rec me books, o reading page?

I like disastrous obsessive girls and unreliable narrators and settings-that-are-characters and psychological horror, among other things. non-dude authors preferred. the last book i finished was the haunting of hill house (shirley jackson), am currently reading the bear and the nightingale (katherine arden), next will probably be the traitor baru cormorant (seth dickinson).

also if you're wondering if i type the vast majority of my book-question posts on my phone while lying on the floor of my favourite indie bookshop you would be correct, excuse the typos my screen is too small to show me and autocorrect may catch and may make worse.

(the problem, you see, with dreamwidth moving so quickly these days, is that i keep forgetting who mentioned excellent-sounding books and then because i am bad at remembering to add them to my memories, i also forget where they are! and the last four pages of my reading page are all today!)

ETA: wow yes you all have super great taste and also apparently strong feelings on twin peaks? i have never seen the show but i am delighted by that spinoff discussion. i am definitely set for my next few library trips now :D

i want to kill you when you least expect it [chocolatebox 2019]

Update 10 January: If you're writing Overwatch fic I read the Bastet story and loved it but you can feel free to include/disregard its events as you like!

Hello friend, it is time for Valentine's Day fic and my requests are entirely themed around women who can't decide whether they want to kill each other or fuck each other, and I am so excited to see what you will write for me! If you want inspiration beyond this letter I am also kimaracretak, where I have a small but reflective-of-things-I-like set of bookmarks, and kimaracretak on 8tracks if you want #aesthetic musical inspiration.

I've by and large chosen canons I love for their worldbuilding and mytharcs as well as their characters and relationships, and I am easy to please as long as you stay away from my DNWs (both general and canon-specific), so don't feel like you Have to write any of my specific prompts. Don't read anything into relative lengths of sections, I am equally happy to get something for anything in this letter! Some of these prompts are reused from old letters, and if you have written them for me before, rest assured that I loved your fic, I am simply greedy and would like to see every possible take on my favourite scenarios.

If you are writing shipfic, I like everything from pre-ship feelings navigation to PWP, so for / relationships don't worry about whether they're shippy 'enough'. I don't need a lot of romance in my ships, sex for power, manipulation, or just between friends who want to have fun is also great. Please no unrequested ships unless specifically allowed for, but feel free to combine any compatible ones from my requested ones.

bring her bleeding heart to me
only when the gods are free
— 'juniper', myrkur

Things what I like;

( Read more... )

Things what I like, smut edition;

( Read more... )

Things what I do not want;

( Read more... )

I prefer to be a liar just like you
To fulfill my deepest desires
— 'the obsessive devotion', epica

Agent Carter

General: I love that Whitney and Angie and to some extent Peggy were set up as certain images of Idealised Americana while Dottie at times tended towards being her own Idealised Russia. I love the darkness and potential for noir tropes that were hinted at but never fully explored, especially when it comes to Los Angeles and New York as characters and the possibilities of - to borrow a lovely tag from my darkestnightex request - architectural horror inherent there (Weird zero matter voids! The bottom of the lake in Echo Park! That one metro station in New York that everyone knows is Wrong, Somehow (I know very little about NYC but every metro system has a station like that lbr). Very good for trapped and forced to work together to survive fics!. I love all of the weird awful things that could be done with zero matter. I love this show the most when it's about bodies and collisions and weird push-pulls of trust and these women's attempts at control. I'm not familiar with much of the wider Marvel universe and prefer you avoid it. IN SPACE AUs and dark fairy tale AUs welcome. OT3s and the OT4 with the requested characters are fine.

( Dottie/Angie, Dottie/Peggy, Dottie/Whitney, Whitney/Peggy )

An Enchantment of Ravens

General: I quite liked Rook and am happy to see Isobel/Rook exist alongside the requested Isobel ships, but am equally happy with the requested ships happening instead of or after Isobel/Rook. I adore the worldbuilding madly and would love something that gets into all the Craft and glamour and politics of the world.

Fandom-specific DNW: Explicit sex for Isobel/Lark

( Isobel/Hemlock, Isobel/Lark )

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

General: Please refer to Lilith as Lilith (rather than Madam Satan) for fic from her POV/from the POV of people who know she's no longer Mary Wardwell. I like stories about Lilith slowly siphoning witches away from Satan, and stories where Sabrina (or Zelda, or the Weird Sisters) sign their name over to Lilith directly rather than into the Book of the Beast, and stories about centuries of history and the distinctly inhuman perceptions and desires of witches and demons. There's so many levels of glorious fucked-up obsessive mentorship here along with, you know, the gore and the cannibalism and the deification-via-cannibalism and I love all of them.

