Fangirly Friday is here!
Happy Friday, and welcome to my stop on the Fangirl Tour!
I started compiling a list as soon as I’d signed up for this, and I quickly realized the hardest part was going to be keeping it to 13. Plus, being all multi-fandom and crossover-happy makes it a little tough trying to organize it all. So I’ve tried making it something of a tour through my discovery of fandom. So, by my rather unconventional method of counting, there are 13 single-fandom recs here, and then a bunch of crossover recs.
First, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga
You’ll find all kinds of excellent fic for this saga and LMB’s other two ‘verses at bujold_fic, which is kind of a central fic repository on LJ. But that isn’t where I first found VK fic. Nope, that was on The LMB Fanfic Archive, and here are a couple that have always stood out for me.
Birthday by Ruth Bitz. (G, Vorkosigan, Ivan gen) I really like the insight into how Ivan would think about his birthday, considering it was also the day the father he never knew died.
It Was Before Your Time by Tammy Nott and It Was Before Your Time … Continued by her mother Judy Nott (G, Vorkosigan, Simon Illyan and OMC gen) take an amusing look at an incident alluded to in canon regarding elephants.
And Then There Was Snarry
An odd segue, yes. But there it is. And two of the first if not the first Snarry fics I encountered were these timeless gems:
A Nick In Time by Tira Nog. This was one of the first Snarry fics I read, possibly the very first, and I’ve come back to it a few times. Every time, it makes me tear up. Both Severus and Harry had deplorable childhoods, though in very different ways. In this post-war fic, they both get a second chance. Hermione and Ron are also married in this, but I think they’re both very well handled. They’re both recognizably themselves but substantially matured. Actually, this is probably better called a pre-Snarry fic, as there is no romantic element until the very end. That shows up in the sequel, Growing Pains .
Somewhere along the way, I also picked up a fondness for Severitus/Sevitus fics (in which Snape is either Harry’s biological or adoptive father) as much or more than Snarry.
A Year Like None Other by aspenlight (PG, Harry Potter, Snape, Harry, Draco, gen) and its sequel A Summer Like None Other and promised third, A Family Like None Other. There are actually parts of this I’d probably rate R for grossness. But I really like the way aspenlight picks at the insecurities of all three of the main characters and the long road to trust.
In Blood Only by EM Snape (M, Harry Potter, Severitus) This is a really great Severitus story, in my opinion. Snape is thoroughly nasty and yet Harry brings out qualities in him that he didn’t know he had. And the device by which Snape discovers their relationship worked really well, I thought.
Around the same time, I started to find some Buffy fic
It is hard to navigate the Buffy fandom as a newbie. There really aren’t big central archives. Various award sites and their lists of nominees and winners serve as rec lists of a sort, but I didn’t really start finding much until I discovered the assorted fic communities on LJ. (In part because I didn’t know about the award sites and was pretty much just Googling for stuff.) Some of those comms are all_fics_btvs, ats_btvs_fanfic, btvs_award_info, buffy_fanfic, and more character-specific comms like tweedandtea and summer_of_giles for Giles and spring_with_xan for Xander.
Now … I’m very hard pressed to narrow down my recs, because there’s just soooo much good stuff out there. But here are a few. It was damned hard narrowing these down, so I’ll just a) point back up at the list of comms and b) suggest reading absolutely everything these three have written in this and other fandoms.
Florence Fucking Nightingale by sahiya (PG-13, BtVS, Giles/Faith) I love Giles, hurt/comfort, and am getting to love Giles/Faith, so this fic is a great combination. It’s a sequel to another G/F fic, Lovely, Dark, and Deep, and is comics-compliant, but you can pretty much fill in the gaps if you’ve only seen the series.
An Antique Roman by antennapedia (PG-13, BtVS, Giles/Ethan) This is a great S3 AU from Ethan Rayne’s POV. Ethan definitely has a very different take on “amends” than anybody else likely would.
And, fresh off the press monitor screen, The Fabulous Ladies Night Club by ubiquirk (R, BtVS, Xander gen). In the interest of full disclosure, I should say up front that I had the absolute joy of beta-ing this. At the beginning of S4, we learn that Xander decided to take a road trip of all 50 states, but his car just wasn’t up for it, and he ended up working at The Fabulous Ladies Night Club to earn money for a replacement. He wouldn’t say much more, so this is the scoop, at last, on what really happened in Oxnard.
