Story 72: "Flea Market Economy" by Punk Maneuverability

[leucocrystal]

So... this is the first time I've posted a rec here, obviously!  I'd have backed out like the easily intimidated little fandom squirrel I am, but Wendy poked me with a (figurative) stick and asked me to post this for her, and who am I to deny our lovely moderator? ;)  After all, she asked for more humorous suggestions in a thread in the previous rec post, and I was the one who just had to jump in and open her big mouth.  I can't be sorry about that though, because either you've read this fic before (it is rather infamous) and will not be at all sorry to give it a re-read, or you never have and you clearly need to remedy that right now.

Believe me, I'm the first picky reader to shake their head in disdain when you say "genderswap" to me, especially if you do it with a straight face.  It's been so long since I first read this fic, I can't even remember what ultimately pushed me over that "NO" line and into it... I'm guessing I gave it an initial shot because I was on a PunkM kick and figured that if anyone were to do it right, this would be my one shot to see for sure.

And of course, it's done wonderfully.  Hilariously, incredibly, you've-got-to-read-it-to-understand; all that and more.  I can't help but wonder whether PunkM has ever had a dream of some sort that involves waking up inexplicably in someone else's body, because that's how it feels to read this fic, and it is all the more excellent for it.  And as you might imagine, hijinks most definitely ensue.  (How could they not?)

Flea Market Economy

What are you waiting for?  Go read, laugh like mad, come back, and discuss!  If you have a suggestion for reading, you can let us know here.  And remember, as dashakay is always telling us, feedback matters.

Comments

[lsugaralmond.livejournal.com]

Aw, yay! I LOVE this story, thankyou for reminding me of it. The bit about Mulder looking like a special agent of porn makes me laugh out loud every time I read it.

Also, testament to the quality of the writing, I can totally visualise this story as if it were filmed as an episode. And what a GREAT episode it would have made! They would have had to leave the showering bits out, I imagine, to satisfy the censors, but it would still have been hilarious. Like someone said in comments to the OP, DD and GA would have been great acting as a body-swapped Mulder and Scully. Can you imagine? Oh man, I wish this had been an episode.

[simplytoopretty.livejournal.com]

I had never read this and I'm glad you recced it. It was a fun, easy read. Genderswaps can difficult to do well, but PunkM did it really well. Mulder and Scully are in-character and they're hilarious.

Mulder's troubles with the pantyhose and the underwear and the bra and the heels made me laughter repeatedly, as did Scully's issues with having a penis. Those parts were just really funny.

[dictatorcari]

Scully's "let's go chase monsters" and the reference to "paramasturbatory" had me rolling on the floor. Nicely done. :)

[hlbr.livejournal.com]

I had read it before, but it was hilarious the second time around, too.

It's excellent as genderswap and excellent as a comic story, too. I really appreciated that among the funny bits there was sort of serious commentary, like this:

Starting to forget what it's like to dress to the left, to see the top of her bookshelves, to be spoken to first, to be Mulder. But she doesn't need to remember what it's like to be Mulder because he's standing right next to her.

Scully's theory FTW, even if it didn't resist further analysis. That is, that was exactly like the show. Like everyone above I totally believe this could've been an episode.

Mulder's fight with feminine garments is excellent, as is Scully's attitude of treating his body 'as if it was a hotel room'. Just--to full of funny quotes to cite everything!

choked up

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I so wanted to comment on this, one of my favorite fics, but I love it so that "love, love, love" is pretty much all that comes to mind. I get all choked up with the laughter.

So Wendelah's husband posted a metafic (linked on her blog) and by bizarre association I thought of my husband the sometime movie critic and alltime afficianado of off-center sexuality. He's never read fanfic but I said "bodyswap" and he was there. He read the *whole thing.* Punk M. has no idea how highly s/he was complimented. I asked for a blurb and he came up with "a cross between Tootsie and The Crying Game." Well, duh. I was hoping for something more insightful.

Considering the potential this subject has for lowbrow porn, I think the writer has come close to creating art. Not *high* art, maybe, and of interest only to those of us who value the source material. It has a limited audience and won't be around in fifty years. But it's as good as Some like It Hot!

