I think I might have won Kaleidoscope this year. No, seriously. I got two really amazing fics, and I love them both unconditionally.

Fifty Years in the Virtuous City is based on the short story Sultana's Dream, about a utopia where women become the rulers, and of course set everything to rights :) I was especially interested in the two Lady Principals of the country's two great universities, and I basically got the perfect fic for them that was more than I ever imagined. I think I left a more articulate comment on the story itself, but omg the worldbuilding, and the two women and their decades-long relationship, and the building of the country, and the science!! Basically everything about it was perfect and you all need to read it.

And I got a treat, too! This was for The Interview for the webseries The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, and I don't know who the author is, but she got J's voice (and awkwardness) so pitch-perfect! I love how you can see foreshadowing of all the ridiculous events coming down the line, and the ending is golden. This fic really feels like an extension of the series to me, and I loved it a lot.

There were a lot of other really great stories posted, so more recs under the cut! Consider this very non-exhaustive; I haven't managed to read everything yet.

( Static Shock, No. 6, You're Beautiful, Di Renjie, Kimi ni Todoke, Capital Scandal, Natsume Yuujinchou, Ha-He, Madoka Magica, ArchAndroid )

First of all, I really want to rec my gift this year! Muchacha is a really awesome Machete fic about Sartana and Luz. I think the author did a really great job of characterizing both of them :DDD

More recs under the cut...( 20th Century Boys, ArchAndroid, Homestuck, Iron Giant, Malcolm in the Middle, The Outsiders, Scott Pilgrim, Skip Beat, Static Shock, Strindberg and Helium, Suikoden III )

Anyway, I'm still reading, but I figured I'd drop these recs off for now :)

Got kind of sidetracked by Twelve Kingdoms novel translations, but I still have a bunch more Yuletide fics to rec. I've only incidentally read the Yuletide Madness stuff, and still haven't gotten to a lot of the fairy tales, but I figured this would be a good place to drop off another batch of recs.

( Fandoms are Anastasia, Catch-22, Chrono Trigger, Community, Earthsea, The Handmaid's Tale, Howl's Moving Castle, Hurog Series, I Am Maru, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Let the Right One In, Leverage, Like Water for Chocolate, Lilo and Stitch, The Lion King, Little Women, and Submachine )

And with that, I am going to go play the new KH game for a while, and then maybe read some fic about magical black unicorns and the rulers who love them and/or go to sleep. I have more recs in Delicious, but I'll post them tomorrow.

I feel like I'll be reading fic for the rest of my life... dunno if that's good or bad. You can read everything I've been bookmarking under my yuletide tag in Delicious, albeit with minimal information. I'm kind of hitting that fic fatigue point where I can't enjoy stuff I would usually like, so I figured this would be a good time to stop and do some recs. At some point, when the server load has gone down some, I'll have to go back and comment on all of these; but for now I'll settle for drawing attention to them.

First off, I want to rec the really awesome Kill Bill fic that was written for me: A Battle Without Honor and Humanity! It's an awesome fic about Nikki Green (Bell in the fic, she takes her mother's name) gets her revenge against Beatrix... with BB being her path in. The prose is fantastic, Nikki is just amazing, and I just really love everything the author did with this fic.

Now for the other recs!

( Fandoms are Aladdin, Aliens, Beauty and the Beast, Black Lagoon, Bridge of Birds, Calvin and Hobbes, Community, Dinocomics, Fairy Tales, Futurama, Homestar Runner, Monster, Mulan, Oregon Trail, Princess Tutu, Public Service Announcements, The Simpsons, Skip Beat, Twelve Kingdoms, Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, and Yotsubato )

And now off to do something else and then read and rec some more. I haven't even touched Leverage yet.

Happy Boxing Day, everyone!

I spent most of yesterday either doing family stuff, or devouring Yuletide fics. First of all, the one that was written for me :DDDD

My Yuletide gift is Happy Birthday, Miles, which is a Vorkosigan fic. I wanted something featuring Mark and/or the Koudelkas; they're some of my favorite characters, but not much fic is written about them. (Well, not that there's much Vorkosigan fanfic at all.) Anyway, this one is really cute and awesome; Mark arranges a surprise party for Miles. This being Mark and Miles and Barrayar, there are a few minor disasters, but thanks to the magic of Pizza, everything ends well :D

There were a lot of other good fics in this batch as well! Some of the ones I enjoyed...

