meretricula: (fandom librarian)
[personal profile] meretricula
For [livejournal.com profile] khoshgeleh_16, who asked for a very carefully curated list of figure skating fics! I, uh, tried? Well, hopefully at least some of it will be suitable. XD Judging from my brief ventures into the shallows, Figure Skating RPF is a fairly compartmentalized fandom -- there's a big section of Weir/Lysacek, a sizeable chunk of Weir/Lambiel, the inevitable Weir/Adam Lambert crossovers and then there's all the other skaters in existence floating around together out in the big blue deep. I think I covered the shallows pretty well back in 2010, although I have to say that my tastes have changed a lot since then and some of the sillier recs are less charmingly ridiculous than they are just plain ridiculous, so take them with a grain of salt. Anyway, that's why there's no Weir/Lysacek and very little Weir/Lambiel here even though that's the majority of the fandom. Variety is the spice of life, etc., and also I didn't want to have to reread all those fics to figure out which of them are actually good if you're not in the flush of new-fandom love.

Hearts Beat Time Out, by [livejournal.com profile] mosca [Johnny Weir/Ben Agosto]
If you like long, plotty fics to help get into a new pairing, start here. If you like short, funny fics to help get into a new pairing, start at the bottom. I feel like this fic is very accessible even though it doesn't really feel like the standard slash fic plot: both POV characters are a little self-contradictory and can alternate between being wishy-washy and being jerks, which is... well, more realistic than the usual Resolute Star-Crossed Lovers schtick. It's a Sexual Awakening Fic but it's not all about homosexual panic, either. Both Tanith and Irina Slutskaya have sizeable roles as well, which I liked. No man is an island, not even drama queen figure skaters!

the badger game, by [livejournal.com profile] jocondite [Evan Lysacek/Jeff Buttle]
Evan wakes up in bed with Adam Rippon. Hilarity (for the rest of the tour, at Evan's expense) ensues.

The Circle of Acceptable Women, by [livejournal.com profile] mosca [Meryl Davis/Tanith Belbin]
Figure Skating RPF: femslash edition! I was talking just the other day with [livejournal.com profile] nahco3 about how female athletes tend to be forcibly closeted less by media hostility and more by the insistence on their invisibility, so it feels very apt to consider a fic speculating about the experiences of Meryl Davis growing up as a very femme lesbian in a sport that polices gender presentation so strictly. Her relationship with Tanith is painted very well but it's almost ancillary, at least to what I get out of the fic.

Nine Lives by anonymous [Stéphane Lambiel/Johnny Weir]
It's a Catwoman AU. Stéphane is Catwoman. It's exactly what you'd expect.

The Advancement of Learning, by [livejournal.com profile] mosca [mostly Johnny Weir and Stéphane Lambiel friendship fic, with a few hints of Johnny Weir/Ben Agosto]
Scenes from the period when Johnny and Stéphane were training at the same rink. It's a really lovely outsider POV and very funny without being crack.

Done with a day of September Recs before noon? Have I been replaced with a pod person? Hmmm.

Date: 2013-09-14 02:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] khoshgeleh-16.livejournal.com
Thank you, bb! These look awesome (though I am already a little O_o at the Catwoman one, but... I will try it. FOR YOU.), and I am especially intrigued by the Meryl/Tanith one because - yeah, I can think of precisely *one* female figure skater who is even semi-openly lesbian, and she was only briefly top-tier nationally in the late 90s/early 2000s. So I'm looking forward to reading that! :-D

Date: 2013-09-14 02:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
lololol I figured the Catwoman one might be a hard sell, but I felt obligated to include at least one Stephane crackfic XDD we should talk about the Meryl fic when you're done! I don't know how much of it is true to life as far as the skating goes, but I've been to enough teenage LGBT mixers in my life to know that part is pretty accurate, haha.

Date: 2013-09-15 12:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] khoshgeleh-16.livejournal.com
Field report #1: loved the first one! Despite a moment where Kimmie turned up and I was like UM WHUT but I just sort of... gritted my teeth and moved on and it was fine. Surprisingly convinced by Ben/Johnny, if only for 40k words or so...

The second one won me over with Charlie White being bitchily sarcastic at Evan. (Charlie BEST.) Threatening Yu-Na had me CRYING with laughter. Yags was spot-on. I loved the group dynamics.

The Meryl/Tanith one was... horrifyingly realistic. Possibly even a little too much optimism to be reality. I have a lot of thoughts and feels about that one...

Profile

meretricula: (Default)
meretricula

October 2025

S M T W T F S
   1234
567891011
12131415161718
192021 22232425
262728293031 

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Apr. 12th, 2026 09:59 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios