#sath rec

[sathinfection]

shark or treat!

Y’know what, 2017 was a shit year. However, there is a light in the darkness.

And that light is phosphorescent eyeball-eating copepods. 

So I participated in the Trick or Treat Exchange, which just had reveals this morning and has a ton of awesome fic and art written for people. Everything is still anonymous at this point (I wrote some stuff!), but I just have to scream a little.

Because I got FOUR gifts about the very specific subject of a GREENLAND SHARK MERMAID. That’s right. A very weird type of deep sea shark, as a mermaid. The world isn’t so bad after all! I am reccing each piece of shark fiction and art because they are all awesome, and because Greenland sharkmaids ought to be shared. Also 2/4 of these have selkie elements in them! A twofer!

somewhere over the sea  (708 words)

This is a Greenland sharkmaid/female scientist fic where they meet cute. There is beef jerky. There’s bad smells. I hope they have many happy years together.

An Ill Wind (612 words) 

Do you like spooky people-eating mermaids? Do you feel like maybe Greenland sharks deserve to eat us because we joke about how they smell horrible? This is the fic for you!

Greenland Sharkmaid (art)

This is a totally awesome rendering of a Greenland sharkmaid, with tiddy out, because there are no clamshells in the deep sea. 

The Sea Maid (2600 words)

Yowza! This story smacked me on the floor because it is so atmospheric and has a wonderful sense of time and EERIE EERIE HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD SHARKMAID SELKIE. Witch/Sharkmaid!

All of these are must reads/ogles! LET THIS BE THE YEAR OF THE GREENLAND SHARKMAID.

PS all the links work if you mouse over them but Tumblr doesn’t want to show any of my text highlighting

[sathinfection]

an enthusiastic rec

the kindle version of ninefox gambit is on sale at amazon for $3.46

that nets you:

the novel that just won the hugo award

really really innovative SF inspired by east asia

like the most innovative book i’ve read since ancillary mercy

this book blasted my socks off

LGBTQ-friendly! there’s bi characters, the protagonist is either bi or lesbian (it’s a lil ambiguous), and there’s mentions of trans people

the author is a queer trans man 

the first part of the book is a little hard to get into because the worldbuilding is INTENSE but i swear it soon makes perfect sense and you can just enjoy the hell outta yourself

there is math but i swear. don’t run away from the math. THERE ARE NO CALCULATIONS ON THE PAPER THE MATH IS OFFSCREEN

[sathinfection]

Everything is terrible at work but at least I have IADM. Any suggestions on what to read as I wait for an update? I may die of overwork, if not.

oh no I’m sorry that I’m answering this so late! I hope you have not perished of overwork! 

anyway I’m not a very wide reader of fic but here are some of my fave longer Kyluxes:

Waste Isolation by @yeats-infection

This is my favorite Kylux fic. If you like your stuff post-apocalyptic, lushly written, and freighted with doom, check this one out. 

Adrift by @lingua-mortua

Hux and Kylo are stranded on a mysterious planet and TBH I never get tired of these plots but also Lingua is a danged good writer and this is well-executed as heck. 

Aut Vincere Aut Mori by @fraxinus

Hux manipulates Kylo so he can become Emperor and betray Snoke but then Hux gets FEELINGS. Read it in one go for maximum enjoyment and bring popcorn. 

what’s real or isn’t by @brawlite

This is a WIP but one that I’ve been following with delight. Kylo is a mysterious house monster! There’s void blowjobs! MILLICENT IS THERE.

Aware Of His Own Halo by @badspacebabies

Disclaimer: I haven’t read this one yet. I’ve been saving it! But I trust Maggie as a writer. Anyway this fic is about Hux having a bad time and I approve of that.

