Hieroglyfics Recs

Nifty structure, compelling Ray voice, angry, angsty, very real, very clever.

Fraser/RayK, RayK/Stella, RayK/Luanne, RayK/Maggie, G, vid. The narrative here is very clear: Fraser watches Ray get involved with women who don’t love him like he does. I really liked how each section was about a different woman in Ray’s life - and poor Fraser, watching Ray run after them and get hurt.

The “Franklin cold case” didn’t work out and Ray kind of backs into becoming a bush pilot in Alaska. And then, one day, he picks up some guys and Fraser’s with them. Angst, recrimination, and buttsex. Awesome Ray voice, lovely dialogue, and a richness of detail that never seemed to be just description - it was viewed through Ray’s lens and that made it so much more immediate and clearer.

Sheppard/McKay, Sheppard/Dex. Rodney’s got a crush on John, and he’s jealous of Ronon. The Ronon section was just yay.

This story, written for the sga_flashfic school challenge, is reminiscent of a certain other SGA story (which was written later, btw - this story was written last November) in which a post-Atlantis McKay is teaching at a second-tier school, but it’s less complex, bleaker, and at least to me more compelling, perhaps because it’s so short and punchy. [The story I’m referring to is Synecdochic’s Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose, another good story.] Excellent structure and pacing. People who dislike character death should probably not read this one.

Crackfic genderswitch (by which I mean it occurs for reasons that are not explored at this juncture). This one is a guilty pleasure rec: the writing isn’t the caliber I usually require to enjoy a story (although there are some brilliantly clever lines) and it’s pretty much just a PWP, but it hits kinks that I didn’t know I had, and hits them HARD. Ray K knows he went to bed last night with Vecchio - so how come he’s waking up next to a woman? Genderswitch from the POV of the guy in bed with the suddenly-woman, and, WOW. I am amazed at how hot I find this to be. Plus, there are a few thinky bits that really engage me.

Geoffrey/Darren, perhaps PG13/R-ish, and hysterically funny, with totally spot-on dialogue.

Frannie/various, Fraser/RayK,. Frannie kind of likes Mounties. It made me giggle.

Making up after a fight. This story is infused with so much tension, and I loved this so much because there is tension in any relationship, and particularly between these men, and it’s so frequently glossed over or denied. I really like the turns of phrase which seem so fresh and uncliched. I love wild, dirty, stubbled Fraser. (And, okay, stubble is a particular kink of mine, so perhaps it was inevitable that I love this.)

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.

Fraser/Victoria: Fraser and Victoria on Fortitude Pass. What I like about this is that it’s focused on completely different elements than either canon or most fanfiction does in this bit of backstory - not on the poem or them huddling together against the elements, but why each of them is doing what they’re doing. There are some interesting twists of motivation that suggest different than usual readings of canon.

due South/Tru Calling, Harrison/RayK, RayK/Fraser, Harrison/RayK/Fraser, NC17, series of novel-length stories: Undone, Unfinished, and The Ending Hour [not yet read by me].

I started reading this knowing nothing about Tru Calling other than that Joe Flanigan was in one episode. I realized quickly that I needed a little background, so I read its IMDB entry, which told me that Tru Davies has the ability to make days repeat themselves in order to save people from being killed - and that was all I needed to make sense of this entertaining, plotty series. Harrison reads as an original character and is interesting enough, although he seemed quite a bit like Ray to me. The writing has a nice punchy feel to it, with each section ending with a good zinger that pulled me on to the next bit. The first story reminded me more than a little of my own Across the Great Divide. Needless to say, it hit both my crossover kink and my time-travel kink.

I preferred the first story, which seems a little cleaner and more put-together than the second; I have not yet read the third.

Set to “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” performed by Robbie Williams and Rupert Everett; it’s a languid, big-band jazzy song, and the clips are relatively long, so the overall effect is very relaxed and smooth. The cutting isn’t necessarily to the beat, but the action within the clips is nicely synched to the beat, which I really liked. Maybe it’s overly literal, but I need narrative, so literal works for me.

dS/BtVS: Fraser/Spike, implied Fraser/RayK, NC17, short story. Spike gets arrested in Canada, and intrigued by the Mountie doing the arresting. Underneath the Fraser/Spike interaction is a current of tension about the relationship between Fraser and Ray (who has returned to Chicago after the Quest), which is what really makes this story. Consensual bondage, and hot as a hot thing. I know nothing about BtVS but still enjoyed the story.

All of this almost-getting-killed gets Ray mad, which gets Fraser turned on. The beginning grabbed me and pulled me along with its breathless narration, and it made me think a bit of Speranza’s Scrabble, except inverted - instead of having a deathwish, Fraser has an almost-kill-Ray-wish! And then woo, great sex. Engaging character voice and a lot of fun.

Rodney’s a brilliant conductor who’s written a violin concerto, and John is the erratic but talented violinist trying to escape the shadow of his famous father. There are a few nods to canon - “think of where we are in the solar system”, the coin flip, flying metaphors - but mostly this is an entirely different world. Yet Rodney and John are both distinctly their canon characters and simultaneously perfectly translated into this world, and their individual faults and problems are transcended by what they can do together - just like in canon.