From intrigueing and muccamukk:

In a new post, list ten fic that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” works, or even all the same pairing or fandom, just the fics that have touched you or that stuck with you somehow.

I'm sure I could come up with ten more, but these are the ones that came immediately to mind (and which I could find again online!):

1.) From Me To Q by Julia Houston (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Star Trek in its first three incarnations is one of my oldest fandoms, and the time when TNG and then DS9 were broadcast was when I started to get aquainted with fanfiction, first via fanzines and then via the earliest online archives. Finding this particular story was like striking gold. It's TNG; it's plotty, like a well written episode complete with ethical dilemmas; it's Picard/Q (which was what I was looking for when finding the story) but uses the entire TNG ensemble well; it takes the most reviled of fanfic clichés, the Mary Sue, and gives it a highly original twist. (Well, back then it was original, for all I know, it's been often imitated since.) Also, the dialogue sparkles. In short, I fell in love, so much so that I gave Voyager, which I had almost given up upon, another shot, simply because Julia Houston back then was also writing Voyager reviews and I adored her writing that much.


2.) Last Set Before Closing, by Kat Allison. (Highlander: The Series). HL was another early online fandom of mine, and this story left me shaken and breathless the first time I read it. On the surface, not much happens in this tale, which is set several years after the series ended; Joe Dawson is very old, not far from death, and his mind has started to wander; Duncan visits. Behind that simple description hides one of the best and most gutwrenching stories I've read in any fandom, which at once gives us the relationship between Joe and Duncan, and how both of them relate to Methos, about friendship, about mortals and immortals, and at the same time manages to say something very personal to anyone who has an older relative. (Until then, I don't think I had ever read fanfiction tackling a rl subject such as aging, its physical and mental decline, so unflinchingly, and with a beloved character, no less.) Another reason why I love it is this: at the time when it was first posted, its take on Methos was pretty much unique and went directly against how most fans then wrote him. (Probably still does.) And yet I find it entirely plausible.


3.) Changed Utterly by Parda (Highlander: The Series). Another HL story. Parda was a writer I interacted with a lot during my HL days, both as a reader and as a writer. This story is still my favourite of hers, and at the time it was first posted struck me as one of the best meditations onf grief and surviving I had read i nthe fandom. It's set about a year after the show ends, wherein Duncan is still dealing with Richie’s fate, when he sees Cassandra again. Not present in body but very much in thought are Methos, Connor and Richie. What to do when you’ve both done and experienced the unforgivable is a question with a dozen answers and none, and all the characters here are dealing with it. Poetic and profound.


4.) Father's Heart by Fernwithy ( Star Wars). Still my favourite Star Wars story, many years later (this was written shortly after The Phantom Menace was released). Set between trilogies, it pulls off something a lot of people tried since, and does so in a credible way: Vader and the child and later teenager Leia forming a tentative friendship, which falls apart with a vengeance as she grows older and experiences the Empire at its worst. In addition to a terrific take on Leia and Vader, Bail Organa and his wife (who in this version is one of the former handmaidens, Sabé) as well as some original characters are compellingly written. ( Not to mention it caters to two of my narrative soft spots: non-romantic intense relationship, relationship that breaks up because of politics and ethics (and rightly so). ) I was only ever at the periphery of SW fandom, not least because I happen to like the prequels, but this story made me search for and read a lot of SW fanfiction for a while. It was years before I found its match.


5.) Freefall by Penknife (X-Men movieverse). This is an X2 AU, ensemble story, Scott pov, and one of the earliest penknife stories I read. X2 had just been released. As after X1, I hunted for stories that weren't Wolverine/Rogue. Hard to imagine for current day fans, but back then it was actually difficult to find Magneto/Xavier stories, or stories that featured Mystique in a prominent role, or stories that featured Scott at all. Bingo, thought I, when I found this one, and little did I know I had also found a favourite writer in many fandoms more. Oh, and I think this was the first AU I really liked (the twist is that Scott realises a bit sooner what's going on during the prison visit at the start of the movie, with the result that he and Xavier end up as fugitives together with Magneto and Mystique; it's Jean who gets captured instead). Until then, I had avoided AUs. After reading it, I gave them a shot.

6.) Ten Thousand Candles by Andraste. This is another early story by a future favourite writer; Charles Xavier post X2, trying to cope with all that happened (read: ( spoiler for big X2 twist )). Back then, Charles Xavier centric stories were incredibly rare; stories in which he wasn't either the wise mentor type or trying to win Erik back were even rarer. What he experiences in X2 is pretty horrifying, and I loved finding a story which addressed that. Of course, Andraste turned out to be the biggest Xavier expert in the planet, but I didn't know that then. :)


7.) Bed of Bones by Roz Kaveney (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): I had spotted Roz on a couple of Buffy discussion mailing lists (remember those?), but this was the first BTVS or fanfiction in any fandom tale of hers that I had read, and it was sharp, poetic, and made the First Slayer(about whom at this point we only knew what Restless had mentioned) into a fascinating character. I was wowed. It also raised my standard of expectation re: fanfiction creating mythology in present day or futuristic fandoms to no end.

