LadyRaphael’s Favorites of the Favorites
Works everyone needs to read. These are the stories that I either 1) got deeply involved in the very first time around and knew I’d want to go back to at some point, or 2) enjoyed the first time around and didn’t immediately think I’d want to reread, but then they lingered in my brain until I ended up adding them to this list.
(There might be some overlap between works and bookmarks, if I haven’t yet noticed that an author approved inclusion of their work in my collection and therefore haven’t yet updated my bookmarks, but in general they are mutually exclusive. In other words, check out both!)
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Recent works
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Summary
In a world where Dominants and Submissives are identified at birth and paired off by an all-powerful Council, Dominant Aziraphale strives to keep out of the entire mess and live his simple, easy life to the best of his abilities. He has a nice household, an interesting job, and all the books he could possibly need. Everything is blissfully, boringly perfect.
The very last thing he expects is to come home one day to a red-haired man chained to the floor of his drawing room.
Temporarily on hiatus.
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K'diwa: A Steamy Novel of Interspecies Romance, by Jim Kirk by branwyn
Fandoms: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
17 Oct 2021
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Summary
Jim wrote a romance novel just to prove he could. Then someone leaked it on the public Starfleet server, and suddenly his embarrassingly smutty and sentimental Human/Vulcan love story is all over campus. Luckily for Jim, no one knows that he’s the author. Unluckily for Jim, someone forwarded the novel to the staff of the Vulcan embassy. Now, every Vulcan in San Francisco is reassessing the logical merits of taking Human bondmates.
Spock reads a Human/Vulcan romance novel because he can hardly avoid it. Suddenly, he is consumed by the need to locate the author, ascertain their wellbeing, and instruct them in the way of Vulcan mating bonds. Luckily for Spock, it doesn't take long to identify the author as Jim Kirk. Unluckily for Spock, Jim is unconscious and surrounded by interested Vulcans who also read the book.
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you will always be my favorite form of loving by thiccbuckybarnes (orphan_account)
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe
21 Jun 2021
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Summary
Bucky, a 22 year old disaster college student who bartends on the weekends, meets a handsome guy on a fateful Saturday night. He goes home with him and is happy to find out that Steve thoroughly checks off every kinky box he has. That is, until he is rudely woken up the next morning and comes face to face with a little girl asking him why he’s in her daddy’s bed.
What Bucky thought was just a one night stand with a big dick daddy turns out to be the start of him falling in love… with a single dad of two?
Series
- Part 1 of daddy dad steve 'verse
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Divine Restorations & Repairs by skimmingthesurface, SylWritesStuff
Fandoms: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
16 Mar 2021
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Summary
While it's unfortunate for one’s car to break down in the middle of the countryside, the pretty-as-a-postcard Tadfield could hardly be considered the worst place Anthony J. Crowley has ever been. Of course, it doesn’t help that it looks like it hasn’t yet seen the turn of the millennia, let alone this decade, but perhaps that’s just what he needs as he crawls his way out of the Hell he’s endured for the past fifteen years. Maybe the last thirty, if he's honest with himself.
Though he could do without the rain.
When Aziraphale Fell happens upon him and offers him shelter from the storm in his little family-run antique repair shop, neither are expecting it to change everything. The angel with his white umbrella and his tartan bowtie doesn’t expect this mysterious stranger to be able to fill the timely vacancy in his shop or the quiet of his life, but they’ve both had experience in restoring once-beloved items back to their full glory.
Perhaps Crowley hasn’t fallen quite so far that he wouldn’t fit in with the rest of Aziraphale’s ragtag team of eccentric restoration experts. And perhaps they may be able to turn that talent on themselves and each other, and seal the cracks in their own hearts.
Series
- Part 1 of Divine Restorations & Repairs
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Old Vines by sevdrag (seventhe)
Fandoms: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV)
01 Mar 2021
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Summary
A.Z. Fell, one of the most respected names in wine and food blogging, has been sent on assignment with his assistant Warlock Dowling to spend six months in California Wine Country. Under direction (by his boss, Gabriel) to use this experience to double his blog followers and write a novel, Aziraphale is both excited and anxious about the opportunity.
Anthony J. Crowley is the owner and viticulturalist of Ecdyses, a winery that unexpectedly fell into his lap eleven years ago when he hit rock bottom. He may be in debt, yeah, but he’s paying off his loans — and despite pressure from his lenders and their team of inspectors, Crowley has found a kind of contentment tending his little corner of terroir and producing extraordinary wine. Crowley’s old vines are the heart of his vineyard, and he’s never let anyone in.
Crowley finds Aziraphale intriguing; Aziraphale finds Crowley enthralling. Turns out a famous wine expert and an experienced viticulturalist can still learn things from each other. The summer of 2019 unfolds.
