Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles / Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: None
Length: 1146 words
Author on LJ: musesinspire
Author Website: Twisting the Hellmouth
Why this must be read: For my last rec of the month, I wanted to give you all one last crossover. I know the Terminator franchise predates the Buffyverse by over a decade, but for me, I never would have discovered or so loved the former without the latter. Plus, Sarah Connor would slay the crap out of any vampire foolish enough to cross her path, Called or no, and she's basically been doing the work of a Watcher as long as we've known her, right?  This isn't perhaps the best-written fic out there, but it's a damn good idea. (And if you want another quality rec before I sign off, loop back to Seven Sunday Mother-Daughter Mornings, which has already been recced here.)

( Remember; it’s in your best interests to keep John safe. )
 
She Is Destiny

Fandom: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles / Being Human (UK)
Pairing: None
Length: 1138 words
Author on LJ: istne_pieklo
Author Website: Fiction Press
Why this must be read: When I watched Series 4 of Being Human, my first reaction to Eve Sands was, "Jeez, she sounds like a merger of John Connor and Connor from Angel..." This short but one-of-a-kind crossover fic doesn't include everyone's least favorite resident of the Hyperion Hotel, but it does feature an ongoing exchange between two would-be saviors who are, as the author calls them, yesterday's teenagers. "Doll Parts" is surreal as anything in either fandom--it's actually tagged "mindfuck"--but well worth a read.

( The world ends many times. Possibly every day. )
 
Doll Parts

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: girl!John Connor/Cameron, girl!John Connor/Riley Dawson
Length: ~3k words
Author on LJ: mouthmount
Author Website: blueinkedwalls
Why this must be read: Always-a-girl!John Connor is an interesting concept. As the central character of TSCC--Sarah herself--is female, and the human resistance has plenty of room for women, we know this isn't a universe that's particularly or inherently misogynistic...but gender still has a role to play, and "lost forever in the desert" is a smart and deeply felt exploration of that. The details of "Jane Connor" and her relationship to machines and metal are particularly interesting to me, and it's curious how much and how little changes with a simple flip of a chromosome. 

( Light spit across her mother’s face, her open eyes and smoothed mouth, her mother staring down her own mortality and tucking it away into the crease of a one-day scar.  )
 
lost forever in the desert

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: John Connor / Allison Young, John Connor / Cameron
Length: ~2k words
Author on LJ: prefer_my_life
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: It's frustrating when high-concept shows are canceled in the middle of their runs, and even more so when the creator doesn't have (or doesn't take) the opportunity to hint at how things would be resolved.* My personal post-"Born to Run" headcanon is that Sarah took John's as humanity's savior (a la irony_rocks's "White Rabbit," which has been recced here before), but if she was always going to be as Moses, this is the version of continuity I'd want to see. John Connor becomes the leader he was always supposed to be in a lot of fics, but this one takes into account his age, his strange relationship(s) with Allison/Cameron an what, exactly, Catherine Weaver and John Henry were more or less up to.

( No, the worst part is his mom’s long dead and there’s nobody left to remind him that Cameron was just a machine. )
 
gone to meet your maker

*Seriously, has Josh Friedman or anyone explained what was going to happen had they stayed on the air?

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: None
Length: ~1k words
Author on LJ: daria234
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Written for a "comfort food" prompt, this short fic examines John's relationship to his favorite dessert--and, underneath it, his mother, his machines, and his inability to get to just be a kid. John's one of the human characters I'm interested in least in the Terminator universe, but this is one of those fics that makes me rethink my stance.

( Maybe it was because the last place they lodged, it was mostly squirrel meat and Saltines. )
 
Cold Comfort

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Gen
Length: ~9k words
Author on LJ: laniew1
Author Website: delicious
Why this must be read: Told from Derek's perspective, "The Wind Speaks" follows our little band of post-apocalyptic heroes after they find the recently arrived John Connor and try to contend with his connection to each of them and to the mysterious no-last-name Sarah. It incorporates elements of the latter movies while staying firmly rooted in the TSCC continuity, and the characterization is right on, especially with Sarah.

