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igrockspock asked: Which three of your stories are you most proud of?

The Light Always Burning (6749 words) by Raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Nation - Terry Pratchett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Daphne, Mau (Nation)
Additional Tags: Epistolary
Summary:

We, the People: a thirty-year retrospective and an examination of the role of the Nation in world history, for Earth Atlantic, 7 December 2035, excerpt.

This story is – well, when it was still anonymous, it was recommended by a friend of mine with the note “the author of this has spray-painted her name on it in ten-feet sparkly letters”. I admit, it’s definitely a story heavily preoccupied with my preoccupations. It’s a story about first contact with aliens! It’s a story about history, and brown people. There is a romance in it, but it's quite subdued; it happens in and around two people busily having the most invigorating professional slanging match of their careers.

It’s one of my favourites because – well, I am afraid, a little, of becoming samey or typecast. But if this is sometimes the only story I write, then I want to write it as well as I can.


when you lay me down you'll bury only bones (6724 words) by Raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil (Welcome to Night Vale)
Characters: Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Cecil (Welcome to Night Vale), Dana (Welcome to Night Vale), Vithya (Welcome to Night Vale)
Additional Tags: Race Bechdel, Navajo Cecil, Canon Character of Color, Federal government shutdown, is probably never going to be a canonical tag
Summary:

Dana's back. Intern Vithya is new. Cecil and Carlos are just the same, but different. Today, Night Vale is the safest place on earth.

This story is one that I come back to rather a lot; I wrote it last year in conjunction with a discussion I had with thingswithwings on the subject - it's about race, and queerness, and Night Vale. It’s a story that was hard to write, because unlike many of my stories, it is not hopeful: but then, it is about the one subject on which I am not hopeful. I'm proud of having written it, and unhappy it’s a story that has to be written.

the winter here is cold, and bitter (17185 words) by Raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Simon Illyan & Aral Vorkosigan, Aral Vorkosigan/Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan
Characters: Simon Illyan, Aral Vorkosigan, Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Alys Vorpatril, Gregor Vorbarra
Additional Tags: Spies & Secret Agents, Espionage, Winter
Summary:

Simon Illyan is loyal, loved and a perfect spy. One of these things is a lie.

I am super-proud of this one because when I wrote it, I had no idea I could write a story like this: one that’s full of relationship stuff, one that works out the lines of a friendship/romance/exercise in misplaced feudalism (between Aral Vorkosigan and Simon Illyan, hi, yes, all my kinks), but is also an unrepentant espionage caper. There are plots and plotters and sub-plots and fake-outs and meetings in dark alleys galore! It began life as a remix of philomytha's story, Aptitude, which definitely is a caper - and is a much happier, cheerier, more delightful story to boot! - but I think that fact is what give me a push to write something completely unlike myself. I'm working on getting better at plot, these days - I'd like to write something better and even longer and twistier than this one, but in the meantime, here it is, and I'm still pleased with it.

Still happy to take prompts, by the way!

So I'm still working on the five things fics and lists, but here are the ones I've got so far:

-for hannah, Five best eyebrow raising scenes from the Vorkosigan saga;

-for soupytwist, Five times Carlos surprised Cecil (wild dreams of a new beginning);

-for thingswithwings, five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale (also at the AO3);

-for hedda62, five weather reports from Vorbarr Sultana (with apologies to Night Vale public radio);

-for silverhare, five favourite flights of Arthur Shappey.

In other news - entire day in court, and achieved precisely zilch. Sigh. Although counsel was very nice, and was the first person to join the dots together and offer fortnight-in-advance congratulations on my qualification! So that was nice. (I mean - I am super-conflicted, and to be honest kind of depressed about the whole thing, but, hell. It was nice of him.)

One of last week’s prompt fics has made it into the big leagues, I've decided: call the roll of the blacked-out lands, M*A*S*H, dystopia fic, Hawkeye/BJ.

