Title: Replaced Verse
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Gen
Categories: AU, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Length: Super!Epic(160k)
Warnings: Past Torture, Sex as a precursor to Blackmail

Author on LJ: thoughtreflex
Author Website: @ Wraithbait | @ Fanfic.net

Summary: They may not have tried to hurt him intentionally, but their actions could not have cut deeper than by confirming his suspicions–he was tolerated because of the things he could do, but he had no real friends on Atlantis. Replacing him was enough of a hint

Review: Gen Hurt/Comfort which is just plain awesome. Add in a conspiracy series, and two cats named Bert and Ernie and I just want to cuddle the Atlantis Team.

When they screw up they learn from their mistakes and help each other. Also Ronan and John are great big brothers.

Replaced
Conspiricies Investigations and Exploration Oh My

Title: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Fandom: Shameless
Pairing: Ian/Mickey
Categories: Romance, AU
Length: Super Epic (162,089)
Warnings: Mentions of sexual/physical abuse, violence, recreational drug use

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: AO3 | Tumblr

Author's Summary:
Mickey just needs to keep his head down and stay out of trouble at his new job. Still trouble always manages to find him and when it takes the form of his red haired boss, Mickey's not sure he can resist even if he wanted to.

Review:
I love everything about this fic. The roller coaster that is Mickey and Ian's relationship is beautifully done here, with the added value of Ian being Mickey's boss. It's long, it's plotty, it makes you emotionally invested in these stupid characters who have so many flaws and yet are so perfect together (whoops, spilling my feelings all over this review, haha). It'll make you laugh and it'll make you want to throttle characters because they are being stupi--whoops again.

Ian's the owner of an extraordinarily successful video game company. He and Mickey have never met in Southside though they're both from there, and Mickey ends up working at Ian's company. The attraction is instantaneous and the sex pretty much happens immediately. Of course then there's feelings and Mickey being skittish and misunderstandings and it's glorious. It really is.

This fic is just fun. The ending is unabashedly, almost ridiculously, happy. For all the ups and downs with Ian and Mickey's relationship (and there are many), you never really doubt that the two of them would stay together until the end.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Title: Convivial
Fandom: Inuyasha
Pairing: Kagome/Sesshoumaru, Shippou/Souten, Inuyasha/OC
Categories/Genres: Romance, Post-Canon, Alternate Universe, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Family, Fluff, Humor, Slow Build
Length: Super Epic (146565 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: The Hatter Theory

Summary:

On Halloween, Kagome decides to dress as her utter opposite. Of course, she never expected to run into him.

Review:

The part of me that's gnashing its teeth at how good this fic is wants me to yell, “READ IT. NOW.” and have that be the rec. Its more diligent, responsible counterpart is also gnashing its teeth, but wants to gush and gush and gush about this fic for a few thousand words. Hopefully I will find a happy medium.

Convivial, as far as I am concerned, is the best post-canon Kagome/Sesshoumaru romance, bar none. It's so good that it made me like poetry and I hate poetry, okay. The characterization is a outstanding extrapolation of the canonical characters, five hundred years having aged and mellowed the demons (and half-demons) without taking away the spark of what makes them who they are. The six years that have passed since Kagome returned from the Feudal Era for good have changed her in many ways, not all for the better, and the consequences of those changes ripple endlessly through the story and Kagome's relationships with the demons she's united with.

While I'm generally leery of original characters, I absolutely adored The Hatter Theory's additions to the main cast. Each is dynamic and fascinating in their own way to the point that, when one briefly introduced character passes away, I felt a moment of sadness for the loss of them. Even the original characters who are indifferent to the story's progression or just plain jerks are able to draw out an emotional reaction.

Where The Hatter Theory truly excels is in writing characters as growing, changing entities. They discover, learn, evolve, and grow throughout the fic in ways that are enchanting, and sometimes heartwrenching, to watch. Kagome is particularly dynamic and, though one sometimes wants to smack her upside the head for her decisions, her motivations are realistic and her mistakes are learned from in due time.

On top of all that, The Hatter Theory's writing style is smooth and well polished, and the reason I chose to rec this fic rather than a far more well known Kagome/Sesshoumaru fic. There is some abrupt jumping around from one chapter to the next, a consequence of writing chapters according to prompts with unremarked time skips between, but the flow of the characters' emotions is consistent in spite of it.

