skywaterblue

DS9

All is Cracked and Confusion by agapi42

This is a time-travel story that you have to read twice to fully understand. During the Bajoran Occupation, the Cardassians steal the Orb of Time. Kira went on two missions: one aborted, one where they failed, to stop it from happening. A great story that could have happened on the show, and the author knows just the right amount of sly Garak to provide.

Immortal by tornyourdress

Jadzia, before Dax. This has a lovely look at how much pressure individuals in Trill society are under to be found worthy of joining.

In The Files by tree_and_leaf

A minor Bajoran technician on the station left a surprise for the Dominion. Now she's dead and the station is back in the hands of the Federation. I particularly like this one for the spitfire mother OC.

Slings and Arrows

People Who Don't Understand Brecht Don't Understand Life by Sage.

I don't really get the pairing on this one, but it was highly rec'ed so I gave it a shot... and it works for me! Not the pairing, but what the relationship establishes about the story. A young Darren and Geoffrey join New Burbage and get cast by Oliver in Marlowe's Edward II - the author has a really insightful psychological grasp on how Darren and Geoffrey are developing as young actors, and on Oliver in his middle years. I love the backstabbing, the secret cattiness of the casting, and the OCs who raise Darren do so much to flesh out the world and make him a sympathetic character. Highly recommended by me as well!

Thereby Hangs a Tale... by Satchelfoot.

After the series, Geoffrey eventually returns to acting. A really enjoyable, true to the series tone ficlet. After all, all the world's a stage...

Sandman

Every year, there are Sandman crossovers. Sandman is a little black dress - it goes with everything. I think the harder challenge is to write stories that take place entirely within the series, and there was one really good choices this year.

Except in Dreams by elynross

A day in the life of Lucien, Head Librarian in the Library of Dreams. This story makes fantastic use of the Dreaming's supporting cast and is hung on the delightful idea that Lucien and Nuala are organizing concerts of the great unfinished (except in dreams!) works of classical composers.

Magic School Bus
As I Always Say
How to take the oft-joked upon premise of "Mrs. Frizzle is a Time Lord" and mix it with the bittersweet nature of the Doctor's relationship with his companions, all while sneaking in a third crossover.

Young Wizards/Sandman/Illuminatus! Trilogy
Die Morgensheutegesternwelt
The band names alone are killer. Tom and Carl slip into another universe, on an acid trip, and Carl re-names an Endless in the Speech - a daringly beautiful premise that fits entirely into both universes.

Dragonriders of Pern
Dragonsearch
Mirrim is tired of being the only woman on a fighting dragon - and decides to ask the Weyrleaders if she can go on Search. A lovely novella-length work with three OCs that fit so perfectly into the Pern universe I forgot they were OCs. (Yay for Lanner.)

Clouds the Color of Fire
The perfect version of "how Lessa discovered she was pregnant" - a great prompt for a missing scene. I love the way the dragons are done in this one.

Triage
In the First Interval, a mother and daughter doctor discuss the choices that have to be made as Pern slides away from technology. I have a funny suspicion I know who wrote this - it's a great slice between Dragonsdawn and Dragonseye, and also shows that Pern can be compelling without Thread and dragons.

Octopus Steals My Video Camera and Swims Off With It While It Is Still Recording
Experiments With Intelligence
The secret winner of Yuletide. Three Quick Flickers And All Arms Waving will also steal your heart.

Millennium Trilogy
The Desk Clerks Dressed In Black
I am kind of going through a Lisbeth Salander thing right now after promising myself I never would do that. (Promises are made to be broken!) So of course, Cesperenza requested Mikael/Lisbeth and it is AWESOMELY them while simultaneously resolving one of the big blocks between the two of them getting together. (It is awesome to have a ship where, spoilers, the main characters have canonical sex long before the issues keeping them apart are resolved.)

There have been some spectacularly awesome long fics posted to A03 lately. No idea if they're the product of Big Bangs - I mentioned in the locked post that my ability to access the internet hasn't been astonishingly great since I moved, and one of the consequences of working hard in studio and that has been not checking Dreamwidth or LJ ... well, mostly at all, is that I don't know if these have been rec'ed to death yet or what.

