that one story
Mar. 9th, 2011 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eruthrosRecently I've been rewatching Star Trek: Voyager, and reading a lot in the Vorkosigan-verse, and the combination of those two things means that I've seen a lot of recs for two particular stories. And it made me think about the stories that get widely recced or read outside of the fandoms for those sources - the stories that many, many people have read with minimal canon knowledge, or without having read any other stories in the fandom, or without caring about the characters, or whatever.
To explain what I mean more clearly, here are some of mine:
1) Vorkosigan-verse, A Deeper Season bylightgetsin and sahiya
When I first read A Deeper Season, I'd read the Vorkosigan books but had absolutely no fandom knowledge - I didn't know where communities or archives or stories were - but basically the instant I told people I'd been reading the books, I got this rec. And I'm pretty sure that many of the people reccing it had only read this one story in the fandom, too, because I would usually get people who said "I don't read in the fandom, but ..." and "I don't even know the canon, but ..."
It is, in fact, an awesome story, and I love it to pieces. But the point here is not really about the story per se, it's about that kind of shared fannish experience without even being in the fandom. I suspect that it's still (one of) the stories people read despite not being in the fandom, because I occasionally see people on my rlist who say "I just read some Vorkosigan, where's the fic?" and there, in the first couple of comments, is "I don't read in the fandom, but A Deeper Season!" (Unless the post is about Ivan, in which case the recs are from a different fandom than the one I usually read in.)
2) Star Trek: Voyager, Talking Stick/Circle series by Macedon and Peg.
I watched the early seasons of Voyager sort of casually, and without much interest in fic, so IIRC I hadn't read much of anything before this story. Like most of the other things on this list, it was recced by someone; in this case, when I was complaining about the way that the Maquis-Starfleet tensions rarely came up on the show, and the way some of the Chakotay episodes made me flinch, somebody (sineala?) said "you know, someone has fixed that," and recced this series. And then I read it, and it was indeed great, and influential, in the sense that I often forget that Macedon's Chakotay backstory is not canon Chakotay's backstory, and then I started doing the same thing: people would say "I've never read any Voyager fic" and I would rec this story and nothing else because I hadn't read much else.
Much later, I read a bunch of other Voyager stories (Janeway/Seven! strange crossovers! Harry/Tom!), but Talking Stick/Circle remained the only thing I'd read in Voyager for two years or so. And now that I'm rewatching Voyager, I still see a ton of recs for it.
3) Harry Potter, A Most Disquieting Tea series by telanu.
This is kind of funny, now, since I've read a ton of Harry Potter fanfiction since, and since HP fandoms are so giant and sprawling and whatever. But back before I knew anything about Harry Potter fandoms, I had just read the books and maybe a couple of Harry/Ron and Harry/Draco stories by authors I'd followed in other fandoms. And then at least two people on my flist recced "A Most Disquieting Tea," and I went and read it, and I went "oh, all right." I think when I was linked to it there were only three or maybe four stories in the series, and I haven't actually read all of the sequels since, but at the time I could talk about it with many, many people who had read no other Harry Potter fanfic. (A couple of years later I went through Walking the Plank with serious dedication, and "A Most Disquieting Tea" is far from the best Harry/Snape story I read then, but it was still a big deal in my circles of not-in-the-fandoms earlier.)
I suspect that for other people, Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy was That Story from (a different part of) HP fandom, but I never managed to read more than a couple chapters of it. It was widely recced around me, but I never really got it in the same way.
So the interesting thing about this is, it's basically impossible to think about it for fandoms I was in when I was reading the fic. Like, Stargate Atlantis - I read a million stories, and I followed a bunch of recs, and I watched all the vids, so I have no idea what story or stories were widely read outside of the fandom. Was it one of the early ones, like maybeastolat's A Beautiful Lifetime Event? Was it helenish's Take Clothes Off As Directed? Or maybe cesperanza's epic Written By the Victors? But on the other hand, maybe Written By the Victors requires too much canon knowledge, and Take Clothes Off As Directed is, after all, a bdsm au, which is perhaps not as likely to be widely recced, and who knows which of the season one or two stories would be most popular. Or maybe it's something I didn't even really notice at the time, or something different from the stuff that was widely recced on my rlists. I have no idea.
