Slashy Nominations 87: So Wrong It's Right

A long, long, long time ago I promised my beloved makesmewannadie a post on FF I'd seen that violated a credo of the genre and yet somehow was still good. There really are such stories out there. We've all read them; stories where, for example, Benton Fraser grows tentacles and gets pregnant, even though he is technically male, by Ray Kowalski, who turns out to be a dragon. And Kowalski can talk to other reptiles, and he defeats Tom Riddle and saves Harry Potter, and Fraser can talk to horses and dogs and brings Sirius Black back from the dead.

OK. I don't have any fics that violate quite that many rules, for the very good reason that so far the Keep Fandom Sane Project has managed to take down people considering writing such fic, using special tracking implants, tranquilizer guns, and, where necessary, complicated memory-alteration devices. We should all be grateful for their efforts.

But there are fics that break a FF rule and yet are somehow really, really good. I've been patiently making a list of them since, um, May. And, at long last, here it is. Even though you've probably forgotten all about this, MMWD, this insanity is all your fault. But I've been saying that since the day I met you.

-The Personal Peeves-

The Best FF That Starts with the Phrase "Master Dick" and Yet Isn't at All Funny or Punnish. Which Is, You'll Grant, Seriously Strange for This Fandom. Not a Heart, Beating, by Brighid, aka brighidestone. D. C. Universe, Batclan, Batman/Dick Grayson, and I chose to use those names after careful consideration, so don't yell at me about using one hero name and one birth name, OK? This story doesn't so much break a Fanfic Commandment ("Thou Shalt Not, Without a Really, Really Good Reason, Give Psychic Powers to the Canonically Non-Psychic," etc.) as a personal rule. I really, really hate it when people have healing sex. The ultimate case of this is, of course, the healing sex that follows rape, but I'm against other kinds of healing sex, too, because sex doesn't heal. It's fun and it's good and it feels like the best thing ever when you're doing it, but it can't fix you when you're broken. I've tried that, so I know that having sex when you're broken will only make you more broken. Except, of course, in the Batworld, where everyone is always broken, so you have to make certain allowances. This story is possibly the perfect example of why the Bats can have healing sex, and vicious sex, and just about every other kind of rule-breaking sex imaginable. To find out more, you'll just have to go there.

Best FF That Will Make You Want Cheesecake. Well, Actually, That May Not Be So Unusual; So Many Women Have Grown Accustomed to Sublimating Their Desires. So Let Me Instead Call This the Best FF That Will Make You Sure Cheesecake Is Just a Substitute for Sex. A Little Cheesecake, by kassrachel. The Sentinel, Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg. I just totally hate the false no; I have a whole rant on it that is three pages long that I will, please god please, never make available in a public place. I'm going to try to avoid quoting from said essay in what follows, but I make no promises.

The false no goes like this. A and B are beginning a first-time type sex scene. They've been kissing, maybe, and A starts moving things along by groping a bit.

B moans appreciatively into A's mouth.
A, emboldened, takes things a step further; perhaps he unzips B's jeans, or maybe he takes off B's shirt, or maybe he sucks on B's fingers. Whatever.
B says, "No." Or, "Wait." Or, "On second thought..."
A recoils, wounded, his hopes and dreams dashed to the ground, angst welling up all around him.
B reveals that he just meant, "No, or I'll come." Or possibly, "Wait, we could go to the bedroom now." Something like that.

I just fucking hate when that happens in an otherwise normal sex scene, because people don't do that in first time situations. They're careful of their partner's feelings, and they remember the power that "no" carries. It's only later that people play around with safewords and sexy fake refusals. And, you know, I've pretty much summed up that essay here, so let me try to get back to the story.

Here, the false no works, because it's in the right place, and because Jim and Blair don't know each other very well yet, and because Kass is a genius. I hate the false no, really hate it - it's just a way to crank up the angst unnecessarily, a gimmick, a crutch - but I love it here. It just - works. And since I've already gone on and on and on about this, I'll let you go read the story now.

-The Broken Absolute Laws of Fan Fiction-

Best FF That Should Make All Those Fangirls Who Put Themselves - Only Smarter and Prettier and Better and with Flowing Ebony Hair and Violet Eyes - into Their Stories Deeply Ashamed, but Probably Won't, Because Let's Face It, Those Fangirls Are Likely Dead to Shame. Once and Almost Completely, by scrunchy. Sports Night, Danny/Scrunchy. Seriously. This is self-insertion het, right here, and yet - somehow it works. I can't say any more than that. scrunchy gets Danny and Casey. She, like, channels them or something. So even when she's writing about Danny falling in love with, well, her, it works. And there's an important lesson here, for Mary Sue-ists. No, wait, there's at least two. The first one is: the less we hear directly from you, the more we like you. Hearing about Scrunchy through Danny makes it good, somehow; hearing about the perfection of Scrunchy from the author would be intolerable. The second lesson is: less is more. Which I'm trying to put into practice in this rec.

Best FF That Almost Makes Me Wish That the Owie on My Back Wasn't a Burn, but Rather the Development of an Entirely New Body Part Not Generally Found in Mammals, Except Maybe Certain Bats, and I Am Not a Bat. I'm Not Nearly Fucked up Enough to Be a Bat. Unless That's Just DCU Overexposure Talking. Graceless, by dirty_diana. Due South, Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser. What, you thought we'd get through this set without hearing from both of my trusty Happy Fandoms? More fool you, because when it comes to the scary world of law-breaking fic, I need to go to my happy places. Which is, of course, where I find most of the law-breaking fic, so maybe we shouldn't look too closely at that piece of reasoning. So. Go read this right now. Don't read any further until you've read this story; it's good and it's happy and you'll like it, you will. Honestly. I had my Best Beloved test-read it and everything. So it's safe, and you don't need to know more, so read it now.

All done? OK. Now that you've read it, you know what rule it violates. And, frankly, that's a rule that I don't understand; I mean, why do we even need a covenant stating Thou Shalt Not Write Wingfic? What's this weird attraction for putting wings in non-wing fandoms? It's like having a commandment telling us not to have sex with blue trees under two feet tall while orbiting Pluto. I mean, you want wings, there's fandoms for you - Good Omens, Dogma, X-Men (look, it isn't my fault Warren hasn't appeared in the movies; he's there in the comic books, and he's got palpable wings). Why put wings on Angel? He wouldn't use them, you know; he'd just mope about how someone more deserving than him should've got them. Why put wings on Legolas? You'd just eliminate the last difference between (book canon) elves and angels, and I feel sure Tolkien would've done that if he'd wanted to. Why put wings on Ray Kowalski? Well, as it turns out, so you can have this perfect, wonderful fic, featuring a Ray and a Fraser who are absolutely as I see them, wings or not.

Best FF That Made Me Doubt My Sanity and My Mental Health. Well, No, Because a Lot of FF Does That; It's the Best FF That Made Me Seriously Consider Seeking Therapy. Again. Untitled Sequel to "Aliens Make Ford and Arthur Have Sex", by Katy, aka imperfectcircle. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent/Ford Prefect. (Note: You should really read the first one in this series before you read this. I've recommended it previously, so if you know it, feel free to charge ahead into truly uncharted waters.) This rec alarms me. Because this is the not even the first time I've recommended MPreg. Do I have some strange, deeply repressed part of me that wants to read MPreg? And if I do, how do I get rid of it?

Those two stories are just fucking fantastic, yes, but on the whole the genre mystifies me. I don't read fic for men doing girl things; I read fic for men doing boy things, generally to other men. (And, no, I don't define "sucking cock" as a strictly boy thing, although I think you'll admit that it helps to have at least one male present for that activity. But pregnancy? That is a girl thing, by god, and I don't want to read about it happening to men. I hope.) If I want a pregnancy fic, I'll look for femslash, dammit. And, um, that probably sounded biased, but it wasn't meant that way. I love you, straight people! I totally want you to breed, provided you don't let the resultant kids kick the back of my seat during showings of R-rated movies after 11:00 p.m.! It's just, well, I have a slash bias when I'm reading fic, and so - you know, this isn't going to come out right, no matter what I say. Stopping now, while only my foot is in mouth.

