Coherent fanfic recs.

[minxy]

thassalia's (instigated by leadensky) Thelma and Louise friendship ficathon is really fantastic. There are amazing stories being posted there and the novelty of seeing characters rarely written together is incredibly charming for me. In half of these stories characters that really ought to have met are put in the same room and just allowed to talk, and it's grand. They fall into two categories that I can see:

Women from the same series:

rydra_wong posted the Sha're & Sam (and Janet, actually) fic (Scotoma). I beta'd this, so obviously I am biased, but there are few fics (teand's obviously, but then that was an influence) that recognise Sha're as a person apart from Daniel, let alone the only host to directly override a Goa'uld, or a woman who taught herself to read when it was forbidden, or who approached a marriage to an alien with bravery and adaptability and who was teacher and rebellion organizer and was underestimated by almost everyone who ever knew her. The woman was also, not incidently, amazingly emotionally intelligent. How can you not be curious about how she'd fare at the SGC if they'd actually managed to free her? It's such an amazing premise, and RW worked it. For sarahjane, PG? Seriously, I've been so looking forward to you guys being able to see this fic.

From the X-men Movie 'Verse, a marvelous Marie & Raven friendship post X3. A lot of psychological complexity packed into such a short piece: where the physical change wasn't enough to erase who they had become or what they knew, and each dealt with the inability to truly pass in their own way, Marie is just a lot more subtle about it. Prelude by boofadil. PG-13.

isabellesmuse wrote Of Belonging to Another for RW in SG-1, and three women who form a rather exclusive club. What is interesting to me is the exploration of lingering effects and coping mechanisms and respect for each other, without ever implying weakness. Sarah & Sam & Vala.

In Firefly, Inara and River: thassalia's Treading on the Toes of a Grimm Reality where River is given rhyme and reason, the better to be understood by the reader, but no less complex to her shipmates. Inara's tenderness for her is great.

Also Shunda (sugargroupie) has a Farscape fic, I believe, but she's warned for eps I haven't seen yet (thank you) so I'm bookmarking for my own benefit. Y'all can just go tell her she's wonderful, though, because I'm sure the writing is. Shake Loose, PG.

Then there are crossovers: women characters who really ought to meet.

Firefly crossover with Stargate: Replicarter goes head to head with River and Zoe. OMG, I'm so sorry, that was a terrible pun. Along Came a Spider by liminalliz for Cofax, I'd give it PG-13, because it's walking a dangerous line, but they're all accustomed to that and deft at it.

cofax7 has posted a fantastic Firefly/Farscape crossover too for Thea (Contredanse) in which Aeryn and Zoe are wonderful and there are witty subtitles to the chapter headings.

Great trend, eh? Aeryn and Sam, post PKW (a couple of spoilers snuck in there for S3 and 4, I think. I'm forgetting I read them now) I like that Sam offers company and silence and sports, and that combination is cathartic for Aeryn. Ordinary World from sarahjane (thehallway) links to other parts of the series.

Right, outside that amazing collections of stories, there are some others I'd like to point to.

The not work-safe Mitchell/Sheppard Retrograde fic (Expatriate) from ltlj that I mentioned yesterday, if you were paying attention to anything other than the happyflailingbouncing behavior. John so broken is an amazing starting place, and Cam has always been intuitively cued into keeping him feeling safe even while totally invading his personal space (at least, in LTLJ's 'verse), so here they take it a bit farther in the name of protecting each other and it's amazing that they maintain their easy attitudes all while being accidently really turned on. I kinda love those two together. NC-17, John/Cam, Retrograde 'verse, might stand alone.

I've read through all the Sam/Jack I was given a direct link for, and now I'm going to sort through a couple of the authors that I was recc'd. Will get a post all it's own sometime this weekend since I've got the S3 Farscape discs and it was a cliffhangeromg that I really want to see the resolution to. So, after that.

Discussed amid the S/J fic, though, was a great Daniel in absentia gen fic about trying to replace him during S6 (Numerology by Random, which I loved for each failure teaching Jack something of what exactly Daniel had been to him, even as he refuses to grieve outright. It's amazing stubborn, smart, hurting Jack. Gen, PGish? S6.

mmmchelle wrote a commentary for a John/Rodney S1 hiatus fic, that I found fascinating on a number of levels. I love those things. Commentary for A Better Dream. In which she once again demonstrates a deft understanding of trauma, psychology and the complexities of healing and physical and verbal communication. Plus, wonderful complex family dynamics too.

Two more John/Rodney: An Aliens Drugged Them So They'd Do It But They're NOBLE... um. Everything But Temptation. amific. Good nobility with revelation. NC-17.

Also Kid A from cesperanza. First time, glorious first time. NC-17.

Comments

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hee:) Yeah for the rec - both for the ficathon, and for the individual authors!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Yay! The premise is so fantastic that it's possible I'll just find everything wonderful because we've never been given moments between those characters before.

Oh well, if I'm not objective, I'm not objective, right? Still, this is my favorite ficathon of recent months, and not just because I didn't participate (apart from beta cheerleading). I'm really thrilled that you put it together.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Much (if not most) of the credit goes to leadensky. It was her idea, I just helped with the execution. But it is producing some lovely stuff, isn't it?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Oooooh, I KNEW there was someone I wasn't crediting. 'Scuse me whilst I just go edit her in...

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

Nononononono. Thea's putting the thing in action - I just had a wild hair and then dumped the work on her. You had it right the first time.

- hg

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

*squints at you* *tilts head* Okay, you get parentheses, but I do remember you being rather involved in instigating the whole thing and it was a great idea... so, you get props. In parentheses.

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Oh, you are so very welcome. *g*

[delphia2000.livejournal.com]

I read the last two recs right before bedtime...really good!...and ended up dreaming about SGA. I forget the dream exactly, but I remember thinking at one point, hey, I'm dreaming this and it's all minxy's fault! :OD

Read the first one too...really interesting idea. I'm guilty of not fully recognizing Sha're's character and feel bad about it. I think I feel she got screwed over on the show because of her personal relationship with MS more than anything else.

Good recs, as ever!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Paian has an icon of Sha'uri from the movie, with the words 'Sha'uri's rebellion' and scenes of all those pivotal things she did to take Abydos into rebellion, and it's just stunning how different that character is from the little mouse Sha're became. And it was a wierd change too: the movie Sha'uri was smart and sneaky and feisty, but culturally submissive; Sha're in the series was physically feisty, but intellectually whiney somehow (Daniel no longer loves me, wah! vs. I didn't tell them that you don't want me.)

But, and this is something that RW and I talked about, it doesn't have to be Western pity for a girl from a different culture being OMGrepressed! Because she's not Western! But instead allowing Sha're to be proactive and make choices and fight in whatever way she wants to. I just really loved those discussions. Sam, too, was interesting to have dealing with Sha're. That's just a very wonderful and unique idea that she wrote a very wonderful thinky fic about.

I've been stunned at how special almost every fic in that ficathon I've read so far feels, though. Why aren't there more friendship fics between women characters?

And the John/Rodneys... rawr. I've been reading so much gen lately, to find sweet, complicated first time fics is like candy. *gobbles it up*

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

Why aren't there more friendship fics between women characters?

Darling. This is fandom, remember? Lowest common denominator.

More seriously - I might have thoughts on that, later. This sort of fic wasn't the easiest to write.

- hg

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I would love to read thoughts, maybe even a commentary if it's specific to the story. Writing women in friendships is a difficult thing, though, as we're all appreciative of the complexity involved. RW, for example, learned enough about each of the women she was writing to be friends with them on her own, and then she figured out how they'd interact together, and that was much more complicated than letting two guys go at it and writing subtext and longing looks and smootching.

Not that I'm knocking the action, or the smut, or anything, but it is automatically psychologically complex to write a friendship between women.

[rydra_wong]

Ooh, it would be fantastic to have a discussion post about this, about writing women in friendships and the issues that the ficathon's brought up *hints unsubtly*.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

*points out that she did not participate and looks expectantly at hg*

Unless you mean ficathons in general and friendships in general, though I haven't written any fic with a friendship between TWO women as a central theme. Lots of Sam friendships, though.

[rydra_wong]

Hey, you have thinky thoughts about writing female friendships, inspired by the ficathon. Sounds like it could make an interesting discussion post.

Readers count, too *g*.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Alizarin is talking about similar issues writing femmeslash for the Teyla ficathon; just, not in an organized way.

I might post, actually, but more to see if a discussion can get started then to hold forth.

[rydra_wong]

And it was a wierd change too: the movie Sha'uri was smart and sneaky and feisty, but culturally submissive; Sha're in the series was physically feisty, but intellectually whiney somehow (Daniel no longer loves me, wah! vs. I didn't tell them that you don't want me.)

Interestingly, having finally seen the movie, I found the change in Sha're's characterization less drastic than I'd expected from people's comments.

She does cool stuff, but she does in series canon too. And she still projects as terribly demure and submissive with Daniel in a lot of ways, running off into a corner to tell him that she didn't tell them that Daniel didn't want her.

So I have less trouble seeing continuity, and I buy tafkarfanfic's interpretation, that she's a smart strong woman who's brought up in a culture where (at least public) submission to male authority is required.

I have more of a problem with both movie and series depictions in terms of what they tell versus what they show, which is a problem they seem to have with female characters in general.

By the way, there's a fabulous Sha're vid, "My Ain True Love", which does really interesting things in terms of shifting the perspective, making Sha're the Quester:

http://solvi.bravepages.com/sg1.htm

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

I actually don't think it's drastic, I think it was the same ideas taken in slightly different directions. And a lot of it is really easily explained by everything that Sha're went through in the series: the idea of bearing a child of rape (effectively) in a marriage would create a lot of questions in her head about her own value.

My main concern, or objection, or something, was that the smart, strong part got really lost in the series. She became rather an innocent, or a victim, or the object Daniel quested for. Probably what you're talking about in terms of showing vs. telling, this notion that they show her broken and victimized and whiney, but expect us to remember a lot of the rest, and know that when they talk about the strength of will needed everyone will nod knowingly and say 'but of course, this is the woman who did amazing things... but offscreen or in the movie.'

And I am pretty sure I've watched that vid and thought it quite marvelous.