Recs, because they make me happy

[dragojustine]

My roommate just posted an incredibly passive-agressive sheet of paper on the fridge labeled "Clean Kitchen Rules." My anger at this is entirely disproportionate because I am just so sick of living with her, so I'm choosing to soothe myself by hunting through my history and posting more recs. Oh, and oogling Tommy Joe. (Deep breaths, Justine. Deep breaths)

First, just one for White Collar (not because there isn't great stuff there, but I've seen very few that strike me as different): Never Leave A Trace by sam_storyteller, which is an absolutely haunting bit of magical realism. It's meaty and fascinating and powerful and certainly different enough to satisfy me.

Sherlock

From paperclipbitch we have The Trick Is To Make It Look Easy, a lovely short close-to-canon slash slow build framed via John's blog.

From out_there comes The Whore of Babylon Was a Perfectly Nice Girl, which deserves some kind of title award. It does really interesting things with Sherlock's backstory, overturning expectations about Sherlock while still keeping him entirely in character, and then finishes up being one of the few fics I've seen that discusses Sherlock's past coke usage head-on.

etothepii has written a "take clothes off as directed" style 'verse (that is, a BDSM-world AU that is deeply socially interesting rather than pornily cliched). It starts off with two universe-establishing Sherlock/Lestrade ficlets (you need someone to take care of you and it's easy to trust someone who can't break you), but the real joy is everything you won't tell me, which is John/Sherlock. It's got all the fascinating social not-quite-allegory stuff going on, as well as hot sex and some wonderful careful negotiation of a very sweet romance.

By the same author, I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You (please disregard title cliche). This is phenomenally fun Good Omens fusion readable without any Good Omens knowledge, in which Mycroft is an angel, Sherlock is a demon, and John finds out.

By emungere, A Thorough Examination / In Depth. This comes with heavy warnings both for noncon and suicidal thoughts. It's... well, okay, the first half of it is a shockingly hot noncon medical fetish porn thing which I was prepared to read with no regard for character plausibility at all because just that hot. The second half, though, does amazing character work with John to make me actually believe his actions, and preserves Sherlock's voice incredibly well.

From wordstrings, a whole verse called The Paradox Series - a deeply disturbing one where Sherlock is actually a sociopath and utterly obsessed with John, in posessive, frightening, and a bit Not Good ways. Sherlock's POV here is amazing- he is entirely conscious of his own inability to understand normal empathy, rules of propriety, lines between healthy relationships and unhealthy posessiveness. Beyond that, though, the POV is completely unique- I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it. The John POV "Entirely Covered In Your Invisible Name" installment also does some really fascinating things with identity. Overall, this verse Sherlock is not precisely in character, but he is a consistent and interesting two steps to the side of canon and I found it fascinating.

Inception (the fandom that is currently eating my brain. I want so much dream logic and suit porn.)

the new world order by vinylroad. This is the only fic I've seen that made me wonder about Ariadne after, made me realize just how much they had uprooted her and changed her life and how impossible it would be to leave after she tasted it. It's the 3 of them, Ariadne and Arthur and Eames, all in fragments and tangled together and with so much unspoken. They're all so lost and without anchor that it's almost unbearable to read- and I get the sense (and I don't know if this is intended by the author or not) of the danger of the technology, not the bright definite danger of turning into a vegetable, but the much quieter more ambigious danger of simply drifting, ever more disconnected from the world and from normal human lives. This fic is about them strugging to stay connected, despite the seemingly irresistible (surreal, dreamlike) pull of entropy. I don't know if that's really there in this fic or if I'm reading in, but I found it haunting.

isagel gave me exactly what I wanted- phenomenally hot Eames-forging-as-a-woman porn- at On Your Every Body, and then followed it up with what I didn't even know I needed- And the Heart Lies Deeper Still Than Bones, in which sometimes Eames is a woman, and Arthur tries to roll with it. This is a truly great genderqueer fic, and Arthur's POV is lovely. I like how Arthur's bisexuality is not even at issue- it's not about how Eames is hotter as a woman or hotter as a man, it's about Arthur wanting to know her, love him, understand who she feels she is inside, what he sees when he looks in the mirror. I find it very moving.

From airgiodslv, a fic which would sound perilously close to crack if I described it's premise yet so incredibly isn't: Call and Answer. But aside from the premise, this is my Arthur, in all his careful closed-off competent ruthlessness.

And, because every fandom needs a zombie apocalypse fic, have Immaculate Dream by frantic_allonsy, in which Eames and Arthur will always rescue each other and Arthur is devastatingly competent.

And a set of no-canon-needed AUs, because it turns out that Eames/Arthur seems to go AU as well as anything since John/Rodney. Serioiusly, they're such a great set of contrasting personalities with such a great set of interlocking supporting characters that "Arthur is a [random profession]; Eames is a [random profession]; they fall in love!" works just perfectly.

The Wrath of the Whatever From High Atop the Thing, a vaugely West Wing-influenced presidential campaign story in which Arthur is a brilliant speechwriter and Eames is a campaign photographer who is utterly obsessed by him, and the rest of the cast is deeply awesome (especially Ariadne and Yusuf)

Early Returns, in which Arthur is a hardass copy editor, Eames is an investigative reporter, the entire staff is like a fabulous dysfunctional family complete with warring mid-divorce parents, and the banter reduced me to tears of mirth.

I've Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile, in which Arthur is a lawyer who hates his job, Eames owns a coffee shop, and the happily ever after is so ridiculously adorably sweet it basically gives me a toothache (ignore my crochety impulses- I couldn't stop smiling for hours after this one).