sholio | Presentses!

I've been in two fanworks exchanges that released this week, and I got two gifts in each! SCORE!

First was Grief/Mourning Flash, in which I got:

Changes (Falcon & Winter Soldier, Sam, 600 wds, gen)
A really nice Sam introspection piece! It packs a lot of character work into just a short space. I also really like this interpretation of grief as grieving for a lost ideal or past rather than a person.

Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, Aloha (Agent Carter, post-season 1, gen, 1500 wds)
Sharply characterized and touching post-season-1 fic with the SSR dealing with the loss of Dooley - mainly focused on Peggy and Jack, but also with a nice sense of other people having their own pieces of fallout to deal with.

I loved them both!

And then there was Summer of Horror, in which I had the fascinating experience of getting two fics with the same pairing for the same rather specific premise (snowbound in a castle together) with weirdly complimentary titles - that were nevertheless absolutely different and each completely awesome in their own unique way! It was honestly a very dramatic demonstration of the "two cakes" principle.

Red as Blood (Biggles books, Biggles/von Stalhein, 3000 wds)
A deliciously dark, atmospheric and vivid Beauty and the Beast tale with really nice character/relationship arcs and a powerful ending.

Still and White (Biggles/von Stalhein, 4200 wds)
And this one is a ghost story - eerie, haunting (literally and figuratively) and sometimes charmingly funny, with a wonderful and chilling coda.

They're both so good!!

I'm just starting to work my way through the archive and so far everything I've read is excellent, but the real standout for me of what I've read so far is this one:

Nor Any Drop (Biggles series, gen, 12K)
Blowing up the reservoir has more consequences than Biggles expected. AU of Biggles Flies East.

This is possibly one of the tensest fanfic reading experiences I have EVER had, due in part to having absolutely no idea who (if anyone) was going to survive and how (if so) they possibly could survive. The horror element is absolutely horrific but in a low-key way that's more psychologically horrifying than splattery/gory. (I think part of why I found it so awful has something to do with having once had a dream with a similar element to this that's still one of my most memorably horrifying nightmares despite not having anything truly scary in it; it was the concept more than anything. But I mean that in the best possible way!)

If you don't know the canon, I think you could probably read this as original fiction and pretend they're OC WWI spies on opposite sides. If this was an original horror story, it would be a very good one IMHO.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ooh, lovely presents for you! :D

This has been an absolutely excellent birthday week. I got ALL of the things!

I am so glad you and Rachel and Scioscribe lured me into signing up for the horror exchange, I have had so much fun with it and I feel like I've discovered a whole new genre in the process :-D

I have to say, I didn't realize Biggles would suit itself quite so well to horror/suspense as it actually does - but it DOES! I guess the books are just batshit enough that having them also encounter ghosts or other weirdness isn't really that much odder than things that have happened to them in canon. :D

I'm so delighted you came along for the ride and also that you got us into this in the first place!!

(I think part of why I found it so awful has something to do with having once had a dream with a similar element to this that's still one of my most memorably horrifying nightmares despite not having anything truly scary in it; it was the concept more than anything. But I mean that in the best possible way!)

That's amazing.

In the dream, specifically, it was a parasite causing infected hosts to go into a phase of rote mechanical walking that ends in their deaths. In the dream it was because it was also horrifically painful and they were trying to escape, but were too out of it to realize that they weren't actually making any progress.

I woke up and thought, first of all, WHAT THE HELL, BRAIN, and second, that this was so gloriously horrible that I was definitely going to need to remember it for potential inclusion in some horror-adjacent thing that I wrote someday. So I was really fascinated and delighted (if that's the right word) to encounter a similar idea in that fic, which was a) horrible enough on its own, but b) extra horrible because I also had the kind of "memories" you get from dreams of having actually seen and experienced this happening.

rote mechanical walking that ends in their deaths. In the dream it was because it was also horrifically painful and they were trying to escape, but were too out of it to realize that they weren't actually making any progress.

Oh, yeah, that's awful, you should definitely scar other people with it.

b) extra horrible because I also had the kind of "memories" you get from dreams of having actually seen and experienced this happening.

I have had that happen with dreams before! What an unpredictable and chilling effect.

Edited 2022-07-28 20:32 (UTC)

Thank you very much! And this one won't even topple over my physical pile of books. (Progeny is home for the weekend—or, to her mind, visiting for the weekend and will go back home tomorrow or Tuesday—and noted that I have more piles of books on my dresser than previously.)

I can relate to that feeling. :D

Presentses!

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