Yuletide recs (so far)
I've barely scratched the surface and have been mostly working through alphabetically. Until my parents' internet cut out, and after I'd finally read my own gifts to my own satisfaction, I did have a bit where I could even read quite long things (ish), which was fun. And while some of these have been recced a lot, others really haven't that I've seen, so here goes:
15th C Historical RPF
(These three, btw, were all gifts for me, and each of them fulfils my request in a different way and I think they're all amazing. They each look at Elizabeth of York and as she's a pivotal figure in English history, but frequently overlooked, I'm thrilled at fic to redress the balance.)
The most pleasant tale of Lady Bessy (4739 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII of England, Henry VII of England, Edward IV of England, Elizabeth Woodville, Leonardo da Vinci, Catherine of Aragon
Summary: Four titles Elizabeth of York never held, and one she did.
As it says, a series of AUs for Elizabeth of York, all very well and engagingly written with both humour and seriousness, and a lot of historical knowledge carried lightly. To say what the AUs are would be spoilery, but they involve gender-swapping, Leonardo da Vinci and well and truly sorting out Henry VIII and they're all brilliant - and what more could you ask for? (Well, maybe historical notes but it has those too!) If you don't know the period very well, this one is probably still accessible. (I think the next one, possibly all three of them may be, but it is hard to be sure.)
The Endris Night (2140 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elizabeth of York/Henry VII
Characters: Elizabeth of York, Henry VII of England
Summary: What is life at the court? Is it all plots and planning or is it something more? Elizabeth brings her own strengths as she prepares to marry the new king.
This is a lovely, deceptively simple fic that covers quite a lot in passing but is essentially a beautiful little vignette of two people marrying for convenience/politics and making the first tentative overtures away from the coldness of politics to something potentially more personal. (Plus: off-screen battles between Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort.)
The Rose (3275 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: Not Rated
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Elizabeth of York, Henry VII of England, Margaret of York, Anne Neville Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon
Summary: Five looks at Elizabeth of York.
In my request, I mentioned that I'd be delighted if a story brought in any of the other equally fascinating women of the period and this does just that, so very well. It's five glimpses of Elizabeth of York across her lifetime through the eyes of the other women around her. It's excellent, well-researched and the choices are great - Margaret of Burgundy (sister to Edward IV and Richard III), Anne Neville, Margaret Beaufort, Katherine Gordon (who married Perkin Warbeck) and Catherine of Aragon - it's excellent historical fic and a little fittingly chilling in places, especially the Anne Neville section.
Blake's 7
A Quarter to Midnight (1048 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dayna Mellanby/Del Tarrant
Characters: Dayna Mellanby, Del Tarrant
Summary: Tarrant and Dayna find themselves locked in a vault.
As the summary says - and then Dayna is awesome and Tarrant is slightly less enthusiastic about explosives in enclosed spaces and it's all pitch perfect Blake's 7 which is all I could ever ask for. (Set S3. Another of my lovely gift fics this year!)
Brittas Empire
Just Another Day (1255 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Brittas Empire
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Gavin Featherly/Tim Whistler
Characters: Gavin Featherly, Tim Whistler, Gordon Brittas
Summary: Brittas is clueless, Tim is jealous, and Gavin is at his wit's end. It's just another day at Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre.
It's just the throwaway, casual remarks by the characters and the narrative about ongoing disasters mostly ignored in favour of the story (in which Tim is more jealous than usual) that make this fic:
It was a perfectly ordinary day at Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre when the trouble began.
Carol was weeping softly into a tissue as the twins smeared half eaten weetabix into their hair, Laura and Linda had been called away to facilitate in the cornering of a frightened wildebeest currently terrorising the weights room, and Colin was busy cordoning off the swimming pool now that the test results for flesh eating bacteria had come back positive.
And on like that... And anyone who knows the show will know how entirely likely every catastrophe is. (And it is actually a pretty full complement of characters, not merely the three listed.)
