Hieroglyfics Recs

Hot Fuzz, Nick/Danny. A sweet and hot little story in which Nick accidentally learns something about Danny - and then learns something about himself.

Geoffrey/Ellen. Ellen returns to New Burbage, gets coaxed into doing Romeo and Juliet, and meets Geoffrey. What makes this work for me is the level of detail; it’s not just about the characters’ interactions, it is about their lives, and it all rings true, from the theatrical to the mundane. Ellen is totally spot on, and Geoffrey and Oliver ain’t bad either - I could hear them in my head while reading.

Post Dead Men Don’t Throw Rice, Fraser goes back to the Borderlands…and into the Underworld, and Ray has to follow and bring him back. Yep, it’s Orpheus, dS style, and although it started a little slow, by the time the boat named “Charon” shows up on a body of water that is not, after all, Lake Michigan, I was hooked. Yeah, I’ve got a thing for afterlife fic - what of it? I did not buy all of the characterization details, but the retelling of the myth was awesome, and the translation of the underworld’s features and denizens into Ray’s interpretation was fabulous and spot-on.

Sharpe/Harper. Sharpe’s ill, and Harper tends to him; and if in a fever dream Sharpe happens to think the warm body against him is a woman’s, well, Harper will take what he can get.

Kowalski comes back from Canada and gets partnered with Vecchio; then Fraser returns to Chicago. I liked the narrative voice, and the use of metaphor, and the understated bits where you just see their understanding of each other. I love OT3 but have a hard time buying it; this, I buy.

3:10 to Yuma, Charlie Prince backstory and how he met Wade. I love the narrative voice, which fits the source so well. A splendid imagining of the most intriguing minor character in the film, and a great Wade as well.

One bit pinged me oddly: the use of the phrasing, “you’re not the boss of me” which — I thought — is contemporary usage. But according to Language Log it dates back to at least 1883, so it’s not a stretch to imagine it here!

Wiseguy, Sonny/Vinnie, R. Post-apocalyptic roadtrip fic yay! I mean, really, the only way to make this relationship end well is to destroy (most of) the earth. This is an awesome SF story and only incidentally Wiseguy fanfic, which, considering I have only seen the pilot episode, is probably why I loved it so much.

Wiseguy, Sonny/Vinnie. Vinnie’s mother keeps inviting them over for Sunday dinner! AU, sexy and sweet.

Big Eden, Henry/Pike. A nice little five-things story that evokes the gentle feel of the movie; my favorite is the second section.

Temeraire, Laurence/Temeraire. During the voyage to China in Throne of Jade, Laurence and Temeraire discuss a Chinese story, about a man who swallowed a magical pearl and became a dragon - and a dragon that swallowed one and became a man. And that night, they dream…. It’s an utterly fantastic (in all senses of the word!) story; Temeraire’s voice throughout Laurence’s dream was perfect, a wonderful combination of naivete and charm. Then comes Temeraire’s dream, and it’s got to be read to be believed. Funny and sweet and adorable, and hot like, um, fire-breathing. Yay!

This is a faux trailer for a nonexistent movie: McKay and Sheppard do Ocean’s Eleven. Fabulous use of a wide variety of source material, and put together really well.

Ray catches a clue. I love the Kowalski voice, and the conceit about the clues. Sexy and fun.

Geoffrey/Ellen, Oliver/Geoffrey. Both hysterically funny and achingly sad: Geoffrey and Ellen have a literal ghost in bed with them as they rekindle their old flame.

This is a remix of a story I haven’t read. It’s the kind of AU I like best (which is alas rare in SGA) - set in a world that is close to, but not quite, canon, in which familar canonical events (or their analogues) occur. Rodney’s still an SGC scientist, but John is a robot - except that he is not, as he claims to be, an AI sex toy, but a highly advanced and highly secret experimental model. The plot includes both standard Harlequin tropes and startlingly clever twists and revelations. There’s a bit of handwavium tossed around, but no more than in the show. A good read.

Ostensibly Fraser/RayK, but OTPers might not want to read it. The structure delights me and the punch line, which I refuse to spoil, makes me giggle.

Oliver/Geoffrey. Pre-season 1, a somewhat drunk and maudlin Oliver tells the story of how he discovered Geoffrey to a jaded bartender. The voice is fantastic, and the characterization very believable. The allusion in the title makes me grin, but the grin is gone by the sobering end.

Post-CotW, Ray and Fraser get together, but it doesn’t work out. I have a deep love for this story despite (because of!) its bleakness and unhappiness. I don’t have an OTP, and I don’t have a fixed idea of the characters, so any good author who starts with canon can convince me of any particulars, and I don’t need a happy ending (or hell, everyone alive at the end, even). I adore emotionally-stunted Fraser, who is really locked inside his own skull in many ways even as he embraces the loneliness of the great unbounded Arctic, who has things he needs more than love. And I adore the idea of a Ray who defines himself by his relationships but has so much difficulty coming to terms with the definition of himself as queer. (It strikes me as oddly and ironically subversive, in slash, to have a character who is unhappy with his sexuality, and to acknowledge the gritty realities of anti-gay prejudice rather than either pretending that the world approves, or waving the question away entirely.)

