full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
full_metal_ox ([personal profile] full_metal_ox) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-11 06:48 pm

Hilda the Plus-size Pinup; Norman Rockwell: Fixing a Flat, by moon_custafer.

Fandom: Hilda the Plus-size Pinup; Fixing a Flat (Norman Rockwell illustration)
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Hilda; three Norman Rockwell characters, two female and one male.
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 2,356
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, women solving their own problems
Creator Tags: magazine illustrations, Norman Rockwell - Freeform, Fluff, Plot
Creator Links: (AO3) [archiveofourown.org profile] moon_custafer; (DeviantArt) [deviantart.com profile] mooncustafer; (Dreamwidth) [personal profile] moon_custafer; (Instagram) [instagram.com profile] mooncustafer; (LiveJournal) [livejournal.com profile] moon_custafer; (Tumblr) [tumblr.com profile] mooncustafer
Theme: Female Relationships, Crossovers/Fusions, Female Friendship, Gen, Old Fandoms, Small Fandoms, Stranded

Summary: Hilda’s fishing trip is struck by rain and then by two new acquaintances in need of assistance.

Author’s Notes: For [archiveofourown.org profile] moonlight69.

I needed to introduce a few additional characters to Hilda’s mainly single-panel world, so I did a mash-up with Norman Rockwell’s “Fixing a Flat.” Think of it as the Illustrationverse.


Reccer's Notes: A rec posted in honor of the U.S. Full Strawberry Moon, for reasons that will be apparent in the fic.

Moon Custafer constructs a story from several Hilda panels (plus a special guest Norman Rockwell work), in which Duane Bryers’ zaftig hillbilly wood nymph comes to the aid of two travelers stranded in the boondocks—a predicament complicated by a less friendly local. (A temporary problem-solving alliance (particularly against a common enemy) can count as a relationship, right?)

Hilda as portrayed in Bryers’ artworks seems to embrace solitude, and the scant fanfic I’ve seen doesn’t tend to show her interacting face-to-face with much of anyone but her animal friends and the odd Authorial Proxy; it’s fun to watch her socializing, and to see her given family, friends, enemies, and a history. (As well as actual clothing that she presumably wears now and then to pick up her crackers, trashy novels, and repurposable-as-clothing floursacks.)

Fanwork Links: Fixing a Flat by [archiveofourown.org profile] moon_custafer for [archiveofourown.org profile] moonlight69, for Yuletide 2018.
runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote2025-06-10 09:42 am

They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center

They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center, edited and translated by Shelley Baker-Gard, Michael Freiling, and Satsuki Takikawa:

An anthology of senryū poetry written in spring and summer of 1942 by Japanese Americans held captive at the WCCA Assembly Center in North Portland, Oregon. Senryū shares haiku's 5-7-5 sound unit form, but deals more directly with the business of being human, whereas haiku's focus is on nature and only tangentially references, or implies, human emotions.

The WCCA is the Wartime Civilian Control Administration, the government body set up to implement the mass forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. From the Densho Encyclopedia: "In addition to engineering the logistics of removing some 110,000 people from their homes and businesses in a short period of time, the WCCA also quickly built and administered a series of seventeen temporary detention camps to hold those who had been removed through the spring and summer of 1942, before overseeing their transfer to more permanent camps administered by the War Relocation Authority by the end of fall 1942." In North Portland, the temporary facility was previously the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Center, the horse stalls converted into living spaces for those detained there.

This book has a thoughtful design and a conscientious attempt to put this poetry—and the people who wrote it—into context, providing historical background and examining the cultural relevance of poetry in Japanese communities, including an exploration of the individual poets incarcerated at the camps as well as the poetry groups held at WCCA camps, and an explanation of the form itself. The book has several introductory pieces, an afterword, two essays on haiku/senryū, a timeline of relevant events, end notes for references, a full bibliography, and biographies of the poets. The one thing it doesn't have is an index, which I found myself wanting multiple times over the six months it took me to read this.

