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writingordinaryrealities · 3 years

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Best of 2020 (fic recs)

In a normal year, yesterday I would have posted a list of ten especially good books I had read last year on Facebook. (Not top ten, because there are always great ones I forget about until the post is done, and “top ten” implies that they’re in a specific order.)

Last year was A Year, as some of you might remember, and the effort of leaving my computer screen to find an actual paper book (not to mention the energy required to read a book that doesn’t come with tags and warnings) was often too much for me, so instead I thought I could make a list here of Especially Good Fanfic I read this year. It may or may not come out to ten. (In the order that I bookmarked them, more or less, because that seems the most fair.)

1. The Angel, the Demon, and the Hol(l)y Spirit by lucky_spike. This is a Good Omens fic about the Ineffable Husbands (particularly Crowley) getting adopted by a school pony. Holly is so incredibly well-done. She’s just like about five actual school ponies I’ve known and I love her and this fic.

2. The Pursuit of Knowledge by Katalyna_Rose. This is an MDZS/The Untamed fic in which Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang become friends after Wei Wuxian’s death and Nie Huaisang teaches Lan Wangji about porn. It’s funny, it’s fun, and it’s surprisingly heartwarming. Highly recommend if you have an agenda that includes Lan Wangji having friends.

3. Through a Window Softly by impossibletruths. Also an MDZS/The Untamed (I suspect that most of these will be), this one is a very sweet wangxian in which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian play music together first. It’s just as tender and lovely and sweet as a wangxian fic should be.

4. The Heart is Hard to Translate by vespertineflora. This is an MDZS/The Untamed story as well, and its E rating is well-deserved. Look, I’m very shy about reccing porn. I don’t even leave comments on it often, just because I’m embarrassed about it. And this is ALL porn. BUT it is excellent porn that feels extremely emotional and in-character. Highly highly recommend.

5. anyway, here’s wuji by kakikaeru. Another MDZS/The Untamed fic, this one is representing for all the amazing junior-centric fics I’ve read this year. I love this fic so much. It’s a Jingyi POV and it does a spectacular job with his coming of age story. I didn’t ship ... is it zhuiyi? even a little before I read this, and now I’m committed. I love it so much. It’s one of those fics I’ll name off the top of my head whenever someone is looking for recs. It’s just gorgeous.

6. Climbing Up that Coastal Shelf by Sour_Idealist. You guessed it, this one is ALSO MDZS/The Untamed. (Actually, I just looked, it’s tagged just for The Untamed, but as a majority MDZS reader, I can vouch for its ability to transcend your preferred canon.) It’s a Jin Ling-centric story with a side of Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian reconciliation, and it’s heartbreaking and funny, and the juniors really shine, and again. Read it, you won’t regret it.

7. Perhaps the Same Bird by mooneuphonium. MDZS/The Untamed, modern AU, yanqing. Listen, this goddamn fic is so fucking perfect, I could wax poetic about it for weeks. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and it just feels like you could drown in it. I went into the yanqing tag exactly once, found this fic, and it was just so perfect that I haven’t bothered going back because nothing else is going to match up.

8. how to fall in love with a catfish: a guide by wei wuxian (disaster rat) by Anonymous. MDZS/The Untamed modern AU wangxian. I read this fic over the course of an day while I was supposed to be working, and then it left me with significant aftermath to process when I was done. I’m really sorry that it’s anonymous now, because the authors had also written a cute wangxian one-shot where Wei Wuxian turned into a rabbit, but hey. This one is fantastic. It’s one of those stories that feels like it’s going to grow too big to fit inside your chest because that’s the emotion that’s attached to it. It’s a thoughtful story, and it’s well-characterized, and it’s lovely and overwhelming. It does feature a Xue Yang & A-Qing friendship, which I’m personally uncomfortable with, but it’s a minor thing and doesn’t ruin the story for me.

9. The Night the World Didn’t End by Lady of Prompts (Aethelflaed). Hi, thank you for reading down far enough to find another Good Omens fic on this list. I’m just generally a huge fan of Aethelflaed, but this story captures that still quiet feeling of... gratitude, maybe? That hits you sometimes late at night, when you’re quietly happy just to be? I don’t know, I’m not describing it very well, but this is a MASTERFUL story and y’all should definitely read it.

10. I’m cheating a little bit because this is a series, but Meng Yao vs. the Board of the Homeowner’s Association by Ariaste. Y’all, if you’re in the MDZS/The Untamed fandom at all, this one deserves a click. It’s hilarious, it’s pathetic (as in pathos, not like it’s a bad thing) and it features the one single version of Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao that I’m willing to ship with Lan Xichen. Please read it, read all their works.

11. I’m proving that argument about cheating that’s like, “If you cheat once you’ll just go out and do it again” right. See all this and more for just ten dollars a month! by ScarlettStorm is another MDZS/The Untamed Modern AU series. It’s actually another piece of really well-done porn, but it’s also got the gender fuckery, the neurodivergence, and the Lan Wangji: fashion icon that we all deserve. It’s also the only sex worker AU I’ve seen that didn’t make me a little bit uncomfortable, just as a former retail worker, about how lightly it takes a client coming in and falling in love with a sex worker. There are all the consequences and conversations that you could desire in this story. Lan Wangji knits! ADHD and Autism rep! Non-binary rep! Seriously, it’s lovely. Jiang Yanli getsthe recognition she deserves as a badass who just isn’t as loud about it as Jiang Cheng. It’s practically perfect in every way. Please read it and love it.

12. I somehow never bookmarked Salvage by MuffinLance, but I literally read 67k of Zuko being adopted by a character I had never heard of before BEFORE I watched Atla. Seriously, if you have the vaguest of ideas about who Zuko is and that there’s some sort of war - the level of knowledge your average tumblr citizen has about atla - read it. You won’t regret it. You might even find yourself watching three seasons of avatar as a result.

13. My final rec is embarrassingly wide, but seriously. I’ve never read a fic by WithBroomBefore that I didn’t like, and I’ve read nearly everything he’s done in The Untamed and his lovely YoI trilogy. Seriously, read his stuff. I’m debating watching Voltron just so I can claim to have read everything he’s written. If you’re a YoI fan, his Exhibitions trilogy makes me laugh out loud no matter how down I am or how many times I’ve read it. If you’re into MDZS/The Untamed, I really can’t pick one favorite, but his Minding series is wonderful or maybe Quartet? (Anyone who yelled at my for making them like Jin Zixuan, go read Quartet, because WithBroomBefore does it BETTER.) He’s just started a new fic, Ice, that’s promising to be one of my favorites as well, so go check that out too. (Technically, he may have started posting that one this year. I certainly read it this year.)

#fic recs #Good Omens #MDZS #CQL

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