More Good Fics

[ranuel]

But wait, there's more...

By My Side, In Your Hands
by Jenbird
Series: Rurouni Kenshin
Kenshin has a bit of a PTSD meltdown and Kaoru gets him through it.

I really like the way the author shows us what is going on in Kenshin's mind as he loses it. I think that someone who doesn't follow the manga would be able to appreciate that as well.

What non-fans need to know:
Kenshin is one of the two best swordsmen in Meiji era Japan. When he was 14 he was recruited by the rebellion against the Shogunate and became their top assassin within the year. As a result of his activities, his enemies set him up by sending a young woman to get close to him. She volunteered because Kenshin had killed her fiance but she ended up falling in love with Kenshin and they were married. She died during the fight with the men who had used her.

Kenshin is a gentle person by nature who was raised to protect the weak and who thought he was serving that purpose by agreeing to be an assassin for the side he believed in. What he did nearly drove him mad and it was both his wife's love, and her death, that paradoxically helped him hold things together until the end of the civil war.

After that he wandered for 10 years like Bill Bixby in the Hulk, moving on whenever he thought old enemies might find him. He stopped when he met Kaoru.

They go through a lot of adventures together and each nearly dies before they fend off all the ghosts of the past and are able to make a life together.

Note: The manga and the anime are often very different in characterization and some key events from each don't crossover. This seems to be based on the manga.

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Game of the Gods
by Limyaael
Series: Tolkien's Middle Earth stories
Morgoth and Varda are playing a little game. Morgoth's weapon: Mary Sues. Varda's weapon: Reality.

No matter what the fandom Mary Sues are seldom original to their creators, as Limyaael proved in her articles posted to her Live Journal they can be classed into types. In this story many of those Sues are sent to Middle Earth by Morgoth as part of a game that he is playing against Varda (AKA Elbereth). Each chapter features a different Sue, and her horrible death, while advancing a framing story that is absolutely hilarious.

You need to know a bit about Mary Sues to get this and you will need to know more about Tolkien's characters than you can get from watching the movies to follow some of the framing story. Google might be your friend if you decide to give it a shot.

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Beautiful
by MissMusicality
Series: Inuyasha
Every moment is more beautiful when you know it is your last. OneShot on Miroku

Non-fans should be able to enjoy this one. It's about human feelings and that's pretty universal. I was a bit afraid at one point that this would turn into a Miroku/Kagome thing and ruin everything but it doesn't. Well writen stories that focus on Miroku are rarer than I'd like. He gets a bit more emotional in this than he normally does but concidering what's been happening him recently in the series he's allowed.

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Sunsets
by MissMusicality
Series: Inuyasha
Inuyasha and Sango die in the last battle against Naraku. With the well closed Kagome and Miroku have to find a way to go on with life

Need to know who the main characters are and what their relationships are to one another and if you are reading this you've dealt with my obsession long enough to know that even if you've not read the series. This made me misty, whether that was hormones or not is your call. Or it could be the bit about how we have to live on after those we care for die hits a bit close

Comments

[alterfano.livejournal.com]

i read 'beautiful' and 'sunsets'. both wonderful. thank you for recommending them. she is a wonderful writer. and very much to my way of thinking.

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

I particularly like how she takes a situation in "Beautiful" that someone else would have used as an excuse for a lame Miroku/Kagome set up and instead does a powerful friendship story for them, but then does one of the best Miroku/Kagome romantic pairings I've seen in "Sunsets". It's nice to see someone who can look at a couple in more than one way in different stories while staying true to their canon characters.

[alterfano.livejournal.com]

yep. i've been tempted to try the mir/kag pairing. but it's in my pile of 'sess/kag', mir/kag, inu/san... don't feel drawn to a sess/san as i don't really see how they would be drawn together.

and the challenge i've set for my sess/kag is to NOT kill off rin or inu and still make us believe it. i've got that one sortof figured out... but not mir/kag. i don't want to kill off inu/san,.... no matter how it would come about i know it would be incredibly sad (like 'sunets'). so i've been avoiding it. i've been avoiding them all, actually. i have enough sad ones lined up as it is. ;)

btw: you might want to check out forthrightly. she does reviews once in a while and i think you guys might hit it off.

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

For Sess/San I've read a couple of attempts that were enjoyable reads but they both rely on slight twists to the charcters to pull it off, what I think of as a "gimme". That is something that author asks you to accept for the sake of the story to come that wouldn't actually work with the characters in canon.

For instance in "The Youkai and the Exterminator" by Wheezambu GIVEN THAT the painfully shy about such things Sango would agree to sex with someone to pay off a debt of honor, and GIVEN THAT Sess might be curious as to what it might be like with a human, THEN what follows after is an interesting take on what a relationship between them might work out as but it's definately in an AU of it's own where those two are not quite the same people as they are in canon.

Most stories that pair her with someone else without killing Miroku have her breaking things off with Miroku over his womanizing. He hasn't done more than flirt a little with another woman since he asked her to marry him when everything is over so that doesn't hold up. Sango didn't even really want to fall for Miroku but now that she has I can't see her turning to someone else as long as he is alive.

If he died and she survived I can't see her turning to a former enemy for comfort without some sort of novel length build up to it along the lines of "Tales of the House of the Moon". It would be a long time, probably years before she would even consider someone else. Which is something else I liked in "Sunsets"; it took at least two years before Miroku and Kagome get together even though they are close friends and in daily contact. Grief takes time.

I may check out Forthrightly at some point. Right now I'm having a hard time keeping up with the forums and blogs I'm currently reading.

[alterfano.livejournal.com]

Most stories that pair her with someone else without killing Miroku have her breaking things off with Miroku over his womanizing. This only works if his womanizing turns out to be real on an important level. i DO think this i can be done, but it turns him into more of a cad than i like, personally. still. can be done, as you say with little twists of the character that you'd have to accept.

yes, the time factor is critical. In Gisei (and Entangled), that was the ONLY way I could pull off sess/rin. gotta give rin time to grow up away from sess so their relationship could be believable to me.

forthrightly may look you up, who knows. LJ can become truly addicting once people find you here... which other forums/blogs do you find yourself spending a lot of time on? i'm lazy and pretty much only follow LJ and DA friends.

Other time sinks

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

I started to answer this and realized that it would be better as a post than a comment. Look for it soon.

[ranuel.livejournal.com]

I went to Forthrightly's MMO stuff today and read every single thing she had up. I'm going to have to add her LJ to my flist so I don't miss anything.

[alterfano.livejournal.com]

yay! you'll like her. i think you guys will get along....;)

happy new year!