BBB reviews, part V
Jun. 22nd, 2009 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redorchidsMixed batch of cookies this time around. Read some really, really good fic. All happy now. :-)
Reviews
Gerard Way's Vampire Detective Agency by jjtaylor
Frank/Gerard
Gerard Way, supernatural detective, investigates Pete Wentz's death with the help of faithful vampire valet Frank Iero.
Amazing world, incredibly detailed with lots of humour in the little things. Stalking billiard tables! Government instructions for how to properly address non-human individuals of different rang! Accidental vampire-affecting sexpollen! Nice mystery story behind the fantastic world too. This fic is really, really good.
Everything Is Temporary (Rest Your Head) by willbedancing
Panic GSF
Ryan does ballroom dancing and needs a new partner. Brendon is in the same boat.
A bit uneven. Too slow at times, which made me skim some of it. There's a kind of weird backstory involving Tom in a coma that kind of made the whole thing drag and was a bit over the top, but the dancing scenes are hot and the slowly developing GSF is pretty decent. Liked it.
I Am the Derivative and You Are the Curves by bestthingaround
Brendon/Ryan
Ryan needs a math tutor. Brendon helps him out.
Read the draft of this one when I made art for it. Back then, it was pretty uneven. Some things were cute as hell (especially liked the tutoring sessions) and others were either too over-the-top or felt somehow contrived (the Jon/Brendon backstory for example. Didn't like how that was written at all). Might have been cleaned up in editing. If you read it and think it's good, let me know, okay?
The Day When Pete Wentz Fucked Up the World by vamplover82
Pete/Patrick
Pete finds a time-machine in the attic and starts messing with the universe.
Complete crack. Read the draft while making art for this and couldn't decide whether I thought it was total bullshit or completely genius. Forget everything you normally expect in a time-travel fic; this is entirely random. (Pete goes back 30,000 years and breathes for five seconds. When he gets back to the present, aliens have taken over the world and everyone has tentacles—that sort of thing). It's possible that you need to be drunk to fall down on the genius side of the fence. Or just have the right type of humour. Let me know what you think. LOL.
Thing-Thing by sinsense
Frank/Gerard
High School sucks, MCR plays D&D during lunch and Gerard meets Frank, who's been stuffed inside a locker.
I liked this one. The faily romance between Frank and Gerard is completely and utterly adorable and very believably teenage-ish. I'm slightly disturbed by Gerard and Mikey being more or less alcoholics at 14 and 17, and some parts of this fic felt too long and repetitive. There's a lot of “high school sucks” in this, which is probably completely deliberate, but I did get a little bored and skimmed some parts in the first half. Bonus points for teenage MCR roleplaying, though. Bob jumping in to play the hot girl outside the tavern = gold.
To Take What I'm Given with Grace by likeasugarcube
Pete/Patrick
Pete needs to get married to get his hands on his trust fund.
So, so lovely. This is exactly why I love peterick as a pairing. The relationship in this fic is unconventional in the sense that the writer doesn't write the ups and downs that you'd expect from a marriage of convenience story. It is that kind of story—misunderstandings and all—but it's still the essence of peterick in a way, that sort of co-dependant BFF connection that just keeps the characters grounded, even when they fight. The characters are both stupid, but they're stupid guys, not fillers for your standard romance novel couple, and the dynamic is incredibly well-balanced and just makes me smile like an idiot. I want to take this fic and curl up in bed on a rainy day and just never stop reading it. 61,000 words. Loved every moment.
Somebody Has to Fall by xoxomaryxoxo
Brendon/Ryan
Ryan owns a bookstore. Jon manages a cafe. Brendon is a cocaine addict.
Stopped reading about half-way through the first part. To start, this fic is missing at least a couple of warnings, such as non-con (or at the very least hard dub-con) and prostitution, since Shane is selling Brendon's body for cocaine. From what I can see, there's also a general punctuation/grammar problem (shifting tenses, missing commas) and problems with characterisation where the characters are a) either saints or devils, b) reacting in ways that are not supported by the story, and c) highly caricatured fandom tropes that I don't find very enjoyable. I haven't seen a character (Shane) bashed this badly since my SS/HG days. Most of these problems could probably have been fixed with a good beta, which makes me sad, because Brendon as a drug-addict is an interesting concept and I would have liked to read a good story on that.
