Rec because: this is Immaculate Conception meets Beowulf.
Pairing: Merope/Voldemort, 2000 words, one shot.
It's dark and mythological, It mixes emotion and fantasy in this really serene, dreamy way. Eldritcher's darkfic goes to these extremely emotionally heavy, layered themes with a lot of delicacy and precision. It never feels heavy. It never feels dark dark. It's delicious. It's not for everybody. If you wanted dreamy and tragic mess, this is for you. It's definitely not what you are expecting.
She wanted to pull him with her into a green-garter-snake, to show him that everything could be new again, seen with other eyes in other colours, so that he could know new youth again.
Stranger things have happened :D Eldritcher is doing a Christmas season set. This is for you if you are into HP and rarepair femslash and rare character POVs. It's also got all the em dash AI didn't use up yet for whatever reasons.
Bald Mountain, 2700 words, one shot, complete.
Bertha Jorkins/Minerva McGonagall, past Bertha Jorkins/Peter Pettigrew.
She was as unremarkable as a Witch could be, as a woman could be, but she hadn’t been forgotten.
I have two! I love them both always and forever <3 Reccing a fic each from them
Green Grow the Rushes, O by eldritcher. Rated M. 11400 words. Snarry - Incredibly beautiful, incredibly profound, full of rage, love, grief, regret, sacrifice, revenge, mourning and love. It embraces the drama and the whimsy of the canon including the darkness under the surface of a children's story and creates a stunning, beautiful myth. It's a fic you can sing. But also, it's a fic that sings to you. Snape is almost a hostage in this fic whether it is a hostage to Harry, McGonagall, his losses, his guilt, his relationship with his father, the eroding church and shoreline and even the constellations in the sky. We are also co-hostages with him. When he's in TOTAL disbelief of his imperfect, sexy happy ending we are right there with him :D The most atmospheric fic of its wordcount range.
Year of the Thestral by @perverse-idyll Rated E. 127200 words. Snape/McGonagall - Tragically beautiful, intense, complex picture of love, rage, betrayal, grief and loss and a whole lot of other emotions. Because folks don't feel exactly one or two emotions at any given time after experiencing intense life events like what happened to the characters during DH and nobody can write that full, unnamed range and depth of emotions with the specificity and intensity PI can. A wildfire of a fic. Like any wildfire you get some pine cones bursting and new life/new emotion in the end but it's bittersweet and you can see how the dawn poured like weak tea through the eastern windows, feel what it's like to be accepted beyond the wildest imaginings of the lank-haired, half-feral child who'd once scrambled aboard the Hogwarts Express, feverishly reaching for a better life and like Snape you are going to spend a blissful hour dreaming of the taste of tea. The most Snape Snape ever Snaped.
On a lot of levels, my fav authors have similar vibes in their writing. I feel they write similar subjects but with different frequencies if that makes sense. The writing has similar tones of IDGAF self-indulgence and zero adherence to fandom zeitgeists. They have the ability to write multiple characters and pairings in different settings with the same level of passion, originality and conviction. They are both insanely obsessed with language/prose/poetry and intertextuality and can actually make that work for their fics. They also have the rare gift of makebelieve in the classic storytelling sense of "I can make you suspend your disbelief" which leads to gorgeously sublime fics that are full of confidence + earnestness in the world/setting which means you have no choice but to make it your reality until you are on the fic's last word and it's going to haunt you after that for the rest of your life. They commit 100% to the story and to the romance of the story. They go 100% into the good/bad/ugly mud of human stuff without making me as a reader feel squicked out/dirty. Also flesh? Like I always feel they write characters with flesh and everything associated with that in a poignant, humorous, wistful, fully engaged with the flesh + its flaws sense. The overall ending feel is always bittersweet joy that stays with me and changes my understanding of life in some mysterious way. In both cases, I feel I can analyze the fics for days in whatever Doylist or Watsonian framing I want. But even without those things, their fics mean 100% of everything for me. Love love love <3
Sorry about going intense on this but you asked me about Snape :D
Lawful good - Sex, Lies and Audiobooks by Raewhit. Snarry with super nice Snape.
Neutral good - As Beeswax in Summer by Rinsbane with a Snape who is really really hard to read from Harry's POV before we get the reveal of his character/real goals. Snarry.
Chaotic good - In Between Days by atrata with a Snape who is working based on his agenda. Snarry.
Lawful Neutral - The Snidget by Acid and Sinick with a Snape who is just giving his 100% to do damage control after the good side lost. Gosh, he is super alone but also really sticking to his code. Snarry.
Chaotic neutral - Frabjous by eldritcher with a Snape who is the worst planner with zero impulse control. His plan is don't follow the plan. Snaberforth and Snarry.
Lawful Evil - And Mine the Gall by @perverse-idyll with a Snape who is walking a real fine line between his desires and moral code. Deliberately!!! Snarry and Snapledore.
Neutral Evil - Remember Me to Cheetham Hill by Delphi with a Snape who definitely knows how to get what he wants and goes for it. Like really goes for it :D Snape/Filch.
