✩ MONTHLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩
The fics I’ve read and enjoyed for the month of November. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.
Fandoms included this month:
HTTYD
The Murderbot Diaries
Star Trek
ATLA
The Pitt
DC (Batfamily)
The Magnus Archives
HTTYD
familiar (like someone i used to know) by redrobin1989 for aloneintherain
Once a decade, Berk's teenagers are replaced by their future selves to help guide the island into the future. But a lot can change in 10 years and, this time, tradition takes a bit of a twist as the future comes ever closer.
(AU where Toothless, not Hiccup, travels back as the Third Seer)
The Murderbot Diaries
give it a hand, offer it a soul by dragonyfox
My route has another projected 4.7 seconds. I tried so fucking hard to get to you, to outrun that fucking CSU. Unfortunately, that’s when the CSU shoots me in my power cord.
I only have enough time to send a single, panicked message to you, telling you to get the hell out of here, before I suffer an emergency shutdown.
Parameter Lock by Sunruner
Part 4 of Procedural Learning
Two years after hacking its governor module, SecUnit003/"Three"/"Theo" is enrolled at the Pan-System University of Mihira & New Tideland because... reasons. It would, honestly, much rather be riding wormholes and liberating constructs and helping its friends aboard Perihelion, but it has a mission and needs to see it through.
It also has several humans students that it is trying to be friends with for... reasons.
And, if those reasons involve it having limited feed access, disabling its weaponry, and generally having to refute its basic function to try and accomplish this mission then...
[MISSION PARAMETER LOCK]
...Then, it's just going to have to grit its teeth and bear it.
voluntary security training by thetimesinbetween
Seth was not satisfied with ART's explanation that the whole incident was “voluntary security training” (correct), “a learning experience for all of us” (ugh), or “possibly a form of bonding between SecUnits” (double ugh). So now Three and I had to have a meeting with Seth, Karime, and ART, plus Iris, who was sitting in to "listen and learn." I could have asked Mensah to talk her way in as an expert mediator or something, but let’s be real, I’m not going to do that.
(No, Mensah hadn't joined ART's crew. We were on our way back to Mihira, and she and her second-eldest had come along to visit Amena, who was studying at PSUMNT. Well, that's what she'd said. Clearly, they were also visiting me.)
(This was not really a great time to get in trouble for shooting someone, is what I’m saying.)
A Secondary Emotion by sanctuaryrin
ART bot nodded slowly as I finished speaking. An amusement sigil flashed in its eyes. “Pretty good,” it said, “but I could do better.” “Hold on,” Tara said then. “I'm not sure I explained the–” ART bot sat up in its chair and opened its mouth anyway. “I feel–” The end of that statement had led to the creation of the second rule. Rule #2 ART and Murderbot are not allowed to utilize ‘I statements’ during their sessions, (or preferably ever). Oh well. It had been fun while it lasted.
A SecUnit and a spaceship walk into couples therapy. Neither of them really want to be there but both of them are. Apparently that’s where you get sent after you have a big fight that scares the humans. Now it's just a matter of figuring out if they’d like to actually fix their problems and admit to having emotions, or if they’d like to make things worse.
Make things worse seems like the obvious choice…right?
Family Portrait by ramshackle_fey
Turns out that if you save the lives of a bunch of kids' family members (multiple times), they might just decide you're pretty cool. Whether you like it or not.
Done With This by HermesDay
After being detained on a corporate station, Murderbot's governor module starts acting up in unpredictable ways. As things get worse and worse, Murderbot starts to wonder if it will make it back to Preservation Station alive.
Denial | Working through the pain | "What have you done to yourself?"
There's a Monster in the Feed by HermesDay
Murderbot, along with two of Karime's kids, is kidnapped by a hostile machine intelligence. Unable to escape while the ship is in transit, Murderbot does everything it can to keep the MI's attention focused on itself and away from its young clients.
Restraints | Obsession | "Aren't you feisty?" Self-Inflicted Injury | Rocky Recovery | "If I tell you what they made me do, you won't be able to look at me the same."
Star Trek
Level five emergency by spqr
“Well, Jim," Pike says, "it looks like my chief science officer and my deputy head of engineering would really like you back over there doing whatever it is they’re doing. I trust you guys aren’t about to blow up my ship?”
“No sir,” Jim says dutifully. “We ran seventy-three models and we only blew up your ship seventy-two times.”
“Oh good,” says Pike.
K'diwa: A Steamy Novel of Interspecies Romance, by Jim Kirk, by branwyn (podfic) by cookiemom6067
Jim wrote a romance novel just to prove he could. Then someone leaked it on the public Starfleet server, and suddenly his embarrassingly smutty and sentimental Human/Vulcan love story is all over campus. Luckily for Jim, no one knows that he’s the author. Unluckily for Jim, someone forwarded the novel to the staff of the Vulcan embassy. Now, every Vulcan in San Francisco is reassessing the logical merits of taking Human bondmates.
Spock reads a Human/Vulcan romance novel because he can hardly avoid it. Suddenly, he is consumed by the need to locate the author, ascertain their wellbeing, and instruct them in the way of Vulcan mating bonds. Luckily for Spock, it doesn't take long to identify the author as Jim Kirk. Unluckily for Spock, Jim is unconscious and surrounded by interested Vulcans who also read the book.
ATLA
war's rough, buddy by amateurwordbender
“Huh. Yeah, I think that’s exactly what I was trying to say. You’re pretty good at listening.”
It’s Zuko’s turn to laugh, but his version just sounds bitter. “Trust me, I’m not.”
The amount of self-loathing in those four short syllables is enough to make Sokka wince, but it doesn’t seem like his place to say anything. Zuko did do some pretty fucked up shit, after all. Maybe the self-loathing is warranted.
(after the events of The Phoenix King (S3E18), the two oldest members of the Gaang have a talk) (and yes, Sokka learns about Zuko’s scar)
The Pitt
ER confidential by bookgrimm
Part 3 of Ex-Amish Whitaker
Dennis walked away from everything he knew and everyone he loved to become a doctor.
And he's done a decent job keeping that part of his life under wraps. Not because he’s ashamed of it (lie, to be unpacked later), but because it’s easier to let his coworkers think he’s just a quiet farm boy from Nebraska and not someone who gave up the only world he’d ever known to chase something else entirely.
At least, until now.
All it takes is a shouting match and one ER full of bored medical professionals and suddenly The Pitt's rumor mill has a new favorite subject.
Him.
DC (Batfamily)
hand in unlovable hand by kitfornow
Tim Drake used to love photography. He used to be pretty damn good at it, too.
He doesn't do it so much anymore.
And he isn't sure why that seems to bother Damian so much.
The Magnus Archives
a deeply annoying child by ajkal2
Jon is hiding under the desk.
----
There's a child in the Archives, who shouldn't be there.
