Slashy Nominations 124: After a Voyage, He Hath Strange Places Cramm'd with . . . Something
I'm doing another travel and transportation set. This is partly, yes, because I have an awful day of accomplishing the impossible (and on a deadline, no less) ahead of me, so I wish I was, in fact, traveling ("Anywhere but here" is my current motto). And it's partly 'cause my head is filled with NASCAR trivia (Note for concerned readers: it's maygra's fault. She is to blame. I am an innocent victim, and am more to be pitied than censured, really.), so I'm all about the cars and the travel these days. But mostly it's because, well - great FF, here.
Best FF That Uses Carnival Terminology to Represent Terror, Which I Firmly Believe It Does and Should, Because Carnivals Are Just Not Right. Flying Blind, by minnow1212. Stargate: Atlantis, gen. I believe I have spoken to you of minnow1212 before. I believe my words were, "read her right now or else you are dead to me." Consider this another warning for those of you who have resisted her fan-fic-alicious wiles. (No, I did not just type the most hideous, unspeakable non-word ever, the veritable Cthulhu of language. If you see such a thing on your screen, it is a reflection of the darkness in your soul, so don't come shrieking to me.) Read her works, or the next time you're up late and you can't sleep and you're making sad little noises about not having anything good to read? Well, there will be mockery. Because none of us has any sympathy for people who ignore great stories like this. (You can relax now; the story summary is actually starting.) Basically, what we have here is an episode we'll never see, because no one who writes for SGA writes this well. (No disrespect to canon intended. This is better, is all.) Flying blind is what the residents of Atlantis do all the time - they head into the dangerous unknown every time they activate the gate or walk into a new part of the city or try to use their computers, for god's sake. And they don't even have any backup to speak of. One of the wonderful parts of the first season is watching how that changed the characters, how they dealt with that - and one of the great parts of the fiction for this fandom is seeing it happen all over again, in more detail than a TV show can provide, with sense and brilliance and just - every word right. As it is in this story.
Best FF That Reminds Us of All Trains Have to Offer, and I Am Most Definitely Thinking of That Jolting Rhythm, Here. The Train Job, by brooklinegirl. Due South, Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser. I recently had an unpleasant experience on a train, and let me tell you, there was no gay sex at all on that thing. So I had to turn to this story to remind me that, hey, trains aren't all bad - they're the only form of transportation that sometimes comes with a built-in bed. (Well, I mean, OK, RVs and some semis, but I can't think of any RV or semi-based sex in FF. Which is a massive, tragic oversight, people. Fix that, please, and I mean soon.) Trust Fraser to get Ray, the original "Why can't we just drive there?" guy, on a train, and trust Ray to make good use of all the amenities of said transportation. Given the massive amounts of trust we can have for these two, is it any wonder we all love due South? (No, really, we do. If you aren't an active dS fan, you're a latent dS fan; there's no such thing as someone who hates dS, or if there is, please don't tell me, because I'll lose all faith in humanity.) And if train sex isn't enough for you, can I draw your attention to the conversation that precedes the sex? Because it is golden. I love Ray's train memories. And I also love that he talks to Fraser to keep him awake, because - talk is Fraser's weapon, and here it is, turned against him! How could you not love this story?
Best FF That Proves That, Yes, There Really Is Something Ever-So-Slightly Dodgy About the Way Flying Superheroes Carry Other People Through the Air. U and Me, by Te, aka thete1. D. C. Universe, Kon-El/Tim Drake. Because, I mean, really. Even the most homophobic comic book artists - and if there are any homophobic comic book artists, have they seen their own work lately? - can't find an entirely innuendo-free way to draw one guy flying in a horizontal position while carrying another guy. (They've got their work cut out for them just keeping said flying guys from looking dorky. There may in fact be some excellent, coolness-related reasons why people don't fly, is what I'm saying here.) Trust Te, queen of all things filled with innuendo and spandex, to make that dodginess rather more, um, explicit. And, while she's at it (because, hey, why not multi-task?), she resolves one of those annoying little problems that crop up in comic books - namely, that no one ever resolves anything. But, hey, that's fine - they probably can't, because, come on; anything these people do is bound to involve gay gay sex, and there's only so much even today's editors will let artists and writers get away with. And I for one am grateful, because without that pesky editorial limitation, we wouldn't have stories like this one, in which the characters resolve their issues by having sex in mid-air. Ah, comic book fandoms, how I love thee.
Best FF That Is, Inevitably, Going to Lead to Me Saying to My Best Beloved, "I Brought You Here for Sex." Let's Hope It's Not in Church or Something. Home from Here, by Merry, aka merryish. Stargate: SG-1, Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson. Notice how I very cleverly separated the two Stargate universe stories, so that no one would notice how much I'm recommending them these days. Oh. You noticed anyway? Well, I am not at all sorry, and with stories like this, how could I be? Because, OK, first: best last line ever. I mean that. This story has a last line that made me happy for days the first time I read it, and that still brings me joy on every subsequent reading. And, trust me on this, there have been a lot of subsequent readings, which is especially impressive when you consider that this story was written for the 2005 J/D Ficathon, and thus has only been available for a month. So the real question is, how did we survive this long without it? This is the story of Jack's retirement as it should be - with camels and astronomy and blue jello and sex with Daniel. And if just reading this doesn't make you want to marry the author, or maybe just the story, well, seriously - have you considered getting treatment for your commitment phobia? Because how could you not want to wake up every morning with fiction this good? Or the writer of fiction this good? How could you not love a story in which the main characters break into helpless laughter while trying to have sex? I surely can't resist it, and I just can't imagine how anyone could. I mean: wow. And did I mention: best last line ever?
