fic rec: looong

[psocoptera]

I don't read a lot of Actor RPF - it's not an ideological thing, I like Glam RPF, and popslash was my main fandom at one point, I just tend to be interested in characters in a way that doesn't extend to the actors who happen to look like them. I particularly don't read J2 because I have some sort of profound inability to remember which of Jared and Jensen is which - not only do I seem to be permanently unable to learn which of them plays which of Sam and Dean (a problem I vaguely recall from the days of LOTRPS, trying to remember which of the actors was Merry and which was Pippin) I will even get them mixed up within the course of a story, so I'm reading along and, wait, no, I thought Jensen was the shy one, what?

So DarkEmeralds did something awesome in her J2 Regency AU novel Restraint - she *changed their names* to the more period-appropriate Tristan and John. 230K words later, I'm still not entirely sure which of Tristan or John is Jared or Jensen, but I never once got mixed up as to which of Tristan or John was the viscount or the artist. Which is really all you need. I have no idea what this story is saying within the larger dialogue of J2 fandom, but I enjoyed it as a novel about two random gay guys in Regency England. It is definitely in the genre you might call Bad Times And Places To Be Gay (and not a "Regency Romance" in its genre conventions, despite being a relationship-centric novel set in the Regency), and is, as mentioned, looong, so dunno if it'll interest anyone, but, hey. A fic rec.

Restraint.

Comments

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

230K words later, I'm still not entirely sure which of Tristan or John is Jared or Jensen, but I never once got mixed up as to which of Tristan or John was the viscount or the artist. Which is really all you need.

This is an awesome review, and I will go read the story, despite having no interest in (a) non-popslash RPF and (b) these dudes in particular. But I feel that this story is probably relevant to my interests.