Slashy Nominations 88: Get Meta

Yes, meta can be a good thing. It can be a weird thing. And it can, as in the case of all these stories, be a funny thing. At least, I found them funny. (If this says something unfortunate about my sense of humor, please don't tell me about it. I'm paranoid enough, thanks.)

Why do we write meta? I'm not sure, but I know this: if we weren't picking apart our own obsessions and compulsively commenting on every aspect of fandom, we wouldn't be fans. We'd be some other mutant thing. Tiger Beat subscribers, maybe. A wry sense of humor about one's own fanaticism is an essential component of the kind of fandom practiced and worshiped in this LJ; we all have an interesting and thoughtful perspective to offer on our lack of perspective, and we all have something pithy and amusing to say about the things we take so very seriously. And these, um, word-filled thingies - they aren't all stories, and they aren't essays, and I can't think what to call them, frankly - are perfect examples of that.

I'd talk about how much these kinds of word-filled thingies make me love y'all, but that seems way too straightforward and sappy to be at home in this post, so let's save the heartfelt sentiment for the established relationships set and get right to the funny in this one.

Best FF That Demonstrates That the Presence of Eggbeaters Is Directly Related to One's Personal Safety, At Least When One Is Having a Metaish Experience. Wax Jism Rushes in Where Mary Sues Fear to Tread, by waxjism. X-Files meta. Self-insertion, and is that not the most wonderfully dirty word with which to describe a FF no-no? It is, and makesmewannadie will agree with me. (MMWD complained after the last set that I'd made her read self-insertion. She had no idea just how inserty the selves could get around here.) Here we have an unfortunately clad Wax Jism encountering Krycek (and, I suspect, Spike). I'm sure this would be even more amusing to me if I knew who Krycek was, but I get that he's a Bad Guy and, curtainfic and domesticfic and schmoopy schmoopy schmoopfic aside, he's apparently not someone you'd want to encounter in a dark alley. Which is why this story is so great. Sometimes, in our eagerness to turn the hate to hot sex (because we all try to live the Slasher's Motto: "If two guys exist in any time or universe or canon, I can get them to fuck. If they hit each other, try to kill each other, or call each other names, I can get them to fuck with gusto."), we forget that there may be a reason two people are mortal enemies. Like, for example, one of them may be evil or soulless or bent on ruling all of Metropolis. Or he could just be an asshole. So, when I've read a story that turns a canonical bad guy into a misunderstood pile of ever-loving mush, I read this story as a palate-clearer.

Best Non-FF but FF-Related Thingy That Will Teach You Several Important Life Lessons That I Beg You Not to Put into Practice, Unless It's the One About Bringing Planets Under the Dominion of Prospect-L; You're More Than Welcome to Do That. Deep Fanfic Thoughts, by Jack Handey, by Valeria Fate, aka violetisblue (I think). Fandom and fanfic meta. OK, this is another one where I get enough of the joke to laugh without necessarily getting the whole thing, because I am just pathetic, and also lazy enough not to want to do the necessary Googling to cover for my pathetic out-of-it-ness. First problem: I'm not sure who Jack Handey is, except that I suspect he's not a real person. Second problem: a lot of these deep thoughts concern mailing lists, and I'm not on any FF-related mailing lists. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Because there are lines in this like, "People think it's fun to write fanfic because you get all those readers. But they forget the negative side, which is the psychosis." And don't forget this timeless piece of wisdom: "If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how we take male pregnancy fics completely for granted." Really, these are the kinds of philosophical meditations fandom needs. Because with Thanksgiving coming up, at least here in the US, shouldn't we all take a little time to be thankful that we live in an age where smut is so readily and freely available? And such specialized smut, too. Yes, this year I intend to give thanks that I can find all the MPreg and wingfic and Mary Sue fic that my heart could desire. (Actually, quite a lot more than my heart has ever desired, but I won't mention that part, in case the porn gods are feeling tetchy.) Plus, you know, I'll give thanks for plain ol' smut. Only I will do this silently, so that my parents don't give me an exorcism for Christmas and a year of therapy for Hanukkah.

