(no subject)

[raspberryhunter]

So I somehow got three Yuletide gifts and three Madness gifts and I love them so much!! Thank you authors!! Here I will talk about my gifts and more recs:


My gift:

...does not have a share button, so I will drop a link:
The Ship in Port (Tillerman Series - Voigt)

I asked the question, "How does Maybeth strike a balance between listening to her more-intellectually-capable family and making her own heart-capable decisions? Given that her upbringing had so much more support than her mother's, can she avoid her mother's fate?" And this fic takes that question and looks at it, through Maybeth's eyes, and with Jeff and Mina (yay!!) as well, and answers it, in a lovely and wise way. (The answer is yes, by the way, as it should be :) ) <3

My treats:

a ray of sunlight in a stormy sky (1457 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Евгений Онегин | Eugene Onegin - Tchaikovsky
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gremin/Tatyana Larina
Characters: Tatyana Larina, Gremin (Eugene Onegin)
Additional Tags: Falling In Love, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Tatyana and Gremin, over the years.

Tatyana/Gremin! :D I have always wanted a happy ending for Tatyana, and although I ship her with Onegin I also ship her if anything more with Gremin, especially given Gremin's lovely aria (and where he... actually appreciates her?? Ahem, Evegny!), and really I ship Tatyana with happiness. And this is such a very charming fic that shows them falling in love, not in a super intense epic way, but in a quiet, meaningful way that brings them both happiness. I love it so much <3

Cherry Stone (4451 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Tillerman Cycle - Cynthia Voigt
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Maybeth Tillerman
Additional Tags: 4 + 1 Things Fic, Music, Missing Scene, Future Fic
Summary:

Four people Maybeth Tillerman learned from (and one she taught).

So... every year there is a fic that makes me think, "wow, Yuletide exists so that this fic could be written," and this year I got that fic as my present! :D Voigt wrote books from the POV of all the Tillerman siblings except for Maybeth, and for years I have wanted the book she would have written for Maybeth -- and look! here it is! Though it's less than 5k, there's a book's worth of loveliness in it. It's pitch-perfect Voigt, with that trick Voigt has that I adore so much of realizing how everyone has hidden depths and three-dimensionality, and sheds new light on canon events and people (just love this) as well as gives Maybeth a future that is so right for her. Just a really impressive, heartbreaking, wise piece that I adore and am in awe of <3

Madness gifts:

No share button on this one either, please let me know if this means I shouldn't link it: Falling Water (Pelléas et Mélisande - Debussy/Maeterlinck)

Oh man, I asked for Pelleas et Melisande as a fairy-story, and I was delighted to get a little tantalizing snippet of a fairy-story where it is revealed, post-canon, that Melisande was a sort of water-fairy.

Anonymous (2141 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Circle of Voltaire RPF, 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Émilie du Châtelet/Voltaire (Writer), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Voltaire (Writer), Voltaire (Writer) & Other(s)
Characters: Voltaire (Writer), Émilie du Châtelet, Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Parody, Metafiction, I'm Sorry William Shakespeare, Academia
Summary:

Who really wrote the works of Voltaire? In a highly controversial panel, three major candidates emerge.

Hilarious metafic that asks the question: what if there was the same kind of controversy over Voltaire's authorship that there is for Shakespeare's authorship? Because obviously François-Marie Arouet is too boring couldn't have been the one, when there are so many other great candidates! The panel discussion is an inspired way to put forth the different theories, each more wacko than the last :D

Poached Eggs and Boiled Frogs (5106 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802) & Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great, Friedrich II von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)/Christian Ludwig von Kaphengst
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Christian Ludwig von Kaphengst
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Male-Female Friendship, Alternate Universe - Corporate
Summary:

A CEO and a CTO walk into a bar. Catherine's on the prowl for a chance to expand her empire, while Henry's struggling to keep a startup afloat. Her love life is the stuff of legend, and his a hot mess, as always. But jobs and flings come and go; childhood friendship is forever.

bwahahaha. Corporate AU of 18th Century Frederick the Great where Frederick is a micromanaging startup CEO and his highly competent brother and "other self," Prince Henry, is a CTO who happens to be hanging out with his BFF Catherine the Great, who's a big-name CEO... I feel like that description does not do justice to how absolutely hilariously cracky this fic is. (And indeed Frederick is quite satisfactorily micromanaging.) I love it and want more :D

Other recs:

18th Century had a stellar turnout of four (!) fics in Main, and they are all worth checking out -- there's a 30k mysteryfic and a Space AU and a time-traveling valet!! -- but I will content myself right now to reccing one:

You should see me in a crown (10901 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF, 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II. of Russia & Heinrich von Preußen | Henry of Prussia, Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II of Russia/Stanisław August Poniatowski, Friedrich II von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II. of Russia & Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia, Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov, Stanisław August Poniatowski, Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787), Luise Ulrike von Preußen | Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (1720-1782), Georg Ludwig of Holstein-Gottorp, Nikita Ivanovich Panin
Additional Tags: Tide of History Challenge, Male-Female Friendship, Politics, Power Dynamics, Partitions of Poland, Childhood Friends, Negotiations, Dysfunctional Family, Power Play, Lost Love, POV Female Character, Misses Clause Challenge
Summary:

1770: Politics is the most dangerous of games, and Catherine II. of Russia a top player. When she gets contacted by a man who knows her longer and better than most, the stakes couldn't be higher: war or peace between four European powers - and the survival or destruction of a country....

Wonderful Catherine the Great -centric fic about the First Partition of Poland that also features Frederick the Great and his brother (honestly more the brother, as he was the one who actually visited Catherine, but there's also a good amount of Frederick in there). Lots of friendship and politics, and the ways friendship and love and politics join and separate people, which I adore.

...I... had a really hard time choosing from the three Deeplight fics, all of which are fantastic and horrible, as befits this canon. Everyone just go read Deeplight if you haven't yet, and then go read all three fics. Quest is my problematic fave so this is the one I settled on:

Pieces of the End (1380 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Deeplight - Frances Hardinge
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Quest (Deeplight), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Pre-Canon, Non-Linear Narrative
Summary:

Quest and the end of the world.

Quest's backstory, poetic and intriguing and terrible, just as canon insinuates.

The very next day (1233 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Emily of New Moon - L. M. Montgomery
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ilse Burnley & Emily Byrd Starr
Characters: Ilse Burnley, Emily Byrd Starr, Mike the Cat (Emily of New Moon)
Summary:

“I b’lieve you feel worse over leaving that cat than you do over leaving me,” sniffed Ellen.

“Why, of course I do,” said Emily, amazed that there could be any question about it.

It took all her resolution not to cry when she bade farewell to Mike, who was curled up on the sun-warm grass at the back door.

“Maybe I’ll see you again sometime,” she whispered as she hugged him.

Pitch-perfect Emily and Ilse: a lovely scene from their friendship that doubles as a fix-it fic for Mike the Cat. Just lovely. And with Ilse swearing, which is hilarious!

Marra Tivvit (1331 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Possession - A. S. Byatt
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Randolph Henry Ash/Christabel LaMotte
Characters: Randolph Henry Ash, Christabel LaMotte
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, gratuitous extension of a metaphysical conceit
Summary:

“Now was he hers, if she should ask of him
Body or soul, he would have offered all.
And seeing this, at last, the Fairy smiled.”
—Christabel LaMotte, The Fairy Melusine

Pitch-perfect Possession hurt/comfort sickfic -- Christabel has a cold and Randolph comforts her in a way that is extremely in-character for both -- the dialogue and writing in this is just fabulously true to the original.