I'm watching the Penguins game (or, I was until my mom called, so now I'm way behind on the game, and trying to figure out whether I want to watch the third period or switch to Sharks/Kings in a second here) so have some hockey recs. Actually, this is pretty much all my hockey recs, except for stuff that I bookmarked without comment that I now can't remember anything about from the summary and tags. Definitely should have bookmarked more things...


( part one - nearly everything that cheeswithmy has written )

( some other sid/geno fic )

( one Carter/Richards )

( it is needlessly confusing for me that there are two J. Benns, so I can't just do Benn/Seguin )

( and then Tuukka Rask )

Where has the time gone? I spent most of Christmas day baking and watching Peter Pan Live (on DVD) and teaching my mother how to use youtube, and then I spent all day yesterday with a friend from high school, so now it's been like 72 hours, and I've read maybe 15 yuletide stories. In like 3 1/2 fandoms. I haven't even finished reading the stories in fandoms I requested!

( but, recs, nonetheless )

I feel like every time I post its with some comment about the haphazard nature of my posting, or an apology for... whatever. I'm not sure whether its worth curbing the apologies, since clearly the other side of the equation isn't going anywhere. I'm still clinging to a largely imagined sense of community.

Anyway, this fic is great. If you're already in Teen Wolf fandom, you probably already know that otter's stuff is great. No spoilers, 3b or otherwise.

From the Waters and the Wild (5062 words) by otter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Original Child Character(s), Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd, Allison Argent, Isaac Lahey, Jackson Whittemore
Additional Tags: Kid Fic, Fae & Fairies, Future Fic
Summary:

The child is dirty and huge-eyed and streaked with mysterious blood. It's wearing something filthy that could be generously described as a dress but looks more like a sheet, and it's all so Dickensian, it's almost over the top. It's obviously not even remotely human. Of course Stiles wants to take it home.

---

I still really like this icon.

( more yuletide recs in Dead Poets Society, The Breakfast Club, and Heard on the Subway: Talking About Your Gay Son (blog post) )

So I made it from T back around through H before reveals, but not even because I bookmarked most of the longer fic to come back to, like Annum Novum" and some other stuff that seems really promising.

I sort of want to read more, or do some 2013 meme, or just do the general AO3 meme because I haven't yet, but the. there's snowflake_challenge and some fandom-stocking stuff I still hope to write. And all the stuff that I didn't have time to sort before I had people over last night, so I piled it up and stashed it behind things...

Happy New Year!

I haven't made it past the fandoms I received gifts in yet. (Whoops, hey there, unexpected midday nap!), but: Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Caffeine and Unpaid Overtime (19335 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Alexios Flavius Aquila/Hilarion, Alexios Flavius Aquila/Cunorix
Characters: Alexios Flavius Aquila, Hilarion (Frontier Wolf), Cunorix (Frontier Wolf), Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Medical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Time, First Kiss, First Meetings, Slow Burn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Tea, Doctors & Physicians, Paperwork
Summary:

“Um,” Alex tried to regain his power of speech. “Are you Hilary?”

“Dr Aquila, I presume,” the young man answered, and leant back against the doorframe, arms folded, regarding Alex appraisingly. “So you do exist after all. I was starting to fear the personnel department was in the grip of a delusion and our rota a tissue of deceit.”

After an incident, Dr Alex Aquila is relocated to an obscure ward in a tiny hospital in the north of England. There are too many patients, too much paperwork and his SHO Hilary is impossible to work with. But at least surgical trainee Connor has shown him some friendliness. With a life to rebuild, and many challenges ahead, can Alex figure out who he is and what he really needs?

You guys! I always say I like AUs and crossovers, and all that, and whooooo boy is this an AU, so I'm sure it's probably not for everyone who loves Frontier Wolf for Frontier Wolf's sake, but it's such a solid story, I hope it'll pick up fans from elsewhere. It also makes me want all the Take Your Fandom to Work Day stories ever.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone cast Alexios (Alex, here) but either Paul Bettany or Laurence Fox would make an excellent Hilarion (Hilary). I'm mostly in the fandom for Hilarion, if I'm honest, but I love a good Alexios, and this is a good Alexios, making the best out of a bad situation, doing the right thing, trying to bring order to perceived chaos and then realizing that some of the chaos is actually character.

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Nothing In This World (3495 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Tennis RPF
Rating: Mature
Relationships: Roger Federer/Rafael Nadal
Additional Tags: First Kiss, Revelations, Love, Fluff and Angst, Requited Love, Locker Room, Friends to Lovers
Summary:
Sometimes it’s a bit of a struggle. Particularly with Rafa. Rafa, who used to look at him like he hung the stars in the sky.

After losing to Rafa at the World Tour Finals in 2013, Roger doesn't particularly want him in his locker room. But Rafa seems to have something on his mind.

