George Michael/Maeby (Arrested Development)
Title: Isn't That Illegal?
Author: fivil
Pairing: George Michael/Maeby
Fandom: Arrested Development
Spoilers: All of it. That is, also the last episodes of the third season.
Notes: All pictures taken from and fully credited to The OP and uploaded on my own photobucket. Please do not hotlink.
In General
Arrested Development is a brilliantly funny award-winning comedy show written and created by Mitch Hurwitz. It tells a story about the very dysfunctional Bluth family, whose father, George Senior, goes to prison thanks to some business crimes, felonies, that sort of thing. The second-eldest son Michael is persuaded to be in charge of the family company, much to his own chagrin, as he was planning to pack his bags and move as far away from his family as possible, taking his son George Michael with him.
The story with the show is that the first season was a hit, but then Fox (the channel it was shown on) started switching the time slot so naturally the show lost viewers. It had two full seasons and the third one only got 13 episodes. The four last ones were shown on a marathon. The fans did their best to save this gem of television entertaiment, but sadly Fox wouldn't recognize good comedy if it kicked them in the nuts so there you have it. Still, us fans remain hopeful that this won't be the last we hear of our beloved Bluths. Sadly the creator has dropped out of the show... But who knows. We can remain hopeful.
If this made you interested and you haven't seen the show yet, the first and second seasons are out on DVD.
(I don't want to blab on about the show too long because it feels like telling everything would just ruin all the jokes and be useless. In the same way, I will try to concentrate less on explaining everything that happens in canon (the shows are always compiled of events that follow a very odd logic, so explaining one event in a chain of such would just take all day). If you're not a fan and want to read through, go ahead, but be warned, some things might not make sense.)
George Michael Bluth
George Michael, Michael.
Michael: What comes before anything? What have we always said is the most important thing?
George Michael: Breakfast.
Michael: Family.
George Michael: Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat.
George Michael, in essence, is a good boy. He respects and admires his father, wants to do him proud, and is even willing to sacrifice his own spring break when his father makes him work at the Bluth company office. Michael's wife died, presumably when George Michael was quite young, but you never really hear about this fact in the show (understandable, since it's not a show that focuses on sad things). George Michael is a good student and always does the right thing; he doesn't seem to even know the meaning of rebellion (apart from his history textbook, maybe). That is, until he meets his cousin Maeby.
Mae 'Maeby' Fünke
Maeby, and the foot.
Maeby: Um, yeah, I bought a frozen banana, and when I bit into it, I found this.
George Michael: It looks like a foot.
Maeby: It tasted like a foot. Which I didn’t really mind, but I’m pretty sure I said “no nuts.”
Maeby's mother, Lindsay Bluth, married Maeby's father, Tobias Fünke, in an act of youthful defiance and going against her own mother's wishes, so perhaps it's not unexpected that Maeby herself does things that her parents wouldn't want her to. Sad for Maeby, she doesn't often get the attention she perhaps would like to get. Despite this, Maeby is a very realistic teenager in her casual nonchalance about the daily going ons of her crazy, crazy family. She's glad she at least has a family, and George Michael.
The Development
Afterwards George Michael is very eager to teach even more lessons.
George Michael/Maeby is the canon's pairing of choice from Season 1 Episode 1 right to the very last episode, Season 3 Episode 13. How come?
George Michael: Hey, you’re my cousin, aren’t you?
Maeby: Maeby.
There you have one of the basic intrigues of the show. 'Maeby' of course pronounced 'maybe', it's not revealed until the very last episode whether Maeby actually is George Michael's cousin. And since George Michael, bless his soul, immediately develops a crush on Maeby, it's something the writers keep working jokes around, that could-be-is-it-maybe-perhaps-incest factor of the pairing.
But back to the beginning. George Michael and Maeby meet when George Michael works at the Bluth company banana stand (where George Senior began the business that eventually developed into a house-building business). After the foot-dialogue, they discuss the fact that they hardly see each other, and Maeby comments how it's their parents' fault, and how they ought to teach the oldies a lesson.
Maeby: I should go to my mom tonight and be, like, “I met the cutest guy,” and then she’ll see you and me totally making out.
George Michael: (Laughing.) Yeah. (Continues laughing.) But not really, right?
Maeby: It’s perfect! She’d freak out, and I’d be, like, “Mom, if we saw each other more often, this wouldn’t happen.”
George Michael: But we’re cousins.
