Arctic Light

I fiiiiiinally wrote up some actual recs. These are cherry-picked from my AO3 bookmarks - only a small fraction of the fics I've read and enjoyed in the fandom (so much good fic!) but it's a start. Obviously this is weighted very heavily towards the characters/pairings/tropes that I prefer, and minus the handful I've already rec'd in their own posts. Spoilers for Captain America 2 in pretty much all of these; some include Agents of Shield spoilers.

( 7 gen recs, 4 Steve/Bucky, 4 other pairings, 1 that can best be categorized as 'ow' )

I saved this one to my Kindle to read on the plane, and then, uh, ignored everyone I'm supposed to be visiting with for part of today because I had to finish it.

your blue-eyed boys (Steve/Bucky, around 120K) - I really don't know how better to rec this than to say that this is really THE definitive post-Winter Soldier recovery fic. There is lots of great fic in this fandom, but this one is, IMHO, the best one out there. It is also unbelievably grim in places and triggery for probably just about everything (depression, self-harm, food/eating issues ... basically every common trigger I can think of except for rape is in this one). This is a very wrenching, disturbing story. But it's filled to the brim with love and h/c and cuddling and friendship and team feelings and characters being selfless and AMAZING.

(It is also, no lie, the kind of story that makes you go out into the world wanting to be a better person. This story gave me ideas for dealing with family members who are going through trauma -- I mean, obviously not trauma on the level of what's happening in this story, but it made me quietly determine to be more patient and supportive. There's a bit in the story that if you're willing to take a bullet for someone, you should also be willing to accept some hurt feelings, and obviously things can often be more complicated -- which is also acknowledged in-text -- but that really resonated with me. As well as just, generally, the characters being self-aware and giving and flawed and human and beautiful.)

As you can probably tell I still have many feelings about this.

The best thing I can compare this to, as far as fic I've loved in other fandoms, is The Hard Prayer by Rheanna (SGA, John/Rodney). I loved this story for similar reasons to why I loved that one. If you liked that one, you might like this (and vice versa).

(Also, if Steve/Bucky is not your pairing, it's actually possible to read the first half of the story -- it's posted in two parts, plus a prologue and epilogue -- as gen. Not that I'm necessarily recommending this, since the second half is where most of the emotional payoff kicks in, and I also feel a bit weird about mentioning it since it's clearly against the intended authorial reading of the fic -- but it's possible.)

*special note to xparrot: I know this isn't your normal fandom/pairing, but I think you might like this anyway because of your fondness for characters whose world, on both a gen and a pairing level, revolves around each other -- where the pairing is sort of a side note to a particularly obsessive level of "weird for each other". This story seemed to me that it might really hit that kink for you. As well as buckets of h/c, of course. ^^;;

I have absolutely no idea what to pick as an overall tag for my shiny new Captain America fixation. Avengers? Captain America? MCU? Marvel? The trouble is that the franchise is so huge and amorphous, and there's comics stuff and movie stuff and Avengers-related stuff and stuff that isn't really Avengers-related at all. Right now I seem to be using "captain america" in some instances and "avengers" in others, with "comics" thrown in occasionally for variety. I'm sure this will make it impossible to find anything in the future. AUGH.

Anyway, I have been meaning to rec some of the pretty/fun/shiny things that I've found. I figured I'd start with music videos because there are relatively fewer of them. I'm also reccing Captain America-related fanart over at fanart_recs this month (I just got started, so there is only one rec so far) but that's probably where I will be putting the fanart rather than making a separate post for it.

Only a few of these contain spoilers for the new movie, but I figured I'd put it all under a cut regardless.

( On to the vids! )

I am really into vids right now, so if you have any others you'd like to rec, toss a link in the comments - the more the merrier!