West Wing

War Criminals by FabulaRasa
It's a novella (42,000+ words!) length story slashing Leo McGarry/Lord John Marbury which is a fabulously weird pairing to write 42,000+ words about, isn't it? It's remarkably pacy, despite that, and the author brings in and has equally interesting cameos for many of the other characters.

Except for some structural issues involving how you shouldn't do nested flashbacks of that length in prose, I think it's a wonderful AU story that makes marvelous use of the things West Wing was ABOUT - international politics and the interpersonal crisis of heart that follow - and I genuinely would like to sit in a room and learn from this Lord John and Leo, who sound every bit the international war time consiglieres they are meant to be.

our book won't close by slybrunette

A shorter Josh and Amy fic, post-Santos, that has an all too depressing burnt edges feel in that nothing that happens around the edges is too surprising, but the fact that things fall apart is more Wells and less Sorkin. I like these stories where, rather than the post-admin written during the Sorkin-era, everyone's older and wiser/dumber and politics is meaner and more meaningless. (I think, if you're modeling your life off Leo McGarry's choices - and Josh Lyman very much does so, it doesn't bode well for happy endings.)

DS9

Reproduction by kattahj

It starts off as a zany xenobiology story - the Dax symbiont has to lay eggs! - which morphs into a detailed examination of the issues surrounding Ezri and Julian having children of their own. Much care and thought went into this fic, and it feels both pitch-perfect to the DS9 universe as well as managing to convince me that Ezri and Julian were more than an odd fling.

A Space for Faith by beatrice_otter

An all OC-tale that would fit neatly into the universe of post-canon DS9 novels if you let it. This is a five chapter story of a young Bajoran security officer on the threshold of becoming absorbed into Starfleet, and the older Vulcan officer she becomes friends with through tutoring. (There's a little blip where the two discuss religion that I find jarring in context of what Starfleet science can do - and what Starfleet science teaches about the Prophets, but I think the choice of pairing a spiritual Vulcan with a Bajoran developing long rusty skills is more interesting overall than this blip.)

1. Rachel Maddow follows me on Twitter now. You are all insanely jealous, right?

This wasn't as big of a freak out for me as it was my other friends, because I don't write fanfiction about real people and thus never have to worry she'll find my Rachel Maddow/Ana Marie Cox stories. They don't exist.

2. Just Like Starting Over, a Mad Men Peggy/Don future fic. I'm not sure if there are a lot of stories in this fandom that project the characters forward - this one does a great job at applying the 1980s to the characters and style of the series. The little details are what makes this work - the opening gambit of Peggy's interview with Ms. Magazine, being asked about the Diana/Charles wedding. Don reading 'Rabbit is Rich'. It's the details that make the relationship seem believable.

And how can you not love the period-appropriate John Lennon title?

3. The cosmos own our luck. CJ and Toby, post series. Again, with the details. They're both political people, their lives take place in the background of big events - the choice to frame the dialogue as dashed off emails sent as CJ runs about fixing the world is inspired.

4. Malice Aforethought - DS9 needs a few more lawyers. I don't want to spoil it, but this is a fic about how Kira is awesome. Everyone likes that, yes?

5. That I can rec new fic from twenty and eleven year old fandoms makes me happy. Continue shining on, you crazy diamonds.

Highlander:
The Dying Gaul
Methos, so sharp and pricky and vivid in this single Highlander story. I love the free way it mixes art, and history, and Immortality.

His Dark Materials:
All of the His Dark Materials stories were really good this year.

Acadaemia
This fandom is a challenging one, with its free mix of theology, fantasy, and steampunk Victoriana. The author on this piece does a convincing job with the world of Lyra's Oxford, in the tale of the first meeting of Marisa Coulter and Lord Asriel. The characters are themselves, younger and growing into their deviousness. And the twists are quite interesting.

Three Heresies
Three meetings between Serafina and Xaphania - lovely and poetic, this one.

A Brief History of the Witches and their Culture
The lives of Serafina and Ruti Skadi, Queens of the Witches. A very dense look at their lives, intersecting and different. Another one that gets the culture of their world correct.

The Incredibles:
Of Capes and Kindred Spirits
Edna Mode designs Buddy's new suit, and has regrets.

James Bond Reboot:
The Care and Feeding of Your M
From the perspective of Miss Moneypenny: A female M changes everything, or does it?

