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It's Friday, which means it's time for Fanfic Reccs!

They're all Avengers this week, though some of them are a bit crossovery.

Just Like the Ones I Used to Know by selori: Gen, background Tony/Pepper. The Avengers are having a movie marathon and Tony objects to kicking it off with White Christmas -- but he's never actually seen the film. It turns out to be a lot more engaging than he figured, and Steve is captivated. I love the movie, even with all its flaws, and this is a great fic tribute to it! Plus fun in its own right.

Big Talk by sabinelagrande: Mature, multiple ships. Skye and Ward dose Coulson with truth serum as a prank. They get a lot more than they bargained for. I love how totally unconcerned with the truth Coulson is, and it's a great turnabout.

Reward System - The Coulson Card by AdamantSteve: Mature, Clint/Coulson. Coulson convinces Clint to actually get medical attention after being injured by offering him a "loyalty" card -- every nine trips to medical earns him a free meal, and free food just tastes better, everyone knows that. Sweet, a little messed up, and very funny.

Your Lips And Mine by IamShadow21: Mature, Steve/Tony, Bruce/Tony, lots of kissing. Tony kisses nd gets kissed and helps Hawkeye give Lucky a bath, among other things. I have to admit getting Lucky groomed is the bit about this I like best. :D

One Hundred and Five Percent by IamShadow21: Explicit, Pepper/Tony. Tony injects himself with Extremis after repairing Pepper's, which means now both of them can talk to robots...and to each other. It really nails the Pepper/Tony dynamic, and the sex is brief but super-hot. :D

Ask Galatea by thingswithwings: Explicit, Cap/Coulson. Coulson likes to serve, and Steve is willing to accept it. A sweet treatment of a rare pair that I think works really well.

Love Among the Hydrothermal Vents by DevilDoll: Explicit, Steve/Tony. Namor wants Steve for a bride. Steve's having none of it, but to get Namor off his back, he pretends to be engaged to Tony. A very well-done execution of the fake-relationship trope, funny and charming and I love Tony's addiction to Atlantean romance novels.

Thor's Second Epic, or: Grocery Run by Sanura: Not Rated, Gen. Sanura took the mention I made of Thor's epic over his trip to the grocery store in Exclusive and ran with it. It's funny and iambic!

PODFIC: The Long Con by Bakaknight: This is a delightful podfic of my short story The Long Con, which was officially posted to AO3 last night.

Art:

Seuss-Style Captain America by Clockways: Inspired by The Stars Upon Thars, where Dr. Seuss and Captain America were buddies during the war.

Ugly Iron Man Sweater by Maskedfangirl: which I requested but neglected to specify "wearing the sweater" or "themed on the sweater". :D

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I ALMOST FORGOT, what with it being the holidays and all, that I have permanently archived some Christmas stuff.

-- Sam's Holiday Mix, which is a bunch of wintry holiday songs for you to enjoy, and

-- Word Ornaments - In I think 2008 I had people submit a bunch of words they thought would make good Christmas ornaments, and then I converted them into printable sheets. You can find images of them here, but the above link is now the only place to get the full-sized ones, I think.

I should get my tiny Christmas tree out, but it's currently in a box and I'm trying to put more things in boxes right now, not take more things out....

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I finished The Bond Woman's Narrative about a month ago, but it's taken a while to get back on my feet enough to review it. I'm unhappy about the delay, because it is an awesome book.

I became aware of it because of an article about how the author of the book had finally been traced, or at least they thought so; this was big news because the book purported to have been written by an escaped slave in the mid-19th century.

If indeed Hannah Crafts turned out to be black, this would be the first novel written by a female fugitive slave, and perhaps the first novel written by any black woman at all. -- Introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr., XXI

( Spoilers for The Bond Woman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts )

Final Verdict: I can't recommend The Bond Woman's Narrative highly enough, particularly for people who are interested in African-American history but also for lovers of literature and aspiring writers. I enjoyed every minute of it.