And then, almost by accident, I discovered SS/HG
Seriously. Smack in the middle of a Snarry meta was this link to a story that is unfortunately no longer available on the net: But You Alone by Azazzello. Thence I discovered Ashwinder, and wow.
SS/HG has already been pretty well and thoroughly covered and will no doubt continue to be, so I originally made a rule for myself that I wasn’t allowed to rec any. But I couldn’t help pointing out this newish WIP that seems to be largely flying under the radar.
The Witching Hour by Potion Mistress a.k.a. ordinary_magic (R, Harry Potter, Snape/Hermione). It’s a Year 6 AU that looks at a single, transformative week in both these characters’ lives, and does what I think are some very intriguing things with magic and Hermione’s home life.
After which came my other OTP: SS/RL
Actually, as I’ve seen someone else (don’t remember who) say before, the concept of an OTP is pretty much lost on me. But SS/HG and SS/RL are definitely the two pairings I read the most often in Potterdom.
Finally, a bit of art! Developing a Potion without Taking the Credit (or: Severus' Messy Desk) by omni_sama Contains photos some spy must have taken of Severus' desk, including the Wolfsbane recipe, some ingredients, some sketches/notes, and a letter to one Damocles Belby. A type of fanart I’ve never seen before. Someone called it an “assemblage,” which describes it rather well, I think. Can be taken as SS/RL or gen.
For Severus Snape, in the Event of My Death by snegurochka_lee (R, Harry Potter, Snape/Lupin). Angsty, DH-compliant, and brilliant.
Memoria Perdita by red_day_dawning (NC-17, Harry Potter, Snupin) A DH-ignored AU in which Remus has been hit by a curse that stole most of his memories going back to about PoA and Severus ends up caring for him. Lovely h/c, lovely insight into Severus using his snark to protect himself. I could do without the Tonks-bashing, but it’s balanced with glimpses of a sympathetic Minerva and, to a lesser extent, Hermione, so that there isn’t the misogynist feel one sometimes gets in slash. Actually, I find less of that in this ship than many others.
Squeaking in a Firefly rec for #13
Slippery Slope by sunnyd_lite (G, Firefly, Inara/Mal) Set between the series and the movie, a job goes wrong, per usual, and Inara realizes she needs to leave Serenity. The language and the character voices here are excellent, as is the metaphor the author builds out of Mal’s little fiasco.
Last and longest stop on my leg of the tour: crossovers
Yes, I already hit 13. (Awhile ago, depending on how you count it.) But the thing is, a lot of people won’t want to look at this section, because a lot of people don’t like crossovers. I find that mystifying, because seeing how characters deal with being forced into another ‘verse, one way or another, is just something I really thoroughly enjoy. And again, very hard to narrow down, but what the heck, I’m already over 13 anyway.
It’s Never Lupus by fourth_rose (PG, Harry Potter-not-exactly-House-M.D.-crossover, Snape, Draco, Luna, Neville) A very humorous take-off on the House format. I think Luna’s contributions are my favorite here, though the references to a very Cuddy-esque Hermione come in a very close second.
Across the Void by bookishwench (PG, BtVS/AtS/Firefly, Giles/Simon) Yes, really, Giles/Simon. If I tried to explain how, that would give it all away. It’s quite short, so if you’re as intrigued by the pairing as I was, I suggest giving it a quick read.
Emotional Scar by romanticalgirl (NC-17, BtVS/Harry Potter xover, Rupert Giles/Remus Lupin with shades of Ripper/Ethan and Remus/Sirius) I love Rupert/Remus almost as much as I love Giles/Snape. This is a lovely Ripper-era fic, and there are sequels: Pauses(G), Smell(G), Sight(PG-13), Taste(PG), and Torch Song(NC17).
That Teenage Feeling by mosca (NC-17, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Harry Potter, Rupert Giles/Remus Lupin) This is a great post-Chosen post-HBP fic. The way these two meet up and figure each other out and end up together is just a treat, and the bits of magical theory that come up are very nicely handled.
