Yuletide Recs, Part 3

[wakeupnew]

The Yuletidening, it is, sadly, finally over! See you next year!

JESSICA JONES/LUKE CAGE CROSSOVER
i found it hard, it was hard to find
(A quiet moment between Jessica and Luke, after everything that's gone down. The character voices for both of them are absolute perfection.)

“I’ll have you know I was very misunderstood.”

“I think I understand you just fine, Jessica Jones.”

And it’s so nice, to talk stupidly with someone kind, that she remembers again all the things she’s refusing to mourn and freezes, suddenly, words running dry.

LEGALLY BLONDE
she who is best prepared
(Wonderful voices for both Vivian and Elle - I so wanted to see more of their friendship! The little Legally Blonde-ish details are all so perfect.)

“You sleep, right?” Vivian rolls to her stomach and sweeps her bobbed hair behind her ear. “Like, you weren’t built to run on solar power in some Southern California laboratory?” The words are acerbic, but delivered with a soft, upward curve to her mouth, palpable relief in her voice.

“I don’t know, that was before my activation. Beep boop.” Elle laughs, and then the line goes quiet and she’s gone.

THE LION IN WINTER
Lion Rampant, Contourné
(This is so good -- backstory for Eleanor and Richard. Eleanor's constant scheming and thinking 18 steps ahead of everyone else around her is an absolute joy. This feels so fully realized, and perfectly in tune with the film.)

Eleanor smiles, and watches the rest of the room. For the first time, she sees real fear in the eyes of the few recalcitrant vassals whom Henry had deigned to let live after the last fitful stirrings of rebellion. A duke of Aquitaine who is strong and wise and handsome is one thing, but one who combines all that with the soul of a poet? She knows they are remembering her father William. Both of her northerner husbands have struggled to tame the Aquitaine, but her son will not be an outsider, for all that he was born in England. No, she has brought back a true southern lord to one day rule the south -- and everyone will know it.

LOVE SIMON
That Sunday Morning Feeling
(This is so cute! Simon [and Bram, via phone], the morning after the big ferris wheel reveal. Simon and Bram are adorable and Simon's family's reactions are GOLD; I laughed out loud at the three of them staring at him grinning, and his dad starting to tear up. I was a little sad that the movie essentially stopped - aside from that cute coda scene - as soon as Bram and Simon got together, and this scratched that itch perfectly.)

I’ve been awake. You have no idea how many times I almost texted you when I figured it out. I kept freaking out that you’d be disappointed when you found out it was me.

They’d hashed out most of this stuff during their conversation the night before, so Simon didn’t reassure him again. Instead he typed back, That makes sense since normally I’m just not into hot guys. ‘The uglier the better’ is my motto. But I like you for your mind, so I’m willing to put up with the fact that you’re gorgeous.

MASTER AND COMMANDER
Prickly Situation
(This has pitch-perfect voices for Aubrey and Maturin and wonderful period details! Also an adorable hedgehog, and I cackled aloud multiple times.)

“What is she saying, Stephen?”

“...this braying sunburnt poxy overgrown heathen mooncalf son of a dockyard whore!” concluded Sister Benedita, with a sniff. “And Mother of God, look at the bootprints he has left on my floor!”

“She says she is no great enthusiast for the British navy,” reported Stephen.

THE MUMMY
Small Favours
(Jonathan is a craven swindler, bless him. He and Evy are pitch perfect here; I love the scene where, with danger afoot, Jonathan dives for cover, Evy stays where she is, and Jonathan immediately leaps into [till cowardly and ridiculous, but concerned for his sister] action. Just perfect for the two of them.)

The man takes out a little jewelry box with the amulet inside; two clinking blue glazed votive eyes attached together with what Jonathan now suspects is the original string. It fits neatly in the palm of Evy’s hand, and when she places it there, her eyes get so wide that Jonathan has to stomp on her foot.

THE NANNY
Another Birthday
(Gosh, reading this is just, like, rolling around in my entire childhood. I can hear the actors reading the dialogue. I roared at "you don't look a day over 60," and I loved the warm ending.)

