sakura_no_miko | Archived fic rec

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Leon/Count D

Warnings: explicit sex (gay), violence, allusions to torture, dubcon (of the sex pollen/outside-forces-made-them-do-it variety), racism, kidnapping, angst

Other notes: alternate universe, culture clash, action/adventure, family,

Length: unknown

Summary: An accident with a new pet leaves Leon about to die, and the only way D can save him has its own share of problems.

I appreciate when authors have their own websites but…yeah, I won’t lie, some of these stories these two wrote are hard to read. Bright red backgrounds, ugh.

Anyway, I’ve been digging around my older, slightly more obscure fandoms. There’s a bit of sadness with that, really–some of the stories I remember liking years ago aren’t quite as good as I remember. Some have been deleted or otherwise locked away. Still, I’m happy to think that maybe, just maybe, someone might come across one of these recs and get interested in the source material.

Like Eroica, I feel I should explain a little bit of Petshop of Horrors. It’s primarily a horror/morality tale series, but a lot of the humor comes from the culture clash between D, who is essentially mysterious and Oriental for several of the stories, and Leon, a bull-headed, cynical American cop who doesn’t believe in superstition and magic and all that crap. And, yeah, it can come off as a bit racist. I mean, it’s meant to be humorous, and most of the time Leon is proved to be very wrong, but, yeah–D is the archetypal ‘exotic Asian,’ powerful and mysterious and magical, but very much an Other. Granted, this was written by a Japanese author, so I don’t know if the same issues of Orientalism were intended. For all I enjoy the manga, it is very problematic at points.

Anyway, now that I’ve proven my English major skills have some pertinent use in my life, on to notes about the actual story. D and Leon are another of those couples with a ton of UST, but they never actually get together in canon. Getting them together is actually a bit of a challenge, and I’m not entirely keen on how this story gets them together: a variant on the 'sex pollen’ plot. I agree with the idea that D and Leon already have a grudging affection for each other, and they’d certainly need some sort of push to get romantically entangled, but… I don’t know, it comes off just a bit melodramatic. Of the two fics, I actually prefer the sequel Earthsong better, because they’re already together, and the focus is more on the plot and them overcoming the issues with their relationship. Also, it has Chris, and I love Chris to death. D, Leon, and Chris make for a sweet little family unit.

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Originally posted on tumblr on 08/04/12

Archived fic rec - Blood and Earthsong