But wait, there's more!

The Yuletide Madness treat collection has now released, and I got another gift!!

In Sickness and in Health (Alliance-Union, Hellburner crew, 1400 words)
Like I just wrote in a comment, wow does this author ever have my number when it comes to these characters. XD Sweet and lovely h/c (in a very canon-plausible scenario!) with a character who has come so, so far from the lone wolf he was at the start of the series. ♥

My Yuletide is amazing this year. I'm so happy!

This year I went sliiiightly overboard and ended up writing ... *counts on fingers* 8 treats plus my assignment. Some might be relatively easy to guess; at least one I am confident that absolutely nobody is going to guess. Enjoy the treasure hunt. :D

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.