The poems are presented with the Japanese script given prominence in a bold vertical line down the center of the page, one poem per page, and then a transliteration of the Japanese and, finally, the poem translated into English, in three lines. Each poem has a footnote with a "literal" translation and any translation notes, including occasions where kanji have been simplified since the writing of the poem, or instances where the poet (or transcriber) seems to have made an error. However, the literal translations are anything but. They're of a more conversational nature than the actual choppy bits of language you usually get when Japanese is translated literally into English, and in some cases, I found them more interesting or nuanced than the final translations, which could feel a little melodramatic at times. But it's entirely possible that's just my bias for haiku showing up. Here's a poem by Jōnan that really struck me because of the way it mimics a common structure in haiku and through that offers an extreme understatement of human misery:

even autumn
comes on command here—
assembly center

This book was published in 2023 by Oregon State University Press, and I checked it out of the Multnomah County Library.
runpunkrun: john sheppard and teyla emmagan in uniform and standing in a rocky streambed (hold the stillness exactly before us)
Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote2025-06-08 09:42 am

#659, Bashō

don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two
     -1690

Translation by Jane Reichhold.

俳句 )
eratoschild ([personal profile] eratoschild) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-07 05:45 pm

Trails of Cold Steel: Moon Door IV: Beyond

Fandom: Trails of Cold Steel
Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn
appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships Rating: M
Length: 22442 words
Creator Links: Rosie_Rues
Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb
Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.

Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...

Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.

The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.

This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.

There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)

This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors.
Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169
mific: (TV (old))
mific ([personal profile] mific) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-07 11:22 pm

Taskmaster: Team of Sue by thingswithwings

Fandom: Taskmaster (series 16)
Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:02:06
Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings.
Creator Links: thingswithwings on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor

Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.

Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.

Fanwork Links: Team of Sue

runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote2025-06-04 08:45 am

Fancake's Theme for June: Female Relationships

Photograph with added text: Female Relationships, at Fancake. Four old Nepalese women sit together on a low brick wall, their feet dangling, most of them barefoot, their shoes kicked off below them. They're dressed in loose patterned fabrics in various shades of red and the mood is relaxed.
[community profile] fancake's theme for June is Female Relationships! That's any kind of relationship with any kind of female—cis, trans, alligator priestess, whatever you got! We already have recs in Star Trek Reboot, Mo Dao Zu Shi/Chen Qing Ling, a stop animation film featuring Barbie dolls and a Cher song (yes, it's as amazing as it sounds), Ghosts (US), and King Falls AM.

If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!
nuh_s: Photo of the Toy Soldier looking up at a blue sky. It is pale with a drawn-on mustache and red lapels on its black jacket. (Default)
nuh_s ([personal profile] nuh_s) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-03 05:56 pm

King Falls AM: the gallery of our bones by ryyves

Fandom: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Pairings/Characters: Lily Wright & Pippa James, Jack Wright & Lily Wright
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 8,492
Content Notes: Alcoholism, Missing Persons, Grief/Mourning
Creator Links: ryyves' Ao3
Theme: Female Relationships, Character Study, Angst

Summary:

Spoilers for King Falls AM episode 68, set before the first King Falls Chronicles (ep 56-57).

It’s far from the last email Lily gets about King Falls. Sometimes the name is hidden in postscripts, sometimes bright as highways at midnight, and every time it catches in Lily’s heart like a frightened canary, yellow and waning.

Lily doesn’t delete them, not one. She files them away in a quiet folder of her work email, so she doesn’t have to see them in her inbox. There are things that can be said with distance, and this is one of them: that if she deleted every mention of King Falls, she would delete every rope thrown to Jack. Every hope, or something that runs even deeper.

Some fear, perhaps, that she is not where she is supposed to be.

Or: Pippa puts up with way more of Lily's shit than she should have to.


