fairyd123 | (no subject)

ignipes

Gen

Wistful, bittersweet look at Sammy on the eve of his birthday as he re-evaulates the things that really matter in life.

Prayers to Summon the Destroying Angel by

esorlehcar

Sam/Dean

Set in the aftermath of Devil's Trap this piece is utterly heartbreaking as Sam and Dean come to terms with the death of their father. The passage starting Dad's in a box on the table actually had me in tears.

The Flow of Darkness by

halfshellvenus

Sam/Dean

Sweet, sensual plot based first time story.

Dark Angel

The absence of Supernatural from my TV screens has had me turning to Dark Angel for my Jensen fix. It requires a stiff drink or two to fully enjoy it - Alba can't act, Weatherley is a gaping black hole where charisma should be, the dialogue (especially the forced "Bip bip bip." Gotta Blaze" slang the characters use) just makes me cry and there's a frakkin dogboy but hell a dark haired Jensen as a happy go lucky sociopath is totally worth it.

So I've started looking at Dark Angel fan fiction. The very thought of a Logan/Alec pairing makes me shudder so any recs will be strictly het. I understand that Valjean seems to be universally acknowledged as the Dark Angel author to read but I believe you have to e-mail her to get access to her NC-17 stories and frankly I like my porn to be more freely available than that. So here are two decent helpings of Max/Alec - both are in their way cliche fics (and neither are anything like the standard of the stories we see in the Supernatural fandom) but they're both good fun.

Pick Me by Worrie

Max/Alec

Max goes into heat and needs Alec to protect her. One thing leads to another......

Any show that features a storyline in which its female lead goes into heat is just inviting bad fanfiction. This is very much the cliche fic you would expect but it is decently written and the Max/Alec characterisation is strong and hey the smut is pretty smoking too!

Out of the Future by Vee107

Max/Alec

Max's future daughter returns from the future to prevent Manticore killing Max. Yes I know future daughters and Terminator 2 all in one package stop rolling your eyes! Despite the slight silliness of the subject matter this is an extremely fun romp. Might want to skim read the bits about Logan/Asha though!

Finally just a reminder to vote in The Lawrence Awards. I believe the initial round of nominations for stories closes soon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

astrothsknot.livejournal.com

I've read Valjean, and to be hones never been very impressed with her stuff, far too obvious and melodramatic.

I prefer subtlety.

From:

fairyd123.livejournal.com

So Valjean's stuff is melodramatic eh? I confess I haven't read any of it. I wasn't going to e-mail her for access to the stories but I had read glowing reviews of her work from others.

I'd always been slightly put off reading any of her stuff by the way she reacted over Ackles' relationship with Joanna Krupke. She was by far the most vocal of his online fan base about it. She was violently against the relationship because Krupke is a playboy bunny and even stopped running a Jensen Ackles website because she was so disgusted with him for dating her. I always wondered what her NC17 stories would be like - you can't be both utterly puritanical and write smut at the same time - it doesn't really work!

From:

astrothsknot.livejournal.com

Overeaction, much? I didn't know about Valjean's reaction to JA and his chosen partner, I don't pay any attention to actors real lives. I'm happy if they're happy.

As I recall further, the smut was very badly written, like something out of those books with half naked men on the covers, with names like Passion's Choice. Every time I see them, I have to rush to the Clive Barker or Poppy Z Brite shelves.

From:

mar9en.livejournal.com

Oooh, DA recs? Great. My devolution into hermithood is nearly complete. Thanks a lot. :)

So, I have a question. I seem to be the only person who thinks

nilchance/

beanside's "Off Bastard Saints" is boring and OOC. I see that you haven't recced it so... do you agree? I'm still reading it just because, and Ch 16 was pretty good, but still I'm pretty let down given all the hype. I can hardly believe the praise it's gotten. Anyway... :/

From:

fairyd123.livejournal.com

More recs are always good. Sunshine and fresh air is highly overrated!

I've kind of made it a policy on here not to rec works in progress. The one time I broke that rule with a House fic the authoress literally didn't post the next part for about 8 months and I got complaints! That's why I haven't included Maygra's Second Sight series or Rageprufrocks Ocean tale on here yet although both are absolutely superb.

