I'm going through all my rec posts, retagging, for I am lame and originally did such in the most asinine way, and I'm rediscovering all these awesome fics that I want to share again with you guys.
So, let's make a meme. You have to distill your fandom(s) into three fics, the three fics that best represent what this fandom means to you--its potential, its power, the reason you keep coming back again and again to these characters--the three fics that define what this fandom means to you. And, for good measure, throw in a fic of your own. Which of your own fics do you think best captures what it is you love about the particular fandom?As for me:
BUFFYVERSE
Nice Shirt by
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glossing; Xander/Oz; Adult
I have probably re-read this story more than any other in any fandom since I got on this train. I keep coming back to it for its quiet, for the way it feels absolutely true and right without being showy or gimmicky. I love this fic for its nods to canonicity; there is nothing here that could not have happened during commercial breaks. This is not an AU, or a fic in which the reader must suspend her disbelief. The sex here is powerful--transformative--while at the same time making both Xander and Oz more themselves. This is the glorious mix of the hopeful and the hurty we all strive for when we write; this is the piece that makes me wish most of all that I'd been in on the ground floor of the Buffyverse fandom. That I'd been there from the beginning with all the rest of you, making these characters over into something new and yet achingly familiar.
Sweet, Sour, and Sweet Again (the Monster at the End of this Book Remix) by
wisdomeagle; Fred and Cordy gen; PG
This piece is brilliantly constructed. I'm mad for clever narratives and this is certainly a fic that plays with narrative and highlights our complicity as readers in the narrative arc. This is the fic that reminds me that the characters we write love and die and are born and are hurt and feel joy because WE MAKE THEM DO SO. This is meta fic at its absolute finest. This is the fic that defines for me who we are and what we do when we say, "What if . . . ."
In the Bleak Midwinter by
annakovsky; Xander/Dawn; PG-13
This is the fic I come back to, again and again, when I want to remember that after the screen fades to black in "Chosen," these characters keep living. They still have so much life left; they're just children; that end is a beginning more than anything else. This is a holiday fic, which y'all should know by now Lorraine is a sucker for any day, and it's such a wonderful renegotiation of the roles we saw play out canonically. This is beautiful and *real* and it hurts like a deep breath on a very cold day.
Something Elemental by
lunabee34; Faith/Buffy; Adult
This is the first fic I wrote in which I really understood what I wanted my fic *to do.* This is when I first realized that canonicity would always interest me in a way that the AU never could, when I first realized that what happens that we aren't privy to is often much more interesting than what we do see. This is also the most Jossian thing I think I've written; it's pretty much a bitchslap and poignant as hell.
FIREFLY
Decor by
executrix; Simon/Inara; Adult
This is the finest example of using a sexual encounter as a truncated character study that I can recall. This is deliciously hot, yes, but it is also a very finely wrought examination of both Simon and Inara, who they are, what makes them tick. This is the fic that reminds me that sex is always a vehicle for characterization, that it is another window through which we discover who we, and who *they*, are.
Camp as a Row of Little Pink Tents by
mosca; Jayne/Mal; Adult
Oh, man. This fic is the first cross-dressing fic I ever read and I started off right because this is a primer for how to write drag. It's so bizarre to me, even now, the way that men in drag should be feminized, should somehow read as less-than-men, and somehow end up hyper masculinized. I love the way that drag serves to emphasize and exaggerate exactly what it seems to erase and this is a wonderful example. I think that
mosca has a gift for both the voices of this verse and subtle characterization. This is not to be missed.
Righteousness by
lyrstzha; Early/Operative; Adult
This is the fic that made me truly realize what fic was capable of. That we could take these bare bones of canon and make them over with wholly new flesh. This felt dangerous and subversive and strangely *right* on the first read, and it still does so now, years later. This is the fic that hit home to me that nothing is off-limits, that we are barred only by the boundaries of our imaginations, and that often what seems most implausible on the surface contains a wealth of insight beneath.
Rumpelstiltskin by
lunabee34 Regan Tam gen; PG-13
This begins my fascination with mothers in fic and also taking a terribly unlikeable character and making her sympathetic. I am drawn to characters on the fringe--those who are so essential in the way they form and inform the main characters we dote on so much but who dwell in the shadows themselves. Those who we see largely through the comments others make about them. I find writing Firefly difficult; this is why I only wrote three proper fics in the fandom, but this is the one of which I am most proud.
STARGATE ATLANTIS
Old Soldiers Die Hard by
friendshipper; Gen; PG
I come to fanfic for a lot of things--to be turned on, to cry (oh gods yes to cry), to be surprised, to laugh, to experience again the friendship I see these characters sharing onscreen. This fic fits into the final category. I love John and Rodney smut, don't get me wrong, but there's something incredibly satisfying about exploring their relationship in a strictly platonic sense. I love the deep and immutable bond between them here. I love that John never ever for a goddamn second gives up on Rodney. This is the fic that I come back to when I need to be reminded that above and beyond and before anything else, John and Rodney are friends.
