If you want to find my fic, the best place to look is at my user page at AO3, where all my fic is archived. There is also a chronological index of the Vorkosigan fic, which is most of it. Or you can look through the tags here.

I am no longer updating this list, but I will keep it in case it's useful to anyone.
( Fic hereCollapse )

1. I Aten't Dead. In fact, so far I have succeeded at keeping myself, Cub and Philomythulus all alive despite some severe provocation on both their parts (Cub and the nasty infection, Philomythulus and the is-this-medicine-or-sweeties fiasco, me and the ongoing question of whether high adrenalin levels can in fact cause the top of your head to blow off (the resolutions are: yay antibiotics; not sufficiently high overdose to be dangerous and get a better lock for the medicine cupboard; head still miraculously attached)). So I'm giving myself ten out of ten for parenthood.

2. The Good Wife. If you're not watching it, why not? It's the best thing I've seen on TV since The West Wing. In some ways, it's better than The West Wing, less of an overarching high-stakes plot but more thoughtful characterisation. It's been my snuggling-baby-on-the-sofa watching of choice for a while, and oh, it's so very good. I'm in season 4 now and there hasn't been a dud episode yet. For those not in the know, it is the story of Alicia Florrick, the Good Wife who stands by her disgraced husband when his legal-political career implodes in a sex and corruption scandal and he gets sent to prison. And then she has to get a job to support her teenage kids, so she goes to her ex-boyfriend's law firm and gets a job there. It's a legal, political and family drama, and the three strands of plot intertwine really well and every episode is fascinating. The characters, though, are what makes it amazing. Alicia herself is marvellous: a quiet, reserved, brilliant woman who has to deal with restarting her career when everyone she meets has heard the gory details of her cheating husband's sex life on the evening news. She's competent and she's always trying to do what is right and sometimes it kicks her in the teeth and other times she has to choose between what is right and what is necessary to survive, and figure out where her moral boundaries are. Her family are fantastic too, her husband Peter and his attempts to remake his life when he gets out of prison and her very complicated relationship with him, her children Zack and Grace and the teenage troubles they get into, her mother-in-law Jackie who meddles in her life. And then there are her co-workers and other lawyers she meets, many of them recurring characters and all of them interesting and complicated. I especially love Diane, the senior partner at the law firm, and how she kicks ass when necessary and also her taste for a bit of rough in her love-life (her relationship with the Sarah Palin fan and gun nut is hilarious and adorable). And then there's Eli Gold, her husband's political campaign manager and his Machiavellian approach to the world. And above all there's Kalinda, Alicia's closest friend at the law firm, and her shady past and her firm devotion to Alicia (yes, this show has loyalty issues AND female characters at the same time ♥). I love the show to bits.

3. I have been doing about three loads of laundry every day and also reading some Rosemary Sutcliff. That led to this ficlet, which will probably only make sense if you are both a Vorkosigan and Sutcliff fan. The world needs more Sutcliff pastiches, right?

***

The wilderness of native plants, red-brown and dusty by the roadside, gave way to geometric patches of Earth-green, carefully tended to provide food for animals and people, and Cordelia braced as they entered another village. The road dipped down into a hollow, and Kly leaned back in his saddle, adjusting Gregor with ease, slowing his animal yet further. Cordelia's horse slowed too as it went down the slope, and she blinked in surprise. At the bottom of the hollow was a creek, and it ran right over the track they were following. Around the edges the track was churned up into mud, but there were footprints and hoofmarks on both sides, and as she approached she saw that the water was shallow, barely hoof-deep for the horses. Bothari frowned at it, his urban upbringing making him as doubtful of this arrangement as she was, but rode for it. Kly turned his horse a little sideways and let it stretch its head down to the water upstream to drink, and Cordelia and Bothari joined him. He nodded to them, not speaking because Gregor was asleep, and Cordelia leaned back in the saddle and looked around at the Barrayaran landscape. There were low patches of a reddish native plantby the waterside, all twisted stems and flat leaves like saucers, and taller bushes with branches spreading wide. Cordelia looked again, and realised that draped across the branches were not leaves, but clothing hung to drip-dry, and there was a black-gowned woman standing in the cold water, bent over something. Fishing? No--the woman straightened, and Cordelia saw that she was washing clothes in the stream. She lifted the garment she was washing, and it hung dripping down across her bare arm, a pale grey dress oddly ornate and elegant for this backcountry village, stained reddish-brown across the front. Cordelia stared at it for a moment, and the woman bent over her task again, pounding the cloth against a rock.

Kly the Mail looked up at her too, and an odd expression crossed his face. "Come on," he said, gathering up his reins quickly, and his horse splashed across the ford and began to climb back up the hill to the village. Cordelia and Bothari followed, and when Cordelia looked back down at the ford, the woman was gone. It wasn't until they were well past the village and climbing up the pass beyond that she remembered the last time she'd seen a dress like that, when she'd first met Princess Kareen.

***

And you can all be grateful to Cub for waking up and crying before I could type up the urban version starring Lady Alys and a Vorbarr Sultana laundromat.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/100207.html. There are comments there.

I happened across some lovely Vorkosiverse art from the Russian fandom. I particularly love the Aral/Cordelia one, and Bel with the hamster.

