thefourthvine | Slashy Nominations 101: I Count Religion But a Childish Toy...

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Slashy Nominations 101: I Count Religion But a Childish Toy...

...and hold there is no sin but innocence.

That's pretty much the attitude you'll be needing for this set, which is made up of stories that somehow involve religion. I have no idea how many readers of this LJ (assuming there are any after the Long Hiatus, about which more, only - later) are devout adherents of any religion, but those of you that are might, you know, want to look away from this entry. Or at least skip to the last rec, which involves the Amish Satanism Plus Goats religion. Because, while I'm sure that one is just insanely popular and all, its members probably don't have internet access and therefore won't be offended.

But the rest of you can probably count on being irked somewhere in here. Just, you know, FYI.

Important Email Note: I have learned that something was wrong with my non-fannish email address (the one with 'dsl' in it) for most of the last week. Anyone who has tried to send something to it over the past five to seven days please please resend unless you've gotten a response from me, because I've replied to the mail I've received. Also, anyone who knows what I've done to offend the email gods - because when it was just my fannish email that screwed up all the time I could believe it was the server, but now I have to accept that the problem is me - or what ritual would appease them should let me know. Via comment or, for the braver set, email. Please.

Important Website Query: Will someone please tell me what's up with trickster.org? I've been out of the loop for long enough that I don't know anything except that it has apparently gone the way of the dodo. And that it's a total bitch assembling recs sets without access to the trickster sites. Should I go into mourning or what?

Best FF That Could Probably Cause the Author to Be Stoned in Certain Highly Intolerant Times. But We're Past All That, Aren't We? His Own Soul, by

sssenza. The Bible, David/Jonathan. This is NC-17. Yeah. I thought I should begin as I meant to go on in the offense department. But, look - it's canon. Don't believe me? Check out the actual text, which says "and then they had sex" so clearly - I mean, come on, Jonathan takes off his clothes and hands them to David - that it doesn't even need slashing. But the author of this piece did a lovely job elaborating on the canon, including many fetching details about who did what to whom. And she took it out of the language of the King James Version, which is a good thing, because KJV is very pretty and excellent to quote and just packed with thees and thous and untos, but it is not all that easy to read as a story. Whereas this is extremely easy to read. And fun. And good. Still, I realize that "NC-17 Bible fic" is a squick all by itself for some people, so I'm offering an alternate story for this rec. Note that I don't call it a Certified Safe Alternate, though. And for very good reason.

-Or-

Best FF That Proves That You Don't Need to Deviate from Canon to Produce a Highly Disturbing and Squicky Story, Provided You Choose Your Canon Carefully. Brotherly Love, by

daegaer. The Bible, gen. Sort of. I mean, the Bible is far more explicit, in places, than this story, and the only sexual relationship mentioned herein is definitely canonical. But if you thought gen (or religion) was squick-free, my children, this will prove you wrong. I can't really warn any better than that without spoiling everything. (Those of you who like to be spoiled, though, might want to Google Amnon and Tamar.) Also, this story is one of the best short character studies I've read; it's only 500 words long, yet you don't need any familiarity with the Bible to understand the nature of Jonadab. (Which nature is, for the record, pure evil. Admittedly, he's really damn good at being evil, so good you almost have to admire it even as you're horrified by it, but that just makes the whole thing worse. Trust me.) In short: an amazing story. Bonus: if you were disturbed by the David/Jonathan story, you won't be after you've finished this, because this will show you what disturbing really is. Note: I've already recommended this story once, but it's worth rec'ing twice, and it's not like there's a ton of gen Bible FF out there.

Best FF That Shows Us That Religion Has Its Place in Oz. And That That Place Is Not a Comfortable or Happy One. Incense, by Brighid, aka

brighidestone. Oz, Christopher Keller/Tobias Beecher. We all know that Keller has some issues, yes? Religion is, canonically, one of them (and even more so after he had a vision of Hell while he was dying - one of the deaths that didn't take, for the record). Here we see what religion means to Keller and what Beecher means to Keller, and how those two things are not as separate as they might be in a totally healthy and stable person. It's another brilliant character story, with one of those joyful, fun looks at Keller's past that Oz writers love to give us. And the ending is just a killer, provided you know how the series ended; this is another short story that packs a godawful punch. Warning for the easily offended who have somehow made it this far in this recs set without spontaneously combusting: the very first line of this story features the word "Jesusfucking," and that's not exactly the only obscenity you'll find here. Or the only blasphemy. So probably best not to read this unless you're good with the blasphemy thing.

