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crack_van2004-07-01 03:11 pm
ianmcduff.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2004-07-01 03:11 pm
Preliminary Matters; Then, ‘Doppelganger,’ by Alexandria Brown (PG-13)
Fasten your seatbelts, please, and keep your hands and arms inside the van. Other appendages are, well, up to you.
The vicissitudes of fate – a fate with a sick sense of humor, I might add – have resulted in my being your (conscripted) Vergil through this, um, infernal month of popslash recs. And there are a few things I should say, first.
Look, this is popslash. Surely you don’t need a backgrounder at this point.
That said, there are a couple of things I should tell you about how these recs are going to play out.
Popslash is not just another word for Syncslash. Streetslash has been getting the short end of the stick (and no, I blame none of my predecessors here), and I don’t think it ought.
Sync / Street pairings, or interactions, by the same token, are not, in my view, crossover. Popslash means just that: the circle in which both bands move. They have shared educations (Howie and Chris), management, labels … you get the drift.
Popslash is unusual (even for RPS) because the canon not only can change, it probably will. At least FPS canon doesn’t generally include wholesale revisions and reissues of prior volumes or episodes. Popslash canon, by contrast, has seen not a few lies that were later exposed or abandoned (trivial example: the second ‘N’ in ’N Sync).
As a result, it seems to me that imagination has a large space to fill in popslash. We’re often unsure when we’re being lied to by the label in its creation of ‘canon.’ We certainly don’t truly know what our subjects would call each other in private even as friends (who would have guessed ‘shitty’ beforehand?), or how they truly interact with the masks off. I for one appreciate popslash that fills in these gaps imaginatively, so long as it’s congruent with canon or explains why it treats canon aspect ‘x’ as another in the string of fibs we’ve been fed by the promoters. These recs will reflect that.
On the other hand (I’m not sure which hand we’re up to now, but it probably puts a Hindu idol to shame), there do seem to be certain basic aspects of character and certain dynamics that are real. When I rec an AU / AR / AH here, it will most likely be because it is one that shows how those character traits and those dynamics persist in any setting whatever: that character, in short, is destiny.
Final note: I am aware – how could I not be? – that I am at daggers drawn with not a few people in this fandom. These recs will NEVER reflect that fact if I can help it, and will – to the best of my ability – be made ‘without fear or favor,’ regardless of my own preferences or preferred pairings, and irrespective of personal friendships or the reverse. I will rec solely on merit, and my judgment will be informed only by the sort of factors I’ve outlined above: e.g., characterization, plot, pace, and the like.
Fandom: POPSLASH (STREETSLASH)
Pairing: None explicit: Nick protects Aaron from exploitation
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alexandriabrown
Author Website: Such a Pretty Boy
Why this must be read: Evocative, subtle, and affecting meditation on the price of fame and the nature of love. To say more would cheapen it.
Doppelganger.
The vicissitudes of fate – a fate with a sick sense of humor, I might add – have resulted in my being your (conscripted) Vergil through this, um, infernal month of popslash recs. And there are a few things I should say, first.
Look, this is popslash. Surely you don’t need a backgrounder at this point.
That said, there are a couple of things I should tell you about how these recs are going to play out.
Popslash is not just another word for Syncslash. Streetslash has been getting the short end of the stick (and no, I blame none of my predecessors here), and I don’t think it ought.
Sync / Street pairings, or interactions, by the same token, are not, in my view, crossover. Popslash means just that: the circle in which both bands move. They have shared educations (Howie and Chris), management, labels … you get the drift.
Popslash is unusual (even for RPS) because the canon not only can change, it probably will. At least FPS canon doesn’t generally include wholesale revisions and reissues of prior volumes or episodes. Popslash canon, by contrast, has seen not a few lies that were later exposed or abandoned (trivial example: the second ‘N’ in ’N Sync).
As a result, it seems to me that imagination has a large space to fill in popslash. We’re often unsure when we’re being lied to by the label in its creation of ‘canon.’ We certainly don’t truly know what our subjects would call each other in private even as friends (who would have guessed ‘shitty’ beforehand?), or how they truly interact with the masks off. I for one appreciate popslash that fills in these gaps imaginatively, so long as it’s congruent with canon or explains why it treats canon aspect ‘x’ as another in the string of fibs we’ve been fed by the promoters. These recs will reflect that.
On the other hand (I’m not sure which hand we’re up to now, but it probably puts a Hindu idol to shame), there do seem to be certain basic aspects of character and certain dynamics that are real. When I rec an AU / AR / AH here, it will most likely be because it is one that shows how those character traits and those dynamics persist in any setting whatever: that character, in short, is destiny.
Final note: I am aware – how could I not be? – that I am at daggers drawn with not a few people in this fandom. These recs will NEVER reflect that fact if I can help it, and will – to the best of my ability – be made ‘without fear or favor,’ regardless of my own preferences or preferred pairings, and irrespective of personal friendships or the reverse. I will rec solely on merit, and my judgment will be informed only by the sort of factors I’ve outlined above: e.g., characterization, plot, pace, and the like.
Fandom: POPSLASH (STREETSLASH)
Pairing: None explicit: Nick protects Aaron from exploitation
Author on LJ:
alexandriabrownAuthor Website: Such a Pretty Boy
Why this must be read: Evocative, subtle, and affecting meditation on the price of fame and the nature of love. To say more would cheapen it.
Doppelganger.
no subject
Bugger It. Damn That Cut and Paste.
Sigh.
Thanks for the backstop.