Keep Hoping Machine Running

I realize I haven't updated in weeks, which in LJ time is equivalent to about four years. (Seriously. Many LJs were started, subjected to vicious flame-wars, and abandoned in a snit in the time between my last update and this one.) I had a reason. Actually, I had two. The first one, work, can be of no possible interest to anyone, so we'll skip that. The second one, though, was procrastination about my slashiest fandoms post. Why am I so afraid to write it? Well, because I think I know what the slashiest fandom is, and it's so small it only has three stories, all of them works in progress. The fandom in question is Shadow Hearts: Covenant. You can have your TV shows that don't make sense unless you assume the male main characters are in love (Smallville and due South, although in due South's case I suspect it was intentional), your movies that don't make sense unless you assume that the two male main characters want to fuck each other senseless (The Fast and the Furious), your cable-TV shows that feature actual male characters actually in love but mostly beating the shit out of each other anyway (Oz), your comic books featuring Spandex, teen-aged wards, apparent wet dreams about Superman, and a plethora of Dick jokes (D.C.), and of course anything written by Joss Whedon or Warren Ellis. These are all highly slashy fandoms, yes, but none of them features actual gay sex between a professional wrestler and his teacher, after which the professional wrestler gets a purple and pink mask that goes nicely with his special "Rose Bondage" armor designed to make the (male) wearer irresistibly attractive to other men.

Really. This is canonical.

So, you know, the slashiest fandoms post is coming right along, and my fear of it is also advancing in leaps and bounds, because if there's one thing you don't want to do in a LJ, it's tell someone that her fandom is not as slashy as this other fandom over here which she is not an actual follower of, and, as I said, no one but me and, like, three other people follow Shadow Hearts. So I've been procrastinating by, well, reading the news and stuff. But, frankly, there's only so long I can spend involved in the real world before I'm ready to give up on life altogether. And my Best Beloved continues to monitor my LJ and present me with distressing details about how long it's been since I updated. (Hint: if you don't want exact information, don't marry a librarian. They're like wolverines with the facts, people.) So the time has come for me to recommend some actual fan fiction, before we all forget how to read, and I forget how to write sentences involving words like "smut" and "cock" and "schmoop."

Anyway. I was looking through my Scary Recs Database That I Will Never Finish Recommending, Not If I Live to Be a Hundred and Get a Lot Better About Updating Regularly, and I realized that there were - well, several, and by several I mean "more than I care to admit" stories described as PWP. Know that to me this is not a condescending description or an insult; speaking as someone who could not write smut if there was a gun to her dog's head, I truly appreciate the great smut-writers of this world. And people who write great smut are great writers, because maintaining the reader's interest when your entire story can be accurately summed up by a three-letter acronym? Not easy, folks.

So let us all appreciate these writers and their stories. While we still can, because the lunatics are truly taking over the asylum out there - see, for example, the recent and depressing Time Magazine cover story on, among other things, the new push to have the FCC regulate cable TV. (Which would mean that we'd never see another show like Oz or Queer As Folk. Admittedly, I've not seen those ones yet, but I still like knowing they exist.) This is what happens when I pay attention to the news, people: links to actual information in this LJ. Let's hope it isn't a trend. As an apology, I offer you Smut (yousendit download, and it's a small file because it's low-fidelity, but it's also a live recording from 1965, so it's not like you're missing anything), which, as I know I've remarked before, should be fan fiction's anthem. And, of course, this set of PWPs. Because we should love our smut while we still can.

Best FF That Proves That a Harvard Education Is No Match for Innate Talent When It Comes to Lingual Activities. Dirty, by actizera. Oz, Tobias Beecher/Christopher Keller. I love Oz lockdown stories; they may be a fandom cliche, but only in the sense that everyone has to write one. Because - look. In Oz, you can write an AU, or you can write a lockdown story, or you can write a story that begins, ends, and middles with angst or unhappiness or pain. (Experienced writers routinely go for the Oz hat-trick, which includes all three.) But I - well, I'm the person who can these days recognize both Beecher and Keller (which is, trust me, a major accomplishment for me, as I can count on the fingers both hands all the people I can identify from their faces alone), and I learned to do that exclusively from the pain associated with Oz vids. (It was the one featuring Beecher's first season arc that killed me, folks, and it was the one about Keller's last few seasons that jumped up and down on my tragic early grave.) I can even sometimes recognize the actors; if I see a random photo of a man looking calm and confident even though he's wearing clothes that would give a supermodel cause for concern, and I wince reflexively, I know that's Christopher Meloni. And if I see a photo of a man who is wearing normal clothes, but I'm still wincing - well, that's Lee Tergesen. But you know what? I love Oz to death despite the pain. This puts me in a great frame of reference for appreciating Beecher/Keller stories, and gives me a serious love of stories that focus on the approximately two weeks of their lives (I accidentally typed "lies" there, and that was a Freudian typo if I've ever seen one) when they were happy together. So: PWP, lockdown, happy ending. Could you ask for more? Actually, if you can, there is more; this story hits, for me, all the right Keller notes - the incredible confidence, the flashes of near-pathological insecurity, the power, the helplessness. It's all here. So this is also a character study. And did I mention that it's smut? Read with joy, my friends.

