raspberryhunter: (Default)
I wrote a story for rarewomen:

The Company of Camelot (5248 words) by raspberryhunter
Fandom: Le Morte d'Arthur - Thomas Malory
Rating: PG-13 (mostly for themes)
Characters: Morgan le Fay, Nimue (Arthurian), Lancelot du Lac, Guinevere (Arthurian)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Corporate, Genetics, Friendship, Rivalry
Summary: Morgan should have been the heir to Uther's gene-cleaning empire. But now it belongs to Arthur, and Lance and Gwen... and Nimue.

morganstern's prompt asked for Morgan le Fay as a legitimate claimant to power, mentioned a preference for politically-oriented, and suggested a modern-day corporate AU. I read the ending of Le Morte d'Arthur and asked: how did Morgan and Nimue get from here to there? And then this story happened.

My betas [personal profile] sprocket and [personal profile] ollipop were terrific. [personal profile] sprocket especially did a lot of heavy lifting in helping me work out the worldbuilding (including basically all the genetics; any remaining errors are mine) as well as reading the first draft, told entirely from Nimue's POV and in which Morgan and Nimue were enemies, and forcing me to confront that it didn't work at all (well, she said it much more nicely than that, but that was the basic idea), with some great ideas to help me write the blasted thing again from scratch. (I think I saved two paragraphs out of that first draft, bah.)

And I got a present! batchsan wrote me a Gunnerkrigg Court story: Say It, a missing scene where Kat and Anja talk about Paz. In my opinion, there can never be too much GC fic, nor can there be too much fic about mothers and daughters. And of course I'm a big fan of Kat/Paz :)

Fests

May. 6th, 2014 08:51 am
raspberryhunter: (Default)
I, uh, have signed up for Remix Madness (thanks [livejournal.com profile] lignota for the tip!)... I've never had anything remixed before or done a remix myself, but both those things sound fun!

I've also, of course, signed up for [community profile] jukebox_fest (which is, I think, my favorite exchange ever). There was a list of nominated songs compiled on Youtube here.

I have my rarewomen assignment in, and am wondering how much tweaking I am likely to do in the next week...
raspberryhunter: (Default)
Apparently... I... am... signing up for rarewomen, against my better judgement. ([personal profile] sprocket, I blame you.) But work should have either exploded or not by the time I have to get around to writing a story, I guess!

I have used the "or" matching to its fullest extent. Anything with any of these characters would be awesome!

Fandoms:

Gunnerkrigg Court (Any) - I loooooved the Yuletide fics this year. I cannot get enough of GC! Jones being her phlegmatic self! Or: Janet -- what would her father do if he learned about her romance? Why is it such a big deal? What secrets does she know, being the headmaster's daughter? Or: what mysteries about Surma do we not know? Or: friendship between Surma and Anja. Or: Anja noticing something that turns out to be important. Or: do Anja and Jones ever talk? About what? Or: show me something of the mother-daughter dynamic between Anja and Kat. For more on what I love about GC, see this post.

Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh (Ariane Emory I, II) - ARI. Let me see Ari I being her deliciously horribly-practical, super-intelligent self. Or Ari II learning to be horribly practical and super intelligent. Or Ari II learning from Ari I. Or, well, anything. I've only read Cyteen, and have not read Cyteen II. For more about what I love about Cyteen, see this post.

Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold (Lotus Durona, Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan, Alys Vorpatril) - ollipop hooked me, last rarewomen, on Lotus Durona, and I love ollipop's story very much and want more. Tell me more about Lotus' Deal with the Baron, or why she hates Lilly so much as to name her clone after her (or is it hate?). Or: I desperately want Ekaterin to be the heroine of her own story! Let her get to do something awesome, something that owes nothing to Miles (or where Miles plays second fiddle to her). Or: we know Alys is awesome already! Let's see more of it! (I don't have a post on why I love the Vorkosigan saga... it's just been part of my life for so long that it just never occurred to me to post on it... the closest is my dear author letter here.)
raspberryhunter: (Default)
I like nothing more than to natter on solipsistically about my own fics, and [personal profile] ollipop requested, so!