Series
- Part 1 of Ecdyses (The Old Vines universe)
Recent bookmarks
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Summary
In which Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is tired, hungry and completely failing at not sticking it in the crazy. Also there’s a war going on or something.
aka world war threesome. Fear these queers.
Series
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 23,494
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Comments:
- 409
- Kudos:
- 4,576
- Bookmarks:
- 938
- Hits:
- 63,417
Bookmarked by LadyRaphael
01 Aug 2026
Bookmarker's Collections:
Bookmarker's Notes
This series is beautifully written. Funny, sexy, emotionally complex. (Also, the series is technically abandoned, but this is, I think, the only time that I’ve not been annoyed by getting to the end of something to find out that it never ended. The first two parts work well as one piece, with an emotionally-satisfying ending to that part of the series, and you can view parts three and four as bonus content. Heck, about half of it is even delivered as such.)
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My Big Fat Wolf Wedding by AggressiveWhenStartled, galwednesday, quietnight, silentwalrus, skellerbvvt
Fandoms: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
08 May 2021
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Summary
“MARRIED?”
“Basically married. Permanently engaged anyway. Weres have their own deal.” Natasha sounds much, much too gleeful about Steve’s rapidly expanding personal hell. “So you better wake your blushing bride and tell him the happy news: that it was an accident and you had no idea what you were doing.”
“I,” Steve says, strangled. “I can’t do that!”
“You can’t?”
“He thought I was proposing! And he accepted!”
“Wow, maybe he’s just as dumb as you are,” Natasha says thoughtfully.
“I can’t just promise him a ring, take him home, drink from him three times in a row and then wake him up the next morning to say oops, just kidding!” Steve casts around, looking at his wreck of an apartment. “I don’t even have any good champagne!”
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 12,509
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Comments:
- 444
- Kudos:
- 5,720
- Bookmarks:
- 1,716
- Hits:
- 41,116
Bookmarked by LadyRaphael
31 Jul 2026
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Bookmarker's Notes
This was hilarious. I love Steve’s internal freak-outs. The whole thing was funny and exactly what I needed right now.
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Bucky's not sure what he expects when he picks up the free local paper in his therapist's office, but it's not advice on losing things in his butt, that's for sure.
In which Bucky Barnes is a recovering war vet with a whole bunch of issues, none of which can be solved by a small time sex advice therapist, no matter how pretty his smile is.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 15,903
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 2
- Comments:
- 188
- Kudos:
- 1,772
- Bookmarks:
- 373
- Hits:
- 9,533
Bookmarked by LadyRaphael
17 Feb 2023
Bookmarker's Collections:
Bookmarker's Notes
Really well-done. This story is about healing after trauma, and learning how to live again, and loving yourself, and how tiny things can build upon each other to make life better. It’s all from Bucky’s POV but I appreciated seeing how it affected Steve, too. As someone who was married for a long time to someone with the sort of CPTSD that you would expect to see in a combat veteran, I can testify to how hard it is to know what to do to be there for the person you love, with the constant fear that something you do will accidentally make things worse for them. It was actually a little healing to see glimpses of that in Steve — to know that it wasn’t just me who sometimes felt completely out of my depth.
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"Because everything's all right, isn't it?" Bucky said. "Everything's great. I'm so happy; I never thought I could be this happy. You're happy, too, aren't you, Peg?"
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 28,185
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 4
- Comments:
- 903
- Kudos:
- 3,843
- Bookmarks:
- 1,285
- Hits:
- 37,473
Bookmarked by LadyRaphael
16 Feb 2023
Bookmarker's Collections:
Bookmarker's Notes
Amazing. The style is perfect for the story. The little glimpses are masterfully done. And there really isn’t much that I can say without giving spoilers. Read it. It’s worth it.
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half cloak & half dagger by Fahye
Fandoms: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
06 May 2020
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Summary
Jin Guangyao lifts his head and smiles. "I'm considering a problem."
"Can I be of any assistance with it?"
He drops a kiss on Lan Xichen's chest. With the nail of one finger he lightly traces the characters for irony on Lan Xichen's side. "Not this one, er-ge."
Series
- Part 2 of Marriage Principles
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 13,171
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Comments:
- 401
- Kudos:
- 7,566
- Bookmarks:
- 1,275
- Hits:
- 86,478
Bookmarked by LadyRaphael
21 Sep 2022
Bookmarker's Collections:
Bookmarker's Notes
Ordinarily when I bookmark a series, I only bookmark the first part, leaving the rest implied. This entry is worth bookmarking all on its own. It is from Jin Guangyao’s POV. The author does a brilliant job at portraying his mind — brilliant, dark, dangerous, precise — and the writing is a perfect match to that mind, with each word obviously carefully chosen.