Fandom: FARSCAPE
Pairing: Braca/Grayza, Braca/Scorpius
Author on LJ: andrastewhite
Author Website: Altogether Elsewhere

Why this must be read: Because this is one of the exceedingly rare examples of high-quality Braca fic. Braca exists in fanfiction almost solely as a foe to be overcome by Moya's crew; he's generally written as either a bumbling fool, or a nasty bastard with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Unfortunately, a similar opinion was often reflected in the show itself -- while John's experience at Grayza's hands is a cause for Buckets o' Angst, in Braca's case, it's played for cheap laughs.

'Straight and Narrow' gives Braca some of the depth he was sorely lacking for so much of the fourth season. We know that Braca is capable of far more than just being a sycophantic second-in-command; Andraste gives us some excellent insight into just what the hell was going on with him, and does so in a way that doesn't make him look like an idiot, or a heartless prick hell-bent on PK superiority. He couldn't have risen so high in the ranks without having some intelligence about him (or a Heppel gland *g*), and it's such a nice relief to actually see him use his brain.

Proof that Braca can do Conflicted Angst just as well as John. Go and check it out!

Straight and Narrow

Title: Actualize This by Helena Handbasket
Pairing: None
Author on LJ: hhandbasket
Author Website: Handbasket Holidays
Why this must be read:

So. Take Jim and Blair, Bobby and Darien, and Jack and Daniel. Send them to a retreat that promises a "cooperative journey of self-discovery." Then sit back and watch the fun. Sharing Modules! Investigative dyads! Embracing the vocabulary of their fundamental oneness! Zats as foot massagers! Plus, there's plot.

"How should I know?" Jim snapped. "Look, you can interview him for the Discovery Channel later. I'm telling you, this guy can go invisible."

Blair snorted in that pissy way of his that said, 'you are failing to validate me and I would give you the silent treatment if I had the self-control to stop talking for more than twelve seconds.' He lasted about eight before muttering, "Great, Jim. Anything else?"

Jim looked down at his partner earnestly. "Yeah," he said. "I think they kidnapped the waiter."

Actualize This

Title:No Second Chances by Dana Wood
Pairing:  N/A
Author on LJ: danawoods
Author Website: Broken Symmetry
Why this must be read: If you know nothing about Brimstone don't dismiss this out of hand, since my entire knowledge of the series comes from this story. (Okay, I also know that John Glover who plays Lionel Luthor in Smallville played the part of the Devil - he may be having a problem with typecasting!)

( Want to know more? )

Read it for the painful look at guilt and innocence.

No Second Chances

Fandom: X-MEN COMICVERSE
Pairing: Cannonball/Nate Grey (Cannonball/Cable)
Author on LJ: 3jane
Author Website: a girl needs a gun these days

Why this must be read:

I'm a bit stumped on the crossover angle, so I've decided to do two erotica recs today. Because I *can*.

This story remains one of the hottest things I've ever read, and I think it makes for a great crack_van entry because of what it *specifically* did to me: Made me desperately, hopelessly needy for *more* about these characters. Who are these people? What are they like? What do they want?

It's an incredible work of pimpery, as it teases and hints and *coaxes*. This is not the be-all and end-all of these characters, but it works in just *enough* to make a body think.

And want.

And frankly? It's blisteringly hot. On top of Jane's usual, gorgeous prose, on top of Jane's stunning technical skill. It's just plain *hot*, despite (because of?) the way even the sex is something of a tease. Jane uses the device of Cable's ruthlessly controlled telepathy to keep us at something of a distance from the action, and it's a marvelous conceit.

Because, of course, some things are just a bit harder to close yourself off from than others. Mm.

*fans self*

In any event, this story makes for a nice little intro into the fandom. It certainly did for *me*.

