trace_by_echo

I'm backdating this to be just before the Recommendations post, as I like the idea of my first 50(!) large fandoms sticking together.

This is a Chinese donghua, a soon-to-be-released-in-English novel, and a blockbuster live action TV show, so you know MDZS has serious fandom behind it. Some of the plot twists differ among the adaptations (ex. the Yin Iron is strictly from The Untamed), but the core story is the same: a mixture of epic tragedy, coming of age during a war, fantasy horror, martial arts that lean heavily on use of magical talismans and musical instruments, homoeroticism, found families, betrayal, murder mystery, a romance that lasts beyond death... honestly, it would be difficult to pin MDZS into just one genre.

I have a few favorite characters (why hello, Nie Huaisang, I do see your machinations that lay undetected for years and raise a glass to you), but MDZS is appealing as an ensemble work, so I tend to look for a variety of Gen fic and pairings. Unless marked otherwise, expect canon Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji to exist in the background. Fics will be marked Gen unless/until the pairing(s) become part of the plot. Note: when he's being a good/reformed character, I call him Meng Yao below; when he's evil, he's Jin Guangyao.

EDIT: Updated 9/24 to add a few fics and tidy up those which are completed.

( I don't know, I really don't know )

Backdated from a year later, to hang out with the other fandom posts. I got into this fandom for the supremely petty reason of wanting to watch a "Q" anime for an alphabet challenge. The joke was on me, because I loved learning about the Chinese e-sports world, and the characters of Team Happy have grown on me like a fungus.

( Running away from home & using my twin's ID to play video games )

This show has eaten my mind, since I binge-watched it last week and fell in love with the characters, their terrible sibling dynamic and all. Plus, the soundtrack is terrific.
Generally, I've been looking for adventure, good characterization of Klaus, and some successful timeline fix-its, since that's actually canonically possible. While incest is also canonical, I'm neither searching it out nor avoiding it - Allison/Luther is of very little interest to me, but various Klaus pairings don't bother me.

( I think we're alone now... )

The world-building is great - a universe in which people have been developing Quirks, which are essentially mutations, for a few generations and so have been changing society at the same time - and there are some very talented authors working in the fandom. It's a young fandom, so many of the recommendations are WIPs. Quick note: I find Bakugou Katsuki to be somewhat but not deeply problematic (I prefer fics where he gets some character growth and stops being 100% a dick - which I hear is happening canonically as well, so it's not OC for him to change) so there are a few stories about him in this list, and like much of Western fandom I prefer not to read the canonical version of Mineta Minoru (although I don't read bash!fic).

LAST UPDATED: 6/19/20. The cracks in the canon world-building are yawning wider now, although it's hard to tell whether the manga-ka intended Japan-with-Quirks to have dystopia implications. Also, BnHA is becoming less of a deconstruction of shounen than a typical example of one (with the attendant problems regarding female characters). I may be ditching canon soon, but keeping up with WIP fics. EDIT 12/27/22: I've lost patience for most WIPs, as they haven't updated in years. I'm keeping only the ones I like well enough even if they're never finished.

( It's fine now. Why? Because I am here )

Much like Yuri!!! On Ice, this one snuck up on me over the course of 2016, until I had enough recs that I could no longer justify not having a separate post for it. While I have never played the game, I have very much enjoyed the world-building content that Blizzard provides and the fandom has been lovely. LAST UPDATED: 11/2/18, to add the latest cinematic.

( It's High Noon (Somewhere) )

Like much of the world - at least the part that participates in fandom, figure-skating, anime, or a mix of all three - I have been delighted by the plot developments of Yuuri!!! On Ice (the three exclamation points are obnoxious, but I've resolved to be accurate when it comes to titles). It's rare for any form of fictional media to have openly gay characters in healthy relationships, but in a sports anime it's practically unheard of. This anime about a slumping skater who catches the attention of the bored prior-gold-medalist, and consequently gains him as his new coach and eventually his lover, is really breaking new and fun ground.