Best FF That Shows Us That When You Have New Powers, You Also Get to Commit Entirely New and Original Sins. Ten Thousand Candles, by Andraste, aka

andrastewhite. X-Men, Charles Xavier/Erik Lensherr (but non-explicit - blink and you'll miss the only reference to it; to my mind this is gen). You need to have seen X2 for this to make a lick of sense. If you haven't seen it, go on to the next rec now, because the rest of this summary will take place deep in spoiler territory.

And now that they've all gone, I've got a confession to make to you: the second movie didn't work for me. There were some good parts, but overall, it didn't hang together, and one of the biggest reasons is the thing that Andraste built this story around: Xavier, as we know him in XMM canon, couldn't have survived the events of the movie. The invasion of the school was bad enough, but then there's also the tiny fact that he murdered thousands of people. Murdered. Thousands. Xavier would not be, shall we say, comfortable with that; he wouldn't be able to keep his chin up, keep a stiff upper lip, keep on keeping on after doing that, no matter what the excuse, no matter what the circumstance. But the impression I got from the movie was that he'd found himself not guilty by reason of mindfuck, and that's just - not Xavier, not for me. So I have an intense love for this story. Unbelievably intense. Scarily intense. Go thou and read, and you will love likewise.

Best FF That Proves You Can Build a Story Around Religion and Still Keep It Light and Silly and Totally Not Blasphemous. You Just Have to Find the Right Belief System. Happily Ever After, by Merry, aka

merryish. Once a Thief, Mac Ramsey/Victor Mansfield. Yes, we've reached the one that's safe for everyone except Amish Satanists and fans of human (and goat) sacrifice. Yay! Now let me tell you how astonished I am to find myself recommending anything in this fandom, because I just finished watching the movie, or possibly the pilot, of this show, and - wow. Bad, folks, I'm telling you. Bad. I can't tell you not to watch it - there's a scene involving a chandelier that makes a reality out of all the "swinging from the chandelier" jokes in various FF stories, inasmuch as the two male characters spend a goodly amount of time tied to each other and rubbing against each other so vigorously that you could use the scene as a visual definition of frottage while hanging from said lighting fixture - but I can tell you that you should be good and drunk when you do. Or just skip to the Chandelier Scene. Trust me, you won't be missing much. Anyway, the Best Beloved and I had just finished watching the movie/pilot thing when I read this, so the scars were fresh. And yet I found myself reading and giggling and loving this story. So I just have to recommend it. It healed me, I'm telling you, and it will heal you, too. Well, provided whatever ailment you have isn't made worse by laughter.

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Give me TS any day.

Well, I do agree, but I have to tell you - in all honesty, the writing's better in the Bible than it was in the show.

And now you've got me curious. What were you going to say about the title of this post? It's Marlowe, for the record, and I totally love him, so - it wasn't going to be a bad thing, was it?

*clicks*

Ooooooo. Thank you.

You're so right. Well, can I be the smuttiest wombat there ever was?

Shit, I can't.

makesmewannadie has got me beat four ways to Sunday on that one.

Well, I want to be some kind of extreme wombat. Hmmm.

*shrugs*

It's one of those highly-debatable things, I think. The tone of the movie's ending suggests to me that we are supposed to believe that disaster was averted without Charles actually killing anyone. Andraste has a point that that's improbable in real-world terms, given the mayhem that incapacitating lots and lots of people while they're doing things like driving cars would likely cause.

For me, that leaves it as "canon is fuzzy about this," and I'm fine with whichever direction people want to go with it in fanfic. I like "Ten Thousand Candles" a lot -- it's really a great story, and would be on my list of stories everyone in the fandom should read. But I also think not all post-X2 stories have to go to exactly the same place with the events at Alkali Lake and Xavier's reaction to them.

The tone of the movie's ending suggests to me that we are supposed to believe that disaster was averted without Charles actually killing anyone.

