Massive Yuletide Recommendation Post!
I'm supposed to be researching for the Christmas fanfic gifts I'm sending out, but I was also told to write one of these, so I have spent the better part of three hours skimming the entire Yuletide 2010 archive to find twelve pieces that I can crow about:
On the twelfth day of Yuletide, some fanfic came to me:
12) Cryptic Cases: Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Equitable Agency, written for the obvious fandom. There is very little I can say about this that isn't listed in the multiple comments listed at the bottom, but suffice to say that when I was a kid, Donald J. Sobol had written cases that (when they weren't subsequently proven by tvtropes to be incorrect) were just the right side of solvable. The two cases written here absolutely stumped me, and while I don't know enough to comment on the second solution, the first made me wonder where my observational skills went. It also neatly transplants the characters into their mid-twenties, figuring out that life isn't ever quite the same as it was in high school; just similar enough to recognise.
11) Great Commercials: I'm recovering from my traditional Christmas head cold, but I had to read all 2,300 words of Meta Yuletide Fic (The Fic You Wish Your Fic Smelled Like) aloud in my suavest voice. Which will ruin me, but I. Don't. Care. This is, while perhaps too obviously self-aware, brilliant. All the links work. Some of them even broke my brain. And it is written in the most fantastic impersonation of the Old Spice Guy that I think I've ever heard come from the mouth of someone who isn't the Old Spice Guy. I heartily recommend it to everyone who just wants to laugh hysterically for quite some time. Also, if you haven't had the experience of Care Bears BDSM fic, there's a link at the bottom of Meta Yuletide Fic. You're welcome.
10) Bronte Poems: I Am Acton Bell's Metaphorical Manhood, in the Hark! A Vagrant fandom, has forty-seven comments and a list of kudos that extends for nine lines of text. If you haven't read it, do so now. The first line of this fic is "Anne fucking hates the whole pseudonym thing." so you know it's going to be good.
9) Mystic Cities: Cities and the Dead. 0. The creation of a new one of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities came to me unexpectedly, and I was almost unsure whether or not to proceed with it, after an experience of mine. I recently attended a performance of John Cage's 'Musicircus', where a number of musicians perform different pieces simultaneously. It was not good. (Neither is the awkward shift between hard and soft 's' sounds in the name. But anyway.) I'm glad I kept reading when I discovered what the city of Kethya was like, as it sounds melodious, beautiful, and utterly, utterly horrifying. For that reason, it's my second-favourite non-existent location.
8) Hulkling/Wiccan: One of my favourite Young Avengers fics this year, Relative Terms (or, Not Exactly Christmas Elves) runs the gamut from impossibly sweet to the best kind of ridiculous crackfic ever. "He averted his eyes and scratched the back of his neck, holding the tome out to Billy with one hand. "Happy early Hannukah."" This kind of sentence is so in-character that it makes my heart hurt just a little bit.
7) Danish Royals: Hamlet/Rosencrantz. 'Huh,' I thought, opening By These Pickers and Stealers in a new tab. 'I'm not sure how that'll work.' The answer is 'very well'. It's totally in keeping with the entirety of Hamlet, and tells the brief tale of a rather tempestuous relationship between the two men with a straight face and an occasional brandishing of the source material. I'm hooked, and slightly less inclined to slash the entire play now, which if you know me well will prove somewhat of a relief. Time will tell. Here's a quick sample: "It had been a dreaming sort of world, one to be half forgotten once the day returned."
Whoo, halfway! Let's break into some more obscure stuff that could do with more love:
6) Writing Ravens: The diction in Tea and Conundrums is perfectly spot-on (unlike the stuff in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Abridged), which is good in a very different kind of way). It sets up, much like Lewis Carroll might have done, a quite perfect conundrum to be solved, filled with logical quandaries and a broad sense of surrealism. The first few lines, particularly, set up a pun that would have been music to the ears of an absurdist and master of language like Carroll.
5) Zombies Slash!: Explicit Zombieland fic: not something I thought I'd ever encounter. But the Tallahassee/Columbus slash in Impromptu is the Best Kind of Fun is not only well-written and in character, it's surprisingly HOT (considering I'm not generally a fan of significant age differences). I think what the author has done is make Columbus seem more adult, and Tallahassee more free and adolescent, which eases my discomfort at the general thing. It perhaps could have had a quick beta for spelling errors that spell-check won't notice (grammar fiends, be warned!) but overall, this is surprisingly good, as long as I try not to think too carefully about it.
Note: There's a lot of warnings that should be attached to the aforementioned piece, not least an incredibly trigger-happy dom/sub thing going on. Be prepared.
4) Thought-speak Friends: I thought the characterisation of the Animorphs fic Home(work) was quite impressive, but it's not that that is causing me to recommend this fic as much as I can. It's that this fic employs a very clever literary analysis of a poem by Tennyson to broaden the characters of Jake and Tobias. It's almost a pre-slash thing, but done so subtly and smoothly that I'm no longer sure if I'm reading too much into this writing or actually seeing what the author intended. In any case, it's sweet and a little heartbreaking. If you're a fan of it, or even read the first few books when you were a like, you might like to have a look at this.
3) Kisses: Being Human fans! Humans in general! Track down Three Kisses, which is an excellent piece about what happens when a Jewish werewolf discovers Christmas. Or at least, that's as close to a summary as I'm willing to give. Put another way, there's three people with mistletoe, right? Which means there's three possible two-person kissing combinations. There's the ghost with the werewolf, the ghost with the vampire, and the vampire with the were... ooh. If Twilight had included this, I would have been one of the people camped out in my living room every time a new book came out. Curse heteronormativity! Anyway... Three Kisses is also wickedly, wickedly funny, right down to the last italicised lines.
2) Hacker Guys: I know, it's probably bad form to pimp the gift I received, but when I was informed that it was still on the list of fics without comments (I needed time to process mine) I had to spring into action. Mouse used to have a life before he was released from The Matrix, but what was it? I have my own answer to that, but the author of Le Chat, Le Chat! gives me a run for my money with this wonderfully written piece. I won't say anything more about it, as I have already pummeled my author with an incoherent rant of praise, but please give my author the Yuletide they deserve!
and a Swedish Danish Finnish Fic of Glee!: Not the TV show, but rather the emotion, just in case you were concerned. I'm referring instead to Scandinavia and the World, and the excellent fic A Very Scandinavian Valentine's Day, about which I'll simply have to quote from my favourite canon relationship in this webcomic: Finland/Sister Sweden.
"She stood back up and began circling him, watching as he tried to keep his eyes on her without moving too obviously." That is quite possibly the perfect ending to my Yuletide season.