A smattering of Yuletide recs

Stories read and adored so far:

Civilized Indecency (Fly by Night, by Frances Hardinge) - OMG, I love these books SO MUCH, and there are TWO STORIES for them this year! The first review for this story says "it's like you wrote a whole Frances Hardinge book in two thousand words!" and this is SO VERY TRUE! It's spot-on perfect Mosca and Clent, and the books' particular blend of very serious moral dilemmas and absurd con-artist hijinks is captured perfectly here.

Forging Ethics - It's a Fly By Night/Inception fusion, which is such an utterly incongruous blend of fandoms that I can't believe it works, yet it does! And there is pitch-perfect Mosca & Clent doing that banter/bicker/talking-past-each-other thing they do, plus really neat glimpses of AU worldbuilding (the Dreamcatchers!).

Dream of Drowning, and Wake in Snow (Rusalka/Russian Stories by CJ Cherryh) - *squeaks* It's h/c with Sasha and Eveshka and Pyetr! MY HEART! ♥ The author has got the book's voice down perfectly, and the characters are portrayed in a sort of not-quite-threesome group-family kind of thing that really works WONDERFULLY for me. (Also, maybe it's just this story, but I never noticed how similar the dynamics in those books - dearly beloved of my childhood - are to White Collar, at least to the fandom dynamic more than the actual show dynamic. It's not specific characters so much as the overall way they relate to each other, but this story really made me think of the way some authors *cough*frith-in-thorns*cough* write Neal & Peter & El.) Beautiful Eveshka POV, and if you like h/c and puppy piles (which I do!), this is so very much the story for you.

Celebration for Three Mages and a Wise Man (Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch) - eeeeeeeee, Rivers of London fic! I adore these books (they have totally tied Dresden Files for my "favorite urban fantasy ever" blue ribbon) and this is glorious - New Year's Eve at the Folly! I just can't even say how perfect it is: Peter and Lesley and Nightingale and Walid and Molly all being so them. (Most of the very limited fic in this fandom focuses on Peter and Nightingale, and it's not that I can't see why - I really do fangirl them hugely, and Nightingale pretty much had me at "hello" - but because I also adore Lesley to pieces, especially in Whispers Under Ground, I was really delighted to see her getting a good part in this story!)

Ghosts of Ettersberg (Rivers of London) - In contrast to the sweet and lighthearted above story, this one is a very serious, painful look at Nightingale's experiences during WWII (please check the warnings at the end if you're concerned it might be triggery for you!), as related to Peter during a sleepless night in the Folly.

There is another, LONG Rivers of London fic which I haven't read yet - I am reading the short ones, and saving the long one for a treat - but I have no doubt that I'm going to adore it when I do. eeeeeee, it's Ficmas! ♥ ♥ ♥

Rondeau (Forever Knight) - This is an absolutely wonderful Amanda Cohen POV that really brings her to life, along with her husband (who is an OC, but is so vivid and wonderful that I desperately wish he was a real character on the show!). It's set at the station Christmas party, so we get very nice glimpses of the other characters too.

Passage (Death Gate Cycle) - DEATH GATE FIC! This is a series of snapshots of Haplo and Alfred at different points in their lives, including post-series. (The fic is labeled Haplo/Alfred, which really isn't my pairing, but as with the Rusalka fic above, it's written in such a way that Haplo's relationship with both Alfred and Marit, post-series, reads in a really interesting group-marriage, gen-or-not-gen sort of way that is very "them" and works really, really well for me.)

Honey Trap (Trixie Belden) - I really enjoyed this look at the kids all grown up. There's a sense of melancholy optimism to this fic that rings very true - the way that none of them have managed to become quite what they wanted to be in the flush of their youthful idealism, but they're all still trying.

That's my first reading frenzy. :D I'm sure there will be more when I have a chance to read more stories!

Pondering the state of the fannish projects

... so guess who is due to post her story at whitecollarhc tomorrow and hasn't written ANYTHING? *points to self* Mainly because I was planning to use the week before Christmas to write it, and then the week before Christmas turned out to be sudden!surprise!family stuff. (I'm not complaining! I love my family! It's just ... not the week that I had thought it was going to be.) And then I did get a good solid day of uninterrupted writing time, and wrote stocking stuffers for fandom_stocking instead.

It ought to be possible to bang out a couple thousand words of random h/c in the next 24 hours. I could also dust off my Company Man tag and post that, since it's basically written (just needs a bit of polishing), except that it's depressing and I don't really want to go shoving depressing h/c at people for a fest.

I have also realized that this round of h/c bingo ends in a week, and I would really like to get a bingo on my card! I filled up so many spaces writing the psychic-Neal stories that it seems like a shame to just abandon it, but they're all over the place and I'm running out of time. Here is the state of the card:

( Under the cut to protect your flists )

(The filled squares are not really coded properly, but I'm lazy. *g*)

As you can see, I'm only two squares away from a bingo in a couple of different directions. I think it's possible? Maybe?

More recs

A few more random recs from all over the place, so that I can close some tabs! Not all Yuletide this time, just fics that I happen to have open in tabs at the moment.

Though I Sang in My Chains Like the Sea (Rivers of London) - This is the long Rivers of London fic that I mentioned in the last recs post, and it is just as good as I had hoped, and more! It's a wonderfully plotty casefic, full of interesting little details of the characters' lives and funny-snarky-sweet interaction between Nightingale, Peter and Lesley. OH EVERYONE! ♥ If you like the books, this is a must-read.

Of Christmas Past by BlueKiwi (Dresden Files) - Like the last Dresden Files fic I recced awhile back, this is another "Thomas and his siblings" fic (I seem to really like those!). This time it's set after "Turn Coat" and deals with Thomas at his darkest and lowest, separated from the people he loves most (Justine and Harry), believing himself a monster, and now, haunted by the (literal) ghosts of his dead brothers and sisters. Despite the premise, it's not horribly depressing; it's more a reminder that Thomas is a much better person than he often thinks he is.

Where the Lovelight Gleams by rabidchild67 (White Collar) - A sweet and hilarious (and long!) holiday story about Neal and Diana, after being loaned out to the Chicago office, trying to get home to New York for Christmas. So much fun!

Proof by frith_in_thorns (White Collar) - Sweet h/c schmoop with a drunken Neal. Frith-in-thorns does such a wonderful job with these people and their affection for each other.

And I just recently beta'd a White Collar/Carnivale crossover by aragarna: Let's Shake Some Snow. It's a sweet White Collar Christmas fic with a little background Carnivale woven into it.