( He sounds sure, confident in that. Derek lets it go because there are so few things that Kyle is sure about anymore, he’ll let him have this one until the boy proves him wrong. )
 
The Wind Speaks

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Gen
Length: 1325 words
Author on LJ halcyon_shift
Author Website: Dreamwidth
Why this must be read: Short but poignant, this piece examines a small, nonspecific moment in Sarah's life mid-series and her evolving relationships to and perceptions of her son, his father, and his uncle.

( It has something to do with the machine and the slaughterhouse they used to call a bathroom. )
 
eight hundred rounds per minute

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: John Connor/Allison Young
Length: ~2600 words
Author on LJ wanderlustlover
Author Website: Tumblr
Why this must be read: "Allison From Palmdale" gave us an incredible insight not only into Summer Glau's talents as an actress but also into the pair of characters she plays. In this fic, the author explores Allison's experiences, in relation to John and to her time as a captive and unwilling cyborg model. The woman presented here is savvy and skeptical--she doesn't quite accept the mythos of John Connor, even as she falls into his circle--and the way she deals with the machine(s) that will be Cameron gave me a new respect for a character I hadn't thought much about before.

( A bar code instead of the name she refused to say. She didn’t scream as it burned off her skin. )

To Learn The Games You Play

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Sarah Connor / Derek Reese
Length: ~1500 words
Author on LJ deslea
Author Website: Literatti
Why this must be read: I prefer Sarah/Kyle, but I'm open to Sarah/Derek when it's done right, and this is one of those cases. "The Promise" is short but packs a heck of a punch as it circles Sarah's single-mindedness, Derek's desire for life, and their shared humanity. You won't believe what this author can do in so little space, really.

( You're allowed to matter, too. )
 
The Promise

Fandom: Terminator
Pairing: Sarah Connor/Kyle Reese
Length: ~5400 words
Author on LJ thepouncer: 
Author Website: The Carousel
Why this must be read: There are plenty of variations on "Kyle Reese lives" fic, though I like the take on this one, which doesn't let you forget that John was Kyle's commander before he was his son, and that Sarah and Kyle aren't so much deeply in love as thrown together and making the most of their reality. This story only takes T1 into account (and was written well before TSCC premiered), but I would've loved to see it extended to include and further complicate later events. 

( Besides, what could a woman so obviously pregnant do in a situation like this? )
 
The Unwritten Future

Fandom: Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles / Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Buffy Summers/John Connor
Length: 1900 words
Author on LJ jedibuttercup
Author Website: Jedi Buttercup
Why this must be read: John Connor has a fair amount in common with Buffy Summers when you think about it--an un-asked for destiny, a responsibility to save the world, a mentor who blurs the role between parent and everything else, and a tendency to fall for the 'enemy.' In this fic, we get a glance into what Buffy's life might be like, if she'd survived Judgement Day and fell in with the Reese brothers and Connor's inner circle. It's het but not particularly shippy--this pair is kindred spirits more than lovers, and the focus here is more on the good fight and the toll it takes on people who have been fighting for too long and still have miles to go. 

( Then Skynet invents time travel, and all bets are off. )
 
Hang In There, Slayer

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Sarah Connor/Derek Reese
Length: ~3k words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: There's nothing star-crossed about the relationship between Sarah and the older Reese brother. It's debatable whether they even like each other as co-people. But they need each other, and the understand each other, and ultimately they don't really have anyone else to connect with, to a certain extent. So here we have a fic that (briefly) explores their relationship and its inherent complications and twists. It's also fairly hot *and* squarely in character--a rare combination.

( Derek thinks maybe things were a lot less fucked-up living in the middle of a war zone, and that's probably the most fucked-up part of it all. )
 
Daze

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: None
Length: ~4800 words
Author on LJ: amilyn
Author Website: FFN
Why this must be read: I only discovered the Terminator 'verse about a year ago, but Sarah Connor has quickly become one of my all-time favorite Awesome Action Ladies.* n this montage-style story, the author follows our heroine through her transformation between T1 and T2 (though with references here and there to TSCC elements). Amilyn does a beautiful job of showing both Sarah's complicated but often warm love for her son and her willingness to kick ass.

*I dream of crossovers where she shoots things alongside River Song. Or Zoe Washburn. Or both, I'm not picky.

