A recpost!
A little later than I'd anticipated, but I'm in for another few days of travelling about the place very shortly, so I thought I'd better get this written up and posted. Eight recs under the cut, in Bagman's Gambit - The Decemberists, Fate/Zero, The History Boys, Katawa Shoujo, Prometheus (2012), Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier, Regeneration - Pat Barker and The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell.
(You should also check out my two gifts, which I recced previously at the link above and which remain absolutely brilliant.)
Somehow | Bagman's Gambit - The Decemberists
I have been shipping the two people in this song since I first heard it. This fic takes them and fleshes them out and places them in context and fills in the gaps left in the lyrics, and it does so beautifully. Read it if you like spies in love, and people who can't divorce themselves from their contexts and their surroundings, and deliberate gestures toward vulnerability.
If Thy Hand Offend Thee | Fate/Zero
Kirei was the first character who really caught my attention in Fate/Zero (repressed priests! who are not repressed for the reasons you might initially think!) and he is excellent here, as is Risei; this is some excellent genfic about Kirei growing up, and Risei trying to guide him as a father and as a priest. Read it if you like the terrifying onset of self-knowledge, evil with a conscience, and compelling stories about family.
Burn Invisible and Dim | The History Boys - Bennett
I was sold from the moment the author used Housman in the epigraph, really. This aligns so neatly with the tone of canon -- Scripps and Posner are still speaking in quotation and allusion even after having left school behind, and Scripps is still very much the narrator, the biographer, even when he's also the focus of the story. Read it if you like compulsive acts of memorialisation, and people who grow up and move on.
The Typewriter | Katawa Shoujo
I have always been of the firm opinion that Hanako and Lilly are adorable together, whether as friends or girlfriends or whatever else; this fic absolutely captures how cute they are, how great they are as friends, with a side order of collaborative poetry-writing. Read it if you like gestures of friendship, and people making things together, and heartwarming schoolgirls being heartwarming.
Unbound | Prometheus (2012)
The film itself left me kind of cold, but oh wow, this is a good fic. I love how the author sets out David's thought processes -- the way he recognises the act of referencing but doesn't know the reference, and resolves at once to find it out for himself, for example -- and his interactions with Elizabeth are just lovely (and terrible, and lovely for being terrible). Also, it strengthened my resolve to read some T.E. Lawrence. Read it if you like allusion and alien perspectives and the ways in which people learn one another when they are confined alone together.
A Thousand Words, Or Simply Three | Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
I'm writing this year's dissertation on Rebecca, and I was really pleased that there was fic (and especially Mrs Danvers fic! I am slowly developing Thoughts on Mrs Danvers). I love this author's Rebecca, and I love her interactions with Mrs Danvers; they are both all about trying to acquire and keep control, and they approach it in such different ways, and it's gorgeous. Read it if you like the sorts of beasts that can't be kept, but can nonetheless be held for a while.
Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua | Regeneration - Pat Barker
I have a thing for death, in fiction, when it denies characters reconciliation. This should tell you at least half of what you need to know about why I love this fic. The rest of it can be explained by the gorgeous allusions to Latin poetry, and the desperate-casual conversation between Siegfried and the ghost of Owen, and the particular form that Siegfried's desire for resolution takes. Read it if you like beautifully-put-together punches to the soul, and complicated loves, and things left unsaid.
Patrilineage | The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Stylistically, this is such a great match for the book itself -- and stories which are at least in part about stories, and the telling of stories, and what those stories mean for the people who tell and hear them, are basically catnip to me. Read it if you like strikingly beautiful imagery, and stories that recur and reshape themselves to their circumstances and to the people who hear them.
Originally posted at http://acrossthefloors.dreamwidth.org/30070.html -- comment here or there according to your preference.
(You should also check out my two gifts, which I recced previously at the link above and which remain absolutely brilliant.)
Somehow | Bagman's Gambit - The Decemberists
I have been shipping the two people in this song since I first heard it. This fic takes them and fleshes them out and places them in context and fills in the gaps left in the lyrics, and it does so beautifully. Read it if you like spies in love, and people who can't divorce themselves from their contexts and their surroundings, and deliberate gestures toward vulnerability.
If Thy Hand Offend Thee | Fate/Zero
Kirei was the first character who really caught my attention in Fate/Zero (repressed priests! who are not repressed for the reasons you might initially think!) and he is excellent here, as is Risei; this is some excellent genfic about Kirei growing up, and Risei trying to guide him as a father and as a priest. Read it if you like the terrifying onset of self-knowledge, evil with a conscience, and compelling stories about family.
Burn Invisible and Dim | The History Boys - Bennett
I was sold from the moment the author used Housman in the epigraph, really. This aligns so neatly with the tone of canon -- Scripps and Posner are still speaking in quotation and allusion even after having left school behind, and Scripps is still very much the narrator, the biographer, even when he's also the focus of the story. Read it if you like compulsive acts of memorialisation, and people who grow up and move on.
The Typewriter | Katawa Shoujo
I have always been of the firm opinion that Hanako and Lilly are adorable together, whether as friends or girlfriends or whatever else; this fic absolutely captures how cute they are, how great they are as friends, with a side order of collaborative poetry-writing. Read it if you like gestures of friendship, and people making things together, and heartwarming schoolgirls being heartwarming.
Unbound | Prometheus (2012)
The film itself left me kind of cold, but oh wow, this is a good fic. I love how the author sets out David's thought processes -- the way he recognises the act of referencing but doesn't know the reference, and resolves at once to find it out for himself, for example -- and his interactions with Elizabeth are just lovely (and terrible, and lovely for being terrible). Also, it strengthened my resolve to read some T.E. Lawrence. Read it if you like allusion and alien perspectives and the ways in which people learn one another when they are confined alone together.
A Thousand Words, Or Simply Three | Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
I'm writing this year's dissertation on Rebecca, and I was really pleased that there was fic (and especially Mrs Danvers fic! I am slowly developing Thoughts on Mrs Danvers). I love this author's Rebecca, and I love her interactions with Mrs Danvers; they are both all about trying to acquire and keep control, and they approach it in such different ways, and it's gorgeous. Read it if you like the sorts of beasts that can't be kept, but can nonetheless be held for a while.
Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua | Regeneration - Pat Barker
I have a thing for death, in fiction, when it denies characters reconciliation. This should tell you at least half of what you need to know about why I love this fic. The rest of it can be explained by the gorgeous allusions to Latin poetry, and the desperate-casual conversation between Siegfried and the ghost of Owen, and the particular form that Siegfried's desire for resolution takes. Read it if you like beautifully-put-together punches to the soul, and complicated loves, and things left unsaid.
Patrilineage | The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Stylistically, this is such a great match for the book itself -- and stories which are at least in part about stories, and the telling of stories, and what those stories mean for the people who tell and hear them, are basically catnip to me. Read it if you like strikingly beautiful imagery, and stories that recur and reshape themselves to their circumstances and to the people who hear them.
Originally posted at http://acrossthefloors.dreamwidth.org/30070.html -- comment here or there according to your preference.