Maeby: That’s what makes it funny.
George Michael: But isn’t it against the law?
Later in the first episode, they end up kissing when Maeby assumes her mother is seeing them, but Lindsay just swooshes by and no one witnesses the kiss.
So there's your basic set up, George Michael and his desperate crush for the one person he's not supposed to crush on. And when the Bluth company faces the scandal of George Senior going to prison and Michael takes lead of the company, it means that because of all company assets are frozen, Lindsay, Tobias and Maeby need to live with George Michael and Michael in the Bluth Company Model Home they had been staying at. This of course creates uncomfortable situations since the two cousins are now forced to share a room.
Of course, it's not a problem for Maeby, but very much one for George Michael, especially when situations like this one occur...
”Uh-oh, bumpy road ahead!” George Michael's awkward look of horror speaks volumes.
But such is life. The intrigue of the perhaps-incest is kept up, and various hints are dropped. There are so so many good, hilarious, cute George Michael/Maeby moments in the show it would take me such a long time to get through all of them. So let me summarize:
They meet. They kiss. Many, many jokes about inappropriate erections and incest follow. There is George Michael's religious girlfriend Ann. There is Maeby's crush on a very simple-minded jock called Steve Holt. There is another kiss at the end of season two. There is also a French film, “Les Cousins Dangereux”, which George Michael becomes a fan of. A few episodes before the third season wraps up, they marry.
Wait, marry? Yeah, marry. Buster falls into coma and while the family is at the hospital, a doctor asks George Michael to participate in a fake wedding held for the Alzheimer patients.
Dr Farmer: You could be a groom. Bring a little girlfriend up there with you.
George Michael: Oh, I don’t have a girlfriend.
Dr Farmer: A sister than, or a cousin. Of course, you’re going to have to kiss.
Narrator: Guess who liked that idea?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it turns out that the fake wedding they participated in was in fact a real, legitimate one.
What is the final solution from the show, then? Well, they're not blood relatives. It turns out that Maeby's mother Lindsay was in fact adopted into the Bluth family. As for the show itself, the ending is left with a sense of vague finality to it and yet the ending is kind of open. George Michael and Michael sail into the sunset but it feels impossible to say what will come after that, or whether it was really the ending for the story of Bluths.
It was arrested development.
The Pairing
George Michael enjoys a hug.
I think GM/M is one of those canon pairings that truly supports the show. That is, Arrested Development would probably be a good show without it, but GM/M definitely adds to the humor, the plot(s) and especially the characters in so many ways, it would kind of be less of the awesome show it was, if it didn't have this pairing. Just the way the writers worked around the pairing, the hopes of it happening in the viewers' (and George Michael's) minds, played with the alternatives (Ann, Steve Holt..), came up with awesomely funny double meanings etc.. Whether you liked the pairing or didn't (and you most likely did, anyway), it definitely added to the show. It just makes for great comedy.
This, of course, makes it an ideal ship to support.
Now, the thing about this pairing has always been about the question of incest. It's what all the funny gathers around, really, from that moment on when they break away after their first kiss and hear police alarms. "I knew it was illegal!" George Michael exclaims in shock.
It's also a very awkward relationship, because that's the nature of George Michael in general. Add to that Maeby's uncertain feelings and the whole question of incest, and you've got some fantastically cute and funny awkward scenes.
The incest thing has always been iffy in my mind. I mean there were times when I was thinking "Oh god, they CAN'T be!" when it seemed like they really were cousins and times when I thought, "Well of course!" when it was looking it they weren't. So the final decision was not a surprise, but not really something I expected, either. At least not the way it finally turned out. Because the marriage? Was whack. Whack in a hilarious way, of course, but whack despite. Not that I didn't love it, though, because I absolutely did. I think the writers of AD (that's Arrested Development short) were pretty brave to play with a possibility that the one pairing viewers *would* support would turn out to be an incest one.
It's weird, though, because a lot of ships one can usually feel like "oh, wish they'd get together & stay together forever and ever". But with this one.. I really can't say I do. Maybe it's that they're so young or just that they're still kind of family or the fact you can never tell with this show or just the fact things ended as they ended in the show - half-open, half-not, just plain odd with all the going ons.
GM/M is the kind of ship where I don't know what I want to happen to them - I want a happy ending but I don't know what the hell that is with them right now. And that's kind of odd, but I think in the end it's the same with the whole show. I'm just completely in the blue as to how it could or will continue. Is the end really the end? Sometimes I feel like I need more of a sense of closure, but then I think maybe I got closure, I just refuse to accept it as such because I'm desperate for more Arrested Development.
