commander--wake/beyonces_fiancee's top ten TLT fic rec list!
these are my top ten bestest fics thus far in no particular order. criteria to get on this list: I think about them all the time. my mouth was hanging open when I finished them for the first time. I recommend anyone read them, especially you, YES YOU. some of these are deservedly popular/widely read and some are criminally neglected.
I have a taste for dark fic, perverted kinky shit, intimate character studies, slow-burn tragedies, beautiful prose, and good sex writing. assume all of these are bittersweetly tragic at a minimum, fucked-up at a maximum.
the soul that seeketh him by bittybelle
john/a lot of ppl. all of this author's stuff is preposterously amazing but I had to pick one as a representative. so let's pick john fucking the pain away through the cohort, his lyctors, and everyone else within grabbing range, including before and after the Resurrection and his daughter and his other daughter and his surrogate daughter and all the women in the world. john is depicted with such compassion and with no mercy. "the dove in the clefts of the rock" is so good it makes me want to barf too. bittybelle has an amazing faculty for packing a sentence or a paragraph with information, characterization, and beauty as densely as a neutron star yet making it all seem effortless.
the 86 escapes of gideon nav by gimmeshellder (@jeejyboard on tumblr)
gideon & the 9th. my comment on jeej's fic: "This is freaking unbelievably amazing and gives me everything I wanted and didn't get from canon. Gideon's evolution and character are perfectly fleshed out in a way that fanfiction is all about. You have such a wonderfully deft hand and your style has evolved so much into a beautiful direction that marries rly well with canon but also has its own zesty angsty unique spice. Write Alecto pls xoxoxoxoxo" jeej understands gideon's internal workings in a way that I don't think anyone else does (at least not anyone I've read, so if you find that person, direct their works to me pls) and this fic is really important to me for that reason. it respects her life so much in a way that makes me want to cry
pretty when you cry by Elldritch (@elldritch-horror on tumblr)
gideon/cytherea. knuckle-bitingly sexy very slight canon divergence: what if palamedes hadn't interrupted just as "the old panic of confession seemed to rise up", and "dulcinea" groomed and manipulated gideon into becoming her cavalier to replace loveday? my comment: "it's really rare to find someone who writes a skillfully manipulative character who can think on both the level of that character and the one they're manipulating." Elldritch's cytherea is soooooo casual and careful and methodical and the starved orphan gideon is putty in her hands, in an extremely sick and believable way. and the kink/sex writing is so dark and twisted and mmnfnnfnfffff
and my burdens are light by elijah_was_a_prophet
alfred & cristabel, among others. an absolutely insane exploration of cristabel & alfred egging each other on, against a backdrop of all the other lyctors driving one another into sadomasochistic suicidal madness. the academic apologetics at the start warms the reader for what is to come. my comment: "I was already slavering and licking my chops at the footnotes and you did not disappoint!!!!! I’m completely fucking coocoo at John’s stupid memes being inscribed into divine writ and cited alongside the gospels. and the secret note… we need to talk more in this fandom about CILICES and HAIRSHIRTS and the SCOURGE!!! *clap emojis* [redacted spoilers] love the Lyctoral mutual destruction because real life has become so unreal that ripping each other’s bodies apart is the only way to touch the edge (my personal favorite headcanon). bravo!!!!!"
