Snowflakes and fic recs

[dolorosa_12]

Today's snowflake_challenge had me scratching my head for a few minutes:

In your own space, create a fanwork.



It's hard for me to write fic spontaneously (I tend to write almost exclusively for exchanges, and thus in response to prompts), I don't have any meta or reviews I'm burning to write this very minute, and as for anything involving graphics, that's basically witchcraft for me.

But then I decided to interpret 'a fanwork' as 'a recs post' and kill three birds with one stone: fulfill today's challenge prompt, make some recs that can be posted on recthething's Thursday community recs post, and do the 'Community Thursday' challenge of interacting with a Dreamwidth comm on a Thursday.

All my fandoms are small book fandoms — the sorts of things that people only write for during exchanges and fests, if at all — and so they don't have a huge amount of continuous activity on AO3. What I tend to do is periodically sweep the archive for all these fandoms, and read everything new that has been posted that takes my fancy. As a result of this reading, I have three new things to rec.


A Way More Liberal (16744 words) by anonymous_yet_again
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Benjamin January/Rose Vitrac January, Benjamin January/Abishag Shaw, Minor or Background Relationship(s), (canon and not!)
Characters: Benjamin January, Rose Vitrac January, Abishag Shaw, Hannibal Sefton, Dominique Viellard, Chloe Viellard, cameos from other favorites!
Additional Tags: Case Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, canon-typical descriptions of murder, Implied/Referenced Suicide, (very much a background thing but tagged as a warning), Polyamory, this is at its heart a ben/shaw getting-together fic, but I wrote a whole case around it because I felt like it
Summary:

It's Carnival season in New Orleans, meaning that Benjamin January is playing piano every night, but when one of Rose's students' brother is accused of murdering his wife, what can January do but agree to look into the case? As he does, he learns more about the relationships of those involved, of his friends and family, and even of himself, than he could have imagined.
________________

But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them; so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.

"Lover's Infiniteness," John Donne

I loved this: a slow-burn getting-together fic for one of my favourite pairings in this fandom (but written in a way that didn't break up the established canonical relationship, which I also love) with a great lengthy casefic interwoven around it.

and i will rest my head upon that shore (3885 words) by Lirazel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rose Vitrac January & Hannibal Sefton
Characters: Rose Vitrac January, Hannibal Sefton
Additional Tags: post-Crimson Angel, Hurt/Comfort, implied future Rose/Ben/Hannibal
Summary:

The first night out from Havana, he stumbled into the small cabin while Rose was brushing her hair. The scent of cigar smoke from the saloon above accompanied him into the room, and when he caught sight of her, he immediately launched into poetry.

A Crimson Angel coda.

Yet another relationship configuration that I love in this fandom, with great character voices and sense of place.

On the Merits of Loneliness (2030 words) by risingfire17
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Paige Mahoney/Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim, Paige Mahoney & Jaxon Hall
Characters: Paige Mahoney, Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim, Jaxon Hall, Nicklas Nygård
Additional Tags: Heavy Angst, Sad Backstory, this was supposed to be fluffy, and then i got derailed halfway through, i blame jaxon hall, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, Referenced Emotional Abuse, basically Paige can't have fluff because of Jax, I blame everything wrong in Paige's life on Jax, but Christ I'm obsessed with their dynamic, it's like a trainwreck I can't look away
Summary:

Paige passes out from blood loss after helping Warden, and she's almost inclined to accept his surprisingly tender care, until she has a memory that re-establishes mistrust.

I am here for Bone Season fic that basically digs into Paige's insecurities and determines that they're almost all Jaxon's fault.


This challenge was a good reminder that I should do these kinds of sweeps of AO3 more frequently, and post the results, even if they're likely just to be of interest to me.

Comments

[corvidology]

I'm not familiar with this fandom but if I might make a suggestion, I set up RSS feeds for all my tiny fandom loves so if anyone writes anything for them it pops up on my reading list.

[dolorosa_12]

That's a great suggestion, and would be an excellent thing to do if I read fic frequently. The thing is, though, that I tend to read fic if a) I've participated in an exchange or b) every four to six months — which means that I go for long stretches of time where I don't have the fic-reading itch. I worry with RSS feeds that the stuff would appear more frequently than I actually wanted to read it. That being said, the fandoms I read in update so infrequently that maybe RSS feeds would actually match the frequency of my own desire to read them. I will mull it over — it is really a very efficient way to approach the situation!

(And I love that icon.)

[corvidology]

That makes sense. I have so many fandoms where it's basically just me that it's very exciting on the rare occasion a story pops up on my reading list... the sad thing is when I realize it's my own story I just posted.

Thanks! I made that icon myself as I often feel like I'm paddling down Fandom Amazon in my one person craft. :D

[vriddy]

it's very exciting on the rare occasion a story pops up on my reading list... the sad thing is when I realize it's my own story I just posted.

Oh, no 😂 I have the exact same experience for my rare OT3s, haha 🤝 I read the summary before realising what feed it's from and go "wait, that sounds eerily familiar..."

[corvidology]

It's funny... but not! :D

[dolorosa_12]

I have so many fandoms where it's basically just me that it's very exciting on the rare occasion a story pops up on my reading list... the sad thing is when I realize it's my own story I just posted.


This is me, but with tagsets and signup summaries for exchanges. I go ... oooh, someone has signed up to write my favourite fandom, and then remember that the someone is me!

[kore]

Hmm, you can also set up a filter for the RSS feeds so that they wouldn't appear on your regular reading list? But then you have to remember to check the separate filter, which I always personally forget to do. /o\

[dolorosa_12]

Yes, I feel like I would forget that as well, at which point I might as well just stick to my current method.

[chestnut_pod]

I'd certainly be interested! This was very fun to hear about.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad to hear it!

[kore]

Wow, that January fic is just about perfect! I'm really impressed.

[dolorosa_12]

It's fantastic, isn't it? The fic for that fandom is always of an extremely high standard, and I feel really lucky about that. There's probably some other good stuff that I didn't read because it involves AU stuff like one character being a werewolf (I don't like setting change AUs or AUs that fundamentally change major aspects of the characters like that, but I can recognise that they might be good fic if you enjoy that sort of thing).

[vriddy]

What a wonderful use of the challenge, I love it :D Rec lists are awesome. And yay to community Thursday!!

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad to hear it! It was a nice way to achieve lots of things in a single post!

[lirazel]

Oooh! I haven't seen that long Ben January fic yet and now I am so excited to read it!!!

And thank you for the love for my little fic. <3<3<3

[dolorosa_12]

It is so, so good — almost like a little novella from canon in terms of the casefic, and with two of my favourite ships for that fandom.

Your fic is great! You write such fantastic stuff for that fandom.

[lirazel]

Thank you! <3