Reviewing Fanfics #35
Lightning Only Strikes Once by fiona_249
Clexa Canonverse; Canon-divergent after 3x7
Consumed by grief, Clarke climbs Lexa's tower, not really thinking through what she plans to do. But any plans get taken away when she's struck by lightning, mysteriously transporting her back to before any of it happens.
Back in her cell on the Ark, Clarke remembers exactly what went wrong - and mysteriously, so does Lexa among her people on the ground. Between the two of them, can they get back to each other? Can they find a way to save both of their people and themselves? Or is the hatred surrounding them too strong?
****
Fair warning: this fic is 300,000 words (134 chapters) so, if you don’t want to do what I did (miss all my classes, sleep very little, and read it in two days), maybe don’t start it at all. It’s too addictive to stop. It’s taken me a while to write this review because I’m still reeling from having read this. In a good way. You know, the kind of reeling where you’ve read something so amazing you don’t think you’ll ever be able to read again because nothing will meet your now exceptionally high standards.
It. Was. Beautiful. I’d forgotten what it’s like to trust a writer but there was never a moment when I believed that Fiona_249 as going to betray the weird trust that exists between author and reader. That’s not to say that there wasn’t angst, drama and plot twists but, at no point, did I think I was going to be so utterly shattered as I was by 3x7.
This is not a slow-burn fic and that I really appreciated. I enjoy a good slow-burn AU but I found myself dreading reading canonverse slow-burn; we’d already had that. I wasn’t disappointed; Clarke and Lexa are allowed to find each other relatively quickly but it doesn’t then just decide to make it all fluff. Fiona_249 is invested in resolving all the awful fucked up shit that happened in the show and giving us an ending we deserve.
I laughed. I cried. I convinced my roommate to read it.
There was so much attention to detail. So much catharsis and so much complexity. I know I’m ranting but I never expected to find a fact that started to mend all of the trauma and damage done by 3x7. I can see now why this is called the ultimate fix-it fic.
I also really appreciated the attention given to the other characters and the ways in which they weren’t the same people as in the canon but also that there are intrinsic personality traits that don’t change no matter what circumstances a person is in. There was a complex interaction with fate and destiny in this fic that was just so beautifully nuanced. For example, Octavia and Lincoln end up together in this fic too but the circumstances are completely different. The author doesn’t pretend that they’re the same people but they do have similar traits.
Just...so much attention to detail. I could ramble for a century about it.
Thank you so much, Fiona_249!!!!
