Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed Pairings/Characters: Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian Rating: Explicit Length: 70,972 words Creator Links: harriet_vane at AO3 Theme: Marriage of Convenience
Summary:
It’s a really unfortunate thing, developing a crush on your husband. Wei Ying had assumed this would be easy. Lan Zhan had been so icy and unpleasant to him, it had never occurred to him that he might end up spending the next however many years with this dumb, burning feeling in his chest whenever he looks at him.
“Okay,” says Wei Ying. “But tell me if I…if the pretending gets to be too hard, okay?”
“It will not,” says Lan Zhan, quietly certain.
Reccer’s Notes: Is it redundant to rec a fic that has 31,682 kudos (and counting)? And has already been recced on this community (although 5 years ago and for a different theme?) Probably. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Yes, I am.
Because it is fabulous.
It’s kidfic with Yaun at his most adorable, it’s a modern AU, it’s beautifully written and even if you’ve read it before I’m sure now is a great time for a reread.
Lan Zhan is his impeccable, smitten, useless at communicating self and Wei Wuxian is, as always, just doing his best in the circumstances he finds himself in.
An absolute classic. BTW, If you haven’t dipped a toe in MDZS canon or fanon, you could read this anyway due to its AU nature, and then perhaps be hooked… 31,682 AO3 users can’t be wrong, right?
Fandom: Hawaii five-O Characters/Pairings: Danny Williams/Steve McGarrett, Grace, Kono, Chin Rating: Explicit Length: 13,614 Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply Creator Links:Siria on AO3 Themes: Marriage of Convenience, First time, Fake marriage, Action/adventure, Family, AU: fork in the road
Summary: As active as Danny's imagination was, however, as strong as all his fears could be at the thoughts of his little girl being taken away from him again, he'd forgotten to factor in one very important element: Steve.
Reccer's Notes: This take on the marriage of convenience trope centres on Danny's devotion to his daughter, Grace. His ex moves to the US mainland with her husband and the only way Danny can get custody is if he's in a stable relationship - a marriage. Steve tells the judge they're about to marry and Danny stumbles through it, baffled at the way his team fully accept the situation and only berate him for keeping the affair a secret. The story takes us through the usual enjoyable dilemmas of a fake marriage like the need to share a bed, made more pressing with Grace in the house as she believes the marriage is genuine (which of course it is - Danny just doesn't know it yet). They're clearly married in the show and in this fic, but in Danny's case, massively oblivious (Steve not so much, having masterminded the marriage plan), and it all works out happily, as expected. Along the way there's lots of amusing snark and backchat, and it's wonderfully written, and a thoroughly good read.
Fandom: Red White and Royal Blue (RWRB) Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Henry/Alex & David the dog Content Notes/Warnings: none Medium: digital art Artist on DW/LJ: n/a Artist Website/Gallery:artbyflor on tumblr Why this piece is awesome: A charming view of the boys on the sofa having an afternoon nap. I love the details and the warm colour palette. Link:Domestic first prince
I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.
Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.
Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.
Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)
Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)
Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)
All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.
We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)
If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.
On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.
Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.
After having this on my to-do list for an embarrassingly long time, I downloaded and ran Libation, a bit of open-source software to de-DRM your Audible purchases.
The walkthrough is really easy to follow. At first I used the default download settings, and got a file (m4b) that worked fine on my laptop, but my portable music player had some kind of trouble with the encoding. (It did play the file, but it was all crackly and poppy, like an old record.) Then I switched to “just download as an MP3,” and those worked fine.
…I had a lot more Audible purchases than I remember. Mostly “audiobooks I would’ve borrowed from the library if they were available, listened to once, no desire to re-listen.”
But it’s well worth having unlocked copies of the Murderbot books. And the Locked Tomb books. And this one book I don’t even remember reading the first time, so I don’t have to jump through any hoops to play it again and find out if I liked it or not.
