous with 'responsibility' in his head. Sisters are important, and brothers are important, and you're always supposed to look out for them, Mark, and teach them how to be good kids, and make sure nothing happens to them, because you're the oldest and you're supposed to set an example. They're a lot more work than they are fun, that's for sure, and don't tell anyone, but Mark is terrified of messing it up.
Cousins are different, and he likes Erica much better as a cousin than he ever would as a sister, because cousins aren't quite so exhausting. They're more like friends than family, and Mark and Erica do everything together.
the ghost writer by antistar-e (Mark/Eduardo)
They grow older, and Erica gets better at it; they won't read out anything they don't want to get caught with, like pirates or dragons, and what they do read out become more solid, more believable, and they stay longer. When they're six and eight, respectively, and Mark's reasonably confident he's got the letters thing down, he binds together a book made out of construction paper and staples and glue, and asks Erica to read it. The cake she reads out lasts them six days of careful rationing, and with every bite they take, sugary icing and increasingly stale cake made of ink and voice, they quiver with possibilities.
Mark's pen and Erica's silver tongue.
They could create anything.
earthrise (from the surface of the moon) by antistar-e (gen)
"It's just not the way I was raised," she says finally. "Abortion, I mean."
Now that the trigger word is out there, the tech says nothing, nodding, but her eyes are the same dark blue as cornflower, and too expressive to hide what she's thinking.
"Don't," says Erica sharply, sitting forward. "Don't look at me like that. I am not brainwashed. I am not indoctrinated into an archaic belief system -- I am just as educated as you are, and I know I have a choice. I know why generations of women have fought so that I could have this choice here, today, and so I am choosing. I am exercising my right to choose, and I respect every woman who's ever made a similar choice and chose differently. I'm going to school, I'm having this baby, and that's okay, too."
The Rules of Endogamy (Or, Four Times Somebody's Daemon Surprised Erica Albright) by antistar-e (gen, AU)
No, no, no, that's a good sign, goes her eldest brother's voice in her head. He chin-stroked his way through three years of a philosophy major at BU before dropping out to do ... whatever it is he does, and to work barista at the Borders by the public library. You want to trust the people who look like their daemons.
Why? Erica had wanted to know. Her brother's daemon was a scaly, orange-and-black gila monster, and she didn't think they resembled each other much at all. (Well, in looks, anyway. They were both lazy slackers with dirty mouths, otherwise.)
Well, think about it, he had replied. Daemons are supposed to be your utter compliment, the other half of your soul, right? So it's a good sign of the inner self mirrors the outer self in looks as well as mannerisms -- it means that that person has nothing to hide. There's no deep, dark contrast that you can't see.
You can come and talk to me at Dreamwidth too! (
comments)