Fanfic recs

A Not-So-Fresh Start, an Undertale continuation/AU, incomplete, all the spoilers.

Spoiler

The gist is, Chara decides to reset after a true pacifist run. Flowey shows up, asks them not to... And Chara gets a new option: to reset, but /not/ reset Flowey's memories.

So Flowey, still without soul but with some regrets and the desire to protect those friends, starts back at the beginning of the game with no time to plan. He tries to befriend Frisk and guide them back to the true pacifist ending. Unfortunately... Frisk is still partly under Chara's control.

It's only a few chapters in so far, but it's doing a decent job with everything. The world is still a game world with script and railroading, so some conversations largely follow the canon paths, but not all of them. Chara gets annoyed with Flowey's attempts to change things and Frisk's bursts of free will, so they're seeing what game mechanics they can screw with...

It starts out slow, but shit hit the fan when Chara fucked something up to release some portion of Gaster.

*Edited to fix typos.

 

Seconding A Not-So-Fresh Start! It's been quite intriguing thus far.

 

Spoiler: sacrifices arc book 5 chapter 43 (57) [before reading the chapter]

omfg the trial is happening!
lily and james are definitely in trouble. and harry naively tried to save them.
i think it'd be better if he tried to outlaw the death penalty, to save all criminals from it, rather than try to deny his parents' and dumbledore's crimes in order to keep them alive. though that probably would take a lot longer, and he mightn't be familiar enough with the muggle world and its varied laws for it to occur to him. still, it would be a better idea, i think. much less pain for him, probably, and fair for everyone.
and it seems like this chapter is gonna introduce connor's pov. which wasn't a thing i'd thought would ever happen. but this trial is a good time for the author to pull out the big guns, i reckon. and connor's pov is probably one of them, since he is the person harry was dedicated to protecting and abused for the sake of, and the boy who was believed to be the one to defeat voldemort. and basically this au's Big Divergence from canon, in his existence. so yeah... he is hella important and 'cause of the absence of his pov from all the previous parts, i'm sure it is not gonna be used lightly.

 

Spoiler: sa same book same chapter

connor's thoughts are sassy. well that or hella literal. either way, he doesn't like the standard interrogating procedure, even though it's necessary. nice. i didn't expect that from him, honestly.

 

Spoiler: sa same book same chapter

connor was impressive there. good job connor.

 

[finally runs out of atla fic, goes grudgingly to start reading that HP AU - ]

...

[gets to the second book, immediate loudly muffled swearing about how playing to my kinks isn't even fair]

#Nai's love affair with telepathy kink continues

 

Spoiler: Sacrifice Arc, more like, gods damnit i cant stop reading

The whole piecing yourself together after massive trauma thing in book 3 speaks to me.

edit: spoilered.

 

Just finished this and wow, seconded.

 

I've got another Undertale continuation/AU to suggest: One By One, incomplete at 5/9 chapters, and it looks extremely promising.

Spoiler

It's a slow build continuation off the true pacifist end. Frisk stays with Asriel a little longer and gets determined to save him too. And so Frisk resets, and goes to bother Sans about it. Sans doesn't appreciate the use of resets to pester him, especially since Frisk is as talkative as in the game.

I'm loving the writing style, with the way the narration describes things (the dogs talking in grillby's, the deja vu narration that sans interrupts the second time), the way they keep Frisk silent most of the time, and their use of Gaster's lack-of-inclusion in the game proper. They had a few ideas about it that I like even better than my interpretations!

Big warning though, chapter 5 ends in a very unpleasant way. Bit of a cliffhanger right now. You may not want to read that far just yet.

 

Seconding the above rec. I'm also reccing there when you call: Undertale, 10k, incomplete but so far it's been updating fairly regularly.

Spoiler: blurb

In which Frisk confesses to Sans, relatively early on in the sequence of events, that they believe there's Someone Else in their head.

When Papyrus finally confronts Frisk, intent on capturing them, and Frisk begins to fight a losing battle with that Someone Else's violent intentions, they cry for help.

Sans intervenes.

ALSO can I just say I'm super glad people are discovering and liking the Sacrifice Arc thanks to this thread? (And not just because no one I've gushed about it to in real life has ever read it...) I almost want to reread it myself, but that'll have to wait until the end of the semester. At least this year I have an entire month for winter break!

 

receding into indefinite rain, Undertale continuation/AU, short and complete at 11k words.

Spoiler

Post-pacifist, or possibly post-genocide and then post-pacifist. Five years after they leave the underworld, Asgore notices a few gray hairs, and he runs to Toriel's place in a panic. Frisk explains about Flowey, and the three set off in search of him. I am quite content with its ending.

 

Eight Drinks is a Pearlmethyst human AU thing, and so far I'm really enjoying it. Amethyst's characterization is especially great--she basically acts exactly the way I'd expect Amethyst to act if she were in a more...ahem...adult setting. (The fact that she named her pet cat Cunt Destroyer is just the tip of the iceberg.) It's also pretty damn well-written and gives an interesting perspective on some of Pearl's issues, and while it deals with heavy subjects, it manages to avoid being too heavy-handed with them. Content warnings: Drinking and alcoholism as themes, body image issues and possible eating disorders, sexual content, and a lot of lewd language (99% of which is from Amethyst, of course).

 

@swirlingflight Haha, I literally just finished reading that fic and then came over here to rec it :D It's so good! That author seems to be pretty damn quality, everything else I've read by them was also excellent. They wrote the only fic I've found so far focusing on Bratty, Catty, and Alphys's friendship, right here. (Post-pacifist ending, 1,600 words.)

 

...Oh man they are quality. Did you see (in absence of) a comfortable rhythm? I'm still giggling at that one.

 

oh my god, I hadn't read that one and now I'm giggling too. Chara you meme loving little shit XD And I've got a thing for bodysharing fic too, so any story where frisk and chara interact during their quest is a good one in my books.

I've clearly gotta go through and read their entire collected works now. I think i've had their AO3 page open in a tab somewhere for the last few days >_>

 

As long as we're reccing that author's Undertale stuff, I think I like Here All That Was, Was Frail to Bear a Heart best, even though it was immensely triggering (note the warning tags) and painful. They write excellent heart-rending Chara fic.

 

Oh man, that was one of the first undertale fics i read, it's so excellent. According to their tumblr Chara is their favorite character, which isn't surprising considering how good all their Chara fic is.

 

Spoiler: sacrifices arc book 5 chapter 44 (58)

yay! harry realized that he loves draco!
and he renounced his parents!
i didn't expect that.
and he's ready to talk to the seers!
didn't expect that either.
also, the room of requirement created a hella cool place for him to do all that in. like, damn, it goes all out!

 

Spoiler: sa book 5 chapter 45 (59)

harry succeeded!
and without lying or using magic. nice.
and he got yaxley questioning the side she's on with that speech as well. not something he intended and not something that he'll get immediate results from, but nice.

 

Spoiler: sa book 5 chapter 46 (60)

harry has another alliance now. though it sounds like it won't work out that well. i'm guessing yaxley killed alba, that it was why his magic thingy responded. then again, she's hardly the only person there who has served voldemort.
and connor has lux aeterna now!
this chapter has made me feel pretty sure that harry can and will eventually forgive snape.