Black Rose

Trying to keep this one short and sweet, let's see if I can accomplish that (reader, I did not accomplish that).

( Media Consumed )

( Fic Posted/Gifts Received )

( Exchanges Etc. )

In Progress/Upcoming

I'm taking some time off from exchanges, but I haven't decided how long yet. I hope to get some WIPs finished and posted in the new year, starting with some freaky Nosferatu fic while the fandom's still hot. I also have a 2024 fandom recap coming soon.

I wish I'd posted a separate Battleship wrap-up in August, because Battleship continues to be Exchanges Georg and crush all my stats. I posted 11 works between July and September (8 for Battleship, which is the most I've posted to AO3 for a single event round). I posted more this summer than I posted all year in 2020, 2022, 2023, and I'm sure some years before I started posting end of year fic stats.

I've been poking at this post for almost a month, and my non-Battleship fandom thoughts got pretty long, so I'm putting all Battleship-related things in a separate post, which you can find here.

Media Consumed

Twister (1996) + Twisters (2024)
These were two of many movies I watched this summer, but they make it onto the fandom recap because I almost requested them for Jump Scare. The new one was getting decent reviews, I was in the mood for a popcorn disaster movie, and I'd never seen the original before. I've never lived in tornado country, but I've had an eerie fascination with storms since I was a kid, and these movies do such a good job capturing the horror and majesty of tornados. I thought Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton had a way more compelling bickery romance than Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell (and the wacky stoner storm chasers in the '96 movie were much more charming than the livestreaming YouTubers in the '24 one), but I loved the female leads in both movies. Someday I'll nominate Jo Harding and Kate Cooper for another horror exchange.

The Umbrella Academy - Season 4
Hoo boy, people HATE this final season. I didn't really like it, but I think 90% of the problems with this season would be fixed by having more than six episodes and giving the characters time to explore the emotional impact of the various plot developments. Most reviews I've seen think the plot developments were hot steaming garbage, which I disagree with. Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman as married gun-swinging Texan conspiracy theorists trying to brute force their way to a better timeline were the best part of season 4. My biggest disappointment was Diego and Luther being reduced to whacky comic relief, and neither of them having meaningful emotional resolutions to their arcs. Klaus was really fun this season, Viktor was good but I'm annoyed that he mostly interacted with Reginald, and Alison was fine but nowhere near as compelling as her previous villain arcs. Shitty crypto Ben and Jennifer had hot chemistry, and I was fine with the resolution to the Jennifer Incident breadcrumbs.

( Spoilery thoughts )

The Terror - Season 1 (redux)
This arrived on US Netflix for the first time in late August, and I decided to finish the rewatch I started in March so I could write spooky mummy fic for Jump Scare (I also convinced my dad to watch it, and I think I've infected him with the Franklin Expedition research bug). I spent exactly a month wallowing in ice mummy/survival cannibalism feels, and then James Fitzjames' jawbone was conclusively identified, the second Franklin Expedition member to be identified through DNA and the first remains identified with evidence of cannibalism.

Fitzjames is not my favorite special guy in either the show or real life (I'm a Crozier girl, and other than that I care much more about the ordinary working class men on the expedition), but it was still a very poignant discovery that everyone had a lot of intense feelings about. There was some heated discourse over fans of the TV show making disrespectful cannibalism jokes (and whether being upset by cannibalism jokes means you love British colonialism). Personally, nothing about the Terror fandom's reaction bothered me more than 1) the cannibalism jokes historians and morbid mystery fans have been making for decades (which have never bothered me), or 2) the genuinely offensive treatment of survival cannibalism in the actual Terror show. It's weirdly haunting and lovely that the fictional Fitzjames in The Terror is the only unambiguously good, morally strong character who views survival cannibalism as a compassionate act from a dying captain to his starving men. We have no idea what the real Fitzjames knew or thought of cannibalism, but we know his body fed someone, and I want to believe he would've felt compassion toward the hungry men his body fed.

Bride of Re-Animator
This isn't as good as the first movie, but the comedy gore and spooky New England vibes and intense homoeroticism are dialed all the way up. This movie leans more on Frankenstein than the original's zombies, but I'm a huge Frankenstein fan so I approve. I loved all the freaky hybrid creatures Herbert created, and the practical creature effects were extremely charming. I love Dan fully embracing his inner freak and building a Franken-Meg with Herbert, while simultaneously dating and sleeping with a normal human woman.

Interview With The Vampire (AMC)

I read the first book decades ago, and watched the 1994 movie last year, and I enjoyed both as trashy opulent fun. The show is very very good and I love it to pieces, but it makes so many drastic changes that I struggle to call it a good adaptation. Jacob Anderson's sharp, bitter black Louis is my favorite version of the character, and the only time I haven't found his whiny moralizing intensely annoying. Lestat is dazzling and terrible as always, and Claudia is still my favorite, even though a woman trapped in the body of a teenager is a radically different character than a woman trapped in the body of a child (I do appreciate that casting an adult allows them to explore Claudia's sexuality in ways that a child actor couldn't, but there's no fucking way a nineteen-year-old actress can look like a prepubescent child in adult clothing). Vampires actually fuck in this version, and the explicitly sexual Louis/Lestat relationship is fun and engaging, but I'm usually rooting for them to murder each other more than I'm rooting for them as a couple. I'm much more invested Armand/Louis and Armand/Daniel (and all four of them in a terrible toxic polycule).