Where the Wild Things Are

Title: The One That Got Away, by Kellie Matthews & Julia Blackshear Kosatka
Pairing: Amanda/Fraser/Vecchio
Author on LJ: kelliem
Author's Website: Kellie Matthews' Fan Fiction
Why this must be read: (Look!! I'm reccing a Vecchio story!!) This story is the beginning of what Kellie calls the "Fishing" series. Here's Kellie's synopsis:

Amanda goes to Chicago to do a little light 'lifting' and encounters a small difficulty in the persons of Benton Fraser and Ray Vecchio. During the chaos that follows, a Quickening with unusual side effects has some unexpected results.

And a snippet, because it sound just like Ray and it makes me laugh:

Amanda could clearly hear Vecchio grousing at Fraser as they moved away. "'You should see a doctor if you continue to feel vertiginous'?" Vecchio repeated, sounding incredulous. "Where do you get that? Nobody talks like that! Is that a Canadian thing or just a Mountie thing?"


I actually avoided readng this at first because of my unfamiliarity with the Highlander universe, but after reading the rest of the series, I felt compelled to go back and try this, and I was glad I did. Kellie made it fairly easy to understand what's up with these Immortal people without beating me over the head with it.

Those who avoid threesomes, slash and/or het sex might want to avoid this story. Everyone else should read it. I have spoken.

The One That Got Away

The rest of the series can be found here.

Title: When Hellmouths Collide by Martha Wilson and Kimberley Rector
Pairing: Iolaus/Buffy, Giles/Xena
Author on LJ:ltlj
Author Website:The Less Than Legendary Journeys
Why this must be read: I'm one of the co-authors, but there aren't many Hercules crossovers to choose from, so here goes: Buffy, Xander, Giles and Willow are accidentally sent through a dimensional doorway to a strange new world, where they run into Hercules and Iolaus. Together, they uncover Ethan Rayne's terrible plot against this world. Jason, Autolycus, Xena and Gabrielle are also major characters.

When Hellmouths Collide

Title: The Last Refuge of 1998 by lalejandra
Pairing: Ephram Brown/Jordan Catalano
Author on LJ: lalejandra
Author Website: You can find this and other Ephram-centric crossovers at Ephram's Adventures in New York

Why this must be read: I hardly ever like crossovers. Most attempts prove to be very clumsy and does not give justice to one, if not both fandoms. But there are a few exceptions. Like this fic.

I loved My So-Called Life. I emphatize with Angela, loving the wild, unattainable Jordan Catalano. I had a big crush on him...I mean, who wouldn't, right? And lalajendra strikes the right chord as she writes Jordan as an older, jaded and once-famous musician (which is a great counterpoint to Ephram's current success in the music industry).

There's really no doubt that lalejandra writes Everwood characters well...I love her Ephram here -- older and more mellowed out, yet still like the jaded teenager that he was when he came to Everwood. And I was so interested in the backstory about how both Ephram and Jordan came to be at the moment of meeting. She negotiates their past wonderfully, planting seeds of awe and envy and UST along the way. Until she creates a wonderful foundation for their possibly shared future.

The Last Refuge of 1998

Fandom: X-MEN COMICVERSE
Pairing: Rictor/Shatterstar
Author on LJ: 3jane
Author Website: a girl needs a gun these days

Why this must be read:

Oh, I don't know, because the love is so damned pure?

*laughs at self*

Okay, well, we're back to Jane again. It's a good place to be, because, you know, she totally rules. As I've mentioned, it's completely her fault that I wound up in this fandom in the first place. There are all sorts of ways for a person to connect with the comics characters, whether you're in the mood for grim and gritty action, or deep, twisted angst, or sweet, fluffy friendship, or hot dirty porn, or... this.

Julio (Rictor) and Shatterstar are intensely complicated people, both with the sort of mind-bogglingly wtf-style childhoods that tends to make my heart warm. To that end, they find themselves struggling through the morass of young adulthood and friendship in ways both familiar and not. It would be immensely challenging to get anything like a feel for the two of them, but, well, we have Jane.

And Jane has them down.

Like "Where the Wild Things Are," this coaxes as much as it tells, but what it *does* tell...

Mm. There's one quote in particular that's sticking in my mind now, after Rictor remembers a particularly... interesting encounter with Cable and Domino.

