Snowflake Challenge 2015 - Day 7

[wyntir_knight]

Day 7

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have always liked the darker aspects of stories - end of the world fics, stories where the villains win, tales of the evil that lurks in the hearts of the righteous. It's something that I've always liked and it's something that I often seek out in my non-fic readings - I blame my love of Lovecraft, Poe, and the Gothic horrors. I think that I love these things so much because it allows for the exploration of some things that canon often doesn’t acknowledge – especially my own favourite canons which tend to revolve around 80s cartoons and comics.

Some of my favourites in the Transformers fandom are:

Make Love Not War by Ultharkitty - "Onslaught brings about a new world order for Cybertron, and the Protectobots find themselves involved in ways they could never have imagined."

- This one's not done yet, but that shouldn't stop you from reading it. Basically peace is on the horizon for the Autobots and Decepticons, but the price of that peace is ancient and archaic and, as a reader, I'm really not sure that it'll be the sunshine and roses that the Autobots are hoping for.

Corruption by Ultharkitty - "The war is over; Rodimus is dead and the Decepticons hold Cybertron. First Aid has been living under Vortex's protection for a year, masquerading as a drone to ensure his own safety. Then a newcomer challenges Vortex's hold over the medic, and everything threatens to change."

- I didn't want to like this because it's a sticky-fic and I was adamant that I wasn't going to like one of those. I've softened with time and I am so glad that I have, because this story is absolutely epic. The summary really gives you all you need to know about it. The Decepticons won, First Aid is the the last remaining Autobot, and Cybertron is returning to a Golden Age so long as you don't look too far below the shiny surface.

Getting Shit Done in Effective and Not Terribly Moral Ways by Ladydragon76 - "They didn’t cut the head off the snake, they unlocked the cage, threw wide the door, and let the demon slip his chains."

- This story revolves around the idea of Jazz being less than the ideal Autobot. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say, there's a very good reason why Jazz isn't the Supreme Commander of the Autobots.

Darkness Falls by Ladydragon76 - "Rebellion against corruption brought the death of Sentinel Prime. An entire planet’s hope now lay in the hands of a young archivist chosen by the Matrix, an ancient relic that none really knew the origins of."

- I think that this story can be best defined as "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely". I don't want to spoil this wonderful story, so I will just say this: What if Optimus was more like Sentinel?

And just as a warning, all of the above mentioned stories are probably pretty triggery for some people, so read with caution.


As for my other major fandom, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I'm afraid that I don't have a lot to recommend here. It's not that the fics are bad (quite the opposite, in fact) but I haven't seen a lot of the darkness that I like in my stories. It's rather surprising seeing that the original comic and the 2003 series had some very gritty and dark moments (especially "Same as it Never Was" in the 2003 cartoon).

If anyone has anything that they want to recommend in either fandom, or in any other fandom, please feel free to let me know.