8.) Queen of Spades by Astolat (James Bond: Casino Royale): Ah, ye golden days when the Craig Casino Royale had been released and for the first time in my life I actually went and looked for Bond fanfiction, because Dench!M and Craig!Bond dynamic in that movie had gripped me in and fascinated me. (I had also loved Eva Green as Vesper and her relationship with Bond, but not in a way that made me look for fanfic.) And again, I hit gold. I think this probably was the first Bond/M story online. It set a most pleasing trend - for the next few years, you could rely on Yuletide including some great and sharp Bond and M fanfiction. (And then came Skyfall which brought the avalanche of Bond/Q and the Bond movies were no longer qualified for Yuletide, but that's another story.) Now, most combinations that have one character in a position of power over the other character are hard to sell to me as pairings, but there are exceptions, and Queen of Spades made me realize Dench!M and Craig!Bond were such an exception for me, because wow. (It also made me realise that I had a new story or rather old story archetype, not necessarily always as pairings, I love the gen variations, too, but: Morally ambiguous queens and their morally ambiguous battered knights, bring them on! Though only if the Queen is the older of the two. Read: Dany/Jorah does nothing fo rme.)


9: Working Order by Eatscissors (Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles). John/Cameron is a pairing that intrigues me but which I find more interesting on the actual show than in most of fanfiction, because, imo as often, fanfic tends to simplify and dispense with much that makes this particular relationship so layered, starting with the fact that Cameron is a machine, no matter what she looks like.( Some spoilery ramblings about John and Cameron on the show ensue. ) Working Order, by contrast, addresses this and the other issues between them head-on while also being one of those stories where the explicit sex is part of the character exploration instead of reading as just being there for its own sake. For a reader like me who often finds sex scenes (both slash and het) reading like involuntarily funny gymnastic mannuals, with the participants interchangable to other fandoms and thus not very interesting, this was an eye opener. Really well written.

10.) Petrarchan Sonnets from the Vatican by Petra (The Borgias): I was and am grateful for all the stories I got in exchanges, and often loved them to bits, but this one will always remain special. Its just that awesome. It's a story in the guise of a fake article about the discovery of sonnets between L.B. (now who could that possibly be in Borgias fandom?) and person unknown, female and apparantly her tutor. Complete with the sonnets. And the commentary. Absolutely delightful, needless to say, poetic (my Yulewriter's ability to compose Petrarchan Sonnets with clever allusions to events from the show's first season still stuns me), and full of subtlety, and the wit and love for language that the characters in question display on the show as well (and did in history). (And now I'm grieved again that the Lucrezia and Guilia relationship post s1 fell by the wayside on the show, but never mind me.) If I could ensure that just one bit of Borgias fanfiction survives, this would be it.

Ah, fannish memes. Who can resist them? Not me. Here's my pick. Some spoilers for the fandoms in question, inevitably.

1) Battlestar Galactica: Caprica Six, aka the original Six from the miniseries, wakes up after downloading... and finds out she has a Baltar in her head. Best BSG mindfuck moment ever, still.

2) Das Leben der Anderen (which I was thrilled to learn finally made it across the Atlantic at least in terms of fannish recognition and is called "The Lives of Others" in English, nominated under that title for the Emmy for best foreign language film): my choice for film of the year in any language. For more detail why it is so great, see here.

3) "My Sarah Jane." SJS returns to Dr. Who. School Reunion is full of great moments, but if I have to pick one, it's that hug at the end. The joy and the sadness in the Doctor/Companion relationship encapsulated in that one scene.

4) Tie between two Astonishing X-Men issues with very different emotional resonance: #14, in which Emma for reasons more complicated than they appear at first really pulls of a, there's the term again, mindfuck with Scott (if I have to pick one moment out of that, it would be the Emma/Jean/Scott/Logan switcheroo early on, and note that Scott does kiss her before noticing the last transformation and well after the others), and #18, in which Scott gets into Emma's mind in quite a different way and demonstrates just what two women (and their clones) see in him. The awesomeness of that moment of grace is entirely unrelated to Mr. Whedon commenting later on the essays of resolute, likeadeuce and yours truly for all the world to see.

5) Simon Callow's second volume on Orson Welles. IMO, Callow is the best biographer O.W. had so far, because a) he's neither idolizing nor bashing, b) he's an actor who can describe theatre productions in a way that makes you feel you're there, and c) he takes Welles seriously (meaning in this second volume, which covers the years post -Kane and pre-Europe, you get more on what Orson thought about and did for Roosevelt than about Rita Hayworth)

6) Transamerica: terrific movie, and the scene that sums up the greatness, fun, and humanity? Teen hustler Toby, on the road with prim lady Bree whom he doesn't know is a) a pre-operation transsexual and b) used to be Stan and as Stan was his biological father, tries to impress her by analyzing Lord of the Rings ("totally gay").