Fandom: Die Hard 4.0 Pairings/Characters: Matt Farrell/John McClane Rating: Not Rated (I would say Gen or Teen at most) Length: 13,139 words Creator Links: Helenish at AO3 Theme: Marriage of Convenience
Summary:
“Anyway, he’s staying with me for a while,” John says.
“My place got firebombed,” Matt says, reflexively.
Reccer’s Notes: This fic is absolutely note perfect. The characters feel completely on point and the marriage of convenience trope feels totally natural. An exploration of how to be normal after something absolutely crazy has happened to you.
It feels very warm and true and absolutely delightfully done in Helenish’s brilliant way of writing.
Bad news first: Welp, adding The House In The Cerulean Sea to the list of “books that get hailed as progressive masterpieces because they tick a bunch of identity boxes and everyone is happy at the end, but they’re not actually, you know, good.”
Our protagonist (Linus) is a social worker who reviews specialty orphanages for kids from magical species. He gets sent to a particularly isolated orphanage, ends up getting personally-attached to the plucky orphans there, falls for the guy who runs the place (Arthur), and (supposedly) learns some Valuable Lessons about prejudice and acceptance along the way. The morals are announced with zero subtlety, the emotional beats are all completely predictable, and systemic social prejudice keeps getting defeated by the heroes making inspirational speeches. A few bits are genuinely charming or clever — but the rest of the book doesn’t live up to them.
An example of what I mean by predictable: Linus shows up at the orphanage, gets the initial tour, and finds out that one of the kids sleeps in Arthur’s room (iirc it was just-slightly separate, some kind of converted walk-in closet). Arthur says “it’s nothing untoward, he just has nightmares, so I comfort him.” Linus instantly accepts this with no follow-up questions. I thought “in the real world, this would be sketchy af, but Arthur is obviously the designated Wholesome Love Interest, so it’s going to be fine.” Sure enough, it never came up again.
The setting is hard to get a grip on. It’s a version of our world — the kids study the Canterbury Tales and listen to Buddy Holly — but you never get any clear details about what country they’re in, or what decade it is. Record shops are still in business; phones are still on cords, and the orphanage doesn’t have phone service at all; but Linus’s office has computers, and the country has same-sex marriage. (Homophobia never comes up as a concern at all, even when they’re specifically facing off against religious bigots.) One of the orphans is supposed to be The Antichrist(TM) — which everyone accepts as a fact, but there’s no detail on who decided this, or how they figured it out, and none of the characters ever put any thought to “how do I feel about the reveal that Christianity is Confirmed True?” (…I’m pretty sure no non-Christian religions are even mentioned. The heroes are all just vaguely secular.)
The “happy ending” is that all the orphans get cross-species adopted. (By Arthur and Linus. Arthur is magic — this is treated as a big surprise by the narrative — [ETA] but not the same species as any of the kids. Linus is human.) There’s not even an effort to reconnect them with their own cultures. There’s almost no worldbuilding about where the rest of their communities are, or how they’re integrated into society in general. Only one kid even knows an adult from her own culture, and it’s another person who lives in isolation near the orphanage.
Look, I’m not out here saying “nobody can write a good fantasy allegory for real-world atrocities.” But, dude. Don’t take something that was part of the atrocity, and paint it as the happy fluffy ending in your allegory! It’s not enough to just read about the facts of history — you do actually have to internalize the lessons from it!
(The fact that residential schools were started by Christian missionaries, with the explicit goal of stealing children from their own cultures and either indoctrinating them or killing them, makes this book’s non-engagement with religion even more dissonant. You would think putting The Antichrist(TM) in a pseudo-residential-school would be a setup for some kind of commentary! Like “the abuses from Christians toward him and his fellow orphans, not to mention toward the gay supportive adults in his life, actively push him toward the Antichristing lifestyle,” or maybe “surprise, he was never really The Antichrist at all, that’s just a fantastical twist on the way the system demonizes non-Christian children.” But no! Nothing comes of this at all.)
