Three recs
Because I am lazy and lacking in time, these are all recs of stories written for me. All of these recs are for chromatic created sources - two for a book I wish more people would read, and one for a Bollywood movie.
Title: His Master's Harshness Author: Tree Fandom: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh Content Advisory Gen, No warnings This is backstory for a character so minor it is almost original fic, and can be read by anyone regardless of canon knowledge. (It will spoil you mildly, but not, imo, unbearably.) This one has language so true to Ghosh's idiom that when I first read it I actually thought it was from the book, because it seemed so familiar. This story is beautiful. The poetry of the imagery kept me riding the prose like waves, stuff like as if the sound were pulling the water along with it like a child's toy on a string.
Title: Pancha Kanya Author: toujours_nigel Fandom: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh Content Advisory: Gen, No warnings Five vignettes for five women. Because there is nothing quite like home grown feminism, the kind that knows that the stories don't have to be full of swords, or physical strength, or idealised virtue... but that they have to be told with truth. This one probably is best understood with canon knowledge.
Title: Leap Author: Esperante Fandom: Dil Chahta Hai Fic that focusses on Sid and writes him as the gay man he so clearly is who exists in the background, waiting for his story to be told. Why I love this story so much is because it is Indian in both the big and the little things. There are vadapavs in the canteen, and there is the miracle of the gay pride parade, because five years ago, WE DID NOT HAVE IT. This story could not be written about some generic gay person in some generic urban place. This is a story about Indian people, gay and straight.