This one depends a quite bit more on knowing the canon, as it were, but it's so lovely and full of feeling, and it's so rich with detail. Like, several hours later, out of nowhere, things keep coming back to me. And I definitely dreamed, in my nap, that Rafa messed up one of his routines and lost a match in absolutely mortifying fashion, and I might need to go back and read this again and possibly read All the Other Things where Rafa finds love, to get the (wholly imaginary!) dejected look on his ridiculous face out of my head.

---

( more excellent Tennis RPF )

Today's Teen Wolf recs brought to you by the kind, hardworking people at the AO3 who managed to quarantine the broken bits so I can at least link to stories again. The whole Teen Wolf Holidays collection is here

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For me! I've been extraordinarily lucky with people writing to prompts:

No Second Guesses or Secret Signs (2933 words) by Anonymous
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall
Additional Tags: Communication Failure, Angst, Break Up, Established Relationship, College, Getting Back Together, Misunderstandings, Future Fic
Summary: Stiles got his heart broken when Derek left Beacon Hills, and he is not going to allow a repeat performance.

Derek goes away! Stiles goes away! They meet up somewhere else entirely and manage to get off on the wrong foot again, because that's how they roll, and then they fix everything, hurrah!

---

If you had asked me what not-for-me story I hoped someone would produce for TW-Holidays, I would have listed many, many things before I got to "Female Chris Argent meeting Victoria in 1980s New York."

but my gravity's centered (4005 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Chris Argent/Victoria Argent
Characters: Chris Argent, Victoria Argent, Gerard Argent, Kate Argent
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Pre-Canon
Summary:

Because her father doesn’t really know how to do things differently, he wants Chris to marry a knight like him, someone who is solid and trustworthy and unflinching. Chris doesn’t want a knight, though. Chris wants another queen.

It's just so good. If you don't do Teen Wolf (I don't blame you!) but you'd like to read, you could probably go pretty far imagining this Chris as a teenaged female Dean Winchester.

If you do do Teen Wolf, but you're maybe not psyched about reading a story about Victoria, given everything, 1) it's mostly about Chris, and 2) imagine how much differently everything could have gone if Chris had grown up female, and exactly as badass, because hunter.

---

Yesterday's ask-me-a-question meme remains available. It's never too late to ask for a date, until it's, y'know, in the past and I literally can't post on it.

I think a bunch of you are newly on the hockey-rpf-as-original-fic bandwagon, or at least newly since part 2 of this series was published. I'm pretty sure I've never been more excited or anxious (because what if , for some bizarre reason, the author ruins everything?!?) to get a fic notification than I was this morning.

It's a glorious, dystopian au where hockey is the central thing but not at all the whole story, framed around the careers-to-date of Carter and Richards. If you're already in the fandom, you know what their story is. If not, but you feel like diving in, I almost don't want to spoil it, but I will if you'd rather have the Cliff notes on their lives. I'm sure I have a link to a primer, somewhere, or its an easy google. This is the final part of three, bringing the events up to "present" for when ionthesparrow started writing, which was sometime after last season's playoffs.

The Rebel League (55928 words) by ionthesparrow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards
Characters: Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Dustin Brown, Dustin Penner, Jonathan Quick, John Stevens
Additional Tags: Los Angeles Kings
Series: Part 3 of Hockey at the End of the World
Summary:

Rome wasn't burned in a day.

Because I am unobservant, I have just realized that otter wrote most of my recent Teen Wolf favorite fics (the dog one, the two horse-related ones, the tattoo-artist/shaman-apprentice ones)

So, that's all of them, recced, in case you didn't already know.

Also, the first half of both Linda Holmes's (of NPR's Monkey See blog, which I continue to enjoy) "Begging for Joy" playlists, for which I don't have direct links, sorry! (why does my phone think "playlistism" is a word but playlist is not?)

And now another 30 minutes of housecleaning until more hockey!

I did an embarrassingly bad job of reading Yuletide fics, and of remembering to click "bookmark" on the ones I did. So, reconstructing some of that from history and comments pre-reveal by like a minute.

( Goon, Allstate Insurance 'Mayhem' Commercials, Sports Night, Body (movie concept), You Belong With Me - University of Rochester Yellowjackets (Music Video) )

Ha, and of course LJ is broken as I go to post these to the community. Of course.

I have feelings that require a better keyboard to explain. soon! You should read this now though.

This is so good, y'all. So good. I feel about this story/series maybe like how fanatics feel about The Hunger Games. Like I want to know how shit got here, and where its going, but I also just want to roll around in the universe and appreciate it.

Before the Fall (55089 words) by ionthesparrow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Rating: Mature
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards
Characters: Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Patrick Sharp, Claude Giroux, Joffrey Lupul
Series: Part 2 of Hockey at the End of the World
Summary:

His place on this team is inked down on paper, stitched into the fabric of his sweater. Nothing’s going to change that.

Relationships are slightly more complex than implied by the pairing tag, but pretty consistent with fanon personas. Rich, that's the word.