As most of you probably know, DWNOGA is officially no more. I only got to participate once, but it's probably the best challenge experience I ever had. I ended up writing [The Politicos (This Machine Kills Faschists)], which is still one of my favorites that I've written. And lambs, and an AU where Nsync are staffers on capitol hill, which I will always think is hilarious.

Anyway, it was a great time. And in the spirit of it being November and ALMOST the holiday season YAY, I thought I'd do a rec list of past DWNOGA fics what I have loved.

01. Not Based On A True Story by Isilya (justin/jc, SORT OF) // This sort of fucked with my head, in a really good way. It's the Nsync boys as fandomers. They're popslashers, of course, but it's an AU, so they're normal guys writing about like, Backstreet. Yeah, it's a bit of a headfuck. But it's very very good. In which fanboy Justin writes meta-fic about Backstreet being fanboys. Quote:

This is part of your overall life philosophy. You may not have the most livejournal friends, but you're about to graduate, and you firmly expect to be earning six figures within ten years. You'd rather win at life than at fandom anyway, you tell yourself. It still niggles though, that you're leaving without becoming the best. You wonder, if you'd modded one more mailing list, or written for one more challenge, could you have doubled your friends list? Tripled it? It's a heady thought.

02. Team Spirit: Pulling Together by Lily (gsf) // This is just a really cute AU in which Justin and Lance are campers at a camp for proto-juvies, and JC, Joey, and Chris are counselors.

03. One Thing That SO Never Happened to Joshua Scott Chasez by Merry (JC/Joey, Chris/Lance) // Oh, HILARIOUS. Chris makes the group think that JC broke up with him and broke his heart, while JC tries to figure out how that's possible when they were never dating in the first place. And of course, it's all part of Chris's nefarious plan to get into Lance's pants. As everything should be, really. Quote:

The next day, JC climbed onto the three-man bus and found Chris sobbing in Justin's arms. Spread out on the coffee table in front of them were all the pictures from all their photo shoots that had ever shown JC and Chris standing together. Or sitting together. Or touching. Or looking at each other. Or even, really, looking in each other's general direction; for one of those shots, JC remembered looking guiltily and lustfully at Justin. More lustfully than guiltily, really. For JC, the guilt usually came later.

Justin grabbed a packed duffle bag from beside the coffee table and hurled it at JC's head.

That was the day JC moved to the two-man bus.

04. The Kebbabery by Ephemera (justin/joey) // Another pairing I normally wouldn't read, except for this fic is fantastic! I also like how she got around all the Britishisms by setting it in London. WIN. But this is a really sweet, adorable AU in which Joey runs a kebab shop and just, it's very heart-warming and the setting is described so beautifully and lushly that you feel like you know exactly what this place is like.

05. A Hell of A Yarn by SarahQ (JC/AJ) // This fic just. YES. It gives me warm fuzzies inside. JC owns a YARN SHOP, you guys. A YARN SHOP. Never has anything been more perfect than that. Also, AJ is pretty awesome, too. Is it just fanon that AJ must have some sort of penis piercing? Because I just sort of assume he does. And many fics also seem to assume that.

06. Flight Dynamics by marythefan // There are no words for this other than amazing. And awesome. And SPACE AU. She's one of my favorite writers and I had the honor of writing for her last year, which meant I worked ten times harder on my fic and rewrote about a million times. Because she's awesome, and she deserves awesomeness in return. And this fic is brilliant at showing that. Quote:

Justin wishes he could affect the kind of disdain Lance is able to project, but he's pretty sure his distaste for the dive Joey's dragged them to just looks like he's being a candyass. This is not how he wanted to spend his leave, in a bar on Nyx. He's not sure he'd want to spend his leave on Nyx, period - there's too much neon and flashing lights and people pressing in and around him wherever they go. The surprising - or maybe not so surprising, knowing Joey - coincidence of the group at the table in the back corner only adds to his discomfort.

07. Making the List by _ducks (justin/lance) // This fic makes me so incredibly happy. Justin has been making lists for forever. Lists of things he wants to do and accomplish and have. Lance has been on the list three times. FOR THE WIN. Quote:

It helps to keep his thoughts in order. It helps to keep things tidy in his head. He hardly ever goes back and looks at what he's written; it's enough just to write it down on the page and move on to the next. Over the years he's filled dozens of notebooks, most of them now sitting in a box in his basement. He's made lists of his inspirations, his favorite breakfast cereals, his all-time top 100 albums. It makes some interview questions very easy to answer. He can reel off his top ten basketball players, his favorite Stevie Wonder songs, the last dozen countries he's visited, without hesitation.

There's one list he only keeps in his head, a list of things he wants too much or too privately to put down on paper. Lance has been on this list three times.

08. Pride is for Lions and Disco Divas by bossymarmalade (chris/lance) // I fucking love this fic so much. I want to give it a big hug. There were lots of "Lance comes out" fics last year (as to be expected!), but this one was my favorite. Lance comes out, and Chris's response is to send him ridiculous "gay" shit. Like mesh shirts. SO MUCH LOVE. Quote:

Two days from that, Lance opened his mail to find a Queen album, a Judy Garland collection, and a recording of Rent. The Broadway version. With that Mimi with the aggravating voice.

Fuming, Lance re-wrapped the CDs and wrote UNDELIVERABLE across them in big black Sharpie letters, throwing them onto his mail-pile.

It took four days, but the albums came back. And this time they brought along a Queer as Folk soundtrack.

09. Metafictional by Steph (Justin/Chris) // I'm a total sucker for the boys writing fic/discovering fic (as you can probably tell from this list alone), and this one is hilarious. Nsync participates secretly in DWNOGA. There's DRAGON fic and lesbians and other awesomeness and I love it sososo much. Quote:

"Have you ever considered an exciting career in the field of fiction writing?" Before Chris can fire off a single bullet, Joey continues, "It's like a challenge, I guess. Where you write stories for people. About us. Like the dolphin story, but they're not all about dolphins. Some of them are about dogs and camels and seahorses. And other things that aren't animals. I signed us up."

"You can't sign us up!" Chris protests. "For one thing, I think that's cheating, and for another, I don't want to!"

"Too late," Joey says with a shrug. "I'm doing it, and JC's dying to do it, and it's a majority, so you have to."

"That isn't a majority, and why isn't Lance doing it? This is his stupid fetish, not mine."

"Lance is getting laid a lot, so he's disqualified," Joey says sourly. "His words, not mine. I'm getting laid plenty."

10. The Sprinkle Fairy by pensnest (Chris/JC) // This is JC at his most adorable, Chris at his most irritating cluelessness, and Justin as fairy godmother matchmaker--literally. Hilarious and adorable and YAY. Quote:

"Yes, exactly!" JC burst out. "I thought, chocolate, right, Chris likes chocolate, everybody knows that, I got this special stuff, it's from France, it's, like, ultimate chocolate, I put it, and I thought he, but he didn't, and then he just. Didn't." He scowled. "Go away."

"Dude," said Justin, curling an arm around JC's shoulders. "You're really upset about this."

*

So there are some awesome recs. DWNOGA may be over, by the SeSa popslash tradition will live on with Make the Yuletide Gay, sign-ups for which will be happening soonish. So go check out the lovely new sight and the gorgeous graphics, and make sure to watch (or join) mtyg_discuss for updates and announcements re: MTYG.