Katabasis, by ariastar (R)

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm innocentsmith, and I'll be driving the van Riv GTO dogsled van for due South this month. I lean towards F/K, but I'm planning to include other pairings and gen fics; I don't really have any more of a theme than "awesome fics which inexplicably haven't been recced yet." Looking forward to sharing them with you!

Fandom: DUE SOUTH
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Length: 17,057 words
Author on LJ: ariastar
Author Website: Aria's Fanfic on Dreamwidth
Why this must be read:


"Dead Men Don't Throw Rice" isn't one of the most ficced-about episodes of season 3.5/4, but it involves Fraser making a rather odd choice. Odd even for him, that is. Putting himself in a deathlike coma - for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture - he spends a little time in a place Dead!Bob calls "the Borderland," and then emerges, apparently free from harm.

What Aria's done, though, is to take this weird and really kind of worrying little incident and examine its implications, merging the always idiosyncratic mythology of due South with another, well-known and beloved story from classical mythology. Which is searingly lovely, frightening, and funny as hell, especially when taken from the POV of Ray Kowalski, who's a poet only on the inside.

Frannie, Turnbull, and Mort all get cameos, too. It's note-perfect, and deeply awesome. Read it!

Katabasis

Comments

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

This is such an incredible, amazing story. I hope a LOT of people go read it! Great rec!

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? I was all squeeful that nobody'd recced it yet here and I could.

[looking4tarzan.livejournal.com]

heeee thanks, I quite literally have come into this fandom 10 years late and it has grabbed me by the scruff and fed me cookies!

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

IKR? Due South has so many great writers and stories, and the fact that it's so longstanding as a fandom just means there's this amazing body of fic to be read.

[ariastar.livejournal.com]

Eee, thank you, [a] for reccing this and [b] for reccing it to the DW link. <333

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

You are so very welcome, on both counts!

[musegaarid.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's all your fault that I've spent the last month reading dueSouth fics so it's about time I get to read your favorites. ;) (Is it bad that I'm making a list of good stories that haven't been on crack_van yet...?)

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

ZOMG! I will take that blame gladly. *bounces* We've got to have a proper squee session about dS if I've successfully dragged you into the fandom!

Honestly, there's so much good fic for dS that I'm barely going to be able to scratch the surface with these recs, but I'll do my best. And lot of my other favorites have already been recced, but even so, there's just SO MUCH good stuff. (You have read everything by Speranza, right? Fic (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/stories.html) and flashfic (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/flashfiction.html)? Because she's such a byword in the fandom reccers tend to take it as a given that everyone's read everything by her, but just in case...)

[musegaarid.livejournal.com]

I may, in fact, be working on my very first fanfic that has nothing whatsoever to do with Good Omens and a lot more to do with RayK and Fraser. And that's without even having seen a RayK episode yet... >_>;

And, no, I hadn't read Speranza's stuff other than what's been rec'd here. Whee! Forget Latin American Art theory, this is way more fun to read. Thanks, doll!

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

\o/ I should email you so that (1) we can chatter about all this, and (2) we can get you some RayK episodes, because oh my god.

...Though I don't wanna be responsible for academic misfortune. Study as well! Just, you know. In between fics. ^_^