Title: And I'm crashing into you
Fandom: The Flash (CW)
Pairing: Barry Allen/Cisco Ramon
Categories/Genres: Friends with benefits, Jealousy, Hurt/Comfort
Length: 19750
Warnings: None

Author on AO3:
Poisonivory

Summary: Cisco fixes things that are broken, like super-suits and hearts. It's what friends do, right?

Review:
In the mood for puppy's in love? This fic is heart thumpingly sweet. Not my favourite pairing in the flash fandom but the best written fic in the fandom I have read so far. These geeky puppys get each other so easily you feel no awkwardness between them even through bad romantic decisions and bad priorities.

And I'm crashing into you

Title: Fake Empires
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Superman/Batman; Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Categories: Action/Adventure,Humor, Romance, Secret Identities
Length: Medium (12k)
Warnings: Unreliable Narrators

Author on LJ: sam-storyteller
Author Website: Copperbadge’s Ao3

Summary Bruce Wayne can't possibly be as dumb as he acts, and Clark Kent isn't as ordinary as he appears.

Review: Basically this is the story of what happens when you try to keep four identities straight between two people who are terrible at communication.

Or the one where Batman is convinced that Clark Kent and Superman are dating and Clark doesn’t know how to handle it.

These two spend most of the story going from one amusing situation to the next though bad flirting, terrible misunderstandings, and just basic comic book logic. Which I loved because the fandom questions is usually wouldn’t those two figure their secret identities out immediately? And that is usually how their relationship is handled.

So it is nice to see a change of pace where the boys are actually just as ridiculous as they are in canon.

Fake Empires

Title: Matters of the Heart
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Tim Drake/Kon El
Categories: Mystery, adventure, romance
Length: Epic (51,000)
Warnings: Murder scenes, minor fight damage

Author on AO3: dragonmist310

Summary:
With Clark off-world as an ambassador to Earth, Conner has to watch over Metropolis. Though it should be straightforward, there appears to be something amiss with seemingly random crimes happening around the city. Conner has a hunch that they’re connected and calls in his best friend to help. But as the two of them spend time together working the case, Conner realizes that his feelings for Tim might not be what he had thought.

Review:
I've been enjoying watching this story unfurl. There is an ingenious, in-genre mystery to solve, and perhaps Connor calls in Tim a bit early, but it fits with other story elements. The villains aren't stupid, either, and make the World's Finest juniors work for their victory. Most of all, there is a consistent, well voiced viewpoint to watch it through.

The Connor of this story sometimes comes off as a bit young. That's actually OK in my book; he is dealing with multiple murders here unlike the relatively bloodless supercrimes he normally has to stop, and it's understandable that he takes it to heart more than usual. Lois's observations of how similar Connor and Clark are spot on in this regard, and its good to see how Connor matures a little as things progress.

The romantic elements didn't convince me quite as much as the crime drama, but then it is a good crime drama. The romance still works, and everything that is pointed out about the ways the boys have behaved around each other is perfectly valid, it just doesn't sit quite as easily in the narrative as the mystery. That's not an excuse to skip a nicely done story, though.

Go. Read.

Matters of the Heart

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: Three Corn Fed Farm Boys
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Stargate SG-1/Superman
Pairing: None
Categories: Crossover, humour, action
Length: Short (1,600 words)
Warnings: None

Author on TtH: DireSquirrel
Author on FF.net: DireSquirrel

Summary:
Three men meet at their ten year college reunion and discover they have more than the same school in common.

Review:
So it seems that Riley Finn did his undergraduate degree in Kansas, at the same time as Cameron Mitchell and Clark Kent. Their ten-year reunion gets interrupted, which is just too bad for the cyborg responsible.

This is a nice little romp, reminiscent of the superhero team-up stories of my youth. Not a lot happens, but the entertainment is in the by-play of the characters as they work together to deal with the crisis. It would be nice for someone to take the idea and run with it at greater length, but this isn't that story. This is fine just as it is: something light and fun, just the sort of thing to perk you up after a tiring day.

Three Corn Fed Farm Boys

Title: Fundamental Principles
Fandom: Man of Steel (DC Comics)
Pairing: Jor-El/Dru-Zod
Genres: AU, Arranged marriage, Romance, Family, Drama
Length: Epic (50,322 words)
Warnings: Major character death

Author on LJ: manic_intent
Author Website: manic_intent @ AO3

Author's Summary:
Jor-El first learns of Dru-Zod's existence on the eighth cycle of his existence, and quite by chance. He had been on his way to the eastern cryst terrace of the El estates, to watch sundown with his twin, and had cut past the sunward planarform on a whim. His parents were leaning by the balustrade at the furthest swing of the curved planarform, and their voices barely carried over the evening wind.

