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edithmorningstarI am still too focused on time-sensitive RL stuff to be doing much writing. Or rather, when I do I then feel horribly guilty because there is a shit ton of RL stuff I need to be writing instead. But anyway. In much much more detail than the meme asks for, but heck.
Currently actually part-written, and/or part plotted, are:
The Ivan/Byerly on Cetaganda thing, which is now feeling weird because of the LMB revelation about the two of them interacting on a planet that is not Cetagandan in the next book, but I'm still planning to do it anyway. It might not be on Eta Ceta though; I think I want to explore what some of the *other* Ceta planets are like. Particularly because we know the Cetagandans are colonizers, so there's a real potential for interesting diversity within their populations - stuff we don't see in canon when the only people Miles interacts with are haut and ghem. I know I want to write a Vorkosiverse fic in which there is a planet colonized by, say, people from Ghana, or any other place that is African or full of people with skin darker than a light brown, unlike all the nexus planets we've yet seen. Or a planet of Roma. Or Indian Untouchables who got out of the caste system en masse in some revolution early on in colonial days. I don't know if this is the right fic for that or not.
The original draft of the Terrence/Ethan I wrote a while back. I wrote this one, then looked at all its problems, and wrote a totally different story instead. This one kind of feels like the draft that oughtn't go live, so it likely won't, but I do still have thoughts kicking around for more of these guys that may cannibalize this one. Problem is now that I've done a get-them-actually-together fic, I'm sort of over that, and writing more of their lives requires a lot more worldbuilding cos Athos is not actually as fleshed out as you'd think.
The Arthur/Merlin thing that kind of scares me because it's darker than I normally write, and Uther is much harsher than I think he is even in canon, but I'm caught up in it without having at all intended to write anything in Merlin at all. Some day I will show what I've got to a beta and they will tell me not to keep writing this mess. I think it may come off more melodramatic than dark.
The Wincest one with the elves, which again, I really had no intention of writing Wincest, heck I hadn't planned to read it, but again I sort of fell in and the plot formed and now it's sitting half-written on my hard drive. This fic is mainly an excuse for me to have Dean really not be that into guys, or into Sam, but totally happy to go along with things anyway because it's not like he's ever going to have a better offer. Or something like that. This might be like the Terrence/Ethan one above, where it ends up just being a get things going draft rather than a real thing.
The Wincest one with the lesbian rabbi hunter. Because I really, really, really need to fuck with the Supernatural cosmology. A lot. Because it bugs me, and not just because it's all Christian. So this fic involves the guys meeting a rabbi who's also become a hunter, and her network of kabbalah-inclined hunters working things from the Jewish angle. It involves a really badass Hassidic hunter. And, once I think of it, something *else* to say that also proves you're not a demon besides fricking Christo. This one's still mostly at the worldbuilding stage, because I need to work out how I'm managing Heaven and Hell and all that stuff through a Jewish lens that can coexist with the canonical cosmology but also square with a very non-Christian perspective. As in, at least in my corner of Judaism, we don't really believe in Hell at all. Which makes things interesting. And I'd like this fic not to just go with Jewish cosmology, but to allow for many different religions' cosmologies to intersect with canon, and it's just that the show gives us the (Protestant) Christian option. I'm having a lot of fun with this even though it's not even partially written yet.
Plus on my to-write wishlist:
I'd love to write some Laurence/Tharkay, from Temeraire, but probablyellen_fremedon will beat me to it (not that that'd stop me, it's just very long-range since I have no plot ideas whatsoever). They're the only Temeraire ship I have any emotional investment in, because they've always felt so obvious to me, but apparently *nobody* writes them. Actually, that's a lie. I ship Temeraire/Izkierka too, and have a few ideas for getting them together in a fic. I really want to see it become a thing that people write these dragons in the same kind of emotional situations as the humans, because it's pretty clear they are just as much "people." Maybe people are already doing it and I just don't know where to look. Dragons are super fun to ship because they're powerful and generally adult, but they act like teenagers lots of the time, and have totally different social logic.