Anyway! I'd be interested to hear about any of your experiences with that one (or two or three) stories that were widely read and recced by people not in the fandom.
To explain what I mean more clearly, here are some of mine:
1) Vorkosigan-verse, A Deeper Season by
lightgetsin and sahiyaWhen I first read A Deeper Season, I'd read the Vorkosigan books but had absolutely no fandom knowledge - I didn't know where communities or archives or stories were - but basically the instant I told people I'd been reading the books, I got this rec. And I'm pretty sure that many of the people reccing it had only read this one story in the fandom, too, because I would usually get people who said "I don't read in the fandom, but ..." and "I don't even know the canon, but ..."
It is, in fact, an awesome story, and I love it to pieces. But the point here is not really about the story per se, it's about that kind of shared fannish experience without even being in the fandom. I suspect that it's still (one of) the stories people read despite not being in the fandom, because I occasionally see people on my rlist who say "I just read some Vorkosigan, where's the fic?" and there, in the first couple of comments, is "I don't read in the fandom, but A Deeper Season!" (Unless the post is about Ivan, in which case the recs are from a different fandom than the one I usually read in.)
2) Star Trek: Voyager, Talking Stick/Circle series by Macedon and Peg.
I watched the early seasons of Voyager sort of casually, and without much interest in fic, so IIRC I hadn't read much of anything before this story. Like most of the other things on this list, it was recced by someone; in this case, when I was complaining about the way that the Maquis-Starfleet tensions rarely came up on the show, and the way some of the Chakotay episodes made me flinch, somebody (
sineala?) said "you know, someone has fixed that," and recced this series. And then I read it, and it was indeed great, and influential, in the sense that I often forget that Macedon's Chakotay backstory is not canon Chakotay's backstory, and then I started doing the same thing: people would say "I've never read any Voyager fic" and I would rec this story and nothing else because I hadn't read much else. Much later, I read a bunch of other Voyager stories (Janeway/Seven! strange crossovers! Harry/Tom!), but Talking Stick/Circle remained the only thing I'd read in Voyager for two years or so. And now that I'm rewatching Voyager, I still see a ton of recs for it.
3) Harry Potter, A Most Disquieting Tea series by telanu.
This is kind of funny, now, since I've read a ton of Harry Potter fanfiction since, and since HP fandoms are so giant and sprawling and whatever. But back before I knew anything about Harry Potter fandoms, I had just read the books and maybe a couple of Harry/Ron and Harry/Draco stories by authors I'd followed in other fandoms. And then at least two people on my flist recced "A Most Disquieting Tea," and I went and read it, and I went "oh, all right." I think when I was linked to it there were only three or maybe four stories in the series, and I haven't actually read all of the sequels since, but at the time I could talk about it with many, many people who had read no other Harry Potter fanfic. (A couple of years later I went through Walking the Plank with serious dedication, and "A Most Disquieting Tea" is far from the best Harry/Snape story I read then, but it was still a big deal in my circles of not-in-the-fandoms earlier.)
I suspect that for other people, Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy was That Story from (a different part of) HP fandom, but I never managed to read more than a couple chapters of it. It was widely recced around me, but I never really got it in the same way.
So the interesting thing about this is, it's basically impossible to think about it for fandoms I was in when I was reading the fic. Like, Stargate Atlantis - I read a million stories, and I followed a bunch of recs, and I watched all the vids, so I have no idea what story or stories were widely read outside of the fandom. Was it one of the early ones, like maybe
astolat's A Beautiful Lifetime Event? Was it helenish's Take Clothes Off As Directed? Or maybe cesperanza's epic Written By the Victors? But on the other hand, maybe Written By the Victors requires too much canon knowledge, and Take Clothes Off As Directed is, after all, a bdsm au, which is perhaps not as likely to be widely recced, and who knows which of the season one or two stories would be most popular. Or maybe it's something I didn't even really notice at the time, or something different from the stuff that was widely recced on my rlists. I have no idea. Anyway! I'd be interested to hear about any of your experiences with that one (or two or three) stories that were widely read and recced by people not in the fandom.