Aaaaand, this rec got really long. So click the link down there and rEAD IT. NOW.

Convivial

Title: Other Plans
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Genres: AU, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Kid!fic
Length: Super Epic (108,691 words)
Warnings: Descriptions of past child abuse, serious injury to a main character

Author on LJ: dragonlady7
Author Website: bomberqueen17 @ AO3

Author's Summary:
Life's what happens when you make other plans.
Rodney McKay gets back from his unjust Siberia exile and takes a consulting gig that lets him work from home. He picks a random city, gets a cat, and starts cultivating his eccentricity. His upstairs neighbor is an insanely hot guy whose cop uniform either means the obvious, or that his night job is a stripper. Rodney doesn't care which, he's busy becoming the old lady with the twitching lace curtains who watches everything. (And, yeah, thinking about what that strip routine might look like. Are those real handcuffs?)

John Sheppard quit the Air Force in a last-ditch attempt to save his marriage, since there was a kid on the way. It didn't work, and in fact backfired spectacularly, so now he's left with child support payments and a mortgage on a house he doesn't live in (his dad's a dick), an ex-wife who still loves him enough to yank more little bits out of his heart every chance she gets, a kid he gets to see for a few hours every other week, and a job where he gets shot at almost as much as the one he used to love that he quit. (He's a cop. He's okay at it. That's a hard adjustment to make.) But at least his new downstairs neighbor is hilarious.

Review:
I am deeply in love with bomberqueen17's work. I really enjoy how she writes John and Rodney, both as characters and as people in a relationship. Her writing style is engaging, her plots carry momentum and keep the reader interested, and the sex is hot. It's a nice mix of fluff and angst, too. Most of the fic focuses on John and Rodney as their relationship unfolds, as Rodney learns more about John's struggles. John's son has a strong presence in the fic, even when he's not in a scene itself, because John is a devoted father and much of what he does is with Joey in mind. With kid fic, it's always important to me that I actually *like* the child, and Joey is absolutely adorable and I look forward to his appearances.

Other Plans is technically the first fic in a series but the next installment is a work in progress. However, OP ends in a satisfactory place, though the author does make mention of plot arcs that are to be continued in the series. Nothing sticks out in my mind as unresolved in such a way that I want to tear my hair out. As for the warnings, as the author puts it: "There is no non-con or sexual abuse of a minor *in* this story, but there is discussion of it happening to a character in the past."

Other Plans

Title: Treading Water
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Gen
Categories: AU, Drama, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Length: Super!Epic(110k)
Warnings: Past Torture, Genetic Engineering, Chile Abuse

Author on LJ: thoughtreflex
Author Website: @ Wraithbait | @ Fanfic.net

Summary: Drowning had never been a fear Rodney needed to embrace. Trust, relying on others, and having to betray his own secrets, however, was something that kept him awake at night. Friendship, whump, genetic manipulation, homicidal tree huggers...

Review: This is an amazing gen series. I love the team dynamic and how much they are all willing to go for bat for a Rodney that is a little more broken than in the universe we inhabit.

There is adventure and casefic and everything fits together so that it feels like these bits and pieces of an Alternate Universe could almost have happened in our version of Atlantis.

Treading Water Verse

Title: Before The Dawn
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Itachi/Sakura
Genres: AU, Humour, Romance, Travel, Hurt/Comfort, First time, Coming of age
Length: Super!Epic (250,455 words)
Warnings: Gore, attempted rape

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: Lady Silvamord @ FF.net

Author's Summary:
Fifteen-year-old Sakura never expected to become a traitor to her village, but in a Konoha ruled by Danzou, she has no other choice. Finding her path entangling with the village's most infamous renegade, though, was another story entirely.

Review:
In an AU Konoha, Danzou takes control, resulting in the capture or escape of many loyal nins, Sakura being one of them. Travelling on her own as a missing-nin for hire, she bumps into Itachi - and then she bumps into him again, again, and again. It's a bit of a meet-cute, but not obnoxious enough to make me scoff. It's for a reason too - I can't think of many ways you could get a character as aloof as Itachi to want strange company without making him completely OOC.

That's a common problem with Itachi romance fics - he's so often OOC. In this fic he's not doting or fluffy or even that protective - and that's actually a good thing. It's great to see a fic wherein Itachi's closer to normal rather than psychotic or saintlike. He isn't here to protect and cherish Sakura (though the cherishing bit does build, never fear!), as she's perfectly capable of protecting herself. That's another reason I like this fic. Sakura is a good mix of scared fifteen year old and badass kunoichi, and she works with Itachi rather than being protected by him.