I guess it really all comes down to cute, awkward teenagers together. With a "will they, won't they" and a question of familial love hanging over their heads. Yeah. That's what GM/M essentially is to me, or was to me, as now the incest-question is solved at last. It's not about if they're perfect for each other - they are, in a way, but I've never thought about it any further. It just feels like a very natural thing, those two together. It's not like with some other pairings I ship, where I know exactly what I want to happen and how I want it to happen. I'll take George Michael/Maeby in any way I can get it - from awkward hugs, silly jokes, hilarious one-liners to actual kisses, anything and everything to do with the pairing is lovely to me as a shipper.
I maybe could analyze the couple's feelings, how those develop, scene by scene, episode by episode but it feels rather useless. I don't think Maeby had many feelings towards George Michael for the longest time, which I remembered used to make me worry about the future of the pairing but I still knew something was going to continue happening - I was happily expecting whatever was coming. But I don't really feel a need to analyze this pairing. It is as it is, a wonderful part of the show in every one of its forms, and you just gladly take what you can get.
The Fandom
The Balboa Observer-Picayune - The OP is by and far the largest and bestest Arrested Development fansite, filled with quotes, pictures, transcripts, soundbytes, a forum and basically all the information you could ever wish to have about the show. It's a joy to surf for any fan of the show.
As for LJ communities, I do not actually know what is the biggest one since I've never been a part of one and have most fangirled the show with my friendslist. There seem to be a large number of general Arrested Development communities, overall. I'll just go through the more specific ones that I know of. (If anyone knows the main AD comm, please tell me & I'll add it!)
maebytonight - Obviously, a community for discussing George Michael/Maeby, and the two actors who play them, Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat. Also fic and the usual stuff.
bluthcest - A community for any family relationships in Arrested Development. GM/M of course a part of it, even though now officially not incest anymore.
the_bluths - I hear this is the "main" community for the AD fandom on LJ.
And now to fanfiction recommendations.. Arrested Development fanfiction is not a plenty but there are still a handful of really good George Michael/Maeby stories out there.
game over pink champaigne by passionflows, PG-13 - Nobody wanted this show to end (well, nobody I knew anyway), so it's good to have continuation in fic form. So obviously this fic contains SPOILERS FOR THE THIRD SEASON, but if you have seen all of third season, do read it. It's funny and clever in just the way the show is, and so very in-character.
Walking Home by perrynqa, G - A very cute little something that would take place in Season 1. George Michael and Maeby walk home from work.
It's always gotta be the same in my world by lalejandra, PG - One of the first GM/M fics I've read. This captures George Michael in an awesome way, all of his teenage awkwardness intact, basically through the voice of the Narrator. Fantastic stuff.
truth is nothing yet by starstillwonder, PG - Sometimes Maeby hates the banana stand. Short, but good, adorable look at the two in season one, again at the banana stand.
abulia by angelgazing, G - With this pairing, it's totally allowed to link to a "mere" drabble. This one is really lovely. The author has also written other fantastic little things, which are all well worth checking out.
chicken of the sea by one900, PG - It's basically just a scene, an ordinary one, but still it seems to speak volumes. I guess it's kind of how this pairing is, always present and yet not. Of course, there's also just the sheer power of good writing, which this definitely is.
Les Cousins Dangereux by winter_baby - They actually go see that movie. This is probably the least sweet and fluffy GM/M I've encountered, but the dramatic touch is right on in this one. It also deals with the maybe-sort-of-incestiness of the pairing (even though some of us know the conclusion by now).
The Halfway Girl by zarahemla, PG-13 - Maeby-centric. There's something quiet and soft about this story, it fits the pairing and the characters so well. I love Maeby in this fic - everything about her is so real.
the youth and beauty brigade by passionflows - Short, excellent, perfect. Maeby-centric.
continental breakfast by girlintheattic, PG-13, also includes Michael/Lindsay - More really lovely Season 3 aftermath fic. Because it all works out, in a twisted sort of way.
For more stories, of other pairings and general fanfiction, too, check out Perrynqa's list of AD fic.
So there you go, the George Michael/Maeby Shipper Manifesto. Sorry for the lateness, I was going to post this after work and then by internet got bust. But better slightly late than never. Questions, comments, thoughts, squee, cries of woe of the show's cancellation, anything is welcome.
