2017 Yuletide Recs #1

[wakeupnew]

I come bearing A GREAT MANY YULETIDE RECS.

To start off: my gifts! I will write more about each when I hit the M's in the alphabet, but for now, both Good with Their Hands and Brightness are Blitz/Hearth from Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard and are fabulous! Go forth and read!

AMERICAN GODS (TV)
Sand and Smoke
(While watching the show, I was really damn curious about what happened between the last time we saw Salim in New York and then him showing up on the road with Laura and Mad Sweeney, and this very satisfyingly fills that gap.)

Before, Salim had been afraid of the people on the sidewalks, the sheer diversity and quantity of them, their cloyingly sweet stink in the air all around him. Now, he had a whole new set of fears: one-way streets and traffic lights, busy crosswalks and inattentive pedestrians, honking horns and tailgaters, sirens and cop cars, bridges and tunnels and toll booths. Highways. Gridlock.

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES - L.M. MONTGOMERY
White Violets, Red Roses
(FIRE UP THE ANNE/DIANA KLAXONS, this is gorgeous; just the right mix of sweetness and ill-advised Anne shenanigans involving a goat.)

"Oh, very well. Come along, you shall be my lighthouse keeper and I shall be the ship looking towards your light to guide me back home. Oh, that is rather romantic, isn’t it?" Anne said, much pleased with herself.

“Yes,” Diana nodded, and patted Anne’s hand. "May you bring your goat cargo into port safely, Captain Shirley," and then they were both giggling and Anne stepped off the porch into the thick of it.

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM
Chocolate Hearts and Cupid's Darts
(Jules makes a move, kind of accidentally, in the run-up to Valentine's Day, and it is ADORABLE. Exactly the kind of feel for their relationship that I wanted from the movie.)

Right then, her heart was beating much too quickly for her to pause to take in the sight. For a moment, Jules felt like she was out on the field, taking a chance on driving towards the goal, all her team’s hopes riding on her as she dribbled down the pitch. But she was always in control with the ball at her feet, whereas now she felt like she had been caught off her feet, waiting on tenterhooks for Jess’s response. “Here,” she said, thrusting the chocolates at her best friend. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

BIG EDEN
Dog Years
(Pike and Frances fit Henry into their lives. There's something really lived-in and lovely about this one, and I LOVE PIKE.)

“Henry Hart got back to town last night,” she says, leaning on the counter while Pike rifles through the mail for the pile that belongs to her and Carol. Pike’s hand freezes for a heartbeat, fingers shaking ever so slightly, and Frances whines and lifts her head off her paws to look up at him.

BLACK MIRROR - "SAN JUNIPERO"
All This and Heaven Too
(Yorkie and Kelly in their ever after. I think what I appreciate most here is that things aren't unnervingly perfect--there are still hard days sometimes. But mostly, they're incredibly happy, and that's 1000% what I wanted after watching that episode.)

“I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of hussy now,” Kelly says into the silence a little later, rounds two and three still tingling in her bones. The light from the moon is shining through the bedroom window just right so that she can still see Yorkie’s flushed face in the dark. “Putting out on the first date and all.”

BUZZFEED - "WORTH IT"
13 Genuinely Awful Things About Steven
(I have a BuzzFeed problem which YouTube facilitates in dreadful ways, and I've seen every single episode of this show, some of them multiple times, and I still CANNOT FIGURE OUT which of the interactions in the episode-filming scenes in this fic actually happened in real life and which are fictional. The dialogue all sounds so real. The voices are bang on perfect and the narration is a hilarious delight. Adam is a mind-reading sorcerer. Steven is a puppy. Andrew's Oscar-the-Grouch disgust with himself throughout this and eventual resignment to his fate is so fucking funny, I cannot deal.)

“The food cheers idea is stupid and I’m not doing it.” They’re on their way to get pizza, so Andrew is feeling decidedly pleased with his life, but you can’t let that kind of thing show.

“It’s brilliant and we’re doing it,” Steven says back confidently. He signals and merges, all while maintaining a speed exactly commensurate with surrounding traffic. It’s like being in a car with a driving instructor.

CAPTIVE PRINCE - C.S. PACAT
Undone
(With a close view inside Laurent's head, this is a more vulnerable Laurent than I remember from the books, but in a way that is painfully in character and in keeping with the books, as he navigates the Akelion court and his own trauma. The prose is stunning. The clip that I'm quoting made me hyena-laugh.)

“It is the enslavement of innocents that your King is deliberating. The chance to have one’s cock sucked will remain.” He flicks a glance over Makarios. “For most.”

There are huffs of breath around the table. Someone strains an indelicate cough.

A CHARM OF MAGPIES SERIES - K.J. CHARLES
Highwire walking
(I always wondered how Ned and Crispin would do in the judiciary--they weren't exactly set up for success in A Queer Trade and Rag and Bone--and I loved this as a day-in-the-life follow-up. The character voices are just right, and I loved the cameo from Esther.)

Crispin isn’t sure what Ned’s going to do when his stock runs out. He’d asked, once, but Ned had been as evasive as Ned ever got--had deflected with a crack about Crispin missing the paper dust, and then let out a quiet breath and said, The truth is, I don’t know.

Crispin likes to think that he left the conversation there out of respect for Ned’s privacy, giving him space to figure things out. In the secret, cowardly parts of his heart, though, he wonders if he was just shying back from Ned’s uncertainty because he’s used to relying on Ned’s unshakable steadiness.

CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN - LLOYD ALEXANDER
Taking Flight
(This felt like a missing scene from the books! I love Eilonwy here.)

It’s strange how you can be lonely when there’s another person right there in the room with you, talking to you, she thought. Though it’s really more like talking at you. And it’s strange how you can be bored when the person is teaching you magic, which ought to be interesting. It’s like being a bird who's sick of the sky.

DREAM DADDY
The Literary Canon
(I laughed through this whole fic. Ernest and Lucien are disasters who engage with the text in terrifying ways, and poor Hugo trying to thwart their life choices is so funny.)

Ernest doesn’t have any social media accounts yet. With a sinking feeling, Hugo pulls up Lucien's youtube profile on his phone. There it is—Three Musketeers Book Review Reenactment Swords Blood Awesome Death Battle.

"No one actually dies, right?" asks Hugo.

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF
don't get me wrong
(Well I am now officially 5000% invested in Jeanie/Sloane! Sloanie is so cool and confident here, and Jeanie's voice is perfect. Also her thoughts on Ferris cracked me up.)

"That's your brother?" Sloane asks.

Jeanie pauses from her rummaging of the fridge and snorts. Brother isn't really a good word to describe Ferris. Something like unhealing scab would work much better.

FIGURE SKATING RPF
in better light everything looks clearer
(THEY SKATE EACH OTHER'S PROGRAMS AS A FORM OF FLIRTING, GOODBYE FOREVER. This is a really lovely slow burn. The story takes its time and is incredibly gentle in a way that I loved.)

“That was beautiful,” Yuzu says, and he means it.

Javi smiles, reaching for the back of his neck, and it's like the sunlight goes brighter, filtering through the high windows above them. “Yours too. Nice axels.” He clears his throat. “I don't know why we put two of them in, it's a bitch to skate.”

GALAVANT
A Woman's Work (Is Never Done)
(Madalena fights the patriarchy!!! All of the little details in this are screamingly funny, and also somehow feel horrifically true to life, when it comes to the boxes that women get trapped into, and the fic is hilarious? I don't know how the author did it but I'm gonna go ahead and guess sorcery and black magic.)

The DES, the Dark Evil Society, is very much a boys' club. They meet at the DEL's house for tea every week and dared assume that she would be their secretary. An evil apothecary, not even titled, just an apothecary who's evil as a hobby but makes sure his potions aren't going to hurt his customers, dared to call her “Sweetie” and asked her to refill his tankard of mead. She did her best to set them all straight with a fireball to the middle of the table, but even now she's not sure her message made it across.

THE GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO VICE AND VIRTUE - MACKENZI LEE
such breathless desires
(THIS BROUGHT ME SO MUCH PAIN, I only made it because I know, spoiler, Percy get what he wants in the end. This really set the scene for the book, though, and it was so fantastic to get a look inside Percy's head for once! The character voices were perfect.)

“I’m glad my pain and suffering brings you such enjoyment,” Monty says. “You scoundrel.”

Percy laughs. He relaxes against Monty as they lapse into silence, his arm curled around Monty’s waist and his head resting in the curve of Monty’s shoulder. He’s on the verge of falling asleep when Monty whispers, “I wish you were coming with me.”

THE GOOD PLACE
Janet@12358W (Status = Happy)
(I love this look at Janet!!! There's so much funny, inventive stuff happening here.)

Janet was (status = cactus). This was a new cactus for her, and she wasn't sure what to cactus about it. She must have been rebooted, but a simple reboot wouldn't have caused this level of corruption in her cactus. Something must have interfered with her cactus to re-upload all the knowledge in the cactus.