1. the Koudelka sisters
2. Ivan/By kissing
3. Bel and a hamster
4. Enrique, Armsman Jankowski's daughter, and a butter bug
5. Cordelia returns with her shopping
6. Taura
7. Taura at Winterfair
8. Rish as a living statue
9. Miles/Bel in bed, in Bel's dream
10. Aral and Cordelia at the end of Shards
11. Ekaterin walking out of the dinner party
12. Doctor Raven Durona
13. Lt Illyan
14. Cordelia and maple leaves
15. Miles
16. the ImpSec building, at the end of CVA
17. Cordelia Naismith
18. Ekaterin
19. Bothari as Cordelia's dog

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/99976.html. There are comments there.

Popping in quickly to say that at 11.30 last night I gave birth to a lovely little boy. Labour was about 5 hours and all went well, he weighs a smidgen under 9lb, and we're both recovering nicely now.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/99526.html. There are comments there.

Fandom_stocking has gone live, and I have a lovely selection of multi-fandom recs and ficlets - thank you all very much :-). You can find my stocking here.

I also wrote four fics of my own for other people:

Live to Serve (500 words)
Five ImpSec agents and their oaths.

Tour Guide (4800 words)
Ivan offers to give Duv a tour of Vorbarr Sultana, but is accidentally double-booked for the morning.

Champion (1400 words)
Kareen and Aral at Serg's funeral.

A Personal Matter (900 words)
Illyan asks Duv for assistance.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/99266.html. There are comments there.

We had a pretty good Christmas here, the boy is off staying with his grandparents while we have a few quiet days at home, and my cold is going away now, but I am feeling extraordinarily pregnant, possibly with wriggly elephant triplets, so I need a nice sedentary sort of distraction. Besides, if I ask you all for fic prompts, that will guarantee I go into labour soon, right? Well, maybe not, but either way it will be fun and I think I have enough brain left to write to prompts, so here's the timestamp meme from avanti_90:

Pick one of my stories and a timestamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, or sometime in the past before the story started, and I'll write you at least a hundred words of what happened then, whether it's five minutes before the story started or ten years in the future. Can be from any character POV.

I'll also take timestamps for missing bits from within stories if your fancy takes you that way, since I always want the missing scenes from everything.

Fics are here for your convenience. And if I suddenly stop responding here you'll know this worked ;-). Or, of course, you've stumped me...

ETA:

Six weeks after 'Protection'
Nineteen days after 'Repairs'
Immediately after 'Vorkosigan's Day'
The morning after 'First Aid'
Twenty minutes after 'In Loco Parentis'
A year after 'In a Name'
The morning after 'Warmth'
Protection, about a year earlier
One month into 'Reconstruction'

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/98656.html. There are comments there.

- I now believe that in that phrase 'barefoot and pregnant', the woman is barefoot because it's a complete pain trying to get your socks and shoes on when you're heavily pregnant. Especially if the range of contortions possible to touch your feet is strictly limited by the fact that your pelvis tries to fall apart when you move in asymmetric ways. I'm sure I didn't have this problem with Philomythulus, though perhaps I had more slip-on shoes then; now I seem to exclusively own shoes with laces or buckles or other fastenings that need doing up. (Relatedly, a woman the other day inquired as to how many babies I was expecting. I do not possess an emoticon for that.)

- Secondary glazing cuts drafts and sound from outside, who knew? Well, of course it does, but we put it in to prevent a repeat of last month's window-smashing episode, and it's just a happy chance that it's now about 5 degrees warmer in the front hall than it was before. However, I can no longer hear the school bus pulling up outside.

- The Hobbit film was good, but it would have been better if they had not decided to heat the cinema to approximately 35 degrees Celsius when everyone was dressed in winter clothes. I managed not to faint, but comfortable it was not. ( more thoughts on the filmCollapse )

- At breakfast this morning my son suddenly burst into a spirited (and entirely in-tune) rendition of 'Riu Riu Chiu', which he cannot have heard anywhere since last year, but has remembered the entirety of since then. This is what people mean when they talk about little islets of ability in severe autism.

- I wrote a drabbly thing about Aral and Simon for hedda62 the other day; here it is:


Cordelia walked into the library, then stopped. Aral was sitting on the deep low sofa, head back against the cushions, eyes closed. Beside him sat Simon, his posture wholly tilted towards Aral. One of Aral's arms was around him, the other hand rested on the top of Simon's head, and Simon too was asleep. Cordelia looked at them, and felt a strange flicker of memory, of Count Piotr dozing on the sofa at Vorkosigan Surleau with one of his favourite hounds curled against him.

She blinked and the flicker was gone, and she saw two very tired friends whose conversation had evidently turned to sleep while she'd been gone. She took a step, and Simon moved a little, eyes opening. Aral moved too, gave a grunt, and smoothed his hand on Simon's head. Simon subsided, and Cordelia smiled. Perhaps her first impression had been the right one.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/98275.html. There are comments there.

It's been a Galeni sort of week here, because I've been tinkering with the Duv/Aral fic some more, and rereading Brothers in Arms and thinking that if anything I am underestimating the crush Duv has on Barrayar and its military. When you calibrate for him being an extremely cool, reserved, ironic sort of man, the way he drifts off into almost poetic exaltation of the Barrayaran service ethos can only lead me to the conclusion that he does, in fact, have a feudalism kink a mile wide. And even more daddy issues than I am taking into account. The things he and Miles talk about when they're locked up together are fascinating and revealing.

