vanity fair magazine [multi-fandom: iron man, merlin, the hudson landing]
Fandom : iron man (movie)
Title : "The Kids Aren't Alright" by Christine Everhart
Author : samdonne
Rating : general
Characters & Pairings : tony stark, pepper potts, told from the pov of christine everhart
Length : 11,500 words
Warnings : none
Summary : "It’s been 'a hell of a year' since industrialist Tony Stark owned up to his alter ego in a move that stunned observers and longtime aides alike. With the US facing unprecedented homegrown suicide attacks, Iron Man's contribution to national security is more than ever under scrutiny. As she follows Stark during a year of crisis, exclusively for Vanity Fair, Christine Everhart explores the many contradictions of the man behind the mask, uncovers tales of personal loyalty, patriotism gone awry and corporate betrayal, and asks whether Iron Man is the embodiment of an outdated American fantasy-a self-made, unilateral, technological solution to hopelessly complex problems-and whether he can survive the violent encounter with reality."
My Rave Review : like 'star trek,' i was unaware of the mythology of 'iron man' until the movie came out, and it pretty much rocked. a lot of fics that came out afterwards dealt with tony's ptsd or budding romance with pepper, and this one does both, but i really liked this one because of the format (i LOVE multi-media fics, and the shinier the better) and it also shows the effects of being a superhero without a secret identity. and then there's the common cliche that i wrongly love, in which the hero of the story has parents who are dead or absent (batman, superman, spiderman, nu!kirk, harry potter, frodo's parents drowned when he was young, baudelaire parents diaf) and this touches on that, too, on whether stark's outing was a need for attention, on whether he's lonely, on 'what exactly is he thinking?', as well as the burden of carrying the torch of a family legacy that began long before the character was born. and what i love most about this fic is that it took a rather disposable character, christine everhart, and brought her beyond a plot device and made her intelligent and introspective and human. samdonne's done a great job of world-building, of not just the world around tony but his history, and of showing us tony through christine, even as he holds her at arm's length, we still see the support system of rhodes and pepper, and the toll of the burden that tony has.
Fandom : merlin (bbc)
Title : Drastically Redefining Protocol
Author : rageprufrock
Rating : mature
Characters & Pairings : arthur/merlin
Length : 45,000
Warnings : death of an oc
Summary : In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell breaks lose.
My Rave Review : modern au in which arthur is next in line to the british throne and merlin is the doctor-in-training who is hopelessly in love with him. i got into the merlin fandom through the fic first, and this one was probably the third or fourth one that i read, before i had ever seen the show. it still holds as one of the best fics in the fandom and you've probably already read it if you're into merlin, but bear with me. this is a real romance story, long and drawn out and full of highs and lows, with insecurities and desperate, desperate love. 'merlin' really lends itself well to being transplanted into different universes, and i could probably do a post just on the merlin au's out there. rageprufrock's got a sense of humor that can't be duplicated, and she weaves in blasts of emotion so heartbreaking it'll knock you over.
there's multi-media interspersed throughout, this being the age of the internet, with pics of tabloids and ontd screencaps, and there's a lovely trailer for the fic that i had on repeat for days, and the vanity fair article at the end is the icing on the cake, where it shows how much they care for each other even as they try to keep what's between them to themselves, that their love isn't for public consumption.
Fandom : none. this is cheating, but it's really good.
Title : Anatomy of a Miracle, June 2009
Author : William Langewiesche
Rating : general
Characters & Pairings : none specifically
Length : 11,000 words
Warnings : none
Summary : Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River last January, was justly celebrated for his skill and courage. Less has been revealed about other players in the drama: those enigmatic geese, the engines they struck, a pioneering French engineer, and an unsung hero-the Airbus A320 itself.
My Rave Review : this isn't a fandom, i'm sorry, but does it count if i absolutely adore captain sully?
langewiesche is one of the best writers vanity fair currently has, especially now when all they do is publish "in-depth" interviews with b-list celebrities or excerpts from books about high society people. he creates a wonderful, engrossing story that doesn't just focus on sullenberger, but each cog in the machine that led up to the hudson landing. he discusses the canadian geese that never migrate, past incidents where both engines in the plane were lost, the evolution of the airbus plane that sullenberger piloted, other pilots who have had to handle dead planes, how they were saved. langewiesche also does this with a touch of dry humor not usually seen in his other stories, since they're usually dark subject matter, but with this one, he cracks jokes about the birds, the other pilots, passengers:
perhaps because this was a flight from England to New Zealand, most of the passengers seem to have matched the captain’s calm. One, an aging British woman traveling with her aged mother, turned back to a Jane Austen novel at the first sign of trouble. Apparently, she just was not going to stand for this nonsense.
this article is just ridiculously well-done, and always makes me grin as i get to the end.
