Recent Entries 
29th-Apr-2012 07:13 pm It Came From The Kitchen by Karen (R)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: none; gen
Length: 4 chapters
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] baby_karen
Author Website: Personal Website
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: After a successful battle, the Gundam boys are allowed some downtime in an abandoned country house. Upon arrival, all five could tell that something was wrong with the house. Just what was it? Based off of a childhood experience of mine.

Now this is everything I look for in a horror story: eerie atmosphere, unsettling changes to our characters, "walking on your grave" shivers, and just an overall spooky-ness that leaves me with my light on and looking through all nearby heating grills. I usually try to stay away from reccing two stories from the same author in a rec cycle, but this story is just so unique in GW fandom that I have to share it too.

Karen freaks me out every time by what she doesn't show or describe; a lot is left to the imagination of the reader and that is a very powerful thing indeed. This is also based on a real life event for the author so knowing that makes it doubly more spooky as it really happened in some form. Each pilot re-acts to the events that unfold in front of them in this seemingly peaceful "safehouse" in different ways, from becoming physically ill to losing touch with reality. Each reaction is freaky as heck and so true to character for our pilots. Everything adds up to the best horror story I've read in GW fandom and one of the spookiest in any fandom.

Link goes to author's main story listing page as story chapters aren't linked to each other
Story is 4th one down
It Came From The Kitchen
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29th-Apr-2012 12:19 pm Double-Spaced by Lil-1337 (R)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Heero/Duo
Length: ~6,000 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] lil_1337
Author Website: LJ and DW only that I can find
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: Duo is taken hostage when a mission goes wrong.

Lil_1337 gives us a fast-paced struggle for survival on a doomed spacecraft with a phenomenal character voice and enough emotional wallop to leave you spinning. Her Duo is one of the best characterizations I've come across in years. Everything is spot on and so exact, me'thinks Lil is doing some channeling. Duo's on a mission he expects to be easy peasy but finds himself in a fight for his life against forces far more dangerous. I was on the edge of my seat for this story of endurance and expect you will be as well.

Double-Spaced
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26th-Apr-2012 09:00 pm After the Beep by Misanagi (G)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Trowa/Quatre, Heero/Relena
Length: 631 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] misanagi
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: Just the normal daily messages on Quatre's answering machine.

Hilarious as all get out, this string of voice messages made me giggle, guffaw, and almost snort out my Pepsi. Character voices were wonderfully IC. The sheer deviousness and hilarity of the revenge plot made me grin. And the story format just fits this little ficlet to a tee. Go laugh and don't forget to keep all carbonated beverages safely in their containers while reading this!

After the Beep
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25th-Apr-2012 11:24 pm A Grudging Seduction by Bane's Desire (R)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Heero/Duo, Trowa/Quatre
Length: ~92,000 words
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: Fanfic.net
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: Having unhappily accepted a long term mission involving Heero, Duo sets out to accomplish it.

The thing I really like about this story is how Bane portrays Heero's and Duo's relationship, how it started and progressed. So many stories start them out as lusting after each other, loving each other, and what not. Yet, this one starts out with straight guys mission-ed into a romance by crafty docs and what blossoms is a deeply loving relationship that is built on mutual respect and friendship. It's a novel approach in GW fandom and for that alone this story deserves a mention. But that's not all that's there to recommend this story. There's the caring friendship with the other pilots, the fight for survival during missions, finding oneself as old perceptions are challenged in new circumstances, and wonderful characterizations of our two main guys that just breath with life and depth. While there are some clichés' in this story that make me pause a few times (like the portrayal of Relena), it's still a story that has stood the test of time for me and still remains one of my quintessential 1x2 stories.