As well as that, I wrote, rather at the last minute, this fic for trobadora as a pinch hit for the blasters_wands fic exchange, which I can now own up to.

Title: Laying Ghosts
Content: major character death
Length: 1600 words
Summary: Duv on Komarr immediately after the end of Cryoburn.

Laying Ghosts (on AO3)

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/97926.html. There are comments there.

Two posts in one day, what is the world coming to? But I just watched 2.18, 'Power', and - wow. I have to burble about it a bit. ( spoilersCollapse )

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/97741.html. There are comments there.

It's that time of year again! I have signed up for fandom_stocking, a gift exchange where you post a wishlist of fannish things you'd like, and try to grant other people's wishes. It's a no-commitment thing - obviously it's nice if you can give something to someone else, but it's not a requirement. I've had a wonderful time with it in previous years and hopefully I'll get to write a few things for interesting prompts this year as well. If you want to hang up a fannish stocking, you can go to the sign-up post and leave your details there. And my stocking is here.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/96528.html. There are comments there.

So, November. Writing has gone less well than I might have liked, though I did get 'Post Facto' done. Here are the beginning and end wordcounts:

Alys/Simon: 25,295 at the start, has gone up to 31,191. I've written more than that, in fact, but the other scenes aren't in the continuous section yet. There's still a long way to go, though.

LiA: 27,029 up to 29,078. I haven't had a lot of progress on this one, mostly out of laziness. I know what I want to do with it, I just don't *want* to do it /o\. But I have most of chapter 6 now, then 7 and 8 are action and things going boom a lot and the finale, which I have mostly written already.

I've also got a whole lot nearer the end of the Aral/Duv fic, though I have no idea how many words I added to it, a couple of thousand, probably. It needs the final scene sorting out and then a ton of editing.

But mostly my head is full of Alys and Simon right now. I have a nice argument brewing for them, I just need to figure out whether or not Alys witnesses the thing that starts it off or not. Writing Alys making mistakes is interesting, because she's such an infallible character in so many ways. But she's breaking a lot of new ground in this fic.


In other news, Nikita. I've watched up to 2.15, and I love this show so much it's ridiculous. Apart from anything else, it's unexpectedly startling to see a show like this, full of action and spy adventures, where there are at least equal numbers of male and female characters, in all roles. And older women, and complicated interactions between women, and - well, this is a show that passes the Bechdel test every episode without even trying or making a big deal of it. And when new interesting characters show up, they're as likely as not to be female too (just getting going with the Carla plot here). That's not enough to make a good TV show, but fortunately, Nikita has a lot of 'anything else' going for it. The plots are complicated and tangled and fascinating, the characters all have their own motivations and complex relationships with each other, and nothing is ever simple and easy. My favourite character remains Amanda, who - well, it's far too simple to call her the villain, but she's definitely not on Nikita's side. But she is stunningly ruthless and scary and conniving and plays everyone off against each other with consummate skill, and - well, it's easiest to say that she's a dark!Alys, so how could I resist? But I love all the characters, really. The only thing that I occasionally find weak about the show is its handling of the romantic plots. Nikita/Michael just does nothing for me. I like Nikita a lot, and I like Michael too, and I'm happy to imagine them having a relationship and fighting alongside each other, I just don't want to see anything about it, and the occasional 'trouble in paradise' subplots they get are the few places where the show bores me. Apart from that, the show is fantastic.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/96331.html. There are comments there.

For raven, a rather late entry for the ficathon, with a very high idfic quotient. I hope you like it!

Title: Post Facto
Prompt: Aral/Simon, which somehow addresses Simon's inability to meaningfully consent where Aral is concerned. (Note: this fic is actually gen)
Length: 7600 words
Content: gen consent issues, drugged interrogation
Summary: Aral breaks an oath he made to Simon.

( Post FactoCollapse )

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/95981.html

Progress still slow and steady on everything. I have Cordelia taking Aral up to the René Magritte for the first time brewing in my backbrain right now. It always struck me as a shame that he never really got to see her properly in action as a Betan Survey Captain, and the opportunity to write it in this AU is not to be sneezed at, but it's still at the 'this will be cool when I figure it out' stage rather than actual words or sentences. I need to go and cook or something, that's a good way to get my backbrain to start producing fic. Usually going out for a walk would be my trick for getting from Idea to Words, but that's not an option any more. But Aral on the René Magritte watching Cordelia in action: this is a cool idea, right? Easier if I were writing from Aral's POV, perhaps, but I expect I can get enough of the same effect from Cordelia's POV. And Cordelia will get a chance to watch Aral in action in the final action sequence. A very Barrayaran courtship, this: you know you love him/her when you see them being super-competent in a paramilitary situation. Still not sure whether or not to include the thread about the inevitable culture clash you get when a mixed-sex group of Betans with cabin fever meet a lot of recently-freed male Barrayaran prisoners... Aral and Cordelia dealing with sexual harassment and also possibly Barrayarans slightly startled to find themselves invited to orgies? Also still not sure quite where Vordarian comes in to things, except that he definitely doesn't come in during the first fight because there are way too many complications in that scene already. But he's got to be found sooner or later so that he and Aral can argue the relative merits of opposing and supporting the Cetagandans for Cordelia's benefit.

