Title: Shadows in the River Fog series
Fandom: Dishonored
Pairing: Gen
Categories/Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Family, Violence, Low Chaos
Length: Medium (13,183 words)
Warnings: Canonical character death, child abuse

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: NoHolds

Summary:

Corvo Attano continues to defy expectation.

Review:

Joining the ranks of many similar video games, Dishonored's Corvo Attano is a silent protagonist. He's a blank slate with no reactions beyond what the player chooses to assign to him. Whether he massacres his way through the game or puts every single NPC he can find into a sleeper hold is utterly up to the player's discretion, though the end is, uncommonly, influenced by the means.

What NoHolds does is generate Corvo's personality, mannerisms, and even posture all from scratch. She invents him, fills him in like a coloring page even as she makes him suit her image. It truly is a marvelous thing to see.

Each story in the series is from the perspective of a different character, and each in their turn describes Corvo through the filter of their experiences with him. Samuel, a stranger, looks on in curiosity. Daud reflects on his guilt. Emily's soft, kind memories are torn ragged by what she experiences at the hands of her kidnappers and what she is told by them about Corvo. Through each tinted lens they provide, the reader is able to glean something new about NoHold's imagining of Corvo, and the picture each glimpse paints is a marvelous portrait indeed.

Shadows in the River Fog

Title: Heard It Through The Heart Line
Fandom: Dishonored
Pairing: Gen
Categories/Genres: Alternate Universe, Humor, Crack
Length: Medium (7064 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: eeveebethfejvu
Author Website: EeveebethFejvu

Summary:

The Heart reveals many secrets about the world and the people around Corvo. Sometimes too many secrets.

If Corvo didn't know any better, he might even say the Heart is a bit of a gossip.

Review:

Dishonored is a terribly serious game. Certainly not one that comes to mind in association with words like 'humor' or 'punchline'. What little humor there is to be found is usually of the darkly cynical variety, as opposed to the lighter fare of, say, Portal and its sequel.

But with the addition of a single quirk, EveebethFejvu heaps hilarity and horror in equal measure on Corvo Attano's already burdened shoulders. As it turns out, Jessamine Kaldwin is even more of a gossip in death than she was in life.

My appreciation for this fic goes deeper than the admittedly hilarious details that the Heart reveals about the game's cast of characters. By laying bare all their secret thoughts, fictional or no, EveebethFejvu makes a point of reminding us that we are all more than we appear--that behind the transient glimpse of every stranger we pass on the street, or even the familiar face of a neighbor, coworker, friend, or family member, there is a life story that includes the good and bad, the exciting and dull, and any of an infinite combination of sexual proclivities ranging from the mundane to the exceptionally bizarre.

Heard It Through The Heart Line

Title: The Sea and Stars Are Yours, My Dear, But the Moon Would Not Cooperate
Fandom: Dishonored
Pairing: Corvo Attano/The Outsider
Categories/Genres: Romance, Fluff, Humor, Courtship
Length: Long (25367 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: NeverwinterThistle

Summary:

The Outsider explores the murky seas of human courtship while Corvo watches in bemusement, and in the background Emily draws, Callista takes charge, Piero sulks, and Cecelia accidentally becomes indispensable. There's also a plague, a vase of asparagus, and about a hundred singing whales who randomly showed up in the harbour one evening.

The squid is still wriggling.

Review:

It's funny, that is to say, odd, how love is such an indelible constant of the human condition, and yet the ways and means of achieving it evolve and change with the times. It's also funny, that is to say, amusing, to watch The Outsider try his hand at human-style courtship as defined by a wealthy, entitled male. It's also utterly hilarious to watch Corvo misunderstand at every turn.

Speaking of, Corvo is a delight in this fic. NeverwinterThistle takes a mute player character and, with a wave of the magic author wand, turns him into a real boy with real person thoughts and real person feelings and real person uncertainty in the face of some pretty heavy-handed intentions on The Outsider's part. But NeverwinterThistle never once lets Corvo backslide into the cardboard cut-out most silent protagonists are by their very nature. Instead, Corvo's mood lifts from gritty, grinding paranoia to genuine contentment in a progression that never feels rushed or overdone.

But to be honest, the star of this fic is The Outsider and the vast range of moods NeverwinterThistle is able to portray through Corvo's perspective.

The Sea and Stars Are Yours, My Dear, But the Moon Would Not Cooperate