Old New Borrowed Blue (9319 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Brittas Empire
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Gavin Featherly/Tim Whistler
Characters: Ensemble
Summary: To be honest, if one chooses gets married in Whitbury New Town, within a five mile radius of Mr Brittas, there's no point being surprised by anything.
This is a long fic that feels exactly as if someone made a special a few years later and that's no easy feat with this fandom. It's a happy ending finally for Tim and Gavin, but first of all they've got to survive the inevitable disasters that come of letting Mr Brittas have anything to do with their wedding. Not to mention the fact that they're really hoping Laura will finally explain to Mr Brittas who it is that Gavin is marrying. (And she does, and his reaction is my favourite part). (There are some typos in this but it was worth ignoring them. Sorry. It's not possibly to entirely silence my inner pedant.)
Doctor Who/Madeleine L'Engle
Angels We Have Heard On High (1930 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle, Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams
Characters: Rory Williams, Rob Austin, Josiah Davidson
Summary: Rob meets an unusual old man.
Just a lovely, quiet and really fitting crossover. It's been quite a while since I've read any of the Austin books, but I still enjoyed this.
Diana Wynne Jones - Enchanted Glass and Fire & Hemlock
Enchanted Glass Epilogue (1788 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Enchanted Glass - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Aidan Caine, Eustacia "Stashe" O'Connor, Andrew Hope
Summary: What it says on the tin
Excellently in-keeping with the tone of the book and just wraps things up. There were, probably because it was pretty much her last proper book, some odd bits in Enchanted Glass and this deals with one or two very nicely.
and i beg you call the tune (4632 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Thomas Lynn/Polly Whittacker
Characters: Polly Whittacker, Thomas Lynn, Ann Abraham, Edward Davies, Samuel Rensky, Granny Whittacker, Fiona Perks
Summary: "And then he said he'd chosen his own path, but that he had no right to choose yours for you." Or, what happens after the end of the story.
I'm usually very wary of reading Fire & Hemlock fic, simply because of how much I read that book as a teenager. It kind of shaped my thinking in many ways, so I about the pickiest reader of fic for it you can imagine and I click on it with extreme wariness. (Yes, one of the reasons I'm so odd. What can I say?) But this has exactly the right sort of tone and there's a section with fortune-telling by flowers which is so perfect as a means forward post-book. Most of the DWJ fic this year is all from things I haven't read for ages and badly need to re-read, so I'm really glad that there was lovely F&H fic I could enjoy.
Glamor (897 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: Not Rated
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fiona Perks, Polly Whittacker, Seb Leroy
Summary: Falling in love the hard way.
A much shorter one, from Madness, but it's great, showing some things from Fiona's POV with perfectly credible unrequited Fiona/Polly. It's just lovely to see Fiona in a fic, and done well.
Ghost Soup Infidel Blue
Ghost Soup Forum Archive (4054 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ghost Soup Infidel Blue
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: An archive of the old Ghost Soup forum
It's taken me a while to cotton on to what Ghost Soup is (it's a fandom that was made up as an example for Yuletide except - Yuletide being Yuletide - it now has fic and an actual sort of fandom and regularly gets nominated for Yuletide), but it's generally a way of poking fun at some of the extremes of fandom and this is no exception, with entries and flame wars from a supposed old archive. (LOVE the buttons/zips/velcro argument especially.) And, basically, any Ghost Soup fic is the ultimate in don't-need-to-know-canon fic because there is no canon. (Also flaming in the comments is the proper and loving tribute. :lol:)
Ngaio Marsh - Inspector Alleyn Mysteries
Portraits of Interludes (1224 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Inspector Alleyn Mysteries - Ngaio Marsh
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Roderick (Rory) Alleyn/Agatha Troy, Roderick (Rory) Alleyn/Agatha Troy Alleyn
Characters: Roderick (Rory) Alleyn, Agatha Troy, Agatha Troy Alleyn
Summary: Troy knew she would never have any trouble bringing to mind the first time she thought of Rory and felt at home with the warmth of wanting him.
