NSYNC Fic Recs

[horizon_greene]

*updated 1/1/14

I mentioned a few weeks ago in this space that there is amazing fic in NSYNC fandom—surprisingly amazing, actually. Now that I've poked around quite a bit more, I can't fight the urge to make a recs list.

Because the fandom itself may be old and mostly-dead, but the stories have held up remarkably well...


"Whitewater" by topaz | JC/Justin
You really can't go wrong with anything topaz has written, but there are a handful of stories that I've reread an embarrassing amount of times. This is one of them. Whitewater rafting AU. Endlessly fascinating dynamic between JC and Justin in this universe.

"Unchained" by topaz | JC/Justin
I think the AO3 tags say it best: PWP, Power Play, Established Relationship. If this were a newsletter, I would subscribe to it.

"Chris & J's Excellent Adventure" by topaz | Chris/Justin, JC/Lance
Funny and sweet and hot, and a whirling kaleidoscope of settings—all beautifully described. Part 3 gets me in the heart every time.

"Faithful" by jericho | JC/Justin
The very first story I ever bookmarked on AO3. Infidelity, prostitutes, lots of sex. Lots of tears, too, but surprisingly honest. There's a fearless, completely unselfconscious quality to the writing that I love, too.

"(I'm Not) Home For Christmas" by randomling | JC/Justin
Dance teacher/accountant stranded at a bus stop AU, and it's about 500 times better than that description makes it sound. Characterization for days. Also, it's so...well. Happy. You need happy fic every now and then.

"Desert" by waxjism | JC/Justin, Chris/Joey, Justin/Lance, Joey/Christina
Thank goodness we have happy fic, because you need it to balance out the exquisite desolation you feel after reading something like this, which is an apocalypse AU featuring a legitimately insane Justin. The writing is utterly, unspeakably beautiful—such a contrast to the horrible bleakness of their circumstances. TW: mental illness.

"Acquiesce" by addictedkitten | JC/Justin
Charts the evolution of their relationship from the MMC onward—a premise that I'm surprised there isn't more of in the fandom. I suspect that Justin's age has something to do with that. TW: underage.

"Back of a Car" by Jae | Chris/Justin
I think the author sums it up best: "A little banter, and a little sex in the back of a car." Also contains this exchange, which makes me laugh one second and stops my heart the next:

"If we were in high school," Chris said lightly, "I wouldn't be -"

"If you were in high school, I'd be in, like, second grade."

"If we were in high school, you wouldn't even look at me," Chris said, surprising himself. His voice sounded bitter and angry and ugly to his ears.

I'm not a fan of self-loathing!Chris, but in this case I'm willing to go along with it.

"Easy Come, Easy Go" by Helen | Chris/Justin, JC/Joey, JC/Lance
Gangster AU. Justin is a hooker. Smart, nuanced prose. Prepare to have your heart broken.

"What Not to Expect" by beth666ann | JC/Justin, Justin/Britney, JC/Bobbie Thomas, Wade Robson/Britney
There's a lot of POV shifting in this one, but it works because each character is so wonderfully, expansively crafted. The writing is so intelligent (the word choices—I'm forever amazed) and even though it's not a humor fic, there are so many pointed little bits of witticism. Super entertaining for that reason alone—but it's also a magnificent story.

"goldengolden" by tsamm | JC/Justin, Britney/Bobbie Thomas
To quote the fic: a fucking gay adulterous orgy. I love the tension and the manipulation and the tangled, twisted motivations. I'm also a sucker for confused-and-uncomfortable-yet-horny Justin. It goes without saying that when everything comes to a head, it's extremely hot.

"Happy Now" by kaelie | JC/Justin
I discovered kaelie's fic way late in the game, but better late than never. She's another author where you really can't go wrong with anything she's written, but there are a couple of favorites. "Happy Now" is one—JC wants Justin, is frightened by how much he wants him, tries to push him away even though he can't live without him, etc. And it's awesome.