"Did you know, Ms. Babcock, that today is a very special day?" he continued, undeterred by the gritting of her teeth, the flush of her cheeks, the way her hands flexed at her sides in an effort to keep herself calm.

C.C. refused to let him have the upper hand. "It is?" She barely opened her mouth with the reply.

THE ROAD TO EL DORADO
Set Sail
(The banter between Miguel, Tulio, and the merchant captain who picked them up and is eyeballing them suspiciously is so funny, and Chel's appearance -- which I don't want to spoil -- is utterly delightful.)

As a boy with three older sisters and later as a young man with a penchant for rule-breaking, Tulio has learned that it’s often very beneficial to confess to a small crime to hide a larger one. And so, with the wide earnest eyes of a mortified man with nothing more to hide, he says, “We were stowaways.”

SAVING FACE
Not a Common Skill
(Magic AU!! Okay first of all, Wil's concern that salad is poison is funny and extremely relatable. There's so much lovely stuff here between Wil and Vivian - I love all the little stuff that Vivian does with her magic to help make Wil's life easier, and that Will sees it but ultimately doesn't ask. I want a girlfriend with that magic, stat.)

When Wil tries to bring it up at dinner, she just can’t make herself say the words “magic”. She probably just imagined it. Or maybe it was hiding somewhere else in the room and Wil just didn’t see it. That’s what happened, Wil tells herself.

“I am very excited for this salad,” Wil says instead. “But maybe it could have some more real food in it.”

“Just because you exist on a diet of Snickers bars and soft drinks doesn’t mean that I have to support it,” Vivian says.

aftermagic
(This is so soft and lovely! Another AU where the world has magic, and everyone has their own personal flavor of it. I loved 'I learned it from my Ma.' She did! In more ways than one!!)

“You must not have marinated the fish properly,” Ma said.

“I did everything you said—I don’t understand why this has to be so difficult—” Wil glanced up. Vivian was watching from the table. “You don’t have to be here for the process, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Vivian said, chin propped up on one palm, looking fascinated.

SCHITT'S CREEK
i get kinda hectic inside
(Oh man, this is so great! It has a dead-on grasp of all of its characters; I started laughing when Patrick leaned in like he was gonna say something romantic but instead made a comment about something a customer had bought, and I didn't stop after that. Patrick knowing exactly what Stevie is referring to, in re: David's intense paint chip feelings, as soon as it's mentioned! Stevie's gaze going from impassive to murderous when she's called out on hanging out with Mutt! The backstory for how Patrick ended up in the town! THE SPATULA.)

A part of him wanted to let David go to town on his diatribe about towel consumption. Watching David get worked up about something ridiculous was either very entertaining, extremely hot, or both. But there was something he wanted even more than he wanted to see David's inexplicably attractive left eyebrow twitch.

Besides, he could always make David's eyebrow twitch later.

Keys Open Doors
(Patrick gives David a key to his -- well, Ray's -- place. The strict rules about times in which the key can actually be used cracked me up and was a perfect Schitt's Creek touch. The character voices for the two of them and for Stevie are great.)

David pressed his lips together in a tight line, crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. “No one’s ever given me a key to their place before.” He made an equivocating gesture. “Well, Leonardo DiCaprio did once? But it turned out he just wanted me to dogsit. Did you know he named his dog Oscar? There’s a lot to unpack there.”

Give Cheerfully and Accept Gratefully
(This made me laugh really hard -- Patrick suggesting they do something nice for Stevie, and David immediately translating that into something that would be nice for him but wouldn't be Stevie's cup of tea, is just perfect. I cackled at Patrick knowing that what she'd really want is a bottle of bourbon and for them to do her dishes.)

Stevie had loaned them her apartment for some private time yet again, this time without even any kind of ulterior motive, unless one counted the ulterior motive of getting David to stop bringing up the fact that she once let them stay there out of guilt for not breaking up with Jake. Patrick had mildly suggested that they should do something nice to thank her for it. He'd meant maybe taking her out for breakfast or buying her a gift card. Not…this.

