OMG BENJAMIN JANUARY FANFICTION

[brigdh]

Look! Look! I am so happy! TWO NEW BENJAMIN JANUARY STORIES.

Not So Stockish by lavode. Ben and Shaw, music and food and trust and appearances. This completely feels like a missing scene from the book.

Who, Sitting On My Bed, Shall Rule Me, also by lavode. Ben/Hannibal and pining. Short and bittersweet but oh so good.

(Both stories locked to AO3.)

Comments

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

saajsjiajiasjiasijas aaaaah thank you for the PSA these were amazing.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Welcome, welcome! I am fully willing to take credit for posting links. :D

[lavode.livejournal.com]

(people praising my fanfic on a livejournal that isn't mine what do I do)

Thanks for reading it, and thanks for pimping it, and I'm glad you like it, and there must be more fic for this fandom!

[lavode.livejournal.com]

Another rec: There's a January fic (well, it's a crossover with BtVS) that's pretty hard to find, but it's six chapters long, and really funny at times, and I like the way all the main characters are handled: A Summer with January (http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-25430/phouka+A+Summer+With+January.htm) by phouka. Two slayerettes (one of mixed race, one white) are sent back in time to fight vampires in New Orleans in 1836, one of them punches a (white) doctor in a plague hospital, and January winds up having to help them.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I have read that one! Though it's very sad that it seems to be forever abandoned just when the action was picking up. I also really like the scene where January finds out about slavery having ended.

I have spent way too long attempting to google up January fanfic, but the only ones I've found that aren't on AO3 are this one and Dans le Defit de la Coutume (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2750520/1/Dans-le-Defit-de-la-Coutume).

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

(Bask!)

Thank you for writing it! And yes, I wish there was more fic. Perhaps someone will write some for Yuletide.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

*g* I feel it's hard to beat the part where they find out who the current Slayer is. ("'You were a Slayer?' she gasped. Mayerling gave her a precise bow of ten degrees and clicked his heels together.)

After reading A Free Man of Color I went online to hunt for fanfic (as one does), and thought: I bet that (a) there's going to be exactly ONE fic, and (b) it's going to be slash, and (c) it's going to be January/Hannibal. And I was right about the first two parts (but the fandom's grown since then). I like Dans le Défit de la Coutume, I just can't really buy January/Shaw (even though I want to.)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes! Mayerling the Slayer is FANTASTIC and again, like I said, I wish there was more to the fic.

I was also very surprised by the lack of Ben/Hannibal (though we're correcting this problem!). It seems like such the obvious pairing to me. They live together! They take baths together! They literally talk about how much they love each other! But my relentless googling has suggested that Shaw is a character type some people are really, really into, which: I can't blame them!

Including my mom, who I have introduced the series to. I was talking to her a few weeks ago and she went on a long digression about how she would cast a younger Clint Eastwood as Shaw, and then he and Ben would walk around being tough guys and BFFs. It was... slightly too close to slash fanfiction for me to be comfortable discussing it with my mother.

[lavode.livejournal.com]

I was also very surprised by the lack of Ben/Hannibal (though we're correcting this problem!). It seems like such the obvious pairing to me.

And Rose isn't introduced until the second book, and even after that it took me a while to realise that Ben wanted to be more than just friends with her (I was starting to ship Rose/Cora by the end of Fever Season.)

But my relentless googling has suggested that Shaw is a character type some people are really, really into, which: I can't blame them!

Maybe it's like the Due South fandom, where most people seem to identify as either Ray V fans or Ray K fans depending on which of Fraser's sidekicks they like most, but it's taken for granted that everybody's a Fraser fan. Of course, all three of those characters are white.

I like almost the entire cast of the January books, but Shaw is admittedly my favourite character. Which is one reason I haven't written a tonne of fanfic - he's hard to get a grip on, and again, I probably shouldn't focus too much on the white characters.) He's cowboy-like without being all I AM GRUFF AND RUGGED AND HAVE REALLY HARD MUSCLES; he's willing to follow where January leads; he carries important evidence material around in his pockets and uses knuckle-dusters as improvised bookmarks; he seems to have a general attitude of "yes, life sucks, yes, most people suck, yes, we're all going to die... nice weather today!" I wish he and Rose would interact more in canon, because they're so similar personality-wise that I'm almost inclined to ship them.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I would totally read Rose/Cora! Or even Rose + Cora friendship fic. (Ah, I meant to ask for that for Yuletide actually, and totally forgot.)

Well, Hannibal's white too, so I don't think preferring Ben/Shaw over that pairing is necessarily a race thing.

Shaw really is a great character. I'd never thought about him and Rose before, but now I REALLY want to see them together, either ship-wise or casually. They are similar, and I think they would be so interesting to watch interact.