Reccer's Notes: This is such a wonderful character study that explores Lily's character and gives her and Pippa's friendship a spotlight. The writing style is beautiful as well.

Fanwork Links: the gallery of our bones
kingstoken: (Rowena with wings art)
kingstoken ([personal profile] kingstoken) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-03 08:08 pm

Ghosts (US): you drew stars around my scars by OpalEssence

Fandom: Ghosts (US)
Pairings/Characters: Hetty & Flower
Rating: G
Length: 708 words
Creator Links: OpalEssence 
Theme: female relationships

Summary: Following Season 2, Episode 5, when Hetty meets Molly the maid, she must attempt to come to terms with the fact that Elias' betrayal was entirely of his own will and desire. Luckily, Flower is there to help her move forward.

Reccer's Notes: The author of this fic does a great job capturing how these characters speak, especially Flower.  It is a reflective, but wholesome scene, one that I could have very much seen playing out in the show.

Fanwork Links: AO3
runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote2025-06-03 11:08 am
Entry tags:

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, written by Mariko Tamaki, art by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell

Miserable teenage lesbian makes bad dating (and life) choices while her best friend looks miserable about it: A Graphic Novel.

I didn't love all the bad choices and self-induced misery, but I did enjoy how effortlessly queer this is, and the ebb and flow of the friend group. I also loved how on target the fortune teller's advice was, but that Freddy was just too deep in her own bullshit to understand it. The greyscale art is modern and expressive, with a lot of movement and delightful pink highlights. A good read, and the ending improves on the beginning.

Also the cover is just so good.

Contains: infidelity; unplanned pregnancy; abortion.
full_metal_ox: Escher’s “Print Gallery” as a rotating TV image. (TV)
full_metal_ox ([personal profile] full_metal_ox) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-03 12:00 am

“Dark Lady” (Cher song), Barbie: Dark Lady by Cher Dollmation, by Warren Wright (fanvid.)

Fandom: “Dark Lady” (Cher song), Barbie
Pairings/Characters: F/M; F vs. F; Narrator/Narrator’s Partner, Narrator & Madame Fifi (with Madame Fifi/Narrator UST?), Madame Fifi/Narrator’s Partner
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 3:24
Content Notes: Major Character Death, anti-Romani stereotyping (including the bad word), arson, (toy) Clothing Porn, corny boomer music, dominance-jockeying, infidelity, hootchy-kootch dancing, love triangle, murder, occultism, psychic malpractice, (toy) Scenery Porn, please tell us the cat survived?
Creator Tags: cher, darklady, barbiestopmotion, stopmotion, animation, megotoys, barbie

Creator Links: (YouTube): [youtube.com profile] 74renren; (Instagram): [instagram.com profile] Warrencito

Theme: Female Relationships, Fanvid, Old Fandoms, Non-AO3 Works, Unconventional Format & Style

Summary: A stop motion tribute to the Cher hit “Dark Lady” done with vintage Barbie and Cher dolls with other special guests.



Reccer's Notes: The list of Content Notes should suffice to explain why this song was embraced by a particular sort of overwrought 70’s kid (1); Wright reimagines the cartoon music video that aired on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

(1) Me, for example. Disclaimer: the song has become a guilty pleasure in retrospect not because of its melodramatic nature, but because of the realization that Romani probably caught a lot of grief over it.)


Fanwork Links: Dark Lady by Cher Dollmation, by Warren Wright.
garryowen: (trek enterprise)
garryowen ([personal profile] garryowen) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-01 06:38 pm

Star Trek AOS: Once Upon a Time by igrockspock

Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot)
Pairings/Characters: Gaila & Christine Chapel
Rating: Teen
Length: 4,185 words
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] igrockspock
Theme: Female relationships

Summary: Privacy and fairy tales are two concepts that don't translate well into Orion.

Content notes: This is about Gaila, so there are mentions of enslavement and prostitution.

