Oh. My. God.
I've just returned from yet another trip to angst heaven. And yet again, I hold Sushi responsible. How is it that the only two fic-related entries I've ever posted are about her stories? That woman is seriously talented and manages something no other author has ever managed. She takes my breath away.
I know about most of you this is not your cup of tea, but... two words: In Academia.
Seriously. I've never read a better Tom/Severus story in my life. I know most of you are more into the Harry/Draco part of the slash fandom with some stray Snarry-shippers, among whom I count myself as well.
Sushi writes a wonderful Severus, and I like this one even more than CW!Snape. She damages her Snapes beyond repair, and it's - well, I could, at this point, say 'a senseless act of beauty', but after reading IA, that particular phrasing is just... inappropriate. Instead, I'll have to go with 'a work of art'. Because truly, that's what it is. Sushi doesn't fall back to mundane made-up magical means of 'repair' unlike so many others, because 'repair' is simply not possible. In a way she's merciless, and when you read Civil War, The Last Battlefield, and the others it makes you want to scream at her, yell, tear your screen apart, or just plain give up on reading for all the complication and pain and self-destruction.
In Academia breaks your heart, simple as that. It's twisted, horribly twisted from the beginning, and yet... you want to cry out at every single shred of innocence lost. And there are many.
The suspense kept throughout the story is devastating, and goes right down to the smallest details, the most trivial of things. When I read GoF, for instance, I couldn't care one wit about who won the Cup, I spared no thought for addition of points or any such thing. In In Academia I held my breath, literally.
In Academia is a master piece. Her way of handling language is, quite frankly, virtuoso. I admire that above everything else in a writer since I have a most intense relationship with the English language myself (the origins of which I couldn't even start to explain).
Apart from simply adept word-weaving, her characterisation of each and every character (urgh, repetition) is intricate, alluring and enthralling. IA!Severus for instance is fundamentally different from my personal view of Snape and yet I subjectively find he is one hundred percent right. Voldemort. Let's not even talk about Voldemort beyond stating that he is plain awesome and that contrary to Severus, he does indeed resemble my rendition of him. To a degree. Peter Pettigrew, yuck. In a very good way, believe me.
And then there's the plot. You start noticing things happening and you get a very very bad gut feeling fairly early in the story. That kind of a nagging voice that tells you even at the stage where all but nothing has happened yet, that it will go downhill. Which it really does, at a rate that is so slow you might start wondering whether you're imagining things. You'll wish you're imagining things. You'll try to deceive yourself, rather like an addict at the beginning of their addiction, while taking blow after blow to the contrary.
There's really too much to be said about this story, and I need to mull it over a bit, but believe me when I tell you, it's worth reading, from the very beginning to the very, inevitable, end.
I know about most of you this is not your cup of tea, but... two words: In Academia.
Seriously. I've never read a better Tom/Severus story in my life. I know most of you are more into the Harry/Draco part of the slash fandom with some stray Snarry-shippers, among whom I count myself as well.
Sushi writes a wonderful Severus, and I like this one even more than CW!Snape. She damages her Snapes beyond repair, and it's - well, I could, at this point, say 'a senseless act of beauty', but after reading IA, that particular phrasing is just... inappropriate. Instead, I'll have to go with 'a work of art'. Because truly, that's what it is. Sushi doesn't fall back to mundane made-up magical means of 'repair' unlike so many others, because 'repair' is simply not possible. In a way she's merciless, and when you read Civil War, The Last Battlefield, and the others it makes you want to scream at her, yell, tear your screen apart, or just plain give up on reading for all the complication and pain and self-destruction.
In Academia breaks your heart, simple as that. It's twisted, horribly twisted from the beginning, and yet... you want to cry out at every single shred of innocence lost. And there are many.
The suspense kept throughout the story is devastating, and goes right down to the smallest details, the most trivial of things. When I read GoF, for instance, I couldn't care one wit about who won the Cup, I spared no thought for addition of points or any such thing. In In Academia I held my breath, literally.
In Academia is a master piece. Her way of handling language is, quite frankly, virtuoso. I admire that above everything else in a writer since I have a most intense relationship with the English language myself (the origins of which I couldn't even start to explain).
Apart from simply adept word-weaving, her characterisation of each and every character (urgh, repetition) is intricate, alluring and enthralling. IA!Severus for instance is fundamentally different from my personal view of Snape and yet I subjectively find he is one hundred percent right. Voldemort. Let's not even talk about Voldemort beyond stating that he is plain awesome and that contrary to Severus, he does indeed resemble my rendition of him. To a degree. Peter Pettigrew, yuck. In a very good way, believe me.
And then there's the plot. You start noticing things happening and you get a very very bad gut feeling fairly early in the story. That kind of a nagging voice that tells you even at the stage where all but nothing has happened yet, that it will go downhill. Which it really does, at a rate that is so slow you might start wondering whether you're imagining things. You'll wish you're imagining things. You'll try to deceive yourself, rather like an addict at the beginning of their addiction, while taking blow after blow to the contrary.
There's really too much to be said about this story, and I need to mull it over a bit, but believe me when I tell you, it's worth reading, from the very beginning to the very, inevitable, end.