dragonyphoenix

"Stories matter hugely, but in a way that’s too complex and variable for us to predict - and trying to police it is an exercise in futility because there’s no set of criteria we can conceive that will help us draw lines in the right places. There ARE no right places - there are only individual people whose responses cannot be managed in advance, however good our intentions. Especially not if we are concerned – as we absolutely should be – with preserving readers’ access to stories that can help them heal, or find their voices, or bring new insight. There is no way to formulate a set of boundaries that anticipates what a given story will do for a given reader in a given moment. None." - teaser from On the Formative Work of Reading

So I was going for awesome stories that will never be finished theme, and I actually made it. I found three excellent stories that I'm well over 95% sure will never be added to, but along the way I found two others – I was going to say “finished, sadly” but I'm so not sad that they are finished – that I just had to rec. I am also going for stories that are likely to be unfamiliar to my friends.

The first is Shakatany's In the Light of Two Moons. I don't often read outside of Buffyverse, but this Babylon 5 fanfic is terrific. The Starfire wheel was an ancient portal that brought Neroon to a Shadow prison planet. The Shadows are gone but the prisoners remain, trapped and running low on food. There's another familiar B5 face but I don't want to give the surprise away. The writing is brilliant. It's an extremely engaging story.

Discovering Magic by ArtisticFool is a Harry Potter fanfic. Bill Wesley practices old wizarding magics, ones that are considered dark magic by most of his family. There's a meta fic feel in terms of what is considered acceptable to believe, how things are perceived vs. how they truly are.

Naughty Fae and Salustra's Whitechapel, as a Buffyverse AU, is the only fic in this list my friends are likely to recognize. It's an excellent story and is the third of my unfinished works rec. I'd love it if this story were picked up again. Here's the authors' summary: Twelve months since the last Ripper murder and Whitechapel is once again rocked by the brutal slaying of a prostitute. Has Jack returned?

LNRummi's Geometry of Chance. Ethan finds himself a Slayer. Ethan redemption story. I quite adored it.

And finally, flawedamythyst's Seduction by Aviation series. Cabin Pressure is a BBC radio program. I've never heard it, unfortunately, but I'm told it's fantastic. Anyway, this series is a crossover between Cabin Pressure and the Iron Man movies. Tony Stark and Martin Crieff bond, in a slashy way, over airplanes. It's a delightful series and a tossup really whether I will reread this or Whitechapel first.

And I'm rereading Seduction by Aviation first. Here's a quote from the first story in the series:
Douglas managed to move beyond the shamelessly appalling cheesiness of the message to the meaning behind it. “Wait a minute. Have you just been given permission to 'booty call' Iron Man?” he said, making it clear with the tone of his voice just how he felt about that phrase.

Martin gave another mildly embarrassed half-shrug, but there was a small smile hovering around his lips. That did it, this had to be an alternate universe. They'd get back to London to find that Arthur had managed the Times crossword on his own, and that Carolyn had decided to give them a bonus.