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SVSSS: Life is (not) a Hallmark Movie by Mellicindi

Fandom: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
Pairings/Characters: Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan
Rating: T
Length: 143,334
Creator Links:

mellicindi
Theme: Food & Cooking, (Secret) Hobbies, Asexual & Demisexual Characters, Alternate Universe - Modern, Book Fandoms, Canon LGBTQ+ Characters, Characters of Color, Disability, Families of Choice, Favorite Fanworks, No Canon Required, Novel-Length Fic, Trauma & Recovery.

Summary: Shen Yuan isn't lonely. He's just overseas in a new city, trying to muddle his way through a business degree, and dealing with the side effects of his stupid intestines trying to kill him. So, maybe he sometimes watches ASMR to cope with his too-quiet apartment. Maybe he has a little bit of a parasocial-relationship-thing going on with one particular cooking ASMR channel. It's 2016, who doesn't? The point is, he's content with his quiet life.

And then Shang Qinghua strong-arms him into watching one Hallmark Christmas movie, and it all goes to hell.

Or: Shen Yuan is a Hallmark movie protagonist, Luo Binghe is a Lifetime movie protagonist, and somehow they make it work.

Reccer's Notes: I read this fic over three days right in the middle of Battleship and it instantly became one of my favourite fanfics of all time. I could seriously gush for hours about this fic and its themes: the recurring thread of food as a love language (especially given protagonist Shen Yuan's digestive disability he's too self-conscious to talk openly about), the differing nature of familial, romantic, and friendship bonds and the varying privileges and presumptions behind each, this Luo Binghe's long-term trauma that manifests in the best goddamn depiction of Borderline Personality Disorder I've seen outside Crazy Ex Girlfriend seemingly entirely on accident - and among all of that, it's just a goddamn well-written story, incredibly easy to read and funny and heartfelt and true to its characters while being 100% readable fandom-blind and just - if any of the above appeals to you, I really can't advise anything other than to read it ASAP. <333

Fanwork Links: Life is (not) a Hallmark Movie

Current Mood: hungry

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Stargate Atlantis: Romance at the Roadkill Grill by lamardeuse

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairings/Characters: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Rating: Explicit
Length: 22,349 words
Creator Links: lamardeuse on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking

Summary: Author's Summary: In which Rodney is a famous TV chef and John is a lobster fisherman. I am not even kidding.

Reccer's Notes: This is a complete SGA AU featuring Rodney, John, Ronon, and Teyla as the only SGA characters, surrounded by a community of OCs, most of whom are women. The writer notes, "[This is] Pure AU crack. You have been warned. Based on my forty-second reading of the back cover of a random Harlequin and my internalization of romantic comedy conventions through innumerable films and books for the past thirty-odd years."

And the story is exactly as advertised: a light-hearted, rom-comical, persnickety fish-out-of-water meets laid-back fisherman romance.

Fanwork Links: story on AO3

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Round 13: Sign-ups

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Current Mood: hungry

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Hockey RPF: Game Plan by thehoyden

Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairings/Characters: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Rating: Explicit
Length: 10,281 words / 1hr podfic
Creator Links: thehoyden on AO3, exmanhater on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking

Summary: Unlike Nealsy, Evgeni can cook his own food when he has it. He’s perfectly capable of making breakfast. His kitchen is well-equipped, and he’s got some good basic cooking skills down. In short, he is not going to starve to death if left to his own devices.

None of this seems to matter to Sid.

Reccer's Notes: This is a story about seduction by breakfast. As the title says, there is a clear game plan at work here -- possibly more than one. Much of the charm of the story is in how oblivious the determined seducer is to the effect he is having and how bewildered his target is that it's not clear how willing he is to be seduced.

Bonus: the descriptions of the ever-more-elaborate breakfasts are fantastic.

There's an accompanying podfic by exmanhater that is a delicious listen as well.

Fanwork Links: story on AO3, podfic on AO3

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SGA: Clean Plate Club by yin_again

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Evan Lorne, Simpson, Radek Zelenka, Laura Cadman, Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Stackhouse/ Markham
Rating: Explicit
Length: 7963
Content Notes: no AO3-type warnings apply
Creator Links: yin's old site on Wayback, yin_again on AO3, yin on LJ
Themes: Food and cooking, First time, Complete AU

Summary: Rodney looked at the prep area and nodded decisively. "How do you feel about waffles?"
"I love waffles," John said with a grin.