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Date: 2011-03-09 06:24 pm (UTC)That Spock Adopts A Tiny Adorable Vulcan Child fic seems to be it for nuTrek, though I've never read it myself.
Is Figure It Out the fic for White Collar? Or is my passionate and overwhelming love for it distracting me from facts?
Oh -- and the fic people keep telling me I should read whether or not I care about bandom is the negotiation-bdsm fic. With one capital letter. OH NO what is it called. "Tell me to stop." Which I have read! But did not get me into bandom, unlike Freedom's Just Another Word, which got me into SGA so fast there were skidmarks on my psyche.
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Date: 2011-03-09 06:33 pm (UTC)I have no idea what the Spock Adopts a Tiny Adorable Vulcan Child story is; I might not even have seen it recced. I've read more AOS fic, so it's harder for me to sort it out, but I've seen "Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit" recced a lot.
I have not read that bandom story, either, but I think I have seen it recced around. And I haven't seen a lot of White Collar recs, but that is an awesome story.
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Date: 2011-03-11 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 06:38 pm (UTC)I suspect that DCU's is Astolat's Reconcilable Differences, a crossover/amalgam with Smallville. I have never read in its entirety due to irreconcilable differences between Smallville and the basic underlying tenets of DC Comics I loved at the time.
I'll vote for "Freedom's Just Another Word..." as the only SGA story I read for ages.
Regarding Telanu, I distinctly recall reading her version of Book Five right before the actual Book Five, and finding that it used basically the same plot device, except better. I was drifting through HP at the time, and in retrospect I have a great deal of trouble remembering which bits are actually canon. Apart from the baseline "Not the Harry/Snape parts," anyway.
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Date: 2011-03-09 06:59 pm (UTC)This post is going to make me open a ton of tabs of great fic again, I suspect! I have read very little DCU fic (mostly by people on my rlist or for kink bingo), but I have read Reconcilable Differences, a good long time ago.
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Date: 2011-03-09 07:12 pm (UTC)As for DCU fic, I have the simmering rage that comes with comics fandom, even now that I've broken up with the canon lo these many years ago. All that investment means I really *deeply* dislike crossovers between DCU and Smallville, even ones that I can say are well-written independent of their subjects and themes. Smallville Lex is too omniscient to allow things to continue in the DCU; he knows everyone's secret identity and he's not afraid to use them. Astolat did one where the Lex Luthors switched universes, and that worked somewhat better for me because it didn't break the rules.
There are many wonderful stories in DCU that have absolutely nothing to do with Smallville at all. I don't know what your narrative-or-otherwise kinks and dealbreakers are, but I'd be happy to find you some recommendations that don't make me say, "But that story is not about my fandom!"
As for the Farscape story, it's feldman's Scientist, Astronaut, and Nymphomaniac: The nine lives of John Crichton.
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Date: 2011-03-09 07:28 pm (UTC)I have very few narrative dealbreakers; mostly atm they're centered around fated or predestined relationships, children as the hope for the future, and the default heterosexual monogamous marriage tropes that sometimes color fic about queer characters too. I like queerness and poly fic and and queer het and kink and apocalypses and scifi and worldbuilding and silence, among other things.
I don't really remember Reconcilable Differences, but I think I preferred pru's Conflicts of Interest, which borrows heavily from DCU without doing a straight-up crossover in which Lex would know all about Bart or whatever.
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Date: 2011-03-09 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-09 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 07:45 pm (UTC)... I should probably mention that though I am (obvs) in A:TLA fandom up to my eyeballs now, I totally read
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Date: 2011-03-09 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 07:16 pm (UTC)Nth-ing "Freedom's Just Another Word," which was totally responsible for my getting into SGA. Even if sometimes I wish it hadn't.
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Date: 2011-03-09 07:31 pm (UTC)I've never read "Dust in the Wind," but now I have it open in a tab :)
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Date: 2011-03-09 07:38 pm (UTC)(Hit enter too early on last comment)
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Date: 2011-03-09 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 08:27 pm (UTC)I still remember the Talking Stick/Circle series fondly, but part of that is that kind of nostalgia - it was so great when I read it then, at the exact moment when it fixed the things that frustrated me, when everyone loved it, etc. Missing that moment probably would have really changed the way I felt about it, too. (It did for me and Macedon's equally highly-recced DS9 series Jeu-Parti.)
