Yuletide 2014 recs, part 1

Dec 28, 2014 11:14

First bunch of recs, my gifts and fandoms from numbers to C. There's no way I'm going to get through the whole collection by reveals, but I'm reading what I can and I'll carry on keeping track of my favourites for as long as it takes. So many good stories this year! I sort of miss being invested enough in something to be in a fandom year-round (lifelong love to my bongo brothers from the BSH) but on the other hand Yuletide is like a GLORIOUS PARTY BUFFET of fandoms you didn't even know you wanted to read and is there anything better than a party buffet? Nope.

I got ruined absolutely rotten this year. I mean, I've never had a coaly gift in all the time I've been playing (linked my previous ones in a YT nostalgia post here and you should definitely read all of those as well, especially the Spirit Houses/Diodati one, the glorious story about the Rayyan art, and that year I got three (THREE) Butch/Sundance/Etta fics because SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS GOOD FORTUNE I couldn't walk straight til about halfway through February), but this year was a bit of an embarrassment of riches situation. SO MUCH good fic. Not even normal good fic, but fic that's so flawless and perfect and exactly what I hoped for that it's a bit creepy :P

My gifts, three each from main Yuletide and Madness:

Treeful of Starling - Hawksley Workman (album)
'cause hopeless isn't true
The archaeological find of the century fuels the imaginations of scientists and poets alike.

A "cheerful and optimistic apocalypse narrative", to steal the author's comment about the album - scientists discover the bodies of two lovers frozen in ice ten thousand years after their deaths, still holding onto each other. I've been asking for this particular scenario from Ice Age in various exchanges for years with no real hope of anybody writing it AND NOW IT'S HAPPENED and it's the most beautiful thing *_* The loveliest and most uplifting story about dead lovers possible. Completely amazing, I feel like I almost know it word for word already from re-reading it so many times. It's funny in that very real, human sort of way where stuff's amusing without being a joke, like the scientists romanticising their discovery a bit (because, really, who could help it under the circumstances? Remember all the news stories like this one?). There's just this incredible and uplifting sense of life and love and hope and stories all lasting forever, through ice ages and thousands of years of silence, because that's what people have been carrying with them since the beginning and won't let go of until the end of everything. It is amazing. Please read this. You don't have to listen to the album, it stands on its own. (Obviously still listen to the album though because ♥Hawksley♥)

The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells, Dracula - Bram Stoker, Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Chances
Actual crossover of my dreams, omg. I hoped someone would write me a War of the Worlds/anything crossover, but this is a favourite Victorian lit threeway and my face was like *_* all the way through. It's Mina Harker's journal during the Martian invasion and her voice is so perfect I'm pretty sure Bram Stoker decided to reincarnate himself somehow for my Christmas present. Welcome back, Mr Stoker! We're all extremely sorry about Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Mina and Jonathan vs the Martians, and then there's Alice who "generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it)" when she was little but then grew up to be this sage middle-aged lady egging everyone on to bravery and greatness. IT IS SO GOOD. I want a whole novel of this. Also a film. Everything about this is flawless and I'm printing it off to live in the back of my War of the Worlds book because it is 100% what actually happened.

The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells, Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
For Want of a Rabbit Hole
Alice and her governess seek to escape the strange creatures that fell from the sky.
This is one of those times when an ambiguous ending is absolutely satisfying instead of leaving you wondering which way it went. Don't want to spoil - please read it!

Conscientious Objector - Edna St. Vincent Millay (poem)
The Lotus Won't Sit in the Chair
There is more than one way to be defiant.
The ending of this poem (not punctuated properly but: "Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me shall you be overcome") is the biggest heart squeeze ever and that exact feeling runs right through this story like background music. It's all the courage and heart and ferocity of Millay's poem fleshed out into wonderful fic. The worldbuilding is amazing, you get such a vivid sense of how huge this world is in just one woman's story within it, and Hilda is the best of bravery and pride and protectiveness and everything good it's possible to be in a context like this. It's seriously good and nobody's reading it because I suppose it's not a very familiar fandom? Please read the poem (it's only 25 lines) and give the story a chance, I promise you won't regret it! SO good. <3

Touch Him Not Today
She will not touch Death today.
Drabble! Go away, Death, no bargains for you.

Elizabeth Parker's Sampler
An English Philomel
What if Elizabeth Parker's sampler were not only a record of suffering, but also an instrument of revenge?
I knew the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses but never thought to make the connection: Elizabeth's sampler as Philomel's tapestry! Really clever link to make.

