Top 5 Personal Favorites - Long Fic

[clawofcat]

Each of these fics will forever be standouts for me for their style, plot creativity, and impact. Athough the pairings differ, they each pack a powerful, angsty, emotional punch that will leave you breathless, hopeful, and anxious. In no particular order...

1. Of Infinite Space by redbrickrose 
Rating: R
Setting: Post-NFA ignoring comics canon
Pairing: Angel/Buffy

Comments

[petzipellepingo]

Great list with some of the best writers in the 'Verse. Thanks for posting.

[clawofcat]

This Classic Rec session has been interesting for me because before I started writing I only read Spuffy. But since then, in the last two years, I've generally drifted away from the pairing.I anticipate that my Best of '08 recs will probably look very different from what I've just posted here. I'm all about rare het pairings with a smattering of slash now.

You guys should have an evolution of 'shipping rec session. I'm sure readers taste change or alter slightly the longer one's active.

[yourlibrarian]

I think that's very true, particularly for people in a large fandom. I think in small fandoms people tend to read more widely because there just isn't much being produced. But in something the size of the Buffyverse, there's fic and pairings out there people haven't even pondered before because there's so much being produced about the major characters.

Another possibility is that people just get tired of reading the same type of story over and over. In Supernatural fandom recently I've seen people falling on a new character like starving wolves. There are such a limited number of characters in that series, whereas in the Buffyverse you had one-shot characters like Jonathan, Amy or Anne end up appearing throughout the whole series (and beyond).

[clawofcat]

That would be really cool if someone could gather together top 5 lists of other rare characters, like Kate or Illyria or Gunn or Lorne. They're all characters I had so much affection for on the show, but since they weren't part of really popular canon pairings or aren't typically slashable, we don't see much of them. This makes me sad... It's probably unlikely you'd even see those characters in five fics per year!

[yourlibrarian]

I think that's probably true of Kate and Lorne -- they were never written much even when the show was still running.

Around the beginning of December I'll be making the Wish List post, and you should go ahead and request those lists. Someone might be able to put one together!