Fic recs, various fandoms

[thedarlingone]

So I mentioned I'd been planning to do more fic rec posts. These are from my AO3 history and related wanderings, in no sort of organized fashion.



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The Last Post (1690 words) by Rheanna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: metafanfic
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: sharp teeth commentfest, Horror, LiveJournal, Fandom
Summary:

Is there anyone here?

Damn, though. I don't usually read scary/creepy/horror fic, but every so often there's one that just... damn. This one feels apropos with the collapse of Tumblr, too.

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Oolon Colluphid Was Right (1068 words) by melannen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate - All Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Characters: Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard, Ronon Dex
Additional Tags: Imprisonment, Communication, Languages and Linguistics, Cultural References, Rampant Geekery, Codes & Ciphers, Self-Indulgent, The Author Regrets Nothing, Fandom, Universal Translators, Darmok and Jalad
Summary:

The Stargates' universal translation effect can sometimes make secret communication in enemy territory difficult. Luckily, Rodney has a plan.

I love the sort of "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" nerd-language, not least because it reminds me of the way my sisters and I could communicate back in the day. And I really fucking love this fic. (Also, sophia_sol "translated" it at some point, but the translation does not appear to be on their AO3, nor is it linked from this fic, so god only knows where I can find it. ETA: brin_bellway found it!) This may not be the world's most coherent recommendation, but... it's a complete conversation in nerd references, it's amazing, you should read it. :D

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And The Stars Of Heaven Shall Fall (1118 words) by sophia_sol
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Highlander: The Series, Bible (New Testament)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Methos, Jesus Christ
Additional Tags: Apocalypse, Eschaton, The Gathering, Crossover
Series: Part 3 of John 21:25
Summary:

"To the best of my extensive knowledge, we are the only two left."

There are three Highlander end-of-the-Game fics that have really majorly stuck with me. This one took me two days thinking about other things to get the ending, and then I screeched out loud. It is (if you are familiar with the reference) the most fucking brilliant thing I have ever seen in my life. Sorry, I feel like I'm failing at actually explaining what any of these fics are about or why you should read them.

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Getting What You Want (787 words) by sophia_sol
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Highlander: The Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Joe Dawson/Methos, Joe Dawson/Duncan MacLeod/Methos
Characters: Duncan MacLeod, Methos, Joe Dawson
Additional Tags: Voyeurism, Alcohol
Summary:

Joe is a very handsome man. So is Methos. So is Duncan, for that matter, but he's too busy ogling the others to care about that.

God, this one is just so sweet and so hot and god I fucking love it. Methos is such a dork, and Joe is a sweetheart, and I really do like Duncan when he's not manpaining. And it's just so fucking good, okay. *hearts in eyes*

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Twelve (2753 words) by hightechzombie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Mordin Solus, Garrus Vakarian, Legion (Mass Effect), Miranda Lawson, Jack | Subject Zero, Zaeed Massani, Samara (Mass Effect), Kasumi Goto, Grunt (Mass Effect), Thane Krios, Jacob Taylor, Shepard (Mass Effect)
Additional Tags: Death from Discworld
Summary:

Death, meet the team. Team, meet Death.

Suicide Mission ME2.

God damn, though. This one is an unappreciated gem. Course, I love that kind of parallel structure, and I love anthropomorphic personifications of Death, and sometimes deathfic says things that no other kind of fic really can. And the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission has so many ways for people to die, and damn. God, I love my squad. There's a reason I used up all my hotspot data last month re-downloading the Mass Effect games onto my brand new laptop, even if I don't know whether I'll ever have time to play video games again.

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Turning and Turning (3692 words) by eponymous_rose
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams
Characters: Rory Williams
Summary:

Things changed. Rory stayed the same.

I podficced this once, actually. I suspect the sound quality was not what it should have been, and I haven't the faintest notion whether the link is still active. I don't intend to check. But the story itself still holds up. I'm not good at open canons and I never have gone back to Doctor Who, but I did very much love the Amy-Rory-Eleventy Team TARDIS. And Rory is a sweetheart.

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Slow Dance (2875 words) by Raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Illya Kuryakin, Napoleon Solo, Alexander Waverly
Additional Tags: Time Travel
Summary:

On July 8th, 1965, Illya Kuryakin will disappear.

I really like a certain sort of atmospheric, out-of-order, wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stories too. This one, I think I first ran across when MFU fandom had a remix challenge. I liked it enough to want to remix it but I couldn't think of anything to do to it. Still can't. I still like it, too, which is more than you can say for a lot of MFU fic (including my own) this many years on.

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Toward Freedom (1785 words) by Jedi Buttercup
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ethan Rayne
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Introspection, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Series: Part 8 of Lesser Men Saga
Summary:

Ethan takes a moment out to breathe and reconnect. An interlude in the Lesser Men saga.

