Fanfic Recommendations: The Next Generation

[drakensis]

My Next Life as a Supervillain: All Routes Lead to Doctor Doom!

Katarina von Doom was arrogant, domineering and brilliant... until her experiment blew up in her face. Now she's scatterbrained, cheerful... and still brilliant. Along with the facial scar she got from the accident, she got a teenage Japanese westaboo's memories.

She would have been perfectly happy to couch-surf at Reed's house, hang out with Ben and do Science! But she knows the MCU and Katarina would rather be prepare. Which means the rest of the world had better prepare to be DOOMED!

[ECSNorway]

Today's episode of Star Wars Crack is brought to you by Maria vs The Jedi Cult, in which a young person finds herself arriving on Coruscant as a young force-sensitive child who is promptly turned over to the Jedi temple.  Maria is less than enthused to realize that the timing means she'll be "just in time to join the rest of the younglings in asking Master Skywalker what they were going to do because there were too many of them."

She is determined to make the most of the time she has available, and her sheer gremlin energy is beautiful.

[Mamorien]

At the same time as I discovered The Crisis Convergence of Countless Captain Carrots!, I found literally the only other fic in the Captain Carrot and his Amazing ZOO CREW! tag. I didn't include it there because it wasn't completed, and I hadn't mentioned it here because I hadn't gotten around to it (and because it only visits Earth-C for one chapter). In light of it having updated pretty recently, I'm going to recommend Young Justice: Multiverse now.

Wally West was supposed to die. But he didn't. Now he's lost in the multiverse, and all he wants to do is find his way home, even if he has to do it one universe at a time. But the multiverse is a big place and there are a lot of universes.
While back home things are escaping the Speed Force, and according to an old speedster, it all has to do with their dead friend, who may not be so dead.

At the end of the latest chapter, Beepery solicits reader suggestions for universes YJ!Wally should visit next, and I'm here to tell you, I'm wrestling with the temptation to suggest a Hermione's New Job collab with tealruby. While we weigh the pros and cons thereof, you can check it out: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478660.../120674254

[Dartz]

Winter of Widows

Once more, we're uplifting the primitive savages of Westeros through a Self Insert. But this one's eminently readable and far less - extreme - than others. Set during the Dance of Dragons, Ursula Mires tries to use her knowledge that this year's winter will be six years long to get as many of her people through.

But Westeros is not a nice place. With Dragons. And Ironborn. And Sexism. And Nobles. And the Dance of Dragons has not been kind to House Mires.

[Mamorien]

I thought I'd found out about the soft animal of your body on these very fora, but when an update to now that you're choosing this (see below) reminded me of it after years of silence, the searches I would have expected to turn it up have come to nought, so I'm recommending it now.

Leverage Daemon AU.

Title from Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

---

Notes:
This series is currently in the order in which I wrote them. In chronological order, they are:
-nothing on earth can silence (settling fic, various times pre-Leverage)
-now that you're choosing this (backstory fic, various times pre-Leverage)
-no matter how lonely (Season 1: Episode 1, the Nigerian Job)
-the stars began to burn (post-Season 1 finale)
-the place you fight cruelty (The Big Bang Job/Season 3 finale)
-all history's a winter sport or three (Season 4: Episode 1, the Long Way Down Job)
-an elegant accessory for a more civilized daemon (unspecified, early in Season 4)
-if you ever catch your breath (Season 4: Episode 7, the Grave Danger Job)
-your place in the family of things (Season 5: Episode 9, the Rundown Job)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483046

And here's the start of the story that poked me. Second chapter to follow in updates.

Before Bering Aerospace, before Leverage, each member of the team shocked and, sometimes, devastated, their loved ones by abandoning the path laid out for them in favor of the road that would eventually lead them to each other. Except for Parker. Until Leverage, no one cared about Parker enough to be shocked or devastated by her choices. She did manage to surprise Archie a time or two, though.

These are those stories.

---

Title and chapter titles from Defying Gravity, from Wicked.

This chapter contains a brief homophobic and misogynist comment and a longer discussion of homophobia, including Don't Ask Don't Tell, as well as some internalized biphobia, and discussion of past character death.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/231815...s/55488319

[Bob Schroeck]

I just discovered this story by Writing_Heroics, the author of Wednesday Potter & Enid Reveal Some Secrets at Hogwarts.:

I Was Isekaied Into Ginny Weasley?!