I really want to write more Vorkosiverse that includes Gregor, and includes him slashily, in an AU/Laisa doesn't exist kind of way, but apparently while I love reading Miles/Gregor I can't (at least now) believe in it enough to write it. I love Ekaterin too much. But it's hard to picture many people besides Miles that Gregor might fall for. It might need to start as unrequited Gregor/Miles and shift to Gregor with someone else. Maybe personality-ifying an existing minor character. Heck, maybe Ivan or Byerly! Mainly, I need to read more Gregor, and so I want to write more Gregor.
And while I'd need to read a lot more or, yaknow, watch canon, I want Hawaii 5-0 slashy fic that has Chin. Because Chin is the hottest of the lead four, and Kono is up there pretty damn high, and it sucks that apparently they're cousins and an OT4 with the ship everyone else is doing won't work. But honestly, really, these smoking hot people cannot be left out of the sexy fun, here.
(Embarrassing Confession: before I actually looked anything up on IMDB, I totally had pictured Steve as being the one played by Daniel Dae-Kim, until I realized that the hot Asian guy was less likely to be named Steve when there was also a character called Chin.)
I am deeply in <3 with the Puck/Lauren pairing on Glee. It's promoting fat-positivity, in a mainstream show! And I love that it's pretty clearly got a certain dom/sub dynamic. I'd love to write them as having no idea that what they're doing is something Other People Also Do and figuring out how to be a little bit kinky on their own, and bonding (heh!) over it. I'd love Lauren to have thought about it more than Puck, to kind of balance his tons-of-vanilla-experience.
And Karofsky. Kurt is never gonna love you, you idiot, because oh boy did you blow it there by getting all abusive. But I'd like to see you grow into someone who could deserve a relationship, and go after it, with someone you haven't treated like shit beforehand. Maybe someone from another school, like an OMC from Vocal Adrenaline.
Finally, until Puck/Lauren came along, my Glee OTP was Shue and Bryan Ryan, aka the kinda douchey character played by Neil Patrick Harris, with whom there was Much Chemistry. They're both kinda douchey, kinda skeevy, and chasing after lost youth and dreams of being bigger than they actually are. And poor Shue, who never did any experimenting when he was younger, because he was with Terri basically since puberty, and is so disconnected from his own sexuality, or self even, that he probably doesn't even consciously know he's into Bryan. Or guys at all.
There's lots more I could do with this show. Mercedes - hello, show, this chick is hot, and might just plausibly be getting some kind of action, like every single other Gleek? Coach Bieste - how awesome are you? How much do I want you to have a secret awesome home life we don't know about, maybe some kind of Tilda Swinton poly thing you've got to keep under wraps in small town Lima. Because you are that awesome.
And I may need to write some of the things I requested for Yuletide that didn't get chosen, or some Castle OT4, or who the hell knows what's going to suddenly eat my writing brain when I least expect it. Wincest, I am so looking at you there. If I put as much time into writing just one of these fics as I just put into telling you about them....
Currently actually part-written, and/or part plotted, are:
The Ivan/Byerly on Cetaganda thing, which is now feeling weird because of the LMB revelation about the two of them interacting on a planet that is not Cetagandan in the next book, but I'm still planning to do it anyway. It might not be on Eta Ceta though; I think I want to explore what some of the *other* Ceta planets are like. Particularly because we know the Cetagandans are colonizers, so there's a real potential for interesting diversity within their populations - stuff we don't see in canon when the only people Miles interacts with are haut and ghem. I know I want to write a Vorkosiverse fic in which there is a planet colonized by, say, people from Ghana, or any other place that is African or full of people with skin darker than a light brown, unlike all the nexus planets we've yet seen. Or a planet of Roma. Or Indian Untouchables who got out of the caste system en masse in some revolution early on in colonial days. I don't know if this is the right fic for that or not.
