I'll hopefully get at least a couple of these done up before the end of the anon period--ever since I got back from Christmas-related traveling, I've been reading my way through the collection and finding a lot to love.
First, my amazing gifts:
The Luckiest Woman in the World (The Leftovers). One of those writing accomplishments that leaves me in awe, because the show has a particular blend of strangeness, wonder, and ordinariness that it's bizarrely hard to capture in prose, but this story does it perfectly, and in a way that makes each rereading a richer and richer experience. It's about Nora, her search for her children, and what it would mean to let go, and it would be hard to say more without spoiling it. (Except I'll add that it's swoonworthy in its romance.)
Twitch (Thoroughbreds). A hot, perfectly-characterized AU look at what would have happened if Mark had lived and Lily had been sent to Brookmore after all, with Amanda following along soon after (naturally). This has the same restrained humor and uncomfortable, crackly darkness as the movie, but it makes all the delicious sexual tension explicit, as Amanda realizes that the recurring fantasy she's been having features Lily in particular. Subtle but smoking-hot.
And the rest of the collection has some real delights, too:
deep red bells (The Stand). An eerie, mindblowing combination of folklore and true crime, crafted into an original AU where Nadine goes hitchhiking to track down Flagg and always seems to be coming across belated traces of him. Real horror, really good.
In the Dark of the Moon (The stand). Also involves Randall Flagg and modern folklore, this time in the form of creepypasta and Randall Flagg/Reader, a premise that in theory should not work but in practice absolutely does. Terrifying and brilliant.
Son of a Gun (The Hateful Eight). This fandom gets some great fics, and this is no exception--in fact, I think it's one of my all-time favorites. Warren and Mannix get reunited, and reconnect through some amazingly hot gunplay/object-insertion porn and Mannix's sort of flattering neediness.
I Have Not Wanted Syllables (Sense and Sensibility). Well, this does not feature gunplay/object-insertion porn, but it
does have a nuanced, restrained, well-crafted Elinor/Brandon romance, beautiful and heartfelt, with perfect details.
Piracy is Our Only Option (Sense and Sensibility - Movie). Adorable, incredibly well-done epistolary fic as Margaret runs away to sea and gets her freedom and all the adventures she deserves, while still writing home to hear about her sisters' very different lives.
She always returns to me (Rebecca). Great, creepily in-character diary entries from Mrs. Danvers, before and after Rebecca's death. All about desire, obsession, and mourning; deeply human and uncanny at the same time.
All Set for Extinction (Ex Machina). Post-movie Ava/Kyoko, building a life for themselves outside of Nathan's control. The icy, empathetic-but-not-strictly-human POV here is absolutely great, and the brief evocation and
nailing of Nathan's awfulness is brutal and accurate.
Forget Me Not (Twin Peaks). An AU where Laura, knowing Cooper has forgotten what she told him in his dream, visits Albert, Audrey, and Donna too--always in the form of a different literary/cinematic Laura. The homages are well-chosen and beautifully-done, but you don't need to know the source material for them to make this eerie, atmospheric story work.
Checkers (Selfie). Eliza makes her move, and Henry never sees it coming. Shockingly cute and a perfect evocation of the show's tone, even down to a one-off line from an OC. And an offhandedly hot denouement, too.
Lifeline (The Punisher). Marvelous, iddy h/c longfic where Frank gets deafened and blinded by a flashbang while trying to rescue David from a hostage situation, and the two of them have to work together while he's (relatively) incapacitated. Amazing characterization. Funny, sweet, and action-packed, and so rewarding on a hurt/comfort level.
a sweete stroke on the lute (The Terror).
Terror fandom is terrific in general, and the stories I've read for it so far this Yuletide have all been astonishingly good. More on them in the next recs post, since I read a number of them back to back, but I'll close this post out with the first one I tried, the brilliant Jacobean AU Hickey/Crozier piece where you can actually get drunk off of the language.
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