crack_van | Textbook Case by Arsenic (Slash, PG13)

Well, Happy National Hangover Day, also known as January 1st. I'm Minotaur, and I'll be your driver for popslash this month. I've chosen to focus on AU's for my recs. I came to popslash a few years ago, and while NSYNC and Trickyfish is my main pairing in RPS, in AU's my tastes are much more catholic.

So why AU's? Lots of other people have said it better, or at more length, but for me a good AU only broadens my understanding of the characters. Pulling the guys out of their "reality" and plopping them down in some new place doesn't always work, but when it's done right it boils them down to their essence and brings them back in some subtle variation of themselves, some new detail of life that brings them into closer focus.

There's a vast selection of AU's out there, in as many variations as there are imaginations to create them. I'm going to be writing about some of the recurring themes in AU's, and reccing stories that I think best illustrate those themes. With a limit of only 12 recs in the whole month, I've had to be ruthless - my first cut of fics I wanted to rec was almost 100 - so I'm also going to be continuing the recs in my own journal.

We're going to start off with one of the most common themes - the High School AU. These put our boys together as teens, in some combination or another. Public schools or boarding schools; NSYNC, Backstreet, other pop singers; big cities or small towns. I think so many writers play with theme because the guys didn't have a "normal" teen experience.

Fandom: POPSLASH
Pairing: Chris/Joey, Lance/JC
Author on LJ:

arsenicjade
Author Website: Every Rose Has A Thorn
Why this must be read:

I've chosen Textbook Case as a prime example of this theme and to start off my month because of the breadth of the story.

Textbook Case is set in an exclusive East Coast boarding school. Chris is the new kid, brought in at the last minute on a scholarship, the poor boy dropped into a rich brat's world.

Normally any mention of Joey and slash in the same breath just confuses me. He's such an unabashed 'hound, sniffing after girls with tranparent (but not innocent) glee. Yes, Joey is a theatre geek, and I'm sure he's known many a gayboy in his day, but that doesn't mean he's ever done anything himself. So any story that can take Joey and convincingly bring him to the page as gay has to be something special.

Arsenic takes that theatre background, along with the New York connection and the Italian family to create a wonderful Joey, one that's full of love for both his parents and his boyfriend, and stuggling to reconcile his duties to them both. The story takes just the right tone - there's teenaged angst, but it's not cloying, and teenaged romance, but no clinging. This bit is one of my absolute favorites - it takes place during summer vacation:

Joey was good on the phone, he could be amusing or engaging without much thought and he didn't get freaked out when the line lapsed into the rhythmic silences of phone conversations. It wasn't until they were talking that Chris felt stifled in Pittsburgh. He missed Joey.

Joey evidently felt the same way, because he took the risk of locking his door and attempting to have phone sex with Chris late one night. Chris couldn't be convinced that he sounded sexy ever, though, let alone through the distortion of fiber-optic cables, so they declared that experience a fun experiment and let it go at that.

One night, Joey recounted something a reporter had said on ESPN earlier that day. Chris played with the phone cord on his end of the line. "Dude, you don't like ESPN."

"Yeah, there wasn't much on."

"You have what, like a bajillion and forty two channels?"

"You like ESPN."

"So?"

"It feels like you're here when I watch it."

Chris let the cord fall from his fingers. "So, what where you saying 'bout the Knicks?"

So go, read.

Textbook Case

Textbook Case by Arsenic (Slash, PG13)

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