Vengeance Is a Cold Thing by Booster (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica/Logan, D’Hoffryn) Set immediately after the end of the S1 finale, we get a slightly different answer to who’s at the door when Veronica answers it. Short and sweet.
Three Hours to Sunrise by hjdevnull (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wallace, Faith) Another one-shot, and the author’s summary says it all: “Wallace Fennell is used to following a hot white girl with an attitude problem who won't tell him what's going on. At least this Faith has on tight leather pants.” I love Wallace, and he so knows how to deal with Faith, even though he has no idea how to deal with the Slayer stuff.
G’Morning Sunshine by Kristal (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordy/Logan, or Kendall/Logan, or something) I knew somebody had to have done something with the business of Charisma Carpenter being in both shows. And Kendall Casablancas really was Sunnydale Cordy a few years later if she didn’t meet up with Angel and Doyle. And I should have figured this was the obvious way to work it, but I won’t spoil it by saying.
The Lion and the Lamb by kallierose (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow) And just as someone had to do something about Charisma Carpenter, I knew someone had to also have done something about Alyson Hannigan showing up in VMars as well. This one has a nice little mystery to it and is more of a VMars story than a BtVS story, though Willow is the primary character.
And no batch of crossover recs from me would be complete without The Snape-Vorkosigan Trilogy: Marks and Scars, Without Enchantment, and No Great Magic by E.H. Smith and the subsequent Time Shall Not Mend by A.J. Hall. (PG-13, Vorkosigan saga/Harry Potter, gen) Snape is the central HP character in the first three and Mark is the main VK character, though we meet up with others as well, most notably Pym. In TSNM, Draco and Neville are the main HP characters (and this story is also part of an arc of Draco/Neville stories, but their relationship, while there, isn’t central, so I’d still call it genfic) and Ekaterin is the primary VK character, though this time you really get the whole range of the VK cast. HP spoilers are through GoF for the trilogy, and probably also for TSNM, though that may have bits of OotP. In other words, they’ve been around awhile, and they stand the test of time well.
That’s all folks! Thanks for checking out this stop on the Fangirl Tour, and I hope you found something to enjoy!
I started compiling a list as soon as I’d signed up for this, and I quickly realized the hardest part was going to be keeping it to 13. Plus, being all multi-fandom and crossover-happy makes it a little tough trying to organize it all. So I’ve tried making it something of a tour through my discovery of fandom. So, by my rather unconventional method of counting, there are 13 single-fandom recs here, and then a bunch of crossover recs.
First, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga
You’ll find all kinds of excellent fic for this saga and LMB’s other two ‘verses at bujold_fic, which is kind of a central fic repository on LJ. But that isn’t where I first found VK fic. Nope, that was on The LMB Fanfic Archive, and here are a couple that have always stood out for me.
Birthday by Ruth Bitz. (G, Vorkosigan, Ivan gen) I really like the insight into how Ivan would think about his birthday, considering it was also the day the father he never knew died.
It Was Before Your Time by Tammy Nott and It Was Before Your Time … Continued by her mother Judy Nott (G, Vorkosigan, Simon Illyan and OMC gen) take an amusing look at an incident alluded to in canon regarding elephants.
And Then There Was Snarry
An odd segue, yes. But there it is. And two of the first if not the first Snarry fics I encountered were these timeless gems:
A Nick In Time by Tira Nog. This was one of the first Snarry fics I read, possibly the very first, and I’ve come back to it a few times. Every time, it makes me tear up. Both Severus and Harry had deplorable childhoods, though in very different ways. In this post-war fic, they both get a second chance. Hermione and Ron are also married in this, but I think they’re both very well handled. They’re both recognizably themselves but substantially matured. Actually, this is probably better called a pre-Snarry fic, as there is no romantic element until the very end. That shows up in the sequel, Growing Pains .
Somewhere along the way, I also picked up a fondness for Severitus/Sevitus fics (in which Snape is either Harry’s biological or adoptive father) as much or more than Snarry.
A Year Like None Other by aspenlight (PG, Harry Potter, Snape, Harry, Draco, gen) and its sequel A Summer Like None Other and promised third, A Family Like None Other. There are actually parts of this I’d probably rate R for grossness. But I really like the way aspenlight picks at the insecurities of all three of the main characters and the long road to trust.
