commotiocordis

Fic Recs!

I read two really fabulous longfics in a couple of my older fandoms (okay, '09 Sherlock Holmes isn't that old, but it seems its fandom has all been replaced by BBC nowadays, despite the ridiculously adorable filming shots coming out of RDJ and Judesie) yesterday AND THEY WERE BRILLIANT OKAY LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.

Involuntary Commitment is a House fic by Ignaz Wisdom (I feel like she has a different LJ name that I probably would have been able to tell you in '06/'07, but oh well) set in season 3, just after the Tritter arc. NC-17, around 42,000 words.

It's a direct sequel to A Modest Proposal (also NC-17, 55,500 words), wherein in an attempt to stop House from going to jail as a result of the Tritter hullabaloo, House and Wilson get married to invoke spousal privilege. The author says it's not totally required to read the first one first, as all you really need to know beyond the show plot of that season (prescription forging, Tritter's vendetta, etc.) is 1) fake marriage 2) and then they done sex 3) they thought they were off the hook but 4) House agreed to go to rehab anyway. Still, that one's highly recommended as well (it's even been podficced!)

Anyway, her House voice is just immaculate. His biting wit had me gasping with laughter more than once, but his emotional deflections are really layered; the couple of times there are actual breakthroughs in his therapy/relationships/whatever, you really grasp how novel and how massively much progress that is for him. Wilson feeling empty-handed while House is in rehab makes you want to wring your hands along with him; despite their sexing being relatively brand new, their relationship is not, so you get the feeling that he would have been feeling/acting the same way with or without all the steamy gay buttsex they were having (as House takes joy in filling everyone in on their ~relations). Speaking of, look forward to the phone sex scene--it's hilarious.

Also, just like in A Modest Proposal, I found myself sincerely liking her OCs. In the previous, the one that comes to mind is their lawyer, Howard (who makes a token appearance in this fic as well). In Involuntary Commitment, there are two of note: the therapist working with both House and later Wilson, who is able to hold her own with the former while relating to the latter, and a purple-haired young fellow rehab-ite called Sugar Ray who becomes a confederate of House's. House's team (the originals) and Cuddy also make more than a few appearances in the hijinks, often occupying Wilson with cases or dinners or assistance in jailbreaking, minor things like that ;P

The only criticism I could possibly find was more one of formatting--there aren't any warnings in the tags or notes on AO3, and IC contains a vivid description of withdrawal that includes self-injury. The medicine is in general extremely realistic, which (as a medical type person) gives it all the more points in my book, and includes such events as an accidental medication overdose and an adverse reaction, both very serious (I don't know how you'd warn for that, or if you would, but whatever).

Basically, every few paragraphs I had to turn to

sixgunsound and say "you seriously have to read these. Are you reading these yet? Read them." And that's pretty much what I'm trying to say here to the internet at large. She may have taken 3 years to tap out this sequel, but it's well worth the wait. BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
< / too much pbs as a child; sorry I'm broken >

Crossposts: http://crashcart9.livejournal.com/496926.html

Okay. After sleeping on this, I'm no less moved by it, so it's getting the epic epic review I promised on Twitter. Problem is, I don't want to ruin any part of it, but the main premise is introduced all of 30 seconds into it, so I think I can get away with that.

Vagueness over.

First, this is a different fic than the one I'm talking about above, but just to make sure it gets seen, I actually went back and edited my post of "A Fool's Game", the Holmes/Watson fic I posted the other day to link to "Partings" by Daylyn. I read that last night as well, and if I didn't know better I might have thought hers was for the same

sherlockkink prompt as mine, if not mine having actually been written as a prequel to hers. It's exactly how I imagined the morning and days after my telling of Sherlock's actions on Watson's wedding eve, and therefore highly recommended.

And now, the other one.

I don't often remember the first fic I read in a fandom.

What I do remember is the first fic in a fandom to make me really cry.

In Harry Potter, it was Mapmakers (Making Moony Laugh: The Suicide is Painless remix), which I cannot recommend enough, because it still manages to make me cry every time I read it even though it's been probably 5 years.

In Sherlock Holmes, it was "Living With Ghosts". I'd read fics that gave me a sniffle, maybe even a tear or two, but this was the first Sherlock Holmes story that really, truly made me cry.

