shut up and let me see your jazz hands

You'll Sell More Records if You (Dumb It Down) by belladonnalin
Ashlee Simpson & Amanda Palmer. 1200 words. Ashlee and Amanda Palmer meet at a party.

This is just a short little gen piece, but I enjoyed it. I like stuff that humanises Ashlee and doesn't make her evil or stupid or whatever.

One thing that really bugged me, though, was the typical "Oh, LA is so horrible, it's all blahblahblahstereotypes". I know that it's totally in-character for schmoozy industry types to believe their schmoozy industry circles are all there is to LA (this is, in fact, what people like this assert IRL), but it still pisses me off and so reading a conversation that was basically them talking about how much "LA" sucks was annoying.

(And now I've had this on my hard drive forever and in that time I've gone from not knowing who Amanda Palmer is to thinking she's an ass! Good times, good times.)

I'm Trapped in This Body and Can't Get Out by azurejay Rec+
Fall Out Boy. 2700 words. "What if I am a lesbian?"

Awesome, awesome mtf!Pete. I love Pete here, love Ashlee. I love them together and hope that they can work things out. I especially love the ending. This felt a little different than most transfic I've read, maybe because of the belated realisation. I also liked how long it spent on Pete just thinking things through.

There is a longer version here, which was posted as a WiP amnesty thing. Definitely worth reading the long version, even if it's unfinished.

Lord Knows It Would Be The First Time by azurejay Rec
Fall Out Boy. 8600 words. The thing is that he doesn't do it a lot, and only when he's not with someone, or when he isn't wandering around in a daze thinking he's with someone (see: Attempts To Date Ashlee Simpson 1, 2 and 4. Attempt 5 is going much better, even better than 3). He doesn't do it with girls Patrick actually expresses interest in, he doesn't do it in Ohio (he has a lot of family in Ohio, and--yeah. He never, ever fucks people in Ohio, no matter how hot they are and/or how much they want to fuck Patrick), and he doesn't do it when they're not on tour. Except that one time, but they were playing four awards shows in one week, so it was almost like being on tour anyway.

N'aww, this was cute. Lots of great dialogue and I really liked Pete's narrative voice.

I feel like if it hadn't had Pete/Patrick in the header I actually wouldn't have known if this was meant to be gen or shippy. XD Pete is just so weird and Patrick so exasperated but accepting of his weirdness that I could totally read it in a just friends way. Yeah, Pete is obsessive and stalkery and sleeping with girls who want to sleep with Patrick, but you know. It's Pete.

A Miracle Off Ice, or, How John G. Weir Got His Groove Back by randomeliza
Johnny Weir/Adam Lambert. 3100 words. So even if Paris is a queen bitch diva who totally left him hanging at an absolutely terrible time and barely apologized for it, he's still Johnny's best friend, which means when he calls Johnny and begs him to chaperone – like he's some sort of middle-aged crocs-wearing skating mom, God – a night out in Chelsea, he can't really say no.

I wanted to love this, but while it was fun, it was just so...cliched? It's Adam Lambert and Johnny Weir, so I wanted something a little more unique, I guess. This is well-written, but I feel like I've read it a million times before. Two guys meet at a club and have sex. The sex was pretty rote, too. Adam sucks Johnny off, then Johnny sucks Adam off, but neither of them come, because the grand finale is of course anal sex. Yawn. Which isn't to say that it wasn't an enjoyable story, just...nothing noteworthy.