I wanna know what love is; I want you to show me.

[thefourthvine]

Older fandoms, you confuse me so. The story I'm reading right now has piercing gazes, searing gazes, cuddling, comforting, lengthy descriptions of eyes that change color (Green! Hazel! Gold! No, I'm not kidding - really, gold, and this isn't the right fandom for him to have been implanted with a Goa'uld.), marriage proposals, men of action sharing their feelings in astonishing detail and with great (sometimes searing) honesty, a guy telling another guy how beautiful he is, holding hands, kissing, and two adult men (of action!) with extensive disposable incomes living together and sharing a bed.

And it's gen.*

I am patiently waiting for the mutual declarations of eternal love while hugging (or crying; I'd totally take crying) in the rain. Then, and only then, will I be able to stop reading.

So, does anyone have a story from an older fandom to recommend to me? You people have mostly been at this longer than me - surely you've got some nice gen or slash story favorite from a pre-LJ fandom that you could link me to. Gen or slash welcome - especially gen that I can read as gen. Seriously. Save me from myself. And this story. I am just bewildered, here.

-Footnote-

* Another gen story in the same fandom (but by a different person) features a noted canonical horndog turning down NSA sex with a beautiful woman because he's in love with someone else - that someone being, of course, the guy who is his Entirely Not Slashy Totally Hetero Life Partner. (It also had a paragraph about their great and abiding love, and the Totally Hetero Life Partner isn't even in the story. Nor is there any explanation of why the THLP would want his "friend" to turn down the sex - I mean, seriously, it was just presented as "this is what you do when you're in love with your THLP, forswear sex and cleave only unto him, but in a straight and manly way." I guess I am just not straight enough to understand that.) And the author's note contained a diatribe against slash. Oh, my people.

Comments

[notpoetry.livejournal.com]

One of the first slash stories I read was Trigger Fish's New York Rain (http://members.tripod.com/waywardslashwriters/NewYorkRain.txt). It's Law & Order (I know), Jack McCoy/Mike Logan (I know), and right now I'm repressing the urge to reread it for the trillionth time because I know it can't possibly be as good as I remember it. It's old-school slash fanfiction, with a lot of elements that were new then but have become cliche now, and some classic tropes that have entirely fallen out of style. The whole series is fascinating to read just from an "evolution of fandom" stand-point. I almost wish we'd had LJ, so I could go through and read the comments on the story and see what other people thought.

Just for reference: according to the collective page this site is hosted on, it was last updated in August of 1998. I ... won't share how old I was then, because then I'd have to go and cry.

(The whole series is up here (http://members.tripod.com/waywardslashwriters/Trig.html), and all of it is worth reading.)

(I know the internet is a very small place, so ... is there any possibility that TrigFish is, say, out and about on LJ anywhere?)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Law & Order? I'm guessing this is a cop fandom, but whoa, I know nothing about it. But I don't know anything about the fandom I spent my time reading last night, either. I shall read it. Thank you!

Just for reference: according to the collective page this site is hosted on, it was last updated in August of 1998.

Yeah. I was looking at a website the other day, and I was like, "Why does this site look like it's 1999? Is fandom just required to have hideous paneled background gifs and Comic Sans and unfortunately colored text?" And then I looked at the update notice, which was in fact September of 1999, and, well, that answered that.

[notpoetry.livejournal.com]

It is a cop fandom, for a show that's swiftly coming up on Gunsmoke's record of "longest running drama on television." But the fascinating thing about Law & Order is that despite it being on forever, we know almost nothing about some of the characters [which, okay, some of that has to do with the constantly revolving door of cops & assistant DAs, but Jack McCoy's been on there since like 1996 (I think) and his info's still highly limited, when it doesn't contradict itself directly], so writers have/had a lot of room to play around.

Also, the Jack/Claire Kincaid "romance" is, to a letter, the most perfectly-done, well-handled on-screen relationship on a procedural drama ever. It's my model for at least half of the romantic relationships I've written in my teleplay scripts and screenwriting stuff. Except for the part where she dies in a car crash and then the only outcome of that is used to expand Jack's character. But that's a whole different rant.

Basically, it was one of my first fandoms, I loved it a lot and met some people (like snarkhunter and daygloparker and others) who I still consider good friends, and despite the fact that the show's plummeted in quality and I haven't seen a new episode in at least four or five years, I still love it solely for how awesome of a learning experience it was for me.

Also, I checked the date on New York Rain, and it turns out that story was written in October 1997. It's nearly a decade old. One more year and this story will be old enough to be in middle school. I ... I have no words.

*chung chung*

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

In the US the various L&O franchises make up a good 33% of all cable programming. There’s Law & Order, the original series, which has been on for 18 years and counting — the show’s creator, Dick Wolf, hopes to break Gunsmoke’s record of 20 years on-air. It’s 50% police procedural, 50% legal drama, and the plots are often of the “ripped from the headlines” variety.

There are two ongoing spinoffs that focus more on the cops’ side, L&O: Special Victims Unit and L&O: Criminal Intent, but the two lawyer-oriented spinoffs folded very quickly.

Re: *chung chung*

[risha]

You know, I don't even watch L&O, but your subject line made the chung-chung noise play in my head as loudly as it would if I were in front of the TV right now. That's how omni-present it is if you watch television in the US.

(Uses only lawyer icon I have.)

Re: *chung chung*

[solar-cat.livejournal.com]

It really is that ubiquitous. And the various ways to write it are... infinite. Though I believe the official terminology (according to the commercials) is that the noise is "the doink-doink". Which makes me lol. XD

*ended up watching far more SVU than she ever needed to because her mother is addicted*

[bluevsgrey.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should mention that I can't watch Law and Order(Special Victims Unit), because (when I tried watching it) it had so many of the people from OZ in it that I kept getting really freaked out. It was like watching a cracky AU where people who didn't get along in Oz now where interacting perfectly fine and dandy. (I kept expecting someone to get knifed, which might have been interesting but..)

[vass]

I'm guessing this is a cop fandom, but whoa, I know nothing about it.

It's not just one cop fandom. There is:

Law & Order
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Trial By Jury
Law & Order: Crime and Punishment
Law & Order: the computer games
Law & Order: The Musical
Law & Order: Pastry Division
Law & Order: Cat Up A Tree
Law & Order: Pastry Division
Law & Order: Life on Mars
Law & Order: The Search for Spock

I only lied about half of these.

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

I would totally watch Law & Order: Life on Mars.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

Jack McCoy/Mike Logan

[boggle]

... that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Per your later comment, though, tell me this: is the only overt acknowledgment of a McCoy/Kincaid affair the thing where some years later Jack is testifying about something at some hearing and someone snarls at him about how he was sleeping with Claire and he doesn't deny it? (Because if so, I'll carry on in my stubborn belief that there was no such relationship and he was simply not dignifying the question with an answer, because dangit I really like Claire being the first ADA not to have a sexual relationship with Jack. Harumph. [g])(signed, I'm not actually in the fandom, I've just been watching the show for more than fifteen years)

[adannu.livejournal.com]

ahahah, I remember that! And oh man. It's been the better part of a decade since I read that for the first time as a wee baby slasher, and wow, have styles changed since then.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I ALSO read this series back in the day and I rec it all the time! I resisted rereading for a while (for the same reasons--couldn't face if it wasn't the way I remmebered) but I gave in not too long ago, and it was a blast! Jack's motorcycle! Mike's long runs! The place it fell apart for me was when it was revealed that Mike once had a thing with Ben Stone--that was where I was all, OH NOES, STOP. But Logan/McCoy worked for me where it totally shouldn'tve. I sent her ridiculously happy feedback!