Reccer's Notes: This is the initial and main story in yin's Clean Plate Club 'verse, in which John's a sought-after photographer and Rodney's a chef turned food stylist (he prepares and arranges food for perfect photo shoots). It's a fun meet-cute with clever dialogue, great characterisation and a very hot first time. It's enormous fun, even if the "hero food" meticulously arranged by Rodney is actually dressed with glycerine and motor oil!

Fanwork Links: Clean Plate Club on Wayback (scroll down a little and you'll see this fic and the others in the 'verse.)
And yin also recorded it as a podfic, here.

Current Mood: hungry

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ONE DIRECTION: LEAVE IT TO THE BREEZE

Fandom: One Direction
Pairings/Characters: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Zayne Malik
Rating: Explicit
Length: 81,459 words / 9.5hr podfic
Creator Links: hattalove on AO3, frecklebomb on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking

Summary: Louis couldn’t be prouder of his bake, but there’s something—there’s something. Something about Harry Styles and the earnest way he measures, pours, mixes, scrapes. Something about the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he knocks the air out of his batter.

Or, a Great British Bake Off AU in which Louis cares about winning and winning only, Harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and Niall sticks his nose into other people's business. Also featuring Liam as Louis's best friend-slash-concerned mother, and Zayn as a macaron connoisseur.

Reccer's Notes: I love GBBO AUs to pieces and this is one of the very best I've found. This story features characters in their early 20s who love baking for a variety of reasons. They are mostly charming but can be very stressed and vulnerable. They find joy in being good at what they can do with batter and dough, but can also be tough on themselves as well as others. IOW you've seen these characters on the show itself at times. : )

There's an enemies-to-lovers progression happening for one half of the main pairing that is exasperating and very human until it reaches the point where it's also very hot and very fun. The writer deserves a cake stand and a big bouquet for managing to weave all these elements together into a very satisfying story.

There's a marvelous podfic version of the story by frecklebomb as well. It's one of my favorite listens.

Fanwork Links: Leave It To the Breeze by hattalove, podfic by frecklebomb

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Batman: Say Uncle by Megaerakles

Fandom: Batman
Pairings/Characters: Jason Todd, Tim Drake
Rating: teen
Length: 46k
Creator Links:

Megaerakles
Theme: food, fork in the road AU, domestic, family, fixit, gen, happy endings, secret identity reveal,

Summary: Tim is prepared to take the steps necessary to ensure that Bruce will not feel obligated to adopt Tim when a comatose Jack Drake inevitably dies. But what could be better than preventing Bruce from ending up with a son he doesn't want? Bringing back the one he does.

Jason agrees to the Replacement's stupid, stupid plan to invite some strange adult man he's never met to come live with him, if only to keep the idiot alive long enough for him to serve his purpose in the Great Red Hood Revenge Scheme.

Might this new roommate situation have an impact on either of their worldviews? Surely not...

Reccer's Notes: Both Tim and Jason are oblivious idiots in the best way in this. And Jason shows love through cooking (and teaching how to cook).

Fanwork Links: Say Uncle

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MCU: Dinner In Other Languages by tielan

Fandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Steve Rogers/Maria Hill
Rating: Gen
Length: 3107 words
Creator Links:

tielan
Theme: food, working together, friends with benefits, female characters,

Summary: Maria can manage professional colleagues with Rogers, but she values her place in S.H.I.E.L.D more.

Reccer's Notes: Tielan's specialty is female characters who get overlooked by the rest of fandom, and I love the way she writes Maria Hill: a complex woman doing a difficult job in a world that doesn't respect her. And I love the way she writes Steve: a man who deeply and sincerely respects (and falls for) competent women.

