8 Recs! Lit, animanga, historical RPF, 5 minute fandoms

[rosaxx50]

9 recs:
- Anime/Manga: Tokyo Babylon, Spirited Away
- Books/Lit: The Secret Garden, Six of Crows
- 5 minute originals: Humans Are Space Orcs (meme), The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense, Neo-Babylonian Break-Up Letter (April's Fools Post)
- Historical RPF 14th century



Depths (7521 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Sakurazuka Seishirou/Sumeragi Subaru
Characters: Sakurazuka Seishirou, Sumeragi Subaru
Additional Tags: Case Fic, Dreams and Nightmares, Post-Canon, Bad Decisions, Dream Sex
Summary:

Subaru leaves Tokyo for a case, but finds that a change of scenery brings no relief from the hole in his heart.

This was, in my unbiased opinion, one of the best stories to come out of Yuletide (except for the awesome gift for me, of course). There's a compelling, revealing case, dream!sex that includes power play and uncertainty, and Sumeragi Subaru being sad. Because your life may suck, but at least you're not Subaru, as the ancient wise saying goes.

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Wedding Bands (3283 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Tokyo Babylon
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Sakurazuka Seishirou/Sumeragi Subaru
Characters: Sumeragi Subaru, Sakurazuka Seishirou
Additional Tags: Haunting, Case Fic, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Suicidal Thoughts, Dominance, Extremely Dubious Consent, Post-Canon, Explicit Sexual Content, possesive seishirou, maybe the sakurazukamori cares who knows, Power Play
Summary:

Subaru is about to solve a case and send on a ghost and it brings up all kinds of ghosts from his own closet.

My gift this Yuletide! Which was all the dubcon powerplay I asked for, and is amazing, if you go for that sort of thing. (Which I certainly do, with this ship).

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A Bridge Between (3228 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ogino Chihiro & Ogino Yuuko, Ogino Akio & Ogino Chihiro
Characters: Ogino Chihiro, Ogino Yuuko, Ogino Akio
Additional Tags: Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon, Background Haku | Nigihayami Kohakunushi/Ogino Chihiro, Spirits
Summary:

Years later, Chihiro moves into a new apartment; her parents help.

A beautiful coda to the movie. Chihiro grows up and balances her connection to the spiritual world, her job, and her perspective on her parents. Lovely, and peaceful, and satisfying.

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The Space Garden (9360 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden), Martha Sowerby, Dickon Sowerby, Colin Craven, Archibald Craven
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Space, Healing, Gardens & Gardening, Space Stations, Terraforming, Alien Flora & Fauna, Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Summary:

When Meri La Nix was sent from the Mars colony to live with her aunt at Missiles Wait Manor, nobody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. But some of them thought it.

The Secret Garden... IN SPACE. This is gorgeous and touching, and indulges my sci-fi love with my love of pretty gardens. 10/10 worldbuilding and characterization and prose.

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Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (3349 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Humans Are Space Orcs (Meme)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Characters, Human Steve: First of His Line, Stabby the Space Roomba - Character
Additional Tags: Alien Cultural Differences, interspecies shenanigans, For Science!, McGuffins and Unobtainium Galore, Humans as Eldritch Monstrosities, Intergalactic University Systems
Summary:

In the end, she is forced to contact one of the undergraduate intern-larvae for assistance, who must have been lurking in wait for just such a summons. He appears in minutes with antennae waving nervously, a headset and text-production screen in his hands.

“It says... it is the human Steve,” the larva relays, symbols marching across the screen as the headset tracks the human’s eye movements on a lettered keypad. “Oh, wait, that’s a male pronoun. He is the human Steve. He wants to know what has happened to the, um, his ship.”

And now, for something fun! Totally normal human Steve gets spaced, saved by an alien ship that doubles as a university, and decides to enrol. What features is the funniest human/alien mentor relationship ever, that gently laughs (and loves) all of our human folibles.

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From the Outbox of T. R. Matthews, Ph.D. (2096 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion Of Your Thesis Defense (McSweeney's Post) - Luke Burns
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Crack Treated Seriously, Academia, POV First Person, E-mail, Snakes, Snark, Passive-aggression, Implied/Referenced Character Death, mention of harm to animals, Yuletide Treat, Epistolary, Worldbuilding
Summary:

Please do not assume that selecting an ambitious, snake-related thesis topic would exempt you from the snake-fight portion of the thesis defense, nor would it influence the choice of snake.

Also fun! My favourite of the Snake Fight fandom (which is a 5 minute fandom, about 500 words to read through) fics. A poor professor's outbox is full of replies to inane questions and low email chains, and I absolutely love it.

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holy palmers' kiss (1603 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Characters: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa
Additional Tags: Trapped In A Closet, fraught hand-holding, Yuletide Treat, listening to other people having sex
Summary:

Inej has always passed every test, solved every puzzle, exceeded every expectation Kaz has ever had for her. So it's time for him to test himself.

A+ characterization and UST right here. Post-canon. Starts with the line: "Inej looks skeptical—she knows he's never done anything for old time's sake except get revenge." And just gets better from there.

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terms such as would enter at a lady's ear (6179 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 14th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Edward the Black Prince/Joan of Kent
Characters: Joan of Kent, Edward the Black Prince
Additional Tags: Pining, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Mild Sexual Content, Tide of History Challenge
Summary:

Joan was no longer a married woman, but she might as well be, for all the difference it made. She couldn't be Edward's, and he could never be hers. Husband or no husband, it made no difference. Joan knew it, and Edward knew it too, for all that he liked to ignore such pesky and inconvenient things as husbands — dead or alive — and royal parents and their royal expectations, and the very real demands of his royal responsibilities.

And yet, despite knowing it, here he was, on her doorstep, asking again for impossible things.

Just lovely, elegantly written historical romance with awesome banter. Something to read if you want to be tickled, and warmed, and happy.

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As You Say (2385 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Neo-Babylonian Break-Up Letter (Hyperallergic April Fools Post)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: King Nabonidus, Nisaba, Kizalaqu
Additional Tags: Miscommunication, Letters, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Idiots in Love, Childhood Friends, Trust, Background Poly
Summary:

King Nabonidus first heard the rumor from a Persian merchant who sold fine jewelry, who travelled with his riverboat caravan to the palace hoping to find a buyer for his wares. "These" he said, having spread out a cloth before the king and laid the heavy gold and glistening gems there with a delicate hand, "are the very best I have to offer. So fine that the great General Nisaba bought one for his wife."

"General Nisaba has no wife," the king said, frowning. "I should know, for he has been my dearest friend since childhood."

"Ah," the merchant said. "Perhaps I misunderstood."

Imagine a comedic fairy tale. Imagine it's witty, and 10x funnier than you expect, and ends with gentle poly and people of dry wit bestowing good, if somewhat pointed, wisdom. That is this story, it is hilarious and captures the rhythms of legend and fable so, so well.