Fusion with the luminous film of the same name: Ray is an angel whose fascination with human life in general, and one human in particular, lead him to “fall” and become human. The language is exquisite, the pacing perfect, and the choices Nos made for the events of the story work beautifully. I especially adore Welsh, and more than that I will not say. I was teary-eyed with pure love and happiness at the end.

Vecchio’s view on how Kowalski knocks him for a loop, and it’s just beautiful, filled with sideways observations and understated power, and Fraser’s even in there, too.

Ray Kowalski/Geoffrey Tennant. This is a wonderful due South/Slings & Arrows crossover in which Ray and Geoffrey meet in an airport during a snowstorm. This is my favorite type of crossover (and actually reminds me quite a bit of my own dS/Wilby crossover Islands), in which the actor-identity aspect is exploited for the story, with the real pairing behind the scenes clearly Ray/Fraser, and the imagined intersection of the characters seems very true. Funny, sweet and sad, with a satisfying ending.

This is about what love does to people and what love makes people do. This is a wonderful story, evocative and beautiful and weary and sort of sad-sweet.

Cold plus alone equals dead. See? Math is easy. This is really great. I love the voice, which makes the emotion work, and it’s actually really nice to see a story treat the real problem underlying “how do these guys manage to compromise on what comes after the Quest?” without waving things away or getting overly sentimental.

Ray imagines, and Ray acts. This is gorgeous like a pendulum swinging, back and forth, around and about the true center, and the last line takes my breath away with its perfection.

Although the ds_harlequin prompt (”Private eye Ray Kowalski is attracted to Benton Fraser from the moment he sees him– in the courtroom where Fraser is on trial for murder….) could have been pure AU, this story posits that Ray became a private detective after being booted from the police force in the aftermath of the Beth Botrelle case, and that during the events of Victoria’s Secret, Ray Vecchio catches up to Victoria…and is killed, and Fraser implicated. This makes for a plausible and fascinating story as it veers only a little distance from canon. There is an “alternate noir ending” which is linked from the last part; I thought it a little too far out to be believable in the context of due South fanfiction, but I sort of prefer it on strictly aesthetic grounds as it’s a totally kickass ending in a structural sense.

Fraser and Kowalski gen or slash, as you see it, R for violence and theme, short story. This is a fusion with House of Leaves, which I have never read, but after reading the comments by people who have, I’m…not sure I want to. It’s a highly stylized horror story, told in fragments, with impeccable voice and great tension and pacing. I especially like the story lurking in the lacunae, what isn’t written making a negative space that tells as much as what is.

What happens after Starman, when Fraser and Ray have to share a room - and a bed. This is the setup for innumerable PWPs, and so it is here, but the adorable characterizations and impeccable dialogue (especially her Ray voice! Woo!) lift it out of PWP territory.

Joe/Billy. Awesome structure, and some really cool and different ideas that pull this one above the usual HCL fic. There’s some fabulous writing in it and some odd grammatical errors, but overall I like it lots.

Five things Vecchio and Kowalski broke before they moved in together, from the provocative to the quotidian, painting a picture of their relationship in little bits.

Pirates of Penzance, Pirate King/Frederic/Samuel, R. The Pirate King and Samuel instruct the eager Frederic in, er, additional duties. This is fabulous and hilarious and absolutely glorious. The style is a perfect pastiche of Gilbert and Sullivan, and the combination of innuendo and innocence just - wow. I am floored. Yay!

Harry, Draco, Ginny, R, short story. The author’s summary is stark: Ginny dies. Harry delivers her mail. But that masks a chilling and thoughtful post-war story, in a world in which Voldemort may have lost, but so has everybody else. I don’t want to spoil the story - just go read it.

Kowalski cheats on Fraser with Vecchio. A slow progression of both what’s seen and not seen.

Fraser, long thought dead, returns to Chicago and finds that Ray has taken a new lover. I love this sort of emotional honesty and rawness. I also like the way she chooses to present Fraser’s absence, with the details coming in bit by bit.

Men With Brooms, Amy/Cutter. Amy wakes up on the morning after; I really love Amy’s POV, that she’s messed up and she knows it but is still helpless in the grip of it, the way she feels and analyzes her own feelings. The other characters seem totally true to their movie selves, especially Eddie, dear God, who cracked me up. I especially like the way the characterization is built through incidental detail and through dialogue.

Mostly gen. Billy comes to terms with his feelings of guilt over Joe’s death. The structure is really cool, alternating interview snippets with Billy’s interactions with the various people in his life: the members of Jenifur, Mary, and most especially John Oxenburger, who really shines here in the same sort of role he has in the film. John is the Greek Chorus, the voice of reason in a most ironic sense, and he cuts through to the heart of Billy’s emotional turmoil.

Battlestar Galactica, various pairings, R. This one totally wowed me even though I’ve only seen a single episode of the show and only vaguely recognized most of the characters (and didn’t recognize most of the clips). I thought the frantic pace and the choice of clips went really well with the song (which I didn’t really like, but…I have to say, it’s effective). It’s an incredible visual tour of a gritty world.

