kyrafic | Reading

don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two
-1690

Translation by Jane Reichhold.

( 俳句 )

Fandom: Trails of Cold Steel
Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn
appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships Rating: M
Length: 22442 words
Creator Links: Rosie_Rues
Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb
Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.

Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...

Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.

The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.

This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.

There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)

This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors.
Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Taskmaster (series 16)
Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:02:06
Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings.
Creator Links: thingswithwings on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor

Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.

Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.

Fanwork Links: Team of Sue

runpunkrun

Photograph with added text: Female Relationships, at Fancake. Four old Nepalese women sit together on a low brick wall, their feet dangling, most of them barefoot, their shoes kicked off below them. They're dressed in loose patterned fabrics in various shades of red and the mood is relaxed.

fancake's theme for June is Female Relationships! That's any kind of relationship with any kind of female—cis, trans, alligator priestess, whatever you got! We already have recs in Star Trek Reboot, Mo Dao Zu Shi/Chen Qing Ling, a stop animation film featuring Barbie dolls and a Cher song (yes, it's as amazing as it sounds), Ghosts (US), and King Falls AM.

If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!

nuh_s posting in

fancake

Fandom: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Pairings/Characters: Lily Wright & Pippa James, Jack Wright & Lily Wright
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 8,492
Content Notes: Alcoholism, Missing Persons, Grief/Mourning
Creator Links: ryyves' Ao3
Theme: Female Relationships, Character Study, Angst

Summary:

Spoilers for King Falls AM episode 68, set before the first King Falls Chronicles (ep 56-57).

It’s far from the last email Lily gets about King Falls. Sometimes the name is hidden in postscripts, sometimes bright as highways at midnight, and every time it catches in Lily’s heart like a frightened canary, yellow and waning.

Lily doesn’t delete them, not one. She files them away in a quiet folder of her work email, so she doesn’t have to see them in her inbox. There are things that can be said with distance, and this is one of them: that if she deleted every mention of King Falls, she would delete every rope thrown to Jack. Every hope, or something that runs even deeper.

Some fear, perhaps, that she is not where she is supposed to be.

Or: Pippa puts up with way more of Lily's shit than she should have to.

Reccer's Notes: This is such a wonderful character study that explores Lily's character and gives her and Pippa's friendship a spotlight. The writing style is beautiful as well.

Fanwork Links: the gallery of our bones

kingstoken posting in

fancake

Fandom: Ghosts (US)
Pairings/Characters: Hetty & Flower
Rating: G
Length: 708 words
Creator Links: OpalEssence
Theme: female relationships

Summary: Following Season 2, Episode 5, when Hetty meets Molly the maid, she must attempt to come to terms with the fact that Elias' betrayal was entirely of his own will and desire. Luckily, Flower is there to help her move forward.

Reccer's Notes: The author of this fic does a great job capturing how these characters speak, especially Flower. It is a reflective, but wholesome scene, one that I could have very much seen playing out in the show.

Fanwork Links: AO3

runpunkrun

Miserable teenage lesbian makes bad dating (and life) choices while her best friend looks miserable about it: A Graphic Novel.

I didn't love all the bad choices and self-induced misery, but I did enjoy how effortlessly queer this is, and the ebb and flow of the friend group. I also loved how on target the fortune teller's advice was, but that Freddy was just too deep in her own bullshit to understand it. The greyscale art is modern and expressive, with a lot of movement and delightful pink highlights. A good read, and the ending improves on the beginning.

Also the cover is just so good.

Contains: infidelity; unplanned pregnancy; abortion.

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: “Dark Lady” (Cher song), Barbie
Pairings/Characters: F/M; F vs. F; Narrator/Narrator’s Partner, Narrator & Madame Fifi (with Madame Fifi/Narrator UST?), Madame Fifi/Narrator’s Partner
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 3:24
Content Notes: Major Character Death, anti-Romani stereotyping (including the bad word), arson, (toy) Clothing Porn, corny boomer music, dominance-jockeying, infidelity, hootchy-kootch dancing, love triangle, murder, occultism, psychic malpractice, (toy) Scenery Porn, please tell us the cat survived?
Creator Tags: cher, darklady, barbiestopmotion, stopmotion, animation, megotoys, barbie

Creator Links: (YouTube):

74renren; (Instagram):

Warrencito

Theme: Female Relationships, Fanvid, Old Fandoms, Non-AO3 Works, Unconventional Format & Style

Summary: A stop motion tribute to the Cher hit “Dark Lady” done with vintage Barbie and Cher dolls with other special guests.

Reccer's Notes: The list of Content Notes should suffice to explain why this song was embraced by a particular sort of overwrought 70’s kid (1); Wright reimagines the cartoon music video that aired on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

(1) Me, for example. Disclaimer: the song has become a guilty pleasure in retrospect not because of its melodramatic nature, but because of the realization that Romani probably caught a lot of grief over it.)