A Grudging Seduction
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23rd-Apr-2012 10:02 pm A Conversation With God by Jak Frost (PG13)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: gen
Length: ~1, 000 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] jak_frostty
Author Website: just LJ that I can find
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: Gundam Wing Mobile Suit, Duo, Death comes calling; Duo refuses to go

This is a masterpiece of atmospheric writing and visceral imagery. I literally hear the rattle of Death's breathing, smell the iron tang of blood, and see the long shadow falling over a broken body in its final hours. Jak Frost knows how to set a scene for one of my favorite tropes in Gundam Wing fandom that unfortunately isn't written that often, Duo meeting his name sake, Death. Jak's interpretation of Duo becoming Death's avatar, Death incarnate really, on Earth is just fascinating as hell and makes me wish for more in this universe. Another lovely example of the variety still being pumped out in GW fandom and the intriguing new twists on older ideas.

A Conversation with God
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19th-Apr-2012 07:25 pm Fifteen Pictures of Duo by D C Logan (PG-PG13)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Heero/Duo if you squint
Length: ~2,000 words
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: Author's Page on shinigami & wing
Warnings: deathfic
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary:Heero finds a small collection of photos in his desk.

I first read and saved this story in 2001 when I was still in the childhood of my fandom experience, and it has stayed with me through all these years and fandom obsession switches. The format in which it's written and the emotion that format conveys is just so rich and heart-wrenching. As Heero peruses the 15 pictures that sum up Duo's life and remembers his friend and loved one, the reader is swept up into the power of memory, grief, and remembrance. Heero's pain is very well written with D. C. Logan's potent writing skills. I was swept up in the strength of this piece years ago, still am, and just know you will be too.

Fifteen Pictures of Duo
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16th-Apr-2012 10:01 pm A Murder of Crows by Karen (R)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Quatre/Trowa, Quatre/OMC, Heero/Duo
Length: multi-chapter (11 chapters and epilogue)
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] baby_karen
Author Website: My Writings on the Wall
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: Quatre and the rest of the boys had just completed a mission, when all hell broke loose. The five boys were forced to retreat to an abandoned house where they found out that it wasn't abandoned after all, and that their "host" wanted something from Quatre....his life

A gripping tale of the supernatural, suspense, and friendship, Karen wove a tale that has kept me reading and re-reading for a decade. She smacks our pilots into a setting that is eerie and off-kilter, making one feel like you're one step to the right of normal. She spooks her reader with a vivid and richly developed protagonist that still makes me shudder. And in this haunting narrative, she has built a strong teamfic that illustrates how strongly these five teens feel for each other and how far they're willing to go for each other. I loved this epic of a drama and am glad I'm able to highlight it.

A Murder of Crows
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7th-Apr-2012 10:25 am By the Water Cooler by Kracken (PG13-R)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Heero/Duo
Length: 1,974 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] kracken
Author Website: Personal Website
Why this must be read:

Now for a bit of laughter. Duo's and Heero's coworkers gather around the water cooler and gossip about our favorite pilots. The gossip has a very dirty flavor and soon there is fantasizing with rose petals, silk sheets, and hair everywhere! What makes this so funny is how close this piece comes to real life. In anime conventions in the past, I've overheard conversations very similar. About how this pilot looks good with this pilot and OMG, doesn't Duo's hair look awesome! I burst out laughing at these memories and Ms. Kracken's character voices as Duo's and Heero's coworkers were brought to blushes and hot-and-bothered-ness by their imaginations. And Duo interrupting them! XD I think my cackling was heard a few counties other. Definitely a fun fic to read to get over the angst of the previous two.

By the Water Cooler
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4th-Apr-2012 08:24 pm Memory by Liafic (PG13/T)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: none; gen
Length: ~ 1,000
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] liafic
Author Website: Masterlist on LJ
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary: Duo tries to figure out life after war.

Another piece that examines the costs of war on one's mind and well-being, [livejournal.com profile] liafic gives us a Duo who's wracked by the noise of memories in the silence of deep night. He listens to the old radio frequencies as he listens for ghosts from the past. He reaches out to other individuals touched by war, trying to find meaning in his past, present, and future. It all adds up to a man who gave so much for those he was protecting and now can't find his place in the new peace. Your heart will ache for Duo as you ponder the effects of war on the characters of Gundam Wing and on our armed forces today.

