Tropisms

Zine
Title:	Tropisms
Publisher:	Blackfly Presses
Editor:
Author(s):	Kit Mason
Cover Artist(s):	Jenny Saypaw
Illustrator(s):	Jenny Saypaw
Date(s):	October 2001
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Sports Night/Sentinel
Language:	English
External Links:	Tropisms at Blackfly Presses' site, WB Machine link to online version, it is also online here
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cover by Jenny Saypaw

Tropisms is a slash Sports Night and Sentinel crossover 150-page novel by Kit Mason. Color cover and B/W interiors by Jenny Saypaw.

Summaries

Summary from a distributor, Agent With Style: "Sportscasters Casey McCall and Dan Rydell are sent to Cascade, WA, to cover a track and field event and the Special Olympics being held there. After a terrific argument, the two sportscasters split up, with Casey meeting Detective Jim Ellison in a sports bar and his partner Detective Blair Sandburg meeting Dan after nearly running him over. After getting to know each other, Jim and Casey decide to go back to Casey and Dan's room. Things quickly heat up between them and are rapidly reaching a climax when Blair and Dan walk in. Now the fireworks start! Will each man end up with the correct partner? Can apologies mend rips in torn friendships and lovelifes? Will anything ever be the same again?"

From the author on the AO3 online version: "A crossover between Sports Night and The Sentinel, in which Jim Ellison gets close to his idol, Blair is disgruntled, Casey is trying to decide whether to quit sports, Dan is trying to keep it together, Jeremy is an avatar of deity, Natalie has special powers, and Simon gets laid."

Reactions and Reviews

While covering sporting events in Cascade, Casey and Dan run into Jim and Blair, respectively. Musical beds ensues.

Up until the very last quarter of this fic I was sure I was going to rec it. It's a quiet, well-written story, with lots of emotional angst and with two sets of partners miscommunicating up a storm. Right up my alley, really. The fact that it's a crossover between two of my favorite fandoms was just a bonus.

Unfortunately, there was an underlying theme of the story that made me more and more uncomfortable as the fic went on, namely that, while Jim, Blair, Dan, and Casey were *all* behaving badly, Blair and Dan's behavior was treated by the author as acceptable while Jim and Casey's behavior was treated as shameful, which was weird considering Jim and Casey weren't doing anything Blair and Dan weren't doing. Of course, I know in both fandoms there is a tendency to woobify Blair and Dan, and my best guess is that that was what was going on here, so I was willing to overlook it as it wasn't too overt.

Then in the last quarter of the fic, Jim and Casey both spontaneously realize that they were behaving like utter shits (as if Blair and Dan weren't doing the EXACT SAME THING) and that they had to apologize. Then Blair goes and says that if Jim doesn't drop trou and immediately have sex with him, Blair is leaving him. And we're supposed to believe that *Jim* is the bad guy here?

There are times when I like a bit of woobie!Blair/Dan and there are a lot of fics where Jim/Casey do actually behave badly while Blair/Dan put up with them. In this fic, however, there is a blatant double standard that makes both sides of the partnerships look bad: Blair and Dan for acting like entitled prima donnas and Jim and Casey for not calling Blair and Dan on their bullshit. For some people, that might be the very reason why they want to read the fic, but it didn't appeal to me.