Fandom: ROSWELL
Pairing: Max/Liz
Author on LJ: ???
Author Website: ???
Why this must be read:
Continuing with the Liz-centric theme I've got going on here, I give you this beautiful AU piece. It contrasts Roswellian lore with that of the Dalai Lama, focusing on the power of our beliefs to affect change in our lives.

This story takes everything you think you know about Roswell and turns it on its ear, turning it inside out and backwards, and yet still making perfect sense.

"It’s September 19th. My name is Elizabeth Ann Parker. I’m sixteen years old. And I’m a liar. I’ve been telling you stories for months now. None of them have been true."

Hee. Curious now? ;)

NOTE: I couldn't find a posted rating anywhere, so I was forced to judge the rating myself. And I couldn't find a livejournal or website for the author, either. If anyone can help me with either of those, I'd be very grateful.

Belief/Alchemy

Fandom: X-MEN COMICVERSE
Pairing: Bobby/Jean
Author on LJ: tieleen
Author Website: 'top of the world, without a ladder'

Why this must be read:

The thing, for me, about this fandom, is that it forced me to really go pretty far afield in terms of reading. I've never been an OTP kind of girl, or even a particularly rabid slasher, but... well, comics fandom just isn't broken up in the ways that I became accustomed to in other fandoms. There are the hugely popular het and slash pairings, sure, but 'shippiness in general is rather downplayed over here.

I kept wandering around looking for the big archive o' porn, and I kept not finding it. *snort*

Along the way, though, I've come across some truly lovely stories that I never would've considered, given my druthers. Like this one.

An AU piece from a very different sort of Jean Grey. And you think you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Well, no, really. When I say different, I *mean* different. Not canon, and not the typical melodramatic fanon that leads even people who *aren't* Jean fans to think seriously about blinding themselves with sporks.

No, this story poses the question: "What if things went really badly wrong... and then life had the temerity to go on?"

It's something I never would've thought of writing, and it's really quite brilliant. It sinks in under the skin and into the soul until I *felt* Jean. I felt *like* her, and I wondered what choices I'd make in her position... and which choices I would utterly fail to make.

"Beyond the Streetlights" is one of those stories I think of as "sleepers." You don't really see them coming, because they seem so *normal and quiet*. And then it's too late, and they've got you.

Whimpering on the floor.

Beyond the Streetlights

Yo ho, me hearties! I'm melannen, and I shall be your purveyor of rum and sodomy for the month of February! No, honestly (and you can always trust me to be honest) there's a lot more to Pirates of the Caribbean fanfiction than rum and sodomy. Well, a *little* more, at least. Even a small amount of really good het. I'm going to go for a good variety of het, slash, and other, of all pairings and configurations, this month, and I like my 'ships with ships in.

Fandom: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
Pairing: Captain Sparrow/Commodore Norrington
Author on LJ: commodoresexual
Author Website: http://wrenguin.vip.warped.com/writing (Not exactly a website, but the best I can find.)
Why this must be read:
"Ms. Swann asked the Commodore herself if he would attend. Out of respect, and to stem the ugly rumors about her, young Turner, and the Commodore himself. I well suspected it would do no more but bring to life new rumors, but I am a man of my word... and my word to Elizabeth ...Miss Swann, is inviolate.
So obviously, I am either a bloodthirsty fanatic, a vicious gold digger, or an honorable idiot. I am not quite sure which one is worse. Clearly, I am dealing with people who are completely unfamiliar with my character."

I could not believe my eyes when I realized that nobody had yet rec'd any Commodore Norrington slash here. Norrington/Jack is a very popular pairing these days, and almost universally high quality. And hot. Did I mention hot? Yum, British Naval Officers . . ah, where was I?