there is a light that never goes out by reconquer (@sophelstien on tumblr)
coronabeth/&ianthe, with a wide variety of side dishes. this is the quintessential corona fic, that explores two separate eras of grief in her life and all the ways that she has been fucked up and fucked everyone else up in her turn. her relationship with ianthe is so searchingly and intelligently explored, and fills in so much around the edges of canon in an unexpected yet "how-could-it-have-been otherwise" way, which is what the best fanfiction is meant to do. bpd coronabeth is my lodestone and this fic is my heartsong
feeling good was easy when he sang the blues by forjodssake
pyrrha/g1deon/wake. can't believe this is less than 6k words, it feels like a whole world unfolding before my eyes. the pre-Rez stuff is so heartbreaking and sparely crafted and the tangled tension between wake, pyrrha, g1deon, the ticking clock in the background, and the keenly-felt deprivation of life and culture that john perpetuated on the resurrected world... music is so lacking in the TLT 'verse but I never realized it until this fic shot a bolt through my chest with the pain and joy of "me and bobby mcgee" - a masterwork
more than the mountain by Raxheim (@theriverbeyond on tumblr)
g1deon/john, plus g1deon/pyrrha/wake. the quintessential g1deon fic. this fic more than anything gave me an understanding of g1deon's mentality: his devotion to john, how he could let it fall by the wayside for wake, how he could live without pyrrha for so many thousands of years... an excerpt from my comment: "the split gideon/pyrrha perspective is so f***ing effective and tragic. I half-wonder sometimes why she was heartless enough not to tell him somehow that she was still alive, but tbh, some things you just can't tell. she's been dead and gone so long that he's calcified into a living rictus without her... and even if she did tell him, they can never have each other again the way they did before. GAWD." and yes the splattergore is PHE NOM EN AL
so I open the window to hear sounds of people by oriflamme (@sunderedstar on tumblr)
gen john worldbuilding, with some john & alecto. the seven days of creation, post-apocalypse. marvelous characterization and very clever structure and a john that is so so so so understandable and so homely-sketched and human that the constant drumbeat of repellent death he cultivates like a garden around himself is almost, almost, almost offset. almost. seeing his relationship with alecto grow makes you understand just what is happening for him in a very upsetting way. this is really, truly excellent and I don't have to tell you about depression-blasting mitski and "the ice cream machines" to beg you to READ IT NOW
lux perpetua luceat eis by skvadern
pyrrha/g1deon, pre- and post-Rez. yet another <5k work that rips my fucking heart out. a brilliantly paralleled pyrrha pov of the two kisses they gave each other: before g—'s death by nuclear bomb, and before pyrrha's death by ascension. my comment: "the mirrored single kisses... gideon being a nerdy devoted engineer (bad posture, shitty fashion, chapped lips, struggles to cry, giant heart) who pyrrha can't help but sacrifice herself for in every lifetime makes me sob buckets of sobs. extremely essential very well done and assigned reading for everyone"
all that singing at the fingers by dire_quail (@direquail on tumblr)
nona/camilla. another one of those "a world in a sentence" authors, writing something that feels ripped straight from canon. a good nona voice (with a flash of alecto that punches through the text like a knife ripping through wallpaper) has a price beyond rubies, and stone top grieving longing suicidal camilla breaks me. that plus the achingly sensual sex language ("petaled swollen and ruined," "drawn helplessly tight on that talented and holy finger") just hooks this fic into my heart.
(honorable mention: three fics on my "marked for later" list that I'm hyped to read!)
at the last trumpet by liesmyth (@liesmyth on tumblr)
LUV me some christian exegesis in conversation with TLT themes. luv me some character explorations of the ninth. can't wait 2 read!
and rising in the dead time of night by a_big_apple (@a-big-apple on tumblr)
I think jeej described this as "in which ianthe tries to vat-baby-trap kiriona" so a of all yes and 2 of all it's a_big_apple so u know that shit is gonna be elegantly crafted
beauty, blossom, die by rnanqo (@rnanqo on tumblr)
idk it just looks dope as fuck and i'm not even an au person like that! I'm just ever so interested to see where the author goes with the notion and how they choose to flesh out the OG lyctors and cavs that we didn't get to meet ^_^
happy reading!
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for the ask game (1)
au where bruce is attracted to his robins and batgirls. he tries not to think about it or act on it, but it's getting more difficult with every new member of his team he acquires. does anyone know? do the robins and batgirls notice his weird behavior? what do they do about it? do they ever find out the truth? who would think it's terrible and who would find it strangely hot/comforting/nice? does bruce ever act on his feelings?
for the ask game!
oh my GOD do i have thoughts for AUs like this, i love this shit so dearly, dirtybadwrong Bruce who's trying to keep a lid on it my beloved.
i think the fun of this AU is if characters would notice Bruce lusting for themselves vs would they notice Bruce lusting for a different Robin/Batgirl. like does Dick pick up on it when it's just him and Bruce? no, because it's just. him and Bruce. he and Bruce are weird and complicated and hold endless bounds of nuance. that's just How Bruce Is, and Dick is the "test run", in a sense. he knows Bruce is new to this whole sidekick/family thing and is giving Bruce grace for being rough around the edges. but when Bruce starts looking at Jason or Tim or Cass that way, that's when Dick starts to notice. it's never enough of a suspicion he feels justified to bring it up, but the thought lingers. he's hyperaware and grows less and less comfortable with leaving them alone with Bruce. it's a weird game of chicken, Dick and Bruce staring each other down when Bruce's touch lingers too long. each waiting for the other to say something first. if Bruce ever broke and actually acted on his feelings, Dick would be eaten alive by the guilt of knowing something was up, but never saying something until it was too late.
obviously, Cass would know. there's no world where Cass *doesn't* know, the nature of who and what she is would immediately clock it. but the issue is, Cass doesn't have a good framework of what family looks like. she doesn't really understand familial vs romantic love bc she has no firsthand experience of what a parent's love should even look like. so she never calls it out. she just watches. i'm a fan of Cass believing this is normal and believing she too can express and act on attraction that's vaguely incestuous. maybe it's with Babs, maybe it's with Dick or Tim or Bruce himself. but she recognizes this as Normal and Accepted within the Batfamily, so it severely fucks up her understanding of familial love and i just. man it's my favorite thing about Cass in Batcest honestly, is how you can play with her lack of experience with love, boundaries, and sexuality.
