kitewithfish | Entries tagged with fanfiction

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What I've Read
I have read no traditionally published books at all, only fanfic.

I re-read Spring in Hell (and everything's blooming)by blackkat, a Clone Wars Era AU in which Jon Antilles and a bunch of other dead-in-canon rogue Jedi foil a plot by Count Dooku, and Jon and clone trooper Rex have trauma bonding in a prison cell. It's angsty and great!

sanguine by glimmerglanger is an AU in which Obi-Wan Kenobi is a vampire - heavily focusing on themes of personhood, the dangers of people misunderstanding you, and Cody pining for the Jedi who routinely saves his life.

Total sidebar: I think it's Glimmerglanger who has made repeated use of a trope that I adore, which is Clone trooper Mandalorian religion and the common parting line between soldiers who feared dying before they can meet again is, "If we don't meet again, I'll wait for you before marching on." And I am slain every time I see this trope used because, well, what more tender promise can we make to those we leave behind?

There All the Honor Lies by Hero_Thief - Space Royalty and arranged marriage AU, clone wars era where Jango Fett is less of a feral hog to his children and decides to take over pacifist Mandalore by marrying one of his clone sons to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Self indulgent and goofy!

What I'm Reading

Still on Unconquerable Sun - the book club are all having trouble with the pacing on this one. I'm going to try switching to an audiobook. This feels like a bit of self indulgence for Kate Elliott

What I'll Read Next
Book club unanimously picked Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore.

I have returned! I trust no one missed me.

A tiny note to myself and other people who use the Archive of Our Own bookmarking system - If you want to have a record of the bookmark that endures even if the author orphans the work or deletes it, you can do that by just copy/pasting the info that you'd like to save into the Bookmark Notes section. I also would like to extend a copious amount of thanks to all the people using this system - it has allowed me to hunt down further works by an author who has orphaned a lot of excellent writing.

What I’ve Read:

Vacation is great for getting a lot of reading done!

Thrawn by Timothy Zahn (2017) – Ok, so this one came at me a bit sideways – in short, I have subscribed to furiosophie, who has written some truly devastatingly wonderful fic in the Mandalorian fandom, and it turned out she was writing a series called to “post·mor·tem” and I started reading that and… it has pining, and platonic but not platonic bedsharing, and cultural differences among aliens, all of which is surely just the most perfect catnip for me. This is the novel that the fanfic is based on, and it is some solid Star Wars scifi writing – we have some characters that are changing and growing over time, Thrawn is officially brought into the Disneyfied Star Wars canon, and I overall quite enjoyed the book. Tho I am not sure I would have sought it out without that fanfic!

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather (Our Lady of Endless Worlds #1) It has space nuns in a living ship, trying to help people even when it costs them a lot. Goodness without centralization. This is why Firefly could have been, in some ways. It’s not really like Mary Doria Russells The Sparrow and Children of God (which are a single story and cannot be read alone! I will fight on this one, they don’t make sense alone!) It also felt like V for Vendetta, in the ‘goodness in the face of the oncoming storm’ wins a small victory.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor #1) – Hugo Novel Nominee - I really liked this. In an ancient China with a thin veneer of otherworldly power, our main character matches wits and seeks military victories and wins by sheer cleverness. I love the un-twist of the ending, how the character’s journey comes to a surprising and potent ending.

The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh by K.J. Charles (Society of Gentlemen #0.5) – Delightful porn!

An Ever-Fixed Mark by AMarguerite – A super long Pride and Prejudice with soulmarks AU, that indulges my tastes for long and detailed works about the Napoleonic wars and British society life. If the main listed pairing bothers you in differing from the novel, don’t worry, Lizzy gets there.

Meet Death Sitting by bomberqueen17 – The Witcher – Jaskier/Geralt – It’s just…. a reconciliation and the victory of kindness to engage a person who has been traumatized and hurt? I love it? I have not finished every entry in this very long series but it contains Jaskier explaining how periods work to Ciri, so just accept that it is wonderful.