PS: I love your icon.
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Date: 2011-03-09 08:35 pm (UTC)Possibly I should give it another read after I've started my Voyager re-watch later this year.
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Date: 2011-03-09 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 10:10 pm (UTC)For me That Story in Pros fandom is The Cook and the Warehouseman which I read probably ten years before ever seeing any Pros and it was recced to me by mutiple people who as far as I know had not seen Pros either. As a Pros story it's a little... weird, but it is a massive SF AU that requires zilch in the way of canon knowledge, so that's probably why it worked. You know, you can read it as origfic, that kind of thing.
It's funny you should mention Take Clothes Off, because at this point I think of that story more as the originator of a giant fandom meme -- sort of like the post on fandom secrets the other day where someone wanted to know where the heck Five Things stories came from and many people thought it could have been from a kinkmeme. (*facepalm* Kids these days.) I have seen so many Directed!verse style stories even over in fandoms like Phoenix Wright (and the video game fandoms and Western media fandoms do not seem to overlap that much). There was even a post the other day on The Eagle kinkmeme asking for Directed!verse fic. (In a fandom with canonical legal slavery where the characters are, um, actually each other's slaves at various points.) It seemed weird to me. Fun, but weird.
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Date: 2011-03-10 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 10:17 pm (UTC)Oh, and Hindsight and Ladies' Night At the Boom Boom Room and the Atlantis Stitch-n-Bitch Club stories by Rageprufrock.
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Date: 2011-03-09 10:30 pm (UTC)The story that probably tipped me from occasionally reading SGA fic to actively looking for more was Helenish's Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending. At that point I had still never seen the show and pictured Teyla as Zhaan from Farscape. Anyway. I think I need humor to really draw me into a fandom, so Freedom wasn't my gateway drug.
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Date: 2011-03-10 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 05:16 am (UTC)I saw so many recs for rageprufrock stories, though, but I forgot them earlier - Ladies' Night especially, I think.
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Date: 2011-03-10 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 12:57 am (UTC)Farscape: +1 for Scientist, Astronaut...
SPN: I haven't got around to reading it, but I saw Red get recced in so many lists and discussions of fandom-transcending fic that I figured I'd better bookmark it for a rainy day.
HP: Lust Over Pendle's another one.
Iron Man: The Kids Aren't All Right and also that one where Tony was never rich, the name of which escapes me.
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Date: 2011-03-10 05:24 am (UTC)The two Iron Man stories you mention absolutely were that, in my corner of fandom, anyway. They're the only Iron Man stories I've read :)
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Date: 2011-03-10 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 03:47 am (UTC)I had never seen the show, but had read a couple fics before that, one of which I hated (
I still haven't read a lot of the big stories in SGA or in any of my fandoms. I always mean to, becuase I want to know what people are talking about, but they don't always appeal much and tend to be long, which means they go on my to-read list forever and never actually get read.
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Date: 2011-03-10 05:32 am (UTC)I also still haven't read a lot of the big stories in my fandoms. (Often because I tend not to like long fluff stories very much and am rarely in the mood for them.)
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Date: 2011-03-10 04:58 am (UTC)-the most widely read story within the fandom
-the most widely read story both within/without the fandom
-the most widely recced story within the fandom to others in the fandom
-the most widely recced story recced to try to get new ppl into the fandom
-the most widely recced story recced as a "you don't have to know the fandom" thing
-the story ~I~ would choose to rec to ppl who don't know the fandom, if I want to get them into it
-the story I'd choose to rec to ppl who don't know the fandom, if I just wanted them to read that one story
-the story I'd choose as my favorite within the fandom for "it's the best story" or w/e
-the story I'd choose as my favorite for emotional attachment/etc. (though I may not think it's the "best")
It is also possible
I overanalyze things. XD
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Date: 2011-03-10 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-10 06:28 am (UTC)I wanted to add a shout-out for "Lunch and Other Obscenities" for Nu!Trek, though that might just be in the "I liked the movie, but MORE WOMEN" part of not-really-fandom.
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Date: 2011-03-10 07:26 pm (UTC)