Fic recs: mostly long-form

[raspberryhunter]

*SGU: So I recently discovered the whole SGU show/fandom (uh, obviously), and the huge freakily amazing thing going on in that fandom is CleanWhiteRoom's fics, especially Force Over Distance. This is a master of the long-form, here. (395k!) I must append here that I'm a bit of a comma stickler, and I'm of the camp that does not accept that "alright" is a word (though I am informed that The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style says it is fine ;) ), and even though CWR and I have agreed to disagree on "alright" I am still super-recommending this fic (and this gives you an idea of how amazing it must be, because usually that kind of thing makes me stop reading the fic, and what actually happened is that I dropped everything to read 395k). In fact, even if you don't know the SGU show, I'm informed that it's still possible to read this and enjoy it. It's got it all -- a tight plot, humor, worldbuilding, awesome characters. IT EVEN HAS A TIME LOOP CHAPTER. I am also so psyched by CWR's clear love of and knowledge of the hard sciences (D-branes! YANG-MILLS THEORY. "The universe doesn't have an edge that one can travel to. It's spatially infinite." YES). There are also two other AUs in the works (EDIT 7-31-12: THIS MEANS THEY ARE WIPs. Sorry!): Ad Noctum (which I love) and Mathematique (which is a huge crossover with SG-1 and SG-A, and which I like very much but will probably like more once I watch those).

*In Once Upon a Time, there are two major things going on in that fandom on AO3:

-Fyre is writing the heck out of it. My favorite is her Home Before Midnight, which has two sequels. This was the one that started it all, I believe. It focuses on and has a deep compassion for all the characters, like OUAT itself. She's currently writing a season 1 AU WIP that is rather interesting.

-THE Rumpel/Belle-AU fic, and I say this as someone who maxed out on Rumpel/Belle quite a long time ago, is a WIP, A Bed of Thorns. It is quite possibly the only explicit fic I will ever rec, because it is that rare beast: a fic where the sex is actually there as character development. (Okay, honestly, it's a bit more indulgent than that, and I've started skipping some of the sex parts, but it's way better about it than most of the explicit stuff I read.) It is also an extremely rare beast in that it doesn't gloss over Rumpel's evil side. As an AU, this is very possible to read even if you know nothing about canon.

*I recommended this a while back on my media-rant journal before I got this one, but since I'm talking about the long form, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, alas, another WIP, but worth every chapter even if he never does finish it, is flipping fantastic. From my rec there:

What would happen if a) Harry were brought up in a loving super-rational super-academic household, and b) everyone and everything in the HP universe was, well... more-or-less reasonable? (Not necessarily sane, mind you -- just not holding the Idiot Ball.)... Harry starts out by explaining things like observer bias to various people at Hogwart, and decides to run experiments to figure out how magic works! He explains Punnett squares to Draco in the context of blood purity! The first several chapters are a little one-note like that, but I don't care because I love that note! I would have loved it had it all been riffs on that, but as it progresses it also acquires a really interesting plot, layers on layers of hints to be explained, I think maybe every character in the entire fic is now involved in at least one secret plot, and I find the relationship between Harry and Draco extremely moving (and no, not in that way; it's gen/het).

Comments

[ecaterin]

AHAHAHA, so the time loop chapter is like SG1? I am going to have to watch that now!

Yes LOL! Thus her into to that chapter, where she said she felt delightfully justified indulging herself and could get away with it cause she's writing in the SG fandom :D There's actually a very similar time-loop episode early on in SG1 where Jack O'Neil and Teal'c are in continuous time and the rest of a huge chunk of the *galaxy* is looping. Initially Jack and Teal'c are refining their ability to explain stuff to SGC so they can get some stuff done....and then someone comments on how fun it must be that they can do anything without long term consequences. So then there's a montage of scenes that are hilarious - Jack & Teal'c hitting golf balls into the Stargate event horizon (Teal'c dressed in plaid awful golfing duds is freakin' hilarious), Jack passionately kissing Sam, a few other things.

SG1 is delightful, but it's a totally different animal than SGU - it's more light hearted, the eps usually touch on the arc but are self contained adventures where Our Heroes Always Win....you know, the old Star Trek structure (complete, in the early seasons, with the old CAMERA PUSH IN! and repeated dramatic music cues - makes me nostalgic :D). The characters are completely endearing though. Someone compiled a "watch these arc eps" list for the first 3 seasons that we found very helpful....and which I cannot currently track down. I'll find it.