( The men at the gun stores were gruff but protective. They sized up her cast, her crutches, her youth, her boobs. Always her boobs and the brilliant smile she'd used to get good tips. )
 
Lay Across the World and Explode Everything

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Barbara Chamberlain/Vick
Length: ~12k words
Author on LJ: tevere
Author Website: Dreamwidth
Why this must be read: There are lot of one-off characters in the TSCC-verse, both metal and human. "Someone I Used To Know" tells an interesting story of both: Barbara Chamberlain, who was designing a traffic program, and her husband Vick, who turned out to be a T-888. This fic assumes that he was always a machine (rather than being replaced by one, a la Catherine Weaver) and runs with it to some interesting places, playing off of Cameron's point about people being fooled by machines.

( His facility with numbers always awed her, a talent that lay somewhere between autistic and otherworldly. )
 
Someone I Used To Know

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: John/Riley
Length: ~4800 words
Author on LJ: sabaceanbabe
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Most TSCC fics that deal with the fallout of "Born to Run" assume that John will end up getting with Allison from Palmdale (or try to), and that he'll be most interested in spending time with the Reese brothers. "A Patch of Sunshine" takes a different route, considering how he might follow up on his (one-sided, in a timey-wimey way) relationship with the one real innocent that we meet in all of this mess. The fic is sad and sweet and worth a read. 

( Some of the older tunnel dwellers disliked even the idea of eating rats, but Riley had never known anything else. She didn't know what all the fuss was about, anyway. )
 
A Patch of Sunshine

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Cameron/John, canonical Kyle/Sarah
Length: ~9K words
Author on LJ: tevere
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Well, yesterday's rec was a little to merry for a franchise based on an unavoidable robot apocalypse, so here's a post-series exploration of an assortment of characters and their day-to-day survival and how they view their alleged savior. Honest and a bit haunting in the way that the best Terminator fics are.

( Rabbit and butterfly and duck, Kyle had said, pointing, and the renaming had seemed fitting, as though this new landscape had no right to resemble, even in name, what it had been before. )
 
Tell Me How This Ends

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Cameron/Morris, kind of. More gen, really.
Length: 2740 words
Author on LJ: svmadelyn
Author Website: Medication for Sleep Deprivation
Why this must be read: So, here's a fun entry into a rarely-comedic fandom that looks at Cameron, John, and the odd "sibling" relationship between them from an outsider's perspective, specifically that of Morris from shop class in season 1. This story is short and fun, and it reminds me more than a bit of the early seasons of Buffy, where our heroes do what they do and everyone else is completely clueless and attempting to rationalize.

( They have to pass through the school's metal detectors again, but they wave Cameron through after she reminds them. )
 
She Moves (In Mysterious Ways)

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: None
Length: 985 words
Author on LJ: daria234
Author Website: Dreamwidth
Why this must be read: I love a well-rendered "five things" fic, and this is that. The author uses the numbered format in effective serve of both the narrative and the timey-wimey-ness of the Terminator 'verse. In less than a thousand words, zhe also does an exceptional job of piecing together and pulling apart Derek's ultimately very complicated relationship with his once and future nephew.

( Lie to me. Lie to my desperate, angry, teenaged face and do it well. )
 
Five Times Derek Lied to John

Happy New Year and happy the fact that Judgement Day (biblical, Skynet-initiated, Mayan, or otherwise) is not yet upon us! I'll be reccing for the Terminator 'verse this month, so get ready for more of the mental mindfuckery that only TSCC can bring!

Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: Sarah/Derek
Length: 14.2k
Author on LJ: deslea
Author Website: Literatti
Why this must be read: "Convergence" will scramble your brains as much as anything actually shown in TSCC canon. Following the cliffhanger of "Born to Run," Sarah does what she needs to do to ensure that humanity still gets its savior and the Reese brothers still go back in time. There's an impressive blend of old and new characters, some good shippy times, and though it'll take a bit for everything to make sense, this story is well worth the read. 