The Family Business is this Greek Myth SF-virtual-reality AU in which the Olympian gods are the executive management team for a large virtual-reality ("simspace") corporate entity. The story's about Minerva and her (and her family's) involvement in this simspace business, including a retelling of the Arachne story.

Cut for lots of talk about writing this fic, and themes, and things I thought were themes but maybe weren't so much. Spoilers for the story, of course! Artistry. Truth. Family. )
raspberryhunter: (Default)
Muuuuuch beta credit to [personal profile] sprocket and [personal profile] elementals_ao3 and [personal profile] seekingferret, because they are awesome and wonderful and these fics would not be nearly so good if not for them. (And special awesomeness credit to sprocket, who probably wrote at least the number of words I did in her betas, and was very gracious when I said things like, “So I need this done tonight, is that okay?”)

My assignment was Norse Myth, Who Gathers All Things Mortal (1504 words), which drove me completely bonkers to write — despite it being the shortest of the three, I spent way, way more time in canon review and in writing/edit than probably both of the others combined -- but which I think turned out well, mostly because my betas showed me how to beat it into shape when I was despairing of how to fix it properly. The prompt was Hel and Angrboda. I really liked the prompt; I don’t think there’s enough on mothers and daughters in media in general.

My pinch hit was SGU - Camile Wray, Enhancing Organizational Productivity (2245 words). The thing about Camile is that, with the exception of maybe one or two episodes, she gets completely wasted on SGU. As [personal profile] sprocket kept reminding me, she has this HR background which ought to be really really useful on the Destiny for all kinds of things, but it never actually is. Probably partially as a result of this, I haven’t ever read any SGU fic where she gets a chance to win. And she’s awesome! So, yeah. Camile gets to use her skills to win, yay! (But not win everything, because this is SGU.)

And then there was The Family Business, the 5100-word near-future SF-VR-corporate Greek Myth AU that I gifted to [personal profile] ollipop, who asked for 1000-5000, mentioned catholic tastes in her letter, and also mentioned not liking dubious SF tropes in another venue. (Uh, I still want to have that conversation!) I allllllmost didn’t post it, but I sneakily asked her about AU’s, and she said it was okay for general things like myth, and then the big theme turned out to be Families and How They Mess with Your Mind, which coincidentally turned out to be the big theme of ollipop’s awesome fic (Lotus Durona! Jackson’s Whole!), so I risked it after all. She seems to have liked it! :)

It did lead to this hilarious beta exchange:

Me: So Beta B told me the theme was X, and it’s really not.
Beta A: Yeah, the theme is obviously Y.
Me: No, the theme is Z!

(All three of us were right, but Beta A was more right.)

Someday I will have recs (besides my awesome Aeneid presents I squee about here; you need not know the Aeneid to read it; all that you need to know about Dido is here and here), when I get around to reading the whole rarewomen archive, but there are lots of goodies in it! Go read!

ETA: links fixed, I think. If not, let me know.
raspberryhunter: (Default)
YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I GOT THE MOST AWESOME STORIES!

I got TWO stories for rarewomen, first time I've ever gotten more than one, both Dido-focused Aeneid stories, and they are completely different and I love them both so much and I am so, so glad I asked for Didofic because YAY. Go read and comment!

The Wanderer (1298 words) by Adlanth
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Aeneid - Virgil
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Dido of Carthage, Anna (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, IN SPACE!, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And also not AU

Those alt-universe tags, incuding the "And also not AU" one? Yup. Gorgeous story, gorgeous prose, playing with time and alternate Didos and mythology.

Trouble Any Which Way (1033 words) by misura
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Aeneid - Virgil
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dido of Carthage, Aeneas (Greek and Roman Mythology), Iris (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Space

Dido in SPAAAACE! Dido gets to kick butt and just be awesome! YAY!

(I also wrote three stories, which I'll talk about in another post someday...)
raspberryhunter: (Default)
[Edited 3-5-13 to add a link to my book discussion of the Aeneid. Edited 3-4-13 to take out inaccuracy in Susan Calvin and to give People prompt ideas. Sorry!]

Dear rarewomen writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me and my wacky fandoms! I am so excited that you, like me, love these wonderful women, and I am excited for whatever you write!