The romance is of course a slow build as both of them have to work through their issues, and Sakura has to grow up. This is also a coming of age fic, with Sakura torn between her idyllic memories of her Konohan life, and an Itachi who both wants nothing to do with the village that he once belonged to and is still a staunch member of Akatsuki. Though at times I just wanted Sakura to make up her mind, the authors reasons for her dithering were so convincing I had to cut her some slack, and there is a satisfying ending to make up for it.

Before The Dawn

Title: Transference
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Pairing: Sokka/Zuko, Jet/Zuko
Genres: Modern AU, High School, Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Coming of age
Length: Super!Epic (146,280 words)
Warnings: Child abuse, homophobia

Author on LJ: scuttlebuttincx
Author Website: The_Quartermasters @ AO3

Author's Summary:
In a modern AU, Zuko has to deal with settling in a new school after expulsion, dealing with an angry ex and an abusive father. Maybe his new found friendships and growing closeness with Sokka will help him make it through.

Review:
This is without a doubt the best and longest Zukka fic I've ever read. It's a slow burn modern AU romance, with Zuko's conflicts with his father easily translated into a story about Zuko dealing with child abuse, his own hangups concerning his family, and coming of age with the help of his newfound friends, the Gaang. Though as the summary says Sokka does help him deal with all of this, this is not the story of an unrealistically co-dependent relationship. I find it hard to believe a coming of age story really is such if it's about two people literally unable to function without each other, but this is thankfully a story where Zuko finds his own strength with a little bit of help. And it's all the more satisfying for it.

The POV jumps between Zuko and Sokka, and their slow realisations of their feelings for each other - and for another boy - are handled gracefully and at a realistic speed, with a minimum of melodrama. This pleases me, as what often turns me off when it comes to high school AUs is the absurdly high amount of stupid misunderstandings and subsequent stupid drama. Though all the Gaang is of high school age and scenes take place there, it isn't the focus of the fic, with most of the story happening around rather than because of high school. So if like me you don't usually like high school AUs, never fear, as this fic is missing the vast majority of the negative tropes associated with the genre.

Sokka and Zuko's relationship is sweet and well paced, with male bonding turning slowly into slash without feeling forced at all. I love the pacing of this fic, with Zuko slowly dealing with his problems rather than jumping right into another relationship, and Sokka slowly realising that he has feelings for a boy. The switching POV means we know exactly what both the characters are thinking, making this a gentle romance with a minimum of drama and a maximum of good feelings for the reader.

Transference

Our Epic/Super-Epic theme week has come to an end and we would love to hear from you. Do you have any favorite stories that are longer than 40k? We'd love it if you'd share with us!

• Recced stories can feature any pairing as long as they match the theme. Fan art, podfic, and fan vid recs are also welcome.


• You don't need to write a review (unless you want to). All you need to include are title, author, and a link to the story.


• Fic or media as a single file are preferred, if available.


• If you'd like to use our reccing template, you can find it under the cut.

( Totally Optional Rec Template )

Previous Readers' Recs topics can be found here.

Title: Eir's Tomorrow
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Pairing: Sephiroth/Cloud (Main), Zack/Aeris, Elena/Tifa, Angeal/Genesis
Categories: AU, Time Travel, Wingfic (...It's FF7, kind of expected)
Length: Super Epic (162,615)
Warnings: Violence, Torture, PTSD, Minor character death

Author on LJ: jukeboxhound
Author Website: AO3 | Tumblr

Author's Summary:
Cloud is the Planet's greatest weapon, and if he can't fix old wrongs and battles then he may end up being the means by which it all ends (again).

Review:
I adore FF7 fic. I even more adore the entire time traveling trope that the FF7 fandom uses with complete abandon (seriously, you turn around and there's another one! [honestly, I wish there were more so I have more to read]). It is rare, however, that you find a FF7 time travel fic that is long and complete and good. This fills all three of those!

You start off with the planet dying, which is a main staple in a lot of FF7 time travel fics. Then, of course, said planet catapults Cloud back into time. Except a lot of fics where you start off with Cloud as a cadet, you have Cloud as the kind of invisible guy who hangs around Sephiroth as a child. Which is less creepy than I'm making it sound. Um.