( Their shared climax felt and sounded like a mortal wound. )
 
Convergence

Fandom: Fringe/Terminator 2
Pairing:Olivia Dunham/Sarah Connor (sort of)
Length: ~8,000
Author on LJ: tcbg77
Author Website: Author's fic tag
Why this must be read:
This post-season two story is set during Olivia's incarceration on the Other Side. In the summary, the author says, "This is either a tale of two women in padded cells shooting the breeze and plotting further ways to be awesome, or a tale of Olivia Dunham talking to herself." Even by the ending, you can't be sure Sarah Connor is only a hallucination.

Read City in My Mind

Hi, I'm streussal and I'll be reccing Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles this month. There should be a reasonable variety of fic. :)

Fandom: TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES/TERMINATOR (movie-verse)
Characters/Pairing: Sarah-centric, mostly gen (some Sarah/Derek).
Length: 5400 words
Author on LJ: irony_rocks
Author Website: Fic Masterlist
Why this must be read:
This is a post-finale fic where, in John's absence, Sarah rises to leadership in humanity's fight for survival. The author has a fantastic grasp on Sarah's character, and how she is basically already a leader, already that person who maintains emotional distance from others. The fic seamlessly blends in movie-verse characters (Kate Brewster), and characters younger than the age we see them at in the series (Derek, Kyle, Allison).

White Rabbit

Fandom: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA/TERMINATOR THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES
Pairing: Cameron, John, Sarak, Derek, Ellison, Caprica, Starbuck
Author on LJ: beccatoria 
Author Website: fic tag, 
Why this must be read:

You'd think, what with both of them being about killer robots who want to destroy humanity, that there would be more crossovers between BSG and Terminator.  Particularly after we found out that Earth had already been destroyed by a nuclear apocalypse caused by a war between humans and cybernetic intelligences.  Alas, it is not so.  This gem, however, fits the bill nicely.  Kara and Caprica are on a Raptor looking for Earth.  They crash there.  Team Connor finds them.  And neither is quite sure what to make of the other.  There's not much more to this fic than that, but it's well-done and each canon gives an interesting point of view of the other.

( snippet of fic )

One Winged Birds

Title: Appropriate Responses by CrimsonQuills
Pairing: Gen; Ronald Speirs, Carwood Lipton
Length: 1,295
Author on LJ: [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
Author Website: CrimsonQuills.com
Why this must be read:

The premise is so very cracky, yet the thought of Speirs as a Terminator from the future is just too perfect a scenario to pass up. I'll admit these are not two fandoms that automatically scream out 'crossover', but the author does a great job bringing these very different canons together.

In all his months of training and battle with Dog Company, no one had ever noticed anything out of the ordinary. Speirs had never even had to lie. The subject simply never came up. The complete success of his efforts at passing must have made him complacent, thrown off his calculations, because Lipton notices right after Foy.

Appropriate Responses

Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from Terminator
Pairing:  Kyle Reese/Sarah Connor
Length: short
Author on LJ:  indiefic
Author's website: indiefic.com

Why this must be read:
My last Terminator rec is another 'Kyle has survived' story, but this one more gritty, less humorous - and also far more sensual. Kyle and Sarah, together, and the love that's between them makes for some nice scenes in this fic. But there's also Kyle's reaction when Sarah says she's pregnant, and the reality of why he is there crashes back down on him.


Revelations

Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from Terminator
Pairing:  -
Length: short
Author on LJ: gega_cai
Author's website: -

Why this must be read:
Because it pictures a very important moment in Kyle's life: getting Sarah's picture from John Connor. What went on right before that? Gega cai gives us an impression - and she also gives us a glimpse of Sarah in her son.


A mother's grief (becomes another man's passion)

Since I didn't want to clutter up all of Friday I've put a wait between my vidrecs. But I couldn't leave Aliens out of it. Unfortunately my favorite Aliens vids seem to have dissappeared, as happens on YouTube ;-( Therefore I'll rec one who's every bit as good, but not only Aliens, it's the Terminator as well. What can I say, there are a LOT of Terminator vids out there! No wonder when a movie is that good *g* 

Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from Terminator/Dwayne Hicks from Aliens
Vidder: Baronessa
Musical artist: VAST
Pairing: -
Vidder on LJ: don't know
Vidder's website: I only know the you tube channel: Baronessa

Why this vid kicks ass:
It's the music... wonderful song IMO. And how the images of first Reese, than Hicks, Reese, again, HIcks, those awesome marines entering the station on LV-426 fit to it.... It's how it shows why so many people became an instant fan of Michael Biehn when watching one of these two movies.


