Pen's Nest

My last selection of reviews for Yuletide. I think the author reveal happens today, though it isn't likely to make any difference!

Perspectives - Heyer, The Nonesuch
It's been a long while since I read this book, but the story brought it back wonderfully. Tiffany (beautiful, slappable) is perfectly characterised, and there are so many carefully-concealed hints in the dialogue. A delight.


a woman with a ripe and smiling lip Sense &Sensibility
A delightful little postscript to the book, Elinor being happy and enjoying the moments she thought would never come. I found myself smiling as I read.


Nice collection of Wimsey fics, all worth reading, but my preferred three being these:

a certain group of women
This is a thing I did not know I wanted to see—the Dowager Duchess of Denver arguing with a bunch of academic women in the SCR. What a delight! I do so enjoy stories that explore the relationships between Harriet and the various women in her life, and it makes so much sense that the Duchess would enjoy the visit to Shrewsbury.

Happiness In Time of Joy
Peter and Harriet's wedding. Voices are spot-on.

The Day After
A post-Busman's Honeymoon fic dealing with the day after. Which is rather more chaotic than anticipated. Nicely in character and well written.


Rotational Freedom For All Mankind
Ahhh. GOOD story. Molly was so stubborn, this is Molly. This is what she was thinking when she did it.


A couple of Pern stories. I haven't read the most recent of the Pern books, so some of the canon references in other stories escape me. These, I liked particularly.

The day the riders came Pern
A chilling look at things. Really, it's not surprising that the non-dragon people look at dragons with so much fear. Great twist on the canon.

find the true Pern
F'lar is entirely F'lar, and Mirrim is absolutely as she should be. She gets frustrated in her, hmm, day job, dragonriders being what they are, and she is without regular friends since the Weyrs are still very hidebound.. Finding Mirrim a job that needs to be done well sounds like a brilliant solution.


We Were Meant For Us Singing in the Rain
Hollywood gave Don his big break, but Cosmo always pieced him  back. How and why the trio became a threesome.


Snake Logistics for Spring Defenses
The canon is FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion of Your Thesis Defense—Luke Burns
This is worthy of it. Disconcertingly, some of the emails sound as though they were written by my son.


Never Could Get the Hang of Thursdays Slow Horses
As the title hints, rather a delightful crack!fic. River and Jackson have a problem. Catherine... copes.
Wonderfully written, feels exactly like them all.


Happy New Year, everyone.

Magnificent Christmas Dinner prepared by my Bun and her man, possibly with additional assistance from her out-laws. We had roast pork, full sized pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, individual Yorkshire puds, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots, cauliflower and broccoli cheese, cabbage cooked with pancetta, apple sauce, and gravy. Deeeelicious. And followed by a pannettoni bread and butter pudding with cream.

*

I have been perusing Yuletide stories today, and rejoicing once again in the quality of the writing! I tend to old-fashioned fandoms, so perhaps that helps—do the Young People These Days even read, say, Swallows and Amazons?—but it is certainly satisfying.

Some recs, in no particular order.

The Princess Murdered Princess Bride/Colombo

Even though I haven't seen Colombo in *years* and have held no particular affection for the show, I started smiling in the paragraph that introduces Colombo, which is completely perfect. Absolutely delightful. And Humperdinck is also spot-on in his entirely selfish machinations and general contempt for the rest of the world. Only problem with this one is, I want more!


A Gentlewoman's Debt A Civil Contract, Heyer
A charming story! Jenny Lynton is one of my favourite heroines, and this one gives a glimpse of her married life and a new friend she makes by chance.


The Cruelty of Man"- Sweeney Todd
Ooh. Poor Lucy. This is an entirely believable characterisation. She's a gentle soul. I can almost imagine the song she might have sung, quietly, on her own with the baby. And the Judge is sooooooo sinister. Very well done. Mrs Lovett also perfectly pragmatic.


I Will Be True Austen
Whenever I read Sense and Sensibility I find myself hoping that this time, Elinor will get to marry Colonel Brandon. Somehow, it never happens. And in this story, she comes to her senses, deliberately does not encourage Edward, and learns to love Brandon instead, while he at the same time recognises that his feelings for Marianne were based on a false starting point. It's a delightful read.



