Recs

[selenak]

Heroes:

Natural Devolution: set pre-show, but has some season 2 spoilers: Noah Bennet and Sandra. Guest-starring Elle and Bob. This brings out the horror of what Noah did to Sandra and his own screwed-upness as few fanfics do.

House:

Interlude: Amber during the season 4 finale. A while ago I linked to a meta which made a convincing case for season 4 having been the season of Amber Volakis, but it's not exactly reflected in fanfiction. Here is a superb take on her.

Tomorrow: and this is House during and after the season finale, and Cuddy, and Wilson. If I have one complaint about s4, it's that there wasn't enough Cuddy, but again, we have fanfic. The House portrait is fantastic.


Doctor Who:

Fear of the Dark: a fantastic story, hard to describe. Gallifreyan myths and linguistics, season 4 themes, the Doctor and the Master, all of it written by ariastar who is responsible for my all time favourite AU s4 written during the hiatus, dwseason4.

Comments

[elisi]

Thank you lots for the DW rec - and all the other recs you keep bringing. There's far too much stuff out there for me to even *begin* to sift through, but you've not steered me wrong yet.

Oh and I *finally* updated my Jack-is-the-Immortal fic (You did see the Darla/Jack/Dru part right?). Although you seem to have plenty on your plate... how do you find the time?

[wondygal.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Amber rec, I can't seem to find much Amber fic, and I really want it. And Sandra fic! That must be good. *goes to read*

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

The Heroes rec sounds very intriguing, and I shall have to bookmark it for some fanfic reading over the week-end. I found Noah's behaviour towards his wife deeply problematic, but I'm not sure whether the show itself acknowledges that. Thanks for drawing my attention to this story!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Re: Noah, actually I think that the show is far more critical about him in general than fandom is. I.e. when Mohinder says near the end of volume 2 "you brought this on yourself etc." after resurrecting him, this is basically true from an authorial pov; things like his execution of Ivan aren't presented as "cool, badass Noah" moments but as murder (and not murder done in protection of Claire; as he admits later himself, this wasn't about Claire, this was about him); and we do get Sandra pulling her hand away in season 2, finally. But whether the show acknowledges just how problematic Noah's behavior towards Sandra specifically is/was or thinks they have it covered with "well, the Company made him do it" and Sandra's instant forgiveness in Company Man, I'm not sure. After all, there is the early s1 scene where Matt makes up with his wife by reading her thoughts without telling her and then fulfilling her secret wishes etc., which I think was intended as romantic (as opposed to Matt's later struggles which were definitely intended to show the potential dark side temptations of telepathy) and sweet, without a thought about the troublesome aaspect.

...on the other hand, Sandra gets some really great moments of calling Noah on his bullshit in other regards in s2, so I should hope there is some awareness that "that mindwiping was totally not my fault" doesn't quite cover it.

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

But whether the show acknowledges just how problematic Noah's behavior towards Sandra specifically is/was or thinks they have it covered with "well, the Company made him do it" and Sandra's instant forgiveness in Company Man, I'm not sure.

Yes, this is exactly what I was trying to say. I absolutely agree with you that a lot of what Noah does is presented by the show as morally ambiguous at best. However, I would like a more or less explicit acknowledgement that his behaviour towards his wife showed a fundamental lack of trust, respect and decency, his benign motives notwithstanding.