Memory
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2nd-Apr-2012 07:03 pm The Darkest Reflection by Impish Inkling (strong R)
Hello and welcome to the Anime/Manga van this month with some lovely Gundam Wing fics. With only a sprinkling of recs off and on in the years between, this van hasn't been driven for a full month since 2008 so it's about time for some fun GW! I'm mainly a yaoi (that's slash for you non-animers) girl with a mundo focus on Duo. Expect a bunch of him as he'll be the focus for most of my recs. There'll be a few gen recs sneaking in, but the yaoi train is full steam ahead! I've also got a mix of old and new stories with GW being such an old fandom and me being in it for over a decade. So without further ado, let's get the GW recs flowing!

Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Heero/Duo, background Trowa/Quatre, Trowa/Duo, and Wufei/OFC
Length: epic length with 15 chapters
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: Author's page on Gundam Wing Diaries
Warnings: blood/gore
Why this must be read:

Author's Summary:The earth sphere has moved on into an age of peace, but Duo is fighting battles of his own. He has reluctantly joined the Preventers, and is surprised to see Heero sign up as well. With an assassin on the loose and an increase in suspicious activity, he’s beginning to realize the fine line between genius and insanity, and how easily it can be erased.

To start this Gundam Wing van trip, let's pull out a recently discovered gem. I actually just got done reading this today on my lunch hour and just had to sit a few minutes afterward digesting it. It's extremely plot dense with twists, turns, and a few flips for good measure. There's a deep undercover operation, a chase for an assassin who's after a friend, Preventer missions that aren't going as planned, betrayal, ghosts from a past both tragic and bloody, Mafia hits ...... And that's just the tip to this iceberg of a story!

To add to all that, there's some fantastic characterization going on here. With emotional examination on the consequences of war on one's mind and friendships, Impish takes us on an emotional journey that is both haunting and heart-wrenching. All this is done with character voices that ring true and relationships built realistically, with all the ups and downs a relationship involving a Gundam Pilot (long less 2!) would entail. This is a wonderful story I'm glad I found, and it's a real pleasure to get this van rolling with it.

The Darkest Reflection
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28th-Aug-2010 12:59 pm In Possession by Hades' Phoenix (PG)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Duo/OMC mentioned, very slight Duo/Heero, almost gen
Length: 2K
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] hadesphoenix 
Author Website: Master Fic List on LJ
Why this must be read:

Hades's Phoenix is one of my favorite GW authors because, unlike so many, she never forgets that the boys used to be terrorists. This particular fic is a humorous little short poking fun at the 'helpless Duo' trope.

In Possession
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7th-Nov-2009 10:54 pm Road Trip by Sunhawk (PG-13)
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Pairing: Gen or Heero/Duo (1x2x1) If you squint
Length: Long
Author on LJ: Sunhawk
Author Website: RaygunWorks ... also called A Little Piece of Gundam Wing
Why this must be read: Presenting Thelma and Louise on crack, the first of a long, on-going series (with 15+ stories so far - no, really 15), Road Trip stands by itself as an inventive intro to the GW world and a great character piece for one Duo Maxwell. Often in GW fanfic, Duo is the 'girl'. He has long hair and is slight, so he obviously must be clingy, weepy, oh, 'save me, obi-wan' -- ahem, needless to say, Sunhawk does nothing of the sort. In Road Trip, this is the street rat who clawed his way out of damnation to become a Gundam pilot, holds his own against Alliance/OZ forces, and calls his gundam Deathscythe and/or Shinigami (God of Death). He's everything the anime hints at and is often ignored in fandom. Along the way, the reader gets great insight on what was probably happening between episodes as no one fights those kind of battles without injuries.

Fasten your seatbelts, don't disturb Heero, and get this Road Trip going.