Title : "The Kids Aren't Alright" by Christine Everhart
Author : samdonne
Rating : general
Characters & Pairings : tony stark, pepper potts, told from the pov of christine everhart
Length : 11,500 words
Warnings : none
Summary : "It’s been 'a hell of a year' since industrialist Tony Stark owned up to his alter ego in a move that stunned observers and longtime aides alike. With the US facing unprecedented homegrown suicide attacks, Iron Man's contribution to national security is more than ever under scrutiny. As she follows Stark during a year of crisis, exclusively for Vanity Fair, Christine Everhart explores the many contradictions of the man behind the mask, uncovers tales of personal loyalty, patriotism gone awry and corporate betrayal, and asks whether Iron Man is the embodiment of an outdated American fantasy-a self-made, unilateral, technological solution to hopelessly complex problems-and whether he can survive the violent encounter with reality."
My Rave Review : like 'star trek,' i was unaware of the mythology of 'iron man' until the movie came out, and it pretty much rocked. a lot of fics that came out afterwards dealt with tony's ptsd or budding romance with pepper, and this one does both, but i really liked this one because of the format (i LOVE multi-media fics, and the shinier the better) and it also shows the effects of being a superhero without a secret identity. and then there's the common cliche that i wrongly love, in which the hero of the story has parents who are dead or absent (batman, superman, spiderman, nu!kirk, harry potter, frodo's parents drowned when he was young, baudelaire parents diaf) and this touches on that, too, on whether stark's outing was a need for attention, on whether he's lonely, on 'what exactly is he thinking?', as well as the burden of carrying the torch of a family legacy that began long before the character was born. and what i love most about this fic is that it took a rather disposable character, christine everhart, and brought her beyond a plot device and made her intelligent and introspective and human. samdonne's done a great job of world-building, of not just the world around tony but his history, and of showing us tony through christine, even as he holds her at arm's length, we still see the support system of rhodes and pepper, and the toll of the burden that tony has.
Fandom : merlin (bbc)
Title : Drastically Redefining Protocol
Author : rageprufrock
Rating : mature
Characters & Pairings : arthur/merlin
Length : 45,000
Warnings : death of an oc
Summary : In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell breaks lose.
My Rave Review : modern au in which arthur is next in line to the british throne and merlin is the doctor-in-training who is hopelessly in love with him. i got into the merlin fandom through the fic first, and this one was probably the third or fourth one that i read, before i had ever seen the show. it still holds as one of the best fics in the fandom and you've probably already read it if you're into merlin, but bear with me. this is a real romance story, long and drawn out and full of highs and lows, with insecurities and desperate, desperate love. 'merlin' really lends itself well to being transplanted into different universes, and i could probably do a post just on the merlin au's out there. rageprufrock's got a sense of humor that can't be duplicated, and she weaves in blasts of emotion so heartbreaking it'll knock you over.
there's multi-media interspersed throughout, this being the age of the internet, with pics of tabloids and ontd screencaps, and there's a lovely trailer for the fic that i had on repeat for days, and the vanity fair article at the end is the icing on the cake, where it shows how much they care for each other even as they try to keep what's between them to themselves, that their love isn't for public consumption.
Fandom : none. this is cheating, but it's really good.
Title : Anatomy of a Miracle, June 2009
Author : William Langewiesche
Rating : general
Characters & Pairings : none specifically
Length : 11,000 words
Warnings : none
Summary : Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River last January, was justly celebrated for his skill and courage. Less has been revealed about other players in the drama: those enigmatic geese, the engines they struck, a pioneering French engineer, and an unsung hero-the Airbus A320 itself.
My Rave Review : this isn't a fandom, i'm sorry, but does it count if i absolutely adore captain sully?
langewiesche is one of the best writers vanity fair currently has, especially now when all they do is publish "in-depth" interviews with b-list celebrities or excerpts from books about high society people. he creates a wonderful, engrossing story that doesn't just focus on sullenberger, but each cog in the machine that led up to the hudson landing. he discusses the canadian geese that never migrate, past incidents where both engines in the plane were lost, the evolution of the airbus plane that sullenberger piloted, other pilots who have had to handle dead planes, how they were saved. langewiesche also does this with a touch of dry humor not usually seen in his other stories, since they're usually dark subject matter, but with this one, he cracks jokes about the birds, the other pilots, passengers:
perhaps because this was a flight from England to New Zealand, most of the passengers seem to have matched the captain’s calm. One, an aging British woman traveling with her aged mother, turned back to a Jane Austen novel at the first sign of trouble. Apparently, she just was not going to stand for this nonsense.
this article is just ridiculously well-done, and always makes me grin as i get to the end.