Oh, yes. L. M. Griffin's Matter of Rules arc is a wonderful introduction to the world where sexy but sweet pirate captains and sweet but sexy Navy commodores are meant for each other. It hits the same perfect balance of endearing, heartbreakingly cruel, and just plain madcap hilarious as the movie did. The first part, Men of Our Word, is set, like many post-movie stories, around the build-up to Will and Elizabeth's wedding, which leaves both of our heroes emotionally vulnerable, and one of them a fugitive, too. Only this time, the one in hiding isn't Jack. A wonderfully done first-person Norrington, Jack being Jack, and some extremely scary Will and Elizabeth teaming up against them. It will leave you laughing out loud and wishing for more, which is good, since there's a series of sequels: Acts of Piracy, in which we get to see Commodore Norrington the Great Pirate Hunter, renowned across the Caribbean as both indomitable and honorable. Oh, we also get to see him, completely sober, in a tavern, singing "The Stupid Pirate Song". And undercover in Tortuga, wearing *eyeliner*. (There's plenty of Captain Sparrow, too, but believe me, you won't miss him when he's off-camera.) Acts of Piracy leads into Rooting for You, where the Captain courts the Commodore all over the Black Pearl, we find out about some of Jack's tragic past, and oh yes, there's smut. At last.

I'm probaby going to be reccing Jack/Norrington more than anything else, so ( a few possibly helpful bits of fanon here. )

Men of Our Word (PG-13), Acts of Piracy (PG-13), and Rooting for You (NC-17)

Fandom: EVERWOOD
Pairing: N/A
Author on LJ: nopejr
Author Website: NopeSpace

Why this must be read: This is a Colin-centric fic set during his second operation. As Colin goes under the knife, the writer attempts to imagine what he may have been imagining. The imagery is eerie; racing from funny to ominous in the span of a line or two. Just like with these passages:

"Ephram," insists Colin. "What are you playing?"

"Medulla oblongata in A Minor," says Ephram. Amy giggles.

Colin frowns. "What are you playing?"

"Can you tell me how to get," Bright sings off-key, conducting Ephram with a blue wax crayon, "how to get to Sesame Street?"

Amy laughs. It sounds, harsh like a bell. It is a bell. Ringing.

It almost reads like an episode of Six Feet Under or the Twilight Zone. Or in actuality, this fic actually reminds me of Buffy's Season 4 ender "Restless" where the 4 leads try to escape a bizarre dreamworld created from their fears and concerns. Like that episode, this fic is layered beautifully, with quirky, almost humorous images yet the readers are never let off the hook. We are never made to forget about the ever-present tone of hopelessness and death that is underneath it all.

And watch out for the last line...it slays.

Spock's Brain

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Harry/Draco (yes, another one)
Author on LJ: monochromal
Author Website: Part of Your World
Why this must be read: I like Ideas in a general sort of way, and fic that is hung off of An Idea will do it for me every time. This gem is so sparkley, I wish I had thought of it. !!! (That's me being jealous.)

It's very hard not to give things away in these blurbs, but this one will linger with you as you try to parse what it means to be alive, really.

Still Life

Fandom: MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin
Author on LJ: not yet
Author Website: none, but her other stories are hosted at File 40

Why this must be read:
Drugged sex is a major kink of mine. There is nothing more satisfying and funny than having character A half-crazed with lust for a bewildered and confused character B. If drugs can help things along, so much the better.

This time it's Napoleon who is given a new truth serum by Thrush: a fitting revenge for all the times he's been distracted by a pretty woman while on assignment. Illya comes to the rescue and finds himself with much more than he can handle:

Napoleon looked down at the Russian’s groin. He’d seen his partner naked before-–in the showers, in hotel rooms-–but he’d never allowed his gaze to linger too long. He had noticed that his partner was respectably endowed-–not bad, considering he had no Italian blood in his veins. It had crossed Napoleon’s mind, on more than one occasion, to wonder what his friend’s reaction might be if he did more than look.

It might be worth finding out.

He chuckled at the thought and sighed happily as he looked up at his friend's face. "Mm, you’re hot," Napoleon whispered.

"I'm fine," Illya assured him with a frown, keeping his eyes on the road.

Napoleon smiled, sliding his hand down to caress Illya’s thigh. "No, I mean, you’re hot!" Illya's eyes briefly left the road to stare at him. Napoleon winked and squeezed the flesh under his hand.

Kuryakin blanched. Oh, Lord! "Napoleon, please sit back and try to get some sleep. We'll be home in an hour or so."

"Can't wait that long. Waited long enough..." Solo informed him as he pulled at Kuryakin's belt and dropped his head onto his lap.