Attempt #534: The One With the Bees
(Eleanor and Chidi want to fuck but keep getting interrupted, which is a VERY GOOD premise in and of itself, but then the dialogue for everyone and especially the narrative-voice for Eleanor is SO GOOD, just look at that quoted bit!)

Oh, who is she kidding, she wants to bang Chidi real bad. Like, literally right now while he’s lecturing her about Kant. It’s gotten so bad that she can’t even concentrate during class, and class is her favorite--oh God, she is so, so warped right now. Warped and staring at Chidi’s ass as he writes on the chalkboard, because while those button-down shirts of Chidi's are real geeky with how he tucks them into his pants, they do offer an unimpeded view of his ass, which (like nearly everything about Chidi) is great.

The Ethics of Narcissism in the Afterlife: A Case Study in Rortian Pragmatism
(Oh my god, the academic language in this; I'm having flashbacks to grad school. I love the idea of a fic written as a paper by Chidi; it's so fitting, and it's done so well here. The authorial voice is VERY CHIDI, footnotes and all, and the bits of Eleanor are hilarious and sad and very, very Eleanor.)

For example, the author encountered E. S. drinking a Midori sour (heavy on the Midori) from a Rainforest Cafe souvenir cup with LED lights in the base, adding tiny green splatters to the pages of her copy of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, which she had already defaced extensively with pink highlighter, bits of leopard-print scrapbooking tape, and dog-eared corners. “Rorty makes more sense when you’re wasted,” she asserted.

GOON
(Honey) in the Middle
(I am extremely here for this threesome at all times. Everybody here was great, but I especially loved Eva; she's so take-charge and dry and matter-of-fact, just like in the movies; I could hear Allison Pill saying the dialogue.)

“Dougie, come and tell your boy what’s really on your mind before he combusts,” Eva orders.

Dougie walks to the couch, steps so heavy Xavier can feel the floor shake beneath his feet. He stops in front them, standing close enough to Xavier’s legs that Xavier can feel the heat of his body in his kneecaps. He chances a look at Dougie’s face, which is drawn and every-so-slightly confused, as though he’s not sure what he should be feeling.

“Watching you fight,” Dougie finally admits. “Was really hot.”

GRACE AND FRANKIE
you will continue to need
(Oh my GOD this is so good! It's so good!!! A slow burn season 1 AU where Grace and Frankie start sharing Grace's bed at night out of loneliness, and things progress from there. The character voices are fucking perfection, the true-to-canon details are wonderful and hilarious--EVERYTHING ABOUT ALPACAS IS GOLD--AND BASICALLY THE HOTTEST SEX SCENE I'VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE, GOOD NIGHT.)

"What's got you out of bed so bright and early?" Grace asks. She can hear the causticity in her voice, but she can't seem to help it. "I thought it took a nuclear bomb or a sale on quartz crystals at the local coven to get you up before noon on a weekend."

Frankie rolls her head to the side and eyes Grace through her curtain of hair. "It's nice that you're asking," she says blearily, "so I'll ignore how you sound like I pissed in your cornflakes, especially since you probably don't eat cornflakes because they have too many carbs."

HELLBOY
These Strange Tides
(This is a marvelously creepy Hellboy story! I loved the mystery itself [the screaming, jesus], and watching the beginnings of Abe's friendship with Hellboy and Liz. This is the long-loved tiny fandom of my heart and it's such a joy to see awesome fic pop up at Yuletide! Everyone sounds perfect, but the Hellboy voice in particular is just so, so good.)

"Nobody saw anything," Rezendez said after a second, grudging, "but witnesses within earshot heard screaming. No words; not 'help' or 'I'm drowning', nothing like that. Just—screaming."

And yeah, there it was: that weird unsettled feeling, little hairs trying hard to rise along the back of Hellboy's neck.

"Yep," he said, "that sounds like our kind of gig. So what are we waiting for? Let's get this party started."

JESSICA JONES
Just the One, Two
(It's something I wonder about, a lot -- how are non-superpowered, not-in-the-middle-of-a-Marvel-movie people reacting to, well, everything that's happening? Not especially well, according to this fic, which I found really realistic. Trish and Jessica are fabulous here.)

“Look, Trish, I know you have…personal stakes in this, but you need to give people time. They can accept the big guys, somewhere out there, keeping us safe from alien invasions once a year. But that the person next to you might be able to bench press a car or take a bullet without flinching? That’s a lot.”