Fandom: DUE SOUTH
Pairing: Fraser/Ray K.
Author on LJ: cesperanza
Author Website: Speranza's Fiction

Why this must be read: The story starts out with a twist and ends with a twist. What can I say, but it hooked me in the first couple of paragraphs and at the end left me begging for more. What more can you ask from fiction? As usual Speranza gives you funny dialog, hot sex and gut wrenching emotion. I so love this woman and hope she will always continue to write in this fandom!

In the story, Fraser gets a phone call, a goodbye phone call. Another partner is calling him up to say goodbye (Ray K. has been transferred to another undercover gig and has to leave ASAP), but this time Fraser isn't going to be the one left alone, partnerless. He decides to track Ray down before he leaves to say a real goodbye and in this meeting some long denied feelings emerge.

What happens after that is pure Fraser and Ray.

The Killer Replacements

Fandom: QUEER AS FOLK US
Pairing: Brian/Justin, Gus
Author on LJ: ?
Author Website: ?
Why this must be read:


Fluff. Cute fluff. I like reading about Dad!Brian. That's my guilty pleasure. Don't know if it's the way the actor plays in on screen or the way the character is written. I love Dad!Brian.

This little vignette paints a very domestic view of the trio but domesticity Queer as Folk style.

It's not brain surgery but sweet fluff.

Hiccups

Comments always welcome



I've been missing in action for the last two 1/2 weeks but I'll post the rest of my recs, 3 more, this weekend.

Fandom: THE PROFESSIONALS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ: No
Author's Website: No
Why this must be read:

Most of the stories I'm reccing here are stories I've read countless times - the zines or printouts sit on the table by my bed (which is about to collapse under their weight), and I turn to them again and again. Tonight, though, I'm reccing a story that I read for the first time just today; it just appeared in Proslib (and now on the Circuit Archive).

Voice-over is a story within a story: Bodie lies in a coma, and Doyle is exhorted by the doctors to talk to him, "let him hear your voice." Doyle, though he feels a bit self-conscious about the whole thing, obeys, but after three days of telling witty anecdotes and reading the sports pages, he's run out of standard "happy" material. So he decides to talk about one of the best nights of his life: his and Bodie's first night "together." It's a story Bodie knows, obviously, but that doesn't stop Doyle, lucky for us, because oh, it's a killer of a story, sweet and moving and hilarious in its own way, filled with Ray's meandering asides about what was going on in his head at the time and what he's thinking and feeling now.

The entire story, then, consists of Doyle "talking" to Bodie. This is a difficult device to pull off well, but the author not only makes it work, she makes it work brilliantly. The flow and pacing are amazing; the asides and interjections and interruptions feel so natural and so real, as Ray bounces between fond nostalgia and a kind of desperate effort to stay positive and avoid despair in the face of Bodie's continuing unresponsiveness. The characterizations and voices - for both characters - are as close to perfect as I think I've ever read, the author captures their mannerisms and inflections and their trademark bantering taking-the-piss from each other so well it's almost uncanny. These are the lads I know and love so well, the Bodie and Doyle who live in my mind.

And the feeling ... this is a story that makes you feel. The story Ray relates is such a lovely depiction of the tentativeness and hopefulness of new love, of two men trying their best to maintain cool and macho fronts (they're guys, after all!) but pretty much failing, because they are just so irredeemably, undeniably in love. And though it's (sort of) a "first time" story that Ray recounts, the way they deal with how things go so almost humorously wrong that first night serves to illustrate that this is a bond that has its roots in something much deeper than surface attraction and romance. You can see that bond, and the depth of their feeling, in Ray's monologue; while the story of their first night is a happy tale, the telling of it paradoxically makes him all the more aware of what Bodie means to him and what he stands to lose. Again he attempts to keep up the CI5-agent front, but it's a bit of a half-hearted attempt, and you can so clearly see the depth of his emotions as he struggles not to give in to fear and hopelessness - the love in his voice, no matter what the actual words, shines through so clearly it makes you ache.

This is a gorgeous, heart-warming, masterfully-told story, by an author with great talent and skill. If your tastes are anything like mine, it'll make you weepy, it'll make you laugh, it'll make you smile, and it'll make you long for more.

Voice-over

(Originally published in the zine Roses and Lavender 3, Allamagoosa Press, 1999)

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter if you squint, but it seems more like slashy gen to me
Author on LJ: None
Author Website: Author Page on FF.net

Why this must be read:

Although written for Wave VI of the HP/SS Fuh-Q Fest, this story seems more like gen than slash (there's no romance or sex here, and no sexual tension to speak of), but the main characters are Snape, Lupin, and Potter. Told from Snape's POV, we get a close look at the way he views life post-war and post-Hogwarts, and while Shiradine's Snape not a nice man, neither is he devoid of human feelings. This Snape is rude, snobby, and chilly, but he's human and consistent, and a real survivor. I liked the potions geek showing so clearly--Potions Master Snape loves his craft first and foremost.