Fanwork Links: Dark Lady by Cher Dollmation, by Warren Wright.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: A Dark and Stormy Night.
Current Music: Implicit in the subject.

garryowen posting in

fancake

Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot)
Pairings/Characters: Gaila & Christine Chapel
Rating: Teen
Length: 4,185 words
Creator Links:

igrockspock
Theme: Female relationships

Summary: Privacy and fairy tales are two concepts that don't translate well into Orion.

Content notes: This is about Gaila, so there are mentions of enslavement and prostitution.

Reccer's Notes: I am fascinated by stories of how people come to Starfleet and what it must be like to meet people from such disparate backgrounds. This story approaches this subject with grace as Gaila and Christine Chapel become roommates at Starfleet Academy and must figure out each other's very different values and expectations. By opening up to each other, they forge a friendship. I like how creative the author is in describing Gaila's background and culture. The cultural exchange never feels heavy-handed. It's conveyed with tiny, realistic details like borrowing things from someone else's desk.

In addition to the cultural exchange element, the story weaves in ideas of resilience and having the power to change your life.

Fanwork Links: Once Upon a Time. And the WONDERFUL podfic by nickelmountain.

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chen Qing Ling
Pairings/Characters: F/F; Madam Jin/Yu Ziyuan; Madam Jin, Yu Ziyuan, Jiang Cheng
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 600
Content Notes: adultery (mentioned), angst, arranged marriage, bereavement, generational trauma, heteronormativity, marriage politics, possible (unexpressed) adult-> minor pining
Creator Tags: 5+1 Things, Drabble Sequence, Zǐdiàn (Módào Zǔshī) - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, Socially Imposed Heterosexual Marriage, Background Relationships
Creator Links: (AO3):

Zdenka
Theme: Female Relationships, Arranged Marriage, 5+1, Mutual Pining, Pining

Summary:

Five times Madam Jin saw Zidian on Yu Ziyuan's hand, and one time she saw it on her son's.

Notes:

Written for femslashfete for the prompt "artifact."

Reccer's Notes: Zdenka manages to cram so much into 600 words: an exquisitely painful soromance fulfillable only through generational proxy, imposed in turn—and the reader has the added pang of knowing what’s going to become of that couple.

Fanwork Links: Advance and Retreat, by

Zdenka.

Current Music: An early summer rain, long overdue.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Our theme for June is female relationships!

That's any kind of relationship—platonic, romantic, professional, familial, adversarial—between characters who identify as female.

The tag for this round is: theme: female relationships

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

( Rules! )

( Posting Template! )

( Promote this round! )

Reblog on Tumblr | Reskeet on Bluesky | Retoot on Mastodon

spfestmod posting in

snape_potter

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Explicit
Length: 14,383
Content Notes: mild, essentially harmless exploitation of a baby by Rodney (the baby's well cared for)
Creator Links: Helenish on AO3, dodificus on AO3, dodificus on the Audiofic Archive
Themes: Angst with a happy ending, Kidfic (has a child), Pining, First time, Friends to lovers, AU: fork in the road

Summary: It was easy to imagine fucking Rodney, the way he'd groan and clutch at John's arms and be too bossy about the whole thing; it was easy to imagine the problems it could cause.

Reccer's Notes: This is a cut off from Earth AU with the focus on John Sheppard's angst, pining and denial, but the ending, contrary to the title, is not unhappy. We follow John who's unwillingly and increasingly attracted to Rodney (but initially there's no way he'd ever let Rodney know). John tries to pretend he doesn't have feelings for Rodney while being tormented by jealousy, especially when Rodney temporarily cares for a refugee baby, partly as a "chick magnet". Helenish writes pining, self-deluding John brilliantly and this is another tour de force, packed with plot, UST, frustration, humor, and finally, finally, a happy ending, even though they're squabbling and miscommunicating throughout.

Fanwork Links: Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending on AO3
And the podfic read by dodificus is here

spfestmod posting in

snape_potter

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

runpunkrun

Karina Ahmed's parents have gone to Bangladesh for a month to visit family, leaving her with her grandmother, her younger brother, and the class "bad boy" (he wears a leather jacket) she's supposed to be tutoring in English, if he ever shows up.

In this, I think Bhuiyan wrote the book she needed—a dutiful brown girl finds a rich white Tumblr-therapy speaking boyfriend and the courage to defy her parents—and I hope it finds the readers who need it. The story is moving and the romance is sweet, though the prose often reads as unpracticed and the romance eventually devolves into saccharine cliches with Ace (his name is Ace) saying things like "you've stolen my heart" and "you're the brightest star here" which dulls its originality and makes Ace the most supportive, considerate, loving, patient, woke, rich white teenage boy in all of New York City, which was a bit hard to swallow. It's 100% wish fulfillment and I'm 100% cool with that, but it made Ace and the actual dating the least satisfying part of this for me. Instead, I was most interested in Karina's struggle to figure out what she wanted from her life and whether or not she could stand up to her parents and ask for it. The family dynamics are well drawn and I was invested in Karina and her relationship with her parents, her brother, her grandma, and her many, many cousins.

Features: