Fandom: BLAKES 7
Pairing: Cally/Travis
Author on LJ: archbishopm
Author Website: Penny Dreadful's Fan-Fiction
Why this must be read:

In one of the greatest indignities foisted on an alien guerrilla fighter with a self-destructive streak a mile wide, Cally was often reduced to caring for the crew with gentle platitudes and fetched drinks or being mentally taken over by aliens who played off of the loneliness of an isolated telepath, while her rifle gathered dust on some forgotten shelf (forgotten, at least, to the script-writers). "Not" doesn't ignore that, but uses it and twists it, until we see what happened to make her that way and how far she still has to fall.

Written by the sekrit identity of one of the best B7 writers around, and full of trademarked grim postmodern goodness, this AU branches off when, during the events of "Hostage", Cally tells the crew that Avon has contacted Servalan instead of keeping quiet. With this knowledge, Blake makes a deal with Travis, and his former pursuer becomes a fixture on the Liberator.

This is a dark, bleak story, of a fighter who has lost her will to fight, of a telepath who has lost the contact she needs to remain mentally balanced. When Travis, who as a Federation officer once tortured Cally, comes on board, she is an outsider among strangers, and losing her ability to seperate her thoughts from her words and the thoughts of others from her own. She is losing and growing accustomed to it. With Travis playing mindgames among the crew, she loses more and more, sacrificing her dignity, her body, her ethics almost willingly, for that small bit of focus it grants her, that chance to reclaim small parts of herself from the oblivion she is facing. The prose is harsh and claustrophobic, with a stillness and inevitability that draws in the reader as surely as Cally as is drawn in.

( He turned around and looked at me. 'You've lost your edge,' he said. )


Not

Fandom: THE PROFESSIONALS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: None
Why this must be read: The story really does give you feeling of tagging along with Doyle for the day. And even though you are aware of his thoughts, not everything is a given. I like that the reader is allowed into his mind and, only bit by bit, learns how he feels about his partner, how they work together, the way of their relationship. Sort of the way Doyle learns it.


Average Life of a Daily Civil Servant

Fandom: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Napoleon/Illya
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Unknown
Why this must be read:

I am well aware that Nyssa has already been fully served in crack_van. Soon, all her MFU stories that are available on line will be included. But, so what? She deserves it completely.

She was, with Jane Faifax, one of my first incursions in the slash realm, fortunately; for this early experience left me with no doubt that fanfiction and especially slash fanfiction could be a legitimate literary achievement.

While its neat and clear style appealed to my taste in the matter, this story touched me personally because of its topic: I realised that the prospect of loosing control, of situations, of emotions and, still worse, of intellectual discrimination, have always been my greatest fear.

So, I recognized with a chill the worry expressed by Illya when he had to acknowledge the true nature of his feeling for Napoleon:

For as long as he could remember, he had cherished control. Loss of control was one of the very few things that truly frightened him. It meant leaving your mind, your heart, your body, open to invasion. It meant being overpowered and forced. It meant burning with mute fury while they took whatever they wanted from you and then laughed about it.

Love is a peril, the worse. love is a disease. How can you protect you from a contagious disease? A vaccin could be a solution. For our sly and wary Russian, it may be the last recourse. But for a victim of Napoleon's charm and sex appeal, the cure may well be proved rather ineffective!

And he hadn’t been able to control the conditions of the experiment with as much scientific detachment as he had hoped. It was clear that the inimical agent had lodged itself firmly in his bloodstream. The best he could hope for now was an antidote. Against such a lethal poison, no antidote would work, I am afraid.

The seriousness of this moral issue is lightened by a delicate sense of irony; though the events are shown through Illya's eyes, the reader always knows a little more than the poor experimenter does.

There is a link to Part Two at the end of Part One, and "Balance of Power", the sequel, is indissociable from this story, in my opinion.

Complete Control

Fandom: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
Pairing: Elizabeth Swann Turner/Will Turner
Author on LJ: juniper200
Author Website: n/a
Why this must be read:

You wouldn't think that a pirate ship would be the place to find domesticity, but then, you wouldn't think that pirates could be as gay and shiny as they are in this movie. So it all makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Okay, maybe not. But this story is perfectly domestic and sexy and fun.

At the End of the Day

---

At the end of the day, every author wants feedback.

Fandom: STARSKY & HUTCH
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Author on LJ: charlottefrost
Author Website: Me and Thee Archive

Why this must be read: because I love a good 'Starsky and Hutch go to visit Hutch's family and come out' story.

But this story is more than just a coming out story, it shows Hutch's family dynamics (it ain't good) and why Hutch needs Starsky so much in his life to love him, comfort him and be his partner.

I love a good psychological and angsty drama and this has all of that plus Starsky and Hutch coming to terms with how their relationship is changing -- for the better -- when they finally admit they are in love with one another..


Just Love