Valentine's Day, This Year
by koshiroryuu/puipui
http://community.livejournal.com/lifeonmartha/573684.html?style=mine

[ Martha | PG13 | 1/1 ]

I love Martha, and I will never, ever tire of stories dealing with The Year That Never Was. This story is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and nearly made me cry because it's *Martha,* and what she did was incredible.

Martha Jones is one of the very few people who remembers the first time Valentine's Day this year happened, and she's the only one who remembers it from below, who felt the ground and smelled the air. She's the only one who knows. She met people and touched people and talked to people, and sometimes, at night, she lies awake and racks her brain to remember anything about them that she can, anything at all, that isn't one big blur. But she talked to so many people that year, she saw so many faces, and it all just ran together after a while, and so that whole day was mostly a rush, nothing different, with nothing to tell her that all of those faces would need remembering someday, nothing unusual to make her stop and actually look.

[http://del.icio.us/anenko/drwho]

The simplest solution
by orange_crushed
http://community.livejournal.com/shinkumi/86697.html

[ Shin/Kumiko | G | 1/1 ]

All of my absolute favourite Shin/Kumiko stories share some things in common: a dense Yankumi, and Shin, longing and patient. It's a thing. *g*

This is slow, quiet, and utterly beautiful.

Now he’s sitting at her table, watching her grade papers with a deadly expression; his socks are spread out on the heater and it feels funny to be barefoot before her, exposed like this, even though they’re only toes. They were caught in the sudden shower and he’d given her his jacket, and she’d dragged him home for tea and dumplings. Probably just to thank him. She’s dense like that.

Slight Misunderstandings
by Akane-Rei
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2993442/1/Slight_Misunderstandings
http://akane-rei.livejournal.com/974.html?style=mine

[ Shin/Kumiko | PG | 1/1 ]

Oh, Shin! On the night of his graduation, Shin is alone and angsting. Yankumi drops by to cheer him up, and all sorts of misunderstandings are cleared up. I laughed at one of Yankumi's mistakes, because Shin just has *no* luck impressing her.

She looked up at him guiltily before looking away once again. “Eh?” she muttered nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came here—"

“Because you heard I was alone on my graduation night,” he finished for her, his voice tinged with a small amount of bitterness. “Because you heard my parents weren’t even at the ceremony,” he added. “Because you heard that they weren’t even in town. Because you felt sorry for me and being the wonderful teacher that you are—"

She stood up, interrupting his tirade as she looked at him with fire in her eyes.

The silence stretched between them before he said, “I think you should leave.” He’d be damned before he became anyone’s charity case. He could feel an angry flush warm up his entire body. The very idea, the very thought that anyone would pity him was galling enough, but the fact that it was her was just added insult to injury.

Everyone Knows
by Adali
http://adaliseranis.livejournal.com/15011.html?style=mine
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3828081/1/Everyone_Knows

[Shin/Kumiko | PG | 1/1 ]

Yankumi was the reason I first looked into Gokusen, and she is without a doubt my OTC for the fandom. I am very fond of her class too, but it's not too often that they appear in fic. Here, Shin's friends and fellow classmates consider what they do and don't know about Shin's relationship with Yankumi.

Everyone knew Shin's idea of the perfect woman. She would have to be beautiful - everyone in 3D knew Shin was handsome enough to be an idol (although maybe that was only in comparison to the rest of them) so there was no way he could end up with some plain-looking girl. She would be smart, too - Shin was a genius (by comparison, at least, and perhaps even in fact) and there was no way he would want some stupid girl he'd have to explain everything to. She couldn't be too lively, either, because Shin thought that was troublesome. She shouldn't be poor - because that just wouldn't look good - but she couldn't be super rich, either, because then she might be pretentious (and Shin had left home because he didn't like rich, pretentious bastards).

Five Dorky Ways Shin Proposed to Yankumi
by mklutz
http://mklutz.livejournal.com/431759.html#cutid4

How much do I love this fic? Lots and lots. It's clever, and funny, and I love it to *bits.* Yes.

