Week Three - Character Recs: Ray Kowalski

[nos4a2no9.livejournal.com]

It's Week 3 of our celebration of the dS characters, which means that it's time to rec your favourite Kowalski stories (or vids!) Het, gen, slash and crackfic recs are welcome. As is picspam. *cough* Personal essays on how you came to fall for the skinny guy in the GTO would be great, as is meta or episode recs. (As it is for the other characters or our other challenges: your recs for this comm don't necessarily need to be stories, as long as you're reccing some aspect of due South).

In the last week of March (beginning on Tuesday, March 24th) we'll have an amnesty week, where you can discuss any of the three dS leads in whatever form you choose. So if your favourite Fraser fic didn't get recc'd, or you wanted to include a couple more odes to Vecchio, or you have more to say about Kowalski, make sure you mark that date on your calendar.

For now, let's talk Ray Kowalski!

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Vecchio

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Back when I got into this fandom, fic first, it was all Kowalski all the time. The trail of recs I followed led me through stories where Vecchio simply wasn't there, and some where one might wish he wasn't. Then one day, someone explained Ray Vecchio to me in a way that I could understand and love.

In Kowalski is Bleeding by cesperanza I discovered that Ray Vecchio was alive, vibrant, likeable. Loveable, even. Of course he loved the GTO - he appreciates classic cars. And he loved Fraser, would just drop everything to help him. Thanks, Speranza, for starting my education.

Then aeyre showed me that Vecchio was just right for my boy Kowalski in You Get What You Need, and I was suddenly a Ray/Ray convert. Boys bruised by Canada and Vegas, but not broken; able to somehow strangely fit together, to find love. Not the grand romance each of them chased during the show, but an "older and wiser" kind of love, no less intense for it's pragmatism.

I had to rethink my original premise that Vecchio was straight. If he could be in love with Kowalski, why not Fraser? "Well, hell!" I said to china_shop. "Maybe Vecchio is a drag queen every Saturday night." And she wrote me Gloria (the alias that you've been living under) to prove it.

And in the end where can I go but to wingfic? My gift from llassah was the beautiful, dreamlike Fledgling, where Ray gets wings and learns to use them. Ray Vecchio, you crawled into my heart and head in surprising ways, but I'm so glad I got to know you.