And, Naruto recs are coming ... I just forgot to check before posting my previous rec so this is my make-up. Enjoy!
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7th-Nov-2009 08:31 am Freeport by Maldoror
Oh, oh, just got home and discovered I'm the anime/manga driver for this month. So sorry for the delay, I will catch up. I'm a Naruto and Gundam Wing, multi-pairings, multi-positions, slash addicted, and original series fan. I've been here before so if there is a pairing you really want, drop me a line and I will try find something to your taste.

Fandom: Gundam Wing
Pairing: Duo/Wufei (2/5)
Length: Giant, Epic, Novel Length +
Author on LJ: Mal's Chants
Author Website: RaygunWorks ... also called A Little Piece of Gundam Wing
Why this must be read:

Taking place 5+ years after the series, Freeport is an incredible story of perceptions. Chang Wufei is sure he is walking into a den of smugglers, thieves, pirates and killers when he convinces his old war ally, Duo Maxwell, to be his guide in Freeport as he searches for an assassin. All he knows of the space colony is rumors/stories but the truth is something else entirely. But when finding his target becomes secondary to just surviving on this colony like no other with a man he only thought he knew - when the laws and politics aren't clear for a Preventer - when Duo Maxwell becomes his only safe constant, watch out universe! Chang Wufei is about to discover what he is really made of.

Freeport is a wonderful scifi action/adventure masquerading as a fanfic. Long, in-depth, and involving, the romance between the characters is almost secondary to the love story of the characters to Freeport. I never quite knew where the author was going to take me, making each chapter a revelation. While this fic reads fast, it is not little so block out a couple days. An added treat, the author is current re-writing it edited Freeport- to repair what 'she' sees as flaws in her writing. So you get 2 views of the same story - both incredible. Even if you don't know the fandom, it is easy to pick up the history you need to make this a very satisfying read.

Freeport


Oops, fixed mistakes, thank you, Theodosia21.
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31st-Dec-2008 03:00 am Boot Camp by snowdragonct, R
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Pairing: Duo/Heero, Quatre/Trowa
Length: about 300,000 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] snowdragonct
Author Website: her ff.net profile
Why this must be read:

Gundam Wing is a fandom that lends itself to AUs, at times. But there are certain dangers inherent to surfing for AUs on fanfiction.net.

This is a fic that makes trawling through That Site well worth the effort - and better still, the author is active, working on another (quite different) AU that's at 240,000 and climbing.

To quote her summary, 'Four boys in the juvenile justice system receive a last chance to make something of their futures. Will boot camp make or break them? And can they ever learn to be a team?' The charecterization is /on/ (although I will note that Treize reads like an OC, but he's not a focus character), she does something interesting by splitting Wufei off from the boys, and this is certainly not a fic lacking in action!

Read more... )

Boot Camp
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27th-Dec-2008 05:13 pm Ante Up! by Iris Anthe [R]
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Relena/Heero
Length: 8,500 words
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: Her ff.net profile
Why this must be read:

Because post-war GW? Can be /fun/. And Relena doesn't always have to be Little Miss Priss.

Basically, the boys meet up for their bi-annual night of debauchery beer and poker. Heero, as bodyguard to a threatened Relena, brings her along. Shenanigans (and some very cunning strip-poker techniques) ensue.

Read more... )

Ante Up!
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22nd-Dec-2008 09:32 pm The Ion Arc by Sunhawk (NC-17 overall)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Duo/Heero
Length: Oh heavens. The first five novellas come to 164,000 words. Judging by the average chapter-length, I'd estimate the whole thing to be about - well, something wonderfully ridiculous. 700,000 words, maybe?
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] sunhawk16
Author Website: She's archived on raygunworks, and she had a page on the now sadly defunct deathndragon site.
Why this must be read:

So. It's Christmas week. Maybe there's family sleeping in the spare room & clogging up the bathroom rota. It seems like half your time is spent cooking, and the other half spent buying things /to/ cook. So what do you need?

700 thousand words of fic to read, obviously!