I recommend this for the Snape characterization and the many details that flesh out Shiradine's wizarding society and the characters' lives. There's not a lot of action, but I think the author hit on some emotional truths with the three characters, and at the end my first act was to bookmark the story for a later read. I would love to have more set in this universe, but what's been written is juicy enough to savor. There's a dinner party in which Snape and Harry argue viciously but totally in character, while Lupin cringes. The altercation's never over the top, but it still made me wince in sympathy. In short, this story made me laugh at times as well as think, and it will be a pleasure to re-read it many times.

Artemisia Absinthium

Also on http://www.kardasi.com/, but you'll need a password to read it there.

Fandom: XENA
Pairing: Devlyn Marlowe/Lauren Strayer (X/G uber-fic)
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: Advocate's Briefs
Why this must be read:

I've been out of the Xenaverse for a while now, but I was so delighted to find a sequel to Madam President while searching for recs that I had to post both these stories.

Devlyn Marlowe is the first female President of the United States. Like most Presidents, she needs a biographer. Lauren Strayer didn't even vote for the woman, but she's been tapped to chronicle the four years in office of the first female President. As a side note, I wish we lived in a world where we could not only elect a woman as President, but we'd get her into office as a GAY woman.

The stories take some surprising twists and turns as it draws the reader into a world that's vaguely recognizable as Xena, and a whole lot like something you'd read in The West Wing. It's smart, funny, heartwrenching and terribly satisfying by turns. I stayed up way too late re-reading "Madam President", just so I could greet the dawn with "First Lady".

While these stories may not be terribly new to the seasoned Xenaverse veteran, I was surprised and delighted to discover a sequel to one of my favorite fandom uber-fics. I hope you'll enjoy these stories as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Madam President and First Lady.

Fandom: OZ
Pairing: Beecher/Keller
Author on LJ: cheights
Author Website: CatHeight’s Lair
Why this must be read:

Going back through old favorites to narrow down the stories I wanted to rec this month, I was stuck by how prophetic many of them turned out to be. Emptiness is one of those stories. In it, Cat tackles this apt metaphor of Keller being another form of addiction for Beecher. But the difference in Cat’s story and how the show ended is that Cat understands and illuminates the love that is at the core, the love the fuels everything between these two characters. As with many of Cat’s stories, it is hard to read because it’s full of heartache and despair because no one, NO ONE does angst quite like Cat. But again as with all of Cat’s stories, the payoff is *always* worth the pain it takes to get there.

Cat’s beautiful prose can sell the story so much better than I can, so read and let Cat break your heart for the first time or all over again.

( Read More )

Fandom: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Solo/Kuryakin
Author on LJ: irene_heron.
Author website:http://partnermine.luminousbeings.net/

Why this must be read:

Well, my time is almost over and this is my last allowable rec. (Thanks to everyone who’s been reading!)

For this, my last, parting shot, I’ve decided to look to the future and our newest cohort of cousins. Most of my previous recs have been about where we’ve been as a fandom; this is about where we’re headed.

Irene Heron is relatively new to MFU, but with her wonderful Partner Mine site, she’s already made a significant contribution. Irene also writes, and now that she’s turned her attention from one Solo to another, this is her first posted MFU story.

Fan writers often eschew the Innocents, but ironically, some of the best, most effective stories in MFU have been written from the POV of an Innocent or bystander, or some perspective outside the agents.

In this vignette, an ex-French Resistance fighter who now owns a bar in Paris, makes some interesting observations about how a certain Russian has changed since he’s become an U.N.C.L.E. field agent:

“His blue gaze, which was once as warm as the Mediterranean on an August day, now registers arctic temperatures. Change may be the rule in these indifferent times, but the thought that the compassionate, idealistic youth I once knew might no longer exist except as a recurring phantom in my memory is particularly bitter."

Subtle yet heartfelt and poignant, the emotional freight in this piece is carried not in what is said, but what is left unsaid, not by what is shown but by what is implied, and the real punch lies in the blanks left for us to fill in.

“Illya settled into the same seat he always chose, a low armchair placed just so in the darkest corner of the back lounge. Where he can see but not be seen, except by the most discerning of eyes. Alone, always alone, contained by the stark boundaries that isolate him from everyone else.”

Well, not entirely alone as it turns out, but then, you all knew that.

Write more, Irene, write more.

Keeping Faith

Title: Don't Change, Just Lie: Four Things That Never Happened To Ryan Atwood
Fandom: The OC
Pairing/Characters: Ryan/Various
Author on LJ: torchthisnow
Author Website: Riders on the Storm
Why this must be read:

( Ryan has better plans. )