But, seriously, Cloud meets Sephiroth as a child due to the planet being all screwy--a Sephiroth who is experimented on, who is treated as a subject, and who has no real positive guidance. Enter Cloud who isn't all mentally there a lot of the time (the planet isn't exactly the benevolent presence it is in a lot of other fics), but who eventually sees Sephiroth as this child with a horrible life and Cloud grows protective.

Then there's another shift. Cloud is taken away, Sephiroth grows up, and things change. Cloud is determined that events won't follow the same path as his last lifetime, but life is both hard and unexpected. Not everything works out, but there are bright spots along the way. Events grow truly epic--it's not about just a handful of people, it's about saving an entire world that hurts just as much as it helps. Everything grows complicated and nothing is easy. Terrible, terrible things happen. And yet there's still people striving to make the best of things.

The author takes the idea of time travel FF7 fic and makes it their own. A lot of the fics can feel the same after a while, but this goes in original and interesting directions. It's long and very plotty--the romance is there, but much later on and it never takes over the storyline. It's just good and such a well worth it read.

Eir's Tomorrow

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

Title: Witness Protection
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Pairing: Heero/Duo (1x2)
Genres: AU, Action/Adventure, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship
Length: Super!Epic (392,439 words)
Warnings: Major character death

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: snowdragonct @ FF.net

Author's Summary:
When Zechs Merquise is found murdered, detectives Heero Yuy and Wufei Chang are tasked with the unenviable chore of keeping the only witness to the crime alive long enough to testify against the leader of the Oz syndicate, Treize Khushrenada.

Review:
It's super epic week, and for the occasion I'm reccing the longest fic in my collection. Fics this long can sometimes lose momentum, or only be long because the author doesn't know how to edit themselves. Happily, that is not the case with this fic. The crime novel plot keeps the momentum going despite the long word count. There's twists and red herrings and betrayals - pretty much what you would expect. That doesn't mean that those twists don't pack a punch though, and they certainly helped keep my attention. So did the story of Heero and Duo's developing relationship, which is also a very compelling reason to keep reading.

Heero and Wufei are a pair of detectives tasked with protecting Duo, the witness to the murder. Their friendship is a delight to read, a pair of stoic badasses who greatly respect and admire each other. Wufei is the consummate professional, and Heero is the guy who keeps getting reprimanded for using excessive force. Duo is an exotic dancer, annoying, full of attitude, definitely not the sort of person to sit quietly back and let the cops take care of him, and determined to needle Heero into showing emotion - he's completely in character. Everyone is, and their interactions are a delight to read. After a bit of a rollercoaster the ending of the fic is a satisfying and sweet payoff.

Witness Protection

Title: Arc Tremors
Fandom: Avengers MCU
Pairing: Gen
Categories: Action/Adventure; Family, Hurt/Comfort
Length: Super!Epic (125k)
Warnings: Detailed Descriptions of Medical Procedures; Near Death Experiences

Author on LJ: Rose-on-the-Mountain.tumblr.com
Author Website: Mountain Rose Ao3

Summary:Tony's light had flickered out in the aftermath of the fight with the Chitauri, but his team was there and, hey, he'd just been to space, give a guy some slack. The next morning they accepted, but when he collapses weeks later, they're not going to let him brush it off again, and neither is JARVIS.

Review: This is a lovely, long, and detailed fic with tons of details and warm fuzzies. Along with plenty of hurt comfort and angst.

Mountain Rose does a great job with Dummy and You, as well as all of the Avengers. Tony is so very broken while still stubborn as ever. Everybody is just learning what it means to have family. Pepper keeps everybody sane. And nobody is about to let Tony sacrifice himself for them.

Arc Tremors

Title: For Henry
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Pairing: Emma Swan/Regina Mills
Categories: drama, family, romance
Length: Super Epic (130K)
Warnings: addiction, discussions of past noncon/abuse

Author on LJ: n/a
Author's Website: on ao3

Summary: Tired of fighting with Regina over Henry, Emma decides to make peace and help her come to terms with her past. And along the way they find out there may be more between them than just anger.

Review: Oh this story. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and everything you want to read for these two. It's a two-part series, but the two parts bleed seemlessy into one another that it's really one read.

