(no subject)
yuletide! yuletide yuletide yuletide!
this year i plan to actually post my recs, rather than just gathering them in my browser and never doing anything with them. we'll see.
first, written for me:
that which binds
fandom: sunshine
part of what makes this story perfect is the fact that it's *exactly* what i asked for. but that doesn't really work as a recommendation for other people. it's ordinary life, following an apocalypse of sorts, people finding their balance. and outsider perspective! original characters who work, and are real, and a treatment of the canon characters that is nicely in character and true to the source. i will be the first to admit that i am bad at writing prompts, but the author of this story managed to dig through my incoherency and divine what i would love. and i love this SO MUCH.
and then, everything else:
The Amazing Adventures of Hat Guy and the Girl Who Stole His Hat
fandom: xkcd
i started my reading (after i read my gift fic) this morning with xkcd, in part because i have spent the past 6 weeks or so wondering how anyone could possibly pull off a story in that fandom. yes, it has ongoing themes, and it has ongoing fringe characters, but how could either of those retain their xkcd-ness after translation into text? well, here's how. this is lovely and quirky and geekily future-enamored.
OMG VELOCIRAPTORS
fandom: xkcd
the second xkcd story i read was written as a treat - it's shorter, and i have to admit, after reading the first one, i was prepared for this one to be a failure. i mean, okay, someone achieved success with ...hat guy.... i did not expect that to be repeatable. but this? this is GENIUS. dinopocalypse. <3 <3
One-Night Fandoms: A Tribute to Yuletide (by eruthros and thingswithwings)
fandom: yuletide
okay, so technically this is outside of yuletide, and it's a vid *about* yuletide. and it's fantastic. download to watch - the quality difference is fairly huge. 191 yuletide fandoms in the vid. it's like an explosion! of yuletideness! much like today.
the sandwich story
fandom: calvin and hobbes
another one, right on the money, drawing all of the best things about the source out, and following them to their logical conclusions. oh, hobbes. sigh.
small monsters
fandom: watchmen
the differences between dan and rorschach, in what they do, and what they think the world is. what heroism is, and what it isn't, as a way of life.
man names woman, but woman names the act
fandom: entourage
mrs. ari! i read this because dodificus recced it - i don't really know entourage, beyond a few picspams and fannish osmosis, but i do know this: i love mrs. ari. and wow, do i ever love her pov on this. (eric/ari/mrs. ari)
moab
fandom: Zenna Henderson - The People series
i don't know the source material even a tiny bit, so this rec is a product of the open-everything, read-four-lines school of yuletide consumption. it's just a really good story, and not only stands on its own, but makes me want to check the henderson books out of the library as well. also, it's nice and long - i'm not sure what the mean length of yuletide stories is, but while the short ones can have a lot of punch, it's nice to find some you can sink your teeth into. also, when you're unfamiliar with the source, the short ones generally aren't going to help you find your feet.
this is not my dream, sister
fandom: thoughtcrimes
i've never seen thoughtcrimes (though i do have an .avi copy sitting on my desktop), but i've read enough (and seen enough picspams and clips) to know my way around, i think. this is great - really nice freya & brendan partnership, with freya pov. while it doesn't have the same take on the source as the last fic i read in this fandom (m.'s man, interrupted, which is excellent) it's complementary in a lot of ways. i like the focus on freya, and her frustration with her history and her attempts to take more control of her life.
always music in the air
fandom: twin peaks
dale cooper in the black lodge. really nicely done, surreal and creepy, imagery layering banality over banality over a rotting core, and a perfect, intriguing ending.
i am a lonely soul.
fandom: twin peaks
and this one's maddy ferguson, also in the black lodge. time twists around in this, plays with maddy's frustrations at being laura's shadow, always less, but also with the way that time gives her power through knowledge. sadder than always music..., but it has a broader take on the source.
emostein
fandom: frankenstein
so i read quite a lot that i wouldn't otherwise via recs, and that includes all of the frankenstein stories this year - i mean, frankenstein is pretty much the definition of a fandom where i don't expect to be interested (more the fool me, perhaps, because broken down into constituent parts, it looks like just the thing to suit me. but there you go.) this is hilarious, and skewers the ending of the book nicely.
An Epistle from a Gentlewoman of Quality to her Famed Brother Robert Walton
fandom: frankenstein
what i said above, re: emostein, except cranked up to eleven. where emostein is hilarious on a sentence scale, epistle... manages the same in paragraphs. the narrator is passive-aggressive and self-aware and very angry, and crafts a perfect, highly civilized revenge.