Fanwork Links: Dinner In Other Languages

Entry tags:

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Admin Post: Round 13 not starting until Friday

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Sherlock Holmes: Tea, Coffee, and a Bite of Beef by MadamzelleG

Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Books/Granada)
Pairings/Characters: Holmes/Watson
Rating: G
Length: 1114 words
Creator Links: MadamzelleG
Theme: food & cooking

Summary: Holmes never orders dinner for himself, but Watson has long since stopped asking why. Instead, he allows the quiet ritual to unfold—Holmes sipping his coffee, stealing a bite here and there from Watson’s plate with effortless precision. In the warm glow of the Café Royal, amidst the murmur of conversation and the clink of silverware, an unspoken understanding lingers between them: Holmes takes, and Watson never minds.

Reccer's Notes: An intimate little scene of Watson and Holmes dining out together. With some exploration of Holmes' canon issues around food, but not in clinical way, more like Watson observing Holmes.

Fanwork Links: Ao3

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Round 178: Food & Cooking

Photograph of steel spoons and spices in a dramatic setting with added text that gives it the look of a gourmet magazine cover: September 2025. Food & Cooking, at Fancake. Steel teaspoons are arranged in an elogated oval to suggest a fish, with the bowls acting as scales and some of the handles left visible to create the fins and tail, giving the creature a spiky appearance. The concave bowls are dusted with a powdery orange spice for color and one spoon at the front of the fish is filled with a coarse black spice to create an eye. The fish is on a black surface with a rough texture and around it are three skinny green peppers, a mound of salt, a mound of orange spice, and a dipping bowl filled with a clear amber liquid.

Our theme for September is food & cooking!

The tag for this round is: theme: food & cooking

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance. Because food can be a sensitive subject, you might want to indicate things like disordered eating, food allergies, dieting, weight loss or gain, food policing, fatphobia, and body shaming.

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Code deploy happening shortly

Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

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Admin Post: Round 13 Prompt List

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POI: Love and Marriage by astolat

Fandom: Person of Interest
Characters/Pairings: John Reese/Harold Finch, Lionel Fusco, Jos Carter, Bear
Rating: Explicit
Length: 4697
Creator Links: astolat on AO3, silverkat1620 on Audiofic Archive, kalakirya on Audiofic Archive
Themes: Marriage of Convenience, Friends to lovers

Summary: "Harold," John said, "are you asking me to marry you for your money?"
"Well, Mr. Reese," Harold said, "given how much of it you've spent already, I don't really see how you can complain."

Reccer's Notes: This story is deeply based in canon and yet, despite having only a partial grasp of the show and never having watched more than a couple of seasons, I still find it easy to follow, and it packs an emotional punch. The reason for the marriage of convenience this time is financial, to strengthen John's cover story and explain a recent massive outlay of funds. This isn't one of those stories where there's a prolonged slow burn after they marry - despite the pragmatic reason and their initial obliviousness, they're kissing like it's their job even before the celebrant pronounces them hitched. The characterisation is perfect, and there's a wonderful original character in Miriam Hechel. This fic is a gut punch in the best way on a number of levels - from unexpected attendees at the wedding, to John's catharsis afterwards, to the very end when it seems someone powerful in the shadows made sure their wedding day was undisturbed. It's a lovely story, beautifully written, and there are no less than two excellent podfics.

Fanwork Links:
Love and Marriage - the text
Love and Marriage - podfic by silverkat1620
Love and Marriage - podfic by kalakirya

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Old Guard: Diplomatic Complications by Sixthlight

Fandom: The Old Guard
Pairings: Nicolò/Yusuf
Characters: Nicolò, Yusuf, Andromache, Quynh, Nile, OCs
Rating: Explicit
Length: 14,400 words
Creator Links:

Sixthlight
Theme: Marriage of convenience, Diplomatic marriage, Complete AU, Historical AU

Summary: There can be no misinterpretation or confusion on Yusuf’s part when what Duke Nicolò says is “But I didn’t want a husband, what does my brother think he’s doing?”

Reccer's Notes: Arranged marriages may be common in wealthy families -- but when the groom doesn't know a marriage has been arranged, and certainly doesn't want one, it throws a wrench in the works. Nicolò rejects the idea of marriage, and Yusuf can only accept that -- but everyone around them really, really want the two men to be married. Yusuf doesn't know how to do the seduction that Nile suggests, but a friendship slowly grows between them, and then more, which leads to a thoroughly satisfying ending.