I have been following "Of Bastard Saints". It's an enjoyable enough romp, if rather too heavily influenced by The Bourne Identity. It has its moments. I thought the viking bar and its inhabitants were very well realised - it's quite difficult to write original characters and they really worked for me. I like Dean's characterisation. He's recognisably our Dean but with a much sharper, more brutal edge. The way he has seemingly beaten the demon in Chapter 16 was impressive.

But it's a long way from being perfect. I do think the characterisations of Sam and John feel off - I struggle to hear Padalecki and JDM's voice when I'm reading. I also lose patience with stories that feature endless chapters. I was happy with the switching between the two points of view but then that seemed to stop when the demon confronted Dean in the locker and in our next chapter with Sam and John instead of it picking up with John's pov as he hears the demon attack Dean we seemed to have moved back in time and they were back with the vikings!I'm also losing patience with the fact that the demon keeps insisting that Sam is dead and Dean just accepts it when he has the numbers of a multitude of people he can call to confirm that- especially now that he believes the demon is contained. I think the authors are going to have to wrap it up pretty soon before people's goodwill runs out.

So yes I do think it has been over praised. I think the fact that there is no new Supernatural on the air at the moment coupled with the fact that there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of fic being produced at the moment has resulted in people focusing on the story and giving it plaudits I'm not entirely sure it deserves. If new episodes were still being aired and if Eighth_Horizon had published additional chapters in her Woven series I doubt it would have received the response it has.

From:

mar9en.livejournal.com

The characterization is what kills it for me. Sam and John's chapters are the most boring -- they contain little action, so all interest needs to be generated by their interaction. And since that interaction nearly unrecognizable to me, I can't invest in anything that happens to them. As for Dean, he's been better characterized, but, like you, sometimes I don't understand where he's coming from as far as accepting everything. For instance, when Dean met Bobby, he just knocked him out and left him, which makes no sense whatsoever. This was the first person he met who seemed to know who he was, isn't Dean at all interested in seeing what this guy has to say? He didn't seem to be searching for his identity at all. That felt like a very contrived way to keep Dean in the dark about his family. I also don't understand why he isn't calling John back. He's realizing how much his family meant/means to him, he's even going on a murderous rampage against CD, so why isn't he trying to reconnect with his last remaining family member, who he knows is alive and wants to help him? *sigh*

I brought a couple of these things up in OBS's comments, but I don't know if that's kosher. :/ I'm new to this whole feedback thing, and authors seem to ask for honest criticism, yet rarely (if ever) does anyone seem to give it, and I don't want to be considered a troll or anything.

But I did enjoy the Vikings, that's probably my favorite chapter along with 16, which I thought had fantastic, Wolverine-like fighting imagery and mid-combat banter. Unfortunately, as of this last chapter I'm even less interested in what happens when the three reunite. Both of them know too much now to make it interesting, IMO. It would have been cooler if Dean didn't give a shit who his family was and was content with his new vigilante life, and for Sam and John not to know what he'd been doing when they finally found him. But now that Dean knows so much about his past, and Sam and John know exactly what he's been up to, there's really not much of a gap between them except for Dean thinking Sam is dead, which I'm dreading will mean a melodramatic reunion with Dean throwing himself at Sam and bursting into tears, or something along those lines. Which... ugh. Spare me.

BTW, I read "Pick Me" and... man, if that's the cream of the crop, SN writers really are an extremely talented bunch (this is the first fandom I've read fic for, so I haven't been able to compare). :) The story would have been 10x better if Max and Alec were unaware of their attraction to each other, like on the show. They wouldn't realize their unconscious feelings until after the hot sex, which would start out totally meaningless and animal for both of them and turn into something more. Then they would have to deal with their conflicting emotions and the consequences. That would be a good read. :)

Sorry to talk your ear off (type your eyes out?), I tend to have strong opinions. :P :) Thanks for the recs!

From:

astrothsknot.livejournal.com

I must admit, I've been enjoying it - having never seen the Bourne Identity, and never likely to - though I'd also wondered why Dean hadn't spoken to John.

