Yuletide recs post #2!

[wakeupnew]

I am not going to finish my recs before the reveals; I only made it to the L's in Yuletide Madness and halfway through the T's in regular stories. SADFACE! I will have to finish over the weekend, while we are either lightly sprinkled upon or SNOWED IN BY THE STORM OF THE CENTURY, depending on whose weather forecast you're listening to.

(P.S. - I know I probably don't have to say this to my f-list, as y'all are fabulous, but for serious, Yuletide recipients of the world, comment on the fic you received. It makes me so sad to read a wonderful story and get to the end and see that the recipient never said a word; not even a simple 'thank you.' Most of my recipients were fabulous and wrote lovely comments right away, but I've seen quite a few stories where the intended recipient hasn't said a word, and it makes me want to hug anon authors.

That said, I still owe two of my authors more detailed comments. *sheepish*)

ON TO THE FIC RECS!



LEVERAGE
It's weird; as much as I like the show, I'm not particularly fannish about it and it's fiendishly difficult to keep me interested in fics. This year's crop of them were really fun, though, and there was one in particular that pretty much mesmerized me!

Deck the Tree with False Blossoms
(I've been waiting to rec this one since I first read it for a beta! Fics like these are why I love offering my beta services up to the general community; you never know what you're going to get. SHARKER. The Parker-as-shark reference alone is worth it; I am not quoting it here, because it's funnier when you stumble across it in the fic, but I laughed so hard, you don't even know. Sophie comes and goes as she pleases, but when a job goes wrong, what will the gang do without her? All of the voices are astonishingly good, but Parker in particular had me in near hysterics.)

Parker's face was as still as death. Only the slightest flicker of movement at the corners of her eyes betrayed that she was actually paying attention to the conversation swirling around her.

"What are you doing?" Eliot asked, his eyes narrowed on hers. Somehow, though he'd never thought it possible, she'd found something to do that was creepier than when she tried to practice flirting.

"Sophie bet me $5000 that I couldn't stop rolling my eyes when one of you says something stupid," she said, moving only her lips.

LILO AND STITCH
all your heart-melodies
(This is beautiful and charming, Lilo through the years, and the ending was unexpected and made me so happy.)

At seven, Lilo wants to grow up to be an intergalactic space hero.

Stitch shows her how to build plasma guns (Nani puts them on a high shelf), how to rig up a can opener and a radio into a machine that will open a portal to an alternate universe (Nani says she can't do it in the house) and how to first swallow and then regurgitate useful objects, like handcuff keys or quarters (Nani, though disgusted, can't help but be impressed). She and Stitch roam the forests and swim the ocean and are the best of friends, and though Lilo doesn't talk much to other kids, she has Stitch and she has Nani and they are all she needs. She dreams at night of a future among space aliens, green and wriggly, tall and blue, grave and comic and of infinite variety, and when she wakes she can still see their cities behind her eyes, gleaming and verdant.

MARY POPPINS
The Dauntless Crusader
(Michael forgets Mary Poppins but Jane does not. The story follows Jane from childhood to grandmotherhood, and the historical details and the voices and the gentle touch are really, really wonderful.)

"Where is she?" Jane demands. "Can't she come back? Just so he'd see her—just so he'd remember!"

Bert's face gets tight and sad for a moment. "Well, now, Jane," he says again. "Mary Poppins isn't a pet, you know—not like Andrew. She doesn't come when she's called. She comes when people need her."

M*A*S*H
Intuition and Survival
(The voices in this one are dead on; Hawkeye, Henry, Radar, and Trapper are just perfection, for a show that it is not easy to write for.)

"You need to start standing up for yourself, Radar," said Hawkeye.

"I stand up plenty!" said Radar, offended, and pushed his chair back to stand, still stretching his hand up. Hawkeye stood up straight as well, holding the paperwork above his head.

"Not ... not standing," said Hawkeye. "I mean standing up. Sticking up for yourself! Be your own man."

Radar stopped reaching for the papers and just assumed a stiff pose, a child's imitation of an angry adult's posture. "I am a man!"

If Only in My Dreams
(Hawkeye receives word that he is to be sent home just before Christmas. As you might imagine, if you're familiar with the show's ending at all, it doesn't go as planned. Funny and heartbreaking at once.)

"Didn't replace me, then?" He sounds a little more like himself, even if he doesn't quite feel it. It's a start.

"Didn't have the chance. Surgeons are in short supply, especially when the army didn't mean to send you away, son."

"Your cot is right where you left it, Hawk. On the other side of the best still in these mountains." BJ's as mild as ever, and Hawkeye finds himself caught between soothed and wanting to punch something, the window, the filing cabinet, Potter, Radar.