In Blood Only by EM Snape (M, Harry Potter, Severitus) This is a really great Severitus story, in my opinion. Snape is thoroughly nasty and yet Harry brings out qualities in him that he didn’t know he had. And the device by which Snape discovers their relationship worked really well, I thought.
Around the same time, I started to find some Buffy fic
It is hard to navigate the Buffy fandom as a newbie. There really aren’t big central archives. Various award sites and their lists of nominees and winners serve as rec lists of a sort, but I didn’t really start finding much until I discovered the assorted fic communities on LJ. (In part because I didn’t know about the award sites and was pretty much just Googling for stuff.) Some of those comms are all_fics_btvs, ats_btvs_fanfic, btvs_award_info, buffy_fanfic, and more character-specific comms like tweedandtea and summer_of_giles for Giles and spring_with_xan for Xander.
Now … I’m very hard pressed to narrow down my recs, because there’s just soooo much good stuff out there. But here are a few. It was damned hard narrowing these down, so I’ll just a) point back up at the list of comms and b) suggest reading absolutely everything these three have written in this and other fandoms.
Florence Fucking Nightingale by sahiya (PG-13, BtVS, Giles/Faith) I love Giles, hurt/comfort, and am getting to love Giles/Faith, so this fic is a great combination. It’s a sequel to another G/F fic, Lovely, Dark, and Deep, and is comics-compliant, but you can pretty much fill in the gaps if you’ve only seen the series.
An Antique Roman by antennapedia (PG-13, BtVS, Giles/Ethan) This is a great S3 AU from Ethan Rayne’s POV. Ethan definitely has a very different take on “amends” than anybody else likely would.
And, fresh off the press monitor screen, The Fabulous Ladies Night Club by ubiquirk (R, BtVS, Xander gen). In the interest of full disclosure, I should say up front that I had the absolute joy of beta-ing this. At the beginning of S4, we learn that Xander decided to take a road trip of all 50 states, but his car just wasn’t up for it, and he ended up working at The Fabulous Ladies Night Club to earn money for a replacement. He wouldn’t say much more, so this is the scoop, at last, on what really happened in Oxnard.
And then, almost by accident, I discovered SS/HG
Seriously. Smack in the middle of a Snarry meta was this link to a story that is unfortunately no longer available on the net: But You Alone by Azazzello. Thence I discovered Ashwinder, and wow.
SS/HG has already been pretty well and thoroughly covered and will no doubt continue to be, so I originally made a rule for myself that I wasn’t allowed to rec any. But I couldn’t help pointing out this newish WIP that seems to be largely flying under the radar.
The Witching Hour by Potion Mistress a.k.a. ordinary_magic (R, Harry Potter, Snape/Hermione). It’s a Year 6 AU that looks at a single, transformative week in both these characters’ lives, and does what I think are some very intriguing things with magic and Hermione’s home life.
After which came my other OTP: SS/RL
Actually, as I’ve seen someone else (don’t remember who) say before, the concept of an OTP is pretty much lost on me. But SS/HG and SS/RL are definitely the two pairings I read the most often in Potterdom.
Finally, a bit of art! Developing a Potion without Taking the Credit (or: Severus' Messy Desk) by omni_sama Contains photos some spy must have taken of Severus' desk, including the Wolfsbane recipe, some ingredients, some sketches/notes, and a letter to one Damocles Belby. A type of fanart I’ve never seen before. Someone called it an “assemblage,” which describes it rather well, I think. Can be taken as SS/RL or gen.
For Severus Snape, in the Event of My Death by snegurochka_lee (R, Harry Potter, Snape/Lupin). Angsty, DH-compliant, and brilliant.
Memoria Perdita by red_day_dawning (NC-17, Harry Potter, Snupin) A DH-ignored AU in which Remus has been hit by a curse that stole most of his memories going back to about PoA and Severus ends up caring for him. Lovely h/c, lovely insight into Severus using his snark to protect himself. I could do without the Tonks-bashing, but it’s balanced with glimpses of a sympathetic Minerva and, to a lesser extent, Hermione, so that there isn’t the misogynist feel one sometimes gets in slash. Actually, I find less of that in this ship than many others.