Our Fragile Co-commandership by @nightsofllyn

You’ve probably already read this but if you haven’t you should READ IT AGAIN. Llyn regularly gives me fits of jealousy with her sense of humor and then her relentless ability to then make it all about sad feelings.

alternatively, if you’re not too picky and you want more stuff by ~me regardless of fandom:

The Maimed King

This was my very first longfic that took me forever to finish but I’m still mostly happy with it. Pairing is Bard/Thranduil, there’s lots of feelings about mortality and the nature of evil. ALSO it has one of my fave OCs in it who’s kinda Kylo Renesque before TFA came out. 

[sathinfection]

do you have any kylux fic recs?

oh gosh this is always a bit of an awkward topic for me because I know a lot of writers and I’m always worried I’ll leave someone out and then their butt will be hurt but ummm here’s a completely half-assed rec list based off some of the recent things in my AO3 history that I liked! it’s all porn!! (sry i am drinking wine rn)

prepare to know more about my kinks than anyone wants

Coin by @eralkfang is a fic where Kylo fingers his butthole and it’s A++

We Hang Side by Side by @reserve has sex magic!! love it

Hex Signs by @yeats-infection is a sorta/kinda Revenant AU yum

Caught in a Landslide (No Escape from Reality) by Gigi Sinclair is AWKWARD ROLEPLAY my bulletproof kink!!!

Open Your Mouth by @ocktorok is a guro blowjob so heed the tags? but 👌👌 it’s all consensual my friends

[sathinfection]

what are your favorite books? i assume you're very well read given how good your writing is, and i'm interested in what you recommend

omigosh anon you flatter me! I have a hard time picking ‘favorites’ since they tend to vary by mood and I have a bad memory for things. There’s a tag for book reviews on my blog, though whether or not the books are good tends to vary widely. 

So here’s some book recs, based on some good variation in styles and subject!

Short Story Collections

The Lottery and Other Stories - Shirley Jackson

Jackson is a master stylist, and I’ve modeled myself after her considerably. The subject matter varies quite a bit, but there is a creepy undertone (or overtone) in most of her work. While “The Lottery” is a justly appreciated classic, my favorite story in here is actually “The Tooth,” which one of the most wonderfully executed concepts and stories I’ve encountered. 

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - James Tiptree Jr./Alice Sheldon

These stories are harsh and unforgiving in exploring both science fiction tropes and gender relations. Tiptree’s a beautiful writer, and her prose is haunting. “The Women Men Don’t See” is probably one of her best known works on here, but “The Screwfly Solution” and “Love is the Plan, The Plan is Death” are not to be missed. Another favorite is “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill-side…” 

The 10th of December - George Saunders

I love Saunders as a stylist - his work is funny and horrifying, which is just the edge I like to keep in my own work. He’s also very very anti-capitalist and viciously satirizes the American middle-class. His work is often a sort of lite sci-fi - it takes place in some sort of undetermined future place, or in a world that doesn’t quite function exactly like our own. “The Semplica Girls” and “Escape from Spiderhead” are my favorites. 

Bloodchild and Other Stories - Octavia Butler

Butler goes hard for dissecting race and gender. The titular story, “Bloodchild,” is often characterized as a story about slavery, but Butler herself describes it as about male pregnancy. Butler is great for horror! (apparently I really love horror in my short stories, who woulda guessed) She asks a lot of questions about aliens and very chilling but interesting alternate takes on our own world. “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” is a must-read. 

U.S. Lit 

Mama Day - Gloria Naylor

This is a lushly written exploration of a very specific part of the Southern U.S. that Naylor describes as her own take on King Lear. It follows the descendants of Sapphira Wade, a slave woman, and her master. Unlike a lot of books exploring the legacy of slavery (a lot of very GOOD books, I may add), it’s not a miserable book, but a very hopeful one. 

A Mercy - Toni Morrison

If you haven’t read anything by Toni Morrison yet, here’s a great place to start! A Mercy shows a fantastic mastery of style, through very different POVs. It’s set in 17th century New York and is an excellent reference of how to write in-period without trying to closely imitate what the prose of that period actually sounded like. 