Derived from Crenshaw, Meaning Inquisitive
fandom: akeelah and the bee
another lovely story based on a source material i know pretty much nothing about. really nice, about growing up.
far across the stars
fandom: alien movies
so apparently this is the post-aliens au i never knew i always wanted. two words: space pirates.
Buckaroo Banzai and the Floydada Scuffle
fandom: buckaroo banzai
okay, i knew i wanted this one. in fact, i put in a prompt asking for this last year and this year. well, kind of asking for this. i have a great love of rawhide, and of repurposing things, and this is a rawhide origins story with weaponized hot sauce. also, zombies. the amazing thing about this, though, isn't that it's a well-told, interesting, exciting story, but that the cadence of the dialog is just right for both buckaroo and rawhide. so much love for this story.
und mit Geistesstärke tu ich Wunder auch
fandom: the time traveler's wife
a large-scope alba story. this is a book that lends itself easily to fic, i think, mostly because it's written in a style that reads like fanfiction in the first place, to me. that isn't to belittle the stories written in the fandom - i just think they are generally pretty good. this stands out.
reaction mechanism
fandom: dr horrible's sing-along blog
oh, doctor horrible. this is good, and funny, and a little bit bitter.
the other choice
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
the fairy tale offerings for yuletide are always good, inventive and strange and well-written - this one stands out for its style. i really like the way that the paragraph breaks, hr tags, and parentheticals are used to change the pace of the narrative and make it stranger.
cloak and dagger
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
a nice twisty red-riding hood.
the bruise around the wound
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
rapunzel, made richer and richer and darker.
skin
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
this one's a little more frothy than the other fairy tale stories i liked - updated, given a slightly harder edge and a little ending twist.
the hundred acre house
fandom: house of leaves
yeah. crossover. hits the right panicky disorientation, but it's short enough that the underlying joke doesn't get stale.
harold to the infinite power
fandom: stranger than fiction
this uses a premise i've seen around before and never liked, but the fact that meta-commentary and lack of a fourth wall are already a part of the source are possibly what make it work in this case - but beyond that, it's charming, and that's all down to the author. really nicely done. and the next-to-last paragraph? yes.
weather continues very fine
fandom: jonathan strange and mr norrell
i wish i liked more jonathan strange fic, since it can be so depended upon for footnotes. and i really love footnotes. really enjoyed this one - arabella-focused, keeps witty and doesn't get too dense.
the dying fall
fandom: twelfth night
i have a hard time with the shakespeare fandoms, because while i know the plays, sort of, i know them more in outline than anything else, and the fic that gets written for them is crammed with referents and in-jokes - i know i'm missing a lot. this one is dependent on some knowledge, but even without a general idea of what's going on in the play, it works as a snapshot. the setting and both characters are well drawn, and the kitchen-table type interlude works very well to build an intimate missing scene.
Really Awkward Adulterous Lesbian Sex Is Still Better Than No Sex At All
fandom: twelfth night
so based on the title, i really didn't expect this to be so melancholy. weirdly, it still sort of reminded me of thingswithwings wonderful story from last year, the first twelve. poor olivia, though.
gyre
fandom: sunshine
normal life, and an encroaching threat, and a quiet, strange battle. the rae pov in this felt indistinguishable from the book to me, and the uneasy partnership between rae and con. also includes a recipe. :D
pieces of time
fandom: sandman
delirium pov can go so very wrong. like telling a story from the pov of river tam, or drusilla, or anyone else who isn't quite all there. wherever there may happen to be. this story doesn't go over the top with it, but still retains the imagery that makes her perspective unique. the author also manages to keep in mind that delirium isn't just a crazy waif - she's part of a pantheon of sorts, and she's hugely powerful (as much as dream and desire, certainly). the reminder that her whims and fleeting thoughts are having an effect on people near and far is a good one, and makes this worthwhile.
running commentary
fandom: the IT crowd
flailingly hilarious and perfect. and sort of uncomfortable and mortifying. as it should be. <3 moss <3!!! (moss/roy)
four views of general jinjur
fandom: baum's oz
o hai i like jinjur, big surprise, right? not entirely *exactly* my take on her as a character, but i think that the way the story is structured, as four interviews, actually sidesteps any problems that i might have had with that. i mean, hell, canon is inconsistent with jinjur anyway, so i wasn't likely to have an issue in any case. anyway. this is great, and included a bunch of details that made me smile.