What frightens me about M*A*S*H is... well, okay. So, very early on in the show, when Hawkeye and Trapper make up Tuttle ("You might say that all of us together... made up Tuttle!") - actually, can you leave that there? No, you can't. Hawkeye and Trapper make up another unit surgeon out of whole cloth so they can draw his salary and use it to buy medicines for the orphans on the black market, and then are surprised when everyone keeps telling them about the fascinating conversations they've had with Tuttle in the mess tent, and it kinda makes me hurt laughing.

Anyway! So, when they're trying to produce fake papers for him they need to give him a fake birth date, and naturally give him the same birth year as themselves - 1925. And I'm like - 1925. Seriously. Yes, the Korean War was a long time ago, but that little detail really brings that into relief - in the year Hawkeye Pierce was born, the Depression, Prohibition, Nazi Germany, the Cold War, basically the political body of the twentieth century, were all in the future. But the thing is, Hawkeye, barring accidents, could live right into the twenty-first century (and I wrote a fic a couple of years ago where he did just that). He is uniquely temporally situated to know, to really know, there is no war to end all wars.

So that's the dystopian part, I guess. That you can tell this story set now - make it about twenty-five year old surgeons born in the 1980s, and you can tell the same story. That's the idea M*A*S*H engaged with throughout, and it hasn't stopped being relevant.

Anyway, some notes on trying to make a M*A*S*H vid on a rainy weekend when you're trying not to think:

-( truth, freedom and the American way of plumbing )

Notes on also spending your rainy avoidant weekend trying to write a Vorkosigan story about all the lady spies that were totally secretly in ImpSec all along, I am not writing this story to hit my own kinks, why would you say such a thing:

-Making up characters’ names is hard. So far I have called them all Vorone, Vortwo, Vorthree and Vorfour in lieu of inspiration. Though the canon does this too – I think it’s A Civil Campaign where Miles makes up some rhetorical Counts and calls them Vorenlightened and Vorstodgy. (Maybe I’ll be passive-aggressive and call them things like Vorbharat and Vorshah and Vorkumar. Someone told me – told me, mind you, not suggested or theorised or interpreted – that “Vorpatril” was some sort of variation on Patel and therefore how could I possibly suggest there wasn’t much in the way of brown people in Bujold’s universe. She’s done a bit better in recent years.)

-So is trying to impose some sort of narrative structure on a story that is basically “lady spies! lady spies! my id let me show you it!” Although speaking of ladies, I came across the most amazing fusion the other day: Vormarlow’s Honour, by Ankaret, in which Antonia Forest’s Marlows are reborn into Bujold’s Nexus. I read Autumn Term a long time ago (and found the other books a little too bizarre to get through), so can’t say much to the Marlows, but I love this idea so much, I wish people would write space opera girls’ own boarding school stories. Imagine the Chalet School as a girls’ finishing school for minor Vor in the Southern Continent. Joey Vorbettany has adventures saving Elisaveta Vorbelsornia from kidnappers trying to make a claim to the Imperium. After Robin’s father, an ImpSec agent, dies on assignment in Jackson’s Whole, they send her away to school for her own protection. They have a special school holiday for the birthday of the District Count. I could do this all day.

-Lady spies! Yes. I’m watching The Americans, which is sort of shaping my plots at the moment, but it’s no bad thing. At this point I am a little too avoidant to watch actual TV that’s on TV now, but if I ever decide to engage with my life again I’m going to pick that back up, alongside Orphan Black. Ladies and plots and espionage! Yes.

Happy Diwali.



That's me in the background; that was Diwali in 2008. I took mithai into work today, and another lawyer stopped by my desk to wish me a happy Diwali, and to thank me because I had reminded her to write to her daughter's girlfriend to wish her a happy Diwali too. What a wonderful world.

As in previous years, I am sorry I cannot ask you all round to my house for food and sparklers and lights. Here are some stories, instead.

home
Vorkosigan, Ekaterin, gen.

( she wouldn't bump her head on things )

*

making light
Fringe, Peter, Olivia, Astrid, gen.

( Peter is eyeing up a jar of Red Vines )

*

all that you let in
HP, Hermione, gen.

( Hermione gave up writing with quill pens )

*

Extract from public meeting on Utopia Planitia budgetary requirements, 22 October 2364, Earth Shipbuilding and Public Works Commission, United Federation of Planets
Star Trek, gen.