"Living With Ghosts" is an end-of-life retelling of the entire span from Holmes' return post Reichenbach Falls until Watson's death. It takes a premise done not-infrequently in post-"Friend In Need" Xena fics--one living partner, one dead one that follows and assists as spirit/ghost--and, just like in Xena fandom, manages to make it instead of campy or farcical, extremely sad. Holmes and Watson had never expressed anything deeper for each other--never had the chance--pre-Holmes' untimely death at the hands of Colonel Moran, the air-gun bullet having found its target in the wax bust but Moran pulling a knife in the ensuing struggle and Holmes exsanguinating in Watson's arms. We follow Watson through his grief; assuming he's mad when Holmes reappears; the joy in solving cases again together and keeping Holmes' memory alive by fictionalizing the cases into ones solved by a corporeal Holmes with Watson assisting; the frustration and utter tragedy when they finally realize their feelings for each other and can't touch; and the all-encompassing, heart-wrenching, soul-squeezing grief when, after Watson is injured by Killer Evans, Holmes decides he can't lead his partner into danger anymore and disappears for the rest of Watson's life.

I'm a sucker for end-of-life type stories as a whole, because they're sad, but in a happyending type way because THEY GET TO BE TOGETHER AGAIN YAY. Pure angst I can read all day long with no problem, but this entire thing was so beautiful--hopeful in the middle part of the interspersed ghost!Holmes and Watson solving mysteries together, but the happy was tempered in your stomach by the fact that you know that Holmes is really dead, and they can't touch, and Watson can't talk to him like he'd like to for fear of being shipped off to Bethlehem Hospital, and Holmes is pressuring him to get on with his life, to get married, and then Holmes leaves and you know it ends with Watson dying alone from the bordering and intermittent snips of him in hospital, and it's so. . . *tears*.

If you want to know the ending before you start, the quote I've blacked out below is, I'm sure, the line entirely responsible (you know, in conjunction with the PMS, but I'm still not easily weepy, so don't take that as any kind of a diminishment of the beautiful tragedy that is this fic) for the fact that my weepiness persisted a good 10 minutes after I finished it. And the resurgence of heavy-blinking to dispel eyewatering just now when I tried to explain this fic to my sister. I mean. . . oh my god. I cannot, cannot cannot recommend a fic more than something that makes me cry just thinking about it the next day. That, my friends, is writing.

This line is probably not nearly as powerful if you haven't just spent the last 30 pages in the emotional wringer that is this fic, but nevertheless:

“After all these years you waited to come back to me at my death?” I did not know if I was grateful or resentful of that fact. I just knew that I wanted him close to me.

“You held me as I died, Watson,” he murmured as he reached out to stroke my face. “I felt that I could do nothing less than return the favor.”

I fear that my review is not nearly as eloquent as I would wish to do justice to this magnificent work. I've been working my way through all of the http://www.excessant.com/HI/authors.htm fics more or less systematically, and I haven't stumbled across a bad fic yet. Indeed, most are worthy of my bumbling praise, but this one has the dubious honor of being one of the few that I have a feeling will stick in my mind for a very long time to come. Read it. Have tissues handy.

And in case anybody was curious how I did the blackout thing (as I had to look it up):

So. Busted up my van, sort of. I'm blaming it on the stupid sporty chick in the SUV that parked next to me. Unfortunately, when it comes down to the damages, they're all on me--it was her fault, but I did the actual damaging. The bitch pulls in to the spot next to me as I'm trying to pull out of this one at a weird angle at the very end of the parking lot (all but impossible to get out of on one try backing up, even if you're in a car and not this full sized van) and she's so close to me that you literally couldn't open the passenger door. Not even just not wide enough to get out; she was maybe 3 inches max from me, way over the line. I'm halfway pulled out, but need to pull back in and re-angle because it's the odd edge spot, but can't because now she's there (I gave her the nastiest look, LOL, and she just sort of shrugged), and it's either scrape the fuck out of my car on the parking lot sign or scrape the fuck out of my car on her car and then have to pay for her car. There was no way I was getting out of there without scraping something, no possibility at all, and since I was halfway out, it's not like I could just stay there and wait for her to leave (as while I was agonizing over what to do, she'd speedily jumped out and left, so I couldn't make her move her car so I could get out). Add to that that it was dark and wet and gross, so considering the circumstances, I succeeded pretty well at trying to minimize the damage, but there's a pretty deep scrape all down the driver's side, as well as the side headlight is completely gone, both cover and light (which is amusing, considering last time I went home, I spent 2 hours out in the cold getting the inside front headlight repaired).