This is just so true to the series and characters. I loved it. I don't know if I've ever even seen Ngaio Marsh fic before, so I'm so glad the author nailed it. Just a thoughtful vignette, exactly in keeping with the books.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Dark Towers & Lonely Roads (1477 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jonathan Strange, Arabella Strange, Lady Pole, Stephen Black
Summary: Arabella Strange at Christmas, 1817. A brief glimpse of her life after the end of the book.
I haven't read the others for this fandom yet, but I liked this. It had the right feel for the book and made a lovely coda with some particularly nice touches, like Jonathan inevitably getting the date wrong.
Julius Caesar
Acted Over (3142 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Rating: Mature
Warning: Major Character Death
Relationships: Marcus Brutus/Caius Cassius
Characters: Caius Cassius, Marcus Brutus, Portia, Junia, Pindarus
Summary: For Brutus, there is always time - time to consider, time to speak, time to make his point in twenty ponderously balanced lines. For Cassius, there is barely time to breathe.
Oh my goodness, this fic. I nearly didn't read it because I thought it'd be explicit (and me and explicit pr0n rarely get on, no matter what the pairing or flavour), but I don't think it even is, and anyway, it's marvellous and clever and exceptionally well-written and it's a look at Cassius, Brutus/Cassius and meta about being a character in a play (and of all the characters to pick on to be aware - or hallucinating - that he's a character, Cassius...) with constant refs to time and timepieces, anachronistic and otherwise (and I'm pretty sure there are also lots of little nods to different versions/performances of the play in there, if you know it well enough). As I said, it really is outstanding.
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Hopes and Fears and Fidgets (1288 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Matilda - Roald Dahl
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Matilda Wormwood, Jennifer Honey, Mrs Phelps (Matilda), Lavender (Matilda)
Summary: Four things Matilda wanted to be when she grew up, and one thing she became.
This has been recced quite a bit, but it's lovely, very much in-keeping with the book - and what Matilda decided to become in the end is one of those things that just feels so right.
Measure for Measure
Neptune Cast in Bronze (2032 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Measure for Measure - Shakespeare
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Major Character Death
Relationships: Duke Vincentio/Duchess Isabella, Duchess Isabella/other
Characters: Elbow, Escalus, Duke Vincentio, Isabella (Measure for Measure)
Summary: A casefile from CSI: Vienna
The ending of Measure for Measure is what you might call wonderfully bizarre with four potentially disastrous marriages made in one fell swoop. This is a fic that brilliantly lets those potential disasters happen. It's dark and clever and funny and written in a series of letters that are exactly right in tone for the period. Basically, it's amazing and you probably don't need that much knowledge of the play to enjoy it.
Monkey Island
Letters from Monkey Island (2053 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Monkey Island
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Guybrush Threepwood, Elaine Marley, LeChuck
Summary: Messages in a bottle, from the Monkey Island years.
There is Monkey Island fic and it's exactly as funny as I hoped when I clicked on it. It's been an age since I played this computer game, and I think my sister and I got stuck on the third one, but... this is perfect. Seword-fighting insults, the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, Guybrush, Governor Marley. ("Your house was shut up... Have you been kidnapped again?") ♥ It's a joy from start to finish.
New Tricks
The Best of a Bad Situation (1827 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: New Tricks
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sandra Pullman, Robert Strickland
Summary: What a way to start the day: trapped in a stalled lift with the boss, in a skirt and heels! Eh, things could be worse.
Sandra and Strickland stuck in a lift. Simple, but very engagingly New Tricks-ish and takes a look at their oddly ambigious relationship and possibly advances it (or not, who knows?). I am very pleased to see Strickland turn up in a New Tricks fic.
Sarah Jane Adventures
Walking the Penguin (1678 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sarah Jane Adventures
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rani Chandra/Clyde Langer
Characters: Rani Chandra, Clyde Langer, Gita Chandra, Haresh Chandra
Summary: Rani and Clyde are facing their toughest battle yet - they must tell Rani's parents that they're dating.