The Sellout - Paul Beatty

This book has been on my mind a bit, since everyone was talking about Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House as a masterful exploration of the legacy of housing discrimination in the black community, when Beatty’s works is MILES ABOVE Flournoy. Beatty is a vicious satirist - the main character, a black man from a small, predominately non-white neighborhood that has suffered from gentrification, decides to re-institute segregation. 

Genre Fiction 

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie

This is one of my all-time favorite books. It has all my favorite tropes: exploration of AI personhood, body horror, tramping through snow, and privileged shitlords getting whumped to hell and back. Leckie is absolutely up on her science fiction history and makes something completely fresh with it. The other 2 books are pretty good, but Justice hit me hardest. 

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin

A justly beloved classic! LeGuin explores ideas of gender and sexuality, as well as fraught journeys through the snow. If you haven’t read LHoD yet, please do so now and bring tissues. LeGuin has said some interesting things about the book as well, particularly about her decision to use ‘he’ as a gender neutral pronoun. 

Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge 

This is officially labeled as YA lit, which I normally avoid, but I loved this to pieces and gobbled it up. I can’t say much about Cuckoo Song without spoiling all the wonderful twists, but I will say that the main character is very very hungry and nothing sates her except for eating her own dolls. 

[sathinfection]

late smut swap f/f rec

So, I actually got a treat! But the author forgot to list my name on it until earlier today and oh my gosh I cannot rec it highly enough: Split-tongued, Venom-survived

Female Vampire/Female Vampire Hunter, there’s blooddrinking, there’s death kink, it’s written in a kick-ass style; go read it!

[sathinfection]

"Can you teach me the art of love?" Marius had asked, very hesitantly, the object of his asking still only half-formed. Courfeyrac had laughed and laughed, and Marius had been insulted. When he sobered at last, Courfeyrac reached a gentle hand out and straightened Marius' collar tenderly. "Ask me again when you've learnt it's a craft, not an art," he said. Marius sensed in his voice a germination, the sweet dark still-hidden promise of spring.

odi et amo

[sathinfection]

This is my sneaky way of asking for recs. 3, 4, 6, 8, 11

gosh the rec questions terrified me the most ah ha ha 

3: Five favorite writers?

In terms of favorite writers, they are a ton of writers I really love who cannot fit on here (this is what happens when most of your friends are also writers). I picked people whose styles I really admire and whom I feel like I can learn from artistically. All of these writers have a lot of variety in their work or address things I don’t normally write about, or have an approach to writing that is different from mine. 

Brostoevsky, Voksen, Carmarthen, Smokefall, and Stripy

4: Five favorite stories?

*nervous dog*

Bro’s pRouvaire fic, In the evening, when the wind blows from above

Carmarthen’s Chinese history RPF, Ink, Stone, Brush, Paper

Sorry Carmarthen, but you’re on here twice with your Eagle/dinosaurs fusion, Beyond the Mists

Voksen’s Eponine/Grantaire fic, gosh you’d think roleplaying was something I found really interesting or something, in the dark (all cats are gray)

Zel’s Arcade/Courier Fallout: New Vegas fic, Vincit qui se vincit

6: Favorite kinks in adult fanfiction?

CROSSDRESSING, role reversal, *mumbles* xeno

8: Favorite friendship to read?

Jehan and Grantaire! EVERYONE PLEASE WRITE MORE LET’S PUT THIS SHIP OUT TO SEA

11: Rec me one story for each rating! (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17)

agh agh ok i will try! I am just using AO3’s rating system, so you’ll get ‘teen’ and ‘mature’

Carl’s genesis, A bad end, G

Courfeyrac has sex with everyone, Instructed in the arts, T

A ~mysteriously composed~ fic about period medicine, Applied Phlebotomy, M

Stripy’s Courfeyrac/as many dicks as possible epic, A Matter of Taste, E