"That's it," Shin muttered, pushing back his chair in the middle of the math lesson. She had completely over-looked the umbrella-name doodle with the heart on top that he'd drawn on the board. Thought the chocolates were something of a thank you card. "I quit."

"Sawada?"

[ http://del.icio.us/anenko/gokusen ]

Grapevine
by Chash
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2151225/1/

[ Rei/Minako | PG | 1/1 ]

I thought PGSM was hysterical when I first started watching it (the special effects! the costumes! the wigs!), but the series managed to break my heart more than once before the end. Rei and Minako's very difficult friendship was one of the elements I loved; as much as I enjoy their friendship, I also 'ship them like anything.

This fic deals with the events in episode 47. It's short, and primarily dialogue, but I love the interaction between Rei and Minako.

“Artemis said you used my tambourine.”

“He wasn’t there.”

“Maybe someone else told him,” says Minako shrugging. “Is it true?”

“So what if it is? Was that your question?”

“No,” she says. “I wanted to know why.”

Oh, girls!

*

Syzygy
by firesoul19
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wGeCjoaE8Gw

[ Rei/Minako | PG | vid ]

I know nothing about vids in general, but do I know that I adore this one. It hits all sorts of emotional buttons, and I head back to this vid every time I feel the need to wallow in emo porn. It captures Rei and Minako's relationship, and makes me *flail* with happiness.

And Then They Lived
by sadieko
http://sadieko.livejournal.com/338896.html?style=mine
http://community.livejournal.com/tophxiroh/516.html

[ Iroh/Toph, Zuko/Mai | PG13 | 1/1 ]

This isn’t a relationship I’d ever imagined as a *pairing,* and may squick some people badly, but this is *glorious.* Despite being wildly implausible, Toph and Iroh’s voices still ring true. I *adore* both Iroh and Toph’s interaction with Zuko, because Zuko is a giant dork and I like seeing him suffer. heh.

“Isn’t he like five hundred years older than you?” Sokka asked. He had his hand on his chin as he worked his way through some serious mental calculations, but by the look on his face, the answers he was coming up with were deeply disturbing.

“I think it’s only about a hundred or so,” Toph corrected him as she messily pinned her hair back, “But he is at least twice as old as my father. Hey,” she said, waving in Katara’s direction, “Make sure you mention that in the letter to my parents.”

As an extra bonus, there’s also a comic following Iroh and Toph’s married life, and Zuko’s mental breakdown.

Only Might
by jetamors
http://jetamors.livejournal.com/29478.html
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3872557/1/Only_Might

[ Hamma | PG13 | 1/1 ]

I think most of fandom agrees that 3.08 was one heck of a creepy episode, primarily because of Hamma and what she’s capable of doing. This fic takes place during her years of captivity, and follows her down the path to murder (and insanity).

Hamma watched all of them, people and animals alike, and considered her own situation carefully in light of what she saw. Her fellow prisoners were no help; if any of them had the ability to escape, they would have done so long ago. But the rats and the guards held a key. There were really only two sorts of people, Hamma decided: the powerful and the powerless. And the only way to gain power was through strength: brute physical force, or bending, or intelligence, or an iron will.

Phases
by sporkyadrasteia
http://community.livejournal.com/adrasteicfic/12582.html

[ Hamma | R | 1/1 ]

This Hamma fic is even darker than the last; there is no shying away from the brutality of the Fire Nation prison here (although I found the rape a bit gratuitous, all considered).

You are alone in this locked cell in this rocking ship of steel and it is this fact more than anything that humiliates you.

Had you left in the previous raid, you would have been with Akna the healer and Chupun, your neighbor. Had you submitted to the raid before that, you would have been in the comfort of the great Pikatti, who could pin an otter seal 100 paces away with his ice daggers, and perhaps that brave young son of Kara who had only begun his first lessons before the Fire ships docked. But, while as you have failed as have your family, friends and heroes, you have no one to hug, no one to talk to, no one to share your fears.

