The Slashies 2017

[girlofprey]

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for the Slash Awards 2017, aka 'The Slashies'. It's a time when I look back over what slash pairings I enjoyed this year, and give them prizes for being the best. So without further ado, here are the Slashies 2017.

Best Newcomers

• Michael Bryce/Darius Kincaid, The Hitman's Bodyguard - This pairing was amazing. I had no idea this film was even coming out, and then I randomly saw a trailer for it, and had hope that we might get a genuinely slashy film after what seems like so long, and it did not disappoint. They were amazing. They were amazing when they hated each other. They were amazing when they worked together. They were amazing when they started growing closer. Ryan Reynolds being Ryan Reynolds didn't always work for me - the whole 'being uptight' but still making wisecracks all the time thing - but for the most part it did. Ryan Reynolds (the actor) said that he basically requested Samuel L Jackson to do this film with him, because they'd done a random thing together before and turned out to have great chemistry, so he always kept it in his mind that if he was ever doing a two-hander film that Samuel L Jackson would be a good person to do it with. He was not wrong. They were wicked.



• Adrian Toomes/Peter Parker, Spiderman: Homecoming - This is a funny one. I don't exactly ship it? Neither of them really knew each other that well, or were quite fixated on each other enough, for me to really ship them. But I did really like their dynamic, and the parts at the end where they did start to debate their views on things a bit, and Michael Keaton literally said "he kind of likes this kid. But business is business!", and THE PART WHERE ADRIAN PROTECTED HIS IDENTITY AT THE END. I like the idea of the two of them growing up together a bit (well, Peter growing up - Adrian basically getting older - but becoming more solidified into their hero and villain identities) and just knowing exactly who each other is, and being sort of annoyed with each other, but still not really going so far as to involve each other's families or something. I also like the idea of Adrian trying to make sure Peter's eating enough, because he's a father at heart and Peter is so skinny. I like a lot of things.



• Charley Brewster/Jerry Dandridge, Fright Night 2011 - Another odd one, because again I didn't really ship it. Charley always seemed a bit more about 'protecting the wimenz' and being a vampire slayer for them to really seem to - interact, somehow? Also the sheer way vampirism worked in that universe kind of got rid of a lot of the kink you could normally have in that situation. But Jerry was weird and amused enough about toying with Charley that I enjoyed it, and quite enjoyed the fic. And finding a pairing I actually enjoy and can find fic for and enjoy the fic for is a rare thing these days, so I don't really feel like I want to ignore it.

And the winner is: Michael Bryce/Darius Kincaid. For being an actual, amazing pairing.


Best Buddy Pairing:

• Michael Bryce/Darius Kincaid, The Hitman's Bodyguard - They were amazing buddies, when they finally got around to being buddies. Just slightly aggravated by each other, but still willing to die for each other. A foil to each other's weaknesses, but still willing to look out for each other, and help each other with those things they were weakest at. They were wicked.



• Ryan/Gavin, Achievement Hunter (RPS) - slash has been a little thin on the ground with the Achievement Hunter guys for a while, I think just because they know each other so well by now and have worked together for so long that a lot of their relationship is sort of unspoken, and settled - there's not a lot new to discover and make fun of about each other, they already know how most of the teasing is going to go if they start it, and they know each other's roles and things they're best at in games/videos well enough by now to just get on with it. But this year Gavin was away for a long while doing some other work, and they had to make a lot of videos without him, and when they played Destiny Ryan played a class he doesn't normally play but Gavin does, because he wanted to represent that class in Gavin's absence, and in another game he played a character he never plays but Gavin regularly does, to represent Gavin in his absence. And that was pretty sweet.