Alys and Simon - reading Georgette Heyer totally counts as research when you're writing a fic with several major subplots circling around social scandals in Vorbarr Sultana, doesn't it? Also contemplating sex scenes, because I do very much want to write them in bed together at last, not least since there needs to be lots and lots of romantic happiness coming up soon to counterbalance all the misery this fic is front-loaded with. But I've already added 5000 words to this since the start of the month, so I'm doing well there.

And I've nearly disentangled the plot for Post Facto at last. This started off as such an idfic, but now it's like a fic doughnut, with a jammy core of idfic surrounded by a lot of chewy plot. Also, I think it's the first time I've sorted out a plot by sending in a man with a gun - it's a very effective technique. Then it needs editing and tidying up and making sure I haven't mislaid my continuity anywhere, and it will be ready for posting.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/95442.html

I recently got my paper copy of CVA and have been utterly distracted with reading it and squeaking with delight all the time. There's a romance, and a plot, and stuff, and other people have interesting and intelligent critiques of those things, but as far as I'm concerned, it's The Simon And Alys Show and I am delighted with it. Here are some readalong notes from this time around, with entirely obvious bias:

( CVA spoilers galoreCollapse )

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/95030.html

Not an entirely impressive WIP-finishing month here. The only thing I've finished is 'Black Ice', which is nice but doesn't exactly count as what I was trying to finish. But I did make more progress on the WIPs than I have in a while. I finally unblocked the sticky middle bit of LiA, though chapter 6 contains more sticky middleness until I get into space and lots of things going boom. Still trying to find the way into writing that, though--I have the plot pretty much sorted out now, but for some reason I can't seem to get into Cordelia's head about it all, so everything I write is coming out incredibly wooden and forced. I need to figure out the right angle to take on this.

And I got a decent number of words added to the Alys/Simon fic (which desperately needs a good title) and I figured out how to structure another of the major arcs in that. It's a funny sort of romance, because Alys and Simon's trajectory is not a typical falling in love sort of arc, it's whether they can get their lives sufficiently sorted out that having a relationship becomes a viable option. It's how they get from 'we love each other but we're not going to do anything about it' to kissing publicly at the Emperor's betrothal. Hopefully the fic will do a good job of showing just how big a deal it is for Lady Alys Vorpatril to have a prole lover publicly acknowledged. Amongst other things ;-).

Other than those, there's an outside chance I will figure out what to do with The Nature of Kings, which has Duv stuck in the middle of disentangling his mystery and constantly getting diverted into long arguments with Aral (the state of history teaching on Barrayar being the latest random thing to bounce into the story). And there's Post Facto, which needs a couple thousand words of Simon talking constantly and Aral and Cordelia arguing about stuff and then a bit of patching up to put the new revised plot into the beginning. I expect I can get that finished.

November is wrisomifu month, too, and that's always good for getting me working on things--it's how I got the entire first half of LiA written, last year, so there's a decent chance it will disentangle the second half as well. It's open for signups today, so if you think your life would be enriched by having a comm nagging you every day to write for at least 10 minutes, you can go here and put your name forwards. (And don't be put off by the name; it's an incredibly friendly and entertaining community and everyone is welcome.)

Here are the word counts for the start of November; hopefully these numbers will have grown nicely by the end of the month:
LiA: 27,029, 5 chapters and a bit out of a projected 8
Alys/Simon: 25,295, not yet fully chaptered but probably going to run to 50-60k

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/94837.html

So I wrote this fic and then discovered that it didn't work, canonically speaking, but I didn't want to just delete it, so here it is, and the detail-oriented readers who know that it's All Wrong can quietly avert their eyes (if you're curious, there are details at the end).

Many thanks to avanti_90 for the plot bunny and betaing and encouragement.

Title: Black Ice
Content: gen, politics
Length: 2600 words
Summary: Count Vorhalas receives an unusual visitor late at night, with an even more unusual proposal. Set during The Vor Game.

( Black IceCollapse )

---

( FootnoteCollapse )

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/94509.html

Still working on Alys and Simon. Not that I have any actual complaints about this, because I love writing them and I've been trying to disentangle this fic for yonks and am finally making progress in that respect. It's getting impressively complicated now, and I think I counted seven distinct plot threads. But right now the scene I am working on features Simon having a turn being a bit melodramatic. And who can blame him, after the month he's had? Alys is not being melodramatic, because they can't both fall apart at once, but she'll get her turn later on. Fortunately, by then Simon will be more able to help her. Anyhow, once I'm done with that, I have a gap before I get to the next set-piece scene I have in my scraps file, and I'm not quite sure what goes there, but very probably Act Two of the Laisa/Duv/Delia triangle and Alys's efforts to sort them out. I need to think hard about the structure of this middle bit of the fic.

I'm also entertaining myself by researching recovery from craniotomy, which is when someone slices your skull open, for instance to remove a malfunctioning chip, and finding it hard to square what I'm reading with Simon toddling off to Vorkosigan House with only Miles to look out for him two days after the operation. I guess I'm going to have to put it down to Nexus medical tech being really superior, and possibly Simon being made of exceptionally stern stuff.

