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If it's Friday, it must be rec day
Well, lately every day is SPN rec day here, so why should Friday be any different? A few more bigbang recs, including one potentially controversial one.
Edited to add: Spoilers for most of these stories in the comments, so if you're avoiding spoilers don't read the comments!
So apparently the controversial story of the summer (or at least of this week) is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mediaville's Lost and Found (Jared/Jensen). Here is the author's summary: "Jensen Ackles is a shy, overweight songwriter whose body issues have prevented him from forming any real personal connections, and at thirty, he’s still unsure of his sexuality, and still a virgin. But when he signs up for an experimental obesity research program, he meets Jared Padalecki, a stunningly sexy fitness guru who slowly but surely changes Jensen’s life."
So you can probably see the potential controversy, and several people on my flist have posted that they found it triggery. So keep that in mind. I went in thinking I would either really hate it or really love it, and personally I really loved it--it was perfect emo-porn for me, watching Jensen deal with his self-hatred issues with the help of Jared. Did I find lots of it unrealistic? Of course. Did it reflect some of the social attitudes suggesting weight loss is just a matter of willpower, and that it's morally superior to be thin than fat? To a certain extent, but I think it was actually a lot more complicated than that. I don't watch the type of TV shows that may or may not have inspired this fic (e.g. The Biggest Loser), so I don't know how much of an influence they might have been. As a fat person myself, I didn't feel like the story was judging me, though it did inspire me to workout more yesterday than I have in a while, so take that as you will. (If you haven't seen any of the critiques of the story on your flist, try here and here.) As a story about a relationship between Jared and Jensen, and a shy Jensen overcoming his fears, though, I loved it.
A Devil To Help Me Get Things Right bydoodle_writes (Jared/Jensen) is another story of Jensen having to overcome his past, though in this case it's a lot more difficult. Jared and Jensen had the perfect relationship when they were 19; Jensen can remember that clearly. When he wakes up in the hospital at the age of 30 with no memory of the last 10 years, he can't understand why Jared is no longer with him. As he tries to get back on his feet with the help of his friends Chris Kane and Danneel Harris, he realizes that he's spent the last ten years being a major dick to almost everyone he knows, and he has to find a new way of being in the world. And it doesn't look likely that he can ever make up to Jared for his past behavior, but he has to try. In a summer full of great Danneel-as-supporting-character roles, I have to say this is my favorite version of her so far, and I also really loved Jensen's slow attempts to remake himself.
The Accompanist bygretazeta. (Dean/OMC, but that relationship isn't really the focus of the story, so honestly it reads more like gen to me, though YMMV, since there is a little bit of romance and some sex). Ok, to read this story requires one initially HUGE suspension of disbelief, since you have to accept that Mary managed to teach Dean enough piano at the age of 4 that he would (a) develop a huge love for it which (b) he then conceals from his Dad and Sam for years. If you can accept that, though, this is an amazing story. In a small town where they've settled to let Dean finish high school, Dean encounters an elderly musician who agrees to give him lessons in return for car repairs. He soon forms a relationship with the musician's nephew, who is also a musical prodigy. But these relationships are threatened by a supernatural monster who is connected to the musician's past.
This story was terrific on a number of levels--it's a great story about music and the unlikely friendships formed through music; it's a fantastic casefile; and it's a heartbreaking but beautiful characterization of Dean, and how Roman Steinberg helps teach him about finding reasons to go on living even when it seems that you've lost everything. And oh, god, the ending absolutely broke my heart, but it was also completely perfect.
Edited to add: Spoilers for most of these stories in the comments, so if you're avoiding spoilers don't read the comments!