• Machias/Jusis, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - I debated on whether or not to put Machias and Jusis in this category, because their relationship isn't exactly a buddy one. But they're not really enemies anymore by this point in the story. And they were amazing. The game started off with the main character (Rean) having to meet back up with the other characters one by one, and Machias was the first one you re-meet, and Jusis was the last. At one point you go to a place with Machias where you previously went on a school trip with him and Jusis, and he says it 'brings back a lot of memories'. Then makes sure to say 'BAD MEMORIES, OBVIOUSLY'. And a talking cat has to tell him he's not fooling anyone about 'prince charming'. Literally all Machias has wanted to do since the start of the first game is overthrow the nobles and give the ordinary people power, but when the team gets a chance to do that - before you meet up with Jusis again - he says no, I think we should wait, we can't make that decision without some people here. Later on you find Machias and Jusis having a game of pool, and Jusis is trying to coach Machias into not letting his anger get the better of him, so he will be an actual challenge for Jusis and not constantly make ridiculous mistakes in his anger. Later on than that, Jusis wants to do something ridiculous and rash to make up for some awful thing his father did, and Machias tells him 'woah, slow down, just think about this logically and don't let your emotions get the better of you', WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF HOW MACHIAS LIVES HIS LIFE. And at the end, Jusis decides that he and Machias can never be friends, but he will take him as a constant rival, always encouraging Jusis to try harder and be better, and Machias agrees that that would be a great relationship for them to have. They are amazing.



• Hank Marlow/Gunpei Ikari, Kong: Skull Island - This was a pairing that was barely even on screen, but it was still beautiful, and it was slim pickings this year okay? The film opens with two soldiers in the Second World War, an American and a Japanese man, parachuting onto an island after their planes go down during a dogfight. As soon as they see each other, they immediately begin to try to kill each other, because war. Then they see fucking King Kong. Cut to the rest of the movie. At some point in the movie, the main characters meet John C Reilly, who is the American soldier, Hank Marlow, who's gotten old and crazy on the island. They think they have a way to get off the island and offer to take him with them, but first of all he has to visit Gunpei's grave. Because they were brothers after they crash-landed on the island together, and Hank cries, because they swore they'd never leave each other behind. And then he uses Gunpei's katana whenever he's fighting during the rest of the film. It was magical, and I wish we could see some of their years on the island together.

And the winner is: Ryan/Gavin from Achievement Hunter. Because they are genuinely buddies, and Ryan openly basically saying he missed Gavin and wanted to bring him back into the videos when Gavin wasn't there was something I never expected.


Best Enemy Pairing

• Adrian/Peter, Spiderman: Homecoming - Again, this is a weird one, because I don't exactly ship it (see above). But I did include it as one of my best newcomer pairings, so it does have to go somewhere, and I did really like the way Adrian half tried to persuade Peter, and half just tried to screw with him. They had a really good dynamic.



• Michael Bryce/Darius Kincaid, The Hitman's Bodyguard - haha, they work for both categories! Because they were also amazing as enemies. They start of the film, literally the first time they see each other, just instantly attacking each because of their history together, because of Michael constantly protecting people Darius wanted to kill, and Darius constantly killing people Michael wanted to protect. The fact that during their first meeting it was all just said with punches and kicks, and guessing what each other would do next was amazing, and then the needling each other to get to the heart of each other's problems was wicked, and the constant bringing up of their history (fucking Prague, it wasn't a gunshot it was a graze!). It was beautiful.



• Dancy Flammarion/Maisie, Alabaster: Wolves - Alabaster is a comic, and it's one I would have brought up earlier this year to say there's a real difference between men writing female characters, and women writing female characters. But I never got around to it. The comic's about Dancy Flammarion, who's a teenage girl, an albino, and since she was pretty young she's had an angel talking to her, telling where to go to find monsters and to kill them. The book opens on Dancy in a backwoods old town that it doesn't seem like she can leave, and then Maisie turns up. Maisie is a resident of the town, and a werewolf, and she's there to kill Dancy, but she also has a trinket box of some of Dancy's old stuff, somehow. They have a riddle contest to see if Dancy can win the box back, and she swears on the name of her angel that she'll let Maisie eat her if she loses, and won't fight back. She loses, and she does fight back, and kills Maisie. And her angel leaves her. And then Dancy has to try to kill the monsters in that town and find her way out of it alone. Except that Maisie comes back as a ghost - somehow - and decides to help Dancy, because she figures Dancy can be all kinds of useful to her. They kill the monsters, and in the end they leave the town, with Maisie basically haunting Dancy, and all they really have is each other. It was a good comic, a real genuine horror vibe, but not gruesome or hopeless like so many of them are, and I really enjoyed their relationship. I keep meaning to get the other books in the series, and hope that Maisie's in them.



