Character studies: fics, part the first
Title: A Searching and Fearless Inventory
Author: nos4a2no9
Pairing:Gen, with allusions Fraser/Victoria and (unrequited) Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG-13
Length 1961 words
Summary: He buys a bottle of whisky once a year. It's always the finest brand that he can afford.
Why I'm Reccing This Fic: Does "Because Nos wrote it and I love everything she writes" count? No? Okay, then. I'm reccing this story because it's a persuasive and compelling look into the question of why Fraser doesn't drink. I've never been a subscriber to the Fraser-as-alcoholic theory, but this fic makes me believe that yes, it could be so. I work with alcoholics on a daily basis as part of my job, and Nos' Fraser is a spot-on profile of an alcoholic in recovery. She also works little bits of canon into the story: Fraser's birth in a barn, his problems with his posting in Moose Jaw, his first experiences with Victoria. We also get a different kind of take on who "Steve" was--I won't talk about it here, in case you haven't read the story yet. The story is peppered with Nos' firsthand knowledge of Northwestern Canada, as well as the thoughtful, flowing storyelling that makes me love her work so much. She cares for her characters well, and it shows.
He wasn’t actually born in July. The sweltering heat of the Chicago night outside doesn’t match the date on his birth certificate. But it does accurately mark the birth of Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP.
Ben Fraser was born in early November in a barn thirty miles from Inuvik. The man he is today - the RCMP officer who sits before an unopened whisky bottle and convinces himself that he doesn’t really want to drink from it - was born on a warm summer night in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in 1987.
Also available at the DSA.
Title: That's Where All The Gangsters Live
Author: minervacat
Pairing:Gen, with allusions to Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG
Length 4,792 words
Summary: Ray loves Stella like he loves breathing, loves Fraser like he loves his tattoo, loves Chicago like he loves everything permanent in his life.
Why I'm Reccing This Fic: This is a story about Ray Kowalski, and also about Chicago, and how they're both really two sides of the same coin, connected at the very core. Ray loves his home, everything about it--baseball and driving and even the stuff he hates, sometimes. He (still) loves Stella, and he also loves Fraser (non-slashers can take this as philos rather than eros, but it's love nonetheless), and he wants to show Fraser Chicago the way he sees it, like he's been seeing it every day since he was born, instead of the way tourists do. The fic is fast-paced and lovely, with an almost poetic feeling about it. It's a story that gets into the reader's psyche and makes them want to love Chicago as much as Ray does (the first time I read it I wanted to go there immediately. I still do). There's so much detail that I'd have to tell the story to mention all of it. So go read it if you haven't already, and if you have, read it again, because it'll make you all happy and homesick for Chicago, even if you've never been there.
Lake Shore Drive's meant for cars like the Goat. It's all sleek curves and fast speeds, and Ray rolls the windows down when April starts and he drives fast, straight along the lake, and just breathes the lake and the exhaust and weird city smells. Sometimes, if he don't have anything better to do and there's no games on, he'll kill a couple of hours just driving up and down Lake Shore, from Hollywood up north all the way down to McCormick Place and back.
He never takes the curves too fast -- man, back in high school, pre-GTO, he and Stella once saw a guy lose control going south, jump the guardrail, cross the northbound lanes, and flip his Jeep straight into the lake, all because he was doing 65 around the Oak Street turn -- but when he gets north of the Loop, it's all straight, and if he's driving late at night, after 3 AM or so, he can just hit the gas and go
Title: Missing Pages
Author: luzula
Pairing: gen, hints of Bob/Caroline
Length: 1000 words
Rating: PG
Summary: None provided
Why I'm Reccing This Fic:luzula is the Queen of Backstory, especially when it comes to Fraser. She has a real gift for knowing just the right story to tell about characters in Fraser's past that help to fill in the missing pieces that help make Fraser, well. Fraser. This one is a beautiful little story that lets Caroline's voice really come through as she speaks to her son through her journals. It's easy to picture Fraser sitting in his apartment letting his mother's words wash over him as if she were in the room. I was fortunate to be asked to beta this story; the finished product is almost identical to the draft, because really, there was nothing that needed changing. You might cry when you read it, but it's a good chance that your tears will be like Fraser's--a little bittersweet, and a lot happy. Oh, and extra points for Dief, who gets Fraser's moods like nobody else. :)
18th June, 1961
It's just as well that the sun is up all the time, because I never know if it's day or night anyway. Ben is finally sleeping now, so I can have a little time to myself. Not that I begrudge him my time--I have never been happier in my life.