I'd never considered anything else, I guess, because it simply would have seemed unconscionable for Charles to go on the way he did at the end of the movie if he actually had killed even one person.

I think I've also been short-sighted about the events at Alkali Lake, because I'd considered the big moral conundrum to be how in the world Charles could ever forgive Erik for putting him in a position to kill the entire human race. (Not that he's never done that before, of course, but, still...) I hadn't really given much thought to what actually happened - only what might have happened.

I’m really, really amused by the word ‘be-hatted’ for some reason.

That's good, because I'm prone to putting be- in front of assorted words. Be-penised, for example, was one I used a while back. Some words just look naked with a suffix, you know?

*eyes Winters bros.*

Yes, a very talented family indeed. And they have such interesting taste in hats!

But, worse, one of his major beliefs, all his life, has been that people who are properly trained and reared can be trusted with any power, no matter what, and X2 refuted that most handily.

Mmm. I'm not sure how much I really think Charles believes that to start with. I mean, I think he believes he can handle the responsibility of having a machine that can obliterate all life on the planet in the basement, and ... that's hubris, to a certain extent. He can't, in the sense that he can't actually ensure that no one else will get their hands on it or force him to use it. And realizing that has got to be a hard blow.

But I'm not sure in a fundamental sense that he ever feels he should be trusted with his own power to start with -- I just think he feels that given that he has the power, not using it would be worse than using it as well as he can.

I've thought about it largely because of Andraste's story and because of some other discussions about this in various places. I tend to go in the direction of "against all odds, very little actual death and destruction resulted," but I can see the arguments for the contrary. I don't think canon requires you to go either way, and it's all still pretty damn tragic no matter how you slice it.

... and now that last metaphor is making me envision tragedy as being something like a very dark chocolate cake.

the writing's better in the Bible than it was in the show.

Are you sure? One of my plans for 2005 is to scientifically refute this kind of statement (the TS criticism, not the Bible praise - I'm entirely unqualified to comment on the latter).

The title made me laugh, too, but not as much as your TS comment.

Cleverest Wombat? Most literate? Pimpingest?

Of course, if you ever want to do some recs about *Buddhism*, I can hook you up!

*prods*

Now would be good. Now would be excellent, in fact. For one thing, when the trickster sites are resurrected or reincarnated, I'm going to have a bunch more stories to rec in this theme - it hurts to have done this without even one story by

kassrachel, who writes the best dang Judaic FF ever - and it would be nice to have some Buddhism-related ones, too.

In short: rec me, baby.

*waves at Heim*

Basically, I'd sloped off to soak in sudden random phobias probably triggered by holiday madness. You know - my mother planning five family trips in three days, one of my dogs developing suspicious lumps, Yuletide Panic, mallphobia. That kind of thing.

But I wanted to tell you that the dogs got the Greenies and enjoyed them so much that I think I'm going to have to start buying them. (I've always believed that they'd eat them in three bites, glump glump glump, and get no benefit from them, but on Christmas Day they proved that they know how to savor things now.) So they thank you and I thank you and we all think you are wonderful. Because you are. Plus, we approve of your Christmas cards.

And, OK. The story I wrote for Yuletide can be found here (http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/11/atraditional.html), but do not consider it recommended, because I can't recommend it. I can't even read it. (Seriously; I had to write it with my glasses off. I expect to be able to face it sometime in March, by which time it will be almost as new to me as it is to people who didn't write it.)

But my recipient requested dogs, mischief, and Christmas in the All Creatures Great and Small Fandom (and it is a fandom, in the sense that I have thus far found one other existing story in it), and by god that's what she got, and she seemed pleased, so I'm pleased. Just not quite able to face the story yet.

Well,

fanofall is the pimpingest wombat, definitely. She's the pimpingest *anything*. She knows the deep secrest of Pimp Fu.

And while I would like to be the most literate or cleverest wombat - I mean, how cool is that, to be the cleverest wombat? - I'm not sure I can claim either title. But there is an est just for me, and I will, by god, find it. I am determined. Nothing will stop me. Not even the realization that I'm probably going to end up as the bread-making-est wombat or something.

Um...

