Title: Runaway
Fandom: The Losers
Pairing: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Categories: AU, Domestic, Friendship, Romance
Length: Long (26k)
Warnings: Runaways, Canon Typical Violence, Past Child Abuse

Author on LJ: http://amethystina.dreamwidth.org/
Author Website: Amethystina’s Ao3

Summary: When people tell you to be wary not to pick up strays they usually refer to puppies and kittens, not gangly, hyperactive seventeen-year-olds with bright blue eyes and infectious smiles, but Carlos thinks that they should. The similarities are undeniable, after all, not only in terms of appearance and mannerism but also the way you get instantly and irrevocably attached.

Jacob Jensen should come with a warning sign, simple as that. And possibly also a manual.

Review: A cute little alternate!origin story for Jacob Jensen. It is usual to find a Losers' fic narrated by Carlos. Mostly because he doesn't talk much.

So it is interesting to see a nice, long fic that narrated by Carlos, who has quite a lot going on under the surface, while still managing to stay very stoic.

Runaway

Title: Nexus

Fandom: Blake's 7
Pairing: Avon/Blake, Avon & Jenna
Categories: action/adventure, humour, bodyswap, pre-slash
Length: long: 26,692 words
Warnings: Features one scene with a non-graphic threatened/attempted assault, but no real warnings. I'd put this at PG13ish/T rating: nothing you couldn't have seen in the show.

Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: Corngold on AO3

Summary: Avon wakes up one morning in someone else's bed. It all goes downhill from there.

Review: This is a bodyswap fic (Avon and Jenna) and an Avon/Blake fic (labelled as het!pre-slash by the author). Avon somehow feels such an unlikely person to bodyswap, with logic and endless sarcasm his foundation, and there's a charm in seeing him deal with this situation. The other bonus of the situation is how much we get to see of Jenna, even though it's told in Avon's perspective, and how the crew view her and Avon differently while they're trying to be each other. Since they're both quite dry and logical characters, it's actually got quite a different feel to how I've seen this trope carried out in the past.

It's so easy to hear all the characters talking in this. It's set at an early point in the series where everyone's had chance to get used to each other but before things get quite so tense in the search for Star One. Avon's sniping and sarcastic (as is a given) but moderately settled with everyone and things between the crew are not too bad. It makes for things being more relaxed than they were most of the time on the show, but that's nice, and there's so much in this that feels so like the Liberator on its happier days. The banter, the alien planets, the scrappy rebel groups, Blake's incongruous optimism and ever charging into danger.

Then there are lines like: Avon’s never realised how ridiculous he looks while he’s sneaking; it’s not a particularly happy discovery. Perhaps Jenna simply does it wrong. and: He’d no idea his body could move like that; when he fights he tends to include more desperate flailing.

Lots of fun, although I did want more at the end.

Nexus