Content Notes: None

Fanwork Links: Diplomatic Complications, by Sixthlight at AO3

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Old Guard: A Fine Arrangement by sharkie335

Fandom: The Old Guard
Pairings: Yusuf/Nicolò, background Andromache/Quynh, hint of potential Nile/Booker
Characters: Nicolò, Yusuf, Andromache, Quynh, Booker, Nile, OCs
Rating: Explicit
Length: 24,600 words
Creator Links:

sharkie335
Theme: Marriage of convenience, Complete AU, Historical AU, Diplomatic marriage

Summary: Genoa managed to destroy Tunisia's navy, leaving the royal family to sue for peace. A treaty was struck, and Yusuf was offered in marriage to the King of Genoa's second child, the Princess Veneranda.
At least, that was the plan.

Reccer's Notes: Yusuf has no choice but to make a political marriage to bring peace between Genoa and Tunisa... but when the bride-to-be runs away with her lover, Nicolò it forced to become the substitute marriage partner. Yusuf and Nicolò find they are well-pleased by these developments... until they learn that Nicolò's father and brother have decided to hold Nicolò's mother for ransom. Throw in escape under cover of night, each enjoying copious amounts of married sex, a touch of palace intrigue as Nicolò doesn't know if his family's actions will reflect on his position, and we have a thoroughly enjoyable story.

Content Notes: This is an alpha/omega universe, but the story doesn't make a big deal about that; it's treated as just ordinary life.

Fanwork Links: A Fine Arrangement, by sharkie335 at AO3.

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ATLA: Lu Ten's Hawk by thetrickisnotminding

Fandom: Avatar The Last Airbender
Pairings/Characters: Zuko, Toph, Lu Ten, Sokka, Katara, Aang, Suki, Hakoda, Ty Lee
Rating: Author did not rate it, I'd call it G
Length: 20,008 words
Creator Links: thetrickisnotminding
Theme: Marriage of convenience, arranged marriage, fork-in-the-road AU, diplomatic marriage, disability (blindness), families of choice,

Summary: In some facet of reality, there /was/ a way to help Lu Ten. And so the Avatar woke into a world where no one was questing for the Avatar yet, because certain soldier boys had different methods in their march home.

Reccer's Notes: I love this take on the different ATLA characters. Zuko is trying so hard in this to both prove himself and make up for how terrible his father is, but he's ultimately still the awkward turtle-duck we know and love. His "proposal" to Toph basically amounts to "you give our side a ton of money, I'll take you away from your over-protective parents and let you boss me around." Which she LOVES and takes full advantage of. Being a prospective princess does absolutely nothing to stop Toph from being a goblin-child and it's beautiful.

Content Notes: Some reference to suicidal behaviour; canon-typical reference to child abuse, war, and genocide

Fanwork Links: Lu Ten's Hawk on AO3

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Star Trek AOS: For the Greater Good by reeby10 / cookiemom6067

Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot)
Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock
Rating: G
Length: 1832 words; 11:27 minutes
Creator Links:

reeby10 ;

cookiemom6067
Theme: Marriage of convenience

Summary: The Enterprise makes contact with an alien race who will only speak with a couple as representatives. Jim figures it's not a big deal to pretend he and Spock are together, but it turns out they play the role a little too well.

Reccer's Notes: Sliding in with one last rec for this theme. I'd forgotten about this story, but I happened to listen to the podfic this morning. It's a great example of a short marriage of convenience story that relies on what we already know to be a strong friendship between Kirk and Spock. In this story, a diplomatic mission requires Kirk and Spock to pretend to be a couple, but their clear bond (in the general sense, not the Vulcan sense) leads the planet's representatives to offer to hold a marriage ceremony for our favorite Starfleet officers. I like when outsiders are able to see the heart of things and call it like it is. This is such a sweet and gentle fic with a big helping of optimism. I'm sure someone needs that today. The podfic is also clearly and steadily read by cookiemom.

Fanwork Links:
For the Greater Good
Podfic by cookiemom6067