"... he is hardly yet of age, Seyg," his mother looks agitated, and out of concern, Jor-El hesitates at the archway, just out of sight.

Review:
Thanks to chibifukurou for letting me rec in their claimed fandom this week.

To be honest, I didn't enjoy Man of Steel enough to really look for fic about it, and no pairing (and definitely not this one) jumped out at me. The only reason I bothered to take a look at this fic was the fact that it's long and written by the goddess that is manic_intent. There's also my love of the arranged-marriage-turning-into-love trope. And I am so glad that I did take a chance on this fic.

I've only ever seen Superman in movies and Smallville; the comic canon is a bit of a mystery to me. Rest assured that this is a lovely fic, but I'm not sure how true to the Superman canon characterisations it is. We didn't see much character building for Zod in the movie, but I feel that the blanks manic_intent has filled in fit with what we did see of him. Zod is pragmatic and tough and acts as though he doesn't have time for the budding scientist Jor-El, who nevertheless worms his way into Zod's heart with his charm, intelligence, and pure stubbornness.

The romance is gradual enough to be believable, with Zod annoyed at his weakness when it comes to Jor-El, and yet so clearly in love with him that his attempts at appearing aloof are more cute than anything. Jor-El is charming and funny whilst also being adorably idealistic, and I loved his characterisation. They end up being much more enthusiastic about their marriage than their parents ever were, and have to fight against political machinations, Zod's own family, and the systemic problems present on Krypton as they try to stay together. Both the political plot and the romance are well written and compelling. The side characters are well written also, with Jor-El's brothers and his friend Faora-Ul standouts.

Fundamental Principles

Title: exactly how this grace thing works
Fandom: Batman
Pairing: Gen
Categories/Genres: Bodyswap, Kid-fic; Family; Domestic
Length: Long(23k)
Warnings: De-aging; Body-Modification; Past Character Death

Author/Artist on LJ: irnan
Author/Artist Website: irnan's Ao3

Summary: Dick gets de-aged. You'd think this would be a routine thing.

Review: This is an interesting take on the de-aged character genre. Dick is de-aged to before he met anybody in the bat-family and has to deal with the fall-out of all the decisions the bat-family has made through the years. This allows him to be more honest about the different ways that Bruce let him down, without getting into the nitty-gritty of why Dick wouldn't have said anything in the first place.

The fact that older!Dick had a life and a family that includes many different people isn't glossed over, but by making so that baby!Dick doesn't have the memories that go along with the family ties, it allows both Dick's to find a place for themselves that isn't controlled by other people's expectations of them, or even their own feelings of 'having' to take Bruce's place. This is basically a story about getting a second chance to find your true path.

exactly how this grace thing works

Title: 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Tim Drake/Kon-El
Categories: AU, science fiction, androids, romance, slash
Length: Medium (10,800 words)

Author on AO3: Meeya8587

Summary:
In the midst of all the white, chrome and plastic skin coating metal skeletons, the only splash of color present was his workmate's blue eyes. An AU where Tim is human and involved with his work colleague, Conner, who happens to be a prototype 'doll' going through a series of puzzling changes.

Review:
Before you ask, the title is the ASCII code for "love" in binary. And that's a good indication of how weird reading this story felt.

This is one of those AUs that almost just takes the names. We see things from Tim's point of view, which is a confused place to be. This Tim is a lot more tentative than the usual portrayals of him as the super-competent Robin. He aware that his colleague is an android, meaning that Conner's personality is very muted indeed. Tim is attracted to him all the same. There are things that don't add up about Conner either, from his behaviour to the way Tim convinces himself he can hear Conner's heartbeat. It's all very disorienting.

I quite like the basic story, I like the confused way things proceed as neither Tim nor Conner really know what they're doing or why. It's the small things that tend to annoy me about this story, like writing small numbers as numerals rather than words. While I don't find various small bits of the story construction convincing, the overall effect works. We do empathise with Tim, even when he's not sure he likes himself much. I'm not entirely sure that the grand denouement works, but that's mostly for the sheer amount of new information — not completely unexpected stuff given the source material, but still — that gets thrown our way. Oddly, I found the story a lot easier to handle a few months ago when I first read it; re-reading it for this rec was much stranger experience.