I, uh, don't have much to say that I didn't say in the prompts, but let me see:

The Aeneid - Virgil (Dido): Dido is awesome! But she doesn't get to be awesome in the Aeneid. Make her awesome! I'd love the AU where she never falls in love with Aeneas, but joins forces with him and does something cool -- take down her brother, or a god or two? (I'm not real excited about the gods in the Aeneid.) Or really anything where she got to be awesome and politically savvy, the way we're told she is -- maybe the story of how she led her people to freedom, the story of how she got married in the first place... anything would be great, except for Dido/Aeneas (I am not a huge fan of their Doomed Romance). Crack AU's (spaaaace, post-apocalyptic, ivory-tower academia, whatever) would be fine for this one :)

ETA 3-5-13: Oh, I should also link to my ongoing discussion of the Aeneid so you have more details as to what I think of it: here. Life sort of got in the way, but I'll probably post on the last half in the next couple of weeks.

Robots - Isaac Asimov (Susan Calvin): I love how smart and capable and no-nonsense and snarky Susan Calvin is -- she is one of my childhood heroes. More! Casefic along the lines of the original stories would be awesome, but really anything showing off her smarts and snarkiness :)

Oh, actually I have a little more to say about this one re the childhood hero stuff. Susan Calvin may have been the only awesome female scientist I read in my classic-SF days when I was a kid, and even though I didn't realize it as a kid, looking back on it, I think she had an influence on me. She was so very good at what she did that she needed no other justification. The others (mostly men) ragged on her, but they also admired her. I think she's great! And she and Byerly in "The Evitable Conflict" are awesome, and I would definitely not say no to more of their interaction.

The People - Zenna Henderson (Any): I adore Zenna Henderson's People stories and always have, and just want more! The thing I love most about it, I think, is the effervescent joy, the childlike wonder, that permeates each page. But also... the moving depictions of familial and mentoring relationships; the utter sense of belonging: to a people, to a community, to a family (and which also plays into the teacher-child relationships she depicts); the drive to make things whole; the lovely understated way she's constantly drawing from Biblical imagery and quotations and tropes for the themes and images of the stories.

If you need ideas... I'd love to know what Shadow's story is; she's always been in a secondary role as Bethie-too or Remy's Shadow; how does she step into her own rightful place? Did Dr. Curtis learn anything from Dita? What's up with the Kroginolds' story -- they were always troublemakers; I imagine there's a story in how they grew up? But really anything with any character (or none at all, a new story with original characters would be quite excellent), with some of that joy and wonder in it, some of that exuberant borrowing and flavoring with Biblical tropes and quotes, would be totally lovely.

I will say that I tend to be more interested in the Earth stories than in Home or New Home, and I didn't like "Return" as well as some of the others (I guess I just don't like whiny narrators?), but hey, if your muse takes you there, go for it. I have a strong preference for a story that is at least mostly gen, but I'm open to either het or slash as long as canon pairings are respected (e.g., Valancy/Jemmy as a long-standing relationship is canon, and I'd rather Valancy didn't run off with Karen or something).

General: I love plotty fic because I can't write it myself, but by the same token I know it is hard to write and I certainly don't expect it. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love for there to be some sort of character arc or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I am more a fan of gen than anything else, but I'm open to both het and slash, though I tend to be respectful of healthy overt canon pairings (which, um, basically means that I respect the Zenna Henderson pairings, and I'd rather Dr. Calvin not be in a romantic long-term relationship unless it's motivated really really well; Dido/Aeneas is not healthy and I'd rather not see that; I do respect Dido/Sychaeus).

Things I don't like: gratuitous violence or gratuitous character death. (If it's logical, then okay, but for these fandoms I'd prefer only minor character death. Aeneas would be okay; Dido, please not.) I'm not a huge fan of anything above PG-13 and will probably skim over anything really explicit unless something about the explicitness itself plays into character or plot development, in which case all bets are off :) I usually like darkfic, but not for these particular fandoms, please (the Aeneid is quite dark enough!) I would not mind a crack AU for the Aeneid (though am also fine with canon time/place), but I don't want AU for the Asimov or Henderson.

