Slashy Nominations 27: Return of the Small Fandoms

[thefourthvine]

Small fandoms don't get enough love in this world. For one thing, there is no better kind of story with which to launch a career as a multifandom reader, or a non-canon reader (i.e., one who reads the FF without knowledge of the canon). And once you realize how many great stories there are in small fandoms, you'll want to be a non-canon reader; after all, if you actually tried to learn about all these canons, you'd never have time to read the FF. (Those who think this is circular logic are probably right, but I refuse to care.)

Best FF That Perfectly Reflects the Strange Mental Pathologies of Mostly Straight Boys: Dirge, by LaT. Urban Legend, Paul/Parker. The author says it'll help you understand the story if you've seen the movie, but I haven't seen it and I don't think I had any problems. I mean, I get the whole "we have a weird sexual attraction, or, god forbid, we fucked once, so we must hate each other forever" dynamic that seems to plague so many mostly straight boys (see also Y Tu Mama Tambien). So, really, I think anyone who has been to high school or college can get a lot out of this story; Lord knows it gave me flashbacks to any number of youthful misadventures.

Best FF That Sounds Like an Example of What Is Wrong with the World but Is Actually an Example of What Is Right and Good: Not Exactly the Galaxy's Greatest Romance, by daegaer. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent/Ford Prefect. I'd been reading fan fiction for months and months when I discovered the existence of HGtoG fan fiction. I was shocked, shocked. A few months later and a few hundred meters further down the slippery slope, I revisited the concept of HGtoG slash. It still seemed somehow wrong, but upon reflection I realized it was the chili-cheese-chutney-fried egg sandwich* of fan fiction; somehow, all the wrong ingredients combine to become right. And now that I have embraced the belief that a really good writer can find homoerotic subtext in anything, including a toaster warranty (I will be founding the Church of Slashy Goodness next week), I'm actually surprised HGtoG is a small fandom. Really, the series is perfect for slashing, and it has the added benefit of producing remarkably funny fan fiction. I realize I've got rather off topic here, so let me just say: read this story because I thought it was humorous and strangely sweet. Thank you.

Best FF That Denounces Romeo and Juliet for Not Being Nearly Sexy Enough, and If You Think on It, You'll Realize That Is Totally True : Servants with Torches, by Jane St. Clair. Romeo and Juliet (original Shakespearean play), Mercutio/Romeo. Yeah, this is a semi-squick pairing, but it has the benefit of making absolute sense. I mean, really, didn't you always know Mercutio was gay? Is there anyone on this earth who thinks he wasn't?** And I love the way Jane's elaborated the relationship between these two characters. You know, Romeo and Juliet is one of my least favorite of Shakespeare's plays, but it produces strangely good FF, so I'm glad my teachers made me read it.

Best FF That Will Forevermore Make AA Meetings Seem Vaguely BDSM-y and Fetish-Filled: The First Step Is the Hardest, by Debchan. Action, Peter/Holden. (I have no idea what this canon was, but according to Debchan it was a short-lived TV show. If you haven't seen it, don't worry.) I once worked with addicts, so this story has a special appeal for me. There's something so fundamentally unsexy about AA and NA meetings; really, recovering addicts everywhere should send Debchan a thank-you note for adding so much interest to the first half of the Steps. Please note that I'm not intending to deride AA or NA by nominating this story. I'm all for anything that helps people get their addictions under control. It's just that I'm also all for humorous slash that offers an entirely new perspective on recovery. And, really, who says kinky sex and addiction recovery don't go together? They sound like an ideal match to me.


* This footnote has been written for the benefit of people who have not seen Red Dwarf. I say unto to you, go thee and watch it at once, for it is funny, yea, and good. And once you have watched season two, you'll understand this reference. But, really, don't watch it for me - watch it for you.

** Please leave a comment or send an email if you do, in fact, believe Mercutio was straight. You will be immediately live-captured and put on display in the Zoo of Improbable Thought (located, of course, in Hollywood). Probably you'll be put somewhere between Man Who Thinks Earth Is Flat and Woman Who Argues Incessantly That Creationism Is a Science.

Comments

[dylant.livejournal.com]

(repeating myself from my other post, oh no!) Just finished reading 'Not Exactly The Galaxy's Greatest Romance' (and the other two HGtoG fics on that same site) and wanted to tell you that, having just begun rereading Adams' "trilogy," it just hit the perfect spot with me.