(I still have two eps of SGU to go...)

omg, you were still finishing up? Man, what a place to end, yeah? I mean....the eps where we see what happened to the them 2000 years ago were a gift - we got to see an ending. And the final half the final ep was just gorgeous visually, emotionally, character-ly - I cry through the whole thing when I watch it. So, not a Farscape NOOOOOOOOOO! ending at least! But.....aaaaaaaaargh.


I just love Greer. "Do I look like I am having an even remotely good time?" The heartbreaking part where Young disarms Rush, who reveals it was never loaded! "I feel like maybe I'm starting to get where you're coming from." BWAHAHAHAHA.

Man, I loff Greer, but FoD makes me love him 100X more than before :D He turned his damage to such a refined sense balance, and that was well written in the show, and brilliantly built on in FoD.
Oh MAN. The loop scene where Young slowly and carefully disarms Rush might be one of my favorite moments in the book. There's no doubt that 'service' is one of my biggest kink buttons, and the flavor that gets me the hardest, is 'acute perceptiveness when partner is in extremis.' Also, trust. If you look back at the preceding section, Rush had laid out the whole, "I'll *never* trust you, and you'll *never* trust me," bylaw down just a few scenes before. Then the time loops happen in which Young isn't even experiencing the learning curve of, "How the fuck do I get him to trust me on very short notice??"......and yet they hit that point where Rush is worn down to the point where he has no veneer or defenses and can only ask, "please...." and Young gets up & puts on his boots & tells Rush & Greer that he trusts them both. Lovely.


Eli interrogating drunk!Rush, YES! Destiny Bingo IS MY FAVORITE. "Team Chloe and Matt. That is the worst team name ever."

ROFL - yes!! I've read the funny scenes to my sons cause they love good scifi and they both appreciate good fanfiction, and the younger thought 'worst team name ever!' was soooo funny. He's been laughing about that for 2 days now :D


My other absolute favorite is Eli's list of grievances. "Number of CRITICAL PIECES OF INFORMATION WITHELD FROM ELI: DNR: Unknown, PROBABLY AT LEAST ONE MILLION ITEMS" -- and that he graphed the fraction of briefings he's been running over time -- SO ELI! I heart Eli SO MUCH.

Bwaa ha ha ha :D YK, as you've listed these, you've reminded me to go back and bookmark them. There are so many great scenes, but I get involved in the narrative and forget to hit the bookmark buttons! Eli's 'voice' stays really truly consistently Eli throughout FoD - and his voice is so distinct from every other character and distinct from the narrative voice, that it's just a joy to hear it :)

Speaking of the time loop chapter, because of this chapter and this whole fic in general, in my headcanon Rush and Greer are TOTALLY partner-allies, and it is WEIRD to watch canon and realize they're ACTUALLY NOT. hee.

They make a great team, really :D I've been experiencing the same ?? moments in our re-watch of SGU, realizing I'm expecting subtext or dynamics from FoD that 'haven't happened yet' in the SGU-canon-verse :P

[I'm also in love with the construction: /?/ and want to type it all the time now, but no one would understand :D]


I really wish... I think with five years they could have done freaking amazing things with SGU. I really think that first season and the first half of second season was Not All That, and then suddenly it snapped into place and whoa, look at this! (Also, Bashir? LOVE BASHIR. He was always my favorite!)

They REALLY could have, it's heart breaking. It had the potential to be the best arc scifi show of the teens, just as BSG was of the late oughts and Farscape was of the early oughts, and Babylon 5 was of the late 90s.

Firefly is my I-may-never-love-any-show-like-this TV show. I fall hard for not just arc but for ensemble casts that are working together, thus SGU, DS9, ST in general ... not quite as much Farscape (though I admire it very much) or BSG because there was more tension there... and Firefly just pushed ALLLL my fannish buttons. (I never got much into the fandom, though. I think I tend to gravitate towards smaller fandoms.)

Oh HELLS yes. Firefly was The Perfect Scifi show for me. Ensemble cast (ENSEMBLE=BEST), absolutely fucking fantastic chemistry right out of the gates, a universe that was rich and varied full of everything from whimsy to horror all detailed to the extreme, cinematography to make a feature film jealous, and writing that just never missed a note on character or relationship. I'm sure it would have had its less than good eps if it had enjoyed a full run of 5 years, but it would have been extraordinary to have the full scope of Firefly realized. Thank goodness for Serenity at least....but Firefly couldn't be done justice by anything less than a good long run that it never got.