Tim is the fun one for me. because my favorite flavor of BruTim is when Tim knows, as he agrees to be Robin, that there's a non-zero chance that Bruce is going to be Weird and agrees anyway because he's decided it's an acceptable risk. so Tim knows from the get-go because he's expecting it. if Bruce acts on his attraction, i think it's either with Tim or Cass first, because they're the most likely to confront him about it in a way that isn't entirely negative. Tim has accepted it's a possibility and Cass just seeks being loved and touched so. it leads to the first time someone's ever confronted Bruce about it. and the thing is, Bruce really doesn't like confrontation about his flaws. the first time Tim tries to imply he's okay with it, Bruce would lash out at the idea, tell Tim how inappropriate that is and benches Tim for a week. it'd probably take a united front from Cass and Tim to get Bruce to even *admit* to the attraction. still Bruce wouldn't allow it to happen and he brushes them off until finally, the dam breaks. it's fun if there's a cause like sex pollen, but i think it's *more* fun if it's just. a random fucking Tuesday and finally Bruce is at his limit. he has no real reason, there's nothing particularly different about that day's routine. he just sees Tim or Cass striping armor and sighs and gives in.
i don't think Steph, Jason, or Babs would notice until anything substantial happened. not because they're not wicked smart, but just because none of them were looking for it. Jason put Bruce on a pedestal when he was alive, and when he came back from the dead he wasn't close enough to be noticing Bruce's interpersonal dynamics outside of his narrow scope. Steph has no real framework for what healthy fatherhood looks like, so if Bruce's touches linger, if he stares too long, she just shrugs and assumes it's how it is. and Babs was just never quite close enough to Bruce to notice. if and when she notices, is when actual sexual things start to happen between Cass and Bruce. because Cass would see no reason to hide it. Babs would be pissed, but it'd be tricky to navigate. Cass would be an adult, even if she's only 18/19, so technically, she's old enough to be consenting. if nothing else, Bruce is a careful man. even when he breaks and gives in to his desires, he covers his tracks well. he makes sure he has enthusiastic consent and there's no legal recourse that could be taken. age of consent and all that. there's not much Babs can *do* other than try to tell Cass (and/or Tim) that this isn't normal or okay. not that it gets her anywhere, but god would she try.
by the time Duke comes along (if we venture out of the pre-Flashpoint era) i think it's a sort of. open secret, in the Batfamily. talked about in nothing but hushed whispers and knowing glances. at some point, they've all had sex with Bruce, caving all for different reasons. some more than others. Tim sees it as a duty, Cass sees it as a way of seeking comfort, Steph sees it as getting Bruce's approval for once, etc. it's never forced on them, but eventually, they all come to Bruce sooner or later. and that's the fun irony of it, i think. they try to convince the others not to, but would go to Bruce on their own well. because complicated reasons they can't put into words. sometimes, Bruce is just a messy man who doesn't realize how prized his Attention to for the rest of the Batfamily. that weird duality of not liking him, but also wanting desperately for him to like you. all of them have dealt with it, at some point. so for Duke, it takes a while for him to understand this... whole dynamic. it's Cass who tries to explain it to him, and he's a little horrified, a lot confused. especially when Bruce starts staring at him a little too long as well. i think he'd only want to watch first but well. they all cave eventually.
also fun bonus if we venture into the Dark Knight Returns universe for my bestest girl Carrie Kelley: there's such a like, "i'm fucking around and i'm finding out" vibe to Carrie. like Tim, she's very proactive in just. deciding she's going to be Robin and she's ready for whatever that entails. (IMO canon Carrie is closer to fanon Tim than canon Tim is but *that* deserves its own post-) like she takes one look at the old man that is Batman and goes yup. he's never fucking getting rid of me now. if Bruce started having weird feelings about her, i think she'd have *fun* with it. she's decided she's in it for the long haul and for whatever being Robin means so. she's almost teasing about it, seeing how hard she can push before Bruce snaps. since it's an older, gruffer Bruce, i think he'd express open annoyance at it first, almost a sort of banter about how Carrie behave. but of course he caves and Carrie leans into it, because there's a fun in having all of Bruce's attention to herself. in the main timeline, Bruce is pretty split with so many Robins and Batgirls, but during their era, it's *just* her and him and she's very proud she's got him all to herself.
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