There is a lot to love about this fic. The breezy humour and sexual sizzle is effortless and a joy to read. Victor Marton only made a single appearance in canon (Foxes and Hounds Affair) but he is vividly brought to life in all of his smug oiliness. Illya's matter-of-fact attitude as he struggles with an ardent Napoleon is laugh-out-loud funny. Of course, there's a little angst the day after...but true love and truth serum win out in the end.

The Naked Truth

Fandom:BLAKES7
Pairing: Various implied pairings of canon characters, and original characters
Author on LJ: ?
Author Website:?
Why this must be read:

You are a lover, admirer, or simply a person bemused by meta-fiction, the post-modern, and the phenomenon of fandom, so you click on the first part of this novel-length medi(meta?) tation. You find that it is written in the second person, present tense, by a fan inspired to apply the method of Italo Calvino’s “If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller” to Blakes7 fandom. (It’s also rather Ulysses-ish in terms of reprising the major fanfic genres in a series of interpolated stories, whose titles create a kind of acrostic.)

OK, out of pastiche mode and into review. This is simply one of the damnedest things you’ll ever read about the experience of being a fan--from First Contact with fandom, first club membership, first zine, first play seen because your favorite actor from the show appears in it…(There’s a wonderful cameo appearance by an unnamed B7 actor…no names, no pack drill.)…first con, first visit to a zine library, first kerfuffle about possible movie…

The over-arching narrative is a Story Quest--you, the reader, are constantly frustrated in your attempts to find out what happens in several incomplete fanfics embedded within the text. The first one, also called “Between Life and Death”, is an AU account of the Andromedan War in which Blake and Avon end up in a labyrinth on an alien spaceship…where they encounter infinite regresses in The House of Infinite Chambers and things are, of course, not what they seem…You lose your printout before you can finish reading the story…and it has disappeared from the Website, although somehow it morphs into “Blake Beset by Adversaries”, by someone else entirely--this time Dev Tarrant’s pre-TWB account of the Freedom Party and factional rifts within the Cause.

Within the quest, You meet two more fans, the siblings Jonathan and Jemima (your first face-to-face encounter with other B7 fans) before a performance of a new play which “includes among its cast your favourite star from Blake’s Seven” [sic]. Jemima is a devout but single-minded fan who will only read certain kinds of fics--the ones that seem to her to be close enough to canon to be assimilated into canon--and only after they’ve been “refereed” by her friend Garda, whose loyalties and agenda are very much in doubt.

But Jemima’s own stories, according to Jonathan, are constructions upon the precisely laid foundations of what we can refer to as the “Jem universe”, [and] are hailed by some as architecture of the most satisfying kind, decried by others as unlawful and heterodoxical irrelevancies. […] He makes the whole business appear as complex and surreal as some creation of Kafka’s, wherein a simple error might lead to righteous anger, wounded pride, ostracization. You feel yourself becoming drawn, bemused yet almost grudgingly into this world.

You go to Bath to visit Jemima, but the journey is more complex than you expected. You meet the enigmatic (of course) Garda, who is employed as Jemima’s private Blakes7 librarian, who has recently been forced to expel “Between Life and Death” from the house because it’s a slash story. Garda also works in a university’s Cultural Studies or, as she calls it, Cultural Vacuum department and is working on an article that gains Obscurity Points by referring to B7, which nobody remembers, instead of Star Trek, which everybody does. (Her article--including a minutely detailed and deadpan accurate conrep--appears in Part 11.)

You find this incredible; you have always perceived both characters as extremely heterosexual and the idea that an entire subgenre exists to explore the idea of any homoeroticism between them seems to you to be highly inappropriate. Garda continues. […]The tension between Avon and Blake is an erotic tension; it arises from the deeply ambiguous nature of their relationship. It is a classic homoerotic relationship, like Julius Caesar and Brutus, David and Jonathan, Kirk and Spock![…]Put like this it does indeed seem as though there are aspects of these characters’ relationships which you have not fully considered..

The Approved Zine List can include some het, but only Avon/Cally, Avon/Soolin, Avon/Anna, or Avon/Servalan--AU only. Tarrant can have Servalan, Dayna and of course, Zeeona but never Cally or Soolin. Vila can have no one but Kerrill unless the crew are under some sort of intoxicating influence in which case he can anyone who is available. Blake can be paired with either Cally or Jenna but only for confused one night stands. I don’t know why she likes Blake to be so confused about sex; perhaps she really does secretly believe in slash.

