I found a treasure!

I've been so late with my entries that I can't squeeze in another fic rec, but I'd like to use the option of reccing four "extras", which can be vids, art, or other non-fic things. I decided to put them all into one entry as to not clutter up your friendslists.

Let me state first that there's so much great fan art, resources, and thoughtful essays out there -- including Neil Gaiman's blog *g* -- that it was really hard to limit my choices. But here's what I finally came up with (all rated G or PG at most):

1. Game Over, a Death fan art by hombregris on deviantART. A rather dark piece in colors and tone, which is an interesting digression from the canon/fanon depiction of perky, good-natured Death. The perspective is great, and I love how this Death has some meat on her bones.

2. Another fan art on deviantART: Mister Sandman, by elDepressio. A quirky and highly stylized, but adorable Morpheus picture.

3. An essay by khilari on LiveJournal: Dream and Autism, in which she discusses Morpheus' behaviour and how it might look familiar to someone with knowledge of the autistic spectrum.

4. Something in 3-D for a change: a Corinthian dollfie puppet by silvernaofficer (on LJ's the_worlds_end community). Unfortunately, the dollfie models look very delicate to begin with, so this Corinthian is much "younger" than he ought to, but apart from that? Great work, down to the canonically correct boots and the eye-teeth made from clay.


So, that's it -- I'm done with my claim. I hope you enjoyed the recs. Feel free to leave a comment if you have something to say, be it praise or criticism -- it's the first time I've done a project like this, and if I can learn something from it, that's even better.

Fandom: The Sandman (comic)
Title: Small Fish
Author: Fay (pandarus on LJ)
Pairing: None (gen); characters are Death and Dream (the new one).
Warnings/Rating: None, it's totally family-friendly.
Link: Story hosted on Yuletidetreasure.org
Additional info : You can leave feedback as a comment on the web page, or check the contact details on the author profile.

Why should people click?
Because it's sad, and hopeful, and fragile, and funny. Because it's about change, and finding the constants underneath that keep you going. Because every person who ever had siblings will know how Death feels; that mix of annoyance and love for her brother. Because Fay managed to get a Labyrinth reference in there, which makes me want to hug this story and give it a chocolate muffin.

Also, the descriptions of Death's home and Morpheus' old, stiff self are adorable.

"He has lifted a teddy bear from an over-stuffed armchair and is surveying it quizzically. Morpheus won it for her at a fun fair, she recalls, and suddenly she can almost smell the hotdogs and the cotton candy, can almost see again the expression of rigid dignity upon his face as he accepted the prize from the fat man at the coconut shy, after Death nagged him into having a go. He thought she wanted the teddy bear, and so he stood stiff-backed and pitched coloured balls at coconuts with brutal accuracy, quietly disregarding the glue which Marvin Hammerstein had so carefully applied to fix them into place. [...] Dream picks his way very carefully through a clutter of bunny slippers, splayed hardbacks (Lucien would have an apoplexy if he saw them, she realises with a pang of guilt), sheesha pipes, tarot cards, duelling foils, pages of sheet music, glossy magazines, spilled popcorn and all the other oddments scattered across her carpet, and looks from the Snoopy mug to the fishbowl with its greenish water."

Told you so.


Where to find more by this author: Conveniently, Fay put up a fic list on her journal (lots of BtVS, and many multifandom one-shots). It's from 2004, so I can't guarantee every single link to work. Another index can be found at the Skyehawke Archive.

Fandom: The Sandman (comic)
Title: Shades
Author: Nyarth (smirnoffmule on LJ)
Pairing: The Corinthian and one of his victims (m/m slash)
Warnings/Rating: NC-17 (for the sex, it's not actually gory or violent)
Link: Story hosted on personal archive
Additional info : You can leave feedback via the email link on the main page.

Why should people click?
I could say "If you like the Corinthian in any way, shape, or form, this story is for you." But that's not really The Point. It's not about the sex, either (which is not as BDSM-y as the warnings make it sound like -- when you're okay with someone being tied up, you'll be okay with this story). Nor is it really about the second Corinthian, who just serves as narrative bookends.
The Point is that this is, at its core, a character study. This story delves into the mindset of a living nightmare, what it means to live in the Dreaming and then wander from the Dreaming into the Waking World. And what it means to be the Corinthian; arrogant, hungry and eager, who wants to be more than the dog on a leash, and gets a whole new world served to him on a silver platter; sensuous, delicious, messy.
There are also lots of inside jokes, so to speak, and sentences and metaphors with a delightful, creepy double meaning. There's even Corinthian/Morpheus subtext, if you squint. And I could ramble on and on, but I'll better save that for a proper essay that I can link back to. ^^'

( Excerpt )


Where to find more by this author: The archive lists some more fics (X-Men, The Authority, Buffy, Harry Potter). Apart from that, I have nothing. :(

Note: The original version of this rec has been written in February 2007 and crossposted to various places (my own journal, the_dreaming, and dingsi_recs). My apologies if you see this more than once.

Fandom: The Sandman (comic)
Title: Dreams, Absent
Author: qwerty (queasy on FicWad)
Pairing: none (gen), the main character is Lucien the Librarian.
Warnings/Rating: I've rated it PG-13 for some violent imagery.
Link: Story hosted on the YuletideTreasure.org archive
Additional info : You can leave feedback directly at the archive via comments, or use the email adress provided in the author profile.


Why should people click?

Without its King, the Dreaming falls apart, and Lucien tries to hold the pieces together.

This is a sad story. It's about slow decay, about a crumbling world and dying dreams, because the being that represents their essence is gone. And it's about Lucien, head of the Dream King's library, who stubbornly and with as much grace as he can muster refuses to give in. It has dark, beautiful images, sometimes described in mere haunting glimpses, like dreams and nightmares tend to be. It's just two pages in MS Word, but it left a lasting impression on me, not just because I like Lucien -- who you can see in my icon, by the way -- but also because I love the atmosphere.

"Outside, he looks up at into the firmament he remembers filled with myriad myriads of dreams sparkling in and out on the edge of unconsciousness. He is dismayed to notice, for the first time, the fixed, unlovely dreams like dull stones; glimmering shattered drifts of dream, and patches of void. (...) Another dream winks out without returning as he puzzles over the change."

If you'd like to read my further thoughts on the matter, a more in-depth (and spoilery!) review is here.

Where to find more by this author: There's the personal website qwertyuiop_roach (Sentinel fic only), and the FicWad.com profile (mostly Anime/Manga and Harry Potter). Sadly, no other Sandman fic by this author. It's a shame.