• Clark/Lex, the DCU - This one's a bit of a cheat, because Clark and Lex didn't really interact in Justice League, which is the film that came out this year, and then I watched Batman vs Superman again for fun, which was essentially a film from the previous year. But it did have a lot of new and extended scenes in it, so there was a lot more new stuff in it. But I did spend most of Justice League, while they were trying to bring Superman back to life, thinking 'Lex is going to be SO ANNOYED about this', and then he showed up in an after-credits scenes, on a stupid yacht, hiring the best assassin in the world and saying maybe they should have league of their own (FU, Superman). And it's so beautiful in BvS - so weird and beautiful, and in the extended version Lex just makes it clear it's not even about Superman, it's nothing personal, he says "I don't hate the sinner - I hate the sin. And your sin is existing". And it's all so caught up with his daddy issues, and his control issues probably stemming from that, and then Clark saves him from Doomsday's fist anyway, and it's beautiful. I love it.



• Charley Brewster/Jerry Dandridge, Fright Night 2011 - See above, in New Pairings. Again, I put it in there so I kind of have to put it in here, even though as I say I don't really ship it. But I did like their dynamic, and some of the early stuff that went on between them, and I did enjoy it to some degree, and I did enjoy the fic. So it was a nice pairing, for a dry year.

And the winner is: Clark/Lex from the DCU. Because they are pretty much fully an enemy pairing, and they're a lot richer than a lot of the other pairings in here, and it's given me a lot of pleasure this year. I love stupid Lex Luthor.


Best Incest Pairing

• Ross Barton/James Barton, Emmerdale - I genuinely thought there were no incest pairings I enjoyed this year, and then soaps totally provided. James Barton died last year, which broke Ross' heart, but this year he found out his mum was the one who killed him, and he had a beautiful scene with her up on a bridge where he yelled at her for it, and said his dad loved him, and how he (Ross) had basically become the bad child because his mum had left when he was young and he thought there was no point being anything else, but his dad never gave up on him, never stopped loving him, and Ross ran away, but James never stopped looking for him, he gave everything he had and let his farm go down the drain to look for Ross, and now he was dead and Ross would never have him back again, and it was perfect. I love their relationship so much, and I can't believe we're just not going to have anymore of it.



• Cal Knight/Ethan Hardy, Casualty - And then I remembered all the other ways soaps have provided this year. Cal and Ethan were always amazing - they came in as brothers, working at the same hospital, but Cal was the older, charming, irresponsible one, and Ethan was the younger, more studious, but lovely one, and it became very clear that Ethan had always looked after Cal, but also that Cal was looking out for Ethan in his own way. I don't know why they had different names - possibly different fathers? - but it turned out they had mother issues, because their mother had always been closer to Ethan and felt she couldn't trust Cal, because he was too flyaway. And I think their storyline started because their mother had died, and she'd left her estate equally to both of them in her will, but she'd left Cal's half in trust with Ethan, until Ethan felt that Cal could handle it. So Cal was basically trying to harass Ethan into giving him the money, and saying he must feel so superior that their mother loved him best, and Ethan just said "how do you think it makes me feel, that her last words and wishes for me were about you, that it all had to be about you, again?". And then Cal decided to stay at the same hospital to prove that he loved his brother, and was there for him. Anyway, Cal died this year. He died after the brothers had been fighting, because Cal was seeing another doctor at the hospital and really felt like she was the one, but Ethan was also secretly in love with her, and they'd slept together behind Cal's back, and he found out. Cal forgave Ethan, and basically told him to go after this other female doctor. But on the same day, Ethan had had a problem where he'd accidentally let some relatives into a room where their dead father was, without them knowing he was dead, which was a horrible way for them to find out. They were in a local gang, or a local 'bad' family, and one of them swore revenge on Ethan for doing this. Cal found out that the guy was planning to go after Ethan with a knife, and called Ethan but couldn't get through. Because Ethan was having a drink with the female doctor they'd been fighting over. Then Cal chased down the guy with the knife, to protect Ethan, and got stabbed, and bled to death in an alley. While his brother was kissing the female doctor they'd both been in love with. And the scene where Ethan learned Cal was dead was amazing. They were a beautiful pariing, and again, it's sad that we won't have any more of them.



