InstaRec: Teen Wolf
Teen Wolf continues to eat my life.
Also, I'm trying to remember to bookmark things on AO3 since I've taken to finding a lot of really good fic that way myself. So I figured I'd contribute to the silent reccing love.
The Strong Scent of Evergreen by
rubykatewriting, Derek/Stiles, Always a Girl!Stiles, Explicit, ~29,000 words.
Writer's summary: Derek and Stiles start something new. "I am, you know," she whispers against his mouth, and he tilts his head in question. "Yours."
I kinda want to cry. Seriously, what the hell. Why is this fic so perfect? I'm a bit late to the game, as always - this fic has 40,000 hits and it deserves more.
I'm not innately attracted to always-a-girl! fic, in any fandom. I'll read it, but depending on my mood it may take a greater degree of good writing to get me into the fic. And the summary - it's darling, but before I began reading, I wondered how a fic with that summary - implying that the UST and, at least as important if not more, the emotional turmoil had already been resolved - how could that summary have anything to do with 29,000 words of fic? How could it hold the attention? Where was the tension if Stiles was already admitting that she is Derek's?
And see, the reason I'm still sitting here going "what the hell" is that this fic shouldn't have worked. That tension - it's not there, not like that. Sure, there are moments of it, some minor wibbling over how much Derek is really into Stiles, but that's not what this fic is about.
And yet - it does work. Here I am writing this rec up in the five minutes after I finished because I keep finding this smile spreading over my face so wide that I kinda want to cry, because this fic is gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's not light or cheesy or soppy or romantic even, but it makes me think of fields of perfect flowers under a late spring sky, or the pale splash of the milky way in a midnight clear night - all that hope and purity, edged with innocence, still innocence despite the characters' loss-driven pasts. It takes what should, by all rights, be a gooey romance - because this is a romance - and makes it incandescent and iridescent. It recognizes that for people to feel this way, you have to let go of yourself and trust and cast away fear - and maybe because these characters are teenagers (or the equivalent, *ahem* Derek), they don't know that in an articulable sense, but it still happens and it's beautiful.
The last fic I wrote was 50,000 words all trying to say one thing, that there is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. Because fear has torment. The rest of the quote goes, "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." This fic says the same thing to me, in entirely different ways, stunningly different ways. And it also says to me that, while I thought I was done with that theme after spending a year on it and those 50,000 words, maybe it's too beautiful not to do again.
Go read. (But maybe not if you don't usually read Teen Wolf fic. I can't really think this is the best fic to start with.)
Also, I'm trying to remember to bookmark things on AO3 since I've taken to finding a lot of really good fic that way myself. So I figured I'd contribute to the silent reccing love.
The Strong Scent of Evergreen by
rubykatewriting, Derek/Stiles, Always a Girl!Stiles, Explicit, ~29,000 words.
Writer's summary: Derek and Stiles start something new. "I am, you know," she whispers against his mouth, and he tilts his head in question. "Yours."
I kinda want to cry. Seriously, what the hell. Why is this fic so perfect? I'm a bit late to the game, as always - this fic has 40,000 hits and it deserves more.
I'm not innately attracted to always-a-girl! fic, in any fandom. I'll read it, but depending on my mood it may take a greater degree of good writing to get me into the fic. And the summary - it's darling, but before I began reading, I wondered how a fic with that summary - implying that the UST and, at least as important if not more, the emotional turmoil had already been resolved - how could that summary have anything to do with 29,000 words of fic? How could it hold the attention? Where was the tension if Stiles was already admitting that she is Derek's?
And see, the reason I'm still sitting here going "what the hell" is that this fic shouldn't have worked. That tension - it's not there, not like that. Sure, there are moments of it, some minor wibbling over how much Derek is really into Stiles, but that's not what this fic is about.
And yet - it does work. Here I am writing this rec up in the five minutes after I finished because I keep finding this smile spreading over my face so wide that I kinda want to cry, because this fic is gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's not light or cheesy or soppy or romantic even, but it makes me think of fields of perfect flowers under a late spring sky, or the pale splash of the milky way in a midnight clear night - all that hope and purity, edged with innocence, still innocence despite the characters' loss-driven pasts. It takes what should, by all rights, be a gooey romance - because this is a romance - and makes it incandescent and iridescent. It recognizes that for people to feel this way, you have to let go of yourself and trust and cast away fear - and maybe because these characters are teenagers (or the equivalent, *ahem* Derek), they don't know that in an articulable sense, but it still happens and it's beautiful.
The last fic I wrote was 50,000 words all trying to say one thing, that there is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. Because fear has torment. The rest of the quote goes, "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." This fic says the same thing to me, in entirely different ways, stunningly different ways. And it also says to me that, while I thought I was done with that theme after spending a year on it and those 50,000 words, maybe it's too beautiful not to do again.
Go read. (But maybe not if you don't usually read Teen Wolf fic. I can't really think this is the best fic to start with.)