I was unbelievably pissed all through exercising after I got out and saw what the damage actually was. In that "Oh, shit. What am I going to do?", internalizing it into depression sort of way. No fun. But then I was like "Torchwood yay" because

bleakone and I watched an episode down in late night dining and I got engrossed in that and my chicken salad (that is not sitting well, though that's probably more due to the fact that it just now sort of hit me that I've got a final in less than 12 hours that I've not yet begun to study for) and forgot, which is good. But the father is going to be uber pissed.

Reading tons of CJ/Abbey fics all of a sudden (mostly because I started playing with a CJ/Donna Christmas fic and wanted to get into the voices and absent having episodes to watch, went to read fic; unfortunately in this circumstance, there's much more CJ/Abbey than CJ/Donna) and I got drawn in to Cj's excellent, but unfinished (!!hate!--I was so engrossed!) Repetition series.

( Review. This cut is purely so I can possibly link to this later without making people read through my car woes before or my suitemate woes later, but whatever. )

And now, on another note, I was just trying to get this typed up (the car story; the fic rec was an inadvertent sidetrack caused by my trying to pick out an icon to use for the post, seeing my CJ/Abbey one, and going "Ooh, that was a great fic") so I could hop into the shower and either go to bed to get up and study in the morning or study some and then go to bed, but now I think people are hanging out in our suite area. And it's quite awkward to go in and take a shower when there are even my suitemates around, much less in the suite area, much less with people (including guys) I don't know in there.

Except now, as I kept typing up the review, they're gone. But the others are getting ready for bed, so I've got to wait a bit longer. Fail, timing.

Fic rec. Two this time. Both guyslash, actually. I've been reading a bit more of that lately, simply because I've read much of what I can find of my main femslash pairings already. Don't be fooled by the fact that the second one's rec is longer; that's only because I copied down my review to the author as well.

Mapmakers (Making Moony Laugh: the Suicide Is Painless Remix)
Remix Author: Casira
Original Story: Making Moony Laugh by Raven
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: Discovering just who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are brings up even more questions for Fred -- and when fate takes another of them away, it's time to go back to the source for some answers.

Number one is a remix, the original of which I've yet to read (but the person who linked me to this one says that the original is one of her favorite fics too), and simply lovely. Sad, though; I'll admit my eyes were more than a little welled up at the end. It's Harry Potter, bits pre-Order of the Phoenix and bits post, and very Fred Weasley centered. Yeah, that's right, not Fred and George, Fred. Which sets it quite apart to begin with. Overall, it's Remus/Sirius, but though that's essentially the underlying drive for the entire story, she manages to yet focus it almost entirely on Fred. I've read so much excellent stuff in the last few days that I'm loath to say this for fear I'm forgetting something, but this is easily in my top 5 of this past week's fics, and I'd never give all-time numbers but this one is up there, especially for HP fandom.

Didymus
Author: Tafkar
Rating: PG
Fandoms: Deep Space Nine, Battlestar Galactica
Summary: Baltar finds a unique way to disarm an imminent threat.

Number two. I've been going through all the Multiverse 2005 fics for the past bunch of hours, and this one makes me smile. As do quite a few of them, but still. I got about half-way through this one and realized that I had to pass it along.

This is the pairing that everyone's always expecting, yet the first fic for it that I've seen.

Battlestar Galactica/Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Gaius Baltar/Julian Bashir. Trufaxyeah.

It's almost like Star Trek Mirror Universe porn (because Ezri/MU!Ezri and Kira/Intendant Kira are just too ~~mindfucky~~ hot for words), but ~~sadly~~ without the porn. But with the mindfuck. Literally, when you consider Six's role in the entire escapade.

Just because I have it on hand (meaning still on my copy-clipboard because I brought it over to be spellchecked), this was how I reviewed it. Not very technical or in-depth (it's much what I've already said), but in case it clarifies/further confuses things:

"Lovely. A mate of mine and I have been discussing the perfectness that is Baltar/Bashir since I first rediscovered BSG a bit more than a year ago, yet this was the first I've seen, so you can imagine my excitement when I realized that this was going to fit into that mold. Your Baltar is perfectly characterized, and I loved the bits with him trying to hide things from Six. When sending this to aforementioned mate, I described it as a little like Star Trek/Mirror Universe slash (because I've got a particular soft spot for the ST characters/their MU counterparts)--a little kinky, a dash of subterfuge and deception, and a lot of mindfuck inherent in the whole double/resemblance bit. I think this fits the mold quite well, as you capitalized on their physical similarities. I would have liked to see more about their mental similarities purely due to interest regarding how you'd write their reaction to such realization of deeper similarities, but as this is so early in their relationship, it's very much understandable that you kept to the physical.
Anyway, very much enjoyed. I'm glad others see the (what we think are) blatant similarities between the two, and that you have decided to thus exploit these for the purpose of this excellent piece of work."