The Best of Michael Biehn from Aliens and The Terminator

Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from Terminator
Vidder: beltain
Musical artist: Sissel Kyrkjebo and Espen Lind
Pairing: Kyle Reese/Sarah Connor
Vidder on LJ: don't know
Vidder's website: I only know the you tube channel Ava's channel

Why this vid kicks ass:
Because it shows what to me is the heart of the Terminator story: the love between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor. Reese fell in love with the 'Legend' before he ever saw her and came across time for her. His believe in her and his sacrificing love made her strong, made her fight, for their son and for mankind's future. And that's what this vid shows beautifully.


Terminator Fan video

Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from Terminator
Vidder: derlokar
Musical artist: Brad Fiedel
Pairing: -
Vidder on LJ: don't know
Vidder's website: http://www.mbrulz.euweb.cz/

Why this vid kicks ass:
There are a lot of great Terminator vids out there, but somehow this one has always stayed my favorite. It captures the essence of the movie and uses some wonderful techniques for it, that gives it its own unique look. Plus I love the soundtrack of the movie, so to me it's a plus that that's the music used here. Despite the title of the vid, its focus is the movie itself and all its characters. Although, like in the movie, Kyle Reese is what brings it all together.


The Terminator Michael Biehn Rulz Trailer 2004

Another story about Kyle Reese and John Connor meeting each other after Doomsday. Only in this story John finds Kyle when Kyle is only ten years old. So it's also about growing up in that terrible, machine-ravaged world.


Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from Terminator
Pairing: none
Length: rather long: 13 chapters, although each chapter is not too long
Author on LJ: uscathena
Author's website: Atty's grotto

Why this must be read:
One of the things that, too me, made The Terminator the heartbreaking story it is underneat the action, are Reese's memories/dreams and the few mentions he makes about his life before he crossed through time. What a harsh, hard life it has been... and he escaped it only so briefly. That's what Atty's story is about, about growing up in a devastated and destroyed world, where you are constantly hunted as a human. And at the same time it's also about John Connor and the enormous responsibility he is shouldering every day.

Atty describes the hard, day to day life of Kyle as an orphaned child, together with the other orphans, but she isn't sentimental about it, just like these resilient children aren't, who are too busy with survival. The true horror of it is there in the story, but more in the hints and the details. She draws on the movie Kyle and the teen John Connor in Terminator 2 for the characterisation of Kyle and John in her story and in my opinion she has them spot on. One of the many things I like in her description of their relationship is how John has known the world 'before', while Kyle only knows the world they now live in.

I love this story and can only say: go read! It's poignant and at times heartbreaking, but also about hope, friendship, love and not giving up.


( A glimpse at life after Doomsday )



Childhood
 
If that link gives problems, it's the first story on this page

More Terminator. Anyone else ever wondered about the relationship between John Connor and Kyle Reese, before Kyle went back in time?

Fandom: MICHAEL BIEHN CHARACTERS - Kyle Reese from The Terminator
Pairing: none
Length: six very short fics
Author on LJ: I have no idea, or maybe it's this (although the same name does't have to mean a thing of course): gatekeeper
Author's website: Gatekeeper's stories can be found on the fanfiction net

Why this must be read:
I've always wondered what it must have been like for John Connor to meet his father - younger than him and completely in the dark about their relationship. How to deal with that? And how to be his commander, having to make decisions that send people into danger on a daily basis, but with the knowledge that this particular man shouldn't die? Yet? But also knowing he can't let Reese suspect something is going on? Would he build a relationship with his father, or not? And then comes the day he has to send him to his death....

Gatekeeper tells most of these delightful stories from John's pov, but at one point she also turns to Reese's. She shows their growing relationship in short, but very telling snapshots taken from their life. And what makes it all even more wonderful, she manages to put in some very down to earth thoughts from them, especially from John, right smack in the middle of that bleak and bloody future. She couples this with a very subtle humor. Both of which help make the two men become very real.



( Excerpt )

Full circle

Father/Son quality time

Parental instinct

Fate

Repair work

Words unspoken