Author: fivil
Pairing: George Michael/Maeby
Fandom: Arrested Development
Spoilers: All of it. That is, also the last episodes of the third season.
Notes: All pictures taken from and fully credited to The OP and uploaded on my own photobucket. Please do not hotlink.
In General
Arrested Development is a brilliantly funny award-winning comedy show written and created by Mitch Hurwitz. It tells a story about the very dysfunctional Bluth family, whose father, George Senior, goes to prison thanks to some business crimes, felonies, that sort of thing. The second-eldest son Michael is persuaded to be in charge of the family company, much to his own chagrin, as he was planning to pack his bags and move as far away from his family as possible, taking his son George Michael with him.
The story with the show is that the first season was a hit, but then Fox (the channel it was shown on) started switching the time slot so naturally the show lost viewers. It had two full seasons and the third one only got 13 episodes. The four last ones were shown on a marathon. The fans did their best to save this gem of television entertaiment, but sadly Fox wouldn't recognize good comedy if it kicked them in the nuts so there you have it. Still, us fans remain hopeful that this won't be the last we hear of our beloved Bluths. Sadly the creator has dropped out of the show... But who knows. We can remain hopeful.
If this made you interested and you haven't seen the show yet, the first and second seasons are out on DVD.
(I don't want to blab on about the show too long because it feels like telling everything would just ruin all the jokes and be useless. In the same way, I will try to concentrate less on explaining everything that happens in canon (the shows are always compiled of events that follow a very odd logic, so explaining one event in a chain of such would just take all day). If you're not a fan and want to read through, go ahead, but be warned, some things might not make sense.)
George Michael Bluth
George Michael, Michael.
Michael: What comes before anything? What have we always said is the most important thing?
George Michael: Breakfast.
Michael: Family.
George Michael: Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat.
George Michael, in essence, is a good boy. He respects and admires his father, wants to do him proud, and is even willing to sacrifice his own spring break when his father makes him work at the Bluth company office. Michael's wife died, presumably when George Michael was quite young, but you never really hear about this fact in the show (understandable, since it's not a show that focuses on sad things). George Michael is a good student and always does the right thing; he doesn't seem to even know the meaning of rebellion (apart from his history textbook, maybe). That is, until he meets his cousin Maeby.
Mae 'Maeby' Fünke
Maeby, and the foot.
Maeby: Um, yeah, I bought a frozen banana, and when I bit into it, I found this.
George Michael: It looks like a foot.
Maeby: It tasted like a foot. Which I didn’t really mind, but I’m pretty sure I said “no nuts.”
Maeby's mother, Lindsay Bluth, married Maeby's father, Tobias Fünke, in an act of youthful defiance and going against her own mother's wishes, so perhaps it's not unexpected that Maeby herself does things that her parents wouldn't want her to. Sad for Maeby, she doesn't often get the attention she perhaps would like to get. Despite this, Maeby is a very realistic teenager in her casual nonchalance about the daily going ons of her crazy, crazy family. She's glad she at least has a family, and George Michael.
The Development
Afterwards George Michael is very eager to teach even more lessons.
George Michael/Maeby is the canon's pairing of choice from Season 1 Episode 1 right to the very last episode, Season 3 Episode 13. How come?
George Michael: Hey, you’re my cousin, aren’t you?
Maeby: Maeby.
There you have one of the basic intrigues of the show. 'Maeby' of course pronounced 'maybe', it's not revealed until the very last episode whether Maeby actually is George Michael's cousin. And since George Michael, bless his soul, immediately develops a crush on Maeby, it's something the writers keep working jokes around, that could-be-is-it-maybe-perhaps-incest factor of the pairing.
But back to the beginning. George Michael and Maeby meet when George Michael works at the Bluth company banana stand (where George Senior began the business that eventually developed into a house-building business). After the foot-dialogue, they discuss the fact that they hardly see each other, and Maeby comments how it's their parents' fault, and how they ought to teach the oldies a lesson.
Maeby: I should go to my mom tonight and be, like, “I met the cutest guy,” and then she’ll see you and me totally making out.
George Michael: (Laughing.) Yeah. (Continues laughing.) But not really, right?
Maeby: It’s perfect! She’d freak out, and I’d be, like, “Mom, if we saw each other more often, this wouldn’t happen.”
George Michael: But we’re cousins.
Maeby: That’s what makes it funny.