Most of my love for this fic was due simply to the pairing, but it's also well written. I'd love to see it expanded into a longer series. (And I apologize to the author, because I think I sent you my review twice. How was I supposed to know that after you hit send, it doesn't give you any kind of feedback, and simply refreshes the page and blanks the form?)

I FOUND IT! trufaxyeah.

"It" meaning the fic I mentioned yesterday that I had been looking for. Finally. I tried googling everything I could think of, and finally I cut the search terms down to just "River/Talia" (since that was such a small bit of the fic, I hadn't even considered searching by that; instead I was doing things like Firefly Babylon 5 Crossover and Babylon 5 River/Jayne) and it was del.icio.us'd with that tag on somebody's account. One person. I refound this because one person bookmarked it. Thank you, whoever you are.

It's much more River/Jayne than I remembered. Firefly is one of those shows where I can see most pairings working, in some twisted way, when they're written into good fic. Though I don't tend to seek these other pairings out (I do Inara/Kaylee primarily, a few others on occasion), I tend to find them, somehow.

And then lose them. Thinking about the other oddish pairings I've read in Firefly lead me to thinking of this one (I've glorified it in my mind since I first read it because I haven't been able to find it either; I can't objectively tell how good it was) that was post-Serenity Inara/Zoe. I didn't expect to like that one when I opened it up. I'm not sure what lead me to open it up in the first place. Wash/Zoe is one of those pairings that you tend to just not touch. Hardly anyone does in FFverse, I've found, because they just work so well together. But it worked. Now that one's on my list of to-search-for fics.

I love this kind of fic. (Being the kind that this just-found fic belongs to.) So. . . abstract, almost, hugely confusing, with that ah-ha!gasp moment at the end when you realize what happened. I like it when I don't get all of it. I get most of it, the gist of it, but there are bits where I'm all "I know there's another meaning lying under this motif, but it's not clicking". And upon rereading, you grasp more of it, perhaps. And it's not so much that it doesn't make any sense at all, but it's more that you could put a bunch of different kinds of sense onto it.

Excellence. I spread out the reading of it over a good 2 hours, as I did other stuff (surfed around Netflix, mostly) and I can most definitively say that it was just as good as I remembered. (Good thing, too, because I put a good couple of hours into looking for it again.)

Photo-illustrated Chase/Foreman smutfic. Trufax. Of the quite entertaining variety (and I'm not even talking about the smuttage, because I had to scroll through most of that because family is still up in the adjoining room).

There's a fic that popped into my head last night that I can't find. And I'm about to go mad. I read it once, I don't remember how long ago (though no more than a year), saved it, lost it, and now don't remember the title or any other such distinguishing features (except the final bits of the plot, which I'm loath to divulge because if I remember correctly, it was a majorly kick-ass fic and one that I'll rave about to all of you and I don't want to have already spoiled it). It's a Firefly/Babylon 5 crossover, where Talia's in a cryo type thing and Serenity finds her. She and River bond, to an extent, and it's excellent. I believe it may have been River/Jayne (which will tell you right there how much I liked it, if I'm hankering to reread a het fic), also probably bits of River/Talia, and I've got no idea where I read it (though I'm thinking it was on here, because I don't know how I could have found it in The Pit, as I don't peruse the crossovers section). If this sounds familiar, let me know, will you?

I've finally found this movie, The Investigator, that sounded really good--I looked at it every time the PBS catalog/random other catalogs that sell their stuff showed up at the house, but I wasn't about to pay $30 plus shipping for a short movie that I wasn't sure I'd like (I'm of the type that rents the movie first--or more likely borrows it from the library--before buying it). And I hadn't been able to find it, but now I have. Dunno when I'm going to watch it, as I just got back from Shakespeare an hour or so ago and it's already past midnight (and I've been, somewhat sadly, on a more normalish sleeping schedule since I had to babysit a week back or so from 8am till 6pm or so, as that forced me into a more standard circadian rhythm, so I'm bits tired now).

Shakespeare was nice. Benedick has such energy, which is excellent. They've got 3 shows left, and you'd think he'd be tired out of jumping up and down on the stage every night and rolling around in a barrel, but he's just as energetic as on Sunday. Claudio still not terrific, though I can't really stand that part (nor Hero's) in the play, so my perception is somewhat colored in that regard. The pair of them seem to be just accessory characters, and none of them is fleshed out very much. I noticed that all around; though this is one of Shakespeare's funnier ones, I don't think it's one of his better.