Best FF That Uses Carnival Terminology to Represent Terror, Which I Firmly Believe It Does and Should, Because Carnivals Are Just Not Right. Flying Blind, by minnow1212. Stargate: Atlantis, gen. I believe I have spoken to you of minnow1212 before. I believe my words were, "read her right now or else you are dead to me." Consider this another warning for those of you who have resisted her fan-fic-alicious wiles. (No, I did not just type the most hideous, unspeakable non-word ever, the veritable Cthulhu of language. If you see such a thing on your screen, it is a reflection of the darkness in your soul, so don't come shrieking to me.) Read her works, or the next time you're up late and you can't sleep and you're making sad little noises about not having anything good to read? Well, there will be mockery. Because none of us has any sympathy for people who ignore great stories like this. (You can relax now; the story summary is actually starting.) Basically, what we have here is an episode we'll never see, because no one who writes for SGA writes this well. (No disrespect to canon intended. This is better, is all.) Flying blind is what the residents of Atlantis do all the time - they head into the dangerous unknown every time they activate the gate or walk into a new part of the city or try to use their computers, for god's sake. And they don't even have any backup to speak of. One of the wonderful parts of the first season is watching how that changed the characters, how they dealt with that - and one of the great parts of the fiction for this fandom is seeing it happen all over again, in more detail than a TV show can provide, with sense and brilliance and just - every word right. As it is in this story.
Best FF That Reminds Us of All Trains Have to Offer, and I Am Most Definitely Thinking of That Jolting Rhythm, Here. The Train Job, by brooklinegirl. Due South, Ray Kowalski/Benton Fraser. I recently had an unpleasant experience on a train, and let me tell you, there was no gay sex at all on that thing. So I had to turn to this story to remind me that, hey, trains aren't all bad - they're the only form of transportation that sometimes comes with a built-in bed. (Well, I mean, OK, RVs and some semis, but I can't think of any RV or semi-based sex in FF. Which is a massive, tragic oversight, people. Fix that, please, and I mean soon.) Trust Fraser to get Ray, the original "Why can't we just drive there?" guy, on a train, and trust Ray to make good use of all the amenities of said transportation. Given the massive amounts of trust we can have for these two, is it any wonder we all love due South? (No, really, we do. If you aren't an active dS fan, you're a latent dS fan; there's no such thing as someone who hates dS, or if there is, please don't tell me, because I'll lose all faith in humanity.) And if train sex isn't enough for you, can I draw your attention to the conversation that precedes the sex? Because it is golden. I love Ray's train memories. And I also love that he talks to Fraser to keep him awake, because - talk is Fraser's weapon, and here it is, turned against him! How could you not love this story?
Best FF That Proves That, Yes, There Really Is Something Ever-So-Slightly Dodgy About the Way Flying Superheroes Carry Other People Through the Air. U and Me, by Te, aka thete1. D. C. Universe, Kon-El/Tim Drake. Because, I mean, really. Even the most homophobic comic book artists - and if there are any homophobic comic book artists, have they seen their own work lately? - can't find an entirely innuendo-free way to draw one guy flying in a horizontal position while carrying another guy. (They've got their work cut out for them just keeping said flying guys from looking dorky. There may in fact be some excellent, coolness-related reasons why people don't fly, is what I'm saying here.) Trust Te, queen of all things filled with innuendo and spandex, to make that dodginess rather more, um, explicit. And, while she's at it (because, hey, why not multi-task?), she resolves one of those annoying little problems that crop up in comic books - namely, that no one ever resolves anything. But, hey, that's fine - they probably can't, because, come on; anything these people do is bound to involve gay gay sex, and there's only so much even today's editors will let artists and writers get away with. And I for one am grateful, because without that pesky editorial limitation, we wouldn't have stories like this one, in which the characters resolve their issues by having sex in mid-air. Ah, comic book fandoms, how I love thee.
Best FF That Is, Inevitably, Going to Lead to Me Saying to My Best Beloved, "I Brought You Here for Sex." Let's Hope It's Not in Church or Something. Home from Here, by Merry, aka merryish. Stargate: SG-1, Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson. Notice how I very cleverly separated the two Stargate universe stories, so that no one would notice how much I'm recommending them these days. Oh. You noticed anyway? Well, I am not at all sorry, and with stories like this, how could I be? Because, OK, first: best last line ever. I mean that. This story has a last line that made me happy for days the first time I read it, and that still brings me joy on every subsequent reading. And, trust me on this, there have been a lot of subsequent readings, which is especially impressive when you consider that this story was written for the 2005 J/D Ficathon, and thus has only been available for a month. So the real question is, how did we survive this long without it? This is the story of Jack's retirement as it should be - with camels and astronomy and blue jello and sex with Daniel. And if just reading this doesn't make you want to marry the author, or maybe just the story, well, seriously - have you considered getting treatment for your commitment phobia? Because how could you not want to wake up every morning with fiction this good? Or the writer of fiction this good? How could you not love a story in which the main characters break into helpless laughter while trying to have sex? I surely can't resist it, and I just can't imagine how anyone could. I mean: wow. And did I mention: best last line ever?