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Reading my way through the Yuletide archive
Man, the Imperial Radch fandom lucked out this year. It's not even one of my regular reading fandoms, but there's a bunch of long fic and it's all really good!
My favorite of the Imperial Radch fic I've read so far was this:
Every Sundown (10K wds)
This is a roleswap AU in which Breq is the displaced human 1000 years from her own time and Seivarden is a ship. However, since they are still basically themselves as of when we met them in canon, Breq is a rebel fighting the Empire and Seivarden is a derelict ship who lost her crew and has been drifting in space for who knows how long and basically went nuts, spending all her time gazing at nebulas 24/7 and stringing out her one remaining ancillary on painkillers. The characterization in their new roles and resulting changes in their dynamic and power balance are really well done. I loved this.
Other fic I enjoyed in that fandom:
Murderbot's Accidental Exchange Program (8600 wds, Imperial Radch/Murderbot crossover)
I imagine readers who are more into the Murderbot books than I am will get more out of this, but I still really loved the culture clash, general plot, and dry narrative tone.
Every Chambered Cell (6300 wds)
Breq and Seivarden on a mission. I loved the Seivarden narrative voice, sarcastic and funny and occasionally heartbreaking, and the plot was very iddishly satisfying for me.
Longing (11K wds)
Post-canon relationship-building in which Ship uses Seivarden as an ancillary-substitute/meat-puppet to have a relationship with Breq, and Seivarden goes along with it because, well, Seivarden. Shameless idficcy woobification? Sure, but it's well characterized and I ate it up with a spoon.
Other fandoms:
je suis un nous (Ben January, 1500 wds, canon pairings with a poly-ish vibe)
The main set of characters meet pre-canon in a Sense8-style telepathic cluster. I haven't seen Sense8 so I only know of it via fandom osmosis, but I really loved this; it was great to get their reactions to each other before they all met in canon, and I am always down with various takes on soulbonding.
in good hands (Justified, 3500 wds, casefic, Raylan & Tim & Rachel)
This was absolutely hilarious and also suspenseful and well plotted with great character voices. Totally reads like an episode.
Who Comes and Never Leaves (Justified, 3500 wds, Rachel & Tim with brief appearances by others)
This is a great look at Rachel and Tim's friendship and their outside POV on the general wtfery that Raylan has brought into their lives.
Not-so-Silent Night (Nimona, 3000 wds, Ballister/Ambrosius, but mostly Ambrosius & Nimona)
Ballister's two favorite people, who are also each other's least favorite people, team up to rescue him. Really fun and sweet.
Bird's Eye View (Daredevil comics, 1500 words, Matt & Foggy)
A sweet friendship scene, post secret identity reveal.
All the Trollhunters fic in Yuletide this year is really good and worth reading, but this was the one I liked enough to bookmark:
Still Life (Trollhunters, 1500 wds, Barbara/Strickler)
Sweet post-canon putting-their-relationship-back-together fic.
My favorite of the Imperial Radch fic I've read so far was this:
Every Sundown (10K wds)
This is a roleswap AU in which Breq is the displaced human 1000 years from her own time and Seivarden is a ship. However, since they are still basically themselves as of when we met them in canon, Breq is a rebel fighting the Empire and Seivarden is a derelict ship who lost her crew and has been drifting in space for who knows how long and basically went nuts, spending all her time gazing at nebulas 24/7 and stringing out her one remaining ancillary on painkillers. The characterization in their new roles and resulting changes in their dynamic and power balance are really well done. I loved this.
Other fic I enjoyed in that fandom:
Murderbot's Accidental Exchange Program (8600 wds, Imperial Radch/Murderbot crossover)
I imagine readers who are more into the Murderbot books than I am will get more out of this, but I still really loved the culture clash, general plot, and dry narrative tone.
Every Chambered Cell (6300 wds)
Breq and Seivarden on a mission. I loved the Seivarden narrative voice, sarcastic and funny and occasionally heartbreaking, and the plot was very iddishly satisfying for me.
Longing (11K wds)
Post-canon relationship-building in which Ship uses Seivarden as an ancillary-substitute/meat-puppet to have a relationship with Breq, and Seivarden goes along with it because, well, Seivarden. Shameless idficcy woobification? Sure, but it's well characterized and I ate it up with a spoon.
Other fandoms:
je suis un nous (Ben January, 1500 wds, canon pairings with a poly-ish vibe)
The main set of characters meet pre-canon in a Sense8-style telepathic cluster. I haven't seen Sense8 so I only know of it via fandom osmosis, but I really loved this; it was great to get their reactions to each other before they all met in canon, and I am always down with various takes on soulbonding.
in good hands (Justified, 3500 wds, casefic, Raylan & Tim & Rachel)
This was absolutely hilarious and also suspenseful and well plotted with great character voices. Totally reads like an episode.
Who Comes and Never Leaves (Justified, 3500 wds, Rachel & Tim with brief appearances by others)
This is a great look at Rachel and Tim's friendship and their outside POV on the general wtfery that Raylan has brought into their lives.
Not-so-Silent Night (Nimona, 3000 wds, Ballister/Ambrosius, but mostly Ambrosius & Nimona)
Ballister's two favorite people, who are also each other's least favorite people, team up to rescue him. Really fun and sweet.
Bird's Eye View (Daredevil comics, 1500 words, Matt & Foggy)
A sweet friendship scene, post secret identity reveal.
All the Trollhunters fic in Yuletide this year is really good and worth reading, but this was the one I liked enough to bookmark:
Still Life (Trollhunters, 1500 wds, Barbara/Strickler)
Sweet post-canon putting-their-relationship-back-together fic.
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No worries if you don't have thoughts on that though!
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And oh, I see! Yeah, I just meant "because of Seivarden being the sort of person she is" - i.e. low self-esteem, completely gone for Breq but convinced Breq doesn't like her, that kind of thing; it completely makes sense that she'd agree to an arrangement that essentially leaves out her autonomy as a person, because she would. It's very much in character. So I was basically trying to shorthand that and kinda missed the mark. I think you hit the mark exactly, though! Does that make sense?
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That makes total sense. Seivarden is exactly that type of character, you can see that pretty clearly in the second book. Poor Seivarden.
I wanted to apologize though. I basically got really excited that you liked my story and jumped straight into writing discussion, which is really more of a multiple comment type interaction. It's sort of like skipping all of the small talk when you meet a person, so sorry for being really intense there. None of my friends care about Ancillary Justice, so my desperate shipping theories are pretty lost on them.
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