Jurassic Park:
A Year of Women
Stop everything. You must read this one, even if you only casually like the fandom. This is about twelve women in Alan Grant's life, but the author has really just blown up the book fandom, the movies and put them back together in an elegy about life, and the role of women (and gender) in science.

Lilo and Stitch:
Mountains, Molehills
The entire ohana is concerned about when David and Nani will get married. Short, but so in tone with the film.

The Little Mermaid:
So many good fics for this fandom this year!

Mysterious Fathoms Below
Little vignettes of Ariel's life interspersed with a Victoriana lecture about the merpeople. I love the not-so-cryptic Disney crossover, and the way this uses material from the recent sequel.

Triton's Cove
The temptation with the Disney fics is always to make them darker and more sinister - because the Disney Princess films are full of flawed messages (and none so much as The Little Mermaid). I like this one for its effort to stay away from that, to take canon for what it is and find the happy medium between the characters and the story.

The Skin Beneath the Skin
Of course, the original story was a bitter and melancholic affair much driven by Anderson's closeted homosexuality. Ariel's ever-after. I like the stories hinted in a couple of lines - I wish this one was longer, actually.

Lion in Winter
Mnemosyne
Should have a warning for rape. A really interesting take on how the memory lies.

Olympia:
Galatea
Oh Gosh, how I thought about signing up for Yuletide just to write the story for this person. My favorite painting of all time, Manet's Olympia. The author took an interesting tack on this one, narrating the story from the perspective of the painting and not any of the interesting historical people surrounding its creation.

Neverwhere:
The Never-Green Tree
I know one of these days Gaiman might get around to writing the sequel to this, and Joss all these Yuletides to bit. None the less, I love them every year. On the quest to find Door's missing sister, Ingress, Richard Mayhew decides to go on a quest of his own: to discover what happens to Anesthesia, the rat-girl. The author of this one takes clear delight in remixing London Above's history with the world of London Below.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
Let It Be
The author of this one is patently obvious, and as if she knew it, hasn't bothered to wipe all her smudgy fingerprints off of it. Missing scenes from the death of Jadzia and the arrival of Ezri Dax - I love the way she's brought in Worf's backstory from TNG to DS9, and made the eventual relationship between Ezri and Julian make a lot more sense. They do have much in common after all.

Runaways:
buckle up, we're wayward bound.
Gert and Chase, so alive. This fic made me feel the rush of shipper love, which is something I didn't really know I could feel about comics.

Lady Lazarus
Title rather gives it away, but it perfectly captures the spirit of the comic - and manages to include the new team members around the edges. Plus: they fight evil hipsters in a Starbucks. That's perfection.

Mad Men:
Some truly brilliant fics for this fandom this year. It feels like Yuletide (and fandom) may have finally figured out what they want to say about this show.

Two Omissions, One Acknowledgment
A year in the (sex) life of Peggy Olson. It just gets her right.

The Hot 100 Number 1 Singles of 1965 & 1966
Another long, STOP you must read this fic, the kind that Yuletide is famous for, and that I was almost afraid wouldn't appear. This fic does the seemingly impossible task of making a Peggy and Joan friendship believable - there's an appearance of a ridiculous fic trope towards the end and I could not BELIEVE that I not only bought it, but loved it. Everyone's voice is perfect. I love the scenes with Joan and Lane, and the Joan/Roger scene is worth the price of admission. I hope season five is as satisfying as this fic, but I know it'll be more frustrating: this fic is the perfect expression of Mad Men wish fulfillment.

Handlebars by chaila.

I debated whether I wanted to make a West Wing vid to this song for a while and ultimately dismissed it because I decided it was a. overplayed in fandom and b. pretty dark.

Now I wish I had. chaila has focused it strictly on Bartlet and it's an absolutely chilling look at the character. Go watch.

Which reminds, me, I saw "The Social Network" Thursday on screener passes. I tweeted about it but I never got around to writing an entry on it. Let's do that now, shall we?

Non-spoilery: While maybe not the 'greatest movie of the year', the glowing reviews have been fairly on the money. Easily the best thing Sorkin's written since 'The West Wing' and in many ways the apogee of a lot of things he's been working through. Thus I recommend highly that you see it, especially if you are a fan of his and on the fence - it's always good to see an artist finally LAND the theme they were circling around for ages.

( Spoilery )

Also, any film where part of the plot involves drunken emo break up Livejournaling? You guys should all be lining up for it.