( once upon a time )


In the spirit of that last story, here is an image that has been floating around Tumblr and Facebook as "India on Diwali night, as seen from space" and variations thereof. I can't find a source for it and to be honest I have my doubts about whether it really is that.

But - well. There are so many Indians - there are so many religions, there are so many languages, there is so much, there is even this chilly brown diaspora out here in Ultima Thule - that every day, on the ordinary days, we make a lot of light.

Soup and writing fanfic really do make everything better. Still can't seem to sleep though. The next batch:

for avendya, Vorkosigan apocalypse fic (mostly Miles and Ekaterin)

for musesfool, Sirius/Remus, amnesia (oh OTP of my heart, etc.)

for avanti_90, Aral and Alys, historical AU

for doomlizard, Cabin Pressure, Martin, Douglas and Carolyn and accidental-baby-acquisition

Again, they vary in length from drabbles to full-length stories.

Vaguely relatedly, at least to the Simon-and-Alys-visit-the-Planet-of-the-Indians story in the last post, forthwritten now thinks I should write a whole novel about INDIANS IN SPAAAAACE.

(Quite my favourite things about week-before-last's Doctor Who was the INDIANS IN SPACE.) Everything is better with extra Indians. I mean, have you met Indians. We're hilarious.

We're pretty cool though.

(spaaaaaaace)

Hey, I wrote a story about SPIES! And finally amended it, today, after work on my desk with my best for-work red pen!

Notes and acknowledgements go at the end, for once - there are rather a lot. Suffice it to say I am very grateful to philomytha, forthwritten and shimgray for their help with this story.

No spoilers for… well, anything past Cordelia's Honor, actually. Here are the trigger warning notes, please bear in mind they are VERY spoilery for the story itself: (skip) strong references to suicide.
As usual, please feel free to email/message for clarification.

In two parts because of LJ's posting limits. The link to part 2 is at the bottom.

fic:: the winter here is cold, and bitter
by Raven
17,000w, Vorkosigan saga. Simon Illyan & Aral Vorkosigan, and Cordelia. Simon Illyan is loyal, loved, and a perfect spy. One of these things is not as true as the others.

( people don't dare have sex with me )

I spent my whole Bank Holiday Monday reading Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, and it was wonderful and I have no regrets.

( long, spoilery review )

It's not as good as Memory, Komarr or A Civil Campaign. It doesn't break new ground in the way they did. But it's a warm, loving book in a way some of the space operas aren't. It has a heart to it and I enjoyed it very much.

Vorkosigan daemon AU! Because I can.

(Spoilers up to Cryoburn - but I haven't read Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, so please don't spoil me!)

Fic:: Concerning Flight
by Raven
1500w, Vorkosigan saga, gen. Some Vorkosigan women and their daemons.

( there's a fairy-tale on Beta about a child whose daemon settled as a fish )

Helloooooo, you guys. I have left Ithaca and I am HAVING FEELINGS ABOUT THAT. More on which anon. Aren't you lucky.

But for right now, something quick. jadelennox posted this prompt for the The People With Disabilities Being Awesome Comment Fest: Vorkosiverse: Simon Illyan and Alys Vorpatril meet old friends of Simon's he doesn't remember. Alys is awesome and Alys.

That was for three_weeks_for_dw, and I wrote this, er, three weeks ago. For those who saw the original version, this is slightly different; I wrote it first straight into the comment box with no editing or spellcheck, so, y'know.

fic:: deep as I have been done
by Raven
1600w, Vorkosigan, Simon/Alys. "What's the first thing you remember?"

( the first thing )

As predicted, despite the last-minute dashing about, no polling card came for me. I am still kicking myself hard for having been stupid enough to disenfranchise myself; so, you know, could we hold off a little on if-you-didn't-vote-you-should-be-ashamed and you-lost-every-right-to-complain-for-the-next-ever, because it's not that I don't agree with you, but I'm there in that place already, okay? I tried.

