Uffish Thought

Bit of a sparse set this month (but full of longfic!), as I went down a nostalgia and fandoms-I-don’t-bother-with-canon-for and re-reading binge. 3 for The Untamed, 2 Boku no Hero Academia, 1 Nirvana in Fire, 1 Chronicles of Narnia, and 1 DCU/Batfamily fic.

THE UNTAMED

Stay With Me by Toshokanin

Lan Zhan has been working at the public library for three years the first time he meets the most beautiful man he has ever seen.

Wonderfully romantic and tropey - librarian AU! homeless WWX! fandom-related identity porn! and they were roommates! - but grounded in a realistic portrayal of modern libraries and their initial friendship. A really lovely read.

Half Agony, Half Hope by @queenklu​

Wei Wuxian examined his jittering nerves and admonished himself to feel less. Five years, five years had passed since all had been given up: engagement, relationship, friendship, acquaintance, all severed, all carved away and discarded. How absurd to be once more wracked with emotions which should never have been nurtured in the first place!

A Persuasion/Jane Austen AU - five years after their broken engagement, now widowed with a child, Wei Wuxian must navigate the re-entry of Captain Lan Wangji into his life.

I'm sure no one is surprised that I would be into a regency AU with strong pining and a side of espionage, but I would like you all to enjoy it with me! Who doesn't love a good Persuasion AU? The fic doesn’t quite reach the pining heights of the original, but it makes up for it with plot.

a series of firsts by Pip (Moirail)

It should be said that Nie Huaisang really shouldn't be trusted to do anything, but it can't be denied that he really gets results where they count.

An extremely pure and well-executed dose of fluff in series form, starting with a Wangxian blind date and proceeding through their relationship landmarks. I really cannot overstate how cute they are in this, oh my god.

BNHA

How to Win the Sports Festival: A Step by Step Guide by mhwright (gen)

Short re-imagining of the Sports Festival Arc if Shinso had planned a little better and worked a little harder to win the Sports Festival and if the match-ups had been slightly different. Self-indulgent fic of watching him succeed.

Mmmm, competence porn and BAMF Shinsou. I'm also super enjoying the sequel where Shinsou interns with Aizawa, which is a WIP but has cool worldbuilding around hero work & Shinsou's quirk and more great action writing.

Razzmatazz by xylophones / @xyloophones​​ (gen)

Izuku has plans for everything.

He plans out what to say to the cashier when ordering coffee, he plans out his homework before even opening his textbook. He has a whole ten-year plan for how he’s going to get into UA’s hero course and get his hero license fully quirkless. He plans for every wild, unlikely scenario he can think of because his anxiety gets so bad if he doesn’t go through every possible outcome, every way his life could landslide into disaster–– but Izuku never planned for this.

Izuku doesn’t think. He just moves.

(Or: Izuku saves the number one hero, gets a hero license way earlier than anyone wanted, realizes that maybe hero society isn’t as great as he thought it was, and everything just kind of falls apart from there.)

Fantastically original revisioning of canon, where Izuku meets Yagi and starts on his path earlier. I loved how the author hit a lot of the big setpieces and emotional arcs but shuffled and reimagined them into completely new things, AND jam-packed them with friendship and banter and frank discussion of the flaws of heroes/media/society and cool worldbuilding for how the hero business works. Very long and very satisfying.

OTHER

Venenum ex machina by @nemainofthewater (NIF, gen)

The Poison of the Bitter Flame is the most mysterious poison in the world.

Or five times that Mei Changsu got poisoned (and one time he didn't).

Come for Mei Changsu trolling people with his poison resistance, stay for the angst and historical poison nerdery.

Carpetbaggers by cofax (Narnia, gen)

The day after Aslan left, taking the magic with him, just about everyone else left, too.

After the coronation festivities, the real work begins.

Holy shit, this fic is so epic and good: following the Pevensies as they roll from one crisis to the next in the early weeks of their reign, confronting the realities of Narnia and the Winter they ended and their role as leaders, while still holding onto their family and the magic of their story. I've literally had this in my TBR pile for a decade, I'm kicking myself for taking so long, but it is still amazing.

Reconciliation by @envysparkler​ (Batman, gen)

You cannot restore what was never there.

OOF. Emotionally brutal fic where Tim doesn't (can't) forgive Jason for attacking him, and Jason has to face and live with that.

In Time, Once Again by 擂文 , translation by katiirabbi (Nirvana in Fire, Lin Shu/Jingyan)

When Xiao Jingyan finds himself transported back to his nineteen-year-old self after living a long life as emperor, he is determined to stop the Chiyan conspiracy from happening. But in the attempt to change the wheels of fortune, what will he lose and what will he gain? This is a story of perseverance, love, and sacrifice.

If you watched NIF and went, ‘Gosh, wouldn’t it be great to read a story where Jingyan suffered even more, at length, but also there’s a happy ending?’ then this is the story for you. I also had a nerdy good time reading the translator’s notes.

Turn, Archer, and Heed the Wild Hunt by Mhalachai (MCU/Narnia, gen)

In the summer of 1983, Clint Barton goes to live with his new foster mom in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. Now he just needs to figure out how negotiate this new life… and also what’s up with all the strange things happening in the night.

In which Susan Pevensie teaches Clint archery and gives him a home. Fantastic and heartachey.

Hermione Granger’s Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run by waspabi (Harry Potter, Draco/Harry)

‘You’re a wizard, Harry’ is easier to hear from a half-giant when you’re eleven, rather than from some kids on a tube platform when you’re seventeen and late for work.

The initial premise - that Harry got lost from the magical world, and is tracked down in London circa Year 7 by a ragtag group led by Hermione - is a stretch, honestly, but once accepted this is an awesome read, full of humor and nineties period detail and a lot of orphaned teenagers finding a new family together.

Things I Should Have Remembered by SomewhereBeyondReality (Anastasia, Anya/Dimitri)

“You were born into this world of glittering jewels and fine titles. But I wonder if this is what you really want.“ The problem with being a long-lost princess, Anya discovers, is that it means you haven’t been a princess for a long time.

Gorgeous little character study dealing with Anya’s culture shock in a series of missing scenes at her grandmother’s house in Paris.

running wild with vengeance by smilebackwards (A Study in Emerald, gen)

For every monarchy, there is a revolution in waiting.

Sharply creepy for such a tiny piece.

Memories of Unreal Things by 7iris (Temeraire, Laurence/Tharkay)

There was a room, and a pallet inside it; a small torch burned low in a socket upon the wall. A man lay upon the cot, his face bruised and battered, his hands curled against his chest bloody, and Laurence did not know him.

Or, a little part of Blood of Tyrants goes differently.

A neatly written AU with a spot-on Tharkay voice. I love it when authors from old fandoms dovetail back into one of mine.

Handmaiden by Tequila_Mockingbird (The Curse of Chalion, gen)

First through the stone arches, with a self-supplied fanfare of unladylike but triumphant whoops, rode a pair of young women on blowing horses belly-splashed with mud.