Incidentally, from the writing/reader reaction side, I'm having the worst Yuletide ever. Not because of the recipients, who wrote lovely, long and detailed comments, which made be very happy - for a day. And then as time went on I had to notice that with each of the three stories I wrote in three different fandoms, only one person other than my recipient commented, and I haven't even gotten double digit kudos so far. For any of the stories. None of which, I have to add, was written half heartedly or at the last second; I loved writing each, the assignment and the treats, did research for each, worked on each, am proud of each. This never happened to me before. I'm going through the usual rigmarole, telling myself "small fandoms", or "maybe the summary sounds wrong", or "maybe you should have added more tags", and what not. But in the end, I fear it comes to monumental indifference to my writing. Which makes it somewhat hard to enjoy Yuletide in 2017, she says, sobbing melodramatically in her hankerchief.

Still: there's my reading self, very pleased to have found the following stories:

Historical Fiction:

Praying Nuns, Weeping Queens: half direct historical fiction, half inspired by Shakespeare's histories, all intriguing AU in which the medieval clergy is all female while the Wars of the Roses wind down, and Elizabeth Woodville makes a terrible discovery. Or two. The story pulls off its premise with style and deft characterisations.

American Gods:

War Paint: I loved the subplot road trip for Laura, Mad Sweeney, and Salim the tv show added to book canon, and this story is a great "slice of life" glimpse at those three and their dynamic.

Bride of the Rat King:

Talking Pictures "Bride of the Rat King" is probably my favourite standalone Barbara Hambly novel, and this delightful story shows us Norah and Alec a few years later, when sound arrives at the cinematic scene and confronts them with a different type of magic.


Carrie:

No peace in the kingdom of women: Carrie rejects Tommy's offer, so Sue has to come up with a different way to atone. Captivating, well-drawn AU.

If you see her, say hello: Sue moves on, or tries to.


Defenders:

Freedom: a character portrait that weaves Elektra's past and present into a coherent, captivating tapestry

Exile on Main Street: fantastic Jessica-centric lengthy story set post Defenders (and at a vague point in the future when Matt is, well, you know). It does justice to all her relationships, uses bits and pieces from the Alias comics in a way that works with the MCU (Jessica and Luke having to play bodyguard for Matt for a while, Jessica having a rebound affair with Scott Lang), no mean feat considering the differences in set up, and is the ideal way to spend the time waiting for Jessica's own show to come back.

State of the selenak: was terribly busy yesterday, which included visiting several breathtakingly lovely towns in the Elsass/Alsace (German and French name for the province respectively, I don't know the English name, I'm afraid.) I made some great photos which I'll try to upload as soon as I have wi fi again. Did check on my mail in between, which brought me several nice comments on my Rarewomen story about Harmony, which made me happy, but so far the only people who liked my Remix story, which is one of those ambitous "I poured my heart and soul into this!" things, seem to have been my remixee and the beta reader. Never mind reviews, there aren't even other kudos. (Cue inner "but WHY?" wail of despair every time I check my mail.) This makes me profoundly depressed and in danger of getting whiny, so I shall stop and instead present some recs of other stories:

Breaking Bad:

Five Gifts for Holly White (and one she gave)

A great future fic giving us a plausible Holly growing up, which offers great glimpses at Skyler, Marie, Flynn and Gretchen as well.

Narcissa Through the Looking Glass

a Harry Potter/Game of Thrones crossover which not only pulls that premise of but does so in the backstory era for both sagas. Narcissa Not-yet-Malfoy but Black accidentally ends up with the Tully sisters, Catelyn and Lysa, and the result is eminently entertaining to read.