Reccer's Notes: I am fascinated by stories of how people come to Starfleet and what it must be like to meet people from such disparate backgrounds. This story approaches this subject with grace as Gaila and Christine Chapel become roommates at Starfleet Academy and must figure out each other's very different values and expectations. By opening up to each other, they forge a friendship. I like how creative the author is in describing Gaila's background and culture. The cultural exchange never feels heavy-handed. It's conveyed with tiny, realistic details like borrowing things from someone else's desk.

In addition to the cultural exchange element, the story weaves in ideas of resilience and having the power to change your life.

Fanwork Links: Once Upon a Time. And the WONDERFUL podfic by nickelmountain.
full_metal_ox: A gold Chinese Metal Ox zodiac charm. (Default)
full_metal_ox ([personal profile] full_metal_ox) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-01 02:28 pm

Mo Dao Zu Shi; Chen Qing Ling: Advance and Retreat, by Zdenka.

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: F/F; Madam Jin/Yu Ziyuan; Madam Jin, Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Cheng
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 600
Content Notes: adultery (mentioned), angst, arranged marriage, bereavement, generational trauma, heteronormativity, marriage politics, possible (unexpressed) adult-> minor pining
Creator Tags: 5+1 Things, Drabble Sequence, Zǐdiàn (Módào Zǔshī) - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, Socially Imposed Heterosexual Marriage, Background Relationships
Creator Links: (AO3): [archiveofourown.org profile] Zdenka
Theme: Female Relationships, Arranged Marriage, 5+1, Mutual Pining, Pining

Summary:

Five times Madam Jin saw Zidian on Yu Ziyuan's hand, and one time she saw it on her son's.

Notes:

Written for femslashfete for the prompt "artifact."


Reccer's Notes: Zdenka manages to cram so much into 600 words: an exquisitely painful soromance fulfillable only through generational proxy, imposed in turn—and the reader has the added pang of knowing what’s going to become of that couple.


Fanwork Links: Advance and Retreat, by [archiveofourown.org profile] Zdenka.
runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
Punk ([personal profile] runpunkrun) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-06-01 09:11 am

Round 175: Female Relationships

Photograph with added text: Female Relationships, at Fancake. Four old Nepalese women sit together on a low brick wall, their feet dangling, most of them barefoot, their shoes kicked off below them. They're dressed in loose patterned fabrics in various shades of red and the mood is relaxed.
Our theme for June is female relationships!

That's any kind of relationship—platonic, romantic, professional, familial, adversarial—between characters who identify as female.

The tag for this round is: theme: female relationships

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

Rules! )

Posting Template! )

Promote this round! )

mific: (Shep - oh crap)
mific ([personal profile] mific) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-05-30 10:32 pm

SGA: Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending by Helenish

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Explicit
Length: 14,383
Content Notes: mild, essentially harmless exploitation of a baby by Rodney (the baby's well cared for)
Creator Links: Helenish on AO3, dodificus on AO3, dodificus on the Audiofic Archive
Themes: Angst with a happy ending, Kidfic (has a child), Pining, First time, Friends to lovers, AU: fork in the road

Summary: It was easy to imagine fucking Rodney, the way he'd groan and clutch at John's arms and be too bossy about the whole thing; it was easy to imagine the problems it could cause.

Reccer's Notes: This is a cut off from Earth AU with the focus on John Sheppard's angst, pining and denial, but the ending, contrary to the title, is not unhappy. We follow John who's unwillingly and increasingly attracted to Rodney (but initially there's no way he'd ever let Rodney know). John tries to pretend he doesn't have feelings for Rodney while being tormented by jealousy, especially when Rodney temporarily cares for a refugee baby, partly as a "chick magnet". Helenish writes pining, self-deluding John brilliantly and this is another tour de force, packed with plot, UST, frustration, humor, and finally, finally, a happy ending, even though they're squabbling and miscommunicating throughout.

Fanwork Links: Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending on AO3
And the podfic read by dodificus is here