#user since

[rageprufrock]

I truly don't know how to choose between the first one I ever read that had me scurrying for your AO3 profile (Limited Release), the one that always makes me happy (Telephone), the one that always makes me actually cry (User Since), the ones I periodically re-read for my own health (Presque Vu and The Least of All Possible Mistakes), or the note-perfect ones (When House Met Wilson and Early Returns). Perhaps you should just pick whichever story has the secret you enjoy the most ^_^;;

This isn’t really that much of a secret since I publicly declare that the tears of my readers keeps me young but God DAMN does the comment section of User Since please me it is literally everybody swearing at me because I made them cry. THE POWER. THE POWER.

[rageprufrock]

Er, well, I meant that "User Since" is a lot more sympathetic, while the general feeling I get from "Track This Thread" is more 'look at all these closeted nerds in the basement" (Stuff like this: "...hot bottled mess of nerd sweat and patriotism..." or "creepy forum friends"). I'm not saying I disliked your story or anything! I really liked it! I just felt that there was a shift in how people talked about the forum and the people on it.

Ah yes! That's very much the consequence of a shift in point of view. In User Since, you're seeing fandom from the inside out, the way fans see one another and the structures and communities we build for ourselves and each other. We get it, we speak the same language.

In Track This Thread, the story is from an outsider point of view, and from the perspective of someone for whom these activities hold no draw, it goes beyond just not feeling the same depth of commitment. if Clint had it in him to also be a fan, maybe he'd come around -- although deeply unlikely about Cap fandom at least, because, well, Steve -- but he's seeing this without context or explanation really.

Same goes for most of the Avengers, with the exception of Tony, who I am betting is just an asshole. 

[rageprufrock]

I've noticed that "Track This Thread" and "User Since" are really different in how they portray the forum board. Was this intentional?

I'm going to need clarification when you say "really different" in portrayal between the two stories.

[elfhawk3]

Fic Rec Friday

That kind of makes it sound like I plan on doing this regularly, that is a lie. Really I am sharing this because it's just too bittersweet lovely not share.

User Since, by rageprufrock

Older fans will recognize the name, pru's been around forever.  I know of her thanks to my long-time love affair with Stargate: Atlantis and actually, it is an SGA fic I want to tell you about first, before talking about User Since.  

Synecdochic's  freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose is one of those fics that gets recced every time someone asks for SGA recs because it is just that good (without adding the oft-used somewhat-embarrassed 'for fanfic' disclaimer) and User Since reminds me of it, for all that one is 20k, while the other doesn't even hit 4k.  You don't need to know anything about Stargate: Atlantis to read freedom, the story provides you with everything you need to know.  It's is a post-series piece (written sometime during the season 2 break, I think, but set several years later) that follows Rodney McKay's tenure as a college professor after his return to Earth.  John Sheppard's name is never mentioned, though it's obvious from the very first sentence he shares equal billing with Rodney in the story.  He (and Atlantis) are woven into every word of the story, everything Rodney thinks, everything Rodney says, and everything Rodney teaches, with all the starts and stops that is grief recovery.

Why do I tell you this?

Because User Since is a post-movie Avengers fic that is not a Phil Coulson fix-it (though the WIP sequel seems to be, since she's tagged it Agents of SHIELD).  Phil Coulson is never in this story.  Alive, at any rate.  And yet, he is quite obviously the star of the whole thing, much as you know John Sheppard is dead from the first sentence of freedom but still manages to haunt the rest of the story.

User Since is a much rawer story, the pain new and fresh, instead of a dull constant covered with the necessities of having to keep going on.  It's told entirely through emails and forum posts by his online friends as they first search, and then grieve, for their missing friend.  It's closure the movie couldn't give you, not with them still mulling over how dead Phil really might be.

Read it.  Love it. Keep a box of tissues handy.

[emilianadarling]

Fic Rec: "User Since" by rageprufrock (and podfic by susan_voight)

Title: User Since (text/podfic) Author: rageprufrock (AO3/Tumblr) Reader: susan_voight (AO3/LJ) Rating: G Genre: Angst, character study in retrospect. Contains: Major character death, exploration of fandom. Summary: Phil — where the hell are you, man? Let us know if you're all right, or if there's anything we can do to help. HQ's freaking the fuck out.

This stoy, man. This story.

Represented though forum posts, e-mails, texts, and letters, User Since follows the reaction of Phil Coulson's closest friends in the aftermath of his death in the Battle of New York. The kicker is that these are not friends Phil ever got to meet in person. Instead, they are his fellow moderators and members at Howling Commandos HQ -- a large but close-knit fan community dedicated to both the historical and fictionalized Captain America. 

If you've ever been a member of this kind of fan community or had close online friends you've never met before, you'll understand why this fic hit me so hard. I downloaded the podfic without reading the summary (I already knew I liked the reader), a mistake which found me desperately trying not to cry in the middle of the grocery store. It presents a perfectly in-character representation of a canon character heavily involved in fandom, and the responses of Phil's friends to his death really hit close to home. The story disregards or was written before Agents of SHIELD, and it's all the more heartbreaking as a result. 

If you can, I truly recommend listening to the podfic. I almost didn't keep listening after the first few seconds because the fic's format is something that wouldn't ordinarily work aurally. Keep listening: half of the reason I almost cried at the grocery store was susan_voight's brilliant reading. Pitch-perfect and hearbreaking, this fic is a definite must-read within the Avengers fandom.