The Opening (McKay/Beckett, Sheppard/various implied, R)
Balancing Act (McKay/Beckett, McKay/Sheppard, NC17)

Series of short stories. Atlantis is a Manhattan restaurant, and McKay is the chef, a demanding and neurotic diva with a crush on the bartender, Sheppard. This AU reminds me a bit of Lalejandra’s publishing AU, except it has fewer in-jokes and is therefore more accessible. Well-written and witty, with clever casting choices. The stories read more like parts of a WIP than as separate stories; in particular, the first story doesn’t really end but just trails off at an odd point, with a suggested plot that doesn’t materialize in the second story (but the author promises more of in the future). The canon allusions are wonderful, and I wish there were more of them.

An epiphany-and-discovery storylet, with lovely detail and some very sexy necking.

This short story and its sequel Crazyactually read like sections of a longer WIP - which I’d love to see completed, with the bits of plot (Kowalski dresses in drag for a case - I want to see the case a real plot and not just a McGuffin!) fleshed out and resolved. At the moment, though, the main plot is the not-romance between the Rays, which pulls in just enough backstory to make it poignant and heart-hurty. The sequel begins PWP-ish, but the ending is what I love here, the delicate negotiation of the minefield they’ve found themselves in and the discussion around the edges of how they got there.

Joe/Billy, crossover with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (although you don’t need to know that movie to understand this story). Billy gets his memories of Joe erased. Nifty reverse-chronological structure, cool and creepy.

Ray Vecchio, mid-divorce from Stella, goes back to Chicago and finds Ray Kowalski unshaven and unwashed, in a depressed funk after Fraser sent him away. This is really wonderful - heart-hurty and sweet, totally believable in the progression of their relationship, and the character voices are, as usual, perfect. I especially like the part of the story with Frannie - her situation helps ground the story as believably post-canon.

Joe/Billy, angst. The song works extraordinarily well with the subject matter. I liked the timing with the gunshot, the punches, the kiss etc and the nice intercuts of them playing.

Just in case you skipped by this one because of the mpreg warning - go read it, because it’s lovely and very thoughtful. Rodney’s near death, and John makes the decision to save him in a way that is both sweet and heartbreakingly hurty.

n this very cool story, written for the sga_flashfic “this is not happening” challenge, Rodney activates an Ancient artifact…and nothing happens. Or does it? As reality begins to warp and change, only Rodney remembers how things were supposed to be. This hits my story-kinks of both unexpected consequences of ancient technology as well as alternate realities, and the slash relationship, which seems a little out of left field at first, is unexpectedly poignant.

Laura Cadman-centric, het, slash, and femslash elements. Full disclosure: I beta-read (and Ameri-picked) this story. And it’s really nifty: it’s Laura Cadman’s narrative during the events of Duet (although this story doesn’t so much fit within canon as much as it bends around canon), while she’s in McKay’s body. The Cadman-voice is a lot of fun, and watching her view of McKay change as she gets to know him better is satisfying. And the ending? Wow.

It’s hard to list pairings for this story for two reasons: several pairings are only hinted at, and some of them it would spoil the story to know in advance. Let me just say that the characters are Cadman, McKay, Brown, Zelenka, and Beckett, and most of the possible pairings among them are at least suggested in this story.

Historical RPF: William Shakespeare/Christopher Marlowe. Apparently it’s a pastiche of Fight Club, which I am entirely unfamiliar with, but I don’t care, because this story rocks. It’s written in Shakespeare-play format, with sections in iambic pentameter. And it rocks. Did I say that already? I loved it so much I wrote a feedback sonnet, which you can see in the comments.

Isaac Asimov’s Robot series: Elijah Baley/R. Daneel Olivaw. This is a nice plotty mystery that could be part of canon - other than the sex, of course, which fits perfectly well with the plot. If you’re at all familiar with these books, read this story.

Cadman and other women centric. Written for the atlantisbasics fest. When two Atlantis women are kidnapped during a mission, Laura Cadman leads a team to rescue them. This is fabulous - strong women doing what’s needed to get the job done. I particularly like the way the minor characters, such as Biro and Miko, are fleshed out and given real life.

Tim Bayliss/Mark Smithbauer, Fraser/RayK, R, novelette. Crossover with Homicide: Life on the Street. This is kind of two stories smushed together - a bit of action, as Tim meets Fraser and Ray, who are on vacation (post-CotW) in Toronto, and then a bit of romance, when through them he meets Smithbauer. I particularly like Frannie’s cameo in this one.

This tremendously original story, set in 17th century Italy, is about city magistrate Raimundo Vecchio and his French friend Benedetto Frasier, investigating a rumor about a painting of Christ modeled on the likeness of a “scruffy blonde barbarian” named Stanislaus. The writing is a bit uneven (particularly at the end) but overall, this story is clever and entertaining. (Part 2 is here.)

Fraser is away and Ray misses him. I have so been there.