• Daniel/Adam, Coronation Street - These two don't always seem to interact too much, or be that interested in each other, but when they do, it's magical. Daniel is younger than Adam but technically his uncle, but neither of them grew up together, so they basically came into the Barlow's family together as the long lost ones. And then turned out to sort of be the bad seeds. There was a scene this year where Daniel, in turmoil about some things that had happened and things he'd done, decided to take a bunch of drugs, and overdosed. And Adam ended up being one of the ones who found him, and caressed his cheek, and tried to get him to wake up, and carefully got him to hospital. Then he immediately left for a weekend trip the next day, when Daniel was back from hospital. Which was a bit disappointing. But whenever they're sitting together and scheming together, or discussing each others' schemes together, it's quite win.

And the winner is: Ross Barton/James Barton, Emmerdale. Because they were so beautiful, and fought, and loved each other so much, and could barely talk about it, and Ross can still barely talk about it.



And now it is midnight, so I must go. I guess I'll have to do the rest of this in the New Year. Enjoy!

ETA - Added 01.01.18

Best Pairing

• Ryan/Gavin, Achievement Hunter - They were so lovely this year, or at least Ryan was lovely when Gavin was gone, and they are together most of the year, taunting each other a little bit and joking around together a little bit. And both of them give me so much happiness, individually, just by existing. And the way that they sort of tease and talk about each other is something that I enjoy a lot.



• Michael Bryce/Darius Kincaid, The Hitman's Bodyguard - HOW BEAUTIFUL. And they just came out of nowhere to remind me that a big slash pairing is still possible, that a whole film might be dedicated to it. And I really genuinely enjoyed them both as characters, and the way they were with each other, and the way they came to sort of have regard for and like each other. They were swell.



• Machias/Jusis, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING. Their relationship just deepened exactly the way you thought it would, without ever really becoming pandering or a joke - and the game/makers obviously know about it, given the joke about Dorothee's (our in-game slash fangirl, represent) story about them. But the game never forgets what matters to them as characters, and what would matter to them, and what it would really take to get them to change their behaviour, and the specific way that they would change it. Jusis declaring at the end that he and Machias will never be friends, but they can be constant rivals, was amazing, and perfect. And again, they just have so much regard for each other, in a way that you can clearly understand, even though the game never goes over the top with it. It's really beautiful, and I love it.

And the winner is: - Machias/Jusis. Because I love them, and they're such a beautiful, ongoing pairing, and there's so much to their story now, and it remains in-character and perfect. And there are two more games coming in the series, so hopefully we have much more of them to come. They have so many issues with each other. They have learned to respect each other anyway. They have figured out that going up against each other is the main way both of them have to refine and sharpen and improve themselves, so they're better off doing that. And being the best rivals they can be. I love them.


Most Beautiful Man

• Adrian Toomes, Spiderman: Homecoming
  
  
  
  Adrian was so beautiful. Pretty much the main reason I even went to see the film was to see Michael Keaton looking cool in a bomber jacket, and IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT. And his hatred of Tony Stark was so uplifting. And general care for his people. Not other people. Just his people. I loved him a lot.