Sew a Thousand Sequins to Your Sorrows by out_there – Loki TV series – Loki/Mobius – Not really novel-length, but it has a real interest in seeing what Loki will do if given enough rope to hang himself and then pull himself back over the ledge.

I have been also reading a good deal of smaller fanworks in a few oddball pairings – Thrawn/Eli Vanto (Star Wars Thrawn Series), Napoleon Bonaparte/ William Laurence (His Majesty’s Dragon AUs)

What I’m Reading Now:

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark (Hugo Nominee for Best Novel) – I have stopped exactly halfway and I will have more to add when I finish it later!

Monsters in the Closet -ongoing reading project.

What I’ll Read Next

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation Vol 2, the next in the Thrawn series, probably all the novellettes and short stories for the Hugo project.

Oh, man, I was feeling nostalgic about some SPN writers from about 9-10 years ago and reached out to one, and wow, still around on DW, that's such a delight to find out!

Unrelatedly, here's something I just read in my newfound love of horror fics in Supernatural, and oooof, I need people to read this so we can all share this experience.

Recs:
Fandom: Supernatural, involves elements of the film The Descent (2005)

Title: Every Part of the Animal

Author: komodobits & Askance (doomcountry),

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423637

Author Summary: It’s their first case after the Trials, after Heaven has collapsed: playing back-up to another team of hunters taking out some werewolves in the mountains. It's a routine job, an easy job - at least until the radio goes silent. Sam, Dean, and Cas follow after, but the caves into which the hunters have vanished wind deeper and darker than they could have expected, and something is wrong. Cas can feel it. The Winchesters may not believe what he’s hearing, but there's something down here with them—and it's not the people they came here to find, and it's not the werewolves they've been tracking. It's something else, something older, something violent, and it knows they're here.

Why I love it: Oh, ok, first of all, HEED THE WARNINGS - I will also add that this fic takes place in a cave setting and has strong claustropobia elements. This is above and beyond canon, but is very much like what the show might have been if it could have been R-Rated. But, God, this just takes every little bit of the Supernatural canon on angels and uses it to hurt you. It's true and real and amazing horror and it was particularly incredible compelling because, due to being exposed to the Marvel comic book character Venom back in the 1990s, I have always been highly susceptible to the trope of "two beings sharing a body and they love each other." This fic absolutely weaponized that concept and every bit of lore about possession and vessels. This is a hell specifically created for Castiel to suffer in, and it's so fucking compelling. I read this in one sitting, and cried.

Currently Reading:
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which I sought out after finding some pages posted on Tumblr talking about the linguistics. So far, I'm about 25 pages in and I'm intrigued!

Recently Finished:

Litfic - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, which I cannot recommend highly enough! It was a fantastic, well paced story, with a thoughtful and engaging main character, full of court intrigue and the absolute disorientation of being a stranger in a strange land. Mahit has an observant and careful mind, and watching thru her eyes as she both gloried in the culture of the place she's wanted to visit for her entire life, and began to saw all the flaws and compromises of the place firsthand? A bliss. I ended up buying it just to keep a copy for myself - a great book, and the first in a series, I see! Also, her first book, which is just amazing.

Fanfic - Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit by lazulisong - Reread - Star Trek Reboot - Gen - This came up in conversation with a friend when we returned to our (delayed for The Magicians obsession) slow traipse thru Star Trek TOS. It's a wonderful, language-y kind of story, that shows a side of reboot!Kirk we don't see in the film. He's smart, hardworking, and absolutely shuns the spotlight for his academic work. There's also a wonderful slow worldbuilding for the surviving passengers and crew of the Kelvin, the ship that Jim's father captained for a eight awful, shining moments in the first reboot film - Jim's got a vast array of aunties and uncles and quasi-parents who all take notice and wish the best for him, and godDAMMIT, he can't get away from them. Gen!

