And I'll hold onto you while I can

My Received Fic

Magic's Paths

Valdemar Series

My request had been for a fic that gave an option for what if Stef had been able to help in the final fight in the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, what would that look like, and how would it change things. This was exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for! It still took a price, still had the same things that needed doing, but this felt like a great way to spread that price around, to fill the same place and needs but give them a life together instead of just a debt. PLUS some favorite side characters got to appear in it! A real delight and such a great gift to get!

Other Yuletide fics I liked

The Thrill of the Hunt

The Coldfire Trilogy

After Crown of Shadows, Vryce hunts down Gerald Tarrant. I love the way the hunt in this reflects the hunt in the books: an exploration of faith (vs Terrant's deliberate faith-based rejection of God), and how it builds erotic tension rather than dread.

The King in Silver

Cthulhu Mythos

Randolph Carter makes a mistake in judgment but you know, like, you're sort of delighted to see it. Uh oh, Carter!!!!

Longest Night

Dimension 20: Escape from the Bloodkeep

Maggie gets some help from Leiland in caring for her baby. This is soooo cute and pitch-perfect for the tone of the actual play series; I could HEAR the character voices they used. A little delight, absolutely.

pistachios

The Goblin Emperor Series

Set right after the novel. In the aftermath of the attempted assassination, Csevet is very shaken by the death of his longtime tormentor and needs a quiet thing to focus on. This is just very sweet and really focuses on how shaken he must have been; it really feels pitch-perfect for the quiet moments in the book and how they tend to reflect deeply emotional impacts.

What Abigail and Ione Did That January

Rivers of London

Such a sweet exploration of the next steps of their relationship, and the casefic elements themselves are also great. I love how it pulls in everyone important to Abigail to spend time with Ione as well. And whew, putting Indigo under threat was handled so well. Like I worried for her but also knew that Abigail wouldn't let anything happen to her. 

What Abigail Did When She House-Sat

Rivers of London

Abigail and Indigo house-sit at the Folly. Things don't go as planned when they get an unexpected delivery. Absolutely, BRILLIANTLY in character and fits perfectly into that world.

The Shadow of a Sound

Rivers of London

An absolutely pitch-perfect fic in terms of the writing style of the series, with an open-and-shut case of normal Folly policing. I laughed out loud at calling Nightingale a "pre-Blitz relic" —this fic is exactly as quotable as the books themselves.

See also: Galley House incident

Type Help

Type Help is something I'm completely obsessed with -- the way it builds its mystery at the same time as forcing the user to delve deeper into it is genius. This fic is ALSO genius and manages to capture some of the same level of DREAD at the thought of this spreading enough to be exposed to everyone who reads wikipedia. And it does so from a very accurate-to-wikipedia approach (it's excerpts from an in-world wikipedia, with talk pages etc!)! Really cool stuff.

The Christmas Cake File

Yami no Matsuei

Hisoka and Tsuzuki are sent to look for a missing woman. The perfect mix of sweet and sad, and an ideal casefile for this series. I love how it .... without directly reflecting the main characters, it still highlights elements of their own situations.