Hawthorne writes these two women so wonderfully in character, and watching them slowly and painfully stumble through their anger is a simply glorious reading experience. It's a story of friendship and family, and how both can ancor you to the world and help you heal.

What I especially love about this story is how it focuses on both Regina and Emma as individuals and the trauma they've both experienced, and how they both have to work on themselves before they can move forward. It's a complex and nuanced exploration of the characters that is sometimes uncomfortable to read - because life is uncomfortable. Their slow burn romance is beautiful, passionate and feels very honest. The story moves between character study movements and action-packed plot that is very much what OUAT.


For Henry

Title: Devilish Impulses
Fandom: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Pairing: Sebastian/Ciel
Categories: Hurt/Comfort, First Time
Length: Super!Epic (208,816 words)
Warnings: Underage (Ciel is 13; Sebastian is an ageless demon) and non-con (not between Ciel and Sebastian)

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website:  KittyGetsLoose

Summary: He impulsively broke the covenant, then remade it. But can the trust, once shattered, be recovered? Sebastian must work twice as hard to rebuild what he briefly discarded.

Review: The trust between demon and master is shattered when Sebastian breaks the terms of their contract. As Ciel and Sebastian struggle to find peace within their new contract, a case brings them deeper into the world of the supernatural. "Devilish Impulses" ignores the second anime series, instead envisioning a future beyond the end of series 1. The dynamics between Ciel and Sebastian capture everything I love about their relationship. This is a Ciel who is struggling to find a reason to live now that his revenge is carried out, but who still has his pride and his cold ease in dealing with London's criminal (and supernatural) underworld. And Sebastian is still a demon, wrestling with his surprising new feelings for his Ciel, along with the old devilish impulses to hurt him.

A few things in this story might throw some readers off, though I saw them as icing on the cake. First, obviously, is the underage relationship. Underage fic doesn't bother me in this fandom because, despite his physical age, I have never seen Ciel as a child. After all, not many boys are capable of policing London's underworld, with or without the help of a demon! But I think even readers who are more wary about underage relationships might appreciate how this one is handled. In this story, Ciel is the one who advocates to move forward with a physical relationship, while Sebastian keeps throwing on the brakes, insisting they have time to wait for certain things until Ciel is older. It made a big difference in the relationship dynamics of the story. Second, the hurt/comfort is laid on thick. Prepare for many long, loving descriptions of Sebastian tending to Ciel's wounds and looking after him during a long illness. For me, that's a selling point, but I get that other readers like their h/c more understated. And third, the writing in this story is very lush. The long sentences and occasional epithet threw me off a bit as I started reading, but there's so little long Kuroshitsuji fic that I pushed past it, and I'm glad I did. I'm now inclined to look at the prose as an homage to the writing style of the time period -- this sort of prose is far more at home in a pseudo 19th-century world of Kuroshitsuji than in something like Teen Wolf.

In the end, "Devilish Impulses" stands out as one of the best Kuroshitsuji fics I've read. I loved how the author handled the long format -- it reads more as a novel than the typical long fic does. I also loved the theology the author introduced to the canon. Finally, I loved watching Sebastian and Ciel mend the broken trust between them, emerging on the other end stronger and closer than ever. Certain scenes in this fic have been running through my head more or less constantly since I read it, and I know it won't be long before I give in and read the whole thing over again.

Devilish Impulses

Sorry for the late rec, guys! This was supposed to go out yesterday, but life had other ideas.

Title: The Boy and the Beast
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Categories: Creature (wolf!Derek), hurt/comfort, AU
Length: Super!Epic (116,686 words)
Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, underage (Stiles is a teenager)

Author on LJ:  dsudis
Author Website:  Dira Sudis

Summary: In which events in Beacon Hills go rather differently from the start, and a Beauty and the Beast (ish) story ensues. (Scott is not a teacup and no one sings about their feelings.)

Review: After writing up my rec for "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" last week, I was shocked to discover that another of my favorite actual wolf!Derek Hale stories had not been recced here yet. Naturally, I had to fix that.

"The Boy and the Beast" starts off much the same way as the show itself, with a body turning up in the woods. But this time, the body belongs to Peter. The sheriff is trying to track down Derek and Laura, who went missing around the same time their uncle died. So naturally, Stiles decides to "help" by searching for the two of them in the woods. In the dark. By himself. It's not really a surprise when Stiles falls through the rotten floorboards of the old Hale house, managing to injure and trap himself at the same time . . . it is a surprise when a wolf turns up to help him.