At night sometimes Rictor sleeps curled up and tries to imagine how another person could possibly fit around him.

You know, there's so *much* there. And it would be easy to let this dissolve into meaningless schmoop, to have Rictor's first time with Shatterstar answer all the questions, but... it doesn't.

Despite the hope, the love, and the dear-Lord-HAWT... it doesn't.

Because it can't, not for these two, and that's just the best possible meta-answer to the question: "Who are they?"

Enjoy. *g*

Someone Who's Turning

Fandom: X-MEN COMICVERSE
Pairing: None.
Author on LJ: alestar
Author Website: one more strange island

Why this must be read:

I love this little thing far, far more than could ever be remotely healthy. I mean... dude.

Okay.

There's a sub-genre of fan-fiction that's immensely tempting to me, though often more trouble than it's worth. That's what happens when a writer finds some old fairy tale or another and does their best to craft it into something that could be used for their fandom of choice. More often than not, sadly, the results lead to unintentional comedy and a general sense of WTF?

Not so here, where the myth is used as just one more piece of the story -- impressive, considering how short the story is -- as one small fraction of what makes the characters who they are.

I seem to have found myself using my time as a crack_van reccer to offer one piece of canon at a time, one character at a time, and this is no different.

This beautiful, blackly funny, *twisted* little story is one of the best looks at Sabretooth I've *ever* read. It's a mindfuck and it is, to me, the absolute truth in terms of both how Sabretooth looks at the world and how he *lives* in it.

And I am enthralled.

The Wicked Wolverine

Title: The Tangled Web by Jack Reuben Darcy
Pairing: Bodie/Cade
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: n/a
Why this must be read: for one, is a decently long story, which is a plus in my book.
Secondly, the pairing is one of the favourite crossovers in the fandom, because it maintains the visuals of the OTP (Bodie/Doyle) but it does poses interesting questions: what CI5 agents do when they can't work the streets anymore? (ops, that sounds wrong somehow..not! :)

The Chief is a series where Martin Shaw plays Alan Cade, police chief of East Anglia, some ten years after the Pros.

It's a bittersweet story with a happy ending and lots of introspection. And some hot sex. What's not to like?

TheTangled Web

Title Charmed by Ika
PairingBlake/Avon
Author on LJNo
Author Website Unfortunately, not any more
Why this must be read:
Nothing to do with the sibling-witches TV series, everything to do with Blake's reaction to Avon at his brattiest.

OK, I can hear the Peanut Gallery saying “WTF Chrestomanci?” In four novels (Charmed Life; The Lives of Christopher Chant; The Magicians of Capriona; Witch Week) and several short stories by Diana Wynne Jones, Chrestomanci is the title given to the nine-lived enchanter who regulates inappropriate use of magic.

In Ika’s unquestionably AU version of the B7 episode “Voice From the Past” (where Blake discovers that he is still victimized by Federation conditioning) Blake and Avon are already lovers:

( Read more... )

when Avon tries an out-of-the-box solution to Blake’s problem.

( Read more... )

The spell produces a gentlemanly, helpful, well-dressed stranger from ”a different world, or universe,” said Chrestomanci patiently. “Planes are another axis again. Worlds are formed along historical fault-lines.” who is able to undo the spell on Blake (while helpfully pointing out to Avon that Avon isn’t half the enchanter he thinks he is--and in fact the spells of his own casting only made the situation worse). But that involves the breaking of the contract that binds Blake and Avon…And Chrestomanci also has some ideas about that pesky Star One problem.

But this is by no means all about Blake, Avon and Chrestomanci: wonderful work here from the whole crew.

( Read more... )

DISCLAIMER: Yeah, it’s dedicated to me. But that’s not why I’m reccing it. Ika writes about things nobody else would think of, and her hallmark is wonderfully subjective and elliptical sex scenes.

In some ways, magic is alien to the B7 world (Tanith Lee’s supernatural-tinged teleplays “Sarcophagus” and “Sand” don’t really blend in with the other episodes), so it’s great to see a seamless integration of imperfectly-understood-technology-as-magic (Chrestomanci never does quite get the hang of the Liberator’s kitchen machinery) and imperfectly-understood-magic-as-technology.