Four Things Turanga Leela Never Had To Put Up With, And One She Did (Guess)
fandom: futurama
futurama is one of the many things that make me wish there was a way to just download a show straight into your brain, matrix-stylee. i mean, not that watching tv is so much different than that. i just want it a hell of a lot faster, and maybe to be done while i'm asleep or otherwise unable to multitask in other, more traditional ways. anyway. until the series is compressed down, turned into a 4 second blipvert, and shot directly into my brain, i'll keep dabbling in the fic. because it's freaking funny. (i watched the first episode last year, when i was entertaining the idea of writing a wkrp/futurama fusion (but then i realized i didn't have time to review two sources, just one), so i sort of know which end is up.)
Five Deals the Robot Devil Almost Made
fandom: futurama
again. funny. ensemble. in character for everyone. awesome.
song without words
fandom: mckillip's ridlemaster series
so you know when things are so dear to you that you can't really be fannish about them? like they're sort of too sacred, and you don't want to go looking for the cracks, but rather to just keep believing there aren't any? well, i'm still there with the riddlemaster trilogy, but i read this anyway. and i'm so glad i did. it's lyrical, and deth's point of view is just as weary and distanced and patient and sad and fatalistic as it should be, and the morgol, refusing to not try to stretch her hand across that gulf anyway. this is probably my favorite story this year, and i'm tempted to print it out and tuck it into one of my copies of riddle-master, to keep as canon, and reread every time i go back to the books.
wisconsin
fandom: little house books
caroline, who is always there in the stories, but overshadowed by her husband and his need to move west. this is her chance to look at the little house in the big woods, to listen to the wolves outside the door, to think about her future and past, and the future that awaits her daughters. when i think of caroline, i think of her modest habit of wearing her hair covering her ears, and what polite society would mean to someone with that habit. it certainly didn't mean the wilderness.
slow leave
fandom: hamlet
slow down, and read carefully, and wow, does it ever pay off. clever and dense, and fantastic use of language. also: [HAMLET starts, amazed (and apparently also not very bright)] :D (horatio/hamlet)
fire, measured by what doesn't burn
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
this one is being recced all over the place, and with good reason. beautiful and terrible.
i'm working my way up through fandoms, so i plan to edit more into this post later. eta: done! i just couldn't wait to rec those. happy yuletide!
this year i plan to actually post my recs, rather than just gathering them in my browser and never doing anything with them. we'll see.
first, written for me:
that which binds
fandom: sunshine
part of what makes this story perfect is the fact that it's *exactly* what i asked for. but that doesn't really work as a recommendation for other people. it's ordinary life, following an apocalypse of sorts, people finding their balance. and outsider perspective! original characters who work, and are real, and a treatment of the canon characters that is nicely in character and true to the source. i will be the first to admit that i am bad at writing prompts, but the author of this story managed to dig through my incoherency and divine what i would love. and i love this SO MUCH.
and then, everything else:
The Amazing Adventures of Hat Guy and the Girl Who Stole His Hat
fandom: xkcd
i started my reading (after i read my gift fic) this morning with xkcd, in part because i have spent the past 6 weeks or so wondering how anyone could possibly pull off a story in that fandom. yes, it has ongoing themes, and it has ongoing fringe characters, but how could either of those retain their xkcd-ness after translation into text? well, here's how. this is lovely and quirky and geekily future-enamored.
OMG VELOCIRAPTORS
fandom: xkcd
the second xkcd story i read was written as a treat - it's shorter, and i have to admit, after reading the first one, i was prepared for this one to be a failure. i mean, okay, someone achieved success with ...hat guy.... i did not expect that to be repeatable. but this? this is GENIUS. dinopocalypse. <3 <3
One-Night Fandoms: A Tribute to Yuletide (by eruthros and thingswithwings)
fandom: yuletide
okay, so technically this is outside of yuletide, and it's a vid *about* yuletide. and it's fantastic. download to watch - the quality difference is fairly huge. 191 yuletide fandoms in the vid. it's like an explosion! of yuletideness! much like today.
the sandwich story
fandom: calvin and hobbes
another one, right on the money, drawing all of the best things about the source out, and following them to their logical conclusions. oh, hobbes. sigh.
small monsters
fandom: watchmen
the differences between dan and rorschach, in what they do, and what they think the world is. what heroism is, and what it isn't, as a way of life.