Not my gifts:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Aubade
Dr. Bowman loses himself in space. HAL is all too happy to find him again.
Terrifying, claustrophobic, wonderful portrait of codependency. Perfect voices, especially HAL.

Actor RPF (actually it's Good Will Hunting RPF but I found it under A so.)
Winner Takes All
"Thanks for bringing my dick back into the spotlight, you asshole."
Matt and Ben play a friendly game with the media.
This is about the most delightful thing I've ever read. Affectionate friends teasing = THE BEST THING. I have no investment in these guys either separately or together and I don't really read much RPF, but I'm never going to be able to resist a tag like "mostly gen with a little kissing thrown in for good measure".

Chronicles of Riddick RPF
two times they talked and three times they didn't
Friendships come in many flavours - however odd, this one works.
Judi Dench and Vin Diesel. The actual sweetest thing ever. The unlikeliest and loveliest friendship. *_*

As Meat Loves Salt - Maria McCann
Loyaute, confiance
Missing scene, at Aunt's house in London, early 1646.
Didn't realise I had a shaving kink until I read this. GOOD LORD. Hot as hell and such vivid beautiful prose it could have been lifted from the book.

Attack the Block (2011)
borne back ceaselessly
"She says she wishes I hung out with a better crowd," Simon admits, fiddling with the tassel on his jacket.

"There is no better crowd," Pest insists.

Simon looks up through his flopping fringe and grins. "That's what I told her."

Bittersweet and beautiful backstory. Friendship and found family and really lovely, insightful portraits of all the characters and the way they interact <3

A Flag That Bears the Name
Moses used to think about saving the world. Now that he's done it, he can't go back.
Superhero!Moses, in the most real/funny/bittersweet way possible. So wonderful <3

Beetlejuice (1988)
things to do while waiting for your afterlife to begin
The woman in the black veil's pretty mysterious, all right.
Lydia in the afterlife. Amazing feelgood fic, and Beetlejuice and Lydia's dialogue is a DELIGHT <3

Bacchae - Euripedes
Agave in Illyria
Poor Semele, in the garden,
Caught a god within her eye
And great Zeus, that boundless circle
Sighed and opened up his thigh.

And Agave, on the mountain
Heard a god say open wide.

Disturbing, poetic, vivid, gorgeous. Loved this.

The Best Song Ever - Gabrielle Aplin
Onward to the Edge
She said her name was Georgia Rose.
Friends-become-more high school love story with wonderful dialogue and this beautiful breathless teenage sort of narration. I love this <3

Billy Elliot (2000)
Already Mine
Michael’s an awkward bag of elbows in Billy’s shockingly firm embrace, scrunching his eyes against the burn of the afternoon sun. His hands fist in Billy’s t-shirt and maybe it doesn’t shine out of his arse but Billy smells of sunlight. Always has.
MICHAEL OH MY HEART. Billy and Michael, changing over the years and yet not changing at all <3

Bottom (UK)
Brains
Tagged: comedy violence, Excessive Drinking, Hammersmith Hardmen, hunky blokes, top birds, let's doooo it
Richie and Eddie and a zombie apocalypse. Flawless Bottom-style dialogue, this is perfect and so so funny <3 Also favourite punchline of any fic ever.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid RPF
In Memoriam
Robert looks back on his friendship with Paul, in all its guises.
I will never get over Newman & Redford. OTP of my whole life. On a more shallow note, I know you want to read transatlantic phone sex.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
And the History Books Forgot About Us
Sundance thinks about shaving off his moustache - it gives him away, always has. But he looks at his drawn face in the dirty mirror, and can't quite manage it. Gotta be something there to recognise, something of the famous old days.
I can't even find good enough words to say how much I love this fic. It is perfect. I've read it four times. (I already recognise I have a problem when it comes to Newman/Redford so shut up.) You'll never need to read a Butch & Sundance fic again after you read this.

Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
Detritus
Maddie, trying to hold on.
It took forever to feel up to reading fic after I read this book, and this is exactly the sort of fic I love best - that glorious depth of friendship, Julie's humour and particular way of talking, and OBVIOUSLY the kissing *_* It's bittersweet and beautiful.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came - Robert Browning
The last of her kind faces a fraught journey across an alien landscape.
Space AU. Brilliant.

yuletide recs, yuletide

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