Road to Somewhere
(David doing something thoughtful for Patrick and then spiraling hard over ludicrous, over-the-top concerns which are masking his true anxiety is VERY REAL and very David. All the people he used to hang out with really were assholes. This is lovely.)

“So believe me when I say, I will never stand you up at a bed and breakfast in Cedarton, or anywhere else.” Patrick slides his hands down to David’s shoulders, squeezing gently before letting him go. “In fact, we’re going to make this the best, most romantic bed and breakfast getaway Cedarton’s ever seen.”

For a moment, David just looks at him, his lips pursed and his eyes warm. “Okay, well, that’s not saying a lot, since TravelMom163 called their ambient lighting ‘harsh and unforgiving.’”

THE SECRET GARDEN BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
the rain falling on the sunshine
(Mary knowing that Dickon would come home from the war but never thinking to consider how much of himself he'd leave behind is heart-wrenching. The whole fic is poignant, warm, sad, and hopeful in all the best ways, and so are the characters we know and love, believably themselves while also believably older.)

You can't eat flowers," she had reminded herself sternly.

The roses had remained. As she had explained to Mrs Sowerby, "There are some things that simply feed your soul."

She knew beneath her feet, other bulbs lay dormant in the earth, and someday soon they would bloom again.

SELFIE
Side Effects May Include
(This was very funny, and also very sweet and very hot? SORCERY. Eliza and Henry are perfect here -- I cracked up at how matter-of-fact they both were, in re: the baby powder accidental sex pollen. This made me really miss the show and want to go back and watch it all again!)

“Asshat,” Eliza suggested. Her mouth was trembling.

Henry nodded. “The asshat who lost you. And I’d know that that’s who I was—and you’d be gone. So I panicked.”

Damn. He’d panicked for two straight months. That was almost as bad a downward spiral as when he found out Toddlers and Tiaras existed.

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
Old Home Week
(This is so charming! Don, Kathy, and Cosmo are guests on Lina's radio program. All of the character voices and dialogue are perfect, and the turns of phrase are seriously delightful -- They launched into the opening bars with the fervor of drowning rats diving into a lifeboat! So good!)

“Come on,” Don said, giving her hand a little tug. “Let's go beard the gorgon in her den.”

“She has a beard now?” Cosmo joked. “I guess you can really let yourself go in radio, since the audience can't see your mug.”

“As if Lina would ever let herself go,” Kathy scoffed. It was part of the innate show business sense that Kathy admired about the woman, the way she seemed to have such complete and intuitive control over her image.

He Loves and She Loves
(Don pines. Kathy is practical. Man, the moment where Don is watching Kathy and Cosmo dance together and he wants to get Cosmo to perform in the next one of his movies, so he can blow it up and watch it again and again, and he wants to live in that one moment and the hair on his arms rises?? That's a good scene. It's all great!)

So of course, they started sending out more formal invitations, in the hopes that Cosmo wouldn’t be able to ignore them.

“Don,” Cosmo said, throwing himself into the director’s chair as Arzner was off grappling with an animal trainer and two dogs that were determined to eat the entire set before filming could get properly underway. “Tell Kathy that if she desires my company for dinner she can just pick up the phone. She doesn’t have to send me such pretty invitations. I’m starting to feel like a maiden aunt.”

SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN SERIES BY K.J. CHARLES
A Family Man
(A modern AU! Fake dating! K.J. Charles characters! EVERYTHING I LOVE. This is an utter delight -- Julius and Harry have been translated to the modern era beautifully. They were funny, with lovely tension, and I could have read so many more words of this!)

“You need a family man, right?” Harry said. “I can family with the best of them.”

“Family… with the best of them,” Julius repeated.

Harry looked at him expectantly, as if any of that was supposed to mean something to Julius. Julius stared back, uncomprehending.

SPY
Hey Hey You You I Don't Like Your Girlfriend
(Oh my god, I howled with laughter throughout this whole fic. CHAOTIC GOOD. Susan and Rayna's separate-but-linked pure disgust in re: how much they each want each other is so, so fucking funny. Particular shoutout to MVP Nancy, who was hilarious over the earpieces and as a voice of reason [well, mostly reason] for Susan. I'm going to go read it all over again so I can spend an hour cackling again - pure delight!)