Well worth a read, though, and not just for the binary.

01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101

Title: The Stepford Conjunction
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Wonder Woman/The Bionic Woman/Stepford Wives
Categories: Crossover, action/adventure, casefic
Length: Medium (14,000 words)
Warnings: Comic-book violence.

Author on LJ: vitruvian23
Author on TtH: Vitruvian

Summary:
Slayers aren't the only strong female role models out there.

Review:
This is a moderately old action story, but I think it deserves more attention than it has had. The crossover is ingenious enough, and the action well-enough written and fast paced enough to merit its place here.

The plot, briefly, is that Wonder Woman (the 70s TV version) and Jamie Sommers (the 70s Bionic Woman) are sent by their respective agencies to investigate what's going on in the town of Stepford. They get joined by a 70s Slayer (no prizes for guessing who), who has been dreaming about the place, and have to fight their way through robots and hypnotised men to stop the villain. That's basically it.

What I really love about this story are all the throwaways. The snatches of conversation as the Watcher calls his shady contacts to find out what's going on ("No, Charlie, you can't recruit her.") are little gems. Buffy fans should also pay close attention to the epilogue, which in one little comment sets up some major points of the series. It's neatly and economically done, and satisfying to read.

Of course it has faults. The chapters are rather short, the viewpoint sometimes slides between the protagonists in ways that it really shouldn't, and the characterisation is sometimes a little flat. That said, the action is fast and furious, and keeps your attention with sheer pace and energy.

The Stepford Conjunction

Title: myths wrongly interpreted
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Gen
Categories: AU, Family,
Length: Medium (12k)
Warnings:Character death; Canon Fix-it(Spoilers)

Author on LJ: somehowunbroken
Website: Somehowunbroken

Summary:Tim has lost enough in his life. He isn’t going to lose anything - or anyone - else, not if there’s a chance that he can fix it. [Fix-it fic for Batman Incorporated #8.]

Review: This is an interesting take on a not quite afterlife story. Time goes into the afterlife to save Damian, only for both of them to discover that the afterlife isn't what they thought it was.

Or maybe it's that they aren't quiet dead.

This fic is a character study of New52 Tim, and how the universe's reboot might have affected him. I enjoyed it, because it brings in both his past, and the differences between his two world.

All of which work together, to make it believable that he would plan for the eventuality of a member of his family's death. And thus have a way to rescue Damian from his unfortunate death.

While there is a warning on this fic for Character death, everybody ends up back alive by the end of the fic, so you don't have to worry about avoiding this fic if you can't stand a sad ending.

myths wrongly interpreted,

Title: One Day You Fell Down From the Sky
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Dick/Jason
Categories: AU, Angst, Family, Friendship, Romance
Length: Long (35k)
Warnings:Character death; Canon Fix-it(Spoilers)

Author on LJ: glitterfics
Website: Glitterfics

Summary:After the events of Death of the Family, Jason finds that his anger towards Bruce is finally fading for good. But in it's absence something else is happening. Dreams he's knows are important but can't remember, seeing things other people can't and a magical sword he can apparently make appear out of nowhere.

He has to return to Gotham to figure out what's happening and, of course, the family get involved. Dick makes it his personal mission to help Jason which leads to a whole other set of problems as they grow closer.

Review: This is a fic, that does a great job both concentrating on the main romance, and giving the secondary characters a life of their own. I'm particularly a fan of how Glitterfics handled the Outlaws.

Their relationship with the Batfamily is fairly antagonistic, which Glitterfics, doesn't gloss over, but she still makes it seem natural for them all to end up teamed up and working a case together.

Definitely a great family reconciliation fic, even if the ending is bittersweet.

One Day You Fell Down From the Sky

Title: Detention's the Least of Your Problems in this Dimension
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: (pre) Tim/Kon, implied Dick/Jason
Categories: AU, high school, dimension travel
Length: Medium (3,400)

Author Website: Hawk's Perch (tumblr), Hawkstout

Summary:
Tim is an average high school student, but he has a problem. He's locked in the math room's closet with Jason Todd and it turns out his crush Mr. Grayson is from another dimension.

