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The Real World: Hanson

by Jaxsper Finn (link)

Genre slash, erotica, romance
Pairings Taylor/OMC, Zac/OMC
Length 32 chapters
Status Completed (first in a series)

Even though most of us seem to forget about these days, the earliest hanfic wasn’t full of Mary Sues. It was actually full of Gary Stus. Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like–male self inserts. This particular story by Jaxsper Finn was originally posted on the fairly infamous site Nifty.org, but seems to have garnered interest from the rest of the fandom as well, since it spawned several sequels. I can only hope that the slash version of early hanfic offers something different than the typical cliche Middle of Nowhere era fic.

Sadly, it’s about as cliche as the title and the main character sharing a name with the author suggest. You guessed it–Hanson are cast in a version of The Real World along with the quirky aspiring child actor Jaxsper Finn. The story is ostensibly his online diary for the show (aside from the chapters that inexplicably switch to third person to show Zac and Toby’s progressing relationship). At least that’s a unique touch, along with the photos inserted in the text to illustrate certain events, but the rest of the setup is insanely cheesy.

Where Jaxsper’s writing differs from early het, though, is in the level of descriptive and highly explicit sex scenes. The writing style is clearly geared toward male readers, with plenty of descriptions of length and such, a variety of slang terms that I don’t find sexy at all and a few highly improbable scenes. On the other hand, there are declarations of love that rival anything I’ve read in any teenage girl’s Hanson fantasies.

There is something of an interesting plot here. After all, we’re talking about teenage boys dealing with their sexuality. Taylor and Jaxsper’s quickly evolving relationship and Zac’s largely physical relationship with Toby remind me of the relationships in Devil Angel, but the poor handling of the point of view changes, sloppy editing and highly detailed sex scenes (in a bad way, if that’s even possible) leave me with a pretty bad taste in my mouth. Although it differs in a lot of ways from the typical teenybopper fare, The Real World: Hanson is ultimately not any better than most of it.

Review by Bethany (website)