Fic Posted

if it feels this good getting used - The Fall Guy, Tom Ryder/Colt Seavers, Dominant Bottom/Service Top + Cockwarming

if you sleep always like this - The Terror, John Hartnell & Thomas Hartnell, Grief/Mourning + Visions + Mummies

Extra Red Sauce - The Terror, Thomas Armitage/Marines, Modern AU - Taco Bell + Gangbang

Gifts Received (minus Battleship)

full bones by scorpiod - Bones And All, Lee/Maren, romantic cannibalism + ghosts (for Jump scare)

Quickening by primeideal - Dune (Villeneuve Movies), Paul Atreides, Jessica, canon compliant Came Back Wrong (for Jump Scare)

Exchanges Etc.

Immediately after Battleship, I picked up a lingering pinch hit in Rare Male Slash Exchange, because the recip requested cockwarming for Tom Ryland/Colt Seavers and that's a genius kink/character combination. Then I signed up for Jump Scare on a whim, because all the warm summery Challengers and lava mermaid fic I wrote for Battleship had me in a spooky fall mood by late August. Cue old Nova episodes and permafrost mummy feels.

Then in late September, days after the Fitzjames remains were identified, Twitter Terror fandom ran the second round of a Taco Bell-themed smutty flashfic fest (works must be either maximum 400 words or exactly 420/469, must take place on Taco Bell property, and must include a Taco Bell menu item in the title). I additionally decided my fic must be a ship I'd never written before, and the entire thing must be written drunk in one sitting and posted immediately, edited only to fit the wordcount. I tagged the fic "William Braine FUCKS" because drunk me (and honestly, sober me) thought Braine got left out when everyone shipped his more charismatic mummy buddies John Torrington and John Hartnell with each other, and a marine gangbang was a good chance to rectify that (discoservice wrote a very cute Torrington/Hartnell fic for the Taco Bell fest, with shotgunning and hoodie snuggles). I fucking love fandom sometimes.

In Progress/Upcoming

I signed up for Trick or Treat for the first time in five years (and only my third time actually signing up, which surprised me). My first AO3 exchange was Yuletide 2013, but Trick or Treat 2014 feels like it left a more significant imprint, maybe because I'm more into Halloween than Christmas. Either way, it's my tenth anniversary and even though my crazy productivity has slowed down, I'm having fun with my assignment and the community challenge.

Trying something new! Here are the fandom things I've been up to in Q1.

Media Consumed

I've been watching a lot of standalone movies recently, which is a change of pace for me especially when it comes to fandom. I'm too tired to write individual reviews, but they fell into a few basic categories:

Instant favorites that I immediately fell in love with

Bones and All
Lisa Frankenstein
Dune Part 2

Excellent movies I enjoyed a lot, but probably won't revisit soon

Killing of a Sacred Deer
Poor Things
The Lobster

Visually stunning movies with terrible scripts that were still pretty fun

Dune (1984)

Fic Written & Posted

Human Behavior - Saltburn, canon ships

Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend - Saltburn, Farleigh Start/Oliver Quick

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) - Saltburn, Felix Catton/Oliver Quick

A Gift to Science - The Terror, William Gibson/Cornelius Hickey

In the first three months of 2024, I signed up or pinch hit for twice as many exchanges as I said I'd do all year. Oops. I've been in a creative period, so I'm trying to write and publish as much as I can before I run out of gas. So far that means my remaining Saltburn obsession, a handful of other new movie fandoms, a return to The Terror after rewatching it for an exchange assignment, and my Dune love coming back full force.

So far I've participated in Candy Hearts, Goreswap, Kink Lucky Dip, and Smut4Smut. Goreswap and Kink Lucky Dip continue to be two of my favorite exchanges, I like pinch hitting for S4S so I don't have to go through the effort of a freeform signup, and Candy Hearts gave me the chance to write some romantic heart removal and light necrophilia.

Fic Read

I'm very bad at commenting on fic in the wild and I don't feel comfortable reccing something I haven't commented on, but I've been reading a lot of Terror and Dune fic lately. I'll make an effort to have some actual recs next time.

I can rec the only gift I've received this year, which is gorgeously romantic necrophilia and wound fucking for Goreswap. I'm so glad that this exchange exists.

last night's horror show - Saltburn, Felix Catton/Oliver Quick

In Progress/Upcoming

Kink Lucky Dip and Smut4Smut haven't been revealed yet. I'm almost done with a standalone Paul Atreides/Feyd-Rautha genderswap femdom fic. It's probably time for me to reread Dune and actually get through the series. I've been playing around with an all-Arctic-Monkeys Oliver Quick fanmix, which would go on my newly renamed sock account for things that aren't fic. latetreatbonanza is happening again in June, and I'd like to post the late treat I failed to finish in time for the last bonanza.