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What I've Been...
What I've Been Reading:
I've just finished a Methods re-read and I'm finally up to date. And I've signed up for story alerts so I won't get behind again. Tonks is awesome in this fic. I love it when Tonks gets to be awesome. Also, was anyone else disturbed by the kiss in ch77, or is that just me? I really could have done without that. Creepy creepy.
I've also been reading The Man With No Name (ff, multi-chapter, complete, T), which is a FANTASTIC Firefly/Doctor Who crossover; I haven't actually seen Firefly, but it's a really good story nevertheless.
I've also been reading Against the Moon (ff, multi-chapter, incomplete, T), which is a Marauder era Harry Potter from Remus' limited third, and it's quite good. (Then again, I have a weakness for teen!Remus; I'm not sure how many people share that.)
Also, is anyone else familiar with the work of the PPC? They go into badfics and kill off Mary Sues. I've only really read the original series, which is mainly Lord of the Rings fic and contains lots of Discworld references, but there are PPC fics for just about every fandom ever.
And more recs, mostly gen because that is how I roll:
As to Pince/Librarian, I recommend Adventures in L-Space by Lady_WhiteHaven and Ex Libris by Musyc, both of which may be found on ao3 and are rated T and G respectively. (ao3 = Archive of Our Own, which is my new favourite multi-fandom archive; the average quality is a great deal higher than on ff, and there are so many crossovers. It also has the option, notably, of labeling a fic with more than two fandoms, something ff has long lacked.)
Everything I've read by samvimes (ff, mostly oneshots, Discworld and Harry Potter) is excellent.
To Represent the Wizzards (ff, oneshot, K+) is one of my favourites; it's Lord of the Rings and Discworld, as the title might seem to indicate.
I have a fairly large list of Les Mis fanfiction bookmarked, but I won't go on about those because I don't know if anyone else is interested. I will mention one of my favourite fics of all time: Geständnis (ff, oneshot, K+), which is AU and really short, and really amazing. It contains spoilers for the book and the musical, though, so fair warning. It's a fabulous character study of Javert. Also, That Slaveholding Brother (ff, oneshot, T), which isn't Les Mis fic as such, but it's labeled as that, and it's quite good.
The Ape and the Angel (ff, oneshot, K+) is a Discworld/Good Omens crossover, and if you're familiar with those you should be able to guess the characters involved.
Discworld Night Watch fic: Lilac (ff, oneshot, K+) and Viva La Wossname (ff, oneshot, K+) are both good.
Unfortunate Events fic: Sail This Ship of Fools (ao3, oneshot, G) is good and contains spoilers for book 13. Eleven Chapters in a Story (ao3, oneshot, G) is a Kit/Olaf fic (which I do NOT ship) reminiscent, apart from a few scenes of K/O dialogue, of the style of the Unauthorised Autobiography, and contains spoilers for book 13.
A Study in Emerald is a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulu Mythos fic by Neil Gaiman; it won the Hugo and is available to read for free on his website. (He himself calls it fanfic, so I'm allowed!) It's deliciously creepy and beautifully written. Familiarity with Study in Scarlet is recommended, and I will note that familiarity with Cthulu Mythos is not; I have none and I love this story.
Much More Important Things (ao3, oneshot, G) is a Hunger Games fic which is well-written and disturbing.
Gamol-léac is a crossover between the Old Spice Guy commercials and Beowulf. Yes, really.
Evidence (ff, oneshot, K+) is one of my favourite fics of all time. Discworld/Silmarillion. Really. With Sam Vimes being awesome.
Peggy Susie (ff, oneshot, T) is by the same author as Methods, though under a different name. "the world's most gratuitous Peggy Sue fic" - and I'm not telling you the fandom, because that's almost a spoiler. I'm going to assume most of you are familiar with it.
When it comes to shipping, Rolf/Luna is one of my favourites. I suggest "dear world, today i fell out of the sky" (ff, oneshot, T). (Everyone who ships them hates capital letters, I swear. Not a bad fic though.)
That's the best of my bookmarks list. Perhaps sometime I'll write a sequel to this post, because I'm sure I've forgotten something. I'll go more into Les Mis fic if I'm asked.
submitted by ZNZ
(February 5, 2012 - 11:03 am)
(February 5, 2012 - 11:03 am)
Everyone is awesome in MoR :D especially Quirrelmort <3. The kiss was indeed creepy, albeit not entirely unexpected. Speaking of which I do need to start rereading this. It's been long enought that I've forgotten important things.