If you're a fan of hurt/comfort, as I am, this story will leave you more-than-satisfied. dsudis describes Stiles's injury in a way that's almost visceral. We feel his pain and desperation, and his overwhelming relief at Derek's appearance. We also feel the joy he finds in his friendship with Derek. In this universe, Scott has managed both to make it onto the lacrosse team and get a date with Allison without werewolf powers, leaving Stiles a little more alone than he is in canon. With Derek similarly alone and grieving, the two of them naturally gravitate towards each other. Even though Derek spends most of this story as a wolf (for reasons that gradually become clear), that doesn't impede his ability to form a deep friendship with Stiles. dsudis does a masterful job of conveying Derek's emotions and thoughts without dialogue -- in this case, actions really do speak louder than words. The way the story deals with relationships is another of its strengths. While Stiles is thrilled to have found "a secret magical friend in the woods," Derek complicates his life. Trying to keep Derek a secret means lying to his dad and Scott. The friendship between Scott and Stiles is another strength in this story, as is the relationship between Stiles and his dad. This is a more parental sheriff than I've seen in a lot of Teen Wolf stories, but it felt like a realistic interpretation of the character to me.

One part hurt/comfort, one part werewolf mystery, and one part slow-burn romance, "The Boy and the Beast" has a little bit of something for nearly any mood. Even if you're not in the Teen Wolf fandom, I encourage you to give it a try -- this AU doesn't require a lot of canon knowledge. Don't get intimidated by the high word count, either. This story is engaging straight through till the end. And if you're like me, once you reach it, you'll probably turn right back to the beginning and start again!

The Boy and the Beast

Title: The Least of All Possible Mistakes
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: Mycroft/George
Categories: AU, Genderswitch, AlwaysAGirl!George
Length: Super Epic (118,096)
Warnings: AlwaysAGirl!George if that's not your thing

Author on LJ: rageprufrock
Author Website: AO3 | Tumblr

Author's Summary:
If ever a people deserved tasering, it’s Holmeses.

Review:
Now, admittedly, I have many 'favorite' cliches (if only because I can never decide what I really like best). One of those cliches that I happen to enjoy is taking a character from a show and having them be a girl. And not turn into a girl because to my mind that's an entire cliche to itself (it is! Really!), but having the character always be a girl. This is one of those fics and it's done beautifully.

The writing will make you laugh and then cry and then want to beat the characters (and maybe the author except the author has to continue writing for the sake of everyone but mostly just me) and then love everyone and everything. It's complex and just so well done it's amazing.

What I love is how the fic doesn't shy away from the fact that George is a girl but she's still George. You don't just stick a character in a female body and call it a day; you take the character, keep the core of what they are, and still keep in mind that they're female now. How people react around George is slightly different because of it, and that's such an important detail.

The relationship between Mycroft and George... Honestly, I just want to swoon all over the place (which is horribly embarrassing, okay). It's steady and a little more low key, but it's wonderful and not quite perfect, but I'm calling it perfect because I love it so.

Just set aside a good chunk of time to read this because it's so well worth the time.

The Least of All Possible Mistakes

Title: What I Did On My Summer Vacation
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Categories: AU, First Time, Actual Wolf Derek Hale
Length: Super!Epic (118,749 words)
Warnings: None

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: Grimm

Review: The theme this week is your favorite cliché. In the Teen Wolf fandom, that would probably have to be Actual Wolf Derek Hale. A number of stories have the Beacon Hills werewolves turning into actual wolves, rather than the beta form they assume on the show. Not only is "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" a fantastic example of Actual Wolf Derek Hale, but it also reinterprets a number of other Teen Wolf clichés in a fresh and unexpected way.

In "What I Did On My Summer Vacation," Stiles's dad takes a new job while Stiles is off at college, as the sheriff of a tiny town called Beacon Hills. When summer vacation rolls around, Stiles visits his dad in his new home. It doesn't take him long to realize that there's a lot more to Beacon Hills than meets the eye -- and that his dad knows something he isn't telling him.