• Ben Hanscom, IT (book) -
  
  "If someone had asked him, "Ben, are you lonely?", he would have looked at that someone with real surprise. The question had never even occurred to him. He had no friends, but he had his books and his dreams; he had his Revell models; he had a gigantic set of Lincoln Logs and built all sorts of stuff with them. His mother had exclaimed more than once that Ben's Lincoln Logs houses looked better than some real ones that came from blueprints.
  -"A child blind from birth doesn't even know he's blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localised, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it. It simply was, like his double-jointed thumb or the funny little jag inside one of his front teeth, the little jag his tongue began running over whenever he was nervous." IT, Stephen King, Hodder 2011, page 210.
  
  I read Stephen King's IT this year, and I was completely blindsided by Ben Hanscom. He was incredible. He was so alone, and so gentle, and so brave. He loved his mother so much. He was heartbreaking, and whenever anything bad happened to him it was so hard to bear. Beverly was heartwrenching, but Ben was heartbreaking.



• Jerry Smith, Rick and Morty
  
  
  
  HE LOVES HIS FAMILY SO MUCH. I love him so much. All her ever does is stand by them, even though he's not as smart as them or as confident as them, and they don't make him feel smart, and he's not very confident after talking to them. I genuinely can't tell if the show thinks of him as a joke, or is heading towards a conclusion where they decide neither he nor Rick are right about everything. He can do so many things Rick can't. And whenever his family needs him he's just there. There was a clip this season that just opened on Jerry in his scummy, one-bed apartment, laying on his stomach, kicking his legs and tossing popcorn into his happy mouth. It was amazing. HE'S SO HAPPY WITH SO LITTLE. I love him.



• Clark Kent/Superman, all media types
  
  
  
  I fucking love Superman. He just wants to help people. He just wants to save people. It's not about him feeling special, or wanting to feel in control of things. He doesn't have to. But he has the power to help people, and he was raised right, and he can hear and see when people are in trouble and no-one else can, and he wants to help them. I've been watching the DCU films, and I love him in those, I loved him not understanding why people would bring him back from the dead and not just let him rest in peace. I read the original strips, and he's more of a jerk in those, but I love him just wanting to save people, from miscarriages of justice, and poverty, and to end war-profiteering. HE HATES SOCIAL INJUSTICE SO MUCH. Also, they really went in on the whole dual identity/master of disguise thing. If you've never seen Clark Kent sit down with a make-up kit, you should. And I've read the recent comics, and I love how he just figures things out, when he can't overpower them, because he is a journalist too. Actually. I love Clark Kent. I love him.



• Samuel L Jackson - He just made films so beautiful for me this year. He was amazing in The Hitman's Bodyguard. He was great in Kong: Skull Island, in a much less sympathetic role. But he's so good I'm excited just to see him. I love that he's around. I love that he's so good. I love that he puts out such a regular body of work. I love that he doesn't take anyone's shit when he's off-camera, and just gives very honest answers. I love that he will yell at kittens if people tell him to, because hey, that's what they asked him for right?
  
  
  Watch on YouTube
  
  
  I can't find a good clip of it right now, but trust me. They ask him to, jokingly, assuming he would hesitate, but he doesn't and he yells at them, and they have to say "they're frightened!" and stop him, when he ONLY DID WHAT THEY ASKED HIM TO.



• Sam Rockwell, in this video:
  
  
  Watch on YouTube

And the winner is: Superman. I love him.


Most Beautiful Woman

• Hillary Clinton
  
  
  
  She was on the Graham Norton show this year, and she was just as beautiful as ever. She was dressed in yellow, and smiling, and joking, and said that maybe she should have stood up to Donald Trump in their debates more, when he tried to intimidate her, and maybe then more people would have believed in her and she would have won the election, and she was sorry. I love her.



• Sonia Kincaid, The Hitman's Bodyguard
  
  
  
  Salma Hayek always delivers, but boy did she. I wasn't expecting a lot out of the main character's wife, who was essentially being held hostage and was his motivation for having to do what the plot entailed. But she was amazing. She was amazing every time she spoke to him, she was amazing every time she spoke to anyone, she was amazing with her cellmate, she was amazing in her face, and she was just generally amazing. And that is a disgusting place to hide a child's toy.