First, I made this weird Hamlet/Doctor Who/Victoria Bitter fanart. It made sense at the time. What can I say?

Speaking of Shakespearean things, I want to recommend this amazing Merchant of Venice fic that selenak recced first. A Wilderness of Monkeys. It's about what happens after, and *fists up to her mouth* OMG SHYLOCK/PORTIA. I ship it so hard and I didn't know it until this fic. It's the ultimate in clever hatesex, but I promise by the second chapter you'll be kind of rooting for this crazy couple to make it work. Which is so wrong in so many ways. (So wrong it's right.)

In fact, I may have cast it in my head so that Shylock is being played by Richard Schiff and Portia is Cate Blanchett.

Unfortunately, there are only two chapters. I live in hope for more.

I also want to rec The Dance by taraljc, which is the history and the culture of the Orion people, widely varied, as told by Gaila. I love that in this story, none of the Orion women are former slaves. I love the way her Orion is matriarchal. I haven't been able to leave a comment because I was trying to write something like this, but she beat me to it and hers is better.

Beauty and the Beast (Disney)

Bittersweet - this one goes out to all the people who think the movie would have had a better ending if the Beast had stayed a monster and not become a man. It's tragic.

The American President

I liked Of Old and New Beginnings for the way it focused on the secondary characters of Shepard's staffers, and told their stories with an eye towards the story it would become on 'The West Wing' - not just in terms of the characters themselves becoming CJ and Josh, but the actual nods to Bartlet.

Love, Actually

Speaking of politics, Impropriety is a terrifically cute story from 'Love, Actually', about Natalie's adjustment to being the Prime Minister's girlfriend. It's laugh out loud funny, and told with a lot of verve and spirit. And a lot of curse words. If you liked this segment of the film, I think you'll really enjoy this.

Body Worlds Exhibition

What a WEIRD fandom to be suggested. You gotta read it for the this-could-only-be-Yuletide factor. I enjoyed both stories, but In the bleak midwinter has one of the strangest, most memorable and heartwarming Nativities ever made to bend electrons.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

The fic in this fandom this year is focused on making Mr. Yunioshi an actual character of color, and not just horrible yellowface. This story, Mr. Yunioshi's Photographs, gives him a Japanese background appropriate for the time period, and is sticky enough that I'll think of it the next time I see the film, and feel a little more at ease. (The book is better, though.)

My Little Ponies

Every year there's one of these brain bendingly serious takes at a children's fandom. I loved Another Rainbow in Another Sky for the serious attempt at making the humans in the my Little Pony fanchise interesting and for the completely unexpected fandom crossover at the end. Oh, and the cursing.

Breakfast Club

Most Likely To features a dot-com washup Brian forced to move back home, where he runs into Bender. The story is of excellent length and build-up, really good work as a gen piece until it brings out some achingly sweet slash towards the end. I enjoyed it a lot.

Firebringer Trilogy

asdfgh someone requested Firebringer fic and then someone wrote it omfg.

Silver Feathers and Golden Hair is a perfect Firebringer story. It opens with Jah-lila's narration and a fairly flawless imitation of Meredith Ann Pierce's writing style, with the opulent descriptions of the world that characterize her stories. This is the story of Lell and Illishar, possibly the biggest hanging edge left over from the original trilogy. I think anyone who loves these books will enjoy this one.

Casablanca

Casablanca is a perennial Yuletide favorite, and always seems to turn out really interesting novella-length stories. This year was Sam's turn to shine.

Sentimental Reasons is the story of Sam meeting Rick in 1930s Harlem, told in rich detail. I especially liked the development of Rick's employment, his disillusion, and the two of them leaving off to explore the world together. The crush that Sam has for Rick is built up slowly, so slowly I almost missed it at first. This also has an unexpectedly happy ending, which I appreciated.

Sam in Casablanca, on the other hand, starts immediately after the close of the movie and details what happens to Sam after Rick's left his life. I think I like this one a little more for its disillusionment and focus on the re-definition of self, for the way it uses the secondary characters who worked for Rick (oh Karl), and for its look at Ilsa and Laslo after the war, which I found convincing.

So that I can close tabs and also mark which ones to leave feedback on, as the comment tab hasn't been working at all for me.

