fffriday | Entries tagged with fantasy

Not quite romance, nor quite horror -- I would say H. Pueyo's new novella But Not Too Bold is sort of a dark fairytale that runs on the logic of dreams transformed to mythology and then again rendered through a single artist's lens.

As the name suggests, a primary inspiration is the Bluebeard tale and its relatives, with the titular character here reimagined as an undeniably inhuman supernatural being with her own very particular predilections and obsessions. I enjoyed both the folklorically eccentric specificity of the worldbuilding and setting details and the painterly touches of equally eccentric character cameos. When it comes to the main character -- a high-ranking servant in the mansion of the "Bluebeard" analogue -- I am of two minds. On the one hand, her own eccentricity, of which she seems little aware, feels simultaneously natural and supernatural in a very tonally suitable way; on the other hand, perhaps it is a little too abstracted into the realm of fairytale to strike my heart beyond that. I would be curious as to how she came off to other readers!

(Note: arachnophobes and arachnophiles will both have reason to wince at some scenes. ( Read more... ))

((Oh, and, TGIF! :P))

hebethen

rarefemslashexchange creator reveals are coming later today, so I thought I'd rec out some of my favorites from the collection! No matter which way I sliced it I couldn't decide on four, so here are five SFW fics which delighted me and may perhaps delight you as well (amusingly, I didn't notice so many of them were AUs until I started writing this post):

Do You Love It Love It? (The Good Place, Tahani/Eleanor, ~2.1k)
What if Tahani invited Eleanor to stay with her in Australia? An entertaining AU depicting the comical tribulations of a courtship between social worlds.

Five Views of Two Rabbits (Disney Mulan, Mulan/fem!Shang, ~1.6k)
What if Shang was in the same boat as Mulan? The different character POVs employed to depict their romance not only flesh out minor characters but create a beautifully grounded mosaic portrait of the couple's facets.

Memento Mori (Interlude) (DS9, Jadzia/Lenara, ~2.4k)
What if Lenara had come back to Jadzia? A sweet and introspective contemplation of what a more permanent union might have meant to them, full of love and loss.

a question and answer (A League of Their Own, Carson/Max, ~900)
Okay, this one's not an AU, but it's quite likely to be retroactively rendered AU by the next season of ALOTO if/when we get one, so I'm counting it. Max and Carson in canon had a wonderfully understated dynamic which here bears the fruit of a quiet, inevitable romance.

Vervain (original, Boisterous Bard/Wicked Queen, ~6.4k)
A fun, fast-paced fantasy adventure that hints at more heart than the opening lets on -- and carries a hidden knife too.

auroracloud

Something of a review in my journal. This short, intricate, beautiful fantasy novel tells the story of a woman who has to go to live in the palace of a female dragon (one with both human-like and more dragon-like forms), in exchange for the dragon healing someone in her village, and she finds herself falling in love with the dragon. It's inspired by the Beauty and the Beast and by Asian culture and mythology (I believe specifically Vietnamese), but weaves its own tale of love, otherness, outcasts, families, and learning to see beyond appearances and to choose your actions rather than letting others define who you are. Heartily recommended for those who read the description and think they might like it.