man names woman, but woman names the act
fandom: entourage
mrs. ari! i read this because dodificus recced it - i don't really know entourage, beyond a few picspams and fannish osmosis, but i do know this: i love mrs. ari. and wow, do i ever love her pov on this. (eric/ari/mrs. ari)
moab
fandom: Zenna Henderson - The People series
i don't know the source material even a tiny bit, so this rec is a product of the open-everything, read-four-lines school of yuletide consumption. it's just a really good story, and not only stands on its own, but makes me want to check the henderson books out of the library as well. also, it's nice and long - i'm not sure what the mean length of yuletide stories is, but while the short ones can have a lot of punch, it's nice to find some you can sink your teeth into. also, when you're unfamiliar with the source, the short ones generally aren't going to help you find your feet.
this is not my dream, sister
fandom: thoughtcrimes
i've never seen thoughtcrimes (though i do have an .avi copy sitting on my desktop), but i've read enough (and seen enough picspams and clips) to know my way around, i think. this is great - really nice freya & brendan partnership, with freya pov. while it doesn't have the same take on the source as the last fic i read in this fandom (m.'s man, interrupted, which is excellent) it's complementary in a lot of ways. i like the focus on freya, and her frustration with her history and her attempts to take more control of her life.
always music in the air
fandom: twin peaks
dale cooper in the black lodge. really nicely done, surreal and creepy, imagery layering banality over banality over a rotting core, and a perfect, intriguing ending.
i am a lonely soul.
fandom: twin peaks
and this one's maddy ferguson, also in the black lodge. time twists around in this, plays with maddy's frustrations at being laura's shadow, always less, but also with the way that time gives her power through knowledge. sadder than always music..., but it has a broader take on the source.
emostein
fandom: frankenstein
so i read quite a lot that i wouldn't otherwise via recs, and that includes all of the frankenstein stories this year - i mean, frankenstein is pretty much the definition of a fandom where i don't expect to be interested (more the fool me, perhaps, because broken down into constituent parts, it looks like just the thing to suit me. but there you go.) this is hilarious, and skewers the ending of the book nicely.
An Epistle from a Gentlewoman of Quality to her Famed Brother Robert Walton
fandom: frankenstein
what i said above, re: emostein, except cranked up to eleven. where emostein is hilarious on a sentence scale, epistle... manages the same in paragraphs. the narrator is passive-aggressive and self-aware and very angry, and crafts a perfect, highly civilized revenge.
Derived from Crenshaw, Meaning Inquisitive
fandom: akeelah and the bee
another lovely story based on a source material i know pretty much nothing about. really nice, about growing up.
far across the stars
fandom: alien movies
so apparently this is the post-aliens au i never knew i always wanted. two words: space pirates.
Buckaroo Banzai and the Floydada Scuffle
fandom: buckaroo banzai
okay, i knew i wanted this one. in fact, i put in a prompt asking for this last year and this year. well, kind of asking for this. i have a great love of rawhide, and of repurposing things, and this is a rawhide origins story with weaponized hot sauce. also, zombies. the amazing thing about this, though, isn't that it's a well-told, interesting, exciting story, but that the cadence of the dialog is just right for both buckaroo and rawhide. so much love for this story.
und mit Geistesstärke tu ich Wunder auch
fandom: the time traveler's wife
a large-scope alba story. this is a book that lends itself easily to fic, i think, mostly because it's written in a style that reads like fanfiction in the first place, to me. that isn't to belittle the stories written in the fandom - i just think they are generally pretty good. this stands out.
reaction mechanism
fandom: dr horrible's sing-along blog
oh, doctor horrible. this is good, and funny, and a little bit bitter.
the other choice
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
the fairy tale offerings for yuletide are always good, inventive and strange and well-written - this one stands out for its style. i really like the way that the paragraph breaks, hr tags, and parentheticals are used to change the pace of the narrative and make it stranger.
cloak and dagger
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
a nice twisty red-riding hood.
the bruise around the wound
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
rapunzel, made richer and richer and darker.
skin
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
this one's a little more frothy than the other fairy tale stories i liked - updated, given a slightly harder edge and a little ending twist.
the hundred acre house
fandom: house of leaves
yeah. crossover. hits the right panicky disorientation, but it's short enough that the underlying joke doesn't get stale.
harold to the infinite power
fandom: stranger than fiction
this uses a premise i've seen around before and never liked, but the fact that meta-commentary and lack of a fourth wall are already a part of the source are possibly what make it work in this case - but beyond that, it's charming, and that's all down to the author. really nicely done. and the next-to-last paragraph? yes.
weather continues very fine
fandom: jonathan strange and mr norrell
i wish i liked more jonathan strange fic, since it can be so depended upon for footnotes. and i really love footnotes. really enjoyed this one - arabella-focused, keeps witty and doesn't get too dense.
the dying fall
fandom: twelfth night
i have a hard time with the shakespeare fandoms, because while i know the plays, sort of, i know them more in outline than anything else, and the fic that gets written for them is crammed with referents and in-jokes - i know i'm missing a lot. this one is dependent on some knowledge, but even without a general idea of what's going on in the play, it works as a snapshot. the setting and both characters are well drawn, and the kitchen-table type interlude works very well to build an intimate missing scene.