Anyhow, word counts for the Alys/Simon fic: 21,969 of completed fic, 2426 this week so far. Not bad. I should probably try to make some more progress on the other WIPs as well, but this one is still keeping my mind busy.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/93956.html

So there's nothing like deciding to do one thing to make me do another. I did manage to get about a thousand words into the start of chapter six of LiA the other day, but the rest of the time I've been wrestling with the Alys/Simon fic. I've added a good 6000 words to that, mostly from chopped-up scenes I'd already written and needed to edit and stick together to make work, but still, it's turning random bits of stuff into continuous story, which I reckon counts. I have finally prised Alys out of the ImpSec clinic and sent her back to discover that she can't leave Vorbarr Sultana or Laisa alone for five minutes... and I got to introduce one of my favourite OCs, a certain Lady Natasha who was once Ezar's mistress and who is on the very short list of people who can terrorise Alys ;-). And I figured out how to structure a bit later on that's been bugging me and make my fic make sense alongside canon (fortunately, there's an awful lot going on that Miles doesn't see). Also I reached one of my favourite bits with By (on the subject of darlings that are not going to be killed, this is one):

She examined the canapés on a tray borne by a smart-waiter, a robotic servant, and looked at the machine in disfavour.

"If you have any special dietary requirements, please state them, sir or madam," the robot intoned.

"If you tell it you can't eat people, it freezes up," said a voice behind her. "Repeats the same apology over and over again until someone reboots it. Cheap models."

It was Byerly Vorrutyer.

"I do not," she stated, "wish to know how you came by this knowledge."

"A scientific spirit of enquiry, I assure you," he said. "You are the most beautiful sight in this dreadful squeeze, milady. Might I have the honour of the next dance?" He bowed to her elegantly.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/93721.html

Progress, what is that? Well, on Friday I made quite a lot of progress on 'Post Facto', which now has a brand new ending with 100% more action. That fic started out as such pure idfic, and now it's sprouting plot in all directions and has got past 5000 words and is not done yet. I still have to figure out all the plot threads, as well as get Aral and Cordelia to reconcile their differences about it all, and then tie the whole thing together, but it's getting there. And there was no writing at all on the weekend, which isn't really surprising considering how busy it was, and today has been mostly eaten up with catching up with all the other things that needed to be done over the weekend but weren't. But I did manage to write about 500 words of LiA today, in which Aral and Cordelia have a brief but intense conversation, and I think that completes the rough draft of chapter five. So now it's on to chapter six! First job: figure out what happens in chapter six...

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/93346.html

Today's word count on LiA is a rather less impressive 642, introducing Drou and bridging to the next drama-filled bit, but in my defence I should point out that I've been up today since 1.30am and it's impressive that I can type coherent sentences at all. Clearly, saying anything at all about how much sleep I'd had the previous night was just tempting fate too far. Perhaps if I complain bitterly about not having anywhere near enough sleep, that will make the boy sleep tonight? Can't hurt to try, I guess.

(I did also write some dreadful hurt/comfort in the middle of the night because it was that or beat my head against the wall and cry, but I'm not sure I should count that, since it wasn't LiA.)

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/93057.html

I've had two full nights of sleep in a row and am feeling like I might be conscious and aware of the world around me again (the four previous nights involved rather less than four hours of sleep each). And so I shall start being annoying making regular updates on my progress with my longfics that have to be done before the end of the year. This month is Finish Lovers in Arms Month, I have decided, and so far today I've got on well, slogging through a bit of plot that I've been putting off doing for ages, so that I've finally got to the fun drama bit that comes after that. I am actually writing this story from beginning to end, linearly, and it's weird but fun trying to construct the whole thing in order straight away instead of writing all the cool bits as they come to me and then stitching them together.

So, word counts: 24,042 words of completed fic, today's total so far: 2562 words.

And have a snippet from today's writing:

( Cetagandan prisonersCollapse )

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/92749.html

*wipes sweat from brow* So you all really like tropefic, I see :-). Especially bodyswap, it seems. I have never previously written bodyswap fic; now I've done four. It's a fascinating trope, one that made me think a lot about where I draw the line between mind and body, and why. I don't think I'd ever particularly read any before, but I entirely see the attraction now, though there is the persistent problem of explaining it in a way that doesn't seem completely bonkers. Magic works better than science, imo. Anyhow, here's the completed list of fics for this meme; I'll be polishing a few of these up and archiving them later.

Also, the main thing that I wanted this meme to distract me from has mostly gone away. I'm not sure this is connected in any way with the meme, but hey, let it take the credit!

Wimsey, Peter and Harriet (pre-Gaudy Night), forced to share a bed

Illyan and Cordelia, pretending to be married

Duv and Delia, truth or dare

Galeni, historical AU

Avengers, Steve, cross-dressing

Honorverse, Giscard/Pritchart, accidental baby acquisition

Gregor, accidental baby acquisition

Ivan and Miles, bodyswap

Alys/Simon, secretly a virgin

Alys and By, bodyswap

Gregor/Laisa, truth or dare

Alys and Gregor, bodyswap

Aral/Cordelia, historical AU

And this is the last one, which was meant to be short but inevitably got a little out of hand. I think by the time I've got more than 4000 words of Aral and Simon inhabiting each other's bodies, the fic deserves its own post, so here you go.

Title: Reflections
Length: 4200 words
Content: bodyswap
Summary: Aral and Simon swap roles and lives for an evening.