When I promised to bring the epic, at the beginning of this month? I meant it. So much happens in every single story within this arc, it's absolutely exhilirating to read. And the way its broken into stories is ideal for reading a little bit now, a little bit then, and a little more later on. Whilst the entire arc isn't finished, each novella more than stands on its own.

Starting in the middle of the war with Oz (although only the first two sections are within the war), these stories span several years of Duo's life, and more than a few tragedies. This Duo - he's sarcastic and irreverant and so, so broken later on. This is a Duo I can believe in; Sunhawk really /gets/ him. Brain-hamsters and all XD

Read more... )

The Ion Arc (Scroll halfway down the page)
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16th-Dec-2008 02:18 am GUNDAM WING / STARGATE:SG-1 (PG-13)
um. I'm on student time; to me, it's still Monday?

Title: Upon A Firey Steed by Vathara
Pairing: Background Quatre/Trowa, Duo/Hilde, and Wufei/Sally
Length: About 80,000 words.
Author on LJ: N/A (that I could find, at least)
Author Website: Her ff.net profile.
Why this must be read:

This is a fusion of the Gundam Wing cast with the Stargate universe - but not on earth. Captured by a Goa'uld Queen, Dimme, Daniel Jackson joins forces with fellow-captive, the ever irreverant Duo Maxwell, to escape back to Duo's home system, Sanq. But it isn't that simple, because Sanq is by no means a normal Goa'uld-controlled slave planet.

This is a really great twist on the Stargate universe; you don't need to know anything about Gundam Wing to read it, really, and a general knowledge of stargates and the team will be enough on the SG-1 side. Basically, it's a great adventure story that deserves a read, even if it is hosted on That Site. I should be revising right now, but a 'quick glance' to write this up has turned into re-reading the whole thing - it pulls you in.

Upon A Fiery Steed
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13th-Dec-2008 10:00 pm Dreams of Yellowed Bone by Keelywolfe (M)
Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Duo/Trowa
Length: About 2,000 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] keelywolfe
Author Website: Keelywolfe's Fanfiction
Why this must be read:

See, I do have a few shorter recs for you! I really like the way this fic was written - a feverish Trowa is being looked after by Duo in a tent, and the PoV is wonderfully hallucinogenic. Both the pilots' voices are absolutely spot-on, and it's certainly a rare-pair - I can only think of one other fic putting these two together.

Excerpt )

Dreams of Yellowed Bone
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11th-Dec-2008 04:31 pm Always a Woman by Arsenic (NC-17)
Um. Sorry about that; seem to have mislaid the first third of December there... ^.^' with no further ado~

Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Une/Duo
Length: About 50,000 words
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] arsenicjade
Author Website: Most Delicious Poison
Why this must be read:

Now, this is an unusual fic for Gundam Wing - the fandom focuses on the five pilots almost exclusively, sometimes branching out to include Zechs and Treize. There's next to nothing on the women from the show - Relena, Dorothy, Hilde, Noin, and Une, to name the most significant.

By the time we first meet her, Une is Treize Kushrenada's most dedicated underling, frequently in direct opposition to the Gundam Pilots. (Technically, she's also a Gundam Pilot, pilot 11 - it's a bit convoluted.) She's also just a touch unstable - depending on the circumstances, she appears to have two entirely different personalities, the Colonel and the Lady; one's an advocate of peace, the other of war. But how did she get there?

This fic takes us back to pre-series, and shows us the girl Une might have been, before Treize. It's not so much a story about becoming as it is about evolving along the way, about drawing the lines between what you will and won't do, and finding what it takes to push you over them. And about putting yourself together again, afterwards.

excerpt )

Always a Woman
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2nd-Dec-2008 02:26 am The Arrangement by Maldoror [NC-17]
Hi, all. I'm [livejournal.com profile] macey_muse, I go by macey, and I'll be the one driving the giant flying robot this month~ welcome to Gundam Wing! There's a marvellous overview by [livejournal.com profile] ari_ here, for those of you who haven't encountered the fandom before, but I guarantee you, it is a combination of crack and epic that you won't want to miss.