• Dancy Flammarion, Alabaster: Wolves
  
  
  
  Oh Dancy. She was so young, and so irritated with her life, but she kept on at it, and kept doing it, and never backed down from it. And fuck you, angel. All her life was basically just doing what people told her to do, and never quite knowing if it was right, but never knowing if it would be much worse not to do it. And she carried on until she couldn't do it anymore, and then she carried on anyway. And always had so much self-possession, despite everything. Despite everything she didn't know, and everything she had to do, and just generally trying to do the right thing, or at least survive. She was great.



• Cora Harper, Mass Effect: Andromeda
  
  
  
  I've waxed lyrical about her once already this year, but she really was amazing. Just beautiful, and so good at what she did, and so unsure of herself when it came to anything else, like making decisions. Plans were what they needed. She just wanted to wait for someone with a plan to come along. She endlessly quoted meditation/combat manuals to you, and then found out her hero, who wrote most of those manuals, wasn't the shining hero she thought she was. She wanted to grow roses in Andromeda. That would probably fuck with the local ecosystem, but it was still a beautiful thought, she really loved plants. Couldn't always deal with people. She was great.



• Special mention to: Courtney Love - This wasn't actually this year, but I still feel like it deserves a mention. Here is a clip that got famous this year, of Courtney Love 10 years ago trying to warn young actresses and women about Harvey Weinstein, just trying to keep them safe out of the blue, even though she knew she might get libelled for saying it.
  
  
  Watch on YouTube
  
  
  Thank you, Courtney Love.

And the winner is: Hillary Clinton. Always.


Best Dressed

• Adrian Toomes, Spiderman: Homecoming
  
  
  
  Like I said above, one of the main reasons I even went to see the film was to see Michael Keaton looking cool in a bomber jacket, and he constantly did, and his outfit was amazing.



• Pennywise, IT (book) - At one point while Pennywise is trying to kill the kids, he turns up as the Teenage Werewolf, complete with a silver and orange high school jacket with the words 'Derry High School Killing Team', 'Pennywise', and the number 13 on the back.
  
  What the fuck, Pennywise?



• Arthur Curry, Justice League
  
  
  
  It turns out this year's best-dressed is very jacket based. Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman, spends a lot of his time shirtless, but sometimes he throws on a jacket over that, and at one point it was a sheepskin jacket casually left open, and that was very good.

And the winner is: Adrian Toomes. Because it felt like he really committed to that outfit.


Happy New Year, everyone!

Comments

[breyzyyin]

What a fun post! I was happy to see a Machias and Jusis mention on there...and Cora from MEA! XD Happy New Year! ♥

[girlofprey]

Thank you! I love Machias and Jusis - I thought I saw a mention of Trails of Cold Steel on your journal, but then I couldn't remember if it was yours or someone else's. Cold Steel makes me super happy, and so did Cora - sad we probably won't be getting any more Andromeda stuff now. But I enjoyed it while it lasted! Happy new year!

[jekesta]

The Hitman's Boyfriend didn't work for me like it worked for you, but I love how they kindly fit into ALL your categories and therefore make this year much slashier than it actually was. I love Hillary Clinton and Superman. I also love Machias/Jusis but I've never met them.

[girlofprey]

I just loved that they were slashy. It's so nice to have a pairing that is like a pairing, that has actual interaction and the story is about their interaction, and their interaction is quite nice. It's a shame we don't get to have very many of those any more.

In the big superhero comics, what they often do is put a facsimile of the current actual president into the story when cosmic threats or whatever get to a point where politics would be involved. Sometimes I think about the scenes Superman could have had with 'Hillary Clinton'. And the gushing, furiously defending articles Clark Kent would probably write about her. I know that's not the greatest tragedy of her not getting elected, but still.