Fandom: LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT
Characters, Pairing: Goren, Eames (implied Goren/Eames)
Length: 1307
Author on LJ: justanotherfic
Author Website: http://justanotherfic.livejournal.com/tag/%5Bfanfiction%5D+fanfiction
Why this must be read: Unlike Law & Order: Original, Law & Order: Criminal Intent delves more deeply into the personal lives of the series characters, and their relationships with one another. Goren and Eames, going into their eighth season on the show, are extremely popular characters. This story portrays Goren's internal mindspace and his relationship with Eames beautifully :)

Summary: Love is an infinite regress: You can't love someone who doesn't love themselves. But how can you love yourself if no one else shows you that there is something there that’s actually worth loving?
Excerpt: It’s simple, really. He just doesn’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. He’s never been in love – has never allowed himself to love someone; depend on someone – because, possibly, no one has ever loved him.

Infinite Regress

Author s.a.
Fandom Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Pairing none
Author on LJ sathinks
Author website fubos
Why this story must be read

Look, I love long stories. I crave plot like it's a drug. The higher the wordcount, the more likely I am to read a story, and it'll sit there open on my desktop for days while I work and write and then I'll come back and read, and yeah. I love long stories.

Which is why it's so strange that I love this story.

Occasionally, a writer will come along whose work conveys an absolute understanding of a character. For s.a., this character is Goren, and that... that's a remarkable feat. Goren is not someone whose layers you can peel away to reveal the soft cuddly teddy bear underneath. If there is a teddy bear under all of that psychosis, he'll bite your hand off and swallow it. But s.a., in one of the most powerful short stories -- so short it's just this side of flash fiction -- I've ever read, reveals Goren to us, and also illustrates how the bizarre partnership of Eames and Goren balances itself so delicately. And she shows us the Goren that could be, without that carefully orchestrated balance.

s.a. paints one of the most realistic depictions of partnership -- cop or otherwise -- I've ever read. Read this story for that, or read this story for the solid characterization of Goren, or read it for both. (And if you enjoy it, don't forget to feedback the author.)

Focus

Fandom Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Pairing Bobby Goren/Alex Eames
Author on LJ daygloparker
Author Website my muse wears prada.
Why this must be read

Chances are, if you've been in this fandom for more than a month or two, you've been directed to this story as the best possible way to write a Goren/Eames relationship, and that's because it's absolutely, completely, and utterly true.

Goren is mentally unstable, but Eames is not a bastion of normalcy herself, and this story relishes Eames' issues, with relationships, with her job, and with Goren. Tahlia gives us a look at Eames' history, and the way that affects her relationships. She's a strong woman, one of the strongest female characters I've ever run into, and she has to be in order to stand up to the hurricane force that is Bobby Goren. But how does her strength hold up in the rest of her life?

( Excerpt from Eyes Forward, Shoulders Back. )

Eyes Forward, Shoulders Back

If you enjoyed this story, don't forget to send feedback to the author.

Hi, I'm Tobias Charity, and I'll be driving the Law & Order crack van this month. (Yes, Law & Order has a fandom.) I'm gonna work backwards and kick it off with Law & Order: Criminal Intent and cover that for a week or so, and then move into the other spinoff, Special Victims Unit, and finish up the month with the original recipe. Posting three summaries at once would... possibly be *slightly* overwhelming. What you can expect from my by way of recs: I love slash, but this fandom is tiny, so there's not a ton of slash. The strengths of the writers lie in blending gen and het so that you don't even know you're reading het. Rather like the show, in fact. Except far better. So expect a little sprinkling of everything.

Guest summary by daygloparker, who wins on levels of obsessiveness I didn't know *existed*.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent

( In the criminal justice system... )