Charmed

Fandom: THE X FILES/DARK ANGEL
Pairing: Max/Logan (UST) and Mulder/Scully (implicit), but really a gen piece
Author on LJ: timesink
Author Website: http://hometown.aol.com/mrsblome

Why this must be read:

This was written during XF S8/DA S1 and obviously is contradicted some later canon. Sarah Segretti shows that two action adventure shows about government conspiracies and genetic engineering are a match made in a fanfic writer's heaven.

The plot is simple: Max meets another girl with mysterious powers: she's not from Manticore, but she's still trouble. What's not simple is the amount of complicated backstory--for both shows, and extrapolating out--that Sarah slides in painlessly, and the perfect Max-voice, and the way she brings home that superpowers can't save anyone involved from grief and pain.

"Love and Darkness and Our Genomes"

Fandom: THE X FILES/LA FEMME NIKITA
Pairing: none
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: http://www.acadiacom.net/steiner/

Why this must be read:

What if, after Mulder's apparent suicide in the S4 finale, "Gethsamane," he were recruited by a covert anti-terrorist group?

A short, sharp, stylish shock.

( Excerpt )

Mission

Fandom: MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: nil for gen version, Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin for slash version.
Author on LJ: leethet
Author Website: Lee the T's Stories: Gen. Her slashfic is listed in File 40.

Why this must be read:

Illya is presumed dead in a suspicious hotel fire. A devastated Napoleon loses his will to work for UNCLE as he wrestles with grief and guilt. Cue major angst. But all is not as it seems. A mysterious stranger offers Napoleon the chance to get Illya back...but at what cost to himself?

MfU fandom has a unique integrative approach to fanfic. There are a number of gen and slash versions of the one story as many fans are bifictional and monogamous in their fannish tastes.

This story is a fine example: a suspenseful action plot is welded to an absorbing and gripping emotional journey. As a die-hard slasher, I find the ending to the gen version to be too emotionally muted. Then again, I guess genners must find the wonderfully joyous banter in the slash conclusion to be way over-the-top.

I always have an underlying distrust for bifictional writers: I fear they will not give their slashfic the emotional intensity it deserves as they juggle action plot and relationship. Fortunately, this story proves me wrong.

Anything (gen version)
Anything (slash version)

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Ginny/Hermione
Author on LJ: rhoddlet
Author Website: rhoddlet's fiction
Why this must be read: Because Rhoddlet is simply amazing and not bogged down by clichés and trying to write what people might *want* to read. She writes what comes to her, and more often than not, it's hauntingscarywrongpainfulredandblackrunningtogether.

At this point, Ginny realizes that she's doomed to fall in love with the people her brothers bring home.

(p.s. not your average Ginnyfic)

Sundress

Title: Places That You Know by MollyTM
Pairing: Ryan/Chloe/Seth
Author on LJ: torchthisnow
Author Website: Riders on the Storm
Why this must be read:

It's done from a thoughtful and real Chloe point of view. I don't really know Smallville, so I have very little basis for comparison. But Molly's writing generally rocks, so I feel confident that she hasn't messed it up. Plus, mmmn, angst. Mmmn, threesomes. Just go.

She wonders when she'd started keeping a mental catalogue of their girlfriend choices. Wonders how she'd fallen into this kind of easy banter with them so quickly. Wonders why she feels more at home walking down a darkened street in California than she'd felt in the last *year* in her bedroom in Smallville.

Moments when she realizes that this really *is* her life still startle her.

Places That You Know

Fandom: ALIAS/ANGEL
Pairing: Wesley/Vaughn
Author on LJ: jennyo
Author Website:dreamstate
Why this must be read: Women troubles and alcohol can make you do things you never thought about before. Hot and lyric in the best way.

