Fandom:  DOCTOR WHO
Pairing:  Ten, Donna
Length: 1100
Author on LJ: alsodinosaurs

Why this must be read:

alsodinosaurs has written a cute little fic about why everybody seems to think Donna and Ten are married.
If you're not giggling by the end of this then there is something totally wrong with your humour gland.

Excerpt:
Another planet, another adventure. One minute Donna is sipping drinks in the sunshine and the next, the Doctor is dragging her off to places with considerably less drinks and sunshine.

Like suspicious alien labs, for instance. It's not that Donna has anything on principle against investigating strange and possibly (make that probably) evil doings, it's just that it would be nice if once they could go somewhere where people could take care of their own problems, so she could stay in the sunshine, sip alien alcohol and relax. It's all making her a bit annoyed. The Doctor is flashing his psychic paper in front of a guard, talking very fast and putting on his most friendly smile, and Donna can just tell what the guard is going to say next.

The Tragic Demise of the Psychic Paper by Alsodinosaurs

Fandom: DONALD STRACHEY MYSTERIES
Pairing: Donald Strachey/Timothy Callahan
Artist on LJ: cala_jane
Artist's website: cala_jane posts icons on ithinksoyes

What's a fandom without icons? We have some excellent icon makers in the Donald Strachey Mysteries fandom, so I'd like to showcase one of our artists before our wonderful month of recs concludes. Now, if these icons don't make you want to watch the films, then I'm afraid nothing will. Enjoy!

Lovely icons

That brings us to the end of the month. It's been an honour and a privilege to do the recs for Supernatural this month. Anyone can volunteer, so if you've got a set of stories you've been itching to recommend to all and sundrie, be sure to sign up. It's a blast!

Fandom: SUPERNATURAL
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Length: ~ 95000 words
Author on LJ: mclachlan ; mclachland (Writing Journal)
Author Website: Fic Master Post on LJ
Why this must be read: This is one of the offerings from the 2010 spn_j2_bigbang and at 95,000 words it's a huge undertaking. What this epic offers is an alternative version of events from 4.22 onward, with an intriguing plotline, and one of the best Dean voices you'll ever read. All of our favourite characters are there: Sam, Bobby, Chuck, Gabriel, and a host of original characters who are well-fleshed out as individuals.

The story starts with the death of Jesus, and an eerie funeral at Resolute Bay (in Northern Canada!), and that's only the beginning as the boys and Cas try to figure out who murdered Jesus, and who gains in a war between Heaven and Hell. It centers around the same themes that Season 4 gave us - what does it mean to be an angel or a god, who's giving orders in heaven, what place does humanity have when angels and demons go to war? Through it all you have Dean's wonderful down-to-Earth snark and Cas's still-a-little-oblivious faith in justice and the Righteous Man.

Named captures the best of what the television series has to offer and gives us that much more with the intimacy developing between Dean and Castiel. It's a long read, but definitely worth it, and don't be surprised if it ends up on your re-reading list as well.


( The light grows impossibly bright, like, full-on 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' but Castiel simply turns his head and nods at Chuck, as if to say 'I apologize in advance for exploding all over you.' )

Read the story and feedback the author: Named - Master Post (with links to all sections, artwork, and downloadable PDF file)

This is my final rec of the month, and it's one I'd intended to post during my last go-round. It's Snape/Harry, my OTP, and one of my favorite stories of all time, so fair warning: this rec blithers on for a while. I hope regular c_v readers found something to enjoy here, and if you feel the urge, please let the authors know.

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Length: ~50,000
Author on LJ: mia_ugly
Author Website: Mia's masterlist of fics on LJ. There is also a sequel Blood (but also roses)
Why this must be read:
This is one of the most beautiful stories—certainly one of the most beautiful Severus/Harry fics—I have ever read. The majority of Snarry fandom has probably seen it by now, but it's worth reccing to appreciators of gorgeous stories everywhere. It's entirely about love, you see. Which is to say it has a plot and ravishing characterization and some of the most spare, intense language found anywhere in HP, a style both real-feeling and unexpectedly poetic (unexpected for those who have never read Mia's fics before). But from the beginning it's drenched in yearning, in the helpless, soul-shattering embodiment of mutual recognition, need, embarrassment, gratitude and grief, the sometimes agonizing experience of giving one's heart, even against one's will. This fic doesn't merely tell the tale, it incarnates the experience and puts readers through the transformation it so passionately describes. It invites us inside Severus' penitential, emotionally outcast, povertystricken existence and accompanies Harry through his frantic pursuit of hopeless causes and beyond—into a life shadowed by the loss of someone he cannot save from what has already come to pass.

