Fanfic recs

I don't have the mental wherewithal to give you a write-up, sorry, but

here's two newmann series by orphan

Frankenstein and the Newt

Omeletteverse

 

If you haven't read Designations Congruent with Things let me know and I can toss you a download link, it is unfortunately no longer accessible on ao3

 

Oh I've heard of that :U
Hmu, I can give it a go

Thank thank, I'll check these out

 

More Leia-centric time-travel fixit:
Don't Look Back series by acuteneurosis
Two complete long pieces, one ongoing
Post RotJ to shortly before AotC. Leia ends up on Tatooine, suggests that she and Shmi go see Anakin. They get a little side-tracked along the way.

Lots of Leia and Shmi and Padme.

 

mOuOm

Multiple 100k+ fics in a series?
Time travel featuring Leia? And Shmi? And their various misadventures? Grief and healing and new purpose (old purpose made anew)?

 

will second that rec it's REAL good

 

Parts
By dorothy_notgale and Tromperie

Re-Animator movies, Daniel Cain/Herbert West

My comment

Spoiler

Amazing fic!!! I love how Herbert is so incredibly bitter about his feelings for Dan, his own pov of being trans rly fits his character I think, and I enjoy how you characterized Dan
And always work, first foremost and always, for Herbert
I love this one, I'm always a fan of character studies, and trans content

Thank you for this fic!

Edit: idk why I forgot the first time but also as an Ace person I love asexual character studies. Herbert using sex to control Dan while also reviling it, while also liking the intimacy and having that tainted by disgust for sex rings just so right even when my asexuality is different. I enjoyed this fic immensely, as a trans asexual and gay man

 

R2-D2 Saves the Galaxy (Okay, so Obi-Wan helps a little) by kj-feybarn

Hilarious.

 

Ok this fic has had me absorbed for 3 days now, now that I'm caught up I'd like to introduce you to a Naruto longfic that is the most fun fanfiction has given me in a while. There's realistic character growth, kindness for Naruto in a village that usually either openly hates him or pities him. Sasuke's clan have not been wiped out but something sus is going on and sauce is not having a fun time. Shikamaru (surprise! It's not Sakura bashing but she's also not in team 7) has to deal with his own perfectionism and doubts from being on a team of what he calls "monsters".

The fun bit is orochimaru's their sensei and it's glorious (no crazy danzou shit as of yet, and my boi snakeman is calculating as ever but has a much less agressive/morally gray approach)

 

Oooh, that 'inspired by' list is a promising start. I'm curious, it's not Sakura-bashing, but is it more of a write her off to the side, or something that's giving all the Rookie 12 alternatively fulfilling arcs?

(Also, I notice it's incomplete and been a few months since an update - is it currently at a cliffhanger? I'd want to brace myself for it if so.)

 

Oh my god I am having such incredible teacher feels.

 

The other teams are written off to the side but do have some screentime later, and there's a bit of age manipulation with some of the characters; for example team Gai is in the same batch as the rookie nine.

The first 30 chapters are arc one, which ends just as team 7 is leaving for wave as a recon team, in which the author would be setting up arc 2 but sadly seems to have disappeared. It's still a satisfying arc however!

 

Spoiler: re: the Naruto fic

Unwillingness to sleep led to reading the fic! I enjoyed it, a mix of adding to the blank spots in canon, making some things make more sense, and exploring a lot of canon but with the ripples of a loyal and calculating Orochimaru still a part of the village and intervening in some of the canon problems. I like a lot of the choices, from the guesswork of how things would be going with fewer people lost over the years (the Uchihas! The Hyuugas!) and how those around in canon are less strained, less broken (...most of them, at least).

Naruto worrying about not pranking and being eager to please and maintain the situation is rough and foreboding with that promise of loyalty, but makes sense. It's fun how he connects the dots of Why Orochimaru uses kindness tactically, but smiles and decides to do the same, without any doubts in his sensei.

It's a plausible take for Sasuke, had things not gotten AS bad as the massacre, but the strain fills the clan and Itachi's unexplained distance leaving him a different kind of insecure and wanting to catch up. I love Obaa-sama and her willingness to take the situation her daughter and son-in-law are neglecting, emphasizing the willingness to help Sasuke was already showing to Naruto and pushing him for a responsibility to the people of the clan.

Shikamaru's first reactions of comparison and finding himself wanting made sense, and his acceptance of being the strategist with the Kabuto comparison was good.

The inevitable Oh Shit comparison between the teams' progress was rough, but in a satisfying way - some celebration of their progress, but a fair bit of genuine kindness and encouragement for the other teams to grow. I appreciated the followup with Sakura, the contrast of Tenten and Hinata's respective insecurities and wishful thinking.

... Honestly, there's a LOT of that theme. That neglected basics make for incomplete skills, no matter how practiced, and that's the case in everything from politics to the ties between people. That polite firm reasoning can go a long way, that people have a responsibility to question the decisions of leaders and that leaders have the responsibility to question their assumptions and be aware of their goals, to reassess with new info and to be seeking new info.

That all the rookies can push to improve, that a teacher who knows how to push and how to encourage and how to recover can make an enormous difference... but it's still up to people to be willing to work and learn. The various adults, too.