7) Dexter graces the screen, and turns out to be a well-written, well-acted ensemble wonder of a show, from pilot to season finale. I've raved about the characters and their three dimensionality etc. enough already, so let me praise the deadpan black humour (which never downplays the character's real emotions) for this list. Random favourite absurd moment picked: Dexter, about to kill his victim of choice, finds out his victim's wife is into the human slave traffic, too, so he improvises and captures her, too. About to kill both of them, he's struck by the fact that despite being Cuban refugees-exploiting-and-murdering scum, i.e. killers like himself, they love each other and managed to have a successful marriage... and asks for dating advice.

8) PotC: Dead Man's Chest: "Pirate." Elizabeth Swann ties Jack Sparrow and leaves him to the kraken in order to save Will, the rest of the crew and herself. While she's at it, she also kisses him and tells him she's not sorry. This action immediately promoted her to my favourite character in the franchise, which I suppose says something about me.

9) Dr. Who once more: The Runaway Bride, recently praised on these very pages. Favourite moment: the farewell scene. "Because I think sometimes you need someone to stop you." (Or, on the comedy side of things, early on: "that friend of yours, before she left, did she punch you in the face?")

10) "Bond, James Bond." The franchise is revitalized, Daniel Craig turns Bond into someone you believe kills people, Judi Dench actually gets something to do, and astolat is inspired to write terrific Bond/M. Also, we get a shower scene with both characters in the shower which isn't about sex but death and allowing yourself vulnerability instead and presents a level of raw emotion unheard of in a Bond movie (with the possible exception of the final scene in Her Majesty's Secret Service).

So far, highlights of my weekend have included writing about 200 Christmas letters, then being told I'd have to write them again because the mode of address wasn't sufficiently warm-hearted, and watching Casino Royale. You can bet I liked the new Bond movie better.

Churlishness about seasonal tasks aside, I really enjoyed it. Bond movies were never a great passion, but they were by and large fun. I did see them until and including the first Brosnan, Goldeneye, after which I gave up. My father, on the other hand, is a fan and has the Fleming novels at home, which means I read them before seeing any of the movies and thus actually watched my first Connery (From Russian With Love) nitpicking and going "but..." in my earnest 12 years old way. All this being said, I'm not entirely kidding when I claim my favourite Bond is Bashir, Julian Bashir, in the DS9 episode Our Man Bashir which is a strong contender for best Star Trek Episode Using The Holodeck/Holosuite Ever and manages to get the Bond formula better than many of the movies while still making it a character piece for Bashir and Garak.

Casino Royale, based on Fleming's first Bond novel, tackled the difficult task of trying to unite Book Bond and Movie Bond (the two drifted irrevocably apart even in the late Connery years and by the time Roger Moore came along were completely separate; actually the most faithful movie in terms of actually using Fleming's posts and characterisation is probably the intermediary, In Her Majesty's Secret Service, starring the somewhat unfairly maligned George Lazenby and Diana Rigg, and after that, they never tried it again script wise though Dalton tried it via acting), to reboot the franchise in the way Batman Begins did with Batman, and to present something that can compete with all those agents and spies that came after Bond and possessed, dare one say it, a touch of psychological realism. And it manages all that, delivering with aplomb. Daniel Craig actually matches the description Fleming gives which no one post Connery did (too handsome, too smooth, and definitely sans sign of cruelty in the face), and you believe the way this man earns his living. Actually adressing the "how does killing people affect one" question in a Bond movie - a genre which lives from being "safe" fantasy - was risky, and it pays off. So does getting rid of the gadgets and counterpointing the ever more elaborate chase sequences of the later movies which had used everything from cars to trains to space crafts by going back to the basis and making the big chase sequence one on foot, with both parties running. It's no less suspenseful for that, and in tune with the emphasis on the physical (not just in the sense of eye candy, though the film naturally delivers that, too) throughout.

As was the case with Fleming, but not most of the movies, the villains' goals are all about money, not world domination and/or world destruction. Very refreshing. Something unique to this film and not in either the novel "Casino Royale" or previous movies was what you could call the Batman Begins parallel: Bond as a work in progress, not yet in his definite persona, but aquiring it bit by bit throughout the movie. This James Bond isn't above either making major mistakes or learning all the time; he's not yet a static character. (As with the Batman franchise, this makes me wonder how the follow up movie will handle its main figure as the assembling of the iconic persona can't be repeated.)

Judi Dench is great as M (though I stopped watching post Goldeneye, I thought making M female was an inspired contribution to the franchise) and sparks off Craig as Bond in a way I can't recall any M and Bond ever did. (astolat wrote a great story about the two of them, Queen of Spades, which everyone who hasn't yet should read; as for me, for the first time I could see M as living in the same world as Harry of the tv show Spooks and wished for these two to cross swords, especially since Spooks plays up the MI5/MI6 rivalry at every chance it gets.) Eva Green as Vesper accomplishes what imo only Diana Rigg as Tracy really managed, making a "Bond girl" a woman with emotional depth, and makes me wonder what else she's acted in that I could watch. And I really hope they keep the scriptwriter; this one manages witty dialogue without getting into groanworthy puns. So, all in all: kudos, and please, may I have another?