Fic Recs please? ...Furuba.

[timepiececlock]

Does anyone have Fruits Basket fanfic recs?

note: I'm spoiled for up to volume 17 or so (I can't remember exactly... I stopped reading at Chapter 108). I know volume 19 is out, and 20 will be out in July, but I am still behind I think. I will probaby go tomorrow to the book store and catch up to volume 19.

Because of my fierce desire to keep myself pure from spoilers I haven't visited the FB section of ff.net for like two years. Terrible, I know. But I can afford to wait for this series. What I wanted to ask you folks on my flist, though, is if you have any fanfic recommendations. Long fics, short fics, doesn't matter. I'd love to hear about them, and I trust you guys to be forthright about the spoiler warnings.

I would have read fanfic at ffnet except I didn't trust people not to spoil me in summaries, like what happened with a major thing in Trigun and also happened with the end of season 6 for BTVS.

But... I miss it. I miss furuba fanfic. I miss the deranged and tragic Sohma family. And I figure it's safe to ask you, my flist! So... help?



EDIT: Let me quote, also, a warning I said about Fruits Basket back in 2006 when I swore off scanlations:

If anyone reading this mentions anything about FB to me beyond chapter 108, you will become as a pancake: flat and mushy and bleeding syrup, an abused piece of pan-fried pastry that no one wants to touch because you've been beaten to a whitish pulp and left wasted on the kitchen floor for three days.

I mean, seriously folks. There's few things that I love like I love the FB manga. You can spoil me for Battlestar Galactica and I'll whine a bit and feel some irritation, but that's it. You spoil me about Avatar and I'll cry in the corner for a few minutes, probably talk in CAPS. You spoil me for Fruits Basket and YOU HURT MY SOUL. MY SOUL. I will gladly taken the label of paranoid and over-reacting and bitchy if it means people won't spoil me.

Comments

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

I probably can't be a huge amount of help, since I think in terms of fic authors and not at what exact point in the series they were setting fics (and I totally hear you about spoilers), but do you have a preference for characters? I can see if I can think of anything.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I like Kyo/Tohru, Shigure/Akito, Shigure/anyone, Yuki/Kagura, stuff with their high school friends, the blossom trio, ensemble multi-character fics, anything particularly funny or interesting. My least favorite characters are probably Hiro and Kisa, but I will enjoy even them if they're written well.

As long as there's not like "Tohru visits Yuki's grave while carrying Kyo's baby beware spoilers!" in the summary, I can usually guess by the author's notes. It's the stupid badfic writers polluting the main page with spoilery summaries that I hate.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Okay, let me see... I mostly read from my f-list (I don't dare brave the badfic filling the archive sites), so even though I'm not particularly an Akito fan, most of the things I wind up reading are at least a little Akito-centric.

flamika seems to have all of her own posts locked at the moment, but if you come across anything of hers, she writes a lot of Akito-centric things with various other characters (and is good about warnings). Here's one of hers that's unlocked in a comm.

I also really like demeter918's work, which also tends to be very Akito-focused. I'll direct you to this post, which was her 2005 fic round up. She's good about marking spoilers, so I'm fairly sure that the ones without specific spoiler warnings should be safe. And she has a "fic" tag, which leads to other things as well as FB fic, but it's safer to click that than her "Fruits Basket" tag.

Here're a few other random things from my Memories, with various authors: a short one-shot that's Haru/Rin and Kureno/Akito, a comedic one involving the main cast and Jyuunishi eating habits, and two sets of short, intertwined vignettes (one centering around Shigure, and one around Momiji).

Personally, I almost always write Haru and/or Rin-focused things, which doesn't sound like it'll do you much good, but I have two Akito- (and Kureno-) centered fics here and here.

If I think of other individual writers/stories later, I'll comment again. ^^

[fani.livejournal.com]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/614427/1/Omedetou_NOT

no spoilers. Ha-san gets pregnant :P

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll check these out!

I just bought volumes 17, 18, and 19, which covers through chapter 113. I'm going to have to read those tonight.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Male pregnancy is one of my few "never, thank you"-s when it comes to fanfic. But thanks for reccing something!

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

I hope you find something you like!

I'm a little jealous that you get to read parts of the series for the first time. I can't believe it's been over for almost two years. (And you quite likely know this, but vol. 20 should be out in a month or so.)

[mathkid.livejournal.com]

Hm, well, these are old so you've probably read them, but they're still my favourites:

Love Remains (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1040692/1/Love_Remains) by girlstarfish. It's AU and actually pre-TheBigSpoiler, so you'll be fine.
(AU) Tohru is delighted to live in the Souma mansion but quickly discovers the house hides a mystery. Can she rescue Yuki and Kyou from the family's dark past or will the curse claim another victim?

Spotted! (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/640786/1/Spotted) by merrow. Also AUish.
It all started with a photo...(It's supposed to be humor, but keeps slipping into drama)

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much totally successful for being unspoiled past 108. I have no idea how the series will end, or how/if the curse is broken. Of course, I haven't actually read substantial fanfic for FB in like two years, and I've been totally cut off from the fandom except in downloading AMVs. It's been a significant cost, but now it's cool because I get to read volume 19 unspoiled, and when it comes out volume 20 as well. I just wish I knew why it takes such a criminally long time to translate these. I swear Naruto has already surpassed them and it began later, I think.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'm a little intrigued that there's a "TheBigSpoiler" beyond the ones I've already read in the first 100 chapters. I'll look forward to more surprises from the manga's final volumes.

Thanks for the rec!

[mathkid.livejournal.com]

Nope, you've already read the major big spoilers; I just mentioned them because those two fics are from even before those.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

That's pretty impressive, really. I don't know what I would've done if the choice had been scanlations or waiting for the domestic release--I was *very* lucky with this series, since a friend was doing good text translations within a few days of each chapter's release. The scanlations were totally unintelligible whenever I glanced at them to compare.

My guess on the release time would be a combination of the usual "the bookstores only have so much shelf space so there needs to be enough time between releases to give each volume maximum exposure" and the fact that Tokyopop doesn't have (unless I'm forgetting something) any other single titles doing nearly as well as FB, so they might be eking it out. :/ But at this point I don't think it's much longer between volumes than most of their other series, at least.

Viz's Naruto blitz last year blew my mind. I don't really follow the series, but I checked the credits on some of those volumes, and they had multiple translators/adapters--which seems like a risky move in terms of internal consistency, but hey, it seems to have worked for them.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'm still reading scans for naruto, but those are pretty decent. I had to give up the FB ones for being unintelligible.

I just finished reading Vol. 18 (chapter 107), which brings me to nearly where I left off. I am still confused about some chronology stuff-- when in the timeline Rin was pushed out the window, and when she was locked up. And when, in between those two (or before?) she was sent by Ren to find Akito's "treasure". Although I love this series to death (it's one of the few, few manga I regularly read and the only one I dump money into), I think the anime handled chronology of events a lot better, for its part. Sometimes I know what's going on emotionally (PAIN! ...and emotional themes are what really count for FB), but I can't always track events linearly. Which makes me feel like I'm missing subtleties in conversation.

Chapter 107 made so much more sense now that I'm reading the official version. So much more! I love it when Shigure and Rin are talking about Ren, and Shigure says she was lying and using Rin, and he says (typing quote directly):

"You don't have to believe me. But I do know Ren-san better than you do. We're good friends. Really good friends. ...Really good friends."

Shigure does Jerk so well. And I like how they're handling him in the translation, inasmuch as I can tell.

I am hopeful that the final volumes of FB won't take too terribly long. At this rate they should be out by the end of the year. Which seems a criminally long time, but at least its happening.