The best Yuletide ever
Dec. 25th, 2012 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mme_hardyI don't know what y'all (those of you who participated) can have gotten, but my presents are better. I am flabbergasted, not only that I got such great writing, but that I got three! Any single one of these stories would be a perfect Yuletide all by itself. Thank you to the authors.
Bring on the Dancing Girls The Empress Theodora arms herself for the day; so does the gladiator Hyacinthos. Magnificent writing, both lyrical and gripping, full of telling historical and visual details.
I asked for Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time" and got two different versions of "the awful truth which you can't reveal to the ears of youth", each perfect. Each story looks backward in time, one to the 1970s and one to the late 1990s; they catch the poignance of the song.
Closing Time, Then and Now The narrator looks back on his youth in the 1970s. This feels like the 1970s; the author was either there or did a dynamite job of research.
the winds of change and the weeds of sex New Year's Eve 1999 in Minneapolis. This fic makes me wince and laugh and sigh; that was my life and my friends' lives, and that was what it was like. The author catches the heartbreak as well as the apocalypse of the song.
Happy Yuletide (and happy Christmas, and happy whatever-you-celebrate) to everybody, and I hope you're surrounded by love and about to be surrounding good food.
Bring on the Dancing Girls The Empress Theodora arms herself for the day; so does the gladiator Hyacinthos. Magnificent writing, both lyrical and gripping, full of telling historical and visual details.
Theodora rises from the foam of her bath like Aphrodite from the waves. Her skin is scented with oils, wan as milk, smooth as a pearl: Theodora stands naked and proud. Hers is the body of an Empress, and in this life she will never be other. Her slaves hustle and scurry with towels and unguents, her eunuchs proffer wine and gossip, her flutegirls play the latest chorus, and in the centre of them all Theodora stands, arms raised, head up, smiling.
I asked for Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time" and got two different versions of "the awful truth which you can't reveal to the ears of youth", each perfect. Each story looks backward in time, one to the 1970s and one to the late 1990s; they catch the poignance of the song.
Closing Time, Then and Now The narrator looks back on his youth in the 1970s. This feels like the 1970s; the author was either there or did a dynamite job of research.
Our youth had been the cooling water, the foam from the fire extinguisher, that kept it all from incinerating us and all we touched. We just hadn’t learned that yet. We thought it had something to do with us, with our agency.
We were so very full of shit then.
the winds of change and the weeds of sex New Year's Eve 1999 in Minneapolis. This fic makes me wince and laugh and sigh; that was my life and my friends' lives, and that was what it was like. The author catches the heartbreak as well as the apocalypse of the song.
Jess sticks her (non-scalded) tongue out at Amy, then hides a smile behind her chai. Okay, they're about as different as two geek girls she's ever met. But opposites attract, or something? And attraction is definitely a thing. Even if Amy's currently eating meat, which, ew. Jess is glad when the sandwich is reduced to crumbs.
Happy Yuletide (and happy Christmas, and happy whatever-you-celebrate) to everybody, and I hope you're surrounded by love and about to be surrounding good food.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 08:47 pm (UTC)Mine too. Those were some crazy times. We actually went to the grocery store on Dec 31, 1999 just to watch people in a buying panic. :)
Glad you liked it! I was thrilled to be assigned your request; had lots of room to get creative.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-25 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-25 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-25 11:54 pm (UTC)