Fic Recs: Longfic
Apr. 18th, 2020 02:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eleanorjaneI often ask for fic recs here on DW, and I feel I should pay it forwards. At the moment I'm really jonesing for good longfics, so I figured I'd rec some of my existing favourites in case they're new to any of you. I shall try to gather the spoons to do this on a semi regular basis -- I'm trying to be better about recording the fic I read, because my memory is so bad I've got zero chance of finding it again later if I don't. Even given that, I know I've read stuff I've loved recently that I haven't bookmarked or saved, so I guess it will be fresh and new again in a year's time if I stumble over it again.
I like something meaty enough to get into, and plot over porn. (The plot can be romance, that's totally fine, but I tend to skim sex scenes much of the time.) At the moment I'm enjoying longfics of 10K+, and especially anything novella-length or greater.
I tend to read in any canon where I either know enough to get by, or can extrapolate enough from the fic. My tastes in media consumption have little to do with my tastes in fanfic.
I love AUs - in some canons, I love fusions, where in others I prefer the "what if [pivotal event in canon] had gone differently?" I mean, to some extent all fic is AU anyway. But many of my recs will inevitably be AUs, since that's so often where you find the longfic.
An Ever-Fixed Mark (190537 words) by AMarguerite
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms
Series: Part 1 of An Ever-Fixed Mark
Summary: One would think that having the name of one's soulmate appear on one's wrist on one's sixteenth birthday would make matrimony much less complicated. It mostly does not. And not at all for Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne. (A deconstruction of the "soulmate identifying mark" trope, using "Pride and Prejudice." Trigger warnings in the tags.)
I am not sure it's fair to say that I like the Soulmark AU trope, so much as a few of the fics it spawned are among my favourites. This story deconstructs that trope while executing it brilliantly, so it's satisfying on both levels. The series includes AU spin-offs, a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure of Elizabeth's key relationships. I love this series and re-read it a lot.
A Monstrous Regiment (94904 words) by AMarguerite
Fandom: Temeraire - Naomi Novik, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works, Persuasion - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park - Jane Austen, Emma - Jane Austen
Series: Part 1 of A Monstrous Regiment
Summary: General Wellington selects Colonel Fitzwilliam for a very singular honor during the Spanish Campaign: working with dragons-- and, in particular, with Captain Elizabeth Bennet, of His Majesty's Dragon, the Longwing Wollstonecraft. (Temeraire/Pride and Prejudice crossover entirely to have Elizabeth Bennet as a dragon captain during the Peninsular War, with Charlotte Lucas as her uber-capable first lieutenant.)
Another by the same writer; I had resisted reading this for ages as I'd forgotten everything I'd ever read of Temeraire, but I picked it up recently and was so glad I did. It made me want to go back and try Temeraire again, except so much of the joy of this is in these characters and AMarguerite's writing of them.
What We Pretend We Can't See (131086 words) by gyzym
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Summary: Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.
HP fandom is, unsurprisingly, full of really fantastic long meaty worldbuildy stories. This one's one of my recent favourites, featuring Harry as a young adult Auror who's finally coming to grips with a lot of the things he cast off after the war.
Snatched (31168 words) by blamebrampton
Fandom: Harry Potter - Rowling
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy has always brought out the idiot in Albus Potter. For the past seven years they've dealt with this through a cunning application of denial. Now James Potter's life is being threatened, and everything else is swept to one side as they try to beat the most literal deadline any of them have ever faced.
Everything Blamebrampton does is brilliant, and this is one of my favourites - a tense, thrilling story neatly wrapped up in some great worldbuilding and futurefic extrapolation.
So Wise We Grow (81248 words) by Deastar
Fandom: Star Trek (2009)
Series: Part 1 of So Wise We Grow
Summary: "Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."
It's a classic and rightly so. The second story in the series makes me ugly-cry every time I read it; this one just quietly makes my throat tight.
I like something meaty enough to get into, and plot over porn. (The plot can be romance, that's totally fine, but I tend to skim sex scenes much of the time.) At the moment I'm enjoying longfics of 10K+, and especially anything novella-length or greater.
I tend to read in any canon where I either know enough to get by, or can extrapolate enough from the fic. My tastes in media consumption have little to do with my tastes in fanfic.
I love AUs - in some canons, I love fusions, where in others I prefer the "what if [pivotal event in canon] had gone differently?" I mean, to some extent all fic is AU anyway. But many of my recs will inevitably be AUs, since that's so often where you find the longfic.
An Ever-Fixed Mark (190537 words) by AMarguerite
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms
Series: Part 1 of An Ever-Fixed Mark
Summary: One would think that having the name of one's soulmate appear on one's wrist on one's sixteenth birthday would make matrimony much less complicated. It mostly does not. And not at all for Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne. (A deconstruction of the "soulmate identifying mark" trope, using "Pride and Prejudice." Trigger warnings in the tags.)
I am not sure it's fair to say that I like the Soulmark AU trope, so much as a few of the fics it spawned are among my favourites. This story deconstructs that trope while executing it brilliantly, so it's satisfying on both levels. The series includes AU spin-offs, a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure of Elizabeth's key relationships. I love this series and re-read it a lot.
A Monstrous Regiment (94904 words) by AMarguerite
Fandom: Temeraire - Naomi Novik, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works, Persuasion - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park - Jane Austen, Emma - Jane Austen
Series: Part 1 of A Monstrous Regiment
Summary: General Wellington selects Colonel Fitzwilliam for a very singular honor during the Spanish Campaign: working with dragons-- and, in particular, with Captain Elizabeth Bennet, of His Majesty's Dragon, the Longwing Wollstonecraft. (Temeraire/Pride and Prejudice crossover entirely to have Elizabeth Bennet as a dragon captain during the Peninsular War, with Charlotte Lucas as her uber-capable first lieutenant.)
Another by the same writer; I had resisted reading this for ages as I'd forgotten everything I'd ever read of Temeraire, but I picked it up recently and was so glad I did. It made me want to go back and try Temeraire again, except so much of the joy of this is in these characters and AMarguerite's writing of them.
What We Pretend We Can't See (131086 words) by gyzym
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Summary: Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.
HP fandom is, unsurprisingly, full of really fantastic long meaty worldbuildy stories. This one's one of my recent favourites, featuring Harry as a young adult Auror who's finally coming to grips with a lot of the things he cast off after the war.
Snatched (31168 words) by blamebrampton
Fandom: Harry Potter - Rowling
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy has always brought out the idiot in Albus Potter. For the past seven years they've dealt with this through a cunning application of denial. Now James Potter's life is being threatened, and everything else is swept to one side as they try to beat the most literal deadline any of them have ever faced.
Everything Blamebrampton does is brilliant, and this is one of my favourites - a tense, thrilling story neatly wrapped up in some great worldbuilding and futurefic extrapolation.
So Wise We Grow (81248 words) by Deastar
Fandom: Star Trek (2009)
Series: Part 1 of So Wise We Grow
Summary: "Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."
It's a classic and rightly so. The second story in the series makes me ugly-cry every time I read it; this one just quietly makes my throat tight.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-17 06:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-28 03:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-18 05:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-28 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-18 06:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-28 03:51 am (UTC)