This month, those will be my by-words - crack and epic. I love long, meaty fic with plot and character development, and have several seriously long fics lined up for you. I'll be sprinkling some shorter crack (and, yes, just plain porn) pieces between those leviathans, to keep your interest. We'll also take a bit of a glance at the oft-neglected girls of GW, and I won't be sticking to plain old Duo/Heero and Quatre/Trowa, either; there'll be plenty for everyone. I even have some het ^_~

Buckle up, folks, and I hope you'll enjoy the ride!

Fandom: GUNDAM WING
Pairing: Wufei/Heero
Length: About 270,000 words.
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] maldoror_gw
Author Website: All her Gundam Wing fic can be found on raygunworks
Why this must be read:

I dithered a little about what to rec first, but then I thought to myself: why not jump in the deep end? As you can see from the wordcount, I wasn't kidding about the epic, and this fic is most definitely not a classic pairing.

There's just something about the way Maldoror writes. This was the first of her fics I ever read and, along with Freeport (those of you who enjoyed Freeport might be interested in knowing she's currently re-writing it, and posting to her journal), has remained on my all-time favourites list for rather a while. She doesn't pull her punches, doesn't ever let you forget that these boys were terrorists, and are still massively screwed in the head. This is a fic that burns like Wufei's concept of honour. If you read nothing else I rec this month, read this.

Read more... )

The Arrangement
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29th-Jun-2007 09:53 am Hands by Oedipus Tex (PG)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: N/A
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: Fanfiction.Net

Why this must be read: Because I love seeing the gundam pilots through ordinary people's eyes. Or in this case, just one gundam pilot. A couple of years after the war, Heero is reunited with his birth family. The story is told through the eyes of his younger sister. Hands works because its characters are so perfectly believable. It would be difficult to integrate a child back into a family after fifteen years under any circumstances; when that child is someone like Heero...

Excerpt )

Hands
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29th-Jun-2007 09:49 am Whispers by Maldoror (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Heero/Duo, Trowa/Quatre
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] maldoror_gw
Author Website: GWAddiction or a little piece of gundam wing

Why this must be read: Because Maldoror is one of the best GW writers around, and this is her best romance.

When I recommended one of Maldoror's other stories earlier this month, someone mentioned The Arrangement, and while that story is, IMO, technically better than this one, Heero/Duo is my favourite pairing, and I have a soft spot for this story.

I love getting inside the pilots' heads, and Heero's mind in Whispers is an especially strange place to be. The story follows Heero and Duo's sexual relationship during the war, from its inception to the point where the other pilots find out about it. Most of the stories takes place during a series of missions. Of course I have my favourites among them---Three Percent 2: On/Off Switch is a pure delight, and Two Way Communication 3: Over & Out is surprising and touching---but they're all of pretty consistent quality.

Excerpt )

Whispers series (Link is to the GWAddiction main page, per the site owner's request.)
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28th-Jun-2007 02:50 pm The Drums of Heaven by Sol 1056 (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Heero/Duo
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: GWAddiction

Why this must be read: Because sometimes GW authors write long, plotty thrillers, and sometimes those stories are exciting and funny and brilliant, and this is one of them.

Five years after Endless Waltz, Heero is a photographer living on L1, out of contact with the rest of the pilots. When Quatre gets in touch with him again, he's surprised by the things that have changed while he was gone. He soon ends up embroiled in a personal mission to find the absent Duo Maxwell.

Excerpt )

Sol 1056 introduces an excellent cast of original supporting characters, and does some great world-building, too. No need to be too familiar with the canon before you read this.

The Drums of Heaven (Link is to the GWAddiction main page, per the site owner's request.)

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28th-Jun-2007 02:49 pm Nothing Like the Sun by Sol 1056 (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Various (mostly slash with some het)
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: GWAddiction

Why this must be read: Because stories that show one of the pilots adjusting to life after the war are plentiful, but this is one of the best.

