Magnificent Seven Writing Festival

Fandom 50 #21

Untitled Ouizzy Vampire AU by derekstilinski
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Relationship: Frenchie/Izzy Hands
Medium: Gifset
Length: 3 gifs
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: dark/horror, ambiguous ending, constructed reality, au: supernatural, infatuation, temptation, fear play, bloodplay (distantly implied)

Description:

In the first gif, Izzy steps uncertainly through the doorway of an abandoned church and stops in front of a flight of stairs. Frenchie jumps out at him theatrically onto the landing above, grinning in front of a full-length panel of stained glass. In the second, Frenchie's eyes glow and his lips part in the dark confines of a confessional. In the shadows on the other side, we glimpse Izzy's rapt and frightened eyes. In the third, Frenchie says something tensely and then flashes a persuasive fanged smile in the vestibule of the church, intercut with Izzy staring at him and swallowing hard, one hand pressed to the side of his face and neck.

This is my second rec for a constructed reality graphic from this same creator, and this one uses some absolutely brilliant editing to bring together what I'm pretty sure is Vengeance Is Mine and an episode of the TV show Bedlam (neither of which involve vampires) to create an AU where vampire!Frenchie and human!Izzy have a charged encounter in an abandoned church. The application of colour, the selection of eyelines, and the addition of other small edits all make this incredibly convincing, and the concept itself is very, very good to me.

I imagine this Izzy having some sort of protective interest in the church—a paid caretaker, a nosy neighbour, maybe a former vicar or member of the congregation who lost his faith after some tragic event. Whatever it is, he intends to roust out whoever's been squatting there, only to slide straight through "Oh no, he's hot" to "Oh fuck, that's a vampire" and into a dark and hot standoff between charmed predator and captivated prey.

Seriously, this is the gift of derekstilinski's work. Three gifs and a fully formed universe full of potential stories pops into existence.

✓ kingstoken's 2025 Book Bingo: Non-Human POV

Mirror Lake is the third book in the Shady Hollow series by Juneau Black. The series' titular town is occupied by a cast of anthropomorphic woodland animals who keep getting embroiled in crimes. In this one, a picturesque autumn is disrupted when a rat from neighbouring Mirror Lake suddenly declares that her husband has gone missing and has been replaced by an imposter.

...okay, is it weird that I wanted the story about a fox named Vera Vixen solving playing sleuth to be more twee?

I think when I heard "cozy" and "anthropomorphic animals" and saw the book cover, my mind went to things like The Wind in the Willows and Frog and Toad Are Friends, and the addition of a mystery made me think of the Dimension 20 campaign Mice & Murder. Which was to say, I went into this expecting something a lot more stylized, with the animal conceit either adding a lot of whimsy or providing the counterweight to a darker or more satirical story.

Then again, maybe I would have also found The Wind in the Willows disappointingly contemporary if I'd read it in 1908? I definitely think it's true that imaginary Edwardian!me would bounce off the country squire stuff as hard as present!me bounces off the idealized generic upstate New York type village vibe going on here. (And the thing where the only character with a non-WASP name is a panda named Sun Li, which felt like it should have been in the early 20th century book and not the 2020 one.)

All in all, the mystery ended up being what kept me reading this one, since it had an additional twist beyond just a murder whodunnit. It's a short book, but it still dragged a little for me—I think because of the presence of a lot of conversations and very basic/straightforward descriptions that are probably intended to be the thick icing on a cupcake if you're someone who's going to fall in love with the setting. I also didn't really click with the protagonist, but I recognize that I'm coming into this series on the third book and there might have been developments in the first two instalments that would have given me a better sense of her.

But if you are someone this setting appeals to, or if you devour a lot of cozy mysteries and are always up for a new gimmick, or you're someone for whom anthros are an automatic bonus, this might be your thing.

(Also, now I really want fic where Frog and Toad have to solve a mystery. Or where Mole is framed for murder and Rat has to prove his innocence.)

( An Excerpt )