Squeaking in a Firefly rec for #13
Slippery Slope by sunnyd_lite (G, Firefly, Inara/Mal) Set between the series and the movie, a job goes wrong, per usual, and Inara realizes she needs to leave Serenity. The language and the character voices here are excellent, as is the metaphor the author builds out of Mal’s little fiasco.
Last and longest stop on my leg of the tour: crossovers
Yes, I already hit 13. (Awhile ago, depending on how you count it.) But the thing is, a lot of people won’t want to look at this section, because a lot of people don’t like crossovers. I find that mystifying, because seeing how characters deal with being forced into another ‘verse, one way or another, is just something I really thoroughly enjoy. And again, very hard to narrow down, but what the heck, I’m already over 13 anyway.
It’s Never Lupus by fourth_rose (PG, Harry Potter-not-exactly-House-M.D.-crossover, Snape, Draco, Luna, Neville) A very humorous take-off on the House format. I think Luna’s contributions are my favorite here, though the references to a very Cuddy-esque Hermione come in a very close second.
Across the Void by bookishwench (PG, BtVS/AtS/Firefly, Giles/Simon) Yes, really, Giles/Simon. If I tried to explain how, that would give it all away. It’s quite short, so if you’re as intrigued by the pairing as I was, I suggest giving it a quick read.
Emotional Scar by romanticalgirl (NC-17, BtVS/Harry Potter xover, Rupert Giles/Remus Lupin with shades of Ripper/Ethan and Remus/Sirius) I love Rupert/Remus almost as much as I love Giles/Snape. This is a lovely Ripper-era fic, and there are sequels: Pauses(G), Smell(G), Sight(PG-13), Taste(PG), and Torch Song(NC17).
That Teenage Feeling by mosca (NC-17, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Harry Potter, Rupert Giles/Remus Lupin) This is a great post-Chosen post-HBP fic. The way these two meet up and figure each other out and end up together is just a treat, and the bits of magical theory that come up are very nicely handled.
Vengeance Is a Cold Thing by Booster (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica/Logan, D’Hoffryn) Set immediately after the end of the S1 finale, we get a slightly different answer to who’s at the door when Veronica answers it. Short and sweet.
Three Hours to Sunrise by hjdevnull (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wallace, Faith) Another one-shot, and the author’s summary says it all: “Wallace Fennell is used to following a hot white girl with an attitude problem who won't tell him what's going on. At least this Faith has on tight leather pants.” I love Wallace, and he so knows how to deal with Faith, even though he has no idea how to deal with the Slayer stuff.
G’Morning Sunshine by Kristal (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordy/Logan, or Kendall/Logan, or something) I knew somebody had to have done something with the business of Charisma Carpenter being in both shows. And Kendall Casablancas really was Sunnydale Cordy a few years later if she didn’t meet up with Angel and Doyle. And I should have figured this was the obvious way to work it, but I won’t spoil it by saying.
The Lion and the Lamb by kallierose (PG-13, Veronica Mars/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow) And just as someone had to do something about Charisma Carpenter, I knew someone had to also have done something about Alyson Hannigan showing up in VMars as well. This one has a nice little mystery to it and is more of a VMars story than a BtVS story, though Willow is the primary character.
And no batch of crossover recs from me would be complete without The Snape-Vorkosigan Trilogy: Marks and Scars, Without Enchantment, and No Great Magic by E.H. Smith and the subsequent Time Shall Not Mend by A.J. Hall. (PG-13, Vorkosigan saga/Harry Potter, gen) Snape is the central HP character in the first three and Mark is the main VK character, though we meet up with others as well, most notably Pym. In TSNM, Draco and Neville are the main HP characters (and this story is also part of an arc of Draco/Neville stories, but their relationship, while there, isn’t central, so I’d still call it genfic) and Ekaterin is the primary VK character, though this time you really get the whole range of the VK cast. HP spoilers are through GoF for the trilogy, and probably also for TSNM, though that may have bits of OotP. In other words, they’ve been around awhile, and they stand the test of time well.
That’s all folks! Thanks for checking out this stop on the Fangirl Tour, and I hope you found something to enjoy!