The Fifty Shades
Series is a Red Dwarf AU written by felineranger. It serves as a Fusion Fic between the show and Fifty Shades of Grey, with Rimmer functioning as a stand-in for Christian Grey, and Lister as the stand-in for Anastasia Steele. There are four entries made for the series:
- Fifty Shades Of Smeg: A re-telling of the original Fifty Shades, which has Lister (a struggling student at Saturn Tech here) meet and slowly fall in love with Rimmer (a Virtual Ghost Billionaire here).
- Fifty More Shades Of Smeg: Five years after the events of the previous fic, Rimmer and Lister are married with twin sons. However, some turbulence has come up, particularly over Rimmer being over-protective of Lister.
- A New Normal: After the events of Fifty More Shades of Smeg, the family goes on a much-needed holiday.
- Mrs Jones: A POV Sequel of Fifty Shades of Smeg from the perspective of Mrs. Jones (the Original Character caretaker).
The Fifty Shades Series provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adapted Out: Barring the final chapter of the original fic, Kryten and the Cat don't appear in this series at all.
- Age Lift: Rather than starting off as 25 years old as in the main series, Lister starts off as a 20-year-old here.
- Alternate Universe Fic: One in which Rimmer has become a rich billionaire and Lister is going through Saturn Tech. This is emphasized when at the end of the original fic, they jump using the Wildfire to a dimension which is either very similar or is actually the canon Red Dwarf Timeline.
- Baby Fever Trigger: "Fifty More Shades of Smeg" reveals that Lister first realised that he wanted children when, two years into his marriage with Rimmer, one of his colleagues came in one day to show off his baby daughter and put her into Lister's hands.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: How Rimmer became a Virtual Ghost in this fic is different from in the main series. Whilst in the TV series, he dies as the result of a botched attempt to fix a radiation leak, herehe is killed by his own father, possibly deliberately.
- Distant Finale: The epilogue to "Fifty More Shades Of Smeg" takes place 71 years after the events of the fic, dealing with Lister's death and resurrection as a hologram.
- Doorstopper: The original fic comes in at a decent 120,158 words, with the total word count for the entire series being 184,824 words.
- Fusion Fic: Between Fifty Shades of Grey and Red Dwarf.
- Gilded Cage: By the events of "Fifty More Shades Of Smeg", Lister is beginning to view his life with Rimmer as this, which begins to cause tension in their marriage.
- Let's Have Another Baby: One source of the tension in their marriage in the sequel is that Lister wants a daughter with Rimmer's eyes, even though Rimmer doesn't want to. They do eventually both agree to have and conceive said child at the end.
- Offing the Offspring: Rimmer is revealed to have been killed when his Dementia-ridden father fired a loaded gun in his direction. Although Lister thinks it was accidental, Rimmer doubts it.
- Slash Fic: Not only does it involve a sexual relationship between Rimmer and Lister, but the fic also deals heavily with BDSM themes.
- Time Skip: Five years are said to have passed between the events of the original fic and its sequel.
- Vacation Episode: The plot of “A New Normal” is the family heading off on a holiday (on a yacht) to help recover from the events of the previous fic.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The appendix for Fifty More Shades of Smeg explains what exactly happens to the characters in the time period after the event of the fanfic.