The Man With No Name is amazing. I read it ages ago, its characterizations are spot on for both the Doctor and the crew of the Serenity, it's just so fantastic. (And you should really watch Firefly sometime, it's delicious.)
Thank you for introducing me to ao3. I've been on it five minutes and it's addictive, right in time for class to start xD
Re: Recs:
Pince/Librarian: YES PLEASE. Reading immediately. ...except I was distracted by Harry Potter and the Improbable Use of Chaos Theory (THE WITCHES. IN HOGWARTS. GIVING HARRY SCUMBLE.), so I got to them a bit later. Adventures in L-Space in particular was perfection itself.
samvimes' work is delectable. I adore A Room with a View and The Patrician's Papers especially, but that's because I've a weakness for Vetinari and Margolotta...
Personally I'm not a big fan of crossovers, unless they make sense within the context of the works (i.e. Doctor Who is easy to cross with other works, 'cause of the TARDIS, but not many works have that kind of plot device available without undue contrivance).
I did love A Study in Emerald, and I will say that knowledge of the Cthulu mythos, if not required, makes it all the better by intensifying the creep factor by about 100.
Some from my own bookmarks:
Harry Potter:
A Hero (ff, oneshot, T): In which Dudley Dursley meets character development. It's from Dudley's point of view, and it's quite beautiful (and there's a sentence you don't see everyday, huh?).
Make a Wish (ff, chapters, T): Despite the occasional poor grammar, this one's worthwhile in that it's hilarious. Harry goes on vacation in the summer following OotP; massive misunderstandings and a towering reputation result.
Six Years, Six Applicants (ff, chapters, K+): Follows Snape's repeated attempts to win the DADA job during Harry's attendance at Hogwarts.
Warrior's Heir (ff, chapters, T, apparently dead): Harry gets shunted into an alternate universe where everything he knows has been turned on his head. Quite fascinatingly unique. Hasn't been updated since 2009 though.
The Albus Potter series by Vekin87 (ff, chapters, T, six books so far+series of oneshots): Exactly what it sounds like; picks up where the epilogue of DH left off. Has its problems but for the most part it's very close to original flavour.
His Penumbra (ff, chapters, T): Just... just read it. (unfortunately it's been stalled at chapter 6 for months now, but it's just... chillingly perfect).
Just a Random Tuesday (ff, chapters, K+): An extremely detailed account of an extremely busy day in the life of Minerva McGonnagal during Umbridge's reign of terror in OotP.
And a tentative reccomendation of the Harveste series by kyaru-chan (ff, chapters, T; last two books are M): An Addams family/HP crossover, with all the cautionaries that apply. Certainly not for the faint of heart, but if you like the Addamses it's worth a read. Caveat emptor, though.
Doctor Who:
Idris (ff, oneshot, K): If you've seen The Doctor's Wife, you know what this one's about. If you haven't, don't read it, because it won't make very much sense.
Youth is Wasted on the Young (ff, chapters, K+): Eleven, Amy, and Rory pay a visit to a planet where people stop growing at the age of 12; complications ensue. Captures the spirit of the show rather nicely.
Curious Number Four (ff, chapters, T): Harry Potter/Doctor Who: Ten shows up at Hogwarts and the plotline of PoA explodes into a ball of timey-wimey goodness.
Unsorted:
Chanson de Geste (ff, chapters, T): Chronicles of Narnia fanfic taking place during the reign of the Pevensie siblings; Edmund is haunted by Jadis' ghost. Far, far better than it sounds.
A Brief Account of Life with Zombies: The Zombie Apocalyspe meets Sherlock. Sherlock's bored, John's having fun, and Mycroft is Not Amused. Told in the form of texts, emails, blog entries, and the personal notes of one Mycroft Holmes. And it is absolutely hilarious.
(February 5, 2012 - 8:29 pm)
Oh and a couple more that are on my favorites list on ff but not bookmarked, thus I missed them earlier:
Uknown Death Eater (ff, oneshot, T): An account of the insignificant grave of an insignificant Death Eater. Chilling.
