Guess what? MORE fic!!
Right, so fulfilling a couple more requests - bingblot wanted pre-admin and 1st admin fic., and aheiden wanted AU fic. I'm also getting another general post together including stuff I'd forgotten to include before, or things that others have reminded me about! I was going to put it all together, but it's taking a while now I'm back at work, and I thought you might have run out of stuff to read (!)
So.... the request was for either totally AU fic, or for fic that heads off having followed canon to a certain point. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a great deal of totally AU fic out there - well not JD stuff (please feel free to correct me somebody!), but here are the ones I can think of. I’ve already mentioned Dee’s Bedford Falls, in which Donna never makes it to New Hampshire the first time. Also by Dee - Montague and Capulet - Donna works in Washington, but not for Josh; The Other Woman and its sequel, Friends and Lovers. Also at her site, is Comeback which goes AU after Donna’s deposition, the premise being that she never went to Josh for help over her diary. Then check out the rather unusual Patriots, which is an "alternate time" story, set in the 18th Century. An interesting idea - the Josh and Donna stuff is a bit "Jane Eyre", but, you know, whatever (except Jane and Mr Rochester never did THAT! *g*). If you like that idea, Puck and Zillah wrote a few "modern(ish) fairy tales" - The Lesser Sin tells the story of a handsome prince who’s in love with his serving girl… with tongue planted firmly in cheek! (The link is to the fic at SOTU.)
(I should point out here that I am aware of some other AU fic, but they’re not very well written - so I’m not recommending them.)
ETA: deelaa asked me to point out that she and the Dee who's the author of the fics I've mentioned are not, in fact, one and the same! OK hun?
Jen Wilson’s Running into the Past (Josh’s POV) and Stumbling Into Life (Donna’s POV) are two pieces which take as their premise that although Donna did get to NH, she never returned after going back to Wisconsin, but that she and Josh do meet up again shortly before the end of Bartlet’s first term. The pieces are very well written, and they fit together nicely, and being as they are AU pieces, I can get past some of the… characterisation problems I have with some of her fic. (sorry - please don’t throw things at me!)
If you want fic that follows canon up to a point and then diverges - there have been quite a few recently. I’ve already mentioned Sally’s The Road Less Travelled which starts off early in S6 but which quickly heads in a different direction. Her What Must Not Be Said is also very good - it’s set at the end of S3; Josh is still with Amy but … There’s also Incrocio, a Donna-centric piece by mdrgrl which starts after 2162 Votes. I will come up with some more...
Pre-admin/1st admin fic. I mentioned Campaign Promises in an earlier post - and another fic which deals with Donna joining the first Bartlet for America campaign is Genesis, by mdrgrl. It’s from Donna’s POV, and well written - there are also two sequels - Exodus and February 26. And then there’s Limerance which is a sequel set several years later, in a sort of S6.
dianora2 wrote a really nice Josh piece, called Four Seasons, and thehousekeeper recently wrote Two Fathers for the Leo McGarry ficathon, which is an ensemble piece set during the first campaign. There’s also kHo’s Busted - Josh at 20 and Leo, and going even further back, Leo and Noah (Josh’s father) talk in In Times Like These. There’s Jo & Ryo’s Campaign Trail fic, and Effective Immediately by thestickywicket and (it being only a matter of time before I got to more smut!) Trysting.
There’s loads of 1st admin fic out there - the majority of Jo & Ryo’s stuff is 1st admin, and there’s some good stuff by Sary - I like I Don’t Know if it’s Going to Get Better which is a dialogue heavy piece which switches between two couples after The War at Home, and this one, set after 17 People, A Late Thaw.
In kHo's Our Boys, Jed and Leo discuss Josh and Sam at some point during the first term (before we find out about the MS).
All of Marguerite’s fic is well worth reading. There’s a lot of JD but also CJ/T and a lot of general political stories as well. Her The Rarest Faith is novel length, and starts out sometime in S3; Collateral is a Josh-centric story, post Rosslyn, and That Only I Remember is angsty and set early (so no Amy) in S3. Another of hers that I really like (and I like them all, because she's really good!) is set S5 - Tobias and the Night Visitors, which is set after Abu al Banat. It must have been one of the last pieces she wrote in the fandom, sadly.