Best Sort of FF and Sort of Something Else Thingy Featuring Standards and Practices People Being Tormented by Gay Sex, Which Is Such an Accurate Depiction of My Ideal World That I Weep with Joy and Frustration Whenever I Read This. The Due South Reunion Movie, Draft 1, by shayheyred. Due South meta, involving assorted slash. Sort of. Yeah, you know you're deep in the meta weeds when you can't write a story summary that is coherent and useful and shorter than the story itself. So, for the record, I'm going to focus on "shorter than the story itself," and leave the coherence and usefulness to a LJ better suited and more accustomed to that sort of thing. Which would be all of them, I'm thinking. But even if I can't explain why you need to read this, need to read it you do, because it is just really, really funny. Shay pretty much had me at the title - not of the story, mind you, but the story within this story, because remember how I said this is the complicated kind of meta? - which is "Here Today, Yukon Tomorrow." I'm sure we can all totally see Paul Gross writing that and snickering to himself, unless that's just me. Oh, and I should probably warn you that there's suggestions of RPS in this, but it didn't trigger my RPS gag reflex, so it probably won't trigger yours. (Although I'm beginning to be afraid that my RPS gag reflex is weakening, and if it is - oh, god. I so don't need RPS fandoms. And I don't need the drastic reduction in already wavering self-esteem, not to mention the major recalculation of self-image, that would result from the loss of my last few remaining fandom standards, scruples, and boundaries. So please hope along with me that the RPS gag reflex is still going strong.)

Best FF Commentary Thingies That Feature Conflicted Batman and Gay Bar Kowalski and Bitchy Methos and Wistful Remus and Lots of Other Characters, Plus Forsythia, and Yet Still Make a Lot of Sense, Which I Know Doesn't Even Seem Possible, but Trust Me, It Is. Fic Frustration, by jjtaylor, PWP = Progress? What Progress?, by penknife, and WIP Meme, by shrift. Meta-ish insane auctorial babbling. Slash, het, and gen. See, I hate memes. Except when I love them. And this was possibly my favorite meme ever: authors summed up their works in progress in script form. (Because it's easier to describe by example, even if it's a bad example, here's what it looks like. Keller: Actually, I'm glad we can't get direct sunlight in here. Beecher: Really? [thoughtful pause while gazing at his copy of Dracula] Oh, shit. Keller: bitey bitey! Author: Wait, no, you were supposed to have sex! What is wrong with you people that you're always with the blood and the pain and the fighting when I want hot, uncomplicated sex? Keller: Why would I care what you want? Beecher: He's got a point.) I read these and laughed and laughed and laughed. (Don't judge them by the bad example!) Unfortunately, I didn't think to bookmark all of them at the time. (Hey, I was new to this LJ thing, and I naively thought there'd be a way to find them later. So if you wrote one of these, let me know, OK?) But I did bookmark these three, and I am profoundly glad, because these are just - just - look. I read a lot of FF. Probably way more than you think I do. Which is actually pretty scary, but that's a worry for a whole other sleepless night. Point is, I know fic when I see it, even when it isn't actually in fic form. And these are great fics - in character, interesting, and either sexy or plotty. I couldn't ask for more. Except, of course, for these to be finished. But, hey, fandom has always needed a way to get more mileage and less frustration out of works in progress, and this is one such way. Brilliant! (And wouldn't now be a great time to revive this meme, oh author of many works in progress? Just a thought.)