Best FF That Might Make You Willing to Stay at One of Those Creepy No-Name Motels That Normally Make You Think "Horror Movie Psycho Killer RUN RUN RUN!" Crescent Moon Lodge, by Anais, aka minkboylove.* Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, whose damn name ALWAYS looks like it's spelled wrong. So. There's a motel, and there's sex, and that's the plot summary. And that is why I don't do PWP sets more often - not because I don't love the things, because lord knows I cherish them, but because it's tough to write a story summary of a PWP. (Only so many times you can write, "There's some fucking, and also...more fucking" without feeling just a wee bit inarticulate.) My solution is generally to maunder on about something only vaguely related to the story, so let's go right to that, shall we? See, the thing about SG-1 is that there's only a few options for a Daniel/Jack relationship: post-military, post-apocalypse, the ever-popular Denial of Military Reality route, and then, of course, the sex without the relationship. Or with only part of a relationship. This is one of the few fandoms where I honestly don't care which path authors take; if they want to deny military reality, I am happy to go along with them, and if they'd like to level Earth's immediate galactic neighborhood with massive ancient alien solar wind machines, well, there are days when I'll help. But the toughest choice is definitely the relationship-less fuck, because Daniel and Jack are both oddly devoted individuals who don't seem to do sex without commitment (unless an alien has taken over their brains, although you'd be surprised how often that happens); I suppose the canon writers went that route because they needed some way to explain the fact that Jack and Daniel essentially never have sex with another actual human being. Getting back to the story - I think Anais does a good job with the semi-relationship option in this one, mostly by focusing heavily on the sex, always an excellent choice.

Best FF That Proves You Shouldn't Spar With Anyone You Wouldn't Fuck. And You Don't Want to Know What That Says About the D.C. Universe, Where I Suspect They Take That Rule to Heart. And Other Places. Hit, by Te, aka thete1. D.C. Universe, Dick Grayson/Tim Drake. (Note for my Much-Loved Long-Lost Mystery Relative and Comics Abstainer: try this one, OK? Because there's not a lot to throw you, here; if you know they're both costumed heroes affiliated with Batman, you know everything you need for this story, and it gives you a very good impression of the characters. If you can't take this one, you've got Spandex Issues, which is perfectly understandable, but it's not something plot summaries can cure, unfortunately.) So. Here we have the still-living Robin assortment smacking each other up. (Anyone who immediately launches into "Smack my bitch up" after that line is - well, probably right on target, actually. There's canonical backing for that, I'd say, though Te's the expert.) This story works on several levels; its plays with the strangely sexual sparring that is just way too common in the D.C.U. to be accidental, and it's a good introduction to the characters, and also there's the smut. My favorite thing about this, though, is that it shows why Tim worked as Robin. (I'm not going into the Jason argument here; I'm not insane. I'm just saying - Tim definitely worked as Robin, although Christ only knows what he's like now, as a certain Major Crossover Event pretty much killed my desire to follow the Batverse.) See, Tim is the absolute flip-side of Dick in every way. I mean, Dick fell into Robinhood. Tim thought his way into it. And because Tim is so very, very different, it's impossible to judge him solely by the way he fills Dick's old Robin panties and elf boots. (Which he would not, in any case, be caught dead or catatonic in Batman's arms in. Sorry; that was some seriously tasteless humor there.) To sum: fighting, sex, and great characterization. You could not, in good conscience, ask for more.