The original draft of the Terrence/Ethan I wrote a while back. I wrote this one, then looked at all its problems, and wrote a totally different story instead. This one kind of feels like the draft that oughtn't go live, so it likely won't, but I do still have thoughts kicking around for more of these guys that may cannibalize this one. Problem is now that I've done a get-them-actually-together fic, I'm sort of over that, and writing more of their lives requires a lot more worldbuilding cos Athos is not actually as fleshed out as you'd think.
The Arthur/Merlin thing that kind of scares me because it's darker than I normally write, and Uther is much harsher than I think he is even in canon, but I'm caught up in it without having at all intended to write anything in Merlin at all. Some day I will show what I've got to a beta and they will tell me not to keep writing this mess. I think it may come off more melodramatic than dark.
The Wincest one with the elves, which again, I really had no intention of writing Wincest, heck I hadn't planned to read it, but again I sort of fell in and the plot formed and now it's sitting half-written on my hard drive. This fic is mainly an excuse for me to have Dean really not be that into guys, or into Sam, but totally happy to go along with things anyway because it's not like he's ever going to have a better offer. Or something like that. This might be like the Terrence/Ethan one above, where it ends up just being a get things going draft rather than a real thing.
The Wincest one with the lesbian rabbi hunter. Because I really, really, really need to fuck with the Supernatural cosmology. A lot. Because it bugs me, and not just because it's all Christian. So this fic involves the guys meeting a rabbi who's also become a hunter, and her network of kabbalah-inclined hunters working things from the Jewish angle. It involves a really badass Hassidic hunter. And, once I think of it, something *else* to say that also proves you're not a demon besides fricking Christo. This one's still mostly at the worldbuilding stage, because I need to work out how I'm managing Heaven and Hell and all that stuff through a Jewish lens that can coexist with the canonical cosmology but also square with a very non-Christian perspective. As in, at least in my corner of Judaism, we don't really believe in Hell at all. Which makes things interesting. And I'd like this fic not to just go with Jewish cosmology, but to allow for many different religions' cosmologies to intersect with canon, and it's just that the show gives us the (Protestant) Christian option. I'm having a lot of fun with this even though it's not even partially written yet.
Plus on my to-write wishlist:
I'd love to write some Laurence/Tharkay, from Temeraire, but probably
ellen_fremedon will beat me to it (not that that'd stop me, it's just very long-range since I have no plot ideas whatsoever). They're the only Temeraire ship I have any emotional investment in, because they've always felt so obvious to me, but apparently *nobody* writes them. Actually, that's a lie. I ship Temeraire/Izkierka too, and have a few ideas for getting them together in a fic. I really want to see it become a thing that people write these dragons in the same kind of emotional situations as the humans, because it's pretty clear they are just as much "people." Maybe people are already doing it and I just don't know where to look. Dragons are super fun to ship because they're powerful and generally adult, but they act like teenagers lots of the time, and have totally different social logic. I really want to write more Vorkosiverse that includes Gregor, and includes him slashily, in an AU/Laisa doesn't exist kind of way, but apparently while I love reading Miles/Gregor I can't (at least now) believe in it enough to write it. I love Ekaterin too much. But it's hard to picture many people besides Miles that Gregor might fall for. It might need to start as unrequited Gregor/Miles and shift to Gregor with someone else. Maybe personality-ifying an existing minor character. Heck, maybe Ivan or Byerly! Mainly, I need to read more Gregor, and so I want to write more Gregor.
And while I'd need to read a lot more or, yaknow, watch canon, I want Hawaii 5-0 slashy fic that has Chin. Because Chin is the hottest of the lead four, and Kono is up there pretty damn high, and it sucks that apparently they're cousins and an OT4 with the ship everyone else is doing won't work. But honestly, really, these smoking hot people cannot be left out of the sexy fun, here.