If you get stuck with your match, I think all three of my fandoms this time are a fairly small body of work. Basically only cantos 1 and 4 of the Aeneid are relevant to Dido (though knowing the whole thing might give a little more context); most of the Susan Calvin stories are all collected in I, Robot, which is easily available at libraries and online (the comment below reminded me that there are more sprinkled here and there -- I think All the Robot Stories has them all -- but the ones in I, Robot would be enough to go off of; my favorites are "The Evitable Conflict" and "Intuition," the latter of which isn't in I, Robot); and The People is a large canon of work, but the stories are a fast read, and you could probably read a couple of them ("Ararat" is probably a must, and perhaps "Shadow on the Moon" to get the second-gen perspective) and get the feel of it pretty quickly -- I don't think Henderson herself worried too much about keeping everything strictly canon-compliant detail-wise.

Thank you again, and I'm sure I will love whatever you write!
raspberryhunter: (Default)
Just a heads up -- [livejournal.com profile] rarewomen is running again this year! Without the pesky large-fandom requirement they had last year -- which is good, because I don't think I could have done it again if they'd kept that requirement, since it turns out I don't actually want to write in any "large" fandom (or at least, not without knowing a specific prompt -- I got really really lucky last year with the prompt and I don't want to depend on that luck again). So -- just rare women, all the time! Nominations begin tomorrow!

Heh, I would totally have nominated Turandot but I already got the fic of my dreams for that, so I have to think of other stuff :)

I think I'm going to nominate
Robots - Isaac Asimov: Susan Calvin
Tillerman Cycle - Cynthia Voigt: Mina, Maybelle
The People - Zenna Henderson: Beth, Shadow

...not sure about the other two. Possibilities:
The Good Wife: Elsbeth Tascioni, Judge Kuhn (am kind of leaning towards this)
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Lydia Bennet (Lydia needs more love and more fic!)
SGU: Ginn, Amanda Perry (both of whom need more love and more fic! Although, um, it is just possible I might be working on that, so this is probably not what I'm going to nominate)
Vorkosigan Saga: Ekaterin! I really, really, really want more Ekaterin fic where Ekaterin gets to save the day. Uh. I guess I should have asked for that for Winterfair!
The Aeneid: Dido. I really want Dido fic, I just don't know exactly what I want from it...
The Dark is Rising: Jane Drew, The Lady. I just love Jane like whoa. And the Lady fascinates me. Who is she?
Chronicles of Chrestomanci: Janet, Millie. I read a lot of really amazing Chrestomanci fic from yuletide (one of these days I will make a rec post) and I kind of want more now :)
Dune: Irulan. Because Irulan is awesome!
Till We Have Faces: Orual, Psyche. Another one I would never have thought of except that I read some amazing yuletide fic and now I kind of want more. Or possibly to write more :)
Perilous Gard: Kate. Because I love Kate.

Things I think I will save for yuletide nominations:
Mabinogion: Arianrhod (possibly others?)... I dunno, this just seems like more of a yuletide-y fandom, now that I think about it more
The Book of Mormon (book): Akish, Queen Lamoni, Princess Lamoni (the rare women fandom-of-one of my heart, but let's face it, no one has heard of this except for me, and really the only hope I have of getting this is for yuletide)
Der Ring: Brunnhilde - I think I really want a story with her and Loge, which to me doesn't really fit with what I want rarewomen to do.
Die Zauberflote: Pamina, Queen - I do want women-centric fic for this, I think, but I also kind of want making-sense fic for this, which again, not really quite what I think of rarewomen's mission...

If any of you are doing rarewomen (and you all should!) feel free to nominate any of these :) Most of these I'd love to write as well (unless I request them, in which case I probably won't offer to write).
raspberryhunter: (Default)
Ha, the npt MONSTER is safely out to beta and I can relax a bit while waiting to hear back, so have some recs from rarewomen! (I know, only a month late...) I thought that there was some really nice stuff produced for rarewomen. Here are some of my favorites:

Recs from The Secret Garden, Greek Mythology, Inception, Vorkosigan Saga )
raspberryhunter: (Default)
Now, my rarewomen assignment, which was amazing. I signed up for Pride and Prejudice fic, and it took me about five minutes after getting my assignment to realize I was not at all happy about writing P&P fic, and probably never will be (I wouldn't be able to write it without doing deep historical research, and I hate deep historical research). Fortunately, [personal profile] killer_quean had an incredible prompt for ST:TNG which required a lot of rumination about alien thought, a lot of SF reading to see how others had done it, and at one point had me reading papers on cellular automata, and I had a total and absolute blast.