Best FF That Really Highlights the Beauty of Alternative Dispute Resolution. Chicago-Style Alternative Dispute Resolution, That Is. All Talk, by estrella30. Due South, Ray Kowalski/Ray Vecchio. You may not like the Ray/Ray, but you've got to admit writing it takes guts. I mean, it isn't like slashers don't have enough trouble with pronouns just generally. And yet you have these brave writers willingly rushing into a pairing where even the proper nouns are guaranteed to be confusing, what with them both being called Ray and them both having worn the name Ray Vecchio at some point in its distinguished and multi-hued history. You've got to respect that kind of courage, even if you think Ray/Ray is an abomination upon the Earth. Which I, for the record, don't. I did once, I admit, but now I like it. I just sort of treat it as - well. Not a different pairing so much as different characters. There's Ray Kowalski with Benton Fraser, and then there's this whole other Ray Kowalski with Ray Vecchio, and I have no problems reading about either one. (No, really, I don't, even if reading about them in close succession gives me these horrible meta-fic visions of the two Kowalskis meeting, which is second in horror only to the one where Stanley Raymond Kowalski meets Stanley Kowalski from Streetcar, which is the sort of thing that can drive a woman to drugs, or maybe just rocking in a corner in a mental hospital somewhere.) Anyway. This story is another one of those fighting-leads-to-sex PWPs, but given that this pairing consists of the two mouthiest guys in Chicago, the fighting is all verbal. Or verbal and positional - you know. And then they have sex!

-Or-

Best FF That Proves That Fate Hates People Who Make Bets They Think They Can't Lose. Competition, by qe2. Due South, Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser. This is the Certified Safe Alternate Story I'm required to offer whenever I recommend a dS story involving Ray/Ray or an unhappy ending. (Or, god forbid, Fraser/Stella. You don't want to know what kind of shit I got for rec'ing that one, and I shudder to think what will happen the next time I do. Which will be soon. And it is not my fault that people write great stories with the other dS pairings; I only rec the stories. I don't, like, order them up from the Great Porn Warehouse in the Sky.) I have to do this alternate-story thing, because one of the Kowalski/Fraser True Believers out there knows where I sleep, but I'm also happy to do it, because there's such a lot of great dS FF out there. So this is a way for me to cheat on my own rules and recommend two stories from the same fandom in the same set. (If you think it's weird that I want to do that, well, I'm the person who wants a "Cheat" button in computer solitaire. In other words, I'm not the most moral person out there, and that remains true even if the competition consists entirely of people who made a lot of money in Florida land deals.) I decided to go with this one, even though I have a summary all written for a different F/K PWP, because I realized it's the perfect counterpart to "All Talk." That story is about Ray Kowalski's competitiveness as seen through the lens of Ray Vecchio, and this one is about how that same trait looks on Fraser's Kowalski. And, yes, I realize that sentence made no sense, but nonetheless it is correct. Read and you will see. I hope.

* Thanks, oneminutemovies!

...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.

Best FF That Destroyed Cherished Childhood Memories of Mine, but Will Not Destroy Any Memories of Yours, Unless Your Father Also Sang You to Sleep with "Pinball Wizard." And If He Did, Email Me, Because We Probably Had the Same Father; I Mean, There Couldn't Be Two Men Like That. Tilt, by Resonant, aka resonant8. Due South, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski. Well. Ray and Fraser. Wanda in a chainmail bikini. Pinball. Kissing in public. Mountie-suit-related cruelty. Sex. And Resonant. Do I need to tell you more to sell you on this thing? I thought not. So let me, in the grand Livejournal tradition, change the subject to myself. Yes, my father really did sing me to sleep with "Pinball Wizard," because apparently I used some of my very first communicative words to request it. (This is such a revealing detail that anyone out there who also happens to be a member of my family will recognize me from that alone. So, if you know who I am now, go away. Get your porn recs from someone you don't share any genes with.) And when I say "requested," I don't mean once; I asked for it every night until I was five or six. And since I didn't sleep through the night until after first grade, my father spent hours every night singing this song. For years and years. (Yes, mine is the best father in the world. And that was totally non-sarcastic; even this LJ is capable of sincerity, on occasion.) God only knows why "Pinball Wizard" had such an unhealthy attraction for me. But I can't help thinking all that early exposure to the deaf, dumb, and blind kid who sure played a mean pinball warped me in some essential way.