And you hate these men of flame and metal for making the life of the last Southern waterbender painful as well as meaningless.

Waking Hours
by kittu9
http://kittu9.livejournal.com/47436.html?style=mine

[ Christine, Virginia, Tony | PG13 | 1/1 ]

This story remembers that fairy tales are often dark, and the people imperfect. This story is creepy, and deeply disturbing: Christine slowly looses control, and slips over the edge.

It’s subtle at first—one doesn’t reach precipices like this without a journey of some sort, even if the quest is just another late-night run to the All-In-One Mart—and Christine can at first ignore it.

(But she is so unhappy, and deeply sickened by her child, as one possessed. The bitterness leaks out a little more every day.)

We Never Close
by c-elisa
http://c-elisa.livejournal.com/36743.html

[ Mystique/Leela, Mystique/Destiny | PG | 1/1 ]

How awesome is this? A crossover with Futurama which manages to be funny without being silly. The interaction between Mystique, Leela and Fry was well-handled, but I liked the story for what it does with Mystique--old, far from Earth, with her lovers and enemies lost to time.

“Not a sewer mutant. That’s an urban legend. The superpowered kind.”

“Like in the twentieth century? They’re extinct.”

“I’m the last.”

“Oh,” she said sympathetically. “I know how that is.”

“Were you an X-Man?” Fry said, excited.

“Wasn’t everyone?”

“Did you destroy New York?”

“Not personally.”

“Are you evil?”

“That depends on which historians you believe.”

And Thus, Kyouya Hates Her
by kay_obsessive
http://community.livejournal.com/museandblabber/3869.html

[ Kyoya/Haruhi | PG13 | 1/1 ]

I say this every time I rec an Ouran fic, because it remains an absolute truth on my part: Haruhi is ‘shippable with just about any character. She is deeply important to all of the members of the Host Club, and brings out a different side to, and impulses from all of them.

Of all the the Host Club members, Kyoya’s relationship to Haruhi is the trickiest to manage. This fic is very *Kyoya* in tone: control over self and others is valued above all, and he tries to keep his emotions under a tight rein.

Kyouya decided very quickly that unrequited [love, lust, curiosity, distraction] did not suit him at all.

Its worst sin was the utter destruction of his concentration. He catches her in the corner of his vision, and his eyes pull away from his lists and ledgers to follow her until he can no longer do so without turning his head. His ears have become tuned to her sounds, and he can pick her out merely by her footfalls and is painfully aware of her presence in a crowd. He touches her as often as Tamaki or the twins these days, though he is far more discreet about it. Quite simply, he is damnably and ineluctably drawn to her.

Storm Hawks

[ untitled ]
by lacewood
http://lacewood.livejournal.com/132967.html

[ Storm Hawks ensemble | G | 1/1 ]

Okay, so Storm Hawks is a children’s show--it still shouldn’t be so *ridiculously* hard to find good fics for the fandom. Thankfully, I stumbled across this fic which delivers some of the backstory canon shies away from, and remains in character.

Finn couldn't have told you what exactly he'd been expecting the Condor to look like, but logically, logically, cool, awesome, and babe magnet had been somewhere on the list of adjectives he'd had in mind.

"Resident of Atmos' biggest junkyard", on the other hand, had not.

"It's a piece of junk," he said, unimpressed. "This is the Condor?"

"Well, it says so right there on the hull," Junko pointed out.

Doctor Who/Pern

Saving Jade
by Azar
http://azarsuerte.livejournal.com/360891.html
http://azar.ink-and-quill.com/ficdw.php

This blending of universes works surprisingly well. The writing itself is excellent, and Martha’s reaction to the fire lizards is wonderful. I grew out of Anne Anne McCaffrey’s novels some years back, but I admit that there’s a teenage girl inside of me who is still in love with the idea of fire lizards.

They both heard that something at the same moment--a musical, animal, alien cry that pierced her to the bone with its sheer beauty. The Doctor's smile trebled in size, his eyes darting about for the source of that haunting call. "There!" he cried finally in delight, pointing back up toward the cliff.