So apparently the controversial story of the summer (or at least of this week) is
mediaville's Lost and Found (Jared/Jensen). Here is the author's summary: "Jensen Ackles is a shy, overweight songwriter whose body issues have prevented him from forming any real personal connections, and at thirty, he’s still unsure of his sexuality, and still a virgin. But when he signs up for an experimental obesity research program, he meets Jared Padalecki, a stunningly sexy fitness guru who slowly but surely changes Jensen’s life."So you can probably see the potential controversy, and several people on my flist have posted that they found it triggery. So keep that in mind. I went in thinking I would either really hate it or really love it, and personally I really loved it--it was perfect emo-porn for me, watching Jensen deal with his self-hatred issues with the help of Jared. Did I find lots of it unrealistic? Of course. Did it reflect some of the social attitudes suggesting weight loss is just a matter of willpower, and that it's morally superior to be thin than fat? To a certain extent, but I think it was actually a lot more complicated than that. I don't watch the type of TV shows that may or may not have inspired this fic (e.g. The Biggest Loser), so I don't know how much of an influence they might have been. As a fat person myself, I didn't feel like the story was judging me, though it did inspire me to workout more yesterday than I have in a while, so take that as you will. (If you haven't seen any of the critiques of the story on your flist, try here and here.) As a story about a relationship between Jared and Jensen, and a shy Jensen overcoming his fears, though, I loved it.
A Devil To Help Me Get Things Right by
doodle_writes (Jared/Jensen) is another story of Jensen having to overcome his past, though in this case it's a lot more difficult. Jared and Jensen had the perfect relationship when they were 19; Jensen can remember that clearly. When he wakes up in the hospital at the age of 30 with no memory of the last 10 years, he can't understand why Jared is no longer with him. As he tries to get back on his feet with the help of his friends Chris Kane and Danneel Harris, he realizes that he's spent the last ten years being a major dick to almost everyone he knows, and he has to find a new way of being in the world. And it doesn't look likely that he can ever make up to Jared for his past behavior, but he has to try. In a summer full of great Danneel-as-supporting-character roles, I have to say this is my favorite version of her so far, and I also really loved Jensen's slow attempts to remake himself.The Accompanist by
gretazeta. (Dean/OMC, but that relationship isn't really the focus of the story, so honestly it reads more like gen to me, though YMMV, since there is a little bit of romance and some sex). Ok, to read this story requires one initially HUGE suspension of disbelief, since you have to accept that Mary managed to teach Dean enough piano at the age of 4 that he would (a) develop a huge love for it which (b) he then conceals from his Dad and Sam for years. If you can accept that, though, this is an amazing story. In a small town where they've settled to let Dean finish high school, Dean encounters an elderly musician who agrees to give him lessons in return for car repairs. He soon forms a relationship with the musician's nephew, who is also a musical prodigy. But these relationships are threatened by a supernatural monster who is connected to the musician's past. This story was terrific on a number of levels--it's a great story about music and the unlikely friendships formed through music; it's a fantastic casefile; and it's a heartbreaking but beautiful characterization of Dean, and how Roman Steinberg helps teach him about finding reasons to go on living even when it seems that you've lost everything. And oh, god, the ending absolutely broke my heart, but it was also completely perfect.
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And I do think even if you have a certain level of security in yourself, being constantly bombarded with messages that being fat means you're lazy, self-hating, unloveable, etc. gets hard to take. So if that's the message she took from the story, I can see where she's coming from. (I don't think that *is* the message of the story--but since I've bailed from stories over issues that are far less emotionally weighted, I certainly don't blame her for not finishing a story that triggered her).
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Oh definitely. There are fics I steer far, far away from because of the trigger factor - non-con, violence, and a few others - but I don't trash the fic, I accept that I have issues that make reading something like that unpleasant for me. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the fic, or how the author wrote it. I think her crit is extremely harsh considering, as you say, she didn't read it all. She just made an over-all judgment based on her perception - tainted by her issues - that really wasn't fair, imho.
And I do think even if you have a certain level of security in yourself, being constantly bombarded with messages that being fat means you're lazy, self-hating, unloveable, etc. gets hard to take.
Yes, it does, as well as the disgusting belief that thin is always good, which it often isn't. But that isn't what this fic was about, as you say, and I don't have a problem with anyone bailing on a fic because it triggers them - but to rant about it in that fasion - idk. It just seemed very OTT.