#also podfic? genius invention

[blackbrightweek]

Happy Fanfic Friday, everyone! Or should we say... Happy Sorrowful Fanfic Friday, Everyone 😢

Today's theme is Angst, and we've got a real sad one for y'all: Eulogy or Biography by @forkflinger.

The fic follows Simon Blackquill trying to work through his complicated feelings in the aftermath of AA5, and asks the question: how do you go about mourning someone you never really knew?

For the listener fans, there's also a podfic of it, read by @lenalawlipop.

Do any of you have a sad fanfic you keep coming back to?

[smehur]

A Case of You by @epitomereally

Draco was doing just fine working as an Unspeakable in Paris, hanging out with his living and ghostly pals, inventing new spells, and definitely not thinking about Potter. Then, Lucius just had to break out of prison and turn his world upside down. Now, Draco has to return to England, where he is forced to confront how family ties bind us—and one infuriatingly fit Harry Potter.

with a fabulous Podfic by @cailynwrites

I finished listening to this literally a few hours ago and I was blown away both by the story and by the amazing, singular reading. At just under 100k (12 hours), A Case of You is one of the most structurally complex and masterfully executed stories I've read in this fandom so far. From chapter to chapter, it alternates between a past and a current timeline, and although they're connected, they're basically two independent stories. The genius of the author is in weaving them in such a way that the suspense (arising both from the UST and the mystery) swells and subsides in both timelines at about the same time, so that the parallels between them constantly remind us of all the ways the characters have grown, and all the ways they stayed the same. Aside from the admirable craftwork, I loved this fic for its treatment of Draco's post-war regret and remorse. His pride and his refusal to grovel in order to get into Harry's (or anyone's) good graces are immensely relatable and convincing, even when they stand in the way of what he (and the reader...) wishes. It's a wonderful character study. And, as it often happens with great character studies, it's also a wonderful, unforgettable romance that I'll be thinking about for a long time.

This is my last rec for HP Rec Fest 2024! Many thanks to @hprecfest for organizing this delightful event, and to everyone who helped spread the word of all the phenomenal fics that were recommended during it. ❤️

[bulkyphrase]

Fluffy Steve Fest Rec List Day 1 - Affection

Welcome to @fluffystevefest week! The theme for Monday is affection, and while I cannot promise that every list this week will adhere to the themes and prompts, this one mostly does!

Machines and Marvels by rainbowninja167 (@rainbowtitania) (Stony, Teen And Up Audiences, 23,443 words)

Note: Handholding

Summary: "The only future in which you have a hope of defeating Thanos is one where the Avengers remain whole and undivided. Do you understand? No matter what else happens, it’s imperative that the Avengers stay together." “Wait. What the fuck are the Avengers?” Or: In an alternate timeline where the Avengers never formed, Steve and Tony need a crash course in team bonding. Stephen Strange just had to take that literally.

Baby Steve Adventures by catty_the_spy (@cattythespy) (Gen, General Audiences, 2,955 words)

Note: Baby-typical acts of affection

Summary: Captain America gets hit by a spell during a battle. The rest of the Avengers look after him. Also available as a podfic read by blackglass

The Adventures of Not-So-Baby Steve by catty_the_spy (@cattythespy) (Gen, General Audiences, 2,070 words)

Summary: Steve's adjusting to not being a baby. Everyone else is adjusting too.

Slices of Life at Avengers Tower by orphan_account (Gen, General Audiences, 10,880 words)

Note: The specific act of affection I was thinking of is the hair petting in chapter 6, but all the chapters are lovely Steve-centric fluff

Summary: One shots of the Avengers focusing on Steve Rogers and the team as a family. Feel free to request something you would like to see :) Mostly a mixture of fluff and hurt/comfort and my attempt at humour All one shots exist in the same universe though aren't necessarily in chronological order

As Time Goes By by Brenda (@brendaonao3) (Gen, Teen And Up Audiences, 5,342 words)

Note: Kisses

Summary: Steve might be occupied with adjusting to life in the 21st century, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out there's something up with Clint. Or: Tony invents a new pre-battle ritual for the Avengers team, Steve fails spectacularly at asking for advice, and Thor's a pretty smart guy.

[thegildedbee]

10.21 [ most spine-chilling adversaries ]

In week the third, monsters disturb the peace by wielding elements of darkness that challenge the psyches of the characters and of readers as well. There are many formidable villains across the Sherlockian fic world, and these five are among the ones I find to be the most frightening. Each of these fics are expertly executed and written, and cast a spell that transcends the throat-in-your-mouth-feeling of bumps in the night that richochet across your mind. 😨😱😨

previous weeks 10.7: tricks to treats 10.14: occult transformations ............................................................................................ ~in order of word length~

Soothsayer by bendingsignpost (2013), rated T, 4510 words. What if you deduced with unsurpassed brilliance . . . if you possessed a gift so immense you could see the future -- and yet no one believed a word you said? A kind of living hell on earth, you say? Such was the fate of one sardonic and breathtakingly-beautiful man who had spurned the advances of the son of Zeus and Leto, causing the enraged god of the sun to turn the man's genius into a source of unending torment. One grim day he travels along a knife's edge, captive and enslaved on a ship, and calculates how to inflect fate in the presence of a soldier who stands guard. His conversational sallies and soliloquies beguile and bewilder the other man as his words draw them closer and closer together. Before the next day dawns, the captive's choices will have been forged in fire and have altered both their lives.