OK, so that'll do for this post - I have some more fics swimming around in my head - some more early stuff and things I forgot, so I'll get that written up and posted in a few days. Enjoy - and let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to find!
So.... the request was for either totally AU fic, or for fic that heads off having followed canon to a certain point. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a great deal of totally AU fic out there - well not JD stuff (please feel free to correct me somebody!), but here are the ones I can think of. I’ve already mentioned Dee’s Bedford Falls, in which Donna never makes it to New Hampshire the first time. Also by Dee - Montague and Capulet - Donna works in Washington, but not for Josh; The Other Woman and its sequel, Friends and Lovers. Also at her site, is Comeback which goes AU after Donna’s deposition, the premise being that she never went to Josh for help over her diary. Then check out the rather unusual Patriots, which is an "alternate time" story, set in the 18th Century. An interesting idea - the Josh and Donna stuff is a bit "Jane Eyre", but, you know, whatever (except Jane and Mr Rochester never did THAT! *g*). If you like that idea, Puck and Zillah wrote a few "modern(ish) fairy tales" - The Lesser Sin tells the story of a handsome prince who’s in love with his serving girl… with tongue planted firmly in cheek! (The link is to the fic at SOTU.)
(I should point out here that I am aware of some other AU fic, but they’re not very well written - so I’m not recommending them.)
ETA: deelaa asked me to point out that she and the Dee who's the author of the fics I've mentioned are not, in fact, one and the same! OK hun?
Jen Wilson’s Running into the Past (Josh’s POV) and Stumbling Into Life (Donna’s POV) are two pieces which take as their premise that although Donna did get to NH, she never returned after going back to Wisconsin, but that she and Josh do meet up again shortly before the end of Bartlet’s first term. The pieces are very well written, and they fit together nicely, and being as they are AU pieces, I can get past some of the… characterisation problems I have with some of her fic. (sorry - please don’t throw things at me!)
If you want fic that follows canon up to a point and then diverges - there have been quite a few recently. I’ve already mentioned Sally’s The Road Less Travelled which starts off early in S6 but which quickly heads in a different direction. Her What Must Not Be Said is also very good - it’s set at the end of S3; Josh is still with Amy but … There’s also Incrocio, a Donna-centric piece by mdrgrl which starts after 2162 Votes. I will come up with some more...
Pre-admin/1st admin fic. I mentioned Campaign Promises in an earlier post - and another fic which deals with Donna joining the first Bartlet for America campaign is Genesis, by mdrgrl. It’s from Donna’s POV, and well written - there are also two sequels - Exodus and February 26. And then there’s Limerance which is a sequel set several years later, in a sort of S6.
dianora2 wrote a really nice Josh piece, called Four Seasons, and thehousekeeper recently wrote Two Fathers for the Leo McGarry ficathon, which is an ensemble piece set during the first campaign. There’s also kHo’s Busted - Josh at 20 and Leo, and going even further back, Leo and Noah (Josh’s father) talk in In Times Like These. There’s Jo & Ryo’s Campaign Trail fic, and Effective Immediately by thestickywicket and (it being only a matter of time before I got to more smut!) Trysting.
There’s loads of 1st admin fic out there - the majority of Jo & Ryo’s stuff is 1st admin, and there’s some good stuff by Sary - I like I Don’t Know if it’s Going to Get Better which is a dialogue heavy piece which switches between two couples after The War at Home, and this one, set after 17 People, A Late Thaw.
In kHo's Our Boys, Jed and Leo discuss Josh and Sam at some point during the first term (before we find out about the MS).
All of Marguerite’s fic is well worth reading. There’s a lot of JD but also CJ/T and a lot of general political stories as well. Her The Rarest Faith is novel length, and starts out sometime in S3; Collateral is a Josh-centric story, post Rosslyn, and That Only I Remember is angsty and set early (so no Amy) in S3. Another of hers that I really like (and I like them all, because she's really good!) is set S5 - Tobias and the Night Visitors, which is set after Abu al Banat. It must have been one of the last pieces she wrote in the fandom, sadly.
OK, so that'll do for this post - I have some more fics swimming around in my head - some more early stuff and things I forgot, so I'll get that written up and posted in a few days. Enjoy - and let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to find!