Only two chapters so far but quite good.

[drakensis]

The Way of Conquest

There is an ancient law that if the Supreme Chancellor is killed in front of the entire Senate, then the killer becomes the new Supreme Chancellor until the next election. Per Palpatine's emergency powers, the Supreme Chancellor decides when the next election will be.

A certain Mandalorian and his child just fell out of a rift on top of Palpatine and squashed him.

The Mandalorian is now 
1. dislocated in space and time
2. supreme chancellor
3. at war.
4. unaware that he's dislocated in space and time.

Still better than Palpatine, though.

[classicdrogn]

Having started in on The Way of Conquest, I must second the rec. It's hilarious.

[Matrix Dragon]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/567847.../144365821

I've Been Here The Whole Time (Game Changer/Doctor Who)

The fanart that inspired this fic got retweeted by the official Game Changer twitter account :lol

https://northernfireart.tumblr.com/post/...arionglass

[Bob Schroeck]

Over the last month or so mp3.1415player's posted nine parts of a new Worm story in their "random bits and pieces" thread on SufficientVelocity called Panic, See Her.... Interestingly, Taylor only appears in the first part -- the story centers on Panacea. Worth a look, even if it's (currently) incomplete.

[classicdrogn]

Taylor only appears in the first part because it's an in medias res cold open that the story then steps back to the inciting incident for and hasn't yet caught back up to itself, just to be clear. I do think it's worth seconding the recommendation already though.

[Bob Schroeck]

Yes, I should have explained that. Thanks for the second.

[SilverFang01]

Scenes From Will Riker's War
ST:TNG

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3843319

An AU that posits a universe where the people running the TNG movies didn't ignore the Dominion War, and didn't insist on trying to maintain the status quo of the series far beyond the point where it made any sense. Not that I'm bitter. *cough*

Goes AU immediately following First Contact. Riker/Troi is threaded throughout, but the main focus is on Riker himself.

[Jinx999]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...y.1035709/

Dragon Caught in Amber (Warhammer Fantasy)

A Magus of the Amber Order (basically animal magic) is looking for an Hedge Witch who he wants to induct into the Amber Order as an apprentice shaman. What he finds is a rather feral young woman, with superhuman strength and toughness and more power in animal magic than some masters. She's even already learned to turn into a specific animal.

She's fairly pleasant, remarkably social for her kind.

Just don't touch her horde.

[classicdrogn]

Caveat: I just saw this in a "funny quotes" thread and have not yet read it, but the summary sounds interesting and SB fics don't usually stay active as long as this one has (though the last update was in May...) without at least above-the-waterline quality. Further input is welcome.

Serenity Malfoy and the Hogwarts Education (HP/Sailor Moon, 220k words in 27 chapters for yr 1 and 19 chapters for yr 2)

The Sailor Senshi are reborn into Wizarding Britain instead of in Japan, and Princess Serenity is reborn as Draco's older sister. This idea basically started off as an exploration of Usagi/Serenity having to balance Love & Justice as she grows up and realizes what her family is involved with.

First year: Serenity befriends some other Inner Senshi, works on favors for a few ghosts, and learns genuine magic, yay!

Second year: The famous Boy Who Lived will be attending Hogwarts, and Serenity gets her baby brother coming along too, but an infamous dark wizard is on the loose. How will it all come together? Read and see!

[classicdrogn]

The Dao of Cooking is quite a fun story, especially with how it seems to be mixing a bit of the West into Eastern fantasy. I quite like Luli, who's kind and benevolent as cultivators go while still clearly being part of that cultural background rather than having the modern sensibilities of a transmigrator like the MC.

Presently 100k words in forty one chapters, updates 5/wk.

Some of the word choices and idioms seem very odd ("shuffling heads" for people milling about, the sun always described as bloody or red even outside of sunrise/sunset) and there are occasional Briticisms scattered around, like using "you've" when "have" is the primary verb ("you have to do this") rather than ab auxiliary verb ("what you have done.") I'd guess the author hails from somewhere with a strong colonial-era influence but bilinngual, or where something else the primary language... I don't know, South Africa maybe? Not that it matters in any meaningful way, or isn't clear enough from context, and there are any number of other explanations as well, it's just the impression that I get.