( Infatuated babbling follows )

Rapture

Fandom: STARSKY & HUTCH
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Length: 17k
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Unknown
Why this must be read: I love a well-done dialogue-only (or almost only) fic, so for my last rec this month, I thought I'd recommend this little gem by Gilrain. We listen in as the guys negotiate, by phone, a bump in the road of their relationship. Slightly angsty but mostly adorable, and it ends on an up note. I hope I'm ending on an up note, as I hand over the keys to whichever lucky driver takes the S&H wheel for September!

Conversations in the Dark

Fandom: DONALD STRACHEY MYSTERIES
Pairing: Donald Strachey/Timothy Callahan
Length: 481 words
Author on LJ: chlare
Author's website: An extensive tag list on the right side of her journal will take you to her fics. She also posts directly on our communities.

Why this fic must be read: It's short, the tragedies that brought it about are not sweet, but it's real. chlare, who mods two Strachey communities and organizes our get-togethers at tim_don_a_thon, wrote this for our most recent 'thon in which we speculated as to the origin of Donald and Timothy's tattoos and scars. We were given license to add any we liked, and the ones chlare added made perfect sense for the damaged soul who is Donald Strachey.


Some Things Donald Doesn't Have to Say

Fandom: TRON
Pairing: Clu/Rinzler, Clu/Jarvis/Rinzler
Length: ~73K words in 15 chapters
Author on LJ: aldhibah
Author Website:
Warnings: Dubcon; threesome; torture enhanced interrogation; graphic violence.
Why this must be read:

This story was inspired by a prompt titled “Clu's plans go horribly right” on the tronkinkmeme, which proposes that if Clu had managed to reach the User world, he and his forces would have been speedily defeated ... and then, once the military authorities realized the possibilities and implications of “rectification,” things would have gotten ugly.

In this nightmarish scenario, Clu, Jarvis, and Rinzler are incarcerated, questioned, and finally compelled to obey their captors. Each of them copes in his own way. Jarvis proves unexpectedly observant and resilient, while Rinzler, though as deadly as ever, develops some quirks that particularly affect Clu:

( Clu bit down on Rinzler’s shoulder as retaliation for the near throat-crushing )

Ah, Clu: battered, humiliated, horrified by the chaotic User world, furious over the loss of his authority and his autonomy, he never gives up his pride or impatience, yet becomes a more heroic character in spite of himself. Partly, this is in contrast to his nemeses: the arrogant OCs General Jacob Montag and Dr. Howard Hellard, who oversee the rectification research, and greedy ENCOM CEO Kurt Hardington (a character borrowed from the ARG), who is brought in to discuss how the project’s applications can be extended from the military to the commercial sector. However, Clu does evolve, even though he finds the very concept repellent — as he struggles for freedom, he is forced to re-evaluate the nature of his reign on the Grid, his attitudes and expectations, and his relationship with Kevin Flynn ... who, ironically, may now be Clu’s last hope.

“Rectify” on the author’s journal (tagged entries) and AO3

This is my last minute, last rec of the month--I see the next driver waiting impatiently for the keys :) I enjoyed the trip and I hope everyone found something they liked!

Fandom: MAN FROM UNCLE
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin
Length: ~ 3400
Author on LJ: epicycles
Author Website: fic list on her LJ
Why this must be read:

You should read this because it's smart and tender and painful and funny and epicycles has run with her prompt of "quilts" to put together a story the way quilts are sewn together--piece by piece--until like a lovingly assembled crazy quilt it reveals the pattern of a life--two lives in this case.

