death-fics recs

[layne67]

I'm in the mood for a good cry. Over death!fics, that is. In which one of the main character dies. I'm not saying that I enjoy reading them per se but once in a while I came across truly wonderful fics in which there are character deaths that really moved me to tears. They have to be stand-alone fics though. I won't be able to bear it if, say, mews1945 decides to kill off her Family!Zeke ( No no no Julia. No ).

They have to be extremely well-written too, otherwise the grief won't come across and make you cry. I've always thought that making people cry, really, really cry, is one of the hardest thing to achieve in writing a story.

The End of the Story written by grievous_angel is one such example. It's an alternate ending to her epic Houseparty, a Viggo/Elijah love story set in the 1930s. Do go read it if you haven't already. You'll still get the story even if you haven't read Houseparty but for maximum "cryage" you need to read it from the very beginning. Lots of tissues will be needed here.

Then there is this fic written by cloudlessclimes - Deeper Than All Roses, an Orlijah pairing that I read a long time ago way when I was an anon lurker here in LJ. Now that story has always remained in my mind even though I first read it ages ago. Very beautifully written, the death in the story still haunts me till now.

For What Binds Us is another Orlijah, written by often_adamanta. She writes angst really well and this fic is an alternate ending in which one of the boys is suffering from leukemia, and dies.

So, can anyone rec me a good fic with character death in it? As I've said, I'm in the mood for a good cry.

Comments

[layne67.livejournal.com]

I've read that trilogy but it was so long ago, I'll have to read them again. But I do remember Europanya's 'An Ordinary Evening' which is one of my favourite fic ever.

I'm looking forward to reading Falling Up, and your very own death-fic of course!

Thanks for the rec :-)

[illyria-novia.livejournal.com]

I could've sworn I've read more deathfics, but only those two stay in my mind. Have you read Lobelia Sackville Baggins' Swansong? It's also a deathfic, but not very heartwringing.

I should do more deathfic. Yes.

Anyway, as an aside, when I was still working in the magazine we held annual shortstory writing contests for teens. Death is such an oft-used plot point it gets NUMBING. Once out of nearly 200 submissions, I found four fatal car accidents, two or three brain cancer (in one of them the lover donates his brain to his dying girlfriend, he dies (d'oh!) and she lives miserably for the rest of her life...ouch!), a couple of leukemias, and in none of these stories the patients are depicted as languishing, suffering, losing hair, etc.--all the things that cancer patients will inevitably do. It's always a surprise cancer. One day the girl is pretty, healthy, jilted. The next day she died, and her callous boyfriend mourned for her all his life. Argh.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

No I havent read Swansong but I really enjoyed one of her fics, I think it was called 'Rain', and her many other fics too. I think it was her who wrote that fic in which Lobelia was trapped inside the closet when Sam and Frodo err, did things to each other :D

Heh, how about death in movies? The characters always seem to be suffering from something 'clean' if you know what I mean, and never, say, cancer of the colon ^-^

[illyria-novia.livejournal.com]

Yes, she did. The wardrobe!Lobelia, I mean. :) Lucky Lobelia...hmpf!

Urk. Yeah. Why not colon cancer, prostate malignancy, gross skin cancer... You're right. We've never seen any of those around. :)