Fanfic - Competition by astolat - Game of Thrones - Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth - Happily, not even slightly canon compliant now! Jaime Lannister can't get himself to actually tell Brienne he likes her. He is absolutely the only one with that problem. I'm just going to leave this bit here: “'The Dothraki have a saying, Lady Brienne,' Missandei said, smiling at her. 'Better a tall wife than a fast horse. And they love fast horses very much.'”

Life stuff:
I talked to my doc about my knee pain, which is anterior to the patella and seems to be a stress injury related to biking a lot in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. I'm going to my first PT visit Friday.

I have been moved, finally, at last, to a office where I can control the lights, so no more headaches for me! I'm already feeling massively better. And I have it to myself until the end of June, when our new hire starts.

So, a couple of fic recs today for fic I have loved that share a common element - they are alternate universes that are not crossovers in the sense of Character A meets Character B, but crossovers of worlds that were built up in other fiction, so Character A living in Character B's world.

Check, Please! and Practical Magic

sundown starts at half-past six by halfdesertedstreets

Author Summary: “My true love will have hair the color of yellow apples,” and Jack Zimmermann will take a bite from the forbidden fruit, juice running down his chin. “My true love will be exactly five feet and six-and-a-half inches tall,” and he will chew a leaf from a tree of that same height. “My true love will be as sweet as sugar and sharp as lemon,” and he will drink half a glass of Great-Aunt Cathy’s lemonade, waiting until the last dregs of sugar hit his tongue. “And if a single one of these things is not to be, then let it be known—my true love shall not be he." (He knows in his bones that this spell won’t ever come true. After all, his true love isn't real, and if he’s not real, then the curse can’t take him. That’s the whole point.)
Original Source: http://checkpleasecomic.com is a truly wonderfully written comic about Eric Bittle, a sweet shy Georgia peach who goes to a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts to play hockey, bake pies, come out of the closet, and fall in love with his hockey team captain.
Why I Love This: This fic is a crossover AU that gives Jack Zimmerman, major love interest of Check, Please! and deeply vulnerable young NHL rising star, the family background of a Practical Magic, a Sandra Bullock movie where she and her family are all witches cursed to be unlucky in love. So, this fic has magic, relationships that are literally cursed, lots of canon lesbian relationships, and a love triangle that is resolved in the acceptable way - by turning into an OT3! I adore the magical community politicking - the world feels fleshed out and real, people have misconceptions that are corrected by new experiences with compassion and not stupid drama. It's great. It's just honestly a ray of sunshine. And, of course, the goalie can break the fourth wall, because goalies are magic.

In The Flesh and Harry Potter
Rick Macy and the Blue Whistling Thrush by Iphys
Author Summary: Rick Macy is a wizard. Don't tell his father.
Original Source: In the Flesh is a BBC3 series that focuses on Kieren Walker's return to his family and small town in England after he and several thousand other people rise from their graves as a murderous zombie hoard. Zombie-ism is a treatable condition in this world, but has a huge amount of social backlash. The first series focuses on Kieran's return home and the slow uncovering that he's gay and died by suicide - the show is thoughtful and kind, but it might not be your thing and that's completely fine. Rick Macy is originally a minor character who was Kieran's friend and secretly his first love - while Kieran tried to escape from his claustrophobic small town, Rick Macy joined the army and hid who he was as far down as he could.
Why I Love This: This is a Hogwarts AU that does not take place in Hogwarts. Rick Macy is the first muggleborn wizard in several generations who refuses the option to go to Hogwarts - magic represents some part of himself that he cannot accept, and so his stuffs it down and hides from it. But of course, that does not work. This fic is woundingly beautiful - Rick trying to navigate who he is, trying to figure out the rules of gender and society and to cut off all the pieces of himself that don't hit the mold is just an ongoing torture. Iphys both shows his personal suffering compassionately and refuses to let Rick off the hook when he harms others to hide from himself. It's beautiful and painful and lovely, the original characters are clearly loved, and it's written with such a nuanced understanding of how a person who feels trapped can become their own jailer.

On warnings: I think that both of these fics have clear content warnings at the AO3, so I'm not going to duplicate those warnings here. So, just check and take care of yourselves, ok?