Classic Transformers Fanfiction: Koi Lungfish
The other night, I recced one of Koi's Red Alert pieces to someone as a good grip of his character. I was shocked when she said she'd never heard of Koi before.
It occurred to me that there are a number of older fanfiction works out there that are hard to get a hold of if you don't already know they exist. So I thought I would share some of the good older works by more difficult to find authors that I've enjoyed over the year. It'll be a fairly short series, probably only four posts including this one.
I have not read any of Koi's works written after early May 2007, so am not capable of reccing those here. If so inclined, I encourage people to share other works by Koi that they have enjoyed in the comments of this post.
I'll start with the two slash pieces that I consider to be absolute classics. These were actually the only two pieces of Koi's fiction that I'm going to recommend here that were written before I started corresponding with the fish.
Nemesis Calling - Beast Wars. Depth Charge/Rampage. Quite probably the only believable Depth Charge/Rampage fic out there. Very well-written with very ornate language. This takes place after the Beast Wars and opens with Rampage having dragged Depth Charge up onto an underground beach. Quite a dark psychological piece, though also extremely hot. NC-17.
Army of You - Generation One. Megatron/Starscream. Complete PWP - porn without plot. However, very, very hot and in-character. More of the ornate language of "Nemesis Calling", though not as much as that fic has. Hard R/NC-17.
The rest of these fics are all G1.
The Light and the Smile - Action/horror piece with a cast solely of original characters. In fact, a cast almost entirely composed of various defective Seekers. All of them are very interesting and engaging characters, and it's really fun seeing how their different abilities and deficiencies interact. Also, Honeycream is one of my all-time favorite serial killers. (I also came out of this wanting to slash Useless and Sunbeam, but Koi flailed whenever I suggested it.)
A group of defective Seekers are gathered at a retraining base where they have one mission: improve themselves enough to be useful to the Decepticon Empire or be killed. Unfortunately, this goes off the rails as a serial killer invades the base and begins going through the people there.
Chapter 2 and chapter 3 since they are not linked from the bottom of chapter 1.
Five Hangovers and a Trumpet - A Constructicon character piece. The morning after a really rowdy party among everyone's favorite green construction vehicles. Gen.
Jet-Baiting - The Aerialbots are young and stupid. They taunt Starscream who shows them that even caged, he is bigger and badder than they will ever be. Gen.
Mail Delivery - One of my all-time favorite Red Alert pieces, actually. Just the right level of paranoia and competence to really work for the character. A number of people make the mistake of using his behavior in "Auto-Berserk" as a gauge for what Red Alert is normally like, but except for the beginning of that episode, Red Alert is suffering from severe brain-damage.
Koi does not make this mistake.
Red Alert and Streetwise take in a routine deliver of mail to the Ark. Gen.
Untrue - A very nice little fic that involves Decepticons being subtly nasty rather than "rawr, I am ev0l!". Not hugely thrilled with some of the subtext that love is a thing for weaklings, but it's not a far-fetched belief for Decepticons. Nice use of original characters, and I'm especially tickled by the idea that High Flier and Deathline are painted the same. Moderately gruesome if you think too hard about some of the implications.
Thundercracker copes with Skywarp's infidelity. Slash. PG-13.
It occurred to me that there are a number of older fanfiction works out there that are hard to get a hold of if you don't already know they exist. So I thought I would share some of the good older works by more difficult to find authors that I've enjoyed over the year. It'll be a fairly short series, probably only four posts including this one.
I have not read any of Koi's works written after early May 2007, so am not capable of reccing those here. If so inclined, I encourage people to share other works by Koi that they have enjoyed in the comments of this post.
I'll start with the two slash pieces that I consider to be absolute classics. These were actually the only two pieces of Koi's fiction that I'm going to recommend here that were written before I started corresponding with the fish.
Nemesis Calling - Beast Wars. Depth Charge/Rampage. Quite probably the only believable Depth Charge/Rampage fic out there. Very well-written with very ornate language. This takes place after the Beast Wars and opens with Rampage having dragged Depth Charge up onto an underground beach. Quite a dark psychological piece, though also extremely hot. NC-17.
Army of You - Generation One. Megatron/Starscream. Complete PWP - porn without plot. However, very, very hot and in-character. More of the ornate language of "Nemesis Calling", though not as much as that fic has. Hard R/NC-17.
The rest of these fics are all G1.
The Light and the Smile - Action/horror piece with a cast solely of original characters. In fact, a cast almost entirely composed of various defective Seekers. All of them are very interesting and engaging characters, and it's really fun seeing how their different abilities and deficiencies interact. Also, Honeycream is one of my all-time favorite serial killers. (I also came out of this wanting to slash Useless and Sunbeam, but Koi flailed whenever I suggested it.)
A group of defective Seekers are gathered at a retraining base where they have one mission: improve themselves enough to be useful to the Decepticon Empire or be killed. Unfortunately, this goes off the rails as a serial killer invades the base and begins going through the people there.
Chapter 2 and chapter 3 since they are not linked from the bottom of chapter 1.
Five Hangovers and a Trumpet - A Constructicon character piece. The morning after a really rowdy party among everyone's favorite green construction vehicles. Gen.
Jet-Baiting - The Aerialbots are young and stupid. They taunt Starscream who shows them that even caged, he is bigger and badder than they will ever be. Gen.
Mail Delivery - One of my all-time favorite Red Alert pieces, actually. Just the right level of paranoia and competence to really work for the character. A number of people make the mistake of using his behavior in "Auto-Berserk" as a gauge for what Red Alert is normally like, but except for the beginning of that episode, Red Alert is suffering from severe brain-damage.
Koi does not make this mistake.
Red Alert and Streetwise take in a routine deliver of mail to the Ark. Gen.
Untrue - A very nice little fic that involves Decepticons being subtly nasty rather than "rawr, I am ev0l!". Not hugely thrilled with some of the subtext that love is a thing for weaklings, but it's not a far-fetched belief for Decepticons. Nice use of original characters, and I'm especially tickled by the idea that High Flier and Deathline are painted the same. Moderately gruesome if you think too hard about some of the implications.
Thundercracker copes with Skywarp's infidelity. Slash. PG-13.