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Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/92564.html

Here's an excellent article about having a child with a serious learning disability. The author's son is naturally different from Philomythulus, but there's a lot of commonality all the same (it's been my experience that at this end of the spectrum, Philomythulus has a lot more in common with children with other different types of learning disability than he does with people at the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum). And the experience as a parent is very similar (oh God the paperwork). And I particularly relate to the whole shock of it, when you come from a family where intelligence and mental ability were the most highly valued traits. Mr P and I met when we were both students at Oxford; we both casually assumed any children we might have would follow in our intellectual footsteps. Not so much. It changes how you view people, that, and what you value.

article from the Guardian

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/92087.html

I am in the mood for something light and silly today, in the hope of taking my mind off various things that are being a bother, so here's a meme:

Pick a trope from this list and provide a fandom/pairing/characters and I'll tell you something about the story I'd write for that combination (i.e. write a snippet from the story or write not!fic or tell you the title and summary for the story I would write)

1. genderswap
2. bodyswap
3. drunk!fic
4. huddling for warmth
5. pretending to be married
6. secretly a virgin
7. amnesia
8. cross-dressing
9. forced to share a bed
10. truth or dare
11. historical AU
12. accidental-baby-acquisition
13. apocalypse fic
14. telepathy
15. High School / College AU

I am amused by the fact that I've written quite a few of these, but I like trope!fic, so I'll happily write them again.

ETA: So far:

Peter and Harriet (pre-Gaudy Night), forced to share a bed

Illyan and Cordelia, pretending to be married

Duv and Delia, truth or dare

Galeni, historical AU (by avanti_90)

Galeni, historical AU (my version)

Avengers, Steve, cross-dressing

Honorverse, Giscard/Pritchart, accidental baby acquisition

Gregor, accidental baby acquisition

Ivan and Miles, bodyswap

Alys/Simon, secretly a virgin

Alys and By, bodyswap

Gregor/Laisa, truth or dare

Alys and Gregor, bodyswap

Aral/Cordelia, historical AU

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/91522.html

Somewhere in the cracks of the past couple of months, I have read various books and watched various stuff. Have an assortment of mini-reviews:

Das Boot
WWII submarine drama, told from a German perspective. I like submarine films, and I tend to think of them as the real-world equivalent of spaceship stories, with the close confines of the ship and the hostile environment without. And this one was excellent and absorbing and a fantastic if gritty look at life in a German WW2 submarine, and the Captain was marvellous, and it was good for a view of 'the enemy' as ordinary people generally (at the ending, I looked at Mr P and said, "Um, hurrah for the RAF?"). Also, if anyone should ever be in need of a visual for a Vor-military drinking party, I think the opening sequence is pretty much it.

Tinker Tailor Solder Spy
Very John LeCarré, very good, but I have to say probably not best watched when you're only half-awake from sleep deprivation and general mental fog, because I only followed about half the plot. Um, they were trying to find a traitor in the Circus, and they finally figured out who it was by a chain of events I do not entirely understand? It was very atmospheric, muted historical colours and good filming, and Smiley was simply excellent.

Anna Karenina
The recent film, which we went to see when we got a free night of babysitting on the strength of it having a screenplay by Tom Stoppard. I have a confession to make: I haven't read it (I did read War and Peace, mostly to show off, when I was about thirteen, and probably would have understood more if I'd known any Russian history at all). The film was fascinating, done very much as a play and in a non-realistic fashion, with characters opening a door in one scene and walking into another, a visible stage and audience, background characters suddenly disappearing to focus on the main characters, and so forth. I really enjoyed it, lovely visuals, lovely storytelling and all very cleverly done. I have no idea whether it did a good job representing the book, but I could believe it did. Karenin was particularly brilliant.

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch
This was great fun, though the edition I had could have used a serious proofreader before they published it (*mutters darkly about Standards*). I liked the way Lesley is working into the story and developing a new role. It didn't do that much to advance the vague series plot of finding the black magician ethically challenged magical practitioner, but it was a very entertaining read all the same.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Okay, wow. I'd seen this mentioned around the place and had it vaguely on my to-read list, and finally got around to it, and it was AMAZING. Two highly competent and intelligent young women and their friendship and a complex and well-told and sometimes heartbreaking story of spy and airplane adventures in WW2. Also, I swear there's a stealth Wimsey crossover in there. Definitely one to read and then go back and read again.

Dr Who
The first two episodes of S7. I liked them both, though I prefered the dinosaurs to the Daleks. Fairly light, fun, wacky adventures, not too much character melodrama (okay, there was a bit in the Dalek episode), Amy and Rory being awesome - this is how I like my Dr Who.

The Bletchley Circle
Only the first episode, so far. It was very good. Four women who used to be codebreakers at Bletchley Park find themselves at a loose end after the war and start tracking a serial killer. The murder seems a bit contrived right now, but who cares, it's interesting and it works and the characters are outstanding. Especially Lucy - I want to know so much more about her and her life.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/91258.html

A second fic slipping under the wire for the ficathon! (Post Facto is stuck in a deep mire of plot, unfortunately.) But Piotr came up trumps.

Title: Defending the House
Prompt: Count Piotr tries to get the Vorrutyer family out of his son's life - by any means possible.
Length: 2500 words
Content: abusive relationship, implied rape, Old-Barrayaran attitudes, difficult father-son relationship
Summary: Piotr is a dirty fighter, but so is Ges Vorrutyer.