ROALD DAHL -- MATILDA
Three Christmases with Miss Honey
(Sweet story about Miss Honey and Matilda plus UNEXPECTED CROSSOVER DELIGHT = excellence.)

When Matilda was six, she had her first Christmas.

She knew the holiday in theory, of course, gleaned from background details in Dickens and from the telly Christmas dramas that made Mrs. Wormwood cry. But this time Christmas was real, and it was hers. She went to the market with Miss Honey and helped choose a goose. "A whole goose, just for two people?" Miss Honey asked.

"A whole goose," Matilda said firmly. "To make up for all the Christmas geese we've never eaten. We can save the leftovers, can't we, Miss Honey?"

MULAN
A Voice That Soars
(Oh my God, this is so sweet and so funny. The concept is executed beautifully.)

Cri-kee felt sorry for Mulan, but he thought she should at least stop to think about the unfairness he had to face too. No one seemed realize what it did to him to hear them all expressing themselves in such soaring melody when all that he could do at best was chirp a few harmonies or sway to the beat. No, clearly they had never stopped to consider it, and in her usual inconsiderate manner, once she'd finished her song Mulan had gone running back out of the room saying, "Maybe if my father talks to Li Shang's godfather, maybe he can make him understand!"

As usual she hadn't stopped for even a moment to ask how Cri-kee was feeling, or considered that maybe she was interrupting him. Typical.

OREGON TRAIL
And Then We Shot The Ox
(The title and the warnings field alone slayed me. It's an account of a family crossing the Oregon trail. The little tie-ins to the game are perfect.)

Archive Warning: Major Character Death
Additional Tags: you have died of dysentary

PRINCESS TUTU
A Shining Star Upon the Highest Bough
(A darling Princess Tutu Christmas story, with Ahiru making Rue happy as best as she can.)

"Look," Rue said. "You should probably just go. I was enjoying this time by myself."

"But you weren't by yourself!" Ahiru thought.

Another voice, a calmer one that she sometimes heard inside her, whispered: 'maybe she felt like she was. Maybe she always feels that way.'

Revisionism
(Until she recced it, I was sure rymenhild had written this, but now I have no freaking idea. It's -- it's a scholarly article on Fakir's finishing of Drosselmeyer's story, and it's wonderful.)

Several other characters enjoy expanded roles: Siegfried's lovably eccentric mentor Herr Katze, the enigmatic automaton Edel, and even the previously nameless Blacksmith. However, no other character has as much loving detail paid to them as the beautiful, courageous Princess Tutu. In the original manuscript, she warranted barely a line of text -- her name a whimsical nod to Drosselmeyer's well-known patronage of the art of dance, she is a lovesick pixie that Siegfried encounters who sacrifices her life for the love of him, though he is unable to return the same affection. However, this new draft catapults her to a massively expanded role -- indeed, even surpassing Siegfried himself! This news has delighted students of feminist literature.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS
map.
(Okay, in full disclosure, again, I beta'd this one. [Edit: Oh. Oops. That may have been a secret, as he or she credited me as L. rather than my name. My identity will not give away the author's, though!] It's based on the relationship between to male characters from this very, very short 1990s anti-drugs Canadian public service announcement, and it's so sweet and has such a densely realized world considering that the entire canon is about thirty seconds long. It's well worth a read.)

"Meet me by the market?" Skye asks.

"Sure," Daniel says. "Wear your scarf. And gloves this time, Jesus."

PROJECT RUNWAY (RPF)
The Secret Diary of Timothy M. Gunn
(I very, very, very rarely read RPF, but last year's Tim Gunn fics were so great that I went back for more this year, and I. love. this. It's Tim's top secret diary throughout the filming of the latest season of Project Runway; it features all of the contestants and is a total scream.)

Have learned a new trick which amuses me immensely, in which I go into the workroom, approach each designer, and stare with deep silent concern at their garment with my fist resting against my chin and my brow studiously furrowed.

Have discovered this causes designers to stare fretfully at me and ask questions like, "You don't like it, do you?" or, "I was thinking maybe more sequins here?" or, "Do you think I should completely start from scratch?", at which point I make worried noises and move onto the next designer to act out the same apprehensive inspection.

ROMAN HOLIDAY
would still rejoice
(Princess Ann, years on. It sounds like Ann; quite wonderful.)

I am thirty-eight years old, a Queen, and I can do just whatever I like. She almost burst out laughing in the face of the Indian prime minister at that thought, restraining herself only by stamping on her own foot under the table. He was an old man, deep lines entrenched in his face, but he gave her the smile they all gave her: polite, sceptical, but faintly dazzled by the magic of royalty despite what common sense told him. She was an anachronism now but a valuable one. Her people loved her, though they were amused by her existence, and she brought in huge amounts of tourist revenue every year. When she looked at herself in the mirror that night she wanted to scream but years of training clamped her jaws shut. She could never be that girl who screamed her rage again.

