Yuletide! Yuletide recs!
YULETIDE IS UPON US! I know you've all already heard me wittering endlessly about how much I've enjoyed participating in Yuletide (my first time!) But the stories are now revealed, and YULETIDE CONTINUES TO BE AWESOME.
I received three (three!) (3!) gifts, and I sincerely love and am blown away by them all. I just can't believe how lucky I am, and how kind and wonderful these writers are! Please allow me to rec:
• snow on snow, snow on snow (Seraphina by Rachel Hartman) - This is a stunning, detailed, thoughtful look at Seraphina a few years before the start of the novel, as she lives in the utter loneliness imposed by both her outsider status, and her family's fear of it. The story makes beautiful use of her only bond with someone who at least sometimes understands her (her dragon uncle, Orma), as well as the way Seraphina turns to music as the only outlet for her feelings. The prose, the attention to precise little world-building details, everything here is so perfectly true to canon. I mean it, I can't stop talking about how beautiful this is. I don't know whether or not this would make any sense to someone who doesn't know the canon, but it's so beautiful that I can't help thinking you ought to try. :-)
• Suite Infanta (Seraphina by Rachel Hartman) - Yes, I got two Seraphina fics! I can't even believe it! This is short, sweet and perfectly in character...and does precisely, precisely what I asked for in my sign-up, which is a glimpse of what life is like for Seraphina, Glisselda and Kiggs, as they navigate their public and private lives together after the events of the two books. It's also about Seraphina and music. And Seraphina and Orma. (I'd forgotten just how much I love Orma as a character, until these two fics reminded me.) It left me wanting more, more, more of these wonderful characters.
• The Strange Visitors (John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme) - And last but very much not least, this romp in the style of John Finnemore's eponymous storyteller had me laughing out loud. Only Finnemore could get almost abducted by aliens...but be so pedantic about it that the aliens eventually get frustrated and go away. :-)
Also, this one is not a gift to me, but it feels kind of like a gift, because it's in a fandom I nominated for Yuletide, requested for Yuletide, and have been relentlessly promoting all over the place ;-) So I was desperately hoping it might make it into Yuletide...and yes, there's a 221B Baker Towers fic!!! It's a gift to keerawa, the other person who also requested 221BBT, and it's so stunningly perfect for their request. (And so completely different from my own take on the 'verse - but that's the beauty of an open universe fandom!)
• Red Phosphorus (221B Baker Towers) - This is twisted, messy, dangerous, tough-young-streetwise-brilliant Holmes/Moriarty where Moriarty shapes Holmes, and Holmes makes Moriarty, and neither of them is ever going to be the same. I want so badly to know what their version of "The Final Problem" is going to look like.
ALSO! Yuletide has brought us a bounty of both John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme and John Finnemore's Double Acts fics. (Two takes on Bunning and Søndergaard from "Penguin Diplomacy," and three "Since you ask me..." tales! I think the fandom favorites are clear.) ;-)
There are so many intriguing Lord Peter Wimsey and Call Me By Your Name fics that I'm having to bookmark those for later, and there's a fic for Jane, Unlimited by Kristen Cashore that I'm likewise bookmarking for later because it's a bit longer, but it looks fantastic - it's from Ivy's perspective, so it's Ivy, Unlimited.
There's a short story ("The Thing in the Walls Wants Your Small Change" by Virginia M Mohlere) that I only discovered because of seeing it requested in Yuletide; it's delightful and well worth a read, and the fics for it are fantastic! The Giant in the Cavern Brings Copper and Silver and Gold, which gives a brilliant look at the same story but from the tiny dragon's perspective, and Apartment Dragons, in which Caro's grandmother comes to visit.
I grinned at That Sunday Morning Feeling (Love, Simon), a perfect bit of next-day-after-the-Ferris-Wheel fluff.
There are two Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fics to remind us just how weird and alien Ford Prefect is (one features a cameo from Jack Harkness!)
And to bring things full circle, there's a third Seraphina fic that also makes beautiful use of Seraphina's relationship to music (apparently everyone in this fandom but me can write beautifully about music!) Legato.
