Fandom: Farscape
Pairing: John/Aeryn
Author on LJ: pene
Author's Website: the stars, baby, the stars
Why this must be read: It's beautiful and bleak and shows just how bad Aeryn would be with a baby. This Aeryn is disconnected from whatever maternal feelings she may be experiencing, yet she's determined that she'd going to do everything herself and that she doesn't need any help.

And then John shows up.

The writing in this is lyrical and rich with description, without being purple or overly florid. It starts out like this:

"If you hold yourself still, if you capture the light and span of that gray place against your retina, it has a bleak beauty. A fragile beauty, despite its vastness, because its delicate features are all but invisible, and if you breathe too soon it collapses, is only space."

And gets only more lovely from there.

I give you more lives than you can count by Pene

Pssst! Some of you West Wingers may also remember Pene as Penelopody, the co-author of the story "Retina Burn" with August, among others.

Previously on Popslash: "Leaning against the steel refrigerator, his hands twisted in Rick's hair, JC felt like Mick Jagger. Except younger and gayer and better looking."

Today on Popslash: Keep Pounding Rhythm (NC 17)

Fandom: Popslash...no, het...no, gen...no, slash... It's Pop!AU madness, is what it is.
Pairing: Justin/Britney/Joey
Author on LJ: stubbleglitter
Author Website: ..unaware..
Why this must be read:

Keep Pounding Rhythm is an AU so unique and intense as to make other AUs cower before it. In it, Justin, Chris, Joey, and Lance live, work, and struggle to keep their lives together in the Caribbean -- all under the watchful eye of Britney, who will use her mind, her body, her sensuality, and whatever other skills she has at her disposal to maintain life as she likes it.

stubbleglitter writes some of the most intriguing fiction in the popslash fandom. Her subject matters are almost always unexpected. However, even when she's dealing with the mundane -- uh...if "the mundane" actually exists in this fandom where the main characters are routinely turned into girls, cats, dogs, winged creatures of the night, otherworldy spectors, and small aquatic vertebrates -- she does so in amazingly interesting, funny narrative that never fails to make me want to know what's going to happen next.

If that praise alone doesn't win you over, though, please note that it also has the most fascinating explanations I've heard so far for Britney's sway over the youths of North America and for Lance's sudden transformation from Dobie Gillis into the shiny, gleaming "Laaaannce (squee!)" of today. Plus, you know, there's a threesome. If you're into that kinda thing.

Loud, energetic, sweaty, and so good. Go!

( Additional Information )

Monday on Popslash: "THERE WILL BE NO TOUCHING OF THE TOPIARIES."

Title:"My Wife and My Dead Wife" by Gemma Files (NC-17)
Parts 1-5
Parts 6-7
Parts 8-10
Epilogue
Fandom: OZ
Pairing: Schillinger/Beecher, Beecher/Keller
Author's Website: Segregation
Why this must be read: Because Gemma writes OZ like no one else. The dark epic "My Wife" is as genuine an "alternate universe" as they come: a stunning recreation of canon with a few crucial bends and twists along the way. Gemma gets inside the heads of her characters in a unique way, letting readers in not only on what they think, but what they *think* they're thinking. A beautifully executed piece of work. Not for the very squeamish.

Fandom: Everwood
Pairing: Colin/Ephram
Author on LJ: uhmidont
Author's Website: http://www.ficorama.net/
Why this must be read: All of Elizabeth's Everwood stories are lovely, thoughtful, and astonishingly on-target. This is possibly the best of her stories, going off of Snow Job and the spring Colin arc to explore Ephram, Colin, the things that almost happen and the things that never quite do, exploring the quintessential Ephram/Colin dynamic.

Fandom: Star Wars
Pairing: Luke Skywalker/Han Solo (A side of Han/Princess Leia)
Author's Website: not online
URL: http://zpdark.tripod.com/spir.html
Why this must be read: This is a fairly subtle story. It's a plausible exploration of what might happen post Return of the Jedi. Luke goes to Alpha Halden in search of a Force senstive. Luke is having difficulty integrating himself and his experiences from the Death Star. Han is drifting through a relationship with Leia. When they are taken prisner by the leaders of a new political movement, both men learn a lot more about themselves and each other, including why things faltered after Hoth.

Marie has a flair for action and description. She's not online to the best of my knowledge and this piece is from Elusive Lover 3.

Sakura by Rach

Fandom: Alias
Pairing: Sydney/Sark
Author on LJ: aliasrlm
Author Website: here
Why this must be read:

I've decided to have a Sark Day, so I have a couple of great fics in mind that star our favorite British bad boy.

This story was written between seasons 1 and 2, if memory serves, and goes AU after the first season finale. I remember thinking at the time that it was one of the bleackest views of Sydney's future I'd read--at least the beginning--but even for my happy-ending-loving heart, completely believable.

It was also one of the first Sarkney (Sark/Sydney) stories, if not the first, and it's still a favorite. I love that neither Sark nor Sydney attempt to deny the mistakes they've made or the horrible things they've done. No whitewashing or denial. They do them, they accept them, they live with the nightmares.

Nothing happens the way you imagine it.

This is just another example.

If you like Rach's style, like all the other authors I've recommended, she has a lot to offer. She's written Will and Will/Sydney, too, as well as a host of original and smaller characters.

Like Walking On Knives by Auburn

Fandom: Alias
Pairing: some Jack/Irina and some Sark/Irina, but it's not really a pairing story
Author on LJ: auburnnothenna
Author Website: Allusions
Why this must be read:

A must-read for Sark fans, for an in-character bad guy with surprising vulnerabilities, my favorite disguise *ever* (you'll know it when you read it), and an amazing backstory, with action scenes that could have been pulled right from the show.

Once, Irina had said, "I knew your father."

The story itself is AU after the s2 finale, although there are some season 3 spoilers. It's compelling and intriguing. I would say it definitely deserves the rating, for the violence more than for the sex, and there is a warning at the top.

Also, don't start this if you have other plans for the evening. Like, say, studying for a midterm. *cough*

Safe House by Nestra

Fandom: Alias
Pairing: Sark/Weiss
Author on LJ: nestra
Author Website: Bifictional Bedlam
Why this must be read:

And to round out my Sark recs, one of my favorite slash stories. With the bonus factor of my boy Weiss as well. :) With a summary like this, how can you go wrong?

Sark's in custody. Sark is bored. Weiss is in trouble.

Heh.

"I suppose you'd do better?" Weiss asked. "Wait, never mind. Forgot who I was talking to for a second. My own real live criminal mastermind."

"Yours?" Sark quirked an eyebrow at him.

"You're on loan."

Witty dialogue (banter, even!), caustic observations on bad movies, and hot hot hot sex.