(Embarrassing Confession: before I actually looked anything up on IMDB, I totally had pictured Steve as being the one played by Daniel Dae-Kim, until I realized that the hot Asian guy was less likely to be named Steve when there was also a character called Chin.)
I am deeply in <3 with the Puck/Lauren pairing on Glee. It's promoting fat-positivity, in a mainstream show! And I love that it's pretty clearly got a certain dom/sub dynamic. I'd love to write them as having no idea that what they're doing is something Other People Also Do and figuring out how to be a little bit kinky on their own, and bonding (heh!) over it. I'd love Lauren to have thought about it more than Puck, to kind of balance his tons-of-vanilla-experience.
And Karofsky. Kurt is never gonna love you, you idiot, because oh boy did you blow it there by getting all abusive. But I'd like to see you grow into someone who could deserve a relationship, and go after it, with someone you haven't treated like shit beforehand. Maybe someone from another school, like an OMC from Vocal Adrenaline.
Finally, until Puck/Lauren came along, my Glee OTP was Shue and Bryan Ryan, aka the kinda douchey character played by Neil Patrick Harris, with whom there was Much Chemistry. They're both kinda douchey, kinda skeevy, and chasing after lost youth and dreams of being bigger than they actually are. And poor Shue, who never did any experimenting when he was younger, because he was with Terri basically since puberty, and is so disconnected from his own sexuality, or self even, that he probably doesn't even consciously know he's into Bryan. Or guys at all.
There's lots more I could do with this show. Mercedes - hello, show, this chick is hot, and might just plausibly be getting some kind of action, like every single other Gleek? Coach Bieste - how awesome are you? How much do I want you to have a secret awesome home life we don't know about, maybe some kind of Tilda Swinton poly thing you've got to keep under wraps in small town Lima. Because you are that awesome.
And I may need to write some of the things I requested for Yuletide that didn't get chosen, or some Castle OT4, or who the hell knows what's going to suddenly eat my writing brain when I least expect it. Wincest, I am so looking at you there. If I put as much time into writing just one of these fics as I just put into telling you about them....
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 11:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 11:56 am (UTC)I've thought there might be some mileage in Gregor/By as well, actually. At least, I can see By fancing Gregor, it's who Gregor might fancy that's the problem. Have you read the Gregor/Mark fics? That was a bit different. Ooh, and there's Galeni, that could be very interesting... I think Gregor and someone who's not Vor would be fun and would appeal to Gregor.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 12:21 pm (UTC)The Gregor/By thought comes mainly from the way Gregor seems to treat By with some of the same principle he uses with Miles. Firm about when he really fucks up, but gently and lovingly tolerant of eccentricities and being above the laws of normal.
I hadn't thought of Dono at all - maybe because I've pegged him as "too old" which is silly when Donna was only a bit old for Ivan, really, and heck, it's not like Olivia's as old as either of them. It could be interesting to play with that because that would probably be the only time in Gregor's adult life that he's met an adult male high Vor for the first time - and had the chance to form a first impression based on seeing a man while being a man, not seeing them as Men from a Little Boy perspective or growing up with them as fellow Little Boys. I could see there being a certain frisson to that, as well as the awesomeness of Dono's balls in genderfucking with Barrayar's expectations.
I've also really liked the idea of Gregor quietly fancying someone wildly "inappropriate" for him. Like an Armsman, or a low-ranked ImpSec prole, or part of the Residence's household serving staff, etc., where he would be afraid to speak and have it be assumed he was Requesting and Requiring, and have no idea how to go about finding out if the guy was open to being involved with a man. Or better yet, knowing he *could* have ImpSec find out for him, and tormenting himself over knowing he'd never do that, but wishing he would, just so he'd *know*. Trying to arrange situations where they'd be thrown together and could possibly talk at all, without it being looked at askance for their being alone together or speaking together in public, but at the same time not wanting to abuse his power to create those situations. Resorting to discussing random news items out of Beta Colony with any reference to queerness in his hearing to see what kind of reaction they get. Asking Byerly to observe and use his magic gaydar. *Confiding* in Byerly because somehow he became the obvious choice even though it's not like Miles would have a problem with it, but Gregor might just be happier with Miles not knowing until there's something to tell. Etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 12:56 pm (UTC)Oh, By as matchmaker and go-between - yes, that's an idea that makes a lot of sense! I can see Gregor confiding in By.