An inventive 'alternate first meeting' dream of a fic which is laced in nightmares.

podfic by consulting smartass

To Be Prayed For While the World Doth Endure by J_Baillier (2017), rated M, 9358 words. Unchecked power ruled by caprice, spies and turncoats, greed, brutality, betrayal and instruments of torture -- the Tudor court is caught within a web of poisonous spiders. Awaiting the bloody resolution of Queen Anne Boleyn's loss in the game of thrones, all eyes are on the Tower of London -- which also happens to house another prisoner, one of no account whose own tragedy is hastening to its end. Captured within less illustrious shadows is the younger brother of Lord Holmes, accused of treason, witchcraft, and sodomy, and who has been found guilty in a trial that was for nought but show. As powerful as Lord Holmes is, he is nearly helpless to aid his brother, although he contrives to open up a small space in which a visit by a physician might lend some comfort during a solitary night of physical and emotional suffering. The description of the meeting of John and Sherlock is incredibly poignant within the story, but also in the way in which it conveys the tragedy of lost opportunities in the face of human evil -- a horror that remains alive through all the centuries that come after and on into our own time. This is a fic that calmly and relentlessly removes your heart from your chest, and sends your emotions into freefall. I always come back -- after a good long while -- and every time, even before the last paragraphs, I am in tears. After all of the ugliness, the concluding line is one of quiet, although bleak, beauty.

Not Broken, Just Bent by Schmiezi (2016) rated E, 87855 words. The author warns in the pre-chapter 1 notes that "If you like to see Mary as one of the good guys, you might want to stop reading right here" -- that's dead on, the warning shot of "not one of the good guys" even proving to be an understatement.

This fic is essentially structured into three parts -- the first (chapters 1-16) rewrites Season 3 along lines that are immensely more logical and satisfying than the ones we were given -- it's an effort absolutely that should be shelved in a place of honor in your imaginary bookcase. This part contains plenty that provides its fearful dimensions, but they are nothing compared to the second part (chapters 17-27) where John and Sherlock descend into a hell of physical and psychological torture that is a hall of mirrors of horror. The third part, where the soul-dead make their way back to the living world step-by-step within a circle of love that overpowers the malign forces they've endured, is one of the most moving and tenderly imagined sequences of inner and outer events that I've had the honor to read (whether fic or non-fic).

Be Here Now by Todesfuge (2012), rated M [hard R, per author], 94370 words. This is a supremely stylish and sophisticated thriller driven by the discovery that "something darker lurks behind Moriarty" -- a genius connoisseur that thrives on inflicting pain. The villain of the story is an entity that checkmates Sherlock, John, and Irene into undertaking individual journeys requiring diabolically bespoke-designed acts of self-annihilation, in what are highly-unlikely-to-be-anything-other-than-suicide-missions. The extremely personal features of their challenges illuminate their pasts and presents with intellectual precision, and how each responds to their plunges into self-peril provides the reader with addictively compelling insights into their emotional resources and vulnerabilities. The entire terrifying set of events begins with an introductory set of Post-Reichenbach sequences that are, in essence, an incredibly rich and harshly beautiful fic in their own right, especially in how the recent backstories for Sherlock and John leave them each in conditions of desperate turmoil as the stage setting for when they re-encounter each other. The quadraphonic surround sound that immerses you as you pass in and out amongst these three different worlds and the one that is the backdrop to them all, creates a multidimensional experiential reality that stays with you ever after.

There is also a riveting Part 2, Kill Switch.

All the Best and Brightest Creatures by wordstrings (2016), rated E, 188426 words. This astonishing fic is astonishing in so many ways it would take my writing a dissertation to attempt to do it justice, but it's here today because of it's fiendishly gaspingly unhinged Moriarty, who lands in prison due to a 10-year old Sherlock -- and whose feverish brain devises intricate ways to exact revenge through torture, which he details in breezy letters of courtship he sends to Sherlock over the next decades. Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, Black Mirror -- this fic has sub-zero levels of chills in a league with all of these. (You know how smart Sherlock is supposed to be, right? This author is Sherlockian themselves, full-stop.)

And at the same time this is one of the most radiantly warm Johnlock fics in existence, primarily through the sciroccan force of John Watson's impact on Sherlock, which we experience through the endlessly fascinating running log of his internal thoughts (which render me putty in the author's hands even before John's appearance) and that are most breathtaking when they relay Sherlock's moments of joy -- which, to be honest, are a near-constant feature of John's mere existence for him -- but that also, in various shades, are part of Sherlock's connections with others in his life.

Every single step of this fic is engrossing, and the increasingly tense plot unwinds in mind-bending shifts, the final resolution of which is as surprising -- the skill, I tell you, the skill!!! -- as the emotional resonances that follow are assuredly 'right.' The writing provides one moment after another and another of pleasure -- can the words in a fic make you high? Yes. podfic by bagofthumbs

........................................................................ *fic reblog recruits, perhaps??? ❤️ @totallysilvergirl @blogstandbygo @mydogwatson @keirgreeneyes ........................................................................