But then the world of B7 fandom is stirred by the news of an impending film version…and Jemima is so disturbed by the possible impact on her personal canon that she heads off to California to confront the scriptwriter, and You and Jonathan go after her.

From the screenwriter’s diary (which also contains his dire PGP plotlines for the proposed film) as he debates casting suggestions such as David Duchovny and Alan Rickman, and Ralph Fiennes: If we want him played like first or second season Avon then we have to get someone who can bring out that heroic element whilst still retaining the cynical wit. Or maybe we want the angst-ridden Avon of the third series? He could never vocalize those feelings so we’d have to get someone who can say it all with The Look.

The scene shifts to a con, where various fen (including the very real BNF Pat Fenech, name-checked and quoted) debate the Nature and Purpose of Fanfic, and exactly what Avon was up to anyway…as explored by the next interpolation, “On a Lonely World Isolated by Indifference,” Avon’s PGP Death Row memoirs.

In any case, is it not the case that in the world of Blake’s Seven the very notion of an ending is itself uncanonical? For the majority of the series, all endings are temporary or else, entirely deceptive; there are only minor truces, transient resolutions, each leading onto a new beginning in the very next episode. Perhaps that is why the finale jars so and why so many fan writers have been unable to accept it as a genuine ending.


NOTE: If you want to explore the Aquitar Files archive there are only a few live links on the home page; to link to the rest of the stories, you have to scroll down and click where it says “access to Contents Page.” Aquitar is a mineral (an isotope of Plotdeviceum). A few throw-away lines in canon say that both Blake and Avon worked at the Aquitar Project, which failed to develop teleport technology for the Federation. Fanonically, this is often used as a peg for the premise that they knew each other then, often Biblically.

Between Life and Death (This is Part 1 of 14, with links to the next part at the end of each one; the URL is the same except that the last part is bld.2.html or whatever. )
Author’s Note

Hi! I'm Starfish, but you can call me Debbie. I'll be your February dS rec-mistress. I know justacat left the bar pretty high, but I'm going to try not to ... suck.

Fandom: due South
Pairing: Fraser/Kowalski
Author on LJ: aukestrel, but there's nothing there to see
Author's Website: http://aukestrel.com/fiction.html , password protected.

Why this must be read: Whenever I'm asked what my favorite due South story is, (and somebody really pins me down to ONE story, dammit!)I always hem and haw before saying, "probably AuK's Likewise." I've read it at least ten times now, and every time I do I see another layer of meaning, or some detail I hadn't noticed before. Her story summary -- "Godawful schmoop, 10 years post-CotW" -- is wildly inaccurate. There's so much unspoken in this, so much love and snark and sex, it blows me away. Every. Single. Time.

AuK's Ray is older and wiser but no less himself; more ehtnically Polish than we see in canon, but it works very well. Her Fraser has loosened up some, but still retains the qualities that make him who he is.

The link below takes you to the archived version of the story at due Slash. As I noted above, AuKestrel's website is password protected, but it's worthwhile to email her for it.

Likewise

Fandom: HARD CORE LOGO
Pairing: Joe/Billy
Author on LJ: aukestrel, but she doesn't post
Author website: is password protected, but her HCL stuff is all on Touch My Stump

Why this must be read:

I was pleased to see the_star_fish reccing another AuK story over in the due South section tonight, so I decided I'd make this one my second rec. There was never any doubt it would end up here, though--AuKestrel is another fantastic writer, and she *gets* Joe, which is *not* an easy thing to do, believe me.

This is a story that, like the movie, and like Joe, pulls absolutely no punches. It's raw and painful and really fucking hot. There are a lot of people who could not write anything like this story. There's one person who could, and it's AuK.

You know what I am? I'm that worm, that fucking ice worm from that goddamned X-Files episode. I'm twisted inside his spine so tight he'll have to cut himself to pull me out, cut deep and hard. And if he pulls me out, he'll die. He'll die, and I'll live on the memory of the blood and the adrenaline and the smell and the taste and the sense of him, until I die too, in a cold jar somewhere, alone, people looking at me, their faces all distorted by the curved glass. Be so fucking cool, freaky to see that. Like a goldfish.