Spacebattles
Royal Road

I thought the author also had a Patreon, but I'm not finding a link.

[Shepherd]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...he-heavens
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-104573185
Beware Of Chicken (Xianxia).

[Mamorien]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...he-heavens
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-104573185
Beware Of Chicken (Xianxia).

Begging the Colonel's pardon, but this looks like an update, not a recommendation.

[drakensis]

Why We Did Nothing
A Jedi and a Mandolorian take cover in the same building. Cultural misunderstandings are clarified.

Cultural misunderstandings then get a whole heaping lot larger.

“What the fuck, Vod, you married one?  I am all for helping the Mand’alor but….”

"Look, look.  You would have too!  They put their kid behind them and then proceeded to smack my ass about like I owed them a fortune and they were the debt collectors coming for the interest without ever drawing a weapon or even moving from their one-being shield wall!”

The skeptical Mandalorian looked over at the Jetii who was currently making sure her verd’ika was actually doing their coursework.

“That is pretty mandokar…”

“It was hot as kark,” their ori’vod corrected with a snort.  “They pinned me to a wall as I was bleeding internally and I knew they were my forever.”

“Now you just gotta find a way to tell them what it means.”

“... Kriff.”

[classicdrogn]

That sounds amazing

Why Am I the Villainess? is a Sophia-centered not-wxactly-SI -- more that Sophia gets a bit of perspective and a loose outline of canon shoved into her head by an accident while Leet and Uber are doing a Bioshock Infinite caper, and decides to try knocking an adjective or two off her title as Supreme Hyper Ultra Turbo Bitch. It's... a process, but at least she's making an effort.

SB link

[Bob Schroeck]

Why Am I the Villainess?

That was already recommended here some time ago, and by coincidence I read it all on Friday, right after the most recent chapter came out. I'm seconding both recommendations, and hoping and praying it doesn't become a deadfic.

[classicdrogn]

The author said they have two and a half chapters ahead for the sake of backlog and being able to editthings if needed for reasons of plot development as of the last post, so at elast that much is relatively safe. In extremis, being abandoned on the current chapter could be counted as a commpleted character arc for Sophia by

TOTAL spoiler

realizing her problems thanks to a glimpse from outside Plato's Cave, addressing them to forge batter relationships with the other Wards, and her mother, then a random girl she knows without much importance placed on being a canon character, and becoming a not-quite-friendly mentor in heroing to Taylor (and starting to reverse earlier bad influences on Emma and the hangers-on) and even resolving the mutual lethal hostility with Grue,

but I too hope it has a long and glorious future still to come. It could easily be a complete movie as it stands, though it would probably need a bit of editing down for run time.

[SilverFang01]

Post War Magic Blues by tealruby
(HP)

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4370056

So what really happened to Hermione, Harry, and the others after the war?
A series of annual tales concerning our heroes in both the Muggle and Magical parts of Britain

[classicdrogn]

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Pleasures is an alt-power Worm fic where Taylor instead has Cherish's emotion sense and control, and wanting to be a hero she zeroed in on Panacea the miraculous healer being filled with bitterness, ennui, gui;ty lust, and self-loathing, and offered to help her change her habits to not feel that way, which somehow turns into them fake-daying (with increasinglly dubious levels of fake) while engaged in reciprocal emotional manipulation via superpowers.

Which sounds like a crackfic or blatant excuse for smut, but is actually treated in a serious and well thought out way, and forty chapters in the most spicy things have gotten is hickies and some mild groping. That (and some of the comments) are probably enough for a wave-off in certain jurisdictions given Taylor and Amy are both fifteen(-ish) so take it under advisememt if that is a concern you need to be aware of, but the main theme of the story is exploring the multi-train pile-up that is New Wave in general and Amy in particular. The intimacy is emotional far more than physical.

It's New Wave, so neglect and emotional abuse are a major ongoing issue. Again, consider yourself warned if that may be an issue for you. Taylor's circumstances are predictably also not good, but in different ways from canon to justify the AU.

QQ Threadmarks link

[Jinx999]

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/th...rt.128885/

Cerulean Stars: An Asari Security Officer in Commander Sisko's Court

Yes, it's a slighting indulgent SI story.

It's still good with some chatting scenes that really feel like they're straight out of DS9 and a certain amount of butterflies with big stompy feet.