In Excelsis Deo

yuletide archive is up, and there's a delightful Ender's Game fic in the archive that's been written especially for me! It's Six Dances and the author just nails Valentine Wiggin: brillaint, politically conscious, conflicted, frustrated by hipocrisy and empty ritual, and above all devoted to her brothers. The Valentine/Peter relationship is the focus, just like I asked, and it's just like canon, gen but with the possibility of importing one's own subtext. I'm just so happy with it, because it's Valentine and I love her so much and she's being will-to-powery as she engineers Peter's rise to power and there's dancing and just squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

So seriously, if you like Ender's Game, or teenaged girls who take over the world, go read it.

(I've only begun to make my way through the archive, so that's my only rec for now.)

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Christmas fics and ficlets to which I've been meaning to link all season:

Christmas Ghosts [Dawn, PG, 215 words] Christmas is a time for memories.

Undefeated [Lydia, PG, 100 words] Lydia celebrates the holiday alone but undefeated.

A Christmas Carol [Drusilla, PG-13, 383] Why would one need to be saved from Satan’s power? An ensouled Drusilla at Christmas.

The Adventure of the Stolen Heart [Simon/Kaylee, R, 3300+ words] Simon, Kaylee, and River run a mission together. In the midst of crime, they plan for Christmas.

Yuletide Recs, fandoms 4-B

Neutral Parties, The 4400, Diana & Maia & Nina. Maia and Nina are two of my favorite 4400 characters (not counting Summer's character Tess, of course): Maia the pre-teen with superpowers (she can see the future) and Nina the tough-as-steel superior officer. Here their degree of control over their lives is contrasted nicely with Diana's sensations of being overwhelmed, as the NTAC agent goes about a day in her life, taking her adopted daughter to a birthday party. Firm grasp of the characters and of the more realistic feel of the show.

The Bridal Path, The Addams Family (movieverse), Wednesday/Joel. Wednesday. Wednesday. This captures her, and the feel of the series, perfectly--comedic and dark and will-to-powery all at the same time--and it's Wednesday Addams.

The Longed-For Moment, The History Boys, Dakin/Posner. The author replicates the genius of Bennet's dialogue and the feel of the play without a wrong note, e.g. "I was lying there, and all I could think was I may be a Jew, I may be small, I may be homosexual, and no one from my supervisor to my bedder will let me forget I'm from Sheffield. But at least I'm about to get fucked." This fic is as much fun to read as the play was to watch, and no less intelligent either.

All that is overdue, Arcadia, Hannah & Septimus. I love Thomasina (it didn't hurt that the freshman who played her in the British Drama presentation at Colgate was really hot), and this is a fitting memorial--Septimus and Hannah in the library, divided by time but having something in common nonetheless. Sparse but beautiful prose.

Behavioural Software, The Bourne Identity (movieverse), Nicky(/Jason). Nicky after Treadstone, with Jason always there, watching. Superbly written, and develops her character quite nicely.

Coming Soon. . . recs for fandoms C-Z!

More Yuletide Recs

Envious Angels, "Annabel Lee." A fleshing out of Poe's poem, the story developes the love between two young women in a way which has its own, albeit different, poetry.

Stories Darkness Tells You, Fray, Melaka/Harth. Because the Jossverse does not include enough twincest.