poisontaster's bday isn't until next month, but I'm about to become VERY busy and don't want to fail to give her something. I hope you have a wonderful day, love.
As the person who succeeded in tempting
poisontaster's muse to write fanfic, I feel it's my duty and pleasure to provide everyone with recs to her outstanding works on her birthday.
I should state the caveat that I'll only be listing recs of fandoms that
poisontaster writes that I'm familiar with. But based on her talent, you shouldn't hesitate to read any fanfic in any fandom by her. (one's I'm specifically not doing because I'm not in the fandoms include Harry Potter, Alias, and Prison Break - and many many more. There's a reason I call poisontaster the Oscillating Fan).
All of
poisontaster's works can be found
here, though her memories do have them broken down in other categories as well. In addition to her talent with words, I really do envy her organizational skills.
poisontaster and I (like most of my flist) met through our love affair with Firefly. Her first works that she posted to LJ were done for the
20weeks celebration that took place in anticipation of the opening for Serenity the movie. It was also the premiere for
poisontaster's Zoë voice. PT captures Zoë better than any other writer in the fandom, in my opinion.
Anticipations, more of a long drabble than a vignette, showcases PT's feel for Zoë’s thoughts and laconic voice. Fortunately, PT has had ample opportunity to give us many glances of Zoë since she did a series of Zoë drabbles for the
serenitysummer event. And if you like post-Serenity the movie fic dealing with Zoë, do not miss
This Never Happened. I'll confess that this inspired me in one of my unfinished fics that I have languishing. Go, read, now (and comment).
In another
20weeks contribution,
Xing (The Lucky One) shows off
poisontaster's keen observation of character interactions. The episode Heart of Gold set up the potential for Inara to leave Serenity. Xing shows Inara leaving and her dealing with what she's left behind. It also contains one of my favorite pieces of dialogue - a recorded message from Nandi to Inara:
"Xing ya tou. The Lucky One; that was you. Still is, even out here in the black. Thing is, I don't hate you for it anymore. I know you don't understand...and I don't need you to, but I thought you should know. It don't matter how things turn out today; I know you'll be all right. That man of yours..." Nandi laughs. "He's a right hundan; he'll see you through. And I'll be all right too. The Heart of Gold, she's my ji yu, and I made her. So I guess we're both lucky now, huh, mei mei?"
.
No list of Firefly recs would be complete without a River-centric piece.
poisontaster gives us a gem with
I Have the Touch. River is one of the most written Firefly characters and probably one of the hardest to do justice to. Writing a crazy genius reader is just downright hard, but like Joss, poisontaster makes it look easy. I Have the Touch gives us River in the past and present and examines exactly how she feels about the lines dividing her from everyone else. A short excerpt will do the story more justice than my babbling, I think -
Touched is also slang for crazy.
...
Still, crazy means they don't touch. Mostly. Sometimes they do. Chasing Kaylee down staircases and across catwalks, wresting an apple from calloused and clever fingers. Inara, soft and perfumed, and pressure on fourteen parts. Sometimes, Wash will ruffle her hair exactly like their father didn't. But mostly there is space around her, empty and untouched.
She thinks of the shield maidens on Earth-that-Was. She thinks of oracles. They too were untouched, symbolic. She knows that she too is a symbol, though she's not sure of what. She doesn't want to be a symbol; a symbol is yet another kind of line, and lines do not exist. She thinks she exists. She wants to exist, and thus she can't be either line or symbol.
But this she can't explain either.
One last rec before I leave the Firefly verse -- If you read one Firefly story by
poisontaster, let it be
Gutterstars. This Simon centric story, which is a prequel to the actual series, is the story that made me fall head over heels in love with poisontaster. Every character she writes has a distinct voice and her word choices make it so that the reader can actually feel, taste, and smell every aspect of the 'verse (not always pleasant since she likes angst). I refuse to spoil this one with any preview. Just trust me and go read it.
Tim Minear's short lived show, The Inside, was another bonding experience for
poisontaster and I. And the fandom is fortunate that it bit PT's muse, Kink, as hard as it bit us. In a 15minute ficlet that she often uses to explore characters, poisontaster condenses the character of Rebecca Locke down to her essence in
This is What It Is.
It’s not jogging; she doesn’t jog. She runs, flat out, as hard as she can for as long as she can. As terrified as they were of losing her again, after so recently getting her back, her parents had let her. They understood. Not the specifics, maybe, but that this was what she needed. This was how she’d put the pieces back together, and then maybe-just maybe--they would get their little Becca back.
Ophidian is another Inside fic and explores all the reasons that Web chose each member of the team. Poisontaster captures Web well enough to cause his coldness to chill you to the core.
I admit it, I watch Lost, but Lost fanfic has never captured me. I'm not sure why, maybe I just haven't found the right writers or stories or something. Yet, when
poisontaster finally wrote more than a drabble for Lost, I couldn't resist taking a peek, and I'm so glad I did.