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Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/90992.html

Title: Uncle Simon (2/2)
Prompt: Miles is the closest thing to a son Simon has.
Content: minor character death, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance spoilers in the final two scenes.
Length: 16,000 words
Summary: Simon has no children of his own. But he has an honorary nephew.
Notes: Many thanks to avanti_90 for beta-reading. Divided into two parts on LJ.

Part One

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Well, I'm not going to have to be embarrassed, because I have finally finished a fic for the ficathon before the deadline, and it's a nice long one, too. Or possibly it's eleven fics all stuck together, I'm still not sure about that. It's done, either way.

Title: Uncle Simon
Prompt: Miles is the closest thing to a son Simon has.
Content: minor character death, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance spoilers in the final two scenes.
Length: 16,000 words
Summary: Simon has no children of his own. But he has an honorary nephew.
Notes: Many thanks to avanti_90 for beta-reading. Posted in two halves on LJ.

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Everyone should go and read raven's the winter here is cold, and bitter, which is not-really-a-remix of my Aptitude. She takes the rather thin plot I came up with about Simon staging a rift between himself and Aral so that Miles becomes suspicious of him, and recreates it as an epic spy adventure all about Simon and his loyalties. As I said to her when betaing it, I feel like someone who composed an advertising jingle and had it transformed into an opera, the themes still recognisable, but on a far grander and also more intricate scale. And the dynamic between Aral and Simon is beautiful and spot-on, ownership and love and duty and blood and bone, and is really what the story is all about. Which suits me fine :-).

I wanted to pick out a quote for this rec, but really, it's best if you read it all in the order it comes. Suffice to say, I love it to pieces.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/90343.html

So it will be kind of embarrassing if I don't manage to finish something in the next week for this ficathon, given I set the deadline myself. In the interests of that, I will witter about how it's all going.

'Uncle Simon' is approaching 14,000 words and is not done yet, though I have only two scenes left that don't have most of their content now. One of them just needs me to think of something interesting about Simon with Miles's children, which oughtn't to be too hard once I put my mind to it, but the other requires me to figure out precisely what dreadful thing Simon does to give Miles grey hairs (yes, that is the right way round). And then it's just filling in the odd gaps here and there, and I'll have a complete first draft, hurrah.

The Aral and Simon and consent issues fic (working title is 'Post Facto' OMG Philomytha what are you DOING?) is chugging along, being slightly hampered by the fact that it's currently pure idfic and needs at least a veneer of sensible plot on top of it, but I know where the resolution is, at least between Simon and Aral; not sure about the resolution between Aral and Cordelia yet. And I know what the plot is too, thanks to needing something to think about during a night flight when I couldn't sleep, so now I need to cook that up with the idfic part and see what happens.

And Piotr and Aral and Ges is still just a fic-embryo, a couple of scribbled pages in a notebook and a couple more paragraphs of hastily-typed nonsense and a little mental image of Piotr struggling to deal with Ges. Not often Piotr finds himself floundering, but Ges has no scruples about using Aral as a weapon against Piotr, and though Piotr might be ready to wring Aral's neck himself, he's not going to have a Vorrutyer force him to it. Oh, I do love writing Piotr. Whenever I start writing his perspective he just takes over my head completely with his old-Vor virtues and his old-Vor vices.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/89986.html

My son has watched me make cheesecake several times, and he really likes it. So when I gave him a few cheese crackers and a small raspberry yoghurt for a snack after a busy afternoon, he decided that instead of just eating them both, he would make his own version of cheesecake. He smashed the cheesy crackers into a fine powder, pressed it into the bottom of a bowl, layered the yoghurt on top and then attempted to bake this in the oven, decorated with some dried banana pieces. The smell was ... well, bad melted cheddar and overheated yoghurt combined, unspeakably vile even if you don't have a hormonally heightened sense of smell. He then dished this out onto two plates and gave me one, kindly found a spoon for me, and began to tuck into his own with great enthusiasm, but I'm sorry to report that even maternal love was not sufficient for me to do more than pretend to eat it and offer him mine too.

I think we'll make proper cheesecake soon, just to get the thought out of my head. And the smell out of my kitchen.

On the literary side, this Uncle Simon fic I am working on for the ficathon has hit 9000 words and is still going strong. It was only going to be three short scenes! And then it was going to be five, and now it seems to want to be eleven. I've got complete drafts of two of them, most of what I want for four more of them, and the other five are in varying stages of trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. The structure is developing, but I need more structure and more theme, I think. Along with figuring out where some of these scenes are going. But Simon's perspective on Miles and Miles's perspective on Simon are both deeply fascinating, and the development of their relationship as family is keeping me well entertained. But dammit, this was going to be a short fic! Also, I was going to have it finished before we go away, but unless I am struck by several successive flashes of inspiration very soon, that probably won't happen.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/89330.html

For trobadora, some pointless Alys/Simon fluff, since this fic_promptly prompt inspired me. If 'inspired' is the word I'm looking for... ;-)

Title: Off Duty
Prompt: "I never thought a lady could drink me under the table."
Content: kissing, fluff
Length: 1000 words
Summary: Alys and Simon are less dignified in private than in public.