This is a delight from start to finish. As the summary says, except that naturally it involves confusion and an alien penguin... and if you know SJA and like Rani/Clyde, then what more do I really need to say? Gita, Haresh, Rani/Clyde and a penguin. It's lovely and huge fun. (And another of my gifts!)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
15th C Historical RPF
(These three, btw, were all gifts for me, and each of them fulfils my request in a different way and I think they're all amazing. They each look at Elizabeth of York and as she's a pivotal figure in English history, but frequently overlooked, I'm thrilled at fic to redress the balance.)
The most pleasant tale of Lady Bessy (4739 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII of England, Henry VII of England, Edward IV of England, Elizabeth Woodville, Leonardo da Vinci, Catherine of Aragon
Summary: Four titles Elizabeth of York never held, and one she did.
As it says, a series of AUs for Elizabeth of York, all very well and engagingly written with both humour and seriousness, and a lot of historical knowledge carried lightly. To say what the AUs are would be spoilery, but they involve gender-swapping, Leonardo da Vinci and well and truly sorting out Henry VIII and they're all brilliant - and what more could you ask for? (Well, maybe historical notes but it has those too!) If you don't know the period very well, this one is probably still accessible. (I think the next one, possibly all three of them may be, but it is hard to be sure.)
The Endris Night (2140 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elizabeth of York/Henry VII
Characters: Elizabeth of York, Henry VII of England
Summary: What is life at the court? Is it all plots and planning or is it something more? Elizabeth brings her own strengths as she prepares to marry the new king.
This is a lovely, deceptively simple fic that covers quite a lot in passing but is essentially a beautiful little vignette of two people marrying for convenience/politics and making the first tentative overtures away from the coldness of politics to something potentially more personal. (Plus: off-screen battles between Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort.)
The Rose (3275 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: Not Rated
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Elizabeth of York, Henry VII of England, Margaret of York, Anne Neville Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon
Summary: Five looks at Elizabeth of York.
In my request, I mentioned that I'd be delighted if a story brought in any of the other equally fascinating women of the period and this does just that, so very well. It's five glimpses of Elizabeth of York across her lifetime through the eyes of the other women around her. It's excellent, well-researched and the choices are great - Margaret of Burgundy (sister to Edward IV and Richard III), Anne Neville, Margaret Beaufort, Katherine Gordon (who married Perkin Warbeck) and Catherine of Aragon - it's excellent historical fic and a little fittingly chilling in places, especially the Anne Neville section.
Blake's 7
A Quarter to Midnight (1048 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dayna Mellanby/Del Tarrant
Characters: Dayna Mellanby, Del Tarrant
Summary: Tarrant and Dayna find themselves locked in a vault.
As the summary says - and then Dayna is awesome and Tarrant is slightly less enthusiastic about explosives in enclosed spaces and it's all pitch perfect Blake's 7 which is all I could ever ask for. (Set S3. Another of my lovely gift fics this year!)
Brittas Empire
Just Another Day (1255 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Brittas Empire
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Gavin Featherly/Tim Whistler
Characters: Gavin Featherly, Tim Whistler, Gordon Brittas
Summary: Brittas is clueless, Tim is jealous, and Gavin is at his wit's end. It's just another day at Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre.
It's just the throwaway, casual remarks by the characters and the narrative about ongoing disasters mostly ignored in favour of the story (in which Tim is more jealous than usual) that make this fic:
It was a perfectly ordinary day at Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre when the trouble began.
Carol was weeping softly into a tissue as the twins smeared half eaten weetabix into their hair, Laura and Linda had been called away to facilitate in the cornering of a frightened wildebeest currently terrorising the weights room, and Colin was busy cordoning off the swimming pool now that the test results for flesh eating bacteria had come back positive.
And on like that... And anyone who knows the show will know how entirely likely every catastrophe is. (And it is actually a pretty full complement of characters, not merely the three listed.)
Old New Borrowed Blue (9319 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Brittas Empire
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Gavin Featherly/Tim Whistler
Characters: Ensemble
Summary: To be honest, if one chooses gets married in Whitbury New Town, within a five mile radius of Mr Brittas, there's no point being surprised by anything.
