OriginalMay 16, 2006 4:23 pm

Mina de Malfois
Characters: Mina de Malfois, a BNF, and her loyal butler archivist Arc.
Warnings: None
Summary: A BNF must sail through many troubled waters. With the aid of Arc, Mina de Malfois glides effortless through scandals that would destroy a lesser BNF.
Comments: A brilliant, brilliant parody of online fandom. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve seen Mina under a different name and in different fandoms, and this is an utterly brilliant parody of all the BNFs who honest to god think they are god’s gift to fandom. And Arc is so perfect. Their relationship is quite clearly modelled after Jeeves and Wooster, and I just love the way Arc calmly handles all the little problems Mina gets herself into with her own ego. Seriously, this is one of the best fics I’ve seen for ages.
Series of one-shots, ongoing?

OriginalApril 24, 2006 3:01 pm

Black Feathers
Characters/Pairings: Focus so far is Skya/Kaylin. Various other characters
Warnings: DARK mindcontrol, sex slavery, rape, abuse, etc
Summary: Prince Kaylin brings back an exotic slave from a perfectly ordinary mission. But there’s more to their relationship than first appears, even as political intrigue threatens to swallow them all.
Comments: Best mindfuck I’ve seen in ages. I’m fond of really amazingly screwed up power dynamics, and madamhydra’s done a very intriguing job here. I even feel at least a little sympathetic towards the villain here, even after he, ah, causes the need for the warnings mentioned above. And it’s just very nicely well-done.
One chapter of a theoretically multichapter story, incomplete.

OriginalFebruary 24, 2006 2:41 pm

Bluebell
Characters/Pairings: Bluebell/Prince
Warnings: None
Summary: Destinies are immutable, but they may not go quite as you expect anyway. Just because a princess is born destined to be imprisoned within an ivory tower until she is rescued by her prince doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it.
Comments: I just thought this was a very interesting and well-done look at some of the common tropes of fairy-tales. I’m somewhat of a sucker for fairy-tales, and have read multiple collections of them. And this is just a beautifully done look at a much more human princess than any fairytale will ever show.
One-shot, complete.

OriginalSeptember 22, 2005 2:28 pm

Wombat
Characters/Pairings: Wombat, God
Warnings: Um. Some people who feel strongly about religion one way or another probably won’t like this
Summary: The wombat’s a little nervous.
Comments: Have you any idea just how rare it is for even a vaguely religious fic to catch my attention? But this is just incredible cute and made me go “Aww…” at the screen. And really, it is impossible to go wrong with wombats.
One-shot, complete.

OriginalApril 30, 2005 10:25 pm

The Administration
Pairings: Toreth/Warrick. And I could list all the pairings, but it’s not like you’d recognize any of the names, since this is original.
Warnings: Holy crap, where to start? BDSM, slash, graphic sex, underage sex, issues of consent, some character death, torture, massive amounts of infidelity, and I probably missed something
Summary: In a dystopia, two men live as well as they might. A sociopath who works as a professional investigator/torturer for the despotic Administration turns out to be surprisingly compatible with a corporate director.
Comments: One of my weaknesses is two very formidable men, in a very strange relationship that nevertheless manages to work. This is a collection of three novels, three novellas, and 27 short stories (I started Thursday night, and just finished today. This is solely responsible for the paucity of reviews.) It’s wonderfully written - I enjoy well done dystopias, and this one is recognizably one we might have in the future. It isn’t the focus of the story, but that might be what adds to the effect, since there aren’t too many novels about people living ordinary lives in a dystopia. Even rarer is somewhat sympathetic view of one of the dystopia’s torturers. But the author doesn’t shield us from Toreth’s flaws. He lies, he compulsively cheats on Warrick (the aforementioned corporate director), he is possessive as all hell, he tortures people to death and views everyone but Warrick and his admin as tools and not quite real, but he’s nonetheless fascinating. And the author can do interesting, interesting plots, as well as some really hot sex. And she even makes Warrick a BDSM sub while keeping him formidable, to say the least, outside the bedroom. I have a weakness for really well done BDSM dynamics that don’t pull the 24/7 crap. (Yes, I know it exists, but that is the one thing that squicks me, and it’s surprisingly common in BDSM fiction). And I liked the novel on the revolution, “First Against the Wall”, but I wouldn’t suggest reading that until you’d read everything else.
Collection of novels, novellas, and one-shots, all complete.