elrhiarhodan

Day 6

In your own space, rec at least 3 fanworks you thought you wouldn't like (because they weren't your fandom or they pushed against your boundaries or you thought you just wouldn't be interested) and that you ended up loving.


There is very little I will read if I know I won’t like (in other words, the kink is a turnoff, will upset me, etc) but there have been fics I’ve read that have seriously pushed my boundaries.

The first is hoosierbitch ’s magnificent My Lips Have the Sin. This story started out as an anon fill on the kink meme in 2010, stopped and started and stopped again. I had become friends with the author, but she didn’t tell me she was writing it until we met in RL last year. It is a difficult story – Neal is thrown back into prison (blame Lauren Cruz) and he truly suffers. Peter finally gets him out, only to find Neal radically changed. It is a story about healing and love and sacrifice (all the things I love), but framed by horrific circumstances. WARNING: graphic scenes of prison rape in the first part.

The second is deepbluemermaid‘s Sympathy for the Werewolf. No, a creature-based fanfic is not something normally risky for me, or something I thought I wouldn’t like, but it’s H50, and werewolves in Hawaii should be just on the wrong side of crack. But this isn’t – it’s warm and loving and best of all, logical. It all just MAKES SENSE.

The third is phoenixtears’ Departus. I have never read in the HP fandom, but this came to me by way of a dear friend, and I couldn’t help but love it. It’s a very rare pairing (I’m given to understand) – Harry/Sirius (and to me, that’s almost canonical). The subject matter should be warned for (underage), but the telling is anything but salacious or improper. It is a love story, a coming-of-age story and there is a terrible, dark sweetness to it made all the more powerful by what is to come.

A few other recs that took me out of my fandom comfort zone:

rabidchild67’s I’ll Never Let You Go (if you promise not to fade away). Grimm fic that replays the best SPN episode ever – Mystery Spot. It’s a stellar reworking of the “Groundhog Day” trope.

Lit Up by phreakycat. I don’t like Suits – I don’t like the premise of the show, I don’t like the actor that plays Mike (but I do like Gabriel Macht and Gina Torres) and consequently, I really little or no Suits fic. But this one came to me via Sheafleur and her recs are aways gold. Mike has synesthesia (he sees words and concepts as colors). The author really made this work and I found it surprisingly effective.

(I'm playing catchup here. I don't want to spam anyone's flist/rlist, so I'm posting these as Date Out of Order and will do a master catch up post).