333 | rec-cember, week two

[straightforwardly]

This week’s rec_cember post is going to be slightly unusual. A few years ago, I came across the following meme:

In a new post, list ten fic that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” works, or even all the same pairing or fandom, just the fics that have touched you or that stuck with you somehow.

At the time, I immediately scrawled down a list of the first ten fics that came to mind. That list has been sitting in the document where I pre-write my dreamwidth posts ever since—as in, literally every time I’ve written a post or made notes for a potential future post, I’ve had that list staring at me. But since I failed to make a proper post about it in a timely manner, at some point it started to feel like I’d waited too long and it was “too late” to do it now, as silly as that sounds. This has been haunting me for years. But while brainstorming for rec_cember, it occurred to me… seeing as the vast majority of fics on that list are recs, now might finally be the time to actually share that list.

Fics are listed in the order I initially jotted them down in.

Fandoms included: Pokémon (Main Games), Inuyasha, Downton Abbey, Naruto, Scum Villain, Crossover - Avatar: the Last Airbender/Stargate SG-1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Labyrinth

Fidelity (Pokémon Main Games, Silver & Crobat, 2.3K)
It loves its master because it's never learned how to hate. Eventually, Silver learns how to love it back.

There was a period of time, somewhere around 2010-2011, where Pokémon, specifically the main games, was my main fandom. It was the last of the fandoms that I primarily engaged with on livejournal; it was around 2011/2012 that I finally began to use AO3 regularly, and in 2013 when I switched to dreamwidth for the rest of my fannish activity. But for Pokémon, I still used livejournal for just about everything, and I still treasure my memories of the people in this fandom who I interacted with over there.

I’ve reread this particular fic countless times over the years, and every time, I’ve loved it. It’s a wonderful character study of Silver, and the way his bond with his Crobat develops throughout the course of the game. It’s strange to remember now, but I used to be baffled by Silver’s popularity as a character. I didn’t understand it; in fact, I vaguely disliked him. And then I read this fic—and suddenly my worldview shifted, all at once. Suddenly, I felt like I understood him in a way I never had before; suddenly, I was fascinated by him, and he went from “vague dislike” to being one of my favorites. I don’t think I’ve ever read another fic, before or since, that’s impacted my view on a character so profoundly.

Tales From the House of the Moon (Inuyasha, Sesshomaru/Kagome, 326K)
Kagome, now in college, discovers the tale of Sesshomaru and Rin. Grief can be a prison, but the bonds of love are not easily broken. What is the truth behind fairytales?

I vividly remember the experience of reading this fic for the first time. It’s the oldest fic on this list, in terms of my history with it: I was in middle school when I read it for the first time, and I remember reading this over the course of the three days, absolutely glued to the screen of the computer in my family’s computer room, riveted and breathless. Above all, I remember the way it made me feel—how hard it made me cry. Before then, I’d never read a fic that made me feel the way this fic made me feel. In fact, I’d almost never read anything, period, novel or fic, that had ever made me feel that intensely.

I’ve reread this fic a couple of times since then, mostly recently in the summer of 2023, and every time, I’m struck by how well it still holds up. Yes, it isn’t perfect. It can be quite overwritten at times, and there are parts (particularly closer to the beginning) that feel quite “early 2000s anime fandom”. But the heart of this fic—the story it’s telling, the development of the characters and relationships, the themes it explores—all of that still shines golden. It still makes me cry; it still makes me feel, deeply and intensely. I would argue that this is a story about grief above all else, and the way it explores those ideas and themes… it gets to me, every single time.

Of all the fics on this list, this is one that was the most formative for me, and there’s a part of my heart that will always, always belong to it.

Soldier's Heart + its prequel Halo Effect (Downton Abbey, Thomas Barrow/OMC, 526K across both fics)
Following the events of "Halo Effect," Thomas Barrow goes to war.

The summary is for Soldier’s Heart, as that fic is the heart of why this story lingers with me, but Halo Effect is also quite good, and (more importantly) you do need to read it first in order to understand what’s going on in Soldier’s Heart

I’m not sure if these fics would have landed on this list for this meme had I been making it for the first time today, but they are some of my favorite reads—every time I reread them, I have the best time. I will note that I have never seen a single episode of Downton Abbey, so I can’t comment on how these fics function as works of fanfiction, i.e. in terms of characterization, etc., but as a story, they're wonderful. It’s not unusual for me to read fandom blind if a summary is sufficiently intriguing, but it’s much rarer for me to remember those fics afterwards, or to want to go back to them again. This series is one of the few exceptions to that.

Five Kingdoms for the Dead (Naruto, Haruno Sakura, 207K)
After the Forest of Death, Sakura comes to realize that being weak is no longer an option. However, she finds that change is sometimes painful and that truth doesn't always come easy. Luckily, she'll have some help along the way. Even if it is all in her head.

