#type: introspective

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“Please leave. I would have peace tonight.”

Grantaire moves to go, but stops. “I would offer what help I can,” he says finally.

Enjolras turns around, a small agony, and they are face to face though now Grantaire will not meet his eyes. “And what help is that?”

Review: CANON ERA FIC! I just loved the way that this fic hashed out their clashing ideologies in a way that is revelatory and respectful to both of them, but doesn't inherently change anything. They don't fall into each others arms, they're still going to die, and honestly, they both know it. But even when, perhaps especially when, they're angry and exhausted and despairing, they can give these moments of understanding and kindness to each other. It's a harsh kind of comfort, but it is engrossing, for being that.

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Marcus is the CEO of Calleva Software. He meets Esca in a bar while he’s at a conference in New York. He thinks it’s going to be a one-night stand, but their lives are far more interwined than either one of them could have expected.

Summary: In which Marcus is the CEO of a small, failing family company, and their last bid at solvency is the purchase of a recalcitrant tech developer's latest innovation--a tech developer that Marcus soon finds out he had a one night stand with mere moments before the deal went through.

Review: That summary seems sort of sordid, but this fic is, kind of surprisingly, not at all that. At it's core, this fic is basically Marcus and Esca being decent people who are good at their jobs, but not at their personal lives, leaving room for about 20k of pining that did wonderfully terrible things to my heart. Honestly, I was completely bowled over by this fic. It's pretty much the perfect modern Eagle AU.

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Harry, Draco, and Hermione go to a pub. Harry, Draco, and Pansy go to a pub. Harry, Draco, Pansy, and Hermione go to a pub. Harry, Draco, Hermione and Ron go to a pub. Harry, Draco, Hermione, Ron, and Pansy―you guessed it―go to a pub. I could go on. In fact, I did. Harry, Draco, Hermione, Pansy, Ron, Blaise, Luna, Goyle, Neville, and Theodore Nott go to a pub. In various combinations.

Summary: In which Harry and Draco and an ever-expanding group of their friends go to the pub, where they talk about everything under the sun because they're all trying, and it really begins to look like they'll succeed.

Review: 60K+ OF TALKING-ABOUT-IT PORN. 60K+ OF DISCUSSIONS OF ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY AND WIZARD POLITICS AND DOING THE RIGHT THING AND TRYING YOUR BEST AND BEING THERE FOR YOUR FRIENDS AND FOR YOUR ACQUAINTANCES-CUM-FRIENDS AND FOR YOUR CHILDHOOD-NEMESES-CUM-WORK-COLLEAGUES-CUM-GINORMOUS-PATHETIC-CRUSHES-I-MEAN-WHAT. THIS FIC IS THE PINNACLE OF ENJOYMENT FOR ME, IT IS THE PEAK.

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In the two weeks following the events of Star Trek Into Darkness, a Starfleet officer tries to put Starfleet back together again.

As a friend pointed out, anyone looking for a fic with plot and subtlety should probably not read this fic. It might work whether you liked the movie or not, but I wrote it in order to address multiple aspects of fail. It should probably be titled, Why I Love Starfleet.

Summary: In which, after the events of STID, the interim Starfleet Commander-In-Chief has hir work cut out for hir.

Review: This fic addresses some of the most insidious problems with STID in a way that is somehow both devastatingly incisive and beautifully kind.

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"When we don't die young and violently, we die weird. Well, or all three, case in point."

Summary: In which Ianto gets pregnant, and time is very wibbly-wobbly indeed.

Review: One of the few mpreg fics I've read that I can rec with real confidence, probably because there is barely any pregnancy in it lbr. Instead, there is a lot about Torchwood as an organization and a show, about the consequences of incredibly huge and strange things becoming a regular part of your existence, and about the ineffability and mundanity of life and death and the ways that love can irrevocably shape and change the nature of both.

That being said: There's mpreg. It's accidental, and abortion is a serious consideration. I think the perspectives that arise around it are in-character, but the question is not well-resolved due to the extremely out-of-the-ordinary third options that are made available to Ianto. I think that was done with purpose and care (see: themes of strangeness and consequences), but people who are closer to the issue will need to tread carefully.

Other notes: Podfic!

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Four ways Korra might have responded to losing her bending, and one way she didn't.

"I want you to teach me how to fight," Korra says to Asami without preamble.

Review: Any of these would have been preferable to the way things actually went down in the finale. But in addition to appreciably coherent storytelling, this author's prose is also really sharp.

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The Hummel-Hudson house feels like home to Blaine, in a way that his own house never has.

Summary: In which the Hudson-Hummels are home for Blaine, and he's staggered to think of how much.

But he loved this the most. He loved being close to Kurt, in the quiet, with the shadows of the raindrops against the window cast on the rug, elongated and strange.

Review: Wow, my heart. Reading this with the suggested song on repeat was a mistake. It made me seriously verklempt. Without really knowing if this fic ultimately made me happy or sad, I do know that it left me sure of my love for this lovely boy, this promising young man, and the family he's found.

Other notes: This has a little related ficlet from Finn's POV.

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Clothes make the man.

Summary: In which we see Blaine's life in a cross section of important moments with his ties.

Review: Adorably and somehow also heartbreakingly fitting. This fic drops into Blaine's headspace like a bomb going off underwater, rippling in strange and strangely heavy ways.