I’ve heard that the sequel tries to address/fix some of this. Maybe just the part about “it’s not heartwarming to cut off the marginalized orphans from any kind of connection to their culture.” And, listen, I can believe it — it’s the kind of problem where, after the readers of the first book pointed out the wild oversight, a well-intentioned, progressive-minded author would try to revise/retcon it in the second book. (Can we call this “pulling a Becky Chambers”?)
For the sake of people who liked the series, I hope that’s true. But none of this was gripping or engaging enough that I’m inspired to read on and find out firsthand.
Gonna throw in a re-rec of Cathy Glass’s foster-caring memoirs instead. I kept wishing TJ Klune had taken some inspiration on “how to write realistic, well-rounded displaced children” (not to mention “good caregivers with healthy boundaries”) from stories like hers. The one I thought back on most was The Saddest Girl In The World, which (although you wouldn’t know it from the generic summary) involves a mixed-race foster child, so Cathy writes about grappling with “what specific cultural needs does this kid have, and am I, a white person, understanding them well enough to do right by her?”
—
On to a brighter note: Nettle & Bone was really good!
So much that, when I finished, I immediately went looking for a sequel. No such luck. (It’s by T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon, so maybe I should just reread Digger now.)
It’s set in a fairy-tale-inspired world, without being a direct remix of any specific story, in a way that makes it comfortable and familiar without being boring or predictable. The main character, Marra, is a third-born princess, who spends a bunch of her life in a convent to keep her “saved” in case she needs to be put in a politically-arranged marriage later. So the bulk of the plot takes place with her in a state of “okay, I’m in my thirties and have learned some specific practical skills (knitting, midwifery, stable-shoveling), but wow, there are a lot of things about General Adulting that a princess/nun doesn’t get experience with.”
(The religion is only vaguely Christian-shaped, in the way the political situation is vaguely medieval-Europe-shaped. Also: as a nun, Marra specifically serves a saint that there aren’t actually any surviving records about, so her convent is openly just winging it about what kinds of devotion The Lady would’ve wanted. It’s fun.)
I like both the magical godmothers we meet. I like the animal sidekicks (there’s an evil chicken, and a skeleton dog). I like the way Marra’s real-world skills help the plot along — not in a way that’s gimmicky or contrived, just grounded and believable. Everybody feels like a real person, having real reactions to things. There are a few surprises towards the end, and they come together in a refreshing “didn’t see that coming, but now that it happened, it makes perfect sense” kind of way.
The book opens mid-magical-adventure, then flashes back to give us Marra’s whole backstory. Good writing choice, because the backstory got a little slow, and if we just started at the beginning I might have given up. As-is, I plodded through to get back to the juicy parts, and I’m glad I did.
Fandom: Red White and Royal Blue (RWRB) Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Alex/Henry Content Notes/Warnings: none Medium: digital art Artist on DW/LJ: n/a Artist Website/Gallery:autiacorart on tumblr Why this piece is awesome: A bit of fun - a James Bond AU, which they fit remarkably well. Seems like Alex is the "Bond girl" in this one, or possibly the sexy villain, and the king looks to be "M"! Link:History Never Dies
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, SG1 Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Vala Mal Doran, Cam Mitchell, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan Rating: Teen Length: 6000 Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply Creator Links:busaikko on AO3 Themes: Marriage of Convenience, Teams, Ambiguous relationship, Humor, Friendship
Summary: Rodney had extorted a promise from John to not get recruited into SG-1 while he was on temporary re-assignment to the SGC. As John finished reciting his marriage vows from the crib-sheet Mitchell had handed him, he suspected Rodney would never let him live this down.