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Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/88590.html

Another little fic_promptly fic. If you're wondering where these are coming from all of a sudden, it's because they're having a challenge week at the comm and I'm taking it as encouragement to finish off some of the half-written things I've started for various prompts. The next question is: do I polish and post the absurd bit of Alys/Simon fluff on the theme of 'I never would have thought a lady could drink me under the table'? Or the one where Simon gets to try out one of his fantasies? Or should I just work on the ficathon fic, which is in desperate need of it, or see what I can do with this tiny new plot bunny I've got for the prompt about Piotr and Ges... today is being a stress-makes-me-write sort of day and I seem to be scribbling in all directions at once.

Title: Protection
Length: 1100 words
Prompt: Illyan and Allegre, the chief's secrets
Content: suitable for all
Summary: Illyan tries to live with being protected.

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Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/88459.html

A little commentfic from fic_promptly, set in the AU in which Aral goes to Beta to become a judo instructor.

Title: Dreamland
Content: suitable for all
Prompt: Aral, stranded on an alien world
Length: 700 words
Summary: Aral's first impressions of Beta Colony.

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Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/88248.html

From lotesse, the DVD commentary meme. This was great fun the last time I tried it, so:

Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any story I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

ETA: end of The Prodigal Sons
start of Pater Patriae
start of The Family Honour
end of Liegeman
end of Vorkosigan's Day
end of A New Dance
middle of Shareholder
Missionaries

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/87639.html

So, we went to the Olympic showjumping individual finals. ( this got a bit longCollapse )

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/87310.html

Four years ago, I planted a half-standard plum tree outside my house. The first year it fruited, I had about six plums, and I think it took me about a day to eat them all. Last year I had maybe twenty plums, and we ate them over a couple of days. This year - well, I've picked somewhere between a third and half the plums so far, and that's over 5 kilograms. Other than tracking down unsuspecting friends and neighbours and stuffing plums into their hands, what can I do with all this? I mean, I could make a ton of plum jam, but we don't eat jam very quickly, so that will make rather more plum jam than I really want. The variety is Jubilaeum (so perhaps it's because this is a Jubilee year that's made the tree fruit like this), and they're similar to a Victoria plum in size and taste and texture. Ideas? Recipes?

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/87064.html

I've wound up running this year's Bujold Ficathon, so if you're interested in leaving prompts or writing fics, go over here and join in the fun! But in the meantime, between fiddling with AO3 collections and making sure everything is as clear as I can make it, I have finally finished this fic.

I've been trying to write proper Aral/Simon slash for ages, and it's taken me about two years to get this fic done. This is from the imaginary slash version of AVD, and is set during chapter 15, but if you haven't read that, the key point is that Aral knows that Simon has figured out the Escobar secret. There's also the wordless oath thing, but that's not so easy to explain; you'll have to read AVD for that ;-).

With thanks to avanti_90 for beta-reading.

Title: First Aid
Length: 4600 words
Content: hurt/comfort, angst, explicit
Summary: Aral/Simon post-Escobar fic.

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Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/86910.html

Or something like that. I was getting my son ready for bed and taking off his socks, and I thought, that's funny, I didn't think he had any socks that colour... hang on a minute!

Indeed, they were my socks, and there were a couple more pairs of my socks in his drawer. I conclude two things from this. One is that my son's feet just keep on growing. The other is that the terrible kidnapper of noses edges is apparently living in my house.

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/86283.html

All right, so I've been blethering a bit about the Olympics (and Helen Glover and Heather Stanning were absolutely beautiful today, I am in love), so now: the Barrayaran edition, in the Nexus Games.

Barrayar would do well in martial arts, shooting, fencing and equestrian sports. Their track and field events wouldn't be particularly outstanding, nor the water events (and hm, this is making me wonder how the Nexus Games deal with genetic modifications of various sorts. Very strict rules about what is allowed and what isn't, I guess. I doubt Taura would be allowed to compete anywhere, nor Guppy, but I wonder about someone who's been specifically modified to be a brilliant sprinter or whatever. Tricky.). Team games would probably vary; Barrayarans are reasonably good at team play, but the non-martial sports probably don't get the kind of investment and attention that the martial ones do.

Specific characters: Aral is a boxer or possibly a judoka or wrestler (definitely NOT a sailor). (Actually, I saw a marvellous visual/mental model of Aral when I randomly watched a bit of judo - the Uzbek competitor Choriev. He just fit, somehow, in my head, he had the right eyes, and the right aura of being dangerous and controlled. And he was kind of ugly in the right way. You can see him prior to the Olympics, the guy in white here.)

Miles had to argue with a lot of people to be on the Olympic rather than Paralympic team, but rides in the three-day-eventing, following in his famous grandfather's footsteps, or should that be hoofprints (though Piotr's speciality was dressage, but there's not enough adrenalin in that for Miles).

Cordelia - for some reason I see her in an endurance sport, maybe in the Betan cycling road race team. I think the Betans do a lot of cycling, and gymnastics and sprinting and other sports that don't require open air or lots of space. Definitely no Betan sailing or rowing or equestrian team.

Ivan didn't make the cut for the football team and is secretly pleased about this because athletes don't get a lot of time for partying.

Alys and Illyan do ice dancing together these days (and I bet Barrayar is good at a lot of winter sports too), though Illyan previously used to beat all comers at judo.

Gregor - fencing, Barrayar's traditional sport, and he's very good. He loves watching all the really non-martial sports like rhythmic gymastics and diving and stuff like that, though.

And Mark is a wrestler and is appalled when people are reminded of his father's fighting style. More thoughts?

Crossposted at http://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/86188.html