Now you're making me wonder what else Gregor might have got up to whilst he was off being Greg Bleakman around the galaxy, in between screwing in lightbulbs... that would have been his one chance to see if people wanted to have a relationship with Greg-the-man, not The Emperor.
An advantage of Dono is that Gregor, I think, could be fairly confident that Dono would tell him to take a hike if he wasn't interested.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 01:27 pm (UTC)Point, re Dono. Also, major plus that Gregor would know without a doubt that Dono has no inherent issue with Betan-style sexual mores. Even if Dono didn't like guys anymore after the switch, he wouldn't be the type to say "take a hike" with his fists, or to tell everyone in Vorbarr Sultana all about it.
OMG. I want a fic where Gregor as Greg Bleakman gets a Betan earring. Or where it goes AU from Vor Game and Greg gets more time to play before having to go back to being Gregor-the-Emperor. Instead of being captures by Cavilo he gets rescued by an uninvolved-in-the-conflict ship and gets out of the danger zone of the Hegen Hub entirely. Maybe he spends a few weeks or longer as part of the ship's crew before they reach a planet where there's enough Barrayaran presence for it to be safe for Gregor to reveal himself - he'd need to know there was decent security, ie a consulate like the one in Cryoburn wouldn't cut it. Ideally he'd still have some plotty way to shine as Emperor to make him feel good about the choice to go back, but just on a longer timeline than the one in TVG. Hmmm.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-16 05:59 pm (UTC)There could be a dark early Gregor/Vordrozda thing, maybe, but while I could believe in the existence of that pairing I don't actually think I'd want to read it. I love Gregor too much and want him to be happy.
Byerly doesn't feel to me like he's got the emotional weight to meet and equal Gregor in a relationship. Gregor's partner needs a really deep well of strength of character and personality. For which reason Ivan's out, too, besides which I can't see Gregor and Ivan as anything but close family to each other.
Ooh, I've got one! If you're removing Laisa anyway, what about Duv Galeni? Brilliant, bitter, very dry sense of humor, daddy issues... He's not very good at relationships unless he's hit with a Big Stick, but I feel certain that if he wanted to, Gregor could solve that problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 08:09 am (UTC)I love Byerly with Ivan, and he's obviously so much better suited there, but I like the idea of some fooling around between him and Gregor. Like, maybe because he's the only person Gregor *knows* is queer and he wants to talk about how you can tell if you're gay with someone before he risks a lot more approaching someone else, and By decides to show him the ropes.
I agree on Gregor and Ivan seeing each other as family - but then I was able to suspend that for Miles/Gregor. Ivan's less a foster brother to Gregor than Miles is, in any case, and the high Vor are all used to marrying relatives anyway. But the main block there is I just don't see enough chemistry to manufacture something I can believe in enough to write.
Philomytha mentioned Galeni as an option too. I could see him as an endgame partner for Gregor, someone who could be equal to him long-term. I guess the main reason I find myself shying away from leaping into it is that it feels too much like the gay version of Laisa, in terms of all the Komarr politics it would bring up. Also, there's the very real possibility that it would destroy Galeni's ImpSec career, which is both something I'd hate to see happen for Galeni's own sake, and something that would suck for Barrayar at large, though could be mitigated on the social scale by the Komarran as Imperial Consort thing. I just can't see Barrayar at large being willing to accept an ImpSec officer having that kind of access to and hold over Gregor and still keep his position, even if he weren't Komarran. There'd be so many rumors of Galeni seducing Gregor as a Komarran plot, and no-one in ImpSec under Galeni's command or in his circle could be part of Gregor's guard, etc.
