December Daily: Venom!

[resonant]

I spend weekends in Spouseville (where the church has wifi but no climate control and the house has climate control but no wifi) so I figured I'd get a headstart on this.

goss said, "VENOM! Why do you think it's been such an instant hit with Fandom, and what are some of your favourite fanworks so far?" and nestra said, "Any Venom recs?"

Much as I enjoyed it, much as I am loving what fans are doing with it, I stand by my first impression of "Venom": it was a mess. Maybe because they were trying to use the superhero movie toolkit to make a romcom? Maybe just because what we want is a romcom, and we're happy to dismantle a mediocre superhero movie to get one?

I've seen the Sony recut-as-romcom trailer, but I can't watch it all the way through. It's embarrassing without the indescribable magic that we-the-fandom bring to make the whole thing hang together.

(It's OK. I wrote 13% of the entire fandom of the Will Smith movie "Hancock," which was a similar sort of mess: overwhelming subtextual support for polyamory, insights on race and heroism, and an excruciatingly extended scene where someone's head is literally stuffed up someone's ass. I don't mind messes. Fandom knows what to do with messes.)

Honestly, I think the mismatch between what's on the screen and what's in the subtext is a big part of what fandom finds so appealing. It's not so much a story as a story kit, and we're all do-it-yourselfers at heart.

Plus, of course, we're also monsterfuckers at heart. And it's been a while since we had the opportunity to get Tom Hardy naked.

As for recs: I'm mostly not reading comic-based stories -- different characterization, too damned much canon. And I'm so not up-to-date on everything in the fandom. Dira's bookmarks are a great resource.

Cupidsbow is really exploring the alien side of the alien, in a way that I suspect will wind up being secondary canon for a lot of other writers. I particularly liked Food/Trust.

More excellent backstory, and also funny: Wildehack's Intra-Personal Negotiation.

Zuzeca's Attenborough's Revenge has a great Venom voice and a terrific portrayal of Venom's species and what made him a loser among them.

Given a mind-reading, shape-shifting, almost infinitely flexible symbiote, it's dispiriting how many authors go, "I know! I'll make a big muscular dom for rough fucking!" Which is to say that while there's a lot of excellent romance in the fandom, most of the sex has disappointed me. Zuzeca's Conjugal Love is one of the few explicit stories I can really recommend in this fandom.

And another is Dira's Aide-Memoire. I recommend everything Dira has written in the fandom, without exception, but be aware that some of it will make you cry.




1 -- goss, "VENOM! Why do you think it's been such an instant hit with Fandom, and what are some of your favourite fanworks so far?" and nestra, "Any Venom recs?"
2 -- anitac588, "How do you relate to different fandoms? Do you revisit them?
Sometimes I find it difficult to go back to reading stories in 'old' fandoms after discovering new OTP."
3 -- marginaliana, "what is your favorite physical non-living thing? Not a person or a pet, but it could be something you own or a piece of art, etc."
4 -- cesperanza, "I'll ask an HP question, actually, because I wasn't really ever in it and I'm interested in the reactions of people who were. It seems to me from the outside so spectacularly meh now; like, it was the fictional equiv of Lost (which I also didn't watch) where it was fascinating as a piece of serialized fiction but where the execution simply couldn't live up to the collective imagination. Am I wrong?"
5 -- teigh_corvus, "Your thoughts on James Joyce and Ulysses."
6 -- kass, "If the you of 10 years ago could see you now, what would surprise her most?"
7 --
8 --
9 --
10 -- princessofgeeks, "How did you go about changing fandoms? Was it, historically, something you did or something that just happened? Did friends lure you? Did you find new shows to watch?"
11 -- reginagiraffe, "(It's MrGiraffe's birthday so...) Have you ever written a birthday themed story? If not, what couple would have the best/funnest/easiest birthday story to write and why?"
12 -- laurenthemself, "What are your thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok? I know ya boy Steve wasn't in it but did you have any shippy feelings?"
13 --
14 --
15 -- china_shop, "What hooks you into a fanfic? Is it banter, characterisation, tropes, or...? Is it different from what hooks you into original fic?"
16 --
17 --
18 -- kass, "What have you read recently that you've enjoyed?
19 --
20 --
21 --
22 -- mekare, What would Ben Fraser do in 2018?
23 -- marina, "What was the last book you read that wasn't fanfic and that you intensely loved, and why."
24 -- wychwood, "Something about SGA! What's the one fic you're sorry you never wrote? What was your favourite episode? Do you still love John/Rodney? How gay WAS John Sheppard? Where in Atlantis would you live if you could pick any room you liked? Pick one or a topic of your choice."
25 --
26 --
27 --
28 --kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 --
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"

Comments

[mific]

Dec 8th
Sounds like you commute to and fro still. How do you pass the time traveling? Music? Audiobooks? Something else? Any reccs? :)

[torch]

For 9, favorite advent songs! I meant to put that in for 2, since tomorrow my choir will bounce around local churches going ADVENT ADVENT ADVENT, I just wasn't alert enough when this started.

[goss]

It's not so much a story as a story kit, and we're all do-it-yourselfers at heart

Heh. Too true.

And thank you for the recs! :)

[mekare]

He, that sounds like a fandom where I don‘t need to have watched the canon to thoroughly enioy the fic being written.

[ride_4ever]

Yeah, I'm with mekare on that December 22nd question.

[resonant]

I think that's probably true. Though if you've never even seen stills, fandom will give you the impression that Venom has kissable lips, which is definitely not the case in canon.

[brancher]

if you're looking for xenoporn in this fandom, check out my ao3 bookmarks : )

[resonant]

Hooray! I'm never not looking for xenoporn!

[dont_panic42]

Honestly, I think the mismatch between what's on the screen and what's in the subtext is a big part of what fandom finds so appealing. It's not so much a story as a story kit, and we're all do-it-yourselfers at heart.

Plus, of course, we're also monsterfuckers at heart. And it's been a while since we had the opportunity to get Tom Hardy naked.

This is soooo true. I think Venom fandom may be one of those where I never bother actually watching the canon material. Having read some fic, I feel like I kind of get it, enough to enjoy the fic at least.

[isabellerecs]

These are some terrific recs, thank you :)