Brideshead Revisited, Charles/Sebastian, NC17. Charles gets drunk with Sebastian, and falls. Fabulously in-character and with the feel of genuine Waugh. And the fact that I am, of course, picturing the young Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews as they were in the miniseries doesn’t hurt.
Aubrey/Maturin, G to PG, can be read as slash or gen. Alas, my very favorite writer in this fandom vanished a few years ago. Her stories all begin with a short quote from canon, but were I left on my own I wouldn’t be able to tell where O’Brian’s words end and hers begin, so perfect is her voice. I adore her writing to tiny little bits. I especially love Sealegs, Unkindest Cut, At Dawn, and Blue Devils, but really, all these are wonderful.
Stella and Diefenbaker gen. I laughed out loud at the punchline!
Boromir gen - well, actually this vignette-y story is Boromir/The One Ring, I guess. Beautiful and poignant and exactly as long as it needs to be.
Jack/Stephen. This is my favorite type of story in this fandom: a missing scene which expands on the innuendo of the text (in this case, a discussion about the Sultan and his “Ganymede” in The Thirteen Gun Salute) but never takes it too far. Excellent character voices.
Slap Shot 2/RPF, Palmberg/Nos4a2no9 (the fanfic writer) Um. I have a real kink for crossovers between FPF and RPF. And the meta here is a lovely twist: we usually imagine ourselves meeting the characters we like, don’t we!
Anthropomorfic: Australia/various continents. I giggled hysterically. And it actually has a basis in geology. All the other continents said Antarctica was a frigid bitch, but Australia remembered the good old days. Once upon a time, there had been three of them: Australia, Antarctica and India. Antarctica had covered herself with forests and they’d huddled together for warmth, with Antarctica nestled in his Great Australian Bight (as he liked to call it). Threesome continent-fic, dudes!
Big Eden, Henry/Pike. A nice little five-things story that evokes the gentle feel of the movie; my favorite is the second section.
Pirates of the Caribbean, Tia Dalma. It’s a sonnet. It’s gorgeous and evocative.
Ostensibly Fraser/RayK, but OTPers might not want to read it. The structure delights me and the punch line, which I refuse to spoil, makes me giggle.
Men awkwardly talking about their feelings! And kissing!
A Mountie on the Bounty snippet. Beautiful and evocative writing.
I can’t even characterize this in my standard pairing lists. The fanfiction cliches we know and love, applied to the animal characters of due South. In the first section, Diefenbaker wakes up female…and it just gets crackier.
Second person POV, but it’s short enough that it doesn’t get irritating, and it works well with the casual voice. Two guys named Ray thrown over by a Mountie and a lawyer. What are the odds, right?
Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia and her brother, gen. A beautiful double-drabble with tone and language that evokes the movie perfectly.
Apocalyptic fic, beautiful and heart-rending.
Vecchio’s view on how Kowalski knocks him for a loop, and it’s just beautiful, filled with sideways observations and understated power, and Fraser’s even in there, too.
Various characters and pairings. Um. Humorous deathfic? Although my favorite is the second, which is not so much humorous as sweet.
Views on Fraser’s shopping list, from Fraser, Ray, and Diefenbaker - and the last is the best.
Ray imagines, and Ray acts. This is gorgeous like a pendulum swinging, back and forth, around and about the true center, and the last line takes my breath away with its perfection.
Shopping for gear for the quest. The language is just lovely and makes me want to hug them.
Fraser’s locked in a room and doesn’t have the right tools to get out; his dad is no help at all. So funny.
A tiny sharp ouchy bit of zing.
Elizabeth-centric drabble series. The last line makes me the good kind of weepy.
In which Fraser discovers a meeting taking place in his father’s office. Funny and sweet with impeccable characterization.
Frannie/various, Fraser/RayK,. Frannie kind of likes Mounties. It made me giggle.
Kowalski cheats on Fraser with Vecchio. A slow progression of both what’s seen and not seen.
The summary is: They fought for the first time sixty-seven days after Dan left the hospital, but the story never explicitly describes the fight. Instead the fight is shown as negative ground, almost, as the hole around which the other events are woven. It’s gentle and in keeping with the feel of the movie, and I especially like that Duck’s capacity for violence and his “dark past” are alluded to, because that doesn’t make it into a lot of Wilby stories.
Nine things Ray Kowalski knows about Canada, and one thing Benton Fraser knows about Chicago: 10 100-word drabbles which together form a picture of Ray and Fraser’s relationship.
Thatcher, Stella, Frannie: varied het and gen, humor, genderfuck. This story is equal parts hilarity and brilliance. Three very short vignettes, and each one, astonishingly, tops the previous one.
Each kiss snippet highlights one of the five senses; beautifully structured and surprisingly hot.
Ray gets a little drunk and starts talking with Fraser about…citizenship. Only, not. The perfect metaphor for these characters.
Zelenka/Weir, Zelenka/Dex. Great structure and an interesting metaphor. I don’t normally like no-dialogue introspective stuff like this, but it’s short enough to hold my interest, and the exploration of why and how Radek loves who he does is very cool.