Fraser blinked away tears. There was the oddest prickling sensation inside him, as of blood coming back to a limb that had been asleep, or of cold toes warming up before a fireplace. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve.
Title: True Patriot Love
Author: glossing
Pairing/genre: RPF crackfic. Satire. Allusion to various. I ain't giving out no spoilers.
Length: Ficlet
Rating: PG
Summary: Canadian actors escape the Yank cultural-imperialist apocalypse.
Why I'm Reccing This Fic: Okay, so this fic isn't a study of one particular character, or even one particular show. This is a showcase of C6D fandom itself--it's a crack-o-rific wild ride across Canada set post-Zombie Apocalypse, and if that doesn't get you to read it, nothing will. It's one great big giant Canadian in-joke, and I dare anyone, Canadian or not, to read it and not literally LOL. Even the disclaimer is hilarious (it starts out, "Dude, *of course* this is made up. I swear on Stephen Harper's Evil Hidden Agenda"). I don't want to spoil much of this, so I'll mention only fragments of the story: Knitting. Femslash. Rickety vans. ZOMBIES. A character study? Sure it is. Because fandom's a character, Canada's another one, and Stephen Harper's Evil Agenda, well. That's just plain scary. This is a story that's the pure opposite of meta, but it still gives insight into the wild, wonderful world of C6D fandom. Not many people know about this fic, which is a crying shame. I rec it often in the hopes that it'll get a wider audience.
Past Shawinigan, the Trans-Canada Highway is deserted. Beneath the bloody sky - and that's not really metaphorical, as the sky had been dripping A+, half-coagulated, for a week now - a massive van, crazy-quilted with rust and the remains of various paintjobs, clatters and huffs its way east. It has the lane to itself as it rat-a-tats across the cracked asphalt, swerves to avoid remnants of the undead hordes, and guzzles gas like nobody's business.
This van is the last, shaky vessel of Can-Con. And it's running as fast as it can.
Also available here.
Author: nos4a2no9
Pairing:Gen, with allusions Fraser/Victoria and (unrequited) Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG-13
Length 1961 words
Summary: He buys a bottle of whisky once a year. It's always the finest brand that he can afford.
Why I'm Reccing This Fic: Does "Because Nos wrote it and I love everything she writes" count? No? Okay, then. I'm reccing this story because it's a persuasive and compelling look into the question of why Fraser doesn't drink. I've never been a subscriber to the Fraser-as-alcoholic theory, but this fic makes me believe that yes, it could be so. I work with alcoholics on a daily basis as part of my job, and Nos' Fraser is a spot-on profile of an alcoholic in recovery. She also works little bits of canon into the story: Fraser's birth in a barn, his problems with his posting in Moose Jaw, his first experiences with Victoria. We also get a different kind of take on who "Steve" was--I won't talk about it here, in case you haven't read the story yet. The story is peppered with Nos' firsthand knowledge of Northwestern Canada, as well as the thoughtful, flowing storyelling that makes me love her work so much. She cares for her characters well, and it shows.
He wasn’t actually born in July. The sweltering heat of the Chicago night outside doesn’t match the date on his birth certificate. But it does accurately mark the birth of Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP.
Ben Fraser was born in early November in a barn thirty miles from Inuvik. The man he is today - the RCMP officer who sits before an unopened whisky bottle and convinces himself that he doesn’t really want to drink from it - was born on a warm summer night in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, in 1987.
Also available at the DSA.
Title: That's Where All The Gangsters Live
Author: minervacat
Pairing:Gen, with allusions to Fraser/Kowalski
Rating: PG
Length 4,792 words
Summary: Ray loves Stella like he loves breathing, loves Fraser like he loves his tattoo, loves Chicago like he loves everything permanent in his life.