George Michael: But isn’t it against the law?
Later in the first episode, they end up kissing when Maeby assumes her mother is seeing them, but Lindsay just swooshes by and no one witnesses the kiss.
So there's your basic set up, George Michael and his desperate crush for the one person he's not supposed to crush on. And when the Bluth company faces the scandal of George Senior going to prison and Michael takes lead of the company, it means that because of all company assets are frozen, Lindsay, Tobias and Maeby need to live with George Michael and Michael in the Bluth Company Model Home they had been staying at. This of course creates uncomfortable situations since the two cousins are now forced to share a room.
Of course, it's not a problem for Maeby, but very much one for George Michael, especially when situations like this one occur...
”Uh-oh, bumpy road ahead!” George Michael's awkward look of horror speaks volumes.
But such is life. The intrigue of the perhaps-incest is kept up, and various hints are dropped. There are so so many good, hilarious, cute George Michael/Maeby moments in the show it would take me such a long time to get through all of them. So let me summarize:
They meet. They kiss. Many, many jokes about inappropriate erections and incest follow. There is George Michael's religious girlfriend Ann. There is Maeby's crush on a very simple-minded jock called Steve Holt. There is another kiss at the end of season two. There is also a French film, “Les Cousins Dangereux”, which George Michael becomes a fan of. A few episodes before the third season wraps up, they marry.
Wait, marry? Yeah, marry. Buster falls into coma and while the family is at the hospital, a doctor asks George Michael to participate in a fake wedding held for the Alzheimer patients.
Dr Farmer: You could be a groom. Bring a little girlfriend up there with you.
George Michael: Oh, I don’t have a girlfriend.
Dr Farmer: A sister than, or a cousin. Of course, you’re going to have to kiss.
Narrator: Guess who liked that idea?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it turns out that the fake wedding they participated in was in fact a real, legitimate one.
What is the final solution from the show, then? Well, they're not blood relatives. It turns out that Maeby's mother Lindsay was in fact adopted into the Bluth family. As for the show itself, the ending is left with a sense of vague finality to it and yet the ending is kind of open. George Michael and Michael sail into the sunset but it feels impossible to say what will come after that, or whether it was really the ending for the story of Bluths.
It was arrested development.
The Pairing
George Michael enjoys a hug.
I think GM/M is one of those canon pairings that truly supports the show. That is, Arrested Development would probably be a good show without it, but GM/M definitely adds to the humor, the plot(s) and especially the characters in so many ways, it would kind of be less of the awesome show it was, if it didn't have this pairing. Just the way the writers worked around the pairing, the hopes of it happening in the viewers' (and George Michael's) minds, played with the alternatives (Ann, Steve Holt..), came up with awesomely funny double meanings etc.. Whether you liked the pairing or didn't (and you most likely did, anyway), it definitely added to the show. It just makes for great comedy.
This, of course, makes it an ideal ship to support.
Now, the thing about this pairing has always been about the question of incest. It's what all the funny gathers around, really, from that moment on when they break away after their first kiss and hear police alarms. "I knew it was illegal!" George Michael exclaims in shock.
It's also a very awkward relationship, because that's the nature of George Michael in general. Add to that Maeby's uncertain feelings and the whole question of incest, and you've got some fantastically cute and funny awkward scenes.
The incest thing has always been iffy in my mind. I mean there were times when I was thinking "Oh god, they CAN'T be!" when it seemed like they really were cousins and times when I thought, "Well of course!" when it was looking it they weren't. So the final decision was not a surprise, but not really something I expected, either. At least not the way it finally turned out. Because the marriage? Was whack. Whack in a hilarious way, of course, but whack despite. Not that I didn't love it, though, because I absolutely did. I think the writers of AD (that's Arrested Development short) were pretty brave to play with a possibility that the one pairing viewers *would* support would turn out to be an incest one.
It's weird, though, because a lot of ships one can usually feel like "oh, wish they'd get together & stay together forever and ever". But with this one.. I really can't say I do. Maybe it's that they're so young or just that they're still kind of family or the fact you can never tell with this show or just the fact things ended as they ended in the show - half-open, half-not, just plain odd with all the going ons.
GM/M is the kind of ship where I don't know what I want to happen to them - I want a happy ending but I don't know what the hell that is with them right now. And that's kind of odd, but I think in the end it's the same with the whole show. I'm just completely in the blue as to how it could or will continue. Is the end really the end? Sometimes I feel like I need more of a sense of closure, but then I think maybe I got closure, I just refuse to accept it as such because I'm desperate for more Arrested Development.