( Lilith/Original Mary Wardwell, Lilith/Zelda, Lilith/Sabrina, Lilith & The Weird Sisters )

Critical Role

General: I consider the campaign guide, artbook, and anything said on Talks Machina nebulously canon at best (and don't know much of what's said on Talks, because I can neither watch live nor afford Alpha) so feel free to conform to/depart from what they say as you wish. I'm familiar with most wider D&D lore/sourcebooks/mechanics from 3.5e onwards, including 5e's unearthed arcana, if you want inspiration for additional worldbuilding/plotting (though I know 4e best). I like fics that take into account mechanical D&D limitations (e.g. characters saying they need to rest before doing any more magic) but DNW characters using the actual real-world terms (e.g. characters saying they're 'out of spell slots'). I adore 4e's epic destinies and would love it if you incorporated relevant ones for the requested characters (special love for World Tree Guardian!Keyleth, Master of the Eternal Hunt!Vex, and Archspell!Delilah with Finger of Death, but, yknow, go wild!). Canonverse Vampire!Cassandra is a welcome AU for any of these ships.

Fandom-specific DNW: Scanlan, Percy, Percy/Vex, ace!Keyleth, campaign 2 characters/canon.

( Keyleth/Ripley, Keyleth/Raishan, Keyleth/Raishan/Allura, Keyleth/Delilah, Delilah/Cassandra, Delilah/Raishan/Ripley )

Jordskott

General: Jordskott came for my whole entire heart with its witchy ladies and plant-based body horror and I gave it gladly and had it broken even more gladly. So: angst, body horror, lost loves etc, the fandom. I love really the entire rest of the cast except Tom, and welcome appearances from any of them. The Eva/Laila/Zara OT3, in V-form or triad, is also good!

( Eva/Zara, Laila/Zara, ft SPOILERS for all of season 2! )

Killing Eve

General: I don't know what good I did to the universe to get this show in return but wow is this blood-soaked grimly funny chase across London and Russia and half of Europe the show of my dreams. I love how bright Villanelle is in everything she does, I love her twisted undeniable logic and her unstoppable yearning. I tend to think of some level of Villanelle/Eve as basically canon, and though I'm leaving it off my request list in favour of my rarer Villanelle pairs, I don't think it's entirely avoidable and I'm totally here for that sort of conflict between Villanelle's multiple desires pulling her towards conflicting (or perhaps ultimately nonconflicting?) goals. Canon-compliant deathfic for Nadia is okay.

( Villanelle/Pamela, Villanelle/Nadia )

Nikita

General: I know it's been five years since it ended but this is still the spy show of my heart and I love all these sad glamorous dubiously-moral assassins. Before Amanda's backstory reveal I spent some time headcanoning her as a Russian agent - feel free to run with that background if it speaks more to you than her canon one! I am fine with background Nikita/Owen, Nikita/Alex, Amanda/Alex, or Nikita/Ryan, but DNW Nikita/Michael.

( Nikita/Amanda, Carla/Amanda, Amanda/Madeline )

Overwatch

General: I prefer things set post-Fall and love things set post-recall, especially for Ana. Missionfic is just as much of a delight as something more introspective. Exploration of how their powers/weapons could be used during or to facilitate sex is great (I love Moira's interest in picking people apart) and while angst and darkfic and dubcon are all encouraged, I'd rather you don't get too clinical/medical in descriptions of Moira's experiments. For Amélie ships, I have no preference if fic is set when she's Amélie or Widowmaker (or both! both is also good). I don't have specific prompts for the Ana/Amélie/Moira OT3 but if you want to include it (as either a triad or a V-ship) feel free!

( Ana/Amelie, Ana/Moira )

Picnic at Hanging Rock (TV 2018)

General: This show has a thesis of 'why be a girl when you could be an eldritch horror instead' because it loves me, it really loves me. I love the bonds and the backstabbing and the love-through-horror, I love the changeling girls and the amount of respect it gives stories of self-creation. Changeling: The Lost, vampire, and Sith Academy AUs gleefully accepted here, and any of the prompts in the PaHR section of my darkest night letter can be used here as well. Canon-compliant deathfic for Hester is okay, ambiguous/show-consistent explanations for what happened at the Rock for Marion, Miranda, and Greta are also okay.

( Hester/Dianne, Hester/Irma, Hester/Miranda )

The Silmarillion & Other Histories of Middle-Earth

General: I love the lush expansiveness of Tolkien's work, the history and the care and the sheer amount of space characters are allowed to take up and that we are able to fill in. My favourite bits are the horror and the weird fey things, but moments of levity and happy couples dealing with supernatural things (happy couples murdering other things :D) are also excellent! I am indifferent to Beren and Manwë, dislike Eol, and have no infidelity-related squicks, so handle the canon marriages however you like.

( Luthien/Thuringwethil, Thuringwethil/Aredhel, Varda/Ungoliant )