Reccer's Notes: With Atlantis stuck in San Francisco, John goes out with SG1 on a mission that needs his gene, but the local Ori-worshipers require those entering the sanctum (where there may be ZPMs) to be married. So John and Vala get hitched, and are able to trade for not one but three ZPMs, which is just as well as later in the story John desperately needs both Vala and the ZPM-power. The story focuses on John and Vala's friendship which develops after their marriage and despite John returning to Pegasus, then later deepens into something more. Cam is initially a dick due to jealousy as he and John had a past fling, but he gets his head out of his ass. The John/Vala relationship is wonderfully written and we're left in the end with it still being an little ambiguous (this is Vala, after all), but definitely hopeful. A lovely read.
Fandom: Harry Potter Pairings: Hermione/Harry Characters: Hermione, Harry, Hermione's father and mother, Harry's mother, other canon characters Rating: Teen Length: 31,500 words Creator Links: CatsAreCool / Rachel500 / TrekCat Theme: Marriage of convenience, AU: Fork in the road, Working together
Summary: Lady Hermione Granger needs to get married in order to secure her inheritance and everybody agrees that the best candidate to help her is the Earl of Gryffindor, Defeater of the Dark Lord Voldemort, Harry Potter. There's just one problem: they're not friends and Hermione may have once told him, thanks to some meddling Weasleys, that she'd never get involved with him.
Reccer's Notes: Excellent story. AU - Hermione never cared much for Harry, but when she's required to marry, he's the logical choice. I love how they discuss it like adults, reach a mutual agreement, and then find themselves gradually falling for each other. And all of this adult attraction goodness is nicely interwoven with an intriguing mystery. It's a well-told story with a thoroughly satisfying ending.
Content Notes: Canon-typical violence including attempted murder via spells, mention of old-fashioned patriarchal approaches to women including conc.ept of ownership and arranged marriages, use of love potions. Mildly anti-Dumbledore, anti-Ron and Ginny Weasley
Fandom: Star Trek Reboot/AOS Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock Rating: Teen Length: 10,103 Creator Links:magneticwave Theme: Marriage of convenience
Summary: What kind of an idiot would try to explain magic to a Vulcan.
Reccer's Notes: I wouldn't be a good Trek fan if I didn't rec a bonding story for this theme! (I'm going ahead and equating a Vulcan bond with marriage.) Punk actually recced this story six years ago for the magic theme, but it is FANTASTIC for this theme, as well.
As Punk wrote, this is not a Trek/Harry Potter crossover. Rather, facets of the HP universe (magic, legilimency, occlumency) are imported into Trekverse, where Jim comes from a wizarding family. The mental aspects of wizarding are a perfect fit with Vulcan telepathy and bonding. This fic makes excellent use of the commonality.
Much of Trek canon is exactly the same: Jim meets Old Spock in the way he does in canon, but, in this story, a spontaneous bond forms between them. When Old Spock dies (at what seems to be the same time he does in canon), Jim's mind is nearly destroyed by the loss of the bond. He uses his wizarding mind powers to heal the wound somewhat, but he's in danger of dying from the trauma. The logical action to save his life is to have Young Spock bond with him.
What makes this story shine is the writing and characterization. Jim is mouthy, emotionally stunted, in denial, afraid of intimacy, yadda yadda. Spock is repressed, has a huge chip on his shoulder, and is filled with rage and jealousy. It is delicious and vivid and charming. I'm making it sound like this story is all cheek and levity, but it's also emotionally resonant with glimpses of Jim's grief and the depth of his friendship with both Spocks. A+ on so many levels.
Fandom: The Untamed Pairings/Characters: Lan Wangji/Nie Mingjue/Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, Wen Ning, Wen Yuan, Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang, Jin Zixuan Rating: Explicit Length: 205K words Creator Links:giraffeter Theme: Marriage of Convenience, Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies, Fork in the Road AU, Fix-It
Summary: When Jiang Yanli joins Jiang Cheng in visiting Wei Wuxian at the Burial Grounds, the two brothers are on the verge of cutting ties forever — until Jiang Yanli has a better idea. Wei Wuxian doesn't need to leave the sect. He needs to get married, and she has the perfect Sect Leader in mind.