RUNAWAYS
Not the Way It Was Supposed to End
(Chase through the years; heartbreaking and framed beautifully.)

"Gert." He continued stirring, even though everything was already well-mixed. "She'd argue with me about the point of the whole thing, because she's like that, but in the end she'll go. No flowers, no nice car, she wouldn't even wear dress shoes, since she can't walk in high heels. We'd dance, and she'd step on my toes with her combat boots, but we'd laugh it off, and hit the buffet afterwards. She'll laugh and make fun of those girls who starved themselves for days just to fit into their tiny dresses, and when we leave early, she'll write whatever's on her mind with eyeliner, on their date's windshields."

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Bloody Inconvenient
(Shaun and Liz and Ed post-canon, and oh, the world-building and the tone of this. ARE YOU PEGG AND WRIGHT, MYSTERY AUTHOR? I half suspect it of being them, after all their delight over fanfiction on Twitter a few months ago.)

Shaun cut open the package from the butcher's and disappeared into the backroom. "'Lo, babe. What are you doing this morning?"

"Oh, watching the telly. Did you know Barrowman was a zom?"

"Uhh," said Shaun, cradling the phone on his shoulder and removing Ed's muzzle. It was always musty in the back. Earthy and familiar, with a tinge of slightly old meat. "The actor?"

"No-one noticed on account of his bum. It's quite a nice bum."

SHERLOCK HOLMES -- SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
No Poetry
(Holmes on the continent after Reichenbach Falls. The detail is absolutely exquisite and it is beautifully subtle; the Holmes voice and period language are just right. This is gen friendship, though I suppose you could read it as slashy if you really wanted to, and it's -- well, beautiful is really the best word for it.)

Under the dark of the evening lights, he wrote a telegram to Mycroft, finding thanks for the funds and irony for the magazine. "I do not require a eulogy of this nature," he wrote, English draining from his pen in toppled dots and scribbles, awkward from abstention. "But should he desire to continue," and here he paused, momentarily struck dumb with something lurid, lucid, like grief, or possibly remorse, though none of it for his own demise. He placed the pen once more to paper and finished, the barest of trembles visible in his long strokes, "If it would please him, you will find the key to my files in the top-most drawer of the desk beneath the window. Have him make use of them at his will."

Coincidence: The Tale of a Non-Case
(Holmes's utter suspicion in this is uproarious. This is set around the time of "A Study in Scarlet," just before and after Holmes and Watson meet.)

I re-focused my attention on Dr. Watson as our mutual acquaintance introduced him as a potential room-mate. How fortuitous. And how very suggestive, that this individual who had so carefully positioned himself in such a way as to draw my attention now sought to share the very suite of rooms I had just bethought myself to remove to. Clearly my intuition had not led me astray – I had overlooked something to do with this matter, and proposing to go in for rooms together would provide a perfect opportunity to find it out.

The Mechanical Heart
(Beautiful Conan Doyle pastiche casefic, with STEAMPUNK and with an ending that plays to everything that I have loved about Holmes and Watson since I was a kid and "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs" was my favorite case. The voices are tremendous.)

I was not, however, entirely hopeful about my ability to entice Holmes to come. Lectures, he often postulated, unless they were specifically related to his work, were to be avoided in case he accidentally retained some useless knowledge in place of something relevant for a consulting detective. I was uncertain as to whether or not Holmes actually believed in that little theory of the brain attic, or whether he used it as an excuse to avoid unpalatable excursions. Probably I shall never know.

SONS OF ANARCHY
Hole in my Heart
(Gemma reflects as she and Unser drive away at the end of the season 2 finale. Killer Gemma voice.)

Rough times ahead, for sure. But she’d come through fire and blood behind and she’d walk through whatever lay ahead; gun in her bag, Family at her back, sword in her heart.

THE TEMERAIRE SERIES -- NAOMI NOVIK
The General in His Labyrinth
(My notes say: "SO. FUCKING. DELIGHTFUL" and that's a perfect -- if obscene -- way to encapsulate this story in which Wellington is rather taken with Jane Roland. Roland is wonderfully brash and full of laughter and Roland; Wellington is delightfully gruff and grumpy. Stick with this one til the end, guys. Seriously. Just read it. Read it read it read it read it.)

It behove a duke to be gracious. He asked her to dance at the Admiralty ball, prepared to excuse inevitable, if inconvenient gracelessness. She turned out to acquit herself admirably, in spite of every indication to the contrary. Her shoulders, unlike her face and neck, were unmarked and creamy. They mocked Wellington in their beauty. She did not laugh when he retreated to the balcony to smoke three cigars in rapid succession and ignore his junior officers' attempts at conversation. He heard her again, though, as she strolled along the balustrades with Sanderson. It was an honest laugh; a ringing, heartfelt laugh. It carried no note of art in it, nor yet of coarseness. Wellington smoked another cigar in hapless fury. They danced again; she chuckled as he stepped on her toes.