The above link is to AO3, mainly because that’s the nicer reading experience, but at the time I last reread this fic, it was still solely on FFN. Naruto is my forever fandom, but I often say that it might be more accurate to say that I’m in the Sakura fandom; she’s my all-time favorite fictional character, and I’ll never get tired of reading in the particular subgenre of Naruto fic focusing on epic-length canon divergences where she gets to shine.

I’d argue that this is a classic of that subgenre, and one that remains strikingly original. It’s been a long minute since my last reread, so I don’t know how it holds up now in terms of actual writing, but the way it handles Inner Sakura is so unique, and I regularly find myself thinking about the dynamics Sakura has with “Orochimaru” and especially, especially the “Madara” in this fic.

Dirt and Ashes, or: The One-and-a-Half Body Problem (Naruto, Hidan & Sakura, 90K)
The invasion of Konoha during the chuunin exam didn't fail. Team seven is broken, people are dead, and Sakura is hurt and frightened and a very long way from home.

Alternative summary: In which Sakura carries half of Hidan across two countries, leaving a trail of blood, bodies, and other people's legs.

Tozette is easily one of my favorite fic authors, period—they nail it, again and again, with pretty much everything they write, regardless of fandom. This fic in particular will forever live rent-free in my mind. The Hidan characterization is so good—coherent and believable—and the way his dynamic with Sakura develops, and especially especially the way Sakura grows and changes throughout this fic, is incredible.

I Wish You Were My Husband (Scum Villain, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu, 110K)
Wherein Shen Yuan transmigrates into a harem intrigues romance novel (gay edition), Yue Qingyuan really fucks up, Liu Qingge is not suitable for his job, and no one even remotely sees Luo Binghe coming.

A fandom classic for a reason. I read this while it was still updating, and I can’t describe how obsessed I was—constantly reading and rereading while waiting for updates. I remember, too, analyzing the writing in a way I never had before—trying to figure out what Feynite was doing with the pacing, the scenes they chose to show and what they chose to summarize, and how that all combined to make the story so readable. I’ve read this countless times, and every time, it hits.

The Dragon-King's Temple (Crossover - Avatar: the Last Airbender/Stargate SG-1, Zuko & Toph & Ensemble, 196K)
Through the spite of the spirits or plain rotten chance, a door that would have been better left untouched has opened. On the other hand, with Fire and Earth as one's allies, sometimes escaping is the easy part.

Even the Dragon-King's temple floods.

A fact about me: I adore a crossover. I’m only familiar with one of the canons involved in this one—Avatar—but that hasn’t stopped me from adoring this fic. It’s everything what a crossover should be. I particularly loved the language barrier aspect of this fic, and how that affects the characters’ understanding of one another.

DUST (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike/Buffy, currently 156K, WIP last updated 2016)
She'd kicked his butt, taken the Gem and sent it off to Angel. Buffy thought she'd seen the last of Spike. Clearly, she’d been too optimistic. That he was in her house, in her room, waking her out of a sound sleep and asking for (okay, demanding) her help meant that something had to be majorly wrong. They weren't due for another apocalypse, but...why else would a vampire make a truce with the Slayer?

Note: this is archive-locked to Elysian Fields, a Spuffy-specific fic archive.

I strongly believe there is value in reading WIPs, and particularly even abandoned or likely-to-have-been abandoned WIPs. Stories don’t have to be complete to be excellent, and this fic is a perfect example of that. I’ve reread it countless times, and each time I walk out of it fully in love. The unique premise, the characterization, the slow build burn of Spike and Buffy’s changing dynamic from “enemies reluctantly teaming up” to eventually becoming more… it’s all exactly what I want from Buffy fic, and the fact that it’s unfinished doesn’t lessen what already exists.

A Forfeit of Dreams (Labyrinth, Jareth/Sarah, 117K)
How much do you know about legends?" the man asked abruptly.

Brian shrugged. "There's lots. They involve magic."

"No, they involve fear."

Quite possibly my favorite Labyrinth fic. I remember the Jareth characterization being incredible, and the dynamic between him and Sarah being precisely what I was looking for and frequently not finding while reading fic for this fandom. The OCs were very well-crafted—some of the best I’ve ever read—and there’s one section in particular that I find myself thinking about on a regular basis.

Astute eyes might notice that the above list only contains nine fics. That is because one of the fics I noted down in my original list was a Kingdom Hearts fic that I read on livejournal as a teenager, and I'm not actually sure if I could find the link anymore, nor whether or not it would still hold up all these years later. I've thus decided to leave it out, and keep the list to the above fics.