(Crossposted from this post on Dreamwidth, which is now my primary journal. Comments are fine in either place.)
I received three (three!) (3!) gifts, and I sincerely love and am blown away by them all. I just can't believe how lucky I am, and how kind and wonderful these writers are! Please allow me to rec:
• snow on snow, snow on snow (Seraphina by Rachel Hartman) - This is a stunning, detailed, thoughtful look at Seraphina a few years before the start of the novel, as she lives in the utter loneliness imposed by both her outsider status, and her family's fear of it. The story makes beautiful use of her only bond with someone who at least sometimes understands her (her dragon uncle, Orma), as well as the way Seraphina turns to music as the only outlet for her feelings. The prose, the attention to precise little world-building details, everything here is so perfectly true to canon. I mean it, I can't stop talking about how beautiful this is. I don't know whether or not this would make any sense to someone who doesn't know the canon, but it's so beautiful that I can't help thinking you ought to try. :-)
• Suite Infanta (Seraphina by Rachel Hartman) - Yes, I got two Seraphina fics! I can't even believe it! This is short, sweet and perfectly in character...and does precisely, precisely what I asked for in my sign-up, which is a glimpse of what life is like for Seraphina, Glisselda and Kiggs, as they navigate their public and private lives together after the events of the two books. It's also about Seraphina and music. And Seraphina and Orma. (I'd forgotten just how much I love Orma as a character, until these two fics reminded me.) It left me wanting more, more, more of these wonderful characters.
• The Strange Visitors (John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme) - And last but very much not least, this romp in the style of John Finnemore's eponymous storyteller had me laughing out loud. Only Finnemore could get almost abducted by aliens...but be so pedantic about it that the aliens eventually get frustrated and go away. :-)
Also, this one is not a gift to me, but it feels kind of like a gift, because it's in a fandom I nominated for Yuletide, requested for Yuletide, and have been relentlessly promoting all over the place ;-) So I was desperately hoping it might make it into Yuletide...and yes, there's a 221B Baker Towers fic!!! It's a gift to keerawa, the other person who also requested 221BBT, and it's so stunningly perfect for their request. (And so completely different from my own take on the 'verse - but that's the beauty of an open universe fandom!)
• Red Phosphorus (221B Baker Towers) - This is twisted, messy, dangerous, tough-young-streetwise-brilliant Holmes/Moriarty where Moriarty shapes Holmes, and Holmes makes Moriarty, and neither of them is ever going to be the same. I want so badly to know what their version of "The Final Problem" is going to look like.
ALSO! Yuletide has brought us a bounty of both John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme and John Finnemore's Double Acts fics. (Two takes on Bunning and Søndergaard from "Penguin Diplomacy," and three "Since you ask me..." tales! I think the fandom favorites are clear.) ;-)
There are so many intriguing Lord Peter Wimsey and Call Me By Your Name fics that I'm having to bookmark those for later, and there's a fic for Jane, Unlimited by Kristen Cashore that I'm likewise bookmarking for later because it's a bit longer, but it looks fantastic - it's from Ivy's perspective, so it's Ivy, Unlimited.
There's a short story ("The Thing in the Walls Wants Your Small Change" by Virginia M Mohlere) that I only discovered because of seeing it requested in Yuletide; it's delightful and well worth a read, and the fics for it are fantastic! The Giant in the Cavern Brings Copper and Silver and Gold, which gives a brilliant look at the same story but from the tiny dragon's perspective, and Apartment Dragons, in which Caro's grandmother comes to visit.
I grinned at That Sunday Morning Feeling (Love, Simon), a perfect bit of next-day-after-the-Ferris-Wheel fluff.
There are two Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fics to remind us just how weird and alien Ford Prefect is (one features a cameo from Jack Harkness!)
And to bring things full circle, there's a third Seraphina fic that also makes beautiful use of Seraphina's relationship to music (apparently everyone in this fandom but me can write beautifully about music!) Legato.
(Crossposted from this post on Dreamwidth, which is now my primary journal. Comments are fine in either place.)