Life On Mars: Oh You Pretty Things

[ariafic]

Fandom: Life On Mars
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 7750
Pairing: Sam/Gene
Summary: A missing girl, a murder, and Gene Hunt's continued obsession with male bonding. Oh, and this morning Sam woke up as a woman.

Oh You Pretty Things

Comments

[ghostrunner7]

Yay! Oh, Life on Mars. "It's all in my head," is a lovely excuse for genderswap.

[aralias]

the ending's almost embarrassingly perfect. it's all very, very good, but that's a really, really great ending. also nelson - who is possibly my very favourite bit in the show, is just as wonderful here with his much better than john hurt the dragon (sorry, merlin, but to be fair, LoM is better than everything) wisdom and also i like that the body swapping isn't cracky and it makes complete sense within the universe (though, what do you think sam's brain is trying to tell him if, as we can assume, this isn't real?)

gene's "And that means I can't have a little something on the side?" does make me a bit uncomfortable, but then gene/sam in general makes me a bit uncomfortable, and i really like and believe it here, so.

in summary: it's excellent and could well have been a real episode. should have been. much better than bringing alex drake in, mutter mutter grumble broken record, etc. i hope i get over A2A soon...

long comment reply is looooong

[ariastar]

\o/! I am amused you mention Nelson in conjunction with the Slash Dragon, because in the middle of writing his lines I did have a moment of "Wow, I collect fandoms with helpful-yet-cryptic side characters, don't I?" Nelson >>> most things, though.

I figure if it is all in Sam's head then there is a whole bunch of meta I can make about what exactly Gene is even doing in there, but in the limited context of the fic I figure Sam is working through his gender issues. Or to really answer that I would need a looot more space, and also more time. This is the part where I don't make a TARDIS joke.

Now that you mention it this is probably my Belated Reaction To A2A, also. Because -- okay, I only saw the pilot, I did not in any way give Alex a chance -- my reaction to the obviously-setting-up-for-Gene/Alex went something like, "Seriously? Seriously? Suddenly instead of crazy Sam we have crazy Alex and just because she's a woman there is suddenly ~sexual tension~? WHY COULD YOU NOT HAVE DONE THAT WITH SAM INSTEAD." &c.

[bluerosefairy]

Wow, this is fantastic. I usually don't like genderfuck, and I especially don't like the "wakes up female" style, but Sam Tyler's existence is already so patently ridiculous that I'd believe anything. I love how his and Annie's relationship isn't that different, but how tongue-tied Chris gets around girl!Sam. And I especially love how Nelson is completely unfazed by anything that happens or that Sam says.

To be honest, I was expecting to see thinly-veiled Gene/Alex develop when you brought in Gene/girl!Sam, but you keep Sam completely in-character. Even when Sam is Samantha, you can see their signature interaction present. Their developing relationship feels completely organic, and I like how you've handled it.

Fantastic story!

[ariastar]

Thank you! And yeah, LoM sort of sets itself up for really cracky situations that can be handled in an unridiculous way. A friend of mine mentioned genderswap LoM fic as a joke and I immediately discovered that this plot was happening instead.

You were probably saved from thinly-veiled Gene/Alex by virtue of me only having seen the pilot of A2A. I am glad to hear Sam is still Sam despite this, though. :D

[ac_123]

OOH! I always love genderswap, and this was an absolutely perfect example of it! Great job!

[jean_geanie]

lovely :) great way to use the coma as an excuse for gender swap and I really like how everything was resolved at the end . Brilliant :)