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I have been having a terrific Yuletide, and while I'm still hip-deep in the wonders of the archive (seriously, I haven't even gotten through all the Stephen King stories yet, let alone all the Stranger Things OT3 fics), I wanted to make sure to talk up my gifts and a couple of recs before the anon period ends.
Having received four superb Yuletide fics, I am obviously one of the luckiest people alive. Let me brag about this in an entirely non-tasteful way.
To Taran of Caer Dallben (Chronicles of Prydain) was my main gift, and it's a perfectly-voiced look at Eilonwy's character development during a time in the series when she's largely off-screen. It's entirely convincing as her voice and also entirely convincing as real correspondence, which is something I can never pull off, and I really love how you can see her growing throughout.
You Take Your Choice at This Time (Dark Tower) is a Madness treat, and it's the kind of perfectly-formed miniature that implies a whole world, and one I would be thrilled to read a whole alternate series for. It's Susan-as-gunslinger, questing across the desert, and its changes to canon are smart and subtle and its ending is phenomenal. I keep coming back to it in my head. It's excellent and haunting.
I'm the new blue-blood (Only Ever Yours) is my ideal fic for one of my most beloved awful-but-complicated characters, megan (non-capitalization deliberate), a classic mean alpha girl in a world where cruelty was her best chance of staying alive. It's an empathetic, complex, emotionally nuanced look at a girl who gets everything she wanted and then has to live with the narrowness of that, and it's dark but still believably hopeful.
And Her Hair in Golden Fire (Dark Tower) is another brilliant Susan-as-gunslinger story, also set in the desert, only this time it's Susan finally encountering the man in black and holding palaver with him. As with "Choice," I desperately want this to somehow grow into a whole alternate series behind my back. The prose is gorgeous, the sex is hot and troubled, the different ka-tet is thrilling, and the emotions--of both Susan and Walter--are exceedingly and appropriately complicated.
Like I said, an embarrassment of riches. And I've found a lot to love elsewhere, as well. Here are some of the stand-outs for me so far, with the caveat that I'm still going through tons of them.
Underworlds: The Life and Afterlife of Richard Upton Pickman is HP Lovecraft fic told as an art museum pamphlet, and if that doesn't immediately want to make you read it, it should--but even aside from the innovative format, this is a smart, rich development of the original story and of Lovecraft's themes in general, and it made me want to bum around an art museum for hours looking at everything.
Fair as the moon and joyful is also about art and also brilliant--it's a sharp, nuanced look at Topaz and Leda after the events of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, and it's elegant and knotty and empathetic, while having all the charm of intellectual talk of that period. The language and characterization are both stellar.
Warn the Wicked is an unnerving, spot-on look at The Handmaid's Tale's Aunt Lydia, one of the most complex characters on an already complex show. It traces the development of her feelings and ideology from childhood up to the beginning of Gilead, and it's appropriately stressful and beautifully written. It pairs excellently with the Moira-centric with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, also gorgeous, and about the trauma that has resulted from the world Lydia helped create. It's an intense story that really makes you feel both Moira's vulnerability and her strength, and delicately approaches how victims are handled by society while also being firmly rooted in this particular character and her particular troubles.
The Dark Tower series had a good year for fic, because I also have to highly recommend the Roland/Man in Black tour-de-force dust of the chase, which has some of the most perfect Randall Flagg you'll ever read, and the equally phenomenal Like a Willow, Gabrielle/Walter (with all the warnings that implies), sensitively and exquisitely written, and a much-needed look at Gabrielle's perspective.
If You See Her, Say Hello (Carrie) is a restrained, sparely-written look at Sue Snell in the aftermath, trying--and partly succeeding, partly failing--to move on with a life where she can't stop wondering what she could have done differently; it's bittersweet, sympathetic, and superb. The Madness Carrie fic Locusts in the Grass is likewise great, but from a completely different angle: it's Sue's diary in a world where Carrie survived and "It's a Good Life"-ed Chamberlain into being the world she wants, and it's incredibly creepy while still keeping everyone human.
Color Theory is Vantablack Pigment Feud RPF, which I hadn't even heard of before and which is well-worth reading about if you're likewise unfamiliar, because it's amazingly bananas if you like artists and pettiness and rebellious sentiments. This is funny and sharp, and it makes the most of its unusual format. (You will never laugh so hard at the color pink.)
pretty maids all in a row is wonderfully Jacksonian fic for We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a chilling and close study of Constance unraveling--but never quite--within the confines of her home.