Review:
This isn't a particularly long story, but it paints a nice little picture. Tim Drake is in high school, and has a slightly enormous crush on his math teacher, Mr Grayson. Jason Todd is also in high school, but is bored and disruptive, and decides to vandalize the Math room for laughs. Both of them end up squashed in the closet while Mr Grayson has a seriously weird conversation with Damian Wayne, the headmaster's genius son, and from there things just get stranger for the boys.

This is a light, gentle read despite the fact that it spends most of its time playing with your head. It's very much a slice-of-life story, skipping around what in another story would be the entire action plot to bring out what matters to the characters, and what changes in them. I particularly enjoyed Tim's initial obliviousness to the anvil-like hints his friend Kon drops about trying for someone more obtainable than a student teacher, and in general getting to be a stressed, angsty teenager. Jason too gets to be a real person in Tim's eyes, and by the end they are joking about things that would have started a fight at the beginning of the story.

Pleasant, mildly outrageous reading. Have fun!

Detention's the Least of Your Problems in this Dimension

Title: Blue Electric Angels
Fandom: DCU/Batman Begins/Batgirl
Pairing: Gen
Categories: AU, Domestic, Family, Fluff, Friendship,
Length:Medium (8,500)
Warnings: Child Neglect & Abuse, Canonical Character Death

Author on LJ:irnan
Website Irnan's Ao3

Summary: don't give me all this hokum about the midnight mayor: or, the one where john blake is dick grayson's older cousin ala Earth-16 is gotham city's matthew swift.

Review: I'm a complete sucker for found family fic, and this is one awesome found family. Instead of Batman picking up all the boys and bringing them into the bat-family, Robin "John" Blake adopts them. After all he's a sucker for strays.

John Blake in this fic is some mixture of Matthew Swift, one part Dick Grayson, and one part Havey Dent. He's a smart mouthed, Jiminy Cricket of a man, who isn't willing to take Bruce Wayne's crap and will look out for his family and Gotham before he'll bow to anyone's whims.

Blue Electric Angels

Title: Five times someone assumed Oliver and Diggle were sleeping together, and one time it was mostly true
Fandom: Arrow
Pairing: Oliver Queen/John Diggle
Categories: romance
Length: medium
Warnings: assumptions, surprised family and friends
Author on LJ: smilla840
Author Website: AO3 account

Summary: Wherein Oliver and Diggle get along too well and sneak around together at all hours of day and night, and people make assumptions.

Review: Yes, Oliver Queen is canon married in the comics but in the TV series there is still the little fantasy wiggle room to come up with other pairings. Oliver/John is actually a very entertaining and interesting constellation that so far makes sense. We'll see how things are going to develope on the show.

Morgane writes about five different POVs that stumble upon the "relationship" between Oliver Queen and his bodyguard. Maybe they are misinterpreted situations or maybe they are actuall witnesses of what is developing between the two men, but they are also insights into the watchers.

Five times someone assumed Oliver and Diggle were sleeping together, and one time it was mostly true

Title: Perennial
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing: Kon-El/Tim Drake
Categories: AU, Drama, Romance, First time
Length: Epic - just shy of the super-epic mark at 93,043 words
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts in part 9

Author on DW: Author prefers DW
Author Website: N/A

Summary:When he was nine years old, young Timothy Drake's family decided to move to a small town in Kansas.

Review:
This is a fantastic slice of life story that presents an alternate universe based on changing an aspect of a main character’s background, which is always a favorite of mine. Tim moves to Smallville as a child and befriends the Kents, creating a family and a home for himself there. When Kon-El comes to stay with the Kents several years later, Tim finds himself dealing with anger and jealousy.

The author did a great job moving Tim and Kon from adversaries to friends to more. The transitioning relationship feels right and unhurried at each stage. I enjoyed the way Tim was brought into Kon’s world and how everything was revealed.

Overall there was a wonderfully winding tone to this. The journey was fantastic and the final destination felt right.

Master Post at DW

Title: Perennial
Fandom: DC Comics
Pairing: Kon-El/Tim Drake
Categories: AU, Drama, Romance, First time
Length: Epic - just shy of the super-epic mark at 93,043 words
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts in part 9

Author on DW: Author prefers DW
Author Website: N/A

Summary:When he was nine years old, young Timothy Drake's family decided to move to a small town in Kansas.