Where to even start with this story? Like I said, much of its charm is how it reinterprets fandom clichés. Grimm takes that "Beacon Hills is a magnet for the supernatural" cliché and runs with it. This is a Beacon Hills where everybody is in the know except for Stiles, and I loved seeing how the open secret of the supernatural subtly changed the town and its characters. It was also hilarious to see the sheriff lying to Stiles about werewolves, rather than the other way around! This story also portrays Laura Hale differently than a lot of fanfiction does. She's not the alpha here, just a beta struggling with the loss of her family. That vulnerability gives her a touch of realism I don't always see in Teen Wolf stories, where Laura is often painted as a 100% confident bad-ass leader. I also love the mythology and the magic system in this story. And of course, I loved the romance between Derek and Stiles! It's slower than most slow-burn stories, with Derek spending much of it as a wolf. But I loved their gradually-built friendship and trust, as well as their occasional stumbling blocks.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Title: Jedi Harris
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Star Wars, plus Stargate:SG-1/CSI/NCIS/Haven/Castle/Father Ted (yes, really) in later stories.
Pairing: Gen
Categories: Crossover, action, drama, occasional crack, YAHF
Length: Super-Epic (230,000 words, and that's just the first story)
Warnings: None (though the Wish-verse section is appropriately nasty)

Author on TtH: Scribbler
Author on ff.net: The Dark Scribbler

Summary:
“It’s a prop,” said a British voice to one side of him. “There’s a rumour that it was used, I believe, on one of the Star Wars films. I’ve no idea which one, but it might have been the original Star Wars.”

Review:
It's Cliché Week, and for Buffy crossover fans that can mean only one thing: YAHF. Yet Another Halloween Fic. That season 2 episode has launched more fanfics than any other single episode, in part because it's so easy to base a crossover from it. Just have your favourite characters pick up a costume of the show you want to use, and when Ethan Rayne's spell begins you have an instant crossover.

Needless to say, Sturgeon's Law applies in spades. Far too many stories use the idea as a cheap power-up for their favourite character, usually Xander, and let him keep his powers at the end with not the slightest hint as to why no one else gets to keep more than fuzzy memories. At first sight, Jedi Harris looks like it falls into that category; Xander dresses as a Jedi, becomes a slightly confused version of Obi-Wan, and still has Force powers at the end.

Fortunately, that's barely the beginning. Scribbler does have an explanation that the characters toss around; the Force is real, isn't the same thing as magic, and Star Wars gives the right metaphors to approach it despite being fiction in this world. It's a deliberately incomplete explanation, and it doesn't explain how Xander can remember large chunks of Obi-Wan's life that were never in any of the films (and aren't part of the Obi-Wan he dressed as, for that matter), but it does explain why Xander and (eventually) others can learn to manipulate the Force. It even comes with a built in balancing mechanism, not falling to the Dark Side, that stops Xander taking primacy from Buffy.

It's really cleverly done, in my opinion. The characters feel true to themselves throughout, though Jedi do tend to end up calmer and more self-assured, as you might hope. The plot moves on logically, taking into account both canon and where it would logically be changed by events. Many characters move in and out of events in ways you might not have expected, but which fit perfectly well when you think about it. There are even little cameos by other crossover characters, such as Don Camillo (give yourself a pat on the back and feel smug if that made sense to you).

Jedi Harris has turned into a whole sequence of stories of varying lengths, all equally well written, as more and more Jedi are found and trained. I thoroughly commend the lot of them, complete or not.

Jedi Harris (takes things up to Graduation)
The Terran Jedi (incomplete: introduces SG-1)
Train From The West (medium-length story in which the Vegas CSI team investigate an impossible crime scene).
Craggy Island: Vampire-Free Zone (purest crack)
The NCIS Jedi (how a member of the NCIS team becomes a Jedi)
A Jedi, a Mage and the Troubles (a case takes the NCIS team to Haven while Audrey is in the Barn)
The Alley and Jedi Castle (strange things happen in New York too).

Title: Daughter of Samland, Son of Denmark
Fandom: Hunger Games
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Genres: AU, Drama, Romance, Family, Slavery, Hurt/Comfort
Length: Super!Epic (152,459 words)
Warnings: Gore, torture/corporal punishment

Author on LJ: manniness
Author Website: Manniness @ AO3

Author's Summary:
We’ve prepared as best we could, but as I turn the corner on the muddy path through the village hugging the walls of my father’s fortress, I know we aren’t ready. We would never be ready.

The Northmen have come.