Pegasus Literature 101 (the Pass/Fail Remix) by
busaikko; John/Rodney; PG
I'm gonna use
thelastgoodname's words here, because yea verily she said it best:
Yeah, that's pretty much it -- The John Sheppard Book Club [the orginal fic] is a light, fluffy romantic comedy/character study that plays with flirting and romance and life through literature (just like The Jane Austen Book Club). Pegasus Literature 101, as I read it, is about the value of literature as a tool to understand cultures, both your own and other people's, and about translation and fully understanding other people's lives and values and points of view (or not being able to -- as when Miko's has to get rid of the better translation setting). It's also about politics, and making choices (The Betrayal of Ptar sounds like a fabulous way to imagine and understand what life is like under the Wraith -- because life under the Wraith is not actually All About the Wraith), and dealing with those choices for decades and centuries afterwards. And I love the note about why the Athosians don't have much literature -- because they couldn't bring it with them. Yep. So, moving outside the world of the story to an analytic frame of the fandom and the show: Book Club is the prototypical slash romance story -- excellent, and sweet, and light and fluffy and the entire story is in service of the sex. (I don't think this is a bad thing; I feel odd having to make that disclaimer, because I shouldn't have to.) Literature 101 is essentially a critique of SGA, and fandom's appreciation for the light and fluffy at the expense of the dark and difficult (I mean critique in the analytic sense, not in the critical sense). Where Book Club accepts at face value the isolated and protected world of Earthers on Atlatis (not only are they importing their food across two galaxies, but they're importing their entertainment, too), Literature 101 probes that aspect of canon, and pushes it to a very uncomfortable place: John doesn't actually understand Pegasus very well (he didn't even realize what the betrayal of Ptar was), because none of the Earthers understand Pegasus very well. But he's trying. And more than that, Teyla and Ronon, despite having some things in common, aren't from the same world, either, so everyone is coming together without any common ground except that they want to learn, they want to understand.Fell in Love With a Girl by
01100100; Teyla/Kate; Adult
This is exquisite. This is femslash at its finest. This is the kind of exploration of Teyla's character and culture that I wish the show had the balls to make. I come away from this piece with my heart full; I am smiling and I am happy because I feel how much Teyla cares for Kate and for her team. This is the best love letter to Atlantis, to these characters who we spend so much time inhabitating, that I've read in quite some time.
Incomplete Data Set by
lunabee34; Bates/Kavanagh; Adult
Again with the unlikeable characters and the canonicity and the characters on the fringe. This was one of the first pieces I wrote in this fandom, and I keep coming back to it again and again; there's a sequel now and two more parts in the planning and I find it very satisfying to flesh out these characters that we see so very little of on screen.
SUPERNATURAL
What Cannot Be Unlearned by
causeways; Sam/Dean; PG-13
This is like Sam’s love poem to Dean, the love poem he can never say aloud but has instead written in the smile on his face, the sweat on the curve of his spine, the heat rising in waves off an endless empty highway. I don’t think I can say enough good things about the way this fic makes me feel, which is the point, right? That’s why we all write, isn’t it? Because we want someone else to feel, deep down in her gut, this thing we also feel. I come away from this piece feeling like I’ve been made privy to something sacred. This is the ultimate Sam fic for me--one that doesn't deny his relationship with Jess or all the reasons he left Dean behind, but one that also revels in all the reasons he came back, in all the ways that Dean is everything he's ever needed. For some unfathomable reason, this fic is still on a single page of comments when it should be a fandom classic. Go. Comment. Make that better.
Firecrotch (or that time when the Winchester Boys Banged Lindsay Lohan) by
dramaphile; Sam/Lindsay/Dean; Adult
This is the threesome gold standard with a dash of RPF thrown in for good measure. Lindsay's voice is superb here--just as I imagine her in all her vapid glory--and the Wincesty longings wash over the het sex like watercolor. I love reading the boys use Lindsay as the vehicle through which they express their desire for each other. This is my favorite example of a fic where Sam and Dean want each other and use someone else as a conduit because they aren't ready to open up to each other in that way just yet.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death (he kindly stopped for me) by
kroki_refur; Gen; Adult
One of the things I love tremendously about the SPN fandom is its ability to make with the funny while still saying something vital and interesting and important about these characters and the ways they interact with each other. This is ostensibly crack; Sam and Dean cannot die. Over and over again, the piano falls, and over and over again they survive. The ways in which they die and their responses to their deaths are hilarious. Until they're not. There's so much here in the interstices between the jokes that I defy you to read this and not come away with your heart in your throat.
Thanatopsis by
lunabee34; Sam/Dean; Adult
This hurt me to write. Really hurt me in a way that no piece had before or has since. I am not an emotional writer; it's almost a mechanical process for me. I want it to be *right,* to sound *right.* My own writing almost never turns me on or makes me sad or deeply amuses me, even if it strikes other that way. This? This broke me. This hurt me. Writing this piece was an enormously cathartic exercise. It's difficult to describe. It's not really an episode tag, but it was heavily inspired by "Roadkill," a sort of reworking of that concept in terms of Sam and Dean.
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