Chaotic Evil - Fifty Shades of Truth by starcrossedgirl with Total Bastard Snape. Snarry but this one definitely won't work for folks who want a happy ending for their romance :D
I don't know anything about D&D except this meme so like don't take it seriously. I just wanted to rec fic.
Love it when a fav author writes fic for a fav movie. Sinners has a lot of darkfic slash potential but it's also one of those movies where I wasn't really expecting to see slash fandom activity idk why.
I Seen the Sun by eldritcher
Pairing - Smoke/Stack, Rating M, Length - 2000 words, one shot.
What I love in this fic is it doesn't even acknowledge the vampires. Because in the context of the fic that's not where the emotional gravity is. Idk, it's something which stuck with me during my read.
This fic has spoilers for the movie though it's technically a trailer fic. Super sensitively characterized given the layers and layers of complicated themes in the movie. It's dark, it's brilliant and it matches the vibe of the movie really well.
Also everybody should see Sinners because it's a brilliant movie. Super intense, a lot of genres, dark, horror, music, social commentary, really layered themes.
Sing A Mad Rebellion by @femmequixotic. Snarry. 56100 words. Rated E.
Brilliant political AU with a hardcore V for Vendetta vibe. Femme is my fav plotty, suspense/mystery/political thriller writer in this fandom and this fic is probably the best example of their insane skill <3 The pacing is super fast, gripping plot and before you know it you are already totally living in the same world as the characters.
The State Security Forces come not in the middle of a dark night as one might expect, but on a bright, sunshiny Sunday morning just after the sausages are set on the kitchen table.
Rest Your Head Close to My Heart by pauraque. Harry/Hermione. 3600 words.
"I love it too, much as I complain sometimes," Hermione admits. She props her elbow up on the back of the sofa and rests her head in her hand. "The time feels like it's going by so quickly. Sometimes it seems Hugo was born just yesterday. Yet, here I am, already thinking about weaning."
That word — weaning — pings a secret place in Harry's heart, and makes it race for a few beats.
If I remember correctly this fic is the first ever rec I got from @perverse-idyll. So it's totally fitting this is the softest, intimate dirty/bad/hot/wrong/extrakinky fic ever <3 A beautiful exploration of psychology/emotion of a kink.
Your top ten recs (hp) if you have a limit of one favorite fic by your favorite authors...
:D I feel I have a list for a similar concept but I love reccing this one since my favorites change depending on my reading mood. Some AO3 fics off the top of my head. Definitely check the author warnings. Generally the fics which stay with me are strong dynamics and really lucid on prose :D
Rinsbane - King of Fat Snape/Harry, Snape/Voldemort, Snape/Lucius Malfoy. More character study than romance. I love the imagery in this <3
@danpuff-ao3 - Contempt. Snape/Harry. I love the intensity of the emotional war in this one. The characterizations are everything <3
@kellychambliss - Trainspotting. McGonagall/Hooch. This is my favorite what-if fic of all time <3 Perfect balance between dark and hopeful.
@perverse-idyll - When the Rose and the Fire Are One Snarry. Nothing really landed this hard for me in my reading experience. The emotions, the complexity, the conscience wars, the buildup, the resolution. I really love the other PI fics but I feel total emotional connect with this fic because this was my first PI read and it pretty much Snarry defined for me after that to the point where I stopped reading the pairing because I was falling into the trap of comparing other fics to this one and feeling unsatisfied. I am more and more in love with it when I reread it especially after getting older <3
drawlight - Suspiria. Snarry. Snarry is a really intense, high chemistry dynamic with a lot of baggage and violent emotional warfare inside their heads and also between them. This fic pretty much hits those 110%. Also 2nd person pov masterclass <3
eldritcher - Almagest. Harrymort, Riddledore. The classic slash masterclass as far as I am concerned. It really takes the slash longfic premise and elevates it with stunning poetic prose, a towering plot which somehow works like magic and characterizations that emphasize humanity's flaws and power of love. E has other great fics I love but it's always going to come back to Almagest if I am asked to pick because this is cinema.
calrissian18 - Upon My Word And Honor Draco/Percy. OMG. Calrissian's prose is super gorgeous and I really love the what-ifs and the beautiful tragedy of this fic. I feel this fic lingered with me for ages after reading. It's super haunting <3
Delphi - Remember Me to Cheetham Hill. Snape/Filch. Delphi is love, Delphi is life and also their Snape characterization is super intense. You just feel for him and at the same you are pretty scared of him. I really get the feel of Omar Little from The Wire (HBO) when I read Delphi's Snape. Super incisive, super brilliant, really understandable and at the same time super complicated <3
LoupGarou - Dangling Conversation. Snarry. I really love dark suspense fics and this one is incredible with the buildup and the resolution.
@thistlecatfics - Alphard's Favourite. Peter/Sirius, Alphard/Sirius. Total darkfic mode. I really love the intensity and no way out vibes of this fic. I am just in love with the psychological dynamics. <3