Reviews
Gerard Way's Vampire Detective Agency by jjtaylor
Frank/Gerard
Gerard Way, supernatural detective, investigates Pete Wentz's death with the help of faithful vampire valet Frank Iero.
Amazing world, incredibly detailed with lots of humour in the little things. Stalking billiard tables! Government instructions for how to properly address non-human individuals of different rang! Accidental vampire-affecting sexpollen! Nice mystery story behind the fantastic world too. This fic is really, really good.
Everything Is Temporary (Rest Your Head) by willbedancing
Panic GSF
Ryan does ballroom dancing and needs a new partner. Brendon is in the same boat.
A bit uneven. Too slow at times, which made me skim some of it. There's a kind of weird backstory involving Tom in a coma that kind of made the whole thing drag and was a bit over the top, but the dancing scenes are hot and the slowly developing GSF is pretty decent. Liked it.
I Am the Derivative and You Are the Curves by bestthingaround
Brendon/Ryan
Ryan needs a math tutor. Brendon helps him out.
Read the draft of this one when I made art for it. Back then, it was pretty uneven. Some things were cute as hell (especially liked the tutoring sessions) and others were either too over-the-top or felt somehow contrived (the Jon/Brendon backstory for example. Didn't like how that was written at all). Might have been cleaned up in editing. If you read it and think it's good, let me know, okay?
The Day When Pete Wentz Fucked Up the World by vamplover82
Pete/Patrick
Pete finds a time-machine in the attic and starts messing with the universe.
Complete crack. Read the draft while making art for this and couldn't decide whether I thought it was total bullshit or completely genius. Forget everything you normally expect in a time-travel fic; this is entirely random. (Pete goes back 30,000 years and breathes for five seconds. When he gets back to the present, aliens have taken over the world and everyone has tentacles—that sort of thing). It's possible that you need to be drunk to fall down on the genius side of the fence. Or just have the right type of humour. Let me know what you think. LOL.
Thing-Thing by sinsense
Frank/Gerard
High School sucks, MCR plays D&D during lunch and Gerard meets Frank, who's been stuffed inside a locker.
I liked this one. The faily romance between Frank and Gerard is completely and utterly adorable and very believably teenage-ish. I'm slightly disturbed by Gerard and Mikey being more or less alcoholics at 14 and 17, and some parts of this fic felt too long and repetitive. There's a lot of “high school sucks” in this, which is probably completely deliberate, but I did get a little bored and skimmed some parts in the first half. Bonus points for teenage MCR roleplaying, though. Bob jumping in to play the hot girl outside the tavern = gold.
To Take What I'm Given with Grace by likeasugarcube
Pete/Patrick
Pete needs to get married to get his hands on his trust fund.
So, so lovely. This is exactly why I love peterick as a pairing. The relationship in this fic is unconventional in the sense that the writer doesn't write the ups and downs that you'd expect from a marriage of convenience story. It is that kind of story—misunderstandings and all—but it's still the essence of peterick in a way, that sort of co-dependant BFF connection that just keeps the characters grounded, even when they fight. The characters are both stupid, but they're stupid guys, not fillers for your standard romance novel couple, and the dynamic is incredibly well-balanced and just makes me smile like an idiot. I want to take this fic and curl up in bed on a rainy day and just never stop reading it. 61,000 words. Loved every moment.
Somebody Has to Fall by xoxomaryxoxo
Brendon/Ryan
Ryan owns a bookstore. Jon manages a cafe. Brendon is a cocaine addict.
Stopped reading about half-way through the first part. To start, this fic is missing at least a couple of warnings, such as non-con (or at the very least hard dub-con) and prostitution, since Shane is selling Brendon's body for cocaine. From what I can see, there's also a general punctuation/grammar problem (shifting tenses, missing commas) and problems with characterisation where the characters are a) either saints or devils, b) reacting in ways that are not supported by the story, and c) highly caricatured fandom tropes that I don't find very enjoyable. I haven't seen a character (Shane) bashed this badly since my SS/HG days. Most of these problems could probably have been fixed with a good beta, which makes me sad, because Brendon as a drug-addict is an interesting concept and I would have liked to read a good story on that.
