Title: Icarus and the Sea
Author: Unpretty
Rating: T
Genre: Romance
Status: Complete (74,733 words)
Fandom: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Pairings: Varrick/Zhu Li
Summary: A practical and respectable university student meets a disreputable man who wants to fly. The ending is obvious to anyone not distracted by their own genius, and it's a little further off than it probably should have been.
Link: AO3

There's also an M rated version with a few deleted scenes linked on AO3.

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So I'm sort of new to this whole thing, and I know that this site is more of a Harry Potter thing, but this is one of my favorite fics and I'm definitely surprised that it has never been mentioned before (at least, it didn't show up when I did a search).

Anyways, I'll start off this review by saying that while this story is categorized as a romance, it's more of a slice of life sort of thing, depicting Varrick and Zhu Li's relationship - how they met, why she ended up working for him, etc. Yes, there is fluffy romance (quite a lot of it in fact), but it's a long way off. Still though, I know there are some people who aren't really a fan of sappy love stories, so this fic probably isn't for everybody.

The story sticks strictly to canon, but that's perfectly acceptable considering the primary focus of this fanfiction is on two side characters. Because the story is focused on Varrick and Zhu Li's perspective, the story manages to work around canon events without rehashing them. Yes, Harmonic Convergence still happens and Kuvira still tries to make her dictatorship a thing, but because for the most part Varrick is in a completely different place doing completely unrelated things to Korra and friends, we still get entirely new scenes.

I think the strongest part of this fanfiction is definitely the characterization. If you like reading fanfiction as a way of exploring complex character dynamics, then I highly recommend this. The author definitely did a great job keeping everybody as in character as possible. Varrick is still the crazy, eccentric, yet surprisingly crafty genius. Zhu Li is the pragmatic straight man to Varrick's... Varrickness (some might call her a cold, heartless war machine). And their interactions are simply wonderful. Even side characters like Bolin are written surprisingly well.

Overall, I'd rate this story a 5/5. I might be looking at this from behind rose colored glasses, as it has been a while since I last read this. But I really think that it's that good.

 

Bumped to gain attention.

I know the fandom is rather small, but did no one else read this? Please read, rate and review. And, hey, it's complete. Thus worth a shot. Do it. Now.

(Note to self, to be moved on Wednesday, Dec. 2)