I guess it really all comes down to cute, awkward teenagers together. With a "will they, won't they" and a question of familial love hanging over their heads. Yeah. That's what GM/M essentially is to me, or was to me, as now the incest-question is solved at last. It's not about if they're perfect for each other - they are, in a way, but I've never thought about it any further. It just feels like a very natural thing, those two together. It's not like with some other pairings I ship, where I know exactly what I want to happen and how I want it to happen. I'll take George Michael/Maeby in any way I can get it - from awkward hugs, silly jokes, hilarious one-liners to actual kisses, anything and everything to do with the pairing is lovely to me as a shipper.
I maybe could analyze the couple's feelings, how those develop, scene by scene, episode by episode but it feels rather useless. I don't think Maeby had many feelings towards George Michael for the longest time, which I remembered used to make me worry about the future of the pairing but I still knew something was going to continue happening - I was happily expecting whatever was coming. But I don't really feel a need to analyze this pairing. It is as it is, a wonderful part of the show in every one of its forms, and you just gladly take what you can get.
The Fandom
The Balboa Observer-Picayune - The OP is by and far the largest and bestest Arrested Development fansite, filled with quotes, pictures, transcripts, soundbytes, a forum and basically all the information you could ever wish to have about the show. It's a joy to surf for any fan of the show.
As for LJ communities, I do not actually know what is the biggest one since I've never been a part of one and have most fangirled the show with my friendslist. There seem to be a large number of general Arrested Development communities, overall. I'll just go through the more specific ones that I know of. (If anyone knows the main AD comm, please tell me & I'll add it!)
maebytonight - Obviously, a community for discussing George Michael/Maeby, and the two actors who play them, Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat. Also fic and the usual stuff.
bluthcest - A community for any family relationships in Arrested Development. GM/M of course a part of it, even though now officially not incest anymore.
the_bluths - I hear this is the "main" community for the AD fandom on LJ.
And now to fanfiction recommendations.. Arrested Development fanfiction is not a plenty but there are still a handful of really good George Michael/Maeby stories out there.
game over pink champaigne by passionflows, PG-13 - Nobody wanted this show to end (well, nobody I knew anyway), so it's good to have continuation in fic form. So obviously this fic contains SPOILERS FOR THE THIRD SEASON, but if you have seen all of third season, do read it. It's funny and clever in just the way the show is, and so very in-character.
Walking Home by perrynqa, G - A very cute little something that would take place in Season 1. George Michael and Maeby walk home from work.
It's always gotta be the same in my world by lalejandra, PG - One of the first GM/M fics I've read. This captures George Michael in an awesome way, all of his teenage awkwardness intact, basically through the voice of the Narrator. Fantastic stuff.
truth is nothing yet by starstillwonder, PG - Sometimes Maeby hates the banana stand. Short, but good, adorable look at the two in season one, again at the banana stand.
abulia by angelgazing, G - With this pairing, it's totally allowed to link to a "mere" drabble. This one is really lovely. The author has also written other fantastic little things, which are all well worth checking out.
chicken of the sea by one900, PG - It's basically just a scene, an ordinary one, but still it seems to speak volumes. I guess it's kind of how this pairing is, always present and yet not. Of course, there's also just the sheer power of good writing, which this definitely is.
Les Cousins Dangereux by winter_baby - They actually go see that movie. This is probably the least sweet and fluffy GM/M I've encountered, but the dramatic touch is right on in this one. It also deals with the maybe-sort-of-incestiness of the pairing (even though some of us know the conclusion by now).
The Halfway Girl by zarahemla, PG-13 - Maeby-centric. There's something quiet and soft about this story, it fits the pairing and the characters so well. I love Maeby in this fic - everything about her is so real.
the youth and beauty brigade by passionflows - Short, excellent, perfect. Maeby-centric.
continental breakfast by girlintheattic, PG-13, also includes Michael/Lindsay - More really lovely Season 3 aftermath fic. Because it all works out, in a twisted sort of way.
For more stories, of other pairings and general fanfiction, too, check out Perrynqa's list of AD fic.
So there you go, the George Michael/Maeby Shipper Manifesto. Sorry for the lateness, I was going to post this after work and then by internet got bust. But better slightly late than never. Questions, comments, thoughts, squee, cries of woe of the show's cancellation, anything is welcome.