( How about that Episode 10 reveal, though? )

I haven't seen the movie yet, but Tumblr and AO3 are going crazy for it, and the fandom seems like a good fit for my tastes. Incidentally, 99 44/100ths of Kingsman fics are fix-it; apparently no fans are putting up with Harry's death. So unless the fics otherwise stray from the main storyline, I won't bother marking them AU. Also, all fics are Harry Hart/Eggsy Unwin unless noted otherwise. EDIT: finally watched the film on 8/14/15, and well worth the wait it was. However, I will now be looking for more gen fic, as the actual spy stuff was what appealed to me the most in the film.

( This ain't that kind of movie, bruv )

I might as well admit to getting pulled into this one; I lasted through Season 4. The recs below, while necessarily full of Derek/Stiles, are a healthy mixture of gen and other pairings, with an emphasis on Stiles. Unless otherwise noted with a "S3", the fics were written or begun prior to Season 3, and do not incorporate any Season 3 or later canon. LAST UPDATED: 2/10/18, to remove old fics that either deviated too far from accurate/believable characterization & plotting, or no longer suit my tastes. EDITED: 6/20/20, to add one new fic and clear away broken links.

( Teenage Werewolves... That's Original )

Since the X-Men, Ironman, Thor, Captain America and all those Guardians were cluttering up my posts, I'm going to stick them all together. LAST UPDATED: 12/28/17: After seeing Thor: Ragnarok (the first Thor film I really thought made any sense at all), I found a handful of fics to add. But I am ignoring the stingers, and choosing fics that do the same.

( That's absurd. And... fantastic )

I really liked the Reboot of Star Trek, and was moved to look up fic almost immediately after I went to see it in the theater. Luckily for me, there's been a lot of good fic out already; oddly, I was satisfied so quickly by the fandom that within months I was tired of looking for new stuff, so the recs here are all I'll be reading, ever (give or take a surprise). I also have a very few fics for Deep Space Nine and the Original Series.

( The oldest slash fandom, semi-officially )

This is a fandom I can blame wholly on Ciceqi and her "Mascot" series. I suppose that makes this a 2006-onwards fandom, although I mostly read WIPs that I started last year, or re-read older fic.

LAST EDITED: 5/21/18, to add "Off the Line".

( My mother, that's who I need... )

Naruto fandom, for me, is a guilty pleasure sometimes. You see, the Naruto fandom to me is all about Naruto himself. I think the canon post-timeskip is screwing him over, and I like the opportunities fandom gives him. EDIT: now that the manga is done, I can say that the final chapter screwed everybody over, to a remarkable degree for an ostensible happy ending. I don't care for the Boruto next-generation stuff, either.

Stories are gen or non-romance-focused unless otherwise marked.
LAST UPDATE: 8/5/23 - basically all WIPs are dead in the water at this point.

( A genius of hard work will beat a natural genius! )

I can blame this fandom on Ciceqi, as well. She turned to writing FMA after her stint with Saiyuki (or maybe that's reversed) and I followed. :D Only the 2003 anime, with manga!Ling as a fun addition; I can't keep track of the manga, and some of what goes on there seems a little too cracktastic even for me. Plus, I like the idea of the Alterworld.
EDIT: 8/15/16; I started reading a couple of new epic length fics and rekindled my interest. There's some more manga and 2nd anime based fics mixed in now.

( Equivalent Exchange. )

After the movies came out, I really liked LotR. Believe me, I cannot get through the books, ever: by the second book, I'm down to reading only the parts when hobbits are around, because everyone else is boringly epic and purple-prosy. Since the women in Tolkien are essentially wallpaper with names, naturally excepting Eowyn, this is mostly, if not entirely, slash recs.

LAST EDIT: 3/26/14, for more The Hobbit fics. Note that some of those have multiple excellent female characters, for once. I am grateful for Tauriel's existence. My taste in The Hobbit fics runs down two tracks: humor, and Fix-it fic.