Why I'm Reccing This Fic: This is a story about Ray Kowalski, and also about Chicago, and how they're both really two sides of the same coin, connected at the very core. Ray loves his home, everything about it--baseball and driving and even the stuff he hates, sometimes. He (still) loves Stella, and he also loves Fraser (non-slashers can take this as philos rather than eros, but it's love nonetheless), and he wants to show Fraser Chicago the way he sees it, like he's been seeing it every day since he was born, instead of the way tourists do. The fic is fast-paced and lovely, with an almost poetic feeling about it. It's a story that gets into the reader's psyche and makes them want to love Chicago as much as Ray does (the first time I read it I wanted to go there immediately. I still do). There's so much detail that I'd have to tell the story to mention all of it. So go read it if you haven't already, and if you have, read it again, because it'll make you all happy and homesick for Chicago, even if you've never been there.
Lake Shore Drive's meant for cars like the Goat. It's all sleek curves and fast speeds, and Ray rolls the windows down when April starts and he drives fast, straight along the lake, and just breathes the lake and the exhaust and weird city smells. Sometimes, if he don't have anything better to do and there's no games on, he'll kill a couple of hours just driving up and down Lake Shore, from Hollywood up north all the way down to McCormick Place and back.
He never takes the curves too fast -- man, back in high school, pre-GTO, he and Stella once saw a guy lose control going south, jump the guardrail, cross the northbound lanes, and flip his Jeep straight into the lake, all because he was doing 65 around the Oak Street turn -- but when he gets north of the Loop, it's all straight, and if he's driving late at night, after 3 AM or so, he can just hit the gas and go
Title: Missing Pages
Author: luzula
Pairing: gen, hints of Bob/Caroline
Length: 1000 words
Rating: PG
Summary: None provided
Why I'm Reccing This Fic:luzula is the Queen of Backstory, especially when it comes to Fraser. She has a real gift for knowing just the right story to tell about characters in Fraser's past that help to fill in the missing pieces that help make Fraser, well. Fraser. This one is a beautiful little story that lets Caroline's voice really come through as she speaks to her son through her journals. It's easy to picture Fraser sitting in his apartment letting his mother's words wash over him as if she were in the room. I was fortunate to be asked to beta this story; the finished product is almost identical to the draft, because really, there was nothing that needed changing. You might cry when you read it, but it's a good chance that your tears will be like Fraser's--a little bittersweet, and a lot happy. Oh, and extra points for Dief, who gets Fraser's moods like nobody else. :)
18th June, 1961
It's just as well that the sun is up all the time, because I never know if it's day or night anyway. Ben is finally sleeping now, so I can have a little time to myself. Not that I begrudge him my time--I have never been happier in my life.
Fraser blinked away tears. There was the oddest prickling sensation inside him, as of blood coming back to a limb that had been asleep, or of cold toes warming up before a fireplace. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve.
Title: True Patriot Love
Author: glossing
Pairing/genre: RPF crackfic. Satire. Allusion to various. I ain't giving out no spoilers.
Length: Ficlet
Rating: PG
Summary: Canadian actors escape the Yank cultural-imperialist apocalypse.
Why I'm Reccing This Fic: Okay, so this fic isn't a study of one particular character, or even one particular show. This is a showcase of C6D fandom itself--it's a crack-o-rific wild ride across Canada set post-Zombie Apocalypse, and if that doesn't get you to read it, nothing will. It's one great big giant Canadian in-joke, and I dare anyone, Canadian or not, to read it and not literally LOL. Even the disclaimer is hilarious (it starts out, "Dude, *of course* this is made up. I swear on Stephen Harper's Evil Hidden Agenda"). I don't want to spoil much of this, so I'll mention only fragments of the story: Knitting. Femslash. Rickety vans. ZOMBIES. A character study? Sure it is. Because fandom's a character, Canada's another one, and Stephen Harper's Evil Agenda, well. That's just plain scary. This is a story that's the pure opposite of meta, but it still gives insight into the wild, wonderful world of C6D fandom. Not many people know about this fic, which is a crying shame. I rec it often in the hopes that it'll get a wider audience.
Past Shawinigan, the Trans-Canada Highway is deserted. Beneath the bloody sky - and that's not really metaphorical, as the sky had been dripping A+, half-coagulated, for a week now - a massive van, crazy-quilted with rust and the remains of various paintjobs, clatters and huffs its way east. It has the lane to itself as it rat-a-tats across the cracked asphalt, swerves to avoid remnants of the undead hordes, and guzzles gas like nobody's business.
This van is the last, shaky vessel of Can-Con. And it's running as fast as it can.
Also available here.