And more recs to come!
Having received four superb Yuletide fics, I am obviously one of the luckiest people alive. Let me brag about this in an entirely non-tasteful way.
To Taran of Caer Dallben (Chronicles of Prydain) was my main gift, and it's a perfectly-voiced look at Eilonwy's character development during a time in the series when she's largely off-screen. It's entirely convincing as her voice and also entirely convincing as real correspondence, which is something I can never pull off, and I really love how you can see her growing throughout.
You Take Your Choice at This Time (Dark Tower) is a Madness treat, and it's the kind of perfectly-formed miniature that implies a whole world, and one I would be thrilled to read a whole alternate series for. It's Susan-as-gunslinger, questing across the desert, and its changes to canon are smart and subtle and its ending is phenomenal. I keep coming back to it in my head. It's excellent and haunting.
I'm the new blue-blood (Only Ever Yours) is my ideal fic for one of my most beloved awful-but-complicated characters, megan (non-capitalization deliberate), a classic mean alpha girl in a world where cruelty was her best chance of staying alive. It's an empathetic, complex, emotionally nuanced look at a girl who gets everything she wanted and then has to live with the narrowness of that, and it's dark but still believably hopeful.
And Her Hair in Golden Fire (Dark Tower) is another brilliant Susan-as-gunslinger story, also set in the desert, only this time it's Susan finally encountering the man in black and holding palaver with him. As with "Choice," I desperately want this to somehow grow into a whole alternate series behind my back. The prose is gorgeous, the sex is hot and troubled, the different ka-tet is thrilling, and the emotions--of both Susan and Walter--are exceedingly and appropriately complicated.
Like I said, an embarrassment of riches. And I've found a lot to love elsewhere, as well. Here are some of the stand-outs for me so far, with the caveat that I'm still going through tons of them.
Underworlds: The Life and Afterlife of Richard Upton Pickman is HP Lovecraft fic told as an art museum pamphlet, and if that doesn't immediately want to make you read it, it should--but even aside from the innovative format, this is a smart, rich development of the original story and of Lovecraft's themes in general, and it made me want to bum around an art museum for hours looking at everything.
Fair as the moon and joyful is also about art and also brilliant--it's a sharp, nuanced look at Topaz and Leda after the events of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, and it's elegant and knotty and empathetic, while having all the charm of intellectual talk of that period. The language and characterization are both stellar.
Warn the Wicked is an unnerving, spot-on look at The Handmaid's Tale's Aunt Lydia, one of the most complex characters on an already complex show. It traces the development of her feelings and ideology from childhood up to the beginning of Gilead, and it's appropriately stressful and beautifully written. It pairs excellently with the Moira-centric with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, also gorgeous, and about the trauma that has resulted from the world Lydia helped create. It's an intense story that really makes you feel both Moira's vulnerability and her strength, and delicately approaches how victims are handled by society while also being firmly rooted in this particular character and her particular troubles.
The Dark Tower series had a good year for fic, because I also have to highly recommend the Roland/Man in Black tour-de-force dust of the chase, which has some of the most perfect Randall Flagg you'll ever read, and the equally phenomenal Like a Willow, Gabrielle/Walter (with all the warnings that implies), sensitively and exquisitely written, and a much-needed look at Gabrielle's perspective.
If You See Her, Say Hello (Carrie) is a restrained, sparely-written look at Sue Snell in the aftermath, trying--and partly succeeding, partly failing--to move on with a life where she can't stop wondering what she could have done differently; it's bittersweet, sympathetic, and superb. The Madness Carrie fic Locusts in the Grass is likewise great, but from a completely different angle: it's Sue's diary in a world where Carrie survived and "It's a Good Life"-ed Chamberlain into being the world she wants, and it's incredibly creepy while still keeping everyone human.
Color Theory is Vantablack Pigment Feud RPF, which I hadn't even heard of before and which is well-worth reading about if you're likewise unfamiliar, because it's amazingly bananas if you like artists and pettiness and rebellious sentiments. This is funny and sharp, and it makes the most of its unusual format. (You will never laugh so hard at the color pink.)
pretty maids all in a row is wonderfully Jacksonian fic for We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a chilling and close study of Constance unraveling--but never quite--within the confines of her home.
And more recs to come!