Pern

This year brought a bumper crop of Pern fics, interestingly a lot of femmeslash between Mirrim and Menolly. And Stinging As a Well-Aimed Dart is one of those, from Mirrim's perspective. There's a lovely bit on Pernese girls playing Mirrim-fights-Thread games and of course, a firelizard flight to provide the Pern universe's version of Pon Farr. The author does a lovely job balancing the fanon tendency to make the dragons sassier, while still making Path sound as Pernese dragons should do.

I also really enjoyed The Ballad of Mirrim and Menolly's Ride, which is not femmeslash but rather an adventure fic in which the two girls fight an unexpected Threadfall, and Path keeps accidentally betweening them to worse and worse alternate universes in an attempt to warn Pern. The idea that you can between to an alternate universe is one I haven't seen done before and the author chose some really interesting ones to explore.

Perspective is a short fic which peers into Pern's very far future. I enjoyed this one because the author obviously has the same problem with the dragons as I do.

Fifty Years After the Fair is a story of Benden Weyr in the First Pass - a time period with interesting characters established by Anne McCaffery but sort of forgotten and/or ruined by her son's continual attempts to inherit the franchise. This one I feel is a very Pern story, compressed for Yuletide: it's generational, following the children and granchildren of one of the background goldriders. And it also features some unusual plot twists - family resentments over who Impresses and what color, abrupt deaths due to Thread and other maladies, basically things which should occur more often in the series but do not.

His Dark Materials

like gold to ayery thinnesse beate I enjoyed very much and I was surprised by that - I very rarely enjoy Will/Lyra reunion fics because most of them are silly tosh. But this one is quite clever in that it features adult Will and Lyra, both of whom have had interesting careers. And I quite like the indomitable spunk in which an adult Lyra, having suddenly arrived on our Earth, set about to finding Will again. The author revels in the little details which make up the massive change between going from a mid-Edwardian universe, to ours with google and airports and national ID cards. There are two sequels for your instant gratification as well.

By far my favorite though, and possibly going to be my favorite of the year, was Dinosaurs in the Architecture. The main character is a young woman with a paleontologist father, whose daemon has inadvertently settled as a dinosaur. In a world where the Church has forced Darwin into exile, this spells problems for our heroine. I adore this, as I adore all long looks at Lyra's world and the concept of having your soul on the outside. If I didn't know better I would think I knew the author for this. Dinosaurs! Angels! Quasi-Victorian Steampunk Adventure!

Young Wizards

But Rather Darkness Visible, the one that Aria got, is a crossover between Doctor Who and Young Wizards... which is actually canon for that universe! (No, really. These two characters have in canon met.) In this one, Dairine is tasked with having a friendly chat with Ten post-Waters on Mars. It's quite lovely and smooshes the two canons together effortlessly. What I wouldn't give to see the Tenth Doctor greet a wizard-on-errantry with "Dai stiho" onna telly.

I also liked and the city stood in its brightness for the lovely vignettes, and the errand Dairine is sent to run is the Wizardry series at its best: cutting edge science fiction.

Finally, I really really enjoyed A Matter of Choice in which Dairine notices something off with her Twilight-obsessed schoolmate and enlists Ronan's help in a brief battle for her soul. But not in the way that you would think! Twilight is surprisingly not bashed in this story as silly, but rather something bittersweet. It broke my heart, a little.

Here are the sketches I made at Dr. Sketchy's.

Team Gaila is voting on submissions for a postcard campaign. I think mine is the best, naturally, but I'm losing pretty bad at the moment. If you like it, go vote for it. Just make sure whichever wins, you print out some postcards and send 'em in, because I really want more Gaila in my Star Trek.

I realized today that if I just finish everything on my board + "Bus Date" from Drunk, I'll have 20 pages of comics for a mini-comic for the Vegas Valley Book Festival.

Finally, some vid recs:

I was going to rec trelkez's Take It Off first because it's an amazing pure four minutes of fierce women getting what they want and not taking no for an answer, and it's a track from 'The Donnas' which means it slams.

But then she released a fantastic West Wing vid, American Tune which manages to smoosh every important clip from the show in 4 minutes, 10 seconds. I cried twice, maybe, or three times. Oh god, it wrings your heart. It does this amazing thing where it brings you low in the first minute, and even lower in the second - I had tears streaming down my face, and then she loads you up with happy, like a blessing. GOD. Watch it.