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I did not take part in this past year's Yuletide obscure-fandom fic exchange because TBD, but I have been trawling through the archive -- slowly, also because TBD -- and have a small list of recs:
The best-written fic that I've read so far is also the second-longest of the season: Fair Winds and Homeward Sail, a short novel about Sophy Croft née Wentworth, covering both her backstory and her perspective on the events of Persuasion. The story is strongest when not constrained by canon (by retelling Austen's scenes or by having pacing forced by the source), but that happens only at the very end. Until that point, does not require canon. Strongly rec'd.
The best of the The Blue Castle fics is Something Frivolous and Fine -- set mid-novel, in which Barney chooses Valency's Christmas gift and contemplates telling her the truth. Requires canon knowledge.
She's young, O god, she's young - "Escalate, infenestrate and, most importantly, conjugate." A coda to The Lady's Not for Burning, set about an hour later, in appropriately exuberant verse (with only one off-tone word). Requires canon knowledge. Loved this.
Xiao-Jie, or, A Stalemate in Four Moves - Variations on the Chang-e story of Chinese mythology, offering different reasons she took the pill of immortality, framed by a game of go wreathed in frost. Canon knowledge helps.
A Peaceful Journey - A private moment early in Journey to the West between Monkey and the White Horse. Not really a complete story, but quietly lovely. Requires canon knowledge.
The Crow and the Sword and the Hunt - "The Thief's ability to deceive himself was matched only by his ability to deceive others." Fic for Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series set way off the canonical map in not!Britain, with original characters aside from the Queen and the Thief. Canon knowledge helps. Tasty stuff.
---L.
Subject quote from "Poem on the Occasion of the Centennial of the Surrender of Burgoyne," Alfred Billings Street.
The best-written fic that I've read so far is also the second-longest of the season: Fair Winds and Homeward Sail, a short novel about Sophy Croft née Wentworth, covering both her backstory and her perspective on the events of Persuasion. The story is strongest when not constrained by canon (by retelling Austen's scenes or by having pacing forced by the source), but that happens only at the very end. Until that point, does not require canon. Strongly rec'd.
The best of the The Blue Castle fics is Something Frivolous and Fine -- set mid-novel, in which Barney chooses Valency's Christmas gift and contemplates telling her the truth. Requires canon knowledge.
She's young, O god, she's young - "Escalate, infenestrate and, most importantly, conjugate." A coda to The Lady's Not for Burning, set about an hour later, in appropriately exuberant verse (with only one off-tone word). Requires canon knowledge. Loved this.
Xiao-Jie, or, A Stalemate in Four Moves - Variations on the Chang-e story of Chinese mythology, offering different reasons she took the pill of immortality, framed by a game of go wreathed in frost. Canon knowledge helps.
A Peaceful Journey - A private moment early in Journey to the West between Monkey and the White Horse. Not really a complete story, but quietly lovely. Requires canon knowledge.
The Crow and the Sword and the Hunt - "The Thief's ability to deceive himself was matched only by his ability to deceive others." Fic for Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series set way off the canonical map in not!Britain, with original characters aside from the Queen and the Thief. Canon knowledge helps. Tasty stuff.
---L.
Subject quote from "Poem on the Occasion of the Centennial of the Surrender of Burgoyne," Alfred Billings Street.