( Gondor has no king. Gondor *needs* no king. )

Harry Potter was, no lie, my Big Name Fandom from 1999 to 2003. We parted ways after book 5, but I occasionally drift in via crossovers or specific authors. I particularly like the characters of pre-OOTP Harry, Snape & Draco (probably due to the 3-Year Summer and the fanon it created), Neville and Luna in any context, and Percy Weasley (whom I still feel was cut a raw deal). LAST EDIT: 8/23, to add some fics b

( Harry Potter, or, How I Stopped Reading and Learned to Hate the Canon! )

I don't have too many fics for Star Wars, but as one of the rare fandoms where I do occasionally find really excellent gen fics, it deserves its own post.
EDIT: 2/29/16. The 7th Star Wars movie was surprisingly good (in the model of the original trilogy, but with more humanization of the Stormtroopers) and spurred a desire for fics.
EDIT: Nov. 2023. Previous!me had no idea what a quagmire the sequel trilogy was going to get mired in. I have more fix-it fics, as well as some inspired by the show The Mandalorian.

( A long time ago, in a galaxy far away... )

Bleach caught my interest in, oh, either early 2006 or early 2007 - it feels like longer than a year, so let's go with '06. My interest waned as I saw just how far canon and fanon were diverging... and canon seems to have been spiraling downward for the several arcs after Hueco Mundo. This is the same problem that Naruto has - the canon loses the heart of the plot that made it so engaging.
LAST EDITED: 6/21/20; I still don't generally bother with anything canon later than the appearance of the Vizards, but the ships of Grimmjow/Ichigo and Ichigo/Urahara have grown on me.

( Oh, the drama! *faints* )

Here featuring as many fandoms as I show tags for. :D

Since over time my number of recommendations for certain fandoms has decreased with the loss of fic archives and so on, I'm putting the television fandoms that used to have their own entries in here. If there's less than 5 active recs, it goes in here. If it has both a literary and television presence, then whichever form of media I prefer, or the one that is the most well-known, determines which post it goes in. I'm also putting one "radio" fandom in here, for lack of a better spot, as radio has episodes like television does.

LAST UPDATED: 7/23/19: Leverage was made for me. 10/30/19: I had to add some Brooklyn 99. 8/4/23: Time for Ted Lasso! Also, making space for Asian dramas other than The Untamed...

( The Smorgasbord awaits! )

I don't have too many small Movie fandoms, but they deserve their own post as of October '17, rather than being crowded into the Television post. If there's five or fewer fics, the fandom goes here.

( View with caution... )

Mostly, this is for the kind of small book fandoms where I either loved the canon and thought fanfic wasn't too necessary, or I disliked something about canon and went looking for fix-its. If it has both a literary and television presence, then whichever form of media I prefer determines which post it goes in - it won't be in both.
*Yes, literature includes comics if I don't follow the movies/television version(s).
**Literature also includes mythology, as long as it isn't explicitly from Hercules/Xena fandom.
***Created in October '17 and backdated to keep all Small Fandom posts together.

( Why isn't time-travel more useful? )

Fandom #50: Mo Dao Zu Shi (a.k.a. The Untamed)

Fandom #49: The King's Avatar (Quanzhi Gaoshou)

Fandom #46: The Umbrella Academy

Fandom #40: Boku no Hero Academia

Fandom #37: Overwatch

Fandom #36: Yuuri!!! On Ice

Fandom #35: Kingsman

Fandom #34: Teen Wolf

Fandom #32: All Marvel Comics and Movies

Fandom #27: Star Trek

Fandom #24: Final Fantasy 7

Fandom #22: Naruto

Fandom #20: Fullmetal Alchemist

Fandom #17: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit

Fandom #13: Harry Potter

Fandom #9: Star Wars

Fandom #5: Bleach

Extremely Small Fandoms, Television (Both Live and Cartoon)

Extremely Small Fandoms, Movies

Extremely Small Fandoms, Literature

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