When Lan Wangji is invited to come along on Wei Wuxian's visit to the Unclean Realm to spend time with his new betrothed, Nie Mingjue, he agrees — even though his heart is breaking. How else is he ever going to see Wei Wuxian again?
When Nie Mingjue welcomes Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji into his home, he realizes two things very quickly: 1.) They clearly want each other so badly they can barely stand it, and 2.) Nie Mingjue is Into That.
(In which arranged marriage to Nie Mingjue solves just about everyone's problems)
Reccer's Notes: In the normal course of things, I'd say LWJ/WWX is my OTP. This story, however, has made me feral for LWJ/NMJ/WWX. More than that, though, this is a brilliant, carefully constructed fix-it. Giraffeter takes the time to set up every way this reality is changed from canon by the single decision to solve the friction between Wei Wuxian and the rest of the cultivation world by marrying him to a Sect Leader rather than cutting him off in the Burial Mounds. It's a long, immersive story that's well worth the time investment. The sex scenes are also some of the best I've read in my nearly thirty years in online fandom.
Fandom: Star Trek Reboot/AOS Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock Rating: Teen Length: 7,701 Creator Links:tardigradeschool Theme: Marriage of convenience
Summary: When getting legally married to Spock is the only way to keep him on the ship, Jim is more than willing to do so. (In fact, upon reflection, it turns out that there are very few things he wouldn't do for Spock.)
Reccer's Notes: Okay, normally, I would not rec a story with 9,000 kudos. First, because that story does not need any help. Second, I usually hate stories with 9,000 kudos. But guess what. I love this story THAT MUCH, and, as our mod, Punk, helpfully pointed out, MAYBE SOME OF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS. It was posted in 2016, long after much of the Reboot fever had passed (at least for me); I feel glad to have discovered it. Therefore, let me tell you about it.
In this story, Spock is offered a captaincy, which he can't refuse without suffering career consequences. Jim is devastated by the thought of losing his first officer. Fortunately, Spock has a proposal involving a loophole: Starfleet won't separate married crew members.
The Jim in this story is wonderfully Jim, getting his mind stuck on the regulation about public nudity because the reg number is similar to the marriage reg number. He's also delightfully clueless. In fact, this story has all the good Reboot Trek tropes and appearances by the supporting cast. I don't want to give away all the hilarious details that come up, but, despite the hilarity, there are lovely moments of emotional truth that really make this story happen for me.
I like marriage of convenience stories where the characters are already very close friends at the time of the marriage. That is the case here, with the depth of the friendship revealed to the reader in small ways throughout. And, as you might guess, this story also fits the theme "everyone thinks we're dating."
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC) Pairings/Characters: Sherlock/John Rating: Teen Length: 2007 words + companion stories Creator Links:waketosleep Theme: Marriage of convenience
Summary:
"We should really get married."
John stared at the red mark on his wrist. "I'm sorry, what?"
Reccer's Notes: I almost never revisit this fandom, but when I recced waketosleep's Trek story for this theme, it came to my attention that w2s was a little obsessed with marriages of convenience and had a fantastic and charming gem of a fic where Sherlock co-opts John's life (again), and John (again) doesn't mind at all.
I don't know if I've ever seen hospital access as a reason for a marriage of convenience, but I am here for it! It's practical and a little grim, typical of Sherlock. The interactions between Sherlock and John are spot on and hilarious. In 2000 words, we also get Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, and Mycroft, all contributing to the comedy gold in their understated way.
This story belongs to two different series. The Intellectual Intercourse series is the easiest way to navigate everything if you want to read beyond this fic.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Patrick Sheppard, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan Rating: M Length: 11,758 Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply Creator Links:WonkyElk on AO3, cookiemom6067 on AO3, cookiemom6067 on the Audiofic Archive Themes: Marriage of Convenience, First time, Hurt/comfort, Complete AU
Summary: “Damn it, John, you’re thirty-six, and you’ve never had a stable relationship.”