A Woman of Character
(There is so much Roland ladies fic this year, you guys; I am so thrilled!! This one also has a fabulous tone and Jane Roland voice.)

“I find myself wondering,” he replied, teeth showing in a smile, “what kind of deranged hellcat your daughter will be once she’s grown.”

Sense, and No Sensibility
(Roland attempts to beat some sense into Iskierka's head. The voices!!!)

"So I hear," Jane said, in a deceptively pleasant voice, "That you are being difficult for Granby."

She was less than impressed with the fog of steam, which she supposed was meant to be mysterious. She was even less impressed with the single eye that opened, looked her over, and closed, disdainfully. "I don't have to talk to you," she said, snippily. "You're not my captain."

What a little snotrag.

Gemology
(Emily Roland determinedly tracks down the reason why Laurence's family gave her garnets. Smart and precocious and stubborn: just right for Emily, and everyone who appears is written beautifully. I don't want to spoil the end, but: read it. It's just right.)

Dyer was the one to tell her why she'd been given the garnets. Her reward for his honesty (and really, he could have been a little nicer about it) was to kick him where her mother had always told her hurt the most. ("Why there?" she'd asked, but her mom had just laughed, and told her she would figure it out for herself. She still hadn't.) Dyer had gone a rather pleasing shade of white and fallen over, the way some of the men did when they were shot off the backs of the dragons. For a second, Emily had felt guilty, but then he'd gasped, proving he was still alive, and the remembrance of his words, "It's because they think you're his by-blow," washed over her again. She wasn't precisely sure what a by-blow was, but she'd heard men curse enough to know when a bad word when she heard one.

A Room with a View
(Oh, oh, oh. The world from Perscitia's perspective; the voice is just GOLD, funny and so smart and so practical, and her interactions with Wellington and his family are wonderful, and it makes me want to read the next book so badly, even though we are not likely to see this dream team given that the action usually remains with Laurence and Temeraire. READ IT READ IT READ IT.)

Wellington looked at her for a long moment. "I think is is entirely possible that you are the third-most-troublesome dragon in all England," he said. "I think it very likely."

Perscitia was, at first, quite offended at this, but then it occurred to her that with Temeraire and Iskierka gone to New South Wales, technically this meant that she, in fact, was the most troublesome dragon in all England. And there was something rather flattering about that; England, she considered, needed troubling.

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't put nearly that much work into my Yuletide fic. My bet for Revisionism is nebroadwe.

I adore that Perscitia story. The only reason it didn't get to my recs post is that I ran out of time!

[wakeupnew]

I was so disappointed when I got to the end and saw your comment, haha! For a moment, I'd been quite assured of my own mad detection skills.

Every single thing that I read in Temeraire was full of brilliance and win and read like Novik's style; it was glorious. *___*

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

My story... well, I won't tell you which one it was, but I will say it's in the general class of medievalist geekery, and there was so very much medievalist geekery in this year's Yuletide batch, and so much of it was better than mine, that my story pretty much (and deservedly) stayed in the shadows!

[lukecanwaltz88.livejournal.com]

The Yuletide fics I read from your last entry were AMAZING. Seriously, they were excellent. I've never read *good* HIMYM fic and I found two that were excellent. Is there a main page I can browse through to look for other fandoms I know? I don't know much about Yuletide, so I was curious. :) Thanks for the recs!

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Just passing through reading recs...

http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide/fandoms <-- for all stories

http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2009/fandoms <-- for full-length, 1000+ word stories only

http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletidemadness2009/fandoms <-- for 'Madness' treats that are shorter than 1000 words

[wakeupnew]

You beat me to it! Thank you!

[lukecanwaltz88.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! ♥

[wakeupnew]

Yuletide turns out freaking excellent fic every year; it always just multiplies the amazingness of my Christmas, because I then get to spend weeks going through an archive of 3000+ stories, the vast majority of which are of way higher quality than I've found a lot of stuff in fandom to be. It's, like -- automatic awesomeness filter! Livia hit you with the links above, so you should be all set. If you want to read stories of all lengths, the first link is where you want to go. :D

[lukecanwaltz88.livejournal.com]

And thank you for the recs! They rock! :)

[pengiesama.livejournal.com]

I'm the person who wrote "Revisionism" for Princess Tutu, thank you so much for the rec! ♥ I had a lot of fun being a fake scholar, and it means a lot to me that someone enjoyed reading about my fun in being a fake scholar.