do u any long fic recs pls i need cope hard after what tvl has been and qotd is going to be?
what a beautiful question 😚💕 and what a beautiful excuse to scroll through my ao3 bookmarks and revisit my old favorite fics bc I also need to cope!!!!!!!
Come 🫴🏽Let's cope together....
Full disclosure I don't actually read many super long fics (I'm more of a oneshot girl) but these are a few of my favorite ones that are at least long-ish
(I'm realizing now making this list how many of my favorite fics have been deleted 😭😭😭 rip.......)
<< Part of Your World by weathermood >>
This is an all timer (and the longest on this list).......as someone who LOVES fairytales and has been obsessed with The Little Mermaid my whole life, it's like this fic was made in a lab for me. Fairytale monster horror romance in a castle by the sea with a tormented Prince Louis and a tormenting Siren Lestat??? It's everything I want in a loustat au 😖💖💕💝💘There's one scene in particular that is one of the lower-key scenes and not super dramatic or anything but its just so fucking tender and sweet and fairytale-y that it sits in my brain all the time and I can picture it so vividly.......The writing is so beautiful and the world is so lush and pretty and everything is sparkly and wonderful and I love the ocean and I LOVE MERMAIDS!!! Plus there are a BUNCH of sequel stories so if you like the world of the fic you will literally never go hungry. I need to go back and read them allllllll
(Link to the full collection)
<< reformation by verseau >>
This is another world famous one I'm sure everyone has already read fjkdlsafj;dka but i can't NOT bring it up 🙂↕️ It's just a classic. It's a foundational Loustat text. It should be taught in all the schools. We should all be writing our dissertations about it. All of verseau's stuff is triple platinum in my household but this is the juggernaut. The characterizations.....the drama.......the sexiness.....the epic highs and lows of a fraught on-again-off-again domestic human Loustat my body craved long before I ever knew it existed. It's actually rly personal to me bc when I first came into this fandom and was looking at the most popular fics, I felt really isolated, like no one saw the characters the way I did. I'm very particular about characterizations of Louis since he's my favorite character obvs, and most ppl in this fandom (and writers room at this point.....sigh.....) just do not do him justice in all his shades and complexities!!!!! So when I found this fic it was such an insane breath of fresh air like THANK GOD SOMEONE LIKES AND UNDERSTANDS LOUIS!!!!! Plus it's just fucking fun to read. Little Claudia kills me. I'm so thankful this fic exists and I cannot praise it enough.
<< no man can dam the tide by murph_y >>
Utterly spellbinding and gorgeous Louis/Loustat character study. I love love LOVE this author's prose style, it's so lyrical and sophisticated and just like...I literally should be reading these words from a leather-bound tome with golden embossing on the cover while curled up on a velvet chaise before a roaring fire in an estate drawing room somewhere instead of in bed squinting at my computer screen at 4am 🙂↕️ It's actually so crazy you can just go online and read this FOR FREE.....it makes me so emotional I haven't reread it in a while because I know I sobbed my eyes out the first time fjdksalfjd;sak but i NEED to revisit this especially in light of tvl bc its such a poetic, tender, beautifully rendered exploration of Louis as a character and tbh we may never get anything like that onscreen ever again so incredible fanworks like this one are so fucking needed!!!! 😭😭
<< No Other Gods by lesfleurouges >>
This is a shorter one (like i said, going down my bookmarks list I really realized most of the fics I like are 5k and under 🙂↕️) by another incredible very prolific author, but I wanted to highlight it as another example of how vital fanwork can be. Personally, I feel like the power dynamic and abusive elements of Loustat are essential components when it comes to depicting that relationship with any fidelity. They aren't all Loustat is, of course, but their relationship (and the core friction that defines it) is so shaped by the context of those elements that I sometimes struggle to recognize Loustat as Loustat when those elements aren't present in some way, even in an au (even the arguably fluffiest fic on this list, Part of Your World, has that power imbalance baked in by virtue of being a human-monster romance). Part of what I feel like worked so well in og iwtv was that it was a treatment of 'gothic romance' that never shied away from either extreme, the passion and the pain and the desperate need and the gut-churning horror of love. Which makes it all the more disappointing that the show writers seem dead set on refusing to explore or even fully acknowledge that horror going forward........and makes fics like this one all the more necessary! This fic is a really upsetting, but deeply compelling and well-written exploration of what it would be like for Louis to live within that abusive dynamic. I really love stuff like this that shades in the space between episodes that the show is now dedicated to glossing over. I think fanwork in most fandoms tends to seek to fill gaps left in the source material, to give proper time and space to ideas that weren't fully fleshed out in the canon itself, but when it comes to this show, works like this that unflinchingly acknowledge and TAKE SERIOUSLY the pain the show put these characters through (particularly Louis ofc, whom the writers have demoted to God's least favorite and deserving of every beating he's ever taken, while giving him no opportunity to process or heal from these beatings) feel like a vital part of processing the psychological reality of these characters....like its practically a moral imperative at this point. 🙂↕️ I would love to be able to link another of my top favorite fics exploring the abuse by nlbv here but...alas....it was deleted from ao3...😭😭😭 (I know you can find it if you search around but idk what the fandom etiquette is around linking deleted fics so???????)
<< off to the races by starboykeith >>
This is shorter too. I don't have a deep intellectual reason for this one it's just fucking hot fjdksl;ajfdklsa;jfsdk it brings a smile to my face. 😊tbh I don't read fics nearly as often as I used to these days but I am traditionally a smut oneshot reader 🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️ And I have reread this one a LOT. I do like the way it engages with Louis gender stuff...his desire and shame around the idea of a feminine/'wifely' role, another underexplored relic from the Rue Royale days...remember how we used to run....if anyone knows more fics in this vein, please share, I.....want to read....them all.....
LASTLY I'll go ahead and plug my own fic too 🙂↕️ It's an extremely silly and self-indulgent human celeb au and it only has 4 chapters so far but it is at 67k already somehow so jfkdlsaj;fkda if length is all you care about...well...it has that 😛 it is the sequel to this one I did for a fic fest! I am a rly slow writer but I do have the next chapter almost done so hopefully I update sometime next month??? By the time this fic is done it'll probably end up being like 400k or something ridiculous lol bc I have so much fun with it, it's like my little comfort zone 💖
I actually HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest that anyone who is thirsty for new fics and seeking a way to cope with The State of Things to get into fic writing themselves!!!! It's been such a huge stress relief and honestly very therapeutic in these oh so trying times. I know lots of people are intimidated by writing and posting their stuff publicly, but the fandom literally needs you now more than ever 😭 And even if you are your own number 1 fan and you are just writing for yourself it's the most fun thing ever and you deserve to bring to life the fic you want to see!!
Just in general, I think more people should be writing. I know for me IWTV s1-2 had such a huge impact because it is so singular. There isn't anything else like it out there right now. I want more beautiful, thoughtful, romantic, psychologically compelling art (preferably with black people in it!!! who aren't trapped within a hostile narrative that wants to retroactively crucify them!!) The state of art these days is so corporatized and shallow and now there's all this AI stuff....imo we should all be writing to our passions and sharing our little stories with each other and drawing inspiration from our niche little labors of love and not mass-produced labors of hate or greed.
AR was a notorious fan fiction hater for much of her career, but she was also deeply encouraging of aspiring writers who looked up to her. maybe you'll be moved by her words to begin if not mine. The world is crying for new writing!!!
Thank u for the ask! And anyone who wants to, please feel free to leave your favorite long fic recs in the comments for the lovely anon!!! 💖💖💖
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