"The Way You Know Him" by kaelie and Bethann | JC/Justin
A long AU—191,000+ words, took me several days to get through, but it was worth the effort. A one-night stand and lingering attraction cause problems when JC and Justin find themselves working at the same press—JC as the director and Justin as an acquiring editor. And things are complicatedly hot and hotly complicated, in turns.

"Descent" by kaelie and Bethann | JC/Justin
Vampire AU. I generally don't have a lot of patience with this particular trope, and I was initially befuddled by this one as well, but eventually I got sucked in and ended up being very engrossed by and emotionally invested in the story. Dark and hot and dangerous, and exquisitely agonizing in the later chapters.

As an aside, it bears mentioning that if the story didn't involve Justin getting fucked by JC at least once, I likely didn't read it—or file it away in my memory for the purpose of this recs list (apart from a couple of outliers). There are clearly all sorts of other wonderful fics that I have no idea even exist, so please feel free to leave them in the comments, if you'd like.

Comments

[topaz119.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the recs! Such good times those stories bring back!

I have some *really* old recs on pinboard (I have no idea about the validity of the links, but...)
https://pinboard.in/u:topaz119/t:pop/

[horizon-greene.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel kind of sad that I wasn't paying any attention to RPS back in the day. I had a much more innocent view of NSYNC fandom, which was fun and fine and I'm glad I was at least around for that (and one blessed NSA concert), but overall I can't shake the feeling that I missed out on something truly great. The fandom, from what I've heard, sounds really fun and lively and innovative and trend-setting, which isn't something you can say about every fandom. It makes me appreciate the fact that a lot of authors (yourself included) have fic up on AO3 still, where people like me can find it 13 years later :)

Also, I am SO excited for your vintage recs! Thank you for sharing—I will let you know how it goes.

[horizon-greene.livejournal.com]

As it happens, the Wayback Machine has been incredibly helpful in retrieving many of these! Still making my way through your list (just finished the JuC tag), but there have been some good ones that I had never read before ("Chasez Lake" being the standout so far) and opportunities to revisit fics that I only skimmed previously. Luckily the Don We Now Our Gay Apparel stories are still online—"The Little Dustbuster that Could" is awesome, truly awesome, even if I still can't 100% untangle the mechanics of the thing.

On to Timbertrick! :)

[topaz119.livejournal.com]

I'm so behind on comments, but yay, I'm glad you're finding these (especially Chasez Lake which was a classic back in the day!) I think kaelie has her JuC online at AO3 now, if you haven't already read her stuff. Also very classic. I'm not even sure I bookmarked her stuff because I just knew it by heart.

And my NSYNC days were split -- I'd gone with my friend and all of our kids to see BSB and we'd had okay seats, but nothing great, and then when PopOd came to town, my friend (who seriously knows how to spend money) did a ticket broker and we ended up right by the runway, so that when JC came down in his tulip pants and sanggggggg, we were RIGHT THERE. (Of course, we're screaming at our kids, "wait, wait, WHICH ONE WAS THAT?!?" so you might have noticed that we weren't really into them at that point.) It was later that I found the RPF--I came into it by way of LOTR RPF, which was just a crazy fandom back in the late 90s/early 2000s (aided and abetted by the hours and hours of behind the scenes footage on the DVDs.) People wrote a lot of great stuff in popslash, partially because we were sort of out of the focus of the rest of fandom (much of which was rabidly anti-RPF, at least until SPN and the Js kicked down so many of the barriers.)

Is Flesh Mechanic still online? That was mind-blowing.

The fandom had its ups and downs, with lots of inner drama and all -- there was a distinct difference between JuC and joshtin, for example, and half the fandom generally wasn't speaking to the other half (usually because of Justin, because you either loved or hated the kid and people got ugly when he and JC had solo albums coming out.) And then the Hiatus never ended, sadface.

But it was a super place for me; my flist is still full of popslashers who I've been friends with for more than a decade.

(And my all-time OTP is my icon--threemanbus all the way. :D)

[horizon-greene.livejournal.com]

JC's tulip pants! Honestly, the PopOd wardrobe (and, basically, everything about that tour) is so baffling to me. I think viewed through 2001/2002 lenses, it must have been much more impressive/innovative and far less insane/corny, but alas, I had wandered on to other interests by that time and wasn't paying attention. Also, Justin's unfortunate hair, etc. Still. To be right next to the runway as you were? No wonder you ended up smitten.

Funny that you mention LOTR RPS; LOTR was actually my gateway to slash back in the day, although I was partial to the movieverse fic and didn't read a lot of the RPS, although it seemed like the stories I did read were absolutely amazing. (Especially some of the Viggo/Orlando, goodness this is bringing back memories...) I'm trying to envision how you ended up in NSYNC from there, though! :)

there was a distinct difference between JuC and joshtin > Oh really? I had no idea—I just figured that in a fandom that seems to love its portmanteaus, the more the merrier. So then, what is the difference?

The only Flesh Mechanic I'd heard of before now was the Placebo song—however, thanks to Google, I can inform you that the NSYNC fic is, in fact, still online (http://doyourthing.org/lise/pop/cult/index.htm)!

Aww, your OTP <3 It does seem borderline canon, doesn't it? With that said, how do you have no threemanbus fic on AO3?

[topaz119.livejournal.com]

hah, the transition happened because Justin with his new Millennium crew-cut kinda looked like Orlando Bloom with a crew-cut, and so someone in the LoTRps fandom wrote Orli coming out of a store in London and running into a pining-for-Justin Chris... and maybe they hooked up? Or maybe they just had intense conversations? However it happened, Orli was motivated to stop dancing around things with Viggo and there was a happy ending for them (and I think for the TrickC, too...?) That got me started and there was enough already posted fic to suck me in (and it was written well enough that I didn't run screaming for the hills.)

Joshtin tended to be, um, overwrought? Cheating, abuse, magical healing (though really euphemistically described) sex, people going blind, people being turned into horses, etc, etc, etc. Not that JuC didn't sometimes have that, too, but you could generally tell the style by the tag.

And yes, my word, did we love our portmanteaus! TrickyFish, Basez, (or LaC, though there wasn't much difference between those two pairing names, not like the JuC and the joshtin), TrickC, Lambs (ok, not so much a portmanteau as a general description) -- and that was before you got into the genderswaps.

I never did write threemanbus, but I wrote a lot of various combinations of it, with the third guy in as moral support. I think that's because I looked at them in real life once and said, 'this shit writes itself' and never quite felt the need to write it fictionally. I might have written some drabbles with all 3 of them... hmmm, I'll have to go look and see what's way back on lj...

[horizon-greene.livejournal.com]

Okay, now you have me wanting to track down that fic, because it sounds adorable and heart-warming. This may turn into another assignment for the Wayback Machine.

Joshtin tended to be, um, overwrought? Okay, gotcha. Glad I asked, because this seems like an important difference. Not that I would use those terms to describe anything, most likely (JC/Justin seems to get the point across well enough for me), but good to know nonetheless.

And yeah, so many portmanteaus, and honestly I can't even decipher what a couple of them mean :/ But, given my very specific interests in this fandom, I think I'm good to go with my newly-acquired JuC vs. joshtin knowledge.

Please keep me apprised of your findings re: threemanbus on your LJ. I would so read that.

Also, your icon! I came across that very picture on Tumblr earlier today and was thinking to myself that it would make a perfect little LJ icon <3

[frausorge]

A MONKEY WRENCH IS GOOD TO HAVE. Man, I love that story.

[horizon-greene.livejournal.com]

Google fails me :/ Do you have a link?

[frausorge]

Oh, sorry, it's not a new rec, just one of my favorite bits from Wax's Desert (part 1), one of the songs JC sings. I love his "positive" outlook in them.

[horizon-greene.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, right right right. TBH I don't remember that bit at all, but then, I only read it through one time! I was kind of overly affected by the whole thing, and I'll probably bide my time for a while before I can bring myself to read it again. It's so awesome, but mental illness + apocalypse is a lot to handle at once.

Oh NSYNC fic, it just slays.