And with the same caution as the Harveste series, there's the Blood Bond Continuum (Mattk on ff, series of ~15 oneshots and ~3 chapters, mostly T with one M): Take Kim Possible. Add one unspeakable cosmic horror. (wait, what? and yet somehow it works.) Stir vigorously. There is a fair amount of violence, naturally, since it is a cosmic horror story and those are never exactly pleasant, but it's beautifully written and somehow manages to keep the lighthearted tone of the KP series itself. Most of the time. But, again, caveat emptor.
(February 5, 2012 - 11:21 pm)
I read and write Tolkienverse fanfiction pretty rabidly, but nothing else.
As far as favorites goes-
Wait, I'm a WHAT??? A MarySue parody that, frighteningly enough, sounds just like some real live Sues I've had the misfortune to read.. Lord of the Rings.
Forgotten One of many Maglor post- First -Age fics out there, but surprisingly good. And disturbing. I have a fetish for disturbing stories. Silmarillion.
Mandos Again, very disturbing. Celegorm in the Halls of Mandos. Oddly enough very reminiscent of Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum. Silmarillion.
Destination Arda A tourist's guide to Middle Earth. Need I say more?
The Long Road A sad one, but sweet at the same time. Lord of the Rings.
Never Trust A Took to Stay Dead Mandos lets Pippin out of the Halls...unfortunately, Gandalf had been looking forward to a nice long rest after his hobbit friend died. And the consequences of a Took loose in Valinor...*shudder* Actually it's very cute stuff...
Of Skyscrapers and Subways The Fellowship turned loose in modern day America. It has two sequels , Of Maine and Men and Of Time Travel and Tourists.
That's about it!
(February 7, 2012 - 2:47 pm)
ff? Oneshot? I'm completely confused by this convo, but tell me the lingo, and point me in the direction of a fanfic about a book I've read, and I'll gladly join in.
(February 7, 2012 - 6:16 pm)
asdkfghkljl'; can I just recommend The Adventure of the Blue Box by w_a_i_d on lj (three chapters and no rating that I can find)? It's a crossover between Grenada/ACD Holmes and Tennant-era Who and it's so beautiful and heartbreaking and all my feels.
Basically: Holmes falls off the Reidenbach, into the TARDIS, and loses three years not to defeat Moriarty's henchmen but because the Doctor still can't land the blasted thing properly. The Holmes voice is spot on, and it deals with the Hiatus in such a way as to make me nearly cry, which fanfic never does.
It features religious!Holmes ("The Doctor does not believe in any God, and looks faintly disappointed and pitying when he discovers Holmes does. This does not bother Holmes unduly; he does not consider proselytising to Time Lord to be his job. That the Doctor sometimes talks about himself as if he were all three persons of the Trinity and six or seven other persons thrown in for good measure, bothers him far more. It is downright blasphemous."), which... for some reason everyone seems to think that Holmes is an atheist (and the fact that they think this is obvious annoys me, as it is no such thing), but I have him headcanoned, or at least versions of him that are even remotely canonical (which means no, not RDJ. He may be Victorian but no. (the RDJ movie was a good romp, don't misunderstand me (and I liked Law!Watson (though Burke is still the very best forever, as Brett is the best Holmes)), though it shipped Irene/Holmes far, far too much for my taste, but still - !)) as Catholic ("I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases," from HOUN is the quote that leads me to think Catholicism particularly (that and the fact that ACD was raised Catholic) but there are lots of other remarks that seem to point to Christianity of one stripe or another) (and you can be a rational person and like science and use your brain and still believe in God, thanks) (and, incidentally, my headcanon!Watson is C of E just because) but there doesn't seem to be much religious!Holmes out there. (and if anyone can recommend any...? cookies await...?)
And something else gorgeous - Holmes distinguishes, for the whole of the fic, between this Doctor (the one he's currently travelling with) and the Doctor (who, as the fic puts it, "eclipses and predominates the whole of his profession"). This writer gets the Holmes-Watson relationship, without resorting to slash. Which - no, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in this fandom who doesn't ship them.
(Apropos, PUSH is a quite good HP fic I recently discovered over on ao3; it's about a Christian girl who believes magic is OF THE DEVIL™ attending Hogwarts - Thou Shalt Not Suffer is listed on tvtropes for that, but I lost interest in TSNS very quickly and in any case I believe it's dead. PUSH is only relevent for the sake of Catholic!Weaslys, which quickly entered my headcanon.)
(March 2, 2012 - 6:10 pm)