*looking down at ground, highly embarrassed*

I was actually talking about my own fic. Because I've written a lot with Buddhist themes, especially Four Truths (http://www.home.earthlink.net/~shellmidwife/stories/ft/fourtruths.html) and most especially its (long) sequel, Six Paramitas (http://www.home.earthlink.net/~shellmidwife/stories/ft/paramitas.html). Most of my fic that involves Bayliss has at least *some* Buddhist influence--the fact that Kyle Secor (who played Bayliss) is Buddhist and that Bayliss experimented with Buddhism in the last season is kinda why I started practicing (yes, I came to Buddhism through the gay porn door!).

There are a few other stories out there that try to address Bayliss' Buddhism, but I haven't really seen any that really get it, IMO, but then again I'm pretty damned picky.

By the way, I absolutely *loved* your

yuletide story. It was one of a very few that I actually commented on!

You are certainly a very brave wombat! I am proud of you!

I did flist?skip=1000 which took me back a little less than 2 weeks (fandom was slow) and I am just accepting that I've lost the first half of December. "Wha'happened" posts rarely glean much of moment, I've noticed. Mostly? People were writing for the challenges, and not so much new stuff. Though I read through all of

maygra's new output yesterday and nnnguh *thud*.

Started re-reading Moby Dick last night. TheirloveissotrueOMG!

YAY!!!! YOU'RE BACK!!!! YAY!!!!

Shall I resend to the dsl address? Or somewhere else?

Yeek! OK, see, I *really* don't think I can match you in terms of XMM knowledge or character understanding, but I still have to argue, even knowing that I'll lose (and wanting to lose). It's genetic.

But I'm not sure in a fundamental sense that he ever feels he should be trusted with his own power to start with -- I just think he feels that given that he has the power, not using it would be worse than using it as well as he can.

That's not how I see him. I see in him - well. All the choices he's made seem to be predicated on a couple of beliefs: that people are basically good, that people do bad things most often out of ignorance or fear, and that people can be raised to do good things, choose to do good things. All his choices, from Erik to Cerebro to the school to the things we see him do at the beginning of X2, all those seem to me to have that underpinning, to be best and most simply explained by that underlying belief.

Most of all, I think Charles believes that he can trust himself. With the powers he's got, it's that or a lobotomy; I imagine that he also knows it's hubris, but I see some subconscious part of him, trained in Catholicism from an early age, whispering "God doesn't dish out what people can't take." "God wouldn't give people powers if they couldn't use them well." Now, maybe they choose not to use them well, but the potential for goodness is still in them. And if they make bad choices, they can always be redeemed. It's hard for me to explain his actions any other way.

And in X2 what he learned is that there are powers that no one should have, because no one is safe when anyone, no matter how well-intentioned, has them. He learned that you'd have to be truly superhuman, truly perfect to be trusted with powers like his. I think he'd react to this realization pretty much like Einstein reacted to quantum mechanics.

So that's my take. Now please show me that I'm wrong wrong wrong, because I'm pretty much convinced already; I just have to be beaten into the ground, 'cause that's how I was raised to argue.

I haven't read the other comments yet. I just wanted to chip in a squeal of "David/Jonathan OTP!!1" and to curse that I have to wait to get home to read it. :)

Now please show me that I'm wrong wrong wrong

... actually, that's hard to do, because there's so little XMM canon -- Charles has so few actual lines. So I think your take on Charles is perfectly reasonable.

In terms of my own take on him: I think he does believe most people are basically good, and at the same time is very aware that even basically good people can do terrible things if they are frightened or angry or hurt. I think he places a lot of trust in other people, sometimes more than he should.

I also think he's harder on himself than he is on other people, and worries about whether his own choices are the right ones. He's trained his students, people who love and trust him, to fight for what he thinks is right. He sees his choices as determining the fate of all mutants everywhere. I think on a lot of days, he doesn't believe he's really a good enough person to handle that responsibility, but there's no other choice.

(And I think on other days, he does, but I always find Charles both attractive and a little scary when he's sure he's right, for much the same reasons that I find Erik both attractive and a lot scary when he's sure he's right.)

And in X2 what he learned is that there are powers that no one should have, because no one is safe when anyone, no matter how well-intentioned, has them.