Martha's eyes followed and her breath caught. At first, the figure perched on the rock seemed like a golden statue. Then it spread delicate, gleaming wings and cried out again.

"Oh my God. Is that--?"

The Doctor grinned, drinking in her awe as though it were nourishment. "Is it what?"

"A..." Her mind having gone inexplicably blank, she struggled to find the word. "...a dragon?"

Pirates of the Caribbean/Harry Potter

Parrot
by Penknife
http://community.livejournal.com/crossover_hp/66932.html

[ Jack Sparrow, OCs | PG | 1/1 ]

This is a crossover that works brilliantly. I’m charmed by Penknife’s vision of Jack at Hogwarts--he’s so incredibly *Jack Sparrow,* despite being made a part of the HP world.

"Jack Sparrow," the boy says. "This is my parrot." He holds up what looks like an egg. It might be a parrot's egg. It might, for that matter, be a rock.

"Sparrow isn't a wizarding name," the blond boy says. "What were your parents?"

"What were yours, mate?"

"Wizards," the boy says witheringly. "I don't suppose yours are."

"Much more better," the boy says. "My da was a pirate king, you see, and he carried off the queen of the mermaids. Never minded a bit of fishiness." He waggles his fingers suggestively. They don't look webbed to Daniel.

Aladdin

On Electric Girls, And Worn Down Toys
by Muffytaj
http://muffytaj.livejournal.com/311355.html

[ Jafar/Jasmine | PG13 | 1/1 ]

I don’t seek out fanfic about my childhood favourites for the thrill of seeing them “corrupted” (note the cries of “my childhood!” that frequently accompany such fics), but when I run across such a story, I usually do give it at least a quick glance. This is why I do: good, solid writing; the characters are made a bit darker, a bit more adult, without loosing all semblance to who and what they are in canon.

Jafar always thought Jasmine would look better in red. Once he happened to mention something along those lines to her, and from that day on she only wore blue. The next time she appeared before him, she flipped her long black hair in a decidedly provocative way, as if daring him to comment.

Doctor Who

Hitchcock Bottle Blonde
by LizBee
http://lizbee.livejournal.com/667476.html

[ Ten/Rose, Romana, Martha, Donna | PG13 | 1/1 ]

I’m not an Old School Who fan, but I’m still not thrilled with the direction to show took towards the end of the second season, and into the third. LizBee has opinions on New Who as well, and she turned them into fic: brilliant, wonderful, funny fic.

The fic makes fun of everyone, but there’s still affection evident towards the characters. And while Rose wasn’t my favourite character, I love what this fic does with her, and hope that she ended up with a happy ending somewhere along these lines.

The realisation was this: she was going to have to kill the Doctor. Either that, or break open the walls between dimensions and retrieve Rose Tyler from alternate universe oblivion. But in the short term, killing the Doctor was going to be easier.

Inevitable
by chicklet73
http://chicklet73.livejournal.com/274434.html

[ Ten, Martha | G | 1/1 ]

This fic is an absolute delight. Martha is sparkly, and Ten is charming, and their interaction is a joy to read. I haven’t seen very many episodes with Martha yet, but I hope that there are at least a few Doctor-Martha scenes able to match this fic in pure bantery fun.

Something occured to him and he abruptly turned, grinned at his reflection, and winked.

Oh.

That was rather endearing. Charming, even.

Perhaps, on second thought, it wasn’t all Martha’s fault. Perhaps the poor girl couldn’t help herself. Shaking his head, he clicked his tongue. He was older and wiser and the superior species on top of that; he should have known better even though he really didn’t know - wow. Dropping in a graceful tumble to sit cross-legged, he tilted the mirror down on its stand until it was about an inch from his face. Winked again. Really, maybe he ought to be more careful. He tried winking with the other eye. Just as charming. Raised an eyebrow. Oh dear – more so. Perhaps a wink without the smile…