Glass Slipper, by K.A. Rose (NC-17)
Title: Glass Slipper
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Pairing: Reno/OCs, Reno/Rude
Categories: pre-canon, action, romance, not precisely genderswitch, humor
Length: Long [33,000 words]
Warnings: unheroic protagonists who enjoy, for example, murdering people
Author on LJ: karose
Website: Karose.com
Summary: A fairy tale - that is, if Cinderella were a loudmouth hermaphroditic Turk and Prince Charming his coworker.
Review: I applaud K.A. Rose for many things, the most remarkable being her stubbornly accurate characterization. Ignoring the goofy cast that Advent Children put on the Turks, it is canon that they are a) thugs, and b) good at it, and c) not at all sorry. So a story that features the ShinRa company's hired henchmen (and women, of course) hanging out, being buddies, and oh yeah, killing some rebels? Point me toward that. Plus, it's funny - how did she make literal corporate cutthroats funny? From being awesome, I presume.
Anyway, I digress. This story is excellent not just for adhering to canon characterizations, but for doing so while simultaneously adding a wrinkle to Reno, the redheaded, somewhat-an-asshole Turk. Namely, he is actually a functional hermaphrodite - and he would like you to know that it is not sexy or fun to have both sets of genitalia. Seeing Reno navigate his life, bouncing from unaware co-workers to fully-informed doctors to the people he meets for sex (and no, not lovers, since, as he put it, people who fetishize him aren't the kind of people he'd ever want to meet, except for how normal people won't have sex with him and he does have an overactive libido)... it was an exceptionally interesting take on the character, and a refreshingly honest take on being intersex.
All that, and the fic is also a complex layer of metaphors. The story has wheels within wheels, as Reno watches first a porno and then a play based on Cinderella, and is disgusted with the premise of the glass slipper... but then he and Rude have their own glass-slipper quest, as Rude searches for the one-night stand who he can't remember (I think you can safely guess who it was). All marvelously well done, including the object substituting for the slipper.
Glass Slipper Part 2 Part 3
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Pairing: Reno/OCs, Reno/Rude
Categories: pre-canon, action, romance, not precisely genderswitch, humor
Length: Long [33,000 words]
Warnings: unheroic protagonists who enjoy, for example, murdering people
Author on LJ: karose
Website: Karose.com
Summary: A fairy tale - that is, if Cinderella were a loudmouth hermaphroditic Turk and Prince Charming his coworker.
Review: I applaud K.A. Rose for many things, the most remarkable being her stubbornly accurate characterization. Ignoring the goofy cast that Advent Children put on the Turks, it is canon that they are a) thugs, and b) good at it, and c) not at all sorry. So a story that features the ShinRa company's hired henchmen (and women, of course) hanging out, being buddies, and oh yeah, killing some rebels? Point me toward that. Plus, it's funny - how did she make literal corporate cutthroats funny? From being awesome, I presume.
Anyway, I digress. This story is excellent not just for adhering to canon characterizations, but for doing so while simultaneously adding a wrinkle to Reno, the redheaded, somewhat-an-asshole Turk. Namely, he is actually a functional hermaphrodite - and he would like you to know that it is not sexy or fun to have both sets of genitalia. Seeing Reno navigate his life, bouncing from unaware co-workers to fully-informed doctors to the people he meets for sex (and no, not lovers, since, as he put it, people who fetishize him aren't the kind of people he'd ever want to meet, except for how normal people won't have sex with him and he does have an overactive libido)... it was an exceptionally interesting take on the character, and a refreshingly honest take on being intersex.
All that, and the fic is also a complex layer of metaphors. The story has wheels within wheels, as Reno watches first a porno and then a play based on Cinderella, and is disgusted with the premise of the glass slipper... but then he and Rude have their own glass-slipper quest, as Rude searches for the one-night stand who he can't remember (I think you can safely guess who it was). All marvelously well done, including the object substituting for the slipper.
Glass Slipper Part 2 Part 3