I was wondering if you knew of any other Hitchhiker stories. It's such a small, funny little fandom that I've been hard-pressed to find more than prillalar's lovely More Things in Heaven and Earth (http://prillalar.com/fic/stories/000104.php), which, rather than follow old Douglas' hilarious, reeling style, kind of goes off on its own.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much, thefourthvine, I'm delighted you enjoyed 'Not Exactly the Galaxy's Greatest Romance'!

dylant, if you'd like to see them, my other Hitchhiker stories are on my LJ, listed here (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=daegaer&keyword=My+fic+-+Hitchhiker%27s+Guide+to+the+Galax&filter=all).

[dylant.livejournal.com]

thank you so much, daegaer. i really loved "Not the Galaxy's Greatest Romance." speaking a day after having read it, the images still stick with me. Arthur stuck on that faceless, grey world and running after Ford... it was lovely *and* funny.

off to read your other stories.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Besides Daegaer's excellent FF, the only one I have bookmarked is The Galactic Miscellany (http://www.intimations.org/yuletide/archive/2/thegalactic.html), which is almost gen. (And which was written as a Christmas present for, you guessed it, Daegaer. She's a one-woman fandom-creation machine!) But the thing is, I know I've read some other fairly decent HGtoG FF. (For some reason, I never do seem to learn the first lesson of reading fanfic: fail to bookmark at your peril.) I will see if I can reboot my brain and dredge out the memory of where I saw them.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Dylant, I still haven't dug up those links for Hitchhiker's fic. So here's a sort of half-assed attempt to help nourish your small fandom love.

In case you haven't seen it, there's an archive of HGttG (don't know why I wrote HGtoG before, really) fan fiction called The Hitchhiker's Library (http://www.geocities.com/hitchhikerslibrary/stacks.htm). Warnings: like most archives, the quality of the stories varies tremendously in there. Also, this is not a huge archive, but then, hey, it's a small fandom, right? And, finally, I don't know whether you wanted just slash or whether all FF is fine with you; if the former, be aware that lots of the stories on THL are gen. And if that archive doesn't satisfy and you're feeling really, really brave, there's about 150 stories in the Hitchhiker's section (http://www.fanfiction.net/list.php?categoryid=125) of fanfiction.net.

If you do brave the Horror of Fan Fiction Archives and manage to find anything good, I'd love to know about it.

[dylant.livejournal.com]

will definitely tell you if the Horror holds any good Hitchhiker fic. if i can make myself cull through it. ::cringes::

thanks for the other archive too.

[dylant.livejournal.com]

will definitely tell you if the Horror holds any good Hitchhiker fic. if i can make myself cull through it. ::cringes::

thanks for the other archive too.

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

*showers love on obscure fandoms*
'Cos they deserve it.
Thanks for the recs. If you decide to do another obscure fandoms rec in the future, I shan't complain.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Allow me to join you in providing a much-needed hug and daily affirmation ("You may be low in quantity but you are high in quality" and "Someday you'll grow up to be as big as HP" are the ones I tend to use) to the obscure fandoms of this world; they are fighting an uphill battle and need all the care packages and wooly hats we can send them.

And I'm quite sure there will be more sets of small fandom nominations; this is actually my second one (I did the first near the beginning of this blog), and I had to winnow down to these four from a list of 18 excellent obscure fandom stories. That was not easy, so I will be making myself feel better by getting another four out there in the near future.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

...it has the benefit of making absolute sense.

Oh, totally. When one my high-school teachers screened the Zeffirelli version and we reached the scene where Romeo tries to talk down Mercutio after the latter’s deranged “Queen Mab” monologue, and the two of them stand there panting into each other’s faces, a girl behind me suddenly squealed, "For God’s sake just kiss him already!”

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Hee. You're making me regret that my ninth-grade English teacher took us to see the actual play instead of having us watch the movie. (Though I must say the director of the play we saw did not stint on the homoeroticism, either.)

"For God's sake just kiss him already" is fantastic; it could actually be the one true motto of slash everywhere.

[http://users.livejournal.com/roseability_/]

Hi, I just read this on a friend of a friend's list, and thought you might be interested to know that when I saw a production of Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio delivered the Queen Mab speech whilst crawling on top of Romeo. That pretty much removed all doubts in my mind about his gayness.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised that so many directors twigged to Mercutio's, um, leanings. Lord knows it's obvious enough. Wish I'd seen that production of R & J, though.

And I wish Tom Stoppard or somebody would write a play about Mercutio. Why are the really interesting Shakespeare characters always the secondary ones?