Patrick Sheppard adjusted his tie and gave him that familiar look, that 'I’m trying to love you, son, but you just keep on disappointing me’ expression, which had started somewhere around John’s eleventh or twelfth birthday - just as soon as he got an ounce of healthy rebellion - and had rarely left his dad’s face since.
Reccer's Notes: Ronon plays matchmaker in this marriage of convenience, recommending Rodney to John, who's undertaking the marriage mostly to piss off his father, but also to strengthen his place in the company hierarchy. Rodney seems the perfect spouse to annoy Patrick Sheppard, being brash, and, most importantly, male. But then it turns out they get on remarkably well, and eventually Rodney encourages John to be himself, not continue to try to please his (impossible to please) father. There's angst, character development, romance, and some action/adventure, until they work it out. An excellent read!
Fandom: Smallville Pairings/Characters: Clark/Lex Rating: Explicit Length: 16,262 Creator Links:lenore Theme: Marriage of convenience
Summary: Clark’s illegal, and Lex makes him a green card proposal.
Reccer's Notes: Here with another Smallville rec! This time, it's Clark who, ostensibly, needs to get married because he has no social security number, no legit adoption papers. Lex is the mayor of Metropolis in this story, and Clark is a reporter at the Daily Planet. Lex knows the secret of Clark's/Superman's identity, and he doesn't want to be the bad guy who has to deport a beloved superhero. Solution: marriage!
What I love about this story is how absolutely befuddled Clark is by Lex's proposal and the actuality of the marriage. It's SO CLARK. Lenore touches on another of my favorite Clark traits, which is his loneliness and his inability to sustain a relationship because of his secret. I don't recall the story explicitly stating Clark's age, but I think he's in his late twenties, maybe almost thirty. Those added years give more emotional weight to the (of course) eventual romance and falling in love.
Lois and the Kents feature in the narrative, and it never fails to delight me when Lois makes coffee or Mr. Kent talks farming with Lex.
Fanwork Links:Red Tape. This story was originally posted on LJ/Smallville Slash Archive and later moved to AO3, which resulted in a duplication. I was told by the author that this is the correct version.
Got him a new kicker toy a few months ago, it’s a hit:
Fiddlesticks busy shedding on a pile of just-washed-and-folded laundry:
Fiddlesticks plopping down in a corner of the vet’s office like she owns the place:
I asked last year for wet food recs that don’t generate such a mountain of trash. (Fiddlesticks expects some every morning, but she only finishes the gravy/puree stuff, which only seems to come in plastic sachets.) (Fluff isn’t interested at all. At first I gave him some wet food daily, but I’m guessing he didn’t like it much and only ate it out of food-insecurity, because at some point he just flat-out stopped.)
“Chicken puree baby food that comes in glass jars” came up. And it’s been a hit! For the sake of variety, I still give Fiddlesticks the cat puree about half the time, and baby food the other half.
…Then, at this vet visit, they said “She’s lost more weight than we’re happy with, possibly because she has this bad tooth, which likely makes it hurt to eat dry food. Also, please give her this course of antibiotics, which can be put in her food, as long as she takes it twice a day.”
So I started giving her twice as much wet food. Same serving size, but morning and evening. At this point, the antibiotics are long finished and she’s had the tooth out, but I assume it’s still good to keep her weight up. Plus, it would feel pretty rude to stop.
Soooo in spite of everyone’s best efforts, we’re back up to generating the same amount of plastic trash I started with!
Could be worse, could’ve been twice as much trash. But still. The irony.
Fandom: Red White and Royal Blue (RWRB) Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Alex/Henry Content Notes/Warnings: not really NSFW, but naked torsos, even if disguised by sparkles Medium: digital art Artist on DW/LJ: n/a Artist Website/Gallery:shirmirart on tumblr Why this piece is awesome: A RWRB version of the popular pic of gay dancers, complete with barely-there crowns and glitter. Sappy, but beautifully done. Link:heavy is the head that wears the crown
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