Really Awkward Adulterous Lesbian Sex Is Still Better Than No Sex At All
fandom: twelfth night
so based on the title, i really didn't expect this to be so melancholy. weirdly, it still sort of reminded me of thingswithwings wonderful story from last year, the first twelve. poor olivia, though.
gyre
fandom: sunshine
normal life, and an encroaching threat, and a quiet, strange battle. the rae pov in this felt indistinguishable from the book to me, and the uneasy partnership between rae and con. also includes a recipe. :D
pieces of time
fandom: sandman
delirium pov can go so very wrong. like telling a story from the pov of river tam, or drusilla, or anyone else who isn't quite all there. wherever there may happen to be. this story doesn't go over the top with it, but still retains the imagery that makes her perspective unique. the author also manages to keep in mind that delirium isn't just a crazy waif - she's part of a pantheon of sorts, and she's hugely powerful (as much as dream and desire, certainly). the reminder that her whims and fleeting thoughts are having an effect on people near and far is a good one, and makes this worthwhile.
running commentary
fandom: the IT crowd
flailingly hilarious and perfect. and sort of uncomfortable and mortifying. as it should be. <3 moss <3!!! (moss/roy)
four views of general jinjur
fandom: baum's oz
o hai i like jinjur, big surprise, right? not entirely *exactly* my take on her as a character, but i think that the way the story is structured, as four interviews, actually sidesteps any problems that i might have had with that. i mean, hell, canon is inconsistent with jinjur anyway, so i wasn't likely to have an issue in any case. anyway. this is great, and included a bunch of details that made me smile.
Four Things Turanga Leela Never Had To Put Up With, And One She Did (Guess)
fandom: futurama
futurama is one of the many things that make me wish there was a way to just download a show straight into your brain, matrix-stylee. i mean, not that watching tv is so much different than that. i just want it a hell of a lot faster, and maybe to be done while i'm asleep or otherwise unable to multitask in other, more traditional ways. anyway. until the series is compressed down, turned into a 4 second blipvert, and shot directly into my brain, i'll keep dabbling in the fic. because it's freaking funny. (i watched the first episode last year, when i was entertaining the idea of writing a wkrp/futurama fusion (but then i realized i didn't have time to review two sources, just one), so i sort of know which end is up.)
Five Deals the Robot Devil Almost Made
fandom: futurama
again. funny. ensemble. in character for everyone. awesome.
song without words
fandom: mckillip's ridlemaster series
so you know when things are so dear to you that you can't really be fannish about them? like they're sort of too sacred, and you don't want to go looking for the cracks, but rather to just keep believing there aren't any? well, i'm still there with the riddlemaster trilogy, but i read this anyway. and i'm so glad i did. it's lyrical, and deth's point of view is just as weary and distanced and patient and sad and fatalistic as it should be, and the morgol, refusing to not try to stretch her hand across that gulf anyway. this is probably my favorite story this year, and i'm tempted to print it out and tuck it into one of my copies of riddle-master, to keep as canon, and reread every time i go back to the books.
wisconsin
fandom: little house books
caroline, who is always there in the stories, but overshadowed by her husband and his need to move west. this is her chance to look at the little house in the big woods, to listen to the wolves outside the door, to think about her future and past, and the future that awaits her daughters. when i think of caroline, i think of her modest habit of wearing her hair covering her ears, and what polite society would mean to someone with that habit. it certainly didn't mean the wilderness.
slow leave
fandom: hamlet
slow down, and read carefully, and wow, does it ever pay off. clever and dense, and fantastic use of language. also: [HAMLET starts, amazed (and apparently also not very bright)] :D (horatio/hamlet)
fire, measured by what doesn't burn
fandom: fairy tales, traditional
this one is being recced all over the place, and with good reason. beautiful and terrible.
i'm working my way up through fandoms, so i plan to edit more into this post later. eta: done! i just couldn't wait to rec those. happy yuletide!