Review:
Katniss, heir to the throne of the kingdom of Samland, is captured by Vikings and sold as a slave to Viking!Peeta. The rest of the fic is a very slow building romance between the two, with the second half having a bit of political intrigue thrown in. I look upon Viking fics with feelings of glee and trepidation. Even though the Vikings were most probably first rate dickheads, they seem to be a popular subject with just about everyone, me included. But I know that Viking fics bring the angst.

Saying that, let me contradict myself and present you with this - an angst free Viking fic. Yes, even though this fic contains Vikings, slavery, and war, there is somehow no angst. There's no real evidence of the immoral shenanigans you would expect Vikings to be getting up to, and Peeta is his usual unbelievably perfect and respectful self despite what you would think was a harsh upbringing.

The romance is the strength of this fic. It's a very slow build, but the UST is scorching hot despite its chasteness. Scenes where Katniss and Peeta do little more than look at each other whilst fully clothed are described so well that they made me, a seasoned reader of very explicit porn, flustered. The lack of angst paired with this style of romance really reminded me of a romance novel, in fact. A hot, well written one though, I assure you.

Where the fic falls down is the actual plot; the political intrigue isn't really that intriguing. The main villain isn't even present for the most of the fic, and he's not fleshed out at all. I found the fic a real struggle to read after the first half, with the previous momentum just seeming to fade away. It's a shame that this fic isn't great all the way through, but the romance and the well thought out worldbuilding (the authors ANs are interesting reads) are compelling reasons to read this fic - or at least read its first half.

Daughter of Samland, Son of Denmark

Title: backslide
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Kakashi/Future!Naruto (main pairing), Future!Sasuke/Future!Naruto, Present!Sasuke/Present!Naruto (minor)
Categories: Time travel, Angst, Humor, Family feels, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Action/Adventure
Length: Super Epic (128,352)
Warnings: Violence

Author on LJ: black_k_kat
Author Website: FF.net | AO3

Author's Summary:
Naruto’s friends are gone, his lover is dying, Konoha is destroyed, and Madara’s second return has pushed the entire world to the brink. Hunted and harried, Naruto is sent back in time to upend Madara’s plan before it even starts, and sets about changing everything. Butterfly effect nothing: the world is at stake, and Naruto is hardly about to let it fall to ruin once more. Not while he’s still breathing.

Review:
Here. Have something that's completely amazing and long and plotty and did I mention amazing yet? Include a trope I absolutely love (time travel!), the fact that it's over 100k words, and that it's actually complete (do any of you have any idea how hard it is to find a complete time traveling fic. Do you. I didn't think so.) and you have the recipe for something truly special.

This fic. This fic just punches you in the gut with the angst and then the fluff and so many make shift happy families that make you (well, me) squeeze your pillow in joy because there's nobody else near enough for you to half-strangle in your glee. It starts off depressing what with Naruto sending himself back into time and yet leaving Sasuke behind because there's no other choice if they want to make things better, and ugh, your heart starts hurting from the beginning. Naruto sends himself back to the time just before the genin teams are assembled, and makes himself at home in Konoha under a new name (Kurama; he's called this for the rest of the fic) as he pretends to be an Uzumaki survivor.

It's a fix-it fic. It fixes just about everything and it does it unashamedly and with so much fluff. There is angst to balance out the fluff, but it's such a... bonding fic. Not just romance wise (which comes slowly), but friendships! Families that aren't blood related! If you want a sure-fire way to rocket a fic into my heart it would be make-shift families that love each other.

This doesn't happen quickly. You have Kurama (future!Naruto, remember) slowly getting the ball rolling. He collects Naruto and somehow collects Sasuke and Sakura and they learn how to be a true team as Kakashi and Kurama teach them. The friendships that form, the way that they're so much stronger together than apart, is just really heart warming.

The romance is sloooow. But is awesome. Kurama was in love with Sasuke (future!), but there's absolutely no way he'll get that relationship back, and the fact that both he and future!Sasuke acknowledge that actually made me flat out not want Kurama in a relationship for a while. But somehow the author manages to make the fic and relationships progress enough that it felt natural that Kurama and Kakashi grow closer and fall in love with one another.

It does feel self-indulgent, but in the best of ways and without going too crazy. It's fun. It's sometimes silly, sometimes sad, and just rather fluffy. If fluff isn't your cup of tea then I'd steer clear because this really ramps up the warm fuzzies after a while. It's a fic that turns the team into a family and manages to make everything better, and sometimes that's all that you want to read. This more than delivers.

backslide