Prompt from killer_quean: )

Title: The Queen of Air and Darkness
Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Rating: PG-13 (for themes)
Characters: Borg Queen, Deanna Troi, Guinan
Word count: 2309
Warnings: Same as for First Contact
Summary: The Queen and life; comprehension and desire.
Notes: Many thanks to sophiegrace for a wonderfully thoughtful and incisive beta!

AO3 link here.

The Queen smiled. 'When are you most alive? Is it not in these times when you have subsumed yourself to the whole? When you and the whole are the same entity? This is what we offer, Deanna. Life.' )
raspberryhunter: (Default)
...Finally rarewomen reveals are out! Yay! I wrote two, both queen-centric (not sure what was up there). First, my pinch hit for [personal profile] meganbmoore, Ygraine-centric. I'm much happier with how it turned out than with a lot of things that took me longer to write. It was a perfect pinch hit, as the prompt was quite thoughtful and really gave me the whole gestalt, and I just had to fill in.

Prompt from meganbmoore )

Title: The Monstrous Crying of Wind
Fandom: Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur
Rating: PG-13 (for themes)
Characters: Ygraine, Morgan, Morgause
Word count: 1889
Warnings: Mentions of rape/noncon, nothing explicit
Summary: Ygraine tells her daughters about her lost son.
Notes: Many thanks to vana_tuivana for a lovely and time-constrained beta!

AO3 link here.

We must all survive in whatever chinks and crannies we can. )

Notes: Where there is a difference between Malory and other traditions, I have almost completely followed Malory (so, for example, Morgause is rather nicer than many other traditions paint her *cough*thanks a lot, T.H. White*cough*). The only exception is that Malory posits a third sister, Elaine, who then completely disappears from the narrative; I've taken the liberty of assuming she is an interpolation and not considered her here.

The title is from W.B. Yeats' "To a Child Dancing in the Wind."
raspberryhunter: (Default)
Thank you for writing me a fic! Optional details are optional... feel free to ignore any of these; I will be excited to get anything in these fandoms with any of these women! I said most of what I wanted to say prompt-wise in the actual prompts, so I'll just talk a little bit about what I love about the fandoms.

Lord of the Rings: I am a huge Tolkien fangirl. I love his prose and the characters and the deep language-based worldbuilding. I must say I do not love how he does female characters, although I understand completely that a large part of it has to do with the Anglo-Saxon and other mythologies/texts he had in the back of his head. If it's not too obnoxious to say, I'd rather have the matter-of-fact hobbit-based style than the grand sweeping epic style in a fic, because (at least when I try writing it) it's so easy to get the epic style wrong unless one happens to be an Anglo-Saxon scholar. (Though if you can pull it off, more power to you!) [ETA: I've changed my mind about this, actually... grand sweeping epic style is fine, as long as hobbit-style is also there.]

The Secret Garden: I love the hope and growth that shines through in this book, which makes tears come to my eyes every time I read it. I also love the (American version of the) musical with an incredible love and would be happy if you want to take it as canon (or not -- I certainly don't expect you to have watched it).

Vorkosigan Saga: I love the character depth and the detailed world-building plottiness and the humor of these books. I have to say I'm not totally in love with the Ekaterin story (in the sense of, where I'm from? What Miles does is called stalking) which is why my prompt is a bit focused on giving her her own life apart from Miles.

General: Although in general I like dark fic, for these particular fandoms I'd prefer something that ends happily, please! I think for LotR and Vorkosigan I'm leaning towards wanting something plotty (Secret Garden is more about the relationships and characters anyway, though that's not to say that plotty wouldn't be welcomed!), but I would also love something non-plotty if that's how the muse strikes. I also love female friendships, if you couldn't tell... I would also prefer gen for these particular fandoms/women, but I'd be fine with non-explicit canon romance (anything above PG-13 or so I may only skim over, however).

(And if you get stuck on your match, Secret Garden is a really fast read.)

Thank you again!

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