 

Spoiler: discussing the same fic

Huh. I hadn't thought of the politics and interpersonal stuff as being a continuation of the "don't neglect the basics" theme. But it really could be read that way! That Sasuke's dad has forgotten the basic principle of what the clan is and what it means to protect it, for example.

 

Spoiler: same fic

Yeah, a few of Obaa-sama's comments helped highlight that with him. What is the clan and what does it mean to protect it, what is the role of parent to child - whether firstborn heir or secondborn de facto heir (before AND after Itachi's refusal of the Plan), how to cultivate connections and aid from others instead of spiraling in isolated arguments... Fugaku's clear frustration whenever disagreed with, by wife or son or mother-in-law, doesn't bode well for his ideas being questioned or troubleshot, and we know how well it went for them in canon. It ties nicely to Orochimaru's lessons of questioning, of politely but firmly not following bad orders, that missions that needlessly risk death or decisions between team or mission are signs of bad leadership...

Feel like the Hokage's poor handling of children, from his own son, some of the implications Orochimaru makes of his training, to the sheer extent of the Naruto situation and how the handling there could have messed Naruto up far further... that follows too. How much strain does it put on the adults, to respect and obey a man who left a clan heir in that situation - completely ignorant of his heritage, struggling to keep a home, education fragmented? Do they enjoy the cognitive dissonance of wondering if it had been their child instead, the lack of loyalty that the village would have to them? Those who abandon their team are trash, after all. Or have they already made their peace with being disposable tools that don't even merit basic upkeep, except if they can make it for themselves and their clan? Doesn't fit the narrative of Konoha.

 

Alrighty, I've got a weird angle today: favorite unfinished fics!

Lullaby For The New World Order is hands down, my favorite Final Fantasy VII fanfic. It's a 200k word long epic that I can't accurately summarize but I like it a lot.

Spoiler

Okay, it's a canon divergent AU centered starting a few years after the Nibelheim Incident, but before Cloud and Zack break free. It's centered around Tifa managing the ecosystem of the lower plate as she looks for answers, Rufus Shinra trying to figure out how to be a Decent Human Person despite his upbringing as the heir to a paramilitary global power company powered by souls, and Tseng trying to very delicately balance his loyalty between the two. Better than it sounds! It's so good.

However, it started in 2011, last updated in 2013, the author was promising updates in the comments as recently as 2019, and their last known post was May 2020 on Dreamwidth. Good luck to wherever they are.

Starmarked Boys is a lovely Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Spoiler

wherein Giorno Giovanna gets found at Dio's mansion at the end of Part 3 and is immediately adopted by Polnareff, and also Jotaro actually works through some of his personal shit and has a much healthier relationship with his family. Stopped updating shortly before where Part 4 would have happened.

Author fell off the internet in 2019.

Team Seven vs. Paperwork
Naruto crack-fic, the best kind of crack-fic.

Spoiler

Through a series of wacky hijinks, Iruka because the True Heir of Konohagakure's bureaucracy and is now the single person managing all of the paperwork. He starts singlehandedly unravelling conspiracies, finds out that everyone is married to everyone else, and tries to manage The Budget. His only weapons are bloody-mindedness, Team Seven, and coffee developed by the kind of people who gargle poison as a hobby.

The work hasn't been updated since 2016 and I hope the author just forgot all their passwords or something.

Anyway these were all fun to re-read but also kinda depressing because I'm just like, "I hope these authors are alive and just stopped posting because they all joined Cirque de Soleil and are super-busy"

 

I accidentally the whole Boku no Hero Academia. Soooooo, anyone want some cyberpunk?

It's a shame you won't live by raefill
Bakugou/Todoroki

Bad news first, it's a wip with 3/4 chapters complete. It hasn't updated for a while, but the update rate looks pretty slow, so hopefully someday!

I'm reccing it anyway because I thought it was a really enlightening exploration of the early tension between these two characters, think sports festival, but make it Bladerunner, and make that somehow work amazingly well for this purpose. Bakugou makes almost too much sense as a replicant. The author is really good at writing the friction between roles and the people who fill them.

 

It Seems the Hills and Rivers Have Been Waiting, by ScarlettStorm
MDZS/The Untamed, WIP but with plenty of content, there's like 23 chapters so far. Occasionally explicit.

So. I don't read a lot these days because I just don't have the focus or attention span. This sucked me in so hard that I finished the whole thing in, well, technically two days because it was like 2 AM by the time I was done, and I don't even go here. Transwoman OC that the author describes as "a wuxia protagonist in a xianxia world" shows up, knocks and/or talks sense into the Jiang sect and eventually into even more of the cultivation world. It's amazing and the characters are amazing and well written and I highly recommend it.

 

YESSSSS
seconding this rec so hard, y'all, it's one of my favorite fics

 

a heart you can see straight through by suzukiblu
8/? chapters
Introducing Queen Amidala's newest handmaiden: Anaké! A little young to be one of Padmé's handmaidens but he'll get there.
Also, Obi-Wan is not having a good time.

It turns out that I really like handmaiden shenanigans.