A handful of Yuletide recs

[vaznetti]

This hardly represents a full trawl of the archive, but here are some stories I have enjoyed.


Nothing Lost (83269 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 11/11
Fandom: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Colin Templer, Kivrin Engle, Verity Kindle, Ned Henry
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat
Summary: Colin’s ten-year journey to bring Polly home.

For me this is one of the standout fics of Yuletide – the novella-length version of Colin’s quest to rescue Polly (and her companions!). It fleshes out Willis’ universe in satisfying and plausible ways, and makes Colin a really amazing character, but not someone who works alone – Ned and Verity and Kivrin and even Ishikawa all help to bring the lost time-travelers home.


Translation Error (1413 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Greek Prose Composition - M. A. North & A. E. Hillard, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: M.A. North, Socrates (c. 469-399 BC), Homer (c. 8th century BC), Lysias, The Old Oligarch, Antiphon, Demosthenes (c. 384–322 BC), Isocrates, Herodotus, Polybius - Character, Sappho (fl. 600 BC), Hypatia (d. 415 AD), Publius Vergilius Maro | Virgil
Additional Tags: Crack, Crossover, Time Travel, Genderbending, Humor, Yuletide Treat


Very funny, although possibly most funny if you’ve read a lot of Greek prose. To wit:

Ms. North stared at her class list. In the depths of her heart, she did not want to call on Thucydides. She might never reach the end of the sentence. "Would anyone else like to try it? Polybius?"

"The problem," Polybius said, "with the approach of these other historians is that they have approached the entire discipline with the wrong sort of paradigm--"


It Takes a Village (3891 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan/Miles Vorkosigan
Characters: Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan, Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Miles Vorkosigan, Alys Vorpatril, Laisa Toscane Vorbarra, Helen Vorthys, Dono Vorrutyer, Nikolai Vorsoisson, Original Child Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Ivan Vorpatril
Additional Tags: some mentions of past emotional abuse, recovery narrative sort of, Wedding Planning
Summary: It turns out wedding planning, despite what she's been promised, is almost nothing like gardening.

I particularly like how Ekaterin has to figure everything out for herself here.


Wherever You Go, There You Are (5411 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Wire
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Randy Wagstaff, Namond Brice, Howard "Bunny" Colvin, Ellis Carver
Additional Tags: Future Fic, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Multiple, Growing Up
Summary: For the prompt: Years and years later, Carver recognizes one of his new recruits.

This is probably about as close to a happy ending as you can get in this fandom – and yet everything seems perfectly in character. Randy’s story broke my heart, but this makes it all a little better.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow (6459 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Will Stanton, Bran Davies (Dark Is Rising), Jane Drew, Barney Drew
Summary: "So," Will says at last. "Same time next year?"

This story makes my heart break for Will, and then heals it a little.

Weltanschauung (4170 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Bran Davies, Will Stanton, Barney Drew, Jane Drew, Simon Drew
Summary: "I suppose you better come in then," Will said and stepped back to let the tree past.

A less overwhelmingly tragic version of the same idea as the story above.


A Flash of Purity and Truth (6461 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: The Flashman Papers - George MacDonald Fraser
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Harry Flashman/Elspeth Flashman, Harry Flashman/OFC
Characters: Harry Flashman, Elspeth Flashman
Additional Tags: Flashy being awful, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Historical Accuracy
Summary: How did Flashy win the San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth by hiding under the bed?

I would have been happy to receive this story in response to my Flashman Papers prompt: it has a perfect sense of the novels and is (in parts) a great picture of the marriage between Flashy and Elspeth. The plot is a bit rushed at the end, but then, the plots in Flashman never do hang together all that well.

And now off to read some more!

Comments

[aceofkittens.livejournal.com]

Such lovely Dark is Rising stories!!!