As some of you know, I have a lot of feelings about Ethan Rayne, and about chaos and balance and luck and patterns. I struggle to find words for a lot of that myself, and much of it is tangled up in novel-ish fanfics and would take a lot of explaining. This is one of the shorter fics that says some of what I think I mean sometimes. This specific mental image, just sitting alone with fire and reconnecting with Chaos, has been a touchstone of how I play Ethan/Etayne in my D&D campaigns, although it hasn't come up much recently because we've been on a ship and I haven't been able to make it to sessions regularly.

(I'm not allowed to have candles in my apartment. It's making me a little stir-crazy. I have little electric LED Halloween candles, which are a pretty good substitute, but... fire is the closest I get to keeping another living thing around.)

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A Star to Steer Her By (183330 words) by ShadesOfMauve
Chapters: 41/41
Fandom: Mass Effect
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Jeff "Joker" Moreau/Female Shepard
Characters: Jeff "Joker" Moreau, Female Shepard, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Garrus Vakarian, Doctor Chakwas, Normandy Crew, Kelly Chambers, Jack | Subject Zero
Additional Tags: Sci-Fi, Romance, Humor, Friendship, Physical Disability, Action, Mass Effect 2
Series: Part 1 of Stars
Summary:

After being revived by Cerberus, Shepard is not quite the stable commander that Joker remembers, and he's surprised to find himself helping her pick up the pieces. Follows ME2 with a focus on the interstitial non-mission bits.

So, once upon a time, away far back in the day, right around the time when I was starting to try and play the Mass Effect trilogy on a vastly underpowered computer because eponymous_rose had been livestreaming it and it looked like fun and somebody had gifted me the first two games off a Steam sale, ShadesofMauve finished this story. I don't do open canons, as I may have mentioned, but by god do I love me some longfics. I read this story long before I ever got very far in the games, and then I read and read and read it again. I still quote it to myself a lot. It's 183k words (the Tumblr share code on AO3 doesn't include wordcount so I got in the habit of mentioning), so don't start it till you've got some time, but damn, is it good. Also, Rhi Shepard is amazing. :D

I've got like fifty more pages of my AO3 history to go, but a lot of that is going to get into X-wing stories, and then there are my gifts and all my friends' gifts, and... there are a lot of good fanfics out there to rec, is what I'm saying. Hell, I haven't even touched on anything by ashkaztra or thisbluespirit or... really any of my friends apart from Sophia_sol and melannen.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Yay, recslist!

(<3)

[brin_bellway]

>>(Also, sophia_sol "translated" it at some point, but the translation does not appear to be on their AO3, nor is it linked from this fic, so god only knows where I can find it.)<<

Buried in the AO3 comments, I found this comment by Gozer:
"I adore this, but I'm afraid I cheated! I googled and found a translation that a clever fellow-fan did a few years ago:

https://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/226741.html

Thought it was a great story before I found the translation, still think it's a great story!"

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>>There's a reason I used up all my hotspot data last month re-downloading the Mass Effect games onto my brand new laptop, even if I don't know whether I'll ever have time to play video games again.<<

I do miss your livestreams, though I'm not sure where you could find the data for it now.

[thedarlingone]

Yeah, I think any livestreaming is gonna have to wait until I have real wifi again, which is not gonna be while I'm living here. It's nice to hear that you enjoyed them, though, given that you were the only person who ever watched them. ;P

(It might be nice at some point to figure out like... how to actually upload them to YouTube at a reasonable resolution, because the Twitch exports to YouTube are unwatchably compressed, but I don't know if that would wind up exposing me to levels of harassment I don't want. :P Fucking gamer bros, you know? But the Twitch hosting thing and having to remember to save them before they auto-delete was... annoying at best. I don't know if they're even still hosted there or if even the saved ones auto-deleted because I haven't logged in in so long.)

[brin_bellway]

I think the main problem is that I miss synchronous text chat with friends in general. I don't get very many opportunities these days, now that I no longer have enough spare marbles to handle a place with ambient SJ levels as high as DS9 Rewatch.

Maybe we could watch TV together, something where you could get a local copy so you don't need data for the video.

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I checked, and it looks like the Twitch videos that made it past their first fortnight are still there now.

[thedarlingone]

*nods* Do you have Discord? It seems to be one of the places fandom is migrating. Most of my synchronous socialization these days is over there - in fact I just signed off for the night from a couple of group chats there. I don't know that I could recommend any specific servers, as my chattiest ones are for my D&D group and my current fandom (the Star Wars Legends X-Wing novels), and your tastes and mine in fandoms tend to be fairly different, is my impression.

I'd be happy to figure out a time for synchronized watching of something or other, if we can; my days off are Thu/Fri, but I've been so absurdly busy that I honestly don't know what we can schedule. Maybe we should start with what to watch and go from there. All my movies are still in storage, so I'd be limited to what's available at the library. Honestly, other than DS9, I'm not sure any of our fandoms overlap? Or if they do, I'm not aware. We can work something out though.