Thursday

[clevermanka]

I posted this on merit_brush_recs  late last night (pretty much as soon as I finished the fic) so if you didn't see it there, let me encourage you toward this story. For those who don't care for porn, the M rating is there for violence and disturbing imagery.

Endless Clarity of the Perfect Design (53760 words) by ShippersList
Chapters: 10/10
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Special Investigation Division | SID Ensemble & Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei (Guardian), Special Investigation Division | SID Ensemble (Guardian), Zhao Xinci, Snake Tribe's Fourth Uncle (Guardian), Ya Qing (Guardian), Ying Chun (Guardian), Ye Zun (Guardian), other guardian characters
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Cyberpunk, cloak and dagger, Mindfuck, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Flashbacks, Psychological Trauma, Zhao Xinci's A+ Parenting, Team as Family, NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS, dreams and visions, Slow Burn, grey morals, Canon-Typical Violence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, (can be read as happy ending)
Summary: Zhao Yunlan has it all figured out. He’s the youngest Director of Standardized Information Deconstruction unit—SID for short—he has a dedicated, hardworking team (at least for the most part), and a handful of very good friends. True, he doesn’t have a social life outside his work, his relationship with his father is nonexistent, and all his friends just happen to be in his team but…that’s semantics. He’s happy. Ish.

And then the visions start pouring in.

Why I like this: It's been a long time since I read any cyberpunk, or hard SF at all, and this was a great way to reacquaint myself with the genre! It takes place in a dark (metaphorically, mostly) but vivid world that's gorgeously layered (in more than one way). A lot of the characters that don't normally appear in AUs are incorporated in small but crucial roles, and some in very surprising ways. The SW/ZYL relationship takes a back seat to what's going on in Zhao Yunlan's mind/life but it's still a driving force behind his motivations.shipperslist focuses on a hard SF style of storytelling without sacrificing any of the heart of the drama or its characters. If you're a hard SF fan, definitely give this a read!

I got my laptop back already, which is why I was able to finish reading that fic (I don't like reading on my phone). Tech Friend solved the problem by checking the exact same things I did on the system screens, only she turned the microphone sensitivity up to 80 (it had been about half that). I still don't understand how or why the microphone suddenly failed in the middle of a Zoom call when I wasn't even touching my computer. I have a sinking suspicion this wasn't the end of the problem, but at least it's fixed for now. She couldn't replicate the internet non-connectivity issue. Of course.

This week's dump on cm.net.

Comments

[shipperslist]

Thank you so much for the rec! 😭💜
(It’s so weird that you referred my style as hard SF because... that’s not me? I’m a fantasy author! *bewilderment* )

[clevermanka]

I mean, I guess Something That I Won't Mention Because Spoiler keeps it from being strictly hard SF, but overall it felt a lot more aligned with, say, Gibson and Cadigan than fantasy (although I haven't read fantasy really in, uh, probably 30 years so maybe I'm behind the times).

[shipperslist]

No, I meant that I've always been more comfortable with writing fantasy and that's the setting that flows so naturally and then I started this and at some point realized, "um, this is sci-fi" and then later "fuck, this is cyberpunk???" :D

[clevermanka]

LOL, it very much is! And you did it wonderfully!

[naye]

Thank you for the rec! Will put it on my TBR. (Which is...a bit daunting...)

[clevermanka]

I hear ya. My Marked For Later is... a lot at the moment.

[nnozomi]

So many good fics to read!
Did you ever read Diana Wynne Jones? She spoke in interviews about, like several of her characters, having a travel jinx--she couldn't set off anywhere without outlandish things happening to get in the way. It seems like you have the electronics version...

[clevermanka]

I have no idea why I never read her, other than junior high library must have not had her early stuff. Everything I know about her work says I would have loved it. (By 1980 I was reading my mom's collection of adult SF&F--good lord someone get Anne McCaffery out of 11-year-old me's hands)

My old boss had that luck with travel and I absolutely have the electronics version of it. We agreed never to travel anywhere together, because whatever means of transportation we used (outside of, like, a rowboat) would probably explode.

[nnozomi]

Ha! Anne McCaffrey has a lot to answer for. An SFF-loving friend of my parents (who were big readers but not into genre, except for mysteries) gave me Dragonflight when I was eight? nine? and I stayed up all night with it and went on to read it like six times in a row. I still have a real love for that one and Dragonquest, as flawed as they may be.
(Diana Wynne Jones stands up to adult reading, I think, though maybe nothing can reproduce that 11-year-old thrill. Give her a try sometime if circumstances permit and you're in the mood.)

[clevermanka]

Will do!

And lol at least I started with the Harper Hall trilogy, but I got through those in like, a month and then dove straight into Dragonflight. Mother, what were you thinking???