People at Shakespeare, though, not terrific. Erm, no. No clapping during every pause. Have you never been to a theatre before? Or a concert? No. These weren't the most cultured of people here today. It seemed to take them 10 minutes after intermission ended to get into their seats. During said 10 minutes, some drunk lady right in front of us essentially cuts off a couple of the actors as they make their way down the aisle to enter, and doesn't even realize it--they go around her, and she just stands there, holding her two empty wine glasses. I hate drunk people. And they were taking pictures. Again, methinks that's not allowed. (Though if we end up going again, if everyone else is doing it at this one funny part, I might sneak my camera up there because I want a picture of the walking, cowboy hat-wearing barrel.)

Lauren Holly was on Becker in this afternoon's episode. Made me smile. She was blonde, though, which was odd. And they didn't hide the fact that she had hair extensions (her real hair was about the length it was at the end of the NCIS season) very well in one of the scenes, which was sort of annoying. And there was not nearly enough Reggie in that episode, so I was sad. The network that's rerunning them in the afternoons is jumping around like crazy, though, as I was looking at some episode guide thing and I had watched episode 17 (or something, I'm making up the numbers, but the point is the same) on Tuesday and episodes 5, 6, and 7 sometime the week before. I'm trying to find them somewhere else (because the reruns are jumping around within season 4, meaning the last season worth watching because the bastards fired Terry Farrell before season 5) but the ones I've got so far are all first-run looking TV-rips that aren't of terrific quality.

Current Mood: good

Fic recommendation of doom!
I've decided I want to start doing this more often, because I've got loads and loads of them (though a good two or three hundred less than pre-hard drive debacles 1, 2, and 3) that are old or from fandoms that are dying/not represented well on LJ or for some other reasons aren't getting their due. That and because fictionygoodness is love, and I want to share with people the stuff I enjoy. (Maybe I'll sign up to drive the

crack_van at some point; that'd probably be a good idea.) But for now, this one.

Of The Ghost In My Bed
Author: Adi
Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager
Pairings: B'Elanna/Seven, Janeway/Seven
Rating: G [Reccer's note: She has it as G, but the one use of the 'O' word makes me personally want to bump it up a bit higher, just in case.]
Summary: Sometimes wanting is better than having, other times, it's much better than having.

This is way high up there on my list of favorite fics ever. It's one of the earliest ones I read and one that has stood up to years of rereading. It's dark and beautiful, and so perfectly understated. I find myself reading it in this half-whisper in my head, performing it like some odd kind of spoken word for myself, which I catch myself doing with particularly powerful passages and the the works I really like, the last paragraph particularly of this being a striking example of both.

It's too short really to give much more, but it manages to be a wholly complete little fic, which is impressive considering it's a meager 625 words. I've got one disagreement with the author's word choice; she uses 'orgasmed' where I feel that 'came' would have preserved the flow better, but all in all, this is right up there in my head (along with the more common choices of "Queen of Hearts", etc.) as the first things that come to mind when I think of B'Elanna/Seven fic.

So yes. Check it out if you've got a minute, send the author feedback if you've got a second more (her email is hyperlinked on her name under the story's title), and tell me what you thought of it if you've a moment past that. I'd be interested to know what people think.

When Cameron goes "'Cause I'm hitting that. And it's totally hot," I just noticed that Chase looks to Foreman like "Is she kidding?" Like he seriously wasn't sure. Which naturally leads to the conclusion that Chase either knows that she's got a thing for the ladies or wouldn't put it past her.

Read some good stuff Thursday night while I wasn't doing anything I should have been doing. Pornish Angel/Spike, mostly. One from the ancient and all historical Angelus/William the Bloody time (I'm not up on my Buffyverse lingo; I'm not sure if it has a specific name.) that was cool.

Read some really great fics tonight, too. One of which being this West Wing CJ/Carol one, "Playing with Matches".

I might have a Mock Trial meeting tomorrow, but I don't know as I missed the first meeting (I really hope the teacher/coach lady will still let me in). I'm going to have to wake up early and try to call someone and find out if it's this week. And I really want to go see Shakespeare's R & J at some point this weekend (meaning Saturday, as the Sunday matinee won't be over until after I need to leave for volleyball and I won't be done with volleyball until the night show's already started) so I've got to figure that out, as Sunday night's the last show.

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