"Ground rules," she said, sitting down across from Rayna.

Rayna pulled out a knife.

"Jesus! What the fuck?" Susan grabbed the gun in the vase on the side table. "What is wrong with you?"

Rayna blinked at her. "You said we were negotiating."

"Yeah, about being roommates, not bombing Times Square!"

A STUDY IN EMERALD BY NEIL GAIMAN
running wild with vengeance
(A look at Watson and Holmes before the short story. I love this as a first meeting for them -- Watson intending to plunge ahead, angry and straightforward, and Holmes convincing him there's another, smarter way. The prose is beautifully spare and elegant and creepy.)

Sherlock held the lamp for me. We did our work on the tilting deck of a steamer. The oceans are not theirs as they like to believe.

Wear gloves if you should ever attempt such an autopsy. I was not so well prepared. The blood stung my hands like a thousand tiny needles, a natural enemy.

Star Wars: X-Wing series by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston
The Sound of Togetherness
(This is so quiet and lovely!!! It has all the feel of the books, especially Iella and Wedge in Starfighters of Adumar, and so many fun callbacks! I love that they get married at the Galactic Museum where they met -- Wedge, such a mush.)

The actual ceremony seemed to pass by in a blur. Wedge knew he must have made the appropriate responses, but after he caught his first glimpse of Iella walking toward him, her slender figure draped in a column of ivory silk, her blonde hair caught up with dark blue ribbons and flowers that echoed the ones on the arch, his next clear memory was of kissing her at the end of the ceremony. Not the words, not looking out at the friends who had come to share their day, but kissing Iella and knowing that they had finally made it.

To Kettch a Thief (or: You've got to be chitin me)
(This is PURE CHAOS from start to finish, aka The Most Wraith Squadron. It is so, so funny and in-character! The Loran vs. Phanan pranks, the Storini glass prowlers, the overcomplicated plans -- sheer delight.)

Phanan smiled. “Did you just invite me into your shower, Flight Officer Notsil?”

“Not while I’m in it.” She smiled sweetly. “But you’re welcome to be eviscerated by that... what did you call it? Prowler? How appropriate. I’ve heard that people gravitate towards pets that most resemble them.”

Phanan barked a laugh. “Very nice, Notsil. That’s the most diplomatic way I’ve ever been called an insect and a creep. I applaud your tact and your tactics.”

SUNGKYUNKWAN SCANDAL
hold me tight, it's getting cold
(This was one of my Yuletide gifts this year and it is such a joy! Jaeshin and Yongha in a modern AU WHEREIN Yongha has clearly been pining for a long time [my kryptonite] and Jaeshin has too, in his own Jaeshin-y way, and the two of them, together on Christmas, finally begin to get some of their shit together. You can feel the love here -- how well they clearly know each other and the strength of their feelings, and I love how Yongha's caretaking has been translated to a modern era; I love that ruining heartfelt moments with snarky comments is what they do best. The imagery of Jaeshin lowering his heart into the ground alongside the casket at his brother's funeral is so heartbreaking -- honestly Jaeshin is so heartbreaking throughout here, and then it's so lovely to [SPOILERS, SORRY] end on a hopeful note after everything the two of them have been facing!)

After that it’s just been the two of them, most of the time. Seonjoon and Yoonhee join them sometimes, for drinks or an impromptu Lord of the Rings marathon. (Seonjoon called them double dates once but Yoonhee elbowed him in the ribs so hard he never brought it up again. Jaeshin pretended he didn’t hear anything. Yongha made a weird face Jaeshin couldn’t quite read, before downing another glass of soju and laughing like always.)

In many ways this little group of friends is more of a family to Jaeshin than his father has ever been. Jaeshin’s father thinks he’s too much – and not enough – like his brother. There is love only for ghosts, in his father’s house; ghosts of people long gone, and the ghost of someone he wishes Jaeshin could be.

TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE
The Storm
(Oh man, the character voices and narrative voice here are perfect. I knew it was going to be good from, at the start, the extended riff on how Lara Jean and Kitty ultimately had to go with Margot because she was not just Margot-the-person but Margot-the-role-in-their-family was. The sisters are each all SO THEMSELVES here - I cackled at Margot saying they should eat because there's no sense in chasing the apocalypse with low blood sugar.)

So far, Lara Jean had been in college for three years, and only taken one lab class, ever. It was the Science of Baking, and she had chosen it for a reason. So if Margot said they had to drive into the middle of a mysterious storm to activate an ancient extraterrestrial artifact she’d found in the Scottish Highlands, saving all of the Pacific Northwest, potentially all of the world, from being swallowed up at any moment, then that’s exactly how things were. (For the record, Margot had thirteen graphs, several of them not even bar graphs, a few of them mean-looking things with wavelike stuff overlaid on a map of the Pacific Coast. So that helped.)

Head Over Heels, When Toe to Toe
(Oh god this is so, so cute. They feel like themselves with each other! All the Kavinsky teasing! Kitty's entire presence and being!!! Great character voices and a really fun post-series tag.)

Peter puts her hand in his and is pulled along, back into the house that now smells of popcorn and butter. Lara Jean deposits him in the living room, where Kitty has opinions on the distribution of cushions and Peter’s job is to help her set everything in order.

“There.” Lara Jean hands out the various popcorn bowls. “Where’s my spot?”

Peter scoots over. “Prewarmed.”

“No flirting before the opening credits,” Kitty says. “I’d like to keep dinner down.”

you should know i'm green, but i'll find my way around
(Lara Jean and Peter find their way together, when it comes to sex. This is so, so sweet, thoughtful, kind, funny - everything you could dream of To All the Boys... fic being.)

Lara Jean huffs. "I don't think I'm that brave." She shrugs, and then, before she can second guess herself, swings one leg over Peter and settles in his lap. The corner of her mouth rises when he sucks in a quick breath, hands cupping her hips. "I'm afraid of a lot of things. I just want something more than I'm afraid, now." When she leans forward, the long sweep of her hair falls between them, and it's like the rest of the world has dropped away. "Do you?"

TURNER SERIES BY CAT SEBASTIAN
First Time for Everything
(This is unspeakably warm and lovely. Georgie gets truly sick, for the first time in his life, and Lawrence [and Sally!] takes care of him. The banter and character voices are perfect; the little bits of Simon had me cracking up as well.)

Courtenay's estate is well-heated by maintained fireplaces and a recent update in all the window panes, because Lawrence hates seeing Georgie shiver.

Georgie had smiled when he'd realized this—the suit being one of a number of tip offs—and said, "I shivered through nearly sixteen London winters in structures far more rickety than this, my Lord Romantic."

Lawrence had said, "Yes, well. Why do you think I find it imperative that you never have to again?"

Sentry
(Why yes I have a deep weakness for sick-fic, how did u guess. Courtenay is steadfast by Julian's side here, and I loved so many turns of phrase -- The bowline knot around Courtenay’s heart loosened, if only by a fraction, when Julian starts to recover! Courtenay's worried thoughts about Julian are lovely, and the banter once he wakes up is perfect. The last line cracked me up.)

Witnessing it once before did little to ease Courtenay’s distress. The delight he normally took in Julian’s vulnerability felt near sinful at the sight of him like this, brittled and at the utter mercy of something without a name and face. Courtenay would have traded in his peerage to make the illness a tangible thing, to skewer it with a bullet and rid Julian of its menace forever.

THE WITCHER
the unquiet
(This is a fantastic magic case-fic! The mythology of the house is gloriously disquieting and creepy, and I loved all the family feelings between Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer, plus Regis.)

Sat upright, shoulders screaming, head aching, heartbeat throbbing inside him, Geralt leaned against Ciri as she dropped to her knees by his side and wrapped her arms around his neck. He could smell the oils she used in her hair and on her sword as he pressed his cheek against her forehead with a mixture of fondness and exhaustion. He felt tired, and old. He’d said that retirement didn’t completely agree with him, but with his edge dulled maybe it agreed with him too much.