Last Point of Entry.

Go. Read. Now.

Fandom: HIGHLANDER
Pairing:  N/A
Author on LJ: Not that I know of
Author Website: Stories hosted at Daire's Fanfic Refuge
Why this must be read:

(Since this is my first stint on crack_van, here's a brief intro about me. My penname is Pollyanna and I'm English - hence the lj name anglopollyanna. I've been reading Highlander fan fiction since 1999, and have dabbled in writing a little, mostly through the auspices of the Lyric Wheel. I have an all-round liking for the Highlander universe so my recs will include gen and slash stories. I'll probably be choosing older stories since I'm trying to rec stories which have stayed in my memory through the years.)


Let's start at the very beginning. Before Duncan there was another Highlander - "Same clan, different vintage." Although the series did make the effort to connect with the film mythology in the first episode, they didn't have the budget for Connor to appear more often. Luckily fan fiction authors have very deep purses, and the author MacNair has written many excellent stories that place Connor in the TV canon.

It was difficult to pick just one of her stories - should it be the first one chronologically, or the retelling of the first episode from Connor's point of view, or the one where Connor meets Adam Pierson? In the end I chose one that takes events from the film and the concept of Watchers from the TV series and weaves them together.

It starts with a nightmare, then switches to a Watcher reunion party, and eventually the reader discovers how they are connected. Joe Dawson is the only Watcher we know, but the others are introduced with brief penstrokes of description so they quickly become individuals that we empathise with as the story progresses. Connor reminisces about Heather and Kastagir. He and Duncan get to the root of an estrangement that has grown between them, and the Watchers watch, and listen, and eventually speak.


"Connor MacLeod, this is Joseph Dawson," commented Duncan sidelong to his
kinsman. He could feel the tension and strength radiating out of the Scot
beside him and cursed inwardly. He had been hoping a stiff drink or two
would loosen up his friend so they could talk. "Joe, Connor knows all
about the Watchers. I told him as soon as I found out, years ago."

It was pointless to argue about what Mac had told his first teacher. Joseph
looked at Connor, taking in the signs of strain in his body and the steel
in his eyes.

This was not a man like Duncan: friendly, gregarious, easy to deal with.
All the descriptors from this man's Chronicles came to the forefront in a
rush. This was a powerful and dangerous immortal, capable of holding a
corner of New York so strongly that other immortals made peace with him
upon entering his territory or stayed away.

Not Duncan. Not Duncan. Not Duncan. The repeating words hammered in his
head. The Highlander. The original one. He had prepared for this moment all
day, but Dawson found himself momentarily at a loss for words.


There is humour in this story, and grief, and love of many kinds.

On Being Given Eyes To See

Fandom: FIREFLY
Pairing: Wash/Zoe
Author on LJ: anenko
Author Website: Northlight's fic

Why this must be read:
The biggest relationship problem Zoe and Wash have had to face so far in canon is Zoe's relationship to Mal. Few Wash/Zoe fics confront the Mal issue head-on. This one does, and it does it with a realistic feeling that's true to the characters.

This slightly gritty look at Zoe's life compares her history with Wash and her history with Mal in a series of vignettes that sharply delineate her loyalty and friendship for Mal and her love for Wash, in the process making the difference between the two abundantly clear.

Of History

Fandom: SMALLVILLE
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Author on LJ: rushlight75
Author Website: The Bard’s Den
Why this must be read:

Chief among Smallville’s Great Beacons of Hoyay are Lex’s pool tables. Countless coy looks and subtle double-entendre has been exchanged over their perfectly groomed surfaces in canon, heating up all the fangirls’ panties televisions screens, so it's no surprise pool table PWP’s are a staple of the fandom. This seriously hot example stands out as my favorite. Yes, I know the pool table is not actually involved in the sex here, but I maintain this is part of the genre, so there.

These versions of Clark and Lex are very much as I like to see them written: not-as-innocent-as-he-looks!Clark and bent-on-corruption!Lex.

Siren Song is not without sharp edges – as I indicated, this Lex is a v. bad boy - but the yummy porn should ease any pain my opening rec caused (which if you haven’t read, go do now. I don’t want anyone falling behind, here. *g*)

Siren Song (24 K)