FF Featuring the World's Best Thing to Yell While Having an Orgasm: "Incoming!" Yes, Ladies (and Gentlemen, and Others), Try That One Tonight and Watch Your Lover Fall Right off the Bed. No, Really, I Dare You. Silk, by cmshaw. The Sentinel, Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg. Silk boxers are something of a cliche in this fandom, and I think this story might just be the reason. Because torturing Jim is such fun; I mean, what good is a Sentinel if you can't annoy him? (This message brought to you by Blair Sandburg, who would like to add: bother your Sentinel today! But not mine, man, because only I get to bother him.) So, here we have jimblairishness, silky underwear, little fishes, and sex. I can't think what else you'd need to know, so I'll change the subject again. This story is linked, in my mind, to makesmewannadie's silk rant; I can't read one without thinking of the other. See, I am not a fabric snob. I knit, and I can be a bit of a yarn snob, but when it comes to fabrics? Um. It should be machine washable. Beyond that, all I can say is that it should wear really really well, because once I commit to an article of clothing, I am going to wear it until it is in shreds. (And even then I will continue to wear it to bed.) I do not like shopping for clothes, because nothing ever looks like something I would wear, and I do not like wearing new clothes, because they don't feel like something I would wear, so I wear the same things over and over and over. (I like to think Jim Ellison would understand this.) That trait means I never really considered the strangeness of silk cropping up all over the place in FF until MMWD brought it up. Because, yes, I've worn silk underwear, and silk shirts, and even a silk dress, but I hated them all. And I had a point to this, but I've been fatally distracted by the realization that this is, again, something Jim Ellison would understand. So, you know, way too much identification with Jim going on here today, and I'm scared. Moving on. Briskly.

Best FF That Explains How Shaving Can Be Used As a Psychological Diagnostic. And Why We Should All Try to Masturbate in Public More Often. Close, by actizera. Oz, Tobias Beecher/Christopher Keller. Note, folks, that this one is safe for Oz phobics (You have nothing to fear, Ozphobes, but fear itself. Well, and Vern Schillinger.) and novices; nothing bad happens in it, and you don't need any canon knowledge (beyond, you know, that these guys are in prison), either. It's just good, clean public sex, to the extent that public sex can be considered clean and good. Note that in this fandom I consider it public sex if the lights are on, because you just can't use normal definitions in Oz. It's the fandom that broke the fannish lexicon. (Hurt/comfort? Well, baby, let me tell you the tale of Beecher/Keller, because it's pretty much all hurt/comfort. Slash? Um. Is it still slash if it's a canon relationship? Non-con? Jesus, I don't know. Is anything truly consensual in Oz?) Seriously. It's the Fandom Different, and I've had to rework all my usual categories so that they apply to Oz. Just one more reason to love the fandom, I guess. Anyway, here we have Beecher being a little slut and manipulating Keller. I love it when Beecher does that, and you should, too. (To continue the tradition of bringing every rec back to me, let me tell you how alarmed I am to see Oz bedding down in this set with all my happy fandoms. I mean, we're going to have not one but two stories from Sports Night in a minute, and that will pretty much run the gamut of safety fandoms, for me. And yet, here's Oz, like a cat among pigeons. Or, worse, like a Schillinger among first-season Beechers. Tell me Oz is not going to become one of my baseline fandoms. Please.)

Best FF Featuring an Incredibly, Intensely Lame Prom Theme. Worse Even Than the Prom Theme My Freshman Year, Which Was - Really! - "To All the Girls I've Loved Before." I Have No Idea Who Picked This, but She Was Either a Wicked Satirist, a Bitter Ex, or a Deinstitutionalized Psychotic. Whichever, I'd Like to Shake Her Hand. This Year's Prom Theme, by Pares, aka kormantic. Sports Night, Dan Rydell/Casey McCall. I had a hard time picking the SN story I'd put in this set, because there's two with identical plots - no, really, Charlemagne even talks about it in his author's note for Party of Two. I ended up going with "This Year's Prom Theme" because a) it's been more thoroughly proofread, b) the guys actually have sex, rather than just making out, in public, and c) I can't figure out what Charlemagne's story is called. It could be "Party of Two," yes, but it could also be "Old Friends." If you read it, inspect the page and let me know what you think it's called. So. Here Casey has sex with a prom queen. But that's all right, because he eventually has public sex with Dan, and that fixes things up nicely. This story scores a little bit high on my angst-o-meter, especially for this fandom. (I want happiness in this fandom - happiness and snarkiness and happiness and sex and a happy ending. I'm prepared to compromise about the sex, but not the ending, which is unusual for me.) But you know what? It may have a bit of angst, yes, but it has many great moments. For example, the sex in front of the publicist in Natalie's living room. Yeah, I thought that'd pique your interest. I won't try to keep you here any longer.

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to Oz, I know nothing. But when has that ever stopped me before? Roll on with the FIHL, and if I get it wrong, hey, just tell me so.

Oz is a TV show. About a maximum-security prison. That did its damnedest to show prison life the way it really is. And it was written by Tom Fontana. This is all the warning any sane person should require; translated, it says "do not watch Oz or read Oz FF." I've managed to avoid watching the show, but I've succumbed to the fic, albeit in a horror-show, hands-over-the-eyes, reading-between-my-fingers kind of way.

( Oz: the Fandom I Don't Want to Love (That Is Apparently Going to Make Me Its Bitch Anyway) )