Slashy Nominations 134: Wagons, Roll!

[thefourthvine]

Okay, first, a cry for help. A long time ago, some kind person emailed me a list of body swap stories, including "Being Benton Fraser" and a Farscape story with John in Aeryn's body and Aeryn in Rygel's body (possibly based on an episode). Not too long after, that email account did a spectacular flame-out, the kind fandom can only dream of emulating, and took down with it all my neatly-stored emails of that kind. I'm hoping someone out there can help me find a) the Farscape story - there was a root vegetable involved, as I recall - and b) the person who sent me the recs. I've been looking forever, and I officially give up. Anyone? Help? Please?

Second thing, of course, is my list of stories for you. I'd like you to join me today for a Very Special Edition of the Slashy Awards. See, I've been sensing some malaise out there, some disaffection with the world in general. makesmewannadie was particularly plaintive in her cry to be on vacation this week, and I'm getting the sense that a lot of my friends list would also like to be anywhere but where they are. Of course, I can't really help you. I mean, I can't send y'all to Fiji for the fresh mango juice and the friendly goldfish. But I can remind you of fan fiction where the characters do that. So if "shipwrecked and comatose" actually sounds like an excellent deal right about now, this set is for you.

See the Historic World's Largest Toenail in Buttfuck, Nebraska! Adventures in America's Heartland, by pearl_o. due South, Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser. You know, I love Fraser. I do. But I think we can all agree that he has the potential to be a somewhat challenging companion, particularly in certain kinds of activities. Like, for example, recreational travel. He absolutely would want to stop to read every historic marker on the entire freeway, when all real travelers know that what they all say is: "Something happened here. But you've never heard of it, and we have no intention of telling you about it in any kind of detail, because otherwise you might get some sleep instead of wondering about it all night. And don't even think about googling it; the motels out here don't have wireless, sucker." (I, um. I was betrayed in my youth by a few historic markers. Does it show?) Of course, Ray would not precisely be the world's most pleasant companion either. See, for both of them, it's about the journey; just, for Fraser, it's about the scenery he can take in, but for Ray it's about the vehicle he's traveling in. So I wouldn't advise you to leave home with these guys, but that's fine, because really we all want them to leave home together. And that, my friends - that is very entertaining indeed.

Experience the Glory of Nature and the Majesty of the Elements on an Unplanned and Unwelcome Sabbatical in Panama! Limbo, by julad. The Sentinel, Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg. This came from the ts_ficathons challenge Getting a Sense for Cliches. The challenge stories are fascinating reading, in large part because a lot of writers who were in TS of old participated in the challenge for one last playdate with the boys. It was unexpectedly gripping (...definitely way better than historical markers) to see how style changes and other fandoms and time affected each author's voice and style, and it was even more gripping to see how their relationship with TS and Jim and Blair had changed. Everyone who has been writing a while should head back to a first fandom from time to time. For my entertainment, of course. (What, you thought I was going to tell you it'd make you a better person or something? Yeah. And would you trust me if I did promise that?) This story does a brilliant job of dealing with one of those little weak spots that are part of the ineffable charm of the TS canon, namely that Blair's final solution to the whole accidental-outing-of-Jim problem is not actually one that is going to work for very long. But not to worry; Jim and Blair are up to the job. This story shows us that we have nothing to fear except lawyers and pulpless orange juice. And that Jim and Blair belong together. Really, it makes me want to say something incredibly sentimental, and I would, but I'm afraid I'd sprain something, so no. Just - you know. Read this.

Decipher the Unimaginable Mysteries of the Local Cuisine and Culture in Rural Minnesota! The Empty Well, by Destina Fortunato, aka destina. Stargate: SG-1, Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson. Oh, how I love the SG1 team; they're wonderful together. And in this story, they're all very much in their accustomed roles: Jack catching fish, Teal'c efficiently dismembering the fish, Carter pondering the space-time implications of the fish, and Daniel refusing to eat the fish for moral reasons. And then they sustain numerous casualties during the course of a very dangerous children's game. (Very dangerous. I've played that game with the most competitive woman on the earth. It is a game that kills, people, and if there was any sense in the world the people who go on and on about video games would be working to ban this instead.) Seriously, I love these people to death. (And, you know, past it. Several times.) Just as good are Jack and Daniel by themselves, each decrypting heavily encoded messages in their own way. I love this story for the hope it gives me for SG1, including a happy ending in the face of nearly insurmountable odds, and I love it for one of my all-time favorite Jack and Daniel exchanges. (Daniel: "Think outside the box." Jack: "I like the box.") Really, just read this. You won't be sorry. And you won't have to catch any fish to do it, either.

Choose Your Companions Wisely for Your Whirlwind Just-the-Low-Spots Tour of Southern North America! Arizona, Puerto Vallarta, and Mexico City, by seperis. Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay. And, um. Don't be reading that last one if you like your endings happy, okay? Or, let me put it is this way - if you do read it, and it makes you sad, blame the author, not me. I can only rec what they give me, you know. (The eternal plight of the recommender, it just brings tears to your eyes. So very tragic.) But do read this. Why? Well, how's this: John is an assassin hired to kill Rodney McKay. And then there is sex. (See, and this is why I love the SGA fandom; I can think of several excellent and original stories with that basic plotline. Seriously, at some point soon I will able to assemble a set on almost any theme at all just from SGA. Not that I will. Just knowing that the possibility exists will be enough for me to die happy.) And now I'm kind of up a tree without a chainsaw here. I can either get detailed, which will be all spoil-y, or carry on with the non-specific encouraging praise, which, face it, if those were going to get you to read this, you would have already clicked away from this page, or go for the tragically over-specific praise. ("For a story with such a lot of stomach trouble in it, really, it's amazingly sexy!") I think the wisest option would be d: none of the above. Also known as: shutting up now.

