我要飞Faye

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.

It's pretty interesting how the fics that have stayed with me are indicative of various times in my life. There's a fic from the time I used to read Harry Potter fics to get me through exams. There's fic from my Bleach writing days. And I've got things ranging from gen to straight up smut.

So here in no particular order are the fics that have stayed with me:

1) Who We Are by Persephone Kore
and other fics in the series
Once upon a time I used to intentionally type up all my class notes in my computer so come exam time, I could tell my parents that I needed to study on the computer because ALL MY STUFF IS THERE!!! and in between cramming I would read a LOT of Harry Potter fic, because people in that fandom were crazy enough to write novel length fics on FF.net which means I didn't have to open too many windows (yes tabs didn't exist then).

Who We are, though not quite being a novel, was one of the Harry Potter fics read in those days. It stuck with me because it has my favourite stuff: good Slytherins, better interhouse cooperation and people struggling to do good, even the good guys. The idea of a younger Tom Riddle getting a second chance and Ginny trying to figure out if he deserves it is catnip to me.

2) Means of Persuasion
But taking about novel length stories, I cannot NOT mention this fic from the Transformers fandom. I honestly don't remember which verse it came from (darn comics) but it contains my personal fanon for my favourite characters in the general Transformers universe to me. Yeah, there's a few glaring differences - I actually ship Prowl/Jazz and I'm EXTREMELY fond of all the fanon on Twin bonds, but the rest of it hits the spot. I love that Prowl struggles with the right decisions, and Bluestreak bounces back from everything, even his nearest and dearest reading him wrong. The action is pretty good too.

3) Rain Over Blue Water by The_Starhorse
For twin fic from the Transformers fandom though, I have to go with this fic even though it's just Sideswipe. His view of his identity just resonates throughout the fic.

4) Conflicts of Interest by rageprufrock
I like this story because I love the voice of Connor, which is young and self-absorbed without being annoying. But then again he's Lex Luthor's kid so what do you expect. The Clark Kent bits are bonus.

5) Cities in Dust (shit let's be hardboiled)
If there's a fic that fully captures the spirit of the canon that inspired it, this fic has my vote 200% of the time. It's a Homestuck fic that has colourful chat logs (both content and actual visual colours), great drawings, associated soundtrack and trolls actually being aliens. Also it features my boy Dave Strider and the too awesome to belong to anyone Terezi Pyrope.

6) New Orleans series by silverlining99
I would particularly recommend the first fic because it is HOT LIKE BLAZES (especially when you imagine it all with Karl Urban's Bones) and sometimes I fantasise about having a New Year's kiss that's half as hot. *fans self* Though the second fic has a great Kirk-Bones friendship.

7) Covert fic(s) by Ten
I cannot describe this fic due to it being under f-lock and never been published publicly. But elements of it keep popping up in my own fics and I only wish it was already a trope like the less deserving soulmates' name on your arm thing.

8) Icebreakers by Suppi-chan
Back when I was a wee little fanthing, I saved this fic to a NOTEPAD document and read the heck out of it. Up until now "Kinomoto Sakura was having a tantrum. it was a very small tantrum, and it was being conducted in the privacy of her best friend's room, but still, Kinomoto Sakura was having a screaming, kicking tantrum" is the best way to open a CCS fic ever. I'll fight you on this.

I have pretty much reached the end of fic that I've read YEARS after the fact, but I will link you to two more fics that I pretty much roll around in glee and squee when I see they update:

9) Battlefield Terra
A Homestuck fic where on top of aliens being aliens, there are hot robots and mindreading and cultural misunderstandings and moments of BLAZING HAWT.

10) Life in Reverse
I'm particularly tickled by the bookends of my post, but I had to put this here because the more things change the more they stay the same. I like "bad" guys who make the choice NOT to do bad, and have to struggle with it, and it's also a nod to my current fandom, as it were, of MCU.

Another thing I need to keep in mind: actions speak louder than words.

I think I do a pretty good job writing conversation, including situations where characters say one thing but mean the other. The trouble is that I tend to pad out the bits between conversations with thoughts, rather than actions. Even in the instances where I use actions, I like to write out the emotion behind them, as if that would somehow make them clearer.

Obviously I need to let the reader do a little of the work themselves, and just stop there.

What happens if home is not a place, but a person?

Wandering about tumblr has led me to try a lot of new things, and one of these was Taiyou no Ie (House of the Sun). I saw a panel with a really impactful line about loneliness, and decided to check the manga out.

I ended up staying for the story. It's rare that a manga so focused on romance also tries to tackle other issues. In this case, it's about how the separation of a family, whether due to death or divorce, can mess up a family and how each of the members define their home after that.

( Cut for some spoilers and a lot of squee )

The series is on Mangafox if you want to check it out. I highly recommend it!