So that would suck. And unlike the reception to Laisa, where her being Komarran is mitigated by the "at least he's getting married and we'll have an heir" factor, the old guard on Barrayar would have no reason not to outright despise and sabotage Galeni. It could make for an interesting fic, them having to get through all of this and push Barrayar to change a lot in the process, but it may not be the Gregor fic I want to write quite yet. At least, I plan to use hints on Betan reproductive tech from Shards of Honor, plus what we saw with Dono, to make sure Gregor can at least be clear he'd get a biological heir regardless of who he's with. So the old guard might be won over in time, enough not to actively hate Gregor being with Galeni. But it would be hard.
For a less fraught potential long term serious partner for Gregor, they would have to either not be in the military at all/anymore, or be in another branch than impSec and also be willing to give that career up once the relationship became public. They would need not to be a Count or a Count's heir or a Minister or anyone else with significant enough political power that a relationship would be seen as a kind of coup. I'm thinking about how - gosh, I forget if it was Lanna or Philomytha or maybe Dira who had a fic where Alys had wanted to be with Simon for years, but couldn't until Gregor safely had heirs and/or Simon was out of ImpSec, because otherwise it would be viewed as an alliance with the goal of promoting Ivan's claim to the throne, no matter how ridiculous everyone would know that was.
The problem there is we see so little of the middle class of Barrayar. They must exist. Even, heck, upper class who aren't Vor. We see Vor, proles who have positions of power in the military or government, and the lower ranking people in service to the Vor or in the military. We don't know the tradesmen or scientists or craftspeople or artists or whatever. So I think in many ways an ideal civilian match for Gregor would be someone whose career has nothing at all to do with politics, but who is very competent and successful in their field. This is basically what Laisa is - both as a member of a trading family (upper class enough in pedigree to satisfy the Vor but still technically prole) and as a scientist. Some third or fourth son of a Vor family that doesn't have a Countship, if Vor at all.
And all that said... I am even more starting to like the chemistry possibilities of Galeni, so, heck, maybe the fic where they have to go through all the societal crap will get written anyway.
Ok, riffing off that, I kind of like the idea that when Gregor snipes Laisa from Galeni in Memory, maybe it turns out that she actually has someone back home, or has connected with some entirely other Barrayaran, and hadn't even considered either of them romantically. But in examining his jealousy and anger at Gregor over Laisa, Galeni has to acknowledge that he actually has feelings for Gregor. (I think it was obvious in canon that for all his honest liking of Laisa, he was in love with the idea of her rather than actually connecting well with her enough to honestly have fallen for her.) Meanwhile after Laisa lets Gregor down gently, he has to face facts and acknowledge that if he was only able to be truly interested in one woman in all the time he's been on the market, maybe it really just isn't meant to work out for him with a woman, and he should let himself give that up and screw up the courage to work Barrayar towards accepting him with a man.
There's possibilities there, definitely. I worry how good I'd be at writing two characters who both have a lot of introversion and reserve, but that's a challenge worth trying.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-17 07:37 pm (UTC)Pretty sure the fic you're thinking of is my 'Domestic Affairs' - I think it would be different for the Emperor, since the Emperor binding ImpSec more tightly to him isn't a problem the way the mother of an alternate heir binding ImpSec to her would be. But it would certainly cause chain-of-command issues within ImpSec, since I get the impression ImpSec is supposed to protect the Emperor's family, which would include Galeni. I suppose Galeni could go back to being a history professor, though, he seemed to find that fulfilling and only went into the military to get from there to the Barrayaran political class, which consists almost exclusively of veterans.
For my part, my WIP file currently contains my attempt to write Aral/Galeni for Tel's Winterfair prompt, which has a completely different set of problems...