Thought I would kick off some discussion in the ActivityPub-based decentralized platforms with a copy-paste of something I posted on Reddit almost four years ago. Some additions I would make today are

• Old in Visions by besiderunningwaters
• most works by Shisumo, who has been writing a lot of new stories
• Thought and Memory by Elandar

And probably a few others that escape me at the moment. Enjoy!

Original Reddit post:

On another thread I made a comment about having read an embarrassing amount of LiS fanfic, and kind of ranking them. Someone asked if I would share my “top 1%,” so OK, here it is!

I’m just one person, and everyone is looking for different things in fiction. Personally, my priorities are that the writing is clear yet engaging, and nearly free of grammar/spelling errors; that the characters are believable in their motivations and their consistency with the source material; that the plot is well-thought-out and internally consistent (especially around time travel and the rules thereof in this universe!); and that, even if plot / dialog / abilities / feelings are exaggerated for fictional artistic license, the emotions still ring true to me.

Plus, there are always those stories that you really love, or really hate, for reasons that you can’t even quite identify. There’s certainly some contradiction here; even though the above paragraph tries to describe what my favorites are, I see that I’m not always consistent in my preferences.

So, here goes, in no particular order other than what was in my AO3 history, and/or what got jogged in my memory first:

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The Girls Who Broke the World series by GeneralIrritation. Author’s note: “…for the best experience, play the game up to the last choice in Episode Five, turn the game off (don’t even dignify that choice with a response), then read [this series]. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

Small Things & It Takes Two by Aerolumen

Shelter / Chiaroscuro / Debris by wolfraven80

Most works by Mogatrat, who is a master of character, but who can get a biiit more angsty and dark than I personally care for. But she is an utter genius with regard to showing, not telling, and writing really sympathetic characters; and many of her works kind of link together in a “branching timelines” kind of way. I would start with Pedestal, but also be sure to check out Damaged Goods and then a lighter take on a similar situation, Changing In Tandem. I also really loved All The Rainbow’s Heavy Tones which is a brilliantly-pulled-off Chloe/Kate pairing (in this story Max never came to Blackwell), and Shades of Shame which is an exploration of an alternate Kate/Victoria. And then there’s Bloom which I am ashamed to admit I probably would never have read judging from the summary, but after getting to know the author’s works, decided to give it a try, and was amazed at how much I came to empathize with that version of Max, and by extension, the author herself.

Oh and if you want a real gut punch that will make you cry, look no further than A Different Way To Be.

All the Scars You Cannot See by VengeSim is way up there as one of my favorites; I love its lighter take, yet there’s real conflict (in several “acts”) and some bittersweetness. Imaginary Max is also quite good, and although it uses some unrealistic medical tropes, it’s well-written and emotionally satisfying.

Of course I love Better Then by IsraelBlargh and Ouroboros (still in progress) by TomorrowHeart, which I think everyone knows.

ItsaVikingThing is one of my favorite LiS fanfic authors; I really especially love Lost and Found.

Skate AU by Got_Well_Soon is great. So is The Blue Baron series, though it’s quite a wild remix, far from canon! Also, Sins of the Fathers is a very intriguing “wrapper” around canon, filling some plot holes with interesting explanations.

Here at the End of All Things by FortressCaulfield is fantastic - very, very thoroughly fits with canon in an ingenious way - and the side-quel Queen V’s Last Stand is really enjoyable.

I experience text-based ASMR occasionally, and although the stories themselves aren’t very deep plot-wise (they’re charming fluff), Flowers for Arcadia (author unknown) and Holding Back by explosionshark both give me tingles for some reason.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin and especially Camp Arcadia by Oripoke are good light/fluffy ones. IGYUMS is an interesting hybrid AU/canon-compliant story.

unknown_knowns did some really interesting treatments of “rewrites” of the games’ plot, as if doing a rewrite on a screenplay as so commonly happens. Catharsis is a rewrite of more-or-less the events of BTS and LiS, with an emphasis on making the character arcs more satisfying and explaining the time travel powers slightly more. To Make a Life Worth Living branches off from canon between BTS and LiS, and explores an alternate timeline where Rachel survives.

Thirty-Two Rejection Letters by jarofbeees (yes that’s 3 e’s) is quite good.

Escaping The Light and its side-quel We Were All Affected by Omnicyde are quite good, though really very different from, and not too closely related to, Life Is Strange itself. It’s more like the author is treating the characters as actors, and re-casting them (sometimes at very different ages or in very different circumstances) in a new movie.

Max Caulfield and the Neverending Sleepover by /u/AntiChri5 is SO intriguing and promising, and I really really hope the author continues to work on it, because it’s the most original premise I’ve seen in a very long time.

All Wounds by Destiny_Smasher is extremely dark, and (brilliantly) poetic to the point of not always completely making literal sense, but it was the perfect cathartic thing for me to read this past winter when I personally was processing some difficult life transition stuff. Once I returned to a stable and generally happy place, though, I found that on second read it didn’t really resonate with me. So that one really depends on where you’re coming from.

Pretty much the only post-Bay, dead-Chloe story I… found deeply meaningful? “Enjoyed” is maybe not the right word… is The Lights of Arcadia Bay by TexasDex. I also really enjoyed his Life Is an X-File set in the 90s.

Road to Home is a well-written cute and fluffy one-shot story.

OpheliaMarina wrote extra which is appallingly wonderful, moving, and sincere for something based on a frigging gum commercial. The same author also wrote no grave can hold my body down which is hella amazeballs for reasons not covered in the summary, which I can’t describe without spoiling it. burning floors out, like Max, is weird, but cool.

Play Crack the Sky coauthored by maiqueti and TomorrowHeart (of Ouroboros fame) is dark, and a bit melodramatic, but really excellent.

Eternal Return by notoriousjae is good, and though much less dark than All Wounds, is similarly very poetic and doesn’t spoon-feed you literal details; it’s intriguing but also quite ambiguous so you have to like that kind of thing.

Greyhound by WinTTY is another “far from canon” total remix AU that I liked. (I don’t often like super different AU stories)

That’s all I could find/think of in the time I had, which are in my personal top 1%. There are probably a handful more that fit that category that I’m forgetting.

Then there are probably 100 more stores that ranged from “meh… kind of OK and at least I enjoyed this one scene” to “almost as good as my favorites but the author keeps doing this cliche or weird motivation I don’t get”. Maybe someday I will list those as well, but that day is not today!