This is a long fic that feels exactly as if someone made a special a few years later and that's no easy feat with this fandom. It's a happy ending finally for Tim and Gavin, but first of all they've got to survive the inevitable disasters that come of letting Mr Brittas have anything to do with their wedding. Not to mention the fact that they're really hoping Laura will finally explain to Mr Brittas who it is that Gavin is marrying. (And she does, and his reaction is my favourite part). (There are some typos in this but it was worth ignoring them. Sorry. It's not possibly to entirely silence my inner pedant.)
Doctor Who/Madeleine L'Engle
Angels We Have Heard On High (1930 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle, Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams
Characters: Rory Williams, Rob Austin, Josiah Davidson
Summary: Rob meets an unusual old man.
Just a lovely, quiet and really fitting crossover. It's been quite a while since I've read any of the Austin books, but I still enjoyed this.
Diana Wynne Jones - Enchanted Glass and Fire & Hemlock
Enchanted Glass Epilogue (1788 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Enchanted Glass - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Aidan Caine, Eustacia "Stashe" O'Connor, Andrew Hope
Summary: What it says on the tin
Excellently in-keeping with the tone of the book and just wraps things up. There were, probably because it was pretty much her last proper book, some odd bits in Enchanted Glass and this deals with one or two very nicely.
and i beg you call the tune (4632 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Thomas Lynn/Polly Whittacker
Characters: Polly Whittacker, Thomas Lynn, Ann Abraham, Edward Davies, Samuel Rensky, Granny Whittacker, Fiona Perks
Summary: "And then he said he'd chosen his own path, but that he had no right to choose yours for you." Or, what happens after the end of the story.
I'm usually very wary of reading Fire & Hemlock fic, simply because of how much I read that book as a teenager. It kind of shaped my thinking in many ways, so I about the pickiest reader of fic for it you can imagine and I click on it with extreme wariness. (Yes, one of the reasons I'm so odd. What can I say?) But this has exactly the right sort of tone and there's a section with fortune-telling by flowers which is so perfect as a means forward post-book. Most of the DWJ fic this year is all from things I haven't read for ages and badly need to re-read, so I'm really glad that there was lovely F&H fic I could enjoy.
Glamor (897 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: Not Rated
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fiona Perks, Polly Whittacker, Seb Leroy
Summary: Falling in love the hard way.
A much shorter one, from Madness, but it's great, showing some things from Fiona's POV with perfectly credible unrequited Fiona/Polly. It's just lovely to see Fiona in a fic, and done well.
Ghost Soup Infidel Blue
Ghost Soup Forum Archive (4054 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ghost Soup Infidel Blue
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary: An archive of the old Ghost Soup forum
It's taken me a while to cotton on to what Ghost Soup is (it's a fandom that was made up as an example for Yuletide except - Yuletide being Yuletide - it now has fic and an actual sort of fandom and regularly gets nominated for Yuletide), but it's generally a way of poking fun at some of the extremes of fandom and this is no exception, with entries and flame wars from a supposed old archive. (LOVE the buttons/zips/velcro argument especially.) And, basically, any Ghost Soup fic is the ultimate in don't-need-to-know-canon fic because there is no canon. (Also flaming in the comments is the proper and loving tribute. :lol:)
Ngaio Marsh - Inspector Alleyn Mysteries
Portraits of Interludes (1224 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Inspector Alleyn Mysteries - Ngaio Marsh
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Roderick (Rory) Alleyn/Agatha Troy, Roderick (Rory) Alleyn/Agatha Troy Alleyn
Characters: Roderick (Rory) Alleyn, Agatha Troy, Agatha Troy Alleyn
Summary: Troy knew she would never have any trouble bringing to mind the first time she thought of Rory and felt at home with the warmth of wanting him.
This is just so true to the series and characters. I loved it. I don't know if I've ever even seen Ngaio Marsh fic before, so I'm so glad the author nailed it. Just a thoughtful vignette, exactly in keeping with the books.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Dark Towers & Lonely Roads (1477 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jonathan Strange, Arabella Strange, Lady Pole, Stephen Black
Summary: Arabella Strange at Christmas, 1817. A brief glimpse of her life after the end of the book.