Quatre takes time off from the business to attend university, much against the wishes of his family. In order to fit in, he takes on an alias and lives on a budget, trying to learn how to live like an ordinary student.

Excerpt )

Nothing Like the Sun (Link is to the GWAddiction main page, per the site owner's request.)
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27th-Jun-2007 12:47 pm Visitations by Kest (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Zechs/Treize
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] kestrelsan
Author Website: Fanfiction by Kest

Why this must be read: Because this is such a gentle, lyrical look at an encounter between Treize and Zechs during the war. Even though this is just a short piece, it sticks with you because the details are so perfect.

Excerpt )

Visitations
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27th-Jun-2007 12:44 pm Touch the World by Jei (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Heero/Duo
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: the turnip patch

Why this must be read: Because it's long, well-written, and darkly funny. After a few uneventful, meaningless years of acquiescence to the new government's plan for his life, a couple of unexpected events propel Heero back into action.

Touch the World is one of the fandom's best-paced stories, and its plot fits well into GW canon, with various factions and individuals attempting to carry out their conflicting and labyrinthine agendas.

Excerpt )

Touch the World
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27th-Jun-2007 12:41 pm Axiomatic by Jei (PG)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Heero/Duo
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: the turnip patch

Why this must be read: Because it has one of the most original premises of any GW story I've ever read. In the years since the war, Heero has made a new life for himself, and adapted to living among ordinary people. Still in contact with Une, although not with the other pilots, he sometimes takes on jobs for her. This time, it's more serious than any of his previous peacetime missions.

Axiomatic, besides being a long, plotty thriller, is also a sci-fi story that explores deeply into an oft-neglected aspect of GW canon. While preparing this rec, I discovered that Axiomatic now has a sequel, Additive Identity (which doesn't surprise me; the ending of Axiomatic kind of cries out for one.)

Excerpt )

Axiomatic
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26th-Jun-2007 01:33 pm Twilight by One Person (R)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: N/A
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: DreadfullyAwry.com

Why this must be read: Because it's the best Duo backstory you'll ever read. One Person takes some of the things we know about Duo's early life: that he doesn't seem to have, or ever have had, parents, that his friends all died in a plague on one of the L2 colonies, that he was a thief, and spins them out into an amazing story.

Twilight isn't just Duo backstory, though. It's a thoughtful and engrossing picture of what an epidemic, accompanied by a water shortage, would be like on an isolated colony in space. In that sense, it's not just GW fanfic, it's an intriguing original sci-fi story.

Excerpt )

You definitely don't need to know the fandom to enjoy this story.

Twilight
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26th-Jun-2007 01:20 pm Loaded by One Person (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Heero/Duo
Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: DreadfullyAwry.com

Why this must be read: Because so many GW stories, fun and often surprisingly excellent as they can be, gloss over the fact that all the protagonists are killers.

A truly disturbing story about being a terrorist and what that does to a person. About what it means for Duo, specifically, to be a fifteen-year-old terrorist who enjoys blowing up bases and then goes back to pretending to be an ordinary boarding-school student.

Excerpt )


Loaded
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26th-Jun-2007 01:07 pm Rattlesnakes by Trixie (NC-17)
Fandon: GUNDAM WING (fandom summary)
Pairing: Duo/Trowa, Heero/Duo
Author on LJ: [livejournal.com profile] trixie_chick and [livejournal.com profile] butterflychase
Author Website: trixie's fanfiction

Why this must be read: Because Trixie's Trowa is brilliantly characterized, displaying all the outward taciturnity of his canon behaviour, but with a fabulously funny internal voice.

After the war, a severely depressed Trowa isn't particularly enthusiastic when his therapist suggests that he switch to group counselling sessions---with Duo Maxwell. However, he finds in Duo and unexpected ally, and even a friend.

Excerpt )


Rattlesnakes
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