Hmm. I can't really see him coming to exactly that conclusion. I mean, in "Ten Thousand Candles," he rebuilds Cerebro, and uses it again. He certainly doesn't have to. But I think he feels that it's necessary, and that refusing to use that power even though it's scary and dangerous would be worse.

I'm not entirely sure he's even right about that when it comes to Cerebro. Cerebro ... well, you've read C. Elisa's WMD (http://c-elisa.slashcity.org/wmd.html), right? Sometimes I think her Erik has a point.

Anyway, I think we're both just turning the same basic themes about power and responsibility around in different ways, and coming to different conclusions about what Charles thinks at which points, which I think is fine -- one of the interesting things about XMM is how differently it's possible to write the same characters while staying true to canon.

There is no reason to be embarrassed about rec'ing your own FF. I am pleased to have had the recs. And for once it looks I can actually read one of your stories; until very recently, something about my browser or its configuration caused the FF on your site to appear in green text on a green background, which made reading moderately challenging. So I'm excited to be able to see your text at last.

yes, I came to Buddhism through the gay porn door!

That must make for interesting lapses in conversation at Buddhist social events (assuming there are any; remember, I do not know from Buddhism):

First Buddhist: "So, why did you convert?"
Second Buddhist: "Well, I'd been doing a lot of searching, and then one day I was reading this book and everything just - clicked. What about you, Shell?"
Shell: "Um. It was partly a TV show and partly an actor. And partly gay porn. Mostly the gay porn, I guess, looking back."
[pause]
First Buddhist: "These are some excellent stuffed mushrooms, don't you think?"

By the way, I absolutely *loved* your yuletide story. It was one of a very few that I actually commented on!

Thank you. I lack all confidence when it comes to that story, so I'm soaking up even mildly positive feedback like a sponge.

And, yes, I noticed right away that you commented on the story. Before authors were revealed, even. I said to Best Beloved, "Do you think that means she knows I wrote it?" To which BB responded, "Well, did you tell her you were writing in that fandom? No? Then maybe she just liked it. It is possible, you know; people can actually like something you write." (Best Beloved had to force me to post, because I was within an inch of defaulting after I had the story finished. I'm grateful to both BB and Laura Shapiro, who beta'd the thing, for talking me down from that one, because it's got to violate some major covenant with the FF gods to finish a challenge story ahead of time and not submit it.)

So, in short, I was extremely pleased to see your comment. Thank you.

And, you know, I'm thinking it's a good thing I went AWOL during December, because if I'd been posting this LJ would've likely contained the largest amount of Yuletide Angst yet documented, judging from the content of this comment. Um. Sorry. You know how it is - other angsts only speak; Yuletide Angst shrieks out.

That's good, because I'm prone to putting be- in front of assorted words. Be-penised, for example, was one I used a while back. Some words just look naked with a suffix, you know?

... BWAHAHAHA

metaquotes'd!

The Reccingest Wombat?

The Wombat Queen Of Making Up Really Long Rec Categories?

It's not an -est, but it's still X-Treme Wombathood.

You know, I have had almost that exact conversation! Well, except for I usually leave out the gay porn stuff--but trying to explain about Kyle Secor and Homicide and Bayliss and fanfiction, yeah, I've done that, and it's definitely a bit weird. But then again they say there are 84,000 doors to the Buddha, so why *not* gay porn?

Seriously, I had utterly no idea the story was yours when I commented--I didn't even know you were participating. I was thrilled to pieces when I found out, because, dude, it's *so* good! See, you know how I came to Buddhism through the gay porn door (oh my god that did not sound like that in my head)? I came to midwifery through the James Herriott door. I didn't realize it until years later, but the man wrote some really kick-ass birthing stories, you know? Forget that childhood ambition to be a veterinarian--it's all about the birthing!

I'm so glad you're back and posting again.

*hugs*

That is totally fascinating, and just made the story so much more powerful.

Okay, I did like you asked and e-mailed all the e-mails that got eaten by your e-mail, but you have not e-mailed me. Is your e-mail working? Do you need me to re-e-mail your e-mail?

Heh. That was fun. :-D

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Slashy Nominations 101: I Count Religion But a Childish Toy...

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