Review:
This is a fantastic slice of life story that presents an alternate universe based on changing an aspect of a main character’s background, which is always a favorite of mine. Tim moves to Smallville as a child and befriends the Kents, creating a family and a home for himself there. When Kon-El comes to stay with the Kents several years later, Tim finds himself dealing with anger and jealousy.

The author did a great job moving Tim and Kon from adversaries to friends to more. The transitioning relationship feels right and unhurried at each stage. I enjoyed the way Tim was brought into Kon’s world and how everything was revealed.

Overall there was a wonderfully winding tone to this. The journey was fantastic and the final destination felt right.

Master Post at DW

Title: Personified Gotham Series
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Gen; Implied Slash
Categories: Dark, Supernatual
Length: Medium (5,000)
Warnings: Sociopathic Living City, Mental instability

Author on LJ: unknown
Website:  Runespoor's Ao3

Summary: How Alfred compromised with the thing inside Bruce’s soul, from Gotham’s point of view. Alternatively: This is how to co-opt a soul.

Review: This is a series of time stamps from Bruce's life.  Each one is  a scene of Gotham being at her very creepiest. From discussions of devouring her residents, to being the peaces of million minds, Runespore has got the hang of writing a character that goes beyond humanity and into the lizard brain of the million terrified and murderous souls that inhabit Gotham.

You'll definitively look at the whole Batman mythos differently for a while after reading these stories.

Grotesque
Nothing is going to Harm You
Storge
Shared Ownership
Count Your Losses

Title: Personified Gotham Series
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Gen; Implied Slash
Categories: Dark, Supernatual
Length: Medium (5,000)
Warnings: Sociopathic Living City, Mental instability

Author on LJ: unknown
Website:  Runespoor's Ao3

Summary: How Alfred compromised with the thing inside Bruce’s soul, from Gotham’s point of view. Alternatively: This is how to co-opt a soul.

Review: This is a series of time stamps from Bruce's life.  Each one is  a scene of Gotham being at her very creepiest. From discussions of devouring her residents, to being the peaces of million minds, Runespore has got the hang of writing a character that goes beyond humanity and into the lizard brain of the million terrified and murderous souls that inhabit Gotham.

You'll definitively look at the whole Batman mythos differently for a while after reading these stories.

Grotesque
Nothing is going to Harm You
Storge
Shared Ownership
Count Your Losses

Title: Personified Gotham Series
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Gen; Implied Slash
Categories: Dark, Supernatual
Length: Medium (5,000)
Warnings: Sociopathic Living City, Mental instability

Author on LJ: unknown
Website:  Runespoor's Ao3

Summary: How Alfred compromised with the thing inside Bruce’s soul, from Gotham’s point of view. Alternatively: This is how to co-opt a soul.

Review: This is a series of time stamps from Bruce's life.  Each one is  a scene of Gotham being at her very creepiest. From discussions of devouring her residents, to being the peaces of million minds, Runespore has got the hang of writing a character that goes beyond humanity and into the lizard brain of the million terrified and murderous souls that inhabit Gotham.

You'll definitively look at the whole Batman mythos differently for a while after reading these stories.

Grotesque
Nothing is going to Harm You
Storge
Shared Ownership
Count Your Losses

Title: Contingency
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Bruce/Dick
Categories: Angst, AU, Family, Romance
Length: Medium (9,600)
Warnings: Spoilers for Comic Canon Events

Author onTumblr: thehoyden
Website:The Hoyden's Ao3

Summary:"I didn't plan for this," Bruce says after a few minutes, and he sounds bewildered.

Review: Alfred is pretty much synonymous with Bruce Wayne and the Batman. I've only ever encountered one version of "Batman" where he wasn't present. And his absence wasn't ever addressed, though it could be assumed that he was dead, due to the fact that Bruce was in his late sixties.

The Hoyden addresses this mostly ignored reality, that Alfred is old. He's been looking after Bruce his whole life, and he isn't shown as being a young man, even when he's helping Bruce after the loss of his parents. So when this story opens Alfred has just had a heart-attack. It's not a serious heart attack, but it's enough to shake up the entire Bat family, and force them to deal with some issues they've been ignoring. Namely the fact that Bruce and Dick aren't talking to each other, because neither one of them felt comfortable with their romantic feelings for each other.

So now, their forced to become a family, as they deal with the aftermath of Alfred's heart-attack and what that means for the family. Cute, sweet, and fluffy by turns, this is an awesome story to give you the warm and fuzzies with a side of angst.

Contingency