I'll let a lot slide for a good story. I do agree with above though. Wrap it up soon, I really don't want another 15 chapters of not a lot really happening. But gotta love the binding scene.

I want an icon that says that. "With blood I bind you, you son of a bitch!"

From:

mar9en.livejournal.com

The authors of OBS said a few chapters ago that there would be ~30 chapters, and that they were ten chapters ahead of their posts. So at least they do have an ending in mind. Still, if people seem to be enjoying it a whole lot, some authors try to stretch it out as long as possible and end up losing everybody (see "When Our Minds Betray Us" -- I can't believe that thing is still a WIP with 30+ chapters!!!).

From:

fairyd123.livejournal.com

OBS is one of a number of serialised stories I've seen published in the SN fandom recently (Jinnie's Counterplay and When Our Minds Betray Us an absolute epic in which Sam has amnesia which I abandoned as it was going on forever being two other examples). The authgrs produce short, fast paced chapters with cliffhangers at the end of each piece. The cliffhanger and the fast pace invites comments and encourages people to read the next chapter.All three stories have also contrived to keep Sam and Dean apart for much of the narrative. The danger with the stories is that characterisation gets sacrificied to plot and readers get bored waiting for the author to wrap it up. Plus to be honest it's never a great idea dramatically to keep Sam and Dean apart. If you think about the show the one episode where they were separated for virtually the entirety of the narrative was Scarecrow - and that is one of the poorest episodes they produced in season 1. Sam and Dean need to be together whether in a gen or slash sense for the story to work. If you intend to separate them the piece must focus on character (like esorlehcar's stories she alternates POV but her pieces take you so far inside Sam and Dean's psyche that you ache for the pair of them).

OBS is very fast paced and sometimes the authors are so keen to get from A to B that they're not focusing on some of the finer points. We find out in Bobby's call to John that Bobby realising that Dean was in a bad way tried to knock Dean out thinking that was the easiest way to get Dean to John. Dean realising his intentions therefore just thought he was another threat like the demon and took him out first. Problem is that wasn't clear at all from the narrative of that section. And Dean blithly believing that Sam is dead simply because the demon repeats it is grating. He heard another voice when he called his father. Why doesn't he simply ask John or Bobby about Sam? Why doesn't he look up Jessica's death on the net? The piece is an enjoyable romp because it's so fast paced (much like the Da Vinci Code) but it utterly falls apart if you try and focus on it.

Yes I think it would be fair to say that the DA fanfiction out there is mostly dreck - I just thought Pick Me was quite fun. Good is an entirely different matter....

From:

mar9en.livejournal.com

WOMBU was the first fic I ever read, and I was completely in love with it... until they started hunting together. Then it got extremely boring, going on and on and on and fucking on. And then the revelation about what happened was completely out of character for Dean. There's no way he would do that to Sam, IMO. Still, for the stretch of chapters up to the one where Sam finds Dean in his room... I still think that's one of the best chapters of anything ever. I haven't read it in a while though, so maybe now that I've read more things I'll have a different opinion. I don't know why I liked that one so much more than OBS, because it did have some of the same problems.

Plus to be honest it's never a great idea dramatically to keep Sam and Dean apart. If you think about the show the one episode where they were separated for virtually the entirety of the narrative was Scarecrow - and that is one of the poorest episodes they produced in season 1.

And let's not forget The Benders, which I felt was one of the more boring episodes. I liked Scarecrow better than that one because at least Dean seemed in character. In Benders I thought the emotion just fell flat.

Sam and Dean need to be together whether in a gen or slash sense for the story to work. If you intend to separate them the piece must focus on character (like esorlehcar's stories she alternates POV but her pieces take you so far inside Sam and Dean's psyche that you ache for the pair of them).

See, that's how I felt about WOMBU. The dramatic irony of Dean being this phantom stranger lurking in the background of Sam's life was well done, and I was on the edge of my seat as Sam started to piece his former life together, waiting for Sam to confront Dean and for this whole story to come out about what happened. Actually, I think it's when Sam and Dean were finally together that the story fell apart. So I guess there's a right and a wrong way to do it. I think it can be done much better in fanfic than on the show.

Anyway... yeah. :)