recs and links

"I was thinking," she said calmly, "that I think that the part of our day that included you shooting the highwayman dead might well have been preferable to the part with our families having tea." Hee! Fits in perfectly with canon, and captures the humor of the book exactly, as well as Mary's common sense and Vidal's...temperamentalness. Wonderful.

I didn't have anything against hobbits, but I drew the line at the notion of editing sex scenes written by my boss. Herr Schmidt is in fandom. This is adorable.

In his old age, Sethos makes a discovery that would cast his brother's in the shade. I don't want to say too much, because I want you to have the squee moment I had when you figure it out. OMG! I love this so much! You know when you're reading something and you have to hold your breath, because it's perfect and you don't want to see it fumbled at the end? Well, that's how I read this, my love growing and growing, along with my fear that it would all come tumbling down into a bad ending, but it doesn't! The author handles the whole thing - even the connection to Vicky Bliss and John Smythe - with grace and aplomb. *heart*

t:scc listing at yuletide for when i've caught up with this season

Gorgeous story of how Boaz becomes Priestly, and the how he finds and loses (and hopefully finds again) himself in th transformation. I also really like his friendship with Jen - it was sweet in the movie, and that carries over to this story.

I really enjoyed this tag for the movie, with Tish realizing what she really wants and Priestly slowly turning back into himself. Sweet and bantery.

I am not sure I believe in all the characterization/backstory here, but I enjoyed this story a lot anyway, especially Priestly's Large and Eclectic Music Collection, and his being a closet porn romantic. It also helps explain the ending and his inexplicable outfit at the wedding.

Hopeful and heartbreaking in equal measures, this story feels exactly right for both Gen and Irene (and Attolia). Really well done. (You'll have to ignore the misspelling of Eugenides throughout.)

Danny kisses like he cons, a slow, calculated build up that leads up to the take. Rusty's technique, like his talent on a job, is to be the planner, the organizer, the one who, when is said and done, has put everything together so seamlessly as to appear effortless. Whether on a job or alone it's almost instinctual how they move together, fit together. And they both play to win. And sometimes, it pays to play a little dirty. *happy sigh*

It wasn't a perfect first kiss, but it was theirs. *sniffle* This is exactly what I wanted - a slightly awkward first kiss for Dave and Emily - it's perfectly in character and true to the emotional undercurrents of the moment. Oh, *heart*.

The scene in Brief Lives where Delirium and Dream visit Destiny, from Del's POV. I like this story a lot - it captures the wayward nature of Delirium's train of thought, how she digresses and digresses back around to the point maybe even she doesn't realize she's making until she's made it. Lovely. Grief is a floodwater, and it cuts deep enough that it belongs to Delirium. Grief is madness. Grief is knowledge.

Michael and Lucifer have a conversation. Perfect little snapshot, with one hell of an ending. Short but packs a punch.

While asking for his alliance against the Lilim, Lucifer schools Rudd on a few home truths. I really like Lucifer here. "Are you going to be the pot or the kettle, Morningstar? You, the first among all angels, the cream of the crop, one might say — and you fell. To this pit, to the bottom." Rudd smiles, cruelly. "The metaphor works both ways, Lucifer." "And look at me now." Lucifer matches his smile, kindly. "A Creator. Sometimes you have to fall before you can rise, Rudd."

I *love* this. I love how it captures Elaine perfectly. I love Duma and his worrying and gardening and his care-taking and his bliss at PIE (I love that there is PIE in a DINER with forward waitresses offering advice). I love grumpy Gabriel and his eons-old feelings of sibling rivalry, and Lucifer's presence at the end, how Elaine still needs his validation, still loves him and how he, in his way, loves her. *heart*

Quietly beautiful story of Sandy and Dennys after the flood. Faith and doubt and love and unicorns and brothers being brotherly, knowing each other the way only they can.

swordspoint

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sworspoint - katherine

Gorgeous look at Omar, evocative and true to him and Brandon both. Well, well, well. Making eyes at Omar like that, right there on the corner with a whole crew around, and them all just carrying on like they had no idea what was happening. That was bold, and kind of sneaky at the same time. That was good.

This is awesome. I really like the echoes of Faulkner's language, but somewhat removed, as Shreve is not a Southerner, or a Compson, and doesn't think in Quentin's circumlocutions, though they carry him away when he tells Quentin's stories. I also like young Quentin's repudiation of her alleged father, and the way she reacts negatively to having her mother left out of the story. Wonderful. Shreve’s image of his Quentin (surely false), noble and lovely and doomed, leaping off a bridge in the name of forbidden love; her own image of Quentin-who-was, trumpeting his defiance to the world in a final act of repudiation. All of it was wrong and Mother was nowhere in it, which was the most wrong thing about it. In the world the girl knew, her mother was everywhere, unseen and seldom to be invoked but a constant presence in the minds of all the family, like God or like death.

He had returned to the house over and over again, to be healed and to be taught, and perhaps he and his held as much claim over it as did Ogion. Perhaps it had merely stayed in the family. Beautiful look at the routine quietness of ordinary life after the events of Tehanu, a lovely respite between extraordinary events for Ged, Tenar, and Tehanu.

Ten years down the line, Tyra runs into Jason in Vegas. *heart*. I am totally a secret Tyra/Jason shipper, and this really hits my kink for them getting together after they've both left Dillon and grown up. I was always sad the show didn't do more with their relationship, but that's why fandom is so great - we get stories like this to fill that need.

After being ambushed by demons, Castiel gets turned into a little boy, and the Winchesters have to protect him. ridiculously heartclenchy despite the crazy premise. (21 parts, was posted as a wip, is complete now)

Sam and Dean save a girl and deliver her baby. All in a night's work. "Are you angels?" "Oh sweetheart, you don't want angels, trust me. I'm Dean."

"Danny," Isaac says, "the University of Hawaii is not going to the BCS. They're going to do well all season and get left out in the end. No one really wants to see them in New Orleans." "That's a pretty harsh judgment of the BCS voters," Casey says, sticking his head in through the open doorway. "You're saying they'll pick tradition over genuine talent?" Isaac waits. "Good point," Casey says, and ducks back out. Hee! Sounds just like an episode.

“Do you ever change an ending to please the audience?” Edmund asks. “Of course,” Shativa answers. Her long hair tumbles down her back as she sifts through her clothes for a dress to wear. “A pleased audience pays better. Mama Biguda doesn’t like to, but I convince her.” “How do you do that?” “I remind her endings are illusions anyway. In a story, there are a thousand endings and a thousand beginnings between the first word spoken and the last word said.” Beautiful look at Edmund and Susan, at magic and love and storytelling.

Lovely look at the friendship between Wash and Kaylee, full of the quiet strength both bring to the crew, and which the others probably don't even notice until it's gone. Wah! Wash! *sniffle*

What makes it a superb work of literature is the fact that the ethical quandary expresses itself at the formal level, for generically Sandman is a taut Shakespearean tragedy attenuated within a cantering, leisurely magic-realist novel, as if Macbeth were pieced out like breadcrumbs through a Rushdie tale. In other words, the two forms, the pre-modern one made to describe the unyielding soul’s crushing encounter with resistless fate, and the post-modern one that embodies multiple perspectives, colliding communities, and ultimately meaningless but celebratory metamorphoses, coexist uneasily, as the text’s two worldviews jostle each other.