Get Back to Nature, Commune with the Future, and Have Lots of Sex All Over the Great State of Maine! Dirigo, by Speranza, aka cesperanza. Dead Zone, Johnny Smith/Sarah Bannerman/Walt Bannerman. This is a brilliant story, and I think you'll appreciate how brilliant when I tell you I love it even though it took me more than a week to get through the first part. See, the first part, it's not the most comfortable part of the story. It's actually, for me, by far the least comfortable part. And normally authors suck you in and then make you tense, but Speranza pretty much just hits you with it from word one. Or, actually, you know what? It isn't her, really. It's me. Because, see, the dinner party that damn near killed me dead isn't nearly as excruciating as I thought it was going to be. It just took me a while to read the actual words; I was all night-before-school-starts anticipating of the very worst. It isn't as bad as all that. Just, you know, uncomfortable. But so very worth it; trust me here. Doesn't matter if you don't know the characters, doesn't matter if you don't know the show, doesn't matter if you don't like threesomes - read this. You won't be sorry. Although, in all fairness, I have to say that this is not a crew you should trust when they break out the good china; there's another dinner party in here that stopped my reading cold for much of a night. (I had to have a fight with myself. It went like this:

TFV's Paranoia: Oh, god, this has the potential for unbridled disaster. There is only one way this can possibly go, and if she isn't on that track, I'm doomed.
TFV's Confidence: Trust Speranza. She handled the other dinner pretty well, didn't she? You always get worked up over nothing. It'll be fine. Read.
TFV's Paranoia: But if she screws this up at all I will never be able to read her work again. That would be a very bad thing!

Fortunately, at that point my inner drill sergeant showed up and made the point that I was damned well going to finish the story and everyone knew it, so I should suck it up, goddammit. Which I did, and it turned out that everything went the way I needed it to go after all, so my angst was for entertainment purposes only.) But, again: worth it! Wonderful, and so very worth it! Just keep a few tension sheets on hand for the dinner parties, is my advice.

Comments

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of a closet fan fiction style geek; I spend a lot of time watching the way people develop their styles, the way fandom changes or additions affect style, all that. It's sometimes useful - it's made it much easier for me to know which brand-new writers I should be watching most closely, and what part of my reactions to a given story arise from the writer's stylistic differences - but mostly it's just one of those very interesting things you can't help thinking about.

One of the coolest things about SGA for me has been seeing the effects of all the different starting fandoms on the way people write in this relatively new fandom that has not yet had time to develop a real, overarching fandom style. Even now, in the middle of the second season, there's enough variance that I can often work back to the styles for fandoms I don't read by seeing how the authors from said fandom write their first SGA stories. Which is totally useless, but loads of fun.

But I never expected anything as perfectly designed to enthrall the style geek in me as the one-more-time stories from the Getting a Sense of Cliches challenge; it was custom-made for examining fandom influences and perspective shifts. (For example, I formed - although of course cannot yet even begin to support - the opinion that a different level of investment in the characters and fandom produces a different kind of story, while other fandom influences tend to affect style more than content. On the other hand, not much seems to change voice; most authors still write a given character's dialog pretty much the way they always did, allowing for changes due to maturation as a writer.) It was just...wow. I read through most of those stories three times, because that's how long it took me to stop style geeking so I could, you know, actually appreciate the stories.

(And now, of course, I'm wondering about how this interacts with writer awareness, since you were aware that the it felt different when you wrote your story. Raises a lot of interesting cause and effect questions. Hmmm.)

...But, you know, this is probably much more than you wanted to know about my private obsessions. Suffice to say that style is something I always, always notice, because it makes me deeply happy to have stuff like this to think about while I'm waiting in line at the grocery store.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

More than I wanted to know? No way -- this is the kind of thing that makes me do a little happy dance of fannish geekery. *g*

Writing that story definitely felt different. For one thing, I think my writing's improved in the six years since I first started writing fanfiction; for another, I've read far more widely now than I had then, so my sense of what's possible is greater. (Which is not to say that my Sentinel story for the cliche challenge did anything new or interesting; it was more-or-less what I used to write, e.g. a mildly angsty first time with a happy ending. But, I dunno, I have a broader sense of the context in which my happy little first-time stories exist, I guess.)

I think a lot about having become (more) multifannish -- I mean, I'm not a true fannish butterfly, but I've got about a dozen fandoms now I think, and that was a huge leap for me, a paradigm shift if you will. It happened around the same time that lj became a big fannish phenomenon, and I think a lot about what that means -- whether I became polyfannish because I was now following my friends (regardless of where they went, fandom-wise) instead of following one show at a time, or because I was somehow fannishly mature enough to take that leap. Anyway, I think that whole train of thought dovetails with what you're saying about style -- as my circle of fannish friends started to move from Sentinel into other fandoms, their writing changed in subtle ways (new characters; new voices; but also new influences) and I think we continue to influence each other as we read what our friends (and strangers) write in the new fandoms we fall into.

Anyway. Big geek here. Whee!

[brindel.livejournal.com]

Actually, I find it really interesting. I don't know if you have the time/energy to do this, but could you maybe do a post on it? With examples? *looks hopeful*

*Raises hand* Ooh ooh, I second this!

In fact, I was thinking it would make a great post for sg_workshop. (I know *I'd* read it, that's for sure.*g*)

But I will also second the "no pressure, particularly at this time of the year" comment as well.

*gives you solemn puppy-dog eyes anyway, just in case...*

[delurker.livejournal.com]

...But, you know, this is probably much more than you wanted to know about my private obsessions.

Actually, I find it really interesting. I don't know if you have the time/energy to do this, but could you maybe do a post on it? With examples? *looks hopeful*

(Although of course, no pressure, particularly at this time of the year.)