Title: Lock All The Doors Behind You
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Categories: Hurt/comfort, feral behavior
Length: Long (25,959 words)
Warnings: Aftermath of torture

Author on LJ:  entanglednow
Author Website:  entanglednow

Summary: He has no idea what you're supposed to say when you find one of your...werewolf acquaintances, completely out of their mind, growling like they're about to see what your insides taste like. There's no handbook for this. Stiles is thinking that if he survives he might write one.

Review: This is a story that I would have recced sooner, except it's so well-loved that I'd assumed one of my fellow Teen Wolf reccers had already beaten me to it! Naturally, I was both thrilled and dismayed to find out I was wrong. "Lock All The Doors Behind You" is probably in my top 10 Teen Wolf fics, a delightful classic from that golden age of Teen Wolf fanfic between season 2 and 3. It begins with Scott and Stiles learning that Derek has disappeared, which Stiles dismisses with a kind of good-riddance attitude. A few days later, though, Derek turns up, but he's not himself. After having been kidnapped and tortured, he's reverted to a feral version of himself -- and to Stiles's dismay, he's the only person this new Derek will tolerate.

This story does what a lot of Teen Wolf fic doesn't, and starts with a Stiles who doesn't have some sort of secret crush on Derek. In fact, his initial attitude can be summed up as grudgingly indifferent to him. But in taking care of this new, feral version of Derek, he clearly comes to care for the real thing as well. I also get a kick out of feral Derek himself -- he and Stiles have a very boy and his terrifying puppy relationship, and entanglednow has clearly spent some time around dogs. Readers familiar with the story will know why I love it so much, and those who have managed to miss it are in for a treat.

I also highly recommend the podfic by rhea314. Rhea's performances are always delightfully easy to listen to, and this is no exception, with clear articulation, easy pacing, and clean production. It's one of my favorite podfics, and I've honestly lost track of the number of times I've listened to it.


Lock All The Doors Behind You
[Podfic] Lock All The Doors Behind You

It's Epic week, and I've been saving this one up! This should have been posted last night, but I fell foul of misbehaving hotel wifi. Sorry about that.


Title: The League of Extraordinary Women
Fandom: Harry Potter/Buffy/Stargate SG-1/DCU/The Secret World of Alex Mack/Bionic Woman
Pairing: Gen
Categories: Crossover, action/adventure, crossover,
Length: Super!Epic (134,500 words)

Author Website: Diane's page on the Whateley Acadamy fanfiction wiki.
Author Website: Twisting the Hellmouth author page.

Summary:
Hermione Granger has to recruit six women to help her stop an army of monsters before her world is overrun. But none of the women are even in her dimension...

Review:
This massive story is a response to a site challenge that basically amounts to "get a bunch of women together to save the world." The resulting story is so much more than that.

Yes, OK, so a lot of women from different worlds do get together under the direction of Hermione Granger to defeat a hellgoddess intent on invading other dimensions, but they do it with intelligence and style, making full use of the widely varied skillsets they have. There are fights, but they are conducted with tactical sense and use of such extra resources that are available. In general it hits that wonderful balance point where the characters are intelligent and competent, but not so smart and capable that you stop believing in them.

It's not perfect, of course. The prophecy has all the usual credibility problems of prophecies in being both too specific and too vague, as well as a bit cringeworthy; as usual it would have been more believable if we didn't see the whole thing and immediately treat it as an indifferent acrostic. There is also maybe a bit much random discussion and phoning home before the main event, throwing the pacing off a bit. It's still a very good story with a great deal to commend it to all readers.

There are two sequels, using the term loosely. The first, Cross Purposes is really a collection of shorts in which various characters look up the equivalents of their team-mates in their own universes. Thus SG-1 attempt to recruit Rupert Giles from the British Museum, unaware that he is a double-oh; Bruce Wayne contacts an embittered Sam Carter just before she turns into a supervillain; the Scoobies discover just how paranoid a retired air-force colonel can be; and so on. Some of the stories have been extended into novellas, but are confusingly intertwined and could do with a good sorting out.

The second is the super-epic The Secret Return of Alex Mack. Weighing in at a whopping 1,000,000 words — yes, you read that right, one million words — and still climbing, it continues Alex's story as she returns home and takes up the the identity of "Terawatt." Crossovers abound; I won't spoil your enjoyment by saying much. Suffice it to say that an awful lot of my B-movie guilty pleasures get checked off, and my admiration for Riley Jerome Finn knows no bounds. Again, there are faults; I could cheerfully live without ever seeing Alex's morning exercise routine again, and the emphasis on how much Alex has to eat to fuel her powers is a overdone. Personally I'm not at all taken by the teen drama parts, but that's probably more a reflection of me being a middle-aged man rather than a sixteen year old girl; either way none of the flaws are fatal.

Just a little light reading for you as you head off on holiday :-)

The League of Extraordinary Women