Cargo Cult of the Sun is probably one of the funniest things I've ever read. And what I wouldn't give to see the actors act it out. I can't say more without giving it all away, but go read it and make sure there aren't any liquids near your computer when you do.
If you follow fanfic in the Battlestar Galactica fandom, there's only one way for you to have not heard of
Arc One and that's if you are dead set against reading WIP. Arc One is technically an AU that follows canon precisely. Confused? Don't be, but be prepared for a depiction of a relationship that poisontaster will convince you of as being canon. Everything about this epic story illustrates exactly why I love PT's fic so much: intrigue, painful angst for almost every character on the page, touching conversations, and incredibly hot smut. Though this one is all het, so never fear. But go and read it now.
It breaks my heart that there is only one Invisible Man fic that
poisontaster has written, and it's a drabble no less. Why oh why I didn't ask for Iman for my sweet charity fics, I'll never ever know. Anyway, join the crying and demand more by commenting on
No Better Day to Save Me I don't think I can take credit for turning
poisontaster into a Scaper, though I'd like to. I haven't been able to tie her to a chair and get her to write a long epic yet, but the fandom is definitely richer for the
shorts she has written. The can't miss piece of these is
The Haunt of Twilight in which poisontaster creates an all too plausible mythology for how Stark became a Stykera. I'm normally not a Stark fan, but if PT wrote him more, I would be!!
All of this leads to the fandom that may have succeeded in making
poisontaster monogamous (though I still try to tempt Kink with other things):
Supernatural. Many of these stories are co-written with her fic-wife,
mona1347 -- then again, for all intents and purposes, I'm convinced they share the same brain in this fandom.
Poisontaster captures both Sam and Dean in a way that few writers do. She understands every little crack and has no problem in exploring each one and breaking them open wider. Her plots are fantastic. Trust me and read every gen and het piece she has. If it doesn't bother you, go and devour her SN slash (warning: incest present in some) and threesome fics as well. But have some cold water present -- you'll need it.
The Holly King was written for the
spn_gen ficathon and has Sam learning some new truths about Dean after pawing through Dean's wallet.
And really, he can’t even picture Dean in the context of college, other than maybe making a total ass of himself at some kegger or getting caught in one of the girls’ dorms or something like that. But Sam tries. He’s seen TV, and there was that poltergeist in Berkeley a couple years ago. He paints Dean in on that sprawling green campus, tinkering with his gadgets and flirting outrageously with sorority girls. He puts Dean on the mound, squinting as he watches the catcher call the pitch.
But the picture shatters on the hard rock of reality. The trunk is littered with the cast offs of Dean’s toys, things abandoned and unfinished when there just wasn’t enough money for screws and tape and solder, because they needed another load of rock salt or specially blessed vessels of bronze and glass or sometimes just because Dad didn’t see a need for it. He sees sordid motels and blown out, tired forty-year old waitresses that pout and strut in their falling down bras, too short skirts and sloppy blue eyeliner. He sees Dean lighting yet another anonymous white candle for Mom in the local church as he has in hundreds like them all across the country. None of which have ever made a damn bit of difference, as far as Sam can tell.
Probably my favorite SN story by poisontaster is
Books of the Living, Books of the Dead. This is all gen, folks, and a masterpiece to boot. Not only does poisontaster build and add to the characters of Sam and Dean, she brings Sam's dead girlfriend, Jess, to life -- well, in a manner of speaking. I...well, I know my words can't do it justice, so trust me and if you are only going to read one of PT's stories, read this one!!
"He'd talk about you a lot," Jess says without preamble, the next dream he has. "I mean, he'd never really tell me anything, but you were in there. It used to drive me nuts."
Dean sighs. "This has got to stop."
"What do you mean?" She wrinkles her nose.
"I mean," he waves his arms, "you're his girl! Shouldn't you haunt him or something? I just take messages and then they go away. That's how it works."
If you don't mind slash and aren't squicked by wincest, as it is referred, you should definitely be reading PT and Mona's fics. I'm not a slasher by any means. Both women faint every time I comment on one of their slash fics. And yet, it is only in their fics that I can find myself suspending disbelief enough to accept a non-canonical slash relationship as plausible, let alone an incest one.
Halo was the first of PT's slash stories that I read and it was believable enough to lead me to read
Chains of Babylon, plus several more.
Halo explores the lengths to which Dean has gone to all of his life to protect and support Sammy. It is utterly believable and incredibly heartbreaking. It is also every inch Dean. Chains of Babylon is a very plotty Future-fic. If you don't like slash/wincest, you can skip over the squick and just enjoy the intricate plot. Both are sure to be classics in the SN fandom in no time at all.
And with that, I'll conclude. My friendship with
poisontaster has enriched every fandom that we share and introduced me to some new ones. I've enjoyed being her Kevin Bacon even as I savor every single letter of her prose. I try to not feel too guilty for how badly I've sidetracked her original fiction efforts.