9 Yuletide Recs
Find 9 Yuletide recs beneath the cut! This is only my first quick pass through the archive so I'm looking forward to lots more gems, especially since as I don't read big-for-Yuletide fandoms until after I'm done with everything else. So The Charioteer, The Terror and a few others are going to wait until I have the mental fortitude.
We'll Burn That Barn When We Come To It (3511 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 11th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Harold II of England/William the Conqueror
Characters: Harold II of England, William the Conqueror, Edith of Wessex (c. 1025-1075), Matilda of Flanders
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Crack, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Epistolary, Humor, Angry exes, Swearing, Arson, Bees
Summary:
from: h.godwinson@homespuntwaddle.com
to: brn@norman.org.fr
Hi Bill
Look, can we just talk this over like adults?
And the fact that I’m saying this despite the WIRE FENCE you’ve now erected round the perimeter of my farm ought to show you that I mean it. Please reply!
Harry.
OK, anyone who knows me can tell you that I am just not really a fan of modern AUs. But this one was perfect. In this one, Bill launches an attack against Harry's farm, with an unpredictable end, but a completely hilarious way of getting there. There's lawyers, emails, unauthorised seizure of land, good knowledge of history, and all of it added up to be amazing. A++
memento mori (4774 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Roman Poets RPF, 1st Century CE RPF, Ancient History RPF
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Marcus Valerius Martialis, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus | Pliny the Younger, Publius Cornelius Tacitus | Tacitus, Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus Germanicus | Titus Flavius Domitianus | Emperor Domitian
Additional Tags: Enemies to Friends, Period Typical Attitudes, Period Typical Ethnographic Nonsense, Courts and Court Culture, Figured Speech, social climbing, Pretentious Literary Allusions
Summary: How many clever wits does Domitian's Rome have room for?
Look this is my guiltiest of guiltiest pleasures for reasons I can't even explain. But the author has a feather touch with all of the characters, with the dynamics of patron/patronised, the complex interplay of poet-on-poet rivalry, and all sorts of good things, plus a witty touch that will make you die. Read it if you have any idea of the personal lives of these folks.
Tested By The Flame (1836 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Arthurian Mythology
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac
Characters: Gawain (Arthurian), Lancelot du Lac, Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere (Arthurian)
Additional Tags: Chivalry, Medieval Justice, Family Dynamics, Gawain Knows His Own Truth, Arthur is a Decent King
Summary: There are demands of him, placed there by the Code of Chivalry, and the expectations of his brothers, but Sir Gawain has always followed chivalry in his own way.
He may come to regret that, before the end.
My view of this fic I admit is skewed by T.H. White's Arthurian novels, where Gawain appears as that aberration - this guy who appears so bluff and hearty, and yet at the heart of him has a tender chivalry, a real and true adherence to Arthur's soul, not to what Arthur says. This fic hews to the heart of this, and in a subtle, beautiful way shows that even when Arthur is forced out of his customary pattern, in obedience to his laws, that his true soul lives on. Reading it informed by T.H. White/Malory is a heartbreaking experience and it's worth it even without it.
It's About Time (6051 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq.
Characters: Ted "Theodore" Logan, Bill S. Preston Esq., Rufus (Bill & Ted), Joanna (Bill & Ted), Elizabeth (Bill & Ted)
Summary: The summer, Ted figured, was going to be excellent.
Probably one of my fav fics this Yuletide, there is something endlessly charming and naïve about this fic in exactly the same mode as the movies. The conflict never comes from handjobs or angst, it comes from friends being unable to be friends, from time-travellers from the future having to counsel their heroes through adolescent sexual crisis, from babes from the past growing to be women in the 20th century. It's such lovely fun. I recommend without hesitation.
in good hands (3520 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Justified
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rachel Brooks & Raylan Givens & Tim Gutterson
Characters: Raylan Givens, Tim Gutterson, Rachel Brooks
Additional Tags: genuinely terrible puns, Unsolved mysteries (we were BUSY Art), Friendship
Summary: A hand, a refrigerator, a flood. Another hand. Raylan might be psychic.
Look, I talk a lot about how much Justified occupies my heart and for good reason. This fic embodies a huge amount of that reason - the friendship and camaraderie between Rachel, Tim and Raylan. This fic is drily fantastic with the wit, the fun, the case, the refrigerator and everything else. It's just really good, and really fun.
Greasepaint and Bliss (2170 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Red Shoes (1948), Ballet RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Victoria Page, Marie Rambert
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Ballet, Theatre, Artists, Ambition
Summary: On a wet Saturday afternoon, Vicky realized that she had outgrown the Mercury Theatre.
The Red Shoes occupies a place in my heart that I seldom care to explain. When I was a kid, I watched this film with absolutely rap fascination and a massive part of that was the awareness of a woman who was so dedicated to her art that the question of marriage vs being the best was an actual conflict, one that resulted in death (rather than painless anaemity fading into motherhood). This fic follows in that tradition, it explores Vicky - first the narrowing of her world and then the opening of it, with all of the dangers. There's something gorgeous about the descriptions, about the truth that women want like this, regardless of what lies at the end.
In the Teeth of the Wind (1792 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Peer Gynt - Henrik Ibsen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Peer Gynt/Solveig
Characters: Solveig (Peer Gynt), Peer Gynt - Character, Greenclad (Peer Gynt), Anitra (Peer Gynt)
Summary: If anyone asked, Solveig would say that she doesn't have a story.
There's something clever and subtle about this story, about the upending of the traditional meta of actor vs acted upon, the way that Solveig's story is devalued by herself as well as others, and yet the over all detail is as rich and detailed as we could hope, and that she is as interesting and vital a character as any other. It raises complicated questions and while I may not agree with the authorial answers, I love the story.
Always Be Somewhat Suspect (3478 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Relationships: Guy Woodhouse/Rosemary Woodhouse
Characters: Guy Woodhouse, Rosemary Woodhouse, Minnie Castevet, Roman Castevet
Additional Tags: Unreliable Narrator, Sexism, Banal Evil, Yuletide Treat, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Summary: Nine months of Guy Woodhouse self-justifications, in reverse.
This story is the aberration amongst my recs - check out the tags for starters! It's a story of deeply banal evil, but evil that resonates amongst our every day lives. Men who strip women of choices and personhood because they never viewed them as human is a contemporary topic, and applied to this film it is even worse. The narrator (in reverse order) shows the mental thought process of handing his wife up to be raped by the Devil and bear his child, and it's painful, but bleakly on the nose.
where our boundaries were thinnest (17052 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Constance Blackwood/Merricat Blackwood
Characters: Merricat Blackwood, Constance Blackwood
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Codependency, Unhealthy Relationships, Obsessive Behavior
Summary:
“There can’t be anyone else,” I said. “There isn’t anyone else. No one else exists except you and me and Uncle Julian and Jonas; all the rest of them are dead and only pretending to be alive. If you married a husband he would be dead and you would bring a dead man into our home, so you can’t.”
(There was nothing a husband could do for Constance that I couldn’t, except take her name away from her and give her a baby.
I haven't even commented on this yet (a terrible thing) yet I couldn't resist including this story pre-review because it is so good. In all seriousness, this works so hard to get the tone of the novel, and I love every single second of it, Uncle Julian, Merricat, Constance, the whole works. I cannot recommend this highly enough if you've read the books. Superb, every moment of it,