2003 must have been a wellspring of creativity for Sailor Moon stories on ff.net. I have saved more fic candidates from this year alone than I had all the previous entries combined (1999-2002). Please be patient with me as I try to pick out the best plums in this pudding. There were so many I'm including an honorable mention section for the good but not quite best stories of 2003. As always, the numbers for the fics are in no particular order, just however they were saved in my bookmarks.

BSMFN Choices

1. QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD by Suki
I've always had a soft spot for Prince Demando. Add in my giant, raging nerd-love for Greek mythology, and I think you can begin to see why I was so utterly impressed with this story. Not a light read, but deep, slow, and melancholy is what's required to set up this story convincingly, and Suki delivers. The only tale I know that has placed Demando and the rest of the Black Moon Clan in the Silver Millennium in a decidedly sympathetic light.

2. SAILOR SATURN HAS TWO MOMMIES by Kanna-Ophelia
As I bet you guessed from the title, this is a parody story. I was not familiar with the source being parodied ("Heather Has Two Mommies") when I read and selected this story, but it's pretty obvious what this is about. I think the lesson you should take from this is don't piss off the girl with the Silence Glaive.

3. ALWAYS ON MY MIND by Scifiroots/Lionna Mouri
This story was apparently written in 2001 but not posted until 2003 at ff.net, so I'm keeping it in the 2003 batch. It is downright hard to find any stories that touch on Taiki, and even fewer that at least sort of remind you of the anime or manga. This is, I think, the best short story featuring Taiki that I've found yet. What does home mean? Taiki finds some satisfaction to his homesickness by the end of the story.

4. LIKE THE SEA by Rapunzel4
Speaking of other rare things, it's hard to find genuine humor surrounding Neptune and Uranus. They just don't lend themselves that well to the antics you can get away with for the other senshi. This fun and fluffy ficlet examines Michiru and the effect the sea has on one specific part of her body. (Come on, now, don't screw your face up like that at me; it's not a lemon.)

5. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I THOUGHT TURKEYS COULD FLY by Sophia Prester
And speaking of humor...this story nails it perfectly. A large part of the effectiveness here is the narrator's voice, guiding us through what normally goes wrong in a holiday cooking story, and why that didn't happen here. Laugh out loud funny in parts -- very reminiscent of some early Terry Pratchett Discworld books, right down to having footnotes.

6. THE TRUTH by Water Mage
There aren't too many stories written from Shingo's perspective; this is the best I've found. Sailor Moon is his favorite senshi, but maybe not for the reasons they give in the show.

7. LIFE'S LESSONS by Gelles/Blueberry Enterprises
Epic in scope; AU and science fiction in feel. You're going to find typos; you're going to spot missing horizontal bars at scene transitions, you're going to be body-checked by memories and flashbacks throughout the story. Even so, this quirky fic will seep into your brain and make you read it. The closest comparison I have is to Yang Wenli's "Renaissance" story taken to the extreme. It mainly follows an original character (with helpfully large doses of the Inner Senshi, particularly Minako, to keep you in the Sailor Moon universe) in a Crystal Tokyo we didn't see in the anime or manga. That means we're in dystopia territory, which you can argue is old hat for Crystal Tokyo, except that the OC must face at one point the recognition the "good guys" would have been terrorists to her just a short while ago. Dark and made me squeamish at a few points, but definitely worth the read. Bonus points for cameo appearances from some of my favorite characters.

Honorable Mentions

1. FOR TOMORROW by Appearances
This story, set in the R timeline, had me seriously concerned it was going to be a suicide fic. It is not, which was a pleasant surprise and a relief. While I loved the story here, it was the unfortunately jarring language and somewhat disjointed telling that disqualified this tale from being one I would recommend freely.

2. FORGOTTEN FRIENDS by Dejana Talis
This could almost be the sequel to another story I picked in 2001, "Friendships Lost" by Misha. This time instead of Naru thinking of Usagi, it's Motoki thinking about Mamoru's secretive behavior. The reason this was not a complete keeper was because of the utterly horrific writing tic of "the blond man," "the dark-haired friend," etc. Ugh! I never knew I had a rage button for that until this fic. Maybe no one else will mind as much as I did.

3. ENOUGH FOR ETERNITY by The Firefaery
Mars. Serenity. Unrequited love. If Chris Davies hadn't covered this ground thoroughly already in BSMFN, I think this fic would have been a shoo-in. However, due to its late publication date, it will just have to settle for the honor of being the best Mars/Serenity I've read on ff.net since I started the Should Have Beens project.

4. GIVE ME TONIGHT by pikachiyo/Abigail
One of my goals was to find a decent Seiya/Usagi story for BSMFN. This is the closest I've gotten to a "perfect" story for the archive, though I'm not quite sold that this is going to be the pinnacle of the genre. If you've never had the (dubious) pleasure of reading this pairing before, you know Mamoru is usually bashed with extreme prejudice. It doesn't happen in this fic, which was a huge plus. It's also not your usual happily ever after story, either. The reason I'm not sold is that there are internal inconsistencies, Usagi and Seiya are colossally short-sighted, and it rather mucks up the canon ending for the anime without offering a solution or repercussions. (Not that it *can't* work out, but the more I think on it, the creepier it gets.)

5. WHEN DAWN COMES by Kimra
I wanted to dislike this story. I found plenty of reasons to do so, too. Normally something this riddled with typos would drive me up the wall, out the window, click-the-back-button-and-forget-it. It didn't happen in this story. As if the typos weren't enough on their own, there's plenty more to hate about this story. It starts off with date rape drugs and ends with death, and is peppered with author's notes all the way through holding the story hostage for feedback. *throws hands in the air* It sounds like the worst story in the world, but give it a go when you're feeling tolerant. Spell-checked and edited a bit, this story would be spellbinding. Horrifically spellbinding. And even better (worse), the ending is wide open with three outcomes to choose as your favorite (the author's pick, plus two more alternates.) Perhaps we should all be relieved Kimra didn't have a beta for this, as I'm not sure the world could have handled this fic in pristine shape. (I mean, look, I threw Dejana Talis down into the honorable mentions for a mere writing tic...if I can make it through 28 chapters -- mostly long chapters -- without clawing my eyeballs out over the typos, there has to be something special here.)

6. A LONELY NIGHT by Memory Dragon
This is a bit of a trick fic and I'm sure it's been done before (I recall reading one like it before, and it was inspired by another similar fic in another fandom by the author's admission, so *shrug*). Since it's a trick fic, summarizing it would likely give away the trick. You will still probably see the trick immediately unless you are very unfamiliar with Sailor Moon. But it's still worth a read to see just how interchangeable two characters (four characters?) really are in the manga.

7. A SECRET KEPT by Karen Hart
Speaking of something I've seen done many times but is still worth a read is this little short story, told by Ikuko. Usagi as Sailor Moon should logically be the not-secret of the show with that ridiculous hairdo. (Remember the S episode where all it takes is for Minako to sport the odangos to been taken as Sailor Moon? Yeah, and yet...) Mom's in on the secret of Sailor Moon but pretends to be oblivious for Usagi's sake. Much better, I think, than trying to write it as if her entire family is as intelligent as blind cave frogs.

Tags: bsmfn, should have beens
Current Mood: enthralled