Dick and Dorothea's Week in London World of Swallows and Amazons
This is lovely! I am so charmed! The D's, sharing the bad raincoat. Susan, turning into a woman and learning more about cooking. And the image of the D's yelling "Titty!" in a crowded railway station is somewhat hilarious. This is very much like a little slice of the life the children led in between adventures.


A Succession of Remarkable Changes The Princess Bride
Inigo needs training if he is to become a proper Dread Pirate Roberts. This left me chuckling with glee. Dread, but with panache! It is entirely correct and wonderful, and I hope Inigo enjoys himself enormously as Dread Pirate Roberts. Just delightful!


Once, Long Ago - a Persuasion fic,
A very good alternate timeline, although it left me quite teary. So much regret for years of happiness missed! It's very well characterised, from the main couple down to the little appearances of Sir Walter, Mary, and Lady Russell. If you need a bit of melancholy after the joys of Christmas, read this one.

So, if you enjoy a little schadenfreude,
this twitter thread is hilarious. There is another, filmed by the guy next standing to the guy who did the first one, with commentary and gleeful song, here, but I like the comments on the first thread. The star of the show is whining about being called a terrorist and not being allowed to get on a plane. It does rather look as though he was at the Capitol last Wednesday.

I like the utter indifference of those sitting around in the airport.

*

Back to my usual.

Challenge #6

In your own space, rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm picking recs from smaller canons (with one exception), and which have such awesomely authentic voices that I loved them at once.

Rivers of Ankh-Morpork by melannen
Peter Grant gets into Ankh-Morpork and is delighted. Seriously, it's like Pterry was having a bit of fun on his day off. Absolutely delightful story.

That Greek Thing by Luthien.
I've been listening to a bunch of Georgette Heyer novels over the last few weeks—not, as it happens, Friday's Child, but plenty enough to recognise that the tone of this story is spot-on. The comic sidekick friends in Heyer stories are the ones who annoyed me back when I was a teenager and reading for the romance, but nowadays fill me with love and a desire to see them happy and taken just a little bit seriously. This story does just that.

Still in a Heyerish vein, but an entirely frivolous one, The Birds and the Bees by Lbilover is like a delicious fairy cake, or possibly a Chantilly Basket. Lord Legerwood is not certain whether his heir is, hmm, au fait with certain marital necessities.

Moving away, far, far away, from Georgette Heyer's world, Sprezzatura by Queue takes 'Much Ado About Nothing' and extrapolates a perfect Beatrice. Wow. This one. It's in iambic pentameter: voice-wise, I wouldn't call it Shakespearian, but it is as clever, as stuffed with meaning and innuendo and truth. It's Beatrice the modern woman, Beatrice confronted with the news that Benedick will soon be present, Beatrice deciding what she wants. It's really, really good.

Once upon a time, American Idol was a fandom of very respectable size. Physics Makes Us All Its Bitches by cjmarlowe. Well, it's probably not fair to talk about the authentic 'voice' for RPF, so I'll just say that this author knows how to write. This is Adam Lambert, Kris Allen and Brad Bell, and bodyswap. I'm very partial to a good bodyswap story. This is a good bodyswap story.

Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.

Recs! Always fun, provided I can remember where the things I've loved are to be found….

So.

First, a story that has apparently been around for several years, but which I only encountered very recently, no doubt thanks to somebody else's rec: Jeeves and the Inferior Valet, or, Thomas and the Kindest Man in England, by Alex51324. This is a delightful mixture of the worlds of Jeeves and Downton Abbey, really a perfectly reasonable thing to do. While Bertie is visiting Downton Abbey he has an unfortunate connection with Barrow, and Jeeves eventually puts things to rights. It's very well done—the 'voices' are really nicely caught from both points of view, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Three stories by the same author, because they all bring me great joy in quite different ways.

Firstly, a remix. This is the original story, long beloved in the popslash world, and turps wrote Walk Like a Camelidae—the doctor do little talk talk mix, which is even more adorable. I mean, I could wax philosophical about how turning into a llama is a metaphor for being gay, but nobody cares when Llance licks Justin's squicked cheek, and provides dried pellets which Justin mistakes for raisins, and can wear custom-made glittery chaps.