It's a well-known fact that when a man is vexed in love, there are times when he needs to sublimate. Maybe sublimate's the wrong word. Repurpose his energy. Redirect his passion. In fact, the entire proposition is faulty, but there's some tang of truth in it. The worst thing you can do is brood on the love you're never going to get in your apartment by your lonesome.

Spark

Title: Young American Cousins Trilogy by Wendi
Pairing: Clark/Hamilton, Clark/Lex (that Clark is such a slut!)
Author on LJ: happyminion
Author Website: A Thousand Churches
Why this must be read:

Because there’s not much hotter than a sweltering Kansas afternoon, a pair of hormonal, look-alike cousins, a cool pond for skinnydipping (and other things) -- and a billionaire playboy lurking in the bushes. A very short, very hot trilogy full of voyeurism and quasi-incest (yes, it’s still incest when one of the cousins is an adopted alien from outer space).

Kansas & Other Summer Things
Skinnydipping
Heatwave

Thanks to miss_lurker for rec!

Fandom: Queer As Folk US/Dead Like Me
Pairing: Brian/Justin
Author on LJ: wrenlet
Author Website: A Wren's
Hangout

Story: Reaper
Boy

Why this must be read:
This was pretty much exactly what Rube had wanted to avoid. People grieve their own deaths much as they grieve the deaths of others, and that was doubly true if you were destined to hang around as one of the undead. It was all a process, and if Justin could have started that process without tangling it up in someone's grief for -him-, it would probably go smoother. But here they were, and Justin didn't look likely to pay any attention to Rube just then so... the hell with it. He decided to let the kid get his goodbyes in while he could, and hoped for the best.

Fandoms: HARD CORE LOGO/DUE SOUTH/TALES OF THE CITY
Genre: Slash, crossover, series
Pairings: Joe/Billy (implied), Billy/Fraser, Fraser/RayK, Billy/Brian
Authors on LJ: kelliem, aukestrel
Author website: Kellie Matthews' stories; Aukestrel's website is passworded but her stories are archived at due Slash and Touch My Stump.

Why this must be read:

I believe this series was already recced for crossover day for due South, but it deserves to be recced again for any folks interested in HCL who haven't read it already. These stories were actually my first introduction to the characters from Hard Core Logo, so they're sentimental favorites of mine; beyond that, they're very well-written and super hot. I know I've been reccing a lot of crossovers, because there are a lot of great ones out there for this fandom, but there was never any doubt in my mind which I was going to rec for the official crossover day, especially since I can hardly rec my own stuff ;-).

This is the halfway point of the month, and I'm sorry I haven't been posting many recs lately--it's been a very busy week in the birthing biz. I promise I have lots of recs left, so I'll be trying to double up on days to come so I can get through all of them!

Northern Comfort

No Secrets

Shadows Fade

Edited to correct the order of the stories.

*eek* Sorry, I was busy and forgot that it was my month to rec.

Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Character: Legolas
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: n/a
Why this must be read: I couldn't quite decide which one of the author's stories to rec, in the end I went with a less obvious one. This story has beautiful language and gives an insight into the motivations of Legolas. It is dark without going overboard. All in all, a poignant little story.


Beauty

Fandom: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
Pairing: none, really
Author on LJ: daft
Author Website: d a f t
Why this must be read: PotC writers constantly face the problem of historical accuracy. The movie has just enough bits of real history in it to tempt-- but they're never logical in context. For example, why does the Black Pearl fly the skull-and-crossed-cutlasses Jolly Roger when that flag belonged to another, very real, pirate? daft's Provenance series answers that question in eight powerful, all-dialogue shorts that carry us from before Jack's birth until after Barbossa's mutiny.

"Oh. Names. Aye. I was thinking Mary if t'were a girl."
"Ah Anne, that's sweet. Thank you."
"Pish. Me mum's name."
"You've no heart!"
"Ease off dear, I were only joking. It were me mum's name, true, but all the better if it be my best mate's as well, aye?"

Good crossovers are surprisingly rare in PotC fic, but I suppose this one counts as an historical real person crossover. You don't need to know the history, but you'll *want* to, once you've finished it.

Provenance