Nine Blocks is beautifully constructed, each segment has the name of a quilt pattern--with visual aids!--each pattern tells us a little more about the development of Napoleon and Illya's relationship. And there's a quilt in the story itself--the lasting symbol of all deep feelings that will never be verbally expressed.

"I cannot believe we're here to rob an old woman." Illya grumbled.

Napoleon squinted through his binoculars at the small cottage below them. "An old woman who works for Thrush."

"She looks like my bubbe. Except less mean."

"Do you see it anywhere?"

"No." Illya shifted his position on the tree branch. "Do you remember when Thrush put its codes on microfilm? Nice, portable microfilm. Very convenient. You didn't feel foolish stealing microfilm."

"You feel foolish?"

"We're sitting in a tree, Napoleon. Planning to steal a quilt from my grandmother."

Nine Blocks

This is my last rec of the month and I am sad to go! I've had plenty of fun scowering for fics to share with everyone and I hope you've liked what I've picked. Even if it's a story you've read before! So take care peeps and have fun next month with your new van driver!


Fandom: BANDOM
Pairing: Mike Carden/Kevin Jonas
Length: 9200
Author on LJ: saekokato
Author Website: kate_fiction
Why this must be read: A newer pairing in the bandom community (there is a comm for this pairing too! sodamnskippy) but it has taken off. It was even featured in the bandombigbang this year, although I have yet to see a fic come out of it, except maybe a slight mention in that FOB/Scott Pilgram VS the World fic. But this fic itself shows how two completely different people start to grow on one another and a relationship blossoms from here.

There's some wacky hijinx and Bill declaring the Jonas Brothers to be virginal unicorns and not to be touched.

It's a classic story of bad boy falls for innocent baby deer.

( Excerpt )


From Days of Yore

Sequels:
Stream Crossing
Not Looking for a Miracle (Just a Reason to Believe)

Fandom: TRON
Pairing: Quorra/Sam
Length: ~800 words
Author on LJ: wickedorin
Author Website: Reign of Angels
Warnings: Spoiler for Legacy. “HUMOR. CRACK. SEX. Absolutely no plot at all.”
Why this must be read:

In this sweet, funny, sexy story, Sam makes some surprising discoveries concerning his new girlfriend.

( Sam had just kind of assumed that Quorra was way too innocent for him to be corrupting. It wasn't until they were sitting there having a two-player FPS match one night when he was forced to think otherwise--right around the time when she slid her hand down his pants. He had just enough sense to hit pause before dropping the controller. )

Woody Allen once called sex “the most fun I’ve ever had without laughing.” This fic combines the two, with hot and hilarious results.

“Late Night Gaming Session”

Fandom: TRON
Pairing: Alan/Kevin/Lora
Length: ~250 words
Author on LJ: serafina20
Author Website: Piek Ric
Warnings: “Lack of pants.”
Why this must be read:

Lora presents Alan with a convincing case for a threesome, capped by a dramatic entrance:

The door flew open suddenly revealing a beaming Kevin Flynn. "Greetings, Programs!"

Slow, lust-rattled, Alan blinked his eyes. "Kevin," he said. "Where are your pants?"

“Greetings, Programs!”

Fandom: TRON
Pairing: gen (ref to Sam/Tron)
Length: ~900 words
Author on LJ: crystalshard
Author Website: crystalfic
Warnings: Per the author, “Step away from the drinks. This is crack.”
Why this must be read:

This story, in which San and Tron run across an old project of Kevin’s, riffs on a drawing by Pilots!verse creator shirozora:

"I remember these from the early days," Tron says when he finishes laughing. "Some sort of game design that Flynn was planning on, but it never got past the prototype stage. I think he preferred lightcycles to – oh, what did he call them?"

"Unicorns?" Sam suggests, sounding slightly strangled.

"That was it." Tron sounds pleased, and he walks forward to the unicorn. "I wonder if this one still works?"

It just goes to show that Kevin Flynn was a true visionary.

“Harmony, Harmony, Oh Love”

---

Congratulations, you’ve reached the TRON rec set version 1.0 kill screen! I hope you feel like you got your quarter’s worth.

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