The next one brings a little moisture to the eyes. Spot was written for my Dragon Challenge in 2006. It's a story about Lance, growing up with his friend, Spot. Awww.

Like It Says On The Can was also written for the Dragon Challenge (in a subsequent year which had expanded the challenge to include dwarves and dolphins). Er, possibly read the Additional Tags on this one? I *adore* it. It is Bad and Wrong and Hilarious, all kinds of slightly (or extremely) disturbing kinks bestowed upon our boys, and written as a documentary which references an unusual LJ community. Read it. You'll never be the same again.

***Muttley laugh***

When Life Gives You Apples was written by Roga and performed by Miss_S_B for the pod_together fest, and I strongly recommend that you listen to it instead of reading it. The story is incredibly well done and utterly Pratchettian, and the podfic is pretty well perfect, from the reader's accent to the perfection of the sound effects. I remember hoping that Sir Pterry had come across it. Oh, the story involves DEATH, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, and some new tech-no-go-ly.

Finally, another story involving a dragon, though written for a different Dragon challenge, is Spreading Wings by chalcopyrite. I cannot tell a lie, I did the illustrations for this story, but they aren't important. It is popslash set in the Pern universe: Lance, craftbred, was never meant to be a dragonrider, but he Impressed anyway and has to figure out his place in the Weyr. nb Pern-typical consent issues, if you know that canon you'll know what that means.


Finally, it is my cats' Official Birthday today: they are Three.

They have been woefully unphotogenic, for a change—though to be fair we have spent more time than usual out of the house—but I managed to take a picture that, I hope, demonstrates that my rhapsodies about Sable's thick, thick fur are not exaggerated.

In a burst of fannish endeavour I participated in the pod_together challenge, and the first of the stories I recorded is now available for general delight.

Let the Cat Out Of The Bag, written by Lizibabes, read by me, is an Adam Lambert/Tommy Ratliffe story. With special guest appearance by Socks.

Have a listen!

Hmm, this year's Remix challenge is live. I dunno. I've had a lot of satisfaction out of doing popslash remixes, but how many of you are going to sign up for this one?

*briefly distracted by Lance Bass's gaze in the utterly perfect b/w pic stuck to the top of my monitor* Cor.

Just read a delightful little Vorkosigan ficlet here.

*sigh* Back to the newsletter. I have to do the print-ready version now. But we have a ballroom dancing lesson soon, so that will cheer me up. Quickstep!

A story that just makes you happy.

MPREG, by Rhys, may actually be my favourite story of all. I don't look for mpreg, but it's an essential part of this story—the story couldn't happen without the pregnancy, and yet in a lot of ways the story isn't about the pregnancy. And I love it.



Of my own, The First Step. It came to me out of nowhere when I put a prompt together with a news item, and I have inexplicable and immense love for it.

Crack! Unlike the 'real world with added weirdness', this story knows it's cracked and revels in it.

Like It Says On The Can by Terri. In which each of our boys has a fetish of an unusual kind. Oh, God, I love this story. It is insane.


Of mine, I guess Free Range is the best qualified, although there are quite a lot of candidates. I blame Raven for this, though, for she gave me the prompt of "AJ lays eggs". *And* prompted the sequel!

A 'guilty pleasure'.

See, this is awkward. I don't really have any guilty pleasure... at least, I can't think of any. So I have no idea what to pick for this one. I don't have any particular guilt about my constant desire for Moar Trickyfish, and, um. Well.


And yet, I can sorta pick one of my own stories, which is Joey masturbating for Kelly's pleasure. I do feel vaguely guilty about this one, being as how it involves an *actual* partnership and who knows, they could conceivably do this. Though Joey probably doesn't! Fantasies.

A new story. Defined as something posted within the last twelve months.

The obvious source to take a look at is MTYG, although the pop newsletter should have picked up anything else posted during 2011.

I'm going with MTYG, but instead of reccing one of the very worthy stories posted for the challenge itself, I'm going to direct your attention to Curb Appeal, which was written for me by llamabitchyo as a reward for being an MTYG hero. Just-post-space training Lance and Chris comparing asses. And stuff.


For something recent of my own, I have a great fondness for Cake.