Mulder coping with an underwire bra recovers Muldertorture for the comedians. And I enjoyed the weird bleed-in of erotic attraction when Scully notices Mulder's(her) hands on her(his) tits.

A cold fish in tropical waters...

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I’m not really a comedy person, in this fandom in particular, so i was shocked and charmed senseless by how great FME was. I’m a cold fish so comedy generally has to catch me off guard and keep me off guard from beginning to end, which is absolutely what FME did. God, it was great. thanks for the rec leucocrystal

As everyone’s already said, Punk mixes the comedy with a dash of profundity, which goes a long way in keeping the fic from blowing apart with how INSANE the general premise is. Yet at no point do i feel like the narrative gets weighed down or looses track of the manic tone it’s out to maintain or the story it’s out to tell. One of the things that makes me absurdly happy when i’m reading a fic is when the author has an unwavering grasp on Mulder, Scully, and the story. Sometimes it's more important that they know and can define who their Mulder and Scully are than that their Mulder and Scully are close to mine. Punk clearly knows who her characters are. keeping that sturdiness in the story seems to be particularly difficult when writing humor fics. It seems like humor fics can so easily slide into inanity and chaos.

The thin man's holding forth over a table of assorted junk. Tall and greasy as a slim jim, he's in a black suit, white shirt, and a tie that's as thin as he is.

"Greetings," he says to them. "Might I interest you in an antique bottle opener, purported to once be owned by the king himself?"

"Elvis?" says Mulder eagerly.

"Henry," says the thin man. "The third."

"Actually," Scully says, breaking in, "we're looking for an antidote."

"Ah, a discerning customer, I see. Are we talking mystical or pharmaceutical?"

Scully puts her hands on her hips, a holdover from when she couldn't use her size to intimidate and had to scare suspects into cooperating with the sheer power of her pointy authoritarian elbows. Now it just makes her look kind of gay. "You tell us," she says. "Your partner sold us a mind-altering alligator and then disappeared. We'd like the effects reversed."

"We're having a little physical displacement issue," Mulder says, trying to speak the thin man's language.

"Heh, heh," says the thin man. "Ain't that always the way. Youse gotta be careful with the alligator. Very tricky species."
Scully looks like she's about to pop him one.

"Yeah," Mulder says, "the trickiest. Can you help us or not?"

The mad brilliance of this passage (and several others) makes me beyond gleeful. My personal favorite type of comedy is the ‘Go With It’ narrative. That is, everyone is hip to the ups and downs of the universe they exist in. They don’t just flounder, the joke’s not on them – the whole universe created in the story is one cohesive joke. Crazy things happen and yet no one bats an eye because on some level there is an attitude of: ‘no shit. Crazy things are always happening.’ As the Cheshire cat says to Alice: ‘We’re all mad here.’

I did have one issue (problem?) with FME though. I wasn’t sure when canonically the fic was happening. This mattered to me because i wanted to know if Mulder and Scully were already having sex in this universe. It generally seemed like they weren’t, yet there were times when the dynamic they slid into with each other was too casual and brazen for me to believe their relationship had been platonic up until the bodyswap. Yes, the shower scene(s) had a lot to do with it. And the dressing scene. If they weren’t having sex before hand then i find those scenes out of character. Funny, certainly, but also OOC.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

wendelah's asked me to post a rec that was being discussed a while back while rehashing The Airport discussion. i'm not sure if this is what she meant, as i'm fairly new here (and fairly clueless), but i'll give it a shot.

The Other Man (http://fluky.gossamer.org/cgi-bin/read.cgi?OtherMan.M) by Jess M. I couldn't find it (quickly and easily) anywhere but gossamer, sorry. It's great in a dark, eerie, and tragic kind of way.

thanks for offering to let me have a go at posting it myself, wendelah. i was tempted, but i think i'll just chill out and stay a wallflower for a while longer.

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

Ah this one is just so good. I enjoy most of Punk's stuff but this is probably one of the funniest fics I've read. So so SO good!