Sooooo...
Because I feel like it, and I'm in an 'up' enough mood to be down with creative things (groovy, yo!), I am dedicating this post to pimping things I have been reading. (That are awesome.)
1. Luminosity - A Twilight Re-Imagining
Like Twilight? Mildly dislike Twilight? Hate Twilight? It's okay, if you fall into any of these categories you can still like Luminosity. It's amazing how little the sparkling vampires and spontaneous werewolf fursplosions will bother you when the story is given a plot and Bella a genuinely likable personality. Luminosity made me kinda actually like Twilight fanfic, though I still wouldn't touch the books if paid. It has a sequel, Radiance, that is almost finished now too. Don't read the About or Character pages until you catch up with Radiance because spoilers. Oh yeah, there's OCs and stuff, not that I knew that due to my lack of Twilight knowledge, but honestly, does it matter? They're all cool and likable and one of them has the best superpower ever.
2. Bagglevarger's Theory of Inversive Magic - A Harry Potter/Stargate Atlantis Crossover
Oh my god. This story. This story is what a crossover/AU should be. All the characters are so perfectly themselves. It's Atlantis (and some SG-1, minorly) characters placed into Hogwarts, and yes. Just, yes. A Stargate in Hogwarts! Yeeees. Anyone familiar with both fandoms will get what's going on long before the characters do, and fair warning, it is somewhat slashy (Sheppard/McKay), but the focus is mostly on the plot. And the characters. The Atlantis characters with magic are glorious.
3. Conquistador de la Noche - A Kitty Norville Sidestory
This is the only non-fanfic entry on the list, and written by the original author of pretty much one of my favourite series ever. About my favourite character in the series' origins, no less! Heeey. This is how to do a friendly vampire origin story, people. This is how to do it. A friendly, awesome vampire, and I seriously hope that the plot point near the end crops up in the book series at some point. Apparently this is getting released in the short story collection for the series, too! So hey, getting my hands on that when it comes out.
4. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Harry Potter AU Fanfic
Thus because it is the law of the internet that 80% of all fanfiction is Harry Potter related, and because it is wrong of me to admit I read the stuff without pointing out this one, and because I feel sorta-kinda responsible for it being everywhere now since I was the one who first put it on TV Tropes...yeah. Here it is. I'm not sure what to say at this point that would do it justice. I hesitate to call any fanfic 'better than canon' because without the canon, the fanfic couldn't exist, but it is still very good, and has some awesome moments, and--are you ready?--there's alternate takes on characters without evillifying anyone not already evil. That's rare enough as it is in this fandom. Also, this is the best Quirrel I have ever read, period.
5. Arc of Sacrifices - Harry Potter AU Fanfic
From the bottom up in order, seven stories and one one-shot related to the story just before it. This is, no question, the Harry Potter fanfic. Reading this is a rite of passage into the fandom, or at least should be. It's huge--even with how fast I read it took me weeks to get through it--but every bit is so, so worth it. It does have slash into it, and femmeslash, and OCs, but you know what? It's all incredible. And whereas MoR has the best Quirrel ever, this has the best Regulus ever. And I do love Regulus. I want to say it has the best Snape ever too, but something itches in my head when I think that--but, he's still awesome too. What's even more amazing? This whole thing only took a little over a year for Lightning to write, and it's in the ballpark of three million words. Yeah. Whoa indeed. (I've actually already sucked two people into this via IRC, but, might as well keep going!)
I've also finished/caught up on all of the above so I can rec them all with confidence to where they are now.
And I feel really bad about not reading anything in my primary fandom right now, but 90% of the stuff in the Mega Man fandom active right now sucks and the other 10% is X Series and can therefore go fuck itself, sooo.
Also, my meds are probably starting to work, as the ups and downs are getting less up and downy. This can only be good.
1. Luminosity - A Twilight Re-Imagining
Like Twilight? Mildly dislike Twilight? Hate Twilight? It's okay, if you fall into any of these categories you can still like Luminosity. It's amazing how little the sparkling vampires and spontaneous werewolf fursplosions will bother you when the story is given a plot and Bella a genuinely likable personality. Luminosity made me kinda actually like Twilight fanfic, though I still wouldn't touch the books if paid. It has a sequel, Radiance, that is almost finished now too. Don't read the About or Character pages until you catch up with Radiance because spoilers. Oh yeah, there's OCs and stuff, not that I knew that due to my lack of Twilight knowledge, but honestly, does it matter? They're all cool and likable and one of them has the best superpower ever.
2. Bagglevarger's Theory of Inversive Magic - A Harry Potter/Stargate Atlantis Crossover
Oh my god. This story. This story is what a crossover/AU should be. All the characters are so perfectly themselves. It's Atlantis (and some SG-1, minorly) characters placed into Hogwarts, and yes. Just, yes. A Stargate in Hogwarts! Yeeees. Anyone familiar with both fandoms will get what's going on long before the characters do, and fair warning, it is somewhat slashy (Sheppard/McKay), but the focus is mostly on the plot. And the characters. The Atlantis characters with magic are glorious.
3. Conquistador de la Noche - A Kitty Norville Sidestory
This is the only non-fanfic entry on the list, and written by the original author of pretty much one of my favourite series ever. About my favourite character in the series' origins, no less! Heeey. This is how to do a friendly vampire origin story, people. This is how to do it. A friendly, awesome vampire, and I seriously hope that the plot point near the end crops up in the book series at some point. Apparently this is getting released in the short story collection for the series, too! So hey, getting my hands on that when it comes out.
4. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Harry Potter AU Fanfic
Thus because it is the law of the internet that 80% of all fanfiction is Harry Potter related, and because it is wrong of me to admit I read the stuff without pointing out this one, and because I feel sorta-kinda responsible for it being everywhere now since I was the one who first put it on TV Tropes...yeah. Here it is. I'm not sure what to say at this point that would do it justice. I hesitate to call any fanfic 'better than canon' because without the canon, the fanfic couldn't exist, but it is still very good, and has some awesome moments, and--are you ready?--there's alternate takes on characters without evillifying anyone not already evil. That's rare enough as it is in this fandom. Also, this is the best Quirrel I have ever read, period.
5. Arc of Sacrifices - Harry Potter AU Fanfic
From the bottom up in order, seven stories and one one-shot related to the story just before it. This is, no question, the Harry Potter fanfic. Reading this is a rite of passage into the fandom, or at least should be. It's huge--even with how fast I read it took me weeks to get through it--but every bit is so, so worth it. It does have slash into it, and femmeslash, and OCs, but you know what? It's all incredible. And whereas MoR has the best Quirrel ever, this has the best Regulus ever. And I do love Regulus. I want to say it has the best Snape ever too, but something itches in my head when I think that--but, he's still awesome too. What's even more amazing? This whole thing only took a little over a year for Lightning to write, and it's in the ballpark of three million words. Yeah. Whoa indeed. (I've actually already sucked two people into this via IRC, but, might as well keep going!)
I've also finished/caught up on all of the above so I can rec them all with confidence to where they are now.
And I feel really bad about not reading anything in my primary fandom right now, but 90% of the stuff in the Mega Man fandom active right now sucks and the other 10% is X Series and can therefore go fuck itself, sooo.
Also, my meds are probably starting to work, as the ups and downs are getting less up and downy. This can only be good.