I haven't read the others for this fandom yet, but I liked this. It had the right feel for the book and made a lovely coda with some particularly nice touches, like Jonathan inevitably getting the date wrong.
Julius Caesar
Acted Over (3142 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Rating: Mature
Warning: Major Character Death
Relationships: Marcus Brutus/Caius Cassius
Characters: Caius Cassius, Marcus Brutus, Portia, Junia, Pindarus
Summary: For Brutus, there is always time - time to consider, time to speak, time to make his point in twenty ponderously balanced lines. For Cassius, there is barely time to breathe.
Oh my goodness, this fic. I nearly didn't read it because I thought it'd be explicit (and me and explicit pr0n rarely get on, no matter what the pairing or flavour), but I don't think it even is, and anyway, it's marvellous and clever and exceptionally well-written and it's a look at Cassius, Brutus/Cassius and meta about being a character in a play (and of all the characters to pick on to be aware - or hallucinating - that he's a character, Cassius...) with constant refs to time and timepieces, anachronistic and otherwise (and I'm pretty sure there are also lots of little nods to different versions/performances of the play in there, if you know it well enough). As I said, it really is outstanding.
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Hopes and Fears and Fidgets (1288 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Matilda - Roald Dahl
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Matilda Wormwood, Jennifer Honey, Mrs Phelps (Matilda), Lavender (Matilda)
Summary: Four things Matilda wanted to be when she grew up, and one thing she became.
This has been recced quite a bit, but it's lovely, very much in-keeping with the book - and what Matilda decided to become in the end is one of those things that just feels so right.
Measure for Measure
Neptune Cast in Bronze (2032 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Measure for Measure - Shakespeare
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Major Character Death
Relationships: Duke Vincentio/Duchess Isabella, Duchess Isabella/other
Characters: Elbow, Escalus, Duke Vincentio, Isabella (Measure for Measure)
Summary: A casefile from CSI: Vienna
The ending of Measure for Measure is what you might call wonderfully bizarre with four potentially disastrous marriages made in one fell swoop. This is a fic that brilliantly lets those potential disasters happen. It's dark and clever and funny and written in a series of letters that are exactly right in tone for the period. Basically, it's amazing and you probably don't need that much knowledge of the play to enjoy it.
Monkey Island
Letters from Monkey Island (2053 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Monkey Island
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Guybrush Threepwood, Elaine Marley, LeChuck
Summary: Messages in a bottle, from the Monkey Island years.
There is Monkey Island fic and it's exactly as funny as I hoped when I clicked on it. It's been an age since I played this computer game, and I think my sister and I got stuck on the third one, but... this is perfect. Seword-fighting insults, the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, Guybrush, Governor Marley. ("Your house was shut up... Have you been kidnapped again?") ♥ It's a joy from start to finish.
New Tricks
The Best of a Bad Situation (1827 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: New Tricks
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sandra Pullman, Robert Strickland
Summary: What a way to start the day: trapped in a stalled lift with the boss, in a skirt and heels! Eh, things could be worse.
Sandra and Strickland stuck in a lift. Simple, but very engagingly New Tricks-ish and takes a look at their oddly ambigious relationship and possibly advances it (or not, who knows?). I am very pleased to see Strickland turn up in a New Tricks fic.
Sarah Jane Adventures
Walking the Penguin (1678 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sarah Jane Adventures
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rani Chandra/Clyde Langer
Characters: Rani Chandra, Clyde Langer, Gita Chandra, Haresh Chandra
Summary: Rani and Clyde are facing their toughest battle yet - they must tell Rani's parents that they're dating.
This is a delight from start to finish. As the summary says, except that naturally it involves confusion and an alien penguin... and if you know SJA and like Rani/Clyde, then what more do I really need to say? Gita, Haresh, Rani/Clyde and a penguin. It's lovely and huge fun. (And another of my gifts!)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: