Slashy Nominations 72: Nothing Is Secret Which Shall Not Be Made Manifest

[thefourthvine]

Do you trust me?

Well, OK. No, really, I don't blame you, and I'm not at all hurt. But do you trust me a little? Even a tiny bit? At least when it comes to fan fiction? Because I am about to ask you to take a link of faith, so to speak. The following stories have only one thing in common: they will be spoiled if you know the usual information (fandom, pairing, plot) before you read them. But they are really worth reading, and the surprise just makes it all the more delightful. So if you're willing to read blind, I think I can promise you some fun. And if you're not, well, your loss, toots. Nyah nyah nyah. (Yes, my parents did get an excellent return on all the years of alternative dispute resolution and assertive self-expression courses they paid for me to attend. Let this be a lesson to those of you with children: skip the therapy and just buy the sproutlings expensive entertainment gear. Escapism beats self-knowledge any day.)

Best FF That Goes a Long Way Toward Healing the Pain Caused by the Travesties Otherwise Known as Star Wars Episodes One and Two, AKA Star Wars: It Takes a Lot to Kill the Love, but By God, It Can Be Done, and I, George Lucas, Will Prove It: Just Names for Sides, by daegaer. I think I can safely tell you that you'll need to have seen Star Wars to understand this one. I can also tell you it's a crossover. And it's completely changed the way I see one scene of the aforementioned movie, but that's fine, because it does the heart good to snicker at Luke Skywalker, Ultrawhiner Edition (Now with Extra Whine!). At least, it does my heart good. Which in no way changes the fact that Daegaer is an evil, evil writer; it just makes me love her for it. And I think that's it for the "fore-warned" aspect of things with this one.

Best FF That Makes the Owies Left by the Scary, Scary Badfic All Better: Something's Wrong, by Saya Senyum, I think her name is, aka i_smile (I'm sure about that). And I feel I can tell you that it's Harry Potter, Ron Weasley/Harry Potter, because the author does, but don't let that lull you into feeling secure. This story is a subgenre I really wish we saw more often. It isn't a canon fix-it, it's a fan fiction fix-it; the story actually patches the holes in another, presumably much worse, story. Considering all the horrible FF out there, we could do with a lot more of this. Turns out there's no FF mistake that can't be reconciled by tilting one's head, squinting, and inverting the monitor. Well, provided one is the current receptacle of divine madness, as Saya Senyum (if that is her name) clearly was while writing this.

Best FF That Reveals What We Always Suspected of All Those Inuit Stories - i.e., That Fraser Is Making a Lot of Them Up: No Less Radiant, by laurakaye. Due South. I can't tell you anything about this story, except that A Certain Person should not read it (although she probably will anyway, and I don't think she'll be sorry, exactly), and neither should Ardent (but she already knows that, I'm guessing). It isn't exactly of a piece with the rest of the nominations here, but I had to include it, because I want those of you unfamiliar with this story (assuming there are people unfamiliar with this story) to come to it the way I did: with no knowledge about it at all. Really, it works best this way. If you don't agree, feel free to leave a bitter comment. I will reply, even, because that will give me a chance to show off my icons.

Best FF That Proves That Sometimes Plagiarism Is Neither Theft Nor Homage, but Rather the Sign of a Brilliantly Deranged Mind: The Other Guide, by Francesca, aka cesperanza. The Sentinel. Sort of. We began this set with a mutant crossover from a mind clearly warped out of true by over-exposure to fan fiction, and we end it the same way. This story comes from someone I used to regard as a sane, sober, and sensible individual. And then I found this story. Now I view her as extremely likely to go off into gales of slightly cracked giggles, much in the manner of a person who will soon don a mask and a tight, brightly-colored outfit and go head-to-head with Batman. (She'd be called Fangirl, of course. Her weapons would be TV trivia and the sonic squee, and her outfit would have a large heart with a LJ icon of her favorite pairing - I'm thinking Kowalski/Fraser - in the center. She'd taunt Batman by writing stories about his sexual exploits with nearly everyone in Gotham and posting it all on the internet, and she'd enhance her evil by emailing update notices to his secret email account and to all the Gotham newspapers. And in the last issue, she'd eventually be cornered by the ultimate weapon: Batlawyers.) So, yeah, I've pretty much gotten off the whole story topic, but that's OK, because I can't tell you anything about it anyway. Just read it.

-Afterword-

If any of these stories remains a mystery after you've read it, feel free to leave a plaintive query in the comments section. I will do what I can to clear things up. And, of course, I will show off my new icons, for which I thank makesmewannadie, my own true wombat and long lost mystery relative, and wanderlustlover, who makes gorgeous icons in such quantity that I suspect her (or maybe him) of being paid by LJ to force us all to buy the extra user picture slots.

Comments

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Someone has told you, haven't they, that your reviews are at least as entertaining as the stories you rec (and in some cases, more?) People always say, blah blah, you should write professionally but you should review professionally. I'd read a column if you wrote it, whether I was planning to read the actual books or not--and that's the sign of a good reviewer!

--Ces (thrown into a blast of her past; an Obsenad for fuck's sake! Most of you don't even know what that IS!)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

*squirms with joy*

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am delighted you like my reviews that much. And I would kill to review pretty much anything professionally, but it is, alas, not to be. My professional writing is all really, really boring.

*more joyful squirming* Cesperanza likes my recs! *gleeful dance*

...an Obsenad for fuck's sake! Most of you don't even know what that IS!

Um. Me included. And I wonder every time I read this, though I sort of had a guess - something to do with Senad + ob, maybe? But an actual explanation would be very welcome.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Back on Senad (i.e. Sentinel Adult Discussion) if you made an off-topic post you had to apologize by posting an Obsenad, a short story or drabble. Sometimes if you were making an off topic post you'd just kind of integrate the post INTO your Obsenad, as in:

"Hey, Jim," Blair said, throwing his backpack onto the sofa. "You wouldn't want to do the Race for the Cure with me, would you?"

Jim didn't look up from his newspaper. "What am I curing?"

"Breast cancer."

At this, Jim did look up. "You've noticed I don't actually have breasts--"

"Actually, you do," Blair interrupted, then smirked. "All mammals do--"

"Not to speak of."

"You could get implants."

"Blair--" Jim was getting that "you're fucking with me" edge to his voice.

Blair crossed his arms. "Come on, don't be an asshole. Do the race."

etc. That sort of thing. Really, it was a brilliant way of either staying on topic or compensating for your lack of topic. However, sigh, now that apparently there ARE no topics anymore (thank you LJ!) it's a kind of fandom curiosity, like a dodo egg. *G*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

God. For the first time, you've made me regret my lack of mailing list experience. (Well, slash mailing list experience. I have plenty of non-slash, non-FF lists in my past, complete with flame wars every second Tuesday, bank holiday, and gibbous moon, which is why I went the LJ route for FF.)

That's so cool. Obsenad!