( Haruhi, Ptutu, Monster, Claymore, Skip Beat, Mulan, Saved by the Bell, Calvin and Hobbes, Winnie the Pooh/Discworld )

So, that pretty much comes to the end of what I've read and enjoyed so far. There's still lots of other stuff I want to read: the other Vorkosigan fics, the Wall.E fics, the fics for Sunshine, and whatever else people are reccing that sounds good.

I was fandom-monogamous for a while, but over the last year or two I've learned to dip my toes in other waters. These are some of the things I've found.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Home is... by sporkyadrasteia. I like the movies okay, but not enough to dig into the fandom. But then I saw a rec for Tia Dalma/Davy Jones, and my curiosity got the better of me :) It's a really lovely story, and while it was written before AWE, it actually works with that movie pretty well.

Fullmetal Alchemist (anime): Good Intentions by ladylisse. I remembered her from HP fandom, and I found the summary intriguing, so I figured I'd give it a try. And OMG. I had my issues with the anime series, but if it had been resolved like this, I might've liked it even more than the manga. It's the sort of story that leaves me laughing and crying at the same time, and it's the sort of story that I'm always trying to write.

Samurai Champloo: Treatise on the Price of Sugar in the Edo Period by sintari. (Mugen/Fuu, btw.) What I really love about this fic is the description, of the surroundings, and of the characters' actions, and of Mugen's inner thoughts. It all comes together really well.

Silent Hill 2: Save Point: Hell is Repetition by Patrick Phelan. You don't actually have to know anything about Silent Hill to get this fic (I certainly don't); knowing about basic game mechanics is enough. Because game mechanics are what this story is really about, and it works *so* well.

Lord of the Rings: Thirteen Gifts for Thirteen Gardeners by Tulip Proudfoot. Towards the end of RotK, as Frodo is preparing to go to the West, he mentions the children that Sam and Rosie will someday have. This fic is set after Sam leaves; the children (now grown up) find a box with a letter and gift for each child. The characterization, fleshing out what we know of each character, is absolutely lovely, and the whole thing just has a very warm feeling. (There's some minor canon het, but the main focus is gen.)

Final Fantasy VII: Need by melanthe_v. Occasionally, people writing 1sentence-type fics will try to make each sentence part of a story; this is the only one I've ever seen where it actually *works*. I'm usually not that into slash either, but I like the Reno/Rude here.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Welcome to the Slaughterhouse by beer_good_foamy. Rated NC-17 for violence; sometimes a gal's just in the mood for some over-the-top gore :) There's a bit of canon Willow/Tara too. Tara's family drags her back home; the Scoobies go after them, and, well... you can guess the rest. It's executed very well, though I think Buffy went down a little too fast for my tastes.

Beauty and the Beast (Disney): Picture This by TrudiRose. I think I kind of ship Gaston/Belle thanks to this fic; the romance is very believable, there are some awesome OCs once you get further in, and it was lots of fun spotting the places where events from the movie were mirrored. Belle's a bit offputting at the beginning, but this is addressed; the only quibble I had was that the triplets weren't rounded like the rest of the characters.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle: Wait For Me by Victoria Hughes. I tried looking for Sakura/Syaoran after reading TRC, but this was pretty much the only readable thing I could find. While it was written before the author got very far into the series, it doesn't really contradict anything. It meanders a bit more than I'd like, but the ending is spot-on perfect.

Avatar: Editing History by v_voltaire. An incomplete selection of Avatars removed from the history books. This is why I love 100-word drabbles. Because when people get it right, they get it *really* right.

As you can see here, I've reorganized the page of gen recs. Hopefully it'll be a little easier to navigate. This will also make it easier for me to do new recs, since I don't have to do a big bunch all in one go. So I won't be announcing updates any more, or at least until I get a handle on the backlog I have now. Going to what's new should show you what's, well, new, and expect it to be more or less continuously updated for a while.

(xposted everywhere)

Also, I was wondering if anybody would like to beta a Rufus Scrimgeour darkfic? It's only about 2000 words. Thanks a bunch!