It's almost impossible for me to rank them, but I'll give it a go: Firefly, Farscape, BSG, SGU, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Babylon 5.....ah hell, that list is actually more like
1. Firefly
2a Farscape
2b BSG
2c SGU
2d Sarah Connor
2e B5

LOLOL! My 11yo is like that, too - if you ask him to name his favorite anything (and school teachers ask this kind of thing all the time, very aggravating) he totally freezes up cause he loves all the good stuff equally!

However, if you like arc, you MUST check out Veronica Mars first season even though there is no speculative fiction there. But the arc, the ARC. I have never seen anything on TV like it.

I shall have to check it out! Speaking of "this show KNOWS ARC, you should see it!" if you haven't watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, you totally absolutely should. I'm an enormous T2 fan. I watch it a couple of times a year and have since it came out on VCR :P When I heard they were making TSCC, I was horrified - they couldn't POSSIBLY do justice to the movie, I refused to even watch. Then we found out that Bear McCreary had done the sound track (he did BSG's and it's extraordinary), and at the same time someone on LJ wrote a post that really caught my attention. And hey, Summer Glau! It's just flat out excellent. Another series that I still get viscerally angry didn't get the chance to continue because it was at such a powerful place.

Really enjoying this thread :D Are we self indulgent in our gushing or what? :D :D :D

[raspberryhunter]

Re SG-1: right. I'm glad to get that clarification, because SGU is so different from how you describe SG-1 that I would be bound to be disappointed without that knowledge. Although I have to say that I loved watching the episode with McKay, and that makes me want to watch more of him... I know that's SG-A, but anyway, something to look forward to. Also I loooooove Claudia Black!

Yeah, the 2000-years arc was... just, unexpectedly, heartbreaking. (I'd been spoiled, by reading FoD if by nothing else, that it occurred, but it was different to watch it...) (And HA Rush, who is so obviously sulking, as Volker points out, that they did it all without him! HEE.

...I wrote that a while back, and then I was thinking about it, and I wonder if what's also going on is that -- all the others' alternate selves have -- a legacy; even Brody, who didn't have kids, had a legacy in the nation he created. The alternate Rush, in contrast, was sterile; all he did was die with the ship, at least to the best of primary!Rush's knowledge. I mean, it's because of him that everyone else is still on the ship and not stranded at Novus, but that's a bit cold comfort, in a way...)

The loop scene where Young slowly and carefully disarms Rush might be one of my favorite moments in the book. There's no doubt that 'service' is one of my biggest kink buttons, and the flavor that gets me the hardest, is 'acute perceptiveness when partner is in extremis.' Also, trust. If you look back at the preceding section, Rush had laid out the whole, "I'll *never* trust you, and you'll *never* trust me," bylaw down just a few scenes before. Then the time loops happen in which Young isn't even experiencing the learning curve of, "How the fuck do I get him to trust me on very short notice??"......and yet they hit that point where Rush is worn down to the point where he has no veneer or defenses and can only ask, "please...." and Young gets up & puts on his boots & tells Rush & Greer that he trusts them both. Lovely.

This. THIS.

And OH Eli. I think what I love about Eli in FoD is that he really assumes the responsibilities (for both crew morale and science) that he's growing towards in canon, but only in those last two episodes does he really reach for it. ELI! LOVE!

So I will make a confession that I simply adored the first two seasons of BSG, and then I really thought it went off the rails -- I don't really do crack plots (Farscape? was not crack plot. Farscape was *brilliant* plot) and I am kind of allergic to TV-show-as-current-politics-commentary. (TV show as general meta commentary, sure! Some of DS9, for example, it's surprising to me that it aired so long ago because the episodes on government control, etc. were so relevant when I watched it several years ago...)

So my list of squee!love is something like
1 Firefly
2 Veronica Mars (I actually think it is much better than Firefly in execution, but not *nearly* as lovable)
3 DS9 (esp later seasons)
4 SGU
5 BSG (vaults up to 3 if I only consider the first two or three seasons)
6 Farscape

...I know. I KNOW. OBVIOUSLY Farscape belongs way up on that list in terms of awesomeness. And I loooove Claudia Black, as I've already said. And Broken!Crichton. And I ship them like crazy. And somehow it doesn't make me squee like the other shows do, and I have no idea why. (One reason, I suspect, is that I watched them on my computer, which tends to make me cranky -- I should watch them on an actual TV, or on my iPad, and see whether that changes my opinion. Weird, stupid things like that can have an effect on me!)

...I haven't seen Sarah Connor! I will put it on my list :) (though I think probably SG-1 and SG-A will be first :) ) (I haven't seen B5 either. I know I need to!)

hee. Yes, self-indulgent gushing for the win! Love it!