In other news, I have one exam down. As usual, I couldn't sleep till four am the night before and went for it with the barrelling force of will that sleeplessness entails, and you know, it wasn't the worst thing. It was a surprisingly humane exam - in form, rather than substance, with a hour's reading time, no writing permitted, to begin with, which is a genius idea because it forces you to think about what you're doing. Eight questions, most of them okayish, I missed the point of one of them entirely and there was another one I think didn't have a point.

(Seriously. It was the first question on the paper and I was finding it baffling, so I left it till the end and came back to it with about eleven minutes to spare. For the first eight of those I wrote a paragraph about nothing in particular, and with three minutes to spare I had a genius idea and wrote "Overbreadth!" Just like that! With the exclamation mark! And didn't deign to explain how or why or in relation to what the statute was overbroad, but you can't have everything in life. Baby E later confessed to having done almost the exact same thing, which was cheering.

Also, the one where I missed the point ( was interesting to none but other people who care about constitutional law and the Establishment Clause, so I'm cutting it )

I could write here about how everything is making me cranky - I didn't get to vote! iTunes is refusing to let me listen to music I paid for, why didn't I just torrent it! USPS want to charge me $175 to ship my books home! migraine migraine MIGRAINE! - but maybe I just won't. The music I am trying and failing to listen to is "Sigh No More", the Mumford & Sons album, and I really, really like it. It's fabulous, affirming stuff - seriously, you can sing along and feel very definitive about everything - that sounds sort of like a cross between Dar Williams and the Gaslight Anthem. Like the Gaslight Anthem got on stage, anyway, with a trumpet and some string instruments, and tried to pretend they were an English folk band.

To alleviate the cranky, I have been reading aaaaaaall the Vorkosigan fic, as you've all probably guessed, so I will leave you with some recs so this isn't just a post about how I have a headache and my life is so unfair.

Aral Vorkosigan's Dog by philomytha
I mentioned this the other day, when I was still reading it, so this is the rec. I really, really enjoyed this. It's novel-length, about Illyan and Aral during the Escobaran war, and like I said the other day, it's sort of like a love story, only with a different kind of love at the centre of it: it's about how Illyan the neutral, human-computer observer finally takes a side, and why. It's about loyalty, and fidelity, and a kind of ownership. There's this scene in it, which I completely adore, where Illyan, exhausted, falls asleep on a chair and during the course of the night slips off it - and on waking, berates himself for literally sleeping on the floor by Aral Vorkosigan's feet. It's both hilarious and very poignant.

A Deeper Season / What Passing Bells by lightgetsin and sahiya.
Is there anyone left who hasn't read these by now? Regardless, they're great: both novel length, with many side-pieces and sequels. Miles/Gregor, going AU from Memory, and while they do wipe Laisa from existence they don't, to my delight, wipe out Ekaterin - she's there and her usual amazing self. My favourite of all the bits and bobs is A Place To Stand, a lovely, fascinating short story. (The funny thing is, these are all so good that I love them to pieces despite the fact I don't buy the major premise: Miles and Gregor are adorable, and no they're not that related, but I have trouble getting behind the pairing when the two of them are foster-brothers; effectively, they have the same parents. I mention this only in case someone else has the same hang-up and isn't reading for that reason.)

Warrant For A Day's Leave by jetta_e_rus.
Aral/Simon set shortly after the latter gets out of prison. Ridiculously sweet and heartwarming and in no way ignores Cordelia. I really liked it.

The Earring by philomytha
I read this and immediately recced it to gavagai, because omgyes. The author's summary is "Aral and Cordelia on a state visit to Beta Colony", which is true as far as it goes, but. Yes. Much love.

Oh, and while I'm here, I got three stories from Remix! Home (the don't look back remix), a remix of my story Pomegranate, which is about Uhura, and Amanda, and tells me things I didn't know about them.It's short and lovely.

And from Remix Madness: The Gardener (the Singing TARDIS Overdub), a remix of Sweetpeas, and I love this SO MUCH, it's about Rory and it's about the TARDIS, oh, so much love; and Be My Love (the first and last time remix), a remix of will you stay with me, will you be my love, and it's Doctor/River and again with the LOVE. I suspect these two are written by the same person. Time will tell.

Right. I need to go back to work sometime ever.