starfishstar

Day 5

"Post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create."

Recs for just a FEW fics? Distill all of what I've read and loved down to just a few?? But how...???

The description for day 5 talked about the joy of multifandom recs, so I decided to take that as my prompt and my challenge: I'm going to rec across all the fandoms in which read I've significantly, but for each fandom I'll pick just ONE fanwork to rec. Yes, just one – from me who usually sends, to friends who are foolhardy enough to ask for recs, 14-page docs with subdivisions and footnotes. (A caveat, of course: This doesn't mean this will be my one favorite fic in each fandom, because that would be impossible. But I'll pick something I love, by an author I love.)

One fic per fandom.

Here we go.

HARRY POTTER

My temptation, of course, will be to rec copperbadge all over the place, a favorite author I've followed through several fandoms. But I'm not going to do that – only one rec per author! Instead, for Harry Potter I'm reccing lyras, whose genfic has moved and inspired me many times over the years. Hard and almost arbitrary to choose which one out of many, but let's go with:

• A Reason to Fight by

lyras – "Aberforth thinks he's finished with fighting -- until Neville Longbottom falls through the portrait door and into his life."

SHERLOCK

• Bel Canto by

bendingsignpost – an all-time favorite story by a very favorite author (and a fusion, though you don't at all need to be familiar with the other source material – I wasn't!) John is the house doctor at an opera company and Sherlock is the younger brother of the aristocrat who owns the opera, but who is the mysterious composer living in the basement…? Such a well-written period piece. And such a brilliantly written...everything.

TORCHWOOD

I have two far and away favorite Torchwood authors; one is (again) copperbadge and one is nancybrown. nancybrown's fics are all fantastic, so again, kind of arbitrary to pick just one. But I'll go with:

• Got That Friday Feeling Again by

nancybrown – a seriously brilliant take on Groundhog Day... Because who better to suffer through learning to become a nicer person through endless iterations of the same day than...Owen? (Also known as: "That One Trip to Glasgow Where Jack and Ianto Had Sex Five Thousand Times in One Day.")

MERLIN

Again, here it's tempting to rec the epic AU Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock (and I suppose by saying that, I have recced it), but I kind of assume any Merlin fan's already read it! So instead I want to rec:

• The Curious Incident of the Harpies in Broad Daylight, or, the Abbreviated Adventures of Gwaine and Lancelot, Not-Quite-Knights For Hire (While We Wait For Arthur To Become King) by

kaydeefalls – a delightful romp featuring Lancelot and Gwaine, hanging around, getting up to things, until they can become knights. Also available as a wonderful podfic by lunchee.

WHITE COLLAR

Here's where copperbadge will get his rec, because this is a fandom I followed into only because I love everything Sam writes, and he sucked me into an entire new fandom just by how enthusiastically he talked about it... Yet another case where what I actually want to say is "just read everything by this author," but since I have to pick one:

• Four Meals by

copperbadge – because it's so full of love of so many kinds, and because PeterandElizabethandNeal, and because copperbadge creates OCs like nobody else, so fully realized even if they only appear for a few lines of the story.

THE MENTALIST

• This was an early fandom of mine, so I no longer remember well enough to pick one favorite story, but I definitely remember many terrific, in-character casefics, as well as great stories of young Patrick and Angela, from an author called: 221b Baker Street.

MISS FISHER'S MURDER MYSTERIES

And here it's the opposite, I'm too new to this fandom to have read widely yet, but this is definitely my favorite author I've found so far; again, so hard and arbitrary to pick just one story, but I'll go with:

• Varying States of Muscular Undress by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood) – because like all the best Miss Fisher fics, it's funny and sexy and full of great Phryne-and-Jack moments, plus some lovely interactions with the other characters.