Interesting AUs and more Doctor Who S10

[enemyofperfect]

READ

Mostly fanfic once more!

I especially liked The Sky Begins to Roar by lettered, which is 47k of The Walking Dead in an AU that's missing the walking dead part, with Daryl Dixon helping Carol Peletier find a way out of an abusive marriage while he highkey pines for Rick Grimes. I know absolutely nothing about any of these characters, but it's an amazing story, if you're in the mood for both internalized and externalized homophobia, abusive relationships, Daryl's deeply ingrained shame (which seems tied to both his abusive upbringing and a shitton of internalized classism), violence both by and against sympathetic characters, onscreen drug use, and generally the entire premise of a guy falling in love with the cop who put his brother in prison. The rest of the series is good too, in a more romance-centric way, but the found family element of this first installment stole my heart in the best way.

Today I also finished the intriguing Love of a Particular Kind by laurakaye, which is upwards of 50k of Clint/Coulson set in an omegaverse heavily inspired by various avian mating rituals. I especially enjoyed the psychological worldbuilding, if that makes any sense -- the careful depiction of how a prolonged and public courtship helped Clint believe that he was wanted and desired, in particular, was really cool. And for those of you who are into that kind of thing, the final chapter is a dedicated overview of the physiology and sociology of Homo avis!

WATCHED

The Good Place 4x06, "A Chip Driver Mystery" spoilers:

I was so frustrated when Eleanor (a white woman who agreed to participate in this experiment) was asking Simone (a black woman who doesn't even know it is an experiment) to smile and ignore Brent's seething racism/sexism/etc. But then Simone spoke up anyway! And Tahani backed her up! And Eleanor realized she'd been wrong! That was really great! I feel like this episode did a really good job of depicting just how fragile the entitlement of privilege can make a person, too.

Doctor Who spoilers through 10x11, "World Enough and Time":

Well, that happened! I will undoubtedly have very strong feelings about however the season finale shakes out. It's a shame about Bill's long-haired friend being the Master in disguise, too -- I'd quite liked him up until then.

Mostly though, I've just really enjoyed the Doctor and Bill together. They both care so much! They're so lovely and gentle with each other! And I think she's absolutely right when she says that, in trying to reform Missy, really he's trying to prove to himself that someone like him is capable of goodness.

Not that he doesn't care about Missy in the weird obsessive way they seem to do caring, and not that that he doesn't want a friendship with her that's unmarred by ongoing atrocities -- but holding her prisoner for a thousand years would probably be a bit of a problem for any friendship between them, too, wouldn't you think?

Really, their entire relationship is just a long series of examples of How Not To BDSM. Which is why some healthy platonic power exchange with Bill would be incredibly good for him, as well as offering Bill a window into the fascinatingly twisty psychology of Time Lords... I really can't stop thinking about this, no.

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

I'll have you know that the bird people omegaverse was inspired by a clownfish people omegaverse and I think that's beautiful. (Actually iirc, I was a little sad it wasn't even more clownfish. Very matriarchal species, on top of the sex switching.)

But see, I'm worried about writing any fic! Fic writing is difficult and fraught with peril. And I've never posted anything with English (or Gallifreyan-appearing-as-Scottish) characters before, so I'm going to need your Brit-picking services so much!

[amovingtarget]

I said what I said :T

[enemyofperfect]

I'm so glad you've agreed to be my Brit-picker, you fiend!