stockingsandseams

Dear Author,

Before we start, hi and thanks for writing something for me. I feel like I should apologise for the length of this letter (I tend to ramble, and I'm never sure how much detail would be useful), but don't feel like you have to slog through it. I know I'm really uneven in length but some of these canons are much bigger than the others, or I wanted to offer prompts which could do for a much larger cast of characters, so length should not be taken as an indication that I'm more interested in some fandoms than others. No matter what fandom we matched on, I'd be really excited to see fic written for it and I can't wait to see what you'll do (so what I mine by this is, basically,  if none of my prompts here work for you but you do have an idea which you think would be much better, feel free to write it! Most of these fandoms are small enough that I really do want anything!)

I was gonna sock it up for these requests, and then I realized that I was too lazy and also not particularly invested in keeping my porn-reading habits away from the rest of my fic-reading habits. This means that I do speak extensively about sex and porn, as I am requesting Corruption of Champions, but rest assured that I mean it when I talk about the not-porn and not-necessarily-romance tropes I also love. Please do not feel that I am trying to indicate I only want porn, or want porn more than I want the other things, or that I will only be happy with porn, because that's just not true!

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 Just a quick note while I procrastinate on my dissertation-writing, but as you probably know, rare pair fest fics are up! Hurray!

I received If There Was a Me for You, (MCU, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanoff, "When Maria is sent to intercept the Black Widow, there are certain things she wasn't expecting. Certain very inconvenient things. Now they're stuck trying to distinguish the desirable from the inevitable. Soulbond AU", 18553 words) which is basically the soulbonding AU of my dreams. I asked for some incredibly tropey id-fic or something which expanded on the ways in which their personalities complement and conflict with one another or something which looked at how SHIELD would complicate their relationship, and I got all three. The author's written these characters exactly as I see them, the soulbonding aspects are explored in ways which make my insides positively melt, and there's a wider plot which really underlines the gravity of their work at SHIELD. Bobbi Morse makes an appearance as a wonderful, heroic biologist! It's all in Maria's point-of-view! There's even a tiny bit of Natasha whump, and I know, right, but god that woman is pretty when she's bleeding!

This was basically the perfect fic for me. I don't think it is possible to write a fic which speaks more to my soul than this one, and it is just amazing to read through the fic and see how much attention my author's paid to all of my waffle about the characters. It really reads as though it's a gift fic for me, one tailored to everything I said I enjoyed, and that someone would put that much effort into writing something I was going to love is the most thoughtful, brilliant thing ever. Whoever you are, anonymous author, I think I'm a little bit in love.

I've not had time to read loads, but I also enjoyed:

- Five Easy Steps to Becoming a Reformed Mad Scientist (MCU, Maya Hansen/Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, "How Maya Hansen finds what she needs. AU where Maya is dosed with Extremis and survives and ends up working and living with Tony and Pepper", 6012 words). It's funny and touching in all the right ways, and I'm left with a real sense of hard-won optimism by the end of it. And a serious case of the giggles about Ibsen.

- Made You Shine Like a New Pin (Hannibal, Alana Bloom/Beverly Katz, "Alana combats a case of the mean reds and runs into someone unexpected.", 2689 words). It's not a couple I've ever really considered before but it's sweet, hot and very in-character for both of them, with just the tiniest bit of canon-appropriate Fridge Horror lurking around one line in the very middle. Brilliant.

- Squeeze (Marvel 616, Rikki Barnes/Anya Sofia Corazon, "Anya fixates on the silliest things. It turns out Rikki doesn't mind so much", 1595 words). This was just plain adorable.

I hope those of you participating all got something you enjoyed. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go pretend to understand Darko Suvin's ideas about a Marxist literary history. Something to do with toilet paper, I think? :)

 My River Song t-shirt was a real hit on the metro today :) A gorgeous little Spanish boy (at least, he was speaking Spanish to his dad; his grandmother was speaking to him in French) recognised her & the TARDIS and instantly decided we were best friends. When he realised I spoke Spanish, he switched to telling me all about his favourite River episodes and showing me a 'magic trick' kind of thing in Spanish instead of French. And then another kid, maybe about 9 years old (